Dana Milbank's WAPO column really does the Republicans justice

[babylonsister]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/25/2032161/-Dana-Milbank-s-WAPO-column-tonight-really-does-the-Republicans-justice

Dana Milbank's WAPO column really does the Republicans justice
Dartagnan
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Tuesday May 25, 2021 · 10:34 PM EDT


I like to avoid the “nailed it” characterization, but by golly, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post really, really does it here. Brutally, and to the point.

On the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, Republicans in the United States Senate showed America everything they’ve learned, everything they took away from that sordid event.

Republicans chose a special way of observing the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. They tried to vote down a highly qualified Black woman who had been nominated to run the Justice Department’s civil rights division.

There was never any real dispute about Kristen Clarke’s qualifications for this job. The Republicans’ nearly-unanimous objection to her boiled down, ultimately, to the fact that she was Black, and the very idea of a Black woman enforcing this country’s civil rights laws was apparently too terrible to contemplate. So their strategy was to talk about something, anything other than that fact.

As Milbank points out, Marjorie Taylor Greene had set the tone earlier in the day, paying her respects by doubling down on her new status as de facto leader of the Republican House caucus, comparing laws requiring people to wear masks to the Holocaust.

But Greene was just a sideshow. The real action was on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon. As Milbank notes, nobody seemed to want to talk about Ms. Clarke, her qualifications, her exemplary career at the Justice Department, at the New York AG’s office or at the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law.

They wanted to talk about...this:

...John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican in the chamber, gave a speech denouncing House-passed legislation for, among other things, “banning voter ID and other safeguards against voter fraud.” Such “safeguards” have been found repeatedly to disenfranchise Black voters disproportionately.

And they wanted to show their constituents just how strongly they opposed any Black nominee who might cross their path. As Milbank observes, after Thune’s racist screed, but before the Clarke vote, Republican senators voted in “near lockstep to oppose the confirmation of Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the first Black woman tapped to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.”

Milbank rhetorically asks:

Speaking out for voter-ID requirements? Stalling racial-justice legislation? Opposing two overwhelmingly qualified Black nominees? And all this while publicly ignoring the anniversary of the Floyd murder?

Racism isn’t just a factor in Republican politics. It is the factor. But rarely has it been on display in all its ugly facets as it was on Tuesday.

The party of white supremacy did exactly what you would expect.

And if you squinted just a little bit, you could all but see their white hoods.

[CrispyQ]

1. It's reached the point

where I question the decency of everyone I know who still identifies with the Republican Party. Anyone who still calls themselves a republican condones all this shit—the big lie, the racism, the misogyny, the anti-democratic tactics to win, the silencing of MY VOICE, because I disagree with them. The party is vile & disgusting at its core. How do decent people support that? They don't.

[onecaliberal]

6. Everything you said. K&R

[Bettie]

8. I'm there too

I avoid even speaking to my family or in-laws...they are all right wingers who voted for it twice.

I have an old friend who called me and I can't call her back, because I'm pretty sure she voted for that thing. I don't want to talk to her.

[Orrex]

10. There is no moderate Republican

Every Republican is an ignorant racist fuckhead, and every person who votes for a Republican at the federal level has made themselves an ignorant racist fuckhead.

Even those fuckheads lurking here from the various KKKonservative online cesspit.

[erronis]

18. Given that the repukes have worked at taking over the state and local races,

I can't trust anyone that is affiliated with that party at all.

Well, Phil Scott (my governor) may be an exception.

Is this what Putin wants? To divide us completely?

[BobTheSubgenius]

19. That is exactly what Putin wants.

Some exchange of gunfire between Rs and Ds would be his best foreign policy day ever.

[marieo1]

11. Right On

Oh, my, I agree with you 100%. I know a lot of reps, in fact last night someone I have known all my life was asked if he would vote for DJT again and he said 'Hell Yes"!!! Where are their brains? Have they all lost them and what about DJT appeals to them? I really don't get it!! DJT is a disgusting piece of humanity. There isn't a thing about him that is good and wholesome!!
DJT is an EVIL man.......

[lagomorph777]

12. I no longer know anybody who identifies as being a member of the Reptilian Party.

I've kicked them all out of my life.

[uponit7771]

16. +1, most M$M wont admit that the racism in the GQP is malignant

[NJCher]

2. that was withering, devastating.

to Dana Milbank for pulling that together.

[peggysue2]

3. Calling out the GOP for what they are . . .

is way overdue. The 'bothsiderism' schtick is a failing template in today's reality. Republicans are a decidedly anti-democratic, unAmerican organization that supports and stokes white nationalism, Confederate ideology and flat-out racial hatred.

You don't need to squint at all to see those white hoods. Just listen to their words and start cataloguing their actions.

They ripped off the 'loyal opposition' tag long ago.

As for Marjorie Taylor Greene? She is the poster girl for today's Republican Party.

[NJCher]

9. not to mention

they are the party of criminals.

[uponit7771]

17. +1

[lastlib]

4. Subscription firewall. Could someone pls post some good excerpts?

I'd like to read it, but too poor to buy a subscription.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. Here's some...

Opinion: Rarely has the GOP fixation on race shown all its ugly facets like this

Opinion by Dana Milbank
Columnist
May 25, 2021 at 6:53 p.m. EDT

This article has been updated.

(snip)

In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s vote, Republicans had falsely portrayed Clarke as a defund-the-police wacko. Never mind that Clarke had the endorsement of dozens of police chiefs and the Major Cities Chiefs Association. And never mind that Clarke, educated at Harvard and Columbia, has had a storied career with the Justice Department, the New York attorney general’s office, the NAACP and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. So desperate were they for material to use against her that they highlighted a letter she co-wrote 27 years ago, at age 19, to her college newspaper — and even that was taken out of context.

(snip)

Republicans considered. And then all but one (Susan Collins of Maine) voted not even to allow Clarke a confirmation vote — and, when that failed, voted by an identical tally against confirming Clarke. Not a single Republican spoke against Clarke on the floor Tuesday, not even when Durbin yielded to them for a final summation. Republicans in both the Senate and the House had other things they wanted to talk about on the Floyd anniversary.

(snip)

Last month, Republicans employed a similar smear against Vanita Gupta in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat the nomination of the highly qualified Indian American woman to serve as the No. 3 Justice Department official over similar objections. (In her case, they took issue with a nine-year-old op-ed.) Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who used the “defund” cudgel, called Gupta and Clarke “two of the most radical nominees ever put forward for any position in the federal government.”

(snip)

It’s not just a 2022 phenomenon. As The Post’s David Nakamura reported, Republicans have blocked the civil rights division from having a Senate-confirmed chief for eight of the 16 years of the Clinton and Obama presidencies — going all the way back to when Republican senators ridiculed Clinton nominee Lani Guinier, who is Black, as the “quota queen,” and the opposition to her was summarized as “strange name, strange hair, strange writings.”

(snip)

More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/25/republicans-spent-anniversary-george-floyds-murder-trying-vote-down-black-woman/

[lastlib]

14. Ah, thank you!

Good read!

Makes me LOATHE the GQP even more, which I didn't think was possible!

[BumRushDaShow]

15. You are welcome!

[aggiesal]

5. Instead of the replay here is the link to the WP story ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/25/republicans-spent-anniversary-george-floyds-murder-trying-vote-down-black-woman/

May require a paywall, but there may be some methods around the paywall.
1) Open in browser Incognito (Private) mode, then stop the loading.
2) When loading stop the loading process.

Incognito worked for me.

[chowder66]

7. Looks like the last two sentences were deleted. The article has been updated. nt

[BobTheSubgenius]

20. 10 years ago, you couldn't have sold this as a schlock B-movie script.

Now, it's half of the federal government, more or less. Name one "civilized, advanced" country that has gone through this kind of political morality slide and come out the other side unscathed.

Granted, there are precious few examples to draw from.

I remember Jim Jeffries' standup about the 2016 election and his words were, to the best of my recollection, "Sometimes, a little part of me wants to go....'F it. Let's see how crazy s_ can get." [electing Drumpf, obviously] I wonder how he feels about that now. The answer to his curiosity has not been in any sense of the word "pretty." It's been far worse than my worst-case imagination exercise could reach, and the sludge left behind is finding new ways of exploring a fresh Hell.

[Blue Owl]

21. K&R

[dchill]

22. K&R.

[BootinUp]

23. K&R