From “Nikki Who?” to Nikki the “Raghead” Whore in Less Than a Month

Nikki Haley

My latest NewsReal piece:

A month ago, few people outside of South Carolina knew of State Rep. Nikki Haley.  But that didn’t stop her opponents from wetting themselves when Haley picked up some impressive endorsements and her gubernatorial campaign gained momentum.

Don’t worry, said their trusty consultants as they mopped up the puddles, a scarlet letter oughta finish her off. And if a little old fashioned slut-baiting doesn’t do the trick, we’ll just make sure everyone knows Nimrata Randhawa Haley is secret “raghead.”  Trust us, the good ol’ boys in South Cackalacky know just how to handle a foreign lady who’s in our way.

And thus began their Hail Mary pass to sideline the uppity woman with the ethnic name.

Why bother? Because Haley’s record of fighting for transparent government is a direct threat to politics as usual at the Statehouse.  South Carolina’s good ol’ boys are terrified that Haley will force on-the-record legislative voting, so they scraped the sewers for the scummiest strategy imaginable.

Up first was Will Folks, the fiancée-beating degenerate who titillated the drooling media with unsubstantiated tales of his “inappropriate physical relationship” with Haley. Haley has been married for 13 years and Folks claims the affair occurred in 2007.

News organizations from the New York Times to the Greenville News printed Folks’ allegations, dutifully including the contention that he was a longtime Haley cheerleader.  Oddly, none of them mentioned that just after Haley announced her gubernatorial bid, Folks posted a mock interview in which he threatened her with violence:

You need to learn to count. And while you’re at it, shut your mouth. Don’t you know I beat up women, like all the time? Nikki, what I’m saying is that if you can’t beat these [inaudible] mouth-breathing, inbred knuckle-draggers with one hand tied behind your back then someone should raise a fist up against you.

What could have possibly motivated this fine upstanding gentleman to help undermine Haley’s candidacy? After all, entering a guilty plea on one criminal domestic violence charge couldn’t mean he’s got a problem with the ladies, now could it?  Perhaps this diehard Haley supporter will come clean about his hatred of women in the book he’s currently shopping … if the price is right.

Next at bat was Larry Marchant, former employer of Will Folks and a paid consultant to gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer. Marchant just happened to pick the week before the primary to tell the world that he and Haley had a one night stand in 2008. The proof? Why, his word, that’s the proof!  If it’s good enough for the media, it should be good enough for you.

Starting to see how this works?

Haley says she’s been 100 percent faithful to her husband throughout their marriage, and even promised to resign if any allegations are proven.  But proof isn’t really the point. The point is to raise doubt about her virtue and leave voters with the indelible impression of a home wrecking hussy who sluts around Columbia with all sorts of sleazeballs.

And that impression is just fine with Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer.  In a Friday press release, Bauer suggested that Haley take a lie detector test, presumably because a lying whore can’t be taken at her word.  But a couple of jowly dudes talking smack about the hot chick they banged?  Totally credible in Bauer’s neck of the gutter.  As Melissa Clouthier noted, there is “deep misogyny” involved in this campaign to sink Haley.

As if the misogyny weren’t bad enough, Haley’s opponents are bringing other forms of bigotry into the mix.  U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett’s team reportedly “discussed playing the religion card” against Haley (who his aides privately refer to as “Nimrata”). And Friday morning, a member of the Bauer campaign emailed supporters an article that asks:

After seeing how the faith issue hurt Mitt Romney and damaged Barack Obama to some extent as well, is Haley making a political decision by playing up her Christian faith (just like Obama did) and LOSING the Sikh emphasis?

Haley was raised Sikh and converted to Christianity. But again, that’s not really the point, is it? Haley’s religious roots are being emphasized in an attempt to paint her as a scary outsider, someone who can’t govern South Carolina because she isn’t like us.

Anyone taking bets on how long it’ll be until someone asks for her birth certificate?  Better yet, will State Senator Jake Knotts be the first? The Free Times reports:

“She’s a f#!king raghead,” Knotts said.

He later clarified his statement. He did not mean to use the F-word.

Knotts says he believed Haley has been set up by a network of Sikhs and was programmed to run for governor of South Carolina by outside influences in foreign countries. He claims she is hiding her religion and he wants the voters to know about it.

“We got a raghead in Washington; we don’t need one in South Carolina,” Knotts said more than once. “She’s a raghead that’s ashamed of her religion trying to hid it behind being Methodist for political reasons.”

Knotts, a Bauer supporter, says he’s called Haley a “raghead” a number of times and that he was just joking.  He added, “I still believe Ms. Haley is pretending to be someone she is not, much as Obama did, but I apologize to both for an unintended slur.”

This isn’t the first time Knotts attempted the “I was joking” excuse to get out of a sticky situation.  Here’s the ProQuest abstract of a Jun 6, 1996 Sentinel article titled “White Lawmaker Angers Blacks”:

Several black and white legislators objected when South Carolina state Rep Jake Knotts introduced amendments to the black monument bill that would have created monuments for Scottish-Americans, Polish-Americans and others. Knotts later announced that he had only been joking about the bill.

Oh, but there’s more.  In 2003, Knotts worked himself into a frenzy over a group of Somali Bantu refugees who were going to be “dumped” in his district.  He insisted the 40-50 Bantu children would “lower our SAT scores and our accountability.” (The State, Jun 28, 2003)

Hmm, seems like the persecuted immigrants didn’t need to bring any stupid. Knotts made sure there was plenty to go around.

With a despicable history like that, would it be surprising if we learned that political operatives sent Knotts to tape a live talk show knowing that he wouldn’t bother to self-censor his bigotry?  Is is out of the realm of possibility that they wanted–even encouraged–him to blow the dog whistle, alerting fellow bigots to the “raghead” in our midst?

Just like allegations of adultery were intended to tap into existing voter misogyny, these religious and ethnic slurs were designed to exploit voter bigotry.  Bigotry that doesn’t exist at anywhere near the levels bigots think it does.

When Nikki Haley launched her campaign in May 2009, reporter John O’Connor wrote, “To become governor, Haley will have to overcome questions about her Indian heritage and whether S.C. voters will accept a woman chief executive.”

A year later, Haley is leading the race.  I guess she overcame those questions more easily than her opponents hoped.  Now it’s time to focus on the issues that matter to the people of South Carolina.

Full disclosure: I am a volunteer with Nikki Haley’s gubernatorial campaign.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on June 6, 2010

2 Comments 

My Guest Spot on The Smart Girl Report

A few weeks ago, I was a guest on The Smart Girl Report hosted by Jenny Erikson.

Jenny, Lori Ziganto, and I discussed female genital mutilation (FGM), faux feminism, whether we should care if a woman is nominated to the Supreme Court, and our favorite South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley.  There may have also been some uncomfortable talk about girl parts and boy parts.  Good times!

Click here to listen.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on June 6, 2010

2 Comments 

Out: Female Genital Mutilation, In: Female Genital “Nicking,” Says American Academy of Pediatrics

female genital mutilation fgm

From my May 8, 2010 piece at NewsReal Blog:

There is no limit to the depravity of the cultists who worship at the altar of multiculturalism.

100 to 140 million girls and women around the world have been subjected to genital mutilation. And now, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is embracing this barbaric expression of misogyny in the name of cultural sensitivity and immigrant outreach.

Equality Now is stunned by a new policy statement issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which essentially promotes female genital mutilation (FGM) and advocates for “federal and state laws [to] enable pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ‘ritual nick’,” such as pricking or minor incisions of girls’ clitorises.

Surely pediatricians sworn to do no harm wouldn’t advocate a medically unnecessary practice rooted firmly in hatred of women. Equality Now must have misread the AAP’s statement on FGM, right?

Wrong. According to the AAP:

Most forms of FGC are decidedly harmful, and pediatricians should decline to perform them, even in the absence of any legal constraints. However, the ritual nick suggested by some pediatricians is not physically harmful and is much less extensive than routine newborn male genital cutting. There is reason to believe that offering such a compromise may build trust between hospitals and immigrant communities, save some girls from undergoing disfiguring and life-threatening procedures in their native countries, and play a role in the eventual eradication of FGC. It might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm.

Hey, let’s compromise!  We can also reach out to the Muslim community and ask men to commit honor “nicking” instead of honor murder.  It’s a win-win. They get to continue violently victimizing women under the guise of preserving “honor,” and we get to hold hands and sing “Kumbaya.” What’s a little broken skin as long as we’re avoiding “greater harm”?

The AAP statement also compares physician-assisted ritual puncturing of girls’ genitals to ear piercing.  Ear piercing.

And apparently the AAP is concerned about the unintended consequences of continuing to prosecute people for “female genital cutting” (Newspeak for FGM):

Some physicians, including pediatricians who work closely with immigrant populations in which FGC is the norm, have voiced concern about the adverse effects of criminalization of the practice on educational efforts.

Go ahead and scream or puke or tear your hair out. I’ll wait.

Promoting a less extreme version of genital mutilation as a replacement for the horrors of clitoridectomy, excision, and infibulation is door we must never open in America.  This is ground we cannot cede.

And by “we” I refer to authentic feminists, not the Left’s faux-feminist misogyny apologists like Amanda Marcotte (h/t The Other McCain):

I don’t really see the problem with the American Academy of Pediatrics advising doctors to offer a “ritual nick” in lieu of the more serious forms of female circumcision that are often on offer in some other parts of the world. The practice is something that is done in modern places that want to have a link to tradition without actually doing any real harm to little girls, from what I understand. All they do is prick your genitals, or make a small cut that heals over, but nothing is removed. You’re basically scratching the girl. It’s not awesome . . . but comparing it to more severe forms of female circumcision troubles me.

. . . .

And it’s not like Western culture is so free of blatantly misogynist traditions, either.  Part of me wishes that we had a two minute nicking at the doctor instead of the entire painfully misogynist wedding tradition that persists in the name of tradition.

Ritual laceration of the genitals doesn’t do “any real harm to little girls”?  Really?  Perpetuating the idea that women’s sexuality is an evil that needs to be suppressed or destroyed doesn’t do “any real harm”?

No, Amanda.  Misogyny masquerading as a minor out-patient procedure is still misogyny.  This medically supervised clitoral “nicking” still invites the continued importation of toxic, dangerous practices; it sends the unthinkable message that fear of cultural insensitivity makes it desirable to betray young girls.

It’s unacceptable.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on May 18, 2010

1 Comment 

Monica Conyers and Hipsters on Food Stamps

Monica Conyers

This piece first appeared at NewsReal earlier this month.

Former Detroit Councilwoman Monica Conyers clutched a $1,000 Louis Vuitton handbag as she emerged from a chauffeured Lincoln Town Car to attend her sentencing for a bribery conviction.

Just days later, a federal judge declared her indigent and appointed a public defender to represent her. Now taxpayers will foot the bill for the “destitute” Mrs. Conyers’ to appeal her plea-bargained 37 month sentence.  Never mind that her husband, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich), pulls down $174,000 a year.

Why should an elected official help his wife with her legal bills if they can get the government to pick up the tab? After all, John Conyers is part of the “most ethical Congress in history,” so it must be okay.

And don’t concern yourself with pesky details, like the fact that Mrs. Conyers earned an $80,000 annual salary until she resigned from the Detroit City Council last July.  She’s no freeloader, she’s indigent!

Gerry Mak, hipster douchebagAcross the country in Baltimore, some of Mrs. Conyers’ younger progressive kindred might not have her brazen sense of entitlement yet, but they’re working on it. “They’re young, they’re broke, and they pay for organic salmon with government subsidies.” They’re hipsters on food stamps.

One of them is Gerry Mak, a 31-year-old artist who “grew up in Westchester, graduated from the University of Chicago and toiled in publishing in New York during his 20s before moving to Baltimore last year with a meager part-time blogging job and prospects for little else.”  Like Monica Conyers, Mak was thrilled when he discovered how to turn the government into his personal Pez dispenser.

Please head over to NewsReal to read the rest, including details on how this hipster parasite refuses to do the “living off ramen thing.”

Published by Jenn Q. Public on March 31, 2010

3 Comments 

The Moral Superiority of Chicks with Chicks

Respect Chicks

If carnivores eat meat, what exactly do femivores eat?

Fortunately, it’s not what you think.  Forget any mental images of Don Juan meets Leatherface and let me translate from New York Timesese to English. Femivores are highly educated, feminist stay-at-home moms who embrace outdoorsy domesticity like growing organic vegetables and raising chickens.

Basically, they’re chicks with chicks.

But a rural housewife who builds her own chicken coop and cans vegetables from her garden wouldn’t capture the attention of the New York Times, and she certainly wouldn’t qualify as a femivore.  According to writer Peggy Orenstein, the femivore’s natural habitat is Berkeley.  And she isn’t a housewife out of necessity, but by choice.

One of the reasons femivores keep chickens is to distinguish themselves from other housewives.  They legitimize their desire to be homemakers by politicizing the act. Every freshly hatched egg is a political and environmental statement.

Femivorism is grounded in the very principles of self-sufficiency, autonomy and personal fulfillment that drove women into the work force in the first place. Given how conscious (not to say obsessive) everyone has become about the source of their food — who these days can’t wax poetic about compost? — it also confers instant legitimacy. Rather than embodying the limits of one movement, femivores expand those of another: feeding their families clean, flavorful food; reducing their carbon footprints; producing sustainably instead of consuming rampantly. What could be more vital, more gratifying, more morally defensible?

For these women, it isn’t enough to make choices that suit your family and reflect your values; you have to agonize over the eco-feminist implications (and have the backyard chicken coop to prove it.) This movement, if it can even be called that, isn’t about true self-sufficiency. It’s about “progressive” women going just a little bit regressive to create the illusion of self-reliance.

[Continued at NewsReal - please click here to read the whole thing.]

Published by Jenn Q. Public on March 28, 2010

4 Comments 

Defending The Right to Race-Based Abortions?

1921-white-negro-fetuses-cold-spring-harbor-laboratory

1921 diagram from the Eugenics Record Office

The virtue of hate crime legislation is a given on the Left. Criminals deserve stiffer punishments if they select victims based on race or sex, end of story.

But what if one of those criminals chose to abort a pregnancy based on the race or sex of the fetus?  Oh, that would be a sacred right.

This is not hyperbole. Consider the depravity of this recent headline on Salon’s Broadsheet blog:  Banning Race-Based Abortions is Wrong.

My body, my choice to abort based on race?

The Broadsheet piece by Tracy Clark-Flory is a reaction to the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, a proposed law that would outlaw abortion based on race, color, or sex in the state of Georgia.

The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act would apply to abortion “the same standards of nondiscrimination” that govern employment, education, government and housing, said Georgia state Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Republican who introduced the bill last month with bipartisan support.

If enacted, the bill would make it illegal to knowingly solicit, perform or accept funding for race- or sex-selected abortions.

So how does this translate into an assault on reproductive freedom?  Clark-Flory explains:

Roger Evans, Planned Parenthood’s senior director for litigation and law, told me over the phone that his main objection is to “the notion that the government has a role in deciding what are fair reasons and unfair reasons for a woman to have an abortion.” First it’s race and sex — but what next?

Ah, yes, the slippery slope argument.  First they come for our right to selectively abort female fetuses, and the next thing you know, it’ll be redheaded fetuses.  Pretty soon we’ll have no right to abort eight-month-old fetuses that kick too much in the middle of the night.

Please visit NewsReal to read the rest.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on March 28, 2010

Leave a Comment 

← Previous Page — Next Page →