The Commentariat -- March 27, 2014

Internal links removed.

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama met for the first time with Pope Francis on Thursday...." The Los Angeles Times story, by Kathleen Hennessey, is here. ...

... Fortunately, we have the brilliant nonpartisan reporters at Politico to put the meeting in context. Carrie Brown, et al.: "President Barack Obama was once the biggest superstar on the international stage. On Thursday, he headed here to benefit from the popularity of his replacement:Pope Francis. The 50-minute meeting was a rare chance for Obama to associate himself with a world leader whose cool factor far outweighs his own, and it comes at a critical time in his presidency."

White House: "Along with ... King Philippe and Prime Minister di Rupo of Belgium, President Obama delivers remarks at Flanders Field Cemetery":

Michael Shear & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Obama offered a sustained and forceful rejoinder against Russia on Wednesday, denouncing the 'brute force' he said it has used to intimidate neighbors like Ukraine and vowing that the United States 'will never waver' in standing up for its NATO allies against aggression by Moscow. In a speech meant as a capstone to his trip to Europe in the midst of an East-West confrontation with Russia, Mr. Obama addressed Moscow's justifications for its intervention in Ukraine point by point, dismissing them as 'absurd' or unmerited." Here's the transcript.

Here's video of a joint presser held earlier Wednesday:

Protest by Beethoven. The Odessa (Ukraine) Musicians for Peace & Brotherhood. Thanks to Haley S. for the link:

Eric Pfeiffer of Yahoo! News: "A new national survey of Americans without health insurance finds that more than half are not aware that the deadline to obtain coverage under the Affordable Care Act is less than a week away. The poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that 61 percent of uninsured Americans either are not aware of the deadline or think it does not take effect until later than it does. Only 39 percent of uninsured individuals in the survey correctly identified the March 31 deadline." ...

     ... CW Note: The Obama administration has extended the deadline for some, but not for those whose excuse for not enrolling is "I had no fucking idea I had to try to sign up by March 31." ...

Another deadline made meaningless. If he hasn't put enough loopholes in the law already, the administration is now resorting to an honor system to enforce it. -- Speaker John Boehner

Another day, another Obamacare delay. -- Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ)

... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic: "For each one of these extensions or delays, the ultimate question is whether they change the law's ability to realize its basic goals -- which, in this case, means encouraging people to buy new private health plans while maintaining a stable insurance market. Giving people a little extra time to enroll wouldn't seem to impede this kind of progress. If anything, it would seem to enhance it. And maybe that's what really bothers some of the law's fiercer critics."

Game-Changer. Brian Bennett of ESPN: "In a potentially game-changing moment for college athletics, the Chicago district of the National Labor Relations Board ruled on Wednesday that Northwestern football players qualify as employees of the university and can unionize. NLRB regional director Peter Sung Ohr cited the players' time commitment to their sport and the fact that their scholarships were tied directly to their performance on the field as reasons for granting them union rights." The NLRB decision is here (pdf).

From Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker has more. The situation worsens, BTW. "New figures for 2012 from Saez, which came out too late to be included in Piketty's book, show the line hitting another new high, of more than fifty per cent."

Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "Reverse mortgages, which allow homeowners 62 and older to borrow money against the value of their homes that need not be paid back until they move out or die, have long posed pitfalls for older borrowers. Now many ... are discovering that reverse mortgages can also come up with a harsh sting for their heirs. Under federal rules, survivors are supposed to be offered the option to settle the loan for a percentage of the full amount. Instead, reverse mortgage companies are increasingly threatening to foreclose unless heirs pay the mortgages in full...."

Nicholas Kristof finds five wasteful welfare programs: "welfare subsidies for private planes..., welfare subsidies for yachts..., welfare subsidies for hedge funds and private equity..., welfare subsidies for America's biggest banks ... & large welfare subsidies for American corporations from cities, counties and states."

Paul Lewis of the Guardian: "One in 10 US secret service agents are aware of colleagues who have drunk excessively to the point they are 'a security concern', according to an internal survey of elite personnel whose responsibilities include protecting the president. Findings in the survey, buried in a recently released inspector general report, raise serious questions about the conduct of secret service agents, one of whom was found highly intoxicated at a hotel in the Netherlands on Sunday, hours before the arrival of Barack Obama this week." ...

... Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "As the U.S. Secret Service arrived in the Netherlands last weekend for a presidential trip, managers were already on high alert to avoid any further embarrassing incidents involving agents. The agency's director had admonished supervisors after two counter-sniper officers suspected of drinking were involved in a March 7 car accident during a presidential visit to Miami, according to several people with knowledge of the incident. The driver passed a field sobriety test and was not arrested."

Darrell Issa Is Still at It. AP: John Koskinen, "the head of the Internal Revenue Service, told House Republicans on Wednesday that it would take years to provide all the documents they have subpoenaed in their probe of how the agency handled tea party groups' applications for tax-exempt status.... Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., warned him he should comply with the request 'or potentially be held in contempt' of Congress, a sometimes threatened but seldom-used authority." ...

... David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) on Thursday said on Thursday that the 'biggest tool we have is to shame' the Obama administration, but insisted that was not what he was trying to do with his investigations into the alleged IRS targeting of tea party groups."

Congressional Races

Do I have the best credentials? Probably not, 'cause, you know, whatever. -- Former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass) on why New Hampshire voters should make him their U.S senator

I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm. -- Iowa State Sen. Joni Ernst, on why Iowa voters should make her their U.S. senator ...

... For some reason, Gail Collins doesn't think much of this crop of Senate hopefuls. Oh, she missed this genius:

We were fortunate growing up in the south. The president is a community organizer. You wonder if he ever worked with a poor person.... Insurance people they will tell you that they will go to a company and an employer will pay for everything, and there are some people who will not sign up. Turns out, those are my patients. They're illiterate. I'm not saying that to be mean. I say that in compassion. They cannot read. The idea they're going to go on the internet and work through a 16-page document to put in their data and sign up does not reflect an understanding of who is having the hardest time in our economy. -- Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician who is running for the Senate seat held by Mary Landrieu (D-La.)

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "... Mississippi [is] the last major battlefield in the feud between the Tea Party and the Republican establishment. The state has become a well-funded proxy war" in the GOP primary race between Sen. Thad Cochran & TP challenger Chris McDaniel.

Millions in this country feel like strangers in this land. You recognize that, don't you? An older America is passing away. A newer America is rising to take its place. We recoil from that culture. It's foreign to us. It's offensive to us. -- Chris McDaniel

Black people are offensive to us. -- CW Dogwhistle Translation, as if you needed one

This nice-looking Republican gunman is running for Congress in Alabama. (Apparently he didn't read the ACA bill he shoots & shreds. He says he's going to replace it with a "market-based solution," unaware that the ACA is market-based; in fact, the market factor is what makes the law so cumbersome):

CW: I'm always a day late (at least) in linking Tom Edsall's New York Times column. This week he wrote about the Democrats' dismal prospects in the 2014 congressional elections -- not to mention the party's dismal chances in the 2016 presidential election. "The damage inflicted on the Democratic Party by the dysfunctional [Healthcare.gov] website and the reaction to it is hard to overestimate.... Going largely unmentioned in most analyses is the inability of the Obama administration to markedly improve the economy, which could end up playing a big role in the unraveling of the Democratic Party's electoral fortunes, not only in 2014 but also in 2016." ...

... Philip Bump of the Atlantic: "What Edsall glosses over, though, is that the congressional ballot data was artificially inflated by the complete train wreck of the government shutdown, which completely tanked Republican poll numbers. The Healthcare.gov mess certainly meant that the Democrats lost an opportunity to capitalize on a surprising lead -- a lead that was always bound to decline to some extent.

... CW: I still think David Atkins has it right about what's wrong. From a piece I linked a few weeks ago: "For a young voter or voter of color, voting for Democrats isn't a matter of hope for a better future. It's basically a defensive crouch to prevent the insane sociopaths from taking over. To provide real hope, Democrats would have to start pushing for a $15 minimum wage, for basic universal income, for single-payer healthcare, for a green jobs Apollo Program, for student loan forgiveness, and similar policies." If you want voter turnout, taking a "defensive crouch" won't do it. ...

... ALSO, this doesn't inspire confidence that Democrats are your friends:

... Democrats Behaving Badly

Josh Richman, et al., of the San Jose Mercury-News: "In a stunning criminal complaint, State Sen. Leland Yee has been charged with conspiring to traffic in firearms and public corruption as part of a major FBI operation spanning the Bay Area, casting yet another cloud of corruption over the Democratic establishment in the Legislature and torpedoing Yee's aspirations for statewide office. Yee, D-San Francisco, highlights a series of arrests Wednesday morning that included infamous Chinatown gangster Raymond 'Shrimp Boy' Chow, whose past includes a variety of charges including racketeering and drug crimes." ...

... OR, as Charles Pierce puts it, "... the FBI seems to be accusing him of having wandered into a Dashiell Hammett novel." ...

... Chris Megerian of the Los Angeles Times: "A criminal complaint released Wednesday says [Yee] ... wanted donations in return for connecting an Italian gangster from New Jersey with an international arms dealer. The gangster was an undercover federal agent. Although Yee is better known as a gun control advocate in the Capitol, the complaint says he talked tough about having shady contacts who could obtain automatic weapons."

Mark Washburn, et al., of the Charlotte Observer: "Charlotte Mayor Patrick Cannon [D] was arrested Wednesday on public corruption charges, with the FBI alleging he took tens of thousands of dollars in bribes -- including $20,000 in cash delivered in a briefcase last month to the mayor's office where he also solicited $1 million more. Cannon resigned Wednesday evening. He was arrested that morning at a SouthPark apartment used by undercover FBI agents after the mayor turned up expecting another payment, sources say."

Paul Egan of the Detroit Free Press: "Wayne County [Detroit] Circuit Judge Wade McCree, who carried on an affair with a woman who had a case before him, is removed from office and will face a six-year suspension if he gets re-elected in November, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled today." McCree is a Democrat, appointed by former Gov. Jennifer Granholm. ...

... AND This Mystery Crook. Dan McGowan of WPRI: "State Rep. Nicholas Mattiello was overwhelmingly voted speaker of the Rhode Island House Tuesday, just five days after state and federal investigators executed two search warrants that targeted former Speaker Gordon Fox's [D] East Side home and State House office."

... Elsewhere Beyond the Beltway

** Karen Matthews of the AP: "New York state has the most segregated public schools in the nation, with many black and Latino students attending schools with virtually no white classmates.... The report by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California at Los Angeles looks at enrollment trends from 1989 to 2010. In New York City, the largest school system in the U.S. with 1.1 million pupils, the study notes that many of the charter schools created over the last dozen years are among the least diverse of all, with less than 1 percent white enrollment at 73 percent of charter schools. 'To create a whole new system that's even worse than what you've got really takes some effort,' said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project and an author of the report." ...

... CW: Of course the easiest way to mitigate school segregation is to have adults quit paying attention to what color the neighbors are when they look for a place to live.

Paul Egan & Kathleen Gray of the Detroit Free Press: "Michigan's governor [Rick Snyder (R)] said the nearly 300 same-sex marriages performed Saturday in the state are legal, but Michigan won't recognize them because of a stay put on a judicial decision that would allow for the unions."

Gubernatorial Race

Joshua Miller of the Boston Globe: "Democrat Martha Coakley, one of 10 hopefuls aiming to succeed Governor Deval Patrick, is the front-runner in both the Democratic primary and against Republican Charlie Baker, according to a new poll. Among likely Democratic primary voters, she led the next closest Democratic candidate, Treasurer Steven Grossman, by 31 points, a new WBUR-FM survey conducted by The MassINC Polling Group found."

A Painful Debate. Akilah Johnson of the Globe: During a Tuesday night forum among Massachusetts gubernatorial candidates on LGBTQ issues, Democratic candidate Steve Grossman was "in the throes of passing a kidney stone." The story has inspired a Twitter account @GrossmansStone, with entries like, "Will you have Urethra Franklin sing at your inaugural?"

News Ledes

New York Times: " In the first barometer of global condemnation of Russia's annexation of Crimea, Ukraine and its Western backers persuaded a large majority of countries in the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday to dismiss the annexation as illegal, even as Russia sought to rally world support for the idea of self-determination.... The resolution garnered 100 votes in favor, 11 votes against, with 58 abstentions."

New York Times: "Australia announced on Friday morning that it had moved the search area for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 nearly 700 miles to the northeast, the latest in a long series of changes by the authorities on where they think the plane might have disappeared."

CNN: "A new classified intelligence assessment concludes it is more likely than previously thought that Russian forces will enter eastern Ukraine...." CW: No kidding.

New York Times: "After three weeks of urgent negotiations with the interim government in Kiev..., the International Monetary Fund announced on Thursday an agreement to provide Ukraine up to $18 billion in loans over two years to prevent the country's default."

Washington Post: "A Thai satellite spotted 300 floating objects in the southern Indian Ocean, where authorities say the flight of the missing Malaysia Airlines ended more than three weeks ago."

Comments

[Patrick]

Picking up from yesterday and Mr. Rumsfeld's opinion that "“A trained ape could get a status of forces agreement,” he added. “It does not take a genius.” He was referring to US inability to conclude a SOFA with Afghanistan.

It is actually pretty hard to negotiate a SOFA which includes full immunity for US uniformed personnel in a foreign country. It is extremely hard to get one where those personnel are armed and whose mission includes killing or capturing the citizens of that country. If Mr. R truly believes that full-immunity SOFAs are easy to get, he is totally out of touch with how diplomacy and foreign relations works. As are most neocons, I suppose.

[PD Pepe]

All these feckless phonies getting arrested makes your head spin–– and what's with the drunken security guy––not too good a vetting job on that one although I guess we've seen this movie before. Sometimes people simply cannot help themselves from being irresponsible and foolish.

And in the halls of legislative procedures, where there is seldom evidence of the foolish and irresponsible we had a EPA budget hearing in which Gina McCarthy was front and center. I like how she responded to questions and how she handled herself. When David Vitter was up he zeroed in on the John Beale scandal (some EPA guy that did some bad thing and got sent to prison) his delivery smacking of accusations as though McCarthy was somehow responsible. She was kind to David, treating him almost like a child who can't listen to reason. I was struck with how Vitter's glasses make him look cross eyed–– he looks a little deranged and his speech sounded thick and garbled. Was he always like this, I wonder? The highlight of the hearing was Inhofe who previously had been chastised by chairman Boxer for his reluctance to accept global warming. He kept pressing McCarthy about how the new EPA's regulations on air quality standards would hurt the economy. She said science always trumps monetary concerns. She had to tell him this several times. Another senator, Roger Wicker, (again a name one could have such fun with–-ditty wise) who couldn't understand how warmer weather could be detrimental to children with respiratory problems. This white-haired gentleman referred to McCarthy, over and over, as "Madame Administrator" which has a lovely ring to it and is soooo deferential.

I ended the evening with Rachel showing us clips of Obama doing sone "put downs" which she says he's really good at. "Some people tell me I should go and have a drink with Mitch McConnell"–––pause––"YOU go and have a drink with Mitch McConnell."

[Marie Burns]

@PD Pepe: If McCarthy responded to Jim It's-Snowing-Somewhere-so-There's-No-Global-Warming Inhofe as you say, she gave him less than half-an-answer -- and a very unsatisfactory one.

There's very little economic cost (and sometimes an economic boost) in many environmental regs. For instance, if a coal-fired plant has to retrofit its equipment to reduce pollution, that means it has to buy stuff to do it -- and the stuff contributes goods & services to the economy. Of course Inhofe's polluting lobbyist friends don't like it because it reduces their profits, but somebody else is getting the dough, boosting the economy & spreading the wealth.

Environmental regs are actually equality-boosting, too. Instead of the wealth being concentrated in the hands of coal barons, they must pay some of it to others.

While there may be short-term economic costs to regs that prohibit drilling in certain areas, for instance, there are long-term economic benefits to developing clean energy.

Proper regulation, whether on environmental issues or something else -- banking, safety, whatever -- are usually good for the economy. McCarthy doesn't seem to understand much about macroeconomics. And of course Inhofe doesn't understand much about anything.

Marie

[Akhilleus]

Patrick,

Rummy, as you rightly intuit, has not the first clue about diplomacy or the effort required of genuine statecraft. He couldn't negotiate a plan for who gets the first move in Candyland. He'd just boot the other kids in the face and take the first move himself. We won't even mention the fact that Obama's people are having to work with a narcissistic backstabbing gangster handpicked by Rummy's bosses.

The primary type of "negotiation" for the Bushies, and Rummy is a perfect example, was bullying and braggadocio followed by flinging flying objects (bombs).

Even untrained apes can do that.

And after years of devastation and death caused by their supreme monkey business, they're still beating their chests and hooting like retarded gorillas.

Here Rummy, Rummy, Rummy, have a peanut. That's a good little monkey. Now go climb a tree and shut the fuck up.

[Akhilleus]

A big thanks to Haley for that flash mob marketplace rendition of the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth. I love these flash mob musical events but this is by far the best I've seen. At one point while watching, I was thinking how cool it would be if they brought some choral members along, and when I saw the conductor arrive, I just lit up.

Freude, schoener Goetterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium...
Alle Menschen werden Brueder,
Wo dein sanfter Fluegel weilt.

Joy, daughter of Elysium...brotherhood unites all men where your gentle wings spread wide.

Indeed, indeed.

Putin must be wondering how he can have all these people arrested and thrown into a gulag, like the old days.

Man, what a great piece. A piece for peace. If you aren't wearing a big smile at the end of this, I never want to meet you and that's that.

[PD Pepe]

@AK: It made me cry––just overwhelming.

@Marie: McCarthy will be back under the gun in a few weeks. How sweet it would be if you were sitting next to her. In fairness, though, I didn't see the whole hearing so she might have made your points.

[Akhilleus]

From the Head Scratching Dept.

Think Rock and Roll.

Okay, now think Conservative Rock and Roll. (No giggling!)

Something seem off about that? I mean, like EVERYTHING?

Okay, so we've established that the idea of right-wing rock and roll is just as bizarre and off base as Christian Rock and Roll (although the latter is a whole lot funnier...).

So the Queen of Evanescence and Painful Irrelevance, Sarah Palin, is starting a TV show. Yeah, another one. And it will be canceled or she'll stomp off the set within weeks, but that's beside the point. What piques my interest (and then only barely) is that she has announced that she has a THEME SONG!! Let there be dancing in the streets. Let there be cavorting in the back room, and let angels sing thee to thy rest. A fucking theme song for Grizzly Gal.

Well, okay. It's one of those pseudo rock and roll things beloved of conservatives who want to appear hip and cool. Another funny thing, I know. Conservatives are to cool as near beer is to Belgian ale.

Palin's cool new band singing her cool new theme song "Amazing America!!" (are you surprised?) is something called Madison Rising. A top ten band, fer sure. But the song, aside from the soporific lyrics ("America is amazing, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so great"), the song just sucks. It's derivative, musically intert, and worst of all boring. Boring is not what you think of when you think "Rock and Roll". Seriously, this is the kind of band that, if you were to walk into a club and heard them, you'd be gone after two songs. Despite the fact that you've found a legal parking spot at the front door, you know the bartender and can drink free all night, and you've just forked over a $20 cover charge. Out the door, baby.

What is it about conservatives and rock and roll? Now don't get me wrong. I have no problem with wingnuts listening to rock music. In fact, I think it's great. If they get something out of it besides shooting and stomping on people they don't like (plenty of shots of shooting in the Madison Rising video, along with "hard workin' 'mericans"....I also don't get how the Party of the Rich gets to pepper all their visuals with images of people they work day and night to screw).

But, then you remember that Reagan used "Born in the USA" as a theme in his run for re-election despite the fact that it was about the exact opposite of what he was selling. Paul Ryan claims to love Rage Against the Machine. Seriously? He must not have listened to a single lyric because to RATM, he IS the Machine. Idiot.

But then there's also child molester Ted Nugent, loser Kid Rock, and the whole panoply of gun totin', flag wavin', Bible thumpin' country stars aligned on the right side (event though, technically, country music is not rock and roll). There's something about unquestioning nationalism and strict religiosity that strikes me as sooooo at odds with the spirit of Rock and Roll (think John Lennon: "Imagine there's no country,... no religion too..").

Rock and Roll, at its best is a cry against the status quo, a reaction to social norms, and visceral love of the groove. I can't imagine that conservatives prize rock music for its sexuality, so they must love the idea of being cool (David Brooks just said "fuck it" and gave up on that).

Something they simply don't have themselves. I mean, really, whatever you think of Barack Obama, he's a pretty cool dude. Mike Huckabee or Mitch McConnell? Not so much. And the best patriotic music, the most thoughtful and authentic, seems to come from liberal songwriters and performers. Just think Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen

'Nuff said.

So Sarah Palin can have her little nationalistic wee-wee ditty played by guys you wouldn't stop to listen to if they were playing for free, she still doesn't get what rock and roll is really about.

I'll leave it to Bruce to say what it means, from "Open All Night", off his killer album, "Nebraska".

"Eyes get itchy in the wee wee hours sun's just a red ball risin' over them refinery towers

Radio's jammed up with gospel stations, lost souls callin' long distance salvation

Hey Mr. Deejay woncha hear my last prayer hey ho rock 'n roll deliver me from nowhere"

(I'd link the Madison Rising song, but really, don't waste your time. It blows. Listen to this instead...)

Open All Night

[Marie Burns]

@Akhilleus: Like a defiant child, I refused to take your advice, & am I sorry. Just awful. The band (lead singer included) doesn't even seem convinced. Also, with the exception of a small American flag tacked up over part of one of the wall hangings, it appears their whole set was made in Asia -- batik & (fakey) Oriental carpets. Apparently Amazing America buys all its stuff from amazing feriners.

Marie

[Akhilleus]

Marie,

Toldyaso.

And don't miss the "cool dudes" sitting on the couch nodding at each other like "hey, man, this is so wicked cool I'm about to pee my pants".

If you have to include shots of other people not throwing up to encourage viewers to think that, well, if those three guys like it, maybe it really isn't quite as terrible as it seems, you've already lost.

Like bad comedians who crack up at their own jokes.

And something I left off the previous post because I was approaching the Coals to Newcastle asymptote, is a list from a right-wing site of rock bands to boycott because they are "...bands that have been on record as holding liberal views, anti-war sentiment, or other traitorous activities."

Get that? Liberal or anti-war sentiments are treasonous.

The list is pretty much a who's who of rock and roll. In effect, they're saying "Don't listen to real rock and roll". Instead they write "...Please only purchase music from patriotic conservative musicians like Toby Keith, Jessica Simpson, Brooks and Dunn, Ted Nugent, Britney Spears, Lee Greenwood, and Pat Boone."

Pat Fucking BOONE!

Quod erat demonstrandum.

[Whyte Owen]

@Ak: Interesting thing about the Do Not Buy list is that it is almost a decade old. Nugent was already at it?

[Akhilleus]

Good news, folks.

Our pals over on the right just cannot get them enough of deadly weapons. So, to augment the burgeoning gun rights movement which aims to arm everyone from nursery school teachers to the kid who sells popcorn in Florida movie theaters (them kernels'll get you kilt daid, if'n you don't watch yourself), we now have....Ta-Da...

the KNIFE RIGHTS movement. Is that cool, or what?

Oh baby, and do they have them some good ideas.

You thought Rambo had a big knife? You thought switchblades were illegal? Ha....limits on the size of knives are being revoked even as we consider whether we'd rather be murdered by gunshot or be carved up by some knife wielding red neck lout. And switchblades (ahem...pardon me, do you mean "automatic" knives?) will soon be the latest red state stocking stuffer, just you wait and see.

It's looking up for more and better ways to murder people!

Automatic guns, now automatic knives....what's the next coolest way to kill someone who looks at you crossways?

[Akhilleus]

Whyte,

It seems that pederast asshole Uncle Ted has been at it for too long.

According to an article on Salon, interviews with Uncle Douchebag have been brought to light (from 1990) in which he brags about using the N word (he claims it's all about proper communication), talks about apartheid in South Africa being not that bad because, after all, not all types of people are created equal, and doesn't forget to add that, after all, plenty of those tribal N's walk around with bones in their noses and eat raw animal flesh.

But he's an equal opportunity hater. He apparently named his tour to Japan "The Jap Whack Tour", but hastens to add that he means no disrespect.

This pig is a walking, talking toilet bowl of puke and bile.

[James Singer]

Seems to me that if we're going to be serious about changing our lamentable society--beyond name calling and miscellaneous villifications about past events we can neither recall nor change--this might be a good place to start: http://www.salon.com/2014/03/27/tea_partys_absurd_socialism_obsession_an_actual_marxist_sounds_off/