Hasta La Gadget!

A number of states and cities will continue to ban government-funded travel to North Carolina due to the state’s failure to totally repeal HB2, the anti-LGBTQ law that barred transgender people from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.

Although the NCAA ended its boycott against the state once a repeal bill was passed, many of the states and cities that banned nonessential official travel to North Carolina last year have decided the new bill doesn’t adequately protect LGBTQ people. 

Two states continuing their bans are California and Washington. 

“California’s law was enacted to ensure that, with limited exceptions, our taxpayer resources are not spent in states that authorize discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression,” the state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra (D), said Wednesday in a statement. “North Carolina’s new law does not cure the infirmity of this type of discrimination.”

“We must continue to stand up for the rights of all people,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) said Thursday. “North Carolina is continuing discriminatory policies and this is not something the state of Washington condones or supports.”

State lawmakers approved legislation last month that repeals the so-called “bathroom bill,” but the new law bars cities from passing ordinances that expand nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people. It also bans municipalities and the University of North Carolina from regulating bathroom access without the legislature’s permission. 

LGBTQ rights advocates have strongly criticized those provisions. Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin said the new bill, HB142, “doubled-down on discrimination.” He also accused North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) and the legislature of fueling “the flames of anti-transgender hate.”

Equality NC, the state’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, praised the cities and states continuing to oppose the North Carolina law.

“Cities across the country are seeing HB142 for what it really is — a fake repeal of HB2,” the group’s executive director, Chris Sgro, said in a statement. “The new law continues to make North Carolina the only state in the nation to reserve for itself the exclusive ability to regulate bathroom access and one of only three states to ban cities from passing crucial non-discrimination protections.” 

Other places that have reissued bans or are maintaining existing ones are Minnesota; Chicago; New York City; Seattle; Atlanta; Los Angeles; Salt Lake City; Cincinnati; Washington, D.C.; Portland, Oregon; Portland, Maine; Baltimore; Burlington, Vermont; San Francisco; Oakland, California; West Palm Beach, Florida; Wilton Manors; Florida; and Palm Springs, California.  

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Nintendo has been proclaiming that the Switch is its fastest-selling console ever since the system launched, but now it has numbers to back that up. Based on NPD reports, it says the Switch sold 906,000 units in the US in March. What’s surprising, ho…

Designer Benjamin Geskin has published a series of high quality renders revealing what the iPhone 8 may look like, assuming many of the biggest leaks and rumors thus far are true. Geskin tasks himself with making realistic-looking renders based on such leaks, and his work is great to say the least. This time around, we see a sleek iPhone with … Continue reading

When United Airlines first responded this week to a video showing a passenger being violently dragged from one of its planes, the company apparently didn’t understand ― or know how to deal with ― the level of public rage it was facing.

One crucial factor contributing to that failure is that the company’s head of corporate communications reports to its head of human resources and labor relations. This set-up puts the company at a disadvantage when it has to respond quickly and effectively to a public crisis, said Jeffrey Schneider, a corporate communications veteran and founder of The Lead PR. 

“You don’t want to have layers of bureaucracy or management in between the top communications person and the CEO,” Schneider told The Huffington Post.

And crucially, Schneider said, this arrangement can keep the CEO from hearing advice directly from the person most qualified to give it. He advises having the head of PR report directly to the CEO.

United’s unwieldy communications chain is particularly striking considering that airlines can be at the center of a number of PR nightmares, from routine weather delays that strand passengers to catastrophic accidents, at any given time.

“You would imagine that a company that has the potential for these kinds of crises would house their communications team with as direct a line to the CEO as possible,” Schneider said. 

American Airlines, JetBlue and Southwest Airlines have organizations that mirror this advice, but Delta’s executive arrangement is similar to that of United.

United’s first statement after the video began going viral reflected the priorities of its communications chain: a heavily lawyered proclamation of victim-blaming that used euphemisms (“re-accommodate”) to avoid blame, supported employees’ unsupportable decisions, and failed to offer an unqualified apology. In short, it made no sense as a public relations move. 

United “was talking to employees” with that message, Justin Bachman, an aviation reporter at Bloomberg, told NPR’s “On Point.”

“They wanted the employee base to know that ‘Hey, we’re with you and we’re not going to throw anybody under the bus that works for United,’” he said. “That might have made sense internally, but it completely fell flat in the public arena.”

 A spokeswoman for United Airlines declined to comment.

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White House press secretary Sean Spicer kicked off the Jewish holiday of Passover with comments many have described as by-the-book Holocaust-denial. Now, the Anti-Defamation League is offering Spicer and his colleagues remedial lessons in Holocaust awareness to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

During a press briefing on Tuesday, Spicer compared Syrian President Bashar Assad to German dictator Adolf Hitler, who, according to Spicer, “didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.”

Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO of ADL, sent Spicer a letter on Thursday offering to conduct a training on Holocaust awareness for the press secretary and his staff.

“When the first days of Passover ended and we turned on our phones and televisions yesterday evening, we learned about your comment that Hitler did not gas his own people,” Greenblatt wrote in the letter, published on ADL’s website. “Your comparisons between Assad and Hitler were not only historically inaccurate but they also were inappropriate and offensive.”

The Nazis, under Hitler’s leadership, gassed millions of Jewish people in death camps. Spicer attempted several times to clarify his remarks and faced intense backlash from lawmakers and organizations like the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Steven Goldstein, executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, called for Spicer’s resignation in a statement on Twitter, saying the press secretary had “engaged in Holocaust denial, the most offensive form of fake news imaginable.”

Later that day, Spicer offer an apology when he was interviewed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

“I was obviously trying to make a point about the heinous acts that Assad had made against his own people last week using chemical weapons and gas, and frankly, I mistakenly used an inappropriate and insensitive reference to the Holocaust, for which, frankly, there is no comparison. And for that I apologize. It was a mistake to do that,” Spicer said. 

But for many critics, Spicer’s comments constituted more than a one-off “mistake.”

“Spicer’s Tuesday comments are but the latest in a series of anti-Semitic dog whistles and Holocaust denials emanating from the president, his staff, and his family,” wrote Vox’s Jacob Gardenswartz on Wednesday.

Many pointed to the White House’s Holocaust Remembrance Day statement, which did not mention the Jewish people ― an erasure that is also a common tactic of Holocaust deniers.

“While you have apologized, this week’s incident as well as others (notably, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day statement omitting Jews and your vociferous defense of it), have exposed a serious gap in your knowledge of the Holocaust, its impact, and the lessons we can learn from it,” wrote Greenblatt.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read the full letter below:

Dear Mr. Spicer:

This week Jews around the world have spent time with their families celebrating Passover, the feast of freedom. In the Passover liturgy, we read that in each generation there will be those who rise up to harm the Jewish people, much like Pharaoh in ancient times and Hitler in modern times. Understanding and being keenly aware of our history – to “never forget” – is part of Passover and part of the Jewish experience.

Unfortunately, when the first days of Passover ended and we turned on our phones and televisions yesterday evening, we learned about your comment that Hitler did not gas his own people. Your comparisons between Assad and Hitler were not only historically inaccurate but they also were inappropriate and offensive.

While you have apologized, this week’s incident as well as others (notably, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day statement omitting Jews and your vociferous defense of it), have exposed a serious gap in your knowledge of the Holocaust, its impact, and the lessons we can learn from it.

For decades, ADL has been at the forefront of Holocaust education, providing trainings about the Nazi atrocities to a wide range of groups. We have conducted trainings for more than 130,000 law enforcement professionals and more than 35,447 educators, reaching more than 1,000,000 students. Our programs provide historical context for how the Holocaust was able to occur; teach the Holocaust as a human story; and create opportunities for critical thinking. Each of these educational programs focuses on the consequences of unchecked bigotry and hate.

ADL would be happy to conduct one of these trainings at your convenience for you, your staff, and anyone at the White House who may need to learn more about the Holocaust. We know you are very busy, but we believe a few hours learning this history will help you understand where you went wrong and prevent you from making these mistakes in the future.

Sincerely,

Jonathan A. Greenblatt

CEO

Anti-Defamation League

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