The incoming Republican speaker of the Nevada State Assembly, Ira Hansen, is stepping down from the post after the Reno News & Review brought to light his history of amazingly overt racism and bigotry.

“Politics of personal destruction win. I need to step down,” Hansen wrote in the email. “I hope that you all know that the Ira that you have known through these years and weeks is the real Ira and not what the media is painting me to be.”

“You are a great group that can hopefully do great things and my staying will harm the caucus,” he added. “I wish you all the best. Thanks for hanging tough through these difficult past days. If this were just about ‘me’ I would fight this out to the bitter end, but it is going to harm all of you.”

And of course, Hansen maintains that he’s the victim of a smear campaign and his words were distorted.

For the greater good of the State of Nevada and the cause I support it is necessary for me to withdraw as Speaker Designee. The tens of thousands of people who both read my columns and listened to my radio shows through two decades in the media know this has been a carefully orchestrated attack to remove a conservative Republican from a major leadership role in State government. The deliberate character assassination and the politics of personal destruction have totally distorted my views and record. Ultimately, this whole attack has very little to do with my views. The powers that be are planning a massive, more than one billion dollar, tax increase and I stood in the way as Speaker. I have already served two terms as an Assemblyman without any of these vicious attacks. It was only when I had risen to leadership that this smear campaign occurred. That is the real reason for this and it is vital the public understands that.

It’s a little hard to “distort” views like these, however:

Hansen has said he keeps a Confederate battle flag on the wall where he writes his columns. “I fly it proudly in honor and in memory of a great cause and my brave ancestors who fought for that cause,” he wrote.

Hansen tends to use the term “Negro” and often does not capitalize it. In one column, he described Washoe Republican Sen. Maurice Washington (whom he supported) as black but in the same column called President Obama (whom he opposes) a “negro”—lower case.

I knew things had swung to the radical right in Nevada, but the Reno News & Review has a jaw-dropper of a report today on the Republican picked by the GOP to be speaker of the state assembly, Ira Hansen — a paleoconservative caveman who wrote a column for years for the Sparks Tribune, laying out his stunningly bigoted and hateful views on quite a variety of subjects.

On African Americans:

Hansen has said he keeps a Confederate battle flag on the wall where he writes his columns. “I fly it proudly in honor and in memory of a great cause and my brave ancestors who fought for that cause,” he wrote.

Hansen tends to use the term “Negro” and often does not capitalize it. In one column, he described Washoe Republican Sen. Maurice Washington (whom he supported) as black but in the same column called President Obama (whom he opposes) a “negro”—lower case.

On Martin Luther King:

Hansen has repeated, legitimately, the well known stories about Martin Luther King’s plagiarism as a student, using them to try to discredit his later work. On several occasions, including in King Day columns, Hansen has also cited as factual rumors about King’s private life about which nothing reliable is known, particularly given the efforts of the FBI to plant misinformation about King with journalists. Hansen provided nothing like chapter and verse to prove King’s private life unsuitable, relying on the notion that it is something we all “know.”

Hansen wrote, “King’s private life was trashy at best. … King Jr. is as low as it gets, a hypocrite, a liar, a phony, and a fraud.” He opposed an effort to name a Paradise Park community center for King on the grounds African-Americans had begun rejecting him in favor of Louis Farrakhan, a black trend that has not been recorded elsewhere.

On “educational slavery:”

In an attack on public education and teacher unions, Hansen wrote, “The Democratic coalition would split asunder if the NAACP & co. actually promoted what black Americans truly desire—educational choice. The shrewd and calculating [black] ‘leaders’ are willing to sacrifice the children of their own race to gratify their lust for power and position. The relationship of Negroes and Democrats is truly a master-slave relationship, with the benevolent master knowing what’s best for his simple minded darkies. For American blacks, being denied choice and forced to attend the failing and inferior government school system is a form of involuntary servitude. Let’s call it what it truly is—educational slavery.”

On real slavery:

He wrote that African-Americans are insufficiently grateful for being given their freedom: “The lack of gratitude and the deliberate ignoring of white history in relation to eliminating slavery is a disgrace that Negro leaders should own up to.”

We’re well into Stormfront territory here. And this is just the beginning; Hansen has also spewed all manner of hatred at gays, Latinos, women, you name it. Basically, if you are not a white male far right whack job, Ira Hansen despises you. And maybe even then.

YouTube

You really aren’t going to believe this one, folks.

“I hear you Cliven, and I believe you. A brave white man like you might be just what we need to put an end to this political correctness stuff in America today.”

“Don’t sell yourself short! You’re takin’ a chance just bein’ in my company!”

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy together with congressional candidate Kamau Bakari (IAP) challenge U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to come to Nevada and have the conversation about race that he claims Americans are too cowardly to have.

(h/t: Karoli.)

Town of Ghosts

Bodie is by far the best preserved ghost town in the United States.

Gold was discovered back in 1859 by William S Bodey and at its apex, the town had a population of 10,000 residents through the 1880’s. Bodie was replete with the makings of old west folklore; gunfighters, saloons, miners, gambling halls and prostitutes, a rough place through and through. But the town’s success didn’t last and faded from ‘glory’ prior to World War I and was finally down for the count during WWII once all mining operations were halted due to the war effort. It was effectively abandoned with many of the structures retaining the inhabitants belongings because the roads out were toll and weight based; many people simply decided to leave their belongings behind to avoid large fees so the ghost town was born.

Today, after two fires, around 100 structures remain, (5% of the original town) some of which are filled with furniture, lined and matted with layer up on layer of rotting and sagging wallpaper. Some buildings are seemingly untouched time-capsules to the once treacherous lives of the miners and other inhabitants of the town. Kids toys sitting by the window, a ball peen hammer on the ground, strewn gears in a machine shop, and rusted hangers hanging in a closet.

Walking the grounds, particularly the cemetery, I was overcome with a sense of foreboding and the gentle but incessant march of time continuing on. The once important lives buried under a wood tombstone were all but forgotten and those now nameless people who were loved or loved others, brothers, fathers, sisters and mothers, almost never existed unless you look at the uneven ground at a certain angle in the perfect light.

We spent a week shooting with access to some of the interiors of the buildings, and the ability to shoot at night. Because it is located in the Sierra Neveda and its unique geography and high elevation, the weather was quite extreme and could change in a matter of minutes; most nights were very cold and the temperature often sat in the low teens and were mixed with snow, wind, and icey rain.

Bodie is kept in a state of “arrested decay” and hangs (sometimes literally) in a sort of desolated limbo, as the dry lumber, rusted nails, and worn masonry, slowly give into the sands of time.

Special Thanks to Ranger Tom Gunther. Thank you for your help!!!

Thanks to Matthews MSE, (Tyler, Bob, Ed) for helping me with some last minute requests and their use of the DC Slider and dolly track.

The Las Vegas Sun reports that voter turnout for the Nevada caucuses was very low, despite the Republican Party’s constant fear-mongering and attacks on President Obama.

Something’s going wrong with the GOP strategy of demonization and Tea Party ultra-conservatism; I suspect the toxic atmosphere of the far right is beginning to turn off center right Republicans, and that could spell big trouble for the GOP in the general election.

Mitt Romney’s easy victory in Nevada’s Republican presidential caucuses might, in the long run, be less important than the fact that a surprising number of Republicans who could have participated Saturday chose to stay home.

Republicans’ disappointing turnout foreshadows difficulty energizing GOP voters in Nevada, a key swing state in November’s general election.

Turnout was unlikely to match 2008, when 44,000 Republicans participated in Nevada’s caucuses. Complete figures were not released by the state party as of 10 p.m. Saturday, an indication of a lackluster showing.

“It was less than what we had planned for,” Clark County caucus Director Michael Chamberlain said on KNPR.

Republican turnout in Washoe County, Nevada’s second largest, was 8 percent, well below the 20 percent some had predicted.

“We expected more. Obviously we hoped for more,” David Buell, chairman of the Washoe County Republican Party, said.

Here’s an open thread to keep up on news from the Nevada GOP caucuses, in which Mitt Romney is expected to thoroughly trounce Newt “Poor Kids Make Great Janitors” Gingrich.

Ron “I Can’t Help It If White Supremacists Dig Me” Paul, for some reason, seems confident that he’ll beat Gingrich for second place.

If you’re on Twitter, statewide vote totals are being tweeted by @NVGOP…

Live results:

Here’s a thread to post breaking news on the crash of a vintage WWII aircraft at the Reno Air Races…

The latest news is that the plane crashed into a “VIP box seating” area near the main grandstands.

According to this story at the Reno Gazette-Journal, at least seven people have been shot by a suspect with a semi-automatic weapon…

This Easter, the right wing Las Vegas Review-Journal is running this crazed editorial by Glenn Cook, comparing Tea Party/John Birch Society lunatic Sharron Angle to … you guessed it … Jesus Christ.

How appropriate that on this Easter Sunday, Nevada marks yet another political resurrection.

And this one, so unexpected and undeserved, could answer the prayers of the tea party movement.

Sharron Angle, less than six months ago a national embarrassment following her humiliating election loss to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, might very well find herself representing Nevada in Congress by summer.

The GOP’s Angle stands out as a clear-cut winner following Thursday’s news that Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., is resigning effective May 3. …

She has risen. She has risen indeed.

Bloggers won’t be running out of material any time soon, with the GOP’s goofiest right wing extremist, Sharron Angle, forming a new TeaBagger umbrella group called “Patriot Caucus.”

Former Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle is angling to lead the tea party movement heading into 2012.

Angle over the weekend unveiled the Patriot Caucus, a PAC that she says has the support of tea party organizers in 15 states and which will “organize a ground game across most battleground states for the 2012 election cycle.” The group plans to open offices in Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada – states with early presidential primaries and caucuses – in early 2011.

Here’s their website, created by Eric Odom, with a hideous logo that looks like an explosion in a font factory: The Patriot Caucus PAC.