I’m continuing a Minnesota-focused discussion of political bigotry in action, as practiced by ALEC’s Mary Kiffmeyer, her fellow Republicans and her conservative allies at Minnesota Majority, who put up a racist/steretype image to scare voters about supposed voter fraud and to support voter IDs.

I saw an interesting story the other day that starts off thus…

Racism in the GOP? Nah… just class from the state of Fred Phelps and the personal email of Rep. Mike O’Neal, via Pat Cunningham of the Rockford Register Star.

I wrote previously about Ron Paul’s newsletters, and I still think there’s reason to condemn not only the writings but the worldview they espouse, one which Paul embraces even as he disavows some of the finer points of the newsletters. But I think there’s more to say about this incident and what it means about American politics.

I think it’s fair to say that Ron Paul doesn’t like to take questions about the newsletters that bore his name in the 1990s. He walked out of an interview with Gloria Borger when she peppered him with questions about it.

Kevin William Harpham of Colville, WA, confessed to leaving an explosive device near the intended route of a Martin Luther King Day Unity March in Spokane. Stored in a backpack, it was packed with fishing weights coated with rat poison. Now he faces 32 years in prison.

At Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church in Pike County, Kentucky, an inter-racial couple, Stella Harville, who is white and who was baptized there and a member of the church as a child, brought her fiancé, Ticha Chikuni, a native of Zimbabwe, to sing at a service. Then they were banned.

I’ll never understand Herman Cain and his relationship to the GOP establishment; like former puppet Michael Steele, they don’t see (or don’t care) how rancid race-based politics in the Republican party have become. It’s been quite bold since the election of Barack Obama. My long view is that we do need more minorities (and LGBTs) in the GOP because without decent representation, there’s no incentive for the GOP to woo those demographics, which are currently beholden to the Democratic Party. That said, the Republican leadership has made its bed with the fundamentalists and nativist know-nothings, making Cain and other black Republicans curious cases that border on self-loathing.

“Bradlee Dean wants it both ways: he wants to be a public and private citizen. Bradlee Dean wants to be a prominent, public figure when he broadcasts on AM 1280 every week and delivered a prayer at the Minnesota Legislature and gives speeches at Tea Party rallies. The courts should not grant him the same right to privacy that a private citizen enjoys. But, Bradlee Dean is too chicken to take criticism for his incendiary, bigoted statements he has made on his websites and on the public airways, so he and his ministry files complaints with the police, You Tube and with the courts.”

I see the wingnuts are running around trying to tie the Occupy Wall Street movement with Nazis and Communists. Oh, this is going to be fun.