Scott Brown Shows His True Colors and They’re Not Pretty
Posted: September 25, 2012 Filed under: 2012 elections, open thread, racism, U.S. Politics | Tags: Asbestos Workers Union, Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Senate race, race baiting, Senator Scott Brown, Travelers' Insurance 48 CommentsToday Blue Mass Group posted this video (filmed on Saturday) of Scott Brown staffers letting out “war whoops” and doing the “tomahawk chop” at Elizabeth Warren supporters.
9/22/2012, nearby Eire Pub in Boston, at a rally for Scott Brown including former Mayor Ray Flynn. Some supporters of Elizabeth Warren were also gathered around with signs. Here you can see Brown’s staffers making “war whoops” and “tomahawk chops”, presumably in reference to Warren’s Cherokee heritage. Identified in video making the chop are Brown’s Constituent Service Counsel Jack Richard (camoflage shirt) and — we believe — Massachusetts GOP operative Brad Garrett Garnett, front and center with tan baseball cap and gray hoodie, leading the whoops and chops. (Garrett is known for having recently delivered a cake to Warren for the anniversary of the Occupy movement.)
(Also present, though apparently not participating in the whoops and chops, are Greg Casey, Deputy Chief of Staff, (black polo near end of video), Jerry McDermott, State Director, (blue fleece and shades on head), and Jennifer Franks, special assistant, (plaid shirt, beginning).
According to The Boston Globe:
On Tuesday, Brown said he had not seen the video but “if you’re saying that, certainly that’s not something I condone. It’s certainly something that, if I’m aware of it, I will tell that [staff] member never to do that again.”
Still, he struck a defiant tone when asked if he would apologize for his staffers’ behavior.
“The apologies that need to be made and the offensiveness here is the fact that professor Warren took advantage of a claim, to be somebody – a Native American — and using that for an advantage, a tactical advantage,” Brown said.
The state Democratic Party said Brown bears responsibility for his staff’s conduct.
“Scott Brown and his staff are launching outrageous and offensive personal attacks to distract from the issues that matter,” said Matt House, Massachusetts Democratic Party spokesman. “The behavior of his staff is completely inappropriate, but the tone of the campaign is set by the candidate.”
Right. Brown doesn’t condone this disgusting race baiting. That’s probably why he never attacked Warren’s Native American ancestry in the recent Senate debate. Oh wait….
Brown has also been attacking Warren over her work with Travelers Insurance on an asbestos case in which she advocated for a settlement that would benefit victims. Travelers later got the settlement reversed, and Brown is twisting what happened to call Warren an advocate for corporations against the little guys.
Brown said Warren’s advocacy on behalf of the insurance giant flies in the face of her reputation for sticking up for “little guys” and working people.
“Now, I don’t know anybody who’s hired by an insurance company that was actually working for the victims,” Brown said. “Huge insurance corporations don’t hire big-time attorneys from Harvard to fight against their interests for their opponents, which would be the victims.”
Here’s the real story:
In the asbestos case, Warren did represent Travelers but, at the time, the company was seeking to unlock a $500 million settlement account for victims, a step many asbestos victims supported. After Warren left the case, however, Travelers won a separate court ruling that allowed the company to avoid paying out the settlement. That ruling is under appeal.
“Elizabeth Warren got involved to protect the settlement,” against a challenge from another insurance company, said David J. McMorris, a lawyer at Thornton & Naumes in Boston, who represented victims in the case.
McMorris and several officials from an asbestos workers’ union stood outside Brown’s headquarters after the senator’s press conference and defended Warren’s role in the lawsuit.
“It should be very, very clear the victims would have no chance to get paid by Travelers were it not for the work of Elizabeth Warren,” McMorris said. “She’s been with the victims then, and she’s with the victims now.”
The Asbestos Union has endorsed Warren. It seems that Brown has taken his cue from the Romney campaign’s use of lies and distortions against President Obama. Coincidentally well-known Republican ratfucker Erik Fernstrom works for both candidates, even though Brown pretends he’s an “independent” barely knows Romney.
Josh Marshall has a great post up today about the fallacies behind Brown’s assumptions that anyone with Native American ancestry could not have white skin. I borrowed the photo below from Marshall’s post. I wonder if Brown would dismiss this man on the basis of his skin color?
Principal Chief Bill John Baker of the Cherokee Nation (h/t Talking Points Memo)
I’ll end with this pithy paragraph from Charles Pierce:
There’s only one reason to pound the issue about Elizabeth Warren’s ancestry and that is to race-bait, to gin up the lizard-brained anger at “quotas” and “affirmative action.” Brown already tippy-toed down that line last week in the debate, when he explained that he can tell an Injun jes’ by lookin’ at one. You talk about her like she gamed the system and you’re not merely casting aspersions on her career, but you’re giving a nudge-nudge, wink-wink to all the usual suspects out there who know somebody who knew somebody who was related to somebody who knew somebody who didn’t get the job they should have had. This is also what they do. This is also what they’ve always done. This is also why you hired people because this is what they do.
The moral of this story: Scott Brown is not a “nice guy.”
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Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
It looks like Brown is getting desperate. I hope the good people of Mass, don’t fall for the bs.
So far the ancestry “issue” has had no effect. I guess that’s why he’s stepped up the deliberate race baiting.
You would never know that my grandmother on my mother’s side was 1/4 Cree. I was really offended when Brown said “look at her”. Like we were deciding a mutt from a pure bred.
In honor of the Cree Nation:
Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten. Cree Nation Tribal Prophecy
I think Brown could get blowback from this.
yes Beata, exactly. Although I cannot claim heritage to any one of the noble tribes of the new world, I have a moor great to the 4th power grandmother (meaning arabic). My eyes are blue, my skin is nordic fair. My sister’s skin is olive coloured and her eyes are almost black. Genetics are funny things and I’m amazed that Brown and his ilk are so very ignorant that they don’t know about it. And it’s offensive to the extreme.
I found Brown’s “look at her” very offensive. My Choctaw grandmother grew up on a dirt farm in Oklahoma. My grandmother was raised by her grandmother because her mother died young from TB ( a common disease among Native Americans – they had no immunity ). My great-great grandmother told my grandmother stories of how the family lost their ancestral lands. The Choctaw were the “test case’ for government removal to Oklahoma years before the Cherokee “Trail of Tears”. My great-uncles served in an Indian division of the armed forces in WWI ( a division from which the Choctaw Code Talkers came ). My mother doesn’t “look Choctaw” and neither do I but we are proud of our heritage. Our family suffered for it. Why should we have to prove we are part Choctaw to anyone? Why should Warren? It’s so insulting and racist.
Members of the “Five Civilized Tribes” – the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole – often intermarried with other races. I once knew a woman from Louisiana who had the same family name as my grandmother. This woman’s Choctaw ancestor had married a former slave. She looked African-American but she was part Choctaw. Would Brown and his ugly attack dogs have said “look at her”?
sorry, my reply was misplaced under BB’s comment. I really have to learn how to do this effectively.
Thanks for sharing that, Beata. It’s totally racist. I can’t believe we’re not seeing the same kind of outrage that Akin faced after his rape comments.
New Poll: Tammy Duckworth is beating the pants off Joe Walsh 52-38.
That is really good news!
Another TeaNut sent packing
Yes, ma’am Tammy – you got it going.
This is sad. The racist dog whistles are awful. The Cherokee are one of the so-called seven civilized tribes and were victimized by the trial of tears and mass deportation from their homelands. That’s how they wound up in my home state of Oklahoma where they were referred to as Oklahoma “n-word”. These folks’ stereotypes come from nasty hollywood movies and sports mascots and not knowledge of Native Americans. I hope MASS sends this asshole into obscurity. Any one who knows the history of the Trial of Tears should know this is one of the worst episodes in our country. It was genocide and basically shameful. To tie this nation to their stereotypes is shameful.
My great grandmother was 100% Native American. I’m a (former) blonde with pale Irish skin. Wonder what that asshole would say about that?
Brown would say, Ralph, “look at him”.
His white masculine hostility was inherited by his white ggggrandfather. Alot of people, women, disapprove of his behavior, basically he’s assaulting Elizabeth as our American Sister, and we’ve had enough, it’s making us ill.
Hear, hear! Funny how when some white males cannot compete on even ground, they pull out all stops and resort to objectionable tactics to make them appear superior. I’m not saying that it applies only to some white males – Bachman and others women did as well as did Alan West and Herman Cain etc. Sad state of affairs isn’t it, but funny how they are all in the same area politically. Do they have training seminars?
Mitt Romney used “questionable” tax shelter to avoid paying Medicare taxes.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/a-tax-shelter-mitt-romney-could-love/
BB, that is a really important find. Just if the people knew that this is how “rich” people have escaped funding medicare, and now they have a siren to ” Medicare is going Broke”. Also, I can’t imagine people who supported John Edwards must feel.
Scott Brown is definitely using an air raid siren instead of a dog whistle for his race baiting. Now they are attacking her for representing LTV Steel (a coal company) in bankruptcy proceedings. Duh, she’s a lawyer so WTF?
Read the Josh link for TPM it’s great
Speaking of race baiting, here’s a piece of really filthy campaigning using this ad in IA, OH, and FL.
Tampa Bay Times: Herald-Tribune runs seriously ugly and false anti-Obama ad
OMG! Why would any paper run that? GINGPAC? Is that associated with Newt Gingrich by any chance?
GING = Government is not god.
http://www.gingpac.org/
Sounds like Gingrich to doesn’t it? I don’t know anything about that PAC/
Oh, well just normal Xtian behavior I guess.
what is wrong with these people? They want a dictatorship or perhaps a theocracy?
That looks like a thing you would see on a KKK page.
Pretty funny satire on Ryan being Ryan by Roger Simon–based on the famous “stench” quote:
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81618.html#ixzz27WHqZ0np
Simon was funny. The part about the four PP slides was true though. I’m betting the MSM will say that makes him wonkish 🙂
Krugthulu on Ryan’s PP usage
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/delusions-of-wonkhood/
Ryan is an idiot. If you listen to him in an interview it’s very clearly easy to see he has no idea of what he speaks
Poor little Eddie Haskell. He’ll never get the stench of Romney off him.
Did you read Krugman’s link to the Dunning-Kruger effect? LOL
That study is interesting. I’d love to see the breakdown/demographics of the test subjects. % male & % female???
BB, I love me some, Dunning-Kruger, one of my favorite terms! Use it lot.
My sister is a psychologist and we laughingly use this all the time. Dunning-Kruger effect. We both have had some really bad work situations!
I love this woman.
Me 2. She’s great!
She is one amazing woman and so very brave. And they can’t touch her on her personal life. All they can do is keep her out of the media coverage, and it looks like even that tactic is not working. Brava Soeur Simone, Brava!
TPM: Mitt Romney: Obama Has Not Raised Taxes — Yet
When Romney gets up in the morning and promptly lights himself on fire while campaigning, Obama should just stay out of the way.
I cannot believe how very “classy” these republicans are in this and the last few campaigns. It’s astonishing the lying, the personal attacks, the denigration of heritage, the racial dog whistles, the class warfare angle, the whiny pitiful me, the blaming. Is there one positive thing they have to offer?
And while I do not have a vote, I hope they all get ground into the dirt from which they seem to have mired themselves.
A 2nd Obama 47% ad airing in New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada.
BB, speaking of tax shelters,
http://my.firedoglake.com/deanbaker/2012/09/25/mitt-romneys-income-was-not-taxed-at-the-corporate-level/
Remember the lady in TX with the Obama yard sign messed up. Video.
Sign Theft Caught on Video; McKinney Police Investigating Racial, Offensive Writings, as Well
I hope they catch this asshole!