Political Junky
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- May 27, 2009
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OMG, Ted Cruz praises Jesse Helms. <my comment
The Crazy Ted Cruz-Jesse Helms Connection - The Daily Beast
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz wishes there were 100 more people like the late Helms in todays Senate. Is he kidding?! Jamelle Bouie on why that would mean the destruction of the Republican Party.
First, the details. Yesterday, Cruz delivered a foreign policy address at the conservative Heritage Foundation for the Jesse Helms Lecture Series.
(That this even exists is fitting for an organization thatuntil this yearemployed a scientific racist to write a report on why Congress should reject comprehensive immigration reform, and in particular, an easier to path to residency and citizenship for low-income Latino workers.)
Cruz's speech began with a little trivia about his political history: His first campaign donationat ten years oldwas to Helms. He continued with a declaration: "We need 100 more Jesse Helms in the U.S. Senate."
For the ostensibly freedom-loving Cruz, it's an incredible statement. After all, this is the Jesse Helms who entered public life as a journalist defending Southern apartheid in the 1960s, and who won election to the Senate in 1972 as an opponent of integration, interracial marriage and civil rights laws. In 1980, the year a young Cruz made his donation, Helms pushed an appropriations billco-sponsored by Strom Thurmondthat would have stripped the Justice Department of its ability to enforce busing. Helms won his 1990 reelection campaign with one of the most racist political ads in recent memoryaccusing his African American challenger, then-Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt, of taking jobs from whites to give to blacksand devoted his time to institutionalizing homophobia, with attacks on gays and assaults on AIDS funding. To Helms, LGBT Americans were "weak, morally sick wretches," and AIDS education was "obscene" and "revolting."
Not that this bigotry was an obstacle to his ascendance in the Republican Party.
<more>
The Crazy Ted Cruz-Jesse Helms Connection - The Daily Beast
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz wishes there were 100 more people like the late Helms in todays Senate. Is he kidding?! Jamelle Bouie on why that would mean the destruction of the Republican Party.
First, the details. Yesterday, Cruz delivered a foreign policy address at the conservative Heritage Foundation for the Jesse Helms Lecture Series.
(That this even exists is fitting for an organization thatuntil this yearemployed a scientific racist to write a report on why Congress should reject comprehensive immigration reform, and in particular, an easier to path to residency and citizenship for low-income Latino workers.)
Cruz's speech began with a little trivia about his political history: His first campaign donationat ten years oldwas to Helms. He continued with a declaration: "We need 100 more Jesse Helms in the U.S. Senate."
For the ostensibly freedom-loving Cruz, it's an incredible statement. After all, this is the Jesse Helms who entered public life as a journalist defending Southern apartheid in the 1960s, and who won election to the Senate in 1972 as an opponent of integration, interracial marriage and civil rights laws. In 1980, the year a young Cruz made his donation, Helms pushed an appropriations billco-sponsored by Strom Thurmondthat would have stripped the Justice Department of its ability to enforce busing. Helms won his 1990 reelection campaign with one of the most racist political ads in recent memoryaccusing his African American challenger, then-Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt, of taking jobs from whites to give to blacksand devoted his time to institutionalizing homophobia, with attacks on gays and assaults on AIDS funding. To Helms, LGBT Americans were "weak, morally sick wretches," and AIDS education was "obscene" and "revolting."
Not that this bigotry was an obstacle to his ascendance in the Republican Party.
<more>
