woke Corps

10 22

see divest

SEE DEI --> TARGET LAWFARE DOJ BONDI

see ESG fink caves

see Corp responsibility --- CSR?

see disney

merri ok

aha: gop good ol boy trump fake populism to seem ally of working families, try to throw off old pro biz rep; troll caucus willing to go after WOKE corps for clicks/grift b/c they betrayed US america/white ppl

lgbt drag homophobia

insurrection caucus

include military?

see NFL

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MMA 10 26

Fox & Friends co-hosts quickly move on from a bad jobs report to "other business news": Nike's “woke stunts”

-=-=

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NOT EXPLICIT BUT CLEAR

MMA

February 9, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five}:

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): The game was so bad, everyone's talking about halftime. And halftime was so bad. Now, they say, the halftime was not bad. Okay. Last halftime was Kendrick Lamar, okay? That was also the most highly rated halftime. So is this. We didn't understand what Kendrick Lamar was saying last time, and that was English. Now how do you think we feel?

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): Jesse, they had a signer for the deaf but no translator for the Spanish. Why do you think that is?

WATTERS: I don't know. I like the Super Bowl not to be an international event. I like it when we kind of all come together as Americans, especially when it feels like the NFL's just using it as a marketing ploy to recruit Latin American audience -- on the heels of Latin America invading this country. 20 million pouring in and that's what you see. You see all these foreigners speaking a foreign language, with foreign flags marching into the camera like a caravan. Too soon!

Listen, this was an open borders moment. Everybody knows it. That's what's going on here. And all the reporters, who are liberal, who don't even watch football, this is the first playoff game they've ever watched, they are saying they loved it? They didn't hear a word. They couldn't understand what the guy said. Of course, they loved it. It was foreign.

Now, a lot of us feel -- Americans, red-blooded Americans -- that it feels like the left is teaming up with large corporations and foreign populations to take our culture away from us. Now, I love Bad Bunny. I thought some of the tunes I could move to, and I love Puerto Rico. That's the thing. Not for Super Bowl halftime. Can you give me at least that? Give me that.

On Fox News, Kid Rock calls Jay-Z “a DEI hire” by the NFL

02/10/26 3:15 PM EST

Laura Ingraham says Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny's halftime show “didn't represent America at all”

02/09/26 7:51 PM EST

Greg Gutfeld launches incoherent rant about a Jewish halftime show with “dancing accountants” and “men slinging pastrami”

02/09/26

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an 12 25

Donald Trump's Department of Justice is getting in on the push to force diversity programs out of American businesses with a "novel" interpretation of an 1863 fraud law, but an analysis from MS NOW found that this new "bullying" tactic amounts to "a complete waste of resources."

According to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal, the DOJ is now attempting to use the 1863 False Claims Act to go after companies that receive government money through federal contracts to make sure they do not have "diversity, equity and inclusion" programs in place. The report specifically singled out Verizon and Google's parent company, Alphabet, as some of the initial targets.

Trump issued an executive order in March calling for the end of all DEI initiatives in the federal government. His administration has also been aggressive in targeting such programs at private businesses with any means available to it, and major companies like Amazon, Target and Paramount opted to roll them back in response.

Examining the new legal tactic at the heart of this push, MS NOW's Hayes Brown explained that the False Claims Act was first introduced to take on defense contractors attempting to bilk the Union government for more money during the Civil War. Recently, it's mostly been used to go after healthcare companies suspected of overcharging the federal government.

This new intended use of the law by the Trump administration, holding companies liable and potentially leveling fines against them for having DEI programs in place while taking government money, would be a "novel" interpretation, Brown wrote, and one that "hasn’t been tested in court and could easily fall flat." Still, he argued, "the mere fact that DOJ is pursuing this route is chilling in and of itself."

Brown also noted that, by utilizing this novel approach to the False Claims Act, the Trump administration is shifting responsibility for its anti-DEI crusadeonto the DOJ from the department's civil rights division to its fraud division, which has been ordered to "aggressively" pursue the matter. Aside from being "clear politicization of the legal system," Brown also argued that it represents "a major waste of resources" for the DOJ, which has recently "been struggling with its workload" under Attorney General Pam Bondi's remaking of the department.

"Even if the cases go nowhere, or don’t result in charges, businesses with less money than Google may step up efforts to roll back their diversity programs," Brown concluded. "MAGA pours a lot of resources into achieving its goals, but it prefers that its targets for bullying comply in advance."

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10/01/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Ché Ahn says that he is running for governor to be "a father for California."
Tony Perkins claims that "corporate America has blood on its hands" for having donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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AN 7 25

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey may have a bad track record in court, but he’s winning anyway. This is especially true of his crusade to make the workforce and higher education less diverse.

He’s had success using losing lawsuits, investigations that do nothing but burn Missouri taxpayer dollars and threatening letters that misstate the law.

On the day that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled traditional affirmative action programs in higher education unconstitutional, Bailey sent threatening letters to Missouri universities and municipalities in which he overstated what the ruling did and implied that all efforts at fostering diversity and inclusion in Missouri must be halted.

In April, Bailey excoriated the Business Roundtable for having “racist DEI initiatives.” He wrote he would fight “woke political trends and blatant racial discrimination.” In an impressive act of government “jawboning” that Bailey has claimed to oppose in other contexts, he threatened that such policies “risk exposing your organizations to substantial liability.”

Bailey is suing IBM, alleging the company did too much to recruit non-white and female hires.

IFrame Content

Diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts (the “DEI” much maligned by the far-right) help companies hire and retain qualified people who they wouldn’t easily find through traditional white male networks. Many studies and companies have explained that diversity is good for profits and innovation, and that you don’t get a diverse workforce without making an effort to recruit one.

Bailey’s court filings come shockingly close to outright stating his contrary premise: women and non-white people are inherently inferior so any increase in their representation is bad.

IBM argued that Bailey hasn’t pleaded that any Missouri employee or job applicant was discriminated against. Indeed, this looks like Bailey preening for the national anti-diversity warriors rather than addressing a Missouri problem.

Though you wouldn’t know it from listening to Bailey, diversity is still a permissible goal under Supreme Court precedent. And it is typical for companies to reward executives for advancing corporate goals.

But the IBM lawsuit looks like another one where Bailey could win with a loser of a case. IBM has long been known for being a model for inclusive policies and a great place to work. IBM’s diversity council began in the ‘90s. It has touted hiring a disabled employee in 1914. But this year it ended most of its diversity efforts. We’ll see whether IBM continues to fight back against Bailey.

Whatever happens, say goodbye to IBM and similarly situated companies employing more people here. Bailey has made it clear that employers should expect legal harassment for exercising their rights to association and free speech in Missouri.

Bailey has also sued Starbucks. His brief argues that the Starbucks workforce has become “more female and less white” — and that this is unacceptable.

Starbucks appears to be defending the values that the company professes. The company is also likely aware that if it were to abandon its reasonable efforts to have a workforce more representative of its customer base, it could lead to a boycott and a massive stock hit like Target experienced.

Shareholders have realized that reversing inclusive policies is bad for business. Shareholders voted down anti-diversity proposals overwhelmingly this proxy season.

The market has spoken. So Bailey’s latest ploy is to punish free speech in the market.

Bailey filed lawsuits against two firms that give shareholders advice on how to vote. He claims that they have engaged in “deceptive practices” by recommending inclusive policies. This is one of his many attempts to weaponize the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, which was meant to protect Missourians from actual fraud.

But frivolous lawsuits against out-of-state corporations are not the only way to light taxpayer dollars on fire.

Bailey can burn up twice the Missouri tax dollars by having Missouri wage legal warfare against itself. See for example, Bailey’s investigation of the Hazelwood School District over an off-campus fight between students of different races, the three year lawsuit against the Springfield School District over demands to search thousands of documents for a list of possibly DEI-related terms that the District estimated would cost $170,000, or his new investigation of the City of Columbia over whether it might be trying to advance diversity and equity.

How does a successful, powerful white man come to have such resentment towards women and people of color for the modest gains we have made that he treats it as Missouri’s biggest problem? How does someone once known as a “reasonable and smart attorney” become a “warrior in the culture wars”? What could compel him to regularly use dehumanizing language about diversity proponents who merely want more people to have opportunities?

Did he get radicalized online? Bailey has filed a surprising number of lawsuits based on tweeted statements or videos.

His IBM lawsuit cites a video circulated online. He sued Media Matters in response to an Elon Musk tweet (that lawsuit was thrown out as I predicted, but Media Matters had to cut staff due to the costs of Bailey and Musk lawsuits, so that’s another extra-legal win for Bailey). Bailey sued Planned Parenthood over a Project Veritas video, without bothering to get the unedited tape.

Another possibility is that this is how Republicans feel they need to make a name and impress Trump and MAGA. Still, I just can’t muster the cynicism to make it make sense.

Sometimes I wonder what Bailey’s mom thinks.

I learned that Dr. Jessica Bailey was the first female dean of the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s School of Health Related Professions and a revered and beloved leader there — and a champion of diversity efforts.

A 2022 article about her retirement describes Dr. Bailey’s mentorship and recruitment of the school’s then chief diversity and inclusion officer. In an earlier article, Dr. Bailey extolls that colleague for being “committed to providing opportunities for students who might otherwise not imagine themselves in a health care profession,” and having “the vision to recognize opportunities to make our health care work force be more representative of our Mississippi population.”

These are goals that her son claims are unconstitutional and racist.

During Dr. Bailey’s tenure as dean, she oversaw the development of a Diversity and Inclusion Champion Professional Development and Certificate Program. She supervised PhD theses concerning the need to diversify the health work force and bone marrow donors. She was lauded for her personal involvement in a program that recruited young Black men into medical professions.

I asked Bailey’s office whether the attorney general thinks his mother was engaged in illegal “woke political trends and blatant racial discrimination” in general, or specifically with the mentorship program for Black men.

His office responded:

“Attorney General Bailey has no knowledge of these programs administered in another state, years ago, when he was not in office. What he does know is this: DEI programs that condition opportunity on skin color violate the Missouri Constitution and the foundational American promise of equality under the law. Whether it’s in corporate boardrooms, public universities, or government contracting, he will continue to fight race-based discrimination in any form. He has led on this issue since taking office.”

That’s a clearer “yes, my mother did illegal, racist things” than I was expecting.

Bailey is not just disavowing the work of his highly accomplished mother, who has referenced the barriers she overcame as a woman in a male dominated field and who worked to help others up the ladder. He is twisting the law to claim all such efforts are illegal.

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.

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an 1 25

A group of Republican attorneys general — including Kentucky’s Russell Coleman — is pressuring Costco “to end all unlawful discrimination imposed” by the retailer’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

The 19 attorneys general sent a letter to Costco CEO Ron Vachris this week citing Republican President Donald Trump’s executive order that encouraged “all agencies to enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.”

Writing that Costco “should treat every person equally and based on their merit, rather than based on divisive and discriminatory DEI practices,” the attorneys general asked Vachris to either repeal Costco’s DEI policies or explain why the company is keeping them in place within 30 days.

Costco shareholders recently rejected a proposal from a conservative think tank to examine risks posed by its DEI policies. Nearly 98% ofshareholders voted against the measure. Costco’s board had recommended rejection of the proposal.

At the Jan. 24 shareholders meeting, Costco board chair Tony E Curtis said the company’s commitment to inclusion “does not and has never included quotas or systematic preferences, nor does it mean compromising merit. The demands of our business and our steadfast commitment to serve our members mean that we cannot afford to do anything but hire and promote the most qualified individuals.”

Costco has not publicly responded to the letter. A spokesperson for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Kentucky AG Coleman said in a statement, “Costco has a motto to ‘Do the right thing,’ but their DEI business practices are all wrong. By pushing a DEI agenda, Costco is out-of-step with the Kentuckians who just want affordable prices.”

Costco hasfour storesin Kentucky, according to its website.

Nationwide, some companies are rethinking their commitment to DEI, while others are standing by their diversity practices. Brands like Walmart and Meta have rolled back DEI policies while tech giants Microsoft and Apple reaffirmed their policies within the last week. Last year, Kentucky-based whiskey makerBrown-Forman suspended its DEI policies.

DEI policies are often aimed at removing bias and promoting fairness in areas like employment and education.

Former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron crusaded with other Republican attorneys general to curb DEI in the private sector, including issuing a letter to Fortune 100 CEOs calling on them to use “race-neutral principles in your employment and contracting practices” following the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of affirmative action in higher education.

After losing a race for Kentucky governor in 2023, Cameron became CEO of the 1792 Exchange, a group that aims to “steer public companies back to neutral on divisive, ideological issues.”

Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in an appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, recently defended private sector decisions to maintain DEI policies. If companies think encouraging a diverse workforce helps them, Beshear said, “the state that you’re working with should support you.”

Read the letter below

FINAL Costco Lettet (1)

Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.

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foxx Slams the Woke Virus Infecting American Society, Harming American Savers

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 18, 2024

WASHINGTON– Today, as part of House Republicans’ fight to save Americans from wokeism, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) spoke on the House Floor in support of H.R. 5339, the Protecting Americans’ Investments from Woke Policies Act. The bill protects Americans’ savings from radical left-wing policies by ensuring financial advisors are focused on maximizing returns in retirement plans.

Chairwoman Foxx's remarks (as prepared for delivery):

“I rise today in full support of the Republican fight against the woke progressive agenda. The Committee on Education and the Workforce is proud to lead debate on the Protecting Americans’ Investments from Woke Policies Act, or H.R. 5339, a bill that would confront and dispatch of one of the most nefarious and hidden forms of wokeness.**“Wokeness comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s a problem when it’s pushed at your local public school. It’s an existential threat to the country when it’s pushed by the institutions that police how we think, what we say, and where our money goes.

“Wokeness destroys everything it touches, including the value-neutral institutions that America used to take for granted. First, wokeness conquered academia. Then, it conquered the media. The final frontier of the woke mind virus is the banks and capitalism itself.

“You may say, what—banks are woke? They’re driven by things like profit motive and the markets. Well, think again. Under the guise of a practice known as Environmental, Social and Governance investing, or ESG for short, banks are responsible for woke social engineering on a scale that history’s authoritarians could only dream of.

“In essence, a big bank or asset manager will take your hard-earned pension or 401(k) and invest it in radical progressive causes. These ESG funds exclude businesses deemed insufficiently woke.

“What may disqualify a company from receiving woke capital is including, but not limited to: too many white, straight men in the boardroom, too much profit in the oil and gas industry, or too many politically incorrect takes by your CEO on X, formally known as Twitter.

“That the S&P 500’s ESG Index delisted a green company like Tesla only proves the point that ESG is nothing but a woke power grab. Concerns about the environment are secondary to enforcing bland progressive conformity.

“What’s more, ESG factors guide about one fourth of all assets under management or $30 trillion, yet these funds underperform when compared to their conventional peers.

“Take this from the Financial Times: ‘Over the past 12 months, global sustainable equity funds made an 11 per cent return, compared with 21 per cent for conventional stock funds, according to a May report from JPMorgan.’*

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September 13, 2024, edition of RedPill78, streamed on Rumble

ZAK PAINE (HOST): Well, thank you again, Joy, and, you're welcome back. For part two, you're going to have to do a book on trans acts of violence because, unfortunately, that's — you know what I mean? It sounds funny, but there are so many of them, trans shooters. I mean, it just seems like every time you hear about it —

JOY PULLMAN (THE FEDERALIST EXECUTIVE EDITOR): We have — for those interested at The Federalist, we have a t----- tracker — well, we call it the t----- tracker. Maybe I shouldn't be telling you that, but it's for transgender shootings. And so —

PAINE: That's the internal — that's what's on the spreadsheet.

PULLMAN: We also have one for corporations, you know, pledging large amounts of money for — to transgender causes.

PAINE: Yeah. OK. Well, worthwhile checking out. And, again, I love The Federalist.

===

an 9 24

pledge one billion

conservative activist Leonard Leo is pledging a major financial investment to "crush liberal dominance" he perceivers in corporate America and the media.

The former executive vice president of the Federalist Society and architect of the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court assembled by Donald Trump told the *Financial Times* in a rare interview that his nonprofit Marble Freedom Trust intended to turn its attention – and considerable war chest – to the private sector.

“We need to crush liberal dominance where it’s most insidious, so we’ll direct resources to build talent and capital formation pipelines in the areas of news and entertainment, where leftwing extremism is most evident,” Leo told the publication.

“Expect us to increase support for organizations that call out companies and financial institutions that bend to the woke mind virus spread by regulators and NGOs, so that they have to pay a price for putting extreme leftwing ideology ahead of consumers."

Leo has worked to shape the judiciary for more than two decades with the Federalist Society and played a crucial role in getting three ultra-conservative justices appointed to the Supreme Court during Trump's presidency, but he stepped back from daily operations of that organization after the 2020 election.

He founded Marble the following year with a $1.6 billion donation from electronic device manufacturing mogul Barre Seid, and public financial disclosures show he's spent about $600 million in that organization's first three years.

Leo said his goal was to find “very leveraged, impactful ways of reintroducing limited constitutional government and a civil society premised on freedom and personal responsibility and the virtues of western civilization."

His $1 billion pledge will go toward opposing diversity, equity and inclusion policies, climate and social concerns in the investment sector and the supposed “debanking” of politically conservative customers, and he intends to invest in an as yet undetermined local media company in the next 12 months.

“The political environment is more topsy-turvy and more uncertain than it’s ever been in my lifetime,” said Leo. “Political investing is not as good a bet as it used to be.”

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judd 7 24

Robby Starbuck on August 2, 2021, in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images)

In recent months, major companies have publicly announced that they are abandoning their diversity efforts. In at least two cases, companies were pressured into taking action by right-wing extremist and conspiracy theorist Robby Starbuck. He has succeeded in influencing corporate behavior through his social media account despite embracing racist conspiracy theories, anti-LGBTQ bigotry, and other fringe views. Following his recent successes, Starbuck has promised that he is just getting started.

Starbuck, a filmmaker whounsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2022, initially targeted Tractor Supply, a publicly traded agricultural supply company. At the beginning of June, he announced to his 520,000 followers on X that “[i]t’s time to expose Tractor Supply.” Starbuck’s post, with a video accompanying it, alleged that the company provides “LGBTQIA+ training for employees” and funds “pride/drag events.” Starbuck also attacked the company for displaying “Pride month decorations in the office,” creating a “DEI [diversity, equality, and inclusion] Council,” and engaging in “DEI hiring practices.”

Starbuck spoke at length about Tractor Supply’s involvement in Pride events. He argued that “[t]he kind of sex you like is not an appropriate topic for work” and that “[e]vents built around the kind of sex people like to have should not have kids at them and should not be funded with the money we spend at Tractor Supply.” Starbuck encouraged his followers to boycott Tractor Supply and to contact the company to complain. In the following weeks, Starbuck posted dozens of times about Tractor Supply.

In late June, Tractor Supply announced that all roles pertaining to DEI would be eliminated, that all corporate DEI goals would be retired, and that it would no longer sponsor any “nonbusiness activities” such as pride events. The company also stated that it would no longer be submitting data to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the most prominent LGBTQ rights organization in the United States, for its Corporate Equality Index.

The idea that, in 2024, a pride parade is a subversive event that requires discussing the “kind of sex you like” at work is a fringe belief. But Starbuck has a history of embracing fringe conspiracy theories.

On July 10, Starbuck promoted the racist great replacement theory on X. “There’s no sugarcoating it,” Starbuck wrote. “Democrats want illegal immigrants to vote. It’s why they let them in.” The great replacement theory is the claim that Democrats are trying to “replace” white Americans with immigrants. The theory is baseless, but has proved popular among white supremacists, and has motivated multiple mass shootings. Starbuck acknowledges that he is promoting the great replacement theory, but argues that it is not actually racist. “You can’t call replacement theory racist when it’s literally out in the open now. I’m Latino and I’m telling you that the left in the west is trying to replace existing citizens (mostly white) with migrants from 3rd world countries,” Starbuck posted on X in February.

Starbuck also promoted wild claims about the purported dangers of the COVID-19 vaccine. In October 2023, following the death of actor Matthew Perry after years of struggling with drug addiction, Starbuck suggested Perry's death was actually caused by the COVID-19 vaccine. Perry was, according to Starbuck, “a big supporter of the COVID vaccines.” Starbuck called for an investigation of the COVID-19 vaccine “as a potential cause of any cardiac issues.” Starbuck has also shown support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine non-profit, Children’s Health Defense, calling it “fantastic” and saying it does “great work.”

Starbuck has also promoted "chemtrails," a conspiracy theory that "governments or other parties are engaged in a secret program to add toxic chemicals to the atmosphere," which he claims are part of a government effort to control the weather. In April, Starbuck wrote that major flooding in Dubai was not caused by “climate change” but was instead caused by “the use of weather modification” and “[c]loud seeding where chemicals are sprayed in clouds to create rain.” In response to the post, an X user commented, “Colloquially known as ‘chemtrails,’’’ to which Starbuck responded, “Correct.” According to scientists, “there is no evidence for the existence of chemtrails.” (While the UAE has attempted to use geoengineering to increase rainfall, it was not a contributing factor to the floods, according to experts.)

Starbuck also pushed the false claim that there is cannibalism occurring in Haiti, stating that “the country is now effectively run by a warlord named Barbecue who has a ‘cannibal gang.’” This claim, based on a viral social media post, is false, according to Politifact. The State Department said “it has received no credible reports about cannibalism in Haiti.”

Starbuck was able to successfully pressure Tractor Supply without prompting any real scrutiny about his own extremist beliefs. Starbuck then repeated the process with farm equipment company Deere & Co., posting dozens of times about the company's diversity policies. On July 9, Starbuck criticized the company’s “LGBTQ & race based identity groups,” “total commitment to DEI policies,” and policy asking employees to list their “preferred pronouns.” Shortly after Starbuck began posting, the company announced it would be eliminating some of its diversity initiatives. Starbuck celebrated the partial win, but argued that the company should go further and eliminate all corporate diversity efforts.

Starbuck is now going after his next target. On July 23, Starbuck called for a boycott of Harley-Davidson on X, citing the company's hosting "LGBTQ+ events at the corporate office" and facilitating "LGBTQ+ & race based" affinity groups. Starbuck appears to be demanding that corporations not engage in any acknowledgment of LGBTQ employees or customers.

In an interview, Starbuck said “he and his researchers have identified 20 companies that could be ripe for a similar boycott.” Starbuck said that he “definitely proved a model” that involves targeting companies that appeal to a conservative clientele. In a post on X, Starbuck wrote, “DEI is poison and we won’t rest until the public knows how companies have strayed from American values.”

Starbuck’s anti-LGBTQ extremism

Earlier this year, Starbuck released a documentary called The War on Children.The documentary, which he created with his wife Landon Starbuck, centers around the idea that the LGBTQ movement is a sophisticated effort by the government, social media companies, and the medical community to corrupt and sexualize children. While promoting a trailer for the documentary, Starbuck said that the “war on children” is being waged by left-wing activists that “will stop at nothing to indoctrinate them, sexualize them, guilt them and punish them until they submit to their woke religion.”

In the documentary, which has 2 million views on X, Starbuck suggests that toxic chemicals are causing children to identify as LGBTQ. Starbuck claimed a study found that exposure to the pesticide atrazine in frogs purportedly turned them "gay” and caused them to mate with other male frogs. (An EPA review of the scientific literature found that this claim about the impact of atrazine on amphibians was false.) Starbuck says that no one wants to investigate the impact of atrazine and other chemicals on children. The theory was popularized by the notorious right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who claimed tap water was a "gay bomb." Jones asserted that the federal government was engaged in a "chemical warfare operation" designed to increase the LGBTQ population and lower birth rates. The idea that chemicals are impacting the sexuality of children, according to experts, is completely baseless.

The film includes interviews with conservative activist Riley Gaines, right-wing extremist Chaya Raichik (who runs the X account @LibsofTikTok), and a representative from The Heritage Foundation. The documentary also includes gotcha-style interviews with a drag queen and others. Rolling Stone reported that the Starbucks used “deceptive tactics” and “careful omissions” like “provid[ing] working titles for the film such as*Identity Rising*and*It Takes a Village”*to convince his targets to take part in interviews.

Starbuck frequently promotes anti-LGTBQ views to his social media followers. On X, Starbuck has said that “[p]ride events should be age restricted and only indoors.” Starbuck has also suggested that trans people want to assault women in public bathrooms and that displaying pride flags around children is “grooming and indoctrination.” In June 2023, Starbuck complained about book publisher McGraw Hill celebrating pride, calling the company “woke” and insinuating that those who support LGBTQ rights support pedophilia. “They say no matter how you identify, you should be accepted. That means a man can identify as a child,” Starbuck wrote.

Media ignores Starbuck’s extreme ideology

Mainstream media coverage of Starbuck’s campaigns against Tractor Supply and Deere & Co. do not mention his extreme beliefs or embrace of conspiracy theories. In an article about his boycott efforts, the Associated Press referred to Starbuck only as a “[c]onservative political commentator and filmmaker” and “a 35-year-old Cuban American.” NBC News referred to Starbuck as a “filmmaker.” The Wall Street Journal called Starbuck “a filmmaker turned conservative activist,” and Bloomberg described Starbuck as “a conservative commentator.”

Other publications that took a similar approach include USA Today (“conservative activist”), The Hill (“conservative activist”), and Newsweek (“[c]onservative political commentator and filmmaker”).

===

[vid]

State financial officers put Bank of America on notice for allegedly 'de-banking' conservatives

POLITICS April 18

State financial officers put Bank of America on notice for allegedly 'de-banking' conservatives

FIRST ON FOX: A group of 15 state financial officers penned a letter to Bank of America, warning it against discriminating against conservatives and religious Americans.

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very bad code

vid coming for your guns, climate...rokita BS

Embed

bank of America accused of discriminating against conservatives

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and Timothy Two Project International founder Steve Curtis join "Fox & Friends First" to discuss the bombshell allegations and how the bank has responded to the accusations.

FIRST ON FOX: A group of 15 financial officers representing 13 states issued a warning to Bank of America over its alleged practices of "politicized de-banking" targeting conservatives.

In a letter to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, the officials said the bank's practices threaten its own financial health and reputation with customers while simultaneously harming the U.S. economy and Americans' civil liberties. They pointed to examples of Bank of America shuttering the accounts belonging to Christian groups and leaders and joining a net-zero climate alliance in addition to its poor viewpoint diversity rating.

"Americans should never have to worry that their personal financial decisions will be weaponized against them," Kentucky State Auditor Allison Ball said in a statement. "This practice has become all too common, and banks must urgently course correct to uphold their fiduciary duty and safeguard the constitutional freedoms of Americans."

She blasted executives at financial institutions for taking advantage "of the divided political climate to engage in politicized de-banking."

CHRISTIAN NONPROFIT CLAIMS IT WAS 'DE-BANKED' BY BANK OF AMERICA OVER ITS RELIGIOUS VIEWS

A Bank of America store front

"Given the large number of nonprofits we serve that are affiliated with religious organizations, it’s absurd to think religious beliefs are a factor in any account closing decision," a Bank of America spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "Very simply, they are not." (AP2013)

In one example highlighted by Ball and the other 14 officials, Bank of America in April 2023 shut down the bank account belonging to Indigenous Advance Ministries, a Christian charitable organization that assists at-risk children, prisoners and sex trafficking victims in Uganda. The bank further closed the accounts of a Memphis, Tennessee, church that donated to that group.

Bank of America explained the action was taken because of the group's "business type" and that its activities exceeded the "bank’s risk tolerance." After repeated requests for clarification from Indigenous Advance Ministries, Bank of America said the accounts were closed because a business affiliated with the group engaged in debt collection, the Christian Post newspaper reported.

GOP AGs PUT MAJOR US BANK ON NOTICE FOR ALLEGED 'DE-BANKING' OF CONSERVATIVES

According to the letter, in a similar action last year, Bank of America closed the account of Timothy Two Project International, which trains pastors in more than 65 countries. The bank reportedly informed Timothy Two Project International that it was "operating a business type we have chosen not to service."

And three years prior, Bank of America reportedly froze the accounts of Christian author and preacher Lance Wallnau for allegedly laundering money. It then unfroze his account after asking him "invasive" questions about his activities, the state officers wrote.

A photo of Brian Moynihan

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan (Drew Angerer/Getty Images/File)

The letter stated that Bank of America's actions strongly suggest that "systemic drivers of religious and political bias may be at work within the company as a whole."

The bank, though, pushed back on those accusations.

"Given the large number of nonprofits we serve that are affiliated with religious organizations, it’s absurd to think religious beliefs are a factor in any account closing decision," Bank of America spokesperson Bill Halldin told Fox News Digital. "Very simply, they are not."

NIGEL FARAGE ON HIS EFFORTS TO EXPOSE 'DE-BANKING'

The state financial officers also said Bank of America's membership in the so-called Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a global group that coordinates actions taken by banks to push a green energy transition, may facilitate de-banking. They noted that commitments made by Bank of America through its membership could greatly harm farmers in their states since it will lead to higher prices.

Kentucky State Auditor Allison Ball

Kentucky State Auditor Allison Ball (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley/File)

And the letter pointed to Bank of America's low ranking on the Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index, a benchmark for measuring corporate respect for free speech and freedom of religion. The index found that Bank of America partners with left-wing groups like the Human Rights Campaign and the Center for American Progress when it comes to its gift-matching program but leaves out faith-based groups, instead citing its support for "homeless shelters, soup kitchens or other social service needs."

"This pattern of internal political and religious bias at Bank of America poses risks for public funds invested in the company as well as for the millions of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits who rely on its services," the letter to Moynihan states. "Bank of America’s de-banking policies and practices improperly subordinate financial well-being to other factors and place the company’s business interests at risk."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The letter concluded by asking Bank of America to take a number of good faith steps to address the concerns, including eliminating viewpoint discrimination and exiting the Net-Zero Banking Alliance.

"Financial institutions like Bank of America should not be allowed to restrict Americans' access to capital based solely on their political or religious views. SFOF will continue to work with our members to fight for financial sanity, free of political agendas," said State Financial Officers Foundation CEO Derek Kreifels.

Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

Conversation 469 Comments

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huh? wtf

mma 1 24

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): The Central Intelligence Agency has been interfering in our elections for years. 1964, 1968, 2016, 2020, just to name a few. And in 2024, Biden's going to need all the help he can get. Black, Hispanic, youth support -- evaporating. And he's losing to Trump in every battleground.

...

But maybe Biden knows something we don't. Maybe he thinks it's in the bag. Maybe it is in the bag. A former CIA analyst says we can expect the intelligence agencies who've been turbocharged by diversity, equity, and inclusion to reemerge this year and subvert the Republican nominee.

...

So the deep state went woke in order to kneecap Republican presidential candidates who threaten their corporate and ideological agenda. That's what DEI has really been about: using inclusivity as an excuse to hire ideological hit men and hit women to do the dirty work. Remember, you're not allowed to ask recruits about their politics. But if you hire DEI-type recruits, you can assume what their politics are without having to ask.

Also, remember, the CIA does the bidding for corporate America. And if a Republican candidate threatens corporate America's agenda by controlling the border, starting trade wars with China, challenging the Green New Deal, they'll be dealt with by the CIA -- especially a CIA stacked with liberal recruits who think they're saving democracy, but they're only saving a CEO's bottom line.

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mma 1 24

MICHAEL KNOWLES (HOST): Mickey Mouse has to become a Nazi. He has to. Because Disney is a very, very evil corporation that wants to trans your kids and fill their heads with all sorts of crazy ideas, and Disney's gotta go. Disney's gotta go, guys. You heard all the Disney executives talking about their not-so-secret LGBTLMNOP agenda.}: }:

You've seen what Disney has done in recent years, so much so that the governor of Florida had to take political action against them to stop Disney from trying to interfere in the democratic process in Florida to stop the libs from transing your kids. OK? Disney is really, really bad. And so, one of the best things that we can do right now is make the Disney characters toxic. And coincidentally, call it providentially, whatever it is, the Disney character is now in the public domain.}:

And what this means is we need to turn Mickey into a Nazi because Nazis are bad. We're not gonna turn Mickey into a Nazi because the Nazis are good. You see, I'm quite anti-Nazi. I assume you are as well. In fact, being a Nazi is the worst thing you can possibly be today and for a very long time. So, we need to turn Disney into the worst thing it can possibly be, and it can be done. In fact, I'm shocked that the mischievous people on places like 4chan and other internet boards haven't done this already.

Remember what they did to that cartoon frog? There was that cartoon frog -- this was many years ago. I'm dating myself to think back on the halcyon years of 2016. 2016, which was eight years ago, by the way. In my mind, 2016 was like two years ago. It was eight years ago. But, anyway, back in those days, there was this cartoon frog that a regular cartoonist had made, and it was kind of a popular webcomic. And then these guys on 4chan turned the frog into a Nazi. And since then, the frog has actually, I think, come out of his Nazi phase. I don't -- it's very difficult to track memes because it's -- it's mimetic. Right? It just kind of -- it moves through imitation, and it's -- it's really hard to get your hands on.

But for a while, the frog was a Nazi. And it drove the cartoonist who made the frog completely crazy because the frog became a hate symbol. It was listed on all -- SPLC, ADL, all these different lists. And we can do the same with Mickey Mouse. It's not just enough to make Mickey Mouse a serial killer as you're seeing in these movies. Mickey Mouse has to become the most odious kind of symbol in the entire world. And we have the ability to do it, not using any major institutional power, just through the power of memes by pseudonymous accounts on random internet boards. That's what's gotta happen because Disney's bad, and Disney's gotta go down.

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https://www.alternet.org/2661884531/

caves an 6 23

no lnx

for decades, Republicans slammed liberals and progressives for their criticisms of Corporate America — arguing that large corporations and the ultra-wealthy were job creators. "Are you going to get a job from a rich guy or a poor guy?" was a ubiquitous GOP talking point.

But that was before Donald Trump's presidency and the MAGA movement. These days, far-right Republicans ranging from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) angrily rail against "woke capitalism."

One of the MAGA movement's corporate targets has been the New York City-based asset management giant BlackRock, whose CEO, Larry Fink, has been encouraging investors to consider climate change in their investing decisions. And MAGA Republicans have responded by attacking BlackRock as "woke capitalism."

READ MORE: 'They don't speak for your voice or mine': DeSantis to propose bill that would block 'woke' investments

Now, Fink — who co-founded BlackRock in 1988 — is swearing off the term ESG, which is short for "environment, social and governance."

At the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado on Sunday, June 26, Fink told Axios, "When I write these (investment) letters, it was never meant to be a political statement.… They were written to identify long-term issues to our long-term investors…. I do believe in conscientious capitalism. I'm not going to use the word ESG because it's been misused by the far left and the far right."

BlackRock, according to Axios reporter John Frank, presently "manages $9.2 trillion."

During the interview with Axios, Fink didn't say that BlackRock would avoid addressing climate change with investors — only that he won't be using the term ESG going forward.

READ MORE: Texas Lt. Gov. vowed to punish a firm for discriminating' against fossil fuels — but was a shareholder: report

Fink told Axios, "We talk a lot about decarbonization, we talk a lot about governance.… or social issues, if that's something we need to addressed."

READ MORE: How fossil fuel lobbyists are pushing the right-wing campaign against 'woke capitalism': report

Axios' full report is available at this link.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

The corporatization of just about everything from climate change to outer space ›

Can capitalism solve capitalism’s problems? ›

The 'Big Con' revealed: Report details the fossil fuel industry's deceptive 'net zero' strategy ›

Amazon

Amazon and its subsidiaries have advertised on Fox News over 100 times in the past year.

Bank of America

Bank of America and its subsidiaries have advertised on Fox News over 800 times in the past year.

Chewy

Chewy has advertised on Fox News over 100 times in the past year.

Citigroup

Citigroup has advertised on Fox News over 100 times in the past year.

JPMorgan Chase

JPMorgan Chase and its subsidiaries have advertised on Fox News over 900 times over the past year.

PNC Financial Services

PNC has advertised on Fox News over 300 times over the past year.

Walmart

Walmart has advertised on Fox News over 200 times in the past year.

---

an tom d 2 23

Steve Fraser: The Republicans Face Off Against... Yes, Communism!

Recently, at a well-publicized dinner, our former president — the one who encouraged a coup d’état to keep himself in power after losing an election — expressed his latest fear. “The problem we have,” he said ominously, “is that we are headed toward communism. We are beyond socialism. A lot of people say, ‘Well, not really.’ Of course we are.” And then he added, “If you do something spectacular, they don’t talk about it. If you do something not so good, they’ll make it into a travesty. If the other side does something bad, really bad, you’ll never find it. There’s never been a period of time like that in our country’s history.And that’s the way communism starts. And… we’re not gonna let it happen.”

OMG! A new red scare in America, as in my childhood when anti-communism was a part of everyday Republican politics? Did someone revive the Soviet Union when none of us were looking? Have Xi Jinping’s confederates infiltrated this country’s business class? Who could even begin to explain it? Hmm, let’s see… how about TomDispatch regular and historian Steve Fraser, author of Mongrel Firebugs and Men of Property: Capitalism and Class Conflict in American History, who (like Donald Trump and me) lived through those red-scare years of the 1950s.

Admittedly, running against Communism was once the norm in America. With that in mind, take a little voyage of — dare I call it nostalgia? — with Fraser and meditate a bit on what a truly strange world we now live in, one of remarkable extremes of weather, income inequality, and politics. After all, one of our two major parties has gone certifiably mad (and, at least in some parts of the country, that very madness has attracted voters in a big-time fashion).

Oh, and I think I can already hear Marjorie Taylor Greene calling me a “liar” for what I just wrote… or is that my imagination? Who can tell anymore? Tom

The Specter of “Woke Communism”:How Corporate America Became the Bogeyman of Today's Anti-Communist Crusaders

Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida and perhaps the next president of the United States, is waging war against something he and many others on the right identify as “woke communism.” DeSantis even persuaded the Florida legislature to pass a Victims of Communism law, mandating that every November 7th (the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia), all public schools in the state must devote 45 minutes of instruction to the evils of the red menace.

You might reasonably ask: What menace? After all, the Soviet Union fell apart more than 30 years ago and, long before that, communist parties around the world had dwindled in numbers and lost their revolutionary zeal. The American Communist Party was buried alive nearly three-quarters of a century ago during the McCarthy hysteria of the 1950s.

How then can there be a muscular rebirth of anti-communism when there’s no communism to face off against? The Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank, explains the paradox this way: the powers that be of the present moment, including “education, corporate media, entertainment, big business, especially big tech, are to varying degrees aligned with the Democratic Party which is now controlled by Woke Communism.”

All clear now? A “cold civil war”is afoot, so we’re assured by DeSantis and crew, and if we don’t act quickly, “woke communism will replace American justice… the choice is between liberty or death.”

Naturally, Donald Trump has joined the chorus, declaiming that the Democratic Party functions as a cover for “wild-eyed Marxists.” People like Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, formerly considered proud defenders of capitalism, are now censored as socialists. Steve Bannon, right-wing populist organizer and one-time Trump adviser, has attacked the Business Roundtableand venture capitalists like Larry Fink of Blackrock, the largest asset management firm in the world, because he’s determined to defend a “government of laws, not Woke CEOs.”

At the January gathering of the Republican National Committee, angry thatRonna McDaniel had held onto her position as its chairperson, right-wing activist Charlie Kirk put the matter in stark class terms: “The country club won today. So, the grassroots people who can’t afford to buy a steak and are struggling to make ends meet, they just got told by their representatives at an opulent $900/night hotel that ‘We hate you.’”

How surpassingly odd! Somehow, the “spectre” invoked nearly 200 years ago by Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto, reflecting his urge to see the exploited and impoverished mobilized to overthrow capitalism, now hangs out at country clubs, corporate boardrooms, and the White House — all the redoubts of capitalism.

Listen to DeSantis. At a rally in Sarasota during the 2022 midterm elections, he got his loudest applause for denouncing corporate America — and not just for assaulting the Walt Disney company’s criticism of the state’s “don’t say gay” policy. He went after Wall Street, too, noting that the “masters of the universe are using their economic power to impose policies on the country that they could not do at the ballot box” and promising to “fight the Woke in corporate America.” A recent Gallup poll signals that he might be onto something, since the percentage of Republicans unhappy with big business has soared.

Once upon a time, anti-communism was the ideology of a ruling class under siege, warning that its enemies among hard-pressed farmers and industrial workers were intent on destroying the foundations of civilized life: private property, the family, religion, and the nation. Now, of all the unlikely suspects, anti-communism has become part of the ideological arsenal aimed at those very dominating elites.

Bankers and Bolsheviks

What happened? There’s certainly a history here. Start with Henry Ford, a folk hero to millions of Americans during the early decades of the twentieth century. He not only invented the Model T Ford but also helped articulate a new version of anti-communism. He was a notorious antisemite, even publishing a book in 1923 called The International Jew that warned of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. (It became a bestseller.)

Antisemitismhad long traded on the stereotype of the Jew as Shylock, the usurious, heartless banker. Ford, who also hated bankers, sought something far grander than classic antisemitism. As he came to see it, the International Jew was conspiring not just with the titans of high finance but with their supposedly inveterate enemies, the Bolsheviks, whose tyranny in Russia was but a foretaste of the future. In America, as he saw it, financiers were secretly plotting with the Industrial Workers of the World and the Socialist Party to make war on capitalism, an unholy alliance of Wall Street, Jewish financiers, and the Kremlin, the Rothschilds and Lenin, seeking to unravel the very moral fiber of western civilization.

Together, so this line of thought went, they plotted to saturate a hard-working, family-centered, patriarchal, sexually orthodox, racially homogenous, god-fearing capitalist society with soul-destroying hedonism, allowing the bankers to make money and the Bolsheviks to find their way to power. After all, communists were atheists, who held the traditional patriarchal family in contempt, believed in both woman’s equality and racial equality, and felt no loyalty to the nation. Similarly, bankers worshipped Mammon, who had no homeland.

According to the automaker, evidence of this conspiracy of moral subversion lay in plain sight. After all, the commies were peddling pornography through their control of the movie business, while — it was the prohibition era — they saturated the country in bootleg gin. Because they were also the masterminds behind the publishing industry, they arranged an endless flow of sex and sensationalism in newspapers, magazines, and pulp novels. And “Jewish jazz,” bankrolled by the same circles, was on its way to becoming the national music, its rhythms an open invitation to the lewd and lascivious.

In the years just preceding Ford’s antisemitic outburst, the Palmer raids, conducted by United States Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer during and following World War I, had imprisoned and deported thousands of radical political activists, only heightening the panic about a coming communist revolution in America. But no one before Ford had ever imagined communists combining forces with the ruling class they presumably were out to overthrow. That was the bizarre eye-opener of a disturbed and disturbing moment and, mad as it was, should once again sound eerily familiar.

From Anti-Communism to Anti-Capitalism

That imaginary league of Bolsheviks and bankers would remain an undercurrent of popular superstition, while anti-communism began to mutate, coming to have ever less to do with communist movements and ever more with a perverse form of anti-capitalism.

As the giant corporation run by faceless functionaries in suits and ties along with vast government bureaucracies supplanted old-style family capitalism, a whole galaxy of moral and social certitudes about self-reliance, frugality, independence, upward mobility, and piety came under assault. The new order, capitalism on steroids, left a beleaguered and angry world of “little men” in its wake, overwhelmed by a sense of material and spiritual dispossession.

In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal response to the Great Depression would only reignite the dark fantasies of Ford’s conspiracy-mongering. In those years, populist demagogue Father Charles Coughlin (known as the “radio priest” thanks to his charismatic weekly sermons listened to by millions) preached about how corporate capitalism was “privately sustaining in some instances the worst elements of Communism.” Coughlin grew increasingly hostile to the New Deal. Its bureaucracies, he claimed, meddled in family life, while its regulatory reforms were a disguised version of “financial socialism.” In 1936, he and fellow demagogues formed the Union Party to try (unsuccessfully) to stop Roosevelt’s reelection.

In the eyes of that radio priest, another antisemite by the way, Roosevelt was nothing less than America’s Lenin and his New Deal “a broken-down Colossus straddling the harbor of Rhodes, its left leg standing on ancient Capitalism and its right mired in the red mud of communism.”

Joseph McCarthy vs. The Establishment

Though Ford’s and Coughlin’s outpourings were infected with a deep strain of antisemitism, the invective ofWisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose name became synonymous with mid-twentieth century anti-communism, McCarthyism was not. He was after bigger game, namely the whole WASP establishment.

The Cold War with the Soviet Union provided the ostensible context for McCarthy’s ravings about “a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man.” But his focus was far less on the Russians and far more on the upper-crust mandarins running the post-New Deal state.

Traitors to their class, as he saw it, figures like Secretary of State Dean Acheson or international banker John McCloy were, he insisted, closet communists. Yet, gallingly, they also hailed from the most privileged precincts of American society, places like the elite prep school Groton, Harvard, and Wall Street. McCarthy would mock their cosmopolitan associations, their Anglophilia, their gilded careers as international financiers and the heads of major corporations. He would typically portray Averell Harriman, the scion of a railroad and banking family (and a future governor of New York), as “a guy whose admiration for everything Russian is unrivaled outside the confines of the Communist Party.”

The notorious Senate “hearings” he held and the McCarthyism he promoted would prove potent enough to ruin the lives of countless teachers, writers, trade unionists, civil-rights activists, performing artists, journalists, even librarians who lost their jobs and worse, thanks to his infamous inquisitions. And in those years, much of the Republican Party would mimic his message.

Few were safe from such fulminations and McCarthy was anything but alone in delivering them. For instance, the son of a former president, Senator Robert Taft, known as “Mr. Republican” and a leader from the party’s midwestern heartland, was often hailed as its future presidential nominee. Running in the 1952 primaries, he told his supporters in Ohio that “if we get [Dwight D.] Eisenhower, we will practically have a Republican New Deal Administration with just as much spending and socialism as under [President Harry] Truman.” When he lost the nomination to the former World War II commander, Taft would rage that “every Republican candidate for president since 1936 has been nominated by Chase Bank.”

The imagery of tea-sipping, silk handkerchiefs, and silver spoons that spiced McCarthy’s savage depiction of the supposedly left-wing establishment pointed to a subtle shift in the political center of gravity of the anticommunist crusade. While the economic throw-weight of those capitalists-cum-communists remained in the crosshairs of the McCarthyites,cultural matters tended to take center stage.

Although the moral dangers of a supposedly communist-influenced New Deal-style state still preoccupied the senator and his legions of followers, his archetypical enemy came ever more to resemble Coughlin’s: not just left-leaning intellectuals but Ivy League financiers, bankers with “grouse-hunting estates in Scotland,” whom they saw as an aristocracy of destruction.

Liberty or Death in the Time of “Woke Communism”

Oscillating with the ups and downs of the economy, that version of anti-capitalism regularly masqueraded as anti-communism. And all these years later, “woke capital,” the target of so much Trumpublican fury, is once again being labeled a communist phenomenon. That’s because so many Fortune 500 companies, leading banks, and mass-media outfits have had to come to terms with racial and gender equality, sexual and marital choice, and multicultural diversity — with, that is, the latest version of secularism generally.

Coca-Cola and Delta have even criticized Republican state voter suppression laws. As early as 2015, corporate opposition forced Republicans in Indiana and North Carolina to back off anti-gay and anti-transgender legislation. In 2019, more than 180 CEOs posted a full-page ad in the New York Times announcing that restrictions on abortion were bad for business. A year later, Goldman Sachs established a $10 million fund to promote racial equality to “honor the legacy of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery.” After the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol, more than 50 companies said they would no longer contribute to the eight Republican senators who objected to certifying the presidential election.

Moreover, dominant financial and business interests depend on the various agencies of the state to subsidize profits and stabilize the economy. This feeds a government apparatus that has long been the bête noire of anti-communists. When the Covid-19 pandemic took down the economy, the 1% thrived, enraging many on the right as well as the left.

Refugees from the social revolutions in Venezuela and Cuba, who have gathered in significant numbers in Florida, no doubt resonate to the latest anti-communist dog whistles of Governor DeSantisin a way that echoes the sentiments aroused in the old days by the Bolshevik Revolution. But what really fires up the passions of Republicans is the tendency of modern capitalism to make peace with (and profit from) the social, racial, and more recently environmental upheavals of the last half-century. Resentment about this continues to ferment in right-wing circles.

The Republican Party now claims to be “standing between capitalism and communism.” But the capitalism it promotes — of the self-reliant entrepreneur, the pious family patriarch, the free-booting version of commerce that depended on racial and gender inequalities and brooked no interference from the state — has been on the defensive for a long time.

Yes, the DeSantis-style anti-communists of today do worry about the possible appeal of socialism to young people, but in real life, the “communism” they face off against is modern capitalism, or what one right-wing wit termed “capitalism with Chinese characteristics.” “Woke capital” or, if you’re the governor of Florida, “woke communism,” has indeed seized power.

Ironically, the woke-communist persuasion may be loony about “communism,” but they are unintentionally right that capitalism is indeed the problem. Capitalism exploits millions of workers, devours the environment, creates obscene inequalities in income and wealth, depends on war and the machinery of war, poisons the well of democracy, incites resentments, and destroys any instinct for social solidarity. But count on one thing: the wet dreams of today’s anti-communists when it comes to restoring some superannuated, idealized form of small-town capitalism are harmful fantasies of the first order. Indeed, they have already done much damage, and Governor DeSantis and crew will only make things far worse.

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an 2 23

Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) boisterously complained about the "Black National Anthem" being played at Super Bowl LVII on Sunday.

"America only has ONE NATIONAL ANTHEM," Boebert tweeted. "Why is the NFL trying to divide us by playing multiple!? Do football, not wokeness."

The song, Lift Every Voice and Sing, will be performed by Abbott Elementary star Sheryl Lee Ralph and had its National Football League debut at the 2020 season's inaugural game. It was then reaired ahead of Super Bowl LV on February 7th, 2021. It was also broadcast before every match this year.

"Often referred to as 'The Black National Anthem,' Lift Every Voice and Sing was a hymn written as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson in 1900. His brother, John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954), composed the music for the lyrics. A choir of 500 schoolchildren at the segregated Stanton School, where James Weldon Johnson was principal, first performed the song in public in Jacksonville, Florida to celebrate President Abraham Lincoln's birthday," the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) explains on its website. "At the turn of the 20th century, Johnson's lyrics eloquently captured the solemn yet hopeful appeal for the liberty of Black Americans. Set against the religious invocation of God and the promise of freedom, the song was later adopted by NAACP and prominently used as a rallying cry during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s."

Twitter users relentlessly trolled Boebert and her remarks.

Jay Black: "There world hasn’t heard whining like this since the waiting room at the gastroenterologist after your dumdum gun restaurant served pork sliders."

Ty-22: "Speaking of wokeness: - Ron DeSantis is so woke he wants school girls' menstrual info recorded by the school staff. - Ron DeSantis wanna ban books for school kids but not AR-15. Ron DeSantis wanted to ban Disney (backfired). Sen Scott wanna ban Medicare & Social Security."

Honest sports takes: "The American national anthem is not representative of all Americans, it is representative of white Americans."

Chidi: "Karen wants to speak to the NFL manager. Go find a safe space"

Tom Bonier: "Two thoughts: 1) You came within a few hundred votes of losing last year, and will face less favorable turnout in a presidential year. You may want to reconsider your positioning. 2) It seems like you're the one being divisive here."

Tony Posnanski: "All Americans can agree that you can go f*ck yourself."

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mma 2 23

https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/timeline-gop-threatens-directv-defense-newsmax

no lnx

Timeline: GOP threatens DirecTV in defense of Newsmax

WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ

PUBLISHED 02/02/23

Republicans are accelerating their campaign to force private cable news carriers to not only carry right-wing propaganda networks but pay them for the privilege. The effort demonstrates how the party has institutionalized former President Donald Trump’s corrupt and authoritarian practice of retaliating against companies that refuse to prioritize the GOP’s partisan interests.

NewsmaxTV is a right-wing cable news channel founded by Christopher Ruddy, a conservative media veteran. Its stars include former Trump White House press secretary Sean Spicer and former Fox News host Eric Bolling, and it drew notoriety for its relentless lies about fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

NewsmaxTV is available for free on Newsmax’s website and through venues like YouTube and Roku, and it has at times paid cable providers to carry it. The channel loses money but helps burnish the company’s brand and drives new subscribers to the company’s various email lists. Those lists are the company’s profit center: Newsmax uses them to scare credulous seniors into buying scammy financial and health products.

DirecTV dropped NewsmaxTV last Tuesday after their carriage deal collapsed. According to DirecTV, the company had previously provided NewsmaxTV “at no cost to the programmer” but that Newsmax was “seeking significant fees” in a new deal, and it subsequently replaced it with another right-wing channel in a deal that did not include “extra fees.” But Ruddy declared Newsmax the victim of “political discrimination and censorship.”

Republican officials have rallied to Newsmax’s defense – often securing network airtime to do so. They are threatening federal retribution against DirecTV and its parent, AT&T, in apparent hopes of forcing the companies to accept particular customers at their preferred price. Party chair Ronna McDaniel, presidential frontrunners Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and dozens of House Republicans, and several of their Senate colleagues have gotten involved in the private business matter.

The GOP’s Newsmax campaign is the latest in a series of Republican efforts to use the power of the state to target corporations for failing to support its partisan interests.

Key Events

January 20

Amid carriage negotiation, House Republicans lean on DirecTV and its owners. Forty-two House Republicans, including third-ranking member Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Oversight Committee chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY), signed a letter from Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) to the CEOs of DirecTV, majority owner AT&T, and minority ownerTPG Capitalstating that DirecTV was “moving to de-platform NEWSMAX by denying it cable fees on a fair and equitable basis.” The signatories claimed that this would mean that DirecTV “is actively working to limit conservative viewpoints on its system” and suggested that they might respond with congressional “oversight.”

January 23

DirecTV says sticking point in negotiations is that Newsmax is “now seeking significant fees.” In a statement to the Washington Examiner for an article about the House GOP’s letter, a DirecTV spokesperson said: “We deliver Newsmax to our national base of satellite and IPTV customers today at no cost to the programmer or our customers, ultimately offering Newsmax the ability to generate considerable advertising revenue at no cost. … We’ve discussed with Newsmax on several occasions that we’d like to offer their programming, however, the network is now seeking significant fees that we cannot pass on to our broad customer base.”

January 24

DirecTV drops NewsmaxTV. At 11:59 p.m., DirecTV’s deal with NewsmaxTV expired and it stopped broadcasting the channel. In a statement, a spokesperson said, “On multiple occasions, we made it clear to Newsmax that we wanted to continue to offer the network, but ultimately Newsmax’s demands for rate increases would have led to significantly higher costs that we would have to pass on to our broad customer base.” Ruddy responded by calling the move “a blatant act of political discrimination and censorship against Newsmax," adding, “The most extreme liberal channels, even with tiny ratings, get fees from AT&T's DirecTV, but Newsmax and OAN need to be deplatformed.”

January 25

Newsmax tells viewers to demand congressional action. Using identical language, several Newsmax hosts implored their viewers to contact members of Congress and tell them to take action in response to DirecTV dropping Newsmax. “We are urging you to call your congressman and senator today and demand they investigate AT&T and DirecTV for their discrimination against conservative media,” host Rob Finnerty said after accusing the companies of “blatant political discrimination.” The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona reported that by the afternoon, “Newsmax anchors John Bachman, Bianca de la Garza, Shaun Kraisman, and Bob Sellers had also read the prepared monologue on air.”

Trump threatens AT&T and DirecTV over dropping Newsmax. On his Truth Social platform, former President Donald Trump commented: “The Radical Left seems to have taken over the mind and soul of AT&T. This is a big blow to the Republican Party, and to America itself. For DIRECTV to drop very popular NEWSMAX, without explanation, will not be accepted. I, for one, will be dropping all association with AT&T and DIRECTV, and I have plenty.”

Donald Trump, Jr. calls for a right-wing boycott of AT&T.Trump Jr. tweeted, “OUTRAGEOUS: ATT just dropped Newsmax! It’s time for Americans to return the favor and drop ATT. @PatriotMobile is the ONLY conservative mobile provider — use code “DONJR” for FREE activation!” According to its website, Patriot Mobile is “America’s ONLY Christian conservative wireless provider” and the company “is proud to partner with Donald Trump, Jr. in the fight to defend our freedom of speech.”

January 26

DirecTV announces it is replacing Newsmax with another right-wing network. DirecTV said that it would replace Newsmax with The First, another right-wing channel that features Fox and OAN castoffs Bill O’Reilly, Dana Loesch, and Liz Wheeler.A DirecTV spokesperson told the Daily Beast that the deal did not include any “extra fees” for The First, which like Newsmax is also available for free online.

On Newsmax, Reps. Waltz, Van Drew call for hearings into DirecTV. On Newsmax’s Wake Up America, Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) said that House Republicans could convene “public hearings” in which executives from DirecTV and AT&T “come to talk to usand explain this to us” about dropping the channel. Later that day, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) told the network that DirecTV dropping Newsmax “is what happens in authoritarian regimes” and said he is “going to push for hearings” in order to preserve “the future of our nation.”

Sen. Paul calls for boycott of DirecTVover dropping Newsmax. Sen Rand Paul (R-KY) tweeted, “I would cancel @DIRECTV for censoring @NEWSMAX but I already cancelled them for cancelling @OANN. I guess @DIRECTV doesn’t want conservative viewers so maybe we should all just quit their services and go elsewhere.”

January 27

House oversight chair promises DirecTV-Newsmax probe.Asked by Finnerty whether he would hold hearings, Comer replied, “Yes. There's gonna be a committee that's gonna hold hearings. We're sitting, we're gonna meet later today and try to discuss which committee's gonna do what. That's certainly on the agenda. I'm very concerned by this.”

Sen. Cruz on DirecTV dropping NewsmaxTV: “Conservative voices must not be silenced!” On Twitter, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) shared a Washington Times editorial that described the Newsmax drop as the “censorship of conservative media.” He commented, “Conservative voices must not be silenced!” and included the handles of Newsmax, AT&T, DirecTV, and TPG.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey sends letter of concern to DirecTV. Morrisey, a Republican who is considering a race for governor or U.S. Senate, sent a letter to the CEO of DirecTV stating, “Neither DirecTV nor the channels it carries should face an ongoing concern over whether programming is acceptable to powerful political elites.”

Newsmax’s Bolling condemns Fox for not covering the story. Bolling lashed out at his former employer for not covering DirecTV dropping Newsmax, saying, “By the way. Where are you, Fox? How about you, Fox? I mean, you stand up for us.”

January 30

Speaker McCarthy promises congressional “action,” says he spoke to AT&T directly. In a Newsmax appearance, McCarthy said he found DirecTV dropping the channel “very concerning” and told the hosts, “You're going to see action taken, because we believe it's responsible to allow everybody to have a choice of what news they want to listen to." He also said that he had told AT&T that “Newsmax should not be treated any differently based upon them being a conservative news outlet.”

RNC chair condemns DirecTV for “censoring” conservatives. McDanielshared a clip of Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) on Newsmax castigating DirecTVand commented, “The woke agenda of many corporations is bent on censoring voices they disagree with. @MarkwayneMullin is right – by silencing @NEWSMAX, @DIRECTV is censoring voices who pay their bills.”

January 31

House Republicans give floor speeches condemning DirecTV. Eighteen House Republicans, including Reps. Van Drew, Lauren Boebert (CO), Eric Burlison (MO), and Matt Gaetz (FL), gave demagogic Special Order speeches denouncing DirecTV for dropping Newsmax.Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) wrapped up the event by noting, “many of the speakers today, many of the members of Congress who spoke, made it absolutely clear that they’re going to dedicate time and energy and staff resources to make sure that we look into this further.”

Gov. DeSantis supports congressional probe of DirecTV.Asked at a press conference about the debate, DeSantis said of DirecTV, “They will give different rationales for why they don’t want to do it, but the reality is they have so much other content that is very lightly viewed, and they keep that on, and it seems it is the One America News and the Newsmax that are being targeted. So I think it does warrant an investigation.” He added that Congress should “ensure that there’s not intellectual discrimination when it comes to what people are able to view.”

Rep. Gaetz calls for Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission to investigate AT&T. Gaetz tweeted: “AT&T's DirecTV has REMOVED @Newsmax from its lineup. This is blatant content-based censorship. Congress, the Antitrust Division of the DOJ, and the FCC need to investigate @ATT's decision immediately. Americans should not be denied their right to access diverse viewpoints.”

February 1

Senate Republicans send a letter asking DirecTV to explain the decision. Cruz and other GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham (SC), Mike Lee (UT) and Tom Cotton (AR) sent a letter to DirecTV’s leadership stating that they are “deeply disturbed” by its decision and alleging that the company may be “suppressing politically disfavored speech at the behest of liberal Democrats.”

RNC chair praises House Republicans for demanding an investigation. McDaniel said in a statement that “DirecTV’s decision to censor Newsmax – the fourth-highest rated program on cable TV [sic] – is a slap in the face to the voters who pay the network’s bills.” She added, “I applaud House Republicans for taking important steps to hold DirecTV accountable for their censorship of Republican voices.”

February 2

McCarthy reiterates interest in congressional hearings. At a press conference, McCarthy said that “we should look at” DirecTV’s decision to drop Newsmax in order to ensure that the network hasn’t been “jeopardized from being on television simply because of their philosophical beliefs.”

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an 1 23 maya

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has become well-known for his efforts to incite culture wars and influence the politics of education across Florida as he considers running in the 2024 presidential election.

In doing so, the potential GOP candidate has violated the First Amendment in numerous ways over the course of his gubernatorial reign, Vox Senior Correspondent Ian Millhiser reports. Millhiser offered an analysis of the ways DeSantis consistently violates the U.S. Constitution by enacting laws that blatantly challenge and disregard freedom of speech and expression.

During his reelection victory address in November, DeSantis promised Floridians that he would “fight the woke in the legislature,” “fight the woke in the schools,” and “fight the woke in the corporations,” which is what he’s already actively tried to achieve as governor.

With that, “DeSantis, in other words,” Millhiser wrote, “does not seem content to simply enact policies that hew to a right-wing economic or social vision.He wishes to use the sovereign powers of government to shape public discourse itself — punishing some ideas, rewarding others, and conscripting public schools and universities into his culture war.”

Millhiser also highlighted DeSantis’ goal of completely changing the trajectory of education across the state, as he recently chose anti-critical race theory leader Christopher Rufo to sit on the board of the liberal New College of Florida. Rufo plans to do all he can to transform the school into an institution that mirrors the conservative Michigan-based Hillsdale College, which boasts ties to Donald Trump. DeSantis also appointed conservative Republican and former Senator Ben Sasse as president at the University of Florida last week.

AlterNet previously reported that journalist Jonathan Chait likened DeSantis’ approach to education in Florida to Hungarian politician Viktor Orbán, who used several strategies to implement an authoritarian educational system.

After his “Stop WOKE Act,” which would ban race-related coursework from college classrooms, was temporarily blocked by a judge, DeSantis distributed a memo requesting course data from state colleges that teach “diversity, equity and inclusion.” And following the governor’s successful passing of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill last year, some Florida schools have already removed books with LGBTQ characters from their libraries.

However, when anyone speaks out against the governor’s authoritarian-like leadership decisions, he immediately retaliates.

After the Walt Disney Company denounced DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” bill last April, he made claims that the company “tried to attack me to advance their woke agenda,” and he retaliated by signing a law that would ultimately disband the “Reedy Creek Improvement District,” a large area of land that houses Walt Disney World, and “where Disney has an unusual amount of control over local land use and taxation.”

Prior to signing the legislation, DeSantis gloated that the “Democrat machine Disney and other woke corporations won’t get away with peddling their unchecked pressure campaigns any longer.”

Millhiser argued that the law is unconstitutional because even though the state of Florida isn’t necessarily “required to maintain” the land,the state “cannot strip Disney of a legal benefit it already enjoys in order to punish Disney for expressing a political opinion.”

Millhiser provided a list of the legislative decisions a governor can make that are actually considered constitutional, such as “give speeches arguing that the United States is somehow miraculously immune from systemic injustice,” “sign legislation repealing programs intended to cure these injustices” or “appoint officials to public school boards that share his belief that the US is immune to these injustices.

"“He may even enact policies that help perpetuate these injustices, assuming that those policies violate neither the state nor federal constitution," Millhiser added

But, the correspondent asserted that DeSantis “goes much further than that” by “sanctioning speech” he simply doesn’t like.

Although Texas Governor Greg Abbott has enacted laws that are considered “even more aggressive than Florida’s," DeSantis’ rhetoric and unconstitutional actions appear much more alarming, Millhiser warns, as he could “take his speech war national if elected president” in 2024.

Millhiser argued that even though the Constitution acts as a shield, to some degree, to DeSantis’ efforts to violate the right to free speech, “it is a worthless shield if the judiciary is controlled by partisans and ideologues who will not enforce the First Amendment against men like DeSantis.”

In the same vein, what’s most alarming about the governor’s attack on freedom of speech is that, if elected president, DeSantis could appoint conservative judges who share his views to fill courts across the country — judges who will allow him to violate the First Amendment without consequence. If ultimately elected to national office, Millhiser wrote, “with the right judges in place, DeSantis could potentially transform American society and culture in ways that would be unrecognizable to everyone accustomed to how the First Amendment has been interpreted for the last 60 years.”

Lastly, in regards to the ongoing debacle between DeSantis and Disney, Millhiser noted that although a company as vast as Disney likely possesses the necessary resources to stand its ground against unconstitutional state government laws, the main disconcerting component here is “the fact that DeSantis targeted one of the largest and most popular producers of First Amendment-protected art in the world is also a warning about how far his agenda could reach if it is successful.”

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NHL

https://www.alternet.org/its-just-ridiculous-gop-strategists-question-desantis-anti-woke-campaign-against-nhl/

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an 1 23

Right-wing Newsmax anchor Grant Stinchfield posited over the weekend that the culprit behind the thousands of canceled flights by Southwest Airlines was a "cyber hack" enabled by the carrier's inclusionary employment policies.

"So I told you my prediction is that Southwest Airlines was a victim of a cyber hack. I still believe that could be true. Let's go through the facts here," Stinchfield stated in a video. "Southwest said that it was a winter storm, and then they changed their story to an old antiquated system, and they couldn't keep track of their crews because of that outdated software and all of the IT stuff."

Indeed, that is what occurred. National Public Radio reported last Tuesday that "analysts say Southwest's problems are the result of a confluence of events — not just the severe weather, but staff shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as employees out sick with influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Most important is an outdated computer system for crew scheduling that turned what would have been simply a challenging storm into a full-scale meltdown."

The outlet noted that "another key factor is Southwest's heavily [sic] reliance on shorter, point-to-point flights, rather than a 'hub and spoke' model of many of its largest competitors. In fair weather, it's a system that has worked well for them. But in inclement weather, it can cause problems, says Kathleen Bangs, a former commercial airline pilot and spokesperson for FlightAware."

NPR also pointed out that "other airlines have had similar 'operational meltdowns' in the past," adding that "in summer 2021, for example, it was Spirit and American. And over Memorial Day this year, it was Delta Air Lines."

Although Stinchfield did not deny these facts, he nonetheless insisted – without presenting any corroborating evidence – that Southwest's massive failures were due to "vulnerability" from "wokeism" inside the company's hierarchy:

Here's the thing. Because it's outdated, that makes it vulnerable to a cyber hack. What do criminals do? What do terrorists do? They exploit vulnerability. Add into this why Southwest had outdated systems – because they've gone woke. Go woke, go broke. Go onto the corporate website of Southwest and you'll see diversity, inclusion, equity. You'll talk about sustainability. You'll talk about environmental issues, all on Southwest's website.

Southwest was concentrating more on pandering to the woke crowd than they were on helping customers than they were on serving customers. The bottom line is, provide a good service, serve your customers, and get people from one state to the other. That's what Southwest should be focused on, not wokeism. But for the last ten years or more, Southwest has been focused on wokeism and not hiring real good programmers and IT professionals. That's what they should have been doing.

Watch below or at this link.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/postliberalism/

salon kat j

...For Hazony, the primary issue was about how conservatives understand China, the rising superpower that NatCons see as America's No. 1 rival. Their conference had banned all speakers who are "pro-Xi, pro-Putin, racists or antisemites," although that standard seems malleable at times. (As Political Research Associates' Ben Lorber reported, this year'sNatCon included a meditation on the viciously xenophobic French novel "Camp of the Saints," approving mention of antisemitic Action Française leader Charles Maurras and an address by a former Trump speechwriter fired for alleged ties to white nationalists.) But some integralists, Hazony charged, had "always had a soft spot for dictatorship, for imperialism and for China," and in recent months that had become impossible to ignore, as members of the movement wrote articles praising China's government or culture.

Then there was Compact Magazine, the hybrid "radical American journal" Ahmari co-founded last March with fellow Catholic Matthew Schmitz and Marxist populist Edwin Aponte. Its professed agenda was to wage "a two-front war on the left and the right" and promote "a strong social-democratic state that defends community — local and national, familial and religious — against a libertine left and a libertarian right."

Although Compact has declined to specify who funds the magazine, a source familiar with its operations told Salon that it was launched with significant support from right-wing tech billionaire Peter Thiel — who has funded numerous other "new right" projects, from NatCon conferences to the political campaigns of J.D. Vance, Blake Masters and Josh Hawley — and Claremont Institute chair Tom Klingenstein (another top NatCon donor). Klingenstein did not respond to requests for comment. A source close to Thiel denied that Thiel has directly funded Compact, but couldn't rule out the possibility that an entity Thiel funds has in turn donated to the magazine. In a statement, Ahmari said, "Compact is an independent, for-profit publication supported by our subscribers. A group of investors helped us jump-start it. We respect their privacy and decline to name them."

Both Thiel and Klingenstein spoke at NatCon this year, and a handful of other NatCon speakers attended the integralist conference too. But on the whole, Hazony said, Compact was a bridge too far for most NatCons. While many in the movement were open to "rethinking the commitment to the free market as an absolute principle," and might even support targeted business regulations, he said, there was "no appetite, no capacity among nationalist conservatives to accept the ideal of social democracy as an alternative to the market mechanism."

Integralists had their own complaints. Some also involved foreign policy questions, like whether NatCons' enthusiastic defense of Ukraine amounted to a creeping neoconservative revival, or whether their strident hostility to China reflected warmed-over Cold War politics. But their main concern was more fundamental: NatCons, they charged, were abandoning the populist promise of Trumpism for a seat at the establishment table.

To be sure, NatCon 3 featured critiques of big business, but, with limited exceptions, most amounted to dragging "woke corporations." Ron DeSantis (introduced in Miami as "the future president") spoke dutifully about how free enterprise should be seen as a tool to help "our own people" rather than an end in itself. But his real firepower was saved for war stories: his battle with Disney over Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law, his resolution banning state pension funds from weighing environmental or social justice concerns in investment decisions, a promised law to help Floridians sue tech companies that commit "viewpoint discrimination."

Other speakers called forblacklisting banks that disinvest in fossil fuels; seizing universities' endowments; and making it illegal for employers to ask if applicants attended college, in order to disincentivize young people from entering the "inherently liberalizing environment" of higher education. (In a more recent example, after contrarian billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter and numerous companies stopped advertising on the platform, Republicans suggested that congressional hearings into "leftist corporate extortion" might be in order.)...

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am acctability BS hit oppo res

Social Justice Warriors Pushing ESG On Wall Street Have Deep Ties To Political Left

A standing rule of any organization is that personnel is policy. A new investigative report released by the American Accountability Foundation shines a light on how Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing is not a strategy intended to increase returns, but rather is atool for global elites who wield their enormous financial power—with other people’s money—to achieve their liberal political ends.

Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street collectively represent 80% of all passive investors, which includes 401(k) investments, IRA and brokerage accounts, and pension and institutional funds. These investment houses use your money to achieve controversial environmental and social goals like “anti-racism” training, fossil energy divestment, and instituting race- or gender-based hiring quotas. While these policies have failed to gain traction in Congress and have been struck down in the courts, they are becoming increasingly popular in the Davos jet-set crowd.

As the report suggests, the driving force behind this trend may be the new revolving door between liberal politics and Wall Street. Leaders of these investment houses, including Larry Fink who is the CEO of BlackRock, have denied that ESG is about politics or any particular social or ideological agenda and emphatically stated that ESG “is not woke.” But the mid- to lower-level staff at these investment houses responsible for the day-to-day implementation of ESG investing suggest otherwise. Many of them have earlier careers as partisan staff for liberal politicians and leftist organizations. Given the alignment betweenESG goals and the woke agenda heralded by many Democrats, it’s hard to see past the obvious coordination.

[Read the full story at IWF]

mandy g sept

standing rule of any organization is that personnel is policy. A new investigative report released by the American Accountability Foundation shines a light on how Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing is not a strategy intended to increase returns, but rather is a tool for global elites who wield their enormous financial power—with other people’s money—to achieve their liberal political ends.

Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street collectively represent 80% of all passive investors, which includes 401(k) investments, IRA and brokerage accounts, and pension and institutional funds. These investment houses use your money to achieve controversial environmental and social goals like “anti-racism” training, fossil energy divestment, and instituting race- or gender-based hiring quotas. While these policies have failed to gain traction in Congress and have been struck down in the courts, they are becoming increasingly popular in the Davos jet-set crowd.

As the report suggests, the driving force behind this trend may be the new revolving door between liberal politics and Wall Street. Leaders of these investment houses, including Larry Fink who is the CEO of BlackRock, have denied that ESG is about politics or any particular social or ideological agenda and emphatically stated that ESG “is not woke.” But the mid- to lower-level staff at these investment houses responsible for the day-to-day implementation of ESG investing suggest otherwise. Many of them have earlier careers as partisan staff for liberal politicians and leftist organizations. Given the alignment between ESG goals and the woke agenda heralded by many Democrats, it’s hard to see past the obvious coordination.

The rank and file ESG “stewardship teams” come from the Offices of Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and former President Obama as well as the left-wing non-profits like the Center for American Progress. Others are serving on boards for progressive organizations, including Resource Generation, which “offers programming that encourages members to see capitalism not as a market-based equalizer promising upward mobility, but as a damaging system predicated on, ‘stolen land, stolen labor and stolen lives.’”

These are just a few examples of the many that the AAF report extensively covers. The liberal aligned goals and the outcomes lay out a clear indication that ESG is a mechanism for advancing a woke agenda that benefits the political left while producing lower returns for investors. Statements suggesting otherwise should be taken with a grain of salt.

The ESG agenda, just like the woke agenda it perpetuates is causing serious harm like lost value for retirees and broader economic degradation. While ESG acolytes will get paid their high dollar fees, either way, the rest of us will be left with the consequences.

This is why many states like Florida, New Hampshire, Texas and West Virginia are pushing back. Congress should take note as well.

While most of the bills don’t garner public attention, many Americans are familiar with the rash of so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws that effectively allow the use of deadly force in the name of self defense by people who would claim they felt threatened by another person. Trayvon Martin’s killer successfully used a “Stand Your Ground” defense to avoid conviction.

ALEC, which is supported by corporations, is now “pushing states to adopt a new law shielding all US businesses from ‘political boycotts,'” according to The Guardian, in response to what some are calling “woke capitalism.”

How?

By drafting model legislation that states would pass which would require any government entity to include a clause in all their contracts banning any company they do business with from supporting political or economic boycotts. Those government entities could include a state government or a local police dept., school district, or perhaps a county clerk’s office.

“According to the text of the proposed law, which is written by Alec’s lawyers so that all a legislature has to do is fill in the name of its state, it is a response to banks, investment funds and corporations refusing to invest in or do business with industries that damage the environment or are aligned with oppressive laws,” The Guardian reports.

One line from the model legislation reads: “The collusion of corporations, and institutions to boycott, divest from, or sanction any industrymayviolate existing antitrust and fiduciary laws and harms consumers, shareholders, and states.” [kermit roosevelt exclusive vs inclisive equality]

The Guardian adds that “Some corporations are increasingly concerned that consumer pressure will cause other companies to boycott them over their funding of rightwing politicians and causes, or social positions.”

===

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yahoo 9/22

David Morgan

WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - A leading U.S. conservative group is pressuring Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives to shun "left-leaning" corporations that take stances on social issues such as abortion, election reform and LGBTQ rights, in exchange for its endorsement for party leadership positions.

As House Republicans began rolling out their campaign agenda for the Nov. 8 midterm elections, the influential Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, called on the lawmakers to pledge not to meet with executives and lobbyists from companies that "have been hostile to policies that help all Americans."

"This is the Republican Party's moment to declare independence from corporate special interest money that flows from left-leaning large publicly traded companies," CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp said in a Sept. 22 letter sent to more than 200 House Republican lawmakers.

The letter, based on the expectation that Republicans would regain control of the House in November, represents the latest push by the political right to reset the Republican Party's once close relationship with corporate America since Donald Trump's presidency.

Recent months have seen politicians, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 White House candidate, strip Walt Disney Co of its self-governing status, after it opposed a new state law limiting discussion of LGBTQ issues in schools.

Republicans also expressed anger after companies, including Citigroup, Levi Strauss & Co and Amazon.com Inc , said they would pay for employees who lived in states where abortion has been banned to travel out of state to obtain the procedure.

The CEOs of banks, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo took a grilling in Congress on Thursday over their companies' having taken stances on social issues.

"I can't help but observe that when banks do weigh-in on highly charged social and political issues, they seem to always come down on the liberal side," said Republican Senator Pat Toomey during Thursday's hearing.

CPAC represents a movement of Trump-led conservatives that has steadily gained influence within the Republican Party in recent years. But it was unclear how much sway CPAC might wield in internal House Republican politics.

GROWING CAMPAIGN

Republicans in Congress and across conservative-led states have railed against companies for taking what they see as "liberal" stances on environmental, social and governance issues.

Schlapp said companies have "colluded" with Democratic President Joe Biden's administration to "silence" conservatives, promoted "lies" about voter ID laws, withheld support from conservatives who back "fair elections," paid travel costs for employee abortions and promoted "radical gender theory."

That came as Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and members of his caucus sought to unify their party's focus on their "Commitment to America" agenda, which is intended to offer voters solutions to social and economic ills ranging from inflation and high energy prices to crime rates and border security, which Republicans blame on Democrats.

The agenda, formally unveiled on Friday at an event in Pennsylvania, makes no mention of "left-leaning" companies but puts a priority on abortion restrictions, voter ID laws, reining in Big Tech and keeping transgender women out of women's sports.

Control of the Senate is up for grabs in November. Nonpartisan election analysts see Republicans as set to erase Democrats' 221-212 House majority. Doing so would give them the power to block Biden's legislative agenda and to launch potentially politically damaging investigations into his administration.

Democrats' fortunes have improved in recent weeks. A national Reuters/Ipsos poll concluded on Sept. 12 found that 37% of Americans would prefer to vote for a Democratic congressional candidate, with 34% preferring Republicans and 15% still undecided.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the chamber's top Democrat, denounced the Republican agenda on Friday as an "alarming new extreme MAGA platform threatens to criminalize women's health care, slash seniors' Medicare and raise prescription drug prices, and attack our free and fair elections." MAGA is an acronym for Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. (Reporting by David Morgan; editing by Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis and Aurora Ellis)

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Feb 19, 2022Matt Schlapp, chair of the American Conservative Union, has written a new book called "The Desecrators," about the forces working to undermine Western Civilization. He says he found out that he was working on the wrong side of the political dividewhen the very corporationshe was working with as a lobbyist started trying to destroy the Judeo-Christian culture and the roots of America.

https://www.amazon.com › Desecrators-Defeating-Cancel-Culture-Reclaiming › dp › 1505120098

Amazon.com: The Desecrators: Defeating the Cancel Culture Mob and ...

As Hudson and Schlapp lay bare the Desecrators' path of destruction, they also lay out a plan for the faithful to turn things around. Here is a book that will embolden all people of faith and good will to make their voices heard once again in the public square and political realm by countering the enemy with reason, faith, and hope.

https://www.bookdepository.com › Desecrators-Matt-Schlapp › 9781505120097

The Desecrators : Matt Schlapp : 9781505120097 - Book Depository

Feb 22, 2022The Desecrators by Matt Schlapp, 9781505120097, available atBook Depository with free delivery worldwide. We use cookies to give you the best possible experience. ... As Hudson and Schlapp lay bare the Desecrators' path of destruction, they also lay out a plan for the faithful to turn things around. Here is a book that will embolden all people ...

https://www.barnesandnoble.com › w › the-desecrators-matt-schlapp › 1140562068

The Desecrators: Defeating the Cancel Culture Mob and Reclaiming One ...

Feb 22, 2022As Hudson and Schlapp lay bare the Desecrators' path of destruction, they also lay out a plan for the faithful to turn things around. Here is a book that will embolden all people of faith and good will to make their voices heard once again in the public square and political realm by countering the enemy with reason, faith, and hope.

https://www.amazon.com › Desecrators-Defeating-Cancel-Culture-Reclaiming-ebook › dp › B09RB9QPWZ

Amazon.com: The Desecrators: Defeating the Cancel Culture Mob and ...

In this powerfully provocative book, Deal W. Hudsonand Matt Schlapp provide firsthand accounts of the Desecrators' actions and intentions, including their remarkably angry and uncharitable treatment of President Donald Trump, which Hudson and Schlapp uniquely observed. ... The book calls out the destruction of private property by Antifa and ...

https://www.goodreads.com › book › show › 59702176-the-desecrators

The Desecrators: Defeating the Cancel Culture Mob and R…

https://www.overdrive.com › media › 8794364 › the-desacrators

The Desacrators by Matt Schlapp · OverDrive: ebooks, audiobooks, and ...

Feb 11, 2022As Hudson and Schlapp lay bare the Desecrators' path of destruction, they also lay out a plan for the faithful to turn things around. Here is a book that will embolden all people of faith and good will to make their voices heard once again in the public square and political realm by countering the enemy with reason, faith, and hope.

https://tanbooks.com › contemporary-issues › social-issues › the-desecrators-defeating-the-cancel-culture-mob-and-reclaiming-one-nation-under-god

The Desecrators: Defeating the Cancel Culture Mob and ... - TAN Books

As Hudson and Schlapp lay bare the Desecrators' path of destruction, they also lay out a plan for the faithful to turn things around. Here is a book that will embolden all people of faith and good will to make their voices heard once again in the public square and political realm by countering the enemy with reason, faith, and hope.

https://www.c-span.org › video › ?513283-118 › discussion-destruction-history-holiness-cpac

Discussion on "Destruction of History and Holiness" at CPAC

Jul 10, 2021Mercedes and Matt Schlapp, along with Ave Maria Radio's Deal Hudson, engaged in a talk titled, "Columbus, the Constitution, and the Consecrated: The Left's Destruction of History and Holiness" at ...

https://world-wire.com › the-desecrators-book-trump-recommends

The Desecrators book - Why did Donald Trump Recommend it?

Mar 2, 2022In this powerfully provocative book, Deal W. Hudson and Matt Schlapp provide firsthand accounts of the Desecrators' actions and intentions, including their remarkably angry and uncharitable treatment of President Donald Trump, which Hudson and Schlapp uniquely observed. The authors alsodescribe how Catholics have been stifled for years ...

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sedition caucus

...CNBC reports that with fewer PAC donations, Republicans are worried about 2022 fundraising and plan to appeal to their biggest individual financiers for even more cash. Fundraisers will attempt to keep the money flowing from bigwigs including Schwarzman, Griffin, and Singer.

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Koch is Key Coup Attempt Funder

Koch Industries, the fossil fuel conglomerate led by billionaire libertarian Charles Koch, was the biggest corporate donor to these spending groups at $13.75 million. The company gave $10 million to Americans for Prosperity Action (AFPA), the super PAC affiliated with Koch’s premier political advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), and doled out additional money to three other super PACs. AFPA, for its part, spent over $9.5 million backing the electoral objectors, and AFP spent close to $4 million in 2018 mostly opposing then-Sen. Claire McCaskill in order to elect Hawley.

Freedom Partners Action Fund, another super PAC in the Koch political network, gave AFPA $11.5 million in 2018 and 2019.

Koch Industries’ PAC is also in the mix, giving $210,000 to the NRCC in the 2020 election cycle and $600,000 to the NRSC from 2016 to 2020. Koch PAC is also the biggest donor to the campaigns of the election-denying members of Congress, having contributed over $930,000 to their campaigns, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis.

Charles Koch and his wife, Elizabeth, each gave $471,000 to the NRSC, and their son, Chase, added $369,000. Chase’s wife, Anna, Koch’s late brother, David, and his David’s wife, Julia, all gave donations to the NRSC well into the six figures.

Much of AFP’s funding comes from other Koch-run groups. In 2019, for example, Koch’s Stand Together Chamber of Commerce provided $40.5 million out of AFP’s $54.5 million in total revenue. Many of the individual donors to AFP and other Koch groups, such as Cameron, Griffin, Singer, Schwab, and Schwarzman, are among the biggest contributors to outside groups that helped elect the election deniers.

Corporate Complicity

A number of other corporations, including many fossil fuel companies, and their PACs gave significant amounts to spending groups that helped elect the Republican objectors.

In addition, the watchdog group Public Citizen reports that fossil fuel companies’ PACs and executives gave $8.8 million to the campaigns of the election deniers and GOP party committees that helped elect them and Trump.

Despite numerous companies limiting or ending their political donations, many major oil and gas firms such as Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon, and Phillips 66 had not done so at the time of this reporting.

Top corporate donors to outside groups include:

Chevron (oil and gas): $7.3 million to CLF and SLF.

Hillwood Development Company (real estate): $6.1 million to CLF and SLF. Its chairman, Ross Perot, Jr.,gave $648,000 to the NRCC and NRSC and, with his wife, Sarah Fullinwider, gave over $190,000 to the election deniers’ campaigns.

RAI Services Company (tobacco): $3.1 million. The PAC of its parent company, Reynolds American, added $115,000 to the NRCC and NRSC.

Pilot Corporation (oil and gas): $2.6 million to SLC and New Republican PAC. The company is owned by the family of former Tennessee governor Bill Haslam, and family members contributed a total of over $1.2 million to the NRCC, NRSC, and CLF.

TRT Holdings (hospitality): $2 million. This Dallas-based holding company, which owns the Omni Hotels chain, is owned and led by Robert Rowling, who, with his wife, Terry, donated $2.3 million to three super PACs and the NRCC and NRSC.

Valero (oil and gas): $3.7 million. Valero and Valero Services gave $3.15 million to three super PACs, including the pro-Cruz Texans Are PAC, and the company’s PAC added $558,000 to the NRCC and NRSC. Valero announced after the insurrection that it would halt all federal contributions indefinitely.

Marathon Petroleum (oil and gas): $2.4 million. The company gave $2 million to CLF and SLF, and two company PACs added a total of $390,000 to the NRCC and NRSC.

ConocoPhillips (oil and gas): $2.25 million to CLF and SLF.

Wheatland Tube (steel manufacturing): $1.75 million to America First Action.

Boeing (aerospace): $1.4 million.Boeing’s PAC contributed $1 million to SLC and $375,000 to the NRCC and NRSC, as well as $567,000 to the election objectors’ campaigns, according to OpenSecrets.

GEO Group (private prisons): $1.3 million. Three subsidiaries of the private prison giant combined to give large donations to CLF, SLF, and the New Republican PAC.

Murray Energy (coal): $1.2 million, including $1 million to America First Action, with the company PAC adding $10,000 to the NRSC.

Other companies that contributed at least $1 million to relevant outside groups include OTA Holdings, NextEra Energy,CL Machinery Company, Don McGill Toyota of Katy (Texas), Global Fibers Investments, Tanglewood Property Management, and Tesoro Companies.

Dark Money

Multiple nonprofits and trade associations, which are not required to disclose their donors, served as major funding vehicles for GOP outside spending to boost the election-denying members of Congress. Trade groups are largely funded by their corporate members. Dark money groups also made election expenditures themselves.

One Nation, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that’s affiliated with the Senate Leadership Fund, gave the latter group $62.6 million in the 2020 cycle and $18.6 million in 2018, for a total of $81.2 million, making it the second-biggest funder of the outside spending groups that backed the 106 Republican election deniers.

The American Action Network, also a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, gave $29.4 million to CLF in 2020.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $1.9 million on independent expenditures backing Sens. Scott, Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS), and Marshall as well as Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI).

The anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony Listgave close to $1.8 million to Women Speak Out PAC, which made elections expenditures benefiting five GOP House election deniers.

Celebrate Life Trust, which is connected to Cancer Treatment Centers of America founder and chairman Richard Stephenson’s family foundation, donated $3.2 million total to SLC and FreedomWorks for America. The trust’s donation of $550,000 to FreedomWorks for America indicates that Stephenson provided the funds, and he personally donated $200,000 to New Republican PAC. Stephenson is on the board of the affiliated FreedomWorks 501(c)(4)nonprofit.

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Traditional PACs affiliated with dark money groups also make independent expenditures backing the election deniers.

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The trade group the National Association of Realtors donated nearly $6.6 million to SLF. The group’s PAC spent $142,000 on independent expenditures backing three election deniers, including Kansas Sen. Marshall, and the group itself spent another $43,000 in favor of five election deniers.

The National Rifle Association’s Political Victory Fund, a PAC that is subject to donation limits, made $2.6 million worth of independent expenditures to boost the campaigns of dozens of election deniers, including GOP House members Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, whom “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander claimed helped him plan the January 6 rally. The NRA’s biggest expenditures aided Hawley in 2018 ($1.4 million), and it spent in favor of extremists Boebert and Greene, among others. The PAC donated $120,000 to the NRSC.

Democratic Donors

Michael Bloomberg, a former Republican who ran in the Democratic presidential primary in 2020, gave $500,000 to theWith Honor Fund, a super PAC that spends money to elect military veterans fromboth parties,in October 2020. In that cycle, the With Honor Fund spent $453,000 on independent expenditures boosting five House Republicans who attempted to overturn the election results.

In 2020, Jacklyn and Miguel Bezos, the parents of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, each gave over $1 million to the With Honor Fund. In the 2018 cycle, Jeff Bezos was the super PAC’s biggest donor.

The super PAC affiliated with the Environmental Defense Fund, EDF Action Votes, mostly supports Democrats, but in 2020 it backed three Republicans. The PAC spent $100,000 to boost Florida Repubican Rep. Brian Mast, who went on to vote against the election results.The majority of EDF Action Votes’ funding comes from its dark money affiliate, the Environmental Defense Action Fund, but Environmental Defense Fund trustee Susan Mandel, whose husband runs a hedge fund, is the biggest individual donor of 2020 ($6 million).

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oWEN SHROYER (INFOWARS HOST): I want to explain something before I get into the content of this segment and that's – I look for logical consistency. And when I see illogic, I attack it. And when I see logical inconsistency, I attack it. And so that is the real issue to me in regards to the Kanye West / Ye saga that is ongoing. All I see is illogic and logical inconsistencies in this story, and that's what bothers me.

I don't know Kanye West. I've never been antisemitic. So I don't have a personal interest in this saga other than – I resent illogic and I resent logical inconsistencies. So let me explain what I'm talking about here.

Now, it is ironic – I think we understand now – when Kanye West said who invented cancel culture, he's expecting the answer to be Jewish people. That's why he posed that question. Now, that's the assumption that people took, considering he's now labeled the top antisemite now.

But then what happened? A bunch of rich and powerful Jewish people called to cancel Kanye West. So did that prove he was right or not?

For example, Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel, one of the most influential people in Hollywood, has called on all companies to cut business ties with Kanye West, including Apple, Spotify, and Adidas. And now those companies are indeed cutting ties with Kanye West. He gets dropped by his talent agency. He gets dropped by his law firms that have been representing him, and now he gets dropped from Adidas. Now, Adidas was kind of holding out, but their stock tanked in the last 48 hours. And I think that that's really what led to the statement is their stock tanking. So you might ask, well, who sold the stock? Who forced that stock down to get Adidas to cut those ties? But see, it's never enough.

Here's Democrat propaganda agent [Brian] Tyler Cohen: It's too late for Adidas now. Kanye basically said he can spew anti-Semitic, vile, and Adidas won't do anything. And Adidas literally did nothing.

Except they did. They've now dropped him. So it's never enough. It's never enough for the cancel culture people. It's never enough once they've demonized you and made you the bad guy, even when you abide by what they want, it's never enough.

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... Conservative Political Action Coalition is urging House Republicans to not meet with any corporations that have gone “woke” and have targeted the conservative movement.

Matt Schlapp, chairman of CPAC, accused several companies of colluding with the Biden administration to “silence conservative voices” and spread misinformation about voter ID and election security.

“Pledge that you will not meet with these CEOs or their leadership teams, especially their Government Affairs staff, who have been hostile to policies that help all Americans until they change their ways,” Mr. Schlapp wrote in a letter to Republicans’ chiefs of staff

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no lnxBROCHURE

‘Woke’ Businesses, Meet the New Republican Congress

COMMENTARY

By Ron Bonjean & Steve Rochlin October 22, 2022

‘Woke’ Businesses, Meet the New Republican CongressFR155217 AP

In a nation bitterly divided between political partisans, corporations face fraught choices. The staying power of the new “woke” will likely face its greatest test if Republicans, as expected, capture a majority in the House of Representatives after the November elections.

For example, CPAC’s Matt Schlapp recently sent a letter to House Republicans warning that his organization won’t endorse any candidate for a leadership race unless they vow to reject meetings with “woke” corporations. “Pledge you will not meet with these CEOs or their leadership teams, especially their Government Affairs staff, who have been hostile to policies that help all Americans, until they change their ways.”

Companies increasingly find themselves caught between two intractable forces: a majority of their customers, fueled by social media activism, who expect them to take a stand on issues that are important to them, and a growing backlash from conservatives who say consumer products have no business dictating social and environmental policy.

Just look at J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s notable pivot at a hearing on Capitol Hill when he said his bank would not refrain from making new investments in major oil and gas development projects, telling House Democratic members, “Absolutely not, and that would be the road to hell for America.”

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The shift is a harbinger of broader political expectations: an emboldened Republican majority with more populists in its ranks itching to take on companies for a variety of perceived transgressions, including statements and policies that are seen as nods to political correctness, as well as “socially responsible” and environmental investment policies.

One only has to look at the recent past. When Major League Baseball moved the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta to protest Georgia’s voter law, a handful of Republican lawmakers moved to strip the league of its antitrust protections. Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law to abolish Disney World’s self-governing district. He signed another law dubbed the “Stop WOKE Act” to restrict how race is discussed in schools, colleges, and workplaces. Additionally, 19 Republican state attorneys general are calling on BlackRock to justify its ESG policies.

With risks jumping out from every corner, what’s a conscientious brand leader to do?

With decades of experience supporting business decisions and communications related to social impact, we can point to a few answers. Our research with Penn State University found that 76% of voters feel that companies should be held accountable for making a positive impact on the communities in which they operate – with the sentiment shared almost equally among Democrats and Republicans. Yet only 37% of companies think they are doing a good job and, what’s worse, the gap between voters’ preferences and political rhetoric seems to be growing.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for businesses and other brands to turn the ship. The C-suite must identify social risks that may require a response because of their impact on employees, customers, or other key stakeholders – and this requires a self-assessment

Specifically, self-assessments to understand a company’s unique position in the marketplace from not only the product perspective but also a reputational one are critical. Paired with an analysis of internal and external stakeholders, as well as a review of the relationship between business lines and relevant external issues, this kind of audit prepares companies to build a framework for response that is cross-functional, aligned to priorities, and authentic. Finally, companies should be prepared to pressure-test their system for responding to external issues to ensure they have considered all potential landmines.

These recommendations may seem easier said than done, but for those companies seeking a measured approach that allows them to both act on their values and maintain key relationships with policymakers, avoiding the preparation for a Republican Congress now all but ensures crisis down the road. By assessing the connection between business and brand values and creating structure around their decision-making frameworks, modern brand leaders, too, can emerge from the very different challenges of today with renewed bonds with policymakers, customers, and their communities.

recommended by

Ron Bonjean is a Republican strategist and co-founder and partner at ROKK Solutions, a bipartisan public-affairs consulting firm.

Steve Rochlin is the founder and CEO of Impact ROI, an ESG consultancy.

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10 22 ggl

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CPAC asks House Republicans for pledge not to meet with ...https://www.washingtontimes.com › news › sep › cpac-...

Sep 23, 2022 — The Conservative Political Action Coalition is urging House Republicans to not meet with any corporations that have gone "woke" and have ...

9/23/22 ☀️ Punchbowl News AM https://punchbowl.news › archive › 92322-punchbowl-...

Sep 23, 2022 — This is interesting: CPAC's Matt Schlapp has sent a letter to House ... race unless they vow to reject meetings with “woke” corporations.

'Woke' Businesses, Meet the New Republican Congresshttps://www.realclearpolitics.com › articles › 2022/10/22

4 days ago — For example, CPAC's Matt Schlapp recently sent a letter to House Republicans warning that his organization won't endorse any candidate for a ...

UnWoke Disney Employees Have Had Enoughhttps://www.hollywoodintoto.com › Industry News

Mar 21, 2022 — A shocking open letter from Disney employees describes a toxic work environment for those who don't toe the woke line.

Missing: schlapp ‎| Must include: schlapp

“Combating Woke Capitalism” with Justin Danhof and Matt ...https://thebillwaltonshow.com › videos › combating-wo...

episode 132: “Combating Woke Capitalism” with Justin Danhof and Matt Schlapp ... For years, major American corporations have been drifting to the political Left.

DeSantis embraces Disney battle as part of 'fighter' political ...https://www.tampabay.com › news › 2022/04/02 › desa...

Apr 2, 2022 — And in a fundraising email titled “Hollywoke Punches Florida” — sent after ... The belt is inscribed with the letters BMF, which stands for ...

Surprised by “New” Disney? Here's Why You Shouldn't Behttps://www.heritage.org › progressivism › commentary

Oct 12, 2022 — As Disney World continues to celebrate its COVID-19-delayed 50th ... Disney detractors cry that it's gone woke, removing all “gendered ...

Missing: schlapp ‎letter

Asset Managment Firm Accuses Disney's "Woke" Politics of ...https://www.disneydining.com › activist-accuses-disney...

Sep 22, 2022 — Strive, an asset management company, has a few ideas. Recently they sent Disney a letter outlining their ideas for improvement.

Missing: schlapp ‎| Must include: schlapp

Just One Share Buys Admission to a Shareholder Meetinghttps://nationalcenter.org › Programs

Mar 21, 2022 — “To attend a shareholder meeting of a publicly traded company, ... during CPAC's “Woke Inc.” panel with Mercedes Schlapp and David Bernhardt ...

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CPAC asks House Republicans for pledge not to meet with ...

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Sep 23, 2022 — The Conservative Political Action Coalition is urging House Republicans to not meet with any corporations that have gone "woke" and have ...

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Sep 22, 2022 — Dear Congressman,. As Republicans prepare for a new dawn in Congress, CPAC has been courted for our endorsement in various leadership races ...

### American Express Has Gone Woke | CPAC

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Tell AmEx CEO Stephen Squeri that you will not put up with woke corporations that seek to destroy America by promoting socialism and racist critical race ...

9/23/22 ☀️ Punchbowl News AM

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Sep 23, 2022 — As Republicans prepare for a new dawn in Congress, CPAC has been courted for our endorsement in various leadership races and for chairmanships.

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Apr 16, 2021 — Mercedes Schlapp on what Conservative Americans can do to represent themselves in the marketplace, holding 'woke corporations' accountable ...

“Combating Woke Capitalism” with Justin Danhof and Matt ...

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For years, major American corporations have been drifting to the political Left. Now that drift seems more like a tidal wave. Companies like Coca Cola, ...

UPDATE: Corporate lobbyist seeks revenge - by Judd Legum

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Sep 26, 2022 — The murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020 prompted nationwide protests and a renewed focus on racial justice.

The New Republican Battle Cry - The Atlantic

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Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, looks on as he takes part. Marco Bello / Reuters. March 3, 2022. Share. The right-wing media ...

Peter Sagal on Twitter: "Here's the tweet, now deleted. Context ...

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Aug 25, 2022 — Today, Matt Schlapp, a man who -- as far as I know -- has never done anything for children other than work to force women to bear them, ...

CPAC's Schlapp to TML: 2024 is the 'Woke Election' ... but ...

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Jul 26, 2022 — Matt Schlapp is chairman of the American Conservative Union, which organizes the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual ...

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woke Corps

Read the letter below

foxx Slams the Woke Virus Infecting American Society, Harming American Savers

Starbuck’s anti-LGBTQ extremism

Media ignores Starbuck’s extreme ideology

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