Wicker chosen to replace Lott

"ITS A BEAUTIFULL DAY IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD, IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD, WON'T YOU BE MINE, WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR, WON'T YOU PLEASE, OH PLEASE CASINOS WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR."

BUSH CONSOLIDATES SECRETARY OF TREASURY, SECRETARY OF INTERIOR, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE,
COMMISSIONER OF IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION, AND
SOCIAL SECURITY, WITH CONSULTATION OF THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES, COUNTY ATTORNIES, U.S. DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS AND THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ------HOMELAND SECURITY. YEA, YEA, YEA, YEA, YEA,.

BUSH APPOINTS TRENT LOTT TO SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY.

NOW WHO'S YO DADDY. GO AHEAD, SPEAK. WHO IS YO DADDY NOW!

I TOO HEAR THE VOICES, AND THE VOICES SAID, WHO IS YO DADDY NOW.

SO TONTO, GO GET ME A DECK OF NEW CARDS AND A DRINK.

One Republican racist replaces another, big freaking deal.

The question I have is can I count on Rep. Wicker to appeal to my racist and xenophobic fears?

John E. and Typical Republican (on the dubious assumption that both of you are actually different people):

What makes you think Wicker is a racist? It appears that you missed the big clue that would have informed an intelligent person that he isn't a racist. But, I'll leave you guessing since you can't see it.

The question I have is can I count on Rep. Wicker to appeal to my racist and xenophobic fears?

Posted by: Typical Republican | December 31, 2007 2:47 PM

Of course,you silly rabbit!

Barbour, others chided for speaking before CCC
The Clarion-Ledger/October 14, 2004
By Jerry Mitchell
Six years after a firestorm over the Council of Conservative Citizens, a national magazine released today chides Gov. Haley Barbour, state Supreme Court Justice Kay Cobb, U.S. Rep. Roger Wicker and other Mississippi elected officials for speaking before the group.

And at least one state lawmaker is a member of the 15,000-member council that the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report describes as a white supremacist organization far outside the conservative mainstream.

The magazine says the CCC denigrates African Americans as "genetically inferior," complaining about "Jewish power brokers" and accusing immigrants of turning America into "a slimy brown mass of glop." (The entire article appears online at intelligencereport.org.)

Barbour's spokesman, Pete Smith, said the governor denounces racism from the council or anyone else. "The governor as well as the governor's office doesn't support any white supremacist or racist views," he said.

Asked if Barbour plans to speak again to the organization, he replied, "I wouldn't think so."

In 1998, U.S. Sen. Trent Lott came under fire for having spoken several times to the council, telling members they stood "for the right principles and the right philosophy." By the next year, Jim Nicholson, who headed the Republican National Committee, was asking party members to resign from the group because it held racist views.

The council's Web site says the organization promotes "the interests of European-Americans" and posts articles describing African Americans as genetically inferior and driven to crime and welfare: "Mississippi is toting a load of fat blacks on welfare. Though disgust is a natural reaction when some blubbery welfare queen buys her pork chops and cream pies with food stamps, remember that the government is subsidizing this gluttony."

A CCC editorial tells readers: "If the South seizes upon queer marriage and beheads that serpent, then a new era for States Rights will commence. ... By the Grace of God, queer marriage may be the petard upon which Brown v. Topeka (the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that desegregated public schools), and all other pernicious civil rights regulations, will be blasted down the memory hole."

State Rep. Tommy Woods of Byhalia said he's been a member of the council for the past several years. He said he joined because he opposes abortion and other liberal ideas.

"We're just really dedicated to preserving our Constitution and our American way of life," he said. "I know there's a lot of folks that don't agree with me. I don't think we ought to just let anybody come into the U.S."

While he believes the needy should be helped, regardless of race, he sometimes gets upset at what he spots outside the local welfare office. "You drive by and see the new automobiles and SUVs," he said. "In most instances, they're white. I tend to have a feeling that it's being abused."

Race had nothing to do with his joining the organization, he said. "One of the best friends I ever had in this world was a black man. I led him to the Lord before he died. He worked for me for 35 years."

He said he's never viewed the organization's Web site. When read excerpts of some online articles, he said those had obviously been written by "those way off, right-wing folks, as far as I'm concerned."

Despite such articles, he believes the council is far from white supremacist. "Contrary to what a lot of folks say, it doesn't have anything to do with racism," Woods said. "We've had other races come to our meetings. I can't say we've got any members."

In his 2003 campaign, Barbour spoke before the council-sponsored political rally in Blackhawk and was photographed with council leaders.

When that photo later appeared on the council's Web site, Barbour was criticized for not asking for the photo to be removed.

Barbour, who was Republican National Committee chairman when Lott was embroiled in the controversy, told reporters he knew nothing about the council.

Claims of ignorance about the council's racist views can no longer fly, said Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report. "It's almost impossible for a politician and particularly a Republican to not know about the Council of Conservative Citizens scandal because of what the head of their own party said. I can't say what's in each of these politicians' heads, but I think some politicians are simply pandering to white supremacists for political support."

The Intelligence Report reported Wicker attended a Sept. 23, 2000, meeting in Byhalia of the West Tennessee and Marshall County chapters of the council. Wicker would not comment to the publication, and he did not comment to The Clarion-Ledger.

The Intelligence Report said Justice Cobb attended the same Byhalia event and introduced a council leader named Virginia Abernethy, who later told the Arizona Daily Star she was a white "separatist" who preferred to be "with my own kind."

Cobb told the Intelligence Report she was invited to speak and saw the group as "ultra-conservative, mostly older, white, rural citizens."

Cobb said Wednesday her perception may have been wrong.

"I don't support racism. Never have," Cobb said.

Cobb said she didn't know Abernethy and was just asked to introduce her. On the campaign trail, you go where you've invited and you spend your time sharing your views with people, not listening to theirs, she said.

Over the decades, many political candidates, Republican and Democrat, black and white, have attended the Blackhawk rally. The now-defunct white Citizens' Council, which began in Mississippi in 1954 to combat court-ordered desegregation, originally sponsored the rally.

In 1985, the main founder of the Citizens' Council, Robert Patterson, joined others in forming the Council of Conservative Citizens, using the defunct group's mailing list to recruit members. The new council has supported the rally since.

* * * * *
Posted by: Raving Loon | December 31, 2007 5:51 PM

Okay, now that you have treated us to a long, windy article from “The Clarion-Ledger” - which indicates that Wicker attended one meeting and, apparently, was asked to speak - tell us where it says that Wicker agreed with the racist message of the CCC, or otherwise showed himself to be a racist? I didn't see it.

It is pretty thin proof of racism that someone attended one meeting of a racist group. This is the same kind of “guilt by association” that McCarthy used to persecute people in the 50s for being communists based on attendance at a single C.P. meeting. I thought political discourse had risen above such trash talk.

I can tell you, from personal experience, that attendance at one meeting doesn't make one an adherent. I was dragged along with a fellow attorney to a local gathering of A.C.L.U. members. I distinctly came away from the meeting in profound disagreement with their agendum, whereas I had been sympathetic to a number of their efforts before.

Try again. No kewpie doll this time.

Try again. No kewpie doll this time.

Posted by: John W. | December 31, 2007 7:02 PM

Denial,Denial,Denial.

Even when the evidence smacks you upside the head,denial,denial,denial.

Even when the evidence smacks you upside the head . . .

Posted by: Raving Loon | December 31, 2007 8:21 PM

What evidence? You didn’t provide any evidence. The article you cited only showed that Wicker attended a single meeting of a group that has some racist views. You didn’t prove he was a member of that group, or even that he agreed with that group before or after that meeting. Other people who attended CCC meetings disavowed any agreement with racism. The newspaper article you cited said so. I also demonstrated how the attendance at a single meeting doesn’t necessarily make one an agree with the views of those who sponsor the meeting. So, I must ask again: Where’s your proof?

BTW, before you try to answer that, also look at the main article by Matthew Hay Brown. It states that Wicker once held the job of Public Defender. I’ve known a lot of lawyers in the local Public Defender’s office. I even clerked for a Public Defender’s office before I took the bar. In all my time clerking and in my 18 years practicing law and defending people, I have never met anyone in any Public Defender’s office who’s a racist. That ideology is entirely inconsistent with duty of providing effective assistance of counsel to poor people, many of whom are members of racial minorities. I might be wrong, but I strongly suspect that such was the case in and about Tupelo, Mississippi where Wicker served as the Public Defender.

Also consider the fact that Wicker won election to Congress with 63 percent of the vote in a district of Mississippi when the majority of registered voters were Democrats. Does this really sound like a racist to you? Do you really think he would have gotten that much support from Mississippi Democrats if they thought he was a racist? I seriously doubt it.

You know, you seem to enjoy passing out the defamatory epithet "racist" without a second thought or a shred of evidence. Try admitting to yourself, for once, that maybe you just might be seeing racism too often where it really isn’t.

Hey Clarence Darrow (John W),how many links do you want showing your party meeting with the KKK?

Your party panders to Racist groups and you say that means nothing!

I would assume you're still waiting to find those WMD'S ?

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=315#1

I think Governor Haley Barbour did a great job selecting conservative Rep. Roger Wicker to replace Trent Lott.
I agree with John W Wicker is no rascist but, you liberal Dems keep looking for rascists among our ranks.
Who were the Southern Jim Crows the Democrat Senate. Don't forget Al Gore's Daddy and J William Fulbright voted against the Civil Rights Act along with many others. What about KKK Grand Kleagle Robert Byrd who is still in the Senate into his late 90's.The Civil Rights Act would not have passed without GOP votes and you Dems have lied to the African American community ever since about your civil rights bona fides. The truth is you don't have any. Jerry White, Springfield, IL

John W,

That community college law degree of yours must be failing you.

If your going to call yourself a "real conservative" then quit apoligizing for the ones (Wicker) who aren't.

"United States Representative from Mississippi, Roger Wicker -Wicker has been in attendance at meetings of the West Tennessee and Marshall County Chapters of the CofCC. He refused to comment on his reasons to both the Clarion Ledger and the Southern Poverty Law Center. We wonder if that is anything like pleading the Fifth.While he has engaged in some notable work during his years in Congress, his affiliation with the Council of Conservative Citizens gives us pause. Given that he is on some very powerful committees up there in D.C., we believe that an explanation to his constituency - and to others who might be the recipients of his actions. In the words of another great southern gentleman - “Is you is…or is you ain’t?” From his biography:He serves as a member of the leadership team in the House as deputy majority whip. In 2001, he was elected to the Republican Policy Committee, which is the policy-making arm of the majority party in the House. He was re-elected to that position in 2003.He landed a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee in 1995, and he continues to serve on the panel. He is a member of three Appropriations subcommittees, including Labor, Health and Human Services and Education; Defense; and Foreign Operations. In 2003, he assumed additional legislative duties when he was named to the Budget Committee. He has also served as chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority Congressional Caucus.Dr. Brent Nelson - Ph.D in English; college professor; blatantly racist. Nelson is one of the many erudite academians of the Council of Conservative Citizens. With a PhD in Literature from Ohio University, Nelson has ingratiated himself into the fold of not only that organization but of the entire racist right.Virulently anti-Semitic, Nelson detests immigration and claims that the United States will soon resemble a Third World country. He desperately seeks a separate nation for blacks and whites.Nelson authored “America Balkanized: Immigration’s Challenged to Government,” published by none-other than the National Alliance’s “National Vanguard Books.” Nelson is an Assistant Professor and Librarian at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock".

Full story here:
http://dakotasky.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/7/

The Civil Rights Act would not have passed without GOP votes and you Dems have lied to the African American community ever since about your civil rights bona fides. The truth is you don't have any. Jerry White, Springfield, IL

Posted by: Jerry White | January 1, 2008 1:27 PM

Crazy Jerry,

Thanks for taking off your hood and joining in, you're a proud member of the radical racist far-rightwing of the Republican Party that we're talking about.

Republican pretenderrs Rudy Giuliani Mitt Romney John McCain Fred Thompson Fail Reject Skip Absent Snub No-Show No-Go and are Delinquent from attending the Republican Presidential Debate(s) at the NAACP in Detroit, the UniVison Hispanic Television debate in Miami and the Morgan State " Historic Black " University debate in Baltimore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0arhtZlNq7c

Raving Loon:

Allow me to spell it out for you since you and your closed, narrow mind appear incapable of grasping the point on your own.

The idea that guilt is “personal” is fundamental to both the social and legal fabric of America. This means that Guilt, in reference to a crime, other wrongful or unethical behavior, or some loathsome ideological viewpoint, must be established, if at all, on the basis of what a person actually thinks and does. So, regardless of whether the trial takes place in a court of law or the court of public opinion, it is downright vile and despicable to assume a person’s guilt by reference to the ideas and actions of those with whom he or she associates, or even by reference to the ideas or actions of those who seek to associate with the person in question. This is so because people often associate with others for reasons which do not reflect agreement with everything those people do or believe.

It is upon this issue that your arguments have consistently failed. With specific regard to Congressman Wicker, you have failed to show any action or expression of thought to demonstrate that he is a racist. There is no evidence that he has ever acted or spoken in a manner that treated racial minorities as an inferior, despised or undesirable class of persons, much less that he thinks it proper or tolerable for anyone to suffer discrimination on the basis of their race. All you have are two articles, both of which refer to the very same CCC sponsored meeting that Congressman Wicker attended. Neither article shows that Wicker is a member of the CCC or any other racist organization. Why he attended the CCC meeting or what he said or did at it are not known, and those articles shed no light on any of these subjects. For all we know – since we are working within the realm of speculation here – he was asked to attend, and he spoke his mind on some issue of interest to him – in spite of, or regardless of, whatever the CCC preaches about racism.

What we are left with is the bare, naked inference that he is a racist because he attended one meeting of an organization which espouses racist ideas. To embrace this inference, as you have, is to fully indulge in the fallacy of guilt by association. It is the assumption that he embraces all the ideas of an organization just because he spoke at one of its meetings. That, of course, is not logical.

The same is true of your accusation regarding the Republican Party. Some Republicans may be racists. Similarly, some racists may like the ideas of the Republican party. However, it is plainly false to claim that “the Republican Party” panders to racists. The Republican Party has no overtly stated policy favoring racism, and it can neither be responsible nor vouch for every wrong-headed idea that a party “member” espouses. Remember, people join a given party for whatever reasons they choose. The party doesn’t choose them.

I must make special mention that I am not impressed with your citation to the Southern Poverty Law Center, or its article on the subject. The SPLC is very quick to condemn the use of “guilt by association” against those whom it favors. Unfortunately, the SPLC is also guilty of using the same “guilt by association” to malign anyone who doesn’t tow its radical, bigoted, closed-minded, left-wing agendum. The article you provided proves this. Of all the politicians it profiled, it could actually find only one of them who unabashedly claimed membership in the CCC. The rest of those who bothered to comment either didn’t know of the CCCs racist views in particular, or they showed up to tell the CCC something – rather than to get indoctrinated in its racist views. A good number of them even stated that the CCC solicited their attendance, and they attended simply for the opportunity to speak to the public. [You really ought to read what you cite.] So, actually, it looks as though the CCC has been making overtures to the Republican Party, and not the other way around.

I could use the same logic (or lack thereof) that the SPLC used in the article, to prove the Democratic Party is a racist organization. After all, the Democratic Party still has prominent members of Congress who were (and maybe still are) Klansmen. Senator Byrd, I am told, looked good in a white sheet. Even beyond the current members of Congress, the Democratic Party has had a long, historical associated with southern segregationists and racists. The “Dixiecrats” of 1948 who supported Strom Thurmond, were members of the Democratic Party, as were many segregationist politicians like Governors George Wallace of Alabama and Orval Faubus of Arkansas. Given this historical association with segregationists and racists, it is no long stretch to view much of the current Democratic Party platform, and especially those parts concerning race consciousness, affirmative action and support for the welfare state, as being based on the notion that minorities are so inherently inferior that they need the government to fight their battles for them and government assistance to survive. Objectively speaking, that is “racism” even if it is supposedly “benign.”

Now, I am not convinced the Democratic Party is a racist organization. But I think I have adequately demonstrated just how the SPLCs “guilt by association” rationale can make it appear to be one. So, how does “guilt by association” feel now that the shoe is on the other foot? Are you sure you still want to use it?

And, yes, I am serious in stating the SPLCs has a bigoted, closed-minded, left-wing agendum. To merely assume, without proof, that all white, male southern Republicans are racist – as the SPLC does - is, itself, a racist, bigoted and closed minded idea. To claim that all who oppose illegal immigration are racists – as the SPLC does - is also closed minded and bigoted, because it denies the rule of law, and the concerns many people have about the lack of the governments enforcement of its own laws. I could go on for awhile with further, similar examples of how vile and prejudiced the SPLC is in its outlook. I might add that the SPLC is notorious for its inability to focus the same scrutiny it applies to conservative organizations on any group left of center.

But you go diving, lemming like, off the same cliff just because the SPLC went there. Have you ever tried thinking for yourself, for once? Or is that asking too much from someone like you, who appears to perfectly trusts every left-wing fringe organization to do your thinking for you?

On the issue of Congressman Wicker – to which your last post was entirely non-responsive - you lose for lack of proof.

John E:

Your petty and snarky little comments aside, your brain has failed you. My last reply to Raving Loon entirely addresses and refutes your attempt to make Wicker look like a racist. In particular, the article you cite does nothing more than repeat (incorrectly) the same argument related in The Clarion-Ledger article and the report by the Southern Poverty Law center piece – all of which are wrong for the same reason.

[And If my reply to Raving Loon doesn’t get posted – and there is no guarantee that it will – I will repost it just for you.]

You, too, need to start thinking for yourself instead of bottom feeding from those loony left wing groups like MoveOn.org and DailyKos. They are rotting your brain, and I fear your are nearly beyond hope of becoming a reasonable, independent, thinking person who is critical of propaganda from either side of the fence.

John W,

"Real Conservatives" don't cover up for racist Neocons.

You should get a full refund from that phony law school that gave you a degree because you got ripped off.
Nuts like you shouldn't be licensed attorneys, it's just plain scary.

Watch and learn, Johnny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63sMyCAJXEY

John E:

I'm not covering for anyone, you twit.

I have seen you folks systematically malign people based on your own bigoted misconceptions on too many prior occasions. Every time I call you on them, you come up with left-wing gibberish. Not once have I ever seen you rationally prove any of the accusations you have made. This time is no different. Under such circumstances, it is never too much to make you think – for once – about what you are doing. Nor, might I add, is it too much to ask for proof of some wrongdoing when you make such heinous accusations.

This is what I was talking about when I said you and your ilk were closer than anyone to becoming fascists. You have entirely abdicated your ability to think to left-wing political ideologists. Worse yet, you have no shame in dragging anyone’s name through the mud as long as your victim doesn’t fit an “approved” social and political profile. Your demonstrable intolerance for ideas that don’t fit your ideology is what brings you to the brink of fascism. It is that resulting sheep-like mentality that allows you to be rounded up and herded into a collective society with a single collective consciousness. That is the essence of fascism, and from which all of its other evils flow.

Beware.

BTW, I would gladly turn in my law license and my law degree if I ever stooped to spewing the kind of mindless trash that you emit. Between the two of us, You are the “scary” one.

Johnny W,

The Neocon agenda is warping your thought process.

Where there's smoke there's fire.
(R) Roger Wicker is a racist and so are all of his pals in Mississippi.

Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) say that blacks are "a retrograde
species of humanity," and many other hateful things that I will not
repeat.

Many Repub leaders support this group:
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Alt/alt.politics/2005-08/msg02434.html

John E:

You are impervious to reason. I have demonstrated how "guilt by association" is not a valid, logical argument. Yet, you drift entirely over everything I have said and run straight to the same illogical argument dressed up as, "Where there's smoke there's fire."

If that's the best you can do, then there is no reasoning with you. Put a fork in it; your brain is cooked.

This is what I was talking about when I said you and your ilk were closer than anyone to becoming fascists. You have entirely abdicated your ability to think to left-wing political ideologists

Posted by: John W. | January 1, 2008 11:19 PM

Here's the 14 Defining Characteristics of Fascism...and look at who's "ilk" fits into all 14 of them, Johnny:

http://www.bushflash.com/14.html

John E:

Apparently, my first reply to your last post didn't make it. I will try again.

Please re-read my last response to Raving Loon's post, and pay particular attention to the discussion of the SPLC article Raving Loon cited. It is the same information presented in your last post which, in turn, is merely one further regurgitation of the fact that Congressman Wicker attended one meeting of the CCC.

It all boils down to the same "guilt by association" arguments that have been refuted before. Your - "[w]here there's smoke there's fire” - comment is just another tired rewording of the same argument. It doesn't work for all the same reasons the original “guilt by association” argument didn’t work either.

You have yet to prove Congressman Wicker is a racist. You and Raving Loon have done nothing but kick up clouds of speculation.

Honestly, if I had good evidence that he was a racists, I would be very upset about his appointment. But I insist on deciding issues based on fact rather than surmise. If I’m not getting through to you by now, then I know that you are so hopelessly wedded to your dangerous ideology that reason will never dislodge you from it.

Posted by: John W. | January 2, 2008 9:56 AM

No Johnny, Wicker isn't a racist but it just so happens that all of his pals are, right?

You're a flipping idiot...

John W,

In a court of law (R) Roger Wicker is not a racist.

In the court of public opinion (R) Roger Wicker is a racist and I will continue referring to him as one.