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Tennessee Anti-Gay Law: Alcoa Only National Company To Say “No!”

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Alcoa can’t wait… to distance themselves from the part an Alcoa representative on the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce played in helping an awful anti-gay bill pass in that state.

In response to AmericaBlog initiated Netroots action, Alcoa has released a statement condemning the law and calling on Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee to veto it.

“Alcoa provides equal employment opportunity without discrimination and supports state and local legislation protecting the rights of all community members. We do not agree with the chamber on this issue and would ask that the governor veto the bill.”

Alcoa responded 100% to the ask of the petition action, ask the Governor to veto it. The text of the petition:

We demand that you issue an immediate statement withdrawing your support for HB 600/SB 632, and that you tell Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam to veto this bill.

So we can be very grateful to Alcoa for this unequivocal show of support and penance. Alcoa is a publicly traded corporation with nearly 60,000 employees and reported over $21B in revenues in 2010. They produce aluminum. Other companies that control board seats include FedEx, AT&T, Comcast, DuPont, Pfizer, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Caterpillar, KPMG,Whirlpool, Embraer and United HealthCare.Three others have responded to the petition action, although, less impressively.

The Netroots call to action has put corporate America swiftly on the run to distance their involvement in lobbying for Tennessee’s anti-gay bill, HB600/SB 632, which would strip away local LGBT non-discrimination protection, such as was recently enacted in Nashville, and prohibit it anywhere else in the state of Tennessee. Last week I wrote about the Equal Access to Intrastate Commerce Act. The state law purports to assert the State’s ultimate sovereignty to define anti-discrimination protection only at the state level and enforce uniformity. But, it is really a naked attempt to strip away local and city level ordinances that protect LGBT residents of Tennessee from discrimination. It has passed both houses and awaits the Governor’s signature.

The Tennessee Chamber of Commerce lobbied hard on behalf of the bill and as such, LGBT activists have called their board members and parent companies to do some explaining. Please tell us how stripping LGBT Americans from discrimination protection is good for business?

In just a few short days, this movement is already having a big impact. The petition has gained almost 10,000 signatures, it is here. It must be getting someone’s attention. No less than four of the 13 companies targeted have issued statements of response.

The other companies releasing statements are Nissan here, FedEx here and AT&T here. They are not nearly as forthright as Alcoa’s and contain a fair amount of spin.

The other statements seem more aimed at damage control than, you know, actually helping the LGBT citizens of Tennessee whose civil rights their companies representatives have thrown their weight behind stripping away.

None of the other three call on the Governor to Veto the bill.

FedEx’s statement says:

FedEx did not lobby for SB632/HB600 – it is our policy not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. While FedEx is a member of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce, we do not support every position proposed by the Chamber.

This is disingenuous, and bordering on a lie.In fact, FedEx is more than a member, they’re on the board of directors. Which would place them in the position to, ahem, direct the Chamber’s actions. As such they cannot so easily wash their hands of this and say, “We didn’t know what the Chamber was up to!”

Nissan’s statement says:

HB600/SB632 has become more closely associated with eroding civil liberties than fostering a strong business climate and this we do not support.

And AT&T says:

However, the bill has become implicated in efforts to erode the rights of the gay community, which we do not support.

Actually, that was the whole point of the bill, to erode a hard-fought victory in Nashville. And a little due diligence on the parts of these companies before endorsing would have made that quite clear to them.Nissan, AT&T and FedEx seem more concerned about the bill being “perceived” as an attack on gays than making any actual penance or reparations for their company’s role in helping it pass.

And it isn’t just a perception, this bill is very clearly an outright attack on LGBT Americans, designed specifically to strip them of protection from discrimination. It is a direct response to the LGBT community’s hard-fought victory in getting LGBT non-discrimination protection in Nashville, Tennessee. Stripping those discrimination protections away was the impetus and the purpose of the law. And a cursory research before these companies’ proxies endorsed and worked for it would made that very clear.

It was made quite clear by main bill backer Family Action Council’s support for the bill, from their web site:

How will new legislation in Nashville affect family values across Tennessee?

Yes, “family values” because anything that is good for the LGBT is a threat to families. That’s always a given isn’t it? If a McDonald’s manager can’t fire the fry cook for being gay, you’re going to have to let Elton John babysit your son.The primary backer of the bill was the Family Action Council, a group with a very clear Christian right agenda:

Our Mission: To equip Tennesseans and their public officials to effectively promote and defend a culture that values the traditional family, for the sake of the common good.Our Goals: Engaged Citizens … Godly Officials … Strong Families

If Nissan and AT&T are now genuinely surprised this bill became “associated” or “implicated” to be anti-gay, they just weren’t paying attention. And just look at this TV advertisement Family Action Council produced in support of HB600/SB632. You’d have to be blind to miss the anti-gay animus and hateful demagoguery they were inciting to sell this bill to the public:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7o2YGH8bacE%3Ffs%3D1%26hl%3Den_US

This is the most outrageously homophobic commercial I have ever had the misfortune of viewing. The message is simple: only passing HB600/SB632 can prevent your children from being molested in a public park by the gays. It’s also a tried and true tactic of these hate groups. The soundtrack of blood-curdling screams of the little ones was a particularly classy touch.One thing AT&T and Nissan might consider adding to their vetting process of deciding whether to endorse a piece of legislation, is seeing if it’s a pet project of known Hate Group, identified by The Southern Poverty Law Center. Among the groups sending out Action Alerts of support is The Family Research Council. Family Research Council has been named a Hate Group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, adding them to the ranks of the KKK and Neo-Nazis, and with good reason.

One quote that earned them that spot was in criticizing American Airlines for providing LGBT partner benefits a spokesman, “What are you going to develop next? A pedophilia market?” Equating homosexuality with pedophilia is a constant refrain for these groups, as we see by the advertisement above. There is no scientific basis to suggest gays and lesbians are more or less inclined to molest children than heterosexuals, but the keep banging that drum because it works.

In the future, any group considering endorsing legislation might do well to cross-reference if a Hate Group is also strongly endorsing it (like the Klan or neo-Nazis, who also make SPLC’s lists). If they are, the chances are pretty good it’s not going end up being a bill you’d want your name associated with. And you can save yourself the trouble of walking back your support by issuing statements like this one from Nissan:

However, HB600/SB632 has become more closely associated with eroding civil liberties than fostering a strong business climate and this we do not support.

Nissan, AT&T and FedEx still need to step it up and do as Alcoa has done: Call on the Governor to veto this bill. That is, if they are sincere in their support of LGBT Rights.

Right click to Enlarge.

Here is the original target list of companies, all are Board Members of the Chamber of Commerce, (not mere members as FedEx tried to say they were). Numbers are their Human Rights Campaign score on the Corporate Equality Index rating their gay-friendliness out of 100. Cross-outs indication companies that have tried to explain their company’s involvement thus far.

AT&T: 100
DuPont: 100
Pfizer: 100
KPMG: 100
Whirlpool: 100
Alcoa: 100
Comcast: 95
Blue Cross Blue Shield : 90
Caterpillar: 75
FedEx: 70
Nissan: 50

Interestingly, Pfizer’s Diversity and Inclusion page includes the following quote:

“Pfizer is committed to sustaining and expanding a culture of Diversity and Inclusion in everything we do.”

“Everything” Pfizer? Including having your representatives lobby for a bill that strips LGBTs in Tennessee of discrimination protection? How does that track?When we’re experiencing impact this substantial it means it’s time to double down. That a company the size of Alcoa, with major operations in the state of Tennessee, has called on the Governor to veto the bill is major news. I am optimistic we’ll be seeing this story get national media coverage in the coming days. That four targets have felt the need to respond will provide pressure for the others to explain their representative’s support for this awful and regressive piece of legislation, which the business community cannot have any reasonable explanation to have a stake in.

Please help us send a message to corporate America: “Keep your hands off of LGBT Americans’ Civil Rights.” Please sign the open letter calling on all of these companies to tell the governor to veto the bill. If you have already please, post it on on your Facebook wall, tweet it or email it to a few friends.

Lt Dan Choi helped out last week, tweeting the link and added a timely and humorous aside:

Photobucket

Yes, time is running out! The Governor may sign this bill this week. Thanks to everyone who signed yesterday. Keep up the pressure.

 

Scott Wooledge also writes at Daily Kos under the handle Clarknt67.
Read Scott’s previous post at The New Civil Rights Movement, “142 Gay Veterans Not Worth $2.1 Million To Obama Administration.”

.”

 

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Trump Team Eyes Emergency Plan to Offset Tariff ‘Financial Devastation’ for Farmers: NYT

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March 31, 2025

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President Donald Trump has dubbed April 2 “Liberation Day”—the date he’ll unveil his sweeping and controversial tariff package—but behind the scenes, White House officials are quietly admitting it could be anything but liberating for America’s farmers.

Trump’s tariffs are expected to cost Americans tens of billions of dollars annually, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The cost to farmers could be “financial devastation,” The New York Times reported on Monday. And since the White House is mulling a necessary bailout for the American agricultural industry, the ultimate cost of Trump’s tariffs could grow even more expensive.

The Trump administration “is weighing a new round of emergency aid to farmers, who are likely to be caught in the middle if America’s trading partners retaliate.”

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“The early discussions offer a tacit acknowledgment that Mr. Trump’s expansive tariffs could unleash financial devastation throughout the U.S. agricultural industry, a crucial voting base that the president similarly tried to safeguard during his 2018 trade war with China,” the Times reports.

The American taxpayer ended up paying farmers about $23 billion during the first Trump administration’s trade war with China. Trump’s new tariffs could push that number far higher, if he decides to protect the agriculture industry.

This quiet acknowledgement that Trump’s tariffs could be calamitous to farmers, likely requiring billions to offset their losses, would appear to destroy his claims that tariffs will enrich the government’s coffers. A top aide, Peter Navarro, has claimed, in what has been described as “Orwellian” remarks, that tariffs are a “tax cut.”

The Times explains that “an expensive federal bailout threatens to cut deeply into one of Mr. Trump’s signature reasons for pursuing protectionist policies in the first place: a desire to rake in ‘lots of money,’ as the president himself has said. Mr. Trump and his Republican allies say the new tariffs could help pay for their still-forming plan to expand and extend a set of expiring tax cuts, which could cost into the trillions of dollars.”

READ MORE: ‘Even the Rich Are Worried’: Experts Warn of ‘Scariest’ Signs Amid ‘Stagflation’ Fears

Trump’s tax cuts are expected to disproportionally benefit the rich, some say.

Meanwhile, critics are blasting the news.

“Farmers feed the world,” noted Wisconsin Democratic state Senator Brad Pfaff, a former acting agriculture secretary. “But Trump’s tariffs will hurt farmers and drive up consumer food costs. This is not sound economic policy.”

“Trump’s first government bailout for farmers cost way more than what DOGE has claimed to save,” writes HuffPost senior political reporter Igor Bobic. “Now we’re doing another liberation bailout.”

“He has barely launched his trade war that was gonna make us rich, and it’s already going to cost the taxpayers billions,” adds former Biden and Obama administration official Brian P. McKeon.

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‘We’re Gonna Boom’: Trump Mocks Wall Street’s Stagflation Predictions Despite Grim Data

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March 31, 2025

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President Donald Trump’s economic policies have already cost him the confidence of a majority of Americans. The stock markets and consumer confidence plunged last week—and the fall continued Monday morning, with markets hitting lows not seen since September. Economic experts are sounding the alarm, warning that inflation and joblessness are set to rise, and demand for goods and services is poised to drop dramatically. All this comes just days before Trump’s massive and deeply controversial tariffs package is scheduled to take effect.

Fears of stagflation are “rippling through Wall Street and Main Street,” Axios reported.

President Donald Trump, however, has decided to mock all this.

Aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening, the President was asked if he is worried about stagflation—an economy that has high inflation, high unemployment, and stagnant demand for goods and services. Trump brushed off the growing fears (see video below).

READ MORE: ‘Blatant Aggression’: JD Vance Slams Denmark to Promote Trump’s Greenland Takeover Bid

“I haven’t heard that term in years,” Trump claimed, despite having campaigned on the false claim of stagflation just last year.

“I don’t know anything about it,” the President continued, using an increasingly favorite phrase he is turning to repeatedly to escape criticism.

“This country is going to be more successful than it ever was,” he insisted, despite numerous economic indicators to the contrary. “It’s gonna boom. We’re gonna have Boomtown USA. We’re gonna boom.”

Many economists, and a majority of Americans, disagree.

Fifty-one percent of Americans now disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to a YouGov/Yahoo poll. Newsweek reports that number is even higher than during the height of COVID during the first Trump administration, when 49% disapproved of his handling of the economy.

A majority (52%) believe the nation is currently in a recession or heading toward one, while seven in ten Americans rate today’s economic climate as fair or poor.

Meanwhile, top economists warn it is about to get worse.

“I’m raising my odds that a recession will begin sometime this year to 40%, up from 15% at the start of the year,” wrote Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, on Sunday morning. “Last week’s economic data were disconcerting, including the slide in consumer confidence, punk consumer spending, and persistently high inflation.”

Zandi put the blame squarely on President Trump.

RELATED: ‘Even the Rich Are Worried’: Experts Warn of ‘Scariest’ Signs Amid ‘Stagflation’ Fears

“The intensifying trade war and DOGE cuts are behind all this and with last week’s announcement of big tariff increases on vehicle imports and the coming reciprocal tariffs, things are sure to get worse,” he added.

Zandi is looking for more information when the March jobs report drops Friday morning. Regardless of what that looks like, however, he said, “as long as the tariffs and DOGE cuts continue to mount, so too will the odds of recession.”

CNBC averaged forecasts for inflation and gross domestic product (GDP) from fourteen economists, the financial news network reported Monday morning.

“Policy uncertainty and new sweeping tariffs from the Trump administration are combining to create a stagflationary outlook for the U.S. economy in the latest CNBC Rapid Update,” CNBC reported, which “sees first quarter growth registering an anemic 0.3% compared with the 2.3% reported in the fourth quarter of 2024. It would be the weakest growth since 2022 as the economy emerged from the pandemic.”

That would be better than the forecast from the Atlanta Fed, which forecasted negative growth this year, at minus 2.8%, meaning the economy is expected to shrink.

As far as Trump claiming to not know what stagflation is, last year during the campaign he repeatedly claimed—falsely—that the economy was experiencing stagflation.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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‘Blatant Aggression’: JD Vance Slams Denmark to Promote Trump’s Greenland Takeover Bid

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3 days ago

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March 28, 2025

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Vice President JD Vance traveled to Greenland to promote President Donald Trump’s claim that America has to have the Danish territory—and that Greenlanders would be more secure under U.S. protection.

President Trump “has repeatedly suggested the U.S. should take over Greenland ‘one way or the another’ for national security purposes,” ABC News reported. On Friday in the Oval Office, Trump said: “We have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of: Do you think we can do without it? We can’t.”

During his visit to Greenland, Vance added, “We can’t just ignore the president’s desires.”

The original plan appeared to be a charm offensive: Second Lady Usha Vance would travel to Greenland with one of the couple’s sons to attend cultural events in a show of support to pave the way for the administration’s efforts to annex one of the world’s largest islands.

85% of Greenlanders oppose any form of U.S. takeover of Greenland, CNN has reported. But when the advance team could find not a single Greenlander to welcome Vance and her son, that mission was scrapped.

“Amid the lack of enthusiasm among Greenland residents about the Americans’ visit, JD Vance announced in a video on X that he would be joining his wife on the trip,” USA Today reported.

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“There was so much excitement around Usha’s visit to Greenland this Friday that I decided that I didn’t want her to have all that fun by herself, and so I’m going to join her,” Vance said, a remark that was “at odds” with reports stating that the “Americans’ charm offensive mission has failed.”

It was the first of several calculated claims the Vice President has unleashed about Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.

“The president has said clearly he doesn’t think that military force is going to be necessary,” Vance told reporters while speaking at Pituffik Space Base, a U.S. military base operating under NATO. “But he absolutely believes that Greenland is important part of the security, not just of the United States, but of the world, and of course, the people of Greenland, too.”

“It’s very simple. Greenland really matters for the security of the United States,” Vance continued. But he claimed that Greenland is “extremely vulnerable right now, and if the people of Greenland were willing to partner with the United States and I think that they ultimately will partner with the United States, we could make them much more secure, we could do a lot more protection, and I think they’d fare a lot better economically as well.”

The Vice President’s remarks were made on the same day the stock markets in the U.S. crashed, reports show inflation rising, experts are warning of “stagflation” and increasing unemployment all in anticipation of President Trump’s tariffs, more of which are set to be introduced next week.

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“This has to happen, and the reason it has to happen,” Vance threatened. “I hate to say it is because our friends in Denmark have not done their job in keeping this area safe. They they just haven’t done It . it it’s very simple for for all of our our friends in the American media who attack the administration for pointing out the obvious, what is the alternative to give up the North Atlantic, to give up the Arctic to China, to Russia, and other regimes that don’t have the best interest the American people at heart.”

“We have no other option, we need to take a significant position in Greenland to keep the people here safe, but to keep our own country safe too.”

Vance went on to say, “our friends in Denmark, I hate to say it, have not done their job in keeping this area safe.”

Dr. Jana Puglierin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), asked why the Vice President ignored NATO.

NATO solves all the concerns Vance listed. As the New York Times columnist David French explained: “We don’t have to own Greenland to protect our interests. Denmark is part of NATO. We’re bound to defend each other, and we have every ability to defend our interests without an absurd and unlawful annexation.”

“As China and Russia have taken greater and greater interest in Greenland, in this base, in the activities of the brave Americans right here,” Vance also said, “we know that too often our allies in Europe have not kept pace. They haven’t kept pace with military spending. And Denmark has not kept pace in devoting the resources necessary to keep this base, to keep our troops, and in my view to keep the people of Greenland safe from a lot of very aggressive incursions from Russia, from China and from other nations.”

CBS News’ Jim LaPorta, who has written extensively on the military, remarked: “82 years ago. That was the last ‘aggressive incursion’ by a military force in Greenland.”

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday warned that President Trump’s frequent rhetoric promoting a U.S. takeover of Greenland is not “just some eccentric talk of the new American administration.”

Veteran and veterans activist Paul Rieckhoff blasted Vance.

“Another ridiculous and nationally embarrassing statement, position and photo op,” Reikhoff wrote. “Vance is becoming more ridiculous and shameless by the day. He makes Dan Quayle look like a superstar. This charade is a perfectly terrible bookend to the week after Noem’s disgusting debacle. Dear Greenland (and world), please know that he does not speak for most Americans.”

“This is called blatant aggression,” warns economist and former Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Anders Åslund, responding to Vance’s claim that the U.S. has “no other option.”

“Hitler did the same before attacking Poland in 1939 & so did Putin before his full-scale attack on Ukraine in 2022,” Åslund said.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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