Auburn85

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/03/22/chick-fil-ban-texas-council-bars-chain-airport-lgbtq-past/3247437002/ "Chick-fil-A has been banned from opening up a new location at the San Antonio International Airport. On Thursday, the San Antonio City Council approved a seven-year concessions agreement for new restaurants and businesses in Terminal A of the Texas airport with Paradies Lagardère, a travel retailer and restaurateur that works with more than 100 airports. Chick-fil-A was initially in the plans, but council members amended the plans to exclude the chicken restaurant, with some citing concerns with its record on LGBTQ issues. The amendment was approved by a 6-4 vote. Councilman Roberto Treviño said in a statement after the vote that, with the decision, the council "reaffirmed the work our city has done to become a champion of equality and inclusion." "San Antonio is a city full of compassion, and we do not have room in our public facilities for a business with a legacy of anti-LGBTQ behavior," Treviño said in the statement. “Everyone has a place here, and everyone should feel welcome when they walk through our airport.” Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A said in a statement to USA TODAY that "the press release issued by the councilmember was the first we heard of his motion and its approval by the San Antonio City Council."  "We wish we had the opportunity to clarify misperceptions about our company prior to the vote. We agree with the councilmember that everyone should feel welcome at Chick-fil-A," the company said in the statement. "In fact, we have welcomed everyone in San Antonio into our 32 local stores for more than 40 years." In its statement, Chick-fil-A said it "would welcome the opportunity to have a thoughtful dialogue with the city council and we invite all of them into our local stores to interact with the more than 2,000 team members who are serving the people of San Antonio." The council's decision came a day after ThinkProgress reported that the Chick-fil-A Foundation donated $1.8 million to groups that discriminate against the LGBTQ community in 2017, including the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. " The thing is, this is nothing new. Here's a thread from 2017: A thread from 2012:

Trump got in his hot tub time machine and is at fault for the recent findings of past blackface

Susan Rice will be on all the Sunday morning talk shows to tell us how Hasson served with honor and distinction.

Don Lemon: "I'm not an advocate or an activist. I'm a journalist."

a lot of potential "workplace violence" was prevented

Needs to be some kind of written standard to go by. That way there can be some consistency of whats acceptable and what's not. Megyn Kelly was let go for talking about Blackface not actually wearing it. And apparently, 'dark makeup' is going to be a term to describe 'blackface' https://www.mediaite.com/online/ny-times-changes-dark-makeup-headline-on-virginia-ag-blackface-scandal-after-criticism/

Needs to be some kind of standard written down on what's acceptable and what's not. Journalist Don Lemon went after comedian Kevin Hart https://www.mediaite.com/tv/don-lemon-makes-emotional-plea-for-kevin-hart-to-do-the-right-thing-its-life-or-death/ Don Lemon Makes Emotional Plea for Kevin Hart to ‘Do the Right Thing’: ‘It’s Life or Death’ Journalist Don Lemon has not said anything about Bill Maher's comment about Rep. Hurd

Amazing how he could: declare his run for office, win election, get sworn in, serve as governor, and this not come out til now. The media was able to hunt down someone who posted a wraslin' GIF and threatened to out the person ,but they couldn't figure this governor out until now?

Jim Acosta would have gotten called for a block in the back if he was playing for Miss. State today.

https://www.mediaite.com/online/washington-post-reporter-apologizes-after-falsely-connecting-right-wing-anger-to-gabby-giffords-shooting/ A reporter for The Washington Posttook some heat Friday for peddling the unsubstantiated narrative that places blame on conservatives for the 2011 shooting of former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ). For years, folks in the media have suggested that the rise of the Tea Party and specifically Sarah Palinwere responsible for the assassination attempt of the Democratic congresswoman despite the fact that there was no evidence that proved there was a political motivation by the shooter. But that didn’t stop WaPocongressional reporter Paul Kanefrom echoing such rhetoric. Kane did offer up an apology for the tweet, although it’s worth noting he hasn’t deleted it, which has over 100 more retweets than his correction. Sorry. This tweet incorrectly suggested that the tea party was to blame for Giffords shooting. Police never determined a motive for her shooting. https://t.co/rrzwz4Hrp4 — Paul Kane (@pkcapitol) October 12, 2018

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coast-guard-removes-employee-from-florence-duty-over-alleged-white-supremacist-gesture/ "The U.S. Coast Guard says it removed one of its members from Florence duty after he made an alleged white power gesture in the background of a televised interview."

http://theweek.com/articles/795722/politicize-weather Hurricane Florence struck the Carolinas on Thursday, moving slowly inland. By Friday morning, it had brought a 10-foot storm surge and sever flooding to parts of North Carolina. Multiple people have needed to be rescued and power companies are reporting more than 150,000 outages due to strong winds topping 90 miles per hour. Yet for all of its destruction, it's just one of many terrible weather events that have caused humanitarian disasters in the United States over the past two years — most notably Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. It's time to realize one simple truth: Republicans are very largely to blame. Democrats should not hesitate to point this out. There are two main reasons why. First, natural disasters become humanitarian emergencies primarily due to poor preparation and response, either through incompetence or poverty. For instance, a 2010 earthquake in Haiti killed perhaps 100,000 people, while a much, much stronger one in Chile killed only 525 (mainly due to superior building construction). The United States is very rich, and should be able to handle anything short of the most severe disasters. But Republicans are not only apathetic and incompetent at governance in general, they are particularly terrible at emergency response. Democrats, for all their other faults, are generally pretty good at this. President Clinton appointed James Lee Witt to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who was widely hailed as turning the agency into a model of competence and efficiency. George W. Bush immediately destroyed that effectiveness with cronyism and corruption, appointing his oafish horse breeder pal Michael Brown (a man with zero disaster management experience) to run FEMA, who thengrotesquely botched the response to Hurricane Katrina. At least 1,245 people died as a result. President Obama successfully restored basic competence among the disaster agencies, and managed an Ebola outbreak and numerous hurricanes of his own without any massive death tolls. Now we have President Trump, who is almost certainly the most inept president of all time. His administration's handling of the preparation and response to Hurricane Maria was, as evidenced by Nidhi Prakash's on-the-ground reporting, astoundingly incompetent. It took a full 11 months to restore power, and many communities remained without reliable food or water access for much of that time. Things were so bad that death tolls had to be estimated via demographic sampling instead of direct counting. A Harvard study calculated excess deaths at around 4,600, while a more preciseGeorge Washington University study commissioned by the Puerto Rican government put the total at 2,975. As Mattathias Schwartz writes, the post-Maria death spree was a man-made disaster. But not only did Trump fail to take any responsibility whatsoever for the disaster, he now insists that the study was fabricated by Democrats to cast doubt on him. His fellow Republicans are, as usual, doing nothing whatsoever to hold Trump accountable in any way or even conduct an official inquiry into why so many Americans died after Maria — just like they are doing with his dozens of corruption scandals. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan bizarrely commented that "Casualties don’t make a person look bad, so I have no reason to dispute these numbers," and blamed the death toll on the power outage. Other Republicans just dodged the issue or offered the limpest of criticism: Twitter Ads info and privacy Meanwhile, Republican grandees like former President George W. Bush are doing their best to keep Republicans in control of Congress, where they can continue to collaborate with Trump. Their priorities are clear: Tax cuts for the rich and deregulation are worth the occasional deadly disaster. The second reason to blame Republicans is, of course, climate change. The strength and intensity of weather disasters is likely being intensified by global warming, while the flooding from hurricanes is certainly being worsened by sea level rise. A climate policy package to cut domestic emissions, massively strengthen American communities against weather disasters, and pursue international diplomacy to help coordinate emission cuts in other countries is unquestionably the number one policy priority for this country. Republicans categorically oppose all of this. The Republican Congress refuses to even consider a serious green investment package. The Trump administration pulled out of the Paris climate accords and has rolled back Obama's Clean Power Plan in favor of something that might actuallyincrease emissions (and will lead to thousands of pollution-caused deaths according to their own science). The Republican Party is effectively doing all it can to worsen climate-fueled weather disasters. It is also largely incapable of preparing for the ones that do happen or conducting rescue operations afterwards. If Americans want to survive the gathering clouds, Republicans must be held accountable.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coast-guard-member-flashes-white-power-hand-signal-tv-n909856 A member of a U.S. Coast Guard team responding to Tropical Storm Florence in South Carolina appeared to flash a white power hand gesture in the background as a captain was being interviewed Friday by MSNBC. The man has since been removed from the Florence response operations and the incident is under investigation, said Coast Guard Lt. J.B. Zorn. The decision from the federal agency came after heavy backlash online to the apparent gesture captured on "Live with Ali Velshi." "Whatever that symbol means, it doesn't reflect the Coast Guard and our core values," Zorn said. "It won't be tolerated." Coast Guard officials wouldn't identify the man and declined to discuss possible disciplinary action. He flashed the signal as Capt. John Reed, commander of Florence response efforts in Charleston, South Carolina, was explaining a new tactic as the storm changed direction. A man in a red shirt was seen casually displaying the 'OK' hand signal against the right side of his face as he sat at a table in the background. While the gesture appears innocuous and may have started as an online troll campaign, it has seemingly become a symbol used by alt-right supporters to "trigger" liberals with the implicit suggestion that white nationalist views have become more prominent. The Coast Guard has been at the forefront of rescue operations in the Carolinas, where at least five people have died since the storm reached the coastline Friday morning. "We’re not going to let one person detract from the good work the Coast Guard is doing in the region," Zorn said. "We're going to stay focused."

http://reason.com/blog/2018/09/12/clinton-pushes-fake-news-about-kavanaugh In recent weeks, prominent Democrats have cheered thebanning of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from social platforms and have floated proposals for regulating the dissemination of foreign ads and "fake news." At the same time, they have gleefully spread conspiracy theories and falsehoods about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The latest lunacy comes courtesy of none other than Hillary Clinton, who today tweeted out talking points popularized by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.)—talking points that mainstream and nonpartisan factcheckers have labeled false. Harris had shared a video clip in which Kavanaugh appears to refer to birth control pills as "abortion-inducing drugs." The video was edited to elide the part that makes it clear that Kavanaugh was not expressing his own views but was describing the position taken by the plaintiffs in a case he had ruled on. Harris—and now Clinton—used this as supposed evidence that Kavanaugh is a zealot who wants to ban birth control. Kavanaugh's own words on the issue not only include no such indication but also recognize a "compelling interest" in ensuring access to birth control. Kavanaugh has also written that while society should accomodate religious objections to participating in the provision of contraception, those religious beliefs could not be used to justify restricting the actions of others. "The Government may of course continue to require the religious organizations' insurers to provide contraceptive coverage to the religious organizations' employees, even if the religious organizations object," wrote Kavanaugh. "As Judge Flaum correctly explained, [federal religious freedom law] 'does not authorize religious organizations to dictate the independent actions of third-parties, even if the organization sincerely disagrees with them.'" Yet no amount of plain evidence can counter the "dog whistles" that Democrats think (or pretend to think) they're hearing. "Kavanaugh didn't use [the term "abortion-inducting drugs"] because he misunderstands the basic science of birth control," said Clinton—so far, so good. But rather than explain that Kavanaugh was using the language of the plaintiffs in the case he had specifically been asked about, Clinton claims he used the term "because it's a dog whistle to the extreme right," signalling that "legal abortion isn't the only fundamental reproductive right at grave risk if he is confirmed. Access to birth control is, too." From there, Clinton conjures an imminent world where doctors are criminalized for providing birth control pills. We saw the same mysticism on display at the start of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings last week, when his assistant's resting hand position and use of what appeared to be the "OK" symbol had prominent progressives seriously warning that Kavanaugh was beholden to white supremacists. (A 4chan prank from 2017 has turned the innocent hand gesture suspect.) Just yesterday, the progressive outlet Think Progress was outraged that the push to censor "fake news" on Facebook had netted their content—even though the headline of said content referenced Kavanaugh statements that do not exist. The headline claimed that Kavanaugh "said he would kill Roe v. Wade" but "almost no one noticed." No one noticed, of course, because he didn't actually say that, or anything like it. And no amount of reading into his comments on legal precedent can justify claiming someone said something when they did not. Depending on your perspective, all this may seem infuriating, amusing, or just like business as usual. But it's certainly bad for the reality-based dialogue, the "civility," and the transparency that Democrats claim to want, and that they slag Republicans for failing to uphold. If politics is turning into a toxic sludge of disinformation and paranoia, both major parties share the blame. There are enough concrete things in Kavanaugh's record to be wary of—and plenty of people in federal government gearing up to erode women's equality, consumer choice, and the rights and power of minorities—without invoking Margaret Atwood novels or the Illuminati. But conspiracy theories and propaganda seem to sell, and to bring in donations, better than mere facts can, so Democrats are choosing to wallow in this disgusting swamp right alongside their #MAGA counterparts.