Unemployment Insurance -- During the Great depression workers were fired at closing time with no idea where their next dime was coming from. Liberals pushed and passed unemployment insurance. The Republimafia fought this law bitterly.
Employees can walk out in the middle of the work day. Where's protection for the employer?
Social Security -- Passed over the virulent objections of conservatives to provide people a little security in old age. The Republimafia want to privatize it so their greedy brothers on Wall Street can invest it in stocks. Social Security has $1.3 trillion invested in government bonds. If it had been invested in the market's Standard and Poor's 500 index fund, it would now be worth $776 billion, a 41% loss.
S.S.: A big pyramid scheme Carlos Ponzi himself would be proud of. Not to mention a piss poor return. People should be able to invest their retirements any way they wish. Once again it's the Governmenment deciding what's good for us, and then forcing us to do it.
btw: You're #'s don't add up. It doesn't look like you're taking any gains into consideration, just the losses.
Medicare/Medicaid -- Passed by liberals over conservatives who called it "socialized medicine," the rallying cry of drug companies, insurance cartels, HMO CEO's, and the Republimafia. Why can't sick old folks take care of themselves?!
It is socialized medicine and it sucks compared to most insurance. Why can't people take care of themselves? People have done it for thousands of years.
Food and Meat Inspection -- Passed by liberals to protect all of us who can't afford food tasters.
Yeah, everyone knows each and every Conservative has their very own food taster. Everyone knows they don't care about salmonella. I mean, it's only poor people that eat meat, poultry & fish.
Civil Rights -- If left to conservatives, we'd still have plantations, shoe shine "boys", and separate toilets. The last election brought the retirement of two Southern bigots...Thurmond, the old KKK exec., and Helms, the Southern "gentleman" who sang Dixie to a female black Senator in an elavator.
Yes, all Conservatives are Confederate flag waving rednecks.
Minimum Wage Laws -- Look up Tom Delay's ties to businesses in American Samoa. Liberals support increasing the minimum wage when appropriate. The Republimafia always objects. Cuts into profits, you know. Should a person who works 40 hours a week be forced to still live in poverty? Liberals don't think so.
The market should decide wages. A company shouldn't be forced to pay an uneducated and low skilled person $82,000 a year to be a clerk. Then have the Liberals wonder why American companies are leaving.
Separation of Church and State -- The Republimafia are always pushing for a theocracy, controlled by the Bible Belt philosophy that all except born-again Christians are going to Hell. Liberals think religion belongs in the church and home, not in the houses of Congress.
Nowhere in the Constitution is Separation of Church and State even mentioned. It's Liberal notion, used to further their own "religion" of "tolerance, diversity, & happy thoughts". They always forget the "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" part of the 1st Amendment.
That's playing with numbers. Southern Democrats in and out of elected office bolted in the years and decades after the party became home to African Americans and other minorities.
I'm, talking about when the vote was actually taken.
Who bolted ? Do you have a list of those who did or are we talking one or two ?
And many of the Democrats who were against the Civil Rights Act ended up Republican and living in the suburbs.
Really, like who ? Or did you just throw the suburbs in there too for extra effect ?
Forget it I hoped you of all people would be above rhetoric and generalizations and could debate it honestly on it's core. Nevermind.
Note: the Report is six years old. So the shift in the south has probably continued unabated.
Changes in Regional and National Politics
Party identification in the South has shifted from almost 80 percent Democrat and only 20 percent Republican in 1952 to 50 percent Democrat and 35 percent Republican in 1992. While more Southerners still identify themselves as Democrats than as Republicans, the gap has narrowed significantly. Moreover, despite these party alignments, at most levels of government Republicans now receive more votes and hold more seats in the South than do Democrats. Since the 1964 elections, a higher percentage of voters in the South than in the North has voted for the Republican candidate in presidential elections. This has been a consistent trend, with the exception of the 1976 and 1980 elections when Jimmy Carter, a Southern governor, ran on the Democratic ticket.
Congressional elections have exhibited a similar shift. At the end of World War II, Republicans occupied only 5 percent of House seats from the South. By 1994, this was up to 55 percent. The proportion of House Republicans from the South has also increased over the years and the proportion of House Democrats from the South has correspondingly declined.
They always forget the "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" part of the 1st Amendment.
damn straight! probably because they don't want a student to say a prayer in school either. i pity the fool who ever tells a kid of mine that they can't pray in school. unless of course its at an inappropriate time. and to be quite honest, i really expect just that to happen some day.
That's playing with numbers. Southern Democrats in and out of elected office bolted in the years and decades after the party became home to African Americans and other minorities.
So race is the only issue? No other platform or ideal is to blame?
And many of the Democrats who were against the Civil Rights Act ended up Republican and living in the suburbs.
People left the cities in droves all over the country, not just in the south. With the exception of a few cities, populations were dwindling all over the place.
My son, when he was a pre-schooler, was told he couldn't draw a cross on his art project.
I not so nicely told the teacher that my son drawing a cross would not be an issue ever again. She of course agreed when she heard my tone and saw the look on my face.
My son, when he was a pre-schooler, was told he couldn't draw a cross on his art project.
I sure am glad that I live in a small community where the teachers are more worried that my son learns the three R's rather than what he is drawing in art class.
If it had been invested in the market's Standard and Poor's 500 index fund, it would now be worth $776 billion, a 41% loss.
In the short term history, this may be so. When considering retirement funds though, long term is what you need to look at. A $1,000 investment in small cap equites (in 1925) would have been worth over $3.4 million by 1995 where as the Treasury bill investment was worth only $12,500. In part, this is a result of compound interest (source Duke University). Not to mention that the Republican plan was to use only a portion of your social security payments in this way.
What is the Democrat plan? A "lockbox" buried in Al Gore's back yard? This is what you consider a much wiser decision?
My 401k has outpaced social security for years now. I will receive more from this fund than social security when I retire and I will have paid into social security for many more years. This doesn't even take into account that if I die on my 65th birthday that I can leave a large sum of money from my 401k to my family. What will social security do for my family then?
THX refering to social security as a "big pyramid scheme" is being too nice. The excess money is stolen, squandered and replaced with a big I.O.U. in the form of nonnegotiable government securities (they cannot be sold on Wall Street or to a foreign investor).
When the time comes to pay up, how much will taxes have to rise to do this and on who will they be risen? Under the trustees' pessimistic assumptions, by 2045 the government will need 21.7 percent of workers' wages to pay projected Social Security benefits and more than twice that figure for elderly health care. The total tax rate needed will be more than 48 percent of workers' incomes (source NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS). This is only the social security taxes and does not include normal income taxes and such.
What effect will this have on the economy in those days? Something to think about, isn't it?
Wave goodbye to that fantasy of a more inclusive Republican Party.
George W. Bush and John McCain have planted themselves on the wrong side of the Confederate flag issue. And last week, there was Mr. Bush in Greenville, S.C., happily touting "our ideas, Republican ideas, conservative ideas" at Bob Jones University, which maintains its perverse rules against the mingling of races and its disgusting hostility to the Catholic religion.
Love is fine at B.J.U. as long as it doesn't cross the color line. Mr. Bush's brother and sister-in-law -- Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida, and his Mexican-born wife, Columba - - would have been condemned and expelled from Bob Jones for having dared to fall in love and marry.
Nice place.
The former head of the university, Bob Jones Jr., engaged in an astonishing series of attacks on Catholics in the 1980's, asserting that "all the popes are demon-possessed" and that Pope John Paul II was "the greatest danger we face today."
"The papacy," he said, "is the religion of Antichrist and is a satanic system."
On Tuesday I asked a spokesman for the university, Jonathan Pait, if the school had ever repudiated Mr. Jones's statements, or backed off of them in any way.
"I don't believe so," he said.
According to Mr. Pait, "There is a disagreement about what the Bible teaches between Catholicism and Protestantism. And the university takes a very strong stand that Protestantism is the correct interpretation of Scripture."
I asked about interracial dating.
"There is to be no interracial dating," he said. "That is the policy."
When I asked why the policy had been established, he replied, "Because there is a held belief from way back in the institution that that was biblically wrong."
Bob Jones has black students, but Mr. Pait said he didn't know how many. He said the ban on interracial dating did not imply that the school loved any of its students less. "It doesn't matter to us what The Washington Post or The New York Times thinks," he said. "It's when I can look my black or Oriental or Indian or whatever color brother or sister in Christ in the eyes and say, 'I love you.' That's what matters."
Mr. Bush's campaign appearance at Bob Jones reminded me of Ronald Reagan's first major appearance in the 1980 general election. Mr. Reagan chose to kick off his presidential bid in Philadelphia, Miss., which just happened to have been the place where three civil rights workers -- Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney -- were murdered in 1964.
During that appearance Mr. Reagan told his audience, "I believe in states' rights."
Enough said.
Mr. Bush's entanglement in the Confederate flag issue is not limited to the controversy over the flag that flies over the Statehouse in Columbia, S.C. Mr. Bush has his own controversy back home. Complaints have erupted over displays of the rebel flag in public buildings in Texas, including some public schools.
Defenders of the Confederate battle flag like to characterize it as a cherished symbol of a benevolent and oh-so-civilized Southern past, rather than a banner representing the twin abominations of slavery and race hatred. They might want to take a look at the Texas Ordinance of Secession, dated Feb. 2, 1861.
The ordinance declares that Texas was received into the Confederated States "as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery -- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits -- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time."
The ordinance said Texas' "institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy."
Benign?
Civilized?
For many years the Republican Party has been a haven for reactionary, right-wing and racist elements in the society. Many of its candidates have pandered to those elements.
There is not much in the way of change that can be perceived on the horizon.
The scandal surrounding Trent Lott is not about a poor choice of words at a birthday party for Strom Thurmond. It's about the political choices Republicans made in the 1960's to "go hunting where the ducks are" — code language for winning over white segregationists who abandoned the Democratic Party in the South. It's about continuing to benefit from racial prejudice through subtle and not-so- subtle sound bites that play to the Republican Party's far-right base. It's about the choice today to deny that the party is as much the party of Thurmond as it is the party of Lincoln.
Trent Lott admits that his comment about the nation's being better served if Mr. Thurmond, who ran on a segregationist platform, had been elected president in 1948 was terrible. That sentiment was terrible when he expressed it in nearly identical fashion in 1980. Tom DeLay, the incoming House majority leader, says reopening old racial wounds is "unhelpful and unwelcome." But whose wounds are we talking about?
It was the Republicans opening old wounds in 1980 when the Reagan campaign made an unmistakable effort to identify with the people, language and symbols of the South's segregationist past. The most infamous of these efforts was Ronald Reagan's advocacy of "states' rights" — the Dixiecrat code word for segregation — at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Miss., where 16 years earlier the murder of three civil rights workers made international headlines.
Later in the campaign Mr. Reagan returned to Mississippi, where reporters asked him about his remarks in Neshoba County. He acknowledged that the term "creates some unpleasant images in some people's minds." But of course the point was to fire up the far- right base of the party by choosing the right words.
Sound bites pitched toward the racist right have been the dirty little secret of the Republican Party for four decades. How have they gotten away with it? Partly by obscuring the evidence. The Bush administration, for example, has essentially closed access to President Reagan's presidential papers for historical researchers, making it that much harder to examine how race remained a secret part of the American conservative discourse.
President Bush said that Mr. Lott's comments "do not reflect the spirit of our country." His administration is planning a campaign strategy for 2004 that reaches out to minority voters. Mr. Bush invoked the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. before his convention acceptance speech. And even as the two Republican leaders with the clearest ties to the segregationist South — Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms — retire from the Senate, two of the most high-profile members of the administration are African American. But the history of racial appeals won't go away, even if the Republicans replace Mr. Lott.
Historians can debate just how central Senator Lott's kind of doublespeak has been to Republican success in the South. They can also debate how central the South has been in the Republican Party's success nationally. But the fact that racial appeals have played a role in the success of the modern Republican Party is not under debate. It is irrefutable. As of today, it remains unacknowledged by the party as a whole.
--Prof. Crespino teaches history at George Mason University
Those Republicans who want Lott out of the leadership in the Senate because he is "ineffectual" would likely be disappointed with anyone who takes his place.
When it comes down to it, the Senate Majority Leader has a terrible job, which may make it unattractive to anyone who may actually be a "leader." He or she is essentially a deal-cutter. So everything that has the Majority Leader fingerprints on it reeks of compromise.
They're the ones who have to close the door on the ideologue rabble and actually get something accomplished. Lott is good at that. Bob Dole was good at it. Daschle is, too. Though Dole and Daschle were skilled at obstruction as well.
And they are despised for the very reasons that make them suitable for the job.
I still think that Lott has to go. I think Nickels from Oklahoma would be a good replacement. He is level headed and has held the number 2 job for awhile. Although he did have to give up the post this year. The more I think about it, Lott really has to go.
Last night, I was very pleased to see that the President has finally come out FOR vaccinations for the Public, within a year.
My wife heard on the news that if you have had a steroid shot, you can not get the vaccination. I have not had time to research this to see if it is true or not. Has anybody else heard this? If so, then I can not take the shot.
"damn straight! probably because they don't want a student to say a prayer in school either. i pity the fool who ever tells a kid of mine that they can't pray in school."
Jesse Jackson said there will be prayer in schools as long as kids have to learn algebra.
SEN. TRENT LOTT: REPEAT OFFENDER Too Many Strikes; He Needs to be Out
By Chris Kromm
Just a week ago, soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was undoubtedly counting the days until January -- the moment when he would seize the reigns of Congress' higher chamber and commence the GOP revolution heralded last November.
What a difference a week makes. At first, Lott stayed silent after he was caught waxing nostalgic for the Jim Crow days at a weekend party for retiring fellow Republican Strom Thurmond. But after African-American leaders forced the issue -- and TV networks belatedly awoke to the story -- Lott's office has been transformed into a veritable popcorn machine of apologies, denials and retractions. Lott's days are now spent groveling before media cameras, as the once-brash Mississippi Senator trips over himself to bemoan his "slip" and express "regret."
The problem is, this isn't the first time. Lott's claim that he's guilty of nothing more than a temporary "poor choice of words" would be more convincing if his political career wasn't riddled with bigotry and intolerance. Far from being a one-time gaffe, Lott's noxious statements are in line with a lifetime of associations with racist people and causes.
Most notable has been Senator Lott's close ties to the Conservative Citizen' s Council, an openly racist and anti-Semitic group which grew out of the terrorist White Citizen's Councils, and which today, among other unpalatable positions, calls interracial marriage "white genocide."
In 1992, Lott was keynote speaker at the Council's national board meeting, ending his speech by enthusing that "the people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy." Throughout the 1990s, Lott maintained his intimate relations with the CCC, hosting a private meeting with Council leaders in 1997, writing a column for the CCC magazine Citizen's Informer for eight years, and attending at least two CCC banquets in his honor.
In a comical and disturbing move, when confronted with evidence of these close associations, Lott claimed he had "no firsthand knowledge" of the CCC. CCC officials curtly responded that Lott was a "friend" and a "paid-up member."
It doesn't stop there. There's also Lott's 1984 address to the Convention of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Biloxi, Mississippi, in which he claimed "the spirit of Jefferson Davis lives in the 1984 Republican Platform." The statement was covered in the winter 1984 issue of the right-wing Southern Partisan magazine, in which Lott also explained that he opposes civil rights legislation, and said that the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday is "basically wrong."
The Jefferson Davis reference was telling. Lott has something of an obsession with the former President of the breakaway Confederate States of America. In the late 1970s, Lott spearheaded a successful campaign to have Davis' citizenship retroactively restored. More recently, Lott fought to gain custody of the desk Davis used during his Confederate reign, so that it could furnish Lott's Senate offices in Washington.
As Lott's "racism-gate" gains steam, more questionable antics will certainly surface. The onset of the Reagan era, for example, seems to have excited Lott's bigoted passions. We know, for example, that at a 1980 Republican campaign rally for Reagan, Lott -- in a statement eerily similar to his "lighthearted" musings last week --announced that if the country had elected the segregationist Strom Thurmond "30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today." The rally and Lott's statement were covered by the Jackson Clarion-Ledger on Nov. 3, 1980, and again by the Washington Post this week.
Yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle also highlighted Lott's well-known fight in 1981 to restore the non-profit tax status of South Carolina's Bob Jones University, which the IRS had revoked due to the school's prohibition of inter-racial dating. At the time, Lott issued a "friend of the court" brief arguing that "racial discrimination does not always violate public policy."
It will keep coming -- how he voted to de-fund the Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday commission in 1994 and opposed the King holiday in 1983; how he voted against extending the Voting Rights Act, designed to ensure ballot access for African-Americans, in both 1982 and 1990; on and on.
The pattern is clear: Republican Senator Trent Lott has done more than flirt with racism-it's a long-term relationship. And such a love affair with bigotry is intolerable for one of the most powerful political figures in America.
If President George W. Bush and leaders of Congress and the Republican Party fail to call for the removal of the unreconstructed racist known as Trent Lott, their silence and acquiescence will speak volumes.
--Chris Kromm is Executive Director of the Institute for Southern Studies, which publishes Southern Exposure magazine
I'm not in denial. I don't even like Lott, but he's done nothing wrong. He was praising an old man. Even if he meant what people are insinuating, it's no worse than what Jesse Jackson or Robert Byrd have said.
Besides, Lott has all the right in the world to say whatever he wants. It's unpopular speech that is supposed to be protected by our constitution. Last I knew, he has all the right in the world to be a racist. He's done nothing illegal, has he?
Anyway, let the people of Mississippi decide next election if he's worthy of serving office. Until then, the Liberals need to shut their pie holes.
Republicans have all the right in the world to not select him for majority leader. Democrats don't have a say, that's all I'm saying. It's up to the Republicans to deal with.
I say they do as you said. They should choose a moderate.
Cardinal Bernard Law had the moral presence to step down.
Henry Kissinger quit his 9/11 investigative appointment, citing conflict of interest.
But about-to-be Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott refuses to resign.
Despite possessing a lifetime record of behaving like someone who's got a neatly pressed white hood and robe in his closet, ready to be donned the instant the Confederacy rises again.
The only thing worse than Lott maintaining he was just stupid instead of dead wrong in indefensibly saying what he did in Methuselah Thurmond's mossbound presence...is how rightwing radio is shamefully twisting the matter
What about Fritz Hollings, or Robert Byrd?
Like it's got anything to do with them!
Whatever racist associations Hollings and Byrd had in their Old South days, those days are past. Both men have learned and grown, with changing times. But Lott is still enthusiastically riding Jefferson Davis's horse.
His every claim of accidental thoughtlessness -- coming in tandem with more and more revelations about his consistent prejudice over the years -- simply makes him look more shameful and sad.
And entirely unacceptable as helmsman (no pun intended) of the United States Senate.
If that's the way the GOP wants to be seen as minorities become a larger part of the American population and, correspondingly, more involved as voters, go right ahead.
I have no problem with damned-fool conservatives lynching themselves with the tangled rope of their perpetual prejudice.
"Whatever racist associations Hollings and Byrd had in their Old South days, those days are past. Both men have learned and grown, with changing times.
They did a report on CNN about it the other day and frankly, he is one of the BIGGEST "Porkers" the Senate has seen in the last 50 years, Bar None.
Actually, Mississippi is ranked sixth per capita for pork in just the senate, according to Citizens Against Government Waste. Of the other five, one is controlled by Republican Senators.
By the way, Mississippi is getting $103.93/person (down to sixth from a ranking of third) and South Dakota (Dashle's state) is getting $165.91/person (moving up to fourth from a ranking of ninth).
What is he spending this money on? Some of it went towards a project where tens of thousands of Mississippians will be employed by Nissan and its supplier network. For example, a $500,000 study for the Madison County School District to help them make preparations for the inevitable influx of new students that the Nissan plant will bring.
He also funded such "pork" as flood control projects, water and wastewater improvements in rural areas (remember you guys railing about arsenic in the waters?), dramatic improvements to Mississippi's transportation system, upgrading airports throughout the state and constructing newer and safer roads and bridges.
What has Daschle spent his "pork" on? Such things as ammendment to a defense appropriation bill for 2002 to protect South Dakota's Homestake Mining, which is shutting down, from any liability for environmental damage caused by its 125 years of operations, he wants to build a 2-mile long 50-foot high dam that will affect some 70 farms, put approximately 9 to 11 farms out of business, destroy Native American historical sites, destroy endangered species habitat and takes approximately 6000 to 8000 acres of farmland out of production when a much smaller, less expensive and more beneficial one has been proposed, a subsidy for bison meat, a tax break to turn chicken waste into an energy source, and this doesn't include all the airline pork dished out due to his wife lobbying for the airlines.
I have no problem with damned-fool conservatives lynching themselves with the tangled rope of their perpetual prejudice.
Tell me again what it was that Lott said that was racist or prejudice? Even if he had, isn't thought protected by the Constitution?
Sure, in the Liberal mind it's ok to be a white male hater, be anti-Christian, anti business... but don't say a stupid, off the cuff remark at some party being thrown for a man that's older than dirt.
Oh, the deflection!
It's not a deflection, it is hypocritical. Look at the way Dennis defends worse racism than anything Lott has said or done.
I don't even like Lott and wish he'd leave, but for reasons other than a stupid remark about Strom.
(CBS) Former Vice President Al Gore, who came agonizingly close to winning the presidency two years ago, said Sunday he will not run for the White House in 2004.
In a taped interview, Gore announced exclusively on CBS' "60 Minutes" that he will not run for president.
"I've decided that I will not be a candidate for president in 2004," Gore told Lesley Stahl. "I personally have the energy and drive and ambition to make another campaign, but I don't think that it's the right thing for me to do.
"I want to contribute to ending the current administration. I think the current policies have to be changed. I think that my best way of contributing to that result may not be as a candidate this time around."
Translation: I don't want to get my butt kicked, so I will twist the truth and tell lies until this administration is out of the way.
PHILADELPHIA -- Most of Mayor John Street's top campaign contributors have done business with the city since he took office, a practice that the mayor defends.
"If I'm picking a law firm, a choice among equally qualified firms, and one of them is a friend and one of them isn't, who's getting that business?" Street told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The newspaper reported Sunday that 47 of Street's 50 most generous donors have won city contracts, subsidies or appointments or stood to gain from regulatory decisions.
During his campaign, Street said contributors stood "a greater chance of getting business from my administration. ... I think that's the way it works."
Street, a Democrat,faces re-election next year. An expected opponent is Republican businessman Sam Katz, who narrowly lost to Street three years ago. Â Â
He was an ancient among the boys of the Greatest Generation. Thirty-nine years old, a sitting judge at the time of Pearl Harbor, he resigned from the bench and volunteered for the 82nd Airborne, the bravest of the brave.
On D-Day, he crash-landed in a glider in France, hours before the Higgins boats hit the beach, and helped liberate Ste. Mere-Eglise. Days later, he was photographed driving a military vehicle that had lately been the property of the Third Reich. Decorated for wounds and valor, he was with the Army unit that liberated Buchenwald.
Well thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you my good friend and my predecessor, my hero, Bob Dole, for that introduction, that very brief introduction I might add [Laughter] But for Senator Strom Thurmond's family and friends and admirers all, it's a great pleasure for me to be here with you today, and I know that you're enjoying every minute of this. And I knew that the previous remarks would be just as they were. I mean, after all, Bob Dole received the Republican nomination and dang near was elected President of the United States telling Strom Thurmond jokes. [Laughter] If he'd just gotten himself some new material there toward the end he would have done it. [Laughter] I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for President we voted for him. [Laughter] We're proud of it. [More laughter] And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.
No problem Bill, I was having a little fun with ya' :)
I don't take the term "jarhead" in a derrogatory manner. Competition and ribbing between the branches goes back 100 years. Crackerjack boy ;)
A little Cliff Claven trivia for ya' It's a little known fact Nowmy'
The term Jarhead is because of our covers (hats) having the unique shape to them that someone once thought that they looked like a lid from a jar and the term stuck. The term leatherneck refers to a piece of the uniform back in I believe the mid 1800's it was a leather collar essentially that was worn to protect their neck and mostly their aorta (sp) from getting bayoneted or stabbedd. It worked pretty well from what I hear to but the name leahterneck stuck from then on. And now you know........the rest,,of the story.....................................gooodday.
That some sad individuals are defending Trent Lott's shameful, oblique endorsement of the American apartheid that existed before the Civil Rights Era...is difficult to fathom.
In what Mississippi swamp do their hearts and minds reside?
Think of how the surviving family and friends of Emmitt Till must feel.
And those of Viola Liuzzu. Medger Evers. Schwerner, Goodman, and Cheney. The four little girls blown away in an Alabama church basement. Or the grim multitude that got on the wrong end of the lynchers' ropes, over cruel decades of benighted bigotry.
Progressive white Southerner Tom Teepen puts it all into perpective:
"The apology Trent Lott issued for being caught once again indulging his moonbeams-and-magnolias nostalgia for segregation's might-have-beens is more like an alibi.
"The once and future U.S. Senate majority leader said, 'A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discredited policies on the past.'
"You bet, but the problem was not with his words. It was with his thought, and that was plain enough.
"At the affair marking the 100th birthday of old racist demagogue Sen. Strom Thurmond, R.-S.C., who ran a segregationist campaign for the presidency on the rump Dixiecrat Party in 1948, Mississippian Lott waxed, 'I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of that. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we would not have had these problems over all these years.'
"In other words, those uppity black folks would have been kept in their place.
"That was no woolly minded stray into wayward usage. There is every reason to believe, instead, that in an exuberant moment, Lott spoke from his gut. After all, he is not new to this sort of thing..."
But warped denizens of the Far Right don't see it that way.
No racism intended or evident, by their moral myopia. Where do they see it instead? In the words and actions of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton!
And when Ted Kennedy properly criticized Lott's outrage in no uncertain terms, how did they react? "Chappaquiddick! Chappaquiddick! Chappaquiddick!"
Actually, Lott should be thanked. He's flushed all the sick bastards out of bushes for us to plainly identify. And recoil from in utter revulsion.
Unemployment Insurance -- During the Great depression workers were fired at closing time with no idea where their next dime was coming from. Liberals pushed and passed unemployment insurance. The Republimafia fought this law bitterly.
Employees can walk out in the middle of the work day. Where's protection for the employer?
Social Security -- Passed over the virulent objections of conservatives to provide people a little security in old age. The Republimafia want to privatize it so their greedy brothers on Wall Street can invest it in stocks. Social Security has $1.3 trillion invested in government bonds. If it had been invested in the market's Standard and Poor's 500 index fund, it would now be worth $776 billion, a 41% loss.
S.S.: A big pyramid scheme Carlos Ponzi himself would be proud of. Not to mention a piss poor return. People should be able to invest their retirements any way they wish. Once again it's the Governmenment deciding what's good for us, and then forcing us to do it.
btw: You're #'s don't add up. It doesn't look like you're taking any gains into consideration, just the losses.
Medicare/Medicaid -- Passed by liberals over conservatives who called it "socialized medicine," the rallying cry of drug companies, insurance cartels, HMO CEO's, and the Republimafia. Why can't sick old folks take care of themselves?!
It is socialized medicine and it sucks compared to most insurance. Why can't people take care of themselves? People have done it for thousands of years.
Food and Meat Inspection -- Passed by liberals to protect all of us who can't afford food tasters.
Yeah, everyone knows each and every Conservative has their very own food taster. Everyone knows they don't care about salmonella. I mean, it's only poor people that eat meat, poultry & fish.
Civil Rights -- If left to conservatives, we'd still have plantations, shoe shine "boys", and separate toilets. The last election brought the retirement of two Southern bigots...Thurmond, the old KKK exec., and Helms, the Southern "gentleman" who sang Dixie to a female black Senator in an elavator.
Yes, all Conservatives are Confederate flag waving rednecks.
Minimum Wage Laws -- Look up Tom Delay's ties to businesses in American Samoa. Liberals support increasing the minimum wage when appropriate. The Republimafia always objects. Cuts into profits, you know. Should a person who works 40 hours a week be forced to still live in poverty? Liberals don't think so.
The market should decide wages. A company shouldn't be forced to pay an uneducated and low skilled person $82,000 a year to be a clerk. Then have the Liberals wonder why American companies are leaving.
Separation of Church and State -- The Republimafia are always pushing for a theocracy, controlled by the Bible Belt philosophy that all except born-again Christians are going to Hell. Liberals think religion belongs in the church and home, not in the houses of Congress.
Nowhere in the Constitution is Separation of Church and State even mentioned. It's Liberal notion, used to further their own "religion" of "tolerance, diversity, & happy thoughts". They always forget the "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" part of the 1st Amendment.
::slams head on desk::
I'm, talking about when the vote was actually taken.
Who bolted ? Do you have a list of those who did or are we talking one or two ?
Really, like who ? Or did you just throw the suburbs in there too for extra effect ?
Forget it I hoped you of all people would be above rhetoric and generalizations and could debate it honestly on it's core. Nevermind.
I researched it a while back and if I recall correctly 17 Congressmen have ever switched parties.
Most were long before the Civil Rights era. And it was from both sides of the aisle to the other.
It's enough to not be surprising but not often enough to say people left in droves.
Recall: I mentioned in and out of the elected office. And there were other shifts on the state level.
Here's a summery of the voter shift from the American Enterprise Institute
Note: the Report is six years old. So the shift in the south has probably continued unabated.
Changes in Regional and National Politics
Party identification in the South has shifted from almost 80 percent Democrat and only 20 percent Republican in 1952 to 50 percent Democrat and 35 percent Republican in 1992. While more Southerners still identify themselves as Democrats than as Republicans, the gap has narrowed significantly. Moreover, despite these party alignments, at most levels of government Republicans now receive more votes and hold more seats in the South than do Democrats. Since the 1964 elections, a higher percentage of voters in the South than in the North has voted for the Republican candidate in presidential elections. This has been a consistent trend, with the exception of the 1976 and 1980 elections when Jimmy Carter, a Southern governor, ran on the Democratic ticket.
Congressional elections have exhibited a similar shift. At the end of World War II, Republicans occupied only 5 percent of House seats from the South. By 1994, this was up to 55 percent. The proportion of House Republicans from the South has also increased over the years and the proportion of House Democrats from the South has correspondingly declined.
They always forget the "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" part of the 1st Amendment.
damn straight! probably because they don't want a student to say a prayer in school either. i pity the fool who ever tells a kid of mine that they can't pray in school. unless of course its at an inappropriate time. and to be quite honest, i really expect just that to happen some day.
That's playing with numbers. Southern Democrats in and out of elected office bolted in the years and decades after the party became home to African Americans and other minorities.
So race is the only issue? No other platform or ideal is to blame?
And many of the Democrats who were against the Civil Rights Act ended up Republican and living in the suburbs.
People left the cities in droves all over the country, not just in the south. With the exception of a few cities, populations were dwindling all over the place.
ares 12/12/02 7:28pm
They already try to.
My son, when he was a pre-schooler, was told he couldn't draw a cross on his art project.
I not so nicely told the teacher that my son drawing a cross would not be an issue ever again. She of course agreed when she heard my tone and saw the look on my face.
i know they do. i guess its something of a good thing that i don't have any kids, eh?
My son, when he was a pre-schooler, was told he couldn't draw a cross on his art project.
I sure am glad that I live in a small community where the teachers are more worried that my son learns the three R's rather than what he is drawing in art class.
If it had been invested in the market's Standard and Poor's 500 index fund, it would now be worth $776 billion, a 41% loss.
In the short term history, this may be so. When considering retirement funds though, long term is what you need to look at. A $1,000 investment in small cap equites (in 1925) would have been worth over $3.4 million by 1995 where as the Treasury bill investment was worth only $12,500. In part, this is a result of compound interest (source Duke University). Not to mention that the Republican plan was to use only a portion of your social security payments in this way.
What is the Democrat plan? A "lockbox" buried in Al Gore's back yard? This is what you consider a much wiser decision?
My 401k has outpaced social security for years now. I will receive more from this fund than social security when I retire and I will have paid into social security for many more years. This doesn't even take into account that if I die on my 65th birthday that I can leave a large sum of money from my 401k to my family. What will social security do for my family then?
THX refering to social security as a "big pyramid scheme" is being too nice. The excess money is stolen, squandered and replaced with a big I.O.U. in the form of nonnegotiable government securities (they cannot be sold on Wall Street or to a foreign investor).
When the time comes to pay up, how much will taxes have to rise to do this and on who will they be risen? Under the trustees' pessimistic assumptions, by 2045 the government will need 21.7 percent of workers' wages to pay projected Social Security benefits and more than twice that figure for elderly health care. The total tax rate needed will be more than 48 percent of workers' incomes (source NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS). This is only the social security taxes and does not include normal income taxes and such.
What effect will this have on the economy in those days? Something to think about, isn't it?
Wave goodbye to that fantasy of a more inclusive Republican Party.
George W. Bush and John McCain have planted themselves on the wrong side of the Confederate flag issue. And last week, there was Mr. Bush in Greenville, S.C., happily touting "our ideas, Republican ideas, conservative ideas" at Bob Jones University, which maintains its perverse rules against the mingling of races and its disgusting hostility to the Catholic religion.
Love is fine at B.J.U. as long as it doesn't cross the color line. Mr. Bush's brother and sister-in-law -- Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida, and his Mexican-born wife, Columba - - would have been condemned and expelled from Bob Jones for having dared to fall in love and marry.
Nice place.
The former head of the university, Bob Jones Jr., engaged in an astonishing series of attacks on Catholics in the 1980's, asserting that "all the popes are demon-possessed" and that Pope John Paul II was "the greatest danger we face today."
"The papacy," he said, "is the religion of Antichrist and is a satanic system."
On Tuesday I asked a spokesman for the university, Jonathan Pait, if the school had ever repudiated Mr. Jones's statements, or backed off of them in any way.
"I don't believe so," he said.
According to Mr. Pait, "There is a disagreement about what the Bible teaches between Catholicism and Protestantism. And the university takes a very strong stand that Protestantism is the correct interpretation of Scripture."
I asked about interracial dating.
"There is to be no interracial dating," he said. "That is the policy."
When I asked why the policy had been established, he replied, "Because there is a held belief from way back in the institution that that was biblically wrong."
Bob Jones has black students, but Mr. Pait said he didn't know how many. He said the ban on interracial dating did not imply that the school loved any of its students less. "It doesn't matter to us what The Washington Post or The New York Times thinks," he said. "It's when I can look my black or Oriental or Indian or whatever color brother or sister in Christ in the eyes and say, 'I love you.' That's what matters."
Mr. Bush's campaign appearance at Bob Jones reminded me of Ronald Reagan's first major appearance in the 1980 general election. Mr. Reagan chose to kick off his presidential bid in Philadelphia, Miss., which just happened to have been the place where three civil rights workers -- Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney -- were murdered in 1964.
During that appearance Mr. Reagan told his audience, "I believe in states' rights."
Enough said.
Mr. Bush's entanglement in the Confederate flag issue is not limited to the controversy over the flag that flies over the Statehouse in Columbia, S.C. Mr. Bush has his own controversy back home. Complaints have erupted over displays of the rebel flag in public buildings in Texas, including some public schools.
Defenders of the Confederate battle flag like to characterize it as a cherished symbol of a benevolent and oh-so-civilized Southern past, rather than a banner representing the twin abominations of slavery and race hatred. They might want to take a look at the Texas Ordinance of Secession, dated Feb. 2, 1861.
The ordinance declares that Texas was received into the Confederated States "as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery -- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits -- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time."
The ordinance said Texas' "institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy."
Benign?
Civilized?
For many years the Republican Party has been a haven for reactionary, right-wing and racist elements in the society. Many of its candidates have pandered to those elements.
There is not much in the way of change that can be perceived on the horizon.
--Bob Herbert, NY Times
THE WAY REPUBLICANS TALK ABOUT RACE
By JOSEPH CRESPINO
The scandal surrounding Trent Lott is not about a poor choice of words at a birthday party for Strom Thurmond. It's about the political choices Republicans made in the 1960's to "go hunting where the ducks are" — code language for winning over white segregationists who abandoned the Democratic Party in the South. It's about continuing to benefit from racial prejudice through subtle and not-so- subtle sound bites that play to the Republican Party's far-right base. It's about the choice today to deny that the party is as much the party of Thurmond as it is the party of Lincoln.
Trent Lott admits that his comment about the nation's being better served if Mr. Thurmond, who ran on a segregationist platform, had been elected president in 1948 was terrible. That sentiment was terrible when he expressed it in nearly identical fashion in 1980. Tom DeLay, the incoming House majority leader, says reopening old racial wounds is "unhelpful and unwelcome." But whose wounds are we talking about?
It was the Republicans opening old wounds in 1980 when the Reagan campaign made an unmistakable effort to identify with the people, language and symbols of the South's segregationist past. The most infamous of these efforts was Ronald Reagan's advocacy of "states' rights" — the Dixiecrat code word for segregation — at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Miss., where 16 years earlier the murder of three civil rights workers made international headlines.
Later in the campaign Mr. Reagan returned to Mississippi, where reporters asked him about his remarks in Neshoba County. He acknowledged that the term "creates some unpleasant images in some people's minds." But of course the point was to fire up the far- right base of the party by choosing the right words.
Sound bites pitched toward the racist right have been the dirty little secret of the Republican Party for four decades. How have they gotten away with it? Partly by obscuring the evidence. The Bush administration, for example, has essentially closed access to President Reagan's presidential papers for historical researchers, making it that much harder to examine how race remained a secret part of the American conservative discourse.
President Bush said that Mr. Lott's comments "do not reflect the spirit of our country." His administration is planning a campaign strategy for 2004 that reaches out to minority voters. Mr. Bush invoked the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. before his convention acceptance speech. And even as the two Republican leaders with the clearest ties to the segregationist South — Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms — retire from the Senate, two of the most high-profile members of the administration are African American. But the history of racial appeals won't go away, even if the Republicans replace Mr. Lott.
Historians can debate just how central Senator Lott's kind of doublespeak has been to Republican success in the South. They can also debate how central the South has been in the Republican Party's success nationally. But the fact that racial appeals have played a role in the success of the modern Republican Party is not under debate. It is irrefutable. As of today, it remains unacknowledged by the party as a whole.
--Prof. Crespino teaches history at George Mason University
Those Republicans who want Lott out of the leadership in the Senate because he is "ineffectual" would likely be disappointed with anyone who takes his place.
When it comes down to it, the Senate Majority Leader has a terrible job, which may make it unattractive to anyone who may actually be a "leader." He or she is essentially a deal-cutter. So everything that has the Majority Leader fingerprints on it reeks of compromise.
They're the ones who have to close the door on the ideologue rabble and actually get something accomplished. Lott is good at that. Bob Dole was good at it. Daschle is, too. Though Dole and Daschle were skilled at obstruction as well.
And they are despised for the very reasons that make them suitable for the job.
Rick,
I still think that Lott has to go. I think Nickels from Oklahoma would be a good replacement. He is level headed and has held the number 2 job for awhile. Although he did have to give up the post this year. The more I think about it, Lott really has to go.
My wife heard on the news that if you have had a steroid shot, you can not get the vaccination. I have not had time to research this to see if it is true or not. Has anybody else heard this? If so, then I can not take the shot.
"damn straight! probably because they don't want a student to say a prayer in school either. i pity the fool who ever tells a kid of mine that they can't pray in school."
Jesse Jackson said there will be prayer in schools as long as kids have to learn algebra.
Dan Zachary 12/12/02 9:14pm
Great post Dan!
SEN. TRENT LOTT: REPEAT OFFENDER
Too Many Strikes; He Needs to be Out
By Chris Kromm
Just a week ago, soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was
undoubtedly counting the days until January -- the moment when he would seize the reigns of Congress' higher chamber and commence the GOP revolution heralded last November.
What a difference a week makes. At first, Lott stayed silent after he was caught waxing nostalgic for the Jim Crow days at a weekend party for retiring fellow Republican Strom Thurmond. But after African-American leaders forced the issue -- and TV networks belatedly awoke to the story -- Lott's office has been transformed into a veritable popcorn machine of apologies, denials and retractions. Lott's days are now spent groveling before media cameras, as the once-brash Mississippi Senator trips over himself to bemoan his "slip" and express "regret."
The problem is, this isn't the first time. Lott's claim that he's guilty of nothing more than a temporary "poor choice of words" would be more convincing if his political career wasn't riddled with bigotry and intolerance. Far from being a one-time gaffe, Lott's noxious statements are in line with a lifetime of associations with racist people and causes.
Most notable has been Senator Lott's close ties to the Conservative Citizen' s Council, an openly racist and anti-Semitic group which grew out of the terrorist White Citizen's Councils, and which today, among other unpalatable positions, calls interracial marriage "white genocide."
In 1992, Lott was keynote speaker at the Council's national board meeting, ending his speech by enthusing that "the people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy." Throughout the 1990s, Lott maintained his intimate relations with the CCC, hosting a private meeting with Council leaders in 1997, writing a column for the CCC magazine Citizen's Informer for eight years, and attending at least two CCC banquets in his honor.
In a comical and disturbing move, when confronted with evidence of these close associations, Lott claimed he had "no firsthand knowledge" of the CCC. CCC officials curtly responded that Lott was a "friend" and a "paid-up member."
It doesn't stop there. There's also Lott's 1984 address to the Convention of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Biloxi, Mississippi, in which he claimed "the spirit of Jefferson Davis lives in the 1984 Republican Platform." The statement was covered in the winter 1984 issue of the right-wing Southern Partisan magazine, in which Lott also explained that he opposes civil rights legislation, and said that the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday is "basically wrong."
The Jefferson Davis reference was telling. Lott has something of an obsession with the former President of the breakaway Confederate States of America. In the late 1970s, Lott spearheaded a successful campaign to have Davis' citizenship retroactively restored. More recently, Lott fought to gain custody of the desk Davis used during his Confederate reign, so that it could furnish Lott's Senate offices in Washington.
As Lott's "racism-gate" gains steam, more questionable antics will certainly surface. The onset of the Reagan era, for example, seems to have excited Lott's bigoted passions. We know, for example, that at a 1980 Republican campaign rally for Reagan, Lott -- in a statement eerily similar to his "lighthearted" musings last week --announced that if the country had elected the segregationist Strom Thurmond "30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today." The rally and Lott's statement were covered by the Jackson Clarion-Ledger on Nov. 3, 1980, and again by the Washington Post this week.
Yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle also highlighted Lott's well-known fight in 1981 to restore the non-profit tax status of South Carolina's Bob Jones University, which the IRS had revoked due to the school's prohibition of inter-racial dating. At the time, Lott issued a "friend of the court" brief arguing that "racial discrimination does not always violate public policy."
It will keep coming -- how he voted to de-fund the Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday commission in 1994 and opposed the King holiday in 1983; how he voted against extending the Voting Rights Act, designed to ensure ballot access for African-Americans, in both 1982 and 1990; on and on.
The pattern is clear: Republican Senator Trent Lott has done more than flirt with racism-it's a long-term relationship. And such a love affair with bigotry is intolerable for one of the most powerful political figures in America.
If President George W. Bush and leaders of Congress and the Republican Party fail to call for the removal of the unreconstructed racist known as Trent Lott, their silence and acquiescence will speak volumes.
--Chris Kromm is Executive Director of the Institute for Southern Studies, which publishes Southern Exposure magazine
Yadda, yadda, yadda...
although it is a nice way to remain in denial.
I'm not in denial. I don't even like Lott, but he's done nothing wrong. He was praising an old man. Even if he meant what people are insinuating, it's no worse than what Jesse Jackson or Robert Byrd have said.
Besides, Lott has all the right in the world to say whatever he wants. It's unpopular speech that is supposed to be protected by our constitution. Last I knew, he has all the right in the world to be a racist. He's done nothing illegal, has he?
Anyway, let the people of Mississippi decide next election if he's worthy of serving office. Until then, the Liberals need to shut their pie holes.
Republicans have all the right in the world to not select him for majority leader. Democrats don't have a say, that's all I'm saying. It's up to the Republicans to deal with.
I say they do as you said. They should choose a moderate.
It's called Free Speech.
Yeah, and they voted Trent into office. They also voted Strom into office.
I don't mind seeing Lott stay as Majority Leader.
A man who is nostalgic for segregation can the the face of the Republican Party in the Senate, as far as I'm concerned.
It probably doesn't do much good for the country, but I doubt he can do much harm, if properly supervised.
Thurmond's voter base, has never been the Black voters...any more than Jesse Helms was.
No, but 25% of blacks voted for him.
I find it strange as hell that 25% of blacks would rather vote for a 100 year old racist, than vote for a Democrat.
Forty years of incumbency has its advantages.
It's hard to find good quality opponents willing to run against someone that entrenched.
Cardinal Bernard Law had the moral presence to step down.
Henry Kissinger quit his 9/11 investigative appointment, citing conflict of interest.
But about-to-be Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott refuses to resign.
Despite possessing a lifetime record of behaving like someone who's got a neatly pressed white hood and robe in his closet, ready to be donned the instant the Confederacy rises again.
The only thing worse than Lott maintaining he was just stupid instead of dead wrong in indefensibly saying what he did in Methuselah Thurmond's mossbound presence...is how rightwing radio is shamefully twisting the matter
What about Fritz Hollings, or Robert Byrd?
Like it's got anything to do with them!
Whatever racist associations Hollings and Byrd had in their Old South days, those days are past. Both men have learned and grown, with changing times. But Lott is still enthusiastically riding Jefferson Davis's horse.
His every claim of accidental thoughtlessness -- coming in tandem with more and more revelations about his consistent prejudice over the years -- simply makes him look more shameful and sad.
And entirely unacceptable as helmsman (no pun intended) of the United States Senate.
Whatever racist associations Hollings and Byrd had in their Old South days, those days are past. Both men have learned and grown, with changing times.
Oh the hypocrisy!
That is hard to vote against, especially when it means lots of jobs???
He's a Democrats wet dream.
Johnny Rebpublican.
If that's the way the GOP wants to be seen as minorities become a larger part of the American population and, correspondingly, more involved as voters, go right ahead.
I have no problem with damned-fool conservatives lynching themselves
with the tangled rope of their perpetual prejudice.
"Whatever racist associations Hollings and Byrd had in their Old South days, those days are past. Both men have learned and grown, with changing times.
"Oh the hypocrisy!"
Oh, the deflection!
They did a report on CNN about it the other day and frankly, he is one of the BIGGEST "Porkers" the Senate has seen in the last 50 years, Bar None.
Actually, Mississippi is ranked sixth per capita for pork in just the senate, according to Citizens Against Government Waste. Of the other five, one is controlled by Republican Senators.
By the way, Mississippi is getting $103.93/person (down to sixth from a ranking of third) and South Dakota (Dashle's state) is getting $165.91/person (moving up to fourth from a ranking of ninth).
What is he spending this money on? Some of it went towards a project where tens of thousands of Mississippians will be employed by Nissan and its supplier network. For example, a $500,000 study for the Madison County School District to help them make preparations for the inevitable influx of new students that the Nissan plant will bring.
He also funded such "pork" as flood control projects, water and wastewater improvements in rural areas (remember you guys railing about arsenic in the waters?), dramatic improvements to Mississippi's transportation system, upgrading airports throughout the state and constructing newer and safer roads and bridges.
What has Daschle spent his "pork" on? Such things as ammendment to a defense appropriation bill for 2002 to protect South Dakota's Homestake Mining, which is shutting down, from any liability for environmental damage caused by its 125 years of operations, he wants to build a 2-mile long 50-foot high dam that will affect some 70 farms, put approximately 9 to 11 farms out of business, destroy Native American historical sites, destroy endangered species habitat and takes approximately 6000 to 8000 acres of farmland out of production when a much smaller, less expensive and more beneficial one has been proposed, a subsidy for bison meat, a tax break to turn chicken waste into an energy source, and this doesn't include all the airline pork dished out due to his wife lobbying for the airlines.
I have no problem with damned-fool conservatives lynching themselves with the tangled rope of their perpetual prejudice.
Tell me again what it was that Lott said that was racist or prejudice? Even if he had, isn't thought protected by the Constitution?
Sure, in the Liberal mind it's ok to be a white male hater, be anti-Christian, anti business... but don't say a stupid, off the cuff remark at some party being thrown for a man that's older than dirt.
Oh, the deflection!
It's not a deflection, it is hypocritical. Look at the way Dennis defends worse racism than anything Lott has said or done.
I don't even like Lott and wish he'd leave, but for reasons other than a stupid remark about Strom.
Gore Says He Won't Run In 2004
Translation: I don't want to get my butt kicked, so I will twist the truth and tell lies until this administration is out of the way.
Philly Mayor in Contributors Flap
By Associated Press
December 15, 2002, 8:23 PM EST
Another respectable Democrat.
If you need to be told...
I want to know. What did he say that was racist?
It wasn't his thoughts that got him into trouble, either.
What do you think speech is? Vocalization of thought, perhaps?
more
Remember the loud clamor for Clinton's resignation
when his wiggly weiner tentatively crept past his zipper?
But Trent Lott embraces Jim Crow and gives him a big, wet,
sloppy kiss -- and what happens?
Nothing.
Nothing, by God.
Rebpublicans think screwing America's entire, soon-to-be-majority
minority populace isn't as bad as a one-on-one, consensual oral encounter!
Their priorities are more twisted than the eyesight of the quality
control guy at a licorice factory.
What exactly did Lott say that was racist?
That's quite a stretch.
I knew you couldn't provide any racist remarks.
There were none.
Well thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you my good friend and my predecessor, my hero, Bob Dole, for that introduction, that very brief introduction I might add [Laughter] But for Senator Strom Thurmond's family and friends and admirers all, it's a great pleasure for me to be here with you today, and I know that you're enjoying every minute of this. And I knew that the previous remarks would be just as they were. I mean, after all, Bob Dole received the Republican nomination and dang near was elected President of the United States telling Strom Thurmond jokes. [Laughter] If he'd just gotten himself some new material there toward the end he would have done it. [Laughter] I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for President we voted for him. [Laughter] We're proud of it. [More laughter] And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.
It was a roast for God's sake. He was joking around and said one stupid thing that some people are stretching to mean something else.
Such as:
He said that he SUPPORTED both the effort and the thinking BEHIND the 1948 Thurmond Presidential Bid.
Here's the full 1 hour:
http://video.c-span.org:8080/ramgen/kdrive/e120502_strom.rm
Nowhere did he say such a thing!
Now you see nothing wrong?
What exactly did he say that was racist?
Oh and, I haven't seen anyone accuse Lott of "making racist remarks"..
You did:
"News Flash... Republicans are crucifying this man for these ignorant and racist remarks.."
'Bill - Fold' 12/14/02 6:32am
You can't even keep your own comments straight. No wonder you're confused on Trent Lott's statements.
Catch ya later. I got work to do.
'Bill - Fold' 12/13/02 4:09am
Bill,
I'm not sure who this post was directed at, I think it was Rick, anyway I caught this at the end of the post.
Care to explain that ?
If I recall, that post was directed at me for my head slamming.
Jarhead? I thought it was flat-foreheaded?
I thought you had to work, THX?
I did, and I am. Why do you mention it?
I had a frickin meeting is all. It had nothing to do with you.
'Bill - Fold' 12/16/02 8:51am
No problem Bill, I was having a little fun with ya' :)
I don't take the term "jarhead" in a derrogatory manner. Competition and ribbing between the branches goes back 100 years. Crackerjack boy ;)
A little Cliff Claven trivia for ya' It's a little known fact Nowmy'
The term Jarhead is because of our covers (hats) having the unique shape to them that someone once thought that they looked like a lid from a jar and the term stuck. The term leatherneck refers to a piece of the uniform back in I believe the mid 1800's it was a leather collar essentially that was worn to protect their neck and mostly their aorta (sp) from getting bayoneted or stabbedd. It worked pretty well from what I hear to but the name leahterneck stuck from then on.
And now you know........the rest,,of the story.....................................gooodday.
This is 2002, not 1952.
That some sad individuals are defending Trent Lott's shameful, oblique endorsement of the American apartheid that existed before the Civil Rights Era...is difficult to fathom.
In what Mississippi swamp do their hearts and minds reside?
Think of how the surviving family and friends of Emmitt Till must feel.
And those of Viola Liuzzu. Medger Evers. Schwerner, Goodman, and Cheney. The four little girls blown away in an Alabama church basement. Or the grim multitude that got on the wrong end of the lynchers' ropes, over cruel decades of benighted bigotry.
Progressive white Southerner Tom Teepen puts it all into perpective:
"The apology Trent Lott issued for being caught once again indulging his moonbeams-and-magnolias nostalgia for segregation's might-have-beens is more like an alibi.
"The once and future U.S. Senate majority leader said, 'A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discredited policies on the past.'
"You bet, but the problem was not with his words. It was with his thought, and that was plain enough.
"At the affair marking the 100th birthday of old racist demagogue Sen. Strom Thurmond, R.-S.C., who ran a segregationist campaign for the presidency on the rump Dixiecrat Party in 1948, Mississippian Lott waxed, 'I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of that. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we would not have had these problems over all these years.'
"In other words, those uppity black folks would have been kept in their place.
"That was no woolly minded stray into wayward usage. There is every reason to believe, instead, that in an exuberant moment, Lott spoke from his gut. After all, he is not new to this sort of thing..."
But warped denizens of the Far Right don't see it that way.
No racism intended or evident, by their moral myopia. Where do they see it instead? In the words and actions of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton!
And when Ted Kennedy properly criticized Lott's outrage in no uncertain terms, how did they react? "Chappaquiddick! Chappaquiddick! Chappaquiddick!"
Actually, Lott should be thanked. He's flushed all the sick bastards out of bushes for us to plainly identify. And recoil from in utter revulsion.