Sometimes keeping an eye on the republican party is rather like watching a bus full of sociopathic monsters careen off a cliff. The sensations you feel are a wild mix of horror and awe spiced with a dash of justice and tinged at the edges with glee.
In Illinois, former Miss America, Erika Harold has announced she is running for a congressional seat held by republican, Rodney Davis. Harold is also a republican and says she believes she can help the GOP expand it's base and reach out to people who don't normally vote for republicans. You know, people like minorities and women.
Good news right? Especially when you consider Davis won that seat by only 1,000 votes over a four time loser last November. Ms. Harold is young, articulate, and attractive. She graduated from the University of Illinois as a Phi Beta Kappa and earned her law degree from Harvard. She is also bi racial, or rather, multi cultural. On her mother's side alone her ancestry includes African American, Native American, and Russian roots. She is, in short, everything the republicans need to begin to change their image from a clan of misogynist old white guys into an actual 21st century political party that reflects the national demographic.
Enter the republican chair of Montgomery County, Illinois, Jim Allen. He supported Davis last fall and still does. MSN News reports he sent an email to republican blogger, Doug Ibendahl. In it he referred to Erika Harold as a "street walker," "the love child of democrats," and suggested if she lost the primary she could fill a "minority quota" at a law firm.
As we say in Oklahoma, you can take 'em out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of them.
Reaction was swift. Ibendahl posted the email on his site and then belabored the obvious by saying, "I hope some of these bullies learn a lesson from this. Our party has a huge branding problem nationwide, especially in Illinois. This guy's attitude sets us back. It's confirmation to why women and minorities don't take the republican party seriously."
Republican national chair Reince Priebus tweeted, "Chairman Allen's astonishingly offensive remarks have no place in politics. He should apologize and resign immediately."
Davis reportedly called the email, "wrong, appalling and incredibly demeaning." He also demanded that his old pal Jim Allen quit. He then openly worried it might have an impact on his 2014 campaign.
Allen fell on his sword and resigned yesterday after issuing an apology through the Champaign, IL newspaper.
Meanwhile NBC News is reporting that Goodwill Industries is paying some of the disabled workers it employs at it's stores as little as 22 cents an hour. They can do this because section 14 (c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 allows employers to pay disabled workers "according to their abilities," with no bottom limit. It seems Goodwill management uses stop watches to determine exactly how much their employees can get done in allotted time frames and then applies some arcane formula to calculate their rate of pay.
The story, written by Anna Schecter, notes that the CEO of the Southern California Goodwill earned $1.1 million in salary and deferred payments in 2011. His Oregon counterpart earned $500,000 and the CEO of Goodwill International was paid $729,000. It remains unclear if the charity uses the same methodology when calculating their pay.
NBC is also reporting that the president of Exodus International, Alan Chambers has written an apology on the group web site and shut his ministry down. Exodus was founded in 1976 and used what is called, "reparative therapy" to cure men and women of homosexuality. The apology in part said, "I'm sorry some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn't change."
Yep, it was all just a merry mix up. Watch for lawyers to begin forming a line soon.
Finally, down in Florida six women were picked to be on the jury in the George Zimmerman trial. Four alternates were also selected. Two of them were women and two were men.
An NBC News analyst was reported to have said he didn't think the gender of the jury would be a major factor, but it might be a slight advantage to the prosecution. Defense attorney Mark O'Mara was quoted as saying, "I don't think it really matters."
The report states five of the women are white and one is "either Hispanic, or black." The reason for the confusion went unexplained. Perhaps NBC should hire Jim Allen. He's up in Illinois looking for a new gig and apparently is quite the expert on minority and mixed race affairs.
And there you have it. Just another Friday in the big town. As always, stay low and keep moving. You don't want them to get us all with just one burst.
Mr. Scott, you have the con.
6-21-13
No comments:
Post a Comment