Tag: rick santorum
Rick Santorum

CNN Fires Santorum For Racist Belittling Of Native Americans

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Rick Santorum, the Republican former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate, has been fired by CNN as its senior political commentator one month after his racist comments about Native Americans, including claiming there had been "nothing" in North America until white colonizers came.

"We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here," Santorum told students last month at an event hosted by the Young America's Foundation, a right wing group with ties to former Vice President Mike Pence. "I mean, yes, we have Native Americans, but candidly, there isn't much Native American culture in American culture."

Huffpost's Jennifer Bendery, who first reported on Santorum's termination, in April called his remarks "as offensive as they are inaccurate."

"Indigenous peoples had been living in America thousands of years before European explorers showed up in the late 1400s and 1500s," Bendery wrote at the time. "They had their own rich cultures and traditions. European settlers tried to erase all of that by forcibly removing Indigenous people from their lands, slaughtering them, infecting them with new diseases, rounding them up and putting them on reservations, breaking treaties with them and taking their children from them and putting them into boarding schools to try to assimilate them into white culture."

Since coming on the political scene in the early 1990's Santorum has tried to be at the center of America's culture wars, positioning himself as a right wing Christian religious warrior. He made a name for himself attacking the LGBTQ community, and after his disastrous 2006 U.S. Senate re-election bid, even headed a Christian film company for a short time.

CNN has confirmed Santorum's termination.

#EndorseThis: CNN Panel Trashes Santorum For Blaming Trumpism On Obama

#EndorseThis: CNN Panel Trashes Santorum For Blaming Trumpism On Obama

The presidency of Barack Obama is a historical signpost in the struggle against racism. Policy views may differ, but everyone agrees that Americans voting for Obama not once, but twice, heralded a sweeping change for the better among white voters.

Er…make that everyone except Rick Santorum. In today’s clip, Santorum shocks a CNN panel by claiming that racism in the Trump movement is actually Obama’s fault. “Many, many, many people saw Barack Obama doing more to exacerbate racism,” utters the former GOP senator. “Every time there was a controversy when someone of color was involved, (Obama) took their side.”

You know, as opposed to seeing “very fine people” on both sides.

Former Obama campaign guru Karine Jean-Pierre is almost stunned speechless, but her reply leaves Santorum in the dirt.

Click for Republican madness.

Former White House Adviser Warns GOP Still Aiming To Repeal Obamacare

Former White House Adviser Warns GOP Still Aiming To Repeal Obamacare

Andy Slavitt, who served as the acting administrator for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama, warned late Friday night that Republicans may try to repeal and replace Obamacare once again before the 2018 midterm elections.

“Republicans have been meeting in secret to bring back ACA repeal,” he writes.

 Citing a recent op-ed in the Washington Examiner, Slavitt said that former Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum is leading a group of lawmakers and donors to push for repeal. This would mean lawmakers would have to use the reconciliation process again to pass the legislation so that they would only need 51 votes in the Senate for the bill to become law.

The Washington Examiner piece describes the bill as an “Obamacare replacement that could both pass Congress and work well in the real world.” But what exactly that looks like — and what it would mean for the American people — remains unclear, and the details would matter.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) were opposed to previous attempts to repeal Obamacare. Since their votes would be necessary for any bill to pass, assuming no Democrats support the effort, Santorum and his supporters will need to find a way to win them over

On that front, Slavit reports, “There are provisions to make a big payoff for Maine and Alaska.”

Nevertheless, Slavitt writes that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan are not particularly interested in trying to do health care reform again: “Taking health care from people is not all that popular,” he notes.

But Santorum and others may think that there will be a “blue wave” in 2018 no matter what, so this may be the last time the GOP has the opportunity to get rid of Obamacare. And that might make Republicans desperate enough to try again.

IMAGE: Former Senator Rick Santorum speaks during the forum for lower polling candidates at the Fox Business Network Republican presidential candidates debate in North Charleston, South Carolina January 14, 2016. REUTERS/Randall Hill

Former Senator Writes Moving Essay About Finding Love With a Man After His Wife Died

Former Senator Writes Moving Essay About Finding Love With a Man After His Wife Died

Published with permission from Alternet.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Harris Wofford had an essay in Sunday’s New York Times detailing how he fell in love with a man after his wife died 20 years ago.

Wofford’s seat was taken by Rick Santorum, a politician well-known for his anti-LGBT stances. Wofford, who is now 90, wrote that he met his current companion, 40-year-old Matthew Charlton, five years after his wife died of leukemia and they will be married later this month. Among other things, the piece is a powerful testament to how marriage equality has helped so many lives:

Too often, our society seeks to label people by pinning them on the wall — straight, gay or in between. I don’t categorize myself based on the gender of those I love. I had a half-century of marriage with a wonderful woman, and now am lucky for a second time to have found happiness.

For a long time, I did not suspect that idea and fate might meet in my lifetime to produce same-sex marriage equality. My focus was on other issues facing our nation, especially advancing national service for all. Seeking to change something as deeply ingrained in law and public opinion as the definition of marriage seemed impossible.

I was wrong, and should not have been so pessimistic. I had seen firsthand — working and walking with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — that when the time was right, major change for civil rights came to pass in a single creative decade. It is right to expand our conception of marriage to include all Americans who love each other.

You can read Wofford’s essay in its entirety here.

Photo: Flickr user Why Tuesday