TONIGHT: "The Squad" claps back at President Trump! #LSSC pic.twitter.com/AUzgmVdKbE

— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) July 17, 2019

Comedy shows have been our source of truth for too long. Read the rest

When President Trump said on Sunday that "'Progressive' Democratic Congresswomen" should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” was he violating federal workplace discrimination law?

We aren't lawyers and we don't know, but here's something relevant from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission website, “Immigrants' Employment Rights Under Federal Anti-Discrimination Laws” —

Ethnic slurs and other verbal or physical conduct because of nationality are illegal if they are severe or pervasive and create an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment, interfere with work performance, or negatively affect job opportunities. Examples of potentially unlawful conduct include insults, taunting, or ethnic epithets, such as making fun of a person's foreign accent or comments like, "Go back to where you came from, " whether made by supervisors or by co-workers.

HT: @nick_ramsey

One things many minorities hear more than a few times in their lives is, “Go back to where you came from.” I always responded, “What, Los Angeles?”

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) July 15, 2019

Read the rest

Profiles in courage here, folks. Read the rest

None of this is a surprise. And none of it is normal or okay. Read the rest

Why is the American news media so very afraid to just call Trump's racist tweets racist?

We had another chance to see cowardice in action on Sunday. Read the rest

Last week, Propublica revealed the existence of "I'm 10-15", a secret Facebook group for current and former Customs and Border Protection employees -- a group with 9,500 members, while CBP's total workforce numbers 58,000 -- where it was commons for members to share violent, racist, sexist, misogynist, rape-y memes, including some that threatened and disparaged members of Congress. Read the rest

A woman in a grocery store directed a bigoted rant at another shopper, all captured on video. Read the rest

Dr. Latisha Rowe, a family-medicine specialist, was on the way to Miami with her 8-year-old son. She says that an American Airlines flight crew publicly humiliated her by demanding she wrap herself in a blanket to conceal her dress, which they deemed "inappropriate".

Here is what i was wearing when @AmericanAir asked me to deplane for a talk. At which point I was asked to “cover up”. When defending my outfit I was threatened with not getting back on the flight unless I walked down the aisle wrapped in a blanket. #notsofriendlyskies

Buzzfeed News interviewed her.

Rowe told BuzzFeed News she and her 8-year-old son were guided outside the aircraft and she was asked if she had a jacket. Confused, Rowe replied, “No, I don’t.” After questioning Rowe further, the flight attendant made it clear that she could not board the plane as her romper was too revealing.

“I felt powerless,” Rowe said. “There was nothing I could do in that moment other than give up my money and my seat to defend my position that I was completely appropriate.”

Using a blanket that was provided by the crew, she covered up her waist and walked back to her seat feeling “humiliated.”

Business Insider adds:

After she wrapped the blanket around her waist, she said, another flight attendant came up and warned her not to make a scene, despite the fact that she was deliberately behaving calmly to avoid escalating the situation.

When they tell you not to "make as scene", that's a tell. Read the rest

Ex-Secret Service officer Liam Booth was the head of security for Mark Zuckerberg's "family office" and charitable foundation; two former employees accused Booth of homophobia, transphobia, "pervasive discriminatory conduct," and "horrific levels of sexual harassment and battery," saying that he had made racist remarks about Zuckerberg's wife, Priscilla Chan; that he had told a staffer that he "didn't trust Black people" and that he believed that "white lives matter more than Black lives" and had personally sabotaged Chan's attempt to hire more diverse staff; that he'd complained about the number of Black people working for the family charity; and that he'd "angrily advocat[ed] against diversity in the workplace and the movement Black Lives Matters, which he called 'reverse racism.'" Read the rest

10-15 is Customs and Border Protection's code for "aliens in custody"; "I'm 10-15" is a secret Facebook group for current and former CBP officers whose participants create and share a torrent of racist and sexist memes, as well as jokes about the deaths of migrants in their care. Read the rest

Anna Lind-Guzik ("a writer, attorney, and scholar of Soviet history, international law, and human rights, with degrees from Duke University, Harvard Law School, and Princeton") has written an essay defending Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's use of the term "concentration camps" to describe the facilities in which America has imprisoned brown-skinned asylum seekers who have presented themselves at the nation's border. Read the rest

[Author Catherynne Valente (previously) posted this outstanding rant to her Facebook page; I asked her permission to repost it here so it would have somewhere to live outside of the zuckerverse and she graciously gave her permission -Cory]

I live in Portland, Maine. We have recently had an influx of African asylum seekers and the city has been scrambling to find shelter and support for them.

Cue NextDoor, that wretched hive of scum and villainy. Every day someone would post some new hateful jingoistic nonsense about how horrible these people are and that they need to get out of 'Merica and leave it to the 'Mericans.

I try not to get involved on NextDoor because I live in a small community and I have to see these people at the ferry dock. But I got mad. And I got involved. And it got long.

So I decided to share it with you. Please feel free to share it with others who might need to hear it.

Read the rest

One thousand more single migrant adults are being detained by U.S. border protection each week in 2019, with the detention system at "serious risk of exceeding safety standards on a regular basis," documents reported today by Newsweek show. Read the rest

A year-long investigation of private Facebook hate groups by REVEAL finds close to 400 current and retired law enforcement officers are members, including officers from small towns as well as big cities -- including NYPD. Read the rest

Trump-aligned extremists are busily spreading disinformation online this week about 'Immigrants Are Bringing Ebola To The US.' Officials say the conspiracy amplified by Alex Jones of Infowars, Gateway Pundit, and other right-wingers is "Patently False." Read the rest