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A long-time Alaska congressman uses some 'colorful' language in a radio interview. And Republicans wonder why minorities don't like them.

via Shannyn Moore

In an interview with Ketchikan’s KRBD, Alaska’s one and only Congressman, a Republican, Don Young in comments regarding the economy and employment, was able to include a racial slur. Congressman Young said, “My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes,” he said. “It takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine.”

Congressman Young is again under investigation by the House Ethics Committee. The fresh charges are that he failed to report gifts, misused campaign contributions and lied to investigators.

Young's office later released the following statement:

During a sit down interview with Ketchikan Public Radio this week, I used a term that was commonly used during my days growing up on a farm in Central California. I know that this term is not used in the same way nowadays and I meant no disrespect.

Migrant workers play an important role in America’s workforce, and earlier in the said interview, I discussed the compassion and understanding I have for these workers and the hurdles they face in obtaining citizenship. America must once and for all tackle the issue of immigration reform.

Diane Sweet adds:
Roll Call:

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus announced a $10 million outreach initiative Sunday to better convey the party’s message to voters, particularly minorities.

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The Tea Party as a whole is not racist but racism has been expressed at Tea Party events, according to Vice President Joe Biden.

ABC's Jake Tapper asked Biden Sunday if he believed there were racist elements in the Tea Party.

"The truth is," Biden began. "Elements involved with some of the Tea Party folks expressed racist views. We saw it on television."

"I wouldn't characterize the Tea Party as racist," said Biden.

"Members, people on the periphery of their things have expressed unfortunate comments. It was all over TV, your network. Black congressman walking up the stairs of the capitol," Biden continued.

"I don't believe, the president doesn't believe that the Tea Party is a racist organization. We don't believe that. Very conservative. Very different views on government and a whole lot of things. But it is not a racist organization," he said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declined Sunday to comment on the matter. When asked about racism in the Tea Party by CNN's Candy Crowley, McConnell responded, "Oh my goodness -- in the whole country is there racism?"

"I'm not interested in getting into that debate," he said. "There are all kinds of things in America that make me uncomfortable, both on the right and the left."

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A Republican candidate in Missouri warned Monday that his opponent and the president are blocking the path to salvation.

In an interview on the Gina Loudon radio program, Ed Martin said that President Barack Obama and Rep. Russ Carnahan and keeping people from finding the Lord.

"We're great because we created a place and space where people can be free," said Martin. "And they can choose Christ, they can choose to be faithful. They can worship, and they find their way to the Lord."

"And that's one of the things that's most destructive about the growth of government. It's this taking away that freedom. The freedom -- the ultimate freedom, to find your salvation, to get your salvation," he continued.

"And I think that's one of the things that we have to be very, very aware of that the Obama Administration and Congressman Carnahan are doing to us," he said.

"Very well said," agreed Loudon.

Fired Up! Missouri first noticed the interview Monday.

"This is pure lunacy, and as a person of faith, I find this incredibly offensive and outrageous. It's too insane for a response, really," wrote Sean at Fired Up! Missouri:

Martin doesn't explain which policies supported by Obama and Carnahan "take away all your choices" to be a Christian or find any other religion, perhaps because there aren't any. Maybe it's health care reform that keeps people from Jesus? Or unemployment benefits? Whatever they are, "we have to be very, very aware" of them anyway.

Martin's remarks echo comments he made about Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan in 2009. "She is very, very devious. She does -- with a, with a clever hand -- she does the devil's work," he said.

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Well isn't this lovely... Mr. Tell BP "I'm Your Daddy" James Carville apparently ran into BP CEO Tony Hayward and Admiral Thad Allen at dinner in Louisiana. After all the screaming he did at President Obama to get tough with BP and tell them who "the daddy" is and after numerous public temper tantrums about the response to this disaster in the Gulf, his description of the meeting to Wolf Blitzer on yesterday's The Situation Room sounds rather chummy to me.

BLITZER: Let's bring in James Carville. He's arrived from New Orleans. James, you've had some exciting moments over these past several weeks. Some of them too exciting. But tell our viewers what happened last night. You went out to dinner in New Orleans.

CARVILLE: I had actually driven up to Baton Rouge for a fund-raiser, the Congressman running for the Senate. And I was coming back and I called Ronny and Mike, two of my close friend whose work with me who work in the mayor's office. I said meet me at 1179. Let's get some dinner.

BLITZER: That's a local restaurant.

CARVILLE: It's a very kind of popular local Italian place. Mr. Joe is a very well known guy around town. I walk in and somebody says, hey, that's Admiral Allen having dinner over there, so I go over because we had talked to each other on the phone and we were going to hook up and I said, admiral, you know, how are you doing?

BLITZER: He said, hey, sit down. When an admiral sits down, you sit down. He said do you know who I'm having dinner with. I said absolutely. It's Tony Hayward.

CARVILLE: The CEO of BP.

BLITZER: The CEO of BP. So we had a pleasant conversation. I talked about working in Columbia and was going down to see my friend that I worked for. And he and Admiral Allen spent some time in Columbia with the coast guard drug interdiction and Tony at BP.

CARVILLE: Let me just set the scene. It's Tony Hayward, Thad Allen and James Carville, the three of you. You've been quite critical of Tony Hayward, everybody at BP. That must have been a little tense, that exchange that you had it.

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Think Progress has more on this--Republicans dismayed by Obama’s strong performance, say it was a ‘mistake’ to let cameras roll. Apparently things were going so well for the President that ClusterFox decided they had better cut away from their coverage and proceed to bashing him--Fox Cuts Away From Obama-GOP Conversation In Order To Get A Head Start On Attacks: He Was ‘Lecturing’. Somehow I doubt the Republicans are going to want to do this again, or at least with the cameras on, any time soon.

RUSSERT: On the bigger picture though that I found extremely interesting today is the decision to allow the cameras present for the Q&A. Last night the White House called the GOP leadership and requested this. It obviously turned out to be a brilliant political move.

Tom Cole — former head of the NRCC, congressman from Oklahoma — said, “He scored many points. He did really well.” Barack Obama, for an hour and a half, was able to refute every single Republican talking point used against him on the major issues of the day. In essence, it was almost like a debate where he was front and center for the majority of it.

It's very, very interesting to see what this will do to the political dialog for the rest of next week. Final point on that I do believe one Republican said to me, off the record, and saying behind closed doors: “It was a mistake that we allowed the cameras to roll like that. We should not have done that.” Very interesting.

WITT: Why? Why? Because they didn't fire away the way they really wanted to for fear of repurcussions you know, ala Joe Wilson "You lie" if there was disrespect shown?

RUSSERT: Well, when the Democrats did this they had a closed camera session right, when he had a meeting with the Democrats last month...

WITT: Right...

RUSSERT: By allowing these cameras to roll, it allowed Obama to sit there for an hour and a half refuting every single Republican talking point, which he really has not had an opportunity to do in his campaign rally speeches that he's been doing in Florida yesterday, that he's been doing addresses in the White House. He was able to directly refute Republicans to their face for an hour and a half on T.V. I think he scored a lot of political points.

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Rep. Pete Hoekstra has been criticized for sending a fundraising letter that cited a failed Christmas day airline bombing.

Hoekstra declined to defend his fundraising tactics Sunday. "Once upon a time, there was a tradition of solidarity and refraining from criticizing the president at the time the nation was under attack," ABC's Terry Moran told Hoekstra. "Three days after this attempt to kill 300 people over the skies of Detroit, you sent out a fundraising letter," said Moran.

"Given that tradition that once was part of this country are you proud of that -- of fund-raising off a national crisis like that?" asked Moran.

But Hoekstra deflected the question. "I've been leading on national security for the last nine years. Over the last two to three months, I've been concerned about where the administration is taking us on national security issues," said Hoekstra.

Moran pressed the congressman. "But I'm asking about raising money off the attempted attack on 30 people three days after the attempt occurred?"

Hoekstra wasn't in the mood to directly respond to the question. "I'm proud of the role of making sure America is safe. I've been right on the facts all along," replied Hoekstra.

John Amato:

This man is a total fool and should not be on my TV giving his opinions on anything substantial. This partisan hack claimed to have found the missing WMDs in Iraq. How stupider can a Congressman be? What will it take for our media to even ask him about his phony WMD claims? It's time to being on a Network Ombudsmen to fact check pundits and politicians when they make bogus claims and distort the truth. The fact that they are allowed to spread propaganda is bad enough. At least they can be held accountable for it.

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By the way don't forget to check out Blue America's Bad Dogs page. It's been set up to help defeat Blue Dogs. As Media Matteres did a fine job of pointing out for everyone, this guy was already a Republican. How this House version of Tom Coburn on steriods was ever allowed to have a D behind his name is beyond me. He pulled out every Republican talking point during this press conference along with calling his former party the "Democrat Party". Since he voted against every single Democratic platform that he should have been well aware of before he threw his hat in with the party, I say goodbye and good riddance. Don't let the door hit you in the ass.

As much as the GOP might like to claim this as some sort of victory, the wingers over at Red State are already ready to run a primary challenger against him. Welcome to the Republican Party Congressman.

John Amato:

What a great day for progressives. A horrible Blue Dog took his rightful place with his fellow conservatives. Good riddance. Howie Klein was the first one to point out how disgusting he was, but as usual the media ignored it. But suddenly yesterday they discovered that he existed. This is why blogs are so important. We analyze voting records and candidates thoroughly before we comment on them. The NRCC loved Parker so much they hit him with their usual fear-mongering ads about radical Islam. Now there surely will be an interesting primary fight between the teabagging conservatives.

Howie Klein writes:

Last August DWT posed the question How Does One Justify Singling Out Just One Blue Dog-- In This Case Parker Griffith Of Alabama-- As The Worst Democrat In The House? It wasn't a tough case to make, and back at the link I have a chart, a snarky photo and a video of another one nearly as bad. Then just over a month ago I tried to point out that Griffith, a multimillionaire whose personal self-interest is always with the GOP, was hysterical about the estate tax.

--

Today, when the mainstream media suddenly discovered Parker Griffith for the first time, as he announced he would be joining the GOP, Media Matters was prepared to show that his voting record had never strayed from that of any slimy Republican. In fact there are 7 House Republicans with either an identical ProgressivePunch score on crucial votes or a better one! He opposed equal pay for women, opposed the stimulus bill, opposed clean energy legislation, opposed healthcare reform, voted against the budget and against regulating the banksters. Basically, from the day he slipped into the House he was a charter member of the Boehner Boys.

This is the guy, as we mentioned last summer, who promised his constituents that if they re-elected him, he would vote against Nancy Pelosi, who he referred to as a mental case, as Speaker next year. Now the DCCC won't have to waste another $1,000,000 trying to save a seat for someone who votes with the GOP all the time. Come to think of it, they'll need that money to try to save the seat of the only other House Democrat as bad as Griffith, Mississippi reactionary Travis Childers. Blue America has a page, Bad Dogs, dedicated to defeating Blue Dogs. If you have any interest in helping out, please let us know.

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November 17, 2009 FOX News

NY Congressman Peter King talking to FOX and Friends about the 9/11 terrorist going on trial in New York.

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From Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace suggests to ACORN's Bertha Lewis that the hit job done on them which I think amounts to entrapment by the conservative film maker James O'Keefe means that the improvements made under Lewis' watch are meaningless. I'm not sure what more he thought she should do besides fire these workers.

Emit at Daily KOS has more on Karl Rove wanna' be James O'Keefe--O'Keefe said he went after ACORN because it registers minorities likely to vote against Republicans:

James O’Keefe, one of the two filmmakers, said he went after ACORN because it registers minorities likely to vote against Republicans: "Politicians are getting elected single-handedly due to this organization," O’Keefe told The Washington Post. "No one was holding this organization accountable."

New York Times: Did ACORN Get Too Big for Its Own Good?

That statement alone should be enough to prompt curious progressive minds to dig a bit deeper into this young Rove-in-the-Making, James E. O'Keefe III.

In the court of public opinion, thrust at us via Fox News and Breitbart, these videos that O'Keefe and Hannah Giles created seem to have offered up immediate 'proof' of ACORN's corruption, on the whole.

Verdict? Guilty until proven innocent!

After all, who wants to defend someone who condones and even appears to assist in the trafficking of teenage prostitutes? O'Keefe knows this. It's been his game for some time.

Jump in.

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Transcript below the fold.

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Compassionate conservative Rep. Paul Broun makes Ed Schultz's Psycho Talk segment for this number- Rep. Broun walks away from man asking for plan to lower health care costs: ‘If you have a suggestion, send it.’:

Yesterday, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) held a town hall in Watkinsville, GA, where he fielded questions about health care legislation before Congress. At the conclusion of the town hall, Ryan Lewis, an Athens, GA, resident, approached the congressman and politely explained to him about how his health insurance company refuses to pay for his treatment. In response, Broun told Lewis, “We need to make insurance affordable.” Lewis then asked, “How do we do that?” Rather than offering a GOP solution to skyrocketing health care costs, Broun simply told him, “If you have a suggestion, send it to me” and quickly walked away.