For all the Oreo Cookies out there – companies that support gay rights, if only because doing so is good for business – there are plenty of food companies that have not come around on progressive social issues. In fact, a number of food companies are owned by far right-wingers who’ve spent significant money opposing gay rights, abortion rights, and other important causes and funding attack ads against left-leaning politicians.
AlterNet
The companies in question include many popular chain restaurants that you may eat at occasionally, or even all the time. It’s wise to know where your dining dollars are going.
To that end, here are five food chains that are helmed by owners who support right-wing politics.
1. Chick-fil-A
It won’t be news to many readers that Chick-fil-A’s owner is deeply entrenched in conservative politics and social issues. The chain has been in the news many a time for its owner’s anti-gay attitudes, in particular.
The latest Chick-fil-A hubbub has been especially high-profile. Chain president Dan Cathy, who is the son of Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy, said in a recent interview with the Baptist Press that “as an organization we can operate on biblical principles.” Asked about the company’s support of the “traditional family,” Cathy answered, “Well, guilty as charged….We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit….We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.”
Though Chick-fil-A’s attitudes were no secret, this was a bold statement. Unsurprisingly, a strong backlash led by gay rights supporters has ensued. (Meanwhile, the anti-gay side has been vocal in its support of the company.)
In response to the controversy, the company didn’t apologize, but it did spotlight its employee nondiscrimination policy and said that from now on it will “leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”
2. Carl’s Jr.
Carl’s Jr. founder Carl Karcher, who died in 2008, had been a supporter of anti-abortion causes for decades. In particular, Karcher was fond of funding the anti-choice group Operation Rescue. He also had a mean anti-gay streak as well. From the AP story that followed his death:
He was reviled by abortion rights activists for his contributions to anti-abortion groups and his oft-repeated story about talking a Carl’s Jr. employee out of an abortion. Gay rights groups dubbed his hamburgers “bigot burgers” after Karcher supported a 1978 proposition that would have allowed school boards to fire teachers who were gay or advocated homosexuality.
3. Domino’s Pizza
Like Karcher, Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan is an unapologetic supporter of anti-choice groups, including Operation Rescue, Right to Life, Priests for Life, and the Committee to End State-Funded Abortion in Michigan. (Domino’s itself has noted that it does not, as a company, support “either side of the reproductive rights issue.”)
Monaghan is a devout Catholic who also founded Ave Maria University. It’s said that he was inspired by a visit to the Vatican in the 1980s to found the Ave Maria List, an anti-choice PAC.
4. White Castle
White Castle joins Carl’s Jr. on the list of beloved burger joints with right-wing ties. According to a recent ThinkProgress report about companies that have helped bankroll right-wing attack ads, White Castle has given $25,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC, a group linked to House Speaker John Boehner that is supporting conservative candidates in the November election.
5. Waffle House
Waffle House (or Awful House as I used to call it growing up) is also mentioned in the ThinkProgress report. The breakfast joint has given $100,000 this election cycle to the Karl Rove super PAC American Crossroads. Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy reported on the donation:
This is surprising because one doesn’t normally associate Big Waffle with big scary super-PACs, but also not that surprising: CEO Jim Rogers Jr. is a longtime supporter of Republican causes, and the company’s political action committee has given exclusively to Republicans (in considerably more modest quantities). His ties to Romney date back to 2006, when he joined the finance team of Romney’s political action committee, Commonwealth PAC.
So there you have it. The next time you go out to eat at one of the above restaurants, know that your burger and waffle dollars might eventually end up funding anti-gay, anti-choice or other conservative causes.
Lauren Kelley is the activism and gender editor at AlterNet and a freelance journalist based in New York City. Her work has appeared in Salon, Time Out New York, the L Magazine, and other publications. Follow her on Twitter.
#3
I used to support 'gay rights' - no longer. The Fag Fascists (note the alliterative!) showed their true colors when they got Brendan Eich tossed from Mozilla.
#4
/sarc/
I can't eat at any of those places because my flowing tears of sadness that someone, somewhere is being treated unfairly will only cause a soggy mess on my plate!
/sarc off/
#16
Not sure how Escherichia is pronounced in Massachusetts.
"E. Coli"
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/09/2016 14:44 Comments ||
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#17
I always thought you go to a restaurant to have a good meal, not sex. I don't care about the political or otherwise affiliation of the owner. And he doesn't care about mine.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
03/09/2016 15:43 Comments ||
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#18
I always thought sex was after 'Dinner and a Movie'.
But then I'm old fashioned... (or else was just missing out...)
[GatewayPundit] Remember everyone -- Mark Zuckerburg (BlackLivesMatter honk), Larry "Don't Be Evil Unless It's For a Good Cause" Page and Tim Cook are "true conservatives".
Just ask Paul "Unity Candidate From a Brokered Convention"Ryan!
If the article is correct, there was even a Demcong from Maryland in attendance, but apparently not Marlo Stanfield.
So don't forget -- true conservatives!
Now be a good little Republican and keep trying to kick that football, Charlie Brown. As if we needed any additional evidence these bastids do NOT represent the wishes and interests of the American people, but rather their own.
#2
Disney and Zuckerburg couldn't care less about illegals, they want those H-1B visas to hire cheap tech labor, who will be trained by the redundant US citizens.
#3
Methinks they are worried about the supply of cheap illegal labor without benefits or job security after St. Donald the Trump is elected.
Yep! The younger and more plentiful the workforce [illegal or otherwise], the more affordable the workforce. The more affordable the workforce, the greater the margins. It's nothing personal, it's just business.
When you hear pols spouting off about raising the minimum wage, what they're actually referring to is arriving everyone at the desired 'mean' wage.
Creating an environment of low paying, multiple part-time jobs, benefits both business and gov't by reducing or eliminating benefits packages and providing multiple income streams for income tax, Social Security, and Medicare from the same single future recipient. Labor costs are kept down, benefits liability is minimized, and ponzi tax scheme contributions are multiplied.
#6
This list in the comments:
House Speaker Paul Ryan
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
Senator Ben Sasse (R-Neb.)
Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)
Senator Cory Gardner (R-Colo.)
Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.)
Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio)
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) - Energy and Commerce Committee Chair
Tom Price (R-Ga.) - Budget Committee Chairman
Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) - Financial Services Committee Chairman
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.)
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas)
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)
Rep. John Delaney (D-Maryland)
Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.)
---
Karl Rove
Bill Kristol
The New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger
Google co-founder Larry Page
Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker
Apple CEO Tim Cook
Tesla Motors and SpaceX' leader Elon Musk
Billionaire Phillip Anschutz
If they wanted to stop Trump, they should have backed Ted Cruz.
What the Cluck, Tim Scott?
Do things the Correct way or lose it all.
This is not a game, and it is not for any of these idiots to place themselves on a mission to disenfranchise Americans of their vote - even if it is not a Constitutional right.
#10
Yep!The younger and more plentiful the workforce [illegal or otherwise], the more affordable the workforce. The more affordable the workforce, the greater the margins. It's nothing personal, it's just business.
And to hell with what happens 10 years down the road?
#13
The pubs are not the only ones who don't want to see a Trump presidency.
If the investigation were going any slower, they'd have to drive stakes to see it move. The closer the investigation and indictment gets to November with the Beest still in the race, the greater the likelihood of a delayed election and a temporary setting aside of the 22nd Amendment. There is currently only one job inside the beltway with a term limit.
Not much in the news about the Champ lately, election and all. No news about a Obama Library or retirement residence. Not unlike the Champ, the Hildebeest is harvesting the black vote as anticipated. If she is out of the race, where does the black endorsement and vote go? It certainly won't shift to the Bern. The entitlement class must have a candidate or representative, otherwise it would be... well you know.
And then there is the Champ regime, Valjar, Brennan, Kerry and the rest. Are we to believe they're all just preparing to decamp and slip quietly away into the night? Any new job announcements or resignations lately? Lynch appears to have been offered a Supreme Court nomination which she declines, due to 'more pressing issues.' Does she think she'll be retained under a Trump presidency, or is she sticking around as DoJ insurance for the Beest and the regime? Perhaps they're all simply resting up for their third round.
Ok, so call me paranoid, but is Clinton going to take office with all of this hanging over her doorstep? You can bet there is a coordinated 'beltway party' plan, we're just not privy to it quite yet. The only thing I'm sure of at this point is that I don't trust any of these 'beltway party' bastids.
Only slightly off topic but lastly from the rear view mirror, were presidential candidates McCain and Romney little more than political theater ?
#14
Had the elites spent a whole lot more time doing the business of the people instead of plotting skullduggery behind closed doors, they would not have to worry about Trump taking the nomination.
Isn't wonderful when they make the list themselves. It saves the hassle later trying to compile such things when the (usual and historical) dirty work has to be done.
#16
Oh, I'd take the beat to Vegas that #11 is a possibility* in their desperation. Unfortunately for them it may well result in a explosion which is likely to consume them. Welcome to the Terror Part Deux.
#18
I look for Trump to take Florida, Ohio and NY and probably a few other states as well. Are the elites still going to be wringing their hands behind closed doors or are they going to unify the party behind Trump?
#21
These are the same GOP elites whose leadership has left this country in a shambles. The more they try to stop Trump the more determined I am to vote for him. Their only viable option at this point is Hildebeest and they're willing to let her have it. Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all.
#22
Nobody to blame but themselves. The election of Rubio over Crist, Cruz over Dewhearst and Dave Brat kicking Canto to the curb should have been quite clear. They even had a chance before Trump got rolling to get Rubio out of the way and let Cruz go one-on-one where he beats Trump head to head without Rubio and Kasich there.
But now the GOPe has to kiss someone ass, either Cruz (who destroys them with small government and constitutionalism causing KStreet to get kicked to the curb), or Trump (who gets Hillary elected). Both of whom they hate.
Nobody to blame but themselves. Listenintg to Rove and McConnell is the biggest mistake the GOP made, and the part will go the way of the whigs because of it.GOP
#25
The 'stabs don't get it; the more they attack Trump the more popular he becomes.
The 'stabs are unpopular because they are not listening to We the people. They need to figure out why they have angered the people; and they need to do it now. If they can't/won't then they deserve the dust bins of history that they are destined for.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
03/09/2016 15:59 Comments ||
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#26
"Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows."
They are stupid. They adopted a simplistic ideology because they are stupid. And they adhere to it religiously, because otherwise they'll have to admit to themselves that they are nothing but a bunch of stupid crooks---as shown by the decline of USA under their management.
#34
Hillary beating Trump? Only just about every head to head poll has him losing to her since he entered the race. Highest negatives of any candidate. And that's BEFORE the press gets started tarring and feathering him with his own words and misdeeds.
You Trumbots are as bad as Obamabots were 8 years go - you're painting what you want to see instead of seeing the truth of the man you tout, deliberately blinding yourselves like the Obama Lightbringer people did. Talking to Trumpbots now is like talking to Obamabots then. Thats why people are being so harsh on the Trumpanzees, we've seen this cult of personality and stupidity before.
Posted by: Albemarle Dark Lord of the Weak8242 ||
03/09/2016 22:38 Comments ||
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#35
"You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can imagine".
Who on the Trunk side could take this event, as the Donks and the Obama administration did with Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, and hammer on it to the general electorate? Take a play out of the Donk's own play book and use it against them. Only one can possibly get the air time regardless of all the obstruction of the Donk controlled media. They can't help themselves as they will desperately attempt to plaster him as racist in doing so.
Link goes to a Fox News story about an illegal who murdered four Americans in two states before being caught in a massive manhunt.
...Rubio resembles nobody in our current political life as much as Barack Obama, another freshman senator who took almost no interest in the Senate and instead spent much of his one and only term planning a run for the presidency; so did Hillary Clinton, although she got sidetracked into the State Department when she lost to Obama in 2008. My People suffered more than your People?
#1
That's a pretty thin basis for lumping those two together. Fact is that Rubio did a pretty good job in the Senate. The Gang of Eight was a huge blunder, and enough to disqualify him from further public office, but otherwise he was a solid pick. Also keep in mind that he beat Charlie Crist in the primary - that alone should justify our thanks.
#3
Obama significantly lower the bar for presidential qualification and exposed the establishment problem. If you have an actual voting record you will be unqualified to be president.
Maybe it's because I'm a latecomer to Republicanism, having first pulled the R lever in 2003 for Arnold Schwarzenegger in the California recall election, but I'm confused. I thought one of the first duties, if not the first duty, of a political party was to win. If you don't win, everything else, every policy, every theory, every idea, is air.
That was until I joined the GOP. I had read about the Spanish Inquisition and the Black Death, but now I know what real bloodletting is about. The attacks on Donald Trump by his fellow Republicans have been, to put it bluntly, waaaay out of proportion. If -- as Trump himself said in his press conference Tuesday after winning handily in Mississippi and Michigan -- Mitt Romney had attacked Obama with half the vitriol he has attacked Donald Trump with, Romney would be president today.
And then there's the conservative punditocracy, so many of whom seem to be suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome -- or perhaps it's Trump Envy (for which I wouldn't blame them).
But I ask -- as someone who would gladly vote for any Republican candidate still running and probably any of the thirteen who dropped out -- what exactly do they find so terrible about Donald Trump? Yes, Lord knows, he can be embarrassing I remember when the whole world was making fun of Americans for electing a movie actor as their president
(though I suspect we will be seeing less of that) and maybe he isn't the most conservative of conservatives (wasn't John Roberts supposed to be that?), but he is clearly one of the more politically shrewd candidates to come along in a while -- and not just for a non-politician. Just the way he is turning post-primary victory speeches into quasi-press conferences, monopolizing the media, reinvents the game. And he is expanding the Republican vote. GOP been chasing "Black" and "Hispanic" vote for decades---I doubt, they even remember that there are white bluecollars
What most surprises me, however, is the approach taken to Trump by his enemies, those known under the rubric #NeverTrump and those better heeled who have blown millions on nauseating and evidently useless attack ads painting Donald as Mussolini with a bad haircut. People who had it their own way for very long, are often surprised when balked. It's not Trump, it's everybody whom he attracts: people who played by the old rules, instead of exploiting the new rules.
#1
Republicans are true to form. They eat their own. Media and establishment especially. They would rather lose and vote for Hillary to keep their system intact. Like England, no way. They have several parties to chose from but the oligarchy rules as it does here.
#2
Neil Bush - Mister Silverado criminal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Bush
just joined the Cruz campaign.
Why this man is permitted to go on TV and lobby for anybody after being convicted of the Silverado crime that cost the US taxpayers 1.3 billion dollars to bail out that bank alone... on TV without repaying the taxpayers 1.3 billion - is a crime in and by itself.
#3
...see, they're all dirty one way or another. That's what the Donks figured out a long time ago, principle was something you tied up your opponent with while you pursued power. Without power, principles only get you a side mention in your obituaries.
from wikipedia: "Niel Bush in 2011 incorporated an accounting firm called LehmanBush with veteran China lawyer Edward Lehman. LEHMAN BUSH is a full service investment, strategic planning, advisory organization established and existing under the laws, policies and regulations of the People's Republic of Chinawhich creates value to clients by identifying, evaluating, and executing investment and advisory services in China. Clients are varied and diverse; international and Chinese organizations, high net worth individuals and private investors who wish to seek to expand their market positions and financial returns through carefully vetted investment programs in China and around the world.
[DAWN] EVENTS over the past week have laid bare the predicament of a divided nation. While the execution of Mumtaz Qadri signifies the assertion of state authority, the glorification of a convicted murderer exposes the ugly face of religious extremism that is so deeply rooted in our society. The turnout of tens of thousands of mourners at Qadri’s funeral may be a testimony to the growing fanaticism here, but it does not fully define the country’s other realities.
Notwithstanding the liberal argument against capital punishment, the execution symbolises a unity of the state institutions in the face of an existentialist challenge. First, it was the landmark Supreme Court ruling that broke the state of fear and gave courage to the executive to implement the verdict. The apex court not only upheld the death sentence of a self-professed murderer, it also rejected the notion that demanding a change in the blasphemy law was itself an act of blasphemy.
Surely that would have been a routine verdict, but not in the prevailing environment where the judge of an anti-terrorism court had to flee the country after awarding the death sentence to Qadri. Such was the fear that only a handful of people dared to attend the funeral of the slain governor of the country’s most powerful province. The state seemed to have virtually vanished, as a murderer was turned into a cult figure encouraging others of his ilk to kill in the name of faith. The apex court verdict was an attempt to restore the supremacy of the law.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
IMO, one of the biggest illusions Pakistanis have is that Pakistan is a state.
[JudicialWatch] (Washington, DC) -- Judicial Watch announced today that it obtained documents from the United States Department of the Army revealing that in April 2015, 400 soldiers in the 67th Signal Battalion at Fort Gordon, Georgia, were subjected to a "white privilege" briefing, including a PowerPoint presentation instructing the attendees: "Our society attaches privilege to being white and male and heterosexual ..."
#1
Oh, that white male privilege. "Our society attaches privilege to being white and male and heterosexual" cause maybe 1) it's democracy* (and make sure you teach them to regret sharing power) and 2) they've paid the price for it in numbers you choose to ignore.
* government in the interest of the majority rather than various groups of special/self interests minorities through out history.
#4
What we have here, is the transformation of the Army into an all volunteer force whose core belief is a virulent racial ideology into which its members are thoroughly indoctrinated. In WWII, we saw such a force in the Waffen SS
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/09/2016 14:12 Comments ||
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And: From 2012 to present, LTC Benning was selected to serve as the Signal Corps Active Component Major’s Assignment Officer at the Human Resources Command, Fort Knox, KY.
#7
"I suppose these guys are smart/experienced enough to ignore this kinda shit."
We did under Clinton, but this is like Clinton times Four.
Morale has to suck with this bullshit day in and out.
They cannot concentrate on Arming Navy SEAL's properly because there is so much idiot distraction in the DOD.
Every day Obama is CINC is a personal insult to me.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[GatewayPundit] Remember everyone -- Mark Zuckerburg (BlackLivesMatter honk), Larry "Don't Be Evil Unless It's For a Good Cause" Page and Tim Cook are "true conservatives".
