Remember this guy?
youtube.com/watch?v=cSiD…Here's Andy Barr with his embarrassing racist ad drop.Keep in mind, the Republican primary includes Daniel Cameron, the black McConnell protégé.Andy playing the Klan angle. @eddsmitty.bsky.social: get a load of this.
— PaulaEquine (@paulaequine.bsky.social) 2026-02-08T11:49:27.913Z
I talked about him in the post linked below.
Here are the corporations donating to this proudly racist candidate.
The list is from Judd at Popular Information.
Corporate PAC donors to Barr’s campaign
Barr’s Senate campaign has raised nearly $1.4 million from PACs, including dozens of PACs representing corporations and trade associations. A Popular Information review of Barr’s filings with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) revealed contributions from at least 67 major corporations.
Some companies that donated to Barr appear to be the “corporate losers” that he attacks in the new ad. In 2022, for example, MetLife CEO Michel Khalaf said:
MetLife’s purpose calls on us to build a more inclusive and equitable world for all our stakeholders. The breadth of these commitments demonstrates that we are significantly advancing our DEI efforts on every front. Setting clear expectations for our progress will hold us accountable and sustain our momentum.
In 2025, MetLife’s PAC donated $5,000 to Barr’s Senate campaign.
A top Delta executive said last year that, despite pressure from the Trump administration, it remained steadfast in its commitment to diversity. “DEI is about talent, and that’s been our focus,” Delta Chief External Affairs Officer Peter Carter said. “And, of course, the key differentiator at Delta is our people.” A few months later, Delta donated $5,000 to Barr’s Senate campaign.
In other cases, corporations have supported Barr as they scaled back efforts to promote diversity. Microsoft, for example, ceased publication of its annual diversity and inclusion report in 2025 and donated $5,000 to Barr. Last year, Wells Fargo “discreetly deleted its DEI page detailing a long history of diversity and inclusion work dating back to the early 1800s” and donated $5,000 to Barr’s campaign. It was a dramatic about-face for Wells Fargo, which pledged $50 million to the NAACP in 2023.
Other corporate donors to Barr’s Senate campaign that recently donated to the NAACP include JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Nationwide, and UPS. Meanwhile, Comcast, Bank of America, and TD Bank donated to Barr and are listed as the ADL’s Corporate Partners Against Hate.
Popular Information contacted all 67 corporate PAC donors to Barr’s Senate campaign for comment. All of the corporations either did not respond or declined to comment.
How do we make it toxic for these companies to support this racism?
WereBear
I was trying to find something recognizable to boycott, but I gave up Smucker’s waaaay back, when I found French jam.
However, most people do, and it might be an easy swap that would make a big impact. When something when viral about the low grade foods put in a certain soup, it was disastrous.
Even if someone goes through jam a lot more than we do, they can choose a better jam, easily. Often, cheaper, too.
Boycott Smuckers.
SImple & focused. Now, if they are the only source of Nutella in the states, it might get ugly.
WereBear
My eyes were a blur of names I don’t have enough money to boycott. But that “beloved” name leaped out.
That’s the kind of thing that reaches the Goldman-Sachs types.
Suzanne
Boycott these fuckers. Not that me boycotting Goldman Sachs will have any impact at all. But.
And a side note, looking at Andy Barr…..what is it with these fuckers always looking as goddamn unkempt as possible. He’s literally on TV and he can’t be bothered to iron his shirt, or even have someone else do it for him. God. These people.
WaterGirl
Seems like even these big companies must have a social media presence somewhere. I bet they wouldn’t like the fact that they are donating in support of racism to be front and center in the comments on their sites.
Betty Cracker
I’m in favor of boycotting companies that give cash to trash politicians, but ultimately the goal has to be banning corporate campaign contributions. I realize it’s a heavy lift, but for the sake of democracy, we have to solve that puzzle.
JML
@WereBear: I get all my jam at the farmer’s market these days, but I’m bougie like that.
Baud
Via reddit
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Of course, but if I led with that it would be how we can’t do that, so you’re welcome, I got you out of a jam. :)
Belafon
@Baud: “We could help all Americans.”
“I don’t want to be at the same level as THEM!”
trollhattan
The usual suspects—foremost financial institutions then your petroleums and petroleum-users and nary a Costco in sight.
WereBear
@JML: Time was a girlfriend and I would devote Sunday afternoons to driving out through gorgeous scenery and browse the many goodies in the area’s largest.
Brunch or late lunch, but we talked the whole time, irregardless. But I’m retired and she’s still working. Neither of us have that kind of finances these days, also.
But we stay in touch.
WereBear
@Belafon: This is the tech version of Morgan hiring one half of the working class to kill the other half.
Redshift
@Suzanne:
Because the GOP base doesn’t want people who are smart or well-qualified to represent them. They resent it if you look like you think you’re better than them, and if you can convince them you don’t think you are, you can grift off them forever and never have to work hard.
Gravenstone
@Baud: And once again, Lyndon B. Johnson was proven prescient.
Yet Another Haldane
Thanks for the table. I’m going to convert it to a spreadsheet to embiggen the text and and sort by donor name. You wanna copy?
I think this is the relevant post in popular.info:
popular.info/p/major-corporations-bankroll-political
Baud
Sure Lurkalot
@Betty Cracker:
I agree. We are not and cannot be a true democracy until we reform campaign finance (I’d say not only corporate, the whole ball of wax is a convoluted shitshow). Let’s also end our never ending election cycles.
piratedan
when I see a list like this where for many of these corporations this kind of donation is almost like the bribery to allow you to do business in the state. What I’d like to know before beginning any activism is if they’ve also donated to their opponents and all they are doing is covering their asses in the business environment.
If we do want to raise hell, it’s kind of simple to do so, it’s to take it to social media, say for example if we take a couple of corporate sponsors out there that advertise and some that don’t, say AFLAC and Truist bank. You just point out if it’s really okay that they support an open racist like Andy Barr for public office and if so, why? You make them fucking own it. Are you really the White People’s supplemental insurance company and are they okay with that look? Do black people really want their money invested with Truist bank if it openly supports candidates like Andy B? You do it on all platforms, Facebook, Threads, X, Tik-Tok, Mastodon, Bluesky….
At least those are my thoughts….
HinTN
@WaterGirl: Where’s the Mardi Gras sidebar? 🙄
Ohio Mom
I’m betting a good number of these corporations also gave token contributions to each of the other other candidates. Big companies often hedge their bets, giving something to everyone, though usually a bit more to their favorite. Okay, Koch does not give to any Democrats.
The amounts listed here, five and ten thousand dollars, are tokens, they are to these companies as you buying a box of Girl Scout cookies from your workmate on behalf of her daughter, another from the little girl who lives across the street from you.
I usually find with these lists of possible boycott targets that either I already don’t patronize them (for one example, I wouldn’t buy a GM car on a bet), I never heard of them, or they are already so entwined in my life that the trade-off isn’t worth it to me (PNC is the bank closest to my house).
Jackie
The latest count of views of Stephen Colbert’s banned interview with James Talarico by the FCC:
Well done, CBS! 👏👏
Ben Cisco
@Suzanne:
Because the proponents of white supremacy can be reliably counted on to be counter-examples of it.
RevRick
@WereBear: The only really successful boycott I know of was the multi-year campaign against Nestlé for marketing infant formula to new moms in Africa. It was church based. You need an existing organization to sustain boycotts.
Belafon
@RevRick: Disney over Kimmel, Montgomery bus boycott.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud: That study checks. The Trumpy Hispanics identified with white supremacists. The Trumpy white people (especially men) felt like everyone but them had an advocate pushing for their advancement. They failed to recognize their own undeserved advantages. They thought Trump would force everyone to stop helping minorities be successful, which would put them back on top given they believe minorities and women are inherently inferior and couldn’t be successful without help. They are probably thrilled with what he’s doing.
RevRick
@HinTN: It’s Shrove Tuesday, thank you very much.
In PA Dutch country it’s Fastnacht and I made the mistake of eating its donut-like namesake at my pericope clergy group this morning…and I still haven’t digested it.
A fastnacht is made from potato dough and fried in lard and either coated in powdered sugar or dipped in molasses or maple syrup.
Suzanne
@Ben Cisco:
This is 100% true.
I remember reading something like, “The reason some white people hate the idea of white privilege is because they’ve accomplished so little despite having it”. BAM.
Steve in the ATL
@HinTN: tomorrow’s On the Road is gonna be lit!
cain
@Jackie: Advertisers are probably going to be pissed to have that many viewers and didn’t get the ad revenue. Same with CBS. But you know, CBS just has to fail harder.
Suzanne
David Runciman, who is a professor at…. Cambridge, I think? …..he has a great podcast about political ideas. He has posited that the truest name for the age we are living in is not the Anthropocene, but the Leviacene. Essentially, the idea is that we have created governments and corporations that are so large in scale that they control us, rather than humans controlling them. He has a book out about this, which I haven’t read yet…. but his podcast is fantastic. If terrifying.
trollhattan
Mini-Me/Tattoo has completely internalized the boss’s schtick.
“We”
SpaceUnit
Anybody else having issues with the blog today?
It’s taking forever to load and refresh, and a couple of times I ended up on an error page.
Baud
@SpaceUnit:
Have had that often, but not today so much
ETA: spoke too soon
lowtechcyclist
@trollhattan:
…don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee…
Jackie
Be careful what you wish for :-)
SpaceUnit
@Baud:
I must not be clicking correctly.
WaterGirl
@Yet Another Haldane: Thanks for that! I had copied the URL to link to the line about Judd from Popular Information, and then I apparently forgot to paste it in!
And yes, I would love to have a copy.
NotMax
Repeated from downstairs.
Was impressed by a conversation I watched with Ryan Busse, running in Montana to unseat Zinke in the House.
IMHO worthy of B-J support.
Mr. Bemused Senior
And the horse he rode in on.
piratedan
@Yet Another Haldane: I went ahead and linked our BJ thread to a bluesky post and made a huge histrionic post on Book of Faces and referred each to the source over on substack. Just kinda pissed that there’s less vetting of political campaign donations than there is with insurance claims review.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
I counted ten of the corporations on that list that I do business with in one way or another. I could stop doing business with them, but their competitors are on the list too.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Jackie: I hate to lose Big Klobe in the Senate, though.
zhena gogolia
Watching Talarico on YouTube now, although I prefer Crockett. Because my government tried to keep me from seeing it.
Jackie
@zhena gogolia: Hopefully Colbert gives Crockett equal banned time! ;-)
zhena gogolia
@Jackie: Yeah!
Fair Economist
The attacks on decency from corporations are so pervasive I don’t think a boycott is feasible. You can’t boycott every bank at once. I think the approach now is to look for out and loud liberal organizations and buy from them – Penzey’s spices, labor union affiliated credit unions, etc.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
Based on that list, the best way to send the message would be to join a credit union, buy used electric vehicles, and self-insure. The list is filled with banks, insurers, auto makers and fuel giants.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Fair Economist: Problem is there are other reasons to look outside the libprog sphere. Penzey’s, for example, has issues with lead, arsenic and other contaminants in their products from farming and harvesting methods and from conditions local to the growing regions.
Eyeroller
@Baud
If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.
-Lyndon Johnson
Eyeroller
@trollhattan: That’s why Toyota and especially Smuckers stick out so much to me. I could see they might donate to all candidates to cover their rears, but not all corporations seem to feel that way in this case.
Sure Lurkalot
@Suzanne: Past Present Future is a great podcast and there are lots of episodes worth listening to. I have a longish car drive for lunch tomorrow so I’ll tune in to the episode you linked. Thanks for the tip!
BC in Illinois
@Jackie:
Jasmine Crockett has been on Colbert’s Late Show at least twice the last year or so.
He should have them both on at least once, before May.
[Edited to fix link.]
Yet Another Haldane
@WaterGirl: I emailed you a link to the Google sheet. Ping me if a CSV would work better.
Eyeroller
@Gravenstone: He wasn’t prescient, he was stating the reality of his time. The problem is that we haven’t progressed all that much since then.
Captain C
@Jackie: Either Bari Weiss and the Ellison nepo spawn are secret leftists, or (more likely) they’re ragingly incompetent.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): All the spice manufacturers have issues with contaminants. Penzeys is not the worst offender.
Ben Cisco
@Suzanne:
YOWSAH!!
WaterGirl
@NotMax:
These are the “official” states that the Dems are going for, that we need to take back the Senate.
Interestingly enough, the don’t have Nebraska on that list, either. I presume because the candidate there is the Independent we supported in 2024.
Guessing they don’t think Montana is winnable. But we don’t take our cue from what the DSCC does. So we’ll look at Montana and see if it looks at all winnable
If you have a link to the conversation you’re referring to, please share!
Citizen Alan
@Suzanne: I posited decades ago that the Singularity that futurists were so worried about had actually already happened. Only instead of AI it came in the form of the corporate form, a higher metaphysical life form with no physical body but an existence that is nevertheless recognized by society and by law, and which has been afforded rights equal to and in some way superior to those held by human beings, but which is totally amoral and has no agenda but to perpetuate its own existence and maximize the value of its stock by any means necessary. Corporations are like apex predators that prey upon human beings and have no natural enemies except bigger corporations that want to consume and assimilate them.
The clearest example of this is the private prison industry, which has grown from a niche thing in the 80s to the point where it was powerful enough to bribe judges into sending children to its facilities who otherwise would have avoided incarceration. And now it has the bid for Piggy’s concentration camps.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: I have been hoping for the same thing from Colbert. I would like to see him interview Crockett.
My GUESS is that the Rs see the white male as the bigger threat, and that they would prefer to run against Crockett. I wish we could see if CBS would have made the same decision if Colbert had been going to interview Crocket, not him.
RevRick
@Belafon: The Montgomery bus boycott was sustained by the black churches.
Kimmel is a special case, because he is a celebrity and Disney was an easy target for their egregious decision.
WaterGirl
@Fair Economist:
Well, for banking, everyone could use a local credit union, which would most likely be better for everyone anyway!
But investments are tougher.
WaterGirl
@Yet Another Haldane: CSV would be preferable, thank you!
Eyeroller
@Citizen Alan: What really enrages me about “corporate personhood” is the basic fact that corporations do not have to die. This would be fine if they were just fictional “people” for the purpose of absorbing financial liability, but we’ve granted them nearly full human rights. This is absurd.
Of course most corporations are not immortal–they go out of business, they are bought by competitors, etc. But they have no inherent mortality. Mortality is an essential part of being human. Corporate immortality allows them to accumulate money and power indefinitely.
If corporations want full human rights then their charters should include an end date. Every say 90 years, they would have to liquidate themselves and designate heirs that are not them in another form.
Or as some wag quipped, “I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.”
RevRick
@WaterGirl: The Montana race is for one of the two House seats. The DCCC has targeted 44 races. The Montana seat is one of them.
Interesting that the Florida Senate race isn’t considered flippable by the DSCC.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@trollhattan: Gee wonder if they’ll give Democrats equal time on Fox. Hahahahahahaha who am I kidding?
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Here’s the linky to the entire thing.
WaterGirl
@RevRick: oh, thanks for the correction!
we’ll definitely look at that House race.
gene108
@WaterGirl:
Brendan Carr, FCC Chairman, wants to make it so talk shows have to interview all candidates running, if they interview any one candidate. CBS proactively complied with Carr’s wishes by refusing to air the Talarico interview.
There’s apparently an exemption for talk shows, where they can interview any candidate they want. Carr’s bullying his way past this.
The FCC’s investigating “The View” for airing a recent interview with Talarico.
******************
The add scares me. Trump brought alt-right racists out of the woodwork in 2017. In 2026, it seems Republicans are embracing alt-right racist ideology as their default position spouting off about the great replacement theory, whites bring discriminated against, etc.
What Trump unleashed is going to outlive him by many years. Too many right-wing institutions like Fox News, The Heritage Foundation, popular right-wing podcasters, etc. have gone all in supporting alt-right ideology.
I really think the long term future of the USA looks bleak, because of all the radical right-wing revanchist forces that have built up a significant ability to drive what people think.
Jackie
@RevRick:
The FL Senate race gained another D voter with me! :-)
WaterGirl
@Jackie: How many times are you planning to vote? //
Jackie
Take THAT, FFOTUS!
Jackie
@WaterGirl: LOL! I’m ONE more Dem in FL than their last election ;-)
trollhattan
@gene108:
ATM 32 active candidates are still in the CA governor race.
Get them all in the studio at once; invite the FCC chair.
Shakti
@trollhattan: Fox News has the worst polling? LMAO. Which polling does J-Donald-Bowman-Hamel-Vance like better?
@zhena gogolia: I’m not sure why Talarico has activated this weird desire to force equal time only on outfits that are not proxies for right wing billionaire think tanks and Peter Thiel’s paranoias. Like, why are they so afraid of Talarico of all people?
@RevRick: I have weirdly eaten almost nothing today so my anger/sadness level is ‘cannot figure out why microwave isn’t making things hot’. It is also Chinese New Year as noted elsewhere, and Ramadan has also started.
Thankfully Valentine’s Day and Maha Shivaraatri weren’t on the same day this year, although the hearts and candy day followed by the ‘pray and fast all day, stay up all night’ holiday is…. interesting.
@Baud: The racism is affirmative action for white people at the bottom– it is just a really loud and blatant premium white people with less than college educations get over everyone else that’s been turbo charged. The less educated you are, the more being white is an advantage when competing with similarly educated peers. Everyone else has to be more educated to make close to the same amount a less educated white person makes and they will still make less than white people at the new level of education. [Asians do not make equal amounts or more than other people at the same level of education not controlling for field, except when it comes to masters degrees or above.]. It also holds for white people with college degrees. Even white people who supposedly are immune to the effects of having a college degree b/c they’re outliers or their field doesn’t need it will loudly yell about deporting everyone from everywhere.
Bar Chart 1 White men vs. women by race and gender
Bar Chart 2 Women’s weekly by race and educational level
Bar Chart 3 earnings ratio between men and women as a ratio of women to men of the same ethnicity and educational level
the ratio between men and women is most pronounced for white people
Mr. Bemused Senior
Funny you should ask. Heather Cox Richardson just talked about exactly that in her live chat. Short answer: he is a threat to MAGA evangelical Christian support.
Yet Another Haldane
@piratedan: Amen! Name ’em and shame ’em.
Scamp Dog
Why do these corporations think that if they donate to a candidate, they have to abide by his preferences? Donate to Barr, and if he gives them grief about having a DEI program, tell him “we helped you out, you’re supposed to help US now, asshole!”
Kayla Rudbek
@Redshift: or you can go ahead and look tacky and showy, but dressing like a serious, proper, sober adult now seems to be the domain of the Democrats (and I’m old enough to remember my dad complaining that he had to dress like a Republican banker in a suit every workday in order to be taken seriously)
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: and that would be two of Mr. Rudbek’s uncles who despite being able-bodied white men didn’t get professional degrees…
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: and that sounds a lot like Charlie Stross talking about corporations…
Kayla Rudbek
@Citizen Alan: are you also reading Charlie Stross’ blog? Because that is basically what he says about corporations.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: That shows he’s gosh durned authentic! Hyow hyow!