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[THE MATRIX]

Senator in Ala. probe called blacks 'aborigines'

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A state senator who recorded conversations for the FBI in Alabama's gambling corruption probe called black customers of a gambling hall "aborigines" during one taped conversation.

A defense attorney for indicted casino owner Milton McGregor presented a transcript in court Wednesday from a recorded conversation that Republican Sen. Scott Beason of Gardendale had with two other GOP legislators. The three were joking about economic development in predominantly black Greene County and the customers at one of the county's largest employers, the Greenetrack casino in Eutaw.

"That's y'all's Indians," one Republican said.

"They're aborigines, but they're not Indians," Beason replied.

When quizzed by defense lawyer Bobby Segall, Beason said he didn't recall recording the conversation, but he didn't dispute its accuracy.

At Republican Leadership Conference, Obama Impersonator Tells Racist Jokes; Audience Laughs

The nation’s GOP elite gathered in New Orleans this weekend for the Republican Leadership Conference. In attendance were presidential candidates Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and potential candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Prior to a speech by RNC Chair Reince Preibus, an Obama impersonator took the stage and told a series of racist jokes. A summary from Arron Blake:

• On Black History Month: “Michelle celebrates the full month. I celebrate half.”

• “My mother loved a black man,” but “she was not a Kardashian.”

• A picture was shown of Obama and the first lady when he took office. The impersonator then showed a picture of what the Obamas will look like when the president leaves office, and it was the characters of Fred Sanford and his sister-in-law, Ethel, from the show “Sanford and Son.”

McCain blames some Arizona wildfires on illegal immigrants

(CNN) -- U.S. Sen. John McCain is blaming illegal immigrants for starting some of the wildfires that have scorched hundreds of thousands of acres in Arizona.

"There is substantial evidence that some of these fires have been caused by people who have crossed our border illegally," McCain, R-Arizona, said Saturday at a press conference. "The answer to that part of the problem is to get a secure border."

The Arizona senator, however, did not say what the evidence is, prompting a swift rebuke from Latino civil rights advocates.

Republican ‘doctrine’ on suppressing black vote is key to Md. case, and maybe to 2012

In a room last summer, the brain trust behind the only Republican governor to lead Maryland since Spiro Agnew sat thumbing through a campaign strategy to suppress turnout among the state’s black voters.

It was a document that could have seemed like a relic, more likely to be found in a campaign office during the time of Agnew and the 1960s civil rights movement than during a campaign in 2010 to reelect former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.

Now, the document in the hands of the Office of the Maryland State Prosecutor. It constitutes the centerpiece of indictments issued this week that that accuse one of Ehrlich’s most trusted aides, as well as a campaign consultant, of conspiring to suppress the black vote last year.

For the defense, the document is no less important. The voter suppression strategy was flatly rejected by those present at the meeting last summer, according to an attorney for Paul Schurick, Ehrlich’s de facto campaign manager, and the apparent inspiration for the document’s namesake, “The Schurick Doctrine.”