President Obama Gets Twitter Account: Racist Republican Base Goes Wild!

When the New York Times asked "Jeff Gully" about his handiwork, he wanted to know how much he would be paid to comment.

by Noah

Well, OK. I know. The republican base went wild a long time ago. They especially went wild when America elected a black man as its president. We all know where the vast majority of republicans stand on race. We've heard the "jokes" about whether the White House should still be called "the White House" and all that.

Whether it's Rancid Paul saying he would not vote for Civil Rights legislation, Mittens Romney's veiled use of the KKK's "Keep America American" slogan (he merely dropped the n), the name of Rick Perry's ranch (Niggerhead), or just the pictures of Obama carrying watermelons or dressed as a witch doctor or with a noose around his neck which republicans e-mail to each other, republicans have made it perfectly clear that being a racist is a cherished qualification for membership in their party. You don't have to point to the likes of media loudmouth Tucker Carlson or former republican politician and KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. This stuff goes to the very top of the party.

It ain't just their base. The top eggs the base on, using them as shock troops in their culture wars. The base eggs the candidates on, screaming for a return to the 1950s or, even better, the 1850s. It's a vile vicious circle. They have their radio talkers and other media. They feed on their conspiracy Internet sites. Hell, we all know they even have their own FOX News "Let me tell you about the negro" TV network, all stirring the hateful stew. I'll never forget seeing Mike Huckabee and Bill-O going on and on about how President Obama is not "a traditional American," over and over again, even pointing out that he never played Little League baseball but plays basketball -- and we know what that means. Oooh, basketball! Say no more. Throw in a few extra "Kenyans" and some birth certificate gibberish too!

With such a sick environment so successfully created, an environment where racists can feel so comfortable proclaiming their racism, it came as no surprise that when President Obama went live with his @POTUS Twitter account, it took no more than ten minutes for the republican base to start hurling the contents of their fetid little repug minds at him, and, really, at everyone who voted for him, but, mostly him. Sure, they showed us what they are, but we already knew that. These are the same crowd that boo soldiers and yell “Let him die” at their debates, and shout out “You lie” from the peanut gallery that is Congress. Would it surprise any rational person if we found that some of these hateful tweets actually came from certain people in Congress, or maybe some republican governor’s office?

Here's one of the very first tweets to @POTUS from Republican World:

And another:

To be fair, and I'm always fair, this is not to say that every single republican is a racist. Some of them who by their own words and actions obviously are may even think they aren't. They will tell you to your face that they aren't, and then they vote for candidates, such as the ones I mentioned, who clearly are, by word and deed, so…

The wingnut party membership doesn't just use the N-word, in their tweets to the president. Fag and faggot also make regular appearances in the great republican tweet catalog. I guess that's not surprising when you have their World Net Daily, a popular and often quoted republican "news" site, claiming that President Obama is secretly gay and is even secretly married to a man, etc.

Oh, and then there's the cuteness of the tweet at the top of this post, substituting "Rope" for "Hope," with that lovely picture. The tweeter, Jeff Gullickson, of Minneapolis, says this tweet got him a visit from the Secret Service. His mom must be so proud; if he hasn't killed her and stuffed her in the attic. When asked for comment by the New York Times, Gullickson e-mailed back asking how much they would pay.

THEY INSIST, WE'RE NOT RACISTS!



In our society being a racist happens to get you in the door to Republican World faster. Call it the republican form of affirmative action. The reaction to @POTUS is a reflection of the essence of the republican party. You won't see a tidal wave of top-level republicans telling their voters to shut up or act more civilized. If you want to get anywhere in the republican party, you have to throw a few racist bones to the voters yourself or you will always be ignored when it comes to anything else you have to say -- and your poll numbers will tank too. You will not pass go, you will not be nominated.

Sorry, but once you've thrown that bone, you have contributed to the disease of racism and you are a racist. No excuses. You've joined up. Go ahead, lie to yourself all you want. We know what you are. "Supporting voter ID isn't racist," my ass!

Some republicans, such as Michele Bachmann, echoing slavery-era owners, have gone so far as to say that African-Americans were happy being slaves. Then, there's Rush Limbaugh's constant reference to the president of the United States as "the Half-rican-American."  Not a day goes by when some republican politician or media slime somewhere (start with Drudge or FOX) doesn't utter something blatantly racist. One could fill a 30-volume encyclopedia with their crap. It's who they are. In a way, it's a good thing that they have gotten so emboldened about expressing their true feelings for all to more easily note. If our country is lucky, the public will soon tire of them all.

WHO'S PLAYING THE RACE CARD?

Republicans will even claim that it is Obama who is always playing the race card. To republicans, Obama does not have to say a word to play the race card. All he has to do is walk in front of a TV camera and, well, see? Look, there he goes again! Just look at him!

Racism is what drives the engine of the republican party and they know it. They are masters of using the politics of white supremacy, fear, latent or overt hostility, and anxiety to motivate their base. They embrace and use it lovingly.

So the republican reaction to @POTUS was no surprise. The core of the republican party leapt at the chance to express their inner freakchild and continues to do so.

There is, however, a way to stop their vile tweets, and it plays beautifully into the twisted workings of the republican mind and that mind's love of seeing conspiracy where there is none. Here it is. All we have to do is spread the word among republicans that @POTUS is President Obama's dastardly plan to create a database of easily traceable anti-Obama people so that they can be more easily rounded up and placed in FEMA Concentration Camps.

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In Colorado, the big fraud in "voter fraud" is once again voter-fraud fraud

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler: liar or loon?

by Ken

We know that the Right has excellent skills in picking its rhetorical battles: the kinds of things that will inflame public sentiment regardless of the truth of them, which usually ranges from "not much" to "undetectable." And one especially clever example has been "voter fraud."

It sounds like an issue that strikes at the heart of democracy: all those (yuck!) "other" peoples racking up fraudulent voter registrations and . . . and . . . .

Of course here already the thing breaks down, because even in the occasional cases where it has been possible to document bogus registrations, there hasn't been any indication I'm aware of of actual fraudulent votes cast. And since the argument was designed to begin with to enrage people of very low information profiles, it's a distinction that, without prompting, they were most unlikely to make.

And never mind that over these last couple of decades polluting the voting machines has been a subject of extremely high priority for Republicans, by and large the very same people who have built the drumbeat of outrage over nonexistent "voter fraud." The crucial thing to remember is that the Right now has won itself permission to engage in any and every lie it can get away with -- there is no longer any "truth standard" on that side of the spectrum; instead it's all about gullibililty.

This week we had the latest story from one of the Right's indefatigable crusaders against nonexistent voter fraud, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, a gentleman who has been producing "lists" at a pace not seen since the late Sen. Joe McCarthy was tendering his famous lists of Communists in government and other sensitive places. And they always turn out to be bogus. The only question, really, is whether the schmuck is creating out-and-out intentional deceptions or is simply so stupid that he believes his own lies.

Gessler’s Latest “Illegal Voters” Evaporate On Examination

by: Colorado Pols, Thu August 15, 2013 at 10:43 AM MDT

As the Boulder Daily Camera's Erica Meltzer reports:

Last month, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler gave Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett a list of 17 names, all suspected of voting in the November election despite being non-citizens.

Those names were among 155 people identified statewide as possible illegal voters.

But an investigation by Garnett's office found that all 17 people were citizens and were able to easily verify their status, the district attorney said Wednesday…

"Local governments and county clerks do a really good job regulating the integrity of elections, and I'll stand by that record any day of the week," Garnett said. "We don't need state officials sending us on wild goose chases for political reasons." [Pols emphasis]

Republican Secretary of State Scott Gessler's years-long quest for "illegal voters" on the Colorado rolls has consistently ended in embarrassing failure, ever since his first dire warnings of ten thousand or more "illegal voters" in 2011. Verification that all 17 voters turned over to the Boulder County DA are in fact legal citizens is just the latest example of the absolutely pitiful return on Gessler's large investment of time and resources on this non-problem.

Meanwhile, other problems his office is directly responsible, like the failure of the state's mobile voter registration website to record hundreds of registrations, are brushed off as "inevitable glitches." The right-wing media and friendly organizations like True the Vote who sing Gessler's praises for the big scary numbers he throws around are silent when the truth comes out, and Gessler is found to be wasting everyone's time. The fact is, Gessler has done more to disprove the right's endless allegations of voter fraud in American elections than most of his opponents, but you'll never hear that from True the Vote. The true purpose for Gessler and conservative "vote fraud watchdogs" in these witch hunts, sowing doubt in the process and chilling participation by perfectly legal citizens, provides an ongoing raison d'être no matter what the facts are.

At this point, we believe Gessler depends on the outcome getting less attention.

Once again it might be useful to know if the gentleman in question thinks of himself as more of a pathological liar or a garden-variety crackpot.

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For a "Sunday Classics" fix anytime, visit the stand-alone "Sunday Classics with Ken."

The shootings at Fort Hood have of course galvanized the Shithead Right to their vilest spewing of lies and hatred

by Ken

We know that sometimes crisis brings out the best in Americans. Sometimes. Other times it brings out the worst, including to listen to the vilest, worst informed, most bigoted dregs of humanity. And since there has never been a group in the history of the human race as criminally insane and sociopathic as the American Shithead Right, enemies to the death of every form of intelligence and decency, it's not hard to guess which way the wind will blow after a tragic incident like yesterday shootings at Fort Hood.

Since all these devil worshippers know is ignorance and hatred -- or should I say ignorance and hatred and how to make a buck off them? -- the immediate concern is the upsurge of loudmouth (and possibly worse than "mouth") bigotry against Muslim Americans. This is a form of intolerance that is supposed to violate everything that America is about. But of course the merchants of hate, in their desperation to turn the country into a reflection of the shit their souls are made of, don't care what America is about. They look in the mirror and, rightly, see nothing but worthlessness and hatred, but then are seized with the necessity to project their own worthlessness and hatred onto innocent victims.

Remember the first reactions to the Oklahoma City bombing, when the shithead fake-patriots had already launched their anti-Muslim jihad by the time the truth came out, and the degree to which the phony patriots lost interest once it was established that it was a deliberate act of terrorism by the crackpot self-anointed True Patriots of the Far Right, the spiritual forebears of the Teabaggers' Conspiracy.

Spencer Ackerman did a terrific piece on the subject today for the Washington Independent:

Possible GOP Candidate: Ft. Hood Shootings Prove ‘The Enemy Is Infiltrating Our Military’

By SPENCER ACKERMAN 11/6/09 1:40 PM

The Hill reports that Allen West, a former Army lieutenant colonel promoted by the National Republican Congressional Committee as one of its “young guns,” has come to some conclusions about the meaning of Maj. Hasan’s murders at Ft. Hood:

“This enemy preys on downtrodden soldiers and teaches them extremism will lift them up,” West said in a statement. “Our soldiers are being brainwashed.”

The release added that West claims “the horrible tragedy at Fort Hood is proof the enemy is infiltrating our military.”

This is further out there than even Fox host Brian Kilmeade’s slanders on Muslim U.S. soldiers. We don’t know what Hasan’s motivations actually were, let alone that he’s a symptom of “the enemy” “infiltrating” the military. Hasan, it’s worth remembering, joined the Army in 1995, even before Osama bin Laden had declared war on America.

But this is perhaps typical of West’s reasoning, as he was disciplined in the Army in Iraq for actually firing his weapon near a detainee’s head during an interrogation, which is typically a crime. CNN:

In testimony at an Article 32 hearing -- the military’s version of a grand jury or preliminary hearing -- West said the policeman, Yahya Jhrodi Hamoody, was not cooperating with interrogators, so he watched four of his soldiers from the 220th Field Artillery Battalion beat the detainee on the head and body.

West said he also threatened to kill Hamoody. Military prosecutors say West followed up on that threat by taking the suspect outside, put him on the ground near a weapons clearing barrel and fired his 9 mm pistol into the barrel.

To make a point no one should have to make: earlier this year, a deranged Army sergeant named John Russell opened fire near a combat stress clinic -- sound familiar? -- at Baghdad’s Camp Liberty and killed five of his fellow soldiers. No one speculated about any religious motivations. No one suggested he was part of an enemy “infiltration,” or suggested that U.S. troops have been “brainwashed.” Everyone understood that Russell was a deranged lunatic, not an advance scout for a conspiracy to subvert the military internally. It’s funny how double standards work.

Actually, no. It’s disgusting.

Exactly right, Spencer, it's disgusting. And it's likely to be even worse, as any American of "questionable" skin color, who might be suspected of being somehow connected to the Middle East, is targeted for persecution by the know-nothings. It's worth trying to remember just how quintessentially un-American this is.


UPDATE: THE LIES KEEP
COMING, FAST AND FURIOUS

It's a thankless job, but somebody's got to keep track of the psychotic lies pouring out of the Right-Wing Shithead Noise Machine, and Media Matters, bless their souls, is on the job.

The latest? A Lou "Don't Hate Me Just 'Cause I'm Nuttier Than a Pecan Pie" Dobbs shithead lie: Dems using Ft. Hood shooting as "cover" to pass health reform in House.

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Why Are Right Wingers So Afraid Of Their Own Homosexuality?

Yesterday the House Judiciary Committee today voted 15 to 12 to send the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 (H.R. 1913) to the floor for a vote. The bill seeks to protect victims of hate crimes who are gay and transgender and, predictably, anti-gay bigots, primarily in the GOP, oppose it. A similar bill passed in 2007 and Bush vetoed it. Only 14 Democrats voted against it in the House in 2007, all bigoted reactionaries: Marion Berry (Blue Dog-AR), Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Chris Carney (Blue Dog-PA), Bud Cramer (Blue Dog-AL, retired but replaced by another bigot), Lincoln Davis (Blue Dog-TN), Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN), Brad Ellsworth (Blue Dog-IN), Bart Gordon (Blue Dog-TN), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC), Charlie Melancon (Blue Dog-LA), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR), Heath Schuler (Blue Dog-NC), and Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS). Keep that in mind when someone tells you Blue Dogs are just about being fiscally conservative and not about being a hateful bigot.

Among the 80 co-sponsors there are 8 Republicans, 3 representing districts with big gay populations, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Miami), Anh Cao (New Orleans), and Mary Bono Mack (Palm Springs), although none of the notorious Republican closet cases signed on-- not even David Dreier, whose closet door has been hanging loose for almost a decade and the best known anti-gay closet queens in the Senate, Miss McConnell and Lindsey Graham are both on board for the expected Republican filibuster.

It's ironic that the bill was voted on the same week as the debut of Outrage, a film that purports to kick open Washington's closet door. The documentary "investigates the secret lives of closeted gay politicians, some of whom have spent years in office with only the skimpiest of scrutiny from the mainstream media." Among those "outed" are Florida's current  governor, Charlie Crist, who was viewed for a time as a front-runner to be John McCain's vice-presidential pick; David Dreier (R-San Dimas), who was once a leading candidate for the House majority leader post when the Republicans still controlled Congress; Ken Mehlman, George Bush's campaign manager during the 2004 election and former Republican National Committee chairman; former New York City mayor Ed Koch; the now-retired Idaho Sen. Larry Craig; Jim McCrery (R-La.), a ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee who retired last year; Ed Schrock (R-Va.), who retired in 2004; and-- gasp-- the prominent Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. 

These were all easy targets and there were no surprises-- no taps on the closet doors of the worst of the gay Republican hypocrites, like Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Dana Rohrabacher (D-CA), Aaron Schock (R-IL), Adrian Smith (R-NE) or even McConnell, who I know the filmmakers were investigating and hoping to include. I wonder if any of them will be man enough to vote for the hate crimes bill this year.

I picked up a new book the other day, Marshall Jon Fisher's A Terrible Splendor-- Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played, which tells the story of the greatest tennis match ever played: the "1937 Davis Cup match, played on the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon, was a battle of titans: the world's number one tennis player against the number two; America against Germany; democracy against fascism. For five superhuman sets, the duo’s brilliant shotmaking kept the Centre Court crowd–and the world–spellbound." Three of the main characters were closeted gays. And one, Baron Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm, was arrested by the Nazis after he embarrassed Hitler by losing and charged with being a sexual deviant. The story is fascinating and you may want to read it but the reason I'm bringing it up today is because after getting out of prison, Baron von Cramm was sent to the Russian front and he actually survived the war, returned to Germany and became a major tennis star again. Except for one thing-- because the Nazi Regime had charged him with sexual deviance, he was never permitted to play-- or even enter-- the United States. Even as the husband of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, the puritanical, homophobic USA was strictly verboten to him for the rest of his life. He died in 1976.

Fake Republican Outrage Is Getting Kind Of Predictable... And Ignorable-- But Obama Is Still Likely To Shake Hands With Hacks Like John Ensign

Despite relentless right-wing propaganda, Venezuela is not our enemy

Republican Party hacks are all up in arms and puffed up with their fake sense of outrage over Obama shaking hands with Hugo Chavez. Obama doesn't laugh at his hopeless opponents; he's polite. Yesterday he politely told GOP sore losers and troublemakers to shove it. I think any Americans who don't get their world view from Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Coulter don't need to be told that extending diplomatic courtesy is a plus, not-- as in the dark old Bush days-- a sign of weakness. At a news conference at the end of the three-day summit Obama patiently explained to Republican dunces that "the U.S. must engage other countries through humanitarian gestures, not simply military intervention."

Obama said it would be a mistake to measure the Summit of the Americas by specific agreements reached. But by listening to his counterparts and eschewing heavy-handed diplomacy, he said, he was creating an atmosphere in which, "at the margins," foreign leaders are "more likely to want to cooperate than not cooperate."

A running theme of the summit was Obama's cordial dealings with Chavez, who once called former President George W. Bush the "devil" and who just last month dismissed Obama as an "ignoramus." The two were photographed smiling and clasping hands.

At one meeting attended by South American leaders, Chavez made a show of walking around the table as the cameras rolled and handing Obama a copy of "Open Veins of Latin America," a 1971 book by Eduardo Galeano chronicling U.S. and European imperialism in the region.

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) told CNN today that it was "irresponsible" for Obama to be seen "laughing and joking" with the Venezuelan president.

Obama dismissed such concerns. He said the 2008 presidential campaign proved that American voters want the president to engage his counterparts, whether or not they are avowed friends of the U.S.

Obama said it "was a nice gesture to give me a book. I'm a reader." He added that the election was a referendum of sorts on the argument that U.S. solicitude toward foreign leaders could be seen as "weakness."

"The American people didn't buy it," the president said. "And there's a good reason the American people didn't buy it, because it doesn't make sense."

The U.S. has nothing to fear from Venezuela, a large supplier of crude oil to the U.S., Obama said.

"Its defense budget is probably 1/600th of the U.S.," he said. "They own [the oil company] Citgo. It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States."

This morning when I woke up I heard a sterile talking head on CNN describe Hugo Chavez or Venezuela as "America's arch-nemesis." A much more accurate thing to say is that House obstructionist leader John Boehner or North Carolina racist Richard Burr or secessionist Rick Perry is America's arch-nemesis. Or how about Kenneth Lewis or the other corrupt banksters who have systematically looted the country and dragged us into a Depression? A rightist created myth has imbeciles who couldn't identify Venezuela on a map if their lives depended on it repeating a Limbaughist demonization formula about a country with which we have no legitimate gripes. That Chavez spoke out forcefully against George Bush-- who tried to topple his government and nearly succeeded in having him assassinated-- is something Americans should be appreciative of. Unfortunately, I doubt that's why Obama shook hands with him. Instead he's busy putting the U.S. back on an even foreign policy keel after 8 years of the worst and most dangerous foreign policy in the history of the country.

It's likely that the U.S. and Venezuela will resume full diplomatic relations which had badly soured under the Bush Regime. And although Obama has made it clear he's not going to go as fast as most people think he should towards fully normalizing relations with Cuba, the days when obscenely wealthy right-wing Cuban gangsters, their sons, and their corrupt bought-off shills in Congress could dictate U.S. policy is coming to an end.

And much to the dismay of many progressives it's likely that Obama will shake hands not just with Hugo Chavez but with real enemies of our country's basic values-- rightist kooks and corporate patsies like Ensign, McConnell, Kyl, Cornyn, even dangerous loons who I hope get frisked first like Coburn, Burr and Bachmann. While White House advisors were admonishing the obstructionists to come up with constructive proposals to the problems Bush left behind-- and constructive doesn't mean slogans like "4 more years" from partisan nitwits like Paul Ryan (R-WI), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Eric Cantor (R-VA)-- all we heard from them were nonsensical talking points and GOP Minority Leader John Boehner's bovine fart jokes. This is a no-brainer for Obama because, afterall, polling shows that Americans have a more favorable attitude towards Venezuela than towards the Republican Party. (42% of Americans look on Venzuela favorable but only 39% see the GOP in that light.) And now that Cheney came out of his crypt and went on Fox to smear the President over "the handshake," I expect the Republican approval rating to fall some more.