Month: October 2013

Kwasman pulling out the dog whistle out of his campaign quiverBy

by

By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings

"Dog whistle politics" rearing its ugly head in Arizona.  Yet again.

From RationalWiki –

Dog whistle politics usually refers to the use of certain code words
or phrases that are designed to be understood by only a small section
of the populace. Generally speaking, these are phrases that have
special meaning to that subsection entirely independent of its meaning
to others, and represent a particularly insidious use of loaded language.

The term alludes to the sound of a dog whistle, which can only be
heard by the intended audience (the dog). In theory at least, dog
whistle terms are only noticed and understood by the people they are
intended for.

During the era of the civil rights
movement, and even today, the anti-civil rights crowd liked to use
"dog-whistle" euphemisms to talk about their support for
institutionalized bigotry, unfettered hatred, and outright lynchings.

They
used words and phrases like "states' rights", "elitism", and "heritage"
to put a "civil" mask to cover their hatred of minorities and to impugn
their critics in ways that weren't overtly offensive but would rouse
their base.

Starting in 2008, when America elected its
first African-American president, Barack Obama, there has been a rise in
"dog whistle politics" nationally, and in every state, particularly
those that were part of or sympathetic to the Confederacy in the Civil
War.

One example: Birtherism.

This week's Arizona example was State Rep. Brenda Barton's comparison of President Obama to one of history's biggest monsters, Adolph Hitler.

Now,
her statement was probably too overt to be considered "dog whistle",
but the response of one of Barton's colleagues in the AZ House is most
definitely "dog whistle".

Rep. Adam Kwasman (R-LD11) is
a candidate for Congress in CD1, and he is facing a primary battle with
AZ House Speaker Andy Tobin and Gary Kiehne, a rancher from rural
Arizona.

He tweeted this about Barton on Saturday morning –

Not ‘The Party of Lincoln’ – the GOP is the ‘New Confederacy’

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I posted about Republicans on the modern GOP: An anti-government, Neo-Confederate insurrectionist party of radicals, and the Washington Post's Colbert King penned an excoriating opinion, The rise of the New Confederacy.

The Tea Party Queen, the Quitta from Wasilla, Sarah Palin, and Senator General Ted "Custer" Cruz, led a  protest (CNN Poliitcal Ticker) in Washington, D.C. today at which the Birthers-Birchers-Secessionists of the Tea Party broke out their Confederate battle flags, flying their true colors.

John Aravosis at Americablog.com writes Sarah Palin joins Ted Cruz, confederate flag, as new face of shutdown:

Sarah Palin joined GOP Tea Party Senator, and shutdown leader, Cruz and
other Tea Party supporters of the GOP’s shutdown of the federal
government in a “million vet march” to protest the fact that the
government has actually been shut down.

Point of fact: Neither Palin nor Cruz have actually served in the
military, and both support the GOP government shutdown which closed the
WWII memorial.  But don’t let that get in the way of a good visual.

Palin on the shutdown not two weeks ago:

“Let government chill for a little bit.”

Palin said Republicans should not “fear some kind of government
shutdown.” She then emphasized that Republicans must “stand firm,” “not
blink,” and not “allow the media to drive this whole narrative” that a
shutdown would be bad for Republicans.

Palin said that a shutdown would allow the American people to realize
“how irrelevant the federal government could and should be in our
lives.”

And now she’s leading a protest of the shutdown she supported.

Adorable.

“Veterans” – basically Tea Partyers – led by Palin and Cruz, marched
today on the World War II memorial in Washington, DC, stole the National
Park Service’s protective barriers, and then threw them at the White
House.

Here is the CNN video:

Yes, that is a Confederate battle flag prominently displayed in the video.

Judge Richard Posner admits he was wrong about voter I.D. – implications for McCutcheon v. FEC

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals is one of the leading intellectual leaders of the conservative movement. He is a sought after speaker at conservative events.

Judge Posmer wrote the majority opinion for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in the Indiana voter I.D. case, and his majority opinion was the foundation for the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 128 S. Ct. 1610 (2008).

Rick Hasen at electionlawblog.com reports Breaking: Judge Posner Admits He Was Wrong in Crawford Voter ID Case:

Wow.

My transcription from HuffPostLive:

In response to Mike Sacks’s questions about whether Judge Posner and
the 7th circuit got it wrong in Crawford case, the one upholding
Indiana’s tough voter id law against constitutional challenge:

“Yes. Absolutely. And the problem is that there hadn’t been that much
activity with voter identification. And … maybe we should have been
more imaginative… we…. weren’t really given strong indications that
requiring additional voter identification would actually disfranchise
people entitled to vote. There was a dissenting judge, Judge Evans,
since deceased, and I think he is right. But at the time I thought what
we were doing was right. It is interesting that the majority opinion was
written by Justice Stevens, who is very liberal, more liberal than I
was or am….  But I think we did not have enough information. And of
course it illustrates the basic problem that I emphasize in book.  We
judges and lawyers, we don’t know enough about the subject matters that
we regulate, right? And that if the lawyers had provided us with a lot
of information about the abuse of voter identification laws, this case
would have been decided differently.”