Tag: GOP as racist as Trump

Pentagon pushes back at GOP lawmakers over critical race theory claims

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“There is no contradiction here,” the Pentagon’s top spokesperson said.

The Pentagon is defending comments made by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after GOP lawmakers claimed the military chief misrepresented the department’s stance on the teaching of critical race theory.

On Wednesday, an Air Force Academy professor wrote an op-ed in defense of discussing the subject with cadets, which prompted the lawmakers to criticize Austin, who said last month that the military does not teach critical race theory.

“There is no contradiction here. The Secretary’s comments stand,” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told POLITICO Thursday. “That a professor at an academic institution such as the Air Force Academy teaches a given theory as part of an elective course does not in the slightest way signify some larger effort by the Department to teach, espouse or embrace said theory. Continue reading.

St. Louis couple who pointed guns at protesters plead guilty, will give up firearms

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A St. Louis couple who gained notoriety for waving guns at racial justice protesters last summer pleaded guilty Thursday to misdemeanor charges and agreed to give up the guns they used during the confrontation.

Video and photographs of rifle-wielding Mark McCloskey and pistol-toting Patricia McCloskey in front of their mansion on June 28 captured the attention of the country, including then-President Donald Trump, who spoke out in defense of the couple. Trump and other Republicans considered the McCloskeys law-abiding homeowners defending their property. Others saw the couple as overly aggressive toward protesters who were marching through the gated community to the home of then-Mayor Lyda Krewson amid nationwide protests after a police officer killed George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The couple, both personal injury attorneys, faced felony firearm charges after the menacing display in front of their marble-faced palazzo home but ultimately pleaded guilty to lesser charges. Continue reading.

Fox News guests battle over US history: ‘We treated slaves nicely — that’s not the truth!’

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Two Fox News guests argued on Sunday over whether critical race theory has corrupted the U.S. history curriculum in American schools.

Fox News host Mike Emmanuel began the discussion by suggesting that critical race theory is a “religion of division.”

“One complaint that I’ve heard is it divides our children based on their skin color,” Emmanuel said. Continue reading.

CNN Cuts Ties With Contributor Rick Santorum

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CNN is parting ways with contributor Rick Santorum, the former Republican Senator and presidential candidate who has come under fire for remarks he made last month about Native American culture.

Speaking to an audience last month at an event organized by Young America’s Foundation, Santorum suggested Native American people had little influence on U.S. culture. “We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here,” he told a gathering of students. “I mean, yes, we have Native Americans, but candidly, there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.”

The comments drew criticism from groups like the National Congress of American Indians. Santorum didn’t help matters when he appeared on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” and declined to apologize for the remarks or how they were interpreted, simply telling the anchor they were taken out of context. CNN confirmed a previous report in The Huffington Post revealing that the politician and the network were cutting ties. Santorum was first named a CNN contributor in 2017. Continue reading.

Texas’ divisive bill restricting how students learn about current events, history, and racism passed by Senate

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Ater hours of passionate debate about how Texas teachers can instruct school children about America’s history of subjugating people of color, the state Senate early Saturday morning advanced a new version of a controversial bill aimed at banning critical race theory in public and open-enrollment charter schools.

Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, introduced a reworked version of House Bill 3979 that also requires the State Board of Education to develop new state standards for civics education with a corresponding teacher training program to start in the 2022-23 school year. The Senate approved the bill in an 18-13 vote over opposition from educators, school advocacy groups and senators of color who worry it limits necessary conversation about the roles race and racism play in U.S. history.

The bill now heads back to the Texas House, which can either accept the Senate’s changes or call for a conference committee made up of members from both chambers to iron out their differences. Continue reading.

Amazon suspends work on construction site after seventh noose is found

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Local and state police, and the FBI, are treating the incidents in Windsor, Conn., as potential hate crimes.

Amazon has suspended work on a fulfillment center in Windsor, Conn., after numerous nooses were found at the construction site in the past month, company officials and investigators say.

The site will remain closed until security measures have been implemented, Amazon told The Washington Post on Friday. The FBI and Connecticut State Police are helping local police with the investigation into the incidents, which are being treated as potential hate crimes. The e-commerce giant is offering a $100,000 reward for information that helps identify the responsible party.

Windsor police officers had been patrolling the site when the seventh noose was discovered early Wednesday afternoon, the department said in a news release. Employees in the area were interviewed, and the rope collected and taken to the state lab for analysis. The work site has no surveillance cameras, and hundreds of workers for various contractors come and go on-site each day. Continue reading.

‘Dreamers’ advocates turn up heat on Senate after Biden meeting

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House Democrats help in push on bill to help undocumented immigrants

House Democrats and immigrant advocates are ramping up calls for the Senate to pass legislation that would provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.

The measure, which passed the House in March, would grant permanent legal protections to around 3.4 million undocumented immigrants called “Dreamers,” as well as many Temporary Protected Status holders and Deferred Enforced Departure recipients. But the Senate has not indicated when, if at all, it plans to vote.

The bill would likely face steep odds in that chamber, where 10 Republican votes are needed for a filibuster-proof majority unless Democrats manage to weave immigration provisions into a possible budget reconciliation bill, an option many lawmakers are backing. Continue reading.

As the voting-rights fight moves to Texas, defiant Republicans test the resolve of corporations that oppose restrictions

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As the battle over a new Georgia law imposing identification requirements for mail ballots and other voting limits raged this month, Republicans in Texas knew they would be next — and acted quickly to try to head off the swelling number of corporations that had begun to scrutinize even more restrictive proposals being considered there and around the country.

Gov. Greg Abbott angrily declined to throw the first pitch at the Texas Rangers’ home opener, accusing Major League Baseball, which had announced plans to pull its All-Star Game from Atlanta, of buying into a “false narrative” about Georgia’s new law. The next day, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick responded to an early trickle of corporate statements denouncing the proposals under consideration in Austin, calling the critics, including Texas-based American Airlines and Dell Technologies, “a nest of liars.”

“Texans are fed up with corporations that don’t share our values trying to dictate public policy,” Patrick said in a separate statement. Continue reading.

Women for Trump official: They’ll riot anyway because they don’t want to miss ‘free ticket for a shopping spree’

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On Tuesday, the jury in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin handed down multiple convictions of murder and manslaughter for the death of George Floyd — sparking relief all across the country, and triggering joyous celebrations in place of the protests that some officials feared would take place.

But according to Amy Kremer, the co-founder of Women for Trump and the director of the far-right Women for America First, the verdict will not change things, and residents of Minneapolis are still “going to riot regardless” — because they have a “free ticket for a shopping spree.”

Kremer’s comments triggered immediate outrage, with many commenters noting that she clearly meant to imply that Black residents of the city are violent thieves looking for an excuse to steal and loot — and others noting that she had no such words for the people motivated by her “Stop the Steal” rhetoric to violently invade the U.S. Capitol. Continue reading.

Wingnuts Freaking Out Over Chauvin Verdict (Except Judge Jeanine)

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While many observers welcomed the jury’s finding on Tuesday that Derek Chauvin was guilty of murdering George Floyd, some conservative media figures seemed distinctly perturbed, unsettled, or outraged by the outcome. It seemed that though Floyd’s murder was initially was widely condemned, the movement it stirred and demands for changes it spurred from progressives polarized the issue, making some conservatives feel the guilty verdict was a loss for their side.

For example, some pushed the debunked notion that Floyd died from an overdose, rather than the knee on his neck for over 9 minutes:

Continue reading.