Former GOP Senator Trashes Party’s Presidential Field: ‘Scares Me To Death,’ ‘Not Ready For Primetime’

BY SCOTT KEYES/Think Progress

Regardless of their actual feelings, politicians tend to praise their colleagues in public as a matter of decorum, especially those in the same political party.

That’s why it was so surprising when former Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who served 10 years in the Senate and 6 years in the House of Representatives before retiring in January 2015, offered up candidly negative comments about the 2016 Republican presidential field.

In an interview with conservative commentator Andrew Wilkow last week, Coburn trashed nearly every GOPer running for president, calling them “not ready for primetime,” lacking “integrity,” not “capable,” and saying he wouldn’t support one of them even if he won the nomination. Wilkow acknowledged the impact of Coburn’s words, noting that “once you retire, you can speak your mind in a way that might be different than if you were still sitting in the Senate.”

Listen to the interview, with the relevant portion beginning at 5:43:

Here are Coburn’s individual takes on the Republican presidential candidates (emphases added):

Rand Paul: “Scares me to death on international foreign policy. Know him well, very smart. Think he was totally wrong on NSA. Didn’t speak truthfully about what was actually the facts. Would not vote for him for president.”

Marco Rubio: “Of all that are out there right now, probably my favorite.”

Scott Walker: “Not ready for primetime, in my opinion. You look at what happened in Wisconsin in terms of him beating the recall and everything else, he didn’t do that. The Republicans around the country did it for him. They pulled him out of the fire. I just don’t think he’s quite ready for primetime, in my opinion.”

Ben Carson: “I have a personal bone to pick with him on integrity that I witnessed. He made a commitment at the Prayer Breakfast not to attack the president. The speech was nothing but an attack on the president. The people who organized the Prayer Breakfast asked him not to do that. He said he would not, and then he went out and did it.”

George Pataki: “Probably smart enough, but would never encounter the votes. Nor does he have the conservative fiscal credentials or other credentials he would need to have a coalition behind him, in my opinion.”

Rick Perry: “Good guy. I don’t think he’s capable at that level.”

Lindsey Graham: “Love him, but he’s right in the middle, so I don’t see how he builds a coalition. I think his effort is try to talk about foreign policy and that’s what he ought to stick to.”

Carly Fiorina: “Smart lady. I helped her in her Senate campaign of which she was ultimately unsuccessful, but it’s because she could never get into good debates. Smart, savvy, experienced. Knows the issues that I’ve been talking about. Presents well. Doesn’t have a voting record. They’ll trash her bigtime because of her Hewlett-Packard experience.”

Ted Cruz: “Not ready for primetime.”

Mike Huckabee: “Possibility. Good guy, well-rounded. Could fit in the middle and could attract votes from both sides.”

Rick Santorum: “Love him as a man. I think he feels called to try to do this. I don’t think it’s within his reach.”

Chris Christie: “Don’t know. I haven’t followed him well. I saw his tollgate problems. I like the fact that he answers questions correctly, which very few candidates do. I like the fact that he’ll take a risk and give you an answer that’s not politically popular.”

Jeb Bush: “I don’t think America will elect another Bush president. I talk to a lot of liberals all the time. They still loathe George Bush. And so you shut out 47 percent of the electorate with that nomination. So you only get to lose three or four percent. I just don’t think it’s a possibility.”

Coburn has also called out his own party for its relentless quest to defund Obamacare, saying it took them “away from the larger picture.” He also dismissed 2013 legislation designed to defund health care reform as “dishonest” and “hype.” Said Coburn, “It’s a terribly dangerous and not successful strategy.”

Still, lest he come off as a milquetoast conservative, Coburn is still the same man who warned of “rampant lesbianism” in Oklahoma schools, said that breaching the debt ceiling wouldn’t result in a default, believed doctors who perform abortions should be executed, and thought the Second Amendment should allow people to buy bazookas.

Fox's Katie Pavlich Accuses Hillary Clinton Of "Race-Baiting" For Support Of Expanded Voting Access

From the June 8 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom:

 

 

Previously:

IA GOP Kingmaker Mickelson Wants To Bring Back Jim Crow-Era Voting Laws

By SALVATORE COLLELUORI/Media Matters

Iowa radio host Jan Mickelson, the state's self-appointed vetter of GOP presidential candidates, recently told members of the League of Women Voters that it should be harder for people to vote, suggesting it be limited to state property owners or people who pass a civics test -- both of which were used to disenfranchise black voters and others in colonial America and the Jim Crow era.

On the June 4 broadcast of Mickelson in the Morning, Mickelson hosted two representatives of the League of Women Voters. During the discussion, Mickelson declared that unlike his guests, whose group works to register more Americans to vote, he is in "the voter repression business" and doesn't want people to vote "unless they agree" with him. He also suggested that in order to vote, Americans should have to pass a "civics test" to prove they're smart enough.

Later in the show, in response to a caller's comment about who should be eligible to vote on property tax ballot issues, Mickelson suggested that only people who pay property taxes -- i.e., property owners -- should be allowed to do so, which would effectively exclude local citizens who are students or renters.

Mickelson's suggestions are a stunning endorsement of disfavored economic restrictions on the right to vote that are now presumptively unconstitutional. Owning property was a prerequisite for white males to vote in colonial America, but eventually gave way to a law requiring voters to be taxpayers. However, by the 1850's, even the tax-paying requirement was phased out in most states. Despite passage of the 15th Amendment, which sought to eliminate that litmus test, some groups, including women and African-Americans, were still denied the vote.

The Jim Crow-era literacy test, which Mickelson has renamed a "civics test" requirement, was even more pernicious. As a PBS special on Jim Crow noted, literacy tests were often "used to keep people of color -- and, sometimes, poor whites -- from voting" and whether someone passed was up to "the discretion of the officials in charge of voter registration," meaning those whom officials wanted to pass did, while others were set up to fail.

Mickelson, who has a national reputation as a GOP kingmaker in Iowa, has a history of pushing presidential candidates to embrace his extreme views. Already this year, he has hosted every major GOP presidential candidate -- except Jeb Bush, who has yet to declare but is expected to, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina -- at least once, and Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee several times.

Full Segment:

Conservative Twitter Racists Mock McKinney Police Brutality: ‘Black People Can’t Swim’ (TWEETS)

VERA from Addicting Info

Last week, a disturbing video surfaced of a white police officer brutalizing black teens in McKinney, Texas while breaking up a neighborhood pool party.

As the video went viral and made headlines nationwide, Cpl. Eric Casebolt was suspended over the footage, which captured him chasing unarmed, nonthreatening teens with a gun and brutally slamming a petite bikini-clad girl to the ground before kneeling on her back with his full body weight.

Despite how clear-cut the footage was in capturing the McKinney police using racially-charged excessive force, conservative media did what it could to protect the white cops, and several racist Twitter users followed suit. And who better than Fox News to lead the way? The right-wing media channel reported the story, but implied that viewers should be skeptical of the video’s footage:

Yahoo! News was also an unexpected offender.

Many Twitter users defended the cops, stating that the teens deserved to be brutalized and criticized the lack of parental guidance for the teens’ behavior – very reminiscent of racist reactions seen in Ferguson when Michael Brown was fatally shot by police officer Darren Wilson.

Some users even had to audacity to mock the incident and perpetuate racial stereotypes to make light of the horrendous situation.

These comments are disgusting representations of the segregation and racism that still prevails in America. The sad thing is, if this incident hadn’t been recorded (by a white person, who the police ignored), those teens would have gotten records – which would have impacted the rest of their lives, damaging their college and job applications. Systemic racism is no joke.

Anyone who is still in doubt about police brutality’s connection with race needs to see this tweet, which compares the police reaction to the black teens in McKinney, Texas (who were unarmed and hadn’t killed anyone) and the police reaction to a mob of grown gun-toting white bikers in Waco, Texas – where 9 people were killed:

Being black in America shouldn’t be a death sentence, and it shouldn’t be a reason to be targeted, mistreated and brutalized like it was in McKinney. This incident was completely about race – and there continues to be a disturbing world of a difference in the way white people and black people are treated. Comparing the 14-year-old girl who was brutalized by Cpl. Eric Casebolt in McKinney to how serial child molester Josh Duggar has been treated by the media, this tweet says it all:

White McKinney resident: Cop ‘deserves a medal’ for pulling gun on black kids at pool party

DAVID EDWARDS/Raw Story

A Texas woman said on Monday that a McKinney police officer “deserves a medal” after he pulled his firearm on black teens who were having a pool party in her neighborhood.

In video that was recorded on Friday, Cpl. Eric Casebolt could be seen manhandling a young teen girl in a bathing suit and pulling his gun on other teens who approach him. Casebolt was placed on administrative leave over the weekend after the video went viral.

While many said that the the officer went overboard in responding to complaints about the pool party, at least one white resident of the neighborhood, who refused to be named because of alleged death threats, told CNN that the officer was a hero.

“I want everyone to know that that police officer, along with everyone else, they were completely in the right and protecting everyone,” the woman opined to CNN’s Nick Valencia. “He was not out of line. I completely support him drawing his weapon or a Taser or whatever it was that he did pull because he was being attacked from behind.”

“I believe that if your life is threatened, you have every right to pull a gun. He probably didn’t intend on using it. I feel horrible for McKinney PD and and the backlash they’re getting for this.”

The woman added that the officer “deserves a medal for what he did.”

“I don’t believe he was out of line one bit,” she insisted. “Those kids were taunting them and cursing them out, have no respect for authority and as soon as their parents got here, they didn’t even care one bit about how they were treating the officers and why they got into that situation.”

Watch the video below from CNN, broadcast June 8, 2015.

Ex-McKinney cop: Police force has a race problem and they need to ‘get it under control’

TOM BOGGIONI/Raw Story

Appearing on Fox4, a former McKinney police officer blasted the conduct of Officer Eric Casebolt, who threw an unarmed teenage girl to the ground, before saying local police authorities need to nip their race problem in the bud before it grows.

According to former officer Pete Schulte, Casebolt was over the line when he roughly pulled 15-year-old Dajerria Becton to the ground, saying, “I don’t care what she was yelling at that officer. Anything would not have justified throwing her to the ground and pushing her down and throwing her face into the concrete like he did.”

Commenting on Casebolt drawing his service weapon as spectators came to help the screaming girl, Schulte called it “crazy,” before noting that one of the fellow officers who came to Casebolt’s aid grabbed his arm as if pulling the weapon down.

Schulte, who is now an attorney, had advice to the McKinney Police Department, saying they needed to get the fallout from the viral video “under control,” due to the racial implications.

“There is an indication based on watching the video that the white people who were around the officers weren’t talked to, they weren’t pushed away, they weren’t told to get on the ground, they weren’t put in handcuffs. The only individuals McKinney police were doing that to were those that were African-American,” he said.

“McKinney police have got to get this under control before tomorrow,” he stated “At this point in America, in policing, There’s too much out there right now with Ferguson. They got to get out there in front of this and make sure that citizens, even outside of the city of McKinney, understand that they’re going to do the right thing and take corrective action and that this was not racially motivated.”

Watch the video below from Fox4:

Fox4News.com | Dallas-Fort Worth News, Weather, Sports

Grand Jury Indicts South Carolina Ex-Cop After His Defense Of A Fatal Shooting Was Debunked By Video

BY NICOLE FLATOW/Think Progress

A man holds a sign during a protest for the shooting death of Walter Scott at city hall in North Charleston, S.C.

CREDIT: AP PHOTO/CHUCK BURTON

Video captured former Officer Michael Slager firing deadly shots at into Walter Scott’s back as he ran away in North Charleston, South Carolina. And now, Slager will likely face a murder trial for his actions.

A grand jury took the rare step of opting to indict Slager for murder, officialsannounced Monday. While grand juries indict the vast majority of defendants brought before them, it is incredibly rare that they indict officers in police brutality cases.

But Slager’s case was distinct from so many others in that a narrative initially painted in his favor flipped against him, after video revealed that he had misrepresented what happened that day and aimed to skew the case in his favor. The initial statement from police said Scott was attempting to grab a Taser from the officers, and that the shooting occurred in the struggle for a weapon. Media outlets initially reported this version of events. But video released later revealed that Scott was actually shot in the back as he was running away, unarmed, about 15 feet from Slager. The video appears to show Slager planting an object next to Scott. Many believe Scott was running because he owed child support money.

As the Atlantic reported, after the video was released, Slager retained little of the same support other officers had received even in the cases deemed most clearly egregious. Slager was fired. Police Chief Eddie Driggers said he was “sickened by what he saw.” And even the popular crowdfunding site GoFundMe that rejected a campaign to support the officer.

And Solicitor Scarlett Wilson moved quickly to file murder charges against Slager. Black leaders were wary, and called for Wilson to recuse himself from the case in favor of an independent prosecutor, because of a perceived unwillingness for her to prosecute similar cases in the past. Local prosecutors are typically perceived as carrying a bias in favor of their own police. But Monday’s grand jury indictment suggests this case has already had more success than most.

While the video provided more objective evidence to the Charleston County grand jury, similar evidence in Eric Garner’s case was not enough to secure a grand jury indictment for a fatal chokehold by New York Police Department officers.

In fact, over the past year, South Carolina has shown particular willingness to hold police officers accountable when they shoot suspects under dubious circumstances. Just after grand juries elsewhere failed to indict the officers implicated in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, a South Carolina grand jury indicted a white cop for shooting a black man. That indictment in December was at least the third of a police officer in the state last year.

The announcement comes just a few weeks after a grand jury also decided to indict six Baltimore officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray over a spinal cord injury. The prosecutor in that case, Marilyn Mosby, distinguished herselfas a strong proponent of police accountability.

Thus far, however, these cases appear to remain anomalies. One Bowling Green University study found that just 41 officers were charged in all with murder or manslaughter in a seven-year period ending in 2011, while 2,600 justifiable homicides were reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation during that same period.

Senator Unveils New Obamacare Attack, Immediately Becomes A Laughingstock

BY IAN MILLHISER/Think Progress

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) probably wishes that he’d thought twice before debuting a new attack on the Affordable Care Act on Twitter.

This month, the Supreme Court is expected to decide King v. Burwell, a case which asks the justices to read one sentence of the law out-of-context in order to render millions of people’s health insurance unaffordable. The lawsuit isfunded by a conservative organization, promoted by conservative think tanks and conservative law professors, and backed by many top Republicans including several of Thune’s Republican colleagues. Though only a minority of lower court judges have sided with the plaintiffs in this lawsuit, all of them are Republicans. Only Republican-appointed justices are expected to vote for the plaintiffs when the decision is handed down, though it is far from clear that all of the Court’s Republican appointees will do so. The lead attorney for the plaintiffs boasted that he does not plan to “lose any Republican-appointed judges’ votes” when his argument was being considered by a lower court.

Nevertheless, Thune offered this assessment of who would be to blame if the Republican-controlled Supreme Court sides with the plaintiffs in King:

Almost immediately, Thune became an object of ridicule for this tweet. Huffington Post’s Sam Stein quoted the tweet and responded “this makes no sense.” The Week’s Ryan Cooper mocked it with an historic quote — “Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!” The New York Daily News’s Josh Greenman wrote just one word: “Um.” The National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke described Thune’s tweet in twice as many words: “So dishonest.”

My own contribution to this genre quoted the tweet with the preface “In which a United States Senator reminds you that he thinks you are stupid.” Bloomberg’s David Weigel quipped that “Congress should pass a simple, one-page bill allowing @SenJohnThune to amend that tweet.”

Should the King plaintiffs prevail, it should be noted, the consequences will go far beyond the mockery Thune experienced. An estimated 9,800 Americans will die every year who otherwise would have lived if the Republican-appointed justices do what so many of Thune’s fellow Republicans have asked them to do

White Woman Used Racial Slurs, Slapped Her, Texas Pool Party Host Says

BY CARIMAH TOWNES/Think Progress

After a viral video of police brutalizing black teenagers in swimsuits in Texas sparked national outrage, a second video has surfaced of a party host detailing a violent encounter before the cops arrived at the scene.

According to 19-year-old community member Tatiana, who put together the event to celebrate the end of the school year, several white people at the pool hurled racial slurs at her friends, calling one a “black f-er” and talking about Section 8 public housing. When 14-year-old friend Grace Stone stood up for the group, saying the comments were racist, the man and woman started berating her. Tatiana alleges she stepped in to tell the white couple that they shouldn’t verbally attack a young girl, at which point they told her to “go back to [her] Section 8 home.” One woman, identified as Kate, allegedly slapped Tatiana in the face, before attacking the teenager with the help of another woman.

Tatiana’s mother, who was also featured in the YouTube video, responded, “I’m just upset that we couldn’t have a peaceful event. [If] it was any issue that they truly had, they should’ve came to me, the adult that was here at the event…and not go to that extreme.”

Watch the video of Tatiana:

Brandon Brooks, a white teenager who filmed first video of the police encounter, explained to Buzzfeed News that many of the black kids had special passes to swim in the community pool, although some did jump the fence. “I think a bunch of white parents were angry that a bunch of black kids who don’t live in the neighborhood were in the pool,” he said. However, he maintains, many of the kids who were handcuffed and told to get on the ground were ‘innocent bystanders.’

Having seen the original video on YouTube, Tom Fuentes, a former assistant director for the FBI told CNN that the officer’s actions were unjustified, and that the main officer was “running around and escalating” the situation. “He’s out of control. He clearly has no self-discipline. He lost control of his temper. Nothing good can happen at that point. Thankfully he didn’t shoot somebody,” he concluded.

But local homeowners defended the officers’ actions, arguing the officers’ safety was threatened. “I feel absolutely horrible for the police and what’s going on… they were completely outnumbered and they were just doing the right thing when these kids were fleeing and using profanity and threatening security guards,” an anonymous woman told Fox4. Notes thanking the officers were also hung on the pool fence.