I don’t know which on is more offensive – Congressman Steve King’s comments to the DREAMers who dared question him about his desire to deport them, or Senator Rand (Ran) Paul’s dine and dash upon hearing them identify themselves as DREAMers!
I began the show with the whole video, embedded below for your convenience, and remind you why DREAM Action Coalition co-director Erika Andiola and fellow DREAMer Cesar Vargas wanted to talk with him in the first place.
You’ll remember that, in a Newsmax interview in July of 2013, Steve King likened DREAMers to drug smugglers with calves the size of cantaloupes
Then we learned, thanks to Right Wing Watch, that
During a conference call last month with the National Emergency Coalition, Rep. Steve King said that the U.S. needs to crack down on immigration because our nation’s borders were established by God. Disrespecting the borders, the congressman suggested, is disrespecting God’s will.
He also blamed the child migrant crisis not on drug-war-related violence in Central America but on President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, or as he calls it, “deferred action for criminal aliens.”
Steve King, who has been one of the loudest voices trying to undo DACA (President Obama’s Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program), even went so far as to call for the president’s impeachment over the immigration issue on Fox “News” Sunday.
Now you can watch the DREAMers confront the man who would have them deported..
If that wasn’t enough to make you wonder what planet these idiots arrived from, how about the Alabama Congressman who insists that the Democrats are engaged in a “war on whites,” implemented by Barack Obama. Seriously… Listen here (the pertinent part comes in at around the 11:40 mark).
Should you not care to click on that link (and I don’t blame you), here’s what transpired yesterday, courtesy of Dave Weigel at Slate:
On Monday morning Brooks went on Laura Ingraham’s show (which is to immigration restriction what Epic Meal Time is to calorie consumption) and engaged in 12 minutes of predictable recapping about the border fight. Then things got real. Ingraham played Brooks a clip of National Journal‘s Ron Fournier, warning that the GOP could not survive as the “party of white people.” Brooks’ response?
“Well, this is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party,” he said. “And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It’s part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things. Well, that’s not true, OK? And if you look at the polling data, every demographic group in America agrees with the rule of law and securing our borders.” He told listeners to seek out a speech Rep. Raul Labrador (whose family is Puerto Rican) gave about the rhetoric. “The Democrats, they have to demagogue on this, and turn it into a racial issue.”
Ingraham let all that flow, then gave Brooks a chance to walk back. “I don’t think Raul Labrador would probably say there’s a war on whites,” she said.
“That is in effect what they’re doing,” said Brooks. “That’s the political game.”
“They’re playing the race card, they’re playing the war on women card,” said Ingraham. “That’s what the left does, but I don’t think ‘war on whites’ is the best phraseology.”
Amazing.
This morning I welcomed Lee Fang back to the show to talk about his reporting for Republic Report on civil rights groups who sold out on Net Neutrality – a sickening enough story on its own.
..a massive coalition of Asian, Latino and Black civil rights group filed letters arguing that regulators should lay off of Internet Service Providers regarding Title II reclassification and accept FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s original plan. In other words, something close to half of the entire civil rights establishment just sold out the Internet.
But soon after that article was picked up by lots of other sites, one very observant reader noticed that the post had been taken down from one news site geared toward the African-American community. After doing some research, Fang discovered that the order to delete the article came from the website’s parent company, a business partner to Comcast.
According to discussions with several people at NewsOne, including an editor there, the decision to take down the article came from corporate headquarters. NewsOne editor Abena Agyeman-Fisher told Republic Report, “the company didn’t feel it was appropriate to have up and we were suppose to take it down.” NewsOne is owned by Radio One, a company with a 50.9% stake in a business partnership with Comcast known as TV One.
This just underscores the need for independent media outlets — like Radio or Not!
While I had Lee Fang on the line, I also asked him about his latest piece for The Nation, “The Real Reason Pot is Still Illegal.” Great reading, great reporting!
It’s Tuesday, so The Political Carnival‘s GottaLaff joined me to talk about the rest of the news, including these stories:
Ebola for Dummeez, att: Donald Trump
Gov. “Ultrasound” McDonnell probed, media mounts soap opera defense for him
And if you were as annoyed by all of those damned fundraising emails – growing more frequent and frenetic as it grew closer to the end of the month (and fundraising quotas), then you’ll love the new tumblr set up by someone who was equally annoyed, called Emails from the DCCC. Click and enjoy.
If you tuned in this morning to hear Congressman Alan Grayson, he’ll be on first thing Thursday morning, followed by economist Stephanie Kelton!
Tomorrow, Crooks & Liars‘ Susie Madrak returns from her vacation to chat with me about the latest news, and the woman challenging Andrew Cuomo in NY’s gubernatorial primary, Zephyr Teachout, returns to the show… Radio or Not!
