These 25 Corporations Donated $13.5 Million to Anti-Gay Politicians Since 2022

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stryvemarketing.com

While major corporations continue to spend token amounts on marketing to the LGBTQ community, a Popular Information investigation reveals the same companies are spending millions backing anti-LGBTQ politicians. The investigation found that 25 corporations have donated $13.5 million to anti-LGBTQ politicians since January 2022.

Popular Information’s analysis includes:

1. Money donated by corporate PACs to the campaigns of members of Congress who received a zero rating on the latest Congressional scorecard produced by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s most prominent LGBTQ rights organization.

2. Money donated by corporate PACs to the leadership PACs of members of Congress who received a zero rating on the latest HRC Congressional scorecard.

3. Money donated by corporations and corporate PACs to state legislators who sponsored anti-LGBTQ legislation in Florida, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.

4. Money donated by corporations and corporate PACs to the governors who signed anti-LGBTQ legislation into law in those states.

5. Money donated by corporations to the primary 527 organizations that support anti-LGBTQ state legislators and governors: the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) and the Republican Governors Association (RGA).

Here’s the list:

All 25 corporations included in Popular Information’s analysis were highly rated by Human Rights Campaign’s 2022 Corporate Equality Index (CEI). Twenty of the 25 corporations received perfect scores (100) and none received a score below 85. Along with workplace policies, the Corporate Equality Index purports to measure corporations’ “public commitment to the LGBTQ community.” But HRC’s methodology excludes political donations.

Happy Pride Month!

What’s a Good Citizen, Charlie Brown?

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In 1970, students in a fifth-grade class at Hawthorne School in Beverly Hills were assigned to write a letter to someone they admired, asking them, “What makes a good citizen?”

Joel Lipton, 10 years old at the time, wrote to Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz. This was Schulz’s reply:

Good grief! Schulz still hits the salient points in a single paragraph here, some 50 years later.

The Atlantic: Twitter Is a Far-Right Social Network

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The Atlantic: “As a public figure, [Twitter owner Elon Musk] has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the right’s culture war against progressivism—which he refers to as “the woke mind virus”—and his $44 billion Twitter purchase can easily be seen as an explicitly political act to advance this specific ideology. Now the site itself has unquestionably transformed under his leadership into an alternative social-media platform—one that offers a haven to far-right influencers and advances the interests, prejudices, and conspiracy theories of the right wing of American politics…

“Twitter is essentially following the playbook of platforms like Rumble, which used to be the go-tos for canceled and deplatformed right-wingers seeking a soft landing and the promise of revenue. Like Rumble, which pivoted from a struggling YouTube alternative into a full-fledged far-right platform in the late 2010s, Twitter appears to be dipping into the well of popular right-wing shock jocks as a way to revive the financially adrift website…

“If Musk weren’t too preoccupied lapping up approval from trolls, reactionaries, and Dogecoin enthusiasts—a few of the constituencies left on his site that still seem to adore him—the Parler statement should worry him. Right-wing alt-tech platforms may attract investors and a flood of indignant new users with persecution complexes, but they are, ultimately, bad businesses.”

Target Bows to Right-Wing Terror Threats, Pulls Trans and Gay Items from Shelves

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AP: “Target is removing certain items from its stores and making other changes to its LGBTQ+ merchandise nationwide ahead of Pride month, after an intense backlash from some customers including violent confrontations with its workers.

“’Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work,’ Target said in a statement Tuesday. ‘Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.’

“Target declined to say which items it was removing but among the ones that garnered the most attention were ‘tuck friendly’ women’s swimsuits that allow trans women who have not had gender-affirming operations to conceal their private parts. Designs by Abprallen, a London-based company that designs and sells occult- and satanic-themed LGBTQ+ clothing and accessories, have also created backlash.”

NAACP Hits the Wingnut Outrage Button

Buck Banks

stardem.com

From The Daily Beast’s Confider:

While claiming Gov. Ron Desantis (R-FL) has shown that “African Americans are not welcome” in his state, the NAACP recently advised people of color against traveling to Florida due to the state’s “sustained, blatant, relentless, and systemic attack on democracy and civil rights.” Naturally this prompted the expected outcry from Republicans and conservative media, with Fox News and Newsmax mentioning it more than 30 times by Monday afternoon, but some prominent right-wing media stars decided to use it as an opportunity to go in a decidedly more ugly and racist direction. “Five minutes after the advisory went up, 49 of the governors called the NAACP [and] asked if they could be added to the list,” beleaguered shock jock Steven Crowder “joked” on Monday. His co-host Nick DiPaolo took it even further, adding: “Some people say good, you know, stay the hell away. It’s the Sunshine State and you guys obviously don’t need any more sunshine. Look at you.” Far-right podcaster Matt Walsh, meanwhile, insisted that white people never commit crimes against Black people but that “Black people committing crimes against white people for sport is common.” Walsh’s Daily Wire colleague Candace Owens also trafficked in racist stereotypes, saying the NAACP travel advisory “probably means that everybody’s property is going to be valued much higher in the state of Florida.”

The GOP Is the Party of ‘F**k You’

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Mediaite.com

David Rothkopf has an excellent — if expletive-laden (but that’s the point) — opinion piece in the Daily Beast wherein he explains how the Grand Old Party became the party of “fuck you.” how it went from being a true political party with a philosophy to being “a nihilistic, corrupt, fake populist scam.”

The Republican Party has become the party of “Fuck you.” “Fuck you” is the motivation of its alienated voters. It is its legislative strategy. It is its views toward the laws and Constitution of the United States. It is its reaction to morality and values. It is its foreign policy mantra with our allies. “Fuck you” is even its message to the historians of the future.

Sadly, we live in an age in which the political discourse of the United States results in every idea floated by Democrats, independents, and even the elusive “reasonable Republicans,” in which every constructive thought floated about the direction our country should take, or how we should behave, or why the law matters is met by a chorus of Republican leaders with their signature “Fuck you.”

As a New Jerseyite, I worry they will discredit the term so much that we will have to find another way to express ourselves. My concern is due to the fact that the MAGA-ized GOP has only gotten more outrageous… which is to say more committed to the politics of outrage, to obliterating norms of decency, as the signature activities to which they devote themselves.

They do it because their base is angry. They do it because it drives social media wild. They do it because they have no ideas and their leaders are profoundly immoral, disgusting people.

As a denizen of New Jersey, Rothkopf knows what of he speaks.

Poll Finds Growing Dem Support for Biden

Comes on the heels of a Washington Post/ABC News poll that showed Biden trailing Trump by 6 points

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Yahoo! News: “Yahoo News and YouGov found that 43% of Americans currently approve of the president’s performance in office while 48% disapprove, a negative margin of just 5 points.

“Among registered voters, the gap was even smaller: 47% approve to 50% disapprove. And Biden (45%) continues to cling to a slight edge over both Trump (43%) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (42%) on the question of whom voters would choose if the 2024 election were held today…

“Far from collapsing at the official start of his 2024 effort, then, Biden’s job approval and standing against his potential Republican rivals have remained remarkably consistent. If anything, the president has shown some small signs of improvement in recent weeks.”

Tucker Carlson Yearned for Beating Death of Antifascist: ‘I Could Smell Blood’

In the Test that Got Him Fired

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Tucker Carlson’s text: “A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it.”


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