Tag: Republican racism

‘Respect the people that feed America’: GOP senator slammed for suggesting Hispanics don’t wear masks or social distance

Washington Post logoAs cases of the novel coronavirus surged nationwide this week, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) suggested that North Carolina’s Hispanic population may be harder hit by the potentially deadly virus because they are not practicing social distancing or wearing masks as frequently as other groups.

“I’m not a scientist and I’m not a statistician, but one of the concerns that we’ve had more recently is that the Hispanic population now constitutes about 44 percent of the positive cases,” Tillis, who is up for reelection in the fall, said during a Tuesday telephone town hall. “And we do have some concerns that in the Hispanic population we’ve seen less consistent adherence to social distancing and wearing a mask.”

Tillis’s remarks, which gained traction Thursday after a short audio recording of the event circulated online, were condemned as “racist” by critics who argued that the virus disproportionately impacts Hispanics because many are essential workers. By Thursday night, at least two Latino Democratic lawmakers had publicly called out Tillis for his comments, noting that there is still a resistance to mask-wearing among conservatives. Continue reading.

Wisconsin Judge Says Endangered Meatpacking Workers Aren’t ‘Regular Folks’

The conservative chief justice of Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court is under fire after she said this week that meatpackers in Wisconsin who have contracted the coronavirus aren’t “regular folks” like other residents of the state.

Chief Justice Patience Roggensack made the comment during oral arguments conducted via teleconferencing on Tuesday in a suit brought by Republican lawmakers against Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ stay-at-home orders.

Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Colin Roth, arguing on behalf of Evers, cited a surge in cases in Brown County as an example of why the orders were necessary. Roth said cases in Brown County “surged from just 60 to almost 800” over the course of two weeks. The outbreak was traced to the JBS Packerland meatpacking plant in the county, at which 300 workers were sickened by the coronavirus, according to the Green Bay Press Gazette. Continue reading.

How the Supreme Court’s Decision on the Census Could Alter American Politics

HOUSTON — Studded with taquerias and Catholic churches on street after street, the 29th Congressional District of Texas has among the highest proportions of Hispanics in the country.

But the fact that the district — which traces a jagged semicircle around Houston’s east side — is three-quarters Hispanic may not be its most defining statistic. These days, the most important number may be the estimated share of its residents who are not American citizens: one in four.

A battle is brewing over the way the nation tallies its population, especially in immigrant-dense places like Texas’s 29th District, that could permanently alter the American political landscape. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared ready to allow the next census in 2020 to ask respondents if they are American citizens — a question that has never been asked of all the nation’s residents in the census’s

View the complete April 23 article by Michael Wines on The New York Times website here.

California Prosecutor Suggested Someone Might Shoot Waters

The following article by Griffin Connolly was posted on the Roll Call website July 10, 2018:

Deputy DA on leave after allegedly calling Waters the c-word, among other things

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., was the target of social media posts by a federal prosecutor in Southern California. Credit: Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call

A federal prosecutor in Southern California was placed on administrative leave for social media posts in which he slurred Rep. Maxine Waters and suggested someone might shoot her.

San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Michael Selyem also insinuated former first lady Michelle Obama had male genitals and said a man shot and killed by police “got exactly what he deserved.”

The offensive posts were first reported by the San Bernardino Sun.

In one post, Selyem, the lead hard-core gangs prosecutor in his district, referred to Waters, a Democrat representing large swaths of South Central Los Angeles for decades, as a “loud-mouthed c–t in the ghetto.”

View the complete article on the Roll Call website here.