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"Might be a racist joke but it's still funny."
— Subject line of a Feb. 24 mass E-mail, sent by Burke County (N.C.) School Board member ROB HAIRFIELD, that contained an epithet-laden racist joke and racist photo illustrations and resulted in the board censuring Hairfield

"The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is effectively an organization that is interested in … Mexico's export of drugs and illegal aliens to the United States."
—LOU DOBBS, on the March 11 edition of CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," in defamatory comments for which he later offered a rare apology

"Those crazies in Montana who say, 'We're going to kill ATF agents because the U.N.'s going to take over' — well, they're beginning to have a case."
— FOX News contributor DICK MORRIS criticizing President Obama's policies during the March 31 edition of FOX's "Your World with Neil Cavuto"

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"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese … do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that's easier for Americans to deal with?"
— Texas state Rep. BETTY BROWN (R-Terrell), in an exchange with Organization of Chinese Americans representative Ramey Ko during an April 7 House Elections Committee hearing on voter identity legislation

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"I was attempting to explain that unlike Sen. Schumer, I believe in traditional values, like we used to see on 'The Andy Griffith Show.' … I don't have any issue with Jews or Jewish people or whatever the politically correct term they wish to be identified as."
— Arkansas state Sen. KIM HENDREN (R-Gravette), "apologizing" on April 14 for calling U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) "that Jew" after Schumer described conservative Republicans as "hard right."

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"[W]e know that that young man was killed in the commitment of robbery. It wasn't because he was gay. … [I]t's really a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."
— U.S. Rep. VIRGINIA FOXX (R-N.C.), in an April 29 speech on the House floor against a proposed federal hate crimes law known as the Matthew Shepard Act, suggesting that police, prosecutors, witnesses and jurors were all wrong about Shepard's murder

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"Poor, without skills, without language, not shar[ing] our culture, not shar[ing] our hygiene. ... It's millions of leeches from a primitive country, come here to leech off you and, with it, they are ruining the schools, the hospitals, and a lot of life in America."
— JAY SEVERIN, during the April 30 edition of his talk radio show on Boston's WTKK-FM, characterizing Mexican immigrants in a tirade that resulted in his indefinite suspension

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"There goes the neighborhood."
— Subject line of a mass E-mail depicting a watermelon patch outside the White House that was forwarded by North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Commission Chairman DOUGLAS A. FOX, who also wrote "how true" but was forced to resign May 5

Quotes on this page were compiled from media accounts, web pages, e-mail groups and Media Matters for America, a website that monitors the far right.