GOP Backing Off Support for Cliven Bundy After Racist Remarks
Thursday, 24 Apr 2014 01:29 PM
The rancher, who won a showdown this month with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over grazing rights for his herd, attacked African-Americans for their dependency on government assistance and claimed that they abort their children and end up in jail because they have no jobs.
Bundy, a registered Republican with 14 children, said to the Times, “I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”
While claiming that many African-Americans are “basically on public assistance,” he added, “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton.”
Recalling the time he once drove past a public-housing project in north Las Vegas, he continued, “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro…in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.”
Nevada’s Republican Sen. Dean Heeler had previously claimed that Bundy’s supporters were “patriots,” but following Bundy’s hateful remarks he’s started to “backtrack,” according to Rawstory.com.
His spokesman , Chandler Smith, told the Times that the senator “completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy’s appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way.”
Senator Rand Paul, the libertarian Republican from Kentucky who may make a run for the White House in 2016, had supported Bundy’s cattle battle with the government.
But in a statement provided by a spokesman for Paul to Business Insider on Thursday, the senator denounced Bundy's comments. "His remarks on race are offensive and I wholeheartedly disagree with him," Paul said.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had jumped into the controversy by stating that the BLM was planning to claim thousands of acres in the Lone Star State along the Red River, and he had made it clear that he had told the agency to back off.
But his spokeswoman Laura Bean tried to distance the Republican gubernatorial candidate from Bundy by telling the liberal newspaper that the letter Abbott wrote to the BLM “was regarding a dispute in Texas and is in no way related to the dispute in Nevada.”
Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader has said that Bundy’s actions are illegal and called his supporters, including armed militias, “domestic terrorists.”
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Conservatives who ran to support Bundy and his fight with the federal government over grazing rights were now "exposed" in light of remarks by the Nevada rancher about race, said talk show host Joe Scarborough.
"In this case you have a lot of people in 'conservative' media that have . . . raced to this guy's defense. They must be feeling very exposed this morning," Scarborough told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Thursday.
Scarborough questioned how Bundy, who hadn't paid grazing fees the federal government said he owes, was any different from people on other types of welfare. He said Bundy "wanted a free ride off the government off the rest of us."
"He's a freeloader. And, by the way, when you say everybody owns everything . . . that sounds like socialism. That's socialism," Scarborough said.
Related Stories:
- Cliven Bundy: Feds 'Don't Have the Guts' to Start Another Fight
- Arizona Official: Cliven Bundy's Acts Are Legal
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