Rep. Tom Tancredo has been under fire from The Southern Poverty Law Center for speaking at a gathering that critics have called a “hate group.”
Tancredo’s office today told the Rocky Mountain News that the group Tancredo addressed was not a hate group, though Tancredo did join in the singing of the Southern anthem Dixie.
According to Tancredo’s office, however, the gathering was organized and sponsored by Americans Have Had Enough Coalition, which backs Tancredo’s anti-illegal immigration stand and traditional conservative causes. Tancredo’s longtime aide, Jacque Ponder, is on its board.
The League of the South, which adamantly disputes the “hate group” label, promotes Southern heritage and sometimes describes its views on issues such as immigration in racial or “ethnocentric” terms…
…[Tancredo spokesman Carlos] Espinosa, however, said Tancredo was aware that the audience included members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and Civil War re-enactors in Southern garb. When they began singing Dixie, Tancredo joined in, Espinosa said.
“These aren’t racist people who spew out hate. These are just people remembering and cherishing their past,” Espinosa said. “Tom thought it would be rude not to take part.”
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And I am not thrilled with a US Congressman that cannot perform the following simple internet tasks:
Call up google search (first toughie):
Click on the first link – the home page for the League of the South;
Go halfway down the left banner to “Sign the petitions”:;
Click on “States Rishts, Succession and big government”:
Read:
Nobody here but is nice guys.
I’ll move back to Arkansas and away from all the yuppies around here.
Wow! Xmas has come early this year! 😀
that you, my liberal friend, are in fact a yuppie?
Tell me it ain’t so………..
With a screen name like Druid I pictured you to be a long hair Grateful Dead fan………..
You would have no trouble finding me a a Phish show (alas they tour no more) or a Rainbow gathering. ;-D The only difference is that I would be wearing white robes while brandishing a gold sickle!
Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out…..and take Dubya with you!
if we are going to start a new Confederate States we will leave your mess to y’all.
Just don’t come down below the Mason-Dixon line in the middle of January, when the upper section of the country is frozen solid (global warming ya know), for your winter vacation.
liberals.
Their compassion for their fellow man.
Except for when their fellow man disagrees with their lefty “give the world away” views. Then it’s “throw them to the wolves”.
Nice
I bet your folks are proud
Lame talking point. I’ve shot this one down before, I can do it again. Since when is being an ignoramous (aka wingnut) cause for compassion?
But we are compassionate, Gecko. We try to show you the light and yet you spurn us time and time again. What can we do? If you insist the world is flat then your perception truly is reality.
Take this as a ribbing, Gecko, not a slam. When you’ve got your spirits up you’re one of my favorite posters.
Guess you’ve never spent a winter in Virginia – damn cold for a few months. But the summers, sweltering muggy heat. No thanks.
http://politicalhumo…
doncha think?
I wonder if whomever wrote that has the courage to go down south, set up an outside pavilion, and say that same stuff over a loud speaker?
I don’t think so………….
I have changed over the years. I remember taking a road trip when I was 16 from near Chicago to Chatanooga Tenn. for a weekend………I drove through the countryside in my old convertible with Neil Young blasting: ‘Southern Man’.
Now I wish I was one.
This is from Political Humor…meaning it’s just humor.
Ive changed over the years as well, and I grew up in the south. Unlike Chicago, I know what it’s like to see a Confederate flag waving on someone’s doorstep.
I know what it feels like to live in a town with bigots and racists. When kids think being racists is just “funny,” but when they are older, they believe the rhetoric and they do things such as drag a man down the street tied to the back of a car because of the color of his skin.
I dont find those type of southern values, something to be missed.
Wait a second…isnt arkansas where Bill Clinton is from? And isnt that where his Presidential Library is located. Gecko, my friend, I would hate for you to be enjoying a nice afternoon on your porch drinking lemonade with your wife, to all of a sudden have Bill Clinton walk by. The morals he corrupts by just looking at people could be devastating to your marriage. I mean, you would have to lock her away as you said you are going to have to when he comes to denver. I dont know Gecko, it might not be such a good idea.
down there guns are not optional, they’re mandatory. So no prob.
But at the same time I lived in Hot Springs, Slick Willy’s boyhood home.
He is not welcome there.
In fact I never met a person there that liked the adulterer. (Even though people from Arkansas are made fun of…you know the inbred thing……)
I dont understand how your first five statements have anything to do with your last, parenthetic one. But hey man, you are from there, so I guess you know the local, uh, dating scene?
there. I lived there for awhile though.
I had to move my family there to care for my dad as he was in a coma for a year and a half from crashing his Harley. My mom dies from cancer so he was alone.
I am originally from Illinois. A shit hole of a state.
I do love the south though. The people are the most friendly of anywhere I have been.
The only draw back is the humidity.
Oh, the inbred thing was poking fun at the south. I do have a sense of humor ya know.
Illinois is also my home state, good ole Naperville. We moved when I was 2 and I have never been back except to O’hare which I grant you is a shit hole.
I gotcha on the inbred thing. I love really dry humor, and it never seems to come across the same in writing as it does the spoken word.
I will grant you that a large portion of southerners are really friendly, in a sort of lazy time way (not meant to be derogatory, the ones I met never seem to be in a rush no matter what the circumstances). The humidity is ridiculous. I sweat enough in dry weather, humidity I am swimming in my clothes. There are portions of the “deep south” that cling to the “old times” like the song “Dixie,” that will never sit right with me though.
All kidding aside, I am sorry about your dad, that must have been tough. Your mom too for that matter.
it was tough. My wife had to sell her medical billing business and I had to quit my job of almost 20 years as his million dollar Blue Cross policy ran out and he was still in a coma.
So my wife became his in home wet nurse.
A nasty job but she stepped up and did it.
Until pnemonia set in and he died. Never did come out of the coma. Then we moved back here.
Bad thoughts…….change the subject.
You will find as many here that I like to stir the pot. Sometimes too much and someone else, or myself ends up getting pissed off.
So don’t take everything I say as my gospel, so to speak.
Good argueing with you all……..
Gecko
I love and hate this site. I have been up straight for about 40 hours trying to finish my studies and I STILL cant get away. Damn you, coloradopols!! Of course being out of state I dont get to see all the juicy bits unfold, and dont have the up-to-date insight that you guys do, but I will be damned, if I dont enjoy arguing.
Maybe Gecko and Bubba Bill are twins separated at birth. Like Danny DeVito and Ahhhhnold Schwartznegger.
Now, that’s some good spin!
“[…] promotes Southern heritage” – you mean, like its stated goal of dividing this nation in two again? And “describes its views on issues in racial or ‘ethnocentric’ terms” like promoting its view of the new Confederacy as being based on European stock?
“These aren’t racist people who spew out hate,” Mr. Espinosa? You mean that, having been handed a copy of the CCC’s newsletter and being told just who they are, Mad Tom still believes these people are just “remembering and cherishing their past”? What – lovin’ the lynchings and the cross-burnings?
Tancredo is a racist, seeking out the support of racists and people bent on the dissolution of our country all so that he can stroke his ego in 2008 by running for President. He doesn’t care about his promises to the voters of his district; he doesn’t care about representing his district at all. It’s all about Tom (and his friends, who are far more bent on destroying this country than ever the most liberal Democrat could dream of…)
http://www.splcenter…
That’s a link to the SPL’s full rundown on the group. It interestingly combines psuedo-academic origins (a couple of PhDs sit on the board), racist theories, the usual bullshit emphasis on ‘Southern Heritage’ and distinction, close ties to more openly racist hate groups, and hardcore conservative values all in one ugly package. The biggest threat with these types of organizations aren’t the easily identifiable hate groups that everybody knows, but rather these more subtley organized and presented groups. Snakes in the grass . . . as the article demonstrates, they’re already trying to extend their influence into politics. Groups like this are a major problem in Europe, and what’s worse, they form political parties and actually win an alarming number of seats.
Anybody that buys into the “Traditional Heritage” and historical society crap is just reading what they want to, and Tancredo knows full well what these guys are all about. He’s playing to his base and amping up his national profile. TT is probably dumb enough to think that his extremist agenda actually plays to a broad enough audience that he can attain higher office than his current station, but idiotic moves like addressing the LOS will fortunately prevent this from ever happening.
Please send Bill Winter money . . .
When the Rocky link in the story is clicked, very little of the text quoted seems to be part of the News article. Specifically, this is mising,
I don’t see a time stamp on the Rocky’s page – did anyone else see the quotes at the source page?
If they’re racist crackers, they should at least have the balls to come out and say they’re racist crackers. Otherwise they’re just fat old dumb southern white blubbering, non-sentient male CRACKERS, sittin’ round the campfire telling macaca jokes, pining for way back when.
No, they’re not racist. They just want to secede from the USA. I wonder what happens after that. Oh, they get to make their own laws again. Wonder what the first law promulgated will be. Hmmm.
Boy, ol’ jeeter had his thinkin’ cap on good when he dreamed that whole succession thing up. For Christ sakes, its 2006 ! What a complete festival of ignorance.
If you can’t beat him, smear him.
Makes you look worse than he does.
Either way – do you want him representing Colorado?
Here’s hoping Winter can get a LOT of mileage out of this.
– dave
but I do know that he is a draft dodger. And ironically he had to go to Boulder – Boulder of all places, to a Boulder psychiatrist to get himself declared mentally incompetent to serve when his draft number came up.
I dont even know what to say. It’s like your goal is to go around pissing people off. Keep on spouting off your empty rhetoric. It just means I have to hit “page down” one more time than I originally have had to.
But most reasonable people won’t hesitate to call him an idiot. That goes for many of the Republicans I know as well. Guys like Tancredo annoy the hell out of the rank and file.
do you know? 1 or 2?
Tancredo is very popular with people who believe in securing our borders and enforcing our laws.
Not all Repubs and few Dems believe in either secure borders or law enforcement, apparently.
Why does this site have so many uninformed negative comments about Tancredo?
Any ideas?
I don’t know about uninformed, but the reason so many people have negative things to say about Tom Tancredo is that there’s very little positive to say. We’re supposed to return to thinking he’s fine and dandy… how many months after he suggested we should carpet-bomb Mecca? And now his participation in a hate group is not helping.
Just a quick tip: maintaining credibility requires occasionally hopping off the party-line bandwagon and showing some actual thought.
I’m from Alaska – totally red state. And, I went to one of the most conservative universities in the country – I know a veritable shitload of Republicans, and we talk about politics often.
Tancredo is not well liked by many I know. He’s an extremist and spouts trumped rhetoric primarily about one issue rather than strives to work as an effective politician. He’s making money and gaining attention from the this immigration angle, and he pretty much ignores his other duties as an elected official in order to focus all his energy on his cause – or shall I say meal ticket. No immigration crusading and Tancredo is just another far-right yahoo that thinks his religion should get written into federal legislation.
Combine that with idiotic statements about “bombing Mecca,” meeting with groups like the LOS, the weak efforts for his district, and his blatantly empty promises about term limits, and you’ve got the kind of politician that nobody needs. If you’re too blindly partisan to see that the guy is a grade 4A jackass, that’s fine, but I know plenty of conservatives that are embarassed by Tom Tancredo. They support integrity and skillful leadership above partisan principles, for the most part, and Tancredo has neither of those qualities.
Don’t really understand what your comment was supposed to mean; unless what you are saying it is racist to call a racist a racist. That would be faulty logic.
whenever and as often as they can.
To me it’s racist to play the race card, which is why a lot of Lefties look racist to me.
The race card sometimes appears to be the only card they have, and they don’t play their cards very well.
I guess I’ll just sit down on the porch with Uncle Tom and STFU, then.
If it quacks like a duck…: Tom Tancredo appeals to and associates with racists on a regular basis. He repeatedly claims he doesn’t know a thing about it, yet he accepts their invitations all the time. Bull. From “bomb Mecca” to “the invasion of the Mexicans” to buddy-buddying with the LOS and CCC, Tancredo shows nothing but the carefully-disguised signs of bigotry. Quack.
Racism doesn’t go away because polite people fail to talk about it. It doesn’t fade into the background when people who really want to be “colorblind” turn the other cheek. So don’t give me that “Lefties look racist” crap; NOT talking about racism is nigh-on criminal, IMHO.
I don’t think you will find many agreeing with your argument that the race card is the only one to play with Tancredo. There is a full deck to choose from, even if he dosen’t have one, according to his Boulder psychologist.
And, yes we have all heard the old saw that if we don’t agree with the clumsiest newfangled Republican strategy (if there is indeed one) to enforce our borders and keep our country safe we are just unpatriotic liberals. That dog won’t hunt anymore. People actually want this thing called accountabililty (you know, where all the money goes and if the plan actually works).
I just want to make the quick comment that two important republican incumbents have already gotten in trouble this year (Senator Allen and Congressman Tancredo) for making what could be derived as racist comments. How many democrats have gotten in trouble for similar statements? Many republicans are not racist, but it reflects badly on the party that is traditionally labeled as racist to make such insensitive comments.
Well, you could start with former Ambassador Andrew Young, former D-GA.
And Harry Reid sticks his feet in his mouth every day.
And John Murtha’s for the insurgents. Seems like you have plenty of bumbling idiots in the Dem party, just as many as in the GOP.
I’m unaffiliated and I don’t care who gets foot in mouth disease.
When I criticize the Dems, I’m partisan and cynical. When I blast the Repubs, nobody says anything.
Imagine that!
I know you criticize the right wingers and/or some of their ideas from time to time and trust that you’re on the level when you do. Why don’t they respond? My guess is knee-jerk pulling together. Republicans are known for closing rank and showing just one face to the world, which is part of why the wingnut vs RINO thing is fascinating to me. You’ve probably said enough that they agree with (your thing with Murtha is straight out of wingnut radio, absolutely devoid of logic) so they still view you as one of their own.
Your comment about John Murtha ‘being for the insurgents’ is just plain wrong, and I take serious exception to it. Murtha’s policy position on Iraq is based on what he believes is in the best interests of this country and the men and women in uniform that he reveres.
Us Demeecrats are rooting for the terrists, Murtha best bud is Osama Bin Ladin (actually they are planning on a Gay Marriage ceremony) and we want kill every child before they exit their womb!
_______________
“When I criticize the Dems, I’m partisan and cynical. When I blast the Repubs, nobody says anything. Imagine that!”
Well for my part I can say that I do not care for the current Republican leadership, not the issues they say are important. So why would I say anything when you rip on Repubs?
If Bill Winter had a real campaign he could use this issue effectively. It’ll be in the news for one day and everyone will have forgotten by election day.
Winter has no money, no volunteers, no organization, no support and no hope of winning. The only reason Tancredo even had time to be off singing Dixie is because Winter’s campaign poses no threat at all
Bill has a real campaign, and I know a few people that have spent a lot of time working for it that would disagree with the no volunteers comment. He has the support of many private citizens and many of Colorado’s Democratic officials, and his fellow candidates as well. He’s been incredibly successful in gaining support from the online networks. I think it’s a pretty rough shot to suggest his campaign is a total zero. Doesn’t mean you’re wrong in calling it a long shot, but give the people that have been working their butts off to help Bill some credit.
The fact is, Bill is running against a well-seated Republican incumbent with a heavy advantage in his district and plenty of money. He’d be a tough nut to crack for any candidate, and he’s been especially high profile this year. Tancredo has a strong base of support that really buy into all his rhetoric, and those people are a serious force at the ballot box.
Give Winter a little more credit, he’s taking on a brutal task over there.
I can’t stand Tancredo, I live in his district, and I have given major money and time support to Bill Winter (and Joanna Conti in ’04). I realize that it’s probably tilting at windmills – that unless Tancredo is caught “with a dead girl or a live boy,” as the old saying goes, he’s probably a shoo-in for re-election.
But that doesn’t mean you don’t fight the good fight! People thought Tom DeLay was bulletproof too – the b*stard. He finally got his.
Bill Winter has more integrity in his little finger than Tom Tancredo has in his whole body. He has lots of avid supporters and contributors. Trolls who say, in effect, “Nyah nyah, you’re losers, my candidate has more money than yours” are, quite literally, the types of people who say “might makes right.”
So yes, viewed realistically, Winter has an uphill struggle, as does any Dem in the 6th CD, but that doesn’t mean we give up. My dog would make a better, more intelligent and more principled Congressman than Tom Tancredo. (Although not quite as loud.)
And I dont think she will forget as I will remind her everyday until the polls. You always come on here late at night and post how Winter is failing. Lucky for you I am like poo bear from “The Salton Sea” Or Christian Bale’s character in “the machinist,” I never sleep. You are one of two types of people. Either you are an ardent Tancredo supporter who comes on here every so often to poo-poo on Winter. Or you are a Winter defeatist who is going to vote for him, but regret the fact that you are doing it. Or, and I am reaching here, you have no impact on the race at all, in that you dont live in CD-6 or just refuse to vote and are willing to have another two years of Tom Tancredo. Either way, thank you for your valuable contributions to the discussion concerning Bill Winter.
Now I feel dumb for bothering to address that guy. I didn’t realize that he just trolled on the board and ripped on Winter all the time. Probably just another Tancredo supporter that knows better than to post the usual “Tom Tancredo is an American hero” gibberish.
Oh yeah! Well Tancredo Tom is a do do head!
There are lots of questions left unanswered by Tancredo’s denials. Go to http://tancredowatch… to get the full rundown. But just a few:
1. According to the conservative website Rightwingnews.com, it wasn’t just “Americans Have Had Enough” but also the Sons of Confederate Veterans who were officially sponsoring Tancredo’s speech.
2. Judging from press reports, no one has denied that Tancredo was speaking from a podium draped with a Confederate battle flag: the banner of American slavery. The official story was that this was just a coincidence because the speech took place in a rented room at a museum that happens to include Confederate relics. However, the museum website shows pictures of its rental rooms and all of them have neutral decor. (Plus, what place in its right mind would really have a permanently installed Confederate battle flag on its podium in a room for rent to the public?)
3. There’s been no explanation of the remarkable claim by Gordon McCoy, a director of Americans Have Had Enough, that Tancredo had “no connection” with AHHE. As Colorado Media Matters noted, Peter Boyles – Tancredo’s radio groupie – repeated this claim on air. But the website of AHHE says that Tancredo is its honorary chairperson! What gives?
4. It appears undisputed that even if the League of the South wasn’t sponsoring the event, there were approximately 25 out of 200 participants who were League members – they call themselves “Redshirts”! (Brownshirts are so 1940s, dont ya know.) And that there were participants in Confederate uniforms. And that “Dixie” was sung at the conclusion of Tancredo’s speech. Obviously these racists were really receptive to Tancredo’s message with its loaded catch-phrases of “radical multiculturalism” and Mexicans viewed as “barbarians at the gate”.
5. It also appears undisputed that Tancredo willingly walked up to that Confederate-battle-flag-draped podium and gave his speech to all those Confederate-uniform-wearing supporters without changing his usual stump speech – in other words, without even bothering to say “look, if you’re a racist don’t support me – I don’t want your support.”
Tancredo gets lots and lots of support from nutcases like this: League of the South, the National Vanguard, and other neo-Nazi and neo-KKK groups. There’s something about what he says that they just lap up.
… in singing “Dixie”?
Would he have joined in if “Deutschland Uber Alles” had broken out?
What a nimrod.