House Majority Whip Spoke at White Supremacists Conference

[Miles]

Duke said that he was in Russia at the time of the meeting. He said he had no relationship with Scalise and defended him, basically: "Well, people in his district voted for me in major statewide races when I ran. He's not supposed to talk with those constituents!?"

[muon2]

^ A state blogger reportedly found records of the meeting on Stromfront.

It must really suck for Roskam right now; he'd almost surely be Whip now if his people found this during the Whip race.

No doubt. But, there was tremendous pressure in the caucus to get someone in leadership from a deep red state. It was one of the rare times a leadership fight was more about zip code than the job at hand.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

If a Democrat spoke at a far-left Commie group...

Can we not pretend that's the same thing?

[Maistre]

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/12/30/boehner-ally-steve-scalise-rocked-with-white-supremacy-scandal/

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Never change Breitbart...

[courts]

If a Democrat spoke at a far-left Commie group...

Can we not pretend that's the same thing?

actual neo nazis are less tedious to talk to than the average breitbart poster

[King]

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/12/30/boehner-ally-steve-scalise-rocked-with-white-supremacy-scandal/

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Never change Breitbart...

That'd be hilarious if Boehner lost his Speakership because of Scalise.

[All Along The Watchtower]

lol @CountryClassSF's hilarious/pathetic whataboutery.

"Yeah Scalise talked to/was friends with Klansmen and other white supremacists, but what about AL SHARPTON and JEREMIAH WRIGHT?!"

[pbrower2a]

Doesn't LaRaza want the Southwest to leave the union and form the Republic of Aztlan or something like that?

That's a conservative talk radio conspiracy theory. Much of poor minority advocacy group = NAZIS is conservative talk radio conspiracy theory.

"My enemies must be just as racist as me" is a common line of thinking among racists.

You have just described psychological projection. An example: just about everything that Adolf Hitler said about the Jews was true -- about himself and his fellow Nazis, if not about Jews. I have heard a bank robber say that the banks are the biggest crooks of all.

It's hard for any group other than American blacks (except for African immigrants in recent times and their progeny, practically all American blacks have some Caucasoid ancestry) to have less cause for claim of ethnic purity than Mexican-Americans.  

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that allowed the US annexation of the American Southwest defined Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as "white" for legal purposes.

[King]

Will the Republicans finally purge the "Boehner-Scalise wing" of their party?

[RogueBeaver]

Boehner and McCarthy say they fully support Scalise.

[King]

Boehner and McCarthy say they fully support Scalise.

This is a bad move by Boehner. If they just demoted him, this scandal would be gone in a week. Now, it's a scandal involving "John Boehner's Right Hand Man Who He Fully Supports Scalise."  People who hate Boehner on the left and right will not let this go now until Boehner goes down.

It's his Benghazi.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I just find it distressing that Scalise (or his staffers, likely) felt the need to speak to the "European-American Unity and Rights Organization" (christ) to win in Louisiana in 2002. Not only that, but that his strategy actually worked.

Like, it's not really surprising, but it's still upsetting.

[DrScholl]

If a transcript pops up, this whole thing will blow up in Boehner's face big time. It's already bad enough as it, Democrats have a huge talking point now.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Guilt by association sucks. It's also very selective.  Knowing the spineless nature of Republicans,Scalise will get the Lott treatment.

Meanwhile, Democrats will schedule speeches at La Raza, kiss Sharpton's ring, and elect Presidents who attended Jeremiah Wright's church -- without media attention.

I know you're a parody troll, but it's hilarious that some Republicans actually think La Raza is a Hispanic supremacist group and Al Sharpton is a black supremacist. Also, I assume you didn't pay attention to politics in 2008, since the media was obsessed with Jeremiah Wright.

Doesn't LaRaza want the Southwest to leave the union and form the Republic of Aztlan or something like that? I'm not defending CountryClassSF because he is a troll and the Wright/Sharpton comparisons are absurd, but LaRaza itself (not so much in it's present form) is a rather shady group with their fair share of historic controversial connections.

Duke says he doesn't know whether Scalise knew what the conference was about. But even if you didn't know, how else could the name "European-American Unity and Rights Organization" be interpreted other than as a white supremacist group?

It's quite easy to interpret that name as a benign organization promoting greater transatlantic cooperation and international human rights.  (not that I'm not skeptical that he could have been at the conference and not known what they were about.)

Not to mention he wasn't just at the conference, he spoke at it.

A quick check of their website (which Miles was kind enough to dig up) shows a ton of anti-semitic conspiracy theories as well. That should have gave it away immediately.

Yes, in terms of how the website shows what the organization is like, though I do find it incredibly easy to believe Scalise would not have visited the website of every place he spoke at.

I haven't seen anything problematic about La Raza's activism, but you have to admit their name gives their opponents ammunition on the racist charge (caveats about things being lost in translation aside).

[RogueBeaver]

If a transcript pops up, this whole thing will blow up in Boehner's face big time. It's already bad enough as it, Democrats have a huge talking point now.

We know he was talking about the state budget.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Racism is a pattern with the modern GOP. Haven't people figured this out yet?

[BaconBacon96]

I want this to take out the entire Republican leadership.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Doesn't LaRaza want the Southwest to leave the union and form the Republic of Aztlan or something like that?

That's a conservative talk radio conspiracy theory. Much of poor minority advocacy group = NAZIS is conservative talk radio conspiracy theory.

"My enemies must be just as racist as me" is a common line of thinking among racists.

I remember in my own d-bag days here that I tried to make an effort post linking LaRaza to groups like The Brown Berets. No real connections existed besides a few individuals with membership in both.

Scalise should resign. And so should Raul Grijalva, who was a member of an active group seeking secession back in the day. I'm not defending Scalise, but let’s not pretend this is a Republican only problem as some on this forum are declaring.

That's...a fairer point but advocating secession still isn't morally on nearly the same level of abjectness as white supremacy. With the particular American historical experience of both it's easy to conflate them but if one had to choose between secession and white supremacy for some perverse reason, secession is the natural choice for any decent person. I mean, would you be saying the same thing if Grijalva were a Congressman from Alaska who'd at one point been in the AIP? (I'm not trying to imply that you wouldn't; it's a sincere question.)

[IceSpear]

Chris McDaniel: How come Scalise can talk to white supremacists and I can't?

[RogueBeaver]

Slate says Scalise spoke to another, totally unrelated conference just before Duke's.

[Mr. Reactionary]

If a Democrat spoke at a far-left Commie group...

Can we not pretend that's the same thing?

Maybe, but only if you can revive then hundred million people the Communists murdered in the 20th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

If a Democrat spoke at a far-left Commie group...

Can we not pretend that's the same thing?

Maybe, but only if you can revive then hundred million people the Communists murdered in the 20th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes

An actual full-on political Communist organization a la the American Communist Party, yeah. They deserve just as much scorn as Neo-Nazis and fascists.

I don't think you'll find that, though, honestly. The closest thing to a Communist in Democratic politics is Bernie Sanders, and he's a Democratic Socialist. I wouldn't have been shocked to find out about some unhinged former Dem politicians like Pete Stark, but he's gone.

The closest you'd likely find is some state legislators or city councilors in far-left states. Maybe a Mayor or two. It would likely be enough to take them out of office, but it doesn't have the wide reaching effect of this.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Boehner and McCarthy say they fully support Scalise.

This is a bad move by Boehner. If they just demoted him, this scandal would be gone in a week. Now, it's a scandal involving "John Boehner's Right Hand Man Who He Fully Supports Scalise."  People who hate Boehner on the left and right will not let this go now until Boehner goes down.

It's his Benghazi.

So in other words, you mean it'll be something that matter only to those who already oppose Boehner and not really affect him at all politically?

[Mr. Reactionary]

If a Democrat spoke at a far-left Commie group...

Can we not pretend that's the same thing?

Maybe, but only if you can revive then hundred million people the Communists murdered in the 20th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes

An actual full-on political Communist organization a la the American Communist Party, yeah. They deserve just as much scorn as Neo-Nazis and fascists.

I don't think you'll find that, though, honestly. The closest thing to a Communist in Democratic politics is Bernie Sanders, and he's a Democratic Socialist. I wouldn't have been shocked to find out about some unhinged former Dem politicians like Pete Stark, but he's gone.

The closest you'd likely find is some state legislators or city councilors in far-left states. Maybe a Mayor or two. It would likely be enough to take them out of office, but it doesn't have the wide reaching effect of this.

Oh I agree that there wouldn't appear to be any mainstream Democrats involved with the Communists (Sandinista de Blasio is hardly mainstream) ... I just meant that its not unfair to say that Communist ideology is as repugnant as white supremacist ideology.

[Tender Branson]

Did you guys know that David Duke lived in my [Austrian] home town of Zell am See for quite some time ?

He rented an apartment here for several months a year and set up a "bird watching business". His apartment was near one of my high-school friend's apartment.

He often went into shops and told people that he's "a professor from America" (of course, nobody knew who he really was).

A few years ago, the media here got a tip from someone that it's in fact Duke who's living here unnoticed. Of course, Austrian authorities can't expel him from the country because he's living here legally and has not said anything racist or Neo-Nazi (which would be reason to arrest him under Austria's anti-Nazi laws).

But now that people are aware who he is and that he lived here, he's not showing up here anymore and lives elsewhere (he probably has enough of the publicity here).