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Rachel Maddow weighs in on the overt racism that the GOP and their counterparts in the media don't seem to be too concerned about expressing these days.

BECK: This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seed hatred for white people or the white culture.

LIMBAUGH: Here you have a black president trying to destroy a white policeman. I think he is genuinely revved up about race. You know me. I think he is genuinely angry in his heart and has been his whole life.

MALKIN: I think he is a racial opportunist.

LIMBAUGH: Look, I had a dream. I had a dream that I was a slave building a sphinx in a desert that looked like Obama.

BECK: He has a problem. He has a - this guy is, I believe, a racist.

LIMBAUGH: And after that, they‘re going to go after Oreos. Might have to put that off until Obama is out of office, but they‘ll eventually go after Oreos.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Now, the racial divide in this country didn‘t disappear when Barack Obama was elected president. And no reasonable person has expected it to. But it is somewhere between eyebrow raising and breathtaking to have such blunt, unvarnished race-baiting so forward in the national discourse right now.

And the type of race baiting to which we‘re subjected is fairly specific and fairly consistent. The argument that the president hates white people, for example, which you just heard Glenn Beck make on Fox News, that it‘s he, the president, who is racist, that argument dovetails perfectly with the arguments made against Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor and the far more genteel setting of the United States Senate.

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Via Atrios, Craig Crawford describes the political disaster that the GOP has decided to perpetrate upon itself:

Watching Lindsey Graham's gotcha grin as he needled Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor with disingenuous and rhetorical questions you had to wonder what was so funny. Does the Republican senator think it is amusing that he and his party's condescending tone toward the Hispanic woman was costing them ethnic votes with each passing hour of Tuesday's Judiciary Committee hearing?

. . . Even if they vote for her, the fallout for Republicans could reach well beyond Hispanic voters. They are coming across as a bunch of snarky and bitter old white men who cannot bear the thought of their kind losing power.

The only thing that can make it worse for the GOP will be, as I noted earlier, if no Republicans vote for Sotomayor's confirmation. Here's hoping.

My oh my, I don't think the Republican Party is trying very hard to disprove the widely held notion that they are the party of privileged white men. Let's look at their perhaps unintentionally revealing tactics in questioning Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor:

First, we have Sen. Jeff "I couldn't become a federal judge because of my racist tendencies" Sessions basically telling Sotomayor that he expects her judgments to fall in line with other Puerto Ricans on the bench, because they're Puerto Rican. (h/t Think Progress)

And then Sen, Jon "We don't want no stinkin' Gazan refugees" Kyl goes off on a SEVEN minute rant to Sotomayor over his out-of-context interpretation of her "wise Latina" remark (thinking and talking points courtesy of Rush Limbaugh), despite the fact that Sotomayor had already addressed this issue a number of times.

And then Sen. Lindsey "I'm going to throw a tantrum and shut down the Senate if you get to see what we enabled" Graham treated Sotomayor with such attitude that even MSNBC's Tamron Hall and Mike Viquera termed it "patronizing".

And then to really hit home how the GOP's exposure to minorities come almost exclusively from TV sitcoms, Sen. Tom "Don't Ask, Don't Tell about my fellow GOP's sordid affairs" Coburn invokes none other than Ricky Ricardo to warn Sotomayor if she--metaphorically speaking, of course--attacked him.

Really, GOP...how do you think you're gonna attract that all-important Latino bloc of voters to your side in 2010-- with fried chicken and potato salad?

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I've spent the past three days participating in the Reform Immigration for America summit in Washington, D.C. I've experienced more than my share of disappointments over the past few years in watching advocates come up short in the fight to bring sanity to the nation's misbegotten immigration laws.

Many of those wounds have been somewhat self-inflicted, largely because of the disparate nature of the many different organizations and interests who have made up the coalition of interests seeking comprehensive immigration reform.

And what was so encouraging about this summit is that it was clear that they are all coming together with a remarkable focus and ferocity. They will need it for the fight ahead.

The summit preceded President Obama's meeting 10 days hence with members of Congress on how to proceed on immigration. So the attendees fanned out after a rally Thursday to speak with their congressional delegations.

Eric Ward at Imagine 2050 has a terrific rundown:

Among cheers of “Sí se puede!” and “Time is now!” hundreds packed into the Church of the Reformation for a National Town Hall meeting on Capitol Hill. Their calls were clear - we can’t wait, we need comprehensive immigration reform now.

... Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) said 80,000 faxes were sent to Congress in the last 24 hours, and freshman representatives from swing districts are willing to put their seats on the line for comprehensive immigration reform. Let’s hope many more members of congress are willing to go out on a limb for the millions of people suffering in limbo.

There's plenty of reason to feel optimistic this time out as well. America's Voice has done some recent polling (details in the PDF here) showing that the public, by a large margin, favors fixing the mess that is our current set of laws:

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Newt Gingrich confirms that he's running for President in 2012 because you know he would never backtrack from a statement like this:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday he shouldn't have called Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a racist, but said he was still concerned that she would bring bias to her decisions.

In a letter to supporters, the Georgia Republican said that his words had been "perhaps too strong and direct" last week when he called Sotomayor a reverse "racist," based on a 2001 speech in which she said she hoped the rulings of a "wise Latina" would be better than those of a white male without similar experiences. Gingrich's remarks created a furor among Sotomayor's backers and caused problems for GOP figures who have been pushing to bring more diversity to the party.

Gingrich conceded that Sotomayor's rulings have "shown more caution and moderation" than her speeches and writings, but he said the 2001 comments "reveal a betrayal of a fundamental principle of the American system -- that everyone is equal before the law."

Sotomayor, 54, would be the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the high court.

He still won't put her words in context and when that is done, her words are not a betrayal. But he still acts a like a jerk when he calls her a radical:

So the question we need to ask ourselves in considering Judge Sotomayor's confirmation is this: Which judge will show up on the Supreme Court, the radical from her speeches or the convention liberal from her rulings?”

UPDATE:
Rush reacts to Newt's backtracking on Sotomayor "racist" charge: "I'm not retracting it."

LIMBAUGH: Have my words been too strong on Sotomayor? Are you asking me because Newt has retracted his -- no, my words have not been too strong. I just heard right before the program started. I didn't have a chance to do a lot of show prep late because of the Hannity interview, so I -- after the interview, I checked my email, and three members of the state-run media has sent me emails wanting my reaction to Newt's retraction of calling Sotomayor a racist, and I didn't know that he had, and I didn't know why he had retracted it, and I still don't. But -- what did he say? Why did he retract it? Did he say that he thought the word was too harsh or -- well, I have my own theory about what Newt's doing, but since I'm not doing it, I'm not going to comment.

I'm not retracting it. Nobody's refuted it. You know, they're out there saying, "It's too harsh. It's distracting, Rush. I mean, it's calling -- you know, you just don't want to use the word." Why? If the word means something -- words mean things -- and if it fits, I use it. Now, they may say, "Don't say it, Rush. Dial it back a little bit." But nobody's saying I'm wrong. Nobody's saying I'm making it up. I mean, when she says she'd do a better job than a white guy, what is it? It's racism, reverse racism, whatever, but it's still racism. She would bring a form of racism, bigotry to the court.

Newt Gingrich confirms that he's running for President in 2012 because you know he would never backtrack from a statement like this:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday he shouldn't have called Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a racist, but said he was still concerned that she would bring bias to her decisions.

In a letter to supporters, the Georgia Republican said that his words had been "perhaps too strong and direct" last week when he called Sotomayor a reverse "racist," based on a 2001 speech in which she said she hoped the rulings of a "wise Latina" would be better than those of a white male without similar experiences. Gingrich's remarks created a furor among Sotomayor's backers and caused problems for GOP figures who have been pushing to bring more diversity to the party.

Gingrich conceded that Sotomayor's rulings have "shown more caution and moderation" than her speeches and writings, but he said the 2001 comments "reveal a betrayal of a fundamental principle of the American system -- that everyone is equal before the law."

Sotomayor, 54, would be the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the high court.

He still won't put her words in context and when that is done, her words are not a betrayal. But he still acts a like a jerk when he calls her a radical:

So the question we need to ask ourselves in considering Judge Sotomayor's confirmation is this: Which judge will show up on the Supreme Court, the radical from her speeches or the convention liberal from her rulings?”

And of course, now the Republicans will accuse Obama of imposing a litmus test, since anything he does is evil:

The White House scrambled yesterday to assuage worries from liberal groups about Judge Sonia Sotomayor's scant record on abortion rights, delivering strong but vague assurances that the Supreme Court nominee agrees with President Obama's belief in constitutional protections for a woman's right to the procedure.

Facing concerns about the issue from supporters rather than detractors, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama did not ask Sotomayor specifically about abortion rights during their interview. But Gibbs indicated that the White House is nonetheless sure she agrees with the constitutional underpinnings of Roe v. Wade, which 36 years ago provided abortion rights nationwide.

"In their discussions, they talked about the theory of constitutional interpretation, generally, including her views on unenumerated rights in the Constitution and the theory of settled law," Gibbs said. "He left very comfortable with her interpretation of the Constitution being similar to that of his."

From Juan Cole, this little stroll down memory lane:

Republican poobah Newt Gingrich has lambasted Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as a 'racist' because she implied that a Latina woman could empathize with certain situations as a judge better than a white male could, and so would come to sounder judgments.

Just so everyone remembers, this is Newt Gingrich's idea of the difference between the sexes:

'If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections.... Males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.'

I rest Judge Sotomayor's case.

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Joan Walsh calls out Pat Buchanan for describing Sonia Sotomayor as an "affirmative action" pick and trying to compare her to Harriet Miers. Why does Matthews think anyone cares what this racist, sexist, relic thinks? I swear I think Buchanan has a cot in the MSNBC studio and just sleeps there they have him on so much. Buchanan backs down a bit after Walsh gets onto him and points out Sotomayor's educational background and the number of years she's served as a judge, but mark my words he'll be right back on Morning Joe repeating the same nonsense with Scarborough or one of their other guests chiming in with him.

Pat still hasn't gotten over Nixon getting run out of office. He's always a sure bet to be out there fighting for the poor, downtrodden white man who just hasn't gotten a fair shake in this country.

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David Shuster calls out Republican strategist Chris Wilson for repeating quotes by anonymous sources in Jeffrey Rosen's article at the New Republic to attack Sonia Sotomayor.