Nancy Pelosi forced House Reps to go on the record with their responses to Donald’s most recent racist tweets with an astonishing, rare vote to condemn the president, which passed mostly along party lines. Unsurprisingly, Republican lawmakers are all cool with institutionalized racism except for four of them, including Texas’s Will Hurd, and a former Texas judge who announced she’s leaving the Republican party because Don John’s “ideology is racism.” (Um, yeah—it took her two and a half years to figure that out, but I guess better late than never…)
In fact, many Republicans doubled down on the racist sentiments, much as Donny himself did. Lily-white Republican Mike Kelly called himself a “person of color—I’m white,” a statement notable for its oblivious bigotry as well as its total ignorance of race history, science, the color spectrum, and light wavelengths. Don’s right-hand liar Kellyanne Conway actually asked a reporter, “What’s your ethnicity?” when he asked about the racist tweets.
Meanwhile the proper offense came from the unlikeliest sources. Kellyanne’s husband, George Conway, penned a WaPo op-ed simply and pointedly entitled, “Trump is a racist president.” You guys, even Anthony Scaramucci tweeted, “Would @realDonaldTrump ever tell a white immigrant – whether 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th+ generation – to ‘go back to your country’? No. That’s why the comments were racist and unacceptable. America is a nation of immigrants founded on the ideals of free thought and free speech.” Anthony “I’m not trying to suck my own c*&k” Scaramucci!
Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle angrily weighed in after U.S. immigration refused to grant a visa to one of the company’s top international customers to travel to the U.S. for a business meeting, thus hurting U.S.-based Columbia’s business: “The government knew the person was our business partner, that we fully supported the visit and depended on it to grow our business. But the fear that someone might be an ‘immigrant’ prevented a short trip to our sales meeting.” Regarding Donald’s most recent racist tweets about four congresswomen of color, he added, ““That kind of taunting language is far more extreme than the refusal to process a routine visa application, but there is a theme through both that should be unacceptable in any organization and certainly at the top of our government.”
Popular ESPN TV/radio host Dan Le Batard opined on air despite the network president’s stated policy of avoiding political commentary, calling Don John’s racist tweets “un-American” and “deeply offensive”—and taking on the network’s policy directly: “And we here at ESPN don’t have the stomach for the fight,” he said. “We don’t talk about what is happening unless there is some sort of weak, cowardly sports angle that we can run it through.” BOOM.
On the plus side—and lord knows we need to look for those—Donald’s racist tweets are now admissible in court as evidence for judges to block his discriminatory policies.
In stark contrast, GOP darling Ronald Reagan penned this love letter to immigrants back when Republicanism hadn’t been co-opted by racism, prejudice, and hate.
Oh, and here’s a fun game if you have downtime—Who said this criticism of the U.S.—Don John or a Democratic congresswoman?
The House in Da House
The House voted to hold Attorney General Raymond Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt for failing to comply with its subpoena regarding the unconstitutional citizen question Ross proposed adding on the 2020 Census.
The House voted to block Trump’s use of “emergency” authority to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, bypassing Congress.
The House voted to up the federal minimum wage to $15/hour by 2025.
Social and Civil Rights Advances
Accused child sex trafficker and Don John crony Jeffrey Epstein was denied bail and will continue to marinate in jail.
The ACLU is suing the Very Stable Genius over increasingly restrictive asylum rules.
Amid increasing attacks on women’s reproductive rights, two states—New York and Illinois—are working hard to help women maintain access to health care, offering financial and other assistance to out-of-state women seeking abortions.
The New Jersey judge who recommended leniency for a 16-year-old boy accused of rape because he was from a “good family,” has stepped down from the bench. State officials subsequently announced mandatory training for judges on sexual assault, domestic violence, implicit bias and diversity.
The Marine Corps issued a cease-and-desist to Republican rep Duncan D. Hunter to forbid him from using the corps’ emblem and slogan in Islamophobic hate ads.
Your Feel-good Story of the Week
This detailed, researched, gorgeously graphed-and-charted breakdown of every aspect of the election will blow your mind. Amid the takeaways—voter turnout in 2020 is projected to be huge, and there’s been a 20-point swing toward the Democrats among college-educated white people since 2016