Georgia Senate Blocks Delta Tax Break After Airline Severed Ties with the NRA
We support the second amendment, just not people who support the second amendment… – Delta, basically.
Monday, the Georgia Senate blocked a fuel tax break for Delta Air Lines, which is headquartered in Atlanta.
Georgia’s Lt. Governor and other conservatives are refusing to support the tax break unless Delta reinstates its relationship with the National Rifle Association.
Saturday, Delta joined the anti-second amendment mob and announced it was ending discounts for NRA members. Delta insisted they were merely confirming their neutral position in the second amendment wars. Georgia Republicans were not convinced.
Part of Delta’s official statement:
“Delta’s decision reflects the airline’s neutral status in the current national debate over gun control amid recent school shootings. Out of respect for our customers and employees on both sides, Delta has taken this action to refrain from entering this debate and focus on its business. Delta continues to support the 2nd Amendment.”
We support the second amendment, just not people who support the second amendment… – Delta, basically.
No sooner did Delta feign neutrality than Georgia Republicans began mounting a charge to tank the fuel tax break under consideration. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Sunday:
Former state Sen. Rick Jeffares, a candidate for lieutenant governor, voted to support Delta tax breaks during his stint in the Georgia Senate. But hours after Delta cut ties with the NRA, he took to the phones urging his GOP colleagues to reject it.
“If Delta is so flush that they don’t need NRA members’ hard-earned travel dollars,” said Jeffares, “it can certainly do without the $40 million tax break they are asking Georgia taxpayers for.”
Within hours, several other Republican candidates for high-profile seats also publicly opposed the measure. And others, including Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, were stuck in a quandary over what to do with a tax break that was once expected to easily sail through the Senate and land on the governor’s desk.
Cagle, who heads the Senate and is the GOP front-runner for governor, condemned the corporate giants that cut ties with the NRA over the weekend but didn’t say whether he supports the tax break for Delta.
“If corporate America wants to make a positive difference on gun violence, it should donate a portion of its profits to mental health treatments and school safety initiatives,” Cagle said.
Their efforts were successful. Monday, Delta’s would-be tax break bill was blocked:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
The Georgia Senate blocked a lucrative tax break bill on Monday that would benefit Delta Air Lines after the Atlanta-based company severed ties with the National Rifle Association.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said he would not support tax legislation that helped the airline “unless the company changes its position and fully reinstates its relationship with the NRA.” He echoed a growing number of conservatives who opposed the measure over the weekend.
It came after Delta desperately sought to find neutral ground in a gun debate that has very little, trying to soothe concerns among conservative lawmakers infuriated by the company’s decision to end discounted rates for NRA members in the wake of the mass shooting at a Florida high school.
The NRA counts the blocked bill as a win, as it should:
???? The #Georgia Senate blocked a lucrative tax break bill on Monday that would benefit @Delta after the Atlanta-based company severed ties with the National Rifle Association. #StandandFight #SorryNotSorry #2A #NRA https://t.co/NbeKVxAMhm
— NRA (@NRA) February 26, 2018
And the Lt. Governor (who is running for Governor) is showing no signs of budging until Delta backs down:
I will kill any tax legislation that benefits @Delta unless the company changes its position and fully reinstates its relationship with @NRA. Corporations cannot attack conservatives and expect us not to fight back.
— Casey Cagle (@CaseyCagle) February 26, 2018
The online mob seized upon the Florida shooting tragedy (even though the shooting was the fault of law enforcement agencies who refused to intervene, the shooter himself, and policies that fail our children), using the incident to destroy the NRA and attack second-amendment protections. Thankfully, there are plenty of people, elected and private, willing to fight back.
The NRA didn’t start this fight. It was the anti-second amendment mob that showed up with their torches ablaze and pitchforks at the ready, demanding the NRA, partnering corporations, and gun owners be shamed into compliance.
Constitutional amendments which protect us from our government and the mob that would require the government to destroy individual liberties in the name of safety deserve diligent protection.
Relatedly, the link to send a comment or complaint to Delta is right here.
[This post has been updated since publication.]
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwiSl_zuSd4
Which person in this video do you think would still have a weapon if they were banned.
If Delta wanted to remain “neutral” they could have done nothing. By taking a public virtue signaling stand, they came out strongly in favor of one side. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
True true.
Wonder if any other airlines offer NRA members a discount.
Good reading on this subject here.
“Counterattack Hard Against Liberal Attacks on Our Gun Rights and Other Civil Liberties”
“The liberal elite is using its social and cultural ties to those at the helm of big companies to essentially blacklist the NRA, and thereby the tens of millions of Americans who support gun rights. But oppression is oppression whether it’s done by a government bureaucrat or a corporate one, and our principle of non-interference in business assumes business stays out of politics. But now National, Hertz, and others are cutting ties to the NRA, and liberals are advocating banks do the same. Their intent is clear – what they can’t do in politics they will simply do by not allowing the representatives of people whose politics they don’t like access to the infrastructure of society. And we’re not supposed to do anything about it because, you know, free enterprise and stuff. You know, our principles.
No. They are exercising political power. We have our own political power, and we need to exercise it – ruthlessly. The first step is an executive order at the federal level directing that no federal contract can go to any company that discriminates against an organization based on its advocacy or exercise of an enumerated constitutional right. We wouldn’t allow a company to do business with our federal government if it discriminated on other grounds, so why should we do it discriminate on political grounds? Why should taxpayers be subsidizing people who hate them? When those government employees start walking past the Hertz and National counters, the liberal jerks who run those companies are going to find that they’re posing and posturing has a price.
Next, Congress needs to pass a comprehensive non-discrimination regime designed to protect us into law and allow individuals and entities the right to sue any business that discriminates on the basis of the advocacy for exercise of any constitutional right. We need to make sure there are huge penalties for non-compliance – how about $1 million a day? We also need attorneys’ fees provisions for the plaintiffs as well, because we want to turn lawyers into bounty hunters seeking out these posers who are doing so much damage to our society by collaborating in the suppression of speech that the elite does not approve of.
We could call it the “Civil Rights Anti-Discrimination Act” and dare the Democrats to vote against it. Now, of course, due to the filibuster, it might be tough to pass a law protecting our rights through Congress, but we own about 30 legislatures. That’s 30 states that can each outlaw this kind of discrimination within their borders. So Hertz and National, welcome to a whole bunch of lawsuits in Texas and Wyoming and elsewhere. But hey, it’s worth it because of the children, right?
The liberals are also pushing venues like Amazon and Roku to drop NRA News – to actively censor a news outlet because they don’t like its agenda (I appear regularly on it). The difference between government censorship and corporate censorship is no difference at all. Again, the federal government and the states have the power to regulate. Once again, we must ban discrimination on the basis of advocacy for or exercise of constitutional rights, and empower individual plaintiffs to seek penalties and attorneys’ fees for violations. If these companies really believe what they’re doing is right, they can hire lawyers in 30 states…..
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2018/02/26/counterattack-hard-against-liberal-attacks-on-our-gun-rights-and-other-civil-liberties-n2454192
My exact sentiments. The time for being neutral is past. They chose sides so now lets make them pay the price.
Delta is a crappy air line in the first instance, and has gotten worse as it has gotten larger. The feds have done a poor job enforcing antitrust law and protecting competition, and the mergers in recent years have decreased competition, choice, and quality of experience, and increased airfares.
Delta got a crony deal from the Gen. Assembly during the downturn for exemption from sales tax on jet fuel. It expired, and Delta has been lobbying hard to get it back. Nevermind that is is the end consumer and proper point of paying the tax, and that the rest of us pay sales tax on aviation fuel at our airports. The G.A. should have opposed it at the outset.
Delta has already established itself as a kneejerk operation. It terminated the transport of capes on flights from Africa to the U.S. after the dentist shot the lion in Zimbabwe and all the leftist, liberal abortionists that double as animal rights kooks took to the streets to cry bloody murder over a lion killed on a different continent.
I wish someone would acquire Delta and move its HQ out of Atlanta. And take Crap A Cola with them.
“It terminated the transport of capes”
Sorry, also not a Delta fan, but just asking what the heck this means.
Vampires Hardest Hit!
If one goes hunting outside the US, he or she cannot bring the meat back because of USDA regulations.
But, one can cape (skin) the animal harvested to cleanliness standards without meat, eat the meat in camp and/or contribute it to the camp supply and local villages, and bring the cape [or a completed mount] back. The cape can be used over foam by a taxidermist in the US to complete a mount.
Delta buckled under pressure despite the benefits that hunting and the conservation it drives across international borders. The USFWS has acknowledged for years that international hunting and the money it takes into poor countries can be and generally is good for wildlife populations. The central thrust is that indigenous peoples often live at odds with wild critters the way that people in the US do, depending on whether a rancher/farmer or in the suburbs, and do battle with critters. Managed hunting provides a way to harvest animals, that are problems or before they are problems, and puts a commercial value on them at the local level as well as creates jobs, and that alters peoples’ perceptions and relations with wildlife in a positive manner. The relationship is transformed from an entirely adversarial one to one that is more of co-existence to perhaps even financial dependence on the well being of the local wildlife populations. If they care about wildlife, killing will be more discriminate and restrained. The benefits they get are income and the ability to participate in commercial food markets, and less reliance on patchwork, hard scrabble subsistence agriculture.
For more insight into hunting transforming the relationship between the indigs and the ferae naturae, read the op-ed, In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry For Lions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/opinion/in-zimbabwe-we-dont-cry-for-lions.html
Also, you might still be able to find info about the program that the late, great Dr. Lovett Williams started in C. America to save the Ocellated Turkey with a commercial hunting program that puts money into pockets of the indigs and allows them to buy food and have a better diet than the high pressure, subsistence hunting of Ocellated Turkeys does. The commercial hunting and the revenue from it has resulted in lower overall harvest numbers for the O.T.’s.
http://www.lovettwilliams.com/camps_ocellated.html
Skins – thank you very much.
Delta virtue signaled that legal hunting trophies from Africa would not be flown back to USA. Delta flies into South Africa. I have hunted in Southern Africa and did some anti-poaching stuff while there. The trophy fees and such do NOT all go to the dictators and help funds conservation/protection but Delta could care less. One has to be on the ground to appreciate the poverty and diet issues that are addressed locally from above board sport hunting. The meat from the animals I shot was given to the locals.
Yea, I have been once and WILL be going back, but just my small hunting group provided enough meat to feed two villages and an orphanage for a month. But, yea all hunters are just evil.
Your post focused on the more obvious and short term benefit of just a quantity of meat. Don’t underestimate the economy that has developed in Africa based on commercial hunting, or the conservation benefits that have come from it. The game fees paid to land owners in particular are getting crazy, with those for KZN and the Zulu lands being among most expensive I’ve seen. The harvest of some game specie animals generates the money to provide management for all of the animals.
In 1953, S. African biologists and policymakers became concerned because they found that they had only about 800,000 head of wildlife outside of official parks and preserves. ZAR changed the law in 1954 to provide more private control and private rights that facilitated commercial hunting on private and tribal lands and private game preserves. Now the ZAR has about 18MM head of wildlife outside govt run parks and preserves.
All of you may be interested to read about the Professional Hunter program at the Southern Africa Wildlife College. It is interesting and educational about how seriously the southern African nations take hunting as the heart of their conservation programs.
https://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/hunting/2013/08/south-africa-wildlife-college-looks-transform-professional-hunter
I just sent this comment to Delta –
Your Actions re- the NRA
I am a Million Miler and my wife and I are both Platinum Medallion Members. I have flown about 100 segments on Delta every year for the last 27 years.
I am absolutely disgusted by your actions in this matter. I will now be learning to love American Airlines.
DCP
Well done!
Give American a copy of your Delta status and recent activity statement and ask for a status match. Then you can enjoy status perks on American immediately.
Excellent idea. Thanks.
DCP
Conservatives in congress should put all the overtly far-leftist companies on notice. I think it is only fair that if Google, Facebook, twitter, America’s Universities and states like New York & California, etc, etc, etc are going to be unwelcoming to conservatives; conservative lawmakers will take their hostility into consideration while passing legislation.
While the blue states tried to pass the Tax Bill off as a punitive action against high tax blue states it was not actually a punitive action specifically against blue states although the net result is the same.
It would be good to see the Georgia legislative measures against Delta replicated across the nation on many fronts. Leftist virtue signaling without sacrifice is meaningless. I think all efforts should be made to make the left’s sacrifices as meaningful as possible. Make them hurt. Hollywood needs a good kick in the pants too.
well don’t get your hopes up, there’s only about 40 actual conservatives in the Senate. House is a little better but not that much.
You can guarantee a lecture from Jeff Flake on Why it is Our Job to Shut Up and Take It.
“I’ll take Miscalculations for $500, Alex ”
” This airline jumped at the chance to virtue signal after a school shooting and never considered the consequences… forty-million dollars ..”
Is this true?
Huge consumer ramifications due to the Atlanta Hub. Delta, if they stick to their guns (pun intended), will probably re-route to Charlotte (but then they’ll be supporting transgender bathroom bans oh no!).
Delta is stuck with Hartsfeld as its hub no matter what – Charlotte doesn’t have the capacity. No other airport in the southeast US has that capacity.
Which means it was dumb to have offered this tax break to Delta in the first place, it was just a giveaway to some corp that couldn’t do anything about it when the State said “no”.
Exactly. Delta can’t move it’s hub out of Atlanta. They operate over 1000 flights per day. They can bluster and cry all they want but in the end, they’re going to have to suck it up and accept the consequences of their actions.
So some Republicans DO have a spine. Who knew?
but sadly, they are not in Washington
“every single bit of that tragedy was the fault of law enforcement agencies.”
Wait a minute. Major responsibility falls on Bill Clinton for turning our schools into defender- free “gun free” zones, which are a blatant invitation to slaughter. Clinton and a whole bunch of other Democrats.
The NRA has been trying to stop this evil plot by the Democrats to create child slaughters that they can use as weapons against the Constitution.
Let’s not forget Obama’s PROMISE [Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support, and Education] program which kept both Trayvon Martin and Nikolas de Jesus Cruz from being arrested for their crimes.
To be fair, it was Bubbas adopted Daddy GHW Bush who signed Joe Bidens “Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990” in to law.
(I can’t believe I just defended a Clinton. Ima go wash my fingers off with some LAVA soap now)
Truth is truth. If it helps, both Bushes are globalists.
On the plus side, you have no future at CNN.
The online mob seized upon the Florida shooting tragedy (even though every single bit of that tragedy was the fault of law enforcement agencies who refused to intervene), using the incident to destroy the NRA and attack second-amendment protections. Thankfully, there are plenty of people, elected and private, willing to fight back.
This is erroneous in a couple of respects. First, it was an atrocity, not a tragedy. Second, it was the fault of the shooter because it was a willful act of murder.
The silliness in the position of gun control advocates is laid bare in most of these shooting events because there typically were warning signs and chances for LE agencies, school administrators, family, friends, bosses, co-workers etc. to do something. They all failed to do anything with ample laws on the books and warning signs. But in the childish minds of leftists, they will be prevented in the future by LE agencies and other stakeholders if we all just do this one additional thing, something that typically curtails gun rights and invades the privacy of existing and would-be gun owners.
I have a buddy who works for Delta here in Atlanta. From middle management down there was dissension today. There is also a huge surge of Delta employees who joined the NRA today.
That news brings a smile to my face. All of the blue collar Delta workers that I can think of are hunters and fishermen, and most of them have lengthy commutes and want handguns in the auto for protection.
I think this is just a big nothing burger. Kinda like Delta is saying that they are not going to give the National Abortion Federation special treatment either.
I say great, lets stop all special treatment of pet associations including GLBTQXYRASDNDWADFSDRES organizations. Let go a step further and not support other businesses or colleges…etc.
If Delta had wanted to remain neutral then they shouldn’t have changed their policy one bit with regards to the NRA. That or maybe discontinue discounts for some anti-gun groups as well just to be fair. Now they not only are going to suffer some loss of revenue due to ticking off NRA members and those who support our 2nd amendment rights they’ve also lost out on a big tax break! Delta gambled and lost BIGLY with this bit of virtue signalling!
One thing is now clear, Amazon had better not build its second U.S. headquarters in Atlanta.
So Delta starts out by saying it wants to remain neutral, then ends by saying it supports the 2nd amendment, which is not neutral.
I’m an NRA life member. Short of firing the CEO and probably a couple other bozo’s, I doubt any statement or discount would sway me to bother using their airline.
I didn’t join for the discounts and I’m sure not going to forgive and forget if they issue some meaningless statement to get their tax break.
“Get Woke, Go Broke”
Until Delta respects NRA Members I’ll fly elsewhere.
You know it is unfortunate that Delta is a company and I can’t point at it and laugh in derision.
Id be interested to find out what their cost impact analisys was for virtue signalling like they did?
Things like this dont happen out of the goodness of their heart. Someone somewhere must have crunched the numbers before this stance was announced??
And now back in the real would they will reap the consequences if their actions which they should have seen coming but most likely didnt want to see coming!
Action meet consequence. The statement needs to be made that either they reinstate the NRA programs OR end ALL special relationships with ANY political organization. Also, if neutrality was their goal they would have just quietly ended it instead of getting out the bullhorn.
My compliments to the Georgia Senate and Lt Governor for pushing back against Delta. If companies are allowed to start penalizing people for exercising their constitutional rights because of social justice bullies, half of the constitution will be voided through SJW attacks. This must be stopped now.
Having an NRA membership only goes so far (I’m a life member). You’ve got to take one-on-one stands against these companies as well.
I’ve already cancelled three accounts at companies who caved to the anti-NRA crowd and told them why; and am cancelling a fourth as soon as I get replacement insurance.
I spent my career at Delta and am ashamed they have waded into the PC arena. Whoever in Senior Management made this decision MUST be FIRED immediately. The NRA is supported by Tens of Millions of Americans who DO NOT agree with the Limp Wristed Lunatic Liberals. A deranged mentally ill whacko killed those students,,, NOT the Gun and NOT the NRA. Delta, your Very Poor Decision will pay a Very Heavy Price !!
These decisions are made by people who went to Ivy League Indoctrination Camps. They have only disdain for Americans.
Dear Delta,
Welcome to the world of politics.
We look forward to many more public statements expressing your position on issues like:
Abortion
Transexual bathrooms
Black Lives Matter
Climate Change
#MeToo
Signed
Your Dwindling Customer Base
I’m a big fan of voting with my feet, and my feet will be walking over to the Southwest terminal on the trip I’m paying for this weekend. So Delta thus far has lost $40,000,550 including the ticket I won’t be buying.
FedEx is now in support of a ban on military style weapons especially “assault weapons” in civilian hands…see Financial Times. I doubt the execs could describe what they are wanting to ban. Since bolt action rifles were initially developed for military use that doesn’t leave much that hasn’t been a weapon of war.
I dearly wish we could stand back in an alternate world but still watch the Progressive world “progress”. More like a death spiral but here we are on the good ship USA with the life boats and life preservers being tossed overboard to give a better view.
I am signing everything #IAMTHENRA – because I am. Lifetime member. 72 year old grandmother.
For everyone who cares about the Bill of Rights, including the 2nd Amendment, start flooding ” ThinkProgress.org ” and their facebook page with tens of thousands of comments. “ThinkProgress?” is already complaining about advertisers killing their revenue from online ads because of their “controversial” stands. Every time you see an article from “ThinkProgress?” on Yahoo, etc. file a complaint with the Yahoo, etc. Use their tactics back at them. What goes around comes around. And don’t forget the other two weasley anti 2nd Amendment groups that helped push this attack on the NRA: “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America” and “Everytown for Gun Safety.” By the way, the NRA has been pushing gun safety long before anybody alive today was even around.
if anyone has heard New York State, and Virginia are courting Delta to move their headquarters and hub to those states.