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Watch: New TV Ad Absurdly Claims Equal Rights Ordinance Will Hurt Business

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Michael Sam, Jason Collins join campaign in support of HERO

A new ad from opponents of Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance absurdly claims the law would actually hurt the city’s economy. 

In the ad from the Campaign for Houston, the narrator states the ordinance would invite lawsuits “when a customer or employee’s feelings are hurt,” and subject small businesses to fines. 

“With the threat of endless litigation, businesses will close or relocate outside the city limits, eroding our tax base and costing up jobs,” the narrator says. 

The ad, of course, flies in the face of recent history. One need look no further than Arizona or Indiana to see the potential negative economic impacts of inequality. 

In Arizona, GOP Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed an anti-gay “religious freedom” bill in 2014 after the NFL began discussions about moving the 2015 Super Bowl out of the state if the measure became law. And earlier this year in Indiana, the Center for American Progress estimated an anti-gay “religious freedom” law would cost the state $256.4 million over six years, prompting the legislature to amend the law to protect LGBT people.

And that’s precisely why groups like the Greater Houston Partnership — which is the local chamber of commerce — support the Equal Rights Ordinance. 

Bob Harvey, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership, told KPRC-TV in response to the ad that nothing is further from the truth. He said if the ordinance is repealed, national headlines of “Houston voters reject equal rights” will could be very damaging.

“We know that the ordinance is workable and enforceable and fair to business,” Harvey said. “Quite the opposite. The business community wholeheartedly supports the Equal Rights Ordinance. So the suggestion that they would leave Houston because of the ordinance is quite the opposite.

“I find this claim, like others they’re making, to be factually inaccurate,” Harvey added, apparently referencing other anti-HERO ads promoting the debunked transgender bathroom myth.

Supporters of the ordinance have expressed concern that if HERO is repealed, Houston could lose the 2016 NCAA Men’s Final Four or the 2017 Super Bowl. And 44 prominent business leaders recently signed a full-page ad in The Houston Chronicle in support of the ordinance.

The only prominent business owner who’s come out against the ordinance is Houston Texans owner Bob McNair, who contributed $10,000 to the Campaign for Houston. However, on Friday, McNair asked that his contribution be returned, accusing the Campaign for Houston of making unauthorized statements about his position on the ordinance to the media. 

“I do not believe in or tolerate personal or professional discrimination of any kind,” McNair wrote in a statement to ThinkProgress. “I also believe that we Houstonians should have an ordinance that unites our community and provides a bold statement of non-discrimination. I encourage all Houstonians to vote on November 3.”

Earlier this week, McNair was slammed for the contribution by former Vikings punter Chris Kluwe. 

On Friday, retired NBA player Jason Collins, the second publicly gay athlete to play in a major U.S. profssional sports league offered his support via Twitter:

Also on Friday, former NFL player Michael Sam added his voice to the conversation. 

“I know firsthand what it feels like to be unwelcome – to live an open and authentic life in a place where you can be ostracized or even discriminated against for simply being yourself,” Sam wrote in an email for the Human Rights Campaign. “That’s why as a Texas native I was thrilled when Houston passed the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) last year … and equally disappointed when opponents petitioned for its repeal this year. … I’ve seen what the opposition is doing and it’s revolting – launching ugly ads insinuating LGBT people pose a danger to the community. They’re out in full force, trying to scare fair-minded Texans into voting against their LGBT neighbors.” 

Sam’s support for the ordinance is especially relevant since HERO also prohibits discrimination based on race. In fact, more than half of complaints filed under HERO while the ordinance was in effect were based on race. And the coalition supporting the ordinance, Houston Unites, planned a press conference Friday where black attorneys will discuss how they were recently forced to pay a cover charge at a local nightclub, while white patrons got in for free. 

“Two of the men, Brandon Ball and Dan Scarbrough, will discuss their case and how they have been forced to make a costly, federal case out of the incident because there is no local equal rights ordinance on the books,” according to Houston Unites. 

 

EARLIER:

Chris Kluwe Totally Takes Down ‘Cowhumping Glue-Huffer’ NFL Owner For Financing Anti-LGBT Hate

Texas Groups Scare Voters With ‘Bathroom Ads’ Ahead Of HERO Vote

Trailing In Polls, Houston Equal Rights Opponents Continue Desperate Anti-LGBT Ad Campaign

Watch: Anti-LGBT Right Wing Group Releases Ad Promoting False, Fear-Mongering Trans Bathroom Myth

Pastor In Anti-LGBT Radio Ad Attacking Nondiscrimination Ordinance Was Fired For Sexual Harassment

Family Research Council Pushing Ridiculous Anti-LGBT ‘Bathroom Bill’ Ad (Video)

 

 

Image: Screenshot via Campaign for Houston/YouTube

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‘Aiding and Abetting’: Speaker Johnson Blasted for Blurring Faces of J6 Participants

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Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is once again under fire, this time for intentionally blurring the faces of people caught on camera in the massive 40,000 hours of January 6 videos he ordered to be released to the public.

Speaker Johnson “said Republicans are blurring out the faces of people on the Jan. 6 tapes ‘because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and be charged the DOJ,'” Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman first reported Tuesday (video below).

Federal law enforcement agencies have used those videos to identify, arrest, charge, prosecute, and convict hundreds of criminals who acted unlawfully during the January 6, 2021 insurrection. The FBI set up a public tip line specifically for their Capitol investigation. While not everyone who was on Capitol grounds acted illegally, the videos provided evidence of wrongdoing. Countless social media users worked together to help identify some of the participants, as was detailed in NBC News’ justice reporter Ryan J. Reilly’s book, “Sedition Hunters.”

During his remarks Tuesday Johnson also claimed the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack was “a partisan exercise” that produced a “biased report” and “hid some of the important evidence.”

READ MORE: Florida GOP Chair Could Face ‘Censure or Discipline’ After Rape Allegation and Three-Way Sex Claim

The Speaker’s comments are in direct conflict with his recent statement defending his march toward an impeachment investigation of President Joe Biden.

Johnson, who frequently reminds reporters he is “a constitutional attorney,” was labeled by The New York Times recently as “a key architect of his party’s objections to certifying President Biden’s victory” in the 2020 election.

Last week, in promoting what some critics – and the White House – say are House Republicans’ baseless allegations against the President, Johnson also told reporters Republicans are “the rule of law team.”

The Speaker was quickly criticized for, as former GOP congressman Joe Walsh said, “aiding and abetting.”

“The party of the police; the party of law and order,” mocked MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan. Top national security attorney Brad Moss similarly wrote, “Party of ‘law and order.'”

“The House Republican Speaker doesn’t want people who broke the law on January 6 to be charged with a crime … and he said this publicly,” notes MSNBC columnist Michael A. Cohen.

READ MORE: RNC Chair Falsely Claims ‘Biden White House’ Killed Hunter Laptop Story in 2020

“Wait. I thought the GOP said they were just tourists? Show their faces or admit they weren’t orderly tourists,” wrote former U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH).

Watch the videos of Johnson above or at this link.

 

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Florida GOP Chair Could Face ‘Censure or Discipline’ After Rape Allegation and Three-Way Sex Claim

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Christian Ziegler, the Donald Trump-endorsed Florida Republican Party chair who is reportedly under criminal investigation for alleged rape, and had a consensual three-way sexual relationship with his wife and the woman who is now accusing him, could face some form of discipline from party leadership if he does not resign.

Florida Republican Party Vice Chair Evan Power is calling for a special meeting to consider Ziegler’s future, according to Florida Politics.

Ziegler, who is opposed to the special meeting which could decide his fate with the party, wants to wait until the board’s scheduled meeting in February to discuss the allegations against him. He has refused to resign.

“In an act of respect for the Chairman, this evening, I phoned him to request he call an executive board meeting,” Power wrote in an email to board members. “He declined and said the matters could be taken up in February. It is the opinion of the many members that it is not an acceptable timetable.”

READ MORE: ‘Given My Experience’: Gaetz Waiting to ‘Render Judgment’ on Florida GOP Chair Accused of Rape

“Because of my role as Vice Chairman, I now offer the following call for a Special Meeting with an option for each of you to sign on to,” Power added. “I hope that we are able to move the Party forward in a positive manner as the 2024 elections are the most important elections we face in my lifetime. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reply to this email or give me a call or text.”

Ziegler’s wife Bridget Ziegler is an an elected school board member and a co-founder of the anti-LGBTQ Moms for Liberty, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as an anti-government extremist group. She told police “that she and her husband had previously engaged in a ‘sexual encounter’ with the woman. The following day, [Christian] Ziegler was interviewed by police with his attorney present. He told them the encounter with the woman was consensual and said he’d taken a video of it,” according to the Florida Center for Government Accountability’s Trident news site.

Power has “as laid out an agenda for a meeting” that “includes potential censure or discipline for Ziegler following party rules. That includes determining if Ziegler must be deemed unfit for office and whether his actions have hurt the ‘good name of the RPOF,'” Florida Politics adds. He also wants the board to discuss suspending Ziegler’s responsibilities, pay, and holding a no-confidence vote.

READ MORE: ‘Authoritarianism’: Florida Says Its Public Schools Exist to ‘Convey Government’s Message’

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‘He Can Warp Time or Something’: Morning Joe Mocks GOP’s Biden Impeachment Probe After Latest Flop

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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski needled House Republicans for overhyping their latest revelation in the impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden.

House Oversight chairman James Comer (R-KY) obtained bank records showing Hunter Biden’s law firm had made monthly payments to his father in late 2018, but those three checks were reimbursement for a pickup truck the elder Biden had purchased and allowed him to use.

“What kind of car was it?” Scarborough asked. “It could have been a hot rod Lincoln. I don’t know, do you ride around in it in Tennessee, go through the Smoky Mountains? More smoking guns.”

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel also on Monday accused Biden of suppressing media coverage of his son’s laptop ahead of the 2020 presidential election, which would have been before he was president, and the “Morning Joe” co-hosts called out the bad-faith coverage by conservative media of her outlandish allegations.

“Obsessed,” Brzezinski said.

“The fact that Joe Biden was so corrupt, so evil, so powerful that he could suppress this information, his White House could suppress this information, even when he was not in the White House,” Scarborough said sarcastically. “It means he has, like, some X-Men/Avengers, I think it’s more X-Men. He has these X-Men powers where he can warp time or something. Maybe it is more, like, an Avengers multiverse thing – he’s not really present, but he is. I don’t think Ronna knows that. I’m wondering why she said the Biden White House did it when Biden wasn’t in the White House, and nobody corrected her.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

 

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