The @GOP ’s Racial Politics #p2 #tcot

The GOP's Racial Politics Jan 27, 2012 | By ThinkProgress War Room Our guest author is former Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA), president of Center for American Progress Action Fund. From the subtle to the sickening, this Republican primary season has seen a normalizing of racist and racially-coded language. It was not so long ago that the chairman of the Republican National Committee apologized for his party's history of "trying to benefit politically from racial polarization," and told the NAACP, "I am here today as the Republican Chairman to tell you we were wrong." Such leadership cannot be found now. Newt Gingrich may be the new master of race politics with his efforts to label Barack Obama the "food-stamp president" and his generous offer to lecture African-Americans at the NAACP on why they should demand paychecks instead of food stamps. We know that Mr. Gingrich's claims of being a "historian" for Freddie and Fannie are a strain, but would it be that hard for him to check the history of NAACP's leadership on developing and demanding groundbreaking job creation policies? (Or to note that more food stamp recipients are white than any other race or ethnicity?) But why would a historian let facts get in the way of historical racial prejudice? ThinkProgress' Jeff Spross has compiled a recent history of the GOP's dehumanizing and divisive language that threatens to plague the primary process for weeks to come. Watch it: Evening Brief: Important Stories That You May Have Missed According to an assessment by the Kentucky Environmental Foundation, the health costs of the state's dependence on burning coal came in at more than $62 million in 2007 — for asthma alone. Commodity crop and specialty crop farmers — instead of being inexorably opposed — can learn from and help each other with "poly-farming." Scientists have established the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund to support climate scientists who have come under attack by right-wing global warming deniers. As private prisons enrich lawmakers, the Florida legislature pushes a massive prison privatization plan. Opponents protest the signing of ACTA without adequate debate. Here's What Republicare Will Look Like Jeb Bush warns that Hispanics are "turned off" by the Republican party's rightward shift on state-based immigration legislation. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly apologized for appearing in Third Jihad, an inflammatory anti-Muslim film, but Human Rights Watch is calling on New York City officials to investigate the repeated showing of the film in counter-terror training sessions. Violence in Syria has sharply escalated in the past two days, pushing the U.N. Security Council to hold a meeting today to discuss a possible resolution condemning President Bashar al-Assad's government. THINKPROGRESS | Center for American Progress Action Fund 1333 H Street NW, 10th Floor | Washington, DC 20005