Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.
On Sunday, news broke out of Michigan that a lone gunman crashed his vehicle into a Mormon church, opened fire, and set the building ablaze—another horrific act of violence in a country where such scenes have become all too common. Almost immediately, speculation swirled on Twitter, with far-right voices rushing to blame a Muslim or a “transgender leftist,” their favored scapegoats after mass shootings. But early images told a different story: the truck rammed into the church flew two large American flags and bore an Iraq War veteran plate. The shooter was no Muslim, no trans person. He was a Trump-supporting combat veteran—a cisgender white man who fit the profile of so many American mass shooters.
Just like that, the story faded from the political radar. There were no calls in the aftermath to investigate Trump supporters as potential terrorists. No national conversations about the violent capacity of cisgender men. No discussions about whether white people who fly massive American flags on the backs of their trucks should have their guns taken away. No presidential proclamations casting suspicion on the identity of this mass shooter. Cisgender combat veterans will not spend the days after this tragedy fearing that their rights will be stripped away because of the actions of one man.
A federal judge ruled Monday it was illegal for the Trump administration to cancel several hundred research grants, adding that the cuts raise serious questions about racial discrimination.
U.S. District Judge William Young in Massachusetts said the administration’s process was “arbitrary and capricious” and that it did not follow long-held government rules and standards when it abruptly canceled grants deemed to focus on gender identity or diversity, equity and inclusion.
In a hearing Monday on two cases calling for the grants to be restored, the judge pushed government lawyers to offer a formal definition of DEI, questioning how grants could be canceled for that reason when some were designed to study health disparities as Congress had directed.
Young, an appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, went on to address what he called “a darker aspect” to the cases, calling it “palpably clear” that what was behind the government actions was “racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community.”
After 40 years on the bench, “I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this,” Young added. He ended Monday’s hearing saying, “Have we no shame.”
The Tampa Bay Young Republicans tweeted an invitation to Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan to come speak to their group, drawing swift criticism for the outreach to the men currently facing charges for human trafficking and related offenses in multiple countries.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump revoked a six-decade-old executive order designed to combat workplace discrimination by federal contractors, undoing a landmark labor standard that stretches back to the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson.
The rule Trump nuked, Executive Order 11246, forbade federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. It granted the Labor Department the power to enforce its provisions through a contracting standards office.
A House Republican is pushing to ban transgender women from women’s restrooms at the US Capitol, two weeks after history was made with the election of America’s first out transgender person to Congress.
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace on Monday introduced a resolution to amend the rules of the US House of Representatives less than two months before Democratic Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, a Delaware state senator, is sworn-in in January.
A decade ago, Jessie McGrath began a physical transition to make her body match her gender identity. More recently, she underwent a political transformation.
A veteran, NRA member and lifelong Republican, McGrath stuck with her political leanings even after starting gender reassignment surgeries in 2014 at the age of 53. Then Donald Trump and his opposition to gender reassignment surgery changed her mind.
First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew
Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Catholics And I did not speak out because I was not a Catholic
Then they came for me And by that time there was no one left to speak out for me.
A group seemingly aligned with the Republican party is targeting areas in Michigan that are home to large Arab American and Muslim communities with digital ads purporting to “celebrate” the Jewish faith of Kamala Harris’s husband, Douglas Emhoff.
Bomb threats on Friday forced the evacuation and closure of public schools and municipal buildings for a second consecutive day, as the city continues to deal with sudden national attention due to false claims involving its Haitian population.
Leaders of the House Republican caucus scolded members on Tuesday after several representatives went off-script to attack Vice President Kamala Harris on the basis of her race and gender, according to multiple reports.
"The hardliners on the right have done nothing except make it worse. The Freedom Caucus right now has been a disaster in public policy terms. They think their job in life is to grandstand and complain while the other team runs over you."
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
