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The New York State Republican Party denounces a Republican candidate for the House after learning that he has espoused racist and anti-Semitic views. Jim Russell, who represents the GOP in the 18th District of New York State race against incumbent Nita Lowey (D-NY), wrote an article for Occidental Quarterly around 10 years ago that stated his opposition to "miscegnation" ("mixing" of different races) and criticized the assault on the "Western continuum" by Jews, blacks, and other minorities. He also praised the anti-Semitic theories of poet T.S. Eliot, quoting Eliot's belief that "the population should be homogeneous" and the need for "eugenics" to protect "the West" from minority infiltration. "While liberals and universalists constantly yammer about 'bringing us all together,'" he wrote, "and how 'diversity is our strength,' it may be suggested that the biological function of human language and culture is just the opposite, that is, to keep discrete groups apart." The article was posted on Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke's Web site, though it has recently been removed. New York GOP spokesman Alex Carey says "[t]here are kooks attracted to any parties," and adds that Russell's decision to run as a Republican has nothing to do with the Republican Party or Republican principles. Carey says state GOP leaders were not aware of Russell's essay, and says, "We strongly condemn all of Jim's comments and certainly stand by none of what he wrote, which was racist and ethnocentric." The Westchester County GOP chairman will meet with Russell soon, Carey says, "and if he can explain this somehow they're going to continue looking into this—and if he can't they'll cut him loose." Carey acknowledges that even if the GOP drops Russell from its line on the ballot, Russell will still be a candidate. Russell is running on a campaign platform opposing immigration and a housing desegretation settlement in Westchester; he has said Westchester's "neighborhoods have to be protected" from desegregation. In his 2001 article, he called desegretation "destructive." Russell's campaign manager, Frank Morgenthaler, says the scrutiny on Russell's racial views is "mud-slinging." Morgenthaler adds: "We're in a situation now where our country is on the brink of death almost. That's a heck of a lot more important than any articles or any spin that the incumbents want to put on it." (Elliott 9/20/2010; Haberman 9/20/2010; Elliott 9/21/2010) Russell is considered a longshot candidate. (Haberman 9/20/2010)
A new political film from conservative activist group Citizens United labels President Obama a "gangsta," and compares him to a Chicago mobster. The film, titled Fire from the Heartland: the Awakening of the Conservative Woman, is ostensibly a celebration of conservative women, but spends much of its runtime attacking Obama and his administration's policies. The film is written, directed, and co-produced by Stephen Bannon, who co-founded the National Tea Party Federation in April in part to combat charges that tea party organizations promote racism (see June 30, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 28, 2009, August 4, 2009, and August 11, 2009). The film profiles 15 female conservative politicians, pundits, and tea party activists, including Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, S.E. Cupp, Dana Loesch, Michelle Easton, Sonnie Johnson, Jenny Beth Martin, Michelle Moore, Jamie Radtke, Deneen Borelli, Janine Turner, and House members Jean Schmidt (R-OH), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), and Michele Bachmann (R-MN). Bannon says that the goal of the film is for moderate and independent women viewers to watch the film and then say, "[T]hese women are not the crazy harridans they are portrayed as on TV." The film quotes African-American conservative Sonnie Johnson, the president of the black conservative Frederick Douglass Foundation, as saying, "If you come from the street… you know Obama has a lot of gangsta in him." Johnson, a prominent member of Virginia tea party organizations, is using a slang term for "gangster," indicating that Obama is similar to African-American street criminals who belong to gangs such as the Crips and the Bloods. Johnson's characterization is echoed in the film by Bachmann, who says, "This administration has embraced something called gangster government." Bannon juxtaposes the two women's comments with black and white footage of African-American gangsters with guns. One segment of the film shows a convenience store clerk being robbed at gunpoint; reporter Garance Franke-Ruta writes that "the narrative makes clear the man with the gun embodies the government." (Franke-Ruta 9/24/2010)
Journalist John Hamilton publishes the results of a series of interviews with Byron Williams, who is charged with multiple counts of attempting to murder police officers from a shootout with Oakland, California, Highway Patrol officers (see July 18, 2010 and After). Williams has said that he targeted a progressive charitable foundation in San Francisco, the Tides Foundation, because of its liberal policies, and has said he intended to "start a revolution by traveling to San Francisco and killing people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU." Since his arrest, Williams has retained Hamilton to be his "media advocate."
Williams and Fox's Beck - Williams told Hamilton that his primary political influence and informational source is Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck. Williams had Hamilton watch specific broadcasts of Beck's shows to glean information about what Williams describes as an intricate conspiracy between President Obama, liberal philanthropist George Soros (see August 8, 2006 and February 2007), Brazilian oil company Petrobras, and BP, the corporation responsible for triggering the Gulf oil disaster. Williams also cites right-wing pundit David Horowitz (see August 5, 2003 and November 30, 2004) and right-wing conspiracist Alex Jones (see July 24, 2009) as other influences. The progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters notes that Beck spoke 29 times about the Tides Foundation in the 18 months leading up to Williams's shooting spree, sometimes at length; other pundits rarely mentioned the organization, if at all, during that same time period. Williams defends Beck, saying that the talk show host advocates non-violence and merely "confirm[ed]" his belief in the conspiracy. "Beck would never say anything about a conspiracy, would never advocate violence," Williams told Hamilton. "He'll never do anything… of this nature. But he'll give you every ounce of evidence that you could possibly need." Beck, he says, is "like a schoolteacher on TV. You need to go back to June—June of this year, 2010—and look at all his programs from June, and you'll see he's been breaking open some of the most hideous corruption." In that month, Beck advised his viewers to stop a Democratic-orchestrated "march towards Communism" by "shoot[ing]" Democrats such as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) "in the head (see June 9, 2010).
Genesis of a Shootout - Williams moved to his childhood home in Groveland, California, in 2007 after serving a prison sentence for a 2001 bank robbery. Williams has an extensive criminal record, and has been convicted of assault, property destruction, hit-and-run, and drunken driving. He lived with his mother during that time, unable to find steady work, and growing increasingly depressed and fascinated with right-wing radio and television. His neighbor, Tom Funk, told Hamilton of Williams's profanity-laden tirade on the night of November 4, 2008, after Obama won the presidency. He remembered Williams shouting what he calls racist, drunken threats after the news of Obama's victory was announced, saying: "He was up there cussing and saying that America is not going right by having a black president. He was using words he shouldn't be saying after 9/11, because it would have put him in jail. Threatening words towards the president." In the days before and after the election, Funk said, Williams liked to listen to radio talk show host Michael Savage (see January 10, 2008, March 13, 2008, and November 10, 2008). Hamilton found transcripts of Savage's radio broadcasts during that time; Savage held forth about the "bloodbath coming to America" should Obama be elected, and predicted that the nation was on "the verge of a Marxist revolution in the United States of America. You have a naked Marxist, America-hating, white-hating [Democratic] party—wing of the party—about to seize power. And you don't even know it." Hamilton then interviewed Williams's mother Janice, who drives an SUV with "Palin 2012" bumperstickers on it. Williams's mother told Hamilton that in phone calls and a letter to her, her son "basically said: 'I'm sorry, I never intended to hurt anyone. I got really angry and lost my head.'" She said she did not believe her son would actually have attacked either the ACLU or the Tides Foundation. She also denied that her son shouted racial imprecations after Obama's election, saying: "I read one account that he used the n-word. I don't believe that. The neighbors told that to the media, but they just wove that out of whole cloth. I don't care how loud anyone here gets, there's no way anyone over there could have heard anything that far away. It's just someone seeking publicity." She said her son does not tolerate alcohol well, because he is partly "American Indian… [t]hat's why he can't drink." The day of the shooting, she "found 18 or 20 beer bottles by the sink." Her son is angry, she told Hamilton, because of "the federal government. And the shadow government that operates behind the scenes, manipulating things." She said she agreed with many of her son's concerns about government intrusion: "I believe in limited government. The government should be there solely for the purpose of protecting our borders. All the other stuff is add-ons. This whole Obamacare thing has everything to do with consolidating government. There's no concern about the little people. Having said that, my hope was to retake the country peacefully, through the ballot box." She denied that her son was influenced by Beck, Savage, or any other right-wing commentator, saying: "All the reporters who came out here last month were blaming what he did on Rush [Limbaugh], Glenn Beck, and the tea party. Why would you blame the messenger? If Glenn Beck tells us something, and everyone gets upset about it, why blame him?" She called the Tides Foundation "a money laundering scheme for the radical left that didn't want their names attributed to what they were doing," a charge first leveled by Beck. She did confirm that her son was a Beck fan: "Yes, he liked Glenn Beck, but he didn't feel he went far enough. He'd take it only so far, but stopped short." She added that almost everyone she had heard from after the shooting supported her son's position: "I had only one hate call out of all the thousands of people who heard about this case. Most people have expressed support—not for the act, but for the frustration behind it."
Jailhouse Meetings - Hamilton talked to Williams in the visiting area of the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, California, twice over a period of two weeks. Williams told Hamilton that he worried about being portrayed as an "extremist," and said he should probably not discuss "that incident"—the shooting—because of his pending criminal trial. Williams was loquacious about his political views; he said, "My big thing was the oil rig, the Deepwater Horizon," referring to the immense BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. "I've uncovered enough evidence to—I think in a court of law it could bring [BP CEO] Tony Hayward, Barack Obama, George Soros, and members of Halliburton indicted for treason." Williams believes that the oil spill was deliberate, plotted by Soros. "It was a sabotage," Williams explained. "Hayward and [Wall Street financial firm] Goldman Sachs sold their stock, which was depreciating, two weeks before the spill. Soros invested $1 billion of his own money into Petrobras. Soros has the Tides Foundation and the Tides fund. He funnels billions of donated dollars into the fund, which he uses for all kinds of nefarious activities.… Obama sent 2 billion of taxpayer dollars to Petrobras for deep water oil exploration, while holding a moratorium on deepwater exploration in the US. Once you see this pattern—it's fishy stuff.… Halliburton, whose job was to seal the well—two days before the explosion, they bought an oil spill clean-up company.… When I saw the news was dropping the issue like a hot potato, I became infuriated." He concluded: "The bottom line is that George Soros is the financier of Obama. And Obama has a clear agenda: First he did the health care reform. After that, it was all about energy. He wants to impose the worst tax ever conceived: a cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions. Think of it. Even your breathing could be taxed, because you give off greenhouse gases. That's why I did what I did. There are not a lot of people fighting back. I don't see a response." Williams evoked the Civil War by asking why Gulf Coast residents did not rise up in arms about what he says was a conspiracy to destroy their shoreline for Soros's profit. "What ever happened to the spirit of the South, of the Confederacy in the Civil War?" Williams summed up the plot as he sees it: "What I see here is a plan to bring the country down."
Sources of Information - Asked where he gets his information, Williams responded: "Alex Jones. PrisonPlanet.com is his Web site. Also, DiscoverTheNetworks." Hamilton identifies Williams's sources: "Jones is a conspiracist and repeat Fox News guest who mingles dire warnings of the 'New World Order' (see September 11, 1990) with stories of government complicity in the 9/11 attacks. DiscoverTheNetworks is a Web site claiming to track 'the individuals and organizations that make up the left.' It's run by David Horowitz, a former leftist who has reinvented himself as a right-wing propagandist." Williams then named Beck as another major source of his information and said Beck is "like a schoolteacher" who uses his chalkboard to great effect. "I collect information on corruption," Williams said. "I've been at it for some time.… Our media accepts the false reports and downplays the conspiracy theories.… A public that is aware of corruption can oppose the corruption. A public kept in the dark simply passes it by." Fox News, Williams said, is the only television news outlet that is not "censored," he said. "So perhaps Fox has broken away from the mold." Aside from its presumably independent status, Williams added: "There's only one conservative channel. That's Fox. All the other ones are all liberal channels." Williams stated that he watched Fox because of Beck, and not vice versa: "I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind. I said, well, nobody does this." Williams told Hamilton to "go back to June—June of this year, 2010—and look at all his programs from June. And you'll see he's been breaking open some of the most hideous corruption. A year ago, I was watching him, and it was OK, he was all right, you know?… But now he's getting it." Williams said that he believes Beck knows more than he is willing to tell. Referring to the Gulf Oil spill, Williams said: "This is what he won't do, Beck will not say it was a contracted hit. But he'll give you every ounce of evidence you can possibly need to make that assumption yourself.… You see what I mean?… That's why he downplays the 9/11 truthers. He talks bad about them." Williams then retold some conspiracy theories that he apparently believes that Beck seems to dismiss, including the Alex Jones-propagated idea that the US government was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Of his various conspiratorial beliefs, he advised Hamilton: "Think like a conspiracy theorist. Except don't use the word 'theory.' Because the conspiracies are not theories. The official report is the lie; the conspiracy is the truth." Beck's mission, Williams said, is to "expose" progressives and "leftists" who are endangering American democracy.
Ties to Tides - Beck is the source from which Williams first learned about the Tides Foundation, which he believes is at the heart of the Soros/Obama plan to destroy America. Beck himself has said of the Tides: "The chalkboard was brought up… for the Tides Foundation. I think that might have been the first time we used it." His efforts to "expose" Tides "was the first time that I really realized its success—Tides Foundation and ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Because you can map it all out. And I know that they make fun of me for it, but that's—that's the difference.… Tides was one of the hardest things that we ever tried to explain. And everyone told us that we couldn't. It is the reason why the blackboard really became what the blackboard is. It is because I was trying to explain Tides and how all of this worked." Beck has repeatedly, and falsely, labeled the organization as "George Soros' Tides Foundation," which he has suggested is part of a liberal plot to "create mass organizations to seize power." Tides, he said, is a "shady organization" that funnels money to "some of the most extreme groups on the left." Beck has asserted that Tides is "involved in some of the nastiest of the nasty." In the 18 months preceding Williams's shooting spree, Beck attacked Tides 29 times on his Fox show. (Hamilton 10/11/2010)
Larry Klayman, a former Justice Department official who founded the conservative watchdog organization Judicial Watch, pens an editorial for the online news site WorldNetDaily (WND). Klayman makes the arguably racist assertion that President Obama leads only "his people" and not "white people." Writing that "President Obama is not a ruler for all of the people, but rather 'his people,'" Klayman begins by claiming that he was "proud that America could elect a black president and overcome centuries of racial prejudice," even though Obama is, in his estimation, "a politician far to the left of mainstream America." But, two years into the Obama administration, Klayman says the American citizenry has been repelled by watching Obama "seemingly favoring his own race and true religious allegiance over whites, Christians, and Jews." Klayman asserts, without citing evidence, that "the trillion-dollar bailouts… were earmarked for black minority contractors. These bailouts were not only economically stupid, but the money was dolled [sic] out in a discriminatory way." The Democrats' health care reform initiative is, Klayman writes, "designed to provide health insurance mostly for the president's black constituency." He goes on to cite Obama's defense of Harvard professor Henry Gates after Gates became involved in an altercation with a Boston police officer; Attorney General Eric Holder's refusal to prosecute members of the New Black Panther movement who, Klayman claims, "illegally disrupted an election polling place in Philadelphia"; Obama's supposed association with "black Muslim leaders" such as Louis Farrakhan; his relationship with his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright; and his cancellation of the White House's commemoration of the National Day of Prayer in favor of, Klayman claims, a White House feast for the Muslim Holy Day of Ramadan, which Klayman says "proves" Obama's status as a closet Muslim. Klayman then accuses Obama of being anti-Semitic because of his supposed failure to support Israel. Hence, Klayman writes, "the majority of white Christians and Jews no longer see Obama as the president of 'We the People' but instead 'his' people.… President Obama has not united the races and religions, but instead divided and pitted them against each other. The level of hostility one sees 'in the streets,' with a reverse backlash against blacks and Muslims, is frightening and potentially explosive." Because of these characteristics, Klayman writes, "the nation stands even more—particularly during a severe continuing economic depression—on the precipice of chaos, rebellion, and ultimately revolution." Any violence launched by white Christians and other Obama opponents, Klayman concludes, will be the fault of Obama. (Klayman 10/22/2010) Terry Krepel, the progressive founder of the watchdog organization ConWebWatch, writes: "Klayman is projecting. He's the one who's injecting race into things by insisting that Obama rules only 'his people.'" (Terry Krepel 10/23/2010)
During a legislative hearing, Tennessee State Representative Curry Todd (R-TN) asks a health official if the state-funded Cover Kids health program, which helps pregnant women obtain prenatal and other child care, checks the immigration status of its patients before offering benefits. The official replies that under federal law the program officials cannot check the citizenship status of its patients seeking prenatal care because all children born in the US are automatically American citizens. Todd then warns that without status checks, immigrants will "go out there like rats and multiply." No one else on the Fiscal Review Committee challenges his remarks. Todd later tells reporters that he was wrong to use that choice of words, and should have referred to "anchor babies" instead—the term used by some to accuse immigrants of having children in America for the sole purpose of using those children's citizenship to stay in the country. Immigrant rights advocate Stephen Fotopulos says Todd's remark is inexcusable. "This kind of dehumanizing rhetoric is all too common on some talk radio shows, where hate sells and there's no accountability," Fotopulos says. "But there's absolutely no excuse for it to come out of the mouth of an elected official in Tennessee." The progressive news Web site Think Progress calls the term "anchor babies" "unquestionably offensive." (Johnson 11/11/2010; Seitz-Wald 11/11/2010)
Former Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saulius "Saul" Anuzis (R-MI) announces his candidacy for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee (RNC), in a bid to replace the controversial current chairman, Michael Steele (R-MD). Anuzis currently chairs the Save American Jobs Project. He was unsuccessful in his 2009 bid to take the RNC chairmanship. In an email, he promises to make "fundraising my number 1 priority as chairman," and vows "NOT… to be the voice or the face of our party. Of course I will be happy to discuss politics and elections with the media, but I won't be competing with valuable airtime from the men and women on our ticket. Instead, I will work with our elected leaders around the country to give them maximum exposure and guarantee a consistent message that leads us to victory." He promises to run a "tight ship" financially, and to work on behalf of whichever candidate wins the 2012 presidential primary race. (Weaver 11/12/2010; Saul Anuzis 11/12/2010; O'Connor 11/12/2010) Anuzis is considered to be a frontrunner in what looks to become a race with numerous possible candidates, including Steele, who intends to remain as RNC chair. (O'Connor 11/12/2010) However, Anuzis does not emphasize his support for Kyle Bristow, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a "right-wing extremist." Under Bristow's leadership, his organization, the Michigan State University branch of Young Americans for Freedom, was dubbed a "hate group" in 2006 by the SPLC, in large part because of Bristow's demonstrably racist statements and actions. Among his actions as head of the MSU-YPF: insisting that the university create a "Caucasian caucus" for student government and eliminate minority caucuses; stating that gay rights groups "are complicit with murder"; sponsoring a "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day"; holidng a "Koran Desecration" competition; joking about giving out smallpox-infested blankets to Native American students; and bringing several racist speakers to campus, including a Holocaust denier from the radical British National Party. Many members left MSU-YAF because of Bristow's extremism, with one former member calling Bristow's organization a haven for "racists and fascists." In 2007, Anuzis, then the Michigan Republican Party chairman, said of Bristow after MSU-YAF's activities had caused an eruption of outrage throughout Michigan: "This is exactly the type of young kid we want out there. I've known Kyle for years and I can tell you I have never heard him say a racist or bigoted or sexist thing, ever." In recent years, Anuzis has helped shepherd Bristow's rise in the radical right. (Beirich 11/16/2010; Zornick 11/19/2010) Anuzis will lose to Reince Priebus, a Wisconsin Republican Party official, after seven ballots. (Dade 1/14/2011)
Bryan Fischer, the director of issue analysis for government and public policy at the American Family Association (AFA), accuses the Obama administration of planning to give the entire North American landmass to Native American tribes. Fischer is reacting to a recent announcement by President Obama that the US will sign a non-binding United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, which has been endorsed by 145 countries. The declaration states that "indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories, and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied, or otherwise used or acquired," and nations "shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories, and resources." Fischer writes that Obama "wants Indian tribes to be our new overlords." He continues, "Perhaps he figures that, as an adopted Crow Indian, he will be the new chief over this revived Indian empire." (Raw Story 12/22/2010)
Maine Governor Paul LePage (R-ME) says that the NAACP can "kiss my butt" after explaining why he is refusing to attend any events honoring the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on King's national holiday. LePage tells a local reporter that he considers the NAACP a "special interest" group, and adds: "End of story. And I'm not going to be held hostage by special interests. And if they want, they can look at my family picture. My son happens to be black, so they can do whatever they'd like about it." Asked if his absence is an indication of a pattern rather than an isolated incident, LePage responds: "Tell 'em to kiss my butt. If they want to play the race card, come to dinner and my son will talk to them." LePage, a tea party-backed candidate who was sworn into office last week, has an adopted son of Jamaican heritage. Maine NAACP director Rachel Talbot Ross responds: "I don't care who he's got in his family. And he's saying we're playing the race card? The makeup of his family isn't the issue and it never was the issue. For him to say we're playing the race card shows a real lack of awareness of the very important issues we're working to address. Our kids deserve better. Maine deserves better. His son deserves better." Ross goes on to call LePage's comments "ignorant," and adds, "We don't want to misinterpret his intention, but the message we're getting is that we're not welcome and we're not part of the Maine he's preparing to lead for the next four years." Ralph Carmona, spokesman for the League of United Latin American Citizens, says LePage's comments today put him in mind of his fall campaign promise to tell President Obama to "go to hell." Carmona says: "The governor's comments are creating, have the potential to create, a real racial dilemma for all Mainers. It is astonishing and troubling he would use this kind of rhetoric." LePage later adds that he has prior personal and professional commitments that prevent him from attending events in honor of King. NAACP leaders say LePage has previously turned down a number of invitations from the group in recent months. LePage spokesman Dan Demeritt later sends out a statement denying the issue has anything to do with race, and notes that while mayor of Waterville, LePage attended several Martin Luther King Day breakfasts. Demerrit says: "This is not about race. Paul has a black son. This is about a special interest group taking issue with the governor for not making time for them and the governor dismissing their complaints in the direct manner people have come to expect from Paul LePage." Demerrit calls LePage "very free spoken." (Cover 1/14/2011; Seitz-Wald 1/14/2011; Bouchard 1/14/2011) Maine's Congressional delegation, whose members are all either attending the MLK Day events in person or sending representatives, declines to comment on LePage's remarks. NAACP president Benjamin Jealous calls LePage's comments "inflammatory," and issues a statement reading in part: "Gov. LePage's decision to inflame racial tension on the eve of the King holiday denigrates his office. His words are a reminder of the worst aspects of Maine's history and out of touch with our nation's deep yearning for increased civility and racial healing." (Cover 1/15/2011) Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart, an African-American, says of LePage's comments: "Wow. Uncivil. Uncouth. Appalling. Reducing the NAACP and its venerable history of fighting for civil rights to 'special interests' is pure ideological laziness in the extreme." He continues: "Just because LePage has a black son (by adoption) doesn't mean no one can or should question his racial sensitivities.… Despite LePage's offensive posterior invitation, I urge the Portland, Maine, branch of the NAACP to keep inviting the rude governor to events. Blacks are only 1.2 percent of the state's population. But sooner or later, LePage will have to learn that he can't talk to citizens of his state like that." (Capehart 1/14/2011) In previous years, Maine's governor has alternated between breakfasts honoring King in Portland and Bangor. This year's breakfast is being held in Portland. LePage has been issuing rejections to attend the King breakfast since December 2010. He intends to release a pre-recorded radio address honoring King's legacy. Bob Talbot, a 70-year-old executive board member of the Greater Bangor Area NAACP, says he cannot remember when a Maine governor did not attend one of the breakfasts, with the sole exception of former Governor John Baldacci (D-ME), who attended President Obama's inauguration in 2009 instead of attending one of the breakfasts. "Governor LePage keeps saying he represents all Mainers," Talbot says. "Well, I'm an eighth-generation Mainer. I think he needs to reconsider what it means to be a Mainer. He needs to understand that we're all Mainers, not just a certain few or a certain political party." (Bouchard 1/14/2011)
Jack Davis, a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives from the Buffalo, New York, area, suggests that Hispanic farmworkers be deported from the US, and African-Americans from the inner cities be bused to farm country and made to pick the crops. Davis, an industrialist from Akron, makes his comments in an endorsement hearing held by local tea party activists. In 2008, he made similar comments to a Tonawanda News reporter, when he said: "We have a huge unemployment problem with black youth in our cities. Put them on buses, take them out there [to the farms], and pay them a decent wage; they will work." Many listeners then and now say Davis is, in essence, advocating a return to slavery. After hearing Davis's comments, Republican leaders deliver their endorsement to another candidate, Assemblywoman Jane L. Corwin. Amherst County GOP chairman Marshall Wood says, "I was thunderstruck" when he heard Davis's statements. "Maybe in 1860 that might have been seen by some as an appropriate comment, but not now." Davis shrugs off the reaction to his comments, saying merely, "It's politics." Davis's spokesman W. Curtis Ellis says of Davis's comments, "It may not be politically correct and it may not be racially correct, but when you have African-American people in Buffalo who do not have jobs and are out of work, why are you bringing people into this country illegally to take jobs?" Davis, Corwin, and others are running in a special election to replace Representative Chris Lee (R-NY), who recently resigned his seat after revelations surfaced about his Internet flirtation with a woman not his wife. Wyoming County GOP chairman Gordon Brown says Davis "repeatedly almost disqualified himself" during the hearing by contradicting typical party positions, raging against illegal immigration and free trade policies. "The most racist part was where he said he was busing the blacks in to pick the vegetables," Brown says. When Davis made his comment, "the room sort of went silent. It was like, 'Did I just hear that?'" Davis has run for office as a Democrat three times in the past. He is now attempting to secure enough signatures to run as a tea party candidate. The election will be held May 24. The Democratic candidate opposing Corwin will be Kathleen Hochul, the Erie County clerk. (Zremski 3/15/2011; Dolan 3/17/2011; Camia 3/21/2011) Buffalo News columnist Rod Watson, a conservative African-American, later complains of the "manufactured outrage" over Davis's comments, and will praise Davis's suggestion as "busing jobless young blacks to farms so they can learn work skills while earning an honest dollar." He will say Davis's comments are far less insulting than those recently made by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R-MS), a possible 2012 presidential candidate who has extolled the virtues of white supremacist groups. "A white man saying what's good for blacks is always grist for those looking for advantage in aggrievement," Watson will write. "It's part of the unwritten rules on race in a nation still struggling with the issue that only blacks can say such things about blacks, just as only whites can make 'redneck' jokes." Watson will note that African-American radio host Ted Kirkland says: "I've advocated that on my show. There's nothing wrong with hard work and getting your hands dirty." And Watson will quote Democratic legislator Betty Jean Grant, who says, "Republicans won't hire black youths for any kind of jobs," and says she "saw nothing racist" in Davis's comment. Watson will admit that some find it disconcerting when a white millionaire states his opinion about what should be done for, or to, poor African-Americans. "It's also fair to ask how many blacks Davis has hired, or how many jobs he has funded in light of his expressed interest in unemployed African-Americans," he will write. He will conclude that the idea itself must be considered separately from its "suspect source." (Watson 3/17/2011) News and blog Web site BlakNewz is more outraged; its administrator will write: "Is that like black slaves picking cotton for the massa? Why not bus in the poor white people in New York State and nearby states to pick the crops?" (BlakNewz 3/15/2011) Hochul will win a narrow victory over Corwin, delivering the NY-26 seat to the Democratic Party for the first time in decades. Davis, a "tea party" candidate, will garner 9 percent of the vote; in his concession speech, Davis will tell his listeners, "The country needs me." (McCarthy 5/26/2011)
A report on a psychological study conducted and written by Eric Hehman of the University of Delaware and published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology finds that race plays an intrinsic role in many voters' perceptions of President Obama, and plays a powerful role in whether or not Americans believe Obama is a US citizen. Although definitive proof of Obama's US citizenship has long been publicly available (see June 13, 2008, August 21, 2008, and October 30, 2008), for many, especially on the right, the issue remains either unsettled or, for some, settled against Obama, whom they firmly believe to be either a foreign citizen or some sort of "illegal alien." Hehman's study concludes that racial prejudice plays a strong role in the continued refusal by some to accept Obama's citizenship. The study compares voter perceptions of Obama with his vice president, Joseph Biden, whom Hehman calls "the most comparable target" with Obama.
Major Disparity between 'High-Prejudice,' 'Low-Prejudice' Whites - Behman writes: "The influence of racial prejudice in contemporary US society is typically manifested in subtle, indirect forms of bias. Due to prevailing norms of equality, most whites attempt to avoid appearing biased in their evaluations of blacks, in part because of a genuine desire to live up to their egalitarian standards, but also because of concern regarding social censure. As a consequence, whites' prejudice is more likely to be expressed in discriminatory responses when these actions can be justified by other factors." The study asked 295 people, both black and white, to evaluate the performance and "Americanism" of the two politicians in late 2009. It also included six questions, widely used in psychology, to gauge whether folks are more or less prejudiced against blacks. The study finds, "Overall, as expected, white participants tended to view Obama as less American," and as a direct result they judge him as "worse-performing" as a national leader than Biden. "Moreover, whites higher in prejudice rated Obama as less American and as performing more poorly as president." "Low-prejudice" whites tend to see Obama as higher-performing and either "as American" or "more American" than Biden: "Why low prejudice whites perceived Obama as higher in Americanism and performing better than Biden is not entirely clear. One possibility is that people see presidents, as the primary national leader, as more prototypical of the group and thus more American than vice presidents. Alternatively, the differential response of low prejudice whites to Obama and Biden may reflect their concern with appearing nonprejudiced, particularly during a period when the election of a black president was lauded as a sign of progress for not only blacks but America more generally." The study examines the "prejudice scores" of the study participants, and finds "higher prejudice predicted whites seeing Obama as less American, which, in turn, predicted lower evaluations of his performance." Blacks tended to rate Obama's performance higher than Biden's, but do not view their "Americanism" as significantly different. Hehman finds: "Overall, the results support our hypothesis that negative evaluations of Obama by white participants may be racially motivated. Whites are guarded about openly endorsing the view that blacks are less American than whites, which may suppress overall mean differences in performance ratings and perceptions of Obama being un-American. However, bias in viewing blacks as less American than whites appeared to implicitly underlie whites' negative evaluations of his performance. Also, consistent with previous research, blacks did not demonstrate such a relationship, nor did Americanism mediate the relationship between prejudice and performance evaluations when Vice President Biden acted as target for either whites or blacks. Whereas previous work has linked white prejudice with negative perceptions of Obama, the current work reveals a mechanism that may be largely responsible for this effect, Obama's non-prototypicality (largely in terms of his race) and thus reduced perceptions of his Americanism." Hehman notes that media speculations that the "birther" controversy is fueled by racial prejudice are "sadly the case. As the United States approaches important decisions regarding issues such as economic reform, health care, and overseas military interventions, the intrusion of racial attitudes in the evaluation of political leaders' performance is ironically inconsistent with what many believe to be 'American.'"
Response to 'Long Form' Certificate Release - USA Today will report on Hehman's study on April 27, the same day that Obama releases his "long form" birth certificate in an attempt to put an end to the controversy over Obama's citizenship (see April 27, 2011). Reporter Dan Vergano will ask Hehman for his response to the release in the context of the study, and Hehman will respond via email: "While I can't speak to the birther movement specifically, this controversy and others like it are what initially sparked my interest and led to the recent publication [of the study]. President Obama has consistently faced a number of controversies that are, frankly, not based on fact. We thought that his critics' persistence in pursuing these fantasies, such as Obama's birth in a foreign nation or being a Muslim, in the face of facts saying otherwise, might be indirectly rooted in racism. Our research investigated whether people who held racial prejudices might be more likely to see Obama as 'un-American,' presumably because of his race. Indeed, this is what we found. Whites who were prejudiced against blacks were more likely to see Obama as un-American, and in turn, evaluated Obama as performing more poorly as president. Whites who were not prejudiced, and blacks in general, did not do so. Additionally and importantly, this relationship was only found with Obama, as prejudiced whites did not see Vice President Joe Biden as un-American, despite the fact that Obama and Biden share political party affiliation and agenda." He will conclude: "The April 27 release of Obama's long-form birth certificate is a situation where President Obama and the White House eventually had to exert effort to quell a controversy that should never have been an issue. Our research indicates that one reason it may have initially become an issue at all has more to do with his race than his place of birth. We find that racial prejudice can, in part, influence evaluations of an elected leader, a phenomenon which is quite 'un-American.'" (Vergano 4/27/2011)
A Panama City Beach citizen uses his or her cell phone to record an incident that breaks out at a local Burger King restaurant. The conflict starts when one resident, who identifies herself as Kimesia Smith of Montgomery, Alabama, (police later learn that her real name is Nekiva Vonte Hardy) becomes angry after having to wait an apparently too-lengthy period of time for her order. Hardy leaps up on the counter and throws a charity coin jug at employees. Three of Hardy's friends join in, throwing napkins, utensils, and trays throughout the restaurant. All four scream imprecations and abusive comments. Hardy is arrested and taken to jail on charges of simple battery, in part because an employee says Hardy pulled her hair. Explaining her actions, Hardy later says, "I don't play no games." Panama City Beach Police Chief Robert Harding notes that Hardy's actions are not related to spring-break parties, saying, "She's a 30-year-old unemployed mother of three from Montgomery, so I would surmise that she's not a spring breaker." Hardy is later charged with a felony count of criminal mischief and two counts of misdemeanor battery and disorderly conduct. The cell phone video of the incident becomes something of a hit on YouTube, garnering tens of thousands of views. State attorney Glenn Hess says: "While many view this video as amusing, we see it as hard evidence of serious crimes being committed. I'm quite certain the employees who were battered and terrorized by [Hardy] do not find this the least bit amusing." Hardy has a lengthy criminal record. (WJHG-TV 3/23/2011; Cruz 3/24/2011; Mandall 3/28/2011) On March 24, Fox News reporter Todd Starnes posts a somewhat different interpretation of the incident: he links to a local news report and writes a Twitter post that reads, "Blacks riot at Burger King." Fox Nation, the online blog for Fox News viewers, then posts the video and a brief synopsis of the story, focusing on Hardy's "bikini-clad" state but omitting references to her race. Progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters calls Starnes's take on the incident "racist." After Media Matters publishes its article, Starnes deletes the post. Starnes's profile identifies him as "a contributor on FOX & Friends, Hannity, and FOX Nation." (Hananoki 3/24/2011; Fox News 3/24/2011)
Leonard Pitts Jr., an African-American columnist for the Miami Herald, writes that the ongoing "birther" conspiracy theory surrounding President Obama's citizenship, recently re-energized by billionaire Donald Trump (see February 10, 2011, March 17, 2011, March 23, 2011, March 23, 2011, March 28, 2011, March 28-29, 2011, March 30, 2011, and April 1, 2011), is, at its core, driven by racial prejudice. "[I]t is time to call this birther nonsense what it is," he writes, "not just claptrap, but profoundly racist claptrap." Pitts goes on: "And spare me the e-mails where you soliloquize like Hamlet, the back of your hand pressed to your forehead, eyes turned heavenward, as you moan how it is impossible to criticize this president without being accused of racism. Criticize him to your heart's content. Give him hell over Libya. Blast him about Guantanamo. Knock him silly on health care reform. He is the president; taking abuse is part of his job description. But this ongoing birther garbage, like the ongoing controversy about his supposed secret Muslim identity (see October 1, 2007, December 19, 2007, Before October 27, 2008, January 11, 2008, Around March 19, 2008, and April 18, 2008), is not about criticism. It is not about what he has done but, rather, what he is." The "Muslim" and "birther" controversies are "dog whistle" issues, he writes, that "provide euphemistic cover for those who want to express alarm over the raw newness of him, the sweeping demographic changes he represents… without appearing uncouth enough to do so." He concludes: "Frankly, I wish Trump and his fellow birthers would just go ahead and call Obama an N-word. Yes, it would be reprehensible and offensive. But it would be a damn sight more honest, too." (Pitts 4/1/2011)
Bryan Fischer, the director of issue analysis for government and public policy at the American Family Association (AFA), says that the government should stop spending any money at all on anti-poverty efforts because such spending encourages African-Americans to "rut like rabbits." In a blog post on the AFA Web site titled "Poverty has won," Fischer says welfare and anti-poverty programs have done nothing but led to the destruction of marriage and harmed African-American children. "We have spent over $16 trillion fighting the war on poverty, and it's time to run up the white flag of surrender," he writes. "Poverty has won." In the post, Fischer says that welfare has destroyed the African-American family by providing incentives for fornication instead of marriage. "It's no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits," he writes. "Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock." In previous statements on the AFA blog and on his talk radio show, Fischer has claimed that WikiLeaks is about nothing more than gays in the military (see December 7, 2010), that President Obama wants to give the entire North American landmass to Native Americans (see December 22, 2010), and the constitutional right to freedom of religion does not apply to Muslims (see March 24, 2011). Fischer has had as guests on his show potential Republican presidential candidates Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and Haley Barbour. (Dolan 4/5/2011; Right Wing Watch 4/5/2011) The link that originally went to the "Poverty has won" post subsequently goes to an entirely different post; the post Fischer originally made subsequently seems to have been deleted. (Bryan Fischer 4/5/2011)
Donald Trump, the billionaire entrepeneur, television show host, and rumored candidate for the 2012 Republican nomination for president, denies charges of racism in his suggestions that President Obama is not a real American citizen (see February 10, 2011, March 17, 2011, March 23, 2011, March 23, 2011, March 28, 2011, March 28-29, 2011, March 30, 2011, April 1, 2011, April 1, 2011, April 1-8, 2011, April 7, 2011, April 7, 2011, April 7-10, 2011, April 7, 2011, and April 10, 2011). In the process, Trump says he has excellent relations with "the blacks." Trump tells a New York radio interviewer: "I have a great relationship with the blacks. I've always had a great relationship with the blacks." He bemoans the fact that Obama has such widespread support among African-American voters, calling polls that show 95 percent of African-Americans in New York approve of Obama "frightening" and saying of Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), in reference to the 2008 Democratic primary: "Look at Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton did so much for the black population, so much and got very few votes." He adds: "Look, I tell it like it is. Then you hear a political reporter go on and say, 'It had nothing to do with race.' But how come she got such a tiny piece of the vote? It's a very sad thing." (CNN 4/14/2011; Camia 4/14/2011) The next day, Lee-Anne Goodman of the Toronto-based Canadian Press writes that Trump's use of the term "the blacks" is "cringe-worthy," and his characterization of poll results showing heavy African-American support for Obama as "frightening" is telling as to his apparent racial attitudes. American blacks have, until his recent embrace of "birtherism," shown strong support for Trump. Since then, African-American journalists and pundits have criticized Trump. Corporate affairs executive Goldie Taylor, a former journalist, recently wrote: "As a people, we celebrated his business acumen; purchased his books and anything else with the Trump name we could get our hands on. Now among African-Americans, the once gilded Trump brand is about as worthless as a plug nickel. I'm not calling Trump a racist. But he ought to quit quacking before people start believing he's a duck." The day after Trump makes his remark about "the blacks," the African-American online magazine The Root publishes a piece entitled "How Trump Lost the Black Vote," which observes: "It's 2011. It's perfectly respectable to refer to African-Americans as 'black people,' 'the black community,' and maybe even 'black folks'—if you can carry it off. But 'the blacks?' No." Trump could have been "the one candidate in the 2012 Republican field to peel away a few black votes from Obama," the article continues. "But once Trump started arguing that Obama wasn't American, whatever good will he had in black world up and vanished." (Goodman 4/15/2011) An African-American blogger and Capitol Hill staffer who posts under the moniker "The Fed" is far more caustic towards Trump. He writes in reference to Trump's comments about Clinton: "The Tea Party/birthers LOVE to say that their charge isn't based in race, however, they consistently do sh_t like this! Now, their potential presidential candidate sees African-Americans as some foreign object incapable of independent thought. In one interview, Trump marginalized not only the Obama administration, but the entire black population. Clearly Trump is playing to the gutter community; spreading lies, pushing conspiracy theories and now racism. The truth is, if Obama lacked his charisma, intelligence, and competence, his 'blackness' wouldn't have been supported by 'The Blacks.' Don't believe me? Ask Alan Key[e]s, Al Sharpton, Cynthia McKinney, Jesse Jackson, or another number of black candidates, how important other qualities are, besides being black. Considering the fact that over the past 222 years, this country has never had an African-American candidate within a rock's throw of the Oval Office, minimizing any degree of the pride felt in an historic opportunity as nothing more than race based shows how culturally out of touch Trump is with 'The Blacks.' If I didn't know any better, I would think this was Trump's attempt to say something better than 'The N_ggers.' He wanted to speak about the African-American community, but didn't want the audience to think 'The Blacks' were equal to them. He had to maintain the 'us' and 'them' separation. Instead of humanizing African Americans, he attempted to objectify the entire race to remove common sense from our vote." (Urban Politico 4/14/2011)
Marilyn Davenport, a member of the Orange County (California) Republican Party (OCGOP) and a prominent tea party activist, sends an email to "a few friends" depicting President Obama as a half-ape "child" sitting on the laps of chimpanzee parents. The photograph is headed by the words, "Now you know why no birth certificate" (see June 13, 2008). Davenport attempts to laugh off the email as a joke, telling a reporter: "Oh, come on! Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a racist. It was a joke. I have friends who are black. Besides, I only sent it to a few people—mostly people I didn't think would be upset by it." Other local Republicans are less amused. One of her fellow OCGOP members, who refuses to be identified, says: "It's unbelievable. It's much more racist than the watermelon email. I can't believe it was sent out. I'm not an Obama fan but how stupid do you have to be to do this?" The member is referring to a February 2009 email sent out by another Orange County Republican, then-Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose, who emailed a picture of a watermelon patch in front of the White House and then denied the picture was racist (see February 24-26, 2009). Another Republican official who also refuses to be identified says that Davenport is "a really, really sweet old lady so I am surprised to hear about this." In a telephone conversation, OCGOP chairman Scott Baugh tells Davenport the email is tasteless. When contacted by a reporter from the Orange County Weekly, Davenport asks: "You're not going to make a big deal about this are you? It's just an Internet joke." Baugh tells a reporter that it is indeed a big deal. "When I saw that email today I thought it was despicable," he says. "It is dripping with racism and it does not promote the type of message Orange County Republicans want to deliver to the public. I think she should consider stepping down as an elected official." Michael J. Schroeder, an Orange County resident and former California Republican Party chairman, calls the email disgusting. "This is a three strikes situation for Marilyn Davenport," Schroeder says. Schroeder cites Davenport's impassioned defense of a former Newport Beach city councilman who made explicitly racist slurs against "Mexicans," and her defense of Grose and the watermelon picture. "Now, she has managed to top both of those incidents by comparing African-Americans to monkeys. She has disgraced herself and needs to resign. If she doesn't, the Republican Party must remove her." Davenport responds by sending an angry email to fellow California conservative activists demanding to know the identity of "the coward" who supplied a copy of her email to the press. She refuses to speak to at least two reporters, blaming the "liberal media" for the controversy. She later sends another email to fellow Orange County Republican elected officials, apologizing if anyone was offended and again blaming the "liberal media" for reporting the story. She writes: "I'm sorry if my email offended anyone. I simply found it amusing regarding the character of Obama and all the questions surrounding his origin of birth. In no way did I even consider the fact he's half black when I sent out the email. In fact, the thought never entered my mind until one or two other people tried to make this about race. We all know a double standard applies regarding this president. I received plenty of emails about George Bush that I didn't particularly like yet there was no 'cry' in the media about them. One only has to go to Youtube or Google Images to see a plethora of lampooning videos and pictures of Obama, Bush, and other politicians. That being said, I will NOT resign my central committee position over this matter that the average person knows and agrees is much to do about nothing. Again, for those select few who might be truly offended by viewing a copy of an email I sent to a select list of friends and acquaintances, unlike the liberal left when they do the same, I offer my sincere apologies to you—the email was not meant for you. For any of my friends or acquaintances who were the recipients of my email and were truly offended, please call me so I may offer a sincere verbal apology to you." Orange County Republican activist Tim Whitacre defends Davenport, telling a reporter: "Marilyn Davenport is a staunch, ethical Republican lady. There is nothing unethical about this from a party standpoint because it wasn't sent out to the party at large with any racist statements and it wasn't signed as a central committee member. As a private individual, she is just real big on birther stuff. One of her passions that drives her is the president's lack of forthrightness about where he was born. Marilyn believes that nobody knows where he was born and so this picture says a thousand words. She is not a perfect lady, but she is no racist. She is a gentle person who would feed you, help you, be there for you if you were in trouble. She is known as a pleasant, loving person and it kills me that she is being attacked by this non-story knowing her mindset." (Moxley 4/15/2011; KCAL-TV 4/15/2011; CBS Los Angeles 4/15/2011) Baugh says that he wants an ethics investigation into Davenport's actions. (Associated Press 4/15/2011) Conservative blogger Charles Johnson calls Davenport's message "a vicious racist email about the first African-American president," and writes, "This latest sickening example makes the connection between birtherism and old-school racism utterly explicit." (Charles Johnson 4/15/2011)
CNN political analyst Fareed Zakaria accuses billionaire television host, rumored presidential candidate, and "birther" enthusiast Donald Trump of promoting a racist "fantasy" to attack President Obama's citizenship (see February 10, 2011, March 17, 2011, March 23, 2011, March 23, 2011, March 28, 2011, March 28-29, 2011, March 30, 2011, April 1, 2011, April 1, 2011, April 1-8, 2011, April 7, 2011, April 7, 2011, April 7-10, 2011, April 7, 2011, April 10, 2011, April 14-15, 2011, and April 21, 2011). The "birther" issue is "coded racism," Zakaria writes. "I don't think there's any other word for it.… Put it this way: If the president was a white man named John Smith with the other background issues being the same—foreign student father, mother in Hawaii, etc.—would there be any of these dark insinuations? Trump should be ashamed of himself. But then, I suppose, he wouldn't be Donald Trump." (Zakaria 4/22/2011)
Author and journalist Michelle Goldberg examines the racial prejudice behind Donald Trump's recent spate of attacks on President Obama's citizenship and integrity (see February 10, 2011, March 17, 2011, March 23, 2011, March 23, 2011, March 28, 2011, March 28-29, 2011, March 30, 2011, April 1, 2011, April 1, 2011, April 1-8, 2011, April 7, 2011, April 7, 2011, April 7-10, 2011, April 7, 2011, April 7, 2011, April 10, 2011, April 14-15, 2011, and April 21, 2011). Trump has recently alleged that Obama was a "terrible student" in college who would not have made it into Ivy League universities such as Columbia and Harvard without some sort of racial bias (see April 26, 2011). Goldberg says Trump is mining the "fever swamps" of the far-right conspiratists for his allegations. Goldberg tracks claims about Obama's educational history back to a 2008 editorial in the Wall Street Journal that challenged Obama to release his college transcripts to prove that he was not a "mediocre student who benefited from racial preference" (see September 11, 2008). The Journal overlooked the fact that Obama made the Harvard Law Review and graduated with honors from that university's law school. In recent years, "birther" lawyer Orly Taitz, who has introduced forgeries of Kenyan "birth certificates" into evidence in court as "proof" that Obama is not a US citizen (see August 1-4, 2009), has issued a number of allegations about Obama's college years. Currently she claims he must have been a foreign exchange student in order to get into Columbia University, saying: "That might be one of the reasons why his records are not unsealed. If his records show he got into Columbia University as a foreign exchange student, then we have a serious issue with his citizenship." She also disputes Columbia's records of Obama's graduation from that university, saying that Obama left school after nine months, and offers as proof a document from the National Student Clearinghouse that lists Obama's dates of attendance as September 1982 to May 1983. However, Kathleen Dugan of the National Student Clearinghouse says Taitz's search inputs were incorrect, and thusly yielded incorrect data. Taitz also continues to promote the debunked theory that Obama's 1983 visit to Pakistan proves he is not a citizen (see Around June 28, 2010), and speculates that he visited Pakistan, not for a month or so, "but a year and a half." Taitz ties the disparate threads of her conspiracy—Obama the poor student benefiting from racial bias, Obama the foreign national, Obama the closet Muslim—into a single theory: she claims that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal engineered Obama's acceptance into Harvard Law School, paid his way through school, and worked behind the scenes to get Obama the position of editor of the Law Review. The Saudi prince was introduced to Obama by African-American Muslim radical activist Khalid Al-Mansour, Taitz says (see July 21, 2009). She confirms that she has been in contact with Trump and has forwarded all of her information to him. Goldberg writes: "It's easy enough to see why this particular narrative has endured. Not only does it position the president as a Muslim Manchurian candidate with longtime ties to agents of the caliphate, but it also assures resentful whites that this seemingly brilliant black man isn't so smart after all. In that sense, it's of a piece with the right-wing obsession with Obama's use of a teleprompter, and with the widespread suspicion that he didn't really write the eloquent Dreams From My Father, a claim Trump recently made at a Tea Party rally. Obama, in this view, is both sinister and stupid, canny enough to perpetrate one of the biggest frauds in American history but still the ultimate affirmative-action baby. Trump is clearly not as intelligent as Obama, but he's not an idiot, either. When he blows this particular dog whistle, he knows exactly what the Republican base is hearing." (Goldberg 4/26/2011)
President Obama releases his "long form" birth certificate for public view, in an attempt to put questions about his citizenship to rest. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer says in a statement: "The president believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn't good for the country. It may have been good politics and good TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country." In 2008, Obama released an official copy of his birth certificate (see June 13, 2008), but many so-called "birthers" have said that "short form" certificate did not fully prove his Hawaiian birth. In his statement, Pfeiffer notes that the "short form" certificate is "the same legal documentation provided to all Hawaiians as proof of birth in state, and the campaign immediately posted it on the Internet.… When any citizen born in Hawaii requests their birth certificate, they receive exactly what the president received. In fact, the document posted on the campaign Web site is what Hawaiians use to get a driver's license from the state and the document recognized by the federal government and the courts for all legal purposes. That's because it is the birth certificate. This is not and should not be an open question." Pfeiffer says: "At a time of great consequence for this country—when we should be debating how we win the future, reduce our deficit, deal with high gas prices, and bring stability to the Middle East, Washington, DC, was once again distracted by a fake issue. The president's hope is that with this step, we can move on to debating the bigger issues that matter to the American people and the future of the country.… Therefore, the president directed his counsel to review the legal authority for seeking access to the long form certificate and to request on that basis that the Hawaii State Department of Health make an exception to release a copy of his long form birth certificate. They granted that exception in part because of the tremendous volume of requests they had been getting." (Hawaii Department of Health 8/4/1961 ; Hartman 4/27/2011; White House 4/27/2011)
Signed, Certified as True and Valid - The certificate is signed by the delivery doctor, Obama's mother, and the local registrar. It certifies that Barack Hussein Obama II was born at 7:24 p.m. on August 4, 1961, to Stanley Ann Dunham Obama at Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu. It does not mention religion. Obama's father, Barack Hussein Obama, is noted as being born in Kenya, and his mother as being born in Wichita, Kansas. The Hawaiian registrar certifies the new photocopy of the document provided to the White House on April 25 as being a true and valid copy. The White House also releases a letter from Obama on April 22 requesting two certified copies of his original certificate of live birth. The Hawaii Department of Health does not, by law, release the actual birth certificate, but the department makes an exception for Obama given his "status as president of the United States." Also released is a letter from Loretta Fuddy, Hawaii's director of health, approving the request. In her approval letter, Fuddy wrote that she hopes the release "will end the numerous inquiries" received by her office. "Such inquiries have been disruptive to staff operations and have strained state resources," Fuddy wrote. Obama's personal lawyer, Judith Corley, flew to Hawaii to pick up the documents and brought them back to Washington. She returned with the documents around 5 p.m. April 26.
Obama: 'We Do Not Have Time for This Kind of Silliness' - Obama says during a morning press conference that he has been both amused and puzzled by the degree to which his place of birth has become an issue. "We do not have time for this kind of silliness," he says. "This issue has been going on for two, two and a half years now. I think it started during the campaign. I have watched with bemusement, I've been puzzled at the degree at which this thing just kept on going." The country needs to come together to work on critical issues, he says, but "we're not going to be able to do it if we are distracted. We're not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other. We're not going to be able to do it if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts. We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers."
Trump Takes Credit, RNC Blames Obama for Controversy - Billionaire entrepeneur and television host Donald Trump has reignited the controversy in recent weeks (see February 10, 2011, March 17, 2011, March 23, 2011, March 23, 2011, March 28, 2011, March 28-29, 2011, March 30, 2011, April 1, 2011, April 1, 2011, April 1-8, 2011, April 7, 2011, April 7, 2011, April 7-10, 2011, April 7, 2011, April 7, 2011, April 10, 2011, April 14-15, 2011, April 21, 2011, April 26, 2011, and April 26, 2011) as part of his apparent 2012 presidential campaign bid. Though neither Obama nor Pfeiffer mention Trump by name, he takes full credit for the release. "He should have done it a long time ago. I am really honored to play such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue," Trump says during a visit to New Hampshire. Trump says he is not yet convinced of the certificate's authenticity, saying that he and his people are "going to look at it. We have to see if it's real, if it's proper.… It's amazing that all of a sudden it materializes. Why he didn't do it when the Clintons asked for it. Why he didn't do it when everyone else was asking about it, I don't know." However, Trump says he is "sure it's the right deal" and is looking forward to moving on to more important issues such as OPEC and China. Trump and other "birthers" have alleged that the long form birth certificate contains information Obama wanted to hide from public view, when in fact the two different versions of the certificate contain virtually the same information. The long form includes the signatures of Obama's mother and the attending physician. Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus calls the issue a distraction, but blames Obama for playing "campaign politics" by addressing it. "The president ought to spend his time getting serious about repairing our economy," he says. "Unfortunately his campaign politics and talk about birth certificates is distracting him from our number one priority—our economy." (Hartman 4/27/2011; Pace 4/27/2011; Jackson 4/27/2011; Unruh 4/27/2011) Trump also demands that Obama release his complete college transcripts. (Real Clear Politics 4/27/2011)
Questions from CNN - Some observers feel the White House may have been spurred to release the certificate in part because of questions about the controversy from mainstream media reporters. On April 26, White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked a question about Obama's birth status by CNN's Ed Henry, at the same time CNN's Anderson Cooper was airing a "definitive investigation" into the controversy that debunked the "birther" conspiracy theory and attacked Trump for feeding the controversy. Carney called the question "preposterous" and the controversy "a distraction" that had been "settled," but Henry continued to pursue the issue. (Linkins 4/26/2011)
Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham tells her listeners that President Obama's decision to present his "long form" birth certificate as proof of his US citizenship (see April 27, 2011) proves his 2012 re-election campaign will hinge on race. After playing a montage of audio clips from commentators accusing Obama of racism, or saying that his campaign will focus on race, she tells her audience: "It's official. The Obama campaign is going to run on race. No? They might not say that, but let there be no misunderstanding of where this is going. This is going right to the heart of liberalism. Liberals see people, not as individuals who are capable of anything if given the opportunity, and freed up and loosened from the bonds of government regulation and bureaucratic restraints. No. They see people as a certain color, or a certain gender, or a certain sexual orientation. They have to be put in these boxes. The favorites boxes of the bean counters. Liberals have always looked at people that way. The truth about race, and this president, is not a pretty truth.… The truth about this administration and race goes right to the core of what liberalism has done to the black family, to minorities in general. The great diversion of liberalists has always been to drop the charges of racism, the spurious and the negative and the perjorative charges of racism [against conservatives], every time they are proven to be incorrect and the way they approach a problem" (see September 4, 1949, and After, March 12, 1956 and After, 1969-1971, 1978-1996, 1980, 1981, March 15, 1982, 1983, June-September 1988, 1990, September 1995, August 16, 1998, March 1-2, 2001, August 29, 2001, March 15, 2002, July 15, 2002, August 2002, September 26, 2002 and After, August 5, 2003, September 28 - October 2, 2003, May 17, 2004, May 18, 2004, October 9-13, 2004, November 15, 2004, November 26, 2004, December 5-8, 2004, December 8, 2004, May 10, 2005, September 28-October 1, 2005, September 30 - October 1, 2005, September 30, 2005, 2006, March 29, 2006, December 2006, January 19, 2007 and After, January 24, 2007, April 2007, April 2, 2007, July 22, 2007, August 21, 2007, September 22, 2008, October 8-10, 2008, October 24, 2008, January 6-11, 2008, November 10, 2008, January 25, 2008, January 31, 2008, February 1, 2008, February 28, 2008, May 19, 2008, June 2, 2008, June 6, 2008, June 26, 2008, August 1, 2008 and After, August 4, 2008, August 4, 2008, August 19, 2008, August 25, 2008, October 7, 2008, October 20, 2008, October 22, 2008, October 28, 2008, November 18, 2008, January 18, 2009, February 24-26, 2009, March 3, 2009, April 7-8, 2009, May 26, 2009, May 26, 2009, May 27, 2009, May 27-29, 2009, May 28, 2009, May 29, 2009, May 31, 2009, June 2, 2009, June 5, 2009, June 7, 2009, June 12, 2009, June 20, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 8, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28-29, 2009, August 8, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 19, 2009, September 2009, September 14, 2009, October 13, 2009, February 25, 2010, March 20, 2010, July 14, 2010, July 15, 2010, September 11, 2010, September 12, 2010, September 12, 2010 and After, September 15, 2010, September 18, 2010, September 21, 2010, September 24, 2010, October 22-23, 2010, November 9, 2010, November 12, 2010, December 22, 2010, January 14, 2011, February 20, 2011, March 2011, March 19-24, 2011, April 1, 2011, April 5, 2011, April 14-15, 2011, April 15, 2011, April 22, 2011, April 26, 2011, April 26, 2011, April 26, 2011, April 26, 2011, April 26, 2011, April 27, 2011, April 27, 2011, April 27, 2011, April 27, 2011, April 27, 2011, April 27, 2011, and April 28, 2011). Liberals, Ingraham says, rely on racial politics, divisiveness, and "class warfare" to succeed in the political arena. "[I]n the end," she says, "it's kind of all they have, that and abortion." She derides people "on the left" for attacking billionaire television host and enthusiastic "birther" Donald Trump for being racist (see April 14-15, 2011, April 26, 2011, April 27, 2011, April 27, 2011, and April 28, 2011). Any such charges, she says, are ridiculous. But those charges will be used by anyone who criticizes Trump for his challenge to Obama's citizenship, she predicts, and cites Trump's recent exhortation for Obama to "get off the basketball court" and focus on national issues as an example of an unfair charge of racism (see April 27, 2011). "And the very thing the left always starts to accuse the right of is what they are most guilty of," she says. (Media Matters 4/28/2011) Ingraham has had her own issues with racism and gender (see 1984, April 1997, and July 17, 2009).
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Africa GFS Surface Temperature/Wind +120 hour Chart
- location
- Africa
- Asia
- Europe
- New Zealand
- North America
- South America
- model
- BoM 10-day
- US 8-day
- CMC 6-day
About GFS
Global Forecast System. The operational numerical weather forecasting model run by NCEP. The GFS superceded the AVN and MRF models, on which it is largely based. Forecast data from the GFS is available out to 180 hours at full resolution and 16 days at a reduced resolution.
Weather News
South-east Queensland hit by very dangerous thunderstorms as hail up to 14cm pummels the region
Hail up to 14 centimetres has been reported at Forestdale, south of Brisbane, as parts of south-east Queensland were pummelled by a series of very dangerous and "life threatening" thunderstorms this afternoon.
Hail hits Sydney with severe thunderstorm warnings in place for much of NSW
Hail has showered Sydney and parts of the NSW north coast as a dangerous low pressure system moves over the state through the night.


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Official Statements
EHF EURO 2018: No further Sanctions for Jacobsen
EHF EURO 2018: No further Sanctions for Jacobsen
The decision regarding the case of Marit Rosberg Jacobsen in the match Czech Republic versus Norway on 3 December 2018, the Disciplinary Commission found that the player did not present any malicious intention to harm the opponent nor did the gesture present a particular violence or the characteristics of an assault. Hence, the Disciplinary Commission decides that the sole disqualification of the player from the match is adequate to the specific circumstances of the case. No further sanction beyond the direct disqualification shall therefore be imposed on the player.


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agreement corporation
A financial institution, chartered by a state, which provides international banking services. "Agreement" refers to the corporation's agreement with the guidelines set forth by the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors and the Edge Act. Agreement corporations operate local branches, which allow smaller businesses to interact with global financial markets.


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"3 Days, 25 Speakers, 10 Workshops
The days of relying on a UX Designer for the whole experience are done. Collaboration has won out, and every team member needs to know how to contribute to product development. At LeanUX NYC, entrepreneurs, designers, developers and user experience professionals will learn about the entire product development lifecycle from accomplished practitioners and leaders in the LeanUX Design community."
DATE: April 11th – 13th, 2013
VENUE: The conference will be held in downtown Manhattan at NYU Stern's beautiful Tisch Hall. Workshops and open space will be held in the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Registration now open.


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Dan Mangan - Oh Fortune
- Niki Boyle
- 7 December 2011
Third album from the alt.folk Canadian combines the bombastic with the understated
(Arts & Crafts)
Dan Mangan's third album is a noticeable progression from his last (2009's Nice, Nice, Very Nice). He's retained his talent for marrying lush orchestration with catchy pop hooks and the odd spot of lyrical genius. Now though, he's changed venue: each track on Oh Fortune seems to have been recorded in a church, with a much more expansive sound as a result. While initially this feels like a bad thing – the intimacy he established on Nice Nice, Very Nice is a lot harder to conjure up when slathered with echo – it becomes a virtue on tracks like 'Rows of Houses', in which soaring group harmonies fill the vaulted space.
Production notes aside, Mangan's diversity of style is still present and correct, as evidenced by the indie-rock bounce of 'Post-War Blues', the mournful country twang of 'Jeopardy' and the slightly twee chamber folk of album opener 'About As Helpful As You Can Be Without Being Any Help At All'. He's also still capable of the odd ear-catching turn of phrase ('I lit up like a match cos I bled gasoline'), although his earnestness in trying to imbue some banalities with profound meaning can get grating ('there are leaves on the trees, there are trees in the forest' – you don't say?).
These churlish niggles aside though, it's a corker of an album – let the big, bombastic numbers pull you in, then keep coming back as the more understated tracks plant roots in your psyche.


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7 Alternative job search options for H4 EAD applicants
OK, So you are an immigrant spouse and have finally obtained the H4 EAD card and ready to work. Congrats! And you may have started applying for jobs through the usual channels (aka Indeed, Dice, Monster, Linkedin, Linkup, Friend referrals). But if you haven't landed on that job yet, it is a good idea to complement your job hunt through the following less common avenues
0) Friend referrals, Indeed, Dice, Monster, Linkedin, Linkup
OK, While this post is all about alternate avenues for job hunting, lets's make sure you extracted full value out of the usual options.
Friend referrals are the most effective way to land an interview call and in many cases that job. Are you sure that you have already explored all your friends and contacts who can refer a job? Make sure you follow up in a nice way if it has been a while since you last asked them. Try to expand the circle by asking for friends of friends. And if you have already worked before the break, contact your old managers to see if they have any open positions.
Like most people, if you have location constraints and are looking for jobs in only certain locations, make sure to include positions that allow remote work as well. Also, expand to include nearby cities if you can commute over the weekend etc.And it doesn't have to be permanent, you can give it a shot and meanwhile look in your city. It's easier to get another job if you already have one.
Even though you may want to work in a specific location, that doesn't mean you don't have to apply nationwide. Read on to find why, There are several advantages in looking for jobs nationally, While the companies may not be open to considering offering remote jobs at the beginning of the process, they may be willing to consider once they have invested the time and effort and are willing to hiring you. Even if not right away, they may be open to let you work remote after some time like 3 months. Even otherwise, remember it's easy to get a job when you are already employed. So, you are better off looking for a job in your city of preference when you are already employed elsewhere. Even if you didn't get a job that was flexible, it will atleast help with brushing up your interview skills. You can use these interviews to smoothen the rough edges, so you are in top form when you land an interview for that dream job. So, don't confine yourself to your geographic preferences. Look beyond!
Similarly, don't be too fixated on the salary or experience level. For all of the reasons described earlier, consider going for jobs with slightly lower roles or lesser salary. Chances are that once you prove your performance, you could negotiate for a higher role or more salary or both, down the line.
Also, consider going in adjacent fields. For example, if you are looking for a Business Analyst position, consider positions like Technical Writer or even Quality Analyst. Or if you were a programmer think about becoming a Scrum Master. You never know, you may like the new roles and that may open up new opportunities. After all, in a long career, people tend to take different roles and this may be an opportunity to do so. And it doesn't have to be always an adjacent career opportunity. If you had a desire to try totally different career, this may be a good time to try.
1) Craigslist
Not many people know that Craigslist has a section for job advertisements. Companies advertise in Craigslist because the ads are cheaper and location speific. For example, you can find plenty of Software Engineer jobs in the bay area
2) StackOverflow Jobs
While StackOverflow sites are known for Q & A, they also have a career section. Hence, it is a good idea to keep an eye on their job section http://stackoverflow.com/jobs
3) Career Fair
Most cities have career fairs all around the year. Search online, to see if you have anything coming up. In addition, most big universities also have their own department specific career fairs. And many of them allow external candidates for a small fee. If you are early in your career or looking to restart after a long gap, this may be worth exploring this option.
4) Non-commercial employers
Most non-commercial sector like universities, state agencies, city administration jobs are not indexed by the job sites. And yes, many of them hire people on visa. So, it may be a good idea to look in their own sites, especially the universities. The jobs may be more steady and relaxed. In addition, https://www.governmentjobs.com/ indexes government jobs.
5) AngelJobs.co
Startups and early stage companies use this site to hire people. While the pay may be less or even non-existent, you may be offered equity in the company. On top of that, you get to be in a fast paced and dynamic environment. While not everyone can work in a startup environment, it's still a good opportunity to learn and quick growth. https://angel.co/jobs
6) redditt/forhire
Reddit is a popular social book marking site. And lots of people hang out around their topics of interests. And reddit happens to have an active "for hire" thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/forhire/
7) Freelancing
Beyond the conventional job market, there is a big parallel free lancing job market. With freelancing, you can look for jobs all around the world. Most of the freelancing jobs also come with greater job flexibility. While landing your initial gig may be challenging, once you get going things will become easy. http://www.guru.com/


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Contact Info
White Bear Township
Patrick Christopherson
1281 Hammond Road
White Bear Township, MN 55110
Phone: 651-429-5827
Fax: 651-426-2258
Contact via Email
Website: www.ci.white-bear-township.mn.us
- Animal Control
- Building Department
- Elections
- Finance Department
- Fire Department
- Parks Department
- Public Works Department
- Utilities Department
- Refuse and Recycling Information
- Sheriff and Police Department
About Us
"Before the birth of White Bear Lake, Vadnais Heights,
Gem Lake or North Oaks, there was White Bear Township –
a 36 square mile stretch of land that included them all."
-Minneapolis StarTribune
December 2, 2008
White Bear Township is a uniquely configured community of 11 square miles separated by lakes and other communities into four distinct noncontiguous areas. (Click here to view map). In White Bear: A History, author Catherine Carey asked the question, "Why is White Bear Township shaped the way it is?"
The Township was originally surveyed in 1848. Like most townships, it was roughly platted into 36 one-mile sections. Legally known as the Town of White Bear, White Bear Township was formally organized at John Lamb's Hotel on the north shore of Goose Lake on May 11, 1858 -- the same day Minnesota became a state. As originally established, White Bear Township was one of six congressional townships in Ramsey County.
In more than 150 years, the Township has transcended from a farming community, a resort area and a freestanding town into a cluster of suburban communities within the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.


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Rocking S Ranch
Schleicher County
Property Info
- 2,245 ± Acres
- Two Houses
- Foreman's House
- Three Edwards Wells
- Barn & Workshop
- Low-Fenced
- Good Roads
- Two Large Water Storage Tanks
- Livestock Working Pens
This low-fenced cattle, goat and livestock operation, as well as an outstanding hunting ranch located 10 miles east of Eldorado, Texas. The ranch includes 2 houses, 2 barns, 3 Edwards water wells, 6 fenced pastures, all with underground water lines to 12 water troughs and 2 large storage pilas. The barn area has working pens, chutes and calf table. The older wooden barn houses ranch equipment, vehicles and feed. The newer barn is all metal, insulated, has a bathroom and shower with a workshop and storage for tools. Rocking S Ranch is ideally situated to continue as a cattle, goat and livestock operation, as well as an outstanding hunting ranch. The varied terrain of the north pastures with rocky hillsides and draws to the south pastures of deep fertile soils lends itself to varied agricultural and recreational opportunities.
Video Tour
Location Map
Contact Us About This Listing


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Lots of Bollywood biggies were spotted at Ranbir and Katrina's residence yesterday. Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif threw a pre-Christmas and New Year's bash last night at their residence in Bandra. The lovebirds won't be in town either for Christmas or the New Year's eve as they are flying out to celebrate the holiday season with each other in New York!
The party saw the biggest stars of Bollywood descend to Ranbir-Kat's love nest starting with the PK star Aamir Khan and his wife Kiran Rao.
Kiran wore a white Péro by Aneeth Arora dress and she threw a scarf and jacket over it. She teamed it with a cross sling bag, ankle high boots and earrings. It was a casual look.
KS style rating: 3/5


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In Along for the Ride, Auden is a very serious and driven teenager who is about to go off to college, after she spends the summer with her dad, his new wife, and her new half sister. What she expects is a very long and uneventful summer, however instead what happens is she meets a group of people who change her perception on all of the choices she has ever made.
This is one of my favorite Sarah Dessen books, just because I can relate to it. The characters all have their own unique traits to them and when put together it creates this jumble of personalities that all around fit well together.
I would most definitely recommend this book because of it's outlook that you should not judge people based on their appearance and how you should maintain a healthy balance between school and your social life. I know some might think Sarah Dessen books are overrated, but honestly this book deserves to be read.
Audrey, 16
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