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Donald Sterling’s Personal Beliefs Are None Of Your Business — Right?

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Billionaire Donald Sterling is the subject of widespread scorn, disdain, and outrage this weekend after TMZ released a nine-minute audio recording allegedly of the L.A. Clippers owner and his girlfriend arguing — exposing his racist beliefs. Magic Johnson, about whom in part the wealthy couple’s fight centered, condemned Sterling. So did LeBron James, Charles Barkley, and many other public personalities and most of the online world.

The audio, which you can hear in full below, includes a voice alleged to be Sterling, making vile, disgusting, and racist comments about Blacks and Hispanics.

“It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people,” the man in the audio, believed to be Sterling, says. “Do you have to?”

And more.

“You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that … and not to bring them to my games.”

“I’m just saying, in your lousy f******* Instagrams, you don’t have to have yourself with, walking with black people.”

“Don’t put him [Magic] on an Instagram for the world to have to see so they have to call me. And don’t bring him to my games.”

Here’s the audio:

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Right now, many are demanding Sterling be sanctioned, many more want him to be forced to sell the Clippers.

But shouldn’t Andrew Sullivan, Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown, Bryan Fischer, Tony Perkins, AEI fellow Charles Murray, Legal Insurrection blogger William A. Jacobson, former GOP chair Ken Mehlman, Washington Post blogger Eugene Volokh, Slate’s Will Saletan, and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, among many others, voice support for Sterling?

Shouldn’t they be rushing to his defense?

They all certainly were defending Brendan Eich just a few weeks ago. Some, in a strange reverse exercise of “hate the sin, love the sinner” act, even this week.

“Intolerance” was the charge Eich’s supporters used to condemn liberals.

Eich of course is — or was — the Mozilla CEO who resigned (some say was forced, Mozilla says not) after a small software startup and a handful of Mozilla employees expressed upset that Eich, a co-founder of Mozilla, had been promoted to CEO after having donated $1000 to support Prop 8 in 2008. Three of Mozilla’s board members resigned, at least two in protest.

Some private citizens expressed their desire that Eich resign, some made a personal decision to boycott Mozilla and remove Firefox from their computers in protest.

No LGBT organization demanded Eich resign. Ever. There was no organized boycott of Mozilla — from LGBT groups (and sorry, OkCupid doesn’t count.) There were boycotts after Eich resigned, protesting his “ouster,” via NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, and the Family Research Council. Peter LaBarbera. RedState. Breitbart. Even Fox News pundit Charles Krauthammer got in on the post-resignaton outrage boycott of Mozilla.

But for the most part, while there was an outcry about the decision to promote Eich, there was not widespread organized liberal uprising. The public square, the marketplace, spoke.

And yet weeks later, 58 Republicans and libertarians who say they support same-sex marriage but were so upset by the “illiberal impulse…to punish rather than to criticize or to persuade those who disagree,” that they signed an open letter of protest attacking liberals who applauded Eich’s resignation.

“Disagreement Should Not Be Punished,” they wrote, adding emphatically that “the consequence of holding a wrong opinion should not be the loss of a job.”

The freedom—not just legal but social—to express even very unpopular views is the engine that propelled the gay-rights movement from its birth against almost hopeless odds two generations ago. A culture of free speech created the social space for us to criticize and demolish the arguments against gay marriage and LGBT equality. For us and our advocates to turn against that culture now would be a betrayal of the movement’s deepest and most humane values.

Brendan Eich made a very public gesture to be anti-gay. Conservatives insist money is speech. Eich spoke $1000 worth of anti-gay words that are part of the public record, and directly supported ugly efforts to marginalize and disparage gay people.

Donald Sterling was (allegedly) secretly recorded making ugly, racist, and frankly stupid remarks.

Should he be “punished”?

If you think Brendan Eich should still be the CEO of Mozilla, or should not have been the subject of scorn and upset, then you have to support Donald Sterling.

And if not, you really have to ask yourself, what’s the difference, and why?

How are Donald Sterling’s very private (alleged) racist remarks less offensive than Brendan Eich’s very public support of Prop 8? Why should Eich’s “personal beliefs” not be subject to the same disqualification for running an organization as Sterling’s?

Is being racist not acceptable, but being anti-gay acceptable?

Because actively working to deny same-sex couples the right to marry is anti-gay. So is actively supporting having the state legally annul 18,000 same-sex marriages — it’s about as anti-gay as you can get. Both were what Prop 8 was attempting to do.

I think Brendan Eich should have resigned. I think Donald Sterling should be forced to sell the Clippers. I’m very comfortable with both beliefs, and both are in harmony.

What do you think?

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COMMENTARY

‘I’m Broke’: One Day Before Shutdown and With No Plan McCarthy Says He Has ‘Nothing’ in His ‘Back Pocket’

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Just 30 hours before his own Republican conference likely will have succeeded in shutting down the federal government of the United States, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy candidly admitted to reporters he’s run out of ideas.

Earlier Friday in an “embarrassing failure,” 21 House Republicans killed legislation from their own party, a short-term continuing resolution, that would have kept the federal government open.

Later on Friday afternoon, swarmed by reporters, McCarthy was asked if he was going to tell them what his plans are. He sarcastically replied, “No, I’m going to keep it all a secret.”

When pressed, he said he would “keep working, and make sure we solve this problem.”

“What’s in your back pocket, Speaker?” another reporter asked, pressing him for an answer.

“Nothing right now. I’m broke,” he admitted, apparently referring to options and ideas to avoid a shutdown.

READ MORE: ‘Bad News’ for Sidney Powell as First Trump Co-Defendant in Georgia RICO Case Takes Plea Deal: Legal Expert

But another reporter asked Speaker McCarthy the main question: Would he partner with House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to put the Senate’s bill before the House.

He refused to answer.

Just before 5 PM CNN’s Manu Raju reported on the ongoing House Republicans’ closed-door meeting with the Speaker, a meeting where the 21 Republicans who will likely be effectively responsible for the shutdown reportedly did not attend.

“McCarthy is telling [Republicans] now there aren’t many options to avoid a shutdown, according to sources in room. He says they can approve GOP’s stop-gap plan that failed, accept Senate plan, put a ‘clean’ stop-gap on floor to dare Democrats to block it — or shut down the government.”

READ MORE: Will McConnell and Senate Republicans Use Feinstein’s Passing to Grind Biden’s Judicial Confirmations to a Halt?

He adds, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) largely responsible for the impending likely shutdown and the impending possible ouster of McCarthy said: “We will not pass a continuing resolution on terms that continue America’s decline.”

At midnight Saturday Republicans will likely have succeeded in furloughing 3.5 million million federal workers – two million of them service members in the U.S. Armed Forces – and countless contractors, while financially harming untold thousands of businesses that rely on income from all those workers to keep running – unless Speaker McCarthy puts a bipartisan continuing resolution approved by at least 75 U.S. Senators on the floor, legislation every House Democrat is likely to vote for.

Should he do so, many believe he will have also signed his own pink slip.

But whether or not the government shuts down, and whether or not McCarthy puts the Senate’s CR on the floor, according to The Washington Post the far right extremists in his party are already moving to oust him “as early as next week.”

The Biden campaign is making certain Americans realize the blame for the impending shutdown sits at McCarthy’s feet.

At 6:23 PM Friday evening, Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman wrote on social media: “HOUSE REPUBLICANS HAVE NO PLAN TO KEEP GOVERNMENT OPEN.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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News

‘Bad News’ for Sidney Powell as First Trump Co-Defendant in Georgia RICO Case Takes Plea Deal: Legal Expert

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The first of 19 co-defendants in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ RICO and election interference case against Donald Trump has pleaded guilty in what is being described as a “plea deal.”

“Under the terms of an agreement with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s office, Hall pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state,” NBC News reports. “Under the terms of the deal, he’s being sentenced to five years probation.”

CNN previously reported “Hall, a bail bondsman and pro-Trump poll-watcher in Atlanta, spent hours inside a restricted area of the Coffee County elections office when voting systems were breached in January 2021. The breach was connected to efforts by pro-Trump conspiracy theorists to find voter fraud. Hall was captured on surveillance video at the office, on the day of the breach. He testified before the grand jury in Fulton County case and acknowledged that he gained access to a voting machine.”

READ MORE: Will McConnell and Senate Republicans Use Feinstein’s Passing to Grind Biden’s Judicial Confirmations to a Halt?

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a professor of law and frequent MSNBC contributor, says Hall “was in the thick of things with Sidney Powell on Jan 7 for the Coffee County scheme involving voting machines. If he’s cooperating, it’s a bad sign for her.”

Hall’s plea deal “spells bad news for, among others, Sidney Powell,” says former Dept. of Defense Special Counsel Ryan Goodman, an NYU Law professor of law. Goodman posted a graphic showing the overlap in charges against Hall and Powell, which he called “alleged joint actions.”

See the graphic above or at this link.

 

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Far-Right Republicans Kill GOP Bill to Keep Government Running in ‘Embarrassing Failure’ for McCarthy: Report

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With a shutdown less than 36 hours away, far-right Republicans in the House of Representatives Friday afternoon voted against their party’s own legislation to kept the federal government running. Democrats opposed the content of the bill and voted against it. Just 21 far-right members of the GOP conference were able to effectively force what appears to be an all but inevitable shutdown at midnight on Saturday.

“HARDLINE HOUSE RS take down stopgap funding bill. 21 GOP no votes. 232-198,” reported Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman just before 2 PM Friday.

NBC News reported that a “band of conservative rebels on Friday revolted and blocked House Republicans’ short-term funding bill to keep the government open, delivering a political blow to Speaker Kevin McCarthy and likely cementing the chances of a painful government shutdown that is less than 48 hours away.”

READ MORE: Will McConnell and Senate Republicans Use Feinstein’s Passing to Grind Biden’s Judicial Confirmations to a Halt?

“Twenty-one rebels, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a conservative bomb-thrower and a top Donald Trump ally, voted Friday afternoon to scuttle the 30-day funding bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, leaving Republicans without a game plan to avert a shutdown. The vote failed,” NBC added. “The embarrassing failure of the GOP measure once again highlights the dilemma for McCarthy as his hard-liners strongly oppose a short-term bill even if it includes conservative priorities. It leaves Congress on a path to a shutdown, with no apparent offramp to avoiding it — or to quickly reopen the government.”

A bipartisan group of at least 75 U.S. Senators has passed two bills this week that would keep the government running. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has refused to allow it to come to the floor for a vote.

 

 

 

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