Politics Random, Random

[JazzNU]

Corporate America faces reckoning on cost of silence, pauses political donations


By Martha C. White, Stephanie Ruhle and Charlie Herman


Corporate America knows money talks — and in the aftermath of last week’s Capitol Hill riot, business leaders are pledging to pay more attention to what it says.

Companies traditionally have sought to position themselves above the fray when it comes to divisive political and cultural conversations, but a widening chasm of polarization and an escalation of attacks not only on opposing political viewpoints but on the functions of democracy itself have raised alarms in corner offices.

“Conventional wisdom historically has been for brands and companies to stay out of politics at least as it relates to their public relations and marketing messaging, but over the past few years, we’ve really seen a shift,” said Lee Newman, CEO of MullenLowe U.S., part of public relations giant Interpublic Group of Companies. “Corporate America is starting to understand that silence is complicity,” he said.

A growing segment of corporate America’s biggest names have denounced last week’s storming of the Capitol by devotees of President Donald Trump seeking to overturn the election of Joe Biden as president, with many saying they will halt or suspend political donations.

The approaches taken by these companies vary, and experts in corporate reputation management said there are likely different motivations at play.

“Our clients go across the political spectrum and vary in their willingness to engage in conversations that have the potential to be polarizing,” Newman said. “Some of them are driven by the desire to show people their values and where they stand… others are somewhat operating out of fear to ensure that they’re saying the right thing and that they’re on the right side of history here.”

Companies including Dow Chemical, Marriott International, American Express, Blue Cross, Airbnb, Mastercard and Commerce Bank said they will not donate to lawmakers involved in the push to deny Biden the presidency.

”Dow is immediately suspending all corporate and employee political action committee (PAC) contributions to any member of Congress who voted to object to the certification of the presidential election,” Dow said in a statement, adding that the company “is committed to the principles of democracy and the peaceful transfer of power.”

Marriott said in a statement it “will be pausing political giving from our Political Action Committee to those who voted against certification of the election.”

“We have suspended all support for officials who have impeded the peaceful transfer of power,” Commerce Bank said in its statement.

Hallmark, which contributes to politicians via a PAC called HALLPAC, went a step further, saying in a statement, “The recent actions of Senators Josh Hawley and Roger Marshall do not reflect our company’s values. As a result, HALLPAC requested Sens. Hawley and Marshall to return all HALLPAC campaign contributions.”

Argenti also had a warning for companies, saying customers and employees alike are quick to pick up on messages that seem motivated by political expediency rather than principles. “If you decide suddenly to get involved in this fray, you better be in it to win it,” he said, adding that “woke-washing” could backfire. “People are very very attuned to these things right now.”

Many of the country’s biggest companies across industry sectors, from Ford Motor Co. to Airbnb to Boston Scientific, announced suspensions of all PAC donations. The list of companies pledging change, which grew throughout the day, included financial services companies JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and tech behemoths Microsoft, Facebook and Google. A host of other large firms, including Delta Air Lines, Wells Fargo, Walmart and Bank of America, said they would take the unprecedented events of last week into account when considering future political donations.

Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns NBC News, said Monday it would be suspending contributions "to those elected officials who voted against certification of the electoral college votes."

“The peaceful transition of power is a foundation of America’s democracy. This year, that transition will take place among some of the most challenging conditions in modern history and against the backdrop of the appalling violence we witnessed at the U.S. Capitol last week. At this crucial time, our focus needs to be on working together for the good of the entire nation,” the company said in a statement.

The broader bans on donations to both parties angered Democratic lawmakers, with some arguing that it created a sense of false equivalency.

“This is not a time to say both sides did it. What the hell did the Democrats do this week except stand up for the Constitution and the rule of law?” said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., lambasting corporate leaders for “playing footsie” with the Trump administration in an MSNBC interview Monday.

“I think most CEOs wish they could specifically target the bad players in the Republican party… however, some of them feel constrained because of their boards, shareholder reprisals or [want] to think through the issue more carefully,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, associate dean at the Yale School of Management and CEO of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. “They want to act quickly, but don't want to develop a permanent policy in a reactionary way.”

Reputation management experts cited a leadership vacuum forcing business leaders to defend behavioral and political norms that have been eroded or outright destroyed over the last four years. “Many really feel a civic duty and, in a lot of cases, they feel a certain void in standards that have been set by the very top of our government,” Newman said. “That's where the greater sense of urgency comes in."

In recent years, more companies have been willing to be outspoken on topics such as LGBTQ rights and climate change, and last summer’s widespread protests for racial justice prompted soul-searching among corporate chieftains regarding their own contributions to combatting systemic racism and its legacy of inequality in everything from wealth-building to healthcare to educational and professional opportunity.

“Given that government has become weaker, corporations have to play a more important role, given both their financial influence and their influence in society,” Argenti said.

Of course, corporate America is still looking out for itself, as well. There are always the optics of public relations to consider, and firms in highly competitive sectors like technology rely on their reputations for employee recruitment and retention.

“Most of these companies are desperate to appear to be on the right side of the culture wars,” said John Weber, president of Impromptu Strategies reputation management company. “I’m not sure it's an inflection point, per se, but I think it’s going to accelerate their need and desire to position themselves as being in opposition to the Trump forces.”

Meanwhile, outspoken pro-Trump CEOs have backed themselves into a corner, he added. “I think it’s a huge setback for those corporations and corporate leaders who openly aligned themselves with President Trump, because whatever good the president did for business now seems to have come at an unacceptable cost, and that cost is anarchy in the streets of Washington,” Weber said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/busine ... s-n1253813

[JazzNU]

Given the full text message being shared that he sent, the officer clearly gave permission to use his full name. If he's okay with it, I'm okay with it even if I don't think it's the safest thing.

And now he realizes the problems with his name being used and the threat it poses to himself and his family and has asked the media to stop using his full name when showing the video or photos.

A damn shame. To a certain extent, I think there was a notion for him and others that it was safe to use their names, after all, this is the Blue Lives Matter crowd, why would they be in danger? But that's been exposed for what it really was about in the last week and it's clear they find police expendable.

[GlennHarman]

I don't remember which thread this was discussed in the old TAT, but I'll put it here. I apologize if this has already been brought back up in the last few days:

I saw a photo of Trump on the news last evening with a woman by his side. It was abundantly clear that we were meant to think she was Melania. But taking even a slightly up-close look at the face and it was clearly a fake Melania (again). The bone structure, both of the cheek bones and chin, was totally wrong.

Trump has done so many things that are so much worse than using a double for his wife that I know this barely merits mention. But this is one of the weirder things he has done that I can't understand on any level. Presidents travel without their wives all the time. So when she couldn't or wouldn't go along, I wonder why he felt compelled to use a fake. It's simply bizarre and without any reason.

On to impeachment...I'm hoping that this comes to a vote in both houses of Congress. He may not be convicted by the Senate, but I want every Senator to have to record his vote on this for posterity (and future elections). If this does not merit conviction, I'm not sure what ever would. And I especially want to remind Republicans that many of them voted to remove Clinton from office for lying under oath about where he put his thing. I'm not saying that Clinton was right to lie under oath, but if lying about a subject that harmed no one is reason to throw him out, then this vote on Trump should be automatic for all of them.

GH

[ponchi101]

I was reading that one of the possible outcomes from any impeachment could be to ban him from public office forever. That would be a definite plus, as he may be insane enough to run for smaller offices until 2024, when he will again hijack the GOP.
(Which would be easy, and the GOP likes to be hijacked).

[mmmm8]

The banning him from future office is not true, per the CNN article I posted above

[Togtdyalttai]

The banning him from future office is not true, per the CNN article I posted above

It's not true that him being impeached would ban him from future office. However, if he was tried and found guilty by the Senate (which probably won't happen), they can take a vote which would ban him from future office.

[ti-amie]

FBI report warned of ‘war’ at Capitol, contradicting claims there was no indication of looming violence


A man breaks a window as a mob of President Trump’s supporters storms the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6. (Leah Millis/Reuters)

By
Devlin Barrett and
Matt Zapotosky
Jan. 12, 2021 at 12:08 p.m. EST

A day before rioters stormed Congress, an FBI office in Virginia issued an explicit internal warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and “war,” according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post that contradicts a senior official’s declaration the bureau had no intelligence indicating anyone at last week’s pro-Trump protest planned to do harm.

A situational information report approved for release the day before the U.S. Capitol riot painted a dire portrait of dangerous plans, including individuals sharing a map of the complex’s tunnels, and possible rally points for would-be conspirators to meet up in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and South Carolina and head in groups to Washington.

“As of 5 January 2021, FBI Norfolk received information indicating calls for violence in response to ‘unlawful lockdowns’ to begin on 6 January 2021 in Washington. D.C.,” the document says. “An online thread discussed specific calls for violence to include stating ‘Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”

BLM is likely a reference to the Black Lives Matter movement for racial justice. Pantifa is a derogatory term for antifa, a far-left anti-fascist movement whose adherents sometimes engage in violent clashes with right-wing extremists.

Yet even with that information in hand, the report’s unidentified author expressed concern that the FBI might be encroaching on free speech rights.

The warning is the starkest evidence yet of the sizable intelligence failure that preceded the mayhem, which claimed the lives of five people, although one law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid disciplinary action, said the failure was not one of intelligence but of acting on the intelligence.

An FBI official familiar with the document said that within 45 minutes of learning about the alarming online conversation, the Norfolk FBI office wrote the report and shared it with others within the bureau. It was not immediately clear how many law enforcement agencies outside the FBI were told, but the information was briefed to FBI officials at the bureau’s Washington field office the day before the attack, this official said.

The official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing investigations, added that the report was raw intelligence and that at the time it was written, the FBI did not know the identities of those making the online statements.

The FBI already faces tough questions about why it was not more attuned to what was being discussed in public Internet conversations in the days leading up to the attack, and why the bureau and other agencies seemed to do little to prepare for the possibility of mass violence.

The document notes that the information represents the view of the FBI’s Norfolk office, is not to be shared outside law enforcement circles, that it is not “finally evaluated intelligence,” and that agencies that receive it “are requested not to take action based on this raw reporting without prior coordination with the FBI.”

Multiple law enforcement officials have said privately in recent days that the level of violence exhibited at the Capitol has led to difficult discussions within the FBI and other agencies about race, terrorism, and whether investigators failed to register the degree of danger because the overwhelming majority of the participants at the rally were White conservatives fiercely loyal to the President Trump.

“Individuals/Organizations named in this [situational information report] have been identified as participating in activities that are protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” the document says. “Their inclusion here is not intended to associate the protected activity with criminality or a threat to national security, or to infer that such protected activity itself violates federal law.

“However,” it continues, “based on known intelligence and/or specific historical observations, it is possible the protected activity could invite a violent reaction towards the subject individual or others in retaliation or with the goal of stopping the protected activity from occurring in the first instance. In the event no violent reaction occurs, FBI policy and federal law dictates that no further record to be made of the protected activity.”

The document notes that one online comment advised, “if Antifa or BLM get violent, leave them dead in the street,” while another said they need “people on standby to provide supplies, including water and medical, to the front lines. The individual also discussed the need to evacuate noncombatants and wounded to medical care.”

On Jan. 6, a large, angry crowd of people who had attended a nearby rally marched to the Capitol, smashing windows and breaking down doors to get inside. One woman in the mob was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer; officials said three others in the crowd died from medical emergencies. Another Capitol police officer died after suffering injuries.

On Friday, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Steven D’Antuono, told reporters “there was no indication” of anything planned for the day of Trump’s rally “other than First Amendment-protected activity.” D’Antuono added, “we worked diligently with our partners on this.”

The FBI said in a statement that its “standard practice is to not comment on specific intelligence products,” but added that FBI field offices “routinely share information with their local law enforcement partners to assist in protecting the communities they serve.”

The FBI did not detail specifically who saw the document before the mob attack on Congress or what, if anything, was done in response.

For weeks leading up to the event, FBI officials discounted any suggestion that the protest of pro-Trump supporters upset about the scheduled certification of Joe Biden’s election could be a security threat on a scale with racial justice protests last summer in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody.

While the nation’s capital is one of the most heavily guarded cities on the planet, local and federal law enforcement agencies sought to take a low-key approach to last week’s event, publicly and privately expressing concerns that they did not want to repeat the ugly clashes between protesters and police last year.

Some law enforcement officials took the view that pro-Trump protesters are generally known for over-the-top rhetoric but not much violence, and therefore the event did not pose a particularly grave risk, according to people familiar with the security discussions leading up to Jan. 6.

Even so, there were warning signs, though none as stark as the one from the FBI’s Norfolk office.

FBI agents had in the weeks before the Trump rally visited suspected extremists hoping to glean whether they had violent intentions, a person familiar with the matter said, though it was not immediately clear who was visited or if the FBI was specifically tracking anyone who would later be charged criminally. These visits were first reported Sunday by NBC News.

In addition, in the days leading up to the demonstration, some Capitol Hill staffers were told by supervisors to not come into work that day, if possible, because it seemed the danger level would be higher than a lot of prior protests, according to a person familiar with the warning. Capitol Police did not take the kind of extra precautions, such as frozen zones and hardened barriers, that are typically used in major events around the Capitol.

Now, the Justice Department and federal agents are scrambling to identify and arrest those responsible for last week’s violence, in part because there is already significant online discussion of new potential clashes Sunday and again on Jan. 20 when Biden will be inaugurated.

Federal agents remain in a state of high-alert in the days leading up to the inauguration as authorities brace for possible violence not just in Washington, but around the country, officials said.

The FBI recently issued a different memo saying that “armed protests” were being planned “at all 50 state capitols” and in D.C. in the days leading up to the inauguration, according to an official familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive law enforcement matter.

The memo — first reported on by ABC News and later confirmed by The Washington Post — is a raw intelligence product, compiling information gathered by the bureau and several other government agencies, an official said. Some of it is unverified, and the threat is likely to differ significantly from place to place, the official said.

But the data it highlights to law enforcement are nonetheless troubling — including that there was information suggesting people might storm government offices, or stage an uprising were Trump to be removed from office, the official said.

In a statement, the FBI declined to comment specifically on the memo about state capitols but said: “Our efforts are focused on identifying, investigating, and disrupting individuals that are inciting violence and engaging in criminal activity. As we do in the normal course of business, we are gathering information to identify any potential threats and are sharing that information with our partners.

“The FBI respects the rights of individuals to peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights,” it continues. “Our focus is not on peaceful protesters, but on those threatening their safety and the safety of other citizens with violence and destruction of property.”

Julie Tate contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

[ti-amie]

Dr. Jack Brown
@DrGJackBrown

BREAKING: FBI and DOJ to hold a presser at 3 p.m. ET today regarding 6 January 2021 armed insurrection of US Capitol.

[ti-amie]

Kurt "Masks Save Lives" Eichenwald
@kurteichenwald
Who could have possibly imagined that allowing people to bring guns into a government building - in a state where lots of people spin conspiracy theories about the government - could possibly pose a problem?

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

I don't remember which thread this was discussed in the old TAT, but I'll put it here. I apologize if this has already been brought back up in the last few days:

I saw a photo of Trump on the news last evening with a woman by his side. It was abundantly clear that we were meant to think she was Melania. But taking even a slightly up-close look at the face and it was clearly a fake Melania (again). The bone structure, both of the cheek bones and chin, was totally wrong.

Trump has done so many things that are so much worse than using a double for his wife that I know this barely merits mention. But this is one of the weirder things he has done that I can't understand on any level. Presidents travel without their wives all the time. So when she couldn't or wouldn't go along, I wonder why he felt compelled to use a fake. It's simply bizarre and without any reason.

On to impeachment...I'm hoping that this comes to a vote in both houses of Congress. He may not be convicted by the Senate, but I want every Senator to have to record his vote on this for posterity (and future elections). If this does not merit conviction, I'm not sure what ever would. And I especially want to remind Republicans that many of them voted to remove Clinton from office for lying under oath about where he put his thing. I'm not saying that Clinton was right to lie under oath, but if lying about a subject that harmed no one is reason to throw him out, then this vote on Trump should be automatic for all of them.

GH

It's one hour for minutes but if you want some more details on Fake Melania's and other stuff listen to this. I wonder how Hank's doing?

[ti-amie]

Barbara Starr @barbarastarrcnn

Just in: Joint Chiefs of Staff preparing rare message to entire force of reassurance: reminding them the job is to support & defend Constitution and reject extremism. Its a significant step. JCS have sought to stay out of politics. Statement due to gravity of events.

[ponchi101]

The USA is also coming to another reckoning: if you believe your military can stay out of politics FOREVER, and remain at their bases and areas of command FOREVER, without getting involved in the civilian aspects of government, you are being naive.
Simple scenario: one of these looney militia groups in Michigan decides to go ballistic with all their fire power. Would it even be ethical for the Armed Forces to remain "neutral"?

[ti-amie]

Manu Raju @mkraju

House GOP leaders are not whipping their colleagues to tell them to vote against the impeachment resolution tomorrow, per aides. They will let members vote their conscience, a marked departure from the approach in 2019 when GOP leaders pushed their members to fall in line

[ti-amie]