Media Matters has tracked Howie Carr’s racism towards immigrants, Muslims and Native Americans, Now he’s attacking President Obama for being black:
HOWIE CARR (HOST): That’s the worst thing about this administration. They’ve taken — it took 230 years to make this the greatest country, the greatest society in human history, and they are trying to unravel it and destroy it for — I don’t know why. I still don’t know why. What is — this country handed everything to Barack Obama. He didn’t have to work for anything. Just because of the color of his skin he was given everything. And he still hates the country.
Click here to listen to the audio. So let’s break it down, according to Carr:
- Hundreds of years of slavery
- 100 years of legalized, institutionalized discrimination
- ???
- BLACK PEOPLE GIVEN EVERYTHING
Makes total sense!
Despite this regular, overt racism, Carr remains employed by both WRKO radio and the Boston Herald. Clearly, selling hate to a small but hardcore group of Massachusetts alt-right white nationalists remains a profitable business.
But you have to wonder how long Massachusetts Republicans will sit around and let this guy be their loudest statewide voice outside Charlie Baker. And yes, just mentioning Howie Carr in the same breath as Charlie Baker should be offensive to sensible Republicans.
Every time Massachusetts Republicans lose elections, we hear how it’s the fault of those mean Democrats for rigging the elections. It couldn’t have been Republicans’ fault for refusing to repudiate hateful racists in a diverse, progressive state!
So, some unsolicited advice for Massachusetts Republicans – if you want to be a statewide party in the 21st century, calling for Howie Carr’s firing would be a good start.
Those were center right voices you could respectfully disagree with. Dad and I listened to those two all the time. Brudnoy’s erudite libertarian bent and Sullivan’s blue collar populist bent were an interesting combo. Dan Rea is similar to Paul and is even handed with his guests.
Dad and I used to listen to Howie back in the 90’s. He used to have interesting guests and segments devoted to making fun of local politicians that were more lighthearted. He was always a homophobe (albeit one with “plenty of gay friends”) and hardcore conservative, but he wasn’t as openly hateful as Rush until the 2000’s. Then it was non-stop immigrant bashing and race baiting. It’s really a shame, but there is still a strong Archie Bunker constituency in this state as evidenced by his ratings (albeit consistently declining) and the Trump vote in our primary which exceeded any other states.
I fear your final phrase is simply incorrect.
My understanding of the 2016 GOP Primary Results is that Mr. Trump’s percentage of the primary vote in Massachusetts (49.1%) was exceeded by seventeen other states. At the top of that list is New Jersey at 79.61%. The others in the top ten are (in decreasing order) West Virginia, California, Washington, Montana, N. Mariana Islands, New Mexico, South Dakota, Oregon, and Rhode Island.
Massachusetts is similarly in the middle of the pack by vote total, with California at the top of the list at 1,665,135. Donald Trump collected 312,425 votes in Massachusetts.
I further note that Hillary Clinton got 606,822 votes in Massachusetts, nearly twice the vote total of Mr. Trump. Bernie Sanders collected 589,803 votes in MA, still well ahead of Mr. Trump.
Even more instructive is Mr. Trump’s share of total Massachusetts primary votes, compared with Ms. Clinton and Mr. Sanders.
Total Massachusetts primary votes: 1,215,970 (Dem) + 636,263 (GOP) = 1,852,233
Hillary Clinton share: 32.76%
Bernie Sanders share: 31,84%
Donald Trump share: 16.87%
Mr. Trump was not nearly as strong as you suggest in Massachusetts, by pretty much any measure.
Your understanding of the primary results is simply incomplete. And your quibble ignores time and timing of the primaries (which, of course, were not all held on one day or with Kasich, Cruz and Rubio).
Accounting for time, the 49% Trump got in Massachusetts still stands out pretty dramatically as the highest percentage total of any state in February, March, and until April 19th. On the 19th, with Rubio now out of the race, Trump won over 50% for the first time in his home state of New York, neighboring Connecticut, and corporate tax haven Delaware. With the race now turned in his favor, he went on to win over 50% of the vote in the final 13 primaries. Every state with higher vote percentages for Trump occurred *after* the MA primary and when the primary contest was much less competitive.
For an early state, Trump was exceedingly strong in Massachusetts. Sadly.
Massachusetts batters had the highest batting average against left handed pitchers with blond hair during the sixth inning of games held on cloudy Tuesdays during the month of June and between the hours of 1 and 3 PM.
The more qualifications you pile on a statistic, the more dubious it becomes.
In Mass, 100 people voted, 98 in the Democratic primary, and 2 in the GOP, one of which voted for Trump. Eeek! he got 50%! What a high percentage!
I added only a single qualification. Time.
I would happily make the change.
. . would make an interesting story.
when the person you are talking to about political issues is a Howie Carr listener. They seem to all have the same talking points.
Aside from the nauseating racism of Mr. Carr’s rant, the entire basis of his complaint about Iran is incorrect.
The Iran deal delayed rather than accelerated Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Nothing short of full-scale invasion and occupation would have been more effective.
Mr. Carr, like so many other GOP commentators, politicians, and media pundits, simply panders to the ignorance and bias of his audience. Those who are familiar with the facts recognize his distortions.
Mr. Carr epitomizes today’s Massachusetts GOP. He illustrates why the party is, for all intents and purposes, dead.
Right wing foreign policy hands in the 50/60’s failed to anticipate the Sino/Soviet split, and incorrectly viewed these two regional rivals as ideological allies. The neocons made the same mistake lumping in Iran with the “Axis of Evil”, failing to understand the Sunni/Shia split.
Iran would’ve made a great ally against Al Qaeda and the Taliban and actually offered military and intelligence assistance that the Bush administration rejected. There was a brief window when the top Revolutionary Guard commander and our top CIA chief in Afghanistan met to discuss an operation to topple Mullah Omar, install moderate Taliban Chiefs loyal to Tehran, and negotiate a transfer of bin Laden to US custody. The Northern Alliance, our proxy in the opening phases of the American Afghan War was logistically backed by the IRG and even jointly supplied.
Once we toppled Saddam in Iraq we did two things:
1) Create the Iranian nuclear program
There wasn’t one prior to the Iraq War. They knew better than any other country on Earth, other than Israel which people forget also opposed our invasion, that Iraq had no nuclear weapons or capabilities and had exhausted its supply of chemical and biological weapons. By pre-emotively invading Iraq we have the Iranian hardliners an excuse to start a nuclear program, roll back Khatani’s reforms, and arm themselves to deter a US invasion.
2) Create an Iranian puppet state in Iraq and a regional rival to Saudi Arabia
Iran and Saudi Arabia had poor diplomatic relations before the Iraq War, but after Iran essentially won American backing for its Shia led puppet government in Iraq, they know had a beachhead next to Saudi Arabia while also having a Mediterrenan port for its navy in the form of Tarsus in Syria.
ISIS is Sunni led and bitterly opposed by Iran. Our incompetence also drove Iran into the hands of Russia, which they were historically antagonistic toward.
Now they sponsor terror abroad and are a autocratic regime at home, no doubt about it, but the Green Revolution and the election of Rouhani show that it’s people want engagement with the West and integration into the global economy. This deal helps move that forward and opens up the possibility of further cooperation against mutual enemies like ISIL and Al Qaeda. Iran will be the key, not Russia, to telling Assad to step down and forming an anti ISIL coalition government of Baathist and opposition forces.
China and Russia start joint war games
In spite of tense regional debate over the South China Sea, the two countries are set to conduct joint drills. Moscow and Beijing have enjoyed increasingly close military cooperation in recent years.
China and Russia began eight days of joint naval exercises on Monday as the two nations moved to strengthen military cooperation. While China has maintained that the maneuvers do not target any specific third parties, their South China Sea setting has drawn criticism given the fierce territorial disputes in the region.
The “Joint Sea-2016” war games aim to “consolidate and advance the Sino-Russian comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, and deepen friendly and practical cooperation between the two militaries,” said Liang Yang, a spokesman for the Chinese navy.
Russia media said that 18 ships, including submarines and amphibious vehicles, as well as 21 aircraft and 250 military personnel from both sides would be participating in the exercise.
China balks at Hague ruling
United in their wariness of the US and its allies, joint drills between Beijing and Moscow have become more frequent in the past four years. After a recent ruling by an arbitration panel in the Hague rejected China’s claim to nearly the whole South China Sea, Russia was also the only major country to back China in calling for Western countries to stay out of regional disagreements.
Beijing said the ruling was “null and void” and announced its intention to continue land-reclamation projects in the disputed Spratly archipelago, parts of which are also claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam. Trade in the contentious corridor is worth some $5 trillion a year.
The US has accused China of promoting instability in the region. While on a visit there last month, Admiral Scott Swift said “there are other places those exercises could have been conducted,” and implied that Beijing was being deliberately provocative.
I was using it as an analogy. Basically, the conservative foreign policy establishment led by the Dulles Brothers, the “free” China lobby, and folks like Herman Kahn over at RAND overestimated the degree of collaboration and collusion between ‘Red’ China and ‘Red’ Russia. A mistake that severely affected American judgment, particularly in Southeast Asia. But the Pentagon and Langley were totally caught off guard when the Border War started. Brezhnev even asked for American assistance in destroying Chinese nuclear facilities.
In a similar way, the neoconservative foreign policy establishment saw an ‘Axis of Evil’ between Iran and Iraq that was non-existent, when in fact, Iran had a decidedly anti-Al Qaeda and anti-Taliban posture before 9/11 and had even tried engaging us in joint operations and intelligence sharing after the attacks. They didn’t anticipate the Sunni/Shia split and look at all Muslims and Islamic states as a monolith when they are actually quite different.
The average Trump voter or Carr listener probably thinks the Islamic Republic and the Islamic State are the same beast, when in reality, they are actively fighting one another in open warfare. It’s critical that the Iran deal is viewed separately from the war against ISIL, and too many Americans think they are the same thing when they are totally different and actually antagonistic toward one another.
Don’t you know that if we just kick ass a little harder all them A-rabs will be begging Mr. Trump for mercy. The only thing we have to fear is lib’rul wusses. They won’t let us win. ‘Cuz Obama’s a Moos-lum. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
It goes back to why I want to be a teacher. Civics AND IR 101 need to be taught. So many voters are ignorant of foreign policy and how it works. Not sure how we correct it on a wide enough scale.
So is it time to limit voting to those who have passed a competency test on the workings of the government?
Both sides of the aisle believe the other is sustained by “low information” voters. I tend to agree. Most people I talk to have little understanding of how the house starts a bill, it goes to the senate and the executive approves. Foreign policy is even less understood. I would entrust decisions about our “republic” more easily to recent legal immigrants who have had to study to become citizens and pass a test than to those who just happen to have been born here. We arbitrarily exclude by age now (many 15 year old kids are politically aware), you have to pass a test to drive, why not to vote?
…that those of us who are natural born should be held to at least the standards of the naturalized. If we required the exact same test that is probably as objective as you can get. However, I think the hesitation would come from reminding people of the nefarious “literacy” tests used to screen out voters.
suggests that your ignorance of American history disqualifies you from your own test.
I plan on using the last month after they passed the AP test and before school is dismissed to teach a crash civics course and see how many students pass the test. Maybe make it a graduation requirement. We definitely shouldn’t make it a requirement to vote, but the number of middle class adults I encountered this summer who couldn’t name their state rep, didn’t know about the Sept 8 primary, and weren’t even sure if they were registered was staggering.
there is a dangerous cancer of racism that has infected Dumbf’s Republican Party that must be cut out and discarded into the dustbin of history if the party of Lincoln is ever to be respected again in our lifetime.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
The good news is none of them can pretend they aren’t racist now, its overt with the dog whistle thrown out and replaced by honest to goodness bigotry. The bad news is, they don’t seem to be suffering any electoral consequences and it appears they may even be rewarded by their base for it. Awful.
Agreed that it’s awful.
In fact, it’s deplorable. Just saying. 🙂
is your habit of calling anyone who disagrees with you a racist, homphobe, misogynist, etc.)))))) Just sayin’.
Mr. Carr said, on-air, and quoted in the thread-starter:
Perhaps you have a way to characterize this as anything but racist. In my view, it is transparently racist on its face. It is an explicit reference to “the color of [Barack Obama’s] skin. It explicitly asserts that because of that color, Mr. Obama was “given everything”.
Your comment is directed at me personally and I reject it. I call individuals and groups of individuals who are racist, homophobic, and mysogynist what they are. I made a light-hearted reference to Ms. Clinton’s commentary. She explicitly said “half”, not all. In my world, the KKK is racist. Perhaps you reject that characterization — I think that is your issue, not mine.
If I meant “anybody”, I would write “anybody”. I did not and do not. Please cite any comment of mine — even one — from where you draw your false insinuation. I don’t do that, and I think you know that I don’t.
Please stop misquoting me.
MAYA ANGELOU
Or, in other words, if it walks like a racist and talks like a racist, ITS A RACIST !!!!!!!!!!
Dahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Fred Rich LaRiccia