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Tennessee Anti-Gay Law: Alcoa Only National Company To Say “No!”

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Alcoa can’t wait… to distance themselves from the part an Alcoa representative on the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce played in helping an awful anti-gay bill pass in that state.

In response to AmericaBlog initiated Netroots action, Alcoa has released a statement condemning the law and calling on Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee to veto it.

“Alcoa provides equal employment opportunity without discrimination and supports state and local legislation protecting the rights of all community members. We do not agree with the chamber on this issue and would ask that the governor veto the bill.”

Alcoa responded 100% to the ask of the petition action, ask the Governor to veto it. The text of the petition:

We demand that you issue an immediate statement withdrawing your support for HB 600/SB 632, and that you tell Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam to veto this bill.

So we can be very grateful to Alcoa for this unequivocal show of support and penance. Alcoa is a publicly traded corporation with nearly 60,000 employees and reported over $21B in revenues in 2010. They produce aluminum. Other companies that control board seats include FedEx, AT&T, Comcast, DuPont, Pfizer, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Caterpillar, KPMG,Whirlpool, Embraer and United HealthCare.Three others have responded to the petition action, although, less impressively.

The Netroots call to action has put corporate America swiftly on the run to distance their involvement in lobbying for Tennessee’s anti-gay bill, HB600/SB 632, which would strip away local LGBT non-discrimination protection, such as was recently enacted in Nashville, and prohibit it anywhere else in the state of Tennessee. Last week I wrote about the Equal Access to Intrastate Commerce Act. The state law purports to assert the State’s ultimate sovereignty to define anti-discrimination protection only at the state level and enforce uniformity. But, it is really a naked attempt to strip away local and city level ordinances that protect LGBT residents of Tennessee from discrimination. It has passed both houses and awaits the Governor’s signature.

The Tennessee Chamber of Commerce lobbied hard on behalf of the bill and as such, LGBT activists have called their board members and parent companies to do some explaining. Please tell us how stripping LGBT Americans from discrimination protection is good for business?

In just a few short days, this movement is already having a big impact. The petition has gained almost 10,000 signatures, it is here. It must be getting someone’s attention. No less than four of the 13 companies targeted have issued statements of response.

The other companies releasing statements are Nissan here, FedEx here and AT&T here. They are not nearly as forthright as Alcoa’s and contain a fair amount of spin.

The other statements seem more aimed at damage control than, you know, actually helping the LGBT citizens of Tennessee whose civil rights their companies representatives have thrown their weight behind stripping away.

None of the other three call on the Governor to Veto the bill.

FedEx’s statement says:

FedEx did not lobby for SB632/HB600 – it is our policy not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. While FedEx is a member of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce, we do not support every position proposed by the Chamber.

This is disingenuous, and bordering on a lie.In fact, FedEx is more than a member, they’re on the board of directors. Which would place them in the position to, ahem, direct the Chamber’s actions. As such they cannot so easily wash their hands of this and say, “We didn’t know what the Chamber was up to!”

Nissan’s statement says:

HB600/SB632 has become more closely associated with eroding civil liberties than fostering a strong business climate and this we do not support.

And AT&T says:

However, the bill has become implicated in efforts to erode the rights of the gay community, which we do not support.

Actually, that was the whole point of the bill, to erode a hard-fought victory in Nashville. And a little due diligence on the parts of these companies before endorsing would have made that quite clear to them.Nissan, AT&T and FedEx seem more concerned about the bill being “perceived” as an attack on gays than making any actual penance or reparations for their company’s role in helping it pass.

And it isn’t just a perception, this bill is very clearly an outright attack on LGBT Americans, designed specifically to strip them of protection from discrimination. It is a direct response to the LGBT community’s hard-fought victory in getting LGBT non-discrimination protection in Nashville, Tennessee. Stripping those discrimination protections away was the impetus and the purpose of the law. And a cursory research before these companies’ proxies endorsed and worked for it would made that very clear.

It was made quite clear by main bill backer Family Action Council’s support for the bill, from their web site:

How will new legislation in Nashville affect family values across Tennessee?

Yes, “family values” because anything that is good for the LGBT is a threat to families. That’s always a given isn’t it? If a McDonald’s manager can’t fire the fry cook for being gay, you’re going to have to let Elton John babysit your son.The primary backer of the bill was the Family Action Council, a group with a very clear Christian right agenda:

Our Mission: To equip Tennesseans and their public officials to effectively promote and defend a culture that values the traditional family, for the sake of the common good.Our Goals: Engaged Citizens … Godly Officials … Strong Families

If Nissan and AT&T are now genuinely surprised this bill became “associated” or “implicated” to be anti-gay, they just weren’t paying attention. And just look at this TV advertisement Family Action Council produced in support of HB600/SB632. You’d have to be blind to miss the anti-gay animus and hateful demagoguery they were inciting to sell this bill to the public:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7o2YGH8bacE%3Ffs%3D1%26hl%3Den_US

This is the most outrageously homophobic commercial I have ever had the misfortune of viewing. The message is simple: only passing HB600/SB632 can prevent your children from being molested in a public park by the gays. It’s also a tried and true tactic of these hate groups. The soundtrack of blood-curdling screams of the little ones was a particularly classy touch.One thing AT&T and Nissan might consider adding to their vetting process of deciding whether to endorse a piece of legislation, is seeing if it’s a pet project of known Hate Group, identified by The Southern Poverty Law Center. Among the groups sending out Action Alerts of support is The Family Research Council. Family Research Council has been named a Hate Group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, adding them to the ranks of the KKK and Neo-Nazis, and with good reason.

One quote that earned them that spot was in criticizing American Airlines for providing LGBT partner benefits a spokesman, “What are you going to develop next? A pedophilia market?” Equating homosexuality with pedophilia is a constant refrain for these groups, as we see by the advertisement above. There is no scientific basis to suggest gays and lesbians are more or less inclined to molest children than heterosexuals, but the keep banging that drum because it works.

In the future, any group considering endorsing legislation might do well to cross-reference if a Hate Group is also strongly endorsing it (like the Klan or neo-Nazis, who also make SPLC’s lists). If they are, the chances are pretty good it’s not going end up being a bill you’d want your name associated with. And you can save yourself the trouble of walking back your support by issuing statements like this one from Nissan:

However, HB600/SB632 has become more closely associated with eroding civil liberties than fostering a strong business climate and this we do not support.

Nissan, AT&T and FedEx still need to step it up and do as Alcoa has done: Call on the Governor to veto this bill. That is, if they are sincere in their support of LGBT Rights.

Right click to Enlarge.

Here is the original target list of companies, all are Board Members of the Chamber of Commerce, (not mere members as FedEx tried to say they were). Numbers are their Human Rights Campaign score on the Corporate Equality Index rating their gay-friendliness out of 100. Cross-outs indication companies that have tried to explain their company’s involvement thus far.

AT&T: 100
DuPont: 100
Pfizer: 100
KPMG: 100
Whirlpool: 100
Alcoa: 100
Comcast: 95
Blue Cross Blue Shield : 90
Caterpillar: 75
FedEx: 70
Nissan: 50

Interestingly, Pfizer’s Diversity and Inclusion page includes the following quote:

“Pfizer is committed to sustaining and expanding a culture of Diversity and Inclusion in everything we do.”

“Everything” Pfizer? Including having your representatives lobby for a bill that strips LGBTs in Tennessee of discrimination protection? How does that track?When we’re experiencing impact this substantial it means it’s time to double down. That a company the size of Alcoa, with major operations in the state of Tennessee, has called on the Governor to veto the bill is major news. I am optimistic we’ll be seeing this story get national media coverage in the coming days. That four targets have felt the need to respond will provide pressure for the others to explain their representative’s support for this awful and regressive piece of legislation, which the business community cannot have any reasonable explanation to have a stake in.

Please help us send a message to corporate America: “Keep your hands off of LGBT Americans’ Civil Rights.” Please sign the open letter calling on all of these companies to tell the governor to veto the bill. If you have already please, post it on on your Facebook wall, tweet it or email it to a few friends.

Lt Dan Choi helped out last week, tweeting the link and added a timely and humorous aside:

Photobucket

Yes, time is running out! The Governor may sign this bill this week. Thanks to everyone who signed yesterday. Keep up the pressure.

 

Scott Wooledge also writes at Daily Kos under the handle Clarknt67.
Read Scott’s previous post at The New Civil Rights Movement, “142 Gay Veterans Not Worth $2.1 Million To Obama Administration.”

.”

 

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News

‘Repercussions’: Democrats and Republicans Stand Against ‘Pro-Putin’ House GOP Faction

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April 18, 2024

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Some House Democrats and House Republicans are coming together toward a common opponent: far-right “pro-Putin” hardliners in the House Republican conference, who appear to be led by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Congresswoman Greene has been threatening to oust the Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Last month she filed a “motion to vacate the chair.” If she chooses to call it up she could force a vote on the House floor to try to remove Speaker Johnson.

House Democrats say they are willing to vote against ousting Johnson, as long as the Speaker puts on the floor desperately needed and long-awaited legislation to fund aid to Ukraine and Israel. Johnson has refused to put the Ukraine aid bill on the floor for months, but after Iran attacked Israel Johnson switched gears. Almost all Democrats and a seemingly large number of Republicans want to pass the Ukraine and Israel aid packages.

RELATED: Marjorie Taylor Greene, ‘Putin’s Envoy’? Democrat’s Bills Mock Republican’s Actions

Forgoing the possibility of installing Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker, which is conceivable given Johnson’s now one-vote majority, Democrats say if Johnson does the right thing, they will throw him their support.

“I think he’ll be in good shape,” to get Democrats to support him, if he puts the Ukraine aid bill on the floor, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) told CNN Thursday. “I would say that there’s a lot of support for the underlying bills. I think those are vital.”

“If these bills were delivered favorably, and the aid was favorably voted upon, and Marjorie Taylor Greene went up there with a motion to remove him, for instance, I think there’s gonna be a lot of Democrats that move to kill that motion,” Congressman Krishnamoorthi said. “They don’t want to see him getting punished for doing the right thing.”

“I think it is a very bad policy of the House to allow one individual such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is an arsonist to this House of Representatives,” U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) told CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane, when asked about intervening to save Johnson. He added he doesn’t want her “to have so much influence.”

U.S. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, one of several Republicans who won their New York districts in 2022, districts that were previously held by Democrats, opposes Greene’s motion to vacate – although he praised the Georgia GOP congresswoman.

CNN’s Manu Raju reports Republicans “say it’s time to marginalize hardliners blocking [their] agenda.”

D’Esposito, speaking to Raju, called for “repercussions for those who completely alienate the will of the conference. The people gave us the majority because they wanted Republicans to govern.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, like D’Esposito is another New York Republican who won a previously Democratic seat in 2022. Lawler spoke out against the co-sponsor of Greene’s motion to vacate, U.S. Rep. Tim Massie (R-KY), along with two other House Republicans who are working to block the Ukraine aid bill via their powerful seats on the Rules Committee.

U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), a former Navy pilot, blasted Congresswoman Greene.

RELATED: ‘They Want Russia to Win So Badly’: GOP Congressman Blasts Far-Right House Republicans

“Time is of the essence” for Ukraine, Rep. Sherrill told CNN Wednesday night. “The least we can do is support our Democratic allies, especially given what we know Putin to do. To watch a report and to think there are people like Marjorie Taylor Greene on the right that are pro-Putin? That are pro-Russia? It is really shocking.”

U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), as NCRM reported Thursday, had denounced Greene.

“I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the Speaker over it,” he said, referring to the Ukraine aid bill Greene and her cohorts want to tank. “I mean that’s a strange position to take.”

The far-right hardliners are also causing chaos in the House.

“Things just got very heated on the House floor,” NBC News’ Julie Tsirkin reported earlier Thursday. “Group of hardliners were trying to pressure Johnson to only put Israel aid on the floor and hold Ukraine aid until the Senate passed HR2.”

HR2 is the House Republicans’ extremist anti-immigrant legislation that has n o chance of passage in the Senate nor would it be signed into law by President Biden.

“Johnson said he couldn’t do it, and [U.S. Rep. Derrick] Van Orden,” a far-right Republican from Wisconsin “called him ‘tubby’ and vowed to bring on the MTV [Motion to Vacate.]”

“No one in the group (Gaetz, Boebert, Burchett, Higgins, Donalds et al.) were threatening Johnson with an MTV,” Tsirkin added. “Van Orden seemed to escalate things dramatically…”

Despite Greene’s pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine positions, her falsehoods about “Ukrainian Nazis,” and Russians not slaughtering Ukrainian clergy, reporters continue to “swarm”:

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Afraid and Intimidated’: Trump Trial Juror Targeted by Fox News Dismissed

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‘They Want Russia to Win So Badly’: GOP Congressman Blasts Far-Right House Republicans

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11 hours ago

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April 18, 2024

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A sitting Republican Congressman is harshly criticizing far-right House Republicans over their apparent support of Russia.

“I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the Speaker over it. I mean that’s a strange position to take,” U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a three-term Texas Republican rated a hard-core conservative told CNN’s Manu Raju, in video posted Thursday. “I think they want to be in the minority too. I think that’s an obvious reality.”

Congressman Crenshaw was referring to the movement led by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), now joined by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), over the Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s decision to finally put legislation on the floor to provide funding to Ukraine to support that sovereign nation in its fight against Russia.

“I’m still trying to process all the b*llsh*t,” Crenshaw added.

Crenshaw on Thursday also commented on Speaker Johnson’s remarks, stating he will hold the Ukraine funding vote regardless of attempts to oust him over it.

“To be clear, he’s being threatened for even allowing a vote to come to the floor. For allowing the constitutional process to play out as intended by our Founders. That’s a wild thing to consider, especially when his enemies consider themselves ‘conservative.’ Not conserving the painstaking constitutional process our Founders created, that’s for sure. Conserving Putin’s gains on the battlefield, more like it.”

Journalist Brian Beutler, a former editor-in-chief at Crooked Media, called it, “darkly funny to me that a pincer movement of MAGAns and leftists mock liberals for claiming the GOP works hand in glove with Russia, and then multiple conservative Republican dissenters are like ‘no it’s true, we’re lousy with Russian influence.'”

Watch Crenshaw’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene, ‘Putin’s Envoy’? Democrat’s Bills Mock Republican’s Actions

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OPINION

Marjorie Taylor Greene, ‘Putin’s Envoy’? Democrat’s Bills Mock Republican’s Actions

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13 hours ago

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April 18, 2024

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For years U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has been called “Pro-Putin.” As far back as 2021, her first year as a member of Congress, the question had been raised on social media: “Is Marjorie Taylor Greene a Russian asset?”

In 2022 The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s FactCheck.org reported: “Marjorie Taylor Greene Parrots Russian Talking Point on Ukraine.”

Back then, as the article highlighted, Greene had said, “there is no doubt that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s actions in Ukraine are despicable and evil.”

Now, she promotes a far more favorable view of President Vladimir Putin and his illegal war against Ukraine, a sovereign nation which the Russian autocrat wants to incorporate – at least partly – into Russia.

Just last week Greene spread demonstrably false pro-Russia talking points about a “war on Christianity” while defending and promoting President Vladimir Putin.

READ MORE: ‘Afraid and Intimidated’: Trump Trial Juror Targeted by Fox News Dismissed

“This is a war on Christianity,” Greene told far-right propagandist Steve Bannon. “The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians, the Ukrainian government is executing priests. Russia is not doing that.”

That’s just plain false, as NCRM reported.

Largely in response to her strong opposition to the U.S. supporting Ukraine, and her spreading Russian disinformation and flat-out pro-Putin falsehoods, Greene’s fondness for Putin and Russia has been making headlines.

“Republicans Who Like Putin,” was the headline last month at The New York Times, which observed: “A few Republicans have gone so far as [to] speak about Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in ways that mimic Russian propaganda. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has accused Ukraine of having ‘a Nazi army,’ echoing language Putin used to justify the invasion.”

“The Putin Republicans Have the Upper Hand” warned Washington Monthly‘s David Atkins on Wednesday, reporting on “conservative extremists led by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

“They admire the strongman as a Christian nationalist leader, and won’t support Ukraine. The global consequences of their besotted love affair with the Russian strongman could be cataclysmic.”

“Russia Is Buying Politicians in Europe. Is It Happening Here Too?” The New Republic‘s Alex Finley wrote last week. The photo at the top of the page? Marjorie Taylor Greene.

READ MORE: ‘Used by the Russians’: Moskowitz Mocks Comer’s Biden Impeachment Failure

Finley pointed to Greene’s interview with Bannon, “about Ukraine’s persecution of Christians, which is a Kremlin talking point aimed at boosting the pro-Moscow wing of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church. The U.S. should be spending money on the border with Mexico, not on Ukraine aid? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Russia invaded Ukraine to defend itself against an expanding NATO? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Call for a cease-fire, and give Russia Crimea and eastern Ukraine? That’s a Kremlin talking point.”

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post last week ran this headline: “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she ‘seriously hates’ people who support sending more aid to Ukraine: ‘Most repulsive, disgusting thing happening’.”

Then there is Greene’s obsession with Nazis. Specifically, equating Ukrainians with Nazis, which she did several times over the past week, including on Wednesday. That earned her the condemnation and wrath of U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who demanded: “Stop bringing up Nazis and Hitler.”

Wednesday night, Congressman Moskowitz, known for his use of humor and sarcasm to make his points, declared: “Just submitted an amendment to Bill drafting appointing MTG [Marjorie Taylor Greene] as Putin’s Special Envoy to the United States Congress.”

Moskowitz’s amendment was in response to Congresswoman Greene’s amendments requiring members to “conscript in the Ukrainian military” if they vote for the Ukraine military funding bill, as Juliegrace Brufke reported.

READ MORE: ‘Big Journalism Fail’: Mainstream Media Blasted Over Coverage of Historic Trump Trial

The Florida Democrat wasn’t joking, as Axios’ Andrew Solender pointed out Thursday morning.

Moskowitz did not stop there.

He drafted legislation on Thursday to name the Capitol Hill offices occupied by Congresswoman Greene after the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, infamous for promoting appeasement in dealing with Adolf Hitler.

Chamberlain also signed the Munich Agreement, which allowed Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia.

See the social media posts above or at this link.

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