Faculty lecturer, @UCBerkeley Journalism. Columnist, @GuardianUS. Writer, editor, producer, and audio host. Thinking about identity, politics, and power.
Berkeley, CA
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Montgomery Square, the newest @eji_org Legacy Site, memorializes the Montgomery bus boycott and modern Civil Rights Movement. It is also a warning to all of us. I talked with Bryan Stevenson about memory, erasure, and what history demands for @GuardianUS. theguardian.com/us-news/2026…
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All these folks worried about erasing history when the Confederate statues come down will be thrilled to learn about the existence of books.
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An entire island full of Americans in Puerto Rico are without power right now, and @POTUS is cursing out NFL players at his campaign rally.
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“Slipped” implies that it was an accident.
8,000,000 Americans slipped into poverty amid coronavirus pandemic, study finds. nbcnews.to/3k7qv4A
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Don’t ever say we don’t love America.
Dana Clark, and her son 18 month old Mason, wait in line at City Hall as early voting begins in New Orleans, Louisiana. Dana said she wasn’t sure how many people would be wearing masks while they voted so she wanted to be safe. Photo by @kathphoto
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Tonight, @POTUS just threatened to have law enforcement murder Americans. Which is how we ended up here in the first damn place.
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He never called the white supremacists who terrorized Charlottesville “sons of bitches,” did he? Some of them got to be “very fine people.”
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Matt Gaetz thought it would be funny to wear a giant gas mask on the House floor to mock the panic over the coronavirus pandemic. Now one of his own constituents has died. Idiots like this have no business taking up space in jobs meant for public servants. wapo.st/39AaKh9
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Racism doesn’t just look like a white man in blackface or a Klan hood. Sometimes, it looks like a @senatemajldr calling increased ballot access a “power grab.” My latest for @RollingStone, on Mitch McConnell, persisting nevertheless with voter suppression. trib.al/RToiqQS
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Rashida Tlaib did nothing wrong.
Elijah Cummings needs a better friend.
Mark Meadows needs a dictionary.
So do many in the press.
She did not call him a racist.
She called the act racist.
Her statement was not racist.
Using black folks as props is racist.
CSPAN
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Kamala Harris was born in Oakland. Her mother was Tamil Indian; her father was born in Jamaica. Birtherism is racism, full stop. You don’t need to support Harris for the Presidency. But if you are black and buying into this, you are aiding and abetting. trib.al/SiDF9Y0
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This is not merely the latest @AOC Viral Clip, nor would I think she'd want it to be. It is a clarion call. The Midwest is flooding right now, as is Mozambique. Climate change is ending American lives right now, and many more all around the world. Wake up.
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She carried too much weight, and for too long. We should live in an America where we only need to send condolences to everyone who knew and loved Justice Ginsburg, and not to the nation and democracy as a whole. I wish that we could simply mourn her. Alas. rol.st/3hHW8j1
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What we’re witnessing, yet again, is what happens when police receive all of the tools of war and virtually none of the accountability for the violence that they perpetrate.
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We should also push members of Congress to resign for their racism. nitter.app/i/moments/939215637276…
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I am tired of waking up to Donald Trump’s bigotry. I am tired of black and brown people having to laugh to keep from crying. I am tired of Democrats scared to do their duty. My latest, on the presidency and why it’s too powerful to have a racist in charge. rol.st/2SQRlRo
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All these black voters being praised as saviors on Election Day can’t buy a house, start a business, or raise families with your congratulations. The kudos are deserved and surely appreciated, but @GDouglasJones will need to get to work for them.
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If America won’t elect a woman president yet, which seems evident, it’s up to men to help prepare it for female leadership. @ewarren had great plans. Rather than obsess over whom she’ll endorse, I want to see the men endorse some of her ideas. My latest. rol.st/3aB9Als
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This story from a survivor encapsulates how Republicans have used the 9/11 tragedy. @DanCrenshawTX went hysterical to get people mad at @IlhanMN. But there is no debating this: she supports renewing the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund; he has yet to do so. bit.ly/2IvNl5Q
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“Shots fired. Male down. Black male, maybe 20," said the @ClevelandPolice officer who called in the shooting, describing the wounded Tamir Rice. That was eight years ago today. Tamir would’ve been 20 years old right now had he lived. I want you to think about that for a moment.
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BLACK PANTHER was filmed in Georgia.
BLACK LIGHTNING is filmed in Georgia.
THE WALKING DEAD, too. List goes on.
A lot of films and TV are made in Georgia.
And they employ a lot of Georgians.
I’ve got a message for all of Stacey Abrams’ Hollywood friends: This ain’t Hollywood. This is Georgia!
Vote @BrianKempGA on Nov 6. He’s for Georgia!
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The publisher knew who Yiannopoulos was when they gave him a $255,000 advance. The editor’s brutal comments are somewhat entertaining, but none of this should distract from the fact that they sought to make his bigotry both digestible and marketable. trib.al/blToXBc
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Thank you, King. For blessing us with your gift, inspiring us with your portrayals — and on a personal note, for being part of one of the most important stories of my life. We met only a few times, but I will genuinely miss your quiet grace, kindness, and candor. You were regal.
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If I had a child going to @Harvard, I’d want her or him to have as few classmates as possible with a history of saying “nigger” repeatedly. This wasn’t about free speech. It’s mainly about public safety. The decision shouldn’t be remotely controversial. on.theatln.tc/zqidTTW
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Stacey Abrams has more experience in elected office—more than 17 years—than does Brian Kemp (nearly 13). She is vastly better educated (Yale JD vs his bachelor’s). Trump’s assertion that she is “totally unqualified” may have been made flippantly, but we should correct him.
Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp will be a great governor. He has been successful at whatever he has done, and has prepared for this very difficult and complex job for many years. He has my Strong Endorsement. His opponent is totally unqualified. Would destroy a great state!
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Nathan Phillips, a Vietnam veteran, stood dignified and unbowed in the literal face of white aggression. As expected. The MAGA hats make it easier to see, but this is older than Trump and his flock. It isn’t “kids being kids.” It is America being America.
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This is @POTUS, tweeting that he should’ve left three collegiate athletes in a Chinese jail because one of their fathers displayed insufficient fealty to him. Focus on that, and not him picking a fight. Focus on the behavior that is unacceptable.
Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!
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If some in the press were as hemmed up by this @WhiteHouse’s open embrace of white supremacy, misogyny, mass incarceration, environmental pollution, corporate corruption, and defecation on the First Amendment as they are about what a comedian said, we might be getting somewhere.
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Elijah McClain’s death at the hands of Aurora, Colorado police last August is among the most horrific cases I’ve ever seen described. He was 23, introverted, and doing absolutely nothing wrong. They killed him, and the prosecutor let them get away with it. thecut.io/2NwkjUN
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It is as if a regime has been toppled. We've seen this kind of thing in other nations, or perhaps at the end of RETURN OF THE JEDI. But in our lifetimes? Not in the United States.
I knew we’d be happy but I didn’t realize we’d be spontaneous dance parties in the street happy. What a moment nitter.app/adriofwands/status/132…
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Teach only “comfortable” books about racism in America, and you get students raised to be comfortable with racism. trib.al/2zObDXh
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Northam refused to grasp that blackface is dehumanization. Wearing us like costumes makes it easier to render us homeless. Easier to take away our ballots. Easier to silence our voices in the public square. To miseducate us. To let us die in hospitals. To kill us with impunity.
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I would like to live a world where instead, journalists ask white athletes who are ”just focused” on their chosen sports when they will start fighting for equality.
Asked what she thinks about remarks that she should 'stop fighting for equality and just focus on the tennis,' Serena Williams responds: "The day I stop fighting for equality and for people that look like you and me will be the day I'm in my grave."
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I once worked for @maddow, and so people ask me all the time about what she is like. With apologies to other former colleagues, I invariably tell them that she is the best journalist with whom I’ve ever worked—and an even better human being. Case in point.
Justin Baragona
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I have a new job.
Senior writer, @RollingStone.
Thankful for the opportunity.
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The president declared war on Americans.
BREAKING: "If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them," Pres. Trump threatens. abcn.ws/3drsPzV
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If these allegations are true, @LindseyGrahamSC should resign. He’s the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, for goodness’ sake. Even Graham’s defense is troubling. It Raffensperger “feels threatened by that conversation, he’s got a problem”? What might that be, Lindsey?
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There is nothing for Hope Hicks to “decide.” She got a subpoena from Congress. Were she not white, wealthy, and connected, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. She would appear, or she would face the threat of prison like the rest of us. As she should. nyti.ms/2I329XZ
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Living history.
Montgomery, Alabama, once known as the cradle of the Confederacy and later the birthplace of the civil rights movement, has elected Steven Reed as its first African American mayor in the city's 200-year history. abcn.ws/30VoPkg
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Jones’s victory may finally teach @TheDemocrats to stop chasing voters who are gone forever, and to focus on black turnout.
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Emmett Till was murdered at 14. He would’ve been 78 years old today. Racists love to shoot the sign marking where his body was found. That pockmarked plaque is the inverse of a gravestone, showing just how alive racism remains in this ugly country of ours. propub.li/2MdYDxu
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Judging by what he said tonight at his latest masturbatory rally, this @POTUS appears intent upon continuing to make life more dangerous for journalists. "So damn dishonest," "really bad people," and so forth. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with folks who think this is okay.
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Sally Jenkins gets it right in @washingtonpost. “Ramos took what began as a minor infraction and turned it into one of the nastiest and most emotional controversies in the history of tennis, all because he couldn’t take a woman speaking sharply to him.” wapo.st/2MY1dtd
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The guy who said “Don’t boo; vote” was right. And even voting alone won’t be nearly enough to address this. I just don’t want to hear any of this, from either camp. Folks need to get over all this petty personal shit and realize what kind of mess America is actually in right now.
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I think Warren knew that her supporters needed a laugh after this week. This is genius.
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I’m glad to learn that your brother is safe. That this woman was willing to hurt her own dog in order to put him in jeopardy makes this even more pathological. Thank you for calling attention to the fact that calling the cops on black folks can constitute a threat on our lives.
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I try to never dignify this man’s tweets, but there is little doubt here that he uses “TRAIL” to evoke the genocidal Trail of Tears, and does so to land a political jab. Warren has taken justifiable heat on this issue—but he used the murders of Indigenous people as a punchline.
Today Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to by me as Pocahontas, joined the race for President. Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate, or has she decided that after 32 years, this is not playing so well anymore? See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!
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To a large extent, Pete Buttigieg got the attention that @JulianCastro deserved.
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A licensed gun owner who did everything right was killed by a cop, who later got away with it. And the right is protesting Shakespeare.
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This incident is a Rorschach test for racism. A white referee who once called a colleague “nigger” told a black wrestler to cut his dreadlocks off or be forced to forfeit. A white journalist called the young man a “team player.” I saw a kid being violated. deadsp.in/J2Nok8Z
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I wish that I didn’t suspect that the prolonged, poorly explained public absence of Melania Trump could be about concealing abuse. I wish that it was a ludicrous prospect. I wish that the @POTUS wasn’t a man with a history of abusing women, including those to whom he is married.
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Voting in America, for black folks and other marginalized communities, is often an act of self-preservation. It’s worth noting how patriotic it is that they keep working to improve a nation that not only subjugates them on a daily basis, but cries foul whenever progress is made.
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Yes, I’m serious. We have a racist president with racist policies, and Democrats need an antiracist nominee. @JoeBiden keeps showing us that he isn’t up to the task. His debate meltdown proved that once again. He should step aside. The stakes are too high. rol.st/34KIciO
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If we destroy the Amazon, @yayitsrob notes, humanity can’t get it back. Even if we could replant all the trees, the diversity of creatures there couldn’t be replenished for roughly 10 million years. And that is 33 times longer than our species has existed. on.theatln.tc/TzgCgWQ
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This is the only news concerning @HillaryClinton that I give a shit about today. We spent an entire election on this inane story four years ago because a lot of otherwise intelligent people deemed it important. Many of them still run media outlets today. wapo.st/2VTrtGh
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“The real snowflakes aren’t rape survivors who request trigger warnings or students who’d like that we use their correct pronouns—they’re people with power who can’t abide even the slightest criticism without using their influence to demand consequences.” read.medium.com/hcnVkva
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James Shaw, Jr., the Waffle House customer who stopped domestic terrorist Travis Reinking’s rampage, has raised more than $30,000 for the victims of the shooting. bit.ly/2HViLjU
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Black voters didn’t help elect @JoeBiden to the presidency so he could elevate Rahm Emanuel to his Cabinet, the mayor who helped cover up Laquan McDonald’s murder by Chicago police for more than a year. It’s an insult that this is even being considered. cnn.com/2020/11/19/politics/…
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I don't know if he's getting the votes, but that's easily the most empathetic and effective way that I've ever heard a man describe late-term abortion.
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I’ve had enough of apologies. It has been two full seasons since these NFL protests against racial injustice began, and lazy press continues to promote a deliberately false shorthand. Protesting during the anthem is not protesting the anthem. Delete the original tweet, @CBSNews.
Editor's note: CBS News has changed a headline to more wholly reflect Beto O'Rourke's remarks and correct a previous headline that stated O'Rourke said there was "nothing more American" than NFL players protesting the national anthem. cbsnews.com/news/beto-orourk…
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Audio leaked to @RollingStone reveals @BrianKempGA telling attendees at a closed-door campaign event that @staceyabrams’s voter turnout operation “continues to concern us, especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote.” Read my report. rol.st/2EEFm65
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Voter suppression is traitorous. It isn’t merely racist or just the last resort of an unimaginative party. It does violence to the American idea. And it can be a national security issue. I wrote about Mitch McConnell getting every part of this issue wrong. trib.al/RToiqQS
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I wrote this about @ewarren after covering one of her rallies in August. Considering that a third-place finish in Iowa has earned her little more than erasure and misogyny from the political intelligentsia, I felt it might it be relevant to share it again. rol.st/320yiYl
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That Bret Stephens column that not-so-subtly references Dave Karpf should be retracted. It knowingly slanders Karpf in the Paper of Record, likening a mild Twitter insult to the stuff of Nazis, and all because he got his feelings hurt. Children shouldn’t have @nytimes columns.
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I wasn’t aware that @BarackObama was enjoying a concert on the same night that he should’ve been saving the Democratic Party. Or that after an admittedly flawed presidency during which he managed to rescue the country from recession, he is not allowed to dance to Beyoncé. Got it.
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It typically takes a mass shooting to keep them this quiet. The @NRA is Philando Castile-silent on Maria Butina. They distance themselves from dead schoolchildren and blackness—and now, possible collusion with accused Russian agents. A quick one from me. rol.st/2L7c3Mi
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No one really uses the expression “monkey this up,” even when they’re not running against a black man for governor It isn’t whether he intended that to be racist. It was racist. No walkback changes that. Nothing to add. hrld.us/2wqvc2F
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We have a narcissistic, incompetent, corrupt, intellectually lazy, and possibly treasonous president. Every day, the @GOP says that’s okay.
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Elijah Cummings knew all too well that this is a country that kills people with its racism, and he went to his deathbed trying to change that America. I wrote about the late Congressman, and the task he left for us, in @RollingStone. rol.st/32t7nVP
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That kid wearing a hoodie also might just coming home with some Skittles and an Arizona Iced Tea. That kid shouldn’t have to be a member of the Talented Tenth to be worthy of a white person’s grace or understanding. Or, perhaps, to simply survive.
Biden, after last night's exchange with Harris on busing, is speaking to an African-American civil rights group, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, today.
"That kid wearing a hoodie might be the next poet laureate and not a gang banger"
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Kirstjen Nielsen should be a pariah for life. No cable deals, no cushy college gigs. @michelleinbklyn, on what should happen to the Trump foot soldiers who think that they can escape with their reputations intact simply because they were following orders. nyti.ms/2Uo9eeH
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I’m so tired of this shit. I think of the families of the Charleston church victims, whose wounds @NikkiHaley reopened for no damn reason whatsoever. And all the others murdered under a flag that Confederates themselves said, out loud, represented racism. rol.st/2Lqh7JZ
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The kneeling was about police violence and other forms of systemic racism. Trump clearly wants it to be about him, for a number of reasons.
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We all need to be as angry as Emma Gonzalez. cnn.it/2CslKf9
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Tamir Rice would’ve been able to vote for the first time in 2020. His 18th birthday would have been in June, in the midst of an uprising sparked by the same police brutality that took his life. I wrote about him in my Election Day column for @RollingStone. rol.st/2I0a1wO
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I don’t know how you don’t talk about impeachment if you’re a Democrat. Along with his various derelictions of duty and the Americans whom he endangers with his rhetoric, he is now directly implicated in criminal behavior to influence an election that he won. He is illegitimate.
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Trump hasn't tweeted a word about the white supremacist murders in College Park or Portland. But London has him calling for a travel ban.
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Good riddance to John Kelly, the Adult in the Room who turned out to be just a more taciturn version of his boss. I’ll never forget nor forgive his part in family separation, his treatment of @RepWilson, nor his Confederate apologism. lat.ms/2h2U5Nj
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One California man whose children lost everything said of Trump, “I voted for him—and now? He can kiss my red ass. What he said was ridiculous. It hurts my heart. A lot of us voted for him and he [talks] down to us?” He has done that the entire time, sir. rol.st/2QSCGUh
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This is Jim Crow-racist. He Sambo’d Serena Williams. I’m a bit surprised that @Knightcartoons didn’t include a watermelon. For those unfamiliar with the history invoked here, read about the coon caricature.
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“I can say a lot of things about this monster,” said Statue of Liberty 🗽 protester Therese Okoumou of @POTUS, “but I will stop at this: his draconian zero-tolerance policy on immigration has to go. In a democracy, we do not put children in cages. Period.” thecut.io/2MTFY7p
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If you are a domestic abuser, you should be forced to forfeit your access to a firearm. You'd think that would just be common sense by now.
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Rarely is the 37-year-old @RepJoeKennedy mentioned as a potential 2020 challenger to Trump. I anticipate that will change after Tuesday night, when he gives the Democratic English-language response to the State of the Union. This is an inspired choice. bos.gl/zwbkWFm
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“November is about, in my opinion, stopping fascism in the United States. That is what Donald Trump represents.” That @AOC even had to clarify any of this, honestly, is a failure on the part of the press and the public. rol.st/2YfQHB2
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We shouldn’t ever get used to the President of the United States calling for the firing of journalists.
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White men with bulletproof vests shot four civil rights protesters in Minneapolis, and I'm supposed to be more scared of a Syrian refugee.
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You really have to be a special kind of motherfucker to mock a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome separated from her immigrant mother by this government. This really should be the last we hear from @CLewandowski_ until the day that he pleads “not guilty.” huffp.st/IfHp1e7
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#BlackPanther co-star Winston Duke, on T'Challa's powers: "Your hero is using kinetic energy that's meant to harm him, and he redirects it and uses it as his power — if that's not an allegory for oppressed people, I don't know what is." gq.mn/maFamnm
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It is notable that @AndrewGillum calls @RepDeSantis “Congressman” and DeSantis calls him “Andrew.” Gillum is still Mayor of Tallahassee, and DeSantis is not even a Congressman anymore. It is clear what his word choice implies.
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The 75-year-old protester who Trump targeted today isn’t Antifa. He wasn’t some anti-cop spy. He works to secure affordable housing in Buffalo. And we all saw him shoved by those cops, then bleeding from the ear after we heard his skull land on the ground. wapo.st/30kV3su
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Forget about the Supreme Court. Brett Kavanaugh should lose the job he has now. slate.trib.al/BJEG87i
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