MS-SEN: GOP Sen. Hyde-Smith says she doesn't want blacks to vote.

[RandySF]

A video surfaced Thursday of Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi saying it might be a "great idea" to make it harder for some people to vote, and her campaign quickly responded that she was "obviously" joking.

Hyde-Smith, who is in a runoff against Democrat Mike Espy on Nov. 27, made the remark at a campaign stop in Starkville, Mississippi, on Nov. 3. It was posted to Twitter on Thursday by Lamar White Jr., publisher of The Bayou Brief. Smith earlier this week posted video of Hyde-Smith making a comment on Nov. 2 about a "public hanging" that started a controversy.

"And then they remind me that there's a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who ... maybe we don't want to vote," Hyde-Smith is heard saying. "Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think that's a great idea."

The episode comes after that first controversial video was posted to Twitter on Sunday. In that video, Hyde-Smith is heard saying during a campaign stop in Tupelo on Nov. 2 that if the man who was next to her, later identified as a local rancher, "invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row."

Critics said the comment had a racial connotation in the context of Mississippi's history of lynching. Hyde-Smith said in a statement soon after the remark was posted that she "referred to accepting an invitation to a speaking engagement" and "used an exaggerated expression of regard."

"Any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous," she added.



https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/mississippi-gop-sen-hyde-smith-calls-voter-suppression-great-idea-n936946

[Celerity]

1. she needs to go DOWN!! fucking KKKlannerette

[raccoon]

24. I was thinking she ought to be the mascot of a Klavern. Nt

[Blue_true]

31. Black people and decent White people should go to the polls loaded from bear on her ass.

Even a White person who maybe would not have voted for Epsy for reasons other than race should vote for him to insure that she loses.

[underpants]

2. The mere idea of a Mississippi Senate race being at all close is mind blowing.

[Blue_true]

32. Well, a child abuser in Alabama almost won. The White Christians in those places overlook a lot. nt

[MagickMuffin]

3. "Any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous,"

No it isn't. Anyone who would recommend certain people shouldn't be allowed to vote, it's really how she thinks and feels.

She was NOT JOKING!

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. control, control, control

[...]

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the lynching of Black people in the Southern and border states became an institutionalized method used by whites to terrorize Blacks and maintain white supremacy. In the South, during the period 1880 to 1940, there was deep-seated and all-pervading hatred and fear of the Negro which led white mobs to turn to “lynch law” as a means of social control. Lynchings—open public murders of individuals suspected of crime conceived and carried out more or less spontaneously by a mob—seem to have been an American invention. In Lynch-Law, the first scholarly investigation of lynching, written in 1905, author James E. Cutler stated that “lynching is a criminal practice which is peculiar to the United States.”1

Most of the lynchings were by hanging or shooting, or both. However, many were of a more hideous nature—burning at the stake, maiming, dismemberment, castration, and other brutal methods of physical torture. Lynching therefore was a cruel combination of racism and sadism, which was utilized primarily to sustain the caste system in the South. Many white people believed that Negroes could only be controlled by fear. To them, lynching was seen as the most effective means of control.

[...]

http://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html

[leanforward]

29. Tough read, but true.

[Liberal In Texas]

4. Gee, one of them said it out loud.

Not that you can't tell that from the way they suppress and make voting difficult for populations they suspect might vote differently than they want.

[Cracklin Charlie]

5. "Just a little more difficult"

Just difficult enough, right, Cindy?

[Me.]

6. Buh Bye Cind

[StevieM]

10. Unfortunately she is still likely to win. (eom)

[gratuitous]

7. Cindy keeps putting her foot in her mouth like that

She's going to get athlete's tongue. Mississippi, like Alabama earlier, may take a look at the alternative and decide the Democrat better represents the state going forward. Mike Espy is a fine, well-qualified candidate.

[Awsi Dooger]

12. Likely?

The odds didn't shift one cent

[gratuitous]

14. "Likely?"

Thanks, but my post didn't need augmenting, and I didn't say "likely."

[Blue_true]

34. Blacks make up 37% of the state's population. I don't know the % of voters but will look it up.

If a small % of Whites (the decent ones and there are some) vote for him, he can win.

[sarah FAILIN]

8. Get on the phone unless you like her attitude

We can turn this around on her with phone banking. The time to act is now before it's too late. People supporting Espy need to help all we can and in any way we can.

[In It to Win It]

11. I knew she wouldn't disappoint me by saying something EVEN STUPIDER!

[greyl]

13. Why should we interpret her using the word "liberals" as meaning "black"?

Link to tweet

[LiberalLovinLug]

18. They should post that quote up in universities and colleges before the next election

Youth are prone to not vote. Nothing in it for them they think. But if some grown up tells them they can't do something, or they'll make it hard for them, you'll get more students to actually turn up at the polls.

[greyl]

19. The real quote, or the false one in the OP? nt

[LiberalLovinLug]

20. This one

"And then they remind me, that there's a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who that maybe we don't want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think that's a great idea."

I didn't know there was a false one. Where is that?

[greyl]

21. There's a technique whereby true stories are contaminated with tiny falsehoods.

The subject of this thread reads "...says she doesn't want blacks to vote", implying that quote is in the video. It's not. Unless there's evidence of her saying that, that would be the false one.

[LiberalLovinLug]

22. I was just talking about students, as that was what her quote mentioned.

Yes, the OP title itself is misleading. I didn't see that line in the story at all, even though it is most likely true. Blacks, students, gays, anyone that is most likely to be a liberal, I'm sure she would rather they not be able to vote.

[LanternWaste]

25. Why should we interpret Trump's talk of immigrants as applying only to...

Why should we interpret Trump's talk of illegal immigrants as applying only to the central and south Americans nations?

My guess would be 'common sense' and and patterns of consistency.

But I suppose we could tell ourselves that dog whistles don't exist, and literalism isn't simply for evangelicals.

[Takket]

15. She's pretty awful

But not Roy Moore awful. She’ll still pull 60% in MS

[Polybius]

17. And Moore only lost by about 1%

Without the underage girls, he'd be Senator now.

[Alhena]

16. This is MS- their last Senator won by bragging about banging a cow - link

so I've got a sneaking suspicion this won't stop Jethro from voting for her:

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/qj2x93/the-colbert-report-thad-cochran-on-doing-indecent-things-with-animals

[Buckeyeblue]

23. Does Mississippi realize they are a national joke?

[riverbendviewgal]

26. Matches Burning trilogy takes place in Mississippi

The author, Greg Iles born in and lives in Mississippi. Powerful writing. Shows the racism still very alive now and the history.

[beachbum bob]

27. should make a good political ad....

[leanforward]

28. May she encounter difficulties in the rest of her life

And she probably goes to church every Sunday.

[salin]

30. a start - adding -Crow to her hyphenated last name

as her "jokes" all seem to fall in line with the Jim Crow era sentiments.

Sen. Hyde-Smith-Crow .

[dalton99a]

35. +1

[apnu]

33. Republicans. All class (nt)