Starbucks, Seahawks, Seattle Times target GOP candidate over powerful ads laying bare Dem policies



Three Seattle-based companies have threatened legal action against a Republican candidate for using their logos in advertisements attacking liberal policies.

What is going on?

In recent weeks, Tiffany Smiley's campaign has released several ads attacking Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), whom she is challenging in the 2022 midterm elections, and Democrats over high food prices, high crime, and policies that are bad for business.

Two of those ads, one called "Game Day" and another called "Cup of coffee," included logos or other corporate identifiers from Starbucks, the Seattle Seahawks, and the Seattle Times.

After the "Game Day" ad aired showing Smiley's husband in a Seahawks jersey, the NFL team sent Smiley's campaign a letter accusing the campaign of unauthorized use of the team's intellectual property and demanded the campaign "immediately" remove all Seahawks trademarks from the ad.

The Smiley campaign complied.

Game Day www.youtube.com

Then, after the "Cup of coffee" ad aired, Starbucks wrote Smiley's campaign on Sept. 23 demanding the campaign remove a Starbucks sign from the ad, claiming its inclusion harms Starbucks. Ironically, the sign was on a shuttered Starbucks, which allegedly closed to due to high crime. The point of the ad was to lay bare the consequences of Democratic policies.

Finally, the Seattle Times sent the Smiley campaign a cease-and-desist letter for including the paper's logo in the "Cup of coffee" ad. The newspaper sent a second letter last week threatening "further action" if the campaign does not comply with its demands.

Cup of coffee www.youtube.com

How did the campaign respond?

Smiley's campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission last week alleging the Seattle Times is illegally helping Murray by allowing the Democratic senator to use the newspaper's logos in previous election ads, but enforcing copyright laws against Smiley when she does so.

"Woke corporations thought they could help Patty Murray by BULLYING Tiffany with senseless legal threats. Their efforts have both failed and backfired," said Smiley's campaign manager, Kristian Hemphill.

Seattle Seahawks radio announcer suspended for tweet

A host of the Seattle Seahawks' pregame and postgame radio shows has been suspended indefinitely after he posted a tweet critical of Washington's governor that mocked the transgender community.

Seahawks' Pete Carroll promotes white shame: 'Black people can't scream any more. ... This is a white people's issue to get over.'



Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll says it's up to white people in the U.S. to mend race relations — and they should do so by educating themselves.

In remarks to reporters during a virtual press conference Saturday, Carroll also insisted that his fellow coaches listen to black people about their experiences as black people in America.

What are the details?

Carroll said, "[White people] need to be coached up and they need to be educated about what the heck is going on in this world."

"Black people can't scream any more, they can't march any more, they can't bare their souls any more to what they've lived with for hundreds of years because white guys came over from Europe and started a new country with a great idea and great ideals and wrote down great writings and laws and all of that about democracy and freedom and equality for all," the longtime coach continued. "And then that's not what happened, because we went down this other road here and followed economics — rich white guys making money — and they put together a system of slavery, and we've never left it, really. It's never gone away."

Carroll pointed out that white people seem content to live in ignorance of the black man's plight.

"And black people know the truth, they know exactly what's going on," he insisted. "It's white people that don't know. It's not that they're not telling us; they've been telling us the stories. We know what's right and what's wrong, we just have not been open to listen to it. We've been unwilling to accept the real history."

Carroll said that the willful ignorance goes back generations and generations, as Americans have been "taught a false history of what happened in this country."

"We've been taught a false history of what happened in this country, we've been basing things on false premises, and it has not been about equality for all, it has not been about freedom for all, it has not been opportunity for all, and it needs to be," he insisted. "Because this is a humanity issue we're dealing with. This is a white people's issue to get over and learn what's going on and to figure it out and start loving everybody that is part of our country, and that want to come to our country, wherever they want to come from."

He also insisted that money corrupted America's forefathers, which led them to enslave an entire race.

"What's right is treating people equally, we know that," he said. "Forefathers knew it. They wrote it all down, they just didn't do it. They got caught up in making money and they figured out a way to do it, and it meant persecuting and abusing an entire race of people."

You can listen to Carroll's full remarks here.

A message from @PeteCarroll on what we can do to help combat racism. https://t.co/7LknOFw2fy
— Seattle Seahawks (@Seattle Seahawks)1598746777.0