Thursday, January 19, 2012 3:03:33 AM
Fact check: Gingrich's faulty food-stamp claim
By Brooks Jackson, FactCheck.org
January 18, 2012
Newt Gingrich claims that "more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history." He's wrong. More were added under Bush than under Obama, according to the most recent figures.
The former speaker made that claim Jan. 16 in a Republican debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and his campaign organization quickly inserted the snippet in a new 30-second TV ad that began running Jan. 18 in South Carolina.
Gingrich would have been correct to say the number now on food aid is historically high. The number stood at 46,224,722 persons as of October, the most recent month on record. And it's also true that the number has risen sharply since Obama took office.
But Gingrich goes too far to say Obama has put more on the rolls than other presidents. We asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition service for month-by-month figures going back to January 2001. And they show that under President George W. Bush the number of recipients rose by nearly 14.7 million. Nothing before comes close to that.
And under Obama, the increase so far has been 14.2 million. To be exact, the program has so far grown by 444,574 fewer recipients during Obama's time in office than during Bush's.
It's possible that when the figures for January 2012 are available they will show that the gain under Obama has matched or exceeded the gain under Bush. But not if the short-term trend continues. The number getting food stamps declined by 43,528 in October. And the economy has improved since then.
Obama's responsibility
Gingrich often cites the number of persons on food stamps to support his view that the U.S. is becoming an "entitlement society," increasingly dependent on government aid. And he has a point. One out of seven Americans is currently getting food stamps.
But Gingrich strains the facts when he accuses Obama of being responsible. The rise started long before Obama took office, and accelerated as the nation was plunging into the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.
The economic downturn began in December 2007. In the 12 months before Obama was sworn in, 4.4 million were added to the rolls, triple the 1.4 million added in 2007.
To be sure, Obama is responsible for some portion of the increase since then. The stimulus bill he signed in 2009 increased benefit levels, making the program more attractive. A family of four saw an increase of $80 per month, for example. That increase remains in effect and is not set to expire until late next year, according to USDA spokeswoman Jean Daniel.
The stimulus also made more people eligible. Able-bodied jobless adults without dependents could get benefits for longer than three months. That special easing of eligibility also expired on Sept. 30, 2010. Spokeswoman Daniel told us that 46 states have been able to continue the longer benefit period under special waivers granted because of high unemployment. Previously, able-bodied adults without dependents could collect food stamps for only three months out of any three-year period.
Otherwise, current eligibility standards are unchanged from what they were before Obama took office, USDA officials say. Generally, those with incomes at or below 130% of the official poverty level, and savings of $2,000 or less, may receive aid. The income level is currently just over $29,000 a year for a family of four.
That leaves the economic downturn that began in 2007 — and the agonizingly slow recovery that followed — as the principal factors making more Americans eligible for food stamps. Officials say that another factor is that Americans today are less reluctant to accept aid than before.
Of those whose income was low enough to qualify, only 54 percent actually signed up in 2002, but that rose steadily to 72 percent by fiscal 2009, the latest USDA figures show.
USDA researchers said the jump in the participation rate happened because of actions by state governments. In a report released in August 2011, the Office of Research and Analysis said:
USDA: States have increased outreach to low-income households, implemented program simplifications, and streamlined application processes to make it easier for eligible individuals to apply for and receive SNAP [food stamp] benefits. Most States also have reduced the amount of information that recipients must report during their certification period to maintain their eligibility and benefit levels, making it easier for low-income households to participate.
Another reason may be that "food stamps" no longer exist as paper coupons. Instead, beneficiaries now receive plastic debit cards, known as "Electronic Benefit Transfer" or EBT cards, which look pretty much like an ordinary credit card when used in a supermarket checkout line.
EBT cards have been used in all states since 2004, according to the USDA website. The change to plastic cards was done both to reduce the possibility of fraud, and also to reduce the stigma felt by beneficiaries, and may account for some of the increase in participation.
In fact, the program is no longer officially called the "food stamp" program. Since 2008, it has been the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP for short.
Who gets food stamps?
The most recent Department of Agriculture report on the general characteristics of the SNAP program's beneficiaries says that in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2010:
• 47% of beneficiaries were children under age 18.
• 8% were age 60 or older.
• 41% lived in a household with earnings from a job — the so-called "working poor."
• The average household received a monthly benefit of $287.
• 36% were white (non-Hispanic), 22% were African American (non-Hispanic) and 10% were Hispanic.
We don't argue that the program is either too large (as Gingrich does) or too small. It has certainly reached a historically high level, and may or may not grow even larger in the months to come. But the plain fact is that the growth started long before Obama took office, and participation grew more under Bush.
Kevin Concannon, the USDA's undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, told the Wall Street Journal: "I realize Mr. Gingrich is a historian, but I'm not sure he'd get very high marks on that paper."
Footnote: There was an earlier easing of eligibility standards buried in a 2008 farm bill that Congress enacted over Bush's veto. Obama voiced support for the measure while campaigning, but was not present for either the Senate vote to pass the bill or the vote to override.
Both votes enjoyed strong bipartisan majorities. Only 12 Republicans and two Democrats voted to sustain Bush's veto, for example. Bush didn't mention the food stamp provisions when he vetoed the bill, but instead cited what he called excessive subsidies to farmers.
© 2012 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. (emphasis in original)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-01-18/fact-check-gingrich-obama-food-stamps/52645882/1 [with embedded links, and comments]
===
On Race, Dog Whistles, and the Old Confederacy
Jan 17 2012
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/on-race-dog-whistles-and-the-old-confederacy/251497/
===
Rise of rhetoric in GOP campaign causing concern about return to racial politics
January 18, 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rise-of-rhetoric-in-gop-campaign-causing-concern-about-return-to-racial-politics/2012/01/18/gIQAnNlu8P_story.html [with comment]
===
Food Stamp President? The Science of Why Gingrich's Race-Tinged Label Sticks
January 18, 2012
http://bigthink.com/ideas/42013 [with comments]
===
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Agrees With Newt Gingrich, Says He Would Send Blacks Back 'To The Plantation'
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, who agrees with Gingrich's remarks suggesting poor black kids lack a strong work ethic, would "take all black people back to the South and put them on the plantation."
Trymaine Lee
First Posted: 1/17/12 09:14 PM ET Updated: 1/17/12 11:56 PM ET
The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, the super-conservative African American Republican who has campaigned vigorously against Kwanzaa ("The Racist Holiday From Hell" he has called it), the Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr. [ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1055081/posts ] and President Barack Obama, said he has a simple solution to black America's employment woes: hard labor.
"One of the things that I would do is take all black people back to the South and put them on the plantation so they would understand the ethic of working," Peterson told The Huffington Post's Black Voices on Tuesday afternoon. "I'm going to put them all on the plantation. They need a good hard education on what it is to work."
Peterson made the remarks after he was asked to comment on Monday night's sparring between moderator Juan Williams and Newt Gingrich [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/17/newt-gingrich-juan-williams_n_1209657.html ], during the Republican presidential debate after Williams asked Gingrich whether he thought his recent statements suggesting a lack of work ethic among poor black kids could be viewed as insulting.
"People don't want to hear the truth," said Peterson, the founder of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny [ http://www.bondinfo.org/content/home ], or BOND. "Newt was 100 percent correct," Peterson said. "Newt said that he would have black children, minority children work as janitors at school. Working as a janitor would build character, more so than the handouts so many of them like."
"I know some people take it personally because a whole lot of folks don't like hearing the truth; they like to be in denial," he added. "Not all black people, but most black people know, and white people know, and black people say it more in private than they would in public, but for the last 50 years or so, generations and generations of black people have relied on the government or someone else to take care of them."
"Many black women have had babies out of wedlock and passed that on to their daughters that if they have babies out of wedlock, they'll get food stamps, free houses and your rent paid," Peterson said.
Peterson, who was raised on a plantation in Alabama where he said generations of his family worked first as slaves and then sharecroppers, said he learned to have a strong work ethic by doing such backbreaking work as picking cotton.
Day in and day out, it was the same thing: get home from school, eat supper, change clothes and get into the cotton field, he said.
Nearly 30 years ago Peterson left the plantation and headed West to California. But today, he said, millions of blacks are on the mental "plantation" of the Democratic Party. To fight back, he said, he formed the Tea Party of South Central Los Angeles. Considering this is black and Latino neighborhood where residents have traditionally voted Democratic, it might be an uphill battle.
"I hope that once [black people] hear the truth, they will pull away from the Democratic Party and their godless leaders," Peterson said in a recent interview with HuffPost. "When you tell them the truth first, they become upset ... They think if you're black and conservative, you're an Uncle Tom. Once you let them yell and scream and carry on -- because they will carry on -- and when they calm down, they understand."
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/17/rev-jesse-lee-peterson-agrees-with-gingrich_n_1211651.html [with comments]
===
Al Sharpton: Newt Gingrich Using 'Racial Demagoguery' (VIDEO)
1/18/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/al-sharpton-newt-gingrich-racism_n_1212928.html [with comments]
===
Martin Luther King and the Republican Race For Righteousness
Herb Silverman
Posted: 1/17/12 05:32 PM ET
If I believed in a god, and one with a sense of humor, I would think she had a big chuckle over timing the South Carolina Republican primary for the same week the nation celebrates Martin Luther King Day.
On May 2, 2000, South Carolina became the last state to make King's birthday an official state holiday. But South Carolina also then created another official state holiday on May 10 -- Confederate Memorial Day. Prior to this legislation, state employees had the choice of celebrating the birthday of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, or Martin Luther King.
Some of our South Carolina politicians think nothing of rewriting history, even when they can easily be caught. For instance, Congressman Joe Wilson claimed that he spearheaded the effort to have King's birthday recognized. A friend of Wilson's from his state legislature days said Wilson must have been confused about which holiday he supported, which was really Confederate Memorial Day. When confronted with circumstantial evidence, Wilson said [ http://thediscust.com/?p=1182 ] his memory must have failed him. (This is the same Joe Wilson who famously yelled "You lie!" at the country's first African-American president during a speech to a joint session of Congress.)
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul voted against Martin Luther King Day [ http://www.theroot.com/buzz/ron-paul-did-not-vote-mlk-day?wpisrc=root_more_news ] both in 1979 and 1983, when the bill passed. In one of his newsletters, Paul referred [ http://www.eurweb.com/2012/01/in-addition-to-his-racist-nerwsletters-ron-paul-voted-against-mlk-day/ ] to the holiday as "Hate Whitey Day." Paul, who is viewed as the presidential candidate least likely to lie, claimed [ http://wonkette.com/342361/ron-pauls-hilarious-newsletters-also-hate-mlk ] that he neither wrote nor read the newsletters that bore his name.
Martin Luther King is not the controversial figure he once was in South Carolina, with racism today subtler and less institutionally sanctioned. But in 1962, at the height of the civil rights movement led by King, the Confederate battle flag was placed atop the State Capitol by vote of an all-white legislature. In 2000, a so-called compromise moved the Confederate flag to the Capitol grounds. When the NAACP continued its boycott of South Carolina, state senator Arthur Ravenel [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ravenel%2C_Jr#cite_note-1 ], a member of Sons of Confederate Veterans, called the NAACP the "National Association for Retarded People." He later apologized--to the mentally handicapped for comparing them to the NAACP.
Presidential candidates are often asked what they think of this flag situation. Former candidate John McCain went back and forth [ http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/confederate_flag_flies_in_south_carolina_primary/ ] about whether it was a states rights' issue or a symbol of racism and slavery. In 2008, Mitt Romney took a stronger stance, saying he didn't think the Confederate flag should be flown at all. I'll be interested to hear if he changes his mind about this, too, in time for Saturday's election.
The safest, if not the most courageous, answer for national candidates is to call the Confederate flag an issue for South Carolinians to decide. In fact, last month Newt Gingrich said [ http://www.alan.com/2011/12/24/gingrich-stands-up-for-south-carolina-flying-confederate-flag-over-capital/ ] at a town hall meeting, "I have a very strong opinion: it's up to the people of South Carolina." He added that he is opposed to segregation and slavery. Well, that's a relief. But I'm quite sure that Martin Luther King would disagree with Newt about what he just told a Charleston audience [ http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2012/jan/16/gingrich-pushes-faith/ ] was the biggest domestic threat to America: "Removing God from the public arena."
In 1998, fiscally conservative Charleston County councilman Tim Scott insisted on posting a Ten Commandments plaque on the wall of County Council chambers, ignoring advice that he would lose the anticipated legal challenge. Scott insisted that the display was needed to remind residents of moral absolutes. After the plaque went up, the Charleston Post and Courier asked Councilman Scott if he could name all the Commandments [ http://www.thefreelibrary.com/THE+TEN+COMMANDMENTS+CRUSADE.-a054636773 ]. He couldn't. As expected, the court declared the display unconstitutional and handed taxpayers a substantial bill for legal costs.
Councilman Scott was not laughed off the political stage. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2010, the first African-American Republican in South Carolina to serve in Congress. He is now a tea party favorite, and all Republican presidential candidates are seeking his endorsement. He is my congressional representative, though I can't say that he represents my views. I wonder what Rev. Martin Luther King would have thought about all this.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/herb-silverman/martin-luther-king-and-th_b_1211604.html [with comments]
===
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=70915517 and preceding (and future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=70895930 (and preceding and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=68123200 and preceding and following
By Brooks Jackson, FactCheck.org
January 18, 2012
Newt Gingrich claims that "more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history." He's wrong. More were added under Bush than under Obama, according to the most recent figures.
The former speaker made that claim Jan. 16 in a Republican debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and his campaign organization quickly inserted the snippet in a new 30-second TV ad that began running Jan. 18 in South Carolina.
Gingrich would have been correct to say the number now on food aid is historically high. The number stood at 46,224,722 persons as of October, the most recent month on record. And it's also true that the number has risen sharply since Obama took office.
But Gingrich goes too far to say Obama has put more on the rolls than other presidents. We asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition service for month-by-month figures going back to January 2001. And they show that under President George W. Bush the number of recipients rose by nearly 14.7 million. Nothing before comes close to that.
And under Obama, the increase so far has been 14.2 million. To be exact, the program has so far grown by 444,574 fewer recipients during Obama's time in office than during Bush's.
It's possible that when the figures for January 2012 are available they will show that the gain under Obama has matched or exceeded the gain under Bush. But not if the short-term trend continues. The number getting food stamps declined by 43,528 in October. And the economy has improved since then.
Obama's responsibility
Gingrich often cites the number of persons on food stamps to support his view that the U.S. is becoming an "entitlement society," increasingly dependent on government aid. And he has a point. One out of seven Americans is currently getting food stamps.
But Gingrich strains the facts when he accuses Obama of being responsible. The rise started long before Obama took office, and accelerated as the nation was plunging into the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.
The economic downturn began in December 2007. In the 12 months before Obama was sworn in, 4.4 million were added to the rolls, triple the 1.4 million added in 2007.
To be sure, Obama is responsible for some portion of the increase since then. The stimulus bill he signed in 2009 increased benefit levels, making the program more attractive. A family of four saw an increase of $80 per month, for example. That increase remains in effect and is not set to expire until late next year, according to USDA spokeswoman Jean Daniel.
The stimulus also made more people eligible. Able-bodied jobless adults without dependents could get benefits for longer than three months. That special easing of eligibility also expired on Sept. 30, 2010. Spokeswoman Daniel told us that 46 states have been able to continue the longer benefit period under special waivers granted because of high unemployment. Previously, able-bodied adults without dependents could collect food stamps for only three months out of any three-year period.
Otherwise, current eligibility standards are unchanged from what they were before Obama took office, USDA officials say. Generally, those with incomes at or below 130% of the official poverty level, and savings of $2,000 or less, may receive aid. The income level is currently just over $29,000 a year for a family of four.
That leaves the economic downturn that began in 2007 — and the agonizingly slow recovery that followed — as the principal factors making more Americans eligible for food stamps. Officials say that another factor is that Americans today are less reluctant to accept aid than before.
Of those whose income was low enough to qualify, only 54 percent actually signed up in 2002, but that rose steadily to 72 percent by fiscal 2009, the latest USDA figures show.
USDA researchers said the jump in the participation rate happened because of actions by state governments. In a report released in August 2011, the Office of Research and Analysis said:
USDA: States have increased outreach to low-income households, implemented program simplifications, and streamlined application processes to make it easier for eligible individuals to apply for and receive SNAP [food stamp] benefits. Most States also have reduced the amount of information that recipients must report during their certification period to maintain their eligibility and benefit levels, making it easier for low-income households to participate.
Another reason may be that "food stamps" no longer exist as paper coupons. Instead, beneficiaries now receive plastic debit cards, known as "Electronic Benefit Transfer" or EBT cards, which look pretty much like an ordinary credit card when used in a supermarket checkout line.
EBT cards have been used in all states since 2004, according to the USDA website. The change to plastic cards was done both to reduce the possibility of fraud, and also to reduce the stigma felt by beneficiaries, and may account for some of the increase in participation.
In fact, the program is no longer officially called the "food stamp" program. Since 2008, it has been the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP for short.
Who gets food stamps?
The most recent Department of Agriculture report on the general characteristics of the SNAP program's beneficiaries says that in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2010:
• 47% of beneficiaries were children under age 18.
• 8% were age 60 or older.
• 41% lived in a household with earnings from a job — the so-called "working poor."
• The average household received a monthly benefit of $287.
• 36% were white (non-Hispanic), 22% were African American (non-Hispanic) and 10% were Hispanic.
We don't argue that the program is either too large (as Gingrich does) or too small. It has certainly reached a historically high level, and may or may not grow even larger in the months to come. But the plain fact is that the growth started long before Obama took office, and participation grew more under Bush.
Kevin Concannon, the USDA's undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, told the Wall Street Journal: "I realize Mr. Gingrich is a historian, but I'm not sure he'd get very high marks on that paper."
Footnote: There was an earlier easing of eligibility standards buried in a 2008 farm bill that Congress enacted over Bush's veto. Obama voiced support for the measure while campaigning, but was not present for either the Senate vote to pass the bill or the vote to override.
Both votes enjoyed strong bipartisan majorities. Only 12 Republicans and two Democrats voted to sustain Bush's veto, for example. Bush didn't mention the food stamp provisions when he vetoed the bill, but instead cited what he called excessive subsidies to farmers.
© 2012 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. (emphasis in original)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-01-18/fact-check-gingrich-obama-food-stamps/52645882/1 [with embedded links, and comments]
===
On Race, Dog Whistles, and the Old Confederacy
Jan 17 2012
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/on-race-dog-whistles-and-the-old-confederacy/251497/
===
Rise of rhetoric in GOP campaign causing concern about return to racial politics
January 18, 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rise-of-rhetoric-in-gop-campaign-causing-concern-about-return-to-racial-politics/2012/01/18/gIQAnNlu8P_story.html [with comment]
===
Food Stamp President? The Science of Why Gingrich's Race-Tinged Label Sticks
January 18, 2012
http://bigthink.com/ideas/42013 [with comments]
===
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Agrees With Newt Gingrich, Says He Would Send Blacks Back 'To The Plantation'
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, who agrees with Gingrich's remarks suggesting poor black kids lack a strong work ethic, would "take all black people back to the South and put them on the plantation."
Trymaine Lee
First Posted: 1/17/12 09:14 PM ET Updated: 1/17/12 11:56 PM ET
The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, the super-conservative African American Republican who has campaigned vigorously against Kwanzaa ("The Racist Holiday From Hell" he has called it), the Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr. [ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1055081/posts ] and President Barack Obama, said he has a simple solution to black America's employment woes: hard labor.
"One of the things that I would do is take all black people back to the South and put them on the plantation so they would understand the ethic of working," Peterson told The Huffington Post's Black Voices on Tuesday afternoon. "I'm going to put them all on the plantation. They need a good hard education on what it is to work."
Peterson made the remarks after he was asked to comment on Monday night's sparring between moderator Juan Williams and Newt Gingrich [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/17/newt-gingrich-juan-williams_n_1209657.html ], during the Republican presidential debate after Williams asked Gingrich whether he thought his recent statements suggesting a lack of work ethic among poor black kids could be viewed as insulting.
"People don't want to hear the truth," said Peterson, the founder of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny [ http://www.bondinfo.org/content/home ], or BOND. "Newt was 100 percent correct," Peterson said. "Newt said that he would have black children, minority children work as janitors at school. Working as a janitor would build character, more so than the handouts so many of them like."
"I know some people take it personally because a whole lot of folks don't like hearing the truth; they like to be in denial," he added. "Not all black people, but most black people know, and white people know, and black people say it more in private than they would in public, but for the last 50 years or so, generations and generations of black people have relied on the government or someone else to take care of them."
"Many black women have had babies out of wedlock and passed that on to their daughters that if they have babies out of wedlock, they'll get food stamps, free houses and your rent paid," Peterson said.
Peterson, who was raised on a plantation in Alabama where he said generations of his family worked first as slaves and then sharecroppers, said he learned to have a strong work ethic by doing such backbreaking work as picking cotton.
Day in and day out, it was the same thing: get home from school, eat supper, change clothes and get into the cotton field, he said.
Nearly 30 years ago Peterson left the plantation and headed West to California. But today, he said, millions of blacks are on the mental "plantation" of the Democratic Party. To fight back, he said, he formed the Tea Party of South Central Los Angeles. Considering this is black and Latino neighborhood where residents have traditionally voted Democratic, it might be an uphill battle.
"I hope that once [black people] hear the truth, they will pull away from the Democratic Party and their godless leaders," Peterson said in a recent interview with HuffPost. "When you tell them the truth first, they become upset ... They think if you're black and conservative, you're an Uncle Tom. Once you let them yell and scream and carry on -- because they will carry on -- and when they calm down, they understand."
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/17/rev-jesse-lee-peterson-agrees-with-gingrich_n_1211651.html [with comments]
===
Al Sharpton: Newt Gingrich Using 'Racial Demagoguery' (VIDEO)
1/18/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/al-sharpton-newt-gingrich-racism_n_1212928.html [with comments]
===
Martin Luther King and the Republican Race For Righteousness
Herb Silverman
Posted: 1/17/12 05:32 PM ET
If I believed in a god, and one with a sense of humor, I would think she had a big chuckle over timing the South Carolina Republican primary for the same week the nation celebrates Martin Luther King Day.
On May 2, 2000, South Carolina became the last state to make King's birthday an official state holiday. But South Carolina also then created another official state holiday on May 10 -- Confederate Memorial Day. Prior to this legislation, state employees had the choice of celebrating the birthday of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, or Martin Luther King.
Some of our South Carolina politicians think nothing of rewriting history, even when they can easily be caught. For instance, Congressman Joe Wilson claimed that he spearheaded the effort to have King's birthday recognized. A friend of Wilson's from his state legislature days said Wilson must have been confused about which holiday he supported, which was really Confederate Memorial Day. When confronted with circumstantial evidence, Wilson said [ http://thediscust.com/?p=1182 ] his memory must have failed him. (This is the same Joe Wilson who famously yelled "You lie!" at the country's first African-American president during a speech to a joint session of Congress.)
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul voted against Martin Luther King Day [ http://www.theroot.com/buzz/ron-paul-did-not-vote-mlk-day?wpisrc=root_more_news ] both in 1979 and 1983, when the bill passed. In one of his newsletters, Paul referred [ http://www.eurweb.com/2012/01/in-addition-to-his-racist-nerwsletters-ron-paul-voted-against-mlk-day/ ] to the holiday as "Hate Whitey Day." Paul, who is viewed as the presidential candidate least likely to lie, claimed [ http://wonkette.com/342361/ron-pauls-hilarious-newsletters-also-hate-mlk ] that he neither wrote nor read the newsletters that bore his name.
Martin Luther King is not the controversial figure he once was in South Carolina, with racism today subtler and less institutionally sanctioned. But in 1962, at the height of the civil rights movement led by King, the Confederate battle flag was placed atop the State Capitol by vote of an all-white legislature. In 2000, a so-called compromise moved the Confederate flag to the Capitol grounds. When the NAACP continued its boycott of South Carolina, state senator Arthur Ravenel [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ravenel%2C_Jr#cite_note-1 ], a member of Sons of Confederate Veterans, called the NAACP the "National Association for Retarded People." He later apologized--to the mentally handicapped for comparing them to the NAACP.
Presidential candidates are often asked what they think of this flag situation. Former candidate John McCain went back and forth [ http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/confederate_flag_flies_in_south_carolina_primary/ ] about whether it was a states rights' issue or a symbol of racism and slavery. In 2008, Mitt Romney took a stronger stance, saying he didn't think the Confederate flag should be flown at all. I'll be interested to hear if he changes his mind about this, too, in time for Saturday's election.
The safest, if not the most courageous, answer for national candidates is to call the Confederate flag an issue for South Carolinians to decide. In fact, last month Newt Gingrich said [ http://www.alan.com/2011/12/24/gingrich-stands-up-for-south-carolina-flying-confederate-flag-over-capital/ ] at a town hall meeting, "I have a very strong opinion: it's up to the people of South Carolina." He added that he is opposed to segregation and slavery. Well, that's a relief. But I'm quite sure that Martin Luther King would disagree with Newt about what he just told a Charleston audience [ http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2012/jan/16/gingrich-pushes-faith/ ] was the biggest domestic threat to America: "Removing God from the public arena."
In 1998, fiscally conservative Charleston County councilman Tim Scott insisted on posting a Ten Commandments plaque on the wall of County Council chambers, ignoring advice that he would lose the anticipated legal challenge. Scott insisted that the display was needed to remind residents of moral absolutes. After the plaque went up, the Charleston Post and Courier asked Councilman Scott if he could name all the Commandments [ http://www.thefreelibrary.com/THE+TEN+COMMANDMENTS+CRUSADE.-a054636773 ]. He couldn't. As expected, the court declared the display unconstitutional and handed taxpayers a substantial bill for legal costs.
Councilman Scott was not laughed off the political stage. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2010, the first African-American Republican in South Carolina to serve in Congress. He is now a tea party favorite, and all Republican presidential candidates are seeking his endorsement. He is my congressional representative, though I can't say that he represents my views. I wonder what Rev. Martin Luther King would have thought about all this.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/herb-silverman/martin-luther-king-and-th_b_1211604.html [with comments]
===
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=70915517 and preceding (and future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=70895930 (and preceding and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=68123200 and preceding and following
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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