The preamble to the Democratic Party’s draft platform formally honors a list of Native American tribes that resided on the land where its convention is being held—but neglects to acknowledge that many of these groups allied with the British and took up arms against the United States during the War of 1812.
The first page of the Democratic National Committee document begins by "acknowledg[ing] that we gather together to state our values on lands that have been stewarded through many centuries by the ancestors and descendants of Tribal Nations," a reference to the party’s August convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The platform praises Native American communities that resided in the region, including the Chippewa, the Ho-Chunk Nation, and the Menominee Nation—groups that sided against the United States in the brutal 1812 conflict.
The language represents the leftward shift of the Democratic Party, which has voiced support for Native American sovereignty in its party credo over the past two decades but has not included a preamble honoring specific tribes at the top of the platform until this year.
The Potawatomi, one of the tribes praised by the DNC, clashed with American soldiers in one of the most violent conflicts of the war, the Battle of Fort Dearborn, in which 12 children were killed by indigenous fighters as they attempted to evacuate the fort. The leader of the evacuation, Capt. William Wells, had his heart torn out and eaten by the Native American tribe, according to historical accounts.
The tribe also participated in the Battle of Frenchtown, also known as the "River Raisin Massacre," in which tents for wounded U.S. troops were set on fire by indigenous fighters, and soldiers who tried to escape were killed with tomahawks.
According to the Wisconsin First Nations, the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin "side[d] with the British against the United States. They [were] involved in a number of battles during the war, including the capture of Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island and battles in the Prairie du Chien area."
The United States declared war on Britain in 1812, after clashing with London over trade restrictions and ongoing British military encroachments in the United States. Most Native American groups sided with the British, which had been supplying arms, ammunition, and support to tribal leaders in regional land conflicts with Americans, including the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe.
A representative for the Menominee Tribal Legislature said she disagreed with the language used in the DNC platform because tribal nations no longer hold the land on which the convention will be held.
"[The] statement ‘been stewarded through many centuries by the ancestors and descendants of Tribal Nations who have been here since time immemorial,’ is not correct or accurate," chairwoman Joan Delabreau told the Washington Free Beacon.
The Native American bands honored by the DNC own a number of casinos in Wisconsin, including the Sevenwinds Casino, the Potawatomi Hotel and Casino, the Ho-Chunk Casino, and the Menominee Casino Resort.
The DNC did not respond to a request for comment. The Ho-Chunk Nation, the Potawatomi, and the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa did not respond to requests for comment on the platform.
Take a look at some of Trudo’s social media posts before he closed down his account:
“Burn it to the ground!” – Trudo said about Portland rioters lighting the police union building on fire.
Zachary Trudo channeled Karl Marx in a June Facebook post.
“F*ck yeah! One way to hurt the bourgeoisie is to hurt their business. Closing down the ports is a terrific show of solidarity between labour and BLM.” Trudo said.
Some of Zachary Trudo’s social media posts before he closed his account show his far-left extremist views. He lists Google as his employer & was arrested at the antifa riot yesterday. He faces serious charges. #PortlandRiotshttps://t.co/LqTEgOfrLDpic.twitter.com/wNPXmv1HjY
Google executives have testified over and over again that the tech giant doesn’t target conservatives yet one of their engineers is revealed to be an overt Marxist who is facing serious charges.
Presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s deal with supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was never officially finalized, despite overt efforts on the part of Biden’s campaign to include Sanders supporters at the highest levels of his presidential effort.
Now, Sanders delegates — more than 360 in total — say they may not be willing to play along with the more moderate candidate’s proposed party platform, and they’re pledging to withhold support of the if the Democrats don’t include an explicit endorsement of Sanders’ “Medicare-for-All” plan.
“More than 360 delegates, most of whom back Sanders, have signed on to a pledge to vote against the Democratic Party’s platform if it does not include support for ‘Medicare for All,’” POLITICO reported Monday. “They argue that single-payer health care is an urgent priority amid a worldwide pandemic and the biggest unemployment crisis since the Great Depression.”
“This pandemic has shown us that our private health insurance system does not work for the American people. Millions of people have lost their jobs and their health care at the same time,” Sanders delegate Judith Whitmer, who organized the effort told the newsmagazine. “There’s people leaving the hospital now with millions of dollars in medical bills. What are we going to do about that?”
Major progressive groups like Progressive Democrats of America and the Bernie Delegates Network are behind the petition and plan to publicize it in an effort to force Democrats left on health care. The groups told POLITICO that they are not the ones being divisive — it is a party leadership that refuses to listen to the will of the grassroots that is fracturing the coalition.
“We’re going to fight like hell for Biden. And there’s no contradiction between doing that and supporting this pledge,” one supporter told the outlet. They also say they still plan to vote for Biden to get the nomination.
Biden has been coy about this health care plan, even as his campaign rolls out major, detailed policy documents on other issues. According to NBC News, its unlikely Biden will support a full overhaul of the current health care system, though, given that the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” was a signature achievement of Biden’s former employer, the Obama administration.
Instead, Biden is expected to reinstate the individual mandate the requires all Americans to purchase some form of insurance, NBC says, and will limit the associated plan price increases by allowing “consumers to spend [no more than] 8.5 percent of their income on insurance.”
Even though the specifics aren’t public yet, the cost for Biden’s health care plan is. As the Daily Wire reported last week, Biden’s full platform could cost upwards of $10 trillion. His health care plan accounts for a full $750 billion of that price tag, and that’s without information on efforts to curb “systemic racism,” which Biden’s policy team says will soon be built into all aspects of the candidate’s spending plan.
Biden has proposed a $4 trillion tax increase, mostly on high-income earners and corporations he claims do not pay taxes.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Monday predicted the Democrat convention in August will be about how to “hide Joe Biden.”
“I think the Democrats’ convention should be called ‘The Invisible Man Sequel’ because their convention will be about how do we hide Joe Biden and create this disappearing act for our candidate, so the voters don’t get to see him,” she said on Fox & Friends.
Biden has largely campaigned from his basement, taping campaign video interviews and delivering soundbites that often sound scripted. He has repeatedly gotten confused or flustered, prompting Republicans to claim that the DNC has been purposely trying to hide him.
McDaniel also predicted the DNC would feature former President Barack Obama “every single night.”
In contrast, she said the RNC will highlight their candidate, President Donald Trump.
“As the president speaks to the nation, we will be highlighting our candidate, we will be talking about President Trump and how excited we are to re-nominate him to lead our country for four more years,” she said.
“We are so proud of President Trump and what he has done for the country and what he will continue to do when he’s elected for four more years,” she added.
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A Michigan state representative says it’s time for China to pay for the damage coronavirus has caused in the state.
State Rep. Beau LaFave (R-Iron Mountain) told The Kyle Olson Show that the communist regime was liable in letting the virus out of its country, and should be held accountable.
LaFave said while it is an election year and both parties will blame each other for errors in handling the outbreak, “Nobody should really be disagreeing that it came from the communist Chinese government that lied to the World Health Organization, threw out reporters, and put people on airplanes and sent them across the world while they had a regional lockdown.”
He said it was China’s fault that it left Wuhan providence, and that China “bears some responsibility for this virus leaving their country in the first place.”
The proposed law, which is cosponsored by two Democrats, will “provide for the reimbursement of this state for the actions of the People’s Republic of China in causing the outbreak and spread of the coronavirus.”
The bill calls on the state treasurer to “determine the amount of damages, costs, expenses, and other losses that this state has incurred as a result of the coronavirus” at every level of government, which are listed in the legislation.
“The state treasurer shall send an itemized statement of the damages, costs, expenses, and other losses … to the People’s Republic of China with a formal demand that the People’s Republic of China reimburse this state.”
LaFave is joined as cosponsor by state Reps. Steve Marino (R-Harrison Twp.), Doug Wozniak (R-Shelby Twp.), Matt Maddock (R-Milford), Ronnie Peterson (D-Ypsilanti), Aaron Miller (R-Sturgis), Gary Eisen (R-St. Clair Twp.), Brian Elder (D-Bay City), Daire Rendon (R-Lake City), Greg Markkanen (R-Hancock).
The representative said the bill’s intent is “to hold the totalitarian communist government of China responsible for the pandemic they knowingly unleashed upon Michigan and the rest of the world.”
If the bill is passed and signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, LaFave said, “We’re going to send China a bill.”
When asked by a skeptic about whether it would really be paid, he responded, “I’ve never gotten paid for an invoice I never sent anyone.”
Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. He is also host of “The Kyle Olson Show,” syndicated on Michigan radio stations on Saturdays. Listen to segments on YouTube.Follow him on Twitter, like him on Facebook, and follow him on Parler.
More than 600,000 people in Tricare, a health care program of the United States Department of Defense Military Health System, received emails July 17 asking if they would donate blood for research as “survivors of COVID-19.”
But just 31,000 people affiliated with the U.S. military have been officially diagnosed with the coronavirus, which prompted confusion, Military.com reported last week.
“Just wondering [if] anybody [got] an email from Tricare saying since you are a COVID survivor, please donate your plasma.?? I have NOT been tested,” wrote a beneficiary on Facebook. “Just remember all those people inputting data are human and make mistakes.”
The mass email went to every beneficiary located near a collection point.
“As a survivor of COVID-19, it’s safe to donate whole blood or blood plasma, and your donation could help other COVID-19 patients. Your plasma likely has antibodies (or proteins) present that might help fight the coronavirus infection. Currently, there is no cure for COVID-19. However, there is information that suggests plasma from COVID-19 survivors, like you, might help some patients recover more quickly from COVID-19,” the email said.
Six hours later, Humana issued a mea culpa, Military.com wrote.
“In an attempt to educate beneficiaries who live close to convalescent plasma donation centers about collection opportunities, you received an email incorrectly suggesting you were a COVID-19 survivor. You have not been identified as a COVID-19 survivor and we apologize for the error and any confusion it may have caused,” the company wrote.
Marvin Hill, Humana’s corporate communications lead, said the company apologizes “for the confusion caused by the original message,” which was sent to recipients based on their proximity to a plasma collection facility and not “on any medical information or diagnosis.”
“As a part of an effort to educate military beneficiaries about convalescent plasma donation opportunities, Humana was asked to assist our partner, the Defense Health Agency. Language used in email messages to approximately 600k beneficiaries gave the impression that we were attempting to reach only people who had tested positive for COVID-19. We quickly followed the initial email with a clear and accurate second message acknowledging this. We apologize,” Hill said in a statement sent to Military.com.
Kyle Bass Slams TikTok As ‘CCP Trojan Horse’ Following Disturbing ProtonMail Exposé Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/27/2020 – 14:20
Before using Chinese video-sharing app TikTok, one might want to read this article from encrypted email company ProtonMail, as recommended by Kyle Bass:
TikTok and the privacy perils of China’s first international social media platform
TikTok, the video-sharing platform owned by the Chinese social media giant ByteDance, is one of the most popular social media services in the world, with an estimated 800 million users. However, its zealous data collection, use of Chinese infrastructure, and its parent company’s close ties to the Chinese Communist Party make it a perfect tool for massive surveillance and data collection by the Chinese government.
After reviewing TikTok’s data collection policies, lawsuits, cybersecurity white papers, past security vulnerabilities, and its privacy policy, we find TikTok to be a grave privacy threat that likely shares data with the Chinese government. We recommend everyone approach TikTok with great caution, especially if your threat model includes the questionable use of your personal data or Chinese government surveillance.
How much user data does TikTok collect?
As with just about every social media platform, the answer is: “a lot.” According to its privacy policy, even if you just download and open the app but never create an account, TikTok will collect your:
IP address
Browsing history (i.e., the content you viewed on TikTok)
Mobile carrier
Location data if you are using a mobile device (including GPS coordinates and WiFi and mobile cell data)
Info on the device you used to access TikTok (for Android devices, this includes your IMEI number, which is essentially your device’s fingerprint so it can be identified, and potentially your IMSI number, which is used to track users from one phone to another)
To open an account, you must enter a phone number or email and your date of birth. Once you have created an account, TikTok asks your permission for access to your social media accounts (like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc.), your phone’s contact list, and GPS data.
Once you start using the app, TikTok logs details about:
Every video you upload
How long you watch videos
Which videos you like
Which videos you share
Any messages you exchange in the app
Finally, if you buy coins, the in-app currency you can use to support your favorite video creators, TikTok will store your payment information.
According to TikTok, if you delete your account, the company will delete your account data, videos, and information within 30 days. This claim is impossible to independently verify, as is the case with most social media companies.
TikTok’s data collection is extreme, even for a social media platform that collects its users’ data to serve them with targeted ads. And TikTok explicitly states in its privacy policy that it shares your browsing data and email address with third parties so that it can serve you with targeted advertising.
TikTok faces multiple class-action lawsuits in the US
On November 27, 2019, a group of TikTok users in California filed a class action lawsuit against TikTok and ByteDance, saying the TikTok app “includes Chinese surveillance software.” The lawsuit claims TikTok collects all videos shot on the app, even if the videos are not published or even saved. The lawsuit goes on to allege that TikTok uses the videos and photos users upload to collect biometric data (such as face scans) without user permission and that even after you close the app, TikTok continues to collect biometric data.
This lawsuit also alleges that TikTok surreptitiously sends user data to China, something we will address below.
There is a similar class action lawsuit from users in Illinois. This suit also alleges that TikTok uses facial recognition technology and AI to collect users’ facial geometry without informing their users. Illinois has a strict law that requires companies to receive consent before they collect any biometric data.
Does TikTok share data with the Chinese government?
What distinguishes TikTok from other social media giants is that it is owned and operated by a Chinese company. ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, is headquartered in Beijing and is worth over $100 billion. Chinese domestic laws and regulations, along with internal party politics, can make it hard to parse whether a company is independent or coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.
Even if ByteDance wanted to resist Chinese Communist Party control, it would have little real prospect of doing so. China’s National Intelligence Law, passed in 2017, allows the government to compel any Chinese company to provide practically any information it requests, including data on foreign citizens. Furthermore, Chinese laws also can force these requests to be kept secret and not disclosed via transparency reports. The lack of an independent judiciary system makes it almost impossible for a company to appeal a request from the Chinese government. On top of that, Chinese companies of any real size are legally required to have Communist Party “cells” inside them to ensure adherence to the party line.
However, there is little evidence ByteDance wants to resist the Chinese government. In fact, there are numerous examples that it is complicit in the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian policies. In 2018, ByteDance shut down Neihan Duanzi, a Chinese social media platform that was primarily used to share jokes and comedy, after state censors accused it of hosting “vulgar” content. Afterward, ByteDance said that it would “deepen cooperation” with the Chinese communist party. It then hired 2,000 more “content reviewers” and stated that “strong political sensitivity” would be an asset for the position.
ByteDance has repeatedly made the case that TikTok is not available in China and that user data is not stored in China. This is misleading. In its privacy policy, TikTok explicitly reserves the right to share user information with other members of its “corporate group” (i.e., ByteDance).
Additionally, a white paper by the cybersecurity firm Penetrum found that over one-third of the IP addresses the TikTok APK connects to are based in China. The majority of these IP addresses are hosted by Alibaba, another Chinese tech giant. These IP addresses are what led to the allegations in the California lawsuit that TikTok secretly sends data to China. According to the Penetrum report, “TikTok does an excessive amount of tracking on its users and that the data collected is partially if not fully stored on Chinese servers with the ISP Alibaba.”
Alibaba works closely with the Chinese Communist Party and supports its invasive surveillance and censorship. It has a police post at its headquarters to facilitate data sharing with authorities and developed a popular Chinese propaganda app.
The Chinese government has long used the data it collects from Chinese tech companies to monitor, censor, and control its citizens. The all-seeing surveillance system they have created to monitor Uyghurs in Xinjiang is just one example. It also maintains an Orwellian “blacklist” that the government uses to prevent over 13 million “untrustworthy” citizens from purchasing plane or train tickets. One can only imagine what the Chinese government would do if it were able to extend its data collection beyond its borders.
TikTok and censorship
There are also concerns that the Chinese government and ByteDance are using TikTok as a tool to extend China’s censorship. American employees reported to the Washington Post that they were pressured by administrators in Beijing to restrict any political content.
New: Former TikTok employees told us the company’s Beijing-based leadership often overrode their censorship concerns and restricted lots of social and political videos. "They want to be a global company … but the decisions all come from China" https://t.co/AlUiibLPb8@TonyRomm
The Guardianreported on TikTok guidelines that require moderators to block videos that “distort” historic events, such as “Tiananmen Square incidents.” In one example, a teenage girl from Florida had her account shut down after she brought attention to the plight of the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority in China. (TikTok later reinstated her, claiming her ban was an error.)
Is TikTok secure?
In December 2019, the cybersecurity researchers at Check Point Research discovered multiple vulnerabilities, including ones that would allow attackers to delete user videos, make hidden videos public, or upload unauthorized videos. The researchers worked with the TikTok team, and they say that these vulnerabilities have now been resolved.
In April 2020, security researchers discovered that some versions of the TikTok app for Android and iOS rely on HTTP connections. By not using HTTPS, TikTok makes it easy for attackers to monitor user activity and even alter the videos the user sees without their knowledge.
TikTok says a fix is already underway, but this certainly isn’t a strong track record when it comes to security.
TikTok and children
Given the demographics of TikTok users and the amount of data TikTok collects, the company has faced criticism for collecting data from children. In February 2019, Musical.ly, the Chinese social media app that ByteDance bought and then merged with TikTok, paid a $5.7 million fine to the FTC to settle allegations that it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by letting children under 13 sign up to its platform without their parents’ consent.
In May 2020, 20 advocacy groups alleged that TikTok is still violating COPPA. They said the company never deleted the personal information it collected from children under 13 prior to the 2019 FTC settlement, is still not obtaining parents’ consent before collecting children’s personal info, and does not allow parents to review or delete the personal information it collects from their children.
Scrutiny of TikTok increases
Since February, politicians in Australia have been calling for greater scrutiny of the company’s data collection and possible censorship. On June 29, the Indian government banned TikTok, along with over 50 other Chinese apps. And now, the US government is also weighing whether they should impose a ban on the app.
As one US lawmaker said to the Wall Street Journal, “all it takes is one knock on the door of their parent company [ByteDance], based in China, from a Communist Party official for that data to be transferred [from TikTok] to the Chinese government’s hands, whenever they need it.”
Recently, US politicians have floated the idea of ByteDance selling TikTok as one way for the social media company to avoid questions over what it does with its users’ data. However, Chinese infrastructure and control are clearly deeply integrated into TikTok’s system, and it would be extremely hard for any company that purchased it to undo.
Our take on TikTok
We stand for freedom of expression, and we want everyone to be able to voice their opinion. However, social media giants from TikTok to Facebook demand troves of personal data in exchange for the use of their platform. Often this data collection verges into the extreme. Does TikTok need access to your device’s ID number to deliver its service?
The fact that TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, one that has explicitly said it would deepen its cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party, makes this excessive data collection even more concerning. The Chinese government has a history of strong-arming and co-opting Chinese tech companies into sharing their data and then using this data to intimidate, threaten, censor, or engage in human rights abuses.
For these reasons, it is our opinion that, from a security and privacy standpoint,TikTok is an extremely dangerous social media platform. Its potential for mass collection of data from hundreds of millions of adults, teenagers, and children poses a grave risk to privacy. We believe that TikTok should beviewed with great caution, and if this concerns you, you should strongly consider deleting TikTok and its associated data.
ProtonMail and ProtonVPN are funded by community contributions. If you would like to support our development efforts, you can upgrade to a paid plan. Thank you for your support.
Portland Police recovered a bag containing loaded rifle magazines and Molotov cocktails on Sunday night near Lownsdale Square Park.
Portland PD tweeted a photo of the contraband:
KTLA 5 reported that the bag was discovered on the same night in which there was a “reported shooting.”
The report noted Sunday’s protests began peaceably, then “morphed into an intense early Monday morning confrontation between demonstrators and law enforcement.”
Federal agents “repeatedly fired what appeared to be tear gas, flash bangs, and pepper balls” just before sunrise Monday, in an attempt to disperse protesters outside Portland’s Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse. A number of those protesters had made it over the fence around the building while others were allegedly shooting fireworks and beating on the outside of the fence.
Portland Police reported that protesters began climbing over the courthouse fence just before midnight: “At about 11:45 p.m. people began launching mortar-style fireworks over the fence. A short time later people climbed over the fence, entering the portico.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
CLARKSVILLE, Tennessee — Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Bill Hagerty, former U.S. ambassador to Japan and current GOP frontrunner for U.S. Senate in Tennessee, told Breitbart News exclusively that they believe Google’s “monopoly power” is a threat to Americans.
Cotton, who was in Tennessee last week campaigning with Hagerty for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in his contested primary, sent a letter last week to Attorney General Bill Barr requesting that the Justice Department pursue antitrust action against Google over concerns it may use its outsized market share power to silence free speech or influence the outcome of elections.
“Google dominates the online search market,” Cotton said when asked about the letter in a joint interview with Hagerty here in Tennessee. “I think their market share is well over 90 percent. That’s plainly monopoly power. Our antitrust laws say a company can acquire monopoly power by building a better mousetrap. What it can’t do is use that power to then harm its customers, to harm the public interest. There’s at least some evidence that Google is using that monopoly power that it has on online search for adjacent markets, things like online advertising, which hurts small businesses, it hurts schools that are trying to recruit students, and it even hurts political candidates that are trying to reach voters online. Google, like any other company, ought to be held to the same antitrust standards. They ought to have to obey the antitrust laws. It is not good for any American whenever a company monopolizes a market and then uses that monopoly power to harm consumers in other markets.”
Hagerty, when asked how he would fight this if elected to the U.S. Senate, pointed to Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)—another U.S. senator who has led on fighting big tech and just endorsed Hagerty’s Senate bid—as an example of the lead he would follow. He also pointed to Project Veritas investigations into big tech companies such as Facebook.
“I’m very fortunate to be from Tennessee. And Marsha Blackburn will be our senior senator,” Hagerty said. “There’s been no stronger voice in holding these groups accountable than Marsha Blackburn. Look at what she’s dealing with in terms of Facebook and Twitter and Google again. They are essentially using their position, their platform, to censor America and to essentially censor conservative voices. Nobody made them the arbiter of what’s true and false. Yet they’re taking that position time and time again. If you look at what Project Veritas uncovered at Facebook, they found a team there to delete posts that were favorable to Trump. What are they trying to do? They’re trying to make the president look worse. Are they trying to affect the outcome of the 2020 election? Perhaps. This has got to be dealt with.”
Cotton noted, too, that every time Google is “caught” manipulating search results or other matters, it always seems to benefit the left and the Democrats. He also said it is incumbent upon big tech companies to demonstrate that they stand with the United States against the Chinese Communist Party and that they should stop using the advantages they have obtained from being American companies to turn around and empower the United States’ enemies like China.
“It’s always a very funny coincidence that any time Google gets caught skewing its algorithm that somehow it’s an accident, it always depresses the search results for conservatives and Republicans,” Cotton said. “It never does that to Planned Parenthood. It never does that to George Soros’s foundations. It never does that to the Democratic Party. I think it’s particularly shameful that some of these companies that are American companies that acquired the market power that they have, thanks to American workers and American laws and American courts protecting their property rights and protecting their contract rights, will then turn around and cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party the way Google has done in the past and yet not cooperate with our military or our intelligence community. I think it’s a disgrace, and the leaders of these companies ought to stand up to their own woke workforces and tell them, ‘We are an American company, and we are going to support America in our competition against China. We’re not going to just sell our services to the highest bidder like the proverbial capitalists who will just sell rope to the communists to hang us all.’”
This is the second of multiple pieces from Cotton’s and Hagerty’s joint interview with Breitbart News in Clarksville, Tennessee, the home of the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army at Fort Campbell. Cotton served in the 101st Airborne Division—known as the Screaming Eagles—when he was in the Army. The interview aired on Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel on Saturday morning.
LISTEN TO TOM COTTON AND BILL HAGERTY ON BREITBART NEWS SATURDAY:
Forget Black Lives Matter. Energy drink giant Red Bull (GmbH) just told woke culture to take a hike.
The Austria-based company that makes the Red Bull energy drink “has replaced its top U.S. executives amid internal tensions over the closely held company’s response to the Black Lives Matter movement,” according to The Wall Street Journal July 15. This follows backlash from employees over a leaked image of a map at a company presentation which had “offensive” stereotypes. Business Insider said that the world map “labeled the Middle East and Southeast Asia as ‘evil doers,’ continental Europe as ‘pussies,’ and South America as ‘coffee comes from here I think.’"
The firings occurred weeks after “employees leaked a letter to leadership that criticized Red Bull’s ‘public silence’ on Black Lives Matter” and the map, Business Insider reported July 14. [Emphasis added.]
North America chief executive Stefan Kozak and North America president and chief marketing officer Amy Taylor, who had been working on “diversity and inclusion efforts within the company” with Kozak’s support, have left the company.
Taylor “was met with opposition when she began advocating for Red Bull to be more overt in its support of racial justice in the last month,” according to The Journal.
“Several insiders close to the situation said it was widely believed that Kozak and Taylor were fired by Austrian leadership over the leak and internal tension over diversity issues,” according to Business Insider.
According to The Journal:
Red Bull has also decided to discontinue much of its culture marketing programs, and the head of global culture marketing, Florian Klaass, will leave the company, a spokeswoman said. Mr. Klaass, whose team presented the offensive slide at the February meeting, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Woke U.S.-based executives “believed the company had an obligation to publicly support racial justice because it has benefited from its close association with Black culture,” The Journal said. [Emphasis added.]
It doesn’t look like Red Bull is having any of it.
The Journal also detailed other companies who are undergoing similar pressures from their employees to support leftist agendas:
Companies from sneaker maker Adidas AG to tech giants like Facebook Inc. have faced pressure from employees to do more to confront racism and promote diversity, as social activism over the police killing of George Floyd moves deeper into the workplace.
Contact Red Bull and tell them to continue standing firm against woke culture.
