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Meet GetEQUAL’s New Field Director Felipe Matos — Exclusive Interview

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Felipe Matos on Monday became GetEQUAL‘s new Field Director. Matos, who says he is both queer and undocumented, is perhaps in a unique position to assess and act on the current needs of the LGBT community while being able to form important and powerful coalitions with other minority groups — something the LGBT community up until now has rarely been effective at doing.

GetEQUAL, now two years old, has a very specific mission: “to empower the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community and our allies to take bold action to demand full legal and social equality, and to hold accountable those who stand in the way.” Clearly they have followed it to the letter, and with surprisingly effective results.

Perhaps best-known for the multiple times they have handcuffed themselves to the White House fence — drawing needed attention and momentum that resulted in the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — GetEQUAL’s tactics of nonviolent civil actions have been praised, prosecuted, and impugned.

Matos “has a long record of pressuring both Democrats (see here) and Republicans (see here) for progress on Latino issues — and now he’s bringing that knowledge and history to the LGBT movement,” Heather Cronk, GetEQUAL’s Managing Director, tells The New Civil Rights Movement.

She excitedly adds that Matos will be “bringing his ridiculously successful organizing experience in the Latino community to the LGBT community. Felipe is a rockstar DREAMer who participated in the Trail of Dreams in 2010 to draw attention to the need for the DREAM Act, and has been organizing for the past few years with both Presente and United We DREAM.”

In an introduction, Matos himself notes:

I was brought to the USA by my older sister who was living here for 4 years then. My mother had developed a chronic back disease that prevented her from working. I had grown used to being oppressed by extreme poverty in my country of origin, Brazil, so the US was definitely a promising way to finally find freedom- I was wrong.

His bio also notes:

He has served in the Board of Directors of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, a core leader from Students Working for Equal Rights, he is part of the National Coordinating Committee of the national organization United WE DREAM and an online advocate for the national group Presente.org.

We asked Felipe Matos several questions about his plans as GetEQUAL’s new Field Director, and the challenges he will face both within and outside of the LGBT community.

GetEQUAL has been very successful in the short time since its inception. What do you see as your role, will you be altering the group’s direction, or will you just “stay the course”?
Get Equal has played a critical role in our movement’s recent victory- the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”. However, Get Equal has also been an unsung hero in many other fronts. I got involved in 2010 with Get Equal when politicians in Washington, D.C. tried to create a divide between the LGBT movement and immigrant rights when both the repeal of DADT and the DREAM Act came up for a vote at the same time. Heather Cronk, Get Equal’s managing director, approached me and a few other DREAM Act students and we strategized on ways to keep our communities together by highligting stories of queer undocumented youth and we organized some local joined actions. Later, Get Equal brought together its local organizers to Memphis, Tennessee for a training, all of the trainers were United We DREAM organizers. These initiatives have been critical in creating solidarity between both movements and struggles. Both DREAMers and Get Equal organizers have a shared experience that will never be forgotten. This is how we build meaningful bridges between the different issue areas in the Progressive Movement.

I’m hoping to expand Get Equal’s capacity to go beyond the LGBT community but also its field power. Most national organization get stuck in the “DC mentality,” an island that allows politics to easily take over and “access” sometimes become more important than “progress.” Get Equal is different because we are actually led by people on the ground that face homophobia and homophobic laws on their daily lives. This is why I decided to stay in Florida, a place where we have a constitutional ban on marriage, SB1070 copycats are a constant threat, and we still have to fight to get justice for the murder of African American youth because of gun laws that allow for people to literally get away with murder. In my opinion, politics is truly done locally and a strong field is an integral part of our current plan to gain full federal equality. I wouldn’t call my plans “altering” the current course but rather expanding and exploring new opportunities for growth.

GetEQUAL’s success has not come without a price. There are those in the LGBT community who feel GetEQUAL’s “tactics” are more dramatic and disruptive that they are comfortable with. Some feel they don’t want groups like GetEQUAL or for that matter, HRC, to represent them. What would you tell them?
Not everyone agrees with our tactics or strategies, that’s OK. There is enough space in the spectrum of important roles everyone can play for progress in our community. We have chosen to create an unapologize way of organizing which it may not be popular but it’s definitely effective and it brings results to the community. We are more concerned with bringing equality to a young person in Iowa or a 80 year-old that waited his or her entire life for change than pleasing everyone. I also feel that everyone’s role is important and that’s why I would encourage anyone to reach out to us as we keep building a movement for full federal equality in this country.

Your background seems to be more focused on the DREAM Act and immigration. Do you feel you are changing direction personally, or are you at a point where you want to expand your responsibilities? Does your new GetEQUAL role mean you’re abandoning your DREAM Act activism?
I wouldn’t be able to ever leave the DREAM movement, as a matter of fact, I would feel like a traitor to an important part of who I am if I ever did so. My new role in Get Equal will allow me to embrace everything I am. I am an immigrant, undocumented, queer and a man of color. Get Equal’s philosophy allows for anyone involved to never have to choose which identity hat to wear, which part of their identity to highlight and which part to hide away. Instead, we are encouraged to embrace our full selves. I am grateful for Get Equal’s willingness to accept everything I am and allowing me to bring everything to the table. I am hoping that this new phase in my life as an organizer will expand the LGBT movement’s reach and keep a door open for Latinos and other communities of color to come in and also sit at decision making tables.

The LGBT community, especially recently, has benefited from other minority groups, like the NAACP, for example, showing support for our issues, yet LGBT groups have not been as active in speaking out for other causes, like immigration and the DREAM Act, or any of a number of other important social justice issues. Nor have we been especially successful at, or, apparently, interested in, building coalitions that support other causes. Do you feel you are in a unique position to change this? If so, will this be a focus for you?
I agree that several sectors of the LGBT movement has been “shy” to meaningfully engage on other social justice causes. Unfortunately, this has been a recurring problem in our movement. What we need to understand as a community is that there is LGBT people in every disenfranchised community. These individuals have to deal with homophobia and other structural oppressive system such as xenophobia, racism, transphobia, misogyny, to name a few. So immigrant rights, reproductive justice, health care reform, labor issues are LGBT issues because several individuals in our community are directly affected by these policies or issues. This is why I’m a firm believer that it is in the best interest of the LGBT movement to build coalition with groups working on other issues that have not been traditionally seen as our community’s issue.

In 2010, I had the honor of walking in the Trail of DREAMs, a walk from Miami to Washington, DC. to highlight the plight of undocumented students, with my partner Juan and our peers Carlos and Gaby. During our journey we met hundreds of people who live under several oppressive systems and whom were actively fighting against them. They have been an inspiration for my work in intersectionality and this will definitely be a focus for me in Get Equal.

Jorge Gutierrez, a personal mentor and a great friend, wisely told me, “Felipe we are natural bridges.” People who have multiple identities are clear ambassadors to multiple communities. I hope to bring other people from diverse communities to leadership position so we can expand Get Equal’s contribution in changing the current dynamic between the LGBT movement and other organizations fighting for other issues.

You have worked with faith-based groups in the past, especially on immigration. Do you plan to try to reach out to them, and do you think your past association with them will make that easier?
My personal interactions with faith groups have been very challenging and yet very rewarding. Faith groups have a strong base of people who many times care about equality and social justice causes. It’s important for us to create a strong coalition for equality and reaching out to them should be part of our strategy for change. Faith groups should be an integral part in increasing our political power as a movement and that’s why I will reach out to them.

What can the average person who supports LGBT rights and equality do that they may not be doing now to help us all “get equal”?
Martin Luther King, Jr once said, “In the end we will remember not the word of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” So they should join us, organize with us, vote for people who care about our issues but most importantly never stand silent even when it’s hard to do the right thing. If they want to get involved with Get Equal they can go to http://getequal.org/join-us.

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OPINION

‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

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The backlash from NBC News’ hiring of Ronna McDaniel is not over. New reporting from Puck, CNN, and The Washington Post reveals the considerable efforts from top NBC and MSNBC brass to recruit, hire, and support the former RNC chair who promoted false election claims, was allegedly involved in helping Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and refused to say Joe Biden had been elected fairly.

Staffers at NBC News and MSNBC were outraged at McDaniel’s hiring, but new details about behind-the-scenes efforts reportedly have increased that outrage.

Some critics are either calling for resignations of NBC News and MSNBC  leadership, or questioning how long they can ride out the mess.

“What is Brian Roberts going to do?” CNN‘s Oliver Darcy asks. “The Comcast boss is watching an unceasing five-alarm fire rage at 30 Rock, scarring the reputation of NBC News and threatening to consume multiple parts of the Cesar Conde-run NBC Universal News Group.”

“Conde has lost control of his organization, prompting industry insiders to wonder how he continues to remain in his role as chairman of the NBC News Group. In the words of one veteran media executive I spoke to Wednesday, ‘It’s inconceivable that he should,'” Darcy writes, saying Conde’s actions and those of his top executives have “hosed gasoline” on the scandal.

READ MORE: Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

That scandal involves these revelations from Puck’s Dylan Byers, who reports, “bringing McDaniel to 30 Rock had been part of a nearly two-month-long effort that was spearheaded by Budoff Brown and her boss, NBC News President Rebecca Blumenstein, with buy-in from Conde and his deputies at both NBC News and MSNBC.”

“Rashida Jones,” he adds, “the president of MSNBC, was very interested in having McDaniel appear as a contributor on her network, as well.”

But this bombshell has drawn a good deal of attention. Noting how Chuck Todd led off the very public pushback against the hiring of McDaniel, Byers reports, “On Sunday, Budoff Brown reached out to McDaniel’s aide and former chief of staff at the R.N.C., Richard Walters, to see if there were any friends or colleagues who could speak up on her behalf.”

“The two sides also discussed having these folks call attention to what they saw as a double standard—after all, this was the same network that was turning Psaki, a former Biden White House Press Secretary, into a Maddow-adjacent prime time star. Walters later assured Budoff Brown that they’d been able to advance conservative pushback on social media against Todd, specifically, and that this might give NBC News some cover, for which Budoff Brown thanked him.”

CNN, pointing to those details, adds, “staffers inside NBC News are enraged at the fact an executive would have engaged in such behavior.”

Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacobs, who now writes about politics and the media, called for the firing of Jones, Blumenstein, and Budoff Brown.

Other critics are expressing concerns on multiple fronts.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“It’s like the hunger games at @NBCNews. Every day new, horrible stories of journalism & corporate malpractice. Every single one of these managers must go,” observed Jennifer Schulze, a media critic who was a Chicago Sun-Times executive producer, WGN news director, and adjunct college professor of journalism.

She also highlights a Washington Post report that ropes NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt into the mess.

“Every @NBCNews exec who thought hiring a reputed liar & phony elector co-[conspirator] needs to resign or be fired,” Schulze says.

“The @NBCNews managers who recruited & signed an election denier should be out the door, too,” she adds. “Not only was it downright offensive to hire Ronna, it was journalism AND corporate malpractice.”

Pointing to his newsletter, former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer writes, “NBC’s ill-fated decision to hire Ronna McDaniel is a story of a media outlet unwilling to accept the ways Trump changed politics, but it’s also one of the best arguments for Dems need to build our media ecosystem ASAP.”

READ MORE: Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

He calls McDaniel’s hiring “evidence” the media has “yet to accept the reality that this is not a normal election between a Republican and a Democrat.” And adds, “An [industry] that prizes objectivity above all else, is incapable of accurately covering an election where one candidate is a normal politician and the other is an insurrectionist. Many in the media would rather stumble into autocracy than take a side.”

Veteran journalist and Sirius XM host Michelangelo Signorile observes, “We couldn’t have asked for a better situation to shine a bright light on the corruption of the corporate media—and its impulse to legitimize MAGA extremism and lawbreakers for profit—than NBC’s hiring former RNC chair, election denier, and Trump enabler Ronna McDaniel.”

And he warns, “The forces that made the coup-plotting former RNC chair a paid contributor are still shaping news and information about this pivotal election.”

 

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Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

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Michigan MAGA Republican state Rep. Matt Maddock is under fire after claiming three buses were “loaded up with illegal invaders.” The buses, according to multiple reports, were actually loaded with the Gonzaga University basketball team arriving for March Madness.

“Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?” Rep. Maddock wrote on social media Wednesday evening, tagging far-right former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands under Donald Trump and is now the state’s Republican Party chair.

Informed of his error on social media, Rep. Maddock doubled down, and attacked.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“Probably teams for the NCAA Mens Sweet 16 playing at LCA on Friday and Sunday,” a user on X wrote.

“Sure kommie. Good talking point,” Maddock quickly shot back.

ABC affiliate WXYZ executive producer Maxwell White, responding to the Maddock’s original post wrote: “Just to be clear, this was the Gonzaga basketball team. Photos show Gonzaga getting on an Allegiant plane to Detroit for the Sweet 16, and Flight Radar shows a plane from GEG to DTW landed at 7:25 p.m., around the time this photo was posted.”

“This is a wild tweet,” White added, before adding more evidence.

Hoekstra, who was accused of using racism and xenophobia to win his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat (he lost), did not respond directly to Maddock but did repost the apparently false claim.

Michigan State Senate Democratic Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow denounced Maddock’s claim as “dangerous.”

Maddock’s remark also made the national stage when U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell responded.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“Hey Einstein,” the California Democrat wrote, “your state is hosting the Sweet 16. Could it be a team bus? If it is, will you resign for your spectacular stupidity?”

In 2021 The Washington Post reported, “Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, have repeatedly been called out by fact-checking journalists for promoting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and falsely suggesting that covid-19 is comparable to the flu.”

See the social media posts above 0r at this link.

 

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OPINION

Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

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Right-wing talk radio show host Hugh Hewitt is facing backlash after declaring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who was ousted after her hiring cost NBC News a tumultuous five days, a “normal” person who has “never denied the election.”

Last summer, The Washington Post‘s Philip Bump reported McDaniel “is still elevating 2020 election skepticism,” and “won’t say the election was fair.”

“I don’t think he won it fair. I don’t. I’m not going to say that,” McDaniel had said to CNN.

“CNN teased an upcoming interview between host Chris Wallace and Ronna McDaniel,” Bump wrote. “In the clip, Wallace asks McDaniel when she stopped being an ‘election denier’ — that is, someone who espouses skepticism about the validity of the election results. And, surprise! McDaniel never stopped.”

Bump also explained the danger in election denialism: “McDaniel won’t say Biden was legitimately elected because the base doesn’t want to hear it — but the base doesn’t want to hear it in part because leaders such as McDaniel won’t simply admit without qualifications that Biden won.”

READ MORE: Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

“Establishing a system in which any loss can easily be framed as illegitimate means establishing a system in which no loss is accepted as valid,” Bump continued. “It means institutionalizing the idea that elections are inaccurate gauges of public opinion and, therefore, that the winners of those elections have no mandate to serve.”

On Wednesday Hewitt, a Washington Post columnist and former Reagan White House aide, said on Fox News that McDaniel “is a fine Republican. She is not an election denier. She has never denied the election.”

Former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh responded to that clip.

Bullshit Hugh. With Trump, she pressured MI canvassers to not certify the results; with Trump, she pressured other state attorney’s to sue & invalidate results in MI, PA, & WI; she worked with Trump on the fake electors scheme; she lied about charges of voter fraud well after those charges had been debunked. No major party chair in American history has done more to dispute a legit election. Shame on you,” Walsh wrote.

Media Matters’ Eric Kleefeld, also responding to that clip: “Somebody who helped coordinate fake electors and passed a resolution calling Jan. 6 ‘legitimate political discourse’ is not normal, and we must at all steps refuse to treat them as such.”

READ MORE: Greene Says She Won’t Take Responsibility if Johnson Loses Speaker’s Gavel Before Election

Hewitt had also told Fox News, “I don’t know who is going to keep MSNBC informed of what normal people think, because Ronna McDaniel is about as normal as they come. She’s a Michigan mom, she’s been in the job seven years. She represents the Republican Party.”

McDaniel, it could be said, does not represent the Republican Party, not the MAGA America First Republican Party of today, neither literally nor figuratively. Donald Trump engineered her ouster and installed his handpicked replacements, including his daughter-in-law and Michael Whatley, a right-wing attorney who was part of the Bush recount team during the contested 2000 presidential election.

The Atlantic’s Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), blasted Hewitt, calling him “an utter disgrace,” while adding, “shame on those like the Washington Post who showcase him.”

Adam Cohen, vice chair of Lawyers for Good Government, pointedly responded to Hewitt: “Hate to tell you this, but normal people don’t try to foment a coup, or deny the truth about election results Like Ronna McDaniel did.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

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