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Civil Rights Act Opponent Rand Paul Delivered A Speech At An Historically Black College Today

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U.S. Senator Rand Paul delivered a speech to students at Howard University, an historically African-American college — which was possibly brave, since the Kentucky Tea Party/Republican Party/Libertarian Party lawmaker is on record as stating he opposed sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Which he today totally denied.

“I’ve never been against the Civil Rights Act, ever.”

“The speech, which included discussion of school choice and mandatory minimum sentencing laws, went over badly at times, like when Paul got former Senator Edward Brooke’s name wrong, and was even interrupted by two protesters holding a sign that said ‘Howard University does not support white supremacy,'” Buzzfeed reports:

Applause was scarce, and there were one or two instances of booing. Questioners in the question-and-answer session pressed Paul on voter I.D. laws and his past stated opposition to the Civil Rights Act, though some showed a kinship with him on other civil liberties issues like drug policy.

Sope Aluko, a sophomore from Maryland, said, “I thought it was really interesting that he was trying to appeal to us.”

“Maybe he didn’t really tell us anything new,” Aluko said, noting that she was “taken aback” when Paul asked the audience if they knew that the NAACP was founded by Republicans (the question was met with a resounding “Yes!”).

Here’s a selection of responses and news reports via Twitter:

[View the story “So, Civil Rights Act Opponent Rand Paul Delivered A Speech At An Historically Black College Today…” on Storify]

So, Civil Rights Act Opponent Rand Paul Delivered A Speech At An Historically Black College Today…

Storified by David Badash· Wed, Apr 10 2013 10:59:41

Unclear why Rand Paul thinks that his assignment today is to teach Howard students about the history of civil rights in America.Ari Melber
At Howard, Rand Paul takes the fateful leap from libertarian to bullshitarian #ideology #camps livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/rand-pau…Josh Marshall
5 ways Rand Paul whitesplained politics at Howard University: thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/…igorvolsky
Sen. Rand Paul speaking today on inclusion in the RNC #HU #picstitch @ Howard University instagram.com/p/X7s3PHLLdg/Alana Jones
@taysasser93 It was definitely an experienceAlana Jones
@BlackCanseco Rand Paul’s speech at Howard did not go, um, well. washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-pol…Kay Whitlock
Howard Students Didn’t Totally Hate Rand Paul bzfd.it/14bWXcYBuzzFeed Politics
Rand Paul: ‘Some in the Evangelical Christian movement I think have appeared too eager for war’ (VIDEO) bit.ly/16N35ptTalking Points Memo
Rand Paul’s Howard speech is the greatest moment in racial transcendance history since Accidental RacistGreg
Rand Paul on Civil Rights – from the horses mouth: maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2010/05/… #p2 #tlotliberalgranny50
“The Democrat promise is tangible and puts food on the table, but too often doesn’t lead to jobs or meaningful success.” Rand PaulAlton Drew
Here’s the transcript to Rand Paul’s speech at Howard today. reason.com/archives/2013/…Mr. Plunge
Rand Paul is not different from other GOPers in that his entire case for blacks voting Republican boils down to Lincoln, Dixiecrats & weed.Joy Reid
Rand Paul OBVIOUSLY thought he was speaking to a crowd of uneducated African Americans. This fool…September’s Very Own
Rand Paul, basically: I was NEVER against the Civil Rights Act. I just think the whole desegregating lunch counters went a bit far.LOLGOP
Thanks to the student activist who confronted Sen. rand Paul today. Thanks HU, GU & GW! @KinlowDC pic.twitter.com/BnWot9zAorDC Vote
Media swarm Rand Paul event at Howard University youtu.be/5KEY-rqJrR0Bruce Majors
This, GOP, is what we call outreach. “In Howard U Speech, Rand Paul Makes Pitch to African-American Community”: nationalreview.com/corner/345214/…Jedediah Bila
@donnabrazile @theGrio No, because what Rand Paul means by “a dialogue” is “I get to tell you where you’re wrong. The end.”Elizabeth Moon
Rand Paul: “My speach today was the same boilerplate bullshit Romney gave to the NAACP, but I’m guessing you won’t notice!”#HowardJ-S Poupart
I didn’t support Rand Paul in his primary, but when he got labeled a “racist” by the fringe, I became a defender, now a fan.Ali A. Akbar
#GOP sends Rand Paul to explain civil rights at #Howard. Next up, Phyllis Schlafly explains women’s lib at #Spellman. Nice #outreach, guys.US Dept. of Irony
Rand Paul says he’s ‘never wavered’ in his support for Civil Rights Act, but … dailykos.com/story/2013/04/… via @dailykosBarbara Morrill
Rand Paul to Howard Students: ‘Big Government Is Not A Friend To African Americans’ fb.me/EjHOLOM4Black Biz Brokers
Rand Paul truly insults Howard University students intelligence, as he disingenuously cherry-picks issues he thinks will help seduce them.SheSheGo
Value of Rand Paul in 2016 race: Forcing Dems to the left on civil liberties.Erik
At Howard University, Rand Paul Falsely Claims He Never Opposed 1964 Civil Rights Act motherjones.com/mojo/2013/04/h… via @motherjonesRonald Lewis
Hypocritical teabagger and liar. Rand Paul: ‘I’ve never been against the Civil Rights Act. Ever.’Justin Gallardo
Rand Paul: GOP faces ‘daunting task’ with black voters on.thegrio.com/ZNb0Nh via @theGrioJacqueline Mc.
Rand Paul clashes with HBCU crowd on.thegrio.com/ZNaYF3 via @theGrio #StandWithRand.Tish
So i’m reading Senator Rand Paul’s Howard University speech. It is wall-to-wall epic fail and falsehoods. reason.com/archives/2013/…Black Canseco
Rand Paul Pitches GOP Version of Minimalist Government to African-Americans: Rand Paul tries to woo black vote… bit.ly/ZFYeawManisha Roy
@TheReidReport just finished watching rand paul speech at howard & found it absurd the way he played on stereotypes of the blacks in americaDAVE FROST
Live tweeting the Rand Paul speech at Howard, @AfricanaCarr totally rules. I’m really impressed by the questions from the audience.Christopher Greer
Rand Paul makes his pitch to African-Americans, arguing ‘GOP is the party of civil rights, voting rights’ – ow.ly/jWbv4National Review
Oh, look! #RandPaul on the Rachel @Maddow show “wavering” in his supports for the Civil Rights Act of 1964: maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2010/05/… #HowardMary
@TheReidReport The students at Howard University are too smart for Rand Paul. He just doesn’t know that.Pat
Rand Paul thinks Howard U students are STUPID, that they DON’T know he’s on record saying businesses shouldn’t HAVE to serve Black people.SheSheGo
Sen. Rand Paul’s remarks at Howard University dlvr.it/3CczRY #tlot #amagi #tcotMercedForFreedom

Image, top, by Alana Jones, via Twitter/Instagram

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News

‘Repercussions’: Democrats and Republicans Stand Against ‘Pro-Putin’ House GOP Faction

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Some House Democrats and House Republicans are coming together toward a common opponent: far-right “pro-Putin” hardliners in the House Republican conference, who appear to be led by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Congresswoman Greene has been threatening to oust the Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Last month she filed a “motion to vacate the chair.” If she chooses to call it up she could force a vote on the House floor to try to remove Speaker Johnson.

House Democrats say they are willing to vote against ousting Johnson, as long as the Speaker puts on the floor desperately needed and long-awaited legislation to fund aid to Ukraine and Israel. Johnson has refused to put the Ukraine aid bill on the floor for months, but after Iran attacked Israel Johnson switched gears. Almost all Democrats and a seemingly large number of Republicans want to pass the Ukraine and Israel aid packages.

RELATED: Marjorie Taylor Greene, ‘Putin’s Envoy’? Democrat’s Bills Mock Republican’s Actions

Forgoing the possibility of installing Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker, which is conceivable given Johnson’s now one-vote majority, Democrats say if Johnson does the right thing, they will throw him their support.

“I think he’ll be in good shape,” to get Democrats to support him, if he puts the Ukraine aid bill on the floor, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) told CNN Thursday. “I would say that there’s a lot of support for the underlying bills. I think those are vital.”

“If these bills were delivered favorably, and the aid was favorably voted upon, and Marjorie Taylor Greene went up there with a motion to remove him, for instance, I think there’s gonna be a lot of Democrats that move to kill that motion,” Congressman Krishnamoorthi said. “They don’t want to see him getting punished for doing the right thing.”

“I think it is a very bad policy of the House to allow one individual such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is an arsonist to this House of Representatives,” U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) told CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane, when asked about intervening to save Johnson. He added he doesn’t want her “to have so much influence.”

U.S. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, one of several Republicans who won their New York districts in 2022, districts that were previously held by Democrats, opposes Greene’s motion to vacate – although he praised the Georgia GOP congresswoman.

CNN’s Manu Raju reports Republicans “say it’s time to marginalize hardliners blocking [their] agenda.”

D’Esposito, speaking to Raju, called for “repercussions for those who completely alienate the will of the conference. The people gave us the majority because they wanted Republicans to govern.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, like D’Esposito is another New York Republican who won a previously Democratic seat in 2022. Lawler spoke out against the co-sponsor of Greene’s motion to vacate, U.S. Rep. Tim Massie (R-KY), along with two other House Republicans who are working to block the Ukraine aid bill via their powerful seats on the Rules Committee.

U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), a former Navy pilot, blasted Congresswoman Greene.

RELATED: ‘They Want Russia to Win So Badly’: GOP Congressman Blasts Far-Right House Republicans

“Time is of the essence” for Ukraine, Rep. Sherrill told CNN Wednesday night. “The least we can do is support our Democratic allies, especially given what we know Putin to do. To watch a report and to think there are people like Marjorie Taylor Greene on the right that are pro-Putin? That are pro-Russia? It is really shocking.”

U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), as NCRM reported Thursday, had denounced Greene.

“I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the Speaker over it,” he said, referring to the Ukraine aid bill Greene and her cohorts want to tank. “I mean that’s a strange position to take.”

The far-right hardliners are also causing chaos in the House.

“Things just got very heated on the House floor,” NBC News’ Julie Tsirkin reported earlier Thursday. “Group of hardliners were trying to pressure Johnson to only put Israel aid on the floor and hold Ukraine aid until the Senate passed HR2.”

HR2 is the House Republicans’ extremist anti-immigrant legislation that has n o chance of passage in the Senate nor would it be signed into law by President Biden.

“Johnson said he couldn’t do it, and [U.S. Rep. Derrick] Van Orden,” a far-right Republican from Wisconsin “called him ‘tubby’ and vowed to bring on the MTV [Motion to Vacate.]”

“No one in the group (Gaetz, Boebert, Burchett, Higgins, Donalds et al.) were threatening Johnson with an MTV,” Tsirkin added. “Van Orden seemed to escalate things dramatically…”

Despite Greene’s pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine positions, her falsehoods about “Ukrainian Nazis,” and Russians not slaughtering Ukrainian clergy, reporters continue to “swarm”:

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Afraid and Intimidated’: Trump Trial Juror Targeted by Fox News Dismissed

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News

‘They Want Russia to Win So Badly’: GOP Congressman Blasts Far-Right House Republicans

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A sitting Republican Congressman is harshly criticizing far-right House Republicans over their apparent support of Russia.

“I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the Speaker over it. I mean that’s a strange position to take,” U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a three-term Texas Republican rated a hard-core conservative told CNN’s Manu Raju, in video posted Thursday. “I think they want to be in the minority too. I think that’s an obvious reality.”

Congressman Crenshaw was referring to the movement led by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), now joined by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), over the Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s decision to finally put legislation on the floor to provide funding to Ukraine to support that sovereign nation in its fight against Russia.

“I’m still trying to process all the b*llsh*t,” Crenshaw added.

Crenshaw on Thursday also commented on Speaker Johnson’s remarks, stating he will hold the Ukraine funding vote regardless of attempts to oust him over it.

“To be clear, he’s being threatened for even allowing a vote to come to the floor. For allowing the constitutional process to play out as intended by our Founders. That’s a wild thing to consider, especially when his enemies consider themselves ‘conservative.’ Not conserving the painstaking constitutional process our Founders created, that’s for sure. Conserving Putin’s gains on the battlefield, more like it.”

Journalist Brian Beutler, a former editor-in-chief at Crooked Media, called it, “darkly funny to me that a pincer movement of MAGAns and leftists mock liberals for claiming the GOP works hand in glove with Russia, and then multiple conservative Republican dissenters are like ‘no it’s true, we’re lousy with Russian influence.'”

Watch Crenshaw’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene, ‘Putin’s Envoy’? Democrat’s Bills Mock Republican’s Actions

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OPINION

Marjorie Taylor Greene, ‘Putin’s Envoy’? Democrat’s Bills Mock Republican’s Actions

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For years U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has been called “Pro-Putin.” As far back as 2021, her first year as a member of Congress, the question had been raised on social media: “Is Marjorie Taylor Greene a Russian asset?

In 2022 The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s FactCheck.org reported: “Marjorie Taylor Greene Parrots Russian Talking Point on Ukraine.”

Back then, as the article highlighted, Greene had said, “there is no doubt that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s actions in Ukraine are despicable and evil.”

Now, she promotes a far more favorable view of President Vladimir Putin and his illegal war against Ukraine, a sovereign nation which the Russian autocrat wants to incorporate – at least partly – into Russia.

Just last week Greene spread demonstrably false pro-Russia talking points about a “war on Christianity” while defending and promoting President Vladimir Putin.

READ MORE: ‘Afraid and Intimidated’: Trump Trial Juror Targeted by Fox News Dismissed

“This is a war on Christianity,” Greene told far-right propagandist Steve Bannon. “The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians, the Ukrainian government is executing priests. Russia is not doing that.”

That’s just plain false, as NCRM reported.

Largely in response to her strong opposition to the U.S. supporting Ukraine, and her spreading Russian disinformation and flat-out pro-Putin falsehoods, Greene’s fondness for Putin and Russia has been making headlines.

“Republicans Who Like Putin,” was the headline last month at The New York Times, which observed: “A few Republicans have gone so far as [to] speak about Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in ways that mimic Russian propaganda. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has accused Ukraine of having ‘a Nazi army,’ echoing language Putin used to justify the invasion.”

“The Putin Republicans Have the Upper Hand” warned Washington Monthly‘s David Atkins on Wednesday, reporting on “conservative extremists led by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

“They admire the strongman as a Christian nationalist leader, and won’t support Ukraine. The global consequences of their besotted love affair with the Russian strongman could be cataclysmic.”

“Russia Is Buying Politicians in Europe. Is It Happening Here Too?” The New Republic‘s Alex Finley wrote last week. The photo at the top of the page? Marjorie Taylor Greene.

READ MORE: ‘Used by the Russians’: Moskowitz Mocks Comer’s Biden Impeachment Failure

Finley pointed to Greene’s interview with Bannon, “about Ukraine’s persecution of Christians, which is a Kremlin talking point aimed at boosting the pro-Moscow wing of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church. The U.S. should be spending money on the border with Mexico, not on Ukraine aid? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Russia invaded Ukraine to defend itself against an expanding NATO? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Call for a cease-fire, and give Russia Crimea and eastern Ukraine? That’s a Kremlin talking point.”

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post last week ran this headline: “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she ‘seriously hates’ people who support sending more aid to Ukraine: ‘Most repulsive, disgusting thing happening’.”

Then there is Greene’s obsession with Nazis. Specifically, equating Ukrainians with Nazis, which she did several times over the past week, including on Wednesday. That earned her the condemnation and wrath of U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who demanded: “Stop bringing up Nazis and Hitler.”

Wednesday night, Congressman Moskowitz, known for his use of humor and sarcasm to make his points, declared: “Just submitted an amendment to Bill drafting appointing MTG [Marjorie Taylor Greene] as Putin’s Special Envoy to the United States Congress.”

Moskowitz’s amendment was in response to Congresswoman Greene’s amendments requiring members to “conscript in the Ukrainian military” if they vote for the Ukraine military funding bill, as Juliegrace Brufke reported.

READ MORE: ‘Big Journalism Fail’: Mainstream Media Blasted Over Coverage of Historic Trump Trial

The Florida Democrat wasn’t joking, as Axios’ Andrew Solender pointed out Thursday morning.

Moskowitz did not stop there.

He drafted legislation on Thursday to name the Capitol Hill offices occupied by Congresswoman Greene after the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, infamous for promoting appeasement in dealing with Adolf Hitler.

Chamberlain also signed the Munich Agreement, which allowed Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia.

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