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| President Obama visits with Yolanda Renee King, granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr.. |
Not a single Republican elected official stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday with activists, actors, lawmakers and former presidents invited to mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington — a notable absence for a party seeking to attract the support of minority voters.
Event organizers said Wednesday that they invited top Republicans, all of whom declined to attend because of scheduling conflicts or ill health.
But aides to some GOP congressional leaders said they received formal invitations only in recent weeks, making it too late to alter their summer recess schedules.
The Rev. Leah D. Daughtry of the House of the Lord Church in the District, who served as executive producer of the commemoration, said the organizing committee began sending invitations to top leaders of both parties “on a rolling basis probably four or five weeks ago.”
“We had a very concerted effort, because this is not a political moment. This was about us coming together as a community, so we wanted to be sure that we had all political representations,” Daughtry said. “We attempted very vigorously to have someone from the GOP participate and unfortunately they were unable to find someone who was able to participate.”
"Scheduling conflicts?" Give me a fucking break!
This was a HUGE opportunity for the Republicans to tamp down the accusations of racism within their party, and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM chose to stay away.
I don't believe that moving forward they can legitimately claim that racism does NOT serve as the lifeblood of their party.
This was their moment. Missing it will seal their political fate.
(Photo courtesy of The Obama Diary.)
P.S. Of course Fox news felt obligated to cover it.
Update: Oh, well it looks like Eric Cantor has a good excuse. He was too busy meeting with oil lobbyists:
Rather than attend the event, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R) instead met with oil and gas lobbyists in North Dakota, where he toured drilling sites in the North Dakota Bakken. According to the Grand Forks Herald, Cantor met with members of the lobby group, North Dakota Petroleum Council.
After his tour, Cantor rebuked Obama for not making fossil fuel interests his top priority.
Yeah let's to chastise the President for not kissing the ass of Big Oil, instead of honoring an American hero, right you douchebag?
By the way thanks to fracking we have the highest oil reserves since 1985.
But aides to some GOP congressional leaders said they received formal invitations only in recent weeks, making it too late to alter their summer recess schedules.
ReplyDeleteBut if the GOP called a short notice meeting to impeach President Obama, do you think the Republican leaders would show up on a 15 minute notice?
Even Sarah Palin would be wetting her adult diapers with excitement.
DeleteDepends on the time of day and traffic. Some may take 20 - 22 minutes.
DeleteI'm surprised Rand Paul didn't show up. He could have taught all those African Americans a thing or two about Black history.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/rand-paul-explains-black-history-black-people
All members of congress were invited to attend and the Republican leadership was invited to speak.
ReplyDeleteAll members of congress were invited at the same time, yet every single Republican had "scheduling conflicts" whereas Democrats did not and were able to attend.
Plus, this is a big event and most Americans have heard of MLK's famous speech, which is one of the most well known speeches in the entire history of the United States.
Republicans are liars and frauds. Period.
It's particularly ironic because conservative pundits are tripping over themselves this week claiming that Martin Luther King was really one of theirs! What idiots Republicans are, all of them! And how little they care about the American people!
DeleteBeaglemom
"Event organizers said Wednesday that they invited top Republicans, all of whom declined to attend because of scheduling conflicts or ill health. "
ReplyDeleteCALL A SPECIAL MEETING TO IMPEACH PRESIDENT OBAMA!
I kid you not, sick, ill, dying or cheating with their mistresses, you would have seen seen the biggest and longest parade of the walking ill and dead GOP leaders racing each other to get to that meeting.
Maybe that's what the invitations should have said.
DeleteExcellent comment and reply!
DeleteWhy should they be dishonest, the GOP has been trying to get rid of civil rights for the last 50 yrs.
ReplyDeleteMake that from 1865 onward --
DeleteThey tried the "Integration is Communism" tack back in the day, and the John Birchers (read Koch and their slavish followers) still whisper the same to each other.
Republicans: you could have claimed Abraham Lincoln as your ancestor! You could have referred, indirectly, to President Eisenhower sending in Federal troops to integrate Little Rock schools. You could have talked about the Warren Court and Brown v. Board of Education.
Oh, hmmm, Er. Then you could have talked about the 1968 election, when the "Moral Majority" first reared its ugly head, and how and why Nixon took the South Republican/Racist, probably never to return.
I felt bad that I wasn't one of the people in the giant crowd back in 1963...but then remembered I was barely out of diapers, then.
ReplyDeleteI'd never heard the speech in its entirety, before yesterday. Really choked me up, ending with my clapping like a lunatic, sitting there alone.
How anyone who is an American could not be moved by that speech, is a mystery.
Obviously hatred and fear run deep, especially in the slow witted.
Even conservatives are moved. Then they look at the treatment they get from the left and agree that we, as a nation, haven't come far enough.
DeleteThe way conservatives are treated-- with intolerance, hatred, fear, racism, death threats, slurs--especially the black individuals, here on this blog, and everywhere else, is disgusting.
I am not racist, an Uncle Tom, hate filled--use you favorite colorful metaphore- but feel that this country is going down the wrong path with the President at the wheel.
I am also willing to bet that I will get a lot of hate replies, if anyone reads this at all, after this long.
We can't even calmly state that,"I disagree with that policy", without being called a racist. We need to have honest discussions, but no one really wants to.
Adrienne R, it that you?
Deletedowl
Nope.
DeleteThe GOP only listens within their own echo chamber. That is why they were so wrong about the 2012 election, why they keep trying to defund Obamacare, and why they continue to piss off women, blacks, Hispanics, LGBT, students, anyone who is not a rich, white male. No matter how many voter ID restrictions they put in place, they will never be able to keep up with all of those who are seeing the true colors of the Koch-funded GOP assholes.
ReplyDeleteMemo to Republicans:
ReplyDeleteThere apparently is some confusion over who may have known and not known that there was going to be a commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech on August 28. Maybe this information will help in your future planning:
The 4th of July is always on July 4th.
Every year, Christmas is on December 25.
Veterans Day happens each November 11.
We Remember Pearl Harbor on December 7.
And the 50th Anniversary of the King Speech was going to happen 50 years to the day he gave the speech the first time.
Capice?
Oh, yeah, Fox?
ReplyDeleteFrom that screen grab, which says that maybe rap music is a problem about blacks.
Please explain to me the rancid, vulgar display Ms. Ultra-White Miley Cyrus put on just this week.
Please explain the 30% of white children born out of wedlock, including at least (LEAST) one Palin baby.
Please explain Eminem, and the other "white" rap stars who make millions off of a society that's been vulgarized beyond belief -- not by black people, but by corporations, white corporations, eager and willing to make money any way they can.
Please show me how you have siphoned money for your own aggrandizement, over and over again, in every corner of our society, and then point your finger at black people for copying your crude and profane example.
Rap musicians have nothing on Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, living high on the hog in their many mansions. Or the Koch brothers, who inherited their father's money, and want to make more dough by beggaring their workers. They are the travesty, the obscenity of our culture.
Not to mention the unspeakable Sarah Palin, puppet of the plutocracy.
Thank you.
Deletedowl
Cantor touring the oil fields of NoDak? I wonder if he has an opinion on all the flaring of natural gas which is going on up there. Drill, baby, drill....and burn off huge amounts of perfectly good natural gas 'cause it's uneconomical to do anything else. Something is seriously wrong with a market and regulations which permit an non-renewable hydrocarbon energy source to simply be burned off at a well site.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thedickinsonpress.com/event/article/id/71352/
" North Dakota’s top oil regulator said Wednesday about 1,500 oil wells around the Oil Patch are flaring natural gas and not connected to a pipeline.
Of those, he said upwards of 450 are in such remote locations, it’s unlikely they will ever get connected.
“We want to do something to encourage them to implement new well processes,” said Lynn Helms, director of the Department of Mineral Resources. “We may not be able to get at the number of wells flaring, but we can affect the volume of gas flared.”
Helms brought the issue before the North Dakota Industrial Commission, composed of Gov. Jack Dalrymple, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem and Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring, to get direction about clamping down on oil and gas companies that are flaring the natural gas produced from oil wells.
Last week, Helms reported that oil and gas developers flared off 28 percent of the natural gas produced in June. The percentage has come down slightly from it peak, but the overall number of producing wells in the state has been increasing."
Not just individuals being assholes -- I think it was a coordinated effort to make it look like Obama snubbed them and is not being inclusive. If some had showed up, it would weaken their position.
ReplyDeleteNow that our reserves are topped off and that domestic oil production is so strong, I am so happy that oil is back at a buck a gallon...
ReplyDeleteIs that right Ms. Energy Expert Palin? Drill baby drill? Don't hear much about that these days, do we?
Something tells me that this is one of those game-changer catalysts that will win some Republican Primaries for some bigoted fools, but cost the GOP some potential Senate seats, guaranteeing the upper house of Congress stays Democratic in 2014 AND 2016. States in the South that have a high population of blacks will gain some seats from these racist bastards due to turnout AND demographics. A lot of these racist fuckers will be lobbyists and selling tires in the next 6-8 years. Then maybe we will see Citizens United appealed and election financial contributions reformed and have publicly financed elections within my lifetime. I'm optimistic.
ReplyDeleteHad there been a few exceptions in the GOP leadership go turn out for the MLK March Anniversary, some of the GOP racists might have been able to use weasel worded lies to escape the wrath of the electorate. But with the GOP bloc voting to obstruct the will of the people, and to disrespect the memory and the work of Dr King, one of the most important leaders in our country's history, issues like this will fly in their face at election time. And they damn sure deserve to have their noses rubbed in it. Not for partisan purposes, but for being un-American.
Remember the poor, urban districts where voters had to stand in line in the cold, like in Cleveland, OH, for 8 hours or more to vote in the last two presidential election years? Wait until the next midterm and see if they aren't motivated in the swing districts now for the same reasons.
Their actions are despicable and disrespectful to this country. Period. Thanks for the ammo that will crush the GOP for years to come.
Plus, looking farther ahead and prognosticating, if Hillary and the Dems keep the Whitehouse in 2016 and 2020, 2020 is a census year. When the Democrats get the opportunity to redraw House districts in TX, NC, VA, et al., it will be like 1964 for the GOP, except when the dust clears, there will be no Southern Strategy nor any other that will change the toxic name of the Republican Party.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/tim-scott-didnt-speak-at-mlk-event-because?ref=fpb
ReplyDeleteTim Scott, the only AA Senator, didn't speak because he refused an invitation to attend...
Hey, it's summer recess! Republican's deserve some time off after months of working hard to pass bills that help the american people. I can't name one, but I'll find one and bring it back to ya! But you know what I mean.
ReplyDeleteThis IS their "Outreach to Minorities" that they learned they need desperately after Romney got his car elevator handed back to him on a silver platter.
Seriously, this was ONE event that they should have at least made an effort to attend. How anyone of color and anyone who loves and accepts them as equals can vote Republican in good conscience is beyond me. The twerking of the twerps.
GW couldn't attend because he had to take care of "Daddy" (Yeah, Right), but he at least scribbled some words together and spit washed his face.
Michael Steele on MSNBC: ‘Abhorrent’ That GOP Declined MLK Invitations
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mediaite.com/tv/michael-steele-on-msnbc-abhorrent-that-gop-declined-mlk-invitations/
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/sharpton-blasts-oreilly-gop-no-shows-at-mlk-anniversary-so-much-for-minority-outreach/
"...today's event excluded black Republicans..." said Bill O'Reilly on the Spinning, Spinning, Madly Spinning Zone, implying that Republicans were snubbed. Which is a lie.
ReplyDeleteI used to like Bill O'Reilly, back in the 90's.
Oh, I didn't always agree with O'Reilly, but I did much of the time.
But anymore, Bill has turned his right-leaning bias and innuendo into full-blown lying. The title "No-Spin Zone" is as big a joke as "Fair-and-Balanced".
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bill-oreilly-complains-about-lack-republic