The Mentality of a Young Republican

Crossposted from our new home blog,They gave us a republic...
Captain Bootyplunder is so busted...

The son of Colorado GOP Senate candidate Bob Schaffer is causing his dad a little embarrassment on the campaign trail this week.

Nineteen-year-old Justin Schaffer publicly apologized for putting up posters on his Facebook page including one declaring "Slavery Gets Shit Done."



Also among the Facebook page additions are some that mock Barack Obama, painting him as Muslim, an elitist, a homosexual, terrorist and comparing the presumptive Democratic candidate for president to the cereal-box character "Count Chocula."

The page also includes several pro-gun images. One "bumper sticker" shows an image of Jesus holding an M-16 in front of a Confederate flag, with the words "What Would Republican Jesus Do?" Another features a bevy of different kinds of guns with the words, "Celebrate Diversity" underneath.

[SNIP]

"Cap'n Bootyplunder," as one friend referred to the younger Schaffer in a wall post, is just 19, yet a number of his "bumper stickers" refer to drinking games and alcohol. His interests include "being cool, girls."

No word on whether young Mr. Shaffer has been to see a military recruiter to talk about his future, of course.

The whole thing just smacks of a harmless prank gone horribly wrong, albeit on a MySpace page that Shaffer thought was hidden from view so that only he and his like-minded posse could mock others while doing nothing to defend their country in a time of war--one they no doubt support so long as they don't have to serve in uniform.

Further bringing some unwelcome and uncomfortable tough love to Captain Bootyplunder's magical world of drinking and hate-mongering, they had to make the young fellow apologize...

Schaffer, an economics major at the University of Dayton, issued an apology to a local news station in Colorado that first reported the story:

"I do not agree with the sentiment or content of the offensive material, especially the 'bumper sticker' that references slave labor. It is clear that my actions were juvenile, disrespectful, and a mistake on my part.

"The offensive materials directly contradict the values that my parents taught me and are forbidden in my parents' home. My Facebook page is solely my responsibility, and I am saddened that my actions have reflected poorly on my sisters and parents."

His father spoke to 9NEWS on the phone after an event in Glenwood Springs Monday evening and said, "My wife and I have initiated a process of firm and severe discipline with our son."

He's nineteen years old. What's this bullshit about "discipline?" This is an adult we're talking about. And he has quite an affinity for hate.

In other words, he's got the Young Republican thing down cold. Give him a job on Capitol Hill and watch him rise to the top of the putrid heap.

[h/t to TPM Muckraker--they have some pretty sickening images up. And they go a long ways towards showing just how fucking racist these little fuckers can get when they think their private little pages can't be seen publicly.

Have a good laugh, Captain Bootyplunder. Mom and pops sure are proud, I'll bet. If your pops doesn't win this Fall, he's totally gonna harsh your buzz.Remember to update your blogrolls and bookmarks with our new domain name, They gave us a republic...

He's the Biggest Celebrity in the World

John McCain's latest ad...



Obama may very well be the "biggest celebrity in the world."

McCain? He's a jealous, out-of-touch, brokedick old weasel for signing off on this ad. If McCain didn't sign off on this ad, fine. But whoever did should be fired and whatever comes out of this race, this was just another example of what the Republican Party stands for in 2008.

Nothing but hate and lies. And insinuating by association that Obama wants to fuck all the white women--hey, go there if you think you can get away with it. Thank God for people who know the truth--may all of them vote this Fall and put an end to this bullshit, once and for all.

--WS

GOP *FAIRLY* Branded as Racist

Oh, wah. Do you want a little cheese to go with your whine?

It is for that reason and more that I was so disappointed with Obama’s recent comments regarding Republicans and race. At a fundraiser in Florida before a majority African-American audience, the senator said, “We know what kind of campaign [Republicans are] going to run. They’re going to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. ‘He’s young and inexperienced, and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?’”

It's worth noting that Obama didn't call Douglas MacKinnon racist. And, it's worth noting that MacKinnon selected only the parts of that speech that have appeared, repeatedly, on various anti-Obama blogs and sites.

Here is an enlarged quote from that same speech, from Reuters:

"It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy," Obama told a fundraiser in Jacksonville, Florida. "We know what kind of campaign they're going to run. They're going to try to make you afraid.

"They're going to try to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?"

He said he was also set for Republicans to say "he's got a feisty wife," in trying to attack his wife Michelle.

"We know the strategy because they've already shown their cards. Ultimately I think the American people recognize that old stuff hasn't moved us forward. That old stuff just divides us," he said.

But why not go to the pictures? I got this from McCainblogs:



These are just the ones I could show you:











Now, where would we get the crazy fucking idea that the Republicans could be racist? It's bad enough that a lot of this stuff probably comes from the wackos who pretend to be Democrats.

The Department of Labor Does Nothing For Minimum Wage Workers

I can't think of anything worse than a person who works for low wages not getting their last paycheck from an employer. Yes I can--being told by the US Department of Labor that "this is not a case" is worse.

The Government Accountability Office released a report yesterday that excoriates the Department of Labor for doing nothing to help people who complained about not getting paid for their work.

GAO identified case studies that show WHD inadequately investigated complaints from low-wage and minimum wage workers alleging that employers failed to pay the federal minimum wage, required overtime, and failed to pay employees their last paychecks. Examples of inadequate WHD responses to complaints included instances where WHD inappropriately rejected complaints, failed to adequately investigate complaints, or neglected to investigate until it was too late. The investigations for these cases were inadequate for a variety of reasons.

For example, investigators stated that some delays in investigating cases were caused by a backlog of complaints. In these cases by the time a complaint was assigned to an investigator, the statute of limitations for assessing back wages was close to expiring. In another instance an investigator stated that a thorough investigation was not performed because the complaint was filed anonymously. In addition, several investigators stated that because complaints were related to isolated issues, WHD did not normally perform a full investigation.

Finally, for one last paycheck complaint, when asked about why a thorough investigation was not performed, the investigator simply stated it "was not a case."

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt--you're not going to be able to solve every problem, every issue and every dispute. We're not talking about a lot of money here--we're talking about something more important.

We're talking about trying to do something on behalf of people for whom that small amount of money is a lot of money and for people who at least tried to complain, at least tried to seek redress, and who used the system to reconcile their differences with an employer.

Somebody forgot what they're supposed to be doing for working Americans:

The Department of Labor fosters and promotes the welfare of the job seekers, wage earners, and retirees of the United States by improving their working conditions, advancing their opportunities for profitable employment, protecting their retirement and health care benefits, helping employers find workers, strengthening free collective bargaining, and tracking changes in employment, prices, and other national economic measurements. In carrying out this mission, the Department administers a variety of Federal labor laws including those that guarantee workers’ rights to safe and healthful working conditions; a minimum hourly wage and overtime pay; freedom from employment discrimination; unemployment insurance; and other income support.

The Department of Labor isn't there because employers need to be protected--it's there because employees have been ripped off, taken advantage of, and abused. And if they can't at least try to stand up for the little guy, then those investigators, their supervisors--everyone--needs to quit and go work somewhere else. And, maybe, just maybe, when their employer rips them off, they'll figure out what this is supposed to be about.

You can be damned certain of one thing--those bureaucrats would scream to high heaven and file grievance after grievance if the Department of Labor didn't pay them for a week's worth of work.

John Derbyshire is a Blithering Idiot

Please stand by for one of the most racist and ugly things you're going to see this week--courtesy of our friends at the National Review Online. The link might be broken soon--I can't see them keeping this column up for very long. John Derbyshire decided one day to try to write about race, Barack Obama, and America. All I can say is, wow. Somewhere, a lonely village is missing its Derbyshire.

He’s black, and so is God. Working in combination with other factors that I’ll get to, Obama’s négritude will help him with a lot of politically vague types who are neither black nor distinctively liberal, but who have been oriented the Obama way by decades of watching Numinous Negro types saving the world, or defying it with a supernatural level of dignity and gravitas, in the movies and on TV: characters played by Will Smith, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Michael Clarke Duncan, Denzel Washington, and of course the numinousest of them all, Morgan Freeman. There is probably now an entire demographic cohort of young Americans whose mental image of God is Morgan Freeman.

[SNIP]

He’s black, in an exotic way. This can’t be underestimated. If the candidate was George Obama, or Barack Washington, he would be twice as acceptable to the voting public. Cast your eye back down the list of U.S. presidents. “Exotic” is surely one of the last words they bring to mind, even a tad behind “black.” (There is, after all, an excellent chance that on the one-drop rule, Barack Obama will not be our first black president.) Our country has always had a scattering of high-achieving exotics, but none of them ever got close to the White House. In their presidential preferences, Americans of all parties are conservative. Other things being equal, we prefer boring white guys.

Obama’s East African origins don’t help. Most black Americans take their African descent from West Africa. The distribution of physical types in East Africa is considerably different. (As we shall no doubt see in the upcoming summer Olympics, where runners of West African ancestry will take all the sprinting awards, while East Africans will sweep the long-distance events.) There is of course a lot of overlap, but enough difference in physical types to give Obama a tinge of strangeness. The minds of many nonblack voters — and perhaps some black ones, too — will contain, at some level well below the surface, a thought like: He’s a black guy, but is he one of OUR black guys?

It's okay--my jaw hit the floor, too. It's alright--I'm as mad as you are. And it's fine--you can stick your head out the window and scream obscenities--I understand.

Please bear in mind--this was written and published in the National Review Online. Yes, it's a real publication and website. It really is. And Derbyshire was paid money to write that. YES! It's true. Can you think of anything--anything--that is stupider than what I just quoted to you? Anything?

John Derbyshire--vehemently challenging Douglas Feith for the title of "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the Earth."

--WS

Is this going to do it for Imus?

Poor Don Imus. He just can't stop saying things that he doesn't mean when the microphone is turned on. I don't know what the lame excuse he will use to get out this will be, but it really doesn't matter at this point. When you get to your ninth, tenth, eleventh incident like this, somewhere, some sort of decency has to kick in and someone has to take this guy off the air.

This morning on his show “Imus in the Morning,” host Don Imus “made a racially freighted comment” about an African-American athlete. Imus and his colleagues were discussing Adam “Pacman” Jones of the Dallas Cowboys and how he wants to now drop his nickname. At one point, Imus’s co-host, Warner Wolf, notes that Jones has “been arrested six times since being drafted by Tennessee in 2005.” Imus’s reaction:

IMUS: What color is he?

WOLF: He’s African-American.

IMUS: Well, there you go. Now we know.

All I can say is, I'm very disappointed. I can't believe he would stoop this low and I can't believe he would say something this stupid on the air. The guy has done a lot for charity, he has done enough for the kids with cancer project to get him into heaven, but he's now done enough with his mouth to get himself off the air.

He really does need to go this time, and no one should hire him back.

--WS

UPDATE: He probably won't get fired from WABC in New York--this is the station, after all, that employs Bob Grant. [special bonus Wikipedia link for those of you trying to figure out what is bullshit and what isn't...]

Wow. That Was A Stupid Thing to Say

From the Politico:

U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis, a Hebron Republican, compared Obama and his message for change similar to a "snake oil salesman" [at a Northern Kentucky Lincoln Day dinner].

He said in his remarks at the GOP dinner that he also recently participated in a "highly classified, national security simulation" with Obama.

"I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button," Davis said. "He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country."

An aide to Davis, Jeremy Hughes, declined to comment on the remark, and didn't dispute the accuracy of the quote.

We're not even bothering to take our Klan robes off in public anymore, are we?

At this point, I was going to find a way to use the word "irregardless" again but I think our nitpicky busybody gets the point. Don't like what I write? Too fucking bad. I will take all the criticism in the world and correct myself when I get the facts wrong, but the English language is an inexact, evolving, turgid mass of swirling contradictions, made-up words, phony-baloney etymologies abound, and then there's this guy:

It is known as one of the greatest literary achievements in the history of English letters. The creation of the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1857, took seventy years to complete, drew from tens of thousands of brilliant minds, and organized the sprawling language into 414,825 precise definitions. But hidden within the rituals of its creation is a fascinating and mysterious story--a story of two remarkable men whose strange twenty-year relationship lies at the core of this historic undertaking.

Professor James Murray, an astonishingly learned former schoolmaster and bank clerk, was the distinguished editor of the OED project. Dr. William Chester Minor, an American surgeon from New Haven, Connecticut, who had served in the Civil War, was one of thousands of contributors who submitted illustrative quotations of words to be used in the dictionary. But Minor was no ordinary contributor. He was remarkably prolific, sending thousands of neat, handwritten quotations from his home in the small village of Crowthorne, fifty miles from Oxford. On numerous occasions Murray invited Minor to visit Oxford and celebrate his work, but Murray's offer was regularly--and mysteriously--refused.

Thus the two men, for two decades, maintained a close relationship only through correspondence. Finally, in 1896, after Minor had sent nearly ten thousand definitions to the dictionary but had still never traveled from his home, a puzzled Murray set out to visit him. It was then that Murray finally learned the truth about Minor--that, in addition to being a masterful wordsmith, Minor was also a murderer, clinically insane--and locked up in Broadmoor, England's harshest asylum for criminal lunatics.

The Professor and the Madman is an extraordinary tale of madness and genius, and the incredible obsessions of two men at the heart of the Oxford English Dictionary and literary history. With riveting insight and detail, Simon Winchester crafts a fascinating glimpse into one man's tortured mind and his contribution to another man's magnificent dictionary.

So, from my deepest, most book-loving heart, kiss my ass. Irregardless of whether you can reach that high.

Let the signer beware

Sunday afternoon as I walked in to the Plaza branch of the Kansas City Public Library I was asked by an elderly black gentleman if I was a registered Missouri voter, and when I answered in the affirmative he asked me to sign a petition to "get civil rights legislation on the November Ballot."

I did what I do before I sign anything - I read it. Then I declined to sign. It is racist, anti-affirmative action claptrap - and they are collecting signatures using the very people such a measure stands to harm the most. The most-excellent Fired Up! Missouri website calls the proponents of the measure Wolves in Sheet Clothing - and they have been on these fools for a while now.

Even the Kansas City Star is shaking off it's cloak of slumber and speaking up. (I know! Will wonders never cease?)

Voters should skip this petition

Missouri voters could face a tricky situation when they go to the polls Tuesday: They might be asked to sign a petition supporting “civil rights” in the state.

The trick is that the petition has nothing to do with the civil rights movement. Instead, the petition seeks to place an amendment on the November ballot that would gut state-supported affirmative action programs.

Supporters of the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative claim they’re just seeking a level playing field for all residents. But they deceptively use the language of Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1960s civil rights movement in an attempt to deny minorities, women and other disadvantaged groups the opportunity to gain equal status in employment and business.

Supporters of the initiative mistakenly believe that affirmative action, an extension of the real civil rights movement, was not or is no longer necessary. But even King saw its necessity: “What America has done to the Negro, it must now do for the Negro.” That goes for other minority groups and women as well.

Yes, many women and people of color have made political and economic gains in recent decades. The race for the Democratic nomination for president illustrates that perfectly. Yet studies show that disparities still exist in the workplace and in the awarding of contracts. If Missourians really want to protect civil rights in the state, they will ignore this particular petition.

This petition is a product of anti-affirmative-action zealot Ward Connerly and the petition is to get an initiative on the November ballot that would, if successful, amend the Constitution of the state of Missouri to outlaw affirmative action. I wish we were at a place where, as a society, we didn't need it, but we aren't there yet. Sorry, but until you show me it isn't necessary...

Connerly's group successfully got an initiative on the ballot in Michigan - which passed - in spite of a court finding significant voter fraud in the signature gathering process. (They deceived people of all races, so the fraud wasn't in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Seriously.)

The Michigan initiative was openly supported by the freakin' Ku Klux Klan. You remember the Klan, those progressive vanguards in the fight for racial equality...I'm soooo sure a "level playing field" is exactly what the Klan is primarily concerned with.

Missouri voters can visit We Can Mo! for the latest actions that are being taken to push back against the Connerly disinformation franchise with solid information and grassroots organization. I would encourage anyone signing any petition to read carefully what they are signing, and do not sign anything that you disagree with, or that you don't understand.

And when someone asks you to sign a petition - ask yourself if the issue even deserves to be on the ballot? If the answer is no - or if you would vote against the initiative - decline to sign.

Go Read Yourself Some Alec Baldwin Today

You have to go read this to believe it.Then go read how he had to defend himself for being outraged about it.

Also, the Republican party apparatus in the area is a bare-knuckle bunch, a dedicated and tough group who put forth their candidates each election and fight hard for them to win. Rick Murphy does not represent them. Murphy's article is not representative of the Republicans I know in East Hampton. Murphy wrote that article for the dozen or so other eighth-degree black-belt morons who read his column and who think he is on to something. Then, like a little punk, he tried to hide it and make it go away. They impeached Clinton for something like that.

I would expect more of this in the future, what with all the wingnuts out there.

Now Would Be a Good Time to Read Bob Herbert

The stars and bars on the moon? Wingnuts salivate on cue...

This is from that satire about what America would look like if the South had won. I suspect there's a Ron Paul comment I could make, but what good would that do? Go read Bob Herbert and remember what it was like when Republicans could get away with tapping out the code...

Justice Delayed, but not Denied

This is what a terrorist looks like.
One variety of that animal, anyway.

Sometimes you just luck out. You walk into a classroom and a professor just blows your hair back and changes your life.

Twenty years ago, I took an upper-division Sociology course called Racism & Discrimination, and the professor who taught it changed me profoundly. In fact, the first person I thought to call when this whole blogging thing started to take off and I started to make a name for myself and get a little notice was Bill Russell, the professor who taught that course. Such was his impact on my life.

When I woke up this morning to the news that Klansman and domestic terrorist James Ford Seale had been convicted of murder and kidnapping in the deaths of two black teenagers forty-three years ago. My first instinct when I heard the news was to call that professor - but it is June. He is not in his office. (♥ email.)

On May 2, 1964 Charles Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee were picked up on a country road, beaten, stuffed into the trunk of a car, and driven to a remote backwater of the Mississippi River. They were bound and weighted down, tethered to an engine block, and thrown into the river alive. A crime rooted in evil and hatred. An act only a human would - or could - commit.

Their bodies were discovered weeks later, during the search for Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman who disappeared while registering black voters in Mississippi.

''I'm going to go to that cemetery, that Mount Olive Cemetery, I'm going to tell Charles Moore, `I told you that I see it to the end.''' Thomas Moore, 63, of Colorado Springs, Colo., said after the verdict. “I now feel that Mississippi is my home, Mississippi, you came a long way and I'm so proud the jury spoke.''

Thomas Moore has not lived in Mississippi since joining the Army just a few weeks before his brother disappeared. He served in Vietnam and made the Army his career, serving 30 years. His efforts were instrumental in the successful prosecution of the animal who heinously murdered two young men for the crime of being black in Franklin County Mississippi in 1964.

Charles Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee were murdered 43 years, one month and 12 days before justice was served.

Last night, they were finally able to rest in peace.