When Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith “joked” that she liked Republican Gov. Phil Bryant so much that "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row," most people wondered what exactly the joke was. Campaigning for a runoff election coming up on Nov. 27, Hyde-Smith argued that she was making an “exaggerated expression of regard,” for Gov. Bryant. Hyde-Smith is not lying, as Republican Bryant is something of a white supremacist, and Hyde-Smith’s “joke” was showing regard for attending the historically racist and genocidal American practice of “lynching”—particularly in Mississippi.
Most of the lynchings that took place happened in the South. A big reason for this was the end of the Civil War. Once black were given their freedom, many people felt that the freed blacks were getting away with too much freedom and felt they needed to be controlled. Mississippi had the highest lynchings from 1882-1968 with 581. Georgia was second with 531, and Texas was third with 493. 79% of lynching happened in the South.
The fact that Hyde-Smith’s challenger, Democrat Mike Espy, is a black man did not seem to faze anyone on the blood-red side of the aisle. Hyde-Smith has shown no contrition whatsoever about the statement and on Monday, her buddy Bryant thought the best course of action was to say black women were the real problem, creating “black genocide” by way of abortions.* Clearly, most folks with half a brain said to themselves: that’s not right. At all.
But not billion-dollar business Google. According to Popular Information, Hyde-Smith’s FEC filings show that on Tuesday, the search engine giant donated $5,000 to her campaign.
Thursday, Nov 15, 2018 · 11:34:57 PM +00:00
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Walter Einenkel
Google sent us this statement.
This contribution was made on November 2nd before Senator Hyde-Smith's remarks became public on November 11th. While we support candidates who promote pro-growth policies for business and technology, we do not condone these remarks and would not have made such a contribution had we known about them.
It’s a nice sentiment. Of course Rep. Steve King has been a pretty open racist for quite some time now, and that hasn’t seemed to have stopped Google from donating to him.
According to the Observer and PI, this isn’t remarkable for Google in that they’ve been supporters of other openly racist candidates like Iowa’s Republican lowlife Rep. Steve King.
Google previously donated $10,000 to the Making America Prosperous PAC, the leadership PAC of Congressman Kevin Brady (R-TX). Making America Prosperous gave Congressman Steve King (R-IA) a cash infusion after other corporate donors abandoned him over his ties to white nationalism.
Wonks will tell you that big business is always “hedging” their bets on both sides of the aisle, and that Google has historically “leaned” more “left” in its support. They are right, of course. But that doesn’t make it right, or acceptable, or anything but 100 percent unethical.
Go and support MIKE ESPY RUNOFF CALL TEAM, or MIKE ESPY HUSTLE RUNOFF TEAM.
*He really did.
