Not At All Racist

I don't expect much from the modern GOP in terms of racial issues, but this is a special gem:

GINGRICH: More people are on food stamps today because of Obama’s policies than ever in history. I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history. Now, there’s no neighborhood I know of in America where if you went around and asked people, “Would you rather your children had food stamps or paychecks,” you wouldn’t [SIC] end up with a majority saying they’d rather have a paycheck. 

And so I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps. And I’ll go to them and explain a brand new Social Security opportunity for young people, which should be particularly good for African-American males — because they’re the group that gets the smallest return on Social Security because they have the shortest life span.

Spoiler alert for Newt - the NAACP is probably not going to invite you to their conference so you can say, "Hey all you freeloading n*ggers - you should demand paychecks instead of welfare, you lazy fucking assholes."

Never mind the fact, as Think Progress notes, that the majority of food stamp recipients are white. Facts/reality do not play into the conservative psyche. All lazy people and welfare queens are unequivocally black/brown and otherwise non-white. Remember - racism is dead because we have a black president.

Fuck these people. 

Not All Republicans Are Racist

But if you're racist, you're probably a Republican:

A comedian impersonating President Obama who was hired to perform here on Saturday at the Republican Leadership Conference delivered racially tinged remarks about Mr. Obama’s heritage and offered a mocking assessment of the Republican presidential candidates.

The impersonator, Reggie Brown of Chicago, opened his act by joking about Mr. Obama’s family history, referring to his white mother from Kansas and his black father from Kenya. He said that he was born in Hawaii, adding, “or as the Tea Partiers like to call it, Kenya.”

He said that Michelle Obama, the first lady, enjoys celebrating all of February, Black History Month. He said the president celebrates only half the month.

“My mother loved a black man and, no, she was not a Kardashian,” Mr. Brown said later, referring to the family that stars in reality shows. Khloe Kardashian, who is white, is married to Lamar Odom, who is black and plays for the Los Angeles Lakers.

The audience, which was nearly entirely white, watched with befuddlement as the impersonator told them to look into the future to see what the Obamas will look like when they are retired. An image of a feuding husband and wife, from the TV show “Sanford and Son,” was flashed on screens in the ballroom.

The GOP hates Obama. That much is glaringly evident. They only hired the comedian; they didn't prepare his material. But I think the fact that he instantly went to the issue of race to mock the President is pretty telling. There are countless other ways that he could have lampooned the Obamas, but he chose race. He was simply playing to his audience. 

And this quote is pretty good:

Doug Heye, a party strategist and former communications director for the Republican National Committee, criticized the hiring of Mr. Brown. As word of the performance began to spread online, he wrote in a message on Twitter: “Wonder why many minorities have problems with G.O.P.? Our own fault.”

Yes, because this incident of hiring a racist comedian for your Southern White Oligarch Conference is the primary reason why "many minorities" have problems with the GOP. It has nothing to do with the fact that since January 20, 2009 the GOP has spent every waking moment blowing racist dog whistles as they decried Obama's "otherness," that he is a Marxist socialist Kenyan secret Muslim that hates Jesus and America, that he does not believe in the same America that good ol' white folk believe in, that he has a deep seated hatred of white people, that he's secretly taking over the country through union thugs and his minority-laden election stealing army at ACORN, and the pervasive dissemination of these talking points (both explicitly and implicitly) to keep the not-at-all-racist teabaggers frothing at the mouth. But these are just principled differences! They only disagree with Obama's politics. The racially undertoned invectives being hurled at our first black president have nothing to do with his race.

There are plenty of reasons for "many minorities" to take issue with the GOP, but I would venture a guess that this barely registers as so much as a blip on how they view the GOP. This is nothing new, but rather a continuation of the modern GOP's excellent track record on race relations.

(h/t Steve Benen)

Integrity of Elections!

That's all that this is about! It has nothing to do with Obama! Or race!

PHOENIX — The Arizona Legislature gave final approval late Thursday night to a proposal that would require President Barack Obama and other presidential candidates to prove they are U.S. citizens before their names can appear on the state's ballot.

Arizona would become the first state to require such proof if Gov. Jan Brewer signs the measure into law.

Republican Rep. Carl Seel of Phoenix, the author of the bill, said the bill wasn't about opposition to Obama. "This bill is about the integrity of our elections," Seel said.

Thirteen other states have considered similar proposals this year. The proposals were defeated in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maine and Montana.

The bill won final approval from the state House in a 40-16 vote.

It's good to see that Arizona remains undeterred in its quest to continue its prominence as one of the dumbest states in our union.

Birtherism hit a frenetic peak shortly after Obama's election, but more or less declined as a prominent GOP talking point going into the 2010 midterms. Donald Trump has changed that. A simple Google search of his name now includes purported presidential ambitions and birther conspiracies among hits on real estate, bad hair, and his inane TV show. It's once again hitting the wingnut mainstream, or at least it will very shortly, as Trump is now leading GOP presidential candidate straw polls.

It's kind of annoying to be rehashing this debate, because these same points were more or less argued back when this non-issue first began it's decline. As John Cole astutely notes, the birther issue is all about race. The most prominent jackholes spewing this nonsense will never admit that, and will bristle at the accusation and screech that the race card is being played against them (This is just about the integrity of elections!) but it is absolutely about race. Two years ago, a black man with an African/Middle Eastern name and heritage was elected president on a Democratic ticket. That event, and that event alone, has precipitated the cries for Obama's birth certificate. You didn't see this under Clinton, you didn't see this under Carter, and you didn't see this under any of the other recent white male presidents on the Republican ticket. It is a cynical effort to cast Barack Obama as "other," as "not like us," as "strange" or "different," or as "un-American." You never saw anyone having Very Serious concerns about "integrity of elections" when a white male was on the presidential ticket. 

And I know, I know - all of this makes me shrill, and I need to put it back in the deck, and there is nothing wrong with validating Very Serious and Principled concerns that a Marxist Socialist Fascist Kenyan Muslim Manchurian candidate usurper does not undermine the fragility of white America our democracy.