Two Rebellious Republican Governors
Politicians are known to be many things among which is having an ingrained tendency to be, well, political in the diplomatic sense, not speaking their minds, not going out of their way to be overly honest by possibly offending people and certainly not insulting their constituents. It’s what makes them politicians.
It’s also what makes them phonies.
Therefore, when a pol departs from that norm and dumps the typical script in favor of straightforward, honest frankness, it’s refreshing.
On the eve of Martin Luther King Day 2011, newly-elected Republican Governor Paul LePage of Maine added just such a touch of refreshment when he announced in Sanford, ME to the displeasure of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People why he wouldn’t be attending the upcoming MLK festivities.
The governor, born into an impoverished, French-speaking Lewiston family of 18 kids who is a self-made man, said, “They are a special interest. End of story . . . and I’m not going to be held hostage by special interests.” He added when asked if this was part of a pattern, “Tell ‘em to kiss my butt. If they want to play the race card, come to dinner and my [adopted, black Jamaican] son will talk to them.”
Not attending MLK festivities? The NAACP a special interest playing the race card? Telling them to kiss his butt if they didn’t like it? What is this guy, anyway, an honest man or a politician?
The answer is obvious and his honesty should have been just as obvious since he didn’t pull any punches as a candidate, either. Then he had said that if he were elected governor, headlines would read, “Governor LePage tells Obama to go to hell.“ He later said he regretted his choice of words but stood behind their intent: http://tiny.cc/7j7ld
Another new Republican governor, Chris Christie of New Jersey, hasn’t yet taken on the president with such blunt language but give it time. What he has taken on during his brief, one-year tenure in Jersey is Obama’s most highly-favored groups, public service and especially teacher unions, whose benefits, salaries, and pensions are in process of bankrupting over half the states in America. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3428)
Showing posts with label naacp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label naacp. Show all posts
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Thursday, August 5, 2010
It's About Time Someone Punched Back!
It's About Time Someone Punched Back!
Let’s face it. As a group, conservatives are too often weenies, just too damned meek for their own good.
Granted, the second Beatitude reads, “The meek shall inherit the Earth” but before that can happen we have to battle defamation, promote truth, challenge the defamers, and win elections. Humility, docility, and submissiveness just won’t cut it nowadays.
With virtually the entirety of the mainstream media on the other side, it’s no easy task to battle, promote, and challenge the left, the liberals, the “progressives” so it’s good to see some degree of resistance and retaliation such as that demonstrated yesterday by the Tea Party.
That much-maligned, amorphous and diverse collection of Americans, blacks, whites, elders, young people, Democrats, Republicans, independents, libertarians, and moderates are concerned primarily about excessive taxation, (TEA=Taxed Enough Already), big government and everything associated with big government including its primary exponent, President Barack Obama.
It is the Tea Party’s opposition to Obama that has inspired most of the brickbats hurled its way.
Even before Obama’s election, it was widely expected that any criticism of the president would be contorted into charges of racism . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1825)
Let’s face it. As a group, conservatives are too often weenies, just too damned meek for their own good.
Granted, the second Beatitude reads, “The meek shall inherit the Earth” but before that can happen we have to battle defamation, promote truth, challenge the defamers, and win elections. Humility, docility, and submissiveness just won’t cut it nowadays.
With virtually the entirety of the mainstream media on the other side, it’s no easy task to battle, promote, and challenge the left, the liberals, the “progressives” so it’s good to see some degree of resistance and retaliation such as that demonstrated yesterday by the Tea Party.
That much-maligned, amorphous and diverse collection of Americans, blacks, whites, elders, young people, Democrats, Republicans, independents, libertarians, and moderates are concerned primarily about excessive taxation, (TEA=Taxed Enough Already), big government and everything associated with big government including its primary exponent, President Barack Obama.
It is the Tea Party’s opposition to Obama that has inspired most of the brickbats hurled its way.
Even before Obama’s election, it was widely expected that any criticism of the president would be contorted into charges of racism . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1825)
Saturday, July 24, 2010
The Prime Players in the Shirley Sherrod Affair
The Prime Players in the Shirley Sherrod Affair
Okay, I thought USDA official Shirley Sherrod proved herself a typical racist, black bigot based on that 20 second snippet of video tape that originally went viral. After all, she did say, “I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have lost their farmland and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land–so I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough.”
A lot of other people thought the same including conservative publisher-commentator Andrew Breitbart, Tom Vilsack, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Benjamin Todd Jealous, CEO of the NAACP, and, most disturbingly, Barack Obama, president of the United States.
Since the truth came out on Tuesday, almost everyone has been falling all over themselves in a rush to issue apologies after their rush to judgment.
The principal actors in the Shirley Sherrod affair, none of whom is squeaky clean in this mess: . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1800)
Okay, I thought USDA official Shirley Sherrod proved herself a typical racist, black bigot based on that 20 second snippet of video tape that originally went viral. After all, she did say, “I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have lost their farmland and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land–so I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough.”
A lot of other people thought the same including conservative publisher-commentator Andrew Breitbart, Tom Vilsack, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Benjamin Todd Jealous, CEO of the NAACP, and, most disturbingly, Barack Obama, president of the United States.
Since the truth came out on Tuesday, almost everyone has been falling all over themselves in a rush to issue apologies after their rush to judgment.
The principal actors in the Shirley Sherrod affair, none of whom is squeaky clean in this mess: . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1800)
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Post-Racial America? Part Two
Post-Racial America? Part Two
President Obama promised Americans that if he were elected, this nation would experience “a post-racial society” for the first time in our history. As with so many other of his changes and buzz words, he never bothered to define what he meant by “post-racial.”
It was widely assumed that he meant that he would work to accomplish that which Dr. Martin Luther King only dreamed of, “a nation where men will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
More relevant today is another quotation, “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me,” because any white person who believed Obama and his administration would strive to effect a truly color-blind society would have to be considered a total ass.
Indeed, what we have witnessed in only the first 18 months of Obama World has been the absolute antithesis of color-blindness and post-racialism. It’s been more like retribution time and payback time; reparations time can’t be too far down the road. . .
(read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1795)
President Obama promised Americans that if he were elected, this nation would experience “a post-racial society” for the first time in our history. As with so many other of his changes and buzz words, he never bothered to define what he meant by “post-racial.”
It was widely assumed that he meant that he would work to accomplish that which Dr. Martin Luther King only dreamed of, “a nation where men will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
More relevant today is another quotation, “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me,” because any white person who believed Obama and his administration would strive to effect a truly color-blind society would have to be considered a total ass.
Indeed, what we have witnessed in only the first 18 months of Obama World has been the absolute antithesis of color-blindness and post-racialism. It’s been more like retribution time and payback time; reparations time can’t be too far down the road. . .
(read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1795)
Monday, July 19, 2010
Have Tea Partiers Stopped Beating Their Wives?
Have Tea Partiers Stopped Beating Their Wives?
A classic, deceptive rhetorical device involves asking if your opponent has stopped beating his wife yet. The question presupposes that he has beaten his wife in the past and thereby a yes or no response condemns the opponent as a wife-beater.
Nice trick.
Vice President Joe Biden used a variation on the wife-beating trick in his ostensible defense of the Tea Party movement as not a “racist organization” a cute, deceptive rhetorical device. It presupposes that at least some people believe the Tea Party is in fact a racist organization and for those who hadn’t heard that slander, it serves to get it out on the public table.
As he said on “This Week,” with typically-jumbled syntax, ”The truth is that at least elements that were involved in some of the Tea Party folks have expressed racist views. We saw that on television . . . There are individuals who are either members of or on the periphery of some of their things . . . that have expressed really unfortunate comments:” http://tiny.cc/8h7ws
He didn’t explain and wasn’t asked what he saw on TV.
Nor did he criticize outright racism as it exists in the administration’s own Justice Department . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1793)
A classic, deceptive rhetorical device involves asking if your opponent has stopped beating his wife yet. The question presupposes that he has beaten his wife in the past and thereby a yes or no response condemns the opponent as a wife-beater.
Nice trick.
Vice President Joe Biden used a variation on the wife-beating trick in his ostensible defense of the Tea Party movement as not a “racist organization” a cute, deceptive rhetorical device. It presupposes that at least some people believe the Tea Party is in fact a racist organization and for those who hadn’t heard that slander, it serves to get it out on the public table.
As he said on “This Week,” with typically-jumbled syntax, ”The truth is that at least elements that were involved in some of the Tea Party folks have expressed racist views. We saw that on television . . . There are individuals who are either members of or on the periphery of some of their things . . . that have expressed really unfortunate comments:” http://tiny.cc/8h7ws
He didn’t explain and wasn’t asked what he saw on TV.
Nor did he criticize outright racism as it exists in the administration’s own Justice Department . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1793)
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