I've seen a number of people posting about this in various places along with calls to boycott, etc. The person who made the donation is a member of the board of the holding company that owns Golds Gym. The donation was not made by Gold's Gym or the holding company.

The holding company issued a press release the day this was announced stating that they did not make the donation, the donation was made by a private citizen in his own name, not the name of the business and that they, as a company, reaffirm their support of the GLBT community and it's causes. Indirectly, the person making the donation has profited from membership fees of Gold's Gym customers but that is much different from saying your membership fees were donated to this organization.

It's really frustrating to see how this has been blown up. It's, essentially, a media created story.

This is like saying that Campbell Soup supports S/M because I donated money to the IML travel fund.

I'm trying to find the articles about it. I read them last night, I think on HuffPost. The donation was made by Robert Rowlings, who's actually the CEO of TRT Holdings, not just a board member.

Here's a link to the Salon.com article that includes part of several different press releases about it.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/10/25/san_francisco_gold_s_american_crossroads/index.html


Most of the Gold's Gyms are actually franchises rather than corporate owned. Four of the bay area locations are attempting to break their franchise agreements over this.

I don't know if the majority of TRT Holdings income is from Gold's Gym or not. I imagine that most of the income they get from GG comes from franchise fee's rather than directly from membership fees. Of course, that is paid to the franchise via membership fees at the local level.

My issue with the whole thing is this implication that he doesn't have the right to support who ever and what ever he wants to support. The donation was not made in the company's name. It's very different from Target making a corporate donation to a right wing group but the media is comparing the two and people are all up in arms about it.

That's my point. The "company" didn't donate. The holding company didn't donate. Robert Rowling donated.

I'm all about boycotting companies that do stupid shit. Hell, I still feel a little twinge of guilt when the office orders pizza from Dominoes and I think they've been "good" for 10+ years now! I don't shop at Target. I found a local pharmacy that meets Walmart prices so I don't even get my meds from them anymore.

Where do we draw the line, or do we draw the line, between the business and the individual? With the way corporations work these days, most are more than just one common brand. TRT Holdings is more than just Gold's Gym. They own hotels, various real estate businesses, oil & gas exploration and, I'm sure much more. Their principles have probably been donating to Republican, right wing, conservative causes for decades but until now, it's not been a publicized fact. I know that I don't research every aspect of a company, including the giving policies of their senior executives, before I choose a hotel or a gas station or where I want to eat lunch. Even if I did, I'm still not sure that I would base that decision on the political beliefs of the individuals over the actions of a company.

Robert Rowling made an individual donation to a conservative cause but Gold's Gym as been supporting liberal/GLBT causes for years. Does boycotting them due to to Rowling's donation help us or hurt us in the long run?

Yeah, I get that's where his money comes from and I'm not saying that you shouldn't boycott any of them. Mostly I'm just thinking out loud and trying to figure out why it irks me so much that this has blown up the way it has. I'm also not trying to argue with you, or be obnoxious, so I hope it's not coming across that way.

As I think about it, for me, it probably comes down to the fact that I'm at a point where I have to separate the business from the politics to a certain extent. I don't have the luxury of picking and choosing anymore and many of my clients are people whose politics is completely opposite of mine. My last paycheck came directly from the pockets of someone who supports many of the conservative causes that I oppose.

So while I get it on the corporate level, on a personal level, I have to hope that there are people who can see the difference between the person and the company or I'm just screwed! :)

I know you and Corkey have kind of covered this a little bit, but what about this?

From the article in question:

*Rowling, head of TRT Holdings, which is the owner of Gold's Gym, is spending quite a bit of money this election cycle. Upwards of $2 million to be exact, through both his corporate and personal bank accounts. Where is he sending that money, which he no doubt earns on the backs of many an LGBT customer?*

Before I hop on either side of the debate, I'd like to know WHAT corporate accounts, exactly.

Private Prison Industry Helps Draft Arizona Immigration Law
 

NPR

October 28, 2010

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.

Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.

"The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman."

What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.

"They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate."

But Nichols wasn't buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years — decades even — with illegal immigrants?

"They talked like they didn't have any doubt they could fill it," Nichols said.

That's because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona's immigration law.

Behind-The-Scenes Effort To Draft, Pass The Law

The law is being challenged in the courts. But if it's upheld, it requires police to lock up anyone they stop who cannot show proof they entered the country legally.

When it was passed in April, it ignited a fire storm. Protesters chanted about racial profiling. Businesses threatened to boycott the state.

Supporters were equally passionate, calling it a bold positive step to curb illegal immigration.

But while the debate raged, few people were aware of how the law came about.

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.


Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, pictured here at Tea Party rally on Oct. 22, was instrumental in drafting the state's immigration law. He also sits on a American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) task force, a group that helped shape the law.

Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, pictured here at Tea Party rally on Oct. 22, was instrumental in drafting the state's immigration law. He also sits on a American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) task force, a group that helped shape the law.
The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing them.

Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce says the bill was his idea. He says it's not about prisons. It's about what's best for the country.

"Enough is enough," Pearce said in his office, sitting under a banner reading "Let Freedom Reign." "People need to focus on the cost of not enforcing our laws and securing our border. It is the Trojan horse destroying our country and a republic cannot survive as a lawless nation."

But instead of taking his idea to the Arizona statehouse floor, Pearce first took it to a hotel conference room.

It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC.

It's a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America — the largest private prison company in the country.

It was there that Pearce's idea took shape.

"I did a presentation," Pearce said. "I went through the facts. I went through the impacts and they said, 'Yeah.'"

Drafting The Bill

The 50 or so people in the room included officials of the Corrections Corporation of America, according to two sources who were there.

Pearce and the Corrections Corporation of America have been coming to these meetings for years. Both have seats on one of several of ALEC's boards.

Key Players That Helped Draft Arizona's Immigration Law
And this bill was an important one for the company. According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Last year, they wrote that they expect to bring in "a significant portion of our revenues" from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants.

In the conference room, the group decided they would turn the immigration idea into a model bill. They discussed and debated language. Then, they voted on it.

"There were no 'no' votes," Pearce said. "I never had one person speak up in objection to this model legislation."

Four months later, that model legislation became, almost word for word, Arizona's immigration law.

They even named it. They called it the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act."

"ALEC is the conservative, free-market orientated, limited-government group," said Michael Hough, who was staff director of the meeting.

Hough works for ALEC, but he's also running for state delegate in Maryland, and if elected says he plans to support a similar bill to Arizona's law.

Asked if the private companies usually get to write model bills for the legislators, Hough said, "Yeah, that's the way it's set up. It's a public-private partnership. We believe both sides, businesses and lawmakers should be at the same table, together."

Nothing about this is illegal. Pearce's immigration plan became a prospective bill and Pearce took it home to Arizona.

Campaign Donations

Pearce said he is not concerned that it could appear private prison companies have an opportunity to lobby for legislation at the ALEC meetings.

"I don't go there to meet with them," he said. "I go there to meet with other legislators."

Pearce may go there to meet with other legislators, but 200 private companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to meet with legislators like him.

As soon as Pearce's bill hit the Arizona statehouse floor in January, there were signs of ALEC's influence. Thirty-six co-sponsors jumped on, a number almost unheard of in the capitol. According to records obtained by NPR, two-thirds of them either went to that December meeting or are ALEC members.

That same week, the Corrections Corporation of America hired a powerful new lobbyist to work the capitol.

The prison company declined requests for an interview. In a statement, a spokesman said the Corrections Corporation of America, "unequivocally has not at any time lobbied — nor have we had any outside consultants lobby – on immigration law."

At the state Capitol, campaign donations started to appear.

Thirty of the 36 co-sponsors received donations over the next six months, from prison lobbyists or prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America, Management and Training Corporation and The Geo Group.

By April, the bill was on Gov. Jan Brewer's desk.

Brewer has her own connections to private prison companies. State lobbying records show two of her top advisers — her spokesman Paul Senseman and her campaign manager Chuck Coughlin — are former lobbyists for private prison companies. Brewer signed the bill — with the name of the legislation Pearce, the Corrections Corporation of America and the others in the Hyatt conference room came up with — in four days.

Brewer and her spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

In May, The Geo Group had a conference call with investors. When asked about the bill, company executives made light of it, asking, "Did they have some legislation on immigration?"

After company officials laughed, the company's president, Wayne Calabrese, cut in.

"This is Wayne," he said. "I can only believe the opportunities at the federal level are going to continue apace as a result of what's happening. Those people coming across the border and getting caught are going to have to be detained and that for me, at least I think, there's going to be enhanced opportunities for what we do."

Opportunities that prison companies helped create.

Produced by NPR's Anne Hawke.

I am so sick of corporations driving this country's politics.

I love watching the snails pace at which this sort of news travels.

The private prison scheme was first reported in the local news, which pretty much no ones pays attention to. Radical lefty Rachel paid attention, and covered it a couple of months ago. The story now seems to be drifting toward the center, as elitist NPR is finally reporting it. If it can get pushed to the liberal NYT and WaPo, then perhaps the liberal televised MSM will report it, and eventually CNN will put it up on a big graphic with some accompanying twitter posts from viewers. I can't wait to hear how Faux Republican Party Newz will spin it into a Kenyan conspiracy.

I hope this gets out there more and more- MsD is right, Rachael covered this a few back. I hope it takes hold as a mainstream media story.

As messed-up as it is, the only way we can know if a major business we want to do business with is LGBTIQ friendly, is to do research BEFORE joining or buying from them.

Also, there are several websites that identify large corporations as well as small businesses all over the US that are either for or against us. After researching, as individuals, we have to make decisions about who we will buy from (or what gym, etc. to join). I hate WalMart and Target for example, yet, times are tough for a lot of people and I have access to more local type businesses because of where I live. So, I have more choices than many people in more rural areas. Plus, my kid is raised, but there are a lot of people here raising (and supporting) children and trying to make ends meet. We also have quite a few military people/families- and they sure as hell don't make a boat load of money!

On the other hand, our wanting less expensive goods has contributed to large corporations producing goods in countries that it costs less to do so. We can't have it both ways. Are we going to support labor in the US and bringing back manufacturing here. And are we willing to pay more for this? No, we shouldn't have to pay crazy proces, but, we won't be getting things at the prices we now see due to what has gone on with trade in the US.

North Korea opens fire at South Korea

Tensions escalated along the North Korea-South Korea border on Friday after the North fired two rounds at its southern neighbour.

South Korean troops immediately fired back, an official told The Associated Press.

The shots from North Korea were fired towards a South Korean guard post in the Demilitarized Zone between the two countries, an official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul told AP.

No one was injured and it wasn't clear whether the shots represented a military action or were an accident.

However the shots came just hours after the North vowed to retaliate after the South rejected a Pyongyang proposal for military talks.