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Sunday, November 27, 2022

You Know You're A Racist When You.... Pivot!

Republicans pull out Robert Byrd's past to pivot from their racist actions. Byrd (right) with then senator now President Joe Biden and then West Virginia governor now senator Joe Manchin.

President Joe Biden, former president Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have told voters to ignore the noise. They are very keen on that because the noise is loud, obnoxious and downright evil.

They want to keep being loud and want to destroy America's ear drums.

The native son of West Virginia was Robert Byrd. He was an iconic civil rights leader and reliable vote in a deeply red state. The late Democratic senator grew up poor. He was the son of Cornelius Calvin Sale and his wife Ada Mae (Kirby). When he was ten months old, his mother died on Armistice Day during the 1918 flu pandemic. Byrd was the youngest of four and in accordance with his mother's wishes, his father dispersed the children among relatives. Calvin Jr. was adopted by his biological father's sister and her husband, Vlurma and Titus Byrd, who changed his name to Robert Carlyle Byrd and raised him in the coal mining region of southern West Virginia, primarily in the coal town of Stotesbury, West Virginia. Robert Byrd's biological father Calvin Sale went on to have four more children with his second wife, Ola (Pruitt) Sale.

Byrd's political career spanned more than sixty years. He first entered the political arena by organizing and leading a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s, an action he later described as "the greatest mistake I ever made." He then served in the West Virginia House of Delegates from 1947 to 1950, and the West Virginia State Senate from 1950 to 1952. Initially elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1952, Byrd served there for six years before being elected to the Senate in 1958. He rose to become one of the Senate's most powerful members, serving as secretary of the Senate Democratic Caucus from 1967 to 1971 and—after defeating his longtime colleague Ted Kennedy for the job—as Senate Majority Whip from 1971 to 1977. Over the next 12 years, Byrd led the Democratic caucus as Senate Majority Leader and Senate Minority Leader. In 1989 he stepped down, following the pressure to make way for new party leadership.

As the longest serving Democratic senator, Byrd held the position of President pro tempore four times when his party was in the majority. This placed him third in the line of presidential succession, after the vice president and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Serving three different tenures as chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations enabled Byrd to steer a great deal of federal money toward projects in West Virginia. Critics derided his efforts as pork barrel spending, while Byrd argued that the many federal projects he worked to bring to West Virginia represented progress for the people of his state. Although he filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and supported the Vietnam War earlier in his career, Byrd's views changed considerably over the course of his life; by the early 2000s, he had completely renounced racism and segregation, and spoken in opposition to the Iraq War. Renowned for his knowledge of Senate precedent and parliamentary procedure, Byrd wrote a four-volume history of the Senate in later life.

Near the end of his life, Byrd was in declining health and was hospitalized several times. He died in office on June 28, 2010, at the age of 92, and was buried at Columbia Gardens Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia.

Republicans seem to use Byrd's Klan past as an excuse to dismiss their racism. 

Washed Up 45 met with Ye and Nick Fuentes. Fuentes is a notorious closeted white extremist who met with the former president in the past and most recently at Mar-a-Lago. He also met with far right extremist lawmakers Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ).

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX), Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) have known ties to white extremists but hey let's talk about the late Byrd.

Then senator Barack Obama greeting Robert Byrd.

Byrd knew he would be judged by his past. He was ashamed of his past. 

Byrd endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in 2008 during Democratic primaries.

Obama spoke of Byrd during his funeral. 

"He was born into wrenching poverty, but educated himself to become an authoritative scholar, respected leader, and unparalleled champion of our Constitution.  He scaled the summit of power, but his mind never strayed from the people of his beloved West Virginia.  He had the courage to stand firm in his principles, but also the courage to change over time."

Biden spoke of Byrd:

"As we used to say in my years in the Senate, if you’ll excuse a point of personal privilege here for a moment, a very close friend of mine, one of my mentors -- a guy who was there when I was a 29-year-old kid being sworn into the United States Senate shortly thereafter; a guy who stood in the rain, in a pouring rain, freezing rain outside a church as I buried my daughter and my wife before I got sworn in, Robert C. Byrd.  He passed away today.  He was the -- we lost the dean of the United States Senate, but also the state of West Virginia lost its most fierce advocate and, as I said, I lost a dear friend.

“Throughout his 51 years, the longest tenure of any member in Congress in the history of the United States, Robert C. Byrd was a tough, compassionate, and outspoken leader and dedicated above all else to making life better for the people of the mountain state -- his state, the state of West Virginia.  He never lost sight of home.  He may have spent half a century in Washington.  But there’s a guy -- if anybody wondered -- he never, never, never, never took his eye of his beloved mountain state.  And we shall not -- to paraphrase the poet -- we shall not see his like again.  And the Senate is a lesser place for his going."

So the noise often pivots to the Democrats are racists because they won't vote for Black conservatives like Herschel Walker. They claim the Congressional Black Caucus will not accept Rep-elect John James (R-MI) and Rep-elect Wesley Hunt (R-TX). They claim that Republicans did far more for Blacks than the Democrats.

Forget that Democrats elected Barack Obama, America's first African American president.

Nevermind, Kamala Harris, America's first woman, first African American and first Asian American vice president.

Byrd did far more for Black America than Washed Up 45 and Republicans. For Republicans it's Blue Lives Matter, eliminate critical race theory, stop transgender girls from playing women sports, equate Jews to Israel, scream radical Islam, call immigrants from the Southern border illegal aliens, call themselves Christian nationalists and end wokeism.

West Virginia is a state that I fear driving through. If it is not Charleston, Wheeling, Huntington, Beckley or Martinsburg, I will not travel those roads. I fear I may end up in a sundown town and may end up never coming back alive.

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