CBC calls for GOP lawmaker to be censured for post attacking Haitians as 'thugs'

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Hill

09/25/24 5:43 PM ET


The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) on Wednesday called for Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) to be censured for a since-deleted social media post criticizing Haitian migrants as “thugs.” CBC Chair Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) and other Democrats took to the House floor to call for a censure in an extensive and at times heated back-and-forth with Republicans. Horsford moved to force a vote on the matter within two legislative days.

“I hope that every member of this body understands that no person, particularly those who contribute to communities — who are entrepreneurial, who give to our communities by being nurses and first responders and teachers — that those individuals, those children, no longer have to live in fear or intimidation because of any words or quotes to come from members of this body,” Horsford said on the House floor.

Higgins got significant backlash for the social media post pushing the false narrative that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating their neighbors’ pets.

“Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters… but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP,” Higgins posted. “All these thugs better get their mind right and their a– out of our country before January 20th.” Horsford and other members of the CBC confronted Higgins over the post on the House floor.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4899734-congressional-black-caucus-higgins-censure-haitians/

[ck4829]

1. K&R

[fightvision81]

2. Amazing.....

I am amazed and disgusted over the lack of decency and humanity coming from a public servant being paid with taxpayer funds. Absolutely outrageous. Such big men and women, punching down at vulnerable, everyday people and families. The Haitian people in Ohio are being terrorized with bomb threats and their children are terrified to leave their homes for school. Political expediency for psycho-racists and Trump bootlickers. People like Rep. Clay Higgins should look at themselves in the mirror and see the real thugs in it! Shame on them. The world is watching.

[Martin68]

3. Racists should be called out and sanctioned every time they raise their bigoted voices.

[sheshe2]

4. He should be removed, not just slapped on the wrist.

[Evolve Dammit]

5. Yep. That's the shit that makes people do violence.

[AllaN01Bear]

6. hey republicans , man years ago under the carter admin, there was a problem in haiti. the rs before you screamed

we have to help them. there was a boat lift . remember ?!?! you guys brought them over here. now you want them gone .who is going to mow your lawns , etc.

[Kid Berwyn]

7. Clay must be one of those Louisianans who's his own cousin.

And I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot of double-cousins in his family, what other families call, "both sides."



Just going by his looks.

[peppertree]

12. Speaking of thugs!

That one has wife beater written all over him.

[ArkansasDemocrat1]

8. How to say "Don't relocate to Louisiana" to progressive employers without saying it

[LetMyPeopleVote]

9. Republican congressman's racist rant generates immediate backlash

Rep. Clay Higgins' racist online message probably won't help the Republican Party's pre-election outreach to Black voters.

Link to tweet

I don’t know whether Republicans will make gains with Black voters in the 2024 elections, but it looks like the GOP is asking Black voters to overlook an astonishing amount of recent, overt Republican racism.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/republican-congressmans-racist-rant-generates-immediate-backlash-rcna172830

As my MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim explained, a national non-profit organization called the Haitian Bridge Alliance announced this week that it’s seeking criminal charges against the former president and the Ohio senator, accusing the Republicans of making false alarms, aggravated menacing and telecommunications harassment.

Republican Rep. Clay Higgins saw the news and responded in an overtly racist way. NBC News reported:

Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., called Haiti the “nastiest country in the western hemisphere” in a post on social media Wednesday, saying migrants from the Caribbean country, the majority of whom are in the U.S. legally, should “get their ass out of our country.”

Even by contemporary standards, the GOP congressman’s rant was unusually ugly. “These Haitians are wild,” Higgins wrote in the since-deleted tweet. “Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters... but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP. All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th.”.....

For those unfamiliar with the far-right congressman Higgins, in his capacity as a local sheriff, appeared in a video in 2016 in which he described several Black criminal suspects as “animals” and “heathens,” adding, “You will be hunted, you will be trapped, and if you raise a weapon to a man like me, we’ll return fire with superior fire.”

After the video surfaced, Higgins resigned — which cleared the way for his election to Congress, where he’s best known for concocting deeply weird conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 attack. This, of course, didn’t stop GOP leaders from assigning him to a task force investigating the Trump rally shooting......

A couple of years ago, Republican officials expressed some confidence that the party’s strategic outreach to Black voters was starting to pay off. The Hill reported that the GOP believed its messaging was starting to “resonate with the crucial voting bloc.” The New York Times reported soon after that Republicans saw “a fresh opening” to “peel away some Black voters.”

I don’t know whether Republicans will make gains with Black voters in the 2024 elections, but I do know that the GOP is asking Black voters to overlook an astonishing amount of recent, overt Republican racism.

[Jimvanhise]

10. WHY DO I GET THE FEELING. . .

. . . that there are members of Congress who are completely unaware that there are black people in the room. Spouting off like you are at a meeting of the KKK is beyond understanding. What apparently set him off was Trump and Vance being sued over their stochastic terrorism lies and the pair got slammed again today.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. The head of the GOP party

has declared that it's open season on anyone who is not a "Christian" (in quotes) white hetero male, and it's "okay" to openly express their disdain for and take control over the lives of everyone else.