Tag: Trump racism

Republicans’ choice: Stand with Trump or risk his wrath

Trump has already informed at least two GOP lawmakers of his dissatisfaction with their defense of his racist tweets.

Sen. John Cornyn prides himself on winning a large share of the Latino vote in Texas, campaigning in the Asian American community and running ads in three languages. It’s a crucial strategy for a Republican in a diverse state — and one that is sharply divergent from President Donald Trump’s approach.

So as Cornyn seeks reelection next year with Trump on the ballot, he’s making sure that he isn’t dragged down by the president’s more inflammatory politics, exemplified again this week by his racist tweets telling four liberal Democratic congresswomen to “go back” to where they came from.

“I don’t have any trouble speaking to any of my constituents. They don’t confuse me with what’s happening up here in D.C.,” said Cornyn, who has gently criticized Trump’s battle as a “mistake” that unified Democrats. “I know we are consumed by this here, but it doesn’t consume my constituents when I go back home.

View the complete July 16 article by Burgess Everett and James Arkin on the Politico website here.

A Day After It Was Filed, New Trump Asylum Policy Gets Hit in Court

New York Times logoLOS ANGELES — A coalition of immigrant advocacy groups on Tuesday sued the Trump administration in federal court, challenging a new rule intended to severely restrict the ability of people fleeing persecution to apply for asylum in the United States.

The groups filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California in San Francisco, seeking an injunction to block the policy less than 36 hours after the government announced it on Monday.

Trump administration officials had announced that they would deny protection to migrants who fail to apply for asylum in at least one country they pass through on their way north, preventing virtually all Central Americans who claim asylum from entering the United States.

View the complete July 16 article by Miriam Jordan on The New York Times website here.

Republicans scramble to contain Trump fallout

The Hill logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday sought to dispel the uproar over President Trump’s controversial tweets targeting four nonwhite Democratic lawmakers, but also defended the president by declaring he is not a racist. 

McConnell tried to quell the controversy that has raged since Sunday when Trump tweeted that four minority Democratic lawmakers should “go back” to their home countries — even though all of them are U.S. citizens — by calling for a broad ceasefire in Washington. 

“The president is not a racist,” McConnell responded after reporters pressed him Tuesday afternoon on whether Trump’s tweets were racist or whether the GOP leader himself would ever use such language. 

View the complete July 16 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

A divided House votes for resolution condemning Trump’s racist remarks

A divided House voted Tuesday to condemn President Trump’s racist remarks telling four minority congresswomen to “go back” to their ancestral countries, with all but a handful of Republicans dismissing the rebuke as harassment while many Democrats pressed their leaders for harsher punishment of the president.

The imagery of the 240-to-187 vote was stark: A diverse Democratic caucus cast the president’s words as an affront to millions of Americans and descendants of immigrants, while Republican lawmakers — the vast majority of them white men — stood with Trump against a resolution that rejected his “racist comments that have legitimized fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.”

Trump insisted in a string of tweets Tuesday morning that he’s not a racist — “I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!” he wrote — and the top two Republicans in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) made identical statements when pressed on Trump’s remarks: “The president is not a racist.”Washington Post logo

View the complete July 17 article by Mike DeBonis, John Wagner and Rachael Bade on The Washington Post website here.

Phillips to Lead Problem Solvers Caucus on a Bipartisan Visit to the Southern Border

WASHINGTON, DC – Members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus will be visiting the southern border of the United States in the Rio Grande Valley on Friday, July 19, 2019. Among the facilities the Caucus members will be inspecting are points of entry, a border patrol station, and a centralized processing center. Caucus members will also be inspecting the physical U.S.-Mexican border and will participate in briefings and discussions with experts on the ground. Reps. Lloyd Smucker (R-PA) and Dean Phillips (D-MN) are co-leading the Problem Solvers Caucus’s visit.

“Like so many Americans, I remain deeply concerned about the humanitarian crisis at our border that is affecting so many children and families. It’s important that members of the Problem Solvers Caucus are able to speak with experts on the ground during their inspection of the facilities there,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer.

“We care deeply about the people caught up in the broken immigration system.  As a result, we need to come together to find a solution to this crisis that can be signed into law,” said Rep. Tom Reed.  “We, as a caucus, and more broadly, as a nation, need to have the hard discussions on this matter in order to find consensus that ensures the safety of our border and fair treatment of all immigrants, legal and illegal.” Continue reading “Phillips to Lead Problem Solvers Caucus on a Bipartisan Visit to the Southern Border”

From Charlotte to Syracuse and LA to Bangor, local newspapers blast ‘bigot-in-chief’ for ‘anti-American’ racism

AlterNet logoAll across the country the nation’s local newspapers are blasting President Donald Trump‘s latest round of “anti-American” racism. In Bangor, Maine and Los Angeles, California, in Syracuse, New York, Charlotte, North Carolina, in Minneapolis, Minnesota and New London, Connecticut, editorial boards are denouncing what is now day three of the President’s blatant racism, nativism, white nationalism, and white supremacist attacks against four duly-elected Democratic progressive U.S. Congresswomen.

“Trump taps the tool kit of racism once again,” decries the Editorial Board of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “The ‘go back where you came from’ message is especially ignorant, hurtful.”

They classified the President’s remarks as “an unapologetically racist, xenophobic spew,” and said that just like “a true bully, he then demanded an apology from those whom he attacked.”

View the complete July 16 article by David Badash from the New Civil Rights Movement on the AlterNet website here.

Nicolle Wallace: ‘I Would Have Been Fired on the Spot’ If I Asked ‘What’s Your Ethnicity?’ Like Conway Did

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace blasted White House counselor Kellyanne ConwayTuesday for asking a reporter his ethnicity in a strange exchange.

Wallace opened by saying the nation is “waiting to see if Republicans, or even a single Republican, will come out against racism today.”

The House is taking up a resolution to condemn President Donald Trump. Earlier Tuesday afternoon Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Trump’s tweets racist, and Republican Rep. Doug Collins objected and said her remarks should be stricken from the record.

View the complete July 16 article with video by Josh Feldman on the Mediaite website here.

The extraordinary trek of George Takei

Washington Post logoThe cult icon is on a mission to make sure America doesn’t forget a shameful legacy

NEW YORK — As a child, he believed the camp to be a magical oasis, where mythical dinosaurs prowled the woods at night. A native of Los Angeles, he marveled at the “flying exotica” of dragonflies, the treasures of rural life and, that first winter, the “pure magic” of snow.

George Takei spent ages 5 to almost 9 imprisoned by the U.S. government in Japanese American internment camps. A relentless optimist, he believed the shameful legacy of incarcerating an estimated 120,000 Americans during World War II would never be forgotten or duplicated.

At 82, Takei came to understand that he may be mistaken on both counts.

View the complete July 16 article by Karen Heller on The Washington Post website here.

Threats against members increasing, Capitol Police chief says

Rep. Bennie Thompson calls for police to reexamine safety following Trump attacks on Democrats

Threats against members of Congress continue to grow, Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund said Tuesday at his first appearance as head of the department before the House Administration Committee.

“We continue to see the threat assessment cases that we’re opening continue to grow,” Sund said. “For fiscal year 2018, we had approximately 4,894 cases. So far, for this year, we have 2,502 cases. So we’re on par to probably break last year’s.”

Many first-year members of Congress have extremely high profiles and face threats as a result, including four Democrats whom President Donald Trump has been recently disparaging on Twitter: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

View the complete July 16 article by Chris Marquette on The Roll Call website here.

A Border Patrol Agent Reveals What It’s Really Like to Guard Migrant Children

With the agency under fire for holding children in deplorable conditions and over racist and misogynistic Facebook posts, one agent speaks about what it’s like to do his job. “Somewhere down the line people just accepted what’s going on as normal.”

The Border Patrol agent, a veteran with 13 years on the job, had been assigned to the agency’s detention center in McAllen, Texas, for close to a month when the team of court-appointed lawyers and doctors showed up one day at the end of June.

Taking in the squalor, the stench of unwashed bodies, and the poor health and vacant eyes of the hundreds of children held there, the group members appeared stunned.

Then, their outrage rolled through the facility like a thunderstorm. One lawyer emerged from a conference room clutching her cellphone to her ear, her voice trembling with urgency and frustration. “There’s a crisis down here,” the agent recalled her shouting.

View the complete July 16 article by Ginger Thompson on the ProPublica website here.