Tag Archives: KKK

national news

Now, what about a POTUS who said some nasty things?

Virginia Republicans need to tread carefully.

The state’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, has apologized for appearing in a racist photograph showing two men — one in blackface and the other in a KKK-style costume. The Virginia GOP has called for his immediate resignation.

I agree that Northam should resign.

However . . .

Just a word of advice to the state Republican Party is in order. The nation’s Top Republican, Donald Trump, said in 2017 that there were “good people” who belonged to white supremacist groups, Nazis and Klansmen who protested the removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Va.

Will they hold the president to account for that hideous assertion?

Ever?

national news

Gov. Northam, you have blown it!

OK, so a Democratic governor way over yonder in Virginia has been revealed to have appeared in a picture with someone who had smeared black paint on his face while he posed with a guy dressed in a Ku Klux Klan-style robe.

Ralph Northam has apologized; he hasn’t said which of the young men was him. He issued this statement:

“This behavior is not in keeping with who I am today and the values I have fought for throughout my career in the military, in medicine, and in public service. I want to be clear, I understand how this decision shakes Virginians’ faith in that commitment. …

“I recognize that it will take time and serious effort to heal the damage this conduct has caused. I am ready to do that important work. The first step is to offer my sincerest apology and to state my absolute commitment to living up to the expectations Virginians set for me when they elected me to be their Governor.”

I’ll give the governor credit, though, for avoiding one of those “if I offended anyone” non-apologies. He has owned his egregious error.

However, is that good enough? Does that settle it? Not even close.

You see, the picture showed up in a 1984 medical school yearbook. Northam had graduated already from college, received his bachelor’s degree and was enrolled in medical school. He was an adult. It’s not as though he was some dipsh** junior high schooler who got carried away because he wasn’t thinking straight.

This picture is now going to haunt Northam for the entire time he serves as governor of a former Confederate state.

Virginia Republicans say he should resign. I believe they have a point. Gov. Northam cannot possibly be taken seriously from this day forward as he seeks to govern all the residents of his state.

Northam needs to go.

national news

King gets GOP reprimand; why not the same for POTUS?

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U.S. Rep. Steve King has gotten slapped down hard by his fellow congressional Republicans, who have voted to strip him of all his committee assignments, essentially rendering the Iowa lawmaker a useless member of Congress.

That’s a good thing, yes? Yes, of course it is! King said he couldn’t understand why the terms “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” have become offensive to Americans.

The House GOP caucus did the right thing.

But . . . wait a second! Another Republican politician has equated white supremacists and neo-Nazis with groups that demonstrated against them in Charlottesville, Va.; he said he didn’t anything about a widely known former Klan leader who had endorsed him for public office; he has continually refused to condemn in suitably stark language the actions and rhetoric that come from these groups.

The GOP congressional caucus has remained stone-cold silent about Donald John Trump!

It forces many Trump critics to question why the House Republican caucus that showed good sense in slapping down one of its members is so reluctant to do the same thing to the nation’s top Republican.

It could be argued that what the president said about the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville was worse than what King told The New York Times. Remember how Trump declared there was blame to go around for the violence “on both sides” and how there were “fine people on both sides” of the riot that left a counter-protester dead after one of the neo-Nazis ran over her with his motor vehicle?

Trump has derided the intelligence of some of his African-American critics. He referred to African nations as “sh**hole countries” and said we should encourage more immigration from places such as Norway.

The GOP congressional caucus has been silent. How come?

national news

Why is ‘white nationalist’ a negative term?

U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, apparently wants to know how the terms “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” became negative terms.

As The Hill reported: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” King asked in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday. “Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization.”

OK, I think I have an answer for the congressman, who has aligned himself with those groups on occasion during his, um, rather checkered career in national politics.

They became “offensive” when groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, the Aryan Brotherhood and other similar organizations terrorized fellow American citizens.

Non-white, non-Christian citizens got lynched. Their homes were firebombed. Perhaps Rep. King recalls the time four little girls were killed in 1963 when a bomb exploded in a Birmingham, Ala., church. The girls were black. The man who murdered them was a KKK member. He was connected with those who called themselves “white nationalists,” and “white supremacists.”

Does that explain it? I hope so.

King is a hardliner on immigration, along with Donald Trump. He wants to build The Wall. He wants, apparently, to seriously reduce the number of “legal immigrants” along with stopping altogether those who come here illegally.

This is just a hunch, but I’d bet real American money that Rep. King especially wants to curb immigration of those from “sh**hole countries” in, say, Africa, Haiti and other countries in Latin America.

Yes, the terms “white supremacist” and “white nationalist” are offensive in the extreme to many of us, Rep. King.

national news

Gohmert goes after Southern Poverty Law Center

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Loony Bin, has stepped in it again.

He says the Southern Poverty Law Center has stirred up more “hate” than any other group in America.

Hmm. The East Texas congressman doesn’t mention the Ku Klux Klan. Or the various Nazi organizations. Or the assorted Aryan/white supremacists.

Gohmert is unhinged

Has the Southern Poverty outfit ever, um, lynched anyone? Have they set fire to churches, killing children inside? Have Southern Poverty Law Center zealots ever walked into a church and gunned down African-Americans who are worshiping God? Have these advocates ever bombed anyone?

Rep. Gohmert is a shameful excuse for a political leader. Yet the media keep giving him an avenue to utter his absolute nuttiness.

Only in America . . .

This truly is a great country.

local news, State news

‘Master race’ crack catches up with county commissioner

Louis Klemp went out in a blaze of ignominy.

This clown is the now former Leavenworth (Kan.) County commissioner who told an African-American city planner from Kansas City that he — Klemp — is a member of the “master race.”

At first Klemp dug in, saying he didn’t mean any harm by it. He said his comment was “well-intentioned.”

Well, then he quit. He’s gone. Out of office and one can hope he’ll never be seen or heard from again.

But this brief episode brings to mind so many instances I have witnessed over many years of so-called members of the “master race” making utter asses of themselves in public, with no sense of shame, self-awareness or understanding of their public idiocy.

We often see such demonstrations of sheer stupidity when it involves those who belong to various white-supremacist groups. You know, outfits like the Ku Klux Klan, the neo-Nazis, Aryan Brotherhood . . . those kinds of yahoo groups.

My all-time favorite example of such stupidity being played out in public in front of the whole wide world occurred about 30 years ago in Orange, Texas.

I’ll set the stage briefly.

The Ku Klux Klan wanted to stage a rally to protest federal housing policy that allowed an African-American man to move into an all-white public housing complex in Vidor, an Orange County community with a seedy reputation as being “tolerant” of Klan activity. I attended the Klan rally to observe it, given that I was editorial page editor of the Beaumont Enterprise in nearby Jefferson County. I wanted to comment on what I saw happening.

I was standing near a TV reporter, who extended a microphone toward a KKK sympathizer’s face and asked her why she supported the Klan. The individual — a proud and devoted member of the “master race” — told the TV guy, in the presence of two small children standing next to her, that she didn’t “want my fuc**** kids associating with them people.”

Yes. It happened. So help me. As God is my witness.

Louis Klemp has told others that he was trying to make some comparison — goofy and utterly brainless as it sounds — between his teeth and the city planner’s teeth. He made some idiotic explanation that the two of them have “gaps” in their front teeth, which makes them both members of the “master race.”

Louis Klemp, with that “master race” comment, managed to channel one Adolf Hitler, who sought to create such a thing with his Third Reich. We all know how that turned out.

Good bye, Louis Klemp . . . and good riddance!

national news

Goodbye, AG Sessions … and, yes, good riddance

I feel the need to set the record straight about former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

I have spent some time commenting positively about on this blog for his decision to recuse himself from the Russia probe into the Donald Trump presidential campaign. He faced a clear conflict of interest when he took the job as AG because of his campaign role as a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump.

He was involved at some level with the Russians who made contact with the campaign. There were questions about an investigation. Sessions had to recuse himself because of the conflict of interest.

I applauded him for that singular act.

However, he shouldn’t have been selected AG in the first place. The man “earned” the nomination because he was the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump’s candidacy.

Prior to his becoming a senator, though, Sessions took on a serious blot on his public service record.

He served as a U.S. attorney in Alabama. President Reagan nominated him in 1986 to a federal judgeship. Then questions surfaced about Sessions’s comments regarding the Ku Klux Klan. Witnesses testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Sessions reportedly had given KKK members a pass until he learned that they “smoked pot.” Four Justice Department lawyers testified they heard Sessions make racist remarks.

The committee eventually voted 10-8 against his nomination. It went to the full Senate for a vote and senators rejected Sessions for the federal bench.

What did he do then? He ran for the Senate in 1996 — and won! He served in the Senate for 20 years until Trump tapped him to lead the Justice Department. He didn’t stand out during his Senate years. Sessions, though, did manage to get embraced by Trump.

Am I glad he’s gone from the Justice Department? Yes and no. I am unhappy that his resignation now clears the decks for Trump to nominate someone who endorses his view about Mueller’s investigation.

Overall, though, I won’t shed a tear that he’s gone. His pre-Senate history was a deal breaker from the get-go.

national news

Dad would be appalled in the extreme

My late father wasn’t a particularly political individual. He didn’t have a lot of deep-seated political views that he shared regularly.

Dad, though, was a proud veteran of World War II. He served in the Navy, seeing combat in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations.

Thus, when I see pictures such as the one above — taken at an April 2018 neo-Nazi rally — I wonder: What would Dad think? How would he react?

He’s been gone for more than 38 years. To this day I have no particular memory about a discussion between us about neo-Nazis or those who sympathize with the monsters who in the 1940s tried to kill Dad and those who fought alongside him.

There has been a significant increase in the open demonstrations of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and others of their ilk during the past few years. Some of it was a response to the 2008 election of our first African-American president, Barack H. Obama. More of it came with the election of his successor, Donald J. Trump.

Indeed, such KKK luminaries as David Duke, the former Klan grand lizard, er … wizard, have commented openly about the joy they felt when Trump was elected in 2016.

So, I am able to some dots. Duke and other KKK members praise Trump’s election and we see a rise in Klan and Nazi activity across the land. Coincidence? I, um, don’t believe so.

The sight of this political idiocy makes my blood boil. I realize that our Constitution grants all citizens — no matter how disgusting their political views — the right to carry on as these idiots are doing.

I only can ask: How in the name of human decency can they burn a swastika and believe it will persuade anyone to join their perverted cause?

Dad and all those members of the Greatest Generation would be appalled.

national news

Jewish leaders make remarkable demand of POTUS

It appears that any presidential outreach to the stricken Jewish community in Pittsburgh, Pa., is going to carry some provisions that I hope the president will honor.

Jewish leaders have told Donald Trump that he isn’t welcome in their city until he renounces white supremacists specifically and categorically. The demand came in the form of a letter written by members of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice.

Members have demanded also that the president stop targeting minorities, such as those who are fleeing repression in Central America and have formed the so-called “caravan” en route north.

According to The Hill: “The Torah teaches that every human being is made … in the image of God. This means all of us,” the leaders wrote. “In our neighbors, Americans, and people worldwide who have reached out to give our community strength, there we find the image of God.”

Pittsburgh is mourning the deaths of 11 congregants of Tree of Life synagogue. A man known for his anti-Semitic views is under arrest for the slaughter of worshipers on Saturday, the Jewish Shabbat, or sabbath.

Donald Trump should go to the city. He should extend his hand. He should lend his full support. He already has condemned the massacre as an “assault on humanity.”

The Jewish leaders want more. They are demanding the president say something vastly different from what he declared in 2017 after the Charlottesville, Va., riot that left a young woman dead. He tossed blame at “both sides,” the Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists, along with those who protested against them. He then declared there were “very fine people … on both sides.”

He needs to retract that hideous attempt at moral equivalence.

That’s what the Pittsburgh Jewish leaders are demanding.

Are you listening, Mr. President?

Donald Trump

Do we need tape recordings to prove racist view?

Omarosa Manigault Newman has dropped a few stools in the punch bowl regarding her former boss and (apparently) former friend, Donald John Trump.

She says she has heard tape recordings of the future president using the n-word to describe “Celebrity Apprentice” contestants. He account has been backed up by illusionist Penn Gillette, who says he heard Trump say it in the moment.

She’s written a book about her time as a special White House assistant, a post she left when chief of staff John Kelly fired her. Newman recorded the termination that occurred in the Situation Room, which is a serious breach of national security protocol. That, however, is a whole other story.

But I have to ask: Do we really need to hear these recordings to verify what has been virtually obvious? I mean, consider the following.

  • Trump fomented the lie about our first African American president’s place of birth.
  • He also challenged Barack Obama’s academic credentials that admitted him to Harvard Law.
  • Trump denigrates the intelligence of U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, CNN News anchor Don Lemon and pro basketball superstar LeBron James … all prominent African American public figures.
  • The president calls NFL football players protesting police brutality — the players are virtually all black — “sons of bitches.”
  • And all the while, he declines to issue a categorical condemnation of white supremacists, Klansmen and neo-Nazis.

Does the president refer to white critics as being less than intelligent? Why in the world did he continue to promote the defamatory lie that questioned President Obama’s constitutional right to seek the presidency? And why can’t the president bring himself to condemn hate groups such as the Klan exclusively? He recently watered down such “condemnation” with that sterile “all types of racism” qualifier.

Again, I ask: Do we really need to hear these recordings to validate what many millions of Americans — including me — believe about the man who’s been elected president of the United States of America?

This individual is a racist.