“Typical, Old-Fashioned, Indulgent Louisiana Republican”: Why Nobody Who Knows Louisiana Believes Steve Scalise
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) has admitted that he delivered a speech to a so-called “white rights” conference in 2002 that was held by an organization known as EURO, headed by the neo-Nazi leader David Duke. Scalise has also insisted that he shares American society’s abhorrence of such “hate groups” — and that he did not know what kind of group he was talking to. He is asking the public to believe that he did not notice any of the virulent racist and anti-Semitic talk by the Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and assorted white nationalists in attendance at this gathering.
But Louisiana Republicans have had a David Duke problem since 1989, when Duke won a state assembly seat. He had been a neo-Nazi ideologue since his youth; he had paraded one night in full Nazi uniform with a swastika armband at the state university; and he had made the “international Jewish conspiracy” central to his Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. Even after he was elected, Duke was still selling Holocaust denial books from his state legislative office.
Yet the Louisiana State Republican Party Central Committee refused to either investigate Duke’s views or pass a censure motion, despite the repeated efforts of Beth Rickey, a Central Committee member. When Duke said he had changed his beliefs, his fellow Republicans and many white Louisianans decided to believe him.
Then in 1990 and 1991 Duke ran in two consecutive statewide elections in Louisiana — for U.S. senator and governor — and won a majority of the white vote both times. The state was saved by black voters, whose ballots defeated him. Again, the state Republican Party refused to investigate Duke’s actual positions. Nevertheless, his worldview became the central issue in those campaigns. And after Duke equated affirmative action with the extermination of European Jews, President George H.W. Bush stepped in to denounce him. Once more, local Republicans remained silent. Scalise, who was 25 years old in 1990, could not have missed this debate, which made national news.
A few years later, Duke finally gave up his Republican “my views have changed” smokescreen. He published an Aryan primer as an autobiography in 1998, was convicted of tax fraud and went to federal prison in 2002, and began a prolonged public rant and rave about Jews that continues to this date. At the time of the EURO meeting with Scalise, Duke was overseas, attempting to avoid indictment, and addressed the gathering in Metairie, LA, via long-distance video hookup.
It is hard to believe that Steve Scalise, a sentient adult, missed all this, particularly as he was running for re-election to the state legislature in 2002. It is much easier to believe that he had the typical, old-fashioned, indulgent Louisiana Republican attitude toward David Duke. The question remains: Are there any national Republican leaders who will stand up, as President George H. W. Bush did in the 1990s, and speak the truth?
By: Leonard Zeskind, The National Memo, December 30, 2014
“GOP Image And Reputation”: Scalise’s Vote Against MLK Day Gains New Relevance
The totality of an official’s record always matters. This week, for example, it would be easier for House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) to overcome the controversy surrounding his appearance at a white-supremacist event in 2002 if he had an otherwise sterling record on issues related to civil rights.
That’s not quite the case. Andrew Prokop noted last night:
…Scalise does not have a record of friendliness to African-American causes. When the Louisiana House voted on making Martin Luther King Day a holiday in 2004, 90 members were in favor and Scalise was one of the six against.
Note, as a Republican state lawmaker, Scalise clearly knew the King holiday was going to be approved, but he made a point of voting against it anyway.
To be sure, there are other notable Republicans who rose to national prominence after voting against a day honoring MLK. Former Vice President Dick Cheney (R), for example, voted against the King holiday as a member of Congress in 1978. Five years later, Cheney changed his mind.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) also voted against it in 1983, though in 1999, he said on “Meet the Press,” “We all learn, OK? We all learn. I will admit to learning, and I hope that the people that I represent appreciate that, too. I voted in 1983 against the recognition of Martin Luther King…. I regret that vote.”
Scalise, however, voted against the holiday in 2004.
Does this add an unfortunate wrinkle to the Louisiana Republican’s defense? It’s not unreasonable to think it does.
In the larger context, I saw some suggestions overnight that Republican politics is indifferent to racial division, so the Scalise controversy shouldn’t come as a surprise and won’t be consequential. There’s ample evidence to the contrary.
In 2002, for example, Trent Lott’s praise for Strom Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist platform cost him his role as Senate Majority Leader.
Last year, when Rep. Steve King used racially charged rhetoric about Latino immigrants, Speaker Boehner called the right-wing Iowan an “a**hole.”
Earlier this year, the Republican establishment was quite concerned about Chris McDaniel’s Senate campaign in Mississippi in light of McDaniel’s role at a neo-Confederate and pro-secessionist conference.
In other words, the party is concerned about its image and reputation when it comes to race. The question is whether or not Steve Scalise’s controversy is considered a real threat to that reputation.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, December 30, 2014
“Today In GOP Outreach”: House Majority Whip Admits Speaking At White-Power Event
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), the third highest-ranking member in the Republican caucus, admitted on Monday that he spoke at a white-power conference in 2002.
Scalise’s presence as an “honored guest” at a 2002 European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO) conference was first reported on Sunday by Louisiana-based blogger Lamar White, Jr. EURO, which was founded by former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, is classified as a white nationalist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
According to posts that White, Jr. uncovered from the white-power site stormfront.org, Scalise — who was a state representative at the time — addressed the crowd and “discussed ways to oversee gross mismanagement of tax revenue or ‘slush funds’ that have little or no accountability,” and “brought into sharp focus the dire circumstances pervasive in many important, under-funded needs of the community at the expense of graft within the Housing and Urban Development Fund, an apparent give-away to a selective group based on race.”
On Monday, Scalise’s spokeswoman Moira Bagley confirmed his attendence at the event to The Washington Post:
“Throughout his career in public service, Mr. Scalise has spoken to hundreds of different groups with a broad range of viewpoints,” Bagley said. “In every case, he was building support for his policies, not the other way around. In 2002, he made himself available to anyone who wanted to hear his proposal to eliminate slush funds that wasted millions of taxpayer dollars as well as his opposition to a proposed tax increase on middle-class families.”
She added, “He has never been affiliated with the abhorrent group in question. The hate-fueled ignorance and intolerance that group projects is in stark contradiction to what Mr. Scalise believes and practices as a father, a husband, and a devoted Catholic.”
Bagley’s statement does not specify if or when Scalise realized that he had addressed a group that believes that “the Jews are the enemy of the White race, and they are largely responsible for the ‘browning’ of America,” or that “the beautiful Germany of the 1930s with blonde children happily running through every village has been replaced with a multi-racial cesspool.” Furthermore, her claim that he “has never been affiliated with the abhorrent group in question” is rather undercut by the fact that he gave an apparently well-regarded speech to their annual conference.
Scalise is not the first prominent Republican to associate with white supremacists; Scalise’s former colleague in the House, Ron Paul, once praised Duke in a newsletter. But Paul never held a position nearly as powerful as majority whip.
It remains to be seen whether the new revelations will cost Scalise his position; GOP leaders are reportedly “monitoring” the situation.
Meanwhile, the news seems extremely unlikely to help Republicans in their mostly forgotten quest to reach out to minority voters.
By: Henry Decker, The National Memo, December 29, 2014
“They Don’t Have Google In Kentucky?”: White Supremacist Runs For Senate In Kentucky
Ahhh, election season. That time between late summer and November when candidates are most likely to knock on your door or send robo-calls to your home; and patches of grass, stabbed with metal-boned campaign signs, become the literal embodiment of grassroots politicking with their messages of hope, change, and…anti-Semitism?
“WITH JEWS WE LOSE” is the message, displayed on stark black and white placards, that Robert Ransdell, a write-in candidate for the Senate in Kentucky is using to bombard unassuming passersby. In an interview with the NBC-affiliate WLWT, he said: “Online, we’ve had a lot of positive feedback. We’re going to find out what kind of feedback we get once we go out and take it to the people here in the state of Kentucky.”
Ransdell — whose name will not appear on the ballot — is a coordinator for the National Alliance, a white nationalist political organization characterized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a Neo-Nazi group. He is technically running against incumbent Republican Mitch McConnell and Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan.
“One would hope that this sort of thing would never make it’s way into any modern day discussion, let alone a U.S. Senate race,” said Allison Moore, the spokeswoman for the McConnell campaign.
On Constitution Day, Ransdell addressed a room full of high school journalism students at the University of Kentucky. From behind a podium, in a room decorated by shiny red and blue star balloons, he told them about the “organized and ongoing war against white people,” and decried the fact that white people are “constantly under attack by black criminals.” In a video of the speech, students at first talk amongst one another without paying Ransdell any attention, but as he descends further into racist rhetoric, they begin to look around, alarmed. One student can be seen staring with her mouth agape in horror. After about one minute of rambling, a woman runs up on stage and directs someone to turn his microphone off. As Ransdell walks off, students can be heard muttering “go away,” and “shut up.” The incident forced a school spokesperson to make a statement claiming the institution “was not aware of the content of his remarks prior to him speaking and does not condone or endorse any political platform or agenda.” They don’t have Google in Kentucky?
Ransdell has publicly acknowledged that he has no chance of winning, but would like to use his campaign to publicize his message — a suggestion of demented optimism that believes people are merely unfamiliar with white supremacy, but maybe once they find out about it, they’ll get on board. On his website, “The White Guard,” Ransdell has an entire page devoted to the badge of honor that is the negative coverage of his campaign.
Ever the versatile bigot, Ransdell hates gays, African Americans, and immigrants, in addition to Jewish people. His platform includes: stopping immigration entirely until the economy improves, “halt[ing] the tolerance and promotion of this sickness in the nation” (by which he means homosexuality), and protecting the Second Amendment.” According to Ransdell: “If you want to keep your firearms you had better also support the immediate annihilation of racial integration in America because the savage and uncivilized nature of most Blacks will soon lead to laws that severely restrict or ban firearms.”
The Daily Beast reached out to Ransdell to ask if he has ever been diagnosed with a mental illness. Ransdell responded with an anti-semitic term, a Yiddish word, and an accusation about rhinoplasty: “Before I let you in on whether or not I have one, why don’t you kindly inform me of who removed the hook from your schnozz first, promise to get back and answer your inquiry, really I promise.”
If you have any questions you would like to ask Ransdell, or thoughts you would like to share about his platform, his website has helpfully provided a phone number where you can leave him a message: 1-800-488-1363. Be creative!
By: Olivia Nuzzi, The Daily Beast, September 21, 2014
“Missouri Burning”: Why Ferguson’s Inferno Is No Surprise
The past week’s unfolding tragedy in Ferguson, Missouri, with its militarized and overwhelmingly white police force confronting angry and hopeless African-Americans, is not a story unique to that place or moment. Many cities and towns in this country confront the same problems of poverty, alienation, and inequality as metropolitan St. Louis — or even worse.
But beneath the familiar narrative there is a deeper history that reflects the unfinished agenda of race relations – and the persistence of poisonous prejudice that has never been fully cleansed from the American mainstream.
For decades, Missouri has spawned or attracted many of the nation’s most virulent racists, including neo-Nazis and the remnants of the once-powerful Ku Klux Klan. Associated with violent criminality and crackpot religious extremism, these fringe groups could never wield much influence in the post-civil rights era. Beyond those marginalized outfits, however, exists another white supremacist group whose leaders have long enjoyed the patronage of right-wing Republican politicians.
The Council of Conservative Citizens, headquartered in St. Louis, is a living legacy of Southern “white resistance” to desegregation, with historical roots in the so-called “citizens’ councils” that sprung up during the 1950s as a “respectable” adjunct to the Klan. Its website currently proclaims that the CCC is “the only serious nationwide activist group that sticks up for white rights!” What that means, more specifically, is promoting hatred of blacks, Jews, gays and lesbians, and Latino immigrants, while extolling the virtues of the “Southern way of life,” the Confederacy, and even slavery.
The group’s website goes on to brag that the CCC is the only group promoting “white rights” whose meetings regularly feature “numerous elected officials, important authors, talk-show hosts, active pastors, and other important people” as speakers.
Although that boast may be exaggerated, it isn’t hollow. Founded in 1985 by the ax handle-wielding Georgia segregationist Lester Maddox and a group of white activists, the CCC remained obscure to most Americans until 1998, when media exposure of its ties to prominent congressional Republicans led to the resignation of Mississippi senator Trent Lott as Majority Leader. Six years later, the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit group monitoring racist activity in the United States, reported that the CCC had hosted as many as 38 federal, state, and local officials at its meetings (all of them Republicans except one Democrat) – despite a warning from the Republican National Committee against associating with the hate group.
Over the years, the CCC’s friends in high places included such figures as former Missouri senator John Ashcroft, who shared much of the CCC agenda as governor, when he opposed “forced desegregation” of St. Louis schools – along with the CCC members who served on the city’s school board. When President George W. Bush appointed Ashcroft as U.S. Attorney General, the CCC openly celebrated, declaring in its newsletter that “Our Ship Has Come In.”
Recently, many fewer Republican officials have been willing to associate in public with the CCC’s racist leaders. Then again, however, Ashcroft himself tended to meet secretly with those same bigots, while outwardly shunning them. When asked about his connections with the group during his confirmation hearings in 2001, he swore that he had no inkling of its racist and anti-Semitic propaganda – a very implausible excuse given the CCC’s prominence in St. Louis while he served as governor.
Despite the CCC’s presence, Missouri is home to many fine and decent people, of course – but malignant traces of the group, and the racial animus it represents, have spread far beyond the state’s borders. The most obvious example is Rush Limbaugh, the “conservative” cultural phenomenon who grew up south of St. Louis in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and who has earned a reputation as a racial agitator over many years on talk radio, where he began by doing mocking bits in “black” dialect.
In 1998, the talk jock defended Trent Lott when other conservatives were demanding his resignation over the politician’s CCC connection. Today, Limbaugh echoes the CCC line on the Brown killing, which suggests coldly that the unarmed teenager deserved his fate because he may have been a suspect in shoplifting or smoked marijuana. Why would a young man’s life be worth less than a box of cigars? Back in Rush’s home state, the answer is all too obvious.
By: Joe Conason, Editor in Chief, The National Memo, August 19, 2014
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