REPUBLICANS STOOP TO SLEAZE BEFORE ELECTIONS

Posted Oct. 26, 2006

Ford blasts  'vulgar'

ad in Senate bid as

GOP stoops to sleaze

BY TONEY ATKINS

For The Florida Courier

    If elected Nov. 7, Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford Jr. will become the first Black senator from the South since Reconstruction, and the tight campaign battle with his White Republican opponent has become heated and fierce in the wake of a GOP television ad that many say is "shocking" and bordering on being blatantly racist.

    The Senate race has grabbed national headlines since the GOP started showing the political advertisement last week.

     The ad, which has been shown several times on national TV, has a hunter saying that Harold Ford wants to take his gun away. That is misleading, political observers say, pointing out that the National Rifle Association says that while it has endorsed Bob Corker, former Republican mayor of Chattanooga, the NRA really has no objection to Harold Ford and is not going to be spending any money against him.
     The racial question raised by the ad shows a white woman to dramatize the charge about him attending a party that was sponsored by Playboy at the Super Bowl a few years ago. 

     The ad shows an unidentified White woman who says, "Harold Ford looks nice. Isn't that enough?" At the end of the ad, a White woman says seductively, "Harold, call me."

     Corker claims he had nothing to do with the ad and that he and other conservative Republicans had asked the Republican National Committee to stop running it.
     Corker defended himself in an interview with Wolf Blitzer Tuesday evening on CNN.

     Corker said "These are independent expenditure groups. We want it down. We do not believe that it -- certainly does not represent our campaign. We have nothing to do with it. We believe that it's tacky and has no place in this race." He would not acknowledge whether he thought the ad was racist. 

     Ford said he did not know if it is intended to be racial, but "I do know it's sleazy and it's promoting smut and it's coming on during family programming time in my state. The question I have is if my opponent wants it down, he should be able to get it down. If he doesn't have the influence to convince Republicans in Washington to take a sleazy, awful, smut-pushing ad down in our state, how on earth can voters trust him to stand up for them in Tennessee to the Republicans?"
     He added, "If Democrats were running an ad like this, it wouldn't be running. I can assure you. But this campaign is about something bigger. And one of the reasons that I think the National Republican Party is engaged in this kind of campaigning is they have come up short on ideas and answers. My opponent has too. When it comes to Iraq, North Korea, middle-class values, health care, education, all of the issues that are important to people, he's not been able to articulate a clear message. And I think the national party has demonstrated a great frustration."
     Ford said Corker is "trying so hard to deflect attention away from front-page newspaper accounts all across our state of his mayoral time when he was mayor of Chattanooga and directed funds towards projects at his own real estate company and had great, great interest in. He's trying to deflect attention away from the fact that he has not released any of his tax returns. I think he's the only Senate candidate in the country and finally when he was in the private sector, he's only the Senate candidate in the country who has ever hired an illegal alien. He hired four of them and had his property raided by the federal government. So he, in turn, has tried to make this about something other than what's important to voters."

     In an earlier interview, Ford said, "We've not run a Black campaign, a White campaign, a Democrat campaign or Republican campaign. We've run a campaign to move my state and this country forward. I think one of the reasons we picked up 20 points and find ourselves in a statistical dead heat ... is because we've been positive, we've been constructive. And voters all across our state are rejecting the kind of stale, predictable, negative campaigning coming out of my opponent's mouth. And frankly, they realize that American politics is no longer decided on the axis of left and right or liberal or conservative, but it's about moving forward."
     During a recent debate in Chattanooga, Ford said, "If you want a rubber stamp, don't vote for me."

     Corker accused the Memphis congressman of being a Washington insider who benefited from the "machine-style" politics of his politically connected family.

Corker questioned the work of Ford's father, former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Sr., as a lobbyist for Fannie Mae while Ford Jr. sat on the House committee overseeing its activities.

     Ford said no one in his family has ever lobbied him on congressional issues and he would refuse them if they did. "I work for the people of the 9th District," he told the audience at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

     Ford attacked his opponent's support for what until this week was called the Bush administration's "stay the course" policy in Iraq. Bush has said he will no longer use that term in reference to the war.

     "If you want to stay the course, I'm not your guy," Ford said. "If you believe America is better than what they've given us this past six years, then I ask for your vote."Ford said reducing dependence on foreign oil would help keep the country from getting caught up in foreign conflicts and said his opponent was an advocate for "big oil."

     Corker said "new strategies" are needed in the war but he disagreed with Ford's suggestion to divide Iraq by ethnic and religious lines.

     Ford blamed the Republicans for not doing anything to rein in federal spending during their 12 years of power in Congress. He also said he supported going to a two-year budget cycle.

     Corker said his experience as a business executive, state finance commissioner and mayor would help him during budget discussions.

     Elected to the House of Representatives in 1996, Ford has been re-elected four times by an average of 80 percent of the vote and has a reputation as a consensus builder, research shows.

     In 1998, Ford was 28 years old when he cast his vote for the first federal balanced budget -- the first time America's budget had been balanced since 1969. He has played pivotal roles in advancing legislation to reform the nation's campaign finance laws, to crack down on corporate cheaters by strengthening corporate governance laws, to encourage more Americans to serve their country and to raise standards in public education.

     Ford says he is proud of his family and his Christian faith.

     UPDATE: The Republican National Committee supposedly has pulled the controversial ad as of Thursday, Oct. 26.)

-- The Associated Press and Cable News Network contributed to this report.

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Voting out incumbents: A fix for broken government? 

BY TONEY ATKINS

At least one television news anchor believes he has the solution to what he calls a "broken government" -- vote out all the incumbents. Some disgusted Florida Courier readers say they agree.

On a Cable News Network (CNN) special last week and repeated several times over the weekend, the always outspoken anchor and commentator Jack Cafferty addressed the sometimes controversial issues that have many voters in Florida and elsewhere shaking their heads in disbelief and wondering exactly how to vote in the Nov. 7 election.

Cafferty noted, "I saw this great bumper sticker the other day, it read 'had enough?.' We're being bled to death, literally and figuratively in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have no border security to speak of, no port security fives year after 9/11, Social Security and Medicare well on their way to insolvency. Our national debt is staggering.
"China is kicking our butt," he continued. "Like I said, had enough? Our leaders lie to us and steal from us, and do it all with a straight face. They don't think we get it. I think we do. I honestly think the upcoming midterm elections will be breathtaking in the message that deliver to Washington. It's my fervent hope that every single incumbent on the ballot will lose. It's time to start over."

Cafferty said he believes U.S. citizens are "on the verge of what could well be the most important midterm election in this country's history. Look at these numbers. They're shocking. Sixty-eight percent think this country is headed in the wrong direction; more than two thirds. Sixty-four percent against the war in Iraq. Sixty-one percent disapprove of the job President Bush is doing leading the country. Oh, and the war in Iraq was his idea."

Most of Cafferty's disdain was directed at Congress, which he called "a joke." Pointing to poll numbers, he said, "Seventy-one percent disapprove of the job Congress is doing. The other 29 percent they just haven't read the paper. Our government is broke and Congress has failed to do anything meaningful. They vote on amendments for flag burning and gay marriage, but nothing on immigration, Social Security, health care -- nothing that matters to the middle class in this country."

Cafferty echoed many comments emailed by visitors to www.toneyatkins.com and spoken by Black and white readers of the Florida Courier who have found themselves disillusioned and concerned about a perceived crumbling state of the nation, its leaders and the lawmakers.

While Cafferty dished out criticisms of Republicans and Democrats equally, he definitely did not leave President Bush out of the equation that could impact what many see as one of the most important elections in many years. 

"The Bush administration has all but ignored the Constitution since 9/11, all in the name of national security and fighting terrorism," Cafferty said. "We're being overrun by millions of illegal aliens and Washington does nothing. There are serious questions about the integrity of our elections and our reputation overseas, (and) well, that's pretty much shot now, isn't it?"

At least one unidentified man seemed blissfully satisfied with our government's track. "I think everything is running pretty smooth. I think with the gas prices dropping back down and everything, I think they're getting their act together. The president is going to get reelected again this -- next term I believe."

His feelings were not the same as those corresponding with this reporter. Most believe the rapid drop in gas prices from the record costs earlier this year are totally political. One reader, who requested anonymity, said, "I've read that many of the energy corporations contribute large amounts of money to the GOP, and the Republicans want to keep control of the House and Senate. I believe that after the election, prices will go back up again -- but we will be told that it's because winter is on the way. I haven't seen that much more money in my pocket as a result of votes taken by those bums in Washington."

CNN correspondent Joe Johns said the 109th Congress has been called the "do-little, do-nothing, dysfunctional Congress."
Giving a "top ten" of sorts to illustrate, Johns noted that every member of the House of Representatives makes at least $165,000 a year. "So far, they have spent only 94 days in session. That's almost $1,800 a day. Nice work if you can get it."

On the illegal immigrant issue, he asked,  "Wasn't immigration reform supposed to be about the most important issue this year? And what did they do about it? They voted to build a fence."

Some Floridians and Georgians told the Courier reporter that they found it amazing that five years after terrorists staged the shocking attack on the U.S., lawmakers suddenly noticed that potential terrorists could join the many Mexicans in crossing the border into this country without a lot of fear of being stopped or caught. 

Johns pointed to what he called the "skanky" way Florida Republican Mark Foley is reported to have talked to former congressional pages in electronic messages and when he got caught, "like a real a profile in courage, he announced he was gay, abused as a teenager by an unnamed priest, checked into alcohol rehab, and left his colleagues to sort out the mess."
Implying an example of the alleged corruption in government, he said, "Duke Cunningham, a former fighter jock turned jailbird, once seemed like a poster child for patriotism until it turned out the California Republican was on the take and getting paid with just about everything but the stars and stripes."

He added: "The Congress is going to have to face it, it's addicted to pork, bridges to nowhere, a museum to honor the folks responsible for the New Orleans levees that failed, emergency money for non-emergencies, and at the end a record deficit."

Of candidates who failed to think before speaking about possible racist overtones, Johns referred to Senator George Allen of Virginia, who called a guy of Indian descent who was shadowing him "macaca," then claimed he didn't know what it meant. Well it means monkey." 

Topping his list of dubious accomplishments of the 109th Congress were Jack Abramoff and Bob Ney, "the corrupt couple, the lobbyist and the mayor of Capitol Hill united by guilty pleas, things of value exchanged for official acts, plus a passion for golf, meals, tickets to sporting events and power." 

Abramoff  is out of the lobbying group, but Ney is still a congressman, "still cashing paychecks until his colleagues throw him out -- at $1,800 a day; who can blame him?"
Cafferty said that one of his favorite things the Congress "pulled" this year was the appropriation of $20 million from the general treasury -- "they've already reached in and taken this money out of our pockets for a victory celebration for the war in Iraq. If they would put that money in a CD,  by the time we win that thing in Iraq, they could pay off the national debt."

Referring to Christian conservatives, who are the Republican base, Cafferty said, "They might not be so willing to vote Republican this time around. There's the Mark Foley scandal, of course, a Republican congressman hitting on teenage members of the page program, a real gem this clown. His disgusting behavior apparently well-known in Washington and yet the Republican leadership of the House chose to do nothing until Foley's behavior became public.
"And now comes an explosive new book by a former senior aide to President Bush named David Kuo. He talks about how members of Bush administration laughed at the evangelical Christians behind their backs, mocked them, all the while taking their money and their support. People in Karl Rove's office, according to the book, reportedly used to refer the evangelicals as the nuts."

On the broken borders issue, Cafferty said the government has done "virtually nothing" to stem the massive flow of illegal aliens into this country, mostly from Mexico. An estimated 3,000 a day cross into the United States, or about a million a year, they're already an estimated 12 million of them already here. "And yet the government looks the other way. Why? Because the corporations that own our government want it that way. They want the cheap labor, and the politicians want the Hispanic vote. You and I? We don't matter anymore on this issue. This single issue should be reason enough to vote every single incumbent out of office. It's a disgrace," Cafferty said.

"So the time's come," Cafferty said. "We own this place, not the career liars and weasels in Washington. We elect these people in good faith to go to Washington and look out for us. They have sold us out. They look in us in the eye. They lie to us day after day after day. They scurry around behind our backs. They take money from the lobbyists and the corporations, then they give that money away to their friends to buy stuff we don't need. The legislation they do get around to passing isn't for us. It's to benefit their contributors. And they think they're entitled to sit there and do this stuff forever. Well, enough already."

He suggested that if voters want to have some fun on Election Day, they should "go to the polls and vote against every incumbent on the ballot. Throw them all out. Think about it for a minute. No matter who we replace them with, how much worse could it be? And what a message it would send. You have one term to prove to us your worthy of representing us, or you're gone. It's not as far-fetched as it sounds."

-- CNN.com contributed to this report. The entire transcript of the Jack Cafferty program can be read at www.CNN.com/transcripts.

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DOMESTIC TERRORISTS GROWING IN U.S.

Hate groups show

dramatic increase

BY TONEY ATKINS

For The Florida Courier

While the attention of U.S. citizens since Sept. 11, 2001, has been on terrorist groups abroad who may pose a destructive threat to the country, the number of potential domestic terrorists -- members of anti-government hate groups who live in this nation -- has been growing dramatically.

Reporting in the news media about these groups has been minimal, with publishers of heads of newspapers or TV networks saying such things as, "We don't want to give publicity to hate organizations because that's what they want," or -- and this is a literal quote from one journalist: "Ignore them and they'll eventually go away."

Neither excuse is realistic, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). In fact, some sources have told the Florida Courier that the greatest threat to life as U.S. citizens know it may come from within the country's borders.

Just last week, the center reported that a rise in independent skinhead crews may bring a "new era of violence."

Meanwhile, CNN reported this week that "gangs are not just L.A.'s problem any more -- it's a nationwide crisis. They've killed thousands, and keep recruiting thousands more."
Fueled by belligerent tactics and publicity stunts, the number of hate groups operating in the United States rose from 762 in 2004 to 803 last year, capping an increase of fully 33 percent over the five years since 2000, Mark Potok reported earlier this year in the SPLC's monthly Intelligence Report.

Trends parallel an alarming resurgence in skinhead activity nationwide, which continues to intensify, according to the October SPLC report.  At the beginning of 2002, there were 18 skinhead crews active in the United States, most of them under the control of Hammerskin Nation. That count has now more than tripled to 59 active crews, only six of which belong to Hammerskin Nation.

"As the power of the Hammerskins has waned, the skinhead scene has entered a free-for-all phase, with new and unaffiliated local, state, and regional crews proliferating rapidly. More and more of these newcomers subscribe to the ultra-violent ethos and disorganized crime profiteering of a chaotic band of Midwest-based gangster skins known as the Vinlanders," the new report says. 

While there's no skinhead census, and no official statistics on skinhead-specific crime, police on the street that specialize in tracking skins say the facts are clear. "Skinhead activity has easily doubled in the last couple of years, and the Vinlander influence is huge," said Matt Browning, a detective with the Mesa, Ariz., police department who has investigated white power gangs in his region and their nationwide connections for 10 years, including two years undercover. "They're more violent, they're more technically savvy than before in terms of using the Internet to organize, and, while they're still motivated by race and politics, it's also about money now."

Gary Davidson, public relations officer for the Volusia County Sheriff's Department in Florida, told the Florida Courier that there is presently little to no gang activity of any kind in that county and hate groups, such as the skinheads and the Ku Klux Klan, are practically invisible. However, lawmen are constantly on the lookout for any activity on the part of any white supremacist or other hate groups.

The 50 hate groups scattered across Florida include racist skinheads, neo-Nazis, neo-Confederate, the KKK, groups with a Christian identity and Black Separatists, the SPLC says.

Identified hate crimes have been few this year, according to SPLC investigative reports. In May, Connor T. Ranieri, 18, was charged with criminal mischief for allegedly drawing swastikas on a car and a bathroom wall at a Boca Raton. Also in May, racial epithets were scrawled on the walls of a Tampa church. In January, a dead raccoon hanging from a noose and a racist note were found on the porch of a Methodist church with a predominantly Black congregation in Floral City. Also in January, a cross with a racist message on it was burned in a biracial couple's yard in Osteen.

About the rising nationwide skinhead problem, the SPLC reported that from their very beginning, the Outlaw Hammerskins represented a new breed of racist skinhead. They avowed white power, yet listened to Black gangsta rap. They had neo-Nazi tattoos, yet dripped with gold chains. They wore Doc Martens, but also gold teeth. They formed close ties with the Hell's Angels, working security at the outlaw biker gang's events (the father of Jeremy Maske, one of the founding Outlaw skinheads, was the president of the Indiana chapter of the Hell's Angels at the time).

Within a few months, the Outlaw Hammerskins had chapters across Indiana and Wisconsin, the SPLC reported. Their creed was "take it to the extreme." If another skinhead crew mocked them for being "whiggers" (white "niggers"), Outlaw Hammerskins would beat them down. If attacked with fists and feet, Outlaw Hammerskins would retaliate with bats and knives. If a rival pulled a knife, an Outlaw Hammerskin pulled a gun.

The expansion of hate groups last year, documented by the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, seemed to be helped along by aggressive maneuvers that landed them on front pages and in national news broadcasts.

The National Socialist Movement, for instance, repeatedly made national news with provocative attempts to march through Black, inner-city neighborhoods. Other groups rallied with increasing fervor and frequency, and even undertook sure-to-infuriate campaigns like "Operation Schoolyard," an attempt in the 2004-2005 school year to distribute 100,000 free racist music CDs to schoolchildren. One anti-gay group, the Westboro Baptist Church, went so far as to picket the funerals of soldiers, saying God was punishing America for tolerating homosexuality.

There were many other reasons for the continuing rise as well. Hispanic immigration, in particular, may have been the single most important factor in recent years, fueling a national debate and giving hate groups an issue with real resonance, the SPLC reported. The war in Iraq, seen by many hate groups as a struggle America was forced into by Jews, was another. Racist music and concerts continued to attract new young people into the movement. A growing Internet presence also helped groups' propaganda to flourish; there were 524 hate sites counted in 2005, up 12 percent from 468 in 2004.

"Despite a large number of arrests and the collapse of several leading neo-Nazi groups, the movement continues to grow," said Joe Roy, chief investigator of the Intelligence Project. "It's a Hydra with a thousand different heads."

Meanwhile, while many don't see gangs as hate groups, the mostly youthful members often strike fear into the hearts of residents of communities where hateful gang violence has grown.

The police's definition of a gang is "a group of individuals, juvenile and or adult, who associate on a continuous basis, form an allegiance for a common purpose, and are involved in delinquent or criminal activity."

This definition is simple and functional, according to Rita Gutierrez, founder and coordinator of  Parents in Crisis. The definition allows police departments to take proactive law enforcement action before the gang gets an organized structure. The gang may range from a loose knit group of individuals who hang around together and commit crimes together, to a formal organization with a leader or ruling council, gang colors, gang identifiers and a gang name, Gutierrez says on her web site.

An example of the growth of gangs and gang wars across the land can be found in Dalton, Ga., which touts itself as "the Carpet Capital of the World." The city was relatively peaceful until the mid-90s, when Hispanics, many of whom were illegal immigrants, moved into Dalton and, according to several sources, caused the loss of jobs for many Whites and Blacks because the newcomers would work for much lower wages.

Gangs,  unheard of in north Georgia until then, formed, especially in Black and Hispanic segments of the community, and disrupted the usual peace with violent clashes that challenged lawmen and frightened citizens, one police officer, demanding anonymity, told the Florida Courier.

"Hate and terror come in all fashions, forms and colors, and it doesn't seem now that there's any end in sight," he said. "The world is changing and not for the better, and it's happening right here in the USA."

Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton told Larry King on CNN Monday night: "(Gang crime is) nationwide.... It accounts for 60 percent of our murders in Los Angeles and a significant part of our violent crime.
"But, a lot of it also is the issue of just young people, a new generation of young people who are more violent than their predecessors, less under control, and we have a new wave of violence coming in this country and we need to wake up to it," Bratton said.

 -- The Southern Poverty Law Center assisted in the preparation of this report.

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