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CA-04: Grand Dragons For McClintock

by: David Dayen

Fri Oct 10, 2008 at 13:00:00 PM PDT


Perennial candidate Tom McClintock is a beloved figure on the far right.  We just didn't know how far.

It turns out that in 2003, when McClintock was running for his eleventy-teenth political office in the California governor recall election, he was endorsed by none other than the KKK.

Dateline: September 27, 2003

Ku Klux Klan Announces support for Tom McClintock

The Imperial Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (IKA) have announced their full support for Tom
McClintock's bid for the governorship of California. Their support is announced in what they term "the
lesser of all evil candidates."

When interviewed, Mr. Chris Johnson (Grand Dragon or State Director of the IKA's California chapter) had this to say regarding the announcement, "While Mr. McClintock is not the perfect candidate for California Governor, we have more in common with his ideology than any of the other candidates. We are in congruence with his stand on illegal aliens infecting our land and his courage in standing up to the invasion." Mr. Johnson went on to say that, "Mr. McClintock echoes our anti-abortion stand, and our opposition to oppressive taxation."

I guess the McClintock campaign can spin this by saying that at least the KKK called him evil, even if he was the lesser of all the rest?

Here's the thing: organizations can choose to endorse anybody they want, and the candidates have no control over that.  But McClintock never said a peep five years ago when he got this endorsement.  And there's a Chris Johnson on McClintock's donor list from that 2003 gubernatorial race.  Chris Johnson is obviously a common name, and the donation is $100, so take it with a grain of salt.  But certainly, McClintock needs to answer the question of why he never rejected the endorsement and why they never sought out and returned money that would even have the appearance of coming from the Klan.

More to the point, McClintock is just the kind of guy to demonize an opponent's associations.  In fact, when running for governor in 2003, McClintock compared then-Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante's association with the Hispanic student group MEChA to, you guessed it, the KKK.

State Sen. Tom McClintock, a conservative Republican rival, recently likened the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, also known as MEChA, to the Ku Klux Klan.

"It's like saying, 'Oh, I was a moderate member of the Klan,'" McClintock said last month on the San Diego radio station KOGO. "It's incumbent on Cruz Bustamante to clearly and completely renounce ...

The idea that the KKK finds ideological kinship with McClintock is pretty much a no-brainer.  His demonization of illegal immigrants as the cause of so much of the nation's economic woes plays to the baser instincts of the racist right.  He's running a campaign against Charlie Brown that has recently seized on Brown's appearance at an anti-war rally before the invasion of Iraq as somehow un-American.  It's really not too much of a logical leap here.

Stay tuned for more on this...

David Dayen :: CA-04: Grand Dragons For McClintock
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Of course (8.00 / 2)
the KKK would endorse McClintock.  He is an extremist and they are extremists.  Their ideology is way closer to him than any other candidate.

"illegal aliens infecting our land" (8.00 / 2)
I wonder if McClintock would characterize his position in that manner. He's certainly pretty far right on immigration, Bilbray-esque you might say.

But Julia is right, McClintock is truly a far-right legislator.  And for the most part, he doesn't hide that. He's not effective for the district, oh wait, he didn't represent that district. Scratch that, he wasn't effective for the 19th Senate District.  He doesn't vote for budgets.

He's just plain wrong.

I'm proud to work for Kamala Harris for AG.


Incredible..not surprising though,eh? (8.00 / 1)
dday, I hope you'll consider cross-posting this to Progressive Blue.

We endorsed Charlie from our start and have a few longtime Supporters as members.

Cheers,Ed
Progressive Blue Editorial Team

http://www.eenrblog.com/frontP...

(-8.50/-7.44) Progressive Blue, An Oasis


Well, this would explain why one of McClintock's supporters keeps on using (0.00 / 0)
.....This.

Hall of Shame
This was in the local paper 9/21/08.  It's from a McClintock supporter who posts blogs or comments on a daily basis.  Most of his stuff I won't repeat because it's too inflammatory. I just try to tell people that these wedge issues are being used to do internet fundraising targeting senior citizens based on a fear of minorities, and that provoking these fears is wrong.  

I know who this is,  and I know he's a long time financial supporter of both the Republican incumbent and the imported Southern California Republican challenger. (and I found a write up about him on a Christian website, which was not... complimentary. He has a long history of this sort of activity, which other people do not think is charitable towards others )  I've posted this image on dailykos before, when he first put it up. It's following a theme they started when McClintock and Dan Logue decided to do that "Minutemen" "Secure the Borders"  tour this spring up in the northern part of the district, during the Republican Primary.
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McClintock
March 4, 2008.  left to right, Dan Logue, Eric Egland, Tom McClintock, Sue Horn, as McClintock announces he's running for Congress.
Dan Logue, state assembly candidate, appeared with McClintock on the "Secure the Borders" tour with the Minutemen group in May,  and his state Cal- access campaign money records for this cycle shows he paid the group that did the tour, "Secured Borders Consulting, Inc" and Jim Gilchrist.
http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/C...
Eric Egland is a former CA- 04 candidate, a Fox News spokesperson, has served as President Bush's spokesperson on mideast trips, has donated thousands of dollars to McClintock's campaign, and has worked with MAF, which created the swiftboating ads currently being used against Democratic candidate Charlie Brown.   Sue Horn is former state assembly candidate whose husband works in the building/real estate developer business.

 Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minutemen Project, endorsed McClintock.  The other Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (the founders split into 2 groups) which uses a cleaned up Chris Simcox as its spokesperson and consultant, appeared in Nevada City with McClintock on May 7th. Simcox also endorsed McClintock.  This is what bothered me so much when I saw the flags and other war insignia on the parade float the Republicans used during the 4th of July Parade in Lincoln this year.

Both Minutemen groups are associated with white supremist groups, such as the Council of Concerned Citizens, altho both deny it.  
Some older backstory on the CCC link:  http://www.adl.org/MWD/ccc.asp
These racist organizations are NOT dead, they are alive. They peaked in popularity during the first term of the Bush administration, waned, and now with the uncertain economic fallout, they are regaining some steam.  Barbara Coe, a member of the CCC, has been heavily involved recently in Minutemen border events in Southern California this summer, making appearances with  politicians running for office. Coe is also a member of the CCIR, the CA Coalition for Immigration Reform.
The Orcinus blog did a very good write up of the history of the Minutemen groups and their split, and how they front for political consultants, on June 28, 2006.  http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2...
The Rift in the Minutemen

The Subway Canaries blog (now thepinkflamingo.org)  did a write up of this relationship between the KKK and Immigration and the Minutemen groups in October, 2006, with a lot of links:
http://www.thepinkflamingo.org...

The Southern Poverty Law Center said in 2002, that most of the anti immigration "movement" is the result of work by John H Tanton, who founded, served on the boards, and funded many of them.  http://www.splcenter.org/intel...

If you are going to read just one link in my post, read this one from the Southern Poverty Law Center, from summer 2002  Note the remarks from Brian Bilbray, who was to run again in 2006 in the San Diego area and narrowly win election to the current Congress.   The article says that this network of anti immigration groups is not so much grassroots as astroturfing being done by John Tanton and Numbers USA.   Richard Mellon Scaife family foundations has been funding these groups, along with the McConnell Foundation, the Shea Foundation, the Weeden, Salisbury, Smith Richardson, Blair, and Sikes foundations.
4 page story
http://www.splcenter.org/intel...
http://www.splcenter.org/intel...
http://www.splcenter.org/intel...
http://www.splcenter.org/intel...

"The Puppeteer
The organized anti-immigration 'movement,' increasingly in bed with racist hate groups, is dominated by one man, John Tanton."


The meeting with Tancredo and Bilbray  - and the entire lobbying operation in mid-February - was masterminded by NumbersUSA, an anti-immigration group that had recently opened a "government relations office" in a three-story, red-brick Victorian near the Capitol.

NumbersUSA hosted an afternoon open house at its plush new digs, where the lobbyists relaxed, nibbled on catered food, and conversed with the leaders and other officials of key anti-immigration organizations.

Patrick McHugh of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which purports to be a squeaky clean think tank that rejects racism, was there pressing the flesh along with Barbara Coe, head of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, who repeatedly referred to Mexicans - as she has for years - as "savages."

The Citizens Informer, a white supremacist tabloid put out by the Council of Conservative Citizens ( CCC ) hate group, was available.  

Here is another overview with links of the Minutemen, from an Australian site:
http://www.nationmaster.com/en...

The interesting thing about THIS site is that it mentions Minuteman Bryan Barton and the 2005 T- shirt incident.


T-shirt incident
On April 6, 2005, three Minuteman Project volunteers convinced a 25-year-old illegal immigrant to hold a T-shirt and pose for a photograph and a video with one of the volunteers. The T-shirt, which was also worn by volunteer Bryan Barton, read "Bryan Barton caught me crossing the border and all I got was this lousy T-shirt".

Bryan Barton (link to one of his spoof sites   http://www.votebarton.com/abou...   ) claims to have a journalism certificate from the same school that graduated White House pool "Reporter"  Jeff Gannon, the right wing "Leadership Institute. "   Bryan Barton has a large body of past work available for viewing on the internet, some of which has content not suitable for family viewing, containing images that are disturbing in content, meant to defame individuals based on their race, sex, or religious creeds, or depicting scenes of past activities of the Bush administration which were inflammatory or disgusting from a human rights content. He claims it's humor.  It's not.  It's porn.

Tom McClintock, last month,  used the same Bryan Barton as a spokesperson for the follow up Swiftboat "hanging effigy"  advertisement they recorded in front of Charlie Brown's Campaign office building, whereby Byran Barton asked supposed passerby to look at pictures taken in 2005 at that anti war rally counterdemonstration,  and asked them if a blurry picture of a man wearing a camo jacket over a tee shirt and jeans was the same as a man standing there in full military uniform. It was called "Charlie Brown Uniform Shuffle."  Link from McClintock's campaign site:
http://www.tommcclintock.com/m...

So I'm looking at this advertisement posted on McClintock's front page of his campaign website for several days, knowing that "Bryan Barton of the Minutemen" is this paid Republican operative now working for McClintock, and I am waiting for somebody else to make the connection. Oh well.  Here goes.  One of McClintock's largest local donators, Fred Sacher, is involved with this Republican "journalism" school that has now given us both Jeff Gannon (of the Valerie Plame - Scooter Libby outing coverup ruse)  and Bryan Barton.   link to page which has clickable pdfs of the Leadership Institute's financial 990's that can be studied  http://www.leadershipinstitute...

I guess we've just hit the Big Time here in Northern California. Back to the KKK ~~~    

Here's a link page from a KKK member which is very interesting if you study his site  http://kelticklankirk.com/amer...
Note the Minute Men symbolism used at the top of the page, see the various link names to these extremist groups with it or derivatives of it. The Minute Men symbol is also used by a lot of these white supremist organizations.
Warning. The home page on that KKK site manages to offend every thing. I found the co - opting and perversion of "Celtic" belief particularly vile and wish to state that Irish, Christian, Celt and Pagan ? does not equal Klan, and the use of these Celtic art symbols in this context, which have their own meanings, is really bizarre.  http://kelticklankirk.com/
*
*
McClintock
McClintock's float, the 4th of July parade in Lincoln, CA.  Flags, Republican GOP, CA state Bear Flag, American Flag, "Christian" Flag.  

The Christian Flag, the white one on the right hand side seen above, with the blue corner and red cross, is also used by the KKK in some parts of the country. Click here and scroll down to near the bottom to see an example:    http://www.kelticklankirk.com/...                   Another flag similiar to it, a pure white flag with a small confederate canton and cross in the corner is also used.  Click here for an example  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadsh...            Notice how the Christian flag is flying same level with the other flags on this float.   The CA Bear Flag is also used by Save Our State, another white supremist group.  http://saveourstate.org/index.php     That combined with the heavy symbolism of the Mexican - US War of 1846- 47 and Minutemen symbolism on the parade float (most people did not know what they were looking at, but the few who did, it provoked quite a visceral response  )  really gave me a completely different outlook on the McClintock candidacy.   Whoever put this together wanted it to be provocative and stir up certain feelings of pitting one group against another, based on race and ancestral nationality.

The City of Lincoln, before it underwent the explosive population growth in the past decade with the population nearly quadrupling,  when the Del Webb retirement subdivisions went in, was more racially diverse and more laid - back and had a larger number of Latino Americans by percentage.

The Mexican American War ended up disenfranchising hundreds of Mexican citizens and Native Americans which were living in the southwestern  territory that the United States ended up with, because they did not get legal citizenship as was originally implied by the preliminary treaty, which the Senate then modified afterwards.   There was a lot of LDS symbolism on that float, such as the Wagon Wheel,  that also commemorated the Mormon Battalion, which marched across country from the midwest all the way to the California Coast during the same war.  The territorial gain by the United States was seen as another example of the righteousness of the theory of Manifest Destiny. The distinctive officer's uniform on one of the soldier figurines on the float was very similar to what would have been worn by General Winfield Scott, a famous general in that war.  General Scott has another role in history, when in 1838 he also moved the Cherokee from their original homeland in Georgia to Oklahoma along the Trail of Tears. Before the move started, 4 thousand Cherokee would die in confinement.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...


Scott arrived at New Echota, Cherokee Nation on April 6, 1838, and immediately divided the Nation into three military districts. Within two weeks he had every Cherokee in North Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama who could not escape to be captured or killed. The Cherokee were rounded up and held in rat-infested stockades with little food. Private John G. Burnett later wrote, "Future generations will read and condemn the act and I do hope posterity will remember that private soldiers like myself, and like the four Cherokees who were forced by General Scott to shoot an Indian Chief and his children, had to execute the orders of our superiors. We had no choice in the matter."[3][4]  

So .... that was a very complex parade float.  

Here's another detail from that 4th of July parade float:

7/4/8LinPar
Detail, McClintock's 4th of July parade float, Lincoln CA.  Minutemen plaque behind L M's shoulder.

Here's the whole float from a distance, I posted this pic before in another diary:
McClintock
July 4 McClintock parade float

And if the casual viewer couldn't "get" the point that day in Lincoln, they had another person on a lawn tractor towing a big fiberglass trio of Minute Men figurines behind the parade float carrying the McClintocks.  

I have also seen blatantly racist material at another Republican booth at a district public event,  and in the window display of a district Republican headquarters building with both McClintock and John McCain signs in it.  Once, it could be an anomaly.  Repeatedly seeing it over and over again, it becomes a theme.   The question became, for me personally, should I address this issue and let it distract from the real campaign issues, or should I just follow the money trails and see where the McClintock supporters are going with this, and will it bring them national level support?

Then, when Republican John McCain picked Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, and I started seeing a lot of graphics of Palin with her high powered rifle, peering thru the scope, juxtaposed with pictures of our candidate Barack Obama, with the caption "She's a Better Shot than Cheney," I knew where the Republicans were going to take their campaign.  

Damn, I'm old enough to remember the 1960's.  Why are they deliberately doing this?  Why is one of McClintock's local supporters repeatedly using a hanging effigy theme?

Just like in the July parade, Tom McClintock wanted to be provocative when he stood there on the State Capitol steps early last month (Sept 2) during the "Minutemen" rally and called for the Federal government to cut off funding for San Francisco. And for the Federal government to deport millions of people.  There was a giant sign parked down on the road which says "Build the Wall, Deport them All," the loudspeakers are playing some sort of dreadful screed about how people of Native American Indigenous ancestry have to perform a blood sacrifice when they reach adulthood, and are secretly plotting to turn California and the American southwest back into the Aztec state, "Aztlan" (this is the same stuff I've seen on the Council of Concerned Citizens site )  and then the group of teenaged kids in white dress shirts and dress pants and some sort of red satin sashes show up with the big "Save Traditonal Marriage" Sign on the sidewalk.  They hopped in a van and drove off when they realized they were being recorded for posterity.  

It was pretty surrealistic.
Just another day at the California State Capitol, campaign 2008, McClintock version.

Here are 2 images from the Republican Booth at the Gold Country Fair in Auburn the first week in September on Saturday the 7th.
The first one shows the Christian flag flying over the booth just to the left of McClintock's name.  The second is the closeup of one of the bumper stickers they had for sale, to the left of the man in the striped shirt. "Liberalism, the imaginary distance between church and state."

McClintock
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McClintock

My ancestors are doing so many flips in their graves that this is what passes for political fodder in 2008 California,  I half expect an earthquake.  

I see there is some skepticism about the link between McClintock and these extremist groups concerning a "guilt by association" of an old endorsement by the KKK.  Some people do not think this is relevant, others think it a distraction.   So I'm posting my observations on this relationship, reluctantly, because I don't want to give Karl Rove the satisfaction of driving the dialogue here . But this subtext of forced removals of the "others," based on their supposed cultural inferiority,  as being justified by a Higher Power, and therefore the Republican candidate is the "Right One"  has been running all thru McClintock's campaign for CA- 04.

Mercifully,  I see a lot of people in this district are finally starting to reject the use of these wedge issues.   I would hope the national level Republican campaign, based on what I'm seeing at McCain's events, could come to grips with the fear issues and stop trying to scare people into voting for them.

But I also want to emphasize that we here in the district not imagining things when we say we see a relationship between the creed of the KKK and the campaign theme being used by McClintock.

   


6/19/09 The image that photobucket has removed is a screen capture I did of (0.00 / 0)
... a Republican's blog in the Auburn Journal from last summer of 2008.  He had done several offensive images and I believe that one was of the White hooded Klu klux klan which he used to accuse the Democrats of being racists, altho he had a few others up of nooses, hanging effigies, etc.   Those blog pieces were done to target the Democratic candidates.

I just discovered photobucket had zapped the images, they were there in my account the last time I looked.  I wish to repeat that I do NOT believe in violence or racism, nor the views of the Republican blogger, who I had used to illustrate that candidate McClintock was seeking the active endorsement of violent extremists such as the Minutemen in this campaign.

I don't know how I'm supposed to show how bad they are if the Auburn Journal keeps letting this individual change usernames and come back again and again after being "banned,"   and having his racist garbage deleted.    


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