nba basketball

az voter suppress bill?

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NBA coach calls Renee Good shooting 'straight-up murder'

Right-wing media throw a fit over LeBron James sitting during the national anthem | Media Matters for America

mma 10 21

Amplifying vaccine skepticism and refusal

The Federalist has repeatedly provided a platform to individuals refusing to comply with vaccine mandates and amplified and encouraged vaccine skepticism:

AfterNBA players Kyrie Irving and Jonathan Isaac spoke publicly about their choice not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine despite the basketball’s league requirements, the Federalist heralded them as the “most cogent and principled defenders of liberty, common sense, and basic civic decency in America."

The Federalist published a round-up of various groups of people around the country “using the power of protest to send a message” against “draconian” vaccine mandates. The article also asserted workplace vaccine requirements were attacks on the working class as “companies were lording their firing power” over their workers.
George Mason University professor Todd Zywicki was profiled on the outlet after he spoke out against the university’s vaccine requirements for faculty and staff.The Federalist framed Zywicki’s case as a “blueprint” for others trying to circumvent “anti-science COVID-19 policies” as Zywicki received a medical exemption from the vaccine mandate after he argued that his natural immunity made vaccination unnecessary. Though antibodies from a previous infection can defend against reinfection, experts still recommend receiving the COVID-19 vaccine for prolonged protection across coronavirus variants.
The outlet featured country musician Travis Trittbecause of his efforts in “calling for freedom” against vaccine mandates. The article also highlighted Tritt urging others to speak out against vaccine mandates because such supposed “injustices” can be defeated only “with a unified front against them.”

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Texas House votes to remove state funding from sports teams that don't play national anthem at games

The Texas Tribune May 25, 2021

"Texas House votes to yank state funding from sports teams that don't play national anthem at games" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

The Texas House gave preliminary approval on Monday to the so-called“Star Spangled Banner Protection Act," a conservative-backed bill that would require any professional sports teams with contracts with the Texas state government to play the national anthem before the start of a game.

Senate Bill 4 was passed on a voice vote, with no changes by the House. It is expected to receive a record vote and final passage on Tuesday and head to Gov. Greg Abbott's desk.

House Republicans defeated several proposed amendments along partisan lines, signaling more division on the issue in the lower chamber than was seen in the Senate, which passed the bill last month with overwhelming bipartisan support and only two votes against it.

Athletes protesting the national anthem has become a divisive and partisan issue since NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling in 2016 to protest police brutality against Black Americans.

In February, Patrick named the bill one of his legislative priorities after Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, stopped playing the anthem before home games, which went largely unnoticed during the pandemic with no fans in the stands.

That decision quickly drew the ire of conservative lawmakers in the state.

“Sell the franchise & some Texas Patriots will buy it," Patrick said in a tweet at the time. “We ARE the land of free & the home of the brave."

In a public response to the outcry condemning his decision, Cuban expressed support for the anthem, but he said team executives “also loudly hear the voices of those who feel that the anthem does not represent them." The NBA later said all teams would play the anthem before games.

During Monday's debate on the House floor, opponents questioned the constitutionality of a law that they said ties funding to free speech by threatening negative action against sports teams that choose to express their opinions by declining to play the anthem.

“Once again, we're carrying legislation that is openly and aggressively unconstitutional," said state Rep. Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat who unsuccessfully tried to turn the bill into a resolution, allowing the House to take a stand in favor of the anthem without the force of law.

The bill's House sponsor, state Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, said the bill does not violate free speech because teams can still choose not to play the anthem and forgo the funding and business relationship with the state.

“It's very simple. If they do not want to play the national anthem, they don't take the tax dollars," Burrows said. “If we're going to go ahead and subsidize with hard-earned American dollars the sporting facilities and the teams in the different ways that I think is articulated in this bill, then this would apply."

Attempts by Democrats to require teams to play both the “Star-Spangled Banner" and “Lift Every Voice and Sing," or to choose between them, were shut down along partisan lines.

“Lift Every Voice and Sing" is commonly known as “the Black national anthem," said Rep. Jasmine Felicia Crockett, D-Dallas, who authored one of the amendments.

“I don't even understand why we would feel the need to force someone into singing any song," Crockett said. “But if we are going to force people to sing a song, we should at least be mindful of the people playing on these teams, the people that are actually in the stands supporting these teams."

Burrows opposed the amendments “with the deepest amount of respect to my friend and colleague" because he wanted to avoid any changes to the bill, which would slow its progress to the governor's desk during the final week of the legislative session.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/24/texas-house-national-anthem/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

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Chicago Tribune

President Donald Trump’s comments about sports have been among the most bombastic of his time in office.He called NFL players who kneel during the national anthem in protest of

trump funders 0ct? 2016

STATESMAN austin

no lnx

https://www.statesman.com/article**/2016**1017/NEWS/310179774

Texas money has played an important part in Donald Trump’s campaign for president. Texans provided nearly 35 percent of the contributions to Trump Victory in the second quarter of the year when the general election fundraising operation was just getting underway. For the third quarter, Texas accounted for just under 14 percent of all its contributions.

RELATED: Trump raises money in October swing through Texas

Texas donors also gave $7 million directly to Republican nominee through the end of August — more than any state, although less than half of what Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign raised in the Lone Star State.

While individual donors cannot give more than $2,700 to his campaign committee, they can give up to $449,400 to Trump Victory, a joint fund raising committee of the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, and a number of state Republican parties, not including Texas, which divide the proceeds.

Among the top Texas contributors to Trump Victory:

Houston Texans owners Bob McNair and his wife, Janice, were the biggest Texas contributors to the Trump Victory Committee this quarter, with each contributing $449,000. McNair originally made his fortune in cogeneration.

Julianna Holt of Corpus Christi, who with her husband, Peter, owns the San Antonio Spurs, made a third-quarter contribution of $249,400 bringing her to the maximum of $449,400. Peter Holt is CEO of HoltCat, the largest Caterpillar dealership in the United States and Julianna Holt is the Spurs CEO.

Daniel Andrew “Andy” Beal, chairman of Beal Bank in Dallas, made a $50,000 contribution this quarter that brought him to the $449,400 limit.

Shale oil billionaire George Bishop of The Woodlands was close behind with a contribution of $446,500.

Houston attorney Tony Buzbee, who hosted a Trump fundraiser at his River Oaks home in June, contributed $250,000.

Oil and gas money

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/betsy-devos-and-family-bankroll-florida-governor-candidate-desantis-a-school-voucher-enthusiast

Betsy DeVos and Family Bankroll Florida Governor Candidate DeSantis, a School Voucher Enthusiast

ByAdele M. Stan | October 24, 2018 5:54 pm

The third in our three-part series on the right-wing players around Ron DeSantis, the Republican candidate for governor of Florida.

When Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican candidate for governor, found himself in hot water—once again—over his beliefs about black people and America’s racial history, a handful of wealthy donors swooped in to try to rescue his campaign.Polls showed him in a dead heat against Democrat Andrew Gillum, who is African American.

Among the angels to alight in his coffers was the heiress Betsy DeVos, who currently leads the U.S. Department of Education, and whose family enriched a pro-DeSantis political action committee this month with hundreds of thousands of dollars. The DeVos family has long invested in the project of building a right-wing political infrastructure that is designed to elevate the policy prescriptions of white evangelical leaders, as has DeVos’ family of origin, the Princes. (Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, is DeVos’ brother. Her parents, Elsa and Edgar, helped found the Family Research Council, which is classified as an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.)

It’s not surprising that DeVos would want to rescue DeSantis. Take a look at the education agenda he has put forward and you’ll find a wish list of goodies for Religious Right leaders and other “small-government conservatives.” And even more than that, the specter of a progressive Democrat like Gillum leading education policy in a state as populous as Florida (20 million) could create a significant pocket of resistance to any federal policy imposed by DeVos.

While DeSantis may not be especially involved with the evangelical community, he knows on which side his bread is buttered. DeVos, champion of the privatization of education, and the Trump administration’s secretary of education, descends from Religious Right royalty. When Trump chose DeVos for that spot, it was because he knew on which side his base is buttered—the evangelical side.

Right-wing evangelicals and Catholics favor school voucher plans and supports for homeschoolers that siphon money away from public schools, as well as from the public-sector unions that represent teachers and other school personnel, all positions DeVos advances. The vouchers amount to tax dollars applied to tuition at private schools and those run by churches and other religious organizations. (For more on DeVos’ record as a school privatizer, see PFAW’s 2017 report, A New High Water Mark in Right Wing’s Long War on Public Education.)

In fact, on a visit to New York City last spring, the U.S. secretary of education seemed to go out of her way to insult public-school students and teachers by choosing two religious schools for a visit, but none of the city’s public schools. From a May 18 New York Times report:

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos toured two New York City schools on Tuesday and Wednesday, but the city’s public schools, with their 1.1 million students, were not among them.

Instead, Ms. DeVos visited two Orthodox Jewish schools, and offered her strongest comments to date in support of public funding for religious schools in a meeting with Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan and other Catholic dignitaries.

In addition to his pro-voucher position, DeSantis stood behind Amendment 8—a measure ultimately struck from the 2018 ballot by the Florida Supreme Court for being “misleading”—which would have yanked control of charter schools from local school boards and handed it to the state—through changes to the state constitution. Conservatives have found certain localities to be unwelcoming to charter schools.

The measure would also have imposed eight-year term limits on local school boards. Absent the ballot measure, DeSantis has folded those positions into his own education policy agenda.

The court’s actions stirred right-wing ire about the ideological balance of the state’s highest court. Governor Rick Scott, who is currently challenging incumbent U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson for his seat, had planned to replace three of the court’s justices just hours after he leaves office, but the court overruled his power-grab. Because of term limits on the state’s Supreme Court justices, three retirements will kick in automatically in January, leaving the next governor to determine the shape of the court.

SINCE WINNING the Florida GOP gubernatorial nomination, DeSantis’ attitudes towards African Americans have attracted scrutiny, beginning with comments he made at the outset of the general election campaign, when he urged Floridians to “not monkey this up” by electing Democratic opponent Andrew Gillum, who is black. Something of a steady trickle commenced, with DeSantis having to ditch a fundraiser, state Rep. Ralph Arza, who had used the “N” word in threatening voicemails to a colleague 12 years ago, and who has a reputation for using racial slurs. Next, the Washington Post published a report on DeSantis’ participation in the far-right conferences convened by David Horowitz, where he appeared on the same stage as the professionally offensive, white-nationalism-sympathizer Milo Yiannapoulos, and other far-right figures. Then, on October 8, the American Ledger blog published by the American Bridge super PAC unearthed a book he authored that made excuses for slavery in the U.S. The DeSantis campaign was losing momentum, virtually tied with Gillum in the polls.

Three days later, the candidate’s PAC, Friends of Ron DeSantis, received a total of $200,000 from four members of Betsy DeVos’ family, as well as infusions from others in the donor network created by the billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch.

Each of those donors no doubt has his or her own checklist of expectations and demands, but DeSantis’ school privatization agenda seems robust, hitting all of the key constituencies: the homeschoolers, the religious schools, the union-haters.

Some of the candidate’s education agenda, as posted on the Ron DeSantis for Governor website:

Support School Choice Options.To ensure that all Florida students can go to a good school and empower parents to make educational decisions for their children, Ron DeSantis will support school choice options such as public magnet schools, district & non-district managed public charter schools, Florida Virtual School, home education, and the various other choice options. DeSantis will also look at the possibility of creating Education Savings Accounts for more Florida students including those from low-income and working-class families.

[…]

Ensure Equal Access for Parents Who Home School Their Children.To support the families of the nearly 90,000 students in Florida that are home schooled, Ron DeSantis will ensure that these children have equal access to resources available to other students, such as dual enrollment and extracurricular activities. The decision on how a child should be educated is best left to their family, as no far-away bureaucrat could ever understand a child the way a parent does. For many Florida families, homeschooling provides the best opportunity to educate their children.

DeSantis also embraces a so-called “merit pay” scheme that seems designed to pit teacher against teacher, and teachers against non-teaching staff, by pledging to cut “wasteful” spending on the education “bureaucracy,” and funneling that “savings” into merit increases for selected teachers.

Like DeSantis, DeVos is a fan of charter schools, which also draw their funding from tax dollars, but exist outside the traditional public school system. In April 2017, DeVos visited the Excel Academy, a public charter school in Washington, D.C., describing it as a “shining example of a school meeting the needs of its students, parents and community.” By January 2018, the school had closed because of its poor performance.

Of course, there are reasons beyond DeSantis’ education agenda that make him an attractive repository for DeVos dollars. The family owns the Orlando Magic basketball team, a business, like any, that could always use a friend in the governor’s mansion.

Read more in our series on DeSantis and the right:

**Ron DeSantis’ Appearances at Horowitz Events: Even Worse the Closer You Look**

**Ron DeSantis Embraces Right-Wing Plan to Rewrite U.S. Constitution**

Tags: Andrew Gillum Betsy DeVos Edgar Prince Elsa Prince Erik Prince Ron DeSantis Election 2018 Amway Department of Education Family Research Council Southern Poverty Law Center