Tag: racism

Posted on

Was Race A Factor In The Lax Law Enforcement Response To Uvalde Shooting?

$upport via Cash App

Rhonda Hart speaking to guest host Paola Ramos on MSNBC’s Zerlina show(05/28/22)

Rhonda Hart, a Texas mother who lost her daughter in the horrific Santa Fe school shooting 4 years ago, appeared on MSNBC’s Zerlina show(Paola Ramos subbing 05/28/22) to discuss the latest horrific Texas school shooting in Uvalde. She made a startling claim during her appearance on MSNBC, telling host Paula Ramos that the slow response from law enforcement in Uvalde was because these were predominantly Brown kids. She added, “We know how Texas leadership feels about Black and Brown children.” 


Rhonda Hart (video at 1:30): “I remember I was a parent and also a school district employee that day when our[Santa Fe]school shooting happened, and at some point I went down closer to the building and I did talk to officers. They were adamant that I couldn’t get in there because stuff was going on, but at no point did they ever put their hands on me or push me down or anything like that. I mean, I’m a typical White lady you know, that garners a little bit of respect, I think…privilege, that’s what it is, it’s privilege. These, let’s be honest, these are Black and Brown children, and we know how Texas leadership feels about Black and Brown children.” 


There’s no other way to interpret Rhonda Hart’s remarks other than(I’ll be happy to stand corrected of course), the lax, even incompetent response by law enforcement authorities to the school shooting in Uvalde, had a lot to do with the fact that they were not being called upon to save White school children. Put another way, the shooter in Uvalde would have been neutralized much sooner, had it been White parents like Rhonda Hart, begging authorities to go in and stop him.

Rhonda Hart also slammed Governor Abbott and Texas leadership for lying about shoring up school safety after the Santa Fe school shooting 4 years ago. As she correctly pointed out, the lax law enforcement response to the Uvalde massacre proves that nothing was done to shore up school safety after Sante Fe.

Bottom line folks, reasonable people will agree that the law enforcement response to the shooting in Uvalde did not meet the public’s expectations. The conflicting messages given to the media by the said law enforcement officials also suggest that there was some attempt at a cover up, which needs to be thoroughly investigated. Also worth looking into, is Rhonda Hart’s bombshell claim on MSNBC, that the slow response by law enforcement was because the school in Uvalde is a predominantly Brown school. There are legitimate concerns as to whether there was something more than law enforcement incompetence at play here–a lack of desire to rescue Brown kids.


Oh, and Paula Ramos, thank you very much for being the only MSMer who gets the pronunciation of Uvalde right. It’s not “You-valde”. Get it together, the rest of MSM!!

For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out. You may also Cash App

You may reach the author via email at administrator@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@grassrootsdempolitics.com

Posted on

Elie Mystal Says If Rep Marjorie Taylor Green Wasn’t A White Republican She’d Be Charged With Perjury

$upport via Cash App

Elie Mystal on MSNBC’s Cross Connection Show(04/23/22)

Elie Mystal, Justice Correspondent for The Nation and Author of the New York Times bestselling book “Allow Me To Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide To The Constitution”, appeared on MSNBC’s Cross Connection show on 04/23/22. Mystal dropped a bombshell on the show, telling host Tiffany Cross that the only reason Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene(R-GA) has not been charged with perjury for her highly evasive court deposition on 04/22/22, was because she is a White Republican woman. He added that if Reps Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, or Ayana Pressley(all women of color), had engaged in similar conduct, they would have been hit with perjury charges before they validated their parking. Whoa!!

Host Tiffany Cross(video at 1:06):“She[MTG]was clearly involved and I’m just curious your thoughts on what repercussions this case might have on other pro-insurrectionists who are currently in office, or currently running for office?”

Elie Mystal: “Well, I don’t think there are going to be repercussions because she is a White Republican woman, quite frankly. Black people cannot get away with this. The evasiveness that we saw at her hearing yesterday, where she all but perjured herself versus the tape that you just played, Black people cannot get away with that. Everybody at home knows that. Everybody at home knows that if[Reps]Rashida Tlaib, if Ilhan Omar, if Ayanna Presley had tried what Marjorie Taylor Greene tried yesterday, they would have caught a perjury charge before they validated their parking…At the end of the day, what Marjorie Taylor Greene did was perjury and if she was a non-White person, she would be at least been investigated for that. In fact, if she was just a Democrat, she would be at least investigated for that. You know how I know that? Because I’m old enough to remember when Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for less. The evasiveness that Bill Clinton did in his deposition was less than what we all saw Marjorie Taylor Greene do yesterday…Republicans, and White people get away with this all the time.”

There is no other way to interpret Elie Mystal’s remarks other than race and class, even in 2022, are still major factors when it comes to how our criminal justice system makes decisions about who to prosecute and who not to. According to Elie Mystal, White Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene are the biggest beneficiaries of such decisions because they are almost always let off the hook for conduct that Blacks and Browns would almost certainly be prosecuted for–a sad state of affairs indeed.

Bottom line folks, it’s not a lot to ask that “equal justice under law” mean exactly that–equal justice under law. It doesn’t take a genius to realize, given her numerous public utterances, that Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene serially lied under oath on Friday 04/22/22.

For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out. You may also Cash App

You may reach the author via email at administrator@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@grassrootsdempolitics.com

Posted on

House Intel Hearing On Russia-Ukraine Provides Rare Oversight Of Our Intel Agencies

$upport via Cash App

Intel Chiefs from Left to right–Chris Wray(FBI), General Nakasone(NSA), Gina Haspel(former CIA Director), William Burns(CIA Director) and Lt. Gen Scott Berrier(DIA)

A House Intelligence Committee hearing on the Russia-Ukraine war provided a rare opportunity for members of Congress to conduct a backhanded oversight of our intelligence agencies. The hearing, which assembled all the alphabet agency chiefs(FBI, NSA, CIA & DIA) in one room(a very rare occurrence), afforded members of Congress a unique opportunity to raise other domestic issues of public concern regarding our intel agencies. Oversight of our intelligence agencies, as you may know, is an issue Congress has dragged its feet on, ever since the terrorist attacks in September 2001, so this was a breath of fresh air.

Rep Chris Stewart(R-UT) questioned FBI Director Wray about the controversial NSO Spyware Pegasus , which several media reports indicated last year, was being used by dictators worldwide, to illegally track/spy on political dissidents and even journalists. Rep Stewart wanted to know whether Pegasus was being used on U.S. persons for investigative purposes. Director Wray assured Rep Stewart that the FBI purchased Pegasus in 2019 only for “testing and evaluation purposes“, adding that it has never been used on any U.S. person for investigative purposes.

Rep Stewart then asked why the FBI would test a spying software if it didn’t intend to use it? Director Wray, acknowledging that this was a good question, maintained that Pegasus has never been used for investigative purposes on U.S. persons, and that FBI routinely tests products out there, that could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

Rep Joaquin Castro(D-TX) followed up on Rep Stewart’s questioning re Pegasus software. He wanted to know whether foreign governments have used Pegasus to target U.S. persons. Director Wray indicated that such a question would be better answered in a classified setting, so we are left hanging on that issue. Yay!!

Another interesting line of questioning came from Rep Elise Stefanik(R-NY) who brought up a very troubling case of an FBI counterterrorism informant, who was not only known to have violated the law multiple times, but whose Limo company led to the deaths of some 20 innocent New Yorkers, ruining the lives of their surviving family members. The crux of Rep Stefanik’s question, an excellent one that quite frankly isn’t asked often enough, was whether informants used in counterterrorism cases, are vetted to make sure they are not criminals. Director Wray assured Rep Stefanik that there are strict rules in place regarding the conduct of FBI informants, even when it comes to counterterrorism cases. This was a very important question because there is a widely held belief out there that in counterterrorism cases, “anything goes”, including the use of criminals/criminal gangs to go after/harass terrorism suspects–people who often times, have not been convicted of anything. A sad state of affairs indeed.

Bottom line folks, the hearing today showed just how important it is to have proper oversight of our intelligence agencies, something Yours Truly has been screaming about. There is absolutely no reason why questions about Pegasus spyware and other intelligence-related questions cannot be aired in a public forum like it happened today. Simply put, not every intelligence-related hearing has to be in a private setting. There are enough topics of public interest that can be safely discussed in public. Hopefully when U.S. Senators get their go-around with these intelligence chiefs, somebody will pop the $1 million question–the plight of targeted individuals in the U.S., which maybe, just maybe, may solve the Havana Syndrome mystery.

For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out. You may also Cash App

You may reach the author via email at administrator@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com

Posted on

Is Lt Gov Winsome Sears The New Feel-Good Republican Of Color?

$upport via Cash App

The Republican Party has for decades fought accusations of racism from Democrats and others who do not identify with the party. As a result, Republicans have always latched onto some highly impressive African-American in their midst, as the “feel-good” Republican of color, who the party then holds out as proof that it is not a racist party.

Some of the prominent and most recent “feel-good” Republicans of color include the late General Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, both of whom served as U.S. Secretary of State, former Oklahoma Congressman JC Watts who was a star quarterback for the Sooners, and even current Senator Tim Scott(R-SC)

Well, it appears, given the reaction to her stellar performance on CNN’s State of The Union, that we have a newly-minted feel-good Republican of color—one Winsome Sears from Virginia.

Here are just some of the reactions from Republicans, super excited about Winsome Sears’ performance on CNN’s State of The Union.

It will be interesting to see how the feel-good Republican of color status shapes Winsome Sears’ political career going forward. Will she run for President in 2024? Hmm. As Trump famously says, “We’ll see what happens.”

For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out.

You may reach the author via email at administrator@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com

Posted on

Fulton County DA Getting Racist Attacks After Launching Probe Into Trump’s Phone Call

$upport via Cash App

Fulton County DA (Georgia) Fani Willis On The Rachel Maddow Show (2/11/2021)

Fulton County DA Fani Willis told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that after her office launched a criminal probe into former President Trump’s infamous phone call to Georgia’s Secretary of State, she has been the subject of racist attacks from Trump’s supporters. You’ll remember Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, was very troubled by the call from the former President, which was essentially urging him to commit an illegal act, that he asked his staff to record it. It is quite clear from the phone call that former President Trump wanted Raffensperger to tinker with Georgia’s election results, so as to overturn his Democratic opponent Joe Biden’s win.

In response to Maddow’s question as to whether she and her staff were concerned about their safety given the unfortunate events of DC insurrection, DA Willis responded, “Oh absolutely. Since we’ve opened this [criminal probe], my security has doubled. We’ve gotten a lot of comments. Interestingly enough, the comments are always racist, and it’s really just a waste of time and foolishness. It is not going to stop me from doing my job, and I don’t think that it is an insult to remind me that I am a Black woman, so it is a waste of their time….” The rest of DA Willis’ interview with Maddow is available here.

It is quite sad that as a result of Trumpism, it has become normal for any public official seeking to hold Trump accountable for his myriad infractions, to receive insults and threats of violence from Trumpers. This is especially so for public officials of color like DA Willis, who Trumpers go out of their way to subject to some of the most vile racist attacks imaginable, because Trump has put it in their mind that as long as they are fighting for him, they have a license to use any means.

It will be interesting to see how DA Willis’ investigation plays out, but from her appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show yesterday, Yours Truly came out with the impression that we are dealing with a serious professional here, and Trump better invest on some good legal defense team , certainly better than the one representing him at his Senate impeachment trial.

Bottom line folks, it was well known before, and Trump’s niece Mary Trump recently confirmed it, that Trump pretty much went through life without ever being held accountable for anything. We saw this throughout his presidency too, where at every turn, Republican members of Congress went out of their way to shield him from facing the consequences of his actions. This Fulton County criminal probe is in many ways the very first time Trump is staring at the potential of facing consequences for his actions, and ending up in jail. If Trump does indeed end up in a Georgia jail, it will be impossible to ignore the powerful poetic justice behind it–that the same Black women who Trump routinely maligned and addressed with great contempt as somehow inferior or unqualified, are the same ones who formed the backbone of the successful resistance to his presidency, picked Trump’s successful Democratic challenger Joe Biden (especially South Carolina women), and now one of them, Fulton County DA Fani Willis, appears poised to succeed in what everybody else has failed–holding Trump accountable for his actions.

For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out. You may also Cash App

You may reach the author via email at author@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com

Posted on

Ivana Trump Recruited Schoolgirls For Epstein?

$upport via Cash App

Jeffrey Epstein and Ivana Trump

Whitney Webb, an independent journalist best known for her work trying to expose Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex enterprise, recently made some very explosive allegations in a YouTube interview chief among them, that Trump’s ex wife Ivana trump (Ivanka’s mother) worked with Ghislaine Maxwell to recruit underage school girls in the New York area into Epstein’s child sex operation. This and other explosive allegations in the YouTube interview are based on a phone call Whitney Webb recently had with Maria Farmer, one of Epstein’s victims in the 1990s.

Webb specifically said regarding Ivana Trump(video at 4:40); “When she[Maria Farmer] told the FBI in 1996, she said the Clintons were part of it. She also said Donald Trump was part of it. One of the reasons she said that is because Ivana Trump, she said, was with Ghislaine Maxwell when she would go out to recruit girls for Epstein. It was her[Ghislaine] and Ivana Trump, Trump’s ex wife. They would go out together all the time and pick up these 12 year old girls in school uniforms and braces, exchange information with them and the next day they would be in Epstein’s office. She[Farmer] saw between 5 and 10 different girls every day go into Epstein’s office the whole two years she was there. Every day. This is in the 90s. So much of what we know from the other victims is after 2000. The FBI knew this then and they didn’t act and that’s why all those other victims exist. It’s just disgusting.”

Some of the bombshell allegations Whitney Webb makes in this interview are already fairly well circulated among the general public so Yours Truly will just mention them in passing while focusing more on the “new” and frankly more interesting bombshells (Ivana Trump being one of them). Whitney Webb for example says the Clintons were implicated and that the FBI covered up Epstein’s illicit conduct in the 1990s, claims that have been made repeatedly ever since the Epstein scandal broke.

Another interesting bombshell Whitney Webb dropped on the interview is that Victoria’s Secret’s Leslie Wexner and his wife Abigail were the masterminds behind Epstein’s child sex trafficking operation(see video at 8:00). According to Webb, young school girls would be lured into Epstein’s operation under the guise that they were being groomed to be Victoria’s Secret Models. If true, the billionaire Wexners could face very serious criminal conspiracy charges.

As for Vicky Ward, the journalist much celebrated for her Epstein pieces most notably her 2003 Vanity Fair piece, Whitney Webb says not so fast(see video at 12:00). According to Webb, Maria Farmer gave Vicky Ward details about Epstein’s child sex trafficking operation but Ward left them out of her bombshell Vanity Fair piece. As if that was not enough, Ward who was apparently an acquaintance of Ghislaine Maxwell, told Ghislaine that Maria Farmer talked to the FBI about her—essentially ratted out her source. Vicky Ward endangered Maria Farmer’s life so much that she went into hiding. Farmer apparently referred to Vicky Ward as a “monster”, according to Whitney Webb.

Farmer also told Whitney Webb that she fears some of the children involved in Epstein’s Florida operation may have been killed because out of some 500 children only about 30 of them came forward and the rest cannot be found(video at 21:30). She added that some of these children were really young(pre-teen). Importantly, Farmer said that Epstein’s legal team which included Alan Dershowitz, knew all the names of the missing children .

Whitney Webb also talked about a January 2001 article on the Evening Standard (U.K) that has since been scrapped from the internet, which said Epstein’s money came from his business links to three people–Leslie Wexner, Donald Trump and Bill Gates. Webb argues that nobody pushed back on this article(by one Nigel Russert) because back then(2001), Epstein was not a controversial figure(see video at 35:30). Webb also slammed as a total lie New York Times’ recent reporting that Bill Gates first met Epstein in 2011.

Farmer also told Webb that Epstein and people in his circle were extreme White Supremacists and she regularly overheard them speaking about other races, especially Blacks, in the most disgusting way(see video at 37:25). She said Epstein and his pals refused to go anywhere they thought there would be too many people of African descent.

Webb concluded by tying the entire Epstein scandal into a global intelligence operation involving Israel which Yours Truly will deliberately ignore because we will never get to the bottom of it(managing expectations). There are however some bombshell allegations that we could easily get answers to for example, whether Ivana Trump really helped Ghislaine Maxwell recruit young girls for Epstein, the missing 500 children who Dershowitz allegedly knows about, whether Vicky Ward(now at CNN) really ratted out Maria Farmer to Ghislaine Maxwell, whether Bill Gates knew Epstein in 2001 as opposed to 2011, whether Trump financed Epstein(another excuse for his tax returns), the Wexners’ involvement with Epstein, why the mainstream media refuses to act on stories by Maria Farmer and others, just to mention but a few.

Bottom line folks, as Yours Truly has repeatedly stated regarding Epstein’s stories, sunlight is the best disinfectant. It appears the more efforts are made to cover up Epstein’s child sex trafficking operation, the more bombshell revelations come up, the latest clearly being Ivana Trump. It will be interesting to hear what Ivana Trump says regarding these troubling allegations, assuming the mainstream media will be courageous enough to ask her. What will CNN do with Vicky Ward given the troubling revelations about her? Hmm–as Trump famously says, “We’ll see what happens.”

For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out. You may also Cash App

You may reach the author via email at author@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com

Posted on

Police Chief says Trump Is “Last Hope For White People”

An interesting case out of New Jersey is getting a lot of attention because of a very peculiar reason. The case involves a former Bordentown Township Police Chief Frank Nucera Jr, who is on trial for a hate crime, among other charges, after he slammed a Black teenager’s face into a doorjamb during an arrest.

Because the 62 year old Nucera is charged with a hate crime, it is important for the prosecution to show that he harbors racial animus towards Blacks. It is against this backdrop that prosecutors have dug up comments attributed to him in 2016, prior to the U.S. presidential election.

Nucera, a Trump supporter, apparently said in 2016 that Trump was the “the last hope for white people.” Nucera specifically said, “I’m telling you, you know what, Donald Trump is the last hope for white people, cause Hillary (Clinton) will give it to all the minorities to get a vote…..That’s the truth! I’m telling you.”

Yours Truly will not go into the merits and demerits of the hate crime case laid out against Nucera. It is very noteworthy however that Nucera’s case yet again illustrates the fact that even in 2019, there are still people who occupy very high places in our criminal justice system who have very racist views.

The criminal justice system as we know, disproportionately affects poor people of color, especially Blacks. The racist comments Nucera made back in 2016 were probably well known by people in his department but nobody raised a finger. In other words, Nucera’s racial issues should have been addressed way before his unfortunate incident with the Black teenager. In the Washington Post article, prosecutors even allege that Nucera had a “significant history” of racist behavior and routinely referred to Blacks using the “n” word, which further proves Yours Truly’s point that people knew.

Bottom line folks, with every passing day we are being forced to confront reality and that is, there continues to be systemic racism in our criminal justice system. Our focus here, hard as it may seem, should not be to exact maximum punishment on former police chief Nucera but rather to address how someone like him with glaring racial issues even rose to become a police chief. Simply put, focus on the systemic racism in the criminal justice system rather than Nucera’s potential prison sentence.

For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out.

You may reach the author via email at author@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com

Posted on

Florida Police Arrested 6 Yr Old Black Girl Over Tantrum At School

In one of the most outrageous cases illustrating the ease with which children of color get caught up in the criminal justice system, we now get a shocking report out of Florida that police in Orlando arrested, handcuffed, fingerprinted and took a mugshot of a 6 year old Black girl because she threw a tantrum at Lucious & Emma Nixon Elementary School where she’s a first-grader. Yeah, Orlando police charged first-grader Kaia with battery and threw her in the back of a squad car for a trip to a juvenile detention center. Absolutely outrageous!!

According to her visibly upset Grandma Meralyn Kirkland, Orlando police charged her granddaughter with battery because she got upset and kicked somebody (presumably one of her classmates). Kirkland says she tried to explain to an officer that her granddaughter had a medical condition (sleep apnea) which the family was trying to resolve but the officer was very dismissive. The officer she spoke to apparently responded saying, “I have sleep apnea and I don’t behave that way.”

Rebecca J. Kavanagh a New York City Public Defender has dug up the name of the officer who arrested little Kaia and surprise surprise, the officer, Dennis Turner, also arrested an 8 year old Black boy on the same day for an unrelated incident. Folks, it appears the school-to-prison pipeline is alive and well in Orlando, Florida.

Bottom line folks, there are a lot of problems with the criminal justice system and it may be easy for us members of the public to simply sit on the bleachers and point fingers at law enforcement for all the problems. The reality however is that these are systemic problems in the criminal justice system that sooner or later consume even well-meaning, good-natured individual officers. In other words, even though the officer mentioned above is cast in very negative light, the real problem is that he finds himself in a culture at the Orlando Police Department where it is very normal to criminally prosecute children of color for being children. While there will certainly be an effort to go after officer Dennis Turner individually, one only hopes that this troubling incident will spark a real debate about the real systemic problem which is the school-to-prison pipeline.

On a lighter note, if little Kaia can kick so hard at 6 years old as to warrant a battery charge, maybe the Miami Dolphins or Jacksonville Jaguars should keep an eye on her for a future Hall of Fame Kicker spot.

For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out.

You may reach the author via email at author@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com

Posted on

Top Trump Donors In The Houston Area

A firestorm erupted recently after Rep Joaquin Castro(D-TX) shared on his tweeter feed the names of prominent Trump donors who come from his home city of San Antonio, Texas. Republicans swiftly fired back at Rep Castro, accusing him of among other things, endangering the lives of the said Trump donors given the fact that emotions in Texas are still raw after the racist El Paso shooting. Sen John Cornyn(R-TX) led the assault on Rep Castro lashing out with this angry tweet.

Naturally, Rep Castro’s move left Yours Truly wondering. “Hmm–I wonder who are Trump’s biggest donors from the Houston, Texas area”. A simple google search led Yours Truly to this October 9, 2018 Houston Business Journal piece aptly titled, “See which Houstonians have donated the most to Trump’s 2020 campaign.” The Houston Business Journal piece has a slide listing some 25 prominent Houstonians, their business ties, and the dollar amounts they have contributed towards Trump’s 2020 campaign–excellent work.

It would be an exercise in redundancy to go through all the names listed in the slide and Yours Truly will certainly not do that. However there are some very prominent Houston personalities that deserve a separate mention chief among them, Jeffery and Melinda Hildebrand of Hillcorp Energy Company. Businessman Farouk Shami, a Palestinian-American and a staple in Houston’s hair products industry also caught Yours Truly’s attention. James Brookshire of S & B, one of the largest construction companies in the world is also on the list. As the article correctly points out, Ivanka Trump visited S & B’s offices in Baytown, Texas in September 2018 as part of her initiative to promote industrial craft training (a testament to S & B’s clout in the construction industry). Last but not least, Jim Flores, a big name in Houston’s oil and gas industry also caught Yours Truly’s attention.

It is fair to assume that because Rep Castro was severely criticized for sharing the names of Trump’s San Antonio donors, Yours Truly will also face similar criticism. For the record Yours Truly totally agrees with the reasoning given by Team Castro when defending their actions. Team Castro correctly pointed out that this is already public information that can be easily accessed on the FEC website so nobody is being “outed”. Yours Truly is further insulated from attacks by the fact that he is simply referencing a Houston Business Journal article that has been out there since 2018. If nobody raised an “outing” issue with the Houston Business Journal piece, then nobody should raise similar issues with this blog post.

Aside from the fact that this is already public information and therefore no donor is being “outed”, reasonable people will also agree that the Trump Presidency has led to the rise of hate groups–especially White Supremacy groups. Some of these groups have openly expressed support for Trump. Reasonable people will also agree that Trump has not done nearly enough to totally disavow the kind of politics that divides Americans along racial lines. As a matter of fact several paid TV pundits have come out and openly accused him of running a presidential campaign based on racism. It is therefore very important for people, certainly Houstonians, to know who is funding his campaign. Whether the people funding his campaign endorse the attendant racism is a different question altogether. The point is, it is in the public’s interest that people know who is funding him.

Bottom line as we approach 2020 the public needs to know where this President stands in regards to these hate groups. Unless and until he comes out and forcefully condemns these hate groups both in his deeds and his words, then the list of prominent Houstonians who continue to send him large donations will remain a topic of great interest and they will quite frankly be viewed by many as sponsors of hate.

For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out.

You may reach the author via email at author@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com

Posted on

El Paso Shooter’s Manifesto Echoes John Cornyn’s Tweet

After the deadly weekend shootings in El Paso Texas and Dayton Ohio, the President’s hateful rhetoric and especially his hardline stance on immigrants has taken center stage. A recent tweet by Senator John Cornyn(R-TX) is also getting closer scrutiny because some claim the El Paso shooter’s manifesto echoed similar anti-Hispanic sentiments as Senator Cornyn’s tweet–that Hispanics are replacing Whites in Texas.

Now we can all agree that it is unfair to pin any national tragedy on a politician’s previous public comments and Yours Truly is certainly not suggesting here that the El Paso shooter read Senator Cornyn’s tweet and then decided to open fire on Hispanic shoppers at a Walmart in El Paso. What is fair debate however is that President Trump has a well documented history of stoking racial tensions using very incendiary language that has even garnered praise from White Supremacy groups. It is also well known that Congressional Republicans like Senator Cornyn rarely push back on the President when he engages in such hateful rhetoric, the subject of Yours Truly’s recent post “GOP Complicit In Trump’s Racism”

Therefore when a hate crime against Hispanic shoppers like the one that happened in El Paso takes place, it is fair to confront Senator John Cornyn and other Republicans about their decision to remain silent even when the President engages in race-baiting speech. In Senator Cornyn’s case in particular, his tweet pointing out the fact that the Hispanic rate of migration to the state of Texas outnumbers that of Whites by a 9 to 1 margin certainly raises justifiable questions in light of the El Paso shooting. Was Senator Cornyn pushing the “White Replacement” conspiracy theory that is very popular among White Supremacy Groups worldwide?

It is well known that one of the grievances raised by hate groups and especially White Supremacists worldwide is this idea of “White Replacement”—that somehow there’s a global conspiracy to replace the White race with other ethnic groups. You’ll remember during the Charlottesville, Virginia riots, that White Supremacy advocates could be heard chanting “Jews will not replace us”. This “White Replacement” hysteria is fueling the growth of anti-immigrant political groups in Western Europe and some political pundits argue is the same hysteria currently being pushed by President Trump and his GOP with their harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric. It is therefore perfectly in order for Senator Cornyn to be questioned about the motivation behind his 9 to 1 tweet.

It also cannot be left unsaid that during a recent Congressional hearing, Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took Deputy FBI Director Michael McGarrity to task over why the FBI and other law enforcement agencies(like DHS) are not doing more to combat the rising threat of domestic terrorism posed by White Supremacy groups, a subject Yours Truly wrote about in “AOC Exposes FBI’s Terrorism Double Standard” . (AOC is always ahead of the curve folks).

Deputy Director McGarrity’s response was that there are no current laws/legal provisions that allow the FBI to vigorously go after domestic terrorists. The question then becomes, how does the same FBI and DHS currently target people they perceive to be “Black extremists” or “Black militants”? What current provisions/laws are they basing these surveillance practices on, that they are seemingly unwilling or unable to apply to White Supremacists? There have been numerous credible media reports that surveillance on “Black militants” is indeed happening as we speak in most major U.S. cities–some for reasons as mundane as anti-Trump/DHS social media posts, or even organizing,/participating in Black Lives Matter protests. Are these media reports “fake news”? These are some of the questions the public expects the mainstream media to pose to FBI and DHS brass in light of the two deadly weekend mass shootings.

Bottom line, the mainstream media fails the public miserably in the way it covers national tragedies. Specifically, the questions that need to be answered are often not answered because other incidents usually pop up and take the cameras/spotlight away. The El Paso shooting has raised two very important questions that needs to be addressed the first one being how surveillance capabilities of the FBI and DHS are being misused/abused. Are the FBI and DHS wasting surveillance resources needlessly chasing down perceived “militants” of color while totally ignoring the actual threat of domestic terrorism by White Supremacists? The second question (a no-brainer), is whether the hate-filled rhetoric emanating from President Trump and his Republican party is fueling the rise White Supremacy groups in the U.S.? These are two questions the mainstream media must seriously delve into in the aftermath of the two deadly shootings in El Paso and Dayton. The Mainstream media will likely give Trump and Senator John Cornyn a pass as they usually do with Republicans. However you can rest assured that Yours Truly, your trusted grassroots journalist, will not only hold Sen Cornyn’s feet to the fire regarding this racist tweet, but will also and make it the citadel upon which his 2020 reelection prospects fail. Stay tuned.

For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out.

You may reach the author via email at author@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com