10 Questions Voters Were Not Allowed To Ask Trump At The Town Hall Debate

Medium 10-8-16, HuffPo 10-12-16

   

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Donald Trump is the biggest bullshit artist our nation has produced in the past few decades. But his con game is full of holes. Anyone with a little common sense can see right through his would-be tyrant shtick, which relies on scapegoating undocumented immigrants and Muslims while pretending to be a successful, competent businessman with "one of the great temperaments" who can solve all of America's problems.

In order for Trump to maintain the illusion that he's not a fraud, he has to lie relentlessly about things big and small, and dodge as many serious questions as he can. That strategy posed risks for him on Sunday, October 9, when Trump met Hillary Clinton in the town hall-style second Presidential debate, and general election voters got a chance to weigh in on some of their concerns.

But more often than not, what was asked in St. Louis didn't wholly reflect the fact that most voters have a lot of questions Donald Trump doesn't want to answer.

The second debate marked the first time citizens were able to submit and vote on questions online, with the top 30 supposed to be considered for inclusion by the debate's ABC and CNN moderators. More than three and a half million votes were cast for over 15,000 questions submitted at PresidentialOpenQuestions.com, a project of the bipartisan Open Debate Coalition.

Unfortunately, the top 30 voter-submitted questions were ignored by Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper, who instead cherrypicked a single question from the site, one regarding the latest Wikileaks dump of e-mails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Left unspoken was any context that the leaked e-mails were almost certainly stolen by Russian intelligence agency hackers, in an effort to damage Hillary's campaign and boost Trump's chances.

The top question submitted ("Would you support requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales?") was endorsed by over 75,000 citizens, and the 30th most popular question favored by over 20,000, yet the only question chosen to be asked received a mere 13 votes.

This failed Open Debate Coalition experiment now serves as a glaring example of how the American public doesn't have enough opportunities to legitimately question the presidential candidates when it counts, in widely-viewed national forums during the general election season.

Here are ten Open Debate questions that all received more votes than the one selected by the moderators. They could have been fairly asked of both candidates, and yet would have exposed Donald Trump for the unqualified, racist, sexist, ignorant, sociopathically lying, shamelessly scapegoating, unfit to be President fraud that he is. Click on any question to view how it was originally submitted online.

1) Do you believe in gender equality - equal rights for both men and women? Why?

Trump's lewd and vile remarks about groping, kissing, and attempting to have sex with married women as heard on the 2005 tape released by the Washington Post on October 7 confirmed what we already knew about the man's despicable character.

This week, more shoes dropped as former Miss Teen USA contestants revealed that Trump, who at the time owned the pageant, had walked in on them while they were changing. Some of the girls in the room were as young as 15. And multiple women came forward to confirm Trump had forcibly groped and kissed them, the same conduct he was caught on tape bragging about in 2005. At last Sunday's debate, Trump emphatically denied he had ever actually engaged in such behavior.

Trump has shown time and time again how he views women as objects, not equals. The day before he unleashed his now-infamous early morning Twitter storm against former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, trying to convince the world she deserved to be weight-shamed because she was "disgusting," the Los Angeles Times published a lengthy investigative report about Trump's apparent sex discrimination in the workplace. Statements made by multiple employees of a Trump-owned California golf course show Trump wanted female employees fired who weren't young, pretty and thin enough.

2) Unemployment has fallen from 7.8% to 4.9% since Jan 2009. Why has this happened?

(UPDATE 10/13 - The Labor Department reported last week that the unemployment rate ticked up one tenth of a percentage point to 5.0% in September, the result of what most analysts agreed was more Americans actively looking for work.)

Trump falsely claims our economy is in shambles, and it's all President Obama's fault. In reality, Obama has brought the economy out of the ditch that George W. Bush's policies drove it into, and presided over the longest stretch of private-sector job growth on record.

In an August speech before the Detroit Economic Club, Trump said the unemployment rate as reported monthly by the Labor Department was one of the "biggest hoaxes in politics." Although the reported unemployment rate has hovered around 5% for the past year, over the course of his campaign, Trump has claimed the real rate ranges from 18% to 49%.

Independent economists agree the outdated, discredited economic policies Trump would implement - huge tax cuts for the wealthy that would blow a $5.9 trillion hole in the national debt, restricting immigration, and a global trade war - could wreck the U.S. economy.

3) What is your plan to combat climate change & build a green economy?

Trump claimed in a 2012 tweet that "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." During his first debate with Clinton, she called him out over that fantasy. "I did not say that," lied Trump in response. But of course, he did. And he has labeled climate change a hoax numerous times.

4) Why is it important for every American to pay our fair share of taxes?

In the first debate, when Clinton pointed out Trump hadn't paid federal income taxes during some years, he replied, "That makes me smart." An hour later, he denied having said it, although 84 million viewers saw and heard him.

Studies have shown most Americans consider paying taxes to be a moral obligation and act of civic duty, and agree with Hillary supporter and actual billionaire Mark Cuban's view that "after military service, the most patriotic thing you can do as a wealthy person is pay your taxes."

5) Do you support a woman's right to choose?

If elected, a President Trump would solidify a conservative, reactionary majority on the Supreme Court for the next generation. He would attempt to pack the Court and the federal judiciary with extreme right-wing ideologues who would work to further limit women's access to safe, legal abortions as currently protected by Roe v. Wade.

One of the nominees Trump has proposed putting on the Supreme Court, former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, has described Roe as creating "a constitutional right to murder an unborn child." Another, Diane Sykes, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, wrote a 2013 opinion in which she called some forms of birth control "abortifacient drugs."

6) How will you address systemic racism?

Trump has a documented history of racist behavior, statements, and actions dating back more than 40 years.

Trump's divisive record couldn't be more different from Hillary Clinton's, who has been a strong advocate for civil rights for most of her adult life.

7) How will you address the issue of 11 million undocumented immigrants?

Trump is playing with the lives of millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States by repeatedly threatening to deport them all, despite waffling on exactly how fast mass deportations would take place. Besides being logistically impossible, prohibitively expensive, and disastrous for the U.S. economy, such an idiotic plan would tear apart families on a scale unprecedented in our country since the WWII-era Japanese American internment camps. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, is sanely and sensibly committed to passing comprehensive immigration reform.

8) Do you agree with doctors and scientists that children should be vaccinated?

Trump is one of the most prominent celebrities who in recent years have spread phony anti-vaccine propaganda, and U.S. children have died as a result.

Hillary is the only presidential candidate who is unequivocally pro-vaccine. Trump is an unrepentant anti-vaxxer, and Gary Johnson and Jill Stein have both pandered to the anti-vaccine movement.

9) What community service in your past has prepared you for the job of President?

Trump's lack of any prior community service should disqualify him outright him for the job he's seeking. Electing Trump would be the first time in two and a half centuries of American history that voters chose a President with no prior government or military experience. He's never held public office before, which means he's never given voters a chance to see how he could handle a lesser office before asking them to trust him with the presidency.

Trump has never held an appointed position in any previous presidential administration. He hasn't represented his fellow citizens as Governor, Mayor, or even a City Council member. He's never helped run any sort of government body whose goal is to serve the public interest. All Trump has done in his 70 years on this planet is expand a business empire that he inherited from his father, while managing to bankrupt his companies several times.

In addition to serving in elected office as a U.S. Senator from New York and at the cabinet level as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has a nearly 50-year record of community service.

10) Do you have many lifelong friends? Tell us about one of them.

In Trump Revealed, an exhaustively-researched biography written by Washington Post reporters that came out in August, based in part on twenty hours of interviews with Trump, a shocking fact came to light. When asked about his friends, Trump said he had no time for any. "It was apparent that Trump had no friends, outside his immediate family," wrote the reporters.

What Donald Trump does have is a deeply-rooted addiction to fame, money, and attention. He almost certainly needs psychological help, but as these ten questions make clear, the last thing America needs is to put Trump in the Oval Office.

Steve Scalise's Ties to David Duke Show GOP Can't Escape its Embrace of Racism

   

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GOP House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) confirmed on Monday that he had addressed a white supremacy conference in 2002 organized by former KKK Grand Wizard and onetime GOP presidential candidate David Duke. The revelation immediately cast doubts on whether Scalise will hang onto his leadership position within the House Republican caucus as the GOP prepares to lead both chambers of Congress in 2015.

Democrats condemned Scalise's appearance and called on his fellow GOP House leaders to do the same. "Steve Scalise chose to cheerlead for a group of KKK members and neo-Nazis at a white supremacist rally and now his fellow House Republican Leaders can’t even speak up and say he was wrong," said Josh Schwerin, National Press Secretary for the DCCC. "Republicans in Congress might talk about improving their terrible standing with non-white voters, but it’s clear their leadership has a history of embracing anti-Semitic, racist hate groups."

As reported by The Hill:

"The news about Scalise will cast a cloud over the first week of Congress...Scalise will be surrounded by reporters upon his return to Washington, and it will distract from the GOP’s official message. Damaging stories touching on racism have the potential not only to distract, but to damage the GOP brand.

Scalise on Monday denounced the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, to which he spoke in 2002. 'I didn't know who all of these groups were and I detest any kind of hate group,' he said in an interview with the New Orleans Times-Picayune on Monday. 'For anyone to suggest that I was involved with a group like that is insulting and ludicrous,' he said.

Many people have expressed doubt, however, that Scalise could not have known who the group was given its name and David Duke’s prominence in the state of Louisiana. 'By 2002, everybody knew that Duke was still the man he claimed not to be. EVERYBODY,' influential conservative blogger Erick Erickson wrote Monday on RedState.com. 'How the hell does somebody show up at a David Duke organized event in 2002 and claim ignorance?'"

According to David Duke, Scalise knew exactly what company he was keeping. "Scalise would communicate a lot with my campaign manager, Kenny Knight," Duke said on Monday when interviewed by the Washington Post. "That is why he was invited and why he would come." Kenny Knight is one of Scalise's congressional campaign donors.

Yet appearing at the EURO conference was hardly the first time Rep. Scalise has tried to further his political career by appealing to bigotry and dividing people. Past votes and legislation pushed by Scalise show a disturbing pattern that casts doubts on his commitment to equal rights for all Americans.

While serving as a state representative, Scalise joined former U.S. Senator and notorious bigot Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) in the dubious club of Republicans who tried to stop the nation from honoring Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, when he twice voted against establishing an MLK holiday in Louisiana. In 1997, he voted no on a bill designed to "prohibit hate crimes based on race, class or sexual orientation." Exploiting anti-gay bigotry to win votes for the GOP in 2004, Scalise was the lead author of a bill that put a constitutional amendment on the Louisiana ballot banning gay marriage.

In 2009, Scalise was one of the leading Republicans who joined Glenn Beck in a campaign to smear black Obama Administration official Van Jones, forcing him to resign his post. Beck, Scalise, and the rest of the GOP scalp-hunters targeted Jones after it was discovered that his name appeared on a 2004 petition calling for more investigations into the 9/11 attacks, and also questioning whether any Bush Administration officials knew about the attacks in advance. Jones had agreed to lend his name to the petition without reading it first. "The last green jobs czar we had left in disgrace," Scalise crowed about Jones' departure, "because he expressed comments embracing communism and actually tried to blame the government, the American government, for September 11th attacks."

Currently, as pointed out by Vocativ:

"(Scalise) is a regular on Tony Perkins' radio show, Washington Watch With Tony Perkins. Perkins heads the Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center condemns as virulently anti-LGBT."

Tony Perkins is also pals with David Duke, having once paid $82,500 for Duke's mailing list. Perkins filed a false campaign disclosure form to hide the payment, for which he was eventually fined $3,000.

The Republican Party needs to decide whether this is the face it wants to keep showing at a time when it has a demographic imperative to improve its standing with non-white voters. As Steve Scalise's political career makes clear, the ghosts of racism past and present still haunt the GOP.

#stevescalise #davidduke #gop #whitesupremacy #resign

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GOP Says Eric Garner Was Too Obese And 'Shouldn't Have Resisted'

   

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In response to a Staten Island grand jury's decision not to indict police officers involved in the July 17 death of Eric Garner, Republican Congressman Peter King of New York told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that "if he had not had asthma, and a heart condition and was so obese, almost definitely he would not have died from this."

Despite Garner's repeated protests that he couldn't breathe, as caught on video, King claimed "police had no reason to know that he was in serious condition."

Meanwhile, GOP Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) blamed Garner's death on high cigarette taxes, and right-wing Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly's reaction was that "he should not have resisted."

#‎icantbreathe‬ ‪#‎ericgarner‬ ‪#‎policethepolice‬ ‪#‎gop‬ ‪#‎injustice‬ ‪#‎blacklivesmatter‬

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This Black Family Had Their Yard Sign Burned for Voting Democratic

   

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In the closing days of the 2014 elections, GOP voter intimidation efforts intensified nationwide. In North Carolina, mailers containing incorrect voting information blanketed the state, sent to voters by Koch-funded right-wing dark money group Americans For Prosperity.

Unidentified individuals were stationed outside early voting polling sites telling black voters it would take 2 hours to vote, while white voters were assured there was only a 45-minute wait. And echoing cross burnings of the past, in a predominantly Republican neighborhood in Huntersville, N.C., a black family's campaign sign for Democratic Senator Kay Hagan was torched on their front lawn.

#‎votersuppression‬ ‪#‎voterintimidation‬ ‪#‎election2014‬ ‪#‎kayhagan‬ #‎northcarolina‬ #boycottkoch ‪#‎blackvotesmatter‬

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Ferguson Protestors Called 'Lynch Mob' by Right-Wing Dark Money Group

   

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In a stunning display of historical ignorance, a spokesman for the right-wing dark money group Americans for Limited Government denounced Ferguson protestors as a “lynch mob” out to get Darren Wilson. Rick Manning, the group's vice president of public policy and communications, blamed the global attention drawn by Michael Brown’s death on “those who profiteer off of hate and misery (who) descended on the small town with (Attorney General) Holder amongst them.”

Americans for Limited Government has been described as a “pro-corporate Astroturf group” by Right Wing Watch. It is led by New York real estate magnate Howard Rich, who has “funded ballot initiatives throughout the country promoting his extreme anti-government agenda,” and wants to privatize the public education system.

#blacklivesmatter #ferguson #rightwingidiots

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Rick Santorum Wishes Obama Was More Like Jesse Helms

HuffPo 11-19-14, OpEdNews 11-22-14

   

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This week, former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum announced he'd make a decision next year about running for the White House again in 2016. Last week, while guest hosting a right-wing talk radio show in Iowa, the ultra-conservative former Pennsylvania Senator gave the country a glimpse of what a Santorum presidency might look like.

Over the air, Santorum lamented the "breakup of any kind of cooperation in Washington D.C.," and said "this president is very much to blame for this," because Obama hasn't been enough of a gentleman. Unlike the late Republican Senator from North Carolina and hate-mongering demagogue Jesse Helms.

"There was no one nicer than Jesse Helms," said Santorum. "I mean, I don't think a single Democrat would tell you that on a personal level, there was anybody that was more gentlemanly, more kind than Jesse. He stood up for what he believed in, but he was always a gentleman about it."

This echoed the controversial comments made by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) last year, when he told a crowd at the Heritage Foundation that Helms was the first political candidate he had ever donated to, and "we need a hundred more like Jesse Helms in the U.S. Senate." He'll have at least one new Helms clone by his side next year, Iowa Republican Joni Ernst, who managed to hide her extreme right-wing views from enough voters to win a Senate seat. Santorum campaigned for Ernst in early November, telling volunteers her victory would "set a tone for 2016."

Santorum and Cruz are Helms' ideological descendants, so it's not surprising they would speak highly of the man. But as sane observers are well aware, the real Jesse Helms spent more than five decades stirring the pot of bigotry and hatred to win elections and further his political career.

Ten lowest points of Helms' shameful legacy include:

(1) Creating scurrilous, race-baiting ads and handbills in 1950 for a white segregationist candidate.

(2) Denouncing the civil rights movement in TV and radio commentaries broadcast in North Carolina throughout the 1960s.

(3) Defeating his Greek-American opponent in 1972 in part by using the slogan, "Jesse Helms: He's One of Us!"

(4) Distributing tens of thousands of leaflets in 1976 during the Reagan-Ford primary fight in N.C. that alleged Gerald Ford was considering picking a black running mate.

(5) Opposing and delaying every effort ever proposed to impose U.S. sanctions on South Africa over apartheid, no matter how mild.

(6) Filibustering against renewal of the Voting Rights Act in 1982.

(7) Spending 16 days filibustering against making Martin Luther King Jr. Day a federal holiday in 1983, and ending up the only Senator to vote against it.

(8) Using shameless gay-bashing and fears of Jesse Jackson registering black voters to win re-election in 1984.

(9) Unleashing a wave of blistering, race-baiting attack ads against his 1990 black Democratic challenger Harvey Gantt, including some of the most racially divisive political advertising of modern times.

And finally, perhaps Helms' greatest crime:

(10) Leading the opposition in the U.S. Senate to increased federal funding for AIDS research all throughout the 1980s, which left real blood on Helms' hands, because even a modest increase in spending could have saved tens of thousands of gay Americans who died horrible, painful deaths in the years before effective AIDS drugs were developed.

But according to Santorum, we shouldn't believe Helms' well-documented history of fearmongering and inflaming racial tensions, because he was a politician who exhibited "probably the starkest contrast of what the press used to portray and what the reality was."

While on the subject of Jesse Helms, Santorum also told listeners how fondly he remembers the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, the man who blamed gays, feminists, and the ACLU for the 9/11 attacks. At the time of his death in 2007, Falwell was described as "a founder and leader of America's anti-gay industry" by Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

During the 1980s, Falwell's Moral Majority PAC raised $69 million for GOP candidates and claimed to speak on behalf of 6.5 million members. It helped elect presidents Ronald Reagan in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1988, and re-elect Sen. Helms in 1984. Falwell founded the Moral Majority in the 1970s to organize evangelical Christians behind conservative Republican candidates, and claimed it was Roe v. Wade that sparked his movement. Yet the so-called "Religious Right" he helped lead first came together to preserve the right of Christian schools to maintain racial segregation.

The divisive political figures Santorum admires tell us all we need to know about how he would lead America if ever given the chance. Hopefully we've come too far as a country to go back to the days when far right-wing demagogues using religion to cloak their narrow-minded agendas were guiding our national politics. We can be thankful Santorum's chances to succeed as a presidential candidate are remote, and his time on the national stage will eventually end up in the dustbin of history alongside the chapters on Helms and Falwell, where they all belong.

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Send Smithfield Foods the Bill for Swine Flu Outbreak?

   

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You don't need to have read Stephen King's The Stand to be scared about the swine flu outbreak. Or, as the pork industry prefers, the H1N1 virus.



The wave of media hysteria that swept the nation this week put us all on edge. At a time when most people are already unnerved by the Great Recession, worried about losing their jobs, homes, and retirement savings, a scare like the Swine Flu Panic found fertile ground.



So how did this seemingly new mix of pig, bird, and human flu virus erupt? Since it first emerged in Mexico, xenophobic, anti-immigration racists were quick to label the strain "Mexican Flu" and use the crisis to attack President Obama's support for immigration reform.



But serious questions are being raised about whether a U.S.-owned factory farm is to blame for creating unsanitary conditions in which deadly viruses like the swine flu can incubate. Suspicion is swirling around a giant hog plant near the town of La Gloria, in Mexico’s Vera Cruz State.



La Gloria has been called the possible "ground zero" of the current epidemic. Starting in February, there was a widespread outbreak of a "powerful respiratory disease" in the town which sickened some 60% of its residents. Now, it's been revealed that one of the town’s children, 5-year old Edgar Hernandez, had contracted swine flu and was the earliest known case of this virus strain.



Health workers sealed off the town and sprayed chemicals to kill the flies from the plant's massive hog waste lagoons that reports claim were "swarming through people’s homes."



The hog plant is owned by Granjas Carroll, a subsidiary of Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the United States. Smithfield Foods is also one of the nation's top polluters. The company's misdeeds have been well documented over the years, including by the Waterkeeper Alliance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s environmental group. In 2006, Rolling Stone ran a stomach-churning report on the vast amounts of toxic fecal waste generated by the company's pigs each year, and the environmental destruction its factory farming causes.



Whether the swine flu outbreak mushrooms into a full-blown pandemic or not, it should be a wakeup call for us all about the unsustainable, potentially hazardous, environmentally devastating nature of industrial agriculture. It's time we stood up and just said no to factory farming.

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Operation Chaos II: Get Rush

NewsOne, 3-3-09

   

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By CASEY GANE-MCCALLA

Last year, Rush Limbaugh attempted to divide the Democratic party between supporters of Hillary Clinton and those for Barack Obama. Calling it "Operation Chaos," he urged his listeners to temporarily switch their party registrations to the Democratic Party in order to vote in the Democratic primaries. Limbaugh then prayed for riots in the streets of Denver during the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

As much as I wished the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) would turn into a riot between racist Rush supporters and decent Republicans who are not racist but believe in conservative principles and values, there weren't enough of the latter to start a confrontation.

After the Barack the Magic Negro controversy, I wrote about why The GOP Must Denounce Limbaugh and why we should all boycott his parent companies.

Now, it is time for further action. The Republican party must choose whether its principles are fiscal responsibility and family values, or racism, sexism, and a desire to see our country fail.


Here are some ways we can help take out Rush the evil bigot:

1. Get him off Armed Forces Radio.

Not only does Limbaugh have the support of hundreds of GOP politicians, but he is also one of the voices of Armed Services radio. That means all soldiers, including all women, blacks, and Latinos, three groups who Limbaugh continually offends, are a captive audience at times for Rush's propaganda. Everybody should write to their elected officials and demand that Limbaugh be taken off Armed Forces Radio. There is no reason taxpayer money should go to Limbaugh while minority and female U.S. soldiers are forced to listen to that bigot.

2. Force the GOP to address him.

The media has been doing a good job asking Republican officials to address Rush Limbaugh and let the country know where they stand on his influence within the party. We as citizen journalists can do the same thing. Elected officials are public servants and must listen to the concerns of the public. Republican office holders must be asked the question Pete Seeger posed, "Which side are you on?" Seek out opportunities to question GOP officials in public forums. Here is an example of how we can act locally to take down Rush.


3. Boycott Clear Channel.

Clear Channel is Rush Limbaugh’s parent company. Not only do they distribute Rush Limbaugh but they also own many urban radio stations which play corporate-backed, negative hip hop. If the black community were to boycott these stations (I assume they are already boycotting Rush), it would force Clear Channel to address Limbaugh as we would hit them in the pocket.

Here is a list of Rush's sponsors.

4. Boycott CPAC sponsors.

CPAC chose to back Limbaugh and make him their keynote speaker, legitimizing his political beliefs. We should also try and boycott or bring pressure on their sponsors as well. Some of them include AT&T and Google. These sponsors must address why they are sponsoring a neo-conservative conference that uses a bigot as its spokesman.

Here is a list of CPAC's sponsors for 2009.


5. Protest stations that carry Limbaugh.

Rush must be given the same treatment as the New York Post's Sean Delonas. The center of Rush’s power is WABC 770 AM in liberal New York City. 770 AM not only carries Rush but also other right wing bigots like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. A nice protest outside 770's studios would call attention to the hate and bigotry the station spews daily.

We proved how successful protests can be with the recent action taken against the New York Post cartoon. Now we must take out Limbaugh. If Black people can unite with Latino and women's groups, both of whom Limbaugh has offended in the past, we could make the Post protest look miniscule.


Here's a list of Republicans who are on Rush's side:

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Sarah Palin, Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, Tony Snow, and Matt Drudge. All of these people have either appeared on Rush's show or hosted his show for him.

Here's a list of Republicans who are scared of Rush:

John McCain (despite the fact that Limbaugh bashed him in the '08 primaries, he has never uttered a disparaging word about the evil bigot), Michael Steele (criticized Limbaugh and then apologized), Phil Gingrey (same as Steele), Bobby Jindal (called Limbaugh a conservative leader).

Here's a list of Republicans who stand up for their conservative principles and reject Limbaugh's bigotry and negativity:

None so far.

(Casey Gane-McCalla is a writer, rapper, producer and actor, and the assistant editor for NewsOne.)

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The GOP Must Denounce Rush Limbaugh

NewsOne, 12-29-08

The Rest of Us Should Boycott Clear Channel

By CASEY GANE-MCCALLA

With the recent scandal involving Chip Saltsman, a candidate to run the RNC, and his distribution of Rush Limbaugh's mix CD, which contained the song "Barack the Magic Negro," it is high time for the Republican Party and America as a whole to reject and denounce Rush Limbaugh.



"Barack the Magic Negro" is hardly the most offensive thing that Rush Limbaugh has said and is hardly the strongest tie that Limbaugh has had to the Republican party.

Limbaugh is a bigot, a sexist, a hypocrite and a xenophobe. He stirs up fear and hate in his listeners. He preys on the disenfranchised and uneducated and turns their resentment against blacks, feminists, immigrants, and liberals. For a sampling of Limbaugh's most racist quotes against blacks, click HERE. Limbaugh has also managed to offend Latinos, saying Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa reminded him of a shoe shine boy and also saying in reference to Hugo Chavez, "A Chavez is a Chavez. We've always had problems with them."

Limbaugh's prejudice does not only extend to minorities. He also has discriminated against women, who happen to make up the majority of this country. He has said, "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society," and also, "We're not sexists, we're chauvinists — we're male chauvinist pigs, and we're happy to be because we think that's what men were destined to be. We think that's what women want."

Rush Limbaugh has long acted as the de facto spokesman for the Republican Party, the self-appointed voice of conservative broadcasting, saying what mainstream party figures mean to say but won't for fear of being deemed politically incorrect.

The GOP has continually given him their approval. George W. Bush has appeared on Limbaugh's show several times, as has his brother Jeb. GOP Uncle Toms like Condoleezza Rice and Clarence Thomas have also appeared on his show, along with Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow has not only appeared on Limbaugh's show, but has served as a replacement host for Limbaugh, as has Matt Drudge.

It's amazing how few Republicans have come forth to criticize Limbaugh. When rapper, Ludacris referred to Hillary Clinton as a bitch, Fox News criticized him for a whole news cycle, yet when Limbaugh repeatedly referred to Clinton as a "B-I-itch," Fox News kept quiet. Meanwhile, John McCain asked Obama to publicly condemn John Lewis for rightfully comparing the crowds at McCain/Palin hate rallies to those drawn by George Wallace, but never condemned Rush Limbaugh for comparing Obama to Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, linking Democrats to Al Qaeda, and labeling feminists as Nazi's.

In 2000, John McCain bravely stood up to 'agents of intolerance' on the Right such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. However by the 2008 campaign, he had turned into a yellow-bellied coward. Despite the fact that Limbaugh criticized him heavily throughout the primaries, John McCain has never spoken out against Limbaugh.

In 2007, Limbaugh, who avoided the Vietnam draft because he "did not want to go," said that soldiers who did fight for their country and returned home to criticize the war (after seeing the death and carnage there) were "phony soldiers." Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called on his fellow Senators to condemn the remarks. John McCain's response? "I did issue a statement saying that I thought it was inappropriate, and perhaps Mr. Limbaugh didn't mean it, but he should not have said it." Hardly a condemnation.



McCain had another chance to condemn Limbaugh's statements last year when the Obama campaign ran an ad using Limbaugh quotes like, "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified," and "Shut your mouth or get out (of this country)." The ads referred to Limbaugh as one of McCain's Republican friends. McCain could have issued a statement saying that Limbaugh was not one of his friends and that his views did not represent the McCain campaign or the Republican Party, but instead he stayed quiet for fear of pissing off the dittoheads.

McCain had one last chance to distance himself from Limbaugh on Meet The Press shortly before the election, when Tom Brokaw played a clip of Limbaugh saying that Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama was all about race and asked McCain if he agreed. McCain could have said, 'I know Colin Powell and have been friends with him for many years. While I disagree with his endorsement, it is ludicrous to insinuate that a man who has given so much service to his country would endorse a Presidential candidate based on his skin color.' By repeatedly refusing to criticize Limbaugh, McCain has shown that he either shares Limbaugh's bigoted views or is too cowardly to renounce them.

One of the most disturbing things to know about Rush Limbaugh is that his program airs on Armed Services Radio. Given the fact that the army is 24% Latino and 12% black, Limbaugh is offending more than a third of our enlisted soldiers. Is Limbaugh the voice of America we want represented on our military airwaves? Do we really want someone broadcasting to our enlisted soldiers who said Abu Ghraib was just a fraternity prank, and compared a wounded Iraq vet who appeared in TV ads against the war to a suicide bomber?

Many of Limbaugh's supporters have defended him by saying his statements are made in a humorous context. When someone like the character Borat makes racist, sexist or anti-semetic comments, it falls in the category of humor because we know that Sacha Baron Cohen doesn't mean it and is using the character to show the stupidity of prejudice. However, with Limbaugh, it is quite clear that he stands by his statements and it is minorities and women who are the butts of his jokes, not his own racism and sexism.

If the GOP is to truly move into the 21st century, they must cut all ties to bigots like Rush Limbaugh. When the President, Vice President, Vice Presidential candidates, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Senators, Governors, and Supreme Court justices all appear on the show of a hate-spewing racist, sexist pig, it does not reflect well on their political party.

While Limbaugh might have a large base, it is not as large as the base he offends. By attacking blacks, Hispanics, feminists and liberals he is alienating more than half of the country. Not only blacks and Hispanics, but every white person who has an African-American or Latino relative, loved one, hero or friend.

Throughout the campaign, Obama was repeatedly asked to denounce people he associated with because of their statements. Whether it was Ludacris, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, or Rep. John Lewis. Obama repudiated them all but Lewis. Now, it is the Republicans' turn to speak out.



Pleases write to your Senators, Representatives, and Governors, and ask them to publicly denounce Limbaugh for his racism, sexism, xenophobia and disrespect, and to cancel his contract with Armed Services Radio. It is ridiculous that any part of our tax money goes to this rich, mean spirited bigot...and ridiculous that our brave soldiers are forced to listen to him.

Is there any Republican brave enough to criticize or acknowledge Rush Limbaugh's bigotry, or has the party traded in its fiscal conservatism and family values for hatred and racism?

I urge all leaders in the African-American and Latino communities as well as leaders of the women's movement to protest Limbaugh. When we went after Don Imus, we targeted the wrong bigot. Limbaugh makes Imus look like he works for Air America.

I'm also calling for a boycott of all Clear Channel stations. Clear Channel is the parent company of Limbaugh's show. The corporation's president, Mark P. Mays, recently defended Limbaugh for his 'phony soldiers' comment. Please e-mail him with you questions and concerns about Limbaugh at MarkPMays@clearchannel.com. You can also call Clear Channel with your concerns at 1-210-822-2828. And please call the local stations in your area that carry Limbaugh's show.

(Casey Gane-McCalla is a writer, rapper, producer and actor, and the assistant editor for NewsOne.)

Goodbye and Good Riddance, Jesse Helms

Independent Weekly, 7-16-08

(Note from 2014: This post is excerpted from the new eBook available on Amazon - When Harvey Met Jesse: Attack Ads of the 1990 Gantt-Helms U.S. Senate Race in North Carolina)

I met Jesse Helms in the closing days of the 1990 U.S. Senate campaign in North Carolina. It was at one of his rallies at a Smithfield high school gymnasium in Johnston County, a place with a history of racial tensions. Schools weren’t integrated in Smithfield until 1965, eleven years after Brown v. Board of Education. As late as the mid-70s, a billboard stood on the outskirts of town proclaiming, "This is Klan Country – Help Fight Communism and Integration!"

I went to the rally because I had spent the summer traveling the state to register voters against Helms as a co-founder of Musicians Organized for Voter Education (MOVE). Now I had to see the man in the flesh.

The warm up speakers were other right-wing Republican candidates and current office holders, but none of them held a candle to Jesse when he took the stage. Frail looking and thin even then, his voice nonetheless boomed around the gymnasium like a thunderstorm. He played the crowd's fears in a virtuoso performance, stirring them out of their seats in demagogic riff after riff about homosexuals, liberals, and minorities trying to destroy the North Carolina way of life. He warned of dire consequences that would follow a victory by his African-American opponent, former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt.

Helms tossed around staples from that year's version of his stump speech. Like justifying his crusade against art by hissing, "what that perverted, homosexual filth is, is not modern day Michaelangelo, it is modern day Sodom and Gomorrah!" Or mixing bigotry with down home country flavor, telling the crowd to "Think about it. Homosexuals and lesbians, disgusting people marching in our streets demanding all sorts of things, including the right to marry each other. How do you like them apples?"


Illustration by Ethan Wenberg

Never before or since have I witnessed a crowd whipped into such a frenzy, or felt more prejudice and ignorance all around me than I experienced at that rally. Maybe it was that the audience, like those attending many of Helms' events, was made up mostly of senior citizens raised during the segregation era. They grew up bigoted partly because they didn’t know any better, and voted for Helms because he appeared to be like them. Yet to me, it seemed that hatred hung in the air.

When it was over, by chance I ran into Helms as he was leaving the high school, and something possessed me to shake his hand, to see if he felt as menacing as he sounded. His hand was cold, and soft and flabby as a jellyfish. He was just a man, not the Devil. But there was evil in his politics.

Jesse Helms' Shameful Legacy Can't Be Whitewashed

The Huffington Post, 7-13-08

(Note from 2014: This post is excerpted from the new eBook available on Amazon - When Harvey Met Jesse: Attack Ads of the 1990 Gantt-Helms U.S. Senate Race in North Carolina)

The urge to speak no ill of the dead is a powerful one. And it was on full display this week as former Senator Jesse Helms was laid to rest. Although one brave North Carolina state employee, L.F. Eason, resisted that urge when he refused to lower the flag at his state lab to honor Helms and was forced to retire.

Republican leaders including Vice President Cheney attended Helms' funeral. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky eulogized Helms as one of the "kindest men" in Congress, and said, "no matter who you were, he always had a thoughtful word and a gentle smile."



Which is a load of crap. Clearly, McConnell saw the charming face Helms could present to the world when he wanted to. But the real Jesse Helms oozed out nearly every time he opened his mouth to slander those who didn't agree with him. He claimed "crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced" in a 1981 New York Times interview, and in 1963 asked, "Are civil rights only for Negroes? White women in Washington who have been raped and mugged on the streets in broad daylight have experienced the most revolting sort of violation of their civil rights."

Helms reserved his full disgust for gays and lesbians, who he called "weak, morally sick wretches" (1994), accused of engaging in "incredibly offensive and revolting conduct" (1990), and warned his constituents to beware "homosexuals, lesbians, disgusting people marching in the streets, demanding all sorts of things, including the right to marry each other" (1990).

Beyond his hateful words, Helms' bigotry was shown by his political aims. He led the opposition to the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, supported the apartheid regime in South Africa, and consistently opposed civil rights legislation. For nearly two decades, he fought tooth and nail against expanded federal funding for AIDS research, and exploited gays and lesbians as convenient scapegoats in his constant fear-mongering crusade.


Helms at 1990 campaign rally, moments after calling gays "disgusting people"

Media post-mortems of Helms' career were mostly deferential, especially in North Carolina, the state he represented in the Senate for five terms. N.C. television stations and newspapers glossed over almost all of Helms' ugly history as the last unapologeticly racist politician of the segregation era. Even the liberal Raleigh News & Observer kept its gloves on, despite having been Helms' favorite press punching bag for years.

It was largely a repeat of the softball treatment Helms got when he announced his retirement in 2001. Then, the Washington Post called Helms "one of the most powerful conservatives on Capitol Hill for three decades," and the New York Times said he'd been "a conservative stalwart for nearly 30 years." But they avoided serious discussion of how Helms stirred the pot of bigotry and hatred to win elections and further his political career.

Helms grew up in small town Monroe, N.C., home to an active Ku Klux Klan. His father, known as Mr. Jesse, was the police chief and a mean, imposing 6' 4" man who didn't hesitate to intimidate and run roughshod over the civil rights of Monroe's black citizens.


Jesse A. Helms, Sr.

In North Carolina historian Tim Tyson's biography of civil rights leader Robert Williams, head of the Monroe NAACP, Williams described watching when he was eleven years old as Mr. Jesse beat a black woman on the street, then "dragged her off to the nearby jailhouse, her dress up over her head." He was haunted for years by the woman's "tortured screams as the flesh was ground away from the friction of the concrete."

Interviewed in 2005 for the documentary Senator No and asked about Monroe in the 1920s and 30s, Helms said, "In so many ways I think the relationship between the races was far better than it is now. I could give you a thousand examples of why I'm convinced of that. I don't know of anybody who ever persecuted anybody of another race."

Helms had his first brush with statewide politics in 1950. Employed as a radio reporter for conservative magnate A.J. Fletcher's WRAL network, he unofficially aided right wing Raleigh attorney Willis Smith in his primary campaign against incumbent U.S. Senator and North Carolina liberal hero Frank Porter Graham.

Graham beat Smith in the initial Democratic primary, and Smith had all but decided not to call for a runoff. But three Supreme Court decisions undermining segregation were announced within weeks, inflaming racial tensions in the South. Helms took to the airwaves and urged Smith's voters to assemble at his Raleigh house and ask him to reconsider. A mob of supporters responded, and Smith called for a runoff.


The scene outside Willis Smith's home in Raleigh, June 1950

In the runoff, Helms used the skills he had learned as a reporter to help create scurrilous, race-baiting ads and handbills for Smith's candidacy. One was headlined, "White People - WAKE UP Before It's Too Late," and asked, "Do you want negroes working beside you, your wife and daughters in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races."


Handbill created by Jesse Helms for Willis Smith's 1950 runoff campaign

The most infamous was a flyer featuring a fake photo, doctored to show Sen. Graham's wife dancing with a black man. Helms and his backers later went to great lengths to cover up his role in the Smith campaign, but as biographer Ernest Furgurson put it, "Jesse was in it up to his neck." Helms went to Washington with the victorious Sen. Willis Smith, hired as his top assistant.

Throughout the 1960s, Helms denounced the civil rights movement from his bully pulpit as the most widely known TV and radio commentator in North Carolina. He delivered snarling five-minute commentaries that were broadcast twice a day at the end of WRAL's newscasts, railing against integration, liberals, and anything the Kennedys said or did. Helms' diatribes were reprinted in newspapers throughout North Carolina and the South with titles like "Nation Needs to Know of Red Involvement in Race Agitation!"

He called civil rights workers "Communists and sex perverts," claimed there was "evidence that the Negroes and whites participating in the march to Montgomery participated in sex orgies of the rawest sort," and commented "they should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to marry a Negro," in response to students holding campus vigils when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968.

Helms won election to the U.S. Senate in 1972 after tying his Greek-American opponent to George McGovern and using the slogan, "Jesse Helms: He's One of Us!" He was soon dubbed "Senator No" for his votes against government spending on social programs, including education, environmental protection, school lunches, food stamps, and aid to the disabled.

During the 1976 presidential campaign, Helms and his political organization, the National Congressional Club, made a lasting impact on American politics by helping Ronald Reagan come from behind to win the North Carolina primary. This victory sparked a surge for Reagan in the late contests that almost led to his unseating President Gerald Ford as the Republican nominee. It sealed Reagan's position as the 1980 frontrunner following Ford's narrow general election loss to Jimmy Carter.



To win North Carolina, the Helms machine went all out. They ran hard-hitting attack ads slamming Ford over the Panama Canal Treaty. And of course, Helms used racially coded appeals. Tens of thousands of leaflets were distributed that alleged Ford was considering picking a black running mate.


Button from 1976 Republican Convention

Close Helms advisor Tom Ellis founded the National Congressional Club in 1973 to retire Helms' first campaign debt. He later admitted the Club's role in distributing the race-baiting leaflets against Ford, at his 1983 confirmation hearing to serve as a Reagan appointee to the Board for International Broadcasting. Ellis was forced to withdraw after it was also revealed that he served as Director of the Pioneer Fund from 1973-77, which funded research into racial genetics and churned out reports alleging blacks were genetically inferior.


National Congressional Club founder Tom Ellis

In the late 70s, Helms called for ending sanctions on formerly white run Rhodesia, today’s Zimbabwe. His aides interfered with negotiations to turn over rule to the country’s black majority by encouraging then-Prime Minister Ian Smith to hold out for more concessions.

Helms was a strong supporter of the apartheid regime in South Africa. He voted against virtually every U.S. measure ever proposed to pressure the white minority government, no matter how mild. Speaking against one attempt to impose economic sanctions, Helms claimed, "all this bill does is exacerbate the situation in South Africa." Referring to anti-apartheid protests, he asked, "who are we to be so pious about the efforts of the South African government to stop the riots, the looting, the shooting and the mayhem that's going on over there?" Even when Congress overrode a Reagan veto and finally imposed sanctions in 1986, by a lopsided Senate vote of 78-21, Helms voted no, arguing the move would result in a "lasting tyranny" of Communism in South Africa.

He even served for a time as chairman of the editorial advisory board for a conservative think tank called the International Freedom Foundation, founded in 1986, run by disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The IFF was later revealed to have been set up and funded by the South African government, dedicated to waging “political warfare” against enemies of apartheid. When Newsday broke the truth in 1995, Helms spokesman Marc Thiessen (now chief White House speechwriter for George W. Bush) claimed Helms had “never heard of” IFF.


N.C. students protesting apartheid cross paths with Helms, 1984

Helms filibustered against renewal of the Voting Rights Act in 1982. The next year, he made national headlines and drew heavy criticism when he led the charge against making Martin Luther King Jr. Day a federal holiday.

In his 1984 re-election fight against sitting N.C. Gov. Jim Hunt, Helms went to the mat in a knock-down, drag-out campaign remembered as one of the nastiest campaigns in modern history. Perhaps realizing he had overreached in his overt displays of racism, Helms dialed back his attacks on blacks and minorities, although he still stirred up fear of Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign. According to the Washington Post, "his campaign newspaper featured photographs of Hunt with Jackson and headlines like ‘Black Voter Registration Rises Sharply’ and ‘Hunt Urges More Minority Registration.’"

But Helms had found a even scarier bogeyman - the homosexual menace. He and his supporters repeatedly linked Jim Hunt to gay activists and took every opportunity to "throw rocks at the gays," as the N.C. Republican Party chair explained Helms' strategy.


Helms at press conference, 1982

During the 1980s, as the AIDS crisis unfolded, Helms led the opposition in the U.S. Senate to increased federal funding for AIDS research. This was perhaps Jesse Helms' greatest crime, and left real blood on his hands. Even a modest increase in spending could have saved tens of thousands of gay Americans who died horrible, painful deaths in the years before effective AIDS drugs were developed.

In 1987 he said, "Somewhere along the line we're going to have to quarantine people with AIDS." Helms' uncaring response to the disease was explained by his tirade the next year against the bipartisan Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill, when he claimed, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."

Helms continued to oppose AIDS funding throughout the 1990s. In 1995, he fought reauthorization of the Ryan White Act, saying AIDS victims contracted the disease through "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct." That same year, nationally syndicated advice columnist Ann Landers called him out as a liar when she published a sharp rebuke to his efforts to cut AIDS funding, headlined "These are the facts, Sen. Helms."


Helms makes his point, 2002

Sadly, this account only scratches the surface of all Jesse Helms' shameful words and deeds. No amount of whitewashing Helms' legacy can erase the stain of his reliance on hate-filled, divisive politics, or the hurt he caused so many people in the process.