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Arizona Legislator Posts Stream Of Racist Tweets

Arizona State Rep. Bob Thorpe recently tweeted his outrage that “blacks” beat up a white teenager without notice by the “liberal press,” endorsed the “crowd pleasing” antics of a Missouri State Fair clown who wore a Barack Obama mask while running from a bull, and accused the attorney general of being soft on crime because of his race.

The Phoenix News Times reported Wednesday on the a freshman Tea Party legislator’s now-protected Twitter stream. On August 8, he tweeted seemingly expressing his outrage that an incident in which “three 15 year old blacks” allegedly assaulted a “13 yr old white boy” on a Florida school bus received less media attention than George Zimmerman received for shooting and killing Trayvon Martin.

On Monday, Thorpe accused Attorney General Eric Holder — the first African American in U.S. history to serve as Attorney General — of racial bias. After Holder announced drug sentencing reforms, the Arizona Republican tweeted, “Why is Holder now Soft on Crime? Perhaps: black = 12%-13% US population, but make up 40.1% (2.1 million) of male inmates in jail or prison.”

When called out by a colleague for the divisive accusation, he doubled-down, asking, “What’s Holder’s motivation for reversing extremely low crime rates? Could harm minorities the most!”

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Thorpe previously made headlines for his proposals to require all public high school students in Arizona to “recite an oath supporting the U.S. Constitution” to receive a graduation diploma and to prohibit state enforcement of federally enacted gun safety laws.