Are Ryan And McConnell Leading The GOP To Doom By Colluding With Trump?

Yesterday on Fox New Sunday Karl Rove explained that Trump was "making a political statement" by pardoning vicious racist Joe Arpaio and that it's "a bad mistake." Not a bad mistake for the already tragic, written-in-stone Trumpanzee legacy, a bad mistake for the Republican Party. I haven't seen any reports of what Jennifer Detlefsen, daughter of Trump's Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, thinks about all the racism, but I guess her epic diss of Trump on Instagram last month still stands-- and covers a lot of ground: “This veteran says sit down and shut the fuck up, you know-nothing, never-served piece of shit. #itmfa." In case you're wondering, that hashtag, #itmfa, is an acronym for "impeach the mother fucker already."

Nice to know Republicans are starting to feel what the rest of us have been feeling for half a year now. Even Trump's chief enabler, Paul Ryan, was so horrified by his latest display of overt racism that he had a spokesperson go out and say something to the effect of "the speak thinks this is naughty, naughty."

Last week, Jonathan Capehart went considerably further than that in the Washington Post, labeling Trump "a cancer on the presidency." Capehart wrote that "The damage Trump has done to the presidency is unmistakable. The damage done to the nation is incalculable. He is unfit to serve... He is siding with racists who want to turn the clock back to the 1800s. He is giving comfort to bigots who want to 'take our country back' with racial violence. He is fueling the hate that allegedly drove James Alex Fields Jr. to plow his car into a crowd, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. He doesn’t see how doing these things is tearing the country apart. And he doesn’t care. Rather than a reflection of our better selves, Trump is a cancer on the presidency."

And a cancer on the Republican Party-- not that they don't deserve it. Last week Kira Lerner, writing for ThinkProgress, noted that white supremacists and neo-Nazis are running for office as Republicans and asked if the GOP will continue to stay silent, the way it did when Trump ran for president.

When KKK wizard David Duke ran for a Metairie state House seat in Louisiana in 1988, both George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan endorsed his primary opponent-- but Metairie Republicans elected Duke to the seat, 8,459 (50.7%) to 8,232 (49.3%). Two years later he was the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate and former Governor David Treen (R) equated his platform with "garbage... I think he is bad for our party because of his espousal of Nazism and racial superiority." Duke was defeated by incumbent Democratic Senator J. Bennett Johnson 752,902 (53.93%) to 607,391 (43.51%). The following year, Duke ran for governor, again, as the Republican candidate and claiming to be the spokesman for the white majority. Then-president George H.W. Bush denounced him as a charlatan and a racist and opposed his candidacy against Democrat Edwin Edwards. Edwards won 1,057,031 (61.2%) to 671,009 (38.8%) but Duke was delighted since he won 55% of Louisiana's white vote.

3 days after Charlottesville neo-Nazi freak Augustus Sol Invictus who was scheduled to speak at the Unite the Right rally there, announced he is running for the Republican nomination to take on U.S. Senator Bill Nelson in Florida. Elizabeth Warren has a Nazi Republican opponent as well.

The prospect of neo-Nazis representing the GOP raises serious constitutional questions for political parties, who will have to decide whether to allow controversial figures to appear on their primary ballots. And with a president in the White House who has not only fanned the flames of white supremacists, but effectively sided with them in the wake of the Charlottesville violence, establishment Republican leaders will have to calculate if allowing extreme figures to appear on their ballots causes more harm than good.

For many Republicans, the potential to alienate a small group of extreme voters within the party while distancing itself from hateful rhetoric, will be worth the effort. Veteran GOP operative Mark Corallo told ThinkProgress that the party should do everything it can to disassociate with candidates like Invictus.

“If there is any legal way to prevent a racist from appearing on the ballot, then they should absolutely use all legal means to prevent it,” he said. “And if the party rules need to be changed to prevent racists, neo-Nazis, and other vile human beings of that ilk from appearing on the ballot then they should be changed immediately.”

Corallo, who until recently served as a spokesperson for Trump’s personal attorney Marc Kasowitz and had been handling the White House’s defense in the Russia investigation, said that disassociating should be a priority for the GOP.

“Simply put, they should formally disassociate the party from the haters,” he said. “Furthermore they should make it clear that anyone who identifies himself as a Republican and hold those vile racist views is not a Republican and will not only be deprived of support but will be condemned in the harshest terms by the Republican Party.”

...A recent poll found that 64 percent of Republicans agree with President Trump that “both sides” share the fault for the violence in Charlottesville. And as of June, 72 percent of Republicans approve of the president who this week refused to denounce the neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville holding torches and chanting: “Jews will not replace us.”

...The GOP could have a hard time disavowing someone like Invictus, when the party is currently led by Trump and is filled with lawmakers who also frequently make appeals to the party’s racist base, without necessarily describing themselves as white nationalists. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) sent a tweet in March-- “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”-- that was so popular with white supremacists, they dubbed him “King Steve.”

“Steve King is basically an open white nationalist at this point,” Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, wrote at the time.

Iowa GOP chairman Jeff Kaufmann responded by claiming that he does not agree with King’s statement. But Kaufmann did not go as far as to say that he would try to prevent King from representing Iowa Republicans in the future. Instead, Kauffman reserved his harshest words for Duke, who praised King’s tweet. “His words and sentiments are absolute garbage,” the GOP chair said about Duke. “He is not welcome in our wonderful state.”

Don't expect Trump to disassociate the GOP from white supremacists and Nazis. Instead, expect him to encourage more of them, like Kelli Ward, in Arizona to take over the party and defeat mainstream conservatives like Jeff Flake. Over the weekend, Peter Wehner, writing for the NY Times in an OpEd entitled Behold Our 'Child King', noted that "Republican lawmakers have seen the Trump disaster coming for a while now. They simply have no clue what to do about it... The political problem facing Republicans is that Mr. Trump’s presidency is a wreck. His agenda is dead in the water. A special counsel is overseeing an investigation of his campaign. The West Wing is dysfunctional. And President Trump is deeply unpopular with most Americans."

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll illustrates the dilemma Republican politicians face. It found that 28 percent of polled voters say they approved of Mr. Trump’s response to Charlottesville. But among Republican voters, the figure was 62 percent, while 72 percent of conservative Republicans approved.

The more offensive Mr. Trump is to the rest of America, the more popular he becomes with his core supporters. One policy example: At a recent rally in Phoenix, the president said he was willing to shut down the government over the question of funding for a border wall, which most of his base favors but only about a third of all Americans want.

Much of this mess is of the Republican Party’s own making. Let’s not forget that Mr. Trump’s political rise began with his promulgation of the racist conspiracy theory that President Obama was not a natural-born American citizen. The Trump presidency is the result of years of destructive mental habits and moral decay. So there’s no easy solution for responsible Republicans. But there is a step they have to take.

They need to accept, finally, the reality-- evident from the moment he declared his candidacy-- that Mr. Trump is unfit to govern. He will prove unable to salvage his presidency. As the failures pile up, he’ll act in an even more erratic fashion.

The mental hurdle Republicans have to clear is that in important respects the interests of the Republican Party and those of Donald Trump no longer align. The party has to highlight ways in which it can separate itself from the president.

So far the response of many Republican leaders to Mr. Trump’s offenses has been silence or at most veiled, timid criticism. The effect is to rile up Trump supporters and Mr. Trump himself without rallying opposition to him. It’s the worst of all worlds.

What’s required now is a comprehensive, consistent case by Republican leaders at the state and national levels that signals their opposition to the moral ugliness and intellectual incoherence of Mr. Trump. Rather than standing by the president, they should consider themselves liberated and offer a constructive, humane and appealing alternative to him. They need to think in terms of a shadow government during the Trump era, with the elevation of alternative leaders on a range of matters.

This approach involves risk and may not work. It will certainly provoke an angry response from the Breitbart-alt-right-talk-radio part of the party. So be it. Republicans who don’t share Mr. Trump’s approach have to hope that his imploding presidency has created an opening to offer a profoundly different vision of America, one that is based on opportunity, openness, mobility and inclusion.

This requires a new intellectual infrastructure to address what may prove to be one of the largest economic disruptions in history. People in positions of influence need to make arguments on behalf of principles and ideas that have for too long gone undefended. They must appeal to moral idealism. And the party needs leaders who will fight with as much passionate intensity for their cause as Mr. Trump fights for his-- which is simply himself. There’s no shortcut to forging a separate Republican identity during the Trump presidency. Half-measures and fainthearted opposition are certain to fail.

If Republicans need more encouragement to break with Mr. Trump, they might note that the president, who has no institutional or party loyalty, is positioning himself as a critic not just of Democrats but also of Republicans. During his rally in Arizona, he went out of his way to attack both of that state’s Republican senators, including one battling brain cancer. He followed that up with tweets attacking the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and other Republican lawmakers.

A confrontation is inevitable. The alternative is to continue to further tie the fate and the reputation of the Republican Party to a president who seems destined for epic failure and whose words stir the hearts of white supremacists.

We are well past the point where equivocations are defensible, and we’re nearly past the point where a moral reconstitution is possible. The damage Mr. Trump has inflicted on the Republican Party is already enormous. If the party doesn’t make a clean break with him, it will be generational.

Trump Coddles His Fascist Followers, Claims Incorrectly Charlottesville Violence Was "On Many Sides"

In Trump's America, all of our America

There was already trouble Friday night when old-fashioned KKK racists and Nazis and new-fashioned alt-right Trump supporters descended on Charlottesville looking for trouble in response to a Trump nut named Jason Keller's call for a "pro-white" rally. This is something they've been promoting for weeks in the fever swamps of TrumpWorld. On Friday night they were screeching anti-Black and anti-Semitic chants, marching around waving cheap Walmart tiki torches.

Although officially organized by several fascist groups, the League of the South, the National Socialist Movement, the Traditionalist Workers Party, the Fraternal Order of Alt Knights and Vanguard America and Identity Evropa, this was nothing short of a warning from the Bannon wing of the Trump Regime to remember that Trump's supporters are easily roused to violence and that if Trump is removed there will be blood in the streets.

Much of the country was stunned and horrified that after the first death yesterday, Trump was finally forced to say something. But his message was basically to blame both sides, referring to what happened as an "egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides." Many sides of what? The movement he's the titular head of? Politico noted that "white nationalists cited Trump's victory as validation for their beliefs, and Trump's critics pointed to the president's racially tinged rhetoric as exploiting the nation's festering racial tension."

The organizers had named their weekend of racist rallies, "Unite the Right." Both Richard Spencer, the Nazi leader who's always getting punched in the face, and KKK leader David Duke were present. Duke was quick to declare Charlottesville a "turning point" for a movement that aims to "fulfill the promises of Donald Trump." When I asked Alan Grayson what he thought of the conflagration he told me that "David Duke said it far beyond my poor power to add or detract. Duke said that the racists are trying 'to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump.' If the hood fits, wear it." This was the poster Richard Spencer-- who hasn't been charged with inciting violence of as accessory to murder yet-- had up on his social media pages.

Michael Keegan, President of People for the American Way, spoke for all American-- except Nazis and racists, obviously, when he said that yesterday's events were "heartbreaking and infuriating. When Donald Trump was elected president, many of us feared that his election would embolden radical extremists and white supremacists. Today shows that those concerns were entirely justified. Moreover, the President’s refusal to clearly and emphatically denounce a group of Nazis and white supremacists underscores his longstanding willingness to exploit the Right’s most hateful impulses for political gain-- as well as the GOP’s willingness to abide Trump’s tactics of hate in order to push its own ideological agenda. Elected officials should make clear in no uncertain terms that they condemn the hate and racism of the 'Unite the Right' rally and its leaders, and they won’t associate with those who do otherwise. Our thoughts are with the victims of today’s terror attack, as well as with their families and loved ones. I’m grateful for the activists of every race and creed who are standing up for their values every day in nonviolent protest in Charlottesville and across the country. They, not those who spew bigotry and hatred, represent the true American way."

Even a few Republicans were willing to say aloud what manu of the non-racist ones are all whispering among themselves. Cory Gardner is the GOP Senator from Colorado and Rob Portman the GOP senator from Ohio, parts of which are as Trumped-up as any backward, unrepentant and treasonous part of the Old Confederacy.

And David Jolly is the former congressman from St. Petersburg, Florida who was defeated last year, largely dragged down because of so many voters' revulsion with Trump and everything he and his white nationalism sociopaths stand for. More Republican elected officials should confront the stark, ugly truth of what he tweeted for all the world to see yesterday:

We got in touch with Jenny Marshall, the progressive candidate running in the central North Carolina district represented by bigot Virginia Foxx. "Americans across this country," Jenny told us, "must stand together in condemning the aims of white supremacy and white nationalism. While our government must protect freedom of speech, we, as its citizens, have a duty to reject the violence provoking, hate speech and intimidation shown by the alt-right. Our president and his administration have been silent as our fellow Muslim citizens in Minnesota had their mosque attacked and again during these horrific events unfolding in Charlottesville, Virginia. We cannot wait for his leadership in this matter, as it is obviously lacking. So, now is the time for America's citizens to gather together and resoundingly reject bigotry and racism. We must show the world that love trumps hate."

We also reached out to two nationally prominent civil rights attorneys who are both running for Congress. Dan Canon is probably best-known for his successful arguments to the Supreme Court for marriage equality in the Obergefell case. He told us that Trump's "repeated failure to condemn his white supremacist supporters speaks volumes. This isn't a situation in which 'both sides' bear equal fault. It's not even close. There's simply no place in American discourse for the idea that our neighbors should be subjugated or separated by race. We've known that the 'alt-right,' in its various guises, has been a cancer in America for more than a century. You don't let a cancer metastasize. You fight it head on."



The other civil rights attorney is Jim Thompson, who is running for the Wichita-based Kansas congressional seat. We want his eloquent words to be the official Blue America response to the tragedy in Charlottesville:

"My heart aches for those injured in Charlottesville, especially for the families of the three who lost their lives standing up to hatred and protecting our democracy. The thoughts and prayers of myself and my family are with you all. As a civil rights attorney and a U.S. Army infantryman, I have sworn to protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. What we witnessed in Charlottesville is no less than a domestic enemy intent on the subversion of our American principles and embracing the evil of terrorism. We saw White Nationalists, Nazis, and the 'Alt Right' claiming to 'Unite the Right' and seeking to destroy equality. They consider themselves superior simply because of the color of their skin and religious preference. They raise their hands in salutes paying homage to Hitler and Nazi principles, which included the killing of millions of men, women and children of different races, colors, religions, and those who did not fit the stereotype of the “master race.” Our grandfathers fought in World War II to eliminate this stain on humanity, and we must continue their fight. In a land where all men and women are created equal and entitled to the pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, there can be no ultimate peace between the Nazi/white supremacist/'alt right' philosophy of government, and our American values stated in the Constitution. I unequivocally reject their philosophy and will continue to fight all enemies of equality, justice, and the United States of America.

"I embrace our diversity of religion, race, and opinion in this country. However, the right to an opinion does not mean that the opinion is right. When immorality, hatred and intolerance form the basis of an opinion or movement, we must exercise our freedom of speech to identify those who hold that opinion and condemn them and their beliefs. Mr. President, you must lead that charge. I ask you Mr. President to formally and unequivocally reject the alt right movement, white supremacy and Nazi philosophy, and to state their beliefs and philosophies are inconsistent with American values. Contrary to your assertion, there are not “many sides” to this issue, there are only two sides: right and wrong. Mr. President, it is long past time for you to choose which side of the fence you are on because riding the fence will just get splinters in your ass."

Want to help put a stop to this quasi-condoned racism and violence? Help elect progressives like Jenny Marshall, Randy Bryce, James Thompson and the other Blue America-endorsed candidates here. We'll leave off with an eloquent and simple statement from VoteVets that puts into context the tragedy that this country suffered in November, 2016: "Hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives fighting the hateful ideologies that fueled yesterday's protests and subsequent violence in Virginia. The president dishonors their memories with his 'many sides' response to yesterday's domestic terrorist attack."

Can Trump Lose The GOP A Senate Seat... In Louisiana?

You may not have felt inspired by Trump's screaming hate speech Thursday night... but others were. Neo-Nazi/KKK leader David Duke, who was planning to primary House Majority Whip Steve Scalise was so aroused by Trump's signal to white nationalists that he's decided to run for the open Louisiana U.S. Senate seat instead. That seat is being abandoned by sex predator David Vitter, who was rejected by Louisiana voters in the gubernatorial race last November. It's now becoming clear that normalizing antisemitic white nationalists is not a bug but a feature for hardcore Trumpists. "I’m overjoyed," he said in his announcement yesterday, "to see Donald Trump and most Americans embrace most of the issues that I’ve championed for years. My slogan remains America first."

There are something like 20 candidates for the November 8 general election but it is likely that no one will reach 50% which will trigger a December runoff. The top Republican contenders-- and this seat should be an easy hold for the GOP (Romney having beaten Obama there 58-41%)-- are 2 crackpot Republican congressmen, John Fleming and Charles "Lord Charles" Boustany, the latter best known for getting caught trying to buy an English patent of nobility for himself and his wife on the internet. Sir Charles and Fleming, though, will also have to contend with far right sociopath Rob Maness, a former Navy SEAL who can go toe-to-toe with Duke on every issue near and dear to the hearts of the Ku Klux Klan. Then there's state Treasurer John Kennedy and moderate former one-term Congressman Joseph Cao-- plus 4 other random Republicans. Mitch McConnell had the NRSC already announce that they will not support Duke even if he wins the nomination and gets the backing of Trump.

There are also a slew of Democrats, Foster Campbell and Caroline Fayard being the two most plausible, especially if the Democrats can consolidate around one candidate. If that happens and Duke comes in first among the Republicans, David "Diapers" Vitter's seat will fall, unexpectedly, into Democratic hands, giving the Senate Dems an outside shot at retaining the Senate in 2018 which will be a massively bad year for Senate Democrats.

Financial reporting for the race isn't perfect but the top fundraisers so far are:

• Lord Boustany (R)- $4,338,914
• John Fleming (R)- $3,224,059
• John Kennedy (R)- $1,765,923
• Caroline Fayard (D)- $1,117,415
• Foster Campbell (D)- $999,217
• Rob Maness (R)- $484,332

Duke is just getting started but the kind of racist hate speech he and Trump use, attracts dedicated followers willing to skip going to the laundromat on weekends to send in their quarters and crumpled up dollar bills. "With the country coming apart t at the seams and no one willing to really speak the truth about what is happening," the tax cheat and convicted felon began his campaign, "the majority population in this country needs someone who will actually give voice to their interests in the face of an increasingly violent hatefest launched by the media and political establishment against them... We must stop the massive immigration and ethnic cleansing of people whose forefathers created America." Keep in mind, Duke was elected and reelected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in the New Orleans suburbs (Metarie).

He's tied himself to the Trump campaign right from the start and told a popular Louisiana Hate Talk Radio host what he likes about Herr Trumpf:

• “I [thought] I would never see a candidate stand up and possibly just maybe put America first, and Donald Trump may do that.”

• “There is no candidate-- other than if I were running-- that is more hated by the Jewish media establishment, the Jewish money establishment, the Jewish political establishment than Donald Trump.”

• “If he's controlled by the Jews, there’s no way he’d be saying what he's saying.”

• “He actually went to these Jewish moneybags and he says to their face, he says, ‘You’re not going to support me, because I’m not going to take your money and you don’t want anybody you can’t control.’ ”

• “I’m not saying the guy’s one of us. But he has made the immigration issue the critical issue it should be. If immigration continues in this country we have no future, we have no chance of winning, our people are being destroyed.”

• “His whole life he’s been having to deal with these Jews and my daughter said it pretty well the other day to me, she said… 'Dad, you know this guy is a gentile for sure, he’s been working his whole life with these Jews. Do you think he really likes these people?' ”

Trump won 41.4% of Louisiana's primary vote (when there were still 4 active candidates) and pretty much won almost everywhere except in parishes that get their news from Texas media markets. A little warning though: the total number of voters who participated in the Republican primary was 301,169. The total participating in the Democratic primary-- which Hillary won with a 71.1% landslide-- was 311,613. If the Republicans remain divided and Duke winds up in one of the top two slots in November and then faces a Democrat in December...

The Trump Wing Of The GOP-- David Duke Says He's Serious About Challenging Republican Whip Steve Scalise

David Duke has had almost as much plastic surgery as Herr Trumpf

So Bernie endorsed Hillary yesterday. No surprise there. It's what he had to do, I guess. I mean who would want to be complicit in electing Donald J. Trump-- aside from a very one dimensional Paul Ryan? Ryan's excuse is that he wants to sell his party's deadly and toxic austerity agenda. Poor Ryan thought he could be the GOP's "voice of moral clarity," but the base picked Trump for that job and "he now finds himself in the most chaotic climate his party has seen in more than a generation."

“The underlying dynamics that drove out John Boehner remain,” Mr. Dent said of the former speaker. “Now you have Donald Trump and all his rhetoric, and he knows most of his members want him to support Trump while others like me want to keep their distance. Then, not being able to pass a budget may be one of the greatest frustrations for the speaker. A lot of members don’t want anything to do with firearms or the budget. They want to cancel the session after the election. That is where we are.”

...It is particularly rankling for Mr. Ryan, a former chairman of the House Budget Committee, that he is unable to pass a budget. The most conservative House Republicans do not want to honor a deal struck by Mr. Boehner and the White House last year, which raised statutory budget caps to increase government spending. Many have made it clear they will not vote for a budget with that higher spending level.

This has made the appropriations process equally charged. But that is where Mr. Ryan has other problems. Those bills have failed because of fights over an amendment to bar federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, fights over the use of the Confederate flag and other social issues.

With Republicans likely to lose seats in November, narrowing their large majority in the House, the most conservative members are likely to make up a larger, not small percentage of his conference after November. Gerrymandered Republican House districts, which produce very conservative members, and the probable sweeping out of moderate members in a presidential year combine to make it so.

No one in their right mind could describe Ryan's chief whip, Steve Scalise of a backward, blood red-- and whitest-- Louisiana district, as a "moderate." He's a hard right ideologue who was forced on the leadership so that the lunatic fringe would feel they had their own man in the decision-making process. But, no one ever accused David Duke, former KKK Grand Dragon or High Wizard or something of being in his right mind. And now Duke, who used to represent the heart of Scalise's district (Metarie) in the state legislature, claims he's going to run against the whip and Cantor him. (The filing date in Louisiana is just over a week from now, July 22.)

Scalise once campaigned in the district by calling himself "David Duke without the baggage." Duke is running on a purely racist platform and his statements sound a lot more like Trump's than like Paul Ryan's. He calls Scalise, who recently voted to ban Confederate flags in V.A. cemeteries, "sellout Steve Scalise" and issued a Trump-like statement: "I don’t take any satisfaction in the fact that I was right, but I have been right. Unless European Americans stand up, they are going to lose everything they care about in this country. There are millions of people across the country who would like to have me in the Congress. I’d be the only person in Congress openly defending the rights and the heritage of European Americans. We are on the offensive today. There’s no more defenses."

He accused Scalise of crawling "on his hands and his knees to the black caucus," and there are few things you can about a politician in that part of Louisiana that is more insulting. He's said similar crap about the Newtster for his recent speech that intimated that blacks are human, and told the media that he would be a better VP pick for Trump. But he claims that Trump "won’t reach out to him because the candidate fears 'offending the oligarchs,' a term Duke uses for the political establishment he said is controlled by Jewish, Hispanic and African American interests." By the way, McCain won LA-01 with 73% and Romney won the district with 71%. Last cycle, Scalise was reelected with 78%.

David Duke Says Scalise Is Far From The Only Right-Wing Politician Who Played Footsie With Him

Thanks to the exposure of his neo-Nazi group's relationship with Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), David Duke is enjoying a moment of national quasi-relevance again-- long after most people thought the expatriate Austrian resident would never be heard from again. Duke joined the KKK when he was 17 and formed his first neo-Nazi group, the White Youth Alliance, when he was a college student in Baton Rouge in 1970. He gained notoriety by parading around the LSU campus in a Nazi uniform. His first run for political office was in 1975 in Baton Rouge when he ran for the state Senate as a Democrat. His campaigns have been primarily hustles to make money and he has widely been regarded as a scam artist, ripping off morons in the Klan, Nazis and Republicans. He kept running for any office he could file for and wasn't taken seriously until 1989 when he officially joined the GOP and won a Louisiana state House seat in Metairie near New Orleans, after a run-off against John Treen, the brother of former Governor David Treen. Treen was endorsed by President George H.W. Bush and former President Ronald Reagan but the Nazi was popular with the angry racist Republican base and he he won anyway.

With the Republican Party-- and mainstream conservatives in general-- having migrated away from overt anti-Semitism by the 1960s, Duke's neo-Nazi mania hurt him with garden variety GOP racists who feel completely entitled to just hate blacks and Hispanics. One of Duke's campaign managers explained that "The Jews just aren't a big issue in Louisiana. We keep telling David, stick to attacking the blacks. There's no point in going after the Jews, you just piss them off and nobody here cares about them anyway." Duke, however, was a devoted anti-Semite and Nazi and he sold copies of Mein Kampf from the state Capitol while he was a Republican legislator in Baton Rouge.

Even today, Duke's official website, is filled with the kind of hysterical Jew-hatred that was popular among American conservatives before Duke was born. Duke sees the whole kerfuffle over Scalise as a Jewish plot. In his world, Scalise is being "excoriated by the Zio-dominated media."

[T]he attack on Dr. Duke and Rep. Scalise is completely hypocritical.

The President of the United States of America, Barak Obama, has for a lifetime supported his radical, racist preacher, Rev. Wright who has literally screamed “God damn America” and spouted the most vicious hatred against white people!

But the Zio mass media does not condemn Barak Obama for maintaining his close relationship with Wright to this day!

The truth is that Dr. Duke shows how the establishment fosters hatred between both groups in a divide and conquer strategy that harms both African Americans and European Americans, and diverts attention from the real controllers of the media, the trillions stolen from both blacks and whites by the international Zio bankers such as Goldman Sachs and the FED.

The establishment which has spent trillions of dollars needed by both blacks and whites-- in insane Zionist Wars such as war in Iraq, fought only for the interest of Israel.

Zionists also control the politics of the United States domestically, and the real reason they have attacked Scalise is because he said he endorsed Dr. Duke’s policies. They are afraid he might might someday spill the beans on the Zionists because he may have dared to to speak at meeting where Dr. Duke spoke. And remember that the keynote speech Dr. Duke made at that meeting was primarily about the organization’s opposition to the insane Iraq War—which was vociferously supported by the Zio media and government.

And that is why the media lies about Dr. David Duke, and why they scream the lie that he supports “racial supremacism” and “hate.”

...Now let’s go over the lies of the media in directed at Steve Scalise for possibly meeting with his constituents-- constituents who also supported David Duke. Remember that  Dr. Duke received over 60 percent of the popular vote in the Scalise’s district. They voted for Dr. Duke to be their U.S. Congressman, and a year later, to be their Governor.

The media attack is not against Dr. Duke and Rep. Scalise but also against the millions who support Dr. Duke in Louisiana, the United States and all over the world-- to which the millions of views of his videos provide evidence.

As Dr. David Duke has repeatedly pointed out in a number of radio shows on the topic, the facts are quite clear:

1- There is no clear evidence that Rep. Scalise even attended a European Rights Organization (EURO) meeting in 2002.
2- Dr. Duke personally never attended the meeting in question, never saw Rep. Scalise or even knew that he had been invited.
3- Some people who attended the meeting said that Rep. Scalise had not been present, while others recall him being present early and leaving.
4- Rep. Scalise has repeatedly said that he does not remember specifically attending the meeting, as he addressed a large number of groups in his constituency, and did not have the staff to vet every single invitation.

...After all, what the Zio-media is actually saying is that Rep. Scalise is not allowed to meet with his own constituents! How is that “democracy”? Since when did it become a crime for a Congressman to meet constituents?

So why then the media fuss over Rep. Scalise?

Would the media make the same fuss if Rep. Scalise had spoken at a La Raza Hispanic advocacy meeting?

Would the media make the same fuss if Rep. Scalise had spoken at a AIPAC Jewish lobby advocacy meeting?

...So why they the fuss over Rep. Scalise allegedly addressing a small meeting of European-American rights advocates?

...The answer to this question lies, of course, in the fact that Dr. Duke is the world’s leading opponent and exposer of Jewish Supremacist racism-- and although the Zio-media tries to ignore him, or continuously slander him, the internet has undermined all their efforts to control the news and what people can read, see and hear... The reason for the Zio-media lynching is clear: it is only because the Jewish Lobby fears that their control of the US political process, their control of the mass media and of the banking system, will be exposed and come to wider public knowledge.

For this reason, and this reason alone, they seek to stamp on anyone who has even the slightest, most improbable and unlikely connection with Dr. Duke-- and in this case, their sacrificial lamb is the totally innocent Rep. Scalise.

Scalise has already made a half-assed apology for speaking at the neo-Nazi rally and the House Republican leadership has declared the case closed. But Duke isn't letting go so fast, not when he can use the notoriety to sucker racist Republicans out of money. Now he's threatening to expose other politicians who have been to his racist rallies-- and not just Republicans. He claims he's met with Democratic politicians at least 50 times as well and he's threatening to release a list of Republicans and Democrats who've been tied to him in one way or another. "If Scalise is going to be crucified-- if Republicans want to throw Steve Scalise to the woods, then a lot of them better be looking over their shoulders." Jarvis DeBerry at the Times Picayune:

I'd imagine that a threat from a white supremacist is pretty much like the bark of a dog.  One doesn't know if that barking will be followed by any meaningful action.

But as I wrote earlier, the news that links Scalise to a Duke event is a reminder of how many politicians thought Duke's supporters could help them politically.  Mike Foster paid $150,000 for a Duke mailing list during his successful 1995 gubernatorial run. Woody Jenkins, who ran for U.S. Senate the following year, paid $82,500 for a telephone list of Duke supporters.

I'm guessing that politicians today would be willing to pay that much-- if not more-- to keep Duke from exposing them as friendly to him and his supporters.

That is, if Duke isn't just blowing smoke, and really has a list of names that he could reveal.

But does he? How many Louisiana politicians might be trembling at the idea of their names being on Duke's touted list?

Louisiana racists David Duke and Steve Scalise

Michael Steele Is Happy With The GOP Just As It Is-- But Not All Republicans Are Happy With Michael Steele Where He Is

If you thought Michael Steele was the RNC candidate for change... well he was over at Fox News this morning tap dancing around all the party's problems and diagnosing them as ineffective messaging. "We failed to lead," he reminded the viewers. "The principles we espoused are still true and good today and that's not what people moved away from us for. They moved away from us because we behaved badly. We came to Washington and we became like the people we were sent here to replace. And they replaced us."

They certainly did behave badly but voters turned away from the Republican Party in droves because their policies were toxic and have devastated the country. It wasn't messaging. It was governance. They failed. And Michael Steele, who's never succeeded at anything, is a perfect figure head for a diminishing party turning itself into an extremist regional bastion of hatred and selfishness. Change? He came out strongly against immigrants, strongly against gays, strongly against cooperating with President Obama on solving the economic problems Republican policies have caused and championed obstructionism. "The Republican Congress did a great job in drawing the line. I hope the Senate will follow."

No worries there, most of them have already declared that obstruction, obstruction, obstruction is the name of their game.

But not all Republicans are embracing Steele. The dominant southern racist wing of the party is furious and flipping out. To Hell with the Republican Party screeches former GOP state Rep, David Duke (R-LA) in an article under the banner; "GOP traitors appoint Black racist as Chairman of the Republican Party." Duke, the darling of the David Diapers Vitter wing of the Louisiana Republican Party and once the chairman of the GOP's biggest Republican district in the Bayou State, has dubbed Steel "Obama Junior." Duke took time off from his campaign against Israel and against Jews-- he's an avowed neo-Nazi-- to go bonkers over Steele's elevation as the new face of GOPism.

The Republican Party leadership in its latest act of self-immolation appointed, Michael Steele, a radical Black racist as the leader of the Party.

Steele is a passionate supporter of affirmative action programs that racially discriminate against tens of millions of White Americans. He also supports increased discrimination against White owned businesses in the awarding of non-merit and non-bid minority contracts. He is opposed to the death penalty and thinks that it is disproportionately applied to Blacks even though it is applied to White murderers at 500 percent higher than it is to Black murderers. He is also an advocate of more gun control legislation as well as a draconian, massively increased enforcement of the current laws. He is a servile dog of Israel and has condemned Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorists and yet said not a word of compassion for the 5,000 (half of them women and children) who have been maimed and murdered in Gaza by Israel’s weapons of mass destruction. He says that he would still support the Iraq War and the loss of 50,000 maimed Americans, 4500 killed and trillions in cost, even though the reason for the war (Weapons of Mass Destruction) was proven to be a lie.

Duke is predicting that the Steele chairmanship will "lead to huge revolt among the Republican base. As a former Republican official, I can tell you that millions of rank-and-file Republicans are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore!" He's threatening to put some of the energy, time and resources he normally reserves for his cosmetic plastic surgery treatments to lead that revolt. "Let’s make this abomination in the Republican Party," he shrieks, "the last major party of White redoubt, as a rallying cry of resistance!"

The reality though is that the candidate Duke supported, neo-Confederate Katon Dawson, could only muster 77 votes to Steele's 91. And in the Senate the only incumbents in the David Duke camp are Jim DeMint (R-SC), Jim Bunning (R-KY), David Diapers Vitter (R-LA), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Richard Burr (R-NC), Richard Shelby (R-AL), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Roger Wicker (R-MS). And the only real hope they have for new blood in their racist caucus would be the very unlikely election of Heath Shuler (D-NC) over Richard Burr next year.