Coulter Gets Clipped, Cruz Birthers & Christie 3.0

Ted Cruz talking with a New Hampshire resident

There's a distinct waft of desperation hovering over the remaining crop of Republican presidential candidates.

Especially in the wake of South Carolina Republican Governor Nikki Haley's decision to use the post-State of the Union address rebuttal to call out the top GOP candidates for the anger, intolerance, bigotry and ignorance they've cultivated over the course of the 2016 campaign season.

In response, racist Fem-Nazi author Ann Coulter plunged back into the familiar waters of the intellectual cesspool she luxuriates in by suggesting that "Trump should deport Nikki Haley" on her Twitter account.

And even right-wingers tore into her crass stupidity and moronic fawning over a clown like Trump.

Ted Cruz, who rode a wave of Tea Party anger into the U.S. Senate in 2013, has found himself in the awkward position of having to defend himself against charges leveled by Donald Trump and others that he's not eligible to become President because he wasn't born in the United States. 

Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on December 22, 1970, and that inconvenient fact is causing a snag for his presidential ambitions.

As Constitutional law professor Mary Brigid McNanamon wrote in an op-ed piece for the Washington Post: 

"The Constitution provides that 'No person except a natural born citizen...shall be eligible to the Office of President." 

Nothing ambiguous about that.

As CrooksandLiars.com and numerous other media sources have reported over the past few days, the same unbalanced right-wing zealots (like Fox News' Sean Hannity) who spent years fanning the flames of the "birther" cause when it was President Obama's citizenship being questioned, now see no issue with the fact that Ted Cruz was actually born in another country.  

How ironic that the same guy who once gleefully courted Obama birthers, now has his own birthers.

Cruz isn't the only Republican candidate who's getting desperate as the primary season heats up.

Christie during his State of the State address Tuesday

With New Jersey Governor Chris Christie still languishing at an anemic 3% in a recent Public Policy poll, he was desperate enough to do something he hasn't done much of in the past 12 months - show up at the state capital in Trenton on Tuesday and actually do the job he was elected to do.

Hours before Obama's final State of the Union, Christie delivered his State of the State address, pitching (among other things) economic growth for a state which ranks among the lowest in the nation in wage growth and job creation, and a call to eliminate the New Jersey estate tax - which impacts a tiny percentage of the state's wealthiest residents.

Christie's address was clearly aimed for national appeal and a needed boost for his stagnant approval numbers; but as long-time Christie observers like Tom Moran reported, overall the speech fell kinda flat - for a guy who touts being someone who "Tells it like it is" he didn't even mention some of the most serious issues facing New Jersey yesterday.

Even the Koch Brothers took a swipe at Christie for failing to address the massive Transportation Trust Fund issue looming over the state of New Jersey while the clock keeps ticking on the need to begin construction for the desperately-needed Hudson River rail tunnels between NJ and Penn Station in Manhattan.

While he deserves a measure of credit for calling for more drug treatment programs for non-violent offenders in his speech, his chameleon-like morphing on a host of issues he once openly supported (like his  total flip-flop on gun control in recent months) just hasn't been enough to nudge his sluggish poll numbers.

And it's left people confused about who he actually is politically, and where he stands.

As reporter Matt Katz pointed out Monday on WNYC's 'Christie Tracker Podcast', it's now clear that Christie is pretty much saying anything he can to get elected - even if it's not true or even factually accurate.

NJSPBA President Patrick Colligan

Christie likes to portray himself as a tough-talking politician who's a friend of law enforcement.

But the president of the New Jersey State Policeman's Benevolent Association, Patrick Colligan (pictured left) sent an open letter to members of the New Hampshire law enforcement community yesterday to advise them that the NJ governor is about "as far away from being a law enforcement candidate as you can get."


In his letter, Colligan basically called Christie's siphoning of pension funds to shore up budget shortfalls "fraud".

And remember, these budget shortfalls were (in part) created by Christie himself, who placed his loyalty to anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist's "No new taxes" pledge above the needs of the people of New Jersey.

No one wants to pay higher taxes, but I know for a fact that a lot of people here in New Jersey (including me) would be willing to pay a moderate increase at the gas station to increase state revenue by raising the gas tax in NJ to help finance the state's share of the cost for the new Hudson Rail tunnel project and shore up the Transportation Trust Fund.

The gas tax in New Jersey hasn't been raised in 25 years.

Given the economic state of the state, it likely will be in the near future; Christie understandably didn't want to be the governor who did it.

The duck and cover strategy is fine and good if you're a lame duck politician with a low approval rate who just wants to get out of office and slip into a cozy well-paying private sector job with some semblance of your reputation intact.

But Christie is running for President and as desperate as he is to hold the office, a term in the White House is earned by showing bold leadership, demonstrating the ability to be a political visionary who can unite rather than divide, and making the tough decisions that might fly in the face of conventional wisdom; as Obama did on the Affordable Care Act.

The politicians who risk their political clout to make the tough calls do so not because it appeases an interest group or because it's popular.

They do it because simply, as President Obama often says, "It's the right thing to do."

And as desperate as this field of Republican candidates are to be elected to the highest office in the land, doing the right thing is something that they all seem to struggle with.

And that's not a good sign.

Horror, Healing & Hope

Dylann Roof's booking photo [Charleston County Sheriff]

Like many, it's taken me some time to mentally and emotionally process the unmitigated horror of what took place inside the Emanuel A.M.E Church last Wednesday night.

From the shocking eye-witness accounts of the racially-motivated premeditated savagery committed by suspect Dylann Roof, I can't even begin to fathom what the victim's family members, friends, church members and co-workers must be going through as they try and process this unspeakable act of domestic terrorism that claimed the lives of nine innocent people.

The term "hate crime", while appropriate given the suspect's own statements, actions and beliefs, doesn't even come close to encapsulating the magnitude of this act of violent race hatred.

It's almost as if humanity needs a new word to describe this kind of senseless slaughter of innocents in the same way the word Holocaust (a term first used in the 13th century) became the de facto description of the mass slaughter of Jews and other peoples by the Nazis during World War II.

But if any positives have come out of this tragedy, it's not just the holding up of the scourge of racial hatred to the scrutiny of truth, it's the reaction of the local, national and global community as heroes and healers have stepped forward to counteract the killer's demented desire to spark some kind of conflict based on race.

Debbie Dills helped police capture Dylann Roof [Photo ABC News]

Take Debbie Dills (pictured left), the florist and minister who was running late for work at about 10:30am on the morning after the killing when she spotted the deranged killer in his black Hyundai stopped at a light on Highway 74 in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, turned her vehicle around and followed him for 35 miles to Shelby, North Carolina while she contacted the police with the help of her boss - leading to the quick capture of this monster and assuring he answers for his crimes in a court of law.

There are also the many members of law enforcement and emergency response teams in Charleston, SC who first responded to the shootings and helped get descriptions of the killer and his vehicle out to other police departments and to local media; and the members of the Kings Mountain & Shelby, NC police departments and federal agents of the FBI and BATF who helped apprehend the killer.

Credit must also be given to the many local community leaders in Charleston who called for calm in the wake of the killings, even as some mainstream media outlets began to warn of the rioting that might erupt; which never happened.

Audience members sing "We Shall Overcome" [Getty Images/AFP]

Instead we've watched thousands of South Carolinians from different races, religions and backgrounds come together in prayer services for the nine victims as well as peaceful vigils and prayer services around the nation.

Such as the diverse group of more than 4,000 people (pictured left) who gathered at the College of Charleston TD Arena at an interfaith service of remembrance on Friday to hear appeals for peace and unity from Protestant, Catholic and Jewish clergy and recognize more than 50 relatives of the nine victims of the shooting who attended the ceremony; which opened with a rendition of "Amazing Grace" and culminated in the entire crowd singing "We Shall Overcome". 
 
On the other side of the coin, it's also been quite instructive to observe the reaction of some Republicans and other American conservatives to this tragedy.

As an article on the CrooksAndLiars.com Website reported on Thursday, both FoxNews.com and the Fox Nation television broadcasts completely downplayed the murder of nine innocent people at a bible study by a 21 year-old white supremacist, as such things fall outside the Fox News narrative.

If you can stomach it, click the link above and read a sampling of the comments posted in the aftermath of the murders on the FoxNation thread; which include such insightful observations as: "Are we sure they were black? Or did they just check the box?" And: "Going to be a riot in Charleston, look out liquor stores and cell phone stores and electronic stores."

And we wonder how a depressed, unemployed 21 year-old white kid with substance abuse issues (and a .45 caliber handgun he bought at a gun store with no background check...) became indoctrinated with the delusional half-baked white supremacist theories he espoused; including that black men are raping white women and "taking over" the country.

Sen Lindsey Graham after visiting Emanuel AME memorial

As an article posted on NPR.org reported, reactions from Republican political leaders differed.

South Carolina Senator and 2016 Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham attended the Friday interfaith service in Charleston and he appeared visibly shaken (pictured left) as he spoke with members of the media after he payed his respects at the memorial site at the Emanuel A.M.E Church

Senator Ted Cruz addressed the shootings directly and called for a moment of silence in opening remarks before a speech. NJ Governor Chris Christie called the shootings "depraved" but suggested the solution wasn't more laws: "Only the goodwill and the love of the American people can let those folks know that that act was unacceptable, disgraceful, and that we need to do more to show that we love each other."

A law that would've prevented the killer from having a .45 caliber handgun in the first place isn't a solution?

Unfortunately for the optimistic Christie "the goodwill and love of the American people" can't stop a nut-bag with a gun from shooting people.

Jeb Bush stirred a bit of controversy on social media by waffling and refusing to say directly that the shooter's motivations were based on race. Bush stated: "I don't know what was on the mind or the heart of the man who committed these atrocious crimes," Really?

I guess Jeb hadn't read about 26 year-old Tywanza Sanders, who bravely stood up during the shooting and begged the killer to spare the remaining members of the bible study before the killer said that he couldn't stop because black people are raping white women and blacks are taking over the country before shooting and killing Sanders as his wounded mother lay nearby.

Funny how pretty much everyone in America and millions around the world understand exactly what was in the killer's mind when he shot those poor people; everyone except Jeb Bush.

Not the kind of answer I'm looking for in a presidential candidate.

Bush's weak-ass comments seem to typify the tepid Republican response which seems to completely avoid acknowledging the racist beliefs of the killer and focus instead on the concocted conservative issue of "religious liberty" (Republican code for anti-abortion...) and not pissing off the NRA over yet another mass slaughter of innocents by yet another troubled nut-bag with a legally purchased gun. 

Bush's comments reflect his campaign thus far; so not ready for prime time.

Rick Santorum, champion of "religious liberty"

Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum didn't do himself (or his capacity as a potential leader of the free world) any favors when he suggested that the killer chose his victims "indiscriminately" during an interview on the Joe Piscopo Show the day after the shootings took place.

Instead of linking the motivations of the shooter to racial hatred, Santorum had the temerity to make an effort to link the killings to the mythical issue of "religious liberty" Republicans seem to feel is so important.

During the interview Santorum said, "You talk about the importance of prayer at this time, and we're now seeing assaults on religious liberty we've never seen before."

As if America doesn't already have one of the most religiously diverse societies on the planet; and call me crazy but freedom of religion has been enshrined in the Constitution since the 18th century.

Apparently Santorum hasn't figured out that the killer wasn't targeting Christians; he was targeting black people simply because they're black.  

Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley seemed genuinely affected by the brutality of the killings and was quick to wave the pro-capital punishment flag by calling for the death penalty in this case, but like her GOP cohorts she's missing the message too.

She probably would've been better off supporting the long-time organized movement within her own state calling for that huge Confederate flag flying over her own statehouse to be removed.

By not publicly (or intellectually) making the connection between the extremist mindset that cultivated the twisted beliefs someone like Dylann Roof and the statement a huge Confederate flag flying over the building where state lawmakers meet makes, Haley is only demonstrating her willingness to remain detached from the mainstream American mindset which views the flag as a divisive symbol of hate and the pro-slavery movement.

Since the killer is just beginning the long road to his day in court, and the families, friends and co-workers of the victims along with millions of people around the world are still grieving for the heinous deaths of the nine victims inside the Emanuel A.M.E Church - there's much to come regarding this sad chapter in American history.

But for the time being, I think Dylann Roof's 56 year-old uncle Carson Cowles pretty much summed up the thoughts of many on this deranged killer's capture when he told Reuters news agency:
"I will say this, I hope he gets what's coming to him. They got his ass now."  

You got that right Uncle Carson.

Now that the horror is over, let's pray that the healing and hope for positive change as a result of this tragedy can now begin.