All Good Stuff Except Rand Paul Wants To Prevent Lynching From Being A Hate Crime Because He Can Get Away With It

I missed "The Seven Last Words of the Unarmed" when it debuted a month after Señor Trumpanzee was sworn in. Composed by Joel Thompson, it featured a guest appearance by the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club. It was meant to honor the lives of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Kenneth Chamberlain, Amadou Diallo, and John Crawford.

Obviously, it is very much needed once again. While you listen (above), keep in mind that a trio of Fox News polls released yesterday show Trump losing must-win Ohio, Wisconsin and Arizona. That follows Fox News polls showing Trump losing Florida and Michigan. And today's North Carolina poll.

You might also take comfort in knowing that a conservative Virginia governor, Ralph Northam (D), announced today that the state will remove "an iconic statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Richmond’s prominent Monument Avenue. Overcome with emotion, Norfolk Del. Jay Jones said the massive statue "is a symbol for so many people, black and otherwise of a time gone by of hate and oppression and being made to feel less."

One step forward... Kentucky racist pig Rand Paul was exposed as the senator blocking an anti-lynching bill that would make lynching a hate crime.

National Journal's Zach Cohen reported that "The fact that Congress is still struggling to respond to the past atrocities of lynching black people highlights how difficult it will be for Washington to deal with misuse of police force and outrage over police officers killing unarmed black Americans. Everyone seems to agree lynching is terrible and must be condemned and outlawed, but not specifically on how to do it." Umm... but not everybody. All Paul's arguments are baseless; he just wants to kill the bill to please his KKK supporters back home.

There May Be Racism In Alabama

The only federal contribution I could find from Goodloe Sutton of Linden, Alabama (population, almost 2,000 is about half white) was to Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. I can certainly understand the affinity. Sutton edits the local newspaper, the Democrat Reporter and he's a proud Klan guy. Tuesday, USA Today shined a light on Sutton's coat and tie brand of murderous KKK extremism. Wait, wait... he didn't kill anyone, as far as we know; he just urged others to-- people in DC. There's one very gerrymandered congressional district in Alabama. It goes hither and thither to sweep up as many African American communities as possible and wall them off in one district: AL-07. Linden (and Marengo County, of which it is the county seat) wound up in the 7th-- which is only 32% white and also happens to be the 431st poorest congressional district out of the country's 435. I have a strong feeling Goodloe Sutton isn't happy his Representative is Terri Sewell, a black woman and a Democrat.

Last Thursday-- Valentine's Day-- Sutton penned a short Op-Ed, Klan Needs To Ride Again. Take a look:

Questioned about it by Melissa Brown, a reporter from the Montgomery Advertiser Sutton said "If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out D.C., we'd all been better of."

Asked to elaborate what he meant by "cleaning up D.C.," Sutton suggested lynching.

  "We'll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them," Sutton said.

When asked if he felt it was appropriate for the publisher of a newspaper to call for the lynching of Americans, Sutton doubled down on his position.

"... It's not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communists we're talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?" Sutton said.

When asked if he recognized the KKK as a racist and violent organization, Sutton disagreed, comparing the Klan to the NAACP.

"A violent organization? Well, they didn't kill but a few people," Sutton said. "The Klan wasn't violent until they needed to be."

Sutton, 79, said he didn't know any Klan remaining in the area, stating most died out after the 1960s.

The editor said he welcomed people to call him, write him a letter or boycott him.

Sutton, who has worked at the paper since 1964, inherited the publication from his father.

...Locals in west Alabama say the Democrat-Reporter has a history of inflammatory, racist and offensive language on the editorial page. A review of archived print editions reveal headlines such as "Homosexuals take black spotlight" and an editorial which stated "Slavery was a good lesson for Jews."

In 2015, the paper ran a headline titled: “Selma black thugs murder Demopolite Saturday night.” At that time, the paper had about 3,000 subscribers.

The paper also regularly republishes what appear to old editorials from the 1930s and 1940s, which include multiple instances of racist slurs.

Judson Coleman, a 38-year-old who calls the Linden and Demopolis area home, said the Democrat-Reporter has "called for violence against minorities for years."

"It has gone unchecked for decades," said Coleman, who is African-American.

Coleman said people in the community have "become numb" to the weekly newspaper. But he's frustrated by the idea that outsiders might have of Marengo County, which was about 51 percent black and 46 percent white, according to 2018 U.S. Census numbers.

Monday evening Democratic Senator Doug Jones and Rep. Sewell both called for Sutton to step down. "For the millions of people of color who have been terrorized by white supremacy, this kind of 'editorializing' about lynching is not a joke-- it is a threat," wrote Sewell. "These comments are deeply offensive and inappropriate, especially in 2019. Mr. Sutton should apologize and resign." Jones has been tweeting:

Republican Richard Shelby, a former Democrat and Alabama’s senior Senator, urged Sutton to apologize and resign in a Tuesday-morning statement to Yahoo News. "The rhetoric displayed by the Democrat-Reporter is disturbing, disgusting and entirely unacceptable. I urge the newspaper to issue an apology and the publisher to resign from his duties. We cannot tolerate this sort of repulsive speech, particularly from our fourth estate."

Republican Senators Demand Torture And A Lynching For Abdulmutallab

How many Southern Republicans want to bring this back?

As I was leaving for a peaceful December vacation in Rome and Albania all my plans were thrown askew by the announcement of a strike that would strand me in Europe for January. British Air's incredibly bad management team was as inept dealing with customers as they were in dealing with employees. I wound up buying a refundable ticket home on KLM as insurance. And just when a British judge declared the strike illegal and I was able to cancel the KLM flight, a Nigerian screwball shoves some explosive devise up his ass and tries to blow up a plane over Detroit! I don't want to sound like a crybaby so I'll spare you the details of the countless hours of pointless, ineffectual security checks at Heathrow as I made my way home.

Now, if you've read Charles Pierce's delightful and definitive commentary on contemporary American history, Idiot America, it should come as no surprise to you that members of the Hate-America-First brigade, lead by a cadre of partisan clowns and Confederates like Jim DeMint (R-SC), David Diapers Vitter (R-LA), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Jeff Sessions (KKK-AL) and Richard Burr (R-NC), is insisting on forgoing a trial and just implementing a kangaroo court and summary execution. Seems reasonable-- to Idiot America. But for real Americans, who are confident in our system of Justice, a trial seems both a positive development and absolutely de rigueur. If you follow this blog much, you probably know that I'm a lifelong advocate of the death penalty and often argue with opponents of it. If Abdulmutallab is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt-- and it sure looks that way to me so far (although he refused to enter a plea)-- I would be delighted to see his life extinguished. Society has no place for mass murderers and it shouldn't only be people like Bush and Cheney on the list. Abdulmutallab and his Yemeni confederates should all pay the ultimate price for their deadly sociopathic behavior.

Meanwhile, nearly two dozen GOP senators, in the hope of causing President Obama political problems-- their only motivation in anything and everything they do (aside from serving the interests of their corporate and moneyed masters)-- have sent a whiny letter to the media objecting to a trial. They're worried that if we have to try him we won't be able to torture him first.

By prosecuting Abdulmutallab and the 9/11 conspirators in criminal court, and [Abd al-Rahim al-] Nashiri and others by military commission, it creates the impression that terrorists are rewarded with the full panoply of rights and privileges of an American if they attack defenseless civilians at home, but not if they attack our government or military interests abroad... This will only further incentivize terrorists to attack our Homeland.

And I'm sure they'd insist an American-made rope is too good for the lynching they envision as well.