SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
color of change
CBC Chair Rakes 'Bigoted and Racist Regime' as Trump Refuses to Apologize for Obama Ape Post
"Bigotry has been his brand since day 1," said Congresswoman Yvette Clarke.
Feb 07, 2026
As President Donald Trump refuses to apologize for a now-deleted social media post in which former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama are portrayed as apes, the head of the Congressional Black Caucus on Friday blasted what she called the "bigoted and racist regime" in the White House.
“It’s very clear that there was an intent to harm people, to hurt people, with this video,” Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-NY) said in an interview with the Associated Press. "Every week we are, as the American people, put in a position where we have to respond to something very cruel or something extremely off-putting that this administration does. It’s a part of their M.O. at this point."
After dismissing the widespread revulsion—including by some Republican lawmakers—over Trump's sharing of the racist election conspiracy video on his Truth Social network as "fake outrage," the White House subsequently claimed that an aide "erroneously made the post," which was deleted after nearly 12 hours online.
The president told reporters aboard Air Force one Friday evening, "I didn't make a mistake" and that he is the "least racist president you've had in a long time."
Trump launched his political career by amplifying the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and his 2016 presidential campaign by calling Mexicans "rapists." Since then, he has made numerous bigoted statements about racial minorities, immigrants, Muslims, women, and others.
Brushing off the administration's explanation for Trump's post, Clarke said that "they don’t tell the truth."
"If there wasn’t a climate, a toxic and racist climate within the White House, we wouldn’t see this type of behavior regardless of who it’s coming from," she contended.
"Here we are, in the year 2026, celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, the 100th anniversary of the commemoration of Black history, and this is what comes out of the White House on a Friday morning," the congresswoman added. "It’s beneath all of us."
Asked what it means that Trump—who rarely retracts anything—deleted the post, Clarke said, "I think it’s more of a political expediency than it is any moral compass."
"As my mother would say," she added, "'Too late. Mercy’s gone.'"
Civil rights groups also condemned Trump, with Color of Change posting on Facebook that "this is white supremacy expressed from the Oval Office."
"Trump resents what the Obamas represent: A Black family that is accomplished, respected, and widely admired," the group continued. "Their success contradicts the worldview he has spent years promoting. His attacks follow a clear trajectory—from birther conspiracies questioning Obama's legitimacy, to false accusations of treason, to now circulating imagery rooted in centuries of racial dehumanization used to justify slavery, lynching, and violence."
"Republican leadership has been silent," Color of Change added. "Elected officials who refuse to condemn this behavior are choosing to normalize it."
NAACP president Derrick Johnson said in a statement that "Donald Trump's video is blatantly racist, disgusting, and utterly despicable."
Johnson asserted that Trump is attempting to distract from the cost of living crisis and Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
"You know who isn't in the Epstein files? Barack Obama," he said. "You know who actually improved the economy as president? Barack Obama."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Voting Isn't Optional: Defend Our Democracy Against Project 2025’s Assault
If Trump wins and this far-right agenda is to put into motion, it will wreak havoc on Black communities in a way we haven’t seen since Jim Crow.
Nov 04, 2024
We are one day away from the election, and too much is at stake for Black people. The questioning around Vice President Kamala Harris' Blackness and misconceptions about her plans for Black people continue to distract voters from the far-right, destructive manifesto fueling Donald Trump’s agenda, Project 2025: a dangerous declaration of oppression that risks civil rights and the democratic fabric of our nation.
Project 2025 details a disturbing vision for the future of Black people in this country: One where we have no rights, no control of our bodies, none where we can’t afford groceries, we can’t afford housing, where our children can’t even learn their own history because it is erased and whitewashed, and where politicians can spread dangerous lies about Black people without recourse. This manifesto seeks to erode the authority of vital government agencies, giving unprecedented power to the executive branch, leaving so many Black communities devastated. By threatening discrimination laws and targeting initiatives promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, Project 2025 will unravel decades of hard-fought civil rights progress.And with little to no federal oversight historical patterns of discrimination against Black communities will also worsen.
Black communities know what it’s like to be at the hands of a government without checks and balances and no accountability.
One of the key civil rights standards Project 2025 seeks to eliminate critical safeguard that addresses unintentional discriminatory practices, is a backbone of civil rights protections. This is the disparate impact standard in discrimination cases. In 2013, in one of the largest fair lending cases in the DOJ’s history, Black customers in the Chicago area brought a large lawsuit against Wells Fargo after they paid $2,937 more in broker fees for their homes than similarly situated white customers. Without the disparate impact standard, the federal government would have been unable to demonstrate that Black communities had suffered disproportionate harm at the hands of Wells Fargo. At a time when the nation is grappling with a housing crisis, eliminating the disparate impact standard would exacerbate existing disparities and leave Black communities vulnerable to discriminatory housing and lending practices.
Project 2025 also seeks to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in our schools and businesses. In June, a U.S. federal court of appeals court deemed an Atlanta private equity fund unconstitutional for providing grants to women-owned and Black-owned companies, ignoring the systemic barriers that have historically excluded Black women from investment funding. And following the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action, conservatives attacked critical programs designed to increase the number of Black medical doctors. In a world where Black mothers are dying more than anyone in childbirth, the need for Black doctors is needed more than ever. The Project 2025 manifesto seeks to take this further and delete all references to diversity, equity, and inclusion from in our federal regulations and legislation. But let’s be very clear about what this will mean: these efforts will sabotage contracts, harm Black-owned businesses, and perpetuate historical injustices within Black communities.
Project 2025's agenda will wreak havoc on Black communities in a way we haven’t seen since Jim Crow. Black communities know what it’s like to be at the hands of a government without checks and balances and no accountability. As we are one day out from the election, Black people must vote in mass. We must recognize the urgency of this threat to our democracy and lean on tangible solutions to defend our rights for many generations. It’s time to take back our power, and let our voices be heard. Vote like your life depends on it because it does. We need all hands on deck to protect our future.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Deepfakes of Black Trump 'Supporters' Spark Fresh Calls to Ban AI in Political Ads
"The spread of misinformation and targeted intimidation of Black voters will continue without the proper safeguards," said Color of Change.
Mar 04, 2024
Racial justice defenders on Monday renewed calls for banning artificial intelligence in political advertisements after backers of former U.S. President Donald Trump published fake AI-generated images of the presumptive Republican nominee with Black "supporters."
BBC highlighted numerous deepfakes, including one created by right-wing Florida radio host Mark Kaye showing a smiling Trump embracing happy Black women. On closer inspection, missing or misformed fingers and unintelligible lettering on attire expose the images as fake.
"I'm not claiming it's accurate," Kaye told the BBC. "I'm not a photojournalist. "I'm not out there taking pictures of what's really happening. I'm a storyteller."
"If anybody's voting one way or another because of one photo they see on a Facebook page, that's a problem with that person, not with the post itself," Kaye added.
Another deepfake shows Trump on a porch surrounded by young Black men. The image earned a "community note" on X, the Elon Musk-owned social media platform formerly known as Twitter, identifying it as AI-generated. The owner of the account that published the image—which has been viewed more than 1.4 million times according to X—included the deceptive caption, "What do you think about Trump stopping his motorcade to take pictures with young men that waved him down?"
When asked about his image by the BBC, @MAGAShaggy1958 said his posts "have attracted thousands of wonderful kind-hearted Christian followers."
Responding to the new reporting, the racial justice group Color of Change led calls to ban AI in political ads.
"The spread of misinformation and targeted intimidation of Black voters will continue without the proper safeguards," the group said on social media, while calling for:
- Banning AI from political ads;
- Requiring disclosure of AI use for all other content;
- Banning deepfakes; and
- Restoring prohibitions on misinformation and lies about the validity of the 2020 election.
"As the 2024 election approaches, Big Tech companies like Google and Meta are poised to once again play a pivotal role in the spread of misinformation meant to disenfranchise Black voters and justify violence in the name of right-wing candidates," Color of Change said in a petition urging Big Tech to "stop amplifying election lies."
"During the 2016 and 2020 presidential election cycles, social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and others consistently ignored the warning signs that they were helping to undermine our democracy," the group continued. "This dangerous trend doesn't seem to be changing."
"Despite their claims that they've learned their lesson and are shoring up protections against misinformation ahead of the 2024 election cycle, large tech companies are cutting key staff that moderate content and removing election protections from their policies that are supposed to safeguard platform users from misinformation," the petition warns.
Last September, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), and Susan Collins (R-Maine) introduced bipartisan legislation to prohibit the use of AI-generated content that falsely depicts candidates in political ads.
In February, the Federal Communications Commission responded to AI-generated robocalls featuring President Joe Biden's fake voice telling New Hampshire voters to not vote in their state's primary election by prohibiting the use of voice cloning technology to create automated calls.
The Federal Election Commission, however, has been accused by advocacy groups including Public Citizen of foot-dragging in response to public demands to regulate deepfakes. Earlier this year, FEC Chair Sean Cooksey said the agency would "resolve the AI rulemaking by early summer"—after many state primaries are over.
At least 13 states have passed laws governing the use of AI in political ads, while tech companies have responded in various ways to the rise of deepfakes. Last September, Google announced that it would require the prominent disclosure of political ads using AI. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has banned political campaigns from using its generative AI tools. OpenAI, which makes the popular ChatGPT chatbot, said earlier this year that it won't let users create content for political campaigns and will embed watermarks on art made with its DALL-E image generator.
Cliff Albright, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter campaign, told the BBC that "there have been documented attempts to target disinformation to Black communities again, especially younger Black voters."
Albright said the deepfakes serve a "very strategic narrative" being pushed by a wide range of right-wing voices from the Trump campaign to social media accounts in a bid to woo African Americans.
Trump's support among Black voters increased from just 8% in 2016 to a still-meager 12% in 2020. Conversely, a recent New York Times/Siena College survey of voters in six key swing states found that Biden's support among African American voters has plummeted from 92% during the last election cycle to 71% today, while 22% of Black respondents said they would vote for Trump this year.
Trump's attempts to win Black votes have ranged from awkward to cringeworthy, including hawking $400 golden sneakers and suggesting his mugshot and 91 criminal indictments appeal to African Americans.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Clarence Thomas Needs to Resign': Report Shines More Light on Justice's Gifts From the Rich
Thomas has "received benefits—many of them previously unreported—from a broader cohort of wealthy and powerful friends" than was previously known, according to The New York Times.
Jul 10, 2023
An in-depth New York Times story examining Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' membership in an exclusive club of wealthy Americans—and the benefits he has reaped from the association—sparked fresh calls for his resignation on Sunday, with watchdogs and lawmakers decrying the new report as further evidence of deep-seated corruption at the nation's most powerful judicial body.
Months after his confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1991, according to the Times, Thomas was accepted into the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, a group named after the Gilded Age American author Horatio Alger.
"At Horatio Alger, he moved into the inner circle, a cluster of extraordinarily wealthy, largely conservative members who lionized him and all that he had achieved," the newspaper reported. "While he has never held an official leadership position, in some ways he has become the association's leading light. He has granted it unusual access to the Supreme Court, where every year he presides over the group's signature event: a ceremony in the courtroom at which he places Horatio Alger medals around the necks of new lifetime members."
The new reporting comes on the heels of a series of revelations from the investigative outlet ProPublica, which uncovered decades of trips Thomas took on the dime of billionaire Harlan Crow, who is deeply enmeshed in right-wing politics.
ProPublica also found a previously undisclosed real estate deal between Crow and Thomas, who just recently joined his fellow conservative justices in ruling against affirmative action and student debt relief for more than 40 million Americans.
"But a look at his tenure at the Horatio Alger Association, based on more than two dozen interviews and a review of public filings and internal documents, shows that Justice Thomas has received benefits—many of them previously unreported—from a broader cohort of wealthy and powerful friends," the Times reported Sunday. "They have included major donors to conservative causes with broad policy and political interests and much at stake in Supreme Court decisions, even if they were not directly involved in the cases."
According to the Times, the justice's circle at the Horatio Alger Association has included billionaire industrialist Dennis Washington and the late Wayne Huizenga, "the entrepreneur who built the Blockbuster Video empire and owned the Miami Dolphins."
"In 2001, Mr. Huizenga's foundation joined Mr. Crow in helping underwrite the restoration and dedication of a library wing in Savannah in the justice's honor," the Times found. "In the 2000s, Justice Thomas made annual visits to South Florida to help Mr. Huizenga... pass out scholarships, sometimes also meeting with the team. At least once, Justice Thomas flew in a private jet emblazoned with the Dolphins logo."
"We have an unelected, unaccountable, corrupt body of people that stand in the way of democracy."
Thomas has also become close with ultra-millionaire executive David Sokol through the Horatio Alger Association. The
Times reported that Sokol "describes the justice and his wife as 'close personal friends,' and in 2015, the Sokols hosted the Thomases for a visit to their sprawling Montana ranch. The Sokols have also hosted the Thomases at their waterfront mansion in Florida."
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who has spent much of the last several years
spotlighting how shadowy special interests have captured the Supreme Court, tweeted Sunday that "billionaire emoluments to [Federalist Society] justices just keep piling up."
"More to come I'm sure, once we crack the omertà," Whitehouse added.
The watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington reiterated its call for Thomas to resign following publication of the
Times story.
Unique among federal judges, Supreme Court justices are not bound by a code of ethics, leaving massive openings for the powerful lifetime appointees to accept gifts from wealthy people who have business before the court.
Last month, ProPublica revealed that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito took an undisclosed private jet flight to Alaska in 2008 with Paul Singer, a billionaire hedge fund tycoon directly tied to cases that reached the court in subsequent years. Singer also has financial connections to right-wing groups fighting student debt relief.
Days after ProPublica published its story, Alito joined Thomas and the high court's four other conservative justices in blocking the Biden administration's student debt cancellation program.
Mounting evidence of the conservative supermajority's corruption and the court's latest destructive rulings have intensified calls for sweeping high court reforms, including adding justices to the bench and imposing a binding code of ethics.
"We have to start coming to terms with just how much of a democracy we still don't have," Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, told The Guardian on Sunday. "We have an unelected, unaccountable, corrupt body of people that stand in the way of democracy, stand in the way of justice, and stand in the way of the will of the people."
In a "Dear Colleague" letter on Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote that "Americans' faith in the judiciary is at an all-time low after the extreme MAGA right captured the Supreme Court and achieved dangerous, regressive policies completely at odds with what the vast majority of Americans want."
"At the same time, this MAGA-captured Supreme Court feels free to accept lavish gifts and vacations from their powerful, billionaire friends," Schumer continued. "And these are no ordinary billionaires—they are ideological extremists who bankroll hard-right MAGA causes and then bring those cases before the same justices they've patronized."
"Congress has clear authority to oversee the federal judiciary," he added, "and we must explore every option for restoring faith in our courts."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Blueprint Offers Biden Path to Ending For-Profit Corporate Prisons
"Over the last 40 years, the carceral system has grown into a vast network of corporations that use public-private partnerships to profit from the incarceration of our grandparents, parents, siblings, children, and other loved ones," said one campaigner.
Feb 06, 2023
Campaigners from two national justice advocacy groups on Monday released recommendations for the Biden administration to act on in order to fulfill the president's longtime promise to "stop corporations from profiteering off of incarceration."
President Joe Biden "took the first step in fulfilling this commitment" shortly after taking office in January 2021 when he issued an executive order to end the U.S. Department of Justice's reliance on federal private prisons, said the two groups, Color of Change and Worth Rises.
"But the 14,000 people incarcerated in federal private prisons represent a small fraction of the nearly 155,000 people currently detained across all federal prisons," said the groups, let alone the total of two million people who are incarcerated in state, local, and federal facilities as well as immigration detention centers.
To end the era in which prisons have become what Worth Rises executive director Bianca Tylek called "a business—one that is threatening our families, communities, and public safety," the Biden administration must dismantle an industry that "has worked itself into every corner of the carceral system as incarceration has exploded over the past 40 years," said the group.
"This is a pathway forward to a more just criminal legal system that does NOT put profits over people," tweeted Color of Change.
The recommendations in the groups' policy blueprint, Bearing the Cost, include:
- Prohibiting for-profit healthcare in prisons, providing medications and hygiene products at no cost, and requiring better reporting on medical care;
- Setting basic standards for food and commissary goods and preventing bundling of the services;
- Making communication free and accessible and strengthening antitrust oversight;
- Eliminating fees for money transfers and debit release cards and directing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to strengthen regulations for financial services for incarcerated people;
- Conducting a comprehensive review of electronic monitoring of incarcerated people nationwide; and
- Supporting the Abolition Amendment to end the use of unpaid labor in prisons.
"Over the last 40 years, the carceral system has grown into a vast network of corporations that use public-private partnerships to profit from the incarceration of our grandparents, parents, siblings, children, and other loved ones," said Tylek. "They have created a carceral crisis and collected the windfalls on the taxpayers' dime while the rest of us suffered. This policy blueprint provides the clearest roadmap for fulfilling the promise of justice that the Biden-Harris administration made and many expect it to meet."
The blueprint was released a month after Biden signed the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act of 2022 to empower federal regulators to ensure that charges for calls from correctional and detention facilities are "just and reasonable." Currently, incarcerated people are charged as much as $9.99 for a cellphone call and $5.70 for a 15-minute landline call.
"People ask what structural racism is. This is it," Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, said Monday. "Our blueprint provides a clear path of action for President Biden and all public officials who believe these financial attacks on our communities must end. We outline a clear set of steps for eliminating superfluous and inflated fees, revising the terms of government contracts with corporations to prevent gouging, and more."
"The incarcerated people and families that corporations have targeted with these profiteering practices know all their tricks, inside and out," Robinson added. "This blueprint reflects their unique knowledge about what is happening and how to stop it."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Corporate-Backed Police Foundations Pose 'Threat to Democracy and Black Lives': Report
"We cannot let corporations talk about 'Black lives' on their Twitter feeds while also funding police violence on our streets."
Oct 07, 2021
Many of the same corporations trumpeting their support for Black lives are duplicitously bankrolling police violence via little-known but powerful police foundations in cities across the United States, a new report released Thursday revealed.
"Many police foundations' top corporate sponsors made public statements in support of Black Lives Matter while providing a corporate slush fund for police."
The racial justice group Color of Change and the public accountability initiative LittleSis published the report--entitled Police Foundations: A Corporate-Sponsored Threat to Democracy and Black Lives--which highlights financial ties between police foundations and corporations, including at least 55 Fortune 500 firms.
Police foundations--private organizations that funnel donations from companies and outside groups to law enforcement agencies--are "protecting corporate interests and enabling state-sanctioned violence against Black communities and communities of color," the report notes.
"It's impossible to separate the world of policing from the world of money," the authors assert.
In Georgia, the Atlanta Police Foundation's sponsors include Amazon, Bank of America, Chick-fil-A, Delta Airlines, Home Depot, Waffle House, Wells Fargo, Uber, and UPS--to name but a few.
"These are the donors we know about," the report states. "As calls for accountability increased in recent years, police foundations have taken additional steps to scrub their websites and hide donor information."
"There is a police foundation in nearly every major American city, behind almost every police department, backed by wealthy donors and giant multinational corporations," the report adds. "In 2020, many police foundations' top corporate sponsors made public statements in support of Black Lives Matter while providing a corporate slush fund for police."
After Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe was charged with murder for fatally shooting Rayshard Brooks in the back in June 2020--a time when Black Americans were reeling from recent police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and others--the Atlanta Police Foundation said it would pay every cop in the city a $500 bonus. This, as many of the corporations sustaining the foundation rushed to profess their support for racial justice.
"Police accountability and corporate accountability are even more inextricably linked than they may appear," the report argues. "We cannot let corporations talk about 'Black lives' on their Twitter feeds while also funding police violence on our streets."
Color of Change president Rashad Robinson said that "only cutting ties with police foundations will show that corporate leaders are serious about protecting Black lives and bringing our police departments into the 21st century."
As a result of the report's findings and ongoing conversations, Coca-Cola--which in 2018 pledged $2 million to its hometown Atlanta Police Foundation--has resigned from the foundation's board of trustees.
However, such action is the exception to the rule. New companies continue to contribute to police foundations, swelling already bloated law enforcement budgets, funding police militarization, enabling ever-expanding surveillance, and spreading "copaganda"--messaging that fuels fears about crime and promotes the normalization of ever-growing policing.
"Corporations bankroll police foundations," said Robinson, "and then police foundations use that support to attack commonsense reforms, spread misinformation about reformers, and defend the most outdated, violent, and racially biased practices of police officers."
Keep ReadingShow Less
While Welcoming Indictments, Advocates Say Charges in Elijah McClain Killing Are 'Not Justice'
"My son's murderers... need to be in prison for what they did to him. They had no right to stop him. They had no right to handcuff him, brutalize and terrorize him, or inject him with ketamine."
Sep 02, 2021
While racial justice advocates welcomed Wednesday's indictment of five Colorado police officers and paramedics for allegedly killing unarmed Black man Elijah McClain in 2019, many movement voices echoed the familiar refrain that true justice would mean that the victim were still alive, and that such killings would stop.
"Elijah McClain should be alive today. That would be justice. But this is a step toward some accountability."
--Jumaane Williams, New York City Public Advocate
The Denver Post reports a state grand jury indicted Aurora police officers Nathan Woodyard and Randy Roedema, former officer Jason Rosenblatt, and paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec on 32 combined counts last week, according to unsealed court records.
All five defendants face charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, both felonies. Roedema and Rosenblatt also face felony second-degree assault charges. Cooper and Cichuniec were indicted (pdf) on numerous additional counts of assault, including assault with a deadly weapon.
The five men turned themselves in to the Glendale Police Department on Wednesday and were booked before being released on $10,000 bond. The paramedics and two of the officers who are still employed by the city of Aurora were subsequently suspended without pay pending the outcome of their cases. In July 2020, Rosenblatt was terminated along with two other officers not involved in the killing after they mocked McClain's death.
"We're here today because Elijah McClain is not here, and he should be," Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said at a Wednesday news conference. "He was a son, a nephew, a brother, and a friend."
Sheneen McClain, Elijah's mother, called the charges "a step toward justice," while LaWayne Mosley, the victim's father, said that though "nothing will bring back my son," he is "thankful that his killers will finally be held accountable."
Scott Roberts, senior director of criminal justice and democracy campaigns at Color of Change, said in a statement that "yesterday's indictment is not justice; it's the first step toward accountability for the officers and paramedics who murdered Elijah McClain."
"These individuals targeted, drugged, and brutalized Elijah in an unconscionable act of anti-Black violence," said Roberts. "After taking Elijah's life, these officers and medics have been able to remain at home with their families and avoid the consequences of their actions while Elijah's loved ones grieved their tremendous loss. The injustice has already been done to Elijah, his family, and his community."
McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist and violinist, was walking home from a convenience store on August 24, 2019 when officers responded to a 911 call about a "sketchy" looking man in a ski mask. McClain's family said he suffered from anemia and needed the mask to keep warm.
The officers tackled McClain--who was unarmed and accused of no crime--to the ground. Although he begged them to stop because he could not breathe, the officers twice rendered him unconscious using a carotid hold, a potentially fatal neck restraint that cuts off blood flow to the brain.
MSNBC host Geoff Bennett choked up while reading part of McClain's last words during a live broadcast on Wednesday:
When Cooper and Cichuniec arrived on the scene, Roedema said that McClain--who weighed 143 pounds--had "incredible strength" and appeared impervious to pain. The paramedics concluded McClain was suffering "excited delirium"--a condition recognized by neither the American Psychiatric Association nor the American Medical Association--and injected him with ketamine, a powerful sedative whose clinical uses include horse tranquilization.
According to court documents, Cooper overestimated McClain's weight by 57 pounds and injected him with 500 miligrams of ketamine--around 175 miligrams more than the appropriate dosage for his actual weight. McClain subsequently choked on his vomit and went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital. He was pronounced brain dead three days later and removed from life support on August 30, 2019.
A report by the Adams County Coroner said the cause of McClain's death was "undetermined." In February, an independent investigatory panel concluded that officers stopped McClain and escalated violence against him without justification.
According to Color of Change's Roberts:
Had it not been for the police's chronic use of fake medical conditions to justify violence, Elijah might still be alive today. For years, local police departments have relied on fake diagnoses like "excited delirium" and "spontaneous delirium" to trigger unnecessary and often deadly force--particularly against Black people. In this case, Aurora officers and medics attacked and sedated Elijah because of so-called excited delirium; George Floyd and Daniel Prude's killers used the same terminology.
Sheneen McClain told ABC News: "My son's murderers and their accomplices all need to be in prison for what they did to him. They had no right to stop him. They had no right to handcuff him, brutalize and terrorize him, or inject him with ketamine."
Keep ReadingShow Less
75 Groups Ask DOJ to Oppose 'Racist' Anti-Protest Laws
"We have seen time and time again that where racial justice protests flourish, anti-protest laws follow. And we know that police and prosecutors don't need more tools or power to abuse our constitutional rights."
Aug 10, 2021
Noting the often punitive and discriminatory nature of GOP-sponsored state anti-protest laws, over 75 advocacy groups on Tuesday sent an open letter to top U.S. Justice Department officials asking them to condemn such measures and to support legal action against states that pass "legislation that censors and disrupts our First Amendment right to protest racial injustice."
"These racist 'anti-protests' bills are inseparable from the wider political backlash against our movements fighting for Black liberation and freedom."
--Groups' letter
The letter (pdf)--led by Color of Change, MediaJustice, and Free Press--points out that "state lawmakers have introduced more than 100 punitive anti-protest bills since the summer of 2020, and 81 this year alone," more than twice as many such proposals as in any previous year.
Racial justice advocates say it is no coincidence that the wave of anti-protest bills closely followed the massive worldwide Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and other unarmed people of color by police and white supremacists.
"These laws, often backed by organizations affiliated with police unions, are an attempt to criminalize free speech; punish those who speak up for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities; and even offer specific protections for counterprotesters who harm us," the letter says.
In Florida, under an anti-protest law signed in April by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, it is a felony punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment for a group of 25 or more people to obstruct traffic. However, critics decried what they called the hypocritical leniency shown to right-wing Cuban-American protesters who blocked highways in Miami, Tampa, and Orlando last month.
Critics also argue that the civil legal immunity provisions in many anti-protest laws endanger lives, and would have protected people like the neo-Nazi who murdered anti-racism protester Heather Heyer with his car in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017.
"Eight states have already passed anti-protest laws this year," the letter states. "In Florida, Oklahoma, and Iowa, laws include deputizing vigilante violence by protecting drivers who injure protesters with their cars--reminiscent of state-sanctioned white mob violence of the post-Reconstruction era."
Additionally, protesters convicted of felonies under some states' anti-protest laws can be stripped of their voting rights.
The letter continues:
A proposed bill in Indiana would ban anyone convicted of unlawful assembly from holding state employment, including elected office; and bills pending in Minnesota and Oregon would disqualify people convicted of protest-related crimes from enrolling in public assistance programs--including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and unemployment benefits.
In addition to targeting our right to protest, the laws also undermine our collective struggle for Black freedom by allowing local police to penalize municipalities that reduce funding for law enforcement and denying bail to those arrested until their first court appearance--ensuring more of our people in jail.
This is an assault on our constitutional rights, our communities, and human rights. Even the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner decried the laws for violating international human rights law and the U.S. Constitution's protection of the right to peaceful assembly, and the explicit targeting of Black Lives Matter protesters.
"We have seen time and time again that where racial justice protests flourish, anti-protest laws follow," the letter states. "And we know that police and prosecutors don't need more tools or power to abuse our constitutional rights."
"Congress has yet to act and seriously investigate the FBI for its racist designations such as the Black Identity Extremists (BIE), which are used to label movement activists as terrorists, and further legitimize its authority to stalk us and criminalize constitutionally protected activities," the letter concludes. "These racist 'anti-protests' bills are inseparable from the wider political backlash against our movements fighting for Black liberation and freedom."
Keep ReadingShow Less
As Chauvin Sentenced, George Floyd's Family, Advocates Call for Systemic Policing Reform
"We have a long way to go and many changes to make before Black and Brown people finally feel like they are being treated fairly and humanely by law enforcement in this country," said sister Bridgett Floyd.
Jun 25, 2021
While welcoming the accountability represented by Friday's sentencing of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin to over 22 years behind bars for the murder of George Floyd last year, progressive lawmakers and racial justice advocates joined relatives of the slain unarmed Black man in demanding systemic policing reforms.
"Justice means stopping police violence before it happens, not merely punishing individual police officers for it once it's done."
--Rashad Robinson, Color of Change
Rodney Floyd, George's youngest brother, spoke at a post-sentencing news conference in Minneapolis, where he called Chauvin's 270-month sentence "a slap on the wrist."
"We're serving a life sentence not having him in our life," Floyd said of his murdered brother.
Bridgett Floyd, George's sister and founder of the George Floyd Memorial Foundation, said in a statement following Chauvin's sentencing that "the sentence handed down today to the Minneapolis police officer who killed my brother George Floyd shows that matters of police brutality are finally being taken seriously."
"However, we have a long way to go and many changes to make before Black and Brown people finally feel like they are being treated fairly and humanely by law enforcement in this country," she continued.
"Our focus at the George Floyd Memorial Foundation will now move to building support to ensure that the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act becomes law and brings with it the hope for the substantive change that we need so desperately in this country," she added.
Speaking at the Minneapolis news conference, George Floyd's nephew Brandon Williams said that Chauvin's punishment was insufficient given his crime and the aggravating circumstances of abuse of authority and "particular cruelty," for which Judge Peter Cahill added 10 years to the former officer's sentence.
"When you think about George being murdered, in cold blood with a knee on his neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds execution-style in broad daylight, 22 and a half years is not enough," said Williams. "We were served a life sentence. We can't get George back."
Civil rights and racial justice advocates echoed Floyd's relatives' calls for true justice and meaningful reform.
Jacob Blake Sr., father of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man shot and paralyzed by Kenosha, Wisconsin police officers who faced no charges for their actions, told MSNBC that "I don't think people understand the pain that the families--that they go through, and we never get justice, man. We never get justice, man. We do everything we're supposed to do, but we can't find justice, man. Why does it elude us?"
Color of Change president Rashad Robinson said in a statement that "while Derek Chauvin's 22.5-year sentence is an important measure of individual accountability, it does not equate to justice for George Floyd's family or the millions of people across the country who protested this murder."
"Black people will not be safe in America until police accountability becomes the rule, not the exception, and until police departments themselves are held accountable for their racist and violent practices," Robinson continued. "Justice means stopping police violence before it happens, not merely punishing individual police officers for it once it's done--we must fight and organize to end police terror in Black communities across this country."
Robinson said that "the verdict falls short of what the Floyd family wanted, and we also know that Chauvin being convicted and sentenced has not changed the culture of policing in this country in any substantive way. During Chauvin's trial, police across this country murdered at least three people a day."
"Justice doesn't come from a single trial or sentence," Robinson argued, "it comes from the major changes that will finally enable Black people to live freely and safely without the constant threat of police violence in their lives every day."
Progressive U.S. lawmakers echoed Robinson's sentiments.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) called Chauvin's sentence "another step on the path to accountability."
"But punishment for past crimes is not true justice," Omar insisted.
She continued:
True justice will require us as a community and as a nation to address the systems of oppression that create the conditions for injustice. True justice will require us to understand how those who take an oath to protect us repeatedly take the lives of young Black and Brown people. True justice will require us to ask why we continue to spend billions on increasingly militarized police departments, while basic needs like healthcare, housing, and hunger are neglected. True justice will mean addressing decades of economic and social neglect of our most vulnerable people by local, state, and federal government institutions.
"To truly achieve justice," Omar added, "we have to do the hard work to make sure George Floyd's murder, or the countless other murders at the hands of police, never happen again."
Keep ReadingShow Less
350+ Scholars Call for Filibuster Reform Ahead of Town Hall
"The disconnect between popular support for policies and a government's ability to enact them ultimately erodes public trust, deepens political cynicism, and delegitimizes that system of government."
May 05, 2021
A group of more than 350 historians, political scientists, and other scholars concerned about the future of democracy in the U.S. released an open letter Tuesday in which they explained the history of the legislative filibuster and urged lawmakers to immediately reform the Senate rule in order to end gridlock and restore "public faith in our system of government."
"A government unable to produce results that significant majorities of the public elect their representatives to deliver is no longer a representative government," the scholars wrote in a letter addressed to U.S. senators. "The disconnect between popular support for policies and a government's ability to enact them ultimately erodes public trust, deepens political cynicism, and delegitimizes that system of government."
The academics joined a growing chorus of voices--including dozens of congressional Democrats and scores of progressive advocacy groups--calling for the elimination, or at the very least, reform of the 60-vote rule, which currently allows the Republican minority in the Senate to, as Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) put it, "prevent a democratically elected majority from passing overwhelmingly popular legislation" to expand voting rights and reform labor law, among other priorities.
On Wednesday at 7:30 pm ET, Democratic Reps. Marie Newman and Sean Casten, both of Illinois, will be joined by Adam Jentleson, author of Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy, for a virtual town hall about "why the filibuster has got to go."
The scholars wrote that "with critics of the filibuster advancing arguments for its reform, we write to you with the hope that a shared understanding of this parliamentary procedure, including its history and its implications for our system of government, can better inform discussion."
"We believe that procedural reform can strengthen the core functions of the Senate as envisioned both by the Framers of our Constitution and by generations of Americans--as well as sustain Americans' faith in democracy," they continued.
In contrast to the House, the Senate has fewer members with broader constituencies, higher age requirements, longer terms, and equal representation by state. According to the scholars, the Framers included these features "to insulate the Senate from political winds and support senators' abilities to deliberate thoughtfully."
Today, however, "the Framers' vision of the function of the Senate has largely been inverted," the letter reads.
Now that lawmakers can send an email to kill a bill without ever leaving their office, "leaders on all sides agree that the Senate does not engage in the robust deliberation, debate, and compromise that it once did," the scholars wrote. Instead, "it is now the world's only legislative body with an effective supermajority requirement for common legislation."
The academics emphasized that "the Framers explicitly rejected a supermajority requirement for common legislation," thanks in large part to their direct experience with the problems of a dysfunctional government.
"In the wake of the Articles of Confederation, which prescribed a supermajority for a variety of federal actions, delegates debating and drafting our Constitution were acutely attuned to the problem of gridlock," the scholars wrote. "At the Constitutional Convention, they reflected a broad agreement that the supermajority thresholds had paralyzed the young government, and in turn dismissed a supermajority proposal except for three types of votes: impeachment, treaties, and constitutional amendments."
As the scholars explained in their letter:
The filibuster is not original to the Constitution: it developed in the early nineteenth century as an exploitation of the Senate's generous rules of debate, propelled in part by proslavery senators seeking to protect slaveholder interests. Before the Civil War, filibusters frustrated the majority but typically did not succeed in blocking legislation altogether. More often, as was the norm, senators in the minority yielded to the majority after using the Senate floor to make their case.
During the Jim Crow era, the filibuster became more powerful, and was used not only to frustrate the majority but to block legislation: often, to maintain Jim Crow laws and stall civil rights bills. Changes to the number of votes required to invoke cloture--to end debate on a bill--were adopted throughout the twentieth century, formalizing the ability of a minority of senators to prevent votes on bills supported by a majority. Still, for most of the last century, filibusters remained rare.
Only in recent decades have filibusters effectively created a regular supermajority threshold for routine legislation, with prior norms of restraint all but disappearing. Various scholars, including many of the undersigned, have studied the relationship between the modern filibuster and the decline in legislative productivity; the decline in legislative debate; and the transfer of power from Congress to the Executive Branch, where policymaking is more likely to experience pendulum swings from one administration to the next.
We have argued elsewhere that these dynamics have impaired legislative policymaking, aggrandized executive power, worsened partisan polarization, and decreased policymaking continuity. While some of these questions are unsettled and debated in good faith, we share a common concern that today's filibuster is, on balance, weakening Congress--while creating the very supermajority requirement the Founders clearly sought to avoid.
"We fear it is also weakening democracy. The U.S. government is now saddled with more 'veto points'--features in a political system that can terminate the advancement of a policy--than any other advanced democracy," the academics added. "The result has been an inability to take action on broadly popular policies."
The scholars pointed out that "over the last 30 years, nearly 80% of bills blocked by the filibuster were bipartisan, with the average supported by five senators from the other party; and almost a quarter of all filibustered bills in the last 16 Congresses were supported by senators who represented over 60% of the U.S. population."
The anti-democratic nature of the filibuster was also highlighted in a video shared Tuesday by the racial justice group Color of Change.
"This dynamic is untenable for a democracy," the scholars wrote. "As [Alexander] Hamilton cautioned, minority vetoes in Congress would 'destroy the energy of the government' by keeping it in 'a state of inaction.' We fear that faith in our democracy will continue to decline as long as such novel roadblocks beyond what the Framers designed remain in place."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy