On the recordNovember 17, 2016
two days ago I came to the Senate floor and called upon the President-elect to rise to the dignity of his office. I called upon Mr. Trump to take responsibility for his rhetoric and his actions and to work to heal the wounds that he created. I am disappointed to say that our President-elect has chosen to do none of those things to this point. Meanwhile, vile acts of hate and intimidation continue to occur all across America. On Tuesday, I said that the Southern Poverty Law Center had reported 315 hate crimes since the election. As of Wednesday, that number jumped to 437. That is a 40-percent increase in 2 days. That is startling. Here are just a few examples of the instances that have been reported. In Michigan, a Latino family awoke to find that someone had used boxes to form a wall blocking their driveway. The perpetrators left behind vulgar graffiti that denigrated Mexican Americans and praised Donald Trump for ``taking back America.'' In Tennessee, two men returned home to find a threatening homophobic note. Using gay slurs, the message told the men to go back where they came from. A folding knife with a picture of Donald Trump on the handle was stabbed through the paper. At a high school in Missouri, a 15-year-old African-American student was burned with a hot glue gun and told he didn't belong in America.…





