Conservatives Are Now Boycotting Chick-fil-A for Not Being Homophobic Enough

Bud Light apparently went too far after influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who is transgender, posted an Instagram video promoting a March Madness contest. Target apparently went too far by selling shirts with rainbows. And now, conservatives are setting their brain-poisoned sights on … Chick-fil-A, for the crime of having an H.R. department.

Italian American political commentator Joey Mannarino—who says his pronouns are “Shut/Up”—was at the forefront of whipping up the outrage on Monday:

“It’s only a matter of time until they start putting tranny semen in the frosted lemonade at this point,” Mannarino continued, making up a very odd scenario. Mannarino tweeted his fears while linking to Chick-fil-A’s diversity, equity, and inclusion page, where the company highlights its efforts to create a culture of belonging, invest in scholarship funds, and fight hunger.

Mannarino later posted a video—sporting sunglasses on a nice-looking balcony in Miami—insisting that he is “not mad.” (After all, he says, “I’m chilling, drinking a glass of wine on a nice afternoon.”) But he went on to claim that DEI programs are the real racism and that it’s not crazy for him to say Chick-fil-A will put “tranny semen in the frosted lemonade” because Bud Light is already apparently doing that.

Mannarino’s posts have incited an uproar among far-right online users, from noted conspiracy-peddler Stew Peters to self-proclaimed “moderate” Tim Pool.

A basic fact-check first: The company has not “just hired a VP of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” The current vice president has in fact served in the role since November 2021.

The real humor, of course, is the idea of conservatives boycotting one of the more historically culturally conservative chains in America. As of 2012, Chick-fil-A had donated over $5 million to viciously anti-LGTBQ groups. At the time, as the company faced backlash for the revelations, Republicans like Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee even led vapid counterprotesting efforts, like “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, to reward the company for not supporting same-sex marriage.

And even while the company eventually promised in 2019 to stop donating to anti-LGBTQ groups, its owner, Dan Cathy, hasn’t. Cathy is a major donor to a far-right organization that bankrolled efforts to kill the Equality Act, which would have banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Despite all that, online conservatives have whipped themselves up into a frenzy at the idea of a company embracing the notion of different kinds of people feeling equal and included.

The asymmetry of what people care about would be all the more funny—if it weren’t so depressing. Different factions of the left in America are boycotting deep-seated systems of power: anti-LGBTQ companies, the war machine, toxic fossil fuel interests, Israel and its treatment of Palestine. The far right, meanwhile, is attacking pretty much any entity that even expresses support or affirmation for diversity or queer people.

And they seem to have bountiful gratitude toward one individual in particular—who has platformed much of this conspiratorial brain-melting sludge, if not expressed support for it himself.

“@ElonMusk giving us back Twitter has allowed us to effectively organize and boycott companies where we can do genuine financial damage,” Mannarino proclaimed Monday.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy seems confident that he can rally enough Republican votes to pass the new debt ceiling bill—but it doesn’t look like he’ll have an easy time.

Republican and White House negotiators finally reached a deal over the weekend to raise the debt ceiling and avoid default, just days before the U.S. government runs out of money. But the outcry from the GOP has been swift.

At least 25 Republican representatives have already stated they intend to vote against the bill. Others have expressed opposition to the measure, a sign that they will likely vote “no.” Texas Representative Wesley Hunt and Florida Representative Cory Mills both said they would not vote for the deal.

Matt Gaetz said he, Ken Buck, Tim Burchett, and Andy Biggs (who has never been a McCarthy fan) “have never voted to raise the Debt Limit for this woke and weaponized government.” Victoria Spartz said she “will NOT support this gamesmanship” and suggested giving negotiators more time to make a new deal—even though there’s no time left, thanks to Republican refusal to negotiate.

Nancy Mace said she would vote “no” on the bill and called Washington “broken.” (Take this one with a grain of salt though. Mace very publicly opposed three previous GOP leadership-backed bills: one to remove Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee, an anti-abortion bill, and McCarthy’s previous debt limit bill. She ultimately voted for all of those measures, so the odds are good she will pull a similar 180 here.)

Other definite “no”s include Chip Roy, Anna Paulina Luna, Byron Donalds, and Lauren Boebert—all members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus that vehemently opposed McCarthy’s bid for speakership and has been a thorn in his side ever since he won the gavel. McCarthy made multiple concessions to the caucus in order to become speaker, including restoring the motion to vacate, which would allow any single member of the House to call for a vote to remove him.

Members expected to vote “no” include Andy Ogles, Clay Higgins, and George Santos. Santos’s opposition is surprising, given he essentially owes his continued congressional career to McCarthy. The speaker has repeatedly been willing to overlook Santos’s many, many fabrications and legal troubles in order to keep the House majority. Mike Lee has also indicated he opposes the bill, tweeting that the House Rules committee should reject the deal and negotiators draw up a new one, “this time without the capitulation.”

This post has been updated.

On Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy took to the morning shows to boast about a deal made between Republicans and White House leadership to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts and work requirements. And one of the benefits of the deal, according to McCarthy? Requiring kids to work for their benefits.

“In this family, we may have a child that [is] able-bodied, not married, no kids, but he’s sitting on the couch collecting welfare,” McCarthy said on Fox. “We’re going to put work requirements on that individual, so he’s going to have work requi—he’s going to get a job. And he’s gonna make the life easier.”

Presumably, McCarthy was referring to individuals above the age of 18 who may be living with their family (though, given the GOP’s recent hustle to become the party of child labor, uncertainty is understandable here).

It’s unclear what exactly McCarthy is referring to in his remarks. The debt deal proposes imposing new work requirements for food assistance, or SNAP, on childless adults aged 54 and younger—raising the current maximum age of 49. The bill also lowers the percentage of people states can exempt from work requirements for SNAP. But all homeless people, veterans, and young people aging out of foster care will be exempt from the requirements. There’s not much else the bill does to target “children” sitting on their parents’ couches.

As far as cash assistance goes, the bill modifies the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families formula, potentially making it harder for some states to disburse cash assistance at all.

All that is to say, McCarthy is doing his routes on the TV news circuit, boasting about putting work requirements on “children,” all while actually not doing so at all. He’s reminding the country of Republicans’ desire to turn kids into laborers, and also misleading conservatives who actually do want such work requirements.

Donald Trump’s lawyer says he was prevented from searching for classified documents in the former president’s office at Mar-a-Lago, where the FBI later found the most sensitive materials kept at the resort.

Evan Corcoran found 38 classified documents in the estate storage room last June following a Department of Justice subpoena, and he told the department that that was all there was to be found. The FBI raided Mar-a-Lago two months later and seized 101 additional classified documents, including from Trump’s office. The documents found in the office were some of the most highly classified of the entire batch.

Corcoran told associates that several Trump aides told him all materials brought from the White House after Trump left were kept in the storage room, so he only needed to search there, The Guardian reported Tuesday. Corcoran said he asked whether he should search the office too, but was sent away from the room and never allowed to search it.

Corcoran did not specify who steered him away from the office, whether it was Trump himself or an aide. A Trump spokesperson has denied the allegation. But The Guardian points out that Corcoran’s new account suggests he was intentionally misled about the documents.

This wouldn’t be the first time Trump or one of his allies misled his own legal team about the documents. A judge ruled in March that some of Trump’s attorney-client privileges could be “pierced,” after prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team found that Trump intentionally misled his own lawyers, including Corcoran, about keeping classified materials when he left office.

U.S. Judge Beryl Howell ordered Corcoran to comply with a grand jury subpoena for testimony on six different lines of inquiry. She also ordered him to hand over records of Trump’s alleged “criminal scheme,” including handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings.

Some of those notes revealed that Corcoran had warned Trump about needing to comply with the Justice Department’s subpoenas. The notes reveal that Trump and his valet, Walt Nauta, knew exactly where and when Corcoran was planning to search for the documents at Mar-a-Lago. Nauta had previously testified that Trump asked him to move boxes out of the storage room both before and after the subpoena was issued.

According to Corcoran’s notes, Nauta had offered to help him look through the boxes in the storage room, which Corcoran declined. But Corcoran took breaks during the multiday search, leaving the storage room unattended multiple times. The Guardian reported that it is possible prosecutors are investigating whether Nauta knew exactly what was in the boxes he was moving.

In addition to Smith’s investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents and role in January 6, the former president is also under investigation in Georgia for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He has been indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records for paying hush money to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

Trump was found civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll—and last week, she sued him for defamation again over comments he made about her during a CNN town hall.

One hundred years.

More years than many of us may be so fortunate to have on earth, a place where every minute, every day we have can significantly impact the time others have on earth too.

For years, outlets and writers have defended, sought to explain or complicate, and even hailed Henry Kissinger and his legacy.

Today, we remember all the minutes, all the days lost, from all the days Kissinger has lived and still has to come.

Happy 100th birthday, Henry Kissinger. You have a lot to answer for.