Black Republican Flips Out at RNC

The Young Turks have been broadcasting all week long from the Republican National Convention. We have had some really interesting interviews with Duncan Hunter, Heather Wilson, Bob Barr, Sen. Dan Coats, Rep. Bob Latta, Joe Klein, Michael Medved and the list goes on (you can check out a lot of these interviews on our You Tube Channel here).

Although there were great disagreements in many of these interviews, none of them got out of hand ... except one. The founder of HipHopRepublicans.com took exception when I suggested that George Bush might have been late in responding to Hurricane Katrina. He said he was shocked that I would suggest that late response might have cost some people's lives.

He proceeded to knock my mike down and then hit our camera on his way out. He also got within inches of my face as he stood over me. Watch it here:

Many people are wondering how this ended after he hit the camera. That knocked the stream off the air for a little while and then we got it back up and actually finished the interview with the other woman who was there. She concluded by saying we could privatize the fire department and that people who didn't buy in earlier would get burned (literally, in this case) for their lack of foresight. That way they would wisen up next time around (if there is a next time). But at least she was civil about her extreme libertarian positions, which I appreciated.

Speaking of extreme positions, you can watch this whole interview here. You can watch Duncan Hunter defend torture here. He said that we were right to use some of the same torture techniques the North Vietnamese used on John McCain. And you can watch Heather Wilson say with a straight face that Barack Obama voted to kill little babies here.

Watch The Young Turks Live Coverage of the RNC Here

(Live coverage starts at 5PM ET, until then you can see most of our interviews from the RNC and DNC here)

Comments

[BravoMP]

Why are they at the RNC? They should be at the Libertarian national convention. Republicans only believe in less government when it comes to social programs, infratstructure or the monitoring of big business. If it is military spending they LOVE big government. Even there, they like to spend on weapons and not the soldiers.

[Sambadaddy]

Another unfortunate consequence of hip-hop.
Hip-hop is gateway stupidity.

[research]

so was jazz, rock and rock, and Bach in his time.

[Sambadaddy]

As exemplified by P-Diddy's incomprehensible, repetitive rant which obliterasted his premise, necessitating an even more injurious apology, and the attempt by Ludacris to deliver an Obama campaign rap wherein he attacked HRC, Jesse Jackson, et al, in a scattershot fashion, wounding Obama and the cause in the process, it is clear to me that hip-hop is the "artistic" equivalent of neo-Con theocracy... lawlessness, gunplay, misogyny.
Kelli Goff, author of Party Crashing: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence" defined the hip-hop demographic as 16-45 years of age. This would indicate protracted adolescence and stagnation rather than the trend toward generational compression we've experienced in recent decades. Would you and your family live in a structure however fabulous from the exterior when the builder's knowledge of building fundamentals is questionable or absent?
A modicum of investment in a chosen discipline tends to preclude the profaning of one's art.

With all due respect,

Sambadaddy

[plooger]

Good fun, Cenk.

Re: fire department response...
>> She concluded by saying we could privatize the fire department and that people who didn't buy in earlier would get burned (literally, in this case) for their lack of foresight. That way they would wisen up next time around (if there is a next time).

And what about those insured people who live next to others who are not insured? You can have all the insurance and private fire departments you want, but if your neighborhood is in flames around you, your house is going up. (call it the Mrs. O'Leary's Cow argument)

[nolalily]

Hurricane Katrina was the fault of the Bush administration's negligence to respond to repeated requests by Louisiana and New Orleans to fix the levees. The disaster was not a result of a hurricane. It was the result of poorly funded levee repair. The only reason the city flooded was because the levees were in poor shape. The levees are not under city nor state purvue. They are under the purvue of the feds.

The whole argument, on both sides, was wrong and useless.

This is why having your facts straight is more important than shooting your mouth off.

[neocon666]

Their misguided allegence asside, their aguments were just plain stupid; were black people supposed to organize helicopters and truck convoys just for the black people in the superdome? And try to imagine the chaos that would ensue if every city had private fire departments? These people are just plain stupid (then again, they ARE republican) and devoid of logic or anlytical thought, which makes them perfect republicans.

If the republican party is so much against any government, why don't they change their name to the Anarchists Party of America or something.

[Thad]

Wow. How do you suppose he deals with the OTHER 75% of the population that believes Bush didn't handle Katrina so well?

[glorysong]

Did those Nuts fall down and knock themselves out and forget what party they were with? Hip - Hop you mean flip flop. I am glad they are with the Republican Party.

[nellieh]

Please don't try to change this man's registration.

[JayInDallas]

In all the conversations I've had with Republicans, it feels as though their arguments are never completely thought through. The fact level is too shallow. When you point to documented facts that they weren't aware of, they question nothing but insist and restate their initial argument. Even when they are aware of the facts, there's a rationalization. Is this where we are as a country? ADD-afflicted, short-attention-span-having, highlight-reel minded citizens who have given away their ability to THINK? The only upside I can find is JOB SECURITY for ME and those like me. Aren't subsequent generations supposed to become SMARTER? What happened to evolution? Maybe voting against your own self-interest and the interests of your community is the new way to "thin the herd". (BTW, there are some of these folk on the Dem side too, but they might actually have a fighting chance if educated enough.)

[JayInDallas]

Face it folks. If McCain couldn't find pictures of black folk being happy Americans and had to buy stock photos for the convention, what makes you think somebody didn't find these guys and think it was a great idea to give them exposure? Granted, it was more of a less nuanced version of the GOP, but they can still point to the fact that they "reached out" and that these guys actually exist. (Just don't send anyone other than Fox Noise to interview them!)

[08politicaljunkie]

I haven't watched the video and I'm not going to because it will probably make me ill. But I have a few things to write about Americans with Black skin.

PART ONE.

First of all, all people with Black skin do not share the same ethnicity nor do they share the same identity. We need to start understanding this. The continent of Africa, like Europe, is comprised of many nations. In Europe there are the French, Italians, Spanish, Germans, Irish, British and so on. And in Africa there are Angolans, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Rwandans, Somalians, etc.

There are people from all over the world residing in the United States. And everyone in the US who has Black skin is not a descendant of Africa -- unless we go all the way back, then we can state that EVERYONE is a descendant of Africa.

[drayntx]

These two clowns are an embarrassment to me as an African American. The 2 of them need to exit stage left (and take Kwame with them..another embarrassment.

[KansasMamaforObama]

As an AA, those two people totally do not represent AA. I believe black Republicans are more vile that white Republicans. Why? The Republican Party WAS Lincoln's party, but it is not now. The Republican Party does not care about minorities, not just AA. Why minorities and poor people vote Republican, baffles even the sanest of us out here.

Typical Republican ploy--no valid argument, so shout down the opposing argument.

[UnknownSoldier]

As an BA (Black American) myself, I would say that your view point on Black Repubs does not represent my view of them.


ENOUGH!!!

[sueno]

These "Black" people, don't speak for me!
They clearly have been drinking a lot of GOP/RiGHT-WING/SELF-HATE Kool-aid.
If they were with the Democrats, they would have an analysis! Not just rant, rant, and more yelling.
I don't know "who"raised them! But they need to learn manners
and KNOW what they're talking about-
THEY ARE NOT HIP HOP!
HIP HOP IS Will-i-am and others, who have actually contributed to this debate.

[UnknownSoldier]

Actually they are Hip Hip, but you probably haven't done your History. Lil Wayne is not Hip Hop


ENOUGH!!!

[Thad]

What about Public Enemy?

My recollection is they had some opinions on Arizona politicians who didn't support the Martin Luther King holiday.

[PimpOmega]

No strong history of libertarianism in Hip-Hop as I recall so no.

[blueskybigstar]

I've seen enough. I'm sorry, three idiots trying to have an intelligent discussion cannot happen, especially when the rules to intelligent discussion are broken by each member. Interrupting. Raising voices. Letting one's voice sound accusatory and overly emotional. Showing open disrespect to the person you are talking to. Taking too long to make a point. Making blanket statements that cannot be proven. Coming up with figures that can't be or haven't yet been substantiated. Claiming that everybody agrees with one's point of view and not the other. Asking questions that are rhetorical and not meant to be answered. This piece had it all and more. Yeah, I feel much stupider after watching this. This should be shown as everything a debate should not be. The discussion of rational thought and acknowledgement of each of the other's points with considered responses was completely absent of this completely vacuous discussion. Could not the Young Turk had, at least, have the many things that the Bush administration most certainly did do wrong in preparing and reacting to Katrina at his fingertips? Black Republicans are a strange bunch. It would have been interesting to learn what exactly makes them tick rather than unleashing a mini hurricane Katrina.