The Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) emails
that were released by WikiLeaks last weekend don’t just show that the scales
were tipped in Hillary Clinton’s favor over Sen. Bernie Sanders — they also
reveal that members of the DNC were actively wading into the debate in North
Carolina (NC) over HB2.
As companies like PayPal backed away from
plans to expand their operations in NC, and entertainers like Bruce Springsteen
and Pearl Jam canceled shows in protest over the law – which requires people to
use public bathrooms or locker rooms that corresponds to their biological
gender – DNC staffers pushed a narrative about the cost these type of pronouncements
would have on the state’s economy.
According to the Christian Post, the news
that Pearl Jam had cancelled an April show in Raleigh, NC, DNC communications
director Dave Miranda sent an email on April 25 to undisclosed recipients that
cited an estimate from The Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau that
claims that cancellation of the Pearl Jam show would cost the local hotel
industry about $60,000. Additionally,
Miranda claimed in the email that HB2 had already cost the state 1,750-jobs and
over $77-million in economic activity in just over a month since it passed.
One of the recipients of Miranda’s email was
DNC’s deputy director of regional media T.J. Helmstetter, who forwarded the
email to DNC communications strategist Deshundra Jefferson and pushed for
approval to have the email forwarded to the DNC national email list. “This is great,” Helmstetter wrote in his
email. “Can we forward to our LGBT and
National lists?”
Jefferson forwarded the email and received a
reply from another DNC official, who wrote a one word response: “Awesome.”
Miranda insists, however, that the comments
were not celebrating the economic impact to NC.
“They’re basically saying, ‘Good work, good work, NC Democratic Party,
getting the word out there about the damage that this bill is doing,’” Miranda
told wsoctv.com.
Dallas Woodhouse, the Executive Director of NC
Republican Party, isn’t buying it, however. He believes the DNC was trying to bring about
economic pain on NC by urging businesses to pull out and events to be cancelled
in the state. “They orchestrated it. They inflicted pain on the people of NC and
they celebrated it,” Woodhouse told wsoctv.com.
Other emails show that staffers were keeping
tabs on conservative opposition to HB2 as well.
DNC staffers compiled footage of conservative pundits such as Juan
Williams, Hugh Hewitt, Kathleen Parker and Chris Wallace speaking out against
the law to proclaim that “it’s not only Democrats who are opposing the
Republican-backed HB2 in NC.” In
response to the video, Helmstetter shared a Towleroad blog post saying the
video attack on HB2 is “delicious” in an email dated April 27.
And Pablo Manriquez, the DNC’s director of
Hispanic media, reached out to the committee’s video research associate for
information that would help craft “a decent hit piece on the pro-prejudice
backwater of the NC state house,” while also referring to NC Gov. Pat McCrory
as a “moronic little bigot of a tarheel governor.”
Woodhouse believes the emails show that
Democrats actively sought to make HB2 a controversy from the start. “I think some of the information coming out
of the WikiLeaks shows that the other side was determined for there not to be a
resolution of this issue because they thought it was good for them politically.
No matter the harm,” he said.
Rev. Dr.
Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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