David Martosko, Daily Mail, January 14, 2015

A Republican National Committee delegate from Michigan is under fire for re-posting an essay on Facebook that argues blacks are less intelligent and articulate than whites.

The unwanted distraction as the RNC holds its annual Winter Meeting this week is creating new headaches just as the GOP is recovering from the scandal of a high-profile Congressman who spoke to a white supremacist group 12 years ago.

Dave Agema, a former Michigan state legislator and one of the committee’s two Wolverine State delegates, shared the essay with his Facebook audience on December 31.

Blacks, the piece’s author wrote in May 2014, ‘cannot reason as well. They cannot communicate as well. They cannot control their impulses as well. They are a threat to all who cross their paths, black and non-black alike.’

A self-described public defender in the southern U.S. wrote the essay under a pen name, based on what he says were his experiences over the years representing mostly African-American clients.

‘Most blacks are unable to speak English well,’ he claimed. ‘They cannot conjugate verbs. They have a poor grasp of verb tenses. They have a limited vocabulary. They cannot speak without swearing. They often become hostile on the stand.’

‘Many, when they testify, show a complete lack of empathy and are unable to conceal a morality based on the satisfaction of immediate, base needs. This is a disaster, especially in a jury trial.’

‘American Renaissance,’ a magazine described as a white supremacist publication by the Anti-Defamation League, published the piece in May 2014.

The Southern Poverty Law Center includes the publication among its list of ‘hate groups.’

Agema told his 1,300 Facebook followers that the essay was ‘enlightening’ and ‘a very interesting article by a public defender.’

‘We are in a cultural battle,’ he wrote.

Agema later removed his post from Facebook but returned to defend himself Tuesday morning, saying Allen West, a black Republican politician and retired Army lieutenant colonel, had blogged about the piece two days before him.

‘I do support Col West’s commentary concerning the authors [sic] article and not the content of the article itself,’ Agema wrote.

West, a former one-term Florida congressman, had titled his Dec. 29 blog entry about the American Renaissance essay: ‘Quite possibly the most racist article you will ever read.’

But he, too, defended the writer and his racial observations.

‘I’m quite sure the progressive socialist left will criticize me for sharing this article–that’s just who they are–they hate the truth,’ West wrote. ‘But if there is a war to be fought, it is for the soul of the inner city and the black community.’

‘The facts and observations in this are not shocking to me. They are quite well known, but the manner in which the writer so eloquently presents them is quite commendable.’

Republicans may find Agema’s presence at their Winter Meeting in Coronado, California awkward, especially when the keynote speaker takes the stage at a lunch on Thursday.

That would be Ben Carson, the only African-American party member to break into the public consciousness as a possible presidential candidate.

Agema’s fellow Republicans, including many high-profile GOPers from Michigan, lowered the boom Tuesday.

A group of state legislators from Oakland County, Michigan are asking RNC members to ‘end our party’s long nightmare’ by showing the controversial Republican the door.

‘While we are disappointed it has come down to this, we believe this course of action is the only way to stop Mr. Agema’s hateful rhetoric from further tarnishing our party,’ the lawmakers wrote in a letter obtained by DailyMail.com.

‘We urge RNC members, our colleagues and like-minded Michiganders to join us in stepping up and acknowledging that enough is enough.’

Paul Welday, the chairman of the the Michigan Republican Party’s 14th District committee, wrote in a Detroit Free Press op-ed that ‘sadly, there is still a small but vocal faction that sticks by Agema in spite of his repeated broadsides against group after group.’

‘They claim he is being “taken out of context” or that he is somehow being unfairly mischaracterized for his sincerely held conservative beliefs. Utter nonsense.’

‘With every ignorant Facebook post,’ Welday argued, ‘Agema weakens and divides the Republican Party while reinforcing ridiculous stereotypes spread by its opponents. Rather than strengthen and advance the Republican Party, Agema has done more damage to the GOP and the conservative cause than any Democrat could dream of.’

Agema did not respond to requests for comment, but an aide to a Michigan Republican congressman told DailyMail.com Tuesday evening that ‘we all wish he would just dry up and blow away.’

‘He’s an embarrassment, a liability, and just the sort of catnip the Al Sharptons of the world need to paint us all as backward KKK members,’ the staffer said.

Agema has come under fire before for his social media posts.

He shared an article on Facebook two years ago titled ‘Everyone Should Know These Statistics on Homosexuals,’ which bashed gays for having a ‘filthy lifestyle.’

Published by the defunct International Organization of Heterosexual Rights, it claimed 50 per cent of suicides and half of big-city murders are committed by gays, that more than one-third of all gays practice sado-masichism, and that 1 out of 20 homosexuals is a child molester.

‘I didn’t write these words,’ Agema would later insist. ‘I simply posted them.’

But his post included this warning: ‘What is being pawned off on our children and grandchildren in public schools is the story that to be homosexual or lesbian is just another normal alternative lifestyle.’

National Journal reports that he has also argued President Obama is secretly a Muslim and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin for his country’s iron-fisted anti-gay policies.

Agema also ‘blamed Satan for dividing the Republican Party,’ claimed gay Americans want free health care because they suffer from AIDS, and used Facebook to distribute an inflammatory observation that asked: ‘Have you ever seen a Muslim do anything that contributes positively to the American way of life?’

He called that piece of writing ‘eye-opening.’

The Republican Party can ill-afford another race-based stick in the eye.

It was just a week ago that Rep. Steve Scalise, the GOP’s House Whip, admitted that he unwittingly spoke 12 years ago to a group of white supremacists while he was a state legislator in Louisiana.

TIME points out that the Democratic National Committee has its own Agema-style scandal brewing.

Terry Bean, a committeeman from Oregon and a major donor to President Obama’s campaigns, remains on the party’s roster even though he faces criminal charges related to alleged sexual contact he and his ex-boyfriend had with a 15-year-old boy.