Posted on 08/28/2002 7:52:55 AM PDT by mhking
The Weekly Scalawag
J.E. "Billy" McKinney -- for keeping up his old tricks
BY SCOTT HENRY
Can someone please explain how Billy McKinney has managed to stay in politics for 30 years while remaining a belligerent, unreformed race-baiter, anti-Semite and homophobe with a disturbing tendency toward violence?
Last week, in explaining why his daughter was facing such tough re-election opposition, the 75-year-old state representative (for now, at least) spelled out for TV cameras: "J-E-W-S."
Wow, deja vu. Just six years ago, Cynthia McKinney was forced to boot her dad off her campaign after he called her opponent, John Mitnick, a "racist Jew." What earned Mitnick such antipathy? Simply alleging that the congresswoman had close ties to Louis Farrakhan -- the same Farrakhan she brought to town last week in a desperate bid to win over voters.
But Jews aren't the only group McKinney the elder holds in contempt. In the mid-'80s, he floated bills to require AIDS sufferers to register with local authorities, and to legalize sodomy -- but only for straight couples.
In 1994, he was fined by a federal court for threatening U.S. Rep. Gary Franks (R-Conn.). After the black congressman testified that Cynthia McKinney's district was improperly drawn, her father followed him from the courtroom to his car, called him a "Judas for the white man" and other slurs, and challenged him to fight.
Despite his age, Billy McKinney, a former Atlanta police officer, isn't shy about physical confrontation -- especially with women. In 1993, a gay-rights activist filed charges that he hit her in the mouth in Atlanta City Hall; in 2000, a DeKalb elections official accused him of grabbing her by the lapel when she came to find out why the McKinneys were inside a polling place stumping for last-second votes with a bullhorn.
Billy McKinney always has shown poor taste in friends, defending the scandal-plagued state Sen. Hildred Shumake, divisive Atlanta Councilwoman Sherry Dorsey and her husband, sheriff-turned-murderer Sidney Dorsey.
No one can accuse Billy McKinney of being a conformist. In 2000, he cast the sole vote against a House ethics bill, grousing: "I'm sick of this ethics stuff. I think we've got enough ethics."
The Weekly Scalawag is now accepting nominations. E-mail scott.henry@creativeloafing.com.
08.28.02
I don't recall the name of the other combatatant, but that person chose not to press charges against McKinney. The man's simply nuts.
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The same way that Jesse 'Hymietown'Jackson, Al (Tawana) Sharpton and Calypso Louie Farakhan manage to stay in politics and be considered a leader of the Black People. They are all Black's and are given extreme latitude by the press who will tolerate any behavior from them for fear of being called..................racist.
It never ceases to amaze me that the title "Black Leader" continues to be used almost exclusively for a select few self ordained, self-proclaimed and rich men. It is as if all Blacks are supposed to think the same, and if they do not, then they are somehow less Black.
The hypocracy of the left on this issue is mind numbing.
Because he's black?
...he knows where the skeletons are and who they belong to?
Billy, a former cop, brags that he can't count on 2 hands the number of people that he has shot.
But the interesting thing in all of this is that no one mentions that Cynthia proudly chopped sugar cane for Fidel Castro. Literally.
I am so "over" being worried about being called a racist for speaking the truth, it's not funny. The sooner we all do it, the sooner these fools will no longer be misrepresented as "leaders".
I wear as a personal badge of honor Billy calling us "rich white racist Nazis" at our FReep of Cyndy's event back in May. We were as professional and courteous as we could be, but we opposed her and her politics and policies, so we were racist Nazis. He is just a bitter, pitiful old man.
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