Monday, June 22, 2015

The Southern Avengers

I talked this morning about the failure of a number of GOP 2016 candidates to give a coherent answer on the SC Confederate flag issue, but I left out two more candidates: Rick Santorum and Rand Paul, for a reason.

That's because the two of them have much bigger problems right now than a flag.

The leader of a rightwing group that Dylann Roof allegedly credits with helping to radicalise him against black people before the Charleston church massacre has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republicans such as presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum. 
Earl Holt has given $65,000 to Republican campaign funds in recent years while inflammatory remarks – including that black people were “the laziest, stupidest and most criminally-inclined race in the history of the world” – were posted online in his name.
After being approached by the Guardian on Sunday, Cruz’s presidential campaign said it would be returning all money the senator had received from Holt. 
Holt, 62, is the president of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), a Missouri-based activist organisation cited by the author of a manifesto-style text that was posted on a website registered in Roof’s name along with photographs of the gunman. The FBI said on Saturday it was investigating the website. 
The manifesto’s author, who has been widely reported but not verified as Roof, recounted learning about “brutal black on white murders” from the CofCC website.
“At this moment I realised that something was very wrong,” the manifesto said.

Earl Holt is an unrepentant racist scumbag, but the KKK CCC has a lot of money apparently to give. Cruz dropped Holt's donations like the toxic waste they were, but the fact that Santorum and Paul haven't yet (and probably won't) says a lot about them.

Earlier this afternoon Santorum said he'd return his donations from Holt, and that leaves Rand Paul with his especially terrible record on race, pandering at best and outright dog whistle racism at worst.  Don't expect much from him, I certainly don't.

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