Are One Million People Really Boycotting Target Over Its Trans-Inclusive Policy?
Petition Has Over One Million Signatures – Progressive News Site Disputes Anti-LGBT Hate Group’s Claim
The American Family Association on April 20 launched a petition asking people to boycott Target in response to the discount retail giant’s announcement it will allow transgender customers and employees to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity. Eight days later one million people had signed the petition. Today, 1.2 million have signed it. Or have they?Â
ThinkProgress‘ Zack Ford is doubtful.
“In reality,” Ford writes, the one million “number is unverifiable and almost certainly inaccurate. All that’s actually happening is that a hate group is getting a lot of free press.”
Noting that the American Family Association appears on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of certified active anti-gay hate groups, Ford points to “what AFA doesn’t list on its site: who signed the pledge. It’s completely anonymous. There is no way of tracking the validity of the number of signers.”
That’s fair. After all, the American Family Association’s petition is not managed by an independent third party, like Change.org or other petition sites. Ford writes, “the number does not represent an actual population of people. Such campaigns are frequently used by various advocacy organizations to build their email lists for future outreach efforts.”
That’s not only extremely true and accurate, it’s the business plan of the American Family Association’s more public division: One Million Moms. As NCRM has often reported, OMM exists as the low-budget email address collection arm of the American Family Association. They find an issue that they know their 85,000 Facebook followers will respond to and share on social media, then get people to sign a letter, and to do that they have to hand over their email address, which the AFA then adds to it huge database and uses to fundraise. It’s a great business model if you know what you’re doing, and the AFA certainly does.
“In fact,” Ford continues about the AFA’s Target petition, “ThinkProgress successfully ‘signed’ it three different times from the same web browser using the names ‘I disagree With this,’ ‘I really think this is stupid,’ and ‘This isn’t A real email.’ All that it required was using a different email address each time. As the last name suggests, it was also possible to sign the pledge using a gmail.com address that does not even exist. Thus, there’s nothing stopping anyone else from doing the same to inflate the numbers, or even for AFA to do so to generate further buzz.”
Many of these people who are pledging to boycott Target are likely the same ones who pledged to boycott Apple over its support of LGBT rights. And a good number of them are doing so from their iPhones and MacBooks. They’re the same people who use Facebook and Twitter every day – two companies that support full LGBT equality. They drive in cars made by major corporations that also support fill LGBT equality, purchase a myriad of products made by corporations that support full LGBT equality, but for a few moments they’ll feel great about their promise to boycott Target, which will do nothing at all to the 113-year old $74 billion retailer.
Are some people angry at Target for supporting transgender people? Sure. Have 1.2 million different people signed the pledge to boycott Target? Doubtful. Will everyone who did sign the pledge stick to it? Extremely doubtful. Does the petition do anything other than enrich the American Family Association’s coffers? Nope.
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Image by The New Civil Rights Movement
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Appearing late Saturday night on MSNBC after it was announced that President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had reached an agreement “in principle’ on a budget deal, former GOP strategist Rick Wilson claimed this could be the beginning of the end for McCathy’s speakership.
Sitting in on a panel with guest host Michael Steele, Wilson suggested that McCarthy’s decision to compromise with the president to avoid a default that would spin the economy into chaos will not go over well with far-right members of his House caucus who could make a motion to “vacate the chair” to express their displeasure.
Asked by host Steel about what comes next, Wilson stated it was a win for the White House which will not make conservatives happy.
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“Great night for Joe Biden, great night for the White House even though I think their messaging has been kind of tentative the past few weeks” the Lincoln Project founder began. “I think though we are now going to start the Kevin McCarthy death-clock. He has certainly got a very angry part of his caucus tonight who probably burning up his phone no matter how good it is for the country not to default.”
“It’s not going to please the chaos caucus in the GOP,” he added.
Watch below or at the link:
News
Debt Ceiling: McCarthy Faces ‘Lingering Anger’ and a Possible Revolt as Far-Right House Members Start Issuing Threats
As House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) continues to negotiate a deal to avoid a debt crisis, members of the far-right Freedom Caucus are growing furious with him over broken promises he made to them.
According to MSNBC political analyst Steve Benen, with a slim GOP majority in the House, McCarthy is walking a tightrope to get a budget deal passed and may need help from House Democrats if members of his caucus refuse to go along with him.
As Benen points out, in order to win the speakership McCarthy agreed to an easier path for a motion to “vacate the chair” which could end his tenure as Speaker. That could come into play if the Freedom Caucus stages a revolt.
“… as the negotiations approach an apparent finish line, the House Republicans’ most radical faction is learning that it isn’t likely to get everything its members demanded — and for the Freedom Caucus, that’s not going to work,” he wrote in his MSNBC column.
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Citing a Washington Times report that stated, “[Freedom Caucus members] want everything from the debt limit bill passed by the House last month plus several new concessions from the White House,” Benen suggested far-right House Republicans are now issuing veiled threats.
In an interview, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) stated, “I am going to have to go have some blunt conversations with my colleagues and the leadership team. I don’t like the direction they are headed.”
With Politico reporting, “The [House Freedom Caucus] was already unlikely to support a final bipartisan deal, but lingering anger with Kevin McCarthy could have lasting implications on his speakership,” Benen added, “If this is simply a matter of lingering ill-will from members who come to believe that GOP leaders ‘caved,’ the practical consequences might be limited. But let’s also not forget that McCarthy, while begging his own members for their support during his protracted fight for the speaker’s gavel, agreed to tweak the motion-to-vacate-the-chair rules, which at least in theory, would make it easier for angry House Republicans to try to oust McCarthy from his leadership position.”
Adding the caveat that he is not predicting an imminent McCarthy ouster he added, “But if the scope of the Freedom Caucus’ discontent reaches a fever pitch, a hypothetical deal clears thanks to significant Democratic support, don’t be surprised if we all start hearing the phrase ‘vacate the chair” a lot more frequently.”
Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial have notified the ex-president’s attorneys they have a recording of him and a witness. The notification comes in the form of an automatic discovery form, CBS News reports, which “describes the nature of the charges against a defendant and a broad overview of the evidence that prosecutors will present at Trump’s preliminary hearing or at trial.”
CBS reports prosecutors have handed the recording over to Trump’s legal team.
It’s not known who the witness is, nor are any details known publicly about what the conversation entails, or even if it is just audio or if it includes video.
READ MORE: ‘Likely to Be Indicted Soon’: Trump Might Face Seven Different Felonies, Government Watchdog Says
According to the article’s author, CBS News’ Graham Kates, via Twitter, prosecutors say they also have recordings between two witnesses, a recording between a witness and a third party, and various recordings saved on a witness’s cell phones.
Manhattan prosecutors disclosed to Trump a recording of him and a witness in his criminal case. pic.twitter.com/EIz3bvpEkj
— Graham Kates (@GrahamKates) May 26, 2023
Trump is facing 34 felony counts in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case related to his allegedly unlawful attempt to hide hush money payoffs to a well-known porn star by falsifying business records to protect his 2016 presidential campaign.
See the discovery form above or at this link.
Image via Shutterstock
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