All posts tagged "barack obama"

Obama delivers blistering rebuke of Trump at Jesse Jackson funeral without saying his name

Former President Barack Obama delivered a strong message to President Donald Trump — and the nation — in his eulogy for civil rights icon the Rev. Jesse Jackson in Chicago on Friday.

The celebration of life for Jackson, who died on Feb. 17 at age 84, included thousands of people at the House of Hope in Chicago. Obama, a close friend of Jackson, was one of several notable speakers and performers to take the stage, and took a moment during his speech to describe what Jackson meant to him, his legacy and important work.

Without naming Trump directly, Obama criticized the president — describing the current state of leadership in the United States and how Jackson's commitment to democracy has been tested. Obama argued that it mattered to continue Jackson's message of hope.

"We are living in a time when it can be hard to hope," Obama said. "Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions, another setback to the idea of the rule of law, an offense to common decency — every day you wake up to — to things you just didn't think were possible."

"Each day we're told by those in high office to fear each other, and to turn on each other, and that some Americans count more than others and that some don't even count at all," he said. "Everywhere we see greed and bigotry being celebrated, and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength, we see science and expertise denigrated while ignorance and dishonesty and cruelty and corruption are reaping untold rewards every day — every single day we see that — and it's hard to hope in those moments. So it may be tempting to get discouraged, to give into cynicism, it may be tempting for some to compromise with power and grab what you can, or even for good people, to even just put your head down and wait for the storm to pass."

Obama praised Jackson's example and urged people to fight for a better future.

"But this man, Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson, inspires us to take a harder path," Obama said. "His voice calls on each of us to be heralds of change, to be messengers of hope, to step forward and say 'send me.' Wherever we have a chance to make an impact, whether it's in our school, or our workplace or our cities, not for fame, not for glory, or because success is guaranteed, but because it gives our life purpose, because it aligns with what our faith tells us God demands. And because if we don't step up, no one else will. How fortunate we were that Jesse Jackson answered that call. What a great debt we owe to him."

'I stood alone': Dem escorted from SOTU speaks out after dramatic challenge to Trump

WASHINGTON — Rep. Al Green (D-TX) broke his silence after he was forced out of the State of the Union address Tuesday night over confronting President Donald Trump.

Just as the president entered the House Chamber, Majority Leader of the House Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) ripped a sign of Green's that said "Black people aren't apes" moments before Trump delivered his speech.

"As you know, the president has depicted the former president, the Obamas, as apes. And if we tolerate this level of racism and perpetuate it, I refuse to tolerate it," Green told Raw Story.

"I don’t want to see it normalized," he explained. "And that’s why I flashed this [sign] to the president so there would be no questions where I stand. He needs to know that there’s some people who have the courage to tell him things that he doesn’t want to hear and that nobody else will tell him. And on some issues, it’s better to stand alone than not stand at all. So I stood alone…”

Rep. Al Green speaks with @MattLaslo for Raw Story after his removal at SOTU
"As you know, the president has depicted the former president, the Obamas, as apes. And if we tolerate this level of racism and perpetuate it, I refuse to tolerate it. I don’t want to see it normalized.
— Nicole Charky-Chami (@NicoleCharky) February 25, 2026

And one some issues it’s better to stand alone than not stand at all. So I stood alone…” pic.twitter.com/CgSdntb3hJ
— Nicole Charky-Chami (@NicoleCharky) February 25, 2026

This unspeakable Trump attack took my breath away — but the response truly shocked

I’ve been talking into microphones since I did the morning news on WITL in Lansing Michigan in the late 1960s, and I’ve seen a lot of ugly moments in American politics. But every so often something happens that still takes your breath away, not because it’s surprising, but because it’s so painfully revealing.

This latest racist stunt by Donald Trump — reposting a meme on his Nazi-infested social media site in which the Obamas’ faces are superimposed onto the bodies of primates in the jungle set to the 1961 song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens — is one of those moments.

That a popular pro-Trump account on X created this video and it has lived on that platform without consequence is disgusting in and of itself. But Trump — as our president, speaking in our voice — made it infinitely worse last night by promoting it to millions around the world.

Promoting a video that depicts Barack and Michelle Obama as non-human primates isn’t a joke. It isn’t satire or an accident. It’s the oldest racist smear in the book, dressed up in a cheap meme and now blasted out by a man who once swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

When the president of the United States does something like this, it doesn’t just insult two people. It tells a story about who, according to the most powerful man in the world, belongs in America and who doesn’t.

For centuries, racism in this country has relied on the lie that some people are less than human. That lie has been used to justify slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, and mass incarceration.

It’s the lie that made it easier for people to look away while their neighbors were brutalized. It’s the lie that justifies ICE’s brutal, racist behavior. When Trump shares imagery that taps directly into that history, he’s not being edgy: he’s reopening wounds that never fully healed.

When the President of the United States signals that this kind of racism is acceptable, it gives permission to others. It tells the kid being harassed at school, the family being targeted by a hate group, and the voter being pushed out of the polling line that the cruelty they’re experiencing is justified. That it’s their own fault.

It tells the bullies and thugs of ICE as they do their “Kavanaugh Stops” — targeting people based on their race — that they’re on the right side of power.

This isn’t just about harm to minorities, although that harm is real and immediate. It’s about what happens to democracy itself when the presidency becomes a megaphone for dehumanization.

Democracy depends on the idea that we’re all political equals. Once you start suggesting that some Americans are animals, that idea collapses. It becomes easier to justify taking away voting rights, ignore court rulings, or shrug when violence follows hateful rhetoric.

I remember a time, during the era of Eisenhower and Kennedy, when the presidency stood as a kind of moral North Star. Even when presidents like Nixon and Clinton failed to live up to it, there was at least a shared understanding that the office itself mattered. That it should pull us together, not rip us apart.

Trump has spent years doing the opposite, from the 1970s when he was busted along with his father for refusing to rent to Black people to his recent use of words like “vermin” and “shitholes” to describe Hispanic and Black people and majority-Black countries. Last night’s post is another brutally clear example of Trump’s deep, lifelong racism.

What’s even more chilling is the silence from Republican leaders and elected officials. If you can’t bring yourself to condemn something this overtly racist, where exactly is your line?

Silence in moments like this isn’t neutrality: it’s complicity. It tells people of color in America, already dealing with the burden of centuries of institutional racism, that their pain is irrelevant and their dignity a plaything in the hands of white people.

I know some people will say we should ignore it, that reacting “just feeds the outrage machine.” Trump’s propaganda princess, Karoline Leavitt, tried to downplay it by telling reporters:

“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”

But pretending this doesn’t matter is how we normalize it and weaken our shared sense of humanity. And the end point of that is always disaster.

As California Governor Gavin Newsome posted:

“Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.”

“Denounce” is a bare minimum. This country can do better. We’ve done better before, often after terrible struggle and sacrifice.

But we won’t get there by minimizing moments like this or waving them off as “just another Trump post.” We get there by calling it what it is, by standing up for one another as equals in our humanity, and by insisting that the presidency must reflect our highest ideals, not our ugliest instincts.

If this doesn’t provoke the 13 white billionaires in Trump’s cabinet — who would all instantly fire anybody in any of their companies who posted such an image on their company’s servers — to start 25th Amendment proceedings or endorse impeachment, it’ll tell us everything about who they are, too.

America is stronger when we recognize each other as fully human. The moment we let that slip, we all lose something precious.

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.

These are the monsters who feed Trump, the beast of bigotry

There should be absolutely, positively no confusion about what happened this week. When Donald Trump shared a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, he didn’t “make a mistake,” "instigate controversy,” or “post something offensive.”

He reached for one of the oldest, ugliest, and most dangerous racist tropes in American history. The dehumanization of Black people as animals.

And not just animals: apes. It was vulgar, vile, disgusting and unacceptable. It was seditious.

That trope Trump menacingly shared has justified enslavement, lynching, segregation, and state violence for centuries. It is not accidental. It is not humorous — at all. It is violent in its intent and impact.

When Trump was asked if he would apologize to the Obamas, he said: “No. I didn’t make a mistake.”

He’s right. It wasn’t a mistake. It’s embedded in his being. Racism boils in Trump’s blood. It festers on his lily white skin. It marinates through his demented mind. He voice croaks white power. Racism slithers out of his fingers.

This is the same man who took out full-page ads calling for the execution of the Central Park Five, teens who were later exonerated. The same man who led the racist birther conspiracy against the first Black president.

The same man who spoke of “very fine people on both sides” after white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, chanting “Jews will not replace us.” The same man who broke bread at Mar-a-Lago with Nick Fuentes, an open white nationalist.

The pattern is not subtle. It is intentional. The escalation is not surprising. And with Trump, as in everything else, it will be compounded. And it needs to stop.

Because it cannot ever be tolerated..

What is intolerable, and what must now be confronted, is the silence and complicity of those who continue to support him. The monsters who feed the beast of bigotry.

Racism does not operate in a silo. It requires enablers. It requires money. It requires whitewashing reputations. And today, some of the most powerful corporations, CEOs, and cultural figures in America are providing exactly that. They are complicit in a crime that threatens the moral fabric of our society.

Enough is enough. And these monsters need to be stopped.

If you kneel before power while that power spreads racism, you are not neutral. You are complicit.

When CEOs and billionaires line up at the White House bearing gifts, when they bankroll inaugurations, when they fund vanity projects like a $300 million White House ballroom, they are not just currying favor. They are endorsing the behavior that comes with that power. And when that power openly traffics in racist dehumanization, their money becomes an accomplice. It funds torture. It funds danger. It funds death.

Here’s a list of businesses that support Trump, courtesy of Newsweek. And, here’s how you help some of them spread racism through their association with the Beast of Bigotry:

Buy an Apple product while Tim Cook offers his loyalty? You are supporting an accomplice to racism.
Cheer the Patriots in the Super Bowl while Robert Kraft aligns himself, and wines and dines with Trump? You are supporting an accomplice to racism.
Drive a Tesla while Elon Musk amplifies and normalizes Trumpism? You are supporting an accomplice to racism.
Where does your monthly subscription to Amazon Prime go? It lines the pockets of Jeff Bezos who is an unabashed accomplice to racism.
Do business tied to Steve Wynn? You are supporting an accomplice to racism.
Purchase Johnson & Johnson products, whose heir Woody Johnson endorses Trump with vigor? You are supporting an accomplice to racism.

And the list doesn’t stop with individuals.

Major corporations — tech giants, defense contractors, energy conglomerates, financial firms — have poured money into Trump’s 2025 inauguration and into constructing a lavish White House ballroom. Amazon. Google. Meta. Microsoft. Apple. Palantir. Nvidia. Coinbase. Lockheed Martin. Boeing. Chevron. Comcast. And many others across tech, crypto, defense, energy, and manufacturing.

This is not passive participation. This is active sponsorship of racism. Trump is the metaphorical David Duke of American racism in 2026. These names and companies are giving money to the modern day iteration of the Ku Klux Klan, led by Grand Wizard Trump.

When corporations fund a bigot, they legitimize him. When they remain silent in the face of overt racism, they send a message louder than the crackling of burning crosses.

To them, profits matter more than the sanctity of lives. Access matters more than tolerance. Comfort matters more than harassment. We need to remove the white hoods from these white men who remain silent and supplicant in the face of tyranny and bigotry.

Not one of these donors has condemned the racist attack on the Obamas. Not one has drawn a line. Not one has said, this is unacceptable. Not one. Is that acceptable to you?

Silence, in this moment, is consent for the barbaric Neo-Nazi who spews Black hate with the press of a button.

Racism in America does not survive on hatred alone. It survives because powerful people decide it is tolerable, or at least profitable. Because they believe the outrage will pass. Because they assume consumers will keep buying, cheering, streaming, and investing.

They are wrong. Or they should be.

Boycott them.

Picket them.

Call them out by name.

Send letters.

Withdraw your money, your attention, your clicks, your brand loyalty.

Make racism expensive again. Take a stand. Collectively. Together. No one should be silent any longer. What was done to the Obamas should be a wake-up call. This is what hatred looks like when it feels invincible.

Trump is responsible for his racism. But everyone who props him up, funds him, normalizes him, profits alongside him, and shares responsibility for the damage he causes.

Racism has accomplices. And America needs to start treating them like the klansmen criminals that they are.

John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”

These four men could drive Trump out of office — and their silence is deafening

The staggering cowardliness by four ex-presidents vis-à-vis Tyrant Trump’s wrecking of America cannot escape history’s verdict. However, there is still an opportunity for vigorous redemption by George W. Bush — whose life-saving AIDS Medicine Program in Africa was shut down by President Donald Trump — Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, if they have any self-respect for their patriotic duty.

As of now, these former presidents are living lives of luxury and personal pursuits. They are at the apex of the “contented classes” who have chosen to be bystanders to Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation, and the doling out of Trump’s corporatist welfare giveaways.

Imagine, if you will, what would happen if these four wealthy politicians, who still have most of their voters liking them, decided to band together and take on Trump full throttle. Privately, they believe and want Trump to be impeached (for the third time in the House) and convicted in the Senate (after two acquittals). This time, on many impeachable actions that Trump himself boasts about, claiming, “With Article II, I can do whatever I want as President.”

Right off, they can upend the public discourse that Trump dominates daily with phony personal accusations, stunningly un-rebutted by the feeble Democratic Party leaders. This counterattack with vivid, accurate words will further increase the majority of people who want Trump “fired.” Just from their own observations of Trump’s vicious, cruel destruction of large parts of our government and civil service, which benefits and protects the populace, should jolt the former presidents into action.

Next, the bipartisan Band of Four can raise tens of millions of dollars instantly to form “Save Our Republic” advocacy groups in every congressional district. The heat on both parties in Congress would immediately rise to make them start the Impeachment Drive. Congressional Republicans’ fear of losing big in the 2026 elections, as their polls are plummeting, will motivate some to support impeachment. Congressional Republicans abandoned President Richard Nixon in 1974, forcing his resignation with Impeachment on his political horizon.

Events can move very fast. First, Trump is the most powerful contributor to his own Impeachment. Day after day, this illegal closer of long-established social safety nets and services is alienating tens of millions of frightened and angry Americans.

Daily, Trump is breaking his many campaign promises. His exaggerated predictions are wrong. Remember his frequent promise to stop “these endless wars;” his assurance that he would not impair government health insurance programs (tell that to the millions soon to lose, due to Trump, their Medicaid coverage); his promise of lifting people into prosperity — he opposes any increase in the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour and he has signed GOP legislation to strip tens of millions of Americans from the SNAP food support and take away the Obama subsidies for Obamacare.

Many Trump voters are among the vast number of people experiencing his treachery, where they live and raise their families, will lose out here. The catalytic opportunities of these four ex-presidents and their skilled operating teams are endless.

Further, this Band of Presidents, discovering their patriotic duty, will recharge the Democratic Party leaders or lead to the immediate replacement of those who simply do not want or know how to throw back the English language against this Bully-in-Chief, this abuser of women, this stunning racist, this chronic liar about serious matters, this inciter of violence including violence against members of Congress, this invader of cities with increasingly violent, law breaking storm-troopers turning a former Border Patrol force into a vast recruitment program for police state operators.

Trump uses the word “impeachment” frequently against judges who rule against him, and even mentions it in relation to it being applied to him. Tragically, Democratic Party leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have made talk of Impeachment a taboo, arguing the time is not yet ripe. How many more abuses of power do they need to galvanize the Democrats in the House and Senate against the most blatantly impeachable president by far in American history? He keeps adding to his list — recently, he has become a pirate and killer on the high seas, an unconstitutional war maker on Iran and Venezuela, openly threatening to illegally seize the Panama Canal, Greenland, and overthrow the Cuban government.

Constitutional scholar Obama can ask dozens of constitutional law professors the question: “Would any of the 56 delegates who signed our US Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the 39 drafters who signed our US Constitution in 1787, being told about Monarch King Donald Trump, oppose his immediate impeachment and removal — the only tool left he doesn’t control?”

Not one, would be their studied response.

Trump, a serial draft dodger, pushes through another $150 billion to the Pentagon above what the generals requested while starving well-being programs of nutrition for our children and elderly, and cutting services, by staff reductions, for American veterans, and strip-mining our preparedness for climate violence and likely pandemics.

He promised law and order during the election and then betrayed it right after his inauguration, pardoning 1,500 convicted, imprisoned criminals, 600 of them violent, emptying their prison cells and calling them “patriots” for what they did to Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

MR. EX-PRESIDENTS, JUST WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? WHAT ARE YOUR ESCAPIST EXCUSES?

Call your friends who are ranking members of the GOP-controlled Committees of Congress and tell them to hold prompt SHADOW HEARINGS to educate the public through witnesses about the TRUMP DUMP, impeachable, illegal, and unconstitutional government. The media would welcome the opportunity to cover such hearings. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) thought this was “a good idea” before being admonished by his frightened Democratic leaders to bide his time and remain silent.

As more of Trump’s iron boots drop on people’s livelihoods, their freedoms, their worry for their children and grandchildren, their antipathy to more aggressive wars against non-threatening countries, and their demands at town meetings and mass marches for action against Trump’s self-enriching despotism, the disgraceful, craven cowardliness of our former presidential leaders will intensify. Unless they wake up to the challenge. With the mainstream media attacked regularly and being sued by Trump’s coercive, illegal extortion, the action by the Band of Four will bolster press freedom, press coverage, and their own redemption.

Send these four politicians, who are friendly with one another, petitions, letters, emails, satiric cartoons, or whatever communications that might redeem them from the further condemnation of history.

Rest assured, with Trump in the disgraced White House, THINGS ARE ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE, MUCH WORSE! For that is the predictable behavior from the past year and from his dangerously unstable, arrogant, vengeful, and egomaniacal personality.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and the author of "The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future" (2012). His latest book is, "Wrecking America: How Trump's Lies and Lawbreaking Betray All" (2020, co-authored with Mark Green).

'Opportunity for change': Barack Obama shares what Dems can do to take down Trump

Former President Barack Obama has shared what Democrats can do to start fighting back against Donald Trump.

According to Politico, the 44th President of the United States told freshman lawmakers to be vigilant and compared the 2024 Republican election sweep to how the Democratic Party felt in 2004. Adam Wren wrote that Obama spoke of a "similar sense of despair" felt now as there was two decades ago in 2004.

Obama said, "Because when I was — everybody remembers the Democratic National Convention in 2004 — when you were. …well, you were in elementary school. But what people don’t recall is that John Kerry lost that election."

"And we didn’t control the House, and we did not control the Senate. And Tom Daschle, who was then the Democratic leader of the Senate, lost, which is unheard of. And Karl Rove, who was the chief architect of George Bush’s campaigns and political career was – could be found on all the TV stations, talking about the ‘permanent Republican majority’ that had been created."

Obama went on to compare the strength of the Democratic Party in those two instances, calling on the future of the party to create the momentum for change.

He added, "And two years later, Nancy Pelosi was the first woman speaker of the House of Representatives. And four years later, somehow, I ended up being president. The reason I tell you that is not for you to, you know, feel complacent."

"It’s to indicate that the work that you are doing right now, the investment you’re making, the focus that you’re applying, the issues that you are developing, the interactions that you’re having with your constituencies. All that is creating the momentum and the opportunity for change."

Obama would also say he wished he had not overestimated the Republican Party's willingness to work with his administration over two terms. He said, "We wasted a lot of time trying to engage the ideas of Republicans on a good faith basis."

The former president has also aired his desire to "move from player to coach" within the Democratic Party. An aide close to Obama said, "His goal is to build a sustainable Democratic Party that can survive without him."

'Very concerned': Red flags fly as Trump's revenge cases funneled to Aileen Cannon

The Department of Justice is setting up President Donald Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to hear Trump revenge cases, according to a former U.S. attorney.

The Southern District of Florida U.S. Attorney’s office is reportedly ramping up the revenge prosecutions in a "mass investigation" and targeting Trump enemies, even eyeing cases against former President Barack Obama and former CIA Director John Brennan, MSNBC reported Tuesday.

The move has prompted several resignations, including two prosecutors, who stepped down from their jobs following an impromptu meeting Monday where they were ordered “to take part in a vast ‘conspiracy’ investigation into former intelligence and law enforcement officials.”

"At least one of them was asked to do something that was outside of their realm of comfortability and they believed would violate their ethical responsibilities," MSNBC senior White House reporter Vaughn Hillyard reported.

More than 30 subpoenas were issued on Friday by the DOJ, which reportedly “bypassed what multiple legal experts told MSNBC is standard protocol for its issuance of subpoenas, turning to a member of leadership to sign off on some of them, instead of a line prosecutor assigned to investigate the case.”

But there is another uncommon move.

"Typically, you would expect the line prosecutors who are handling the case to be the people who would sign subpoenas," legal analyst and former U.S. attorney Barbara McQuade told MSNBC.

"It sounds, though, like this is some sort of special project that they're putting together, some sort of special unit. Executive U.S. attorneys sometimes have in their portfolio special projects. So it sounds to me like this executive U.S. attorney is going to be leading whatever this effort is into this conspiracy investigation. But I do think it's noteworthy that this is not being handled the way a routine case would be handled for a violation of the law. Instead, it is being handled as a special case with a high-level executive member of the team handling this," she added.

The location of the case is also raising questions and concerns.

"The other thing that I thought was noteworthy about the reporting is that the grand jury to be impaneled is going to be in Fort Pierce, Florida. That, of course, is the district that the portion of the district, the southern district of Florida, that has one and only one judge, and that judge is Aileen Cannon. I don't know that we should be suspicious of everything Judge Aileen Cannon does, but we do know that her track record in the Mar-a-Lago case with the documents was first to impose some really extraordinary hoops for the prosecutors to go through at the time of the search," McQuade said.

"And then, of course, the dismissal of the case, finding the special counsel regulations to be unconstitutional, contrary to every other court that's looked at it. So I think there is reason to be very concerned about the irregularities that are occurring in this office," she said.

A Kentucky leader's AI post shows just how deep Republican racism runs

A few days ago, Bobbie Coleman — the chairperson of the Hardin County Republican Party — shared an AI video on the county party’s Facebook page with former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama portrayed as grinning apes.

Coleman took the video down and eventually posted an apology, which began, “Earlier today, I shared a video from social media that was intended to celebrate President Trump’s successful policy achievements by depicting him as a Lion King, triumphing over liberal Democrats.”

She closed with, “I believe the Republican Party is the vehicle to save our country from the far-left and I look forward to continuing to support our Republican candidates and Make America Great Again.”

The Obamas left the White House almost nine years ago. Other than being Black, what do they have to do with Trump’s alleged “policy achievements?” With making America great again? With supporting Republican candidates? With their obsession to “save our country from the far-left?”

What’s odd about today’s latent obsession with Barack and Michelle Obama is how little their obsession has to do with policy. If anything, Obama as president is viewed by those on the “far-left” (Coleman’s word choice in her apology) as someone who was not all that liberal, as someone who played it too careful and too close to the center.

But realities like these do not matter in Trump’s Republican Party.

Obama, almost a decade post-presidency, is not a cartoon figure for today’s Make America Great Again crowd because he is influencing policy. Obama is a MAGA cartoon figure because he is Black.

Racism sells.

At the end of Kentucky’s 2024 General Assembly, I wrote a recap of what I’d witnessed over the course of those many weeks titled, “Undercurrent of racism fueled this legislative session.” This is not a title a writer chooses without a pretty long list of strong, supporting evidence.

There was Senate Bill 6 and House Bill 9 that year which aimed to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion — DEI — in our education system and would pass in the next session because, hey, who needs diversity?

There was Sen. Gerald Neal’s proposed Crown Act, a repeat bill that never gets anywhere, “which would have outlawed discrimination on the basis of a hairstyle historically associated with a person’s race.”

There was Rep. Jennifer Decker (who is white) telling an NAACP audience that her white father was a slave and then doubling down on the claim when asked to explain.

There was Rep. Jason Nemes (who is white) ranting in anger at Rep. Derrick Graham (who is Black) for daring to tell the truth on the House floor about how the Jefferson Davis statue was “taken out for a reason,” the reason being that he led the Confederacy, which was built on the backs of slaves, and the insurrection that kicked off the Civil War.

And later in 2024, a bunch of white university presidents prostrated themselves before the interim education committee in our state Capitol, assuring them that they were not, no-way-no-how, teaching diversity of thought or helping people of color in their education systems, even as one brave Black woman sat right there in the front row wearing a bright red t-shirt that read in bold white letters, “Make America Not Racist for the First Time.”

Racism is not a side item in today’s Republican Party, with its masked ICE agents profiling brown people on the streets; it’s a main menu selling point.

The president told a gaggle of reporters on Air Force One Monday that U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett is “a low-IQ person” which is the same derogatory statement he makes regularly about professional Black women, insisting they can’t be smart because they’re Black.

And speaking of women — because GOP misogyny runs in the same creek as their racism — a 35-year-old Louisville Republican named Calvin Leach is currently running for state Senate after once writing in an online article in that young women are “promiscuous skanks,” “coddled americ--ts,” “party whores” and “damn sloots” (internet slang for slut).

When asked about this in an interview with Kentucky Public Radio, Leach described his writing as dating advice, saying that diversity, equity and inclusion has gotten out of hand.

It is notable that I also wrote — during the same 2024 General Assembly that was fueled by racism — that our GOP supermajority is often nothing but a good old boy, misogynistic, frat-house-like romp masquerading as serious lawmaking. With Leach as a candidate, it appears they like it this way.

Apologies for the digression. There is so much rampant sexism and racism in the KY GOP, it’s hard to keep up.

If the Republican Party of Kentucky does not want to be viewed as racist — if they do not want their leaders out in the counties posting racist videos — they might start by not telling tall tales about how their white fathers were slaves, by passing bills *allowing* Black people to wear their natural hair at work, by not obsessing about how one whiff of diversity or Black history might dare appear on a college syllabus.

“Racism greeted Obama in both his primary and general election campaigns in 2008,” Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in his book, We Were Eight Years in Power. “Photos were circulated of him in Somali garb. Rush Limbaugh dubbed him ‘Barack the Magic Negro.’” After “Obama won the presidency in defiance of these racial headwinds, traffic to the white-supremacist website Stormfront increased sixfold.”

We will soon approach two decades since Obama’s 2008 campaign, but overt racism is alive and well here in the commonwealth. Just last week the Frankfort Police Department advised the public that KKK propaganda was strewn around and that they were looking for ring-cam footage and any other evidence of the perpetrators.

I watched and rewatched the video posted on social media by the GOP chairperson in Hardin County, opening as it does with Barack and Michelle Obama portrayed as grinning apes, and I was not surprised.

I read and reread the article about KY GOP candidate Calvin Leach and his use of “promiscuous skanks” and worse to describe women, and I was not surprised.

Let’s face it, you aren’t either.

Teri Carter writes about rural Kentucky life and politics for publications like the Lexington Herald-Leader, the Courier-Journal, The Daily Yonder and The Washington Post. You can find her at TeriCarter.net.

Ex-CIA chief referred to Trump DOJ for prosecution by Jim Jordan

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan referred former CIA Director John Brennan to the Department of Justice on Tuesday, saying Brennan made "knowing and willful" false statements in testimony before Congress in May 2023.

The referral is addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi and alleges that Brennan misled lawmakers over denying the CIA's involvement with the Steele dossier, which contradicted other declassified documents, according to Newsweek. It asks for a prompt review of potential charges.

"The Steele dossier was a series of reports containing baseless accusations concerning President [Donald] Trump’s ties to Russia compiled and delivered to the FBI in 2016 by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele," according to the letter.

Brennan is accused of making a "brazen attempt to knowingly and willfully testify falsely and fictitiously to material facts," according to the referral letter. It also argues his comments could have violated the federal statute prohibiting false statements to Congress.

President Donald Trump and his allies have long maintained that former President Barack Obama's top intelligence officials should face indictments.

Brennan has criticized Trump over his handling of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Well, I think first of all, Donald Trump is quite intimidated by Vladimir Putin," Brennan said in August. "I think he admires Vladimir Putin's strength and his will in terms of prosecuting this war, is very unfortunate to say."

"I think he realizes that he's not going to move Putin off of this position. Putin has thought through these issues for many, many years, and I think he was determined to get to Alaska and to lay down the law, basically, with Donald Trump. And so I think Donald Trump gave in to him. And so that's why he changed his position, claiming that a ceasefire is not important."