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New Balance’s $500,000 Romney Donation: An Open Letter To Its Chairman

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New Balance Chairman Jim Davis has sparked outrage with his half-million dollar donation to Mitt Romney, an anti-gay Republican presidential candidate. Journalist Scott Rose explains why in this open letter to Davis.

Dear Jim and Anne Davis:

Because Mitt Romney signed the so-called “National Organization for Marriage” pledge to re-inforce and expand political persecution of LGBT Americans, I wanted to 1) explain why I am outraged and 2) explain why I am calling on you to denounce NOM’s pledge, and to ask for Mr. Romney to return your donation(s).

The National Organization for Marriage is an anti-LGBT hate group.  In May, it sponsored an anti-gay hate rally in The Bronx, during which a Christian extremist yelled through a megaphone at a mob of gay bashers that homosexuals are “worthy to death.”  NOM’s anti-gay hate rally was overseen by a vicious anti-gay politician, New York State Senator Ruben Diaz.  Senator Diaz’s district is marked by frequent occurrences of anti-gay hate crimes.  Last fall, a gang of anti-gay thugs sequestered gay victims and tortured them for several days.  Diaz said nothing.  I have heard stories from gay hate crime victims in Diaz’s district that when they tried to report to police that they had been gay bashed, the police laughed at them and wouldn’t even take the complaints.

That is an attitude which NOM actively seeks to perpetuate.  NOM’s Maggie Gallagher has fraudulently alleged that because of marriage equality in Europe, European civilization has ended.  She says such things, as though Barcelona, Rome and Paris were no longer viable cities.  She follows up such remarks by saying that marriage equality if made law in the U.S. will cause the downfall of American civilization.  That kind of anti-gay hate speech gets translated into the torture of many young gay people in the nation’s schools.  NOM and Gallagher actually are opposed to anti-gay bullying policies that specify sexual orientation and gender expression as protected groups, because, they claim, that can only lead to acceptance of homosexual persons.

I want you to understand very clearly why it is so important for school anti-bullying policies to specify that sexual orientation and gender expression are protected groups.  A very influential Tea Party activist and blogger, Dr. Rich Swier, says that anti-gay bullying is a “healthy” form of peer pressure.  You see, where school districts are dominated by anti-gay bigots who think that way . . and where those school districts’ anti-bullying policies don’t specify sexual orientation and gender expression as protected groups . . the school boards, administrators and teachers actually themselves will bully gay students and never be punished for that bullying, because they are defining the bullying as “healthy peer pressure.”

You could redeem New Balance’s company reputation right now by publicly condemning the NOM pledge and asking for Mitt Romney either to renounce the pledge himself or return your donations to his presidential campaign.  I find wholly unacceptable your attempt to sweep New Balance’s crisis under the rug by saying that your donation to Romney was a “personal” donation that had nothing to do with the New Balance company.

I think you might have had the LGBT community confused with a bunch of cowardly idiots when you tried make this crisis go away in that manner.  You apparently wanted consumers to think “Oh well if it was only his personal $500K and nothing to do with the New Balance company he owns, then we can buy his shoes in confidence that none of the money will ever go to re-inforce the political persecution of gay human beings.”

I have no idea whether you are going to choose to do the right thing, Jim and Anne, but I can promise you that if you don’t, I together with LGBT rights activists around the world will do everything we can to see New Balance boycotted.

 

Sincerely,

Scott Rose

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News

Poll Finds Majority Oppose Impeachment Inquiry as House GOP Kicks Off Hearings Two Days Before Likely Shutdown

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September 28, 2023

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A just-released NBC News poll finds a solid majority of registered voters are opposed to House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden, which kicks off Thursday morning, just two days before House Republicans are likely to shut down the federal government.

“56% of registered voters say Congress should not hold hearings to start the process of removing Biden from office, while 39% say it should,” NBC News reports. “The House Oversight Committee is gathering for its first hearing in the inquiry, which Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., announced two weeks ago to investigate Biden’s ties to his son Hunter’s business dealings, probing what McCarthy described as ‘allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption.'”

Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s “own conference was divided over the impeachment inquiry, and so are voters — who are also, unsurprisingly, divided along party lines when it comes to proceedings aimed at removing Biden from office,” NBC News adds. “An overwhelming majority of Democrats (88%) oppose the hearings, while 73% of Republicans support them. Six in 10 independents oppose the hearings, and 29% say Congress should move forward with them.”

READ MORE: House GOP Shutdown Demands Include Gutting Billions From Dept. of Education, Costing Over 200,000 Teachers Their Jobs

The Congressional Integrity Project, a group of Democratic strategists, have published what it calls a “regularly updated rundown of Republican commentators, Members of Congress, and media personalities” who have indicated there is not sufficient evidence to initiate an impeachment inquiry against President Biden. It includes recent statements from Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH), Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD), Rep. French Hill (R-AR), Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), Senator Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV), and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY).

At midnight on Saturday the federal government will shut down, unless the House passes legislation to fund the government, the Senate passes the House’s legislation, and President Joe Biden signed it into law.

READ MORE: ‘I Feel a Little Bit Dumber for What You Say’: The Nine Worst Moments of the GOP Presidential Debate

The shutdown, which has yet to begin, may already have cost the American taxpayers possibly a billion dollars, well-known economist Justin Wolfers casually suggested:

“This week you and I are paying over a million federal employees over a billion dollars to put aside their regular work to plan for a pointless shutdown, and that shutdown will grind the government to a halt which will also cause untold disruption through the private sector.”

Earlier this week, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said, “A MAGA shutdown drains billions of dollars from our economy. It says to our men and women in uniform — you’re not getting paid. To women and children depending on food assistance — you’re not eating. All 3 recent shutdowns were under REPUBLICAN House Speakers. Irresponsible.”

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‘I Feel a Little Bit Dumber for What You Say’: The Nine Worst Moments of the GOP Presidential Debate

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11 hours ago

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September 27, 2023

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The second Republican presidential debate was mired in in-fighting and personal attacks by the candidates,  a vow to wage physical war against Mexico, hate against LGBTQ people, an insistence the U.S. Constitution doesn’t actually mean what the words on the page say, and a fight over curtains.

Here are nine of the worst moments from Wednesday night’s debate.

The debate itself got off to a rough start right from the beginning.

Multiple times candidate cross-talk made it impossible for anyone to make a point, like this moment when nearly half the candidates talked over each other during a nearly two minute segment as the moderators struggled to take control.

READ MORE: ‘I Don’t Think So’: As GOP Debate Kicks Off Trump Teases Out the Chances of Any Candidate Becoming His Running Mate

Vivek Ramasway got into a heated argument with Nikki Haley, leading the former Trump UN Ambassador to tell him, “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.”


Ramaswamy launched an attack on transgender children.

Moments after Ramaswamy attacked transgender children, so did Mike Pence, calling supporting transgender children’s rights “crazy.”

He promised “a federal ban on transgender chemical or surgical surgery anywhere in the country,” and said: “We’ve got to protect our kids from this radical gender ideology agenda.”

Former New Jersey Governor Cris Christie described the First Lady of the United States, Dr. Jill Biden, who has dedicated her life to teaching, as the person President Biden is “sleeping with.”

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, as CNN’s Manu Raju noted were “one-time allies,” after “Haley appointed Scott to his Senate seat,” until they started “going at it at [the] debate.”

“Talk about someone who has never seen a federal dollar she doesn’t like,” Scott charged. “Bring it, Tim,” Haley replied before they got into a fight about curtains.

Senator Scott declared, “Black families survived slavery, we survived poll taxes and literacy tests, we survived discrimination being woven into the laws of our country. What was hard to survive was [President] Johnson’s Great Society, where they decided to take the Black father out of the household to get a check in the mail.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, currently leading over everyone on stage, said practically nothing for the first 15 minutes. He may have said the least of all the candidates on stage Wednesday night. But he denounced Donald Trump for being “missing in action.”

Watch all the videos above or at this link.

 

 

 

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‘I Don’t Think So’: As GOP Debate Kicks Off Trump Teases Out the Chances of Any Candidate Becoming His Running Mate

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13 hours ago

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September 27, 2023

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Donald Trump, again refusing to participate in a GOP debate, teased out the fate of every candidate on stage Wednesday night: he will choose none of them as his vice presidential running mate.

The ex-president who is facing 91 felony charges in four criminal cases across three jurisdictions and is now also facing the dissolution of his business empire, brought up the running mate question around the same time the debate on Fox News was kicking off.

“It’s all over television, this speech,” Trump falsely claimed, referring to his live remarks at a non-union shop one day after President Joe Biden stood on the picket line with UAW workers.

READ MORE: ‘Apparently You’ll Never Believe Us’: House Republican Melts Down After Reporter Questions His ‘Evidence’ Against Biden

“You know, we’re competing with the job candidates,” Trump said, mocking his fellow Republican presidential candidates after he scheduled an event opposite the debate he refused to attend.

“They’re all running for a job,” he continued, as the audience began to boo.

“They want to be in the, they’ll do anything,” he continued. “Secretary of something.”

“They even say VP, I don’t know,” Trump said. “Does anybody see any VP in the group? I don’t think so.”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Careening’ Toward ‘Risk of Political Violence’: Experts Sound Alarm After Trump Floats Executing His Former General

 

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