New Campaign Against 'Woke Companies' Slams Them for Not Being Woke Enough

Plus: DOJ ditches bid to unmask Devin Nunes parody account, a fight for food truck freedom in Florida, and more...

Woke has officially jumped the shark. Like political correctness before it, the term woke has become an all-purpose way to drum up conservative and contrarian outrage. Did a business make a minor decision about how to manage its own property or staff? Yes, but it was a woke decision—cue the pitchforks! Did people pledge to boycott some product or entertainer, as people have been doing throughout time? Yes, but it was a woke boycott—give some cash to your nearest anti-canceling org, quick!

Bless Consumers' Research for illustrating this tendency so nicely. The group has launched a major new campaign to protect consumers from "woke companies" and "put corporations on notice," telling them "it's time to start serving your customers and stop serving woke politicians." As a first step toward this end, Consumers' Research has made "an ad buy of well over seven figures" to air spots critical of American Airlines, Coca-Cola, and Nike.

But here's where things get weird: The policies these companies are under fire for are anything but woke, by any stretch of the definition. Some are politically neutral moves, like American Airlines shrinking passenger legroom. Most are things more typically criticized by Democrats and others on the left—the very "woke" factions that Consumers' Research is allegedly pissed at companies for kowtowing to.

The group's main gripe with Nike and Coca-Cola is that they've "been exploiting foreign, potentially forced, labor in China." Nike is specifically slammed for using Uighur labor. But Democrats have been calling it out abuse of Chinese Uighurs for at least as long and as loudly as some Republicans have. The condemnation has been extremely bipartisan; the idea that "woke politicians" enjoy seeing American products made with forced Uighur labor is absurd.

https://twitter.com/JeffWohlrab/status/1394617100346568708

Coca-Cola is also criticized for "poisoning America's youth and worsening the obesity epidemic." The ad ends with a plea for the company to "stop poisoning our children" and to "serve your customers, not woke politicians," as if it isn't "woke politicians" who've been hammering the company over sugary drinks for years, proposing all sorts of regulatory remedies as their non-woke counterparts rightfully emphasized market pressure and personal responsibility.

Consumers' Research criticizes American Airlines for laying off workers during the pandemic, for taking pandemic bailout money (as part of airline bailouts championed by President Donald Trump and criticized by many on the left), and for paying its chief executive a high salary.

The lone actually conservative complaint about these companies concerns new voter laws. American Airlines is slammed for criticizing voter ID laws while requiring identification to fly. Never mind that one is a private commercial activity and the other a constitutional right, nor that it's the government (not individual airlines) who set traveler ID policies. Coca-Cola's CEO is criticized for "attacking Georgia's popular voting law." But both of these gripes are tossed in the midst of complaints about these companies not being woke enough.

If Consumers' Research wasn't a long-standing conservative group, I would suspect these ads were some sort of psyop aimed at getting unsuspecting rank-and-file right-wingers to support more progressive causes. As it stands, the only explanation is that the term woke has totally lost any semblance of meaning it once had and has become conservatives' catch-all term to lob against anyone or anything they're trying to insult.

---

FREE MINDS

Department of Justice (DOJ) ditches attempt to out politician parody account. The DOJ said it will drop an attempt to go after an account mocking California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes:

New email exchange just made public in the DOJ's attempt to unmask @NunesAlt.

On Jan. 27 this year, a redacted DOJ lawyer told Twitter's counsel that the subpoena was for a criminal probe into possible "threatening communications."

DOJ's response when Twitter asked for details. pic.twitter.com/1A26f2svnL

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) May 18, 2021

---

FREE MARKETS

Food truck competition at the center of new constitutional challenge in Florida. The libertarian public interest law firm Institute for Justice (IJ) is suing on behalf of SOL Burger, a food truck that intended to serve customers in Tarpon Springs, Florida. "A local craft brewery invited SOL Burger to serve from its parking lot," notes IJ. "But some restaurant owners bristle at mobile competition. When they complained, the Tarpon Springs Board of Commissioners reacted by banning all food trucks from the downtown area except for those operated by brick-and-mortar restaurants located in Tarpon Springs."

IJ argues this is unconstitutional:

The Florida Constitution prohibits using government power to benefit a favored economic group at the expense of others. Yet that is exactly what Tarpon Springs' ban has done: It pick winners and losers in the marketplace instead of allowing customers to make that choice.

You can read their full complaint here.

---

QUICK HITS

Today @lydiadepillis & I have a story about PPP loans that, well, you're just gonna have to read to believe.

It's about an orange grove in MN, a tree nut farm in Palm Beach & a cattle ranch in Beach Haven, NJ. And a lot more businesses that don't exist.https://t.co/k1t2fUNt34 pic.twitter.com/rylEEUdqZC

— Derek Willis (@derekwillis) May 18, 2021

• A new law in Tennessee requires any business that "allows a member of either biological sex to use any public restroom within the building or facility" to post warning signs about it.

• After almost four decades of incarceration, Betty Jean Broaden—"one of Louisiana's oldest women serving a life sentence"—is now free, reports NOLA.com. "Prosecutors and a judge agreed that she never should have been convicted of killing a man she said tried to rape her in her Irish Channel apartment."

• Maryland restaurants will be allowed to serve to-go cocktails through June 2023. "Maryland is now one of 35 states allowing to-go cocktails as a Covid relief measure," reports CBS Baltimore.

• Good news out of Philadelphia, where incumbent District Attorney Larry Krasner, who was vehemently opposed by the local Fraternal Order of Police, won tidily. Voters also approved other criminal justice reforms elsewhere in Pennsylvania:

In Pittsburgh & its county (Allegheny), in today's elections:

—voters banned no-knock warrants
—voters banned solitary confinement in jail
—Pittsburgh fired its mayor for a progressive challenger
—4 progressives who ran for judgeships on curbing bail & incarceration won

— Taniel (@Taniel) May 19, 2021

Not only did Krasner win, but right now he's leading by 28%. https://t.co/vZgQsJjg0V

— Jesse Walker (@notjessewalker) May 19, 2021

• A revisionist history of Sinead O'Connor.

• Overreacting to domestic terrorism makes it worse, warns J.D. Tuccille.

• Texas has passed a free-range kids law.

Comments

[Sarah Palin's Buttplug 2]

New York state mounts criminal probe of Trump Organization finances

The New York attorney general’s office said on Tuesday it has now opened a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s company, increasing the legal risk for Trump and his family.

Attorney General Letitia James has been investigating whether the Trump Organization falsely reported property values to secure loans and obtain economic and tax benefits.

The latest announcement marked another escalation of the legal jeopardy Trump faces four months after leaving office, taking to three the number of known criminal investigations of the former Republican president.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-york-state-mounts-criminal-probe-trump-organization-finances-2021-05-19/

[Don't look at me!]

The walls are closing in!

[mad.casual]

Right. That's how you make a 30 unit high rise into a 40 unit high rise in the same footprint.

[Janet Pinkston]

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[CannedSaltyHam]

You know you can trust a New York state criminal probe to have the most pure and wholesome motives because the state itself is the picture of integrity and exclusively run by former boy scouts and nuns.

[LibertyWeeb]

If they're so pure and wholesome, why are they former Boy Scouts and nuns?
Also, I tried doing italics without looking up how. So here's hoping it works.

[Mickey Rat]

In the 2016 campaign Trump's call for prosecuting Hilary Clinton after assuming office (which did not subsequently happen) was taken as an unacceptable use of law enforcement to harass a political opponent to even suggest. Democrats using the legal system to harass Trump...crickets.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Glad to see the two things you have the most support for are using the legal system to go after political opponents, and child porn. Your a winner

[JesseAz]

Hey now. He also supports biden spending 2 trillion because he would raise taxes to pay for a third of it.

[JesseAz]

Libertarians for political convictions!

Do you ever find it weird that these AGs and such only apply some laws in one direction? See hatch act, RFRA, etc. Do you find it weird that multiple Clinton foundation workers have come forward to the IRS and no investigation was ever opened?

[Sevo]

Fuck off and die, turd.

[Mother's Lament]

I expect that this will go as well for Buttplug and the Democrats as all their other shady attempts to manufacture dirt.

[Moonrocks]

It didn't hurt them any, did it?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

The net is closing.

[Jerryskids]

I haven't seen this "woke" ad, but I have to suspect it's not about being "woke", it's about being fucking hypocrites.

[Don't look at me!]

Also, you aren’t allowed to criticize woke.

[Jerryskids]

That's because criticizing woke is racist, misogynistic, and transphobic.

[Nardz]

Insurrectionic too!

[squid_hunt]

Also, corporations censoring people contrary to their terms of use is free speech. Citizens questioning the motives of corporations is a violation of their civil liberties. Let freedom ring.

[Zeb]

That's kind of what I'm thinking. Criticizing them for publicly spouting woke BS while continuing to behave in the same old ways.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

It's actually about them protesting Voter ID laws while requiring ID themselves (American Airlines), and using slave labor (Nike).

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Just reading this blogpost, that's the impression I got. People aren't annoyed that the MLB requires ID to pick up tickets, they're annoyed that the MLB is criticizing a law that asks potential voters to prove they're at least remotely eligible while demanding ID for its own tickets.

And the "it's a constitutional right" doesn't nullify eligibility requirements. What a stupid straw man argument. Your 3 year old daughter has constitutional rights but she's not eligible to vote for fuck sakes.

[Roberta]

Actually for fuck sakes she's eligible, but for political elections not.

[CannedSaltyHam]

Woke has officially jumped the shark. Like political correctness before it, the term woke has become an all-purpose way to drum up conservative and contrarian outrage. Did a business make a minor decision about how to manage its own property or staff? Yes, but it was a woke decision—cue the pitchforks! Did people pledge to boycott some product or entertainer, as people have been doing throughout time? Yes, but it was a woke boycott—give some cash to your nearest anti-canceling org, quick!

This is a lot of words to say "I think being woke is great and people who don't like it deserve disdain and mockery"

[Nardz]

Wokism is the new Nazism, and it's so hot right now among the "enlightened" class

[Mother's Lament]

"So they're criticizing "woke" companies because they aren't progressive enough? Seems like a weird flex."

Apparently this stupid fuck and ENB believe condemning companies enabling the Uighur genocide is a "woke flex".

Somehow opposing killing off a race is the same sort of thing as pushing 53 genders and burning Dr. Seuss books for heresy.

Fuck you Jeff Wohlrab! Fuck you Elizabeth N Brown! This take isn't just wrong, it's evil.

[Dillinger]

word. childish.

[Unable2Reason]

Seems like they're deliberately trying to dilute the meaning of "woke". Hmmm. Who would benefit from that?

[DesigNate]

Woke jumped the shark years ago when it was still called political correctness. ENB just sounds fucking stupid here.

[Ken Shultz]

"Did a business make a minor decision about how to manage its own property or staff? Yes, but it was a woke decision—cue the pitchforks!"

The politicization of everything deserves a angry reaction. There are plenty of brands who politicized themselves in various ways to appeal to Millennial consumers. The trolled older consumers and the people who represent them like one of Donald Trump's tweets. Trump could get a flood of support from average Americans for being denounced by woke elites. And if some of these brands can can't get a bunch of conservative people to denounce them for doing something woke, they profit from that.

There are downsides. It'll be interesting to see the long terms effects of associating brands with various things as Millennials move to the suburbs, have kids, save for their retirements, and becomes increasingly conservative like their parents and grandparents did. What was appealing to you at 25 isn't necessarily where you grow up. In the meantime, there are an awful lot of older people who are way ahead of their more woke kids and grandkids, and while alienating older consumers who are less likely to try new products for younger consumers who are more likely to try new products may make a certain amount of sense, eventually you find yourself trying to expand market share beyond whatever was left of your core customer base.

It'll be really interesting to see where ticket sales land for NFL football this fall. The people buying those tickets probably skew older, even if the people playing fantasy football and watching at home skew younger. My guess it that right about now a terrible time to build a new NFL stadium. You certainly aren't about to find much support for it among older taxpayers as you might have a few years ago. Certainly, if the taxpayers in San Diego refused to build the Chargers a stadium before, no way the voters in a navy town like that are about to change direction anytime soon.

Brands are facing that kind of backlash everywhere. Looks good on them if you ask me.

P.S. Here's a link to see if Locast is available in your hometown--so you can get your local stations for free without paying anything to the cable news operations of MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, or Fox. For goodness' sake, if you hate their news, stop sending them your money.

[Jerryskids]

I believe what you're saying can be summed up in the phrase "Shut up and make me a sandwich". I don't give a shit about your views on politics, I want you to sell me what I'm here to buy. If you're going to be cramming politics down my throat, I'll be taking my business elsewhere.

[Ken Shultz]

Trolling your customers has downsides, especially when you're trolling older customers to denounce you in order to capture the attention and affection of younger customers. After all, Disco Stu and Leisure Suit Larry were the coolest guys in the bar at one point in their lives. All their friends grew up and laugh about disco and leisure suits now.

Once the boomers turned against disco, John Travolta could hardly get a part for being so thoroughly associated with disco--at least not until Quentin Tarantino resurrected his career by casting him as a bloated, joke composite version of Vinnie Barbarino and his character from Saturday Night Fever (Vinnie Vegas in Pulp Fiction).

This woke trend will end, and when it does, there will be a backlash. If the end is already in sight, I'm not surprised. There will be a price to pay for this as your customers get older.

It's like the AMC trade over the summer. The Millennials can defy the short-sellers for some time, but sooner or later, reality will set in. Either AMC can pay their bills or they can't. Either there's a future for cinema at the mall or there isn't. And there isn't anything about the way this generation thinks that changes the fact that getting your customers to squander their discretionary income for a political cause will only get you so far.

At one point, after John Travolta did The Urban Cowboy, Boomers all over the country (NYC, Philadelphia, etc.) were wearing Stetson cowboy hats, giant belt buckles, riding mechanical bulls, and shopping at Millers Outpost for cowboy shirts with pearl buttons. It made so much sense to them then! They're gonna look back at this and laugh, and those companies that bet the farm on alienating a fat slice of their clientele are gonna be sorry.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

at least not until Quentin Tarantino resurrected his career by casting him as a bloated, joke composite version of Vinnie Barbarino and his character from Saturday Night Fever (Vinnie Vegas in Pulp Fiction).

I thought "Look Who's Talking" was what got Travolta's career back on track. I just looked it up and that fucking film made almost $300 million in 1989. Imagine some goofy rom-com featuring a baby voiced by Michael B. Jordan making over $600 million today on a $14 million budget.

And there isn’t anything about the way this generation thinks that changes the fact that getting your customers to squander their discretionary income for a political cause will only get you so far.

One of the things that may ultimately undermine the current "turn brands into religions" corporate mindset is the fact that consooooooooomerism is so inherently anti-culture. When music trends change every 5-7 years, for example, there's nothing about it that inherently ties all of society together, or reflects a striving for endurance. It's all centered around "don't ask questions, just consume product, then get excited for next products." The Millennials and Zoomers sent this into overdrive thanks to social media, but it's been around for a long time. Just look at Gen-Xers and things like Saturday morning cartoons or toy lines.

Does anyone think Billie Eilish, to name a current example, is going to be remembered 20 years from now for anything notable other than being a Soundcloud performer that happened to get a bunch of media attention for a few years, before she drops off the pop culture landscape and becomes a nostalgia act? She's basically a Zoomer version of Def Leppard.

Nothing about pop culture or lifestyle branding is about creating something enduring or uplifting. It's about wringing dollars out of idiots when they're teenagers, and then doing the same thing 20-30 years later when those same idiots have a steady job, a lot more disposable income, and are going through a mid-life crisis.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Not even close to true. Billie eillish has a compleate set of limbs

[R Mac]

Lol.

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

Dead Leftarm, and hair bands in general are among my favorite culture war casualties.

[KillAllRednecks]

Good to know to not play Def Leppard (who fucking sucks) when we hang out.

[Ken Shultz]

What usually happens with music is that there's a push and pull dynamic between authenticity and market penetration.

When a new style comes to the fore, it's usually because of some especially authentic performer connecting with the audience in a way that the marketing department could never contrive.

In the early days, Hank Williams and the Carter Family were authentic country, and that made country music really popular with a lot of people. Over time, that gave way to the formulaic Nashville Sound, which sold a lot of records--right up until Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and others made more authentic music again, this time merging old style country with long-haired hippie attitude and rock sounds that connected with audiences in the early 70s.

Rap originally came up with disco riffs as a more authentic music form from the streets. It eventually gave way to the popularity of acts like Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer. Just when you thought all the authenticity was being drained out of the genre, along came gangster rap. To be really authentic, you had to have been a gangster, spent time in prison, or been shot or stabbed numerous times. Then rapping became something tween K-Pop bands do.

The same thing happened with rock. Little Richard and Chuck Berry gave way to Fabian, Dion, the teen idols, and Pat Boone covering "Tutti Fruti".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBzzlUIEWHA

The Beatles, the Stones, and the Kinks invade the market with sounds inspired by more authentic blues, but that gives way to commercial shit like the Eagles and Boston. Punk rock shows up as a more authentic expression from the streets, but authentic bands like Black Flag and Minor Threat give way to Blink 182 and bands like Nirvana rise up from the streets against mass marketed crap like Bon Jovi and Def Leppard.

This current woke trend is not authentic. It is not coming from the streets. This is a manufactured brand that is being played to death on AM radio. It is a marketing ploy. It will not last.

[Square = Circle]

authentic bands like Black Flag and Minor Threat give way to Blink 182

And, ultimately, Avril Lavigne.

[MK Ultra]

Obligatory "Punk's not dead; it just sucks now" post.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

bands like Nirvana rise up from the streets against mass marketed crap like Bon Jovi and Def Leppard.

I get what you're saying with these other bands, but Nirvana itself didn't "rise up from the streets." It was part of a well-known niche market in Seattle that the broader music industry suddenly decided to start paying attention to because the dollars from hair metal had begun to decline in 1990.

Nirvana didn't blow up until after they signed with Geffen and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" got signal-boosted by MTV and the radio stations. Cobain was also the ultimate rebel poser, down-talking corporate music and media while gleefully chasing down their dollars and soaking up the latter's praise. The Offspring have a better claim on being musical upstarts than Nirvana ever did.

[Square = Circle]

I wasn't going to nitpick, but 100% agree. Nirvana was the first band to take "punk" to the Top 40 once hair metal became a joke. I found Cobain's constant whining about his fame really annoying from the get-go.

"You don't want to be famous? Then why are you trying so hard to get famous?"

[Gray_Jay]

"Because Courtney won't leave me alone otherwise."

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Check the "Heavier Than Heaven" biography of him sometime if you haven't already. Besides the posing, what really stands out about him is how quickly he burned himself out.

One thing I noticed as I was going through the book was how often his "hail Satan"-type of edgelording took place concurrently with his health issues (he suffered from crippling stomachaches) and drug use. I'm not one to typically buy in to the Faustian "he sold his soul to the Devil for fame" type of thing, but with how often it was mentioned in the book, I could legitimately see him making some kind of demonic deal where he gave up his soul in exchange for being the most famous rocker of his generation.

[KillAllRednecks]

The devil isn't real ya know?

[Square = Circle]

Everyone has always known that.

[Square = Circle]

I haven't delved that deeply into him, but he always struck me as very, very neurotic. As much as I snark on him, I think he really did hate being famous at the same time that he had a deep and un-satisfiable need to be famous. I think he honestly saw the world of pop music as superficial and evil, but also as the only thing that was important in life. That's an unsustainable combination of personality traits.

[Ken Shultz]

Grunge was a reaction to and replacement for corporate hair metal in the public imagination--until grunge became a commercial contrivance as well.

Grunge was like pop punk by itself, which was perfectly legit punk rock--going way back to when the Descendents were underground.

[Square = Circle]

I thought “Look Who’s Talking” was what got Travolta’s career back on track.

My characterization would be that Look Who's Talking was a Kirstie Alley vehicle relying on the talking baby gimmick that happened to co-star John Travolta because he was resoundingly a has-been by that point. Coming into Pulp Fiction he was just coming off the humiliation of the utterly desperate and pathetic Look Who's Talking Now! which pretty much killed Kirstie Alley's career.

His casting in Pulp Fiction was 100% a joke, but it actually turned him back into a star with his own draw power for a few years. Until Battlefield Earth.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

That's a good way of putting it. Too bad about Battlefield Earth, because he was a lot of fun to watch in the 1990s.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

That's why they invented re-branding. Don't want to be linked to a
massacre re-name your company Xe Services. If that name starts to cause issues become Academi.

[Gray_Jay]

"When the firm's name became mud on the street after the Euro-Floaters deal soured..."

[Square = Circle]

Don’t want to be linked to a massacre re-name your company

Unless you're, say, Braun, or Krupp, or Volkswagen . . .

[Gray_Jay]

Hugo Boss would also like a word... Though they need a restructuring at this point, more than a rebranding.

[Square = Circle]

Say what you will about the Nazis, they were dapper.

[Moonrocks]

Did some private philanthropists make a minor decision about how to manage their own money? Yes, but it wasn't in line with the leftist agenda—cue the pitchforks!

[Square = Circle]

Did some private philanthropists make a minor decision about how to manage their own money? Yes, but it wasn’t in line with the leftist agenda—cue the pitchforks!

That's different.

[Gray_Jay]

"There are plenty of brands who politicized themselves in various ways to appeal to Millennial consumers."

Ken, that logic exercised by a corporation's officers might be defendable. Expanding market share is something a lot of companies try to do to increase their profits.

It's much worse than that though. They aren't trying to increase profits, as much as they are trying to disseminate acceptable social views. This is a emphasis shift that started in academia in the 90s. Or at least, that's where I first saw it: the idea that a corporation must have other goals beyond merely making money for its owners. Like some Chinese virus, this pernicious idea left the laboratory, and took root in the brain pans of global corporate leaders.

It's not about making money anymore.

[Nardz]

Correct, and people who continue to think abstract economic principles rule the day will keep being surprised by their actions.

[Ken Shultz]

"They aren’t trying to increase profits, as much as they are trying to disseminate acceptable social views."

Because market capitalism is the best system run by the most competent managers doesn't mean entrepreneurs never make mistakes. After all, we do believe in creative destruction.

People tend to go with what works, all trying to outdo each other being more of whatever that is than the other guys. And that works out great, right up until the moment that thing doesn't work anymore. Market corrections are what happens when someone's plan runs smack into reality.

That's what happened to AT&T when it tried to transform itself into a media company with the acquisition of WarnerMedia. They were so smart! The future was content, and what could be smarter than buying a company that created content for cable companies and movie theaters! They were gonna be rich!

That was just five years ago, and it looks like such a stupid move now. They paid $85 billion for WarnerMedia. Nobody wants to be a company that makes content for cable stations and movie theaters anymore. Even Disney's having trouble. Now AT&T wants to sell WarnerMedia to a new company controlled by Discovery for half of what they paid for it--and Discovery's stock took a hit from the announcement because Wall Street thinks they may have paid too much!

Marketing yourself as a woke company is probably the same kind of thing. It was a really good idea for a while. You're also convincing half your customers that you hate them, and that will catch up to them in the end--as Millennials turn into their parents.

For goodness' sake, Millennials were fleeing metropolitan areas for the lily white suburbs over schools and things, like their White Flight parents and grandparents did, even before the pandemic and the riots. Incidentally, their Boomer parents denounced their own parents for being racists even while the Boomers were fleeing unrest and diversity in the inner city as well. The Millennials are becoming their parents--just at a later age than usual.

Once these companies have convinced these Millennials to embrace their companies because they're so woke, unlike their parents, what do they do when the Millennials turn into their parents? Yeah, the marketing will change, and there will be losers. They're making mistakes, and those mistakes will have consequences.

Watch what happens with ticket sales and viewership of the NFL this fall. We'll compare it to 2019. I'm not sure a brand like CNN can ever recover their reputation as a legitimate source of news. Does anybody think of Facebook or Twitter as the kind of place you want to go to keep up with friends and family? Companies spend a tremendous amount of money on keeping consumers positive about their reputation, and some of these companies have inflicted some really deep wounds.

Someday, patriotism will become popular again. When does Nike come back and apologize for associating Betsy Ross with racism? That was an unforced error. Compound those errors everyday for years, and there is a point of no return. It may not show up for years, but for some people, they already can't come back from that.

[Gray_Jay]

Ken, you are writing like you believe this is but an evolution in capitalist thinking. It comes off as a Loyalist in 1775 thinking that these reforms will really help the Colonies new relationship with the King, and Sam Adams saying, "King? What king?"

I'm instead saying that it's revolutionary (albeit far from novel). Those commenters saying this is more like the birth of a new religion, are more on point. The people running companies now are increasingly deciding that other things are more important for their companies than making money. Not that if they do those new other things---like wokifying the Star Wars IP----they'll end up making more money later.

Making profits isn't the point. Helping change society is. It's Utopian thinking. Like most Utopian thinking, it won't eventually work, even with weakly AI computing to help it along, but the road to Utopia WILL be paved with the bones of everyone who gets in the way.

Maybe you're right? I think the '22 Elections are a decent milepost to see what road this country is on, and IIRC, we disagree strongly about what will happen. We can't wait until then to organize and prepare though, if it turns out I'm right about it.

[Ken Shultz]

"The people running companies now are increasingly deciding that other things are more important for their companies than making money."

They're doing it because it is profitable to some extent, and they will stop when it stops being profitable to do this.

Like I said, it doesn't matter whether the Millennials want to burn the short sellers. What matters is whether AMC can survive at the mall.

When the profits fall, everything will change. Like a smart football coach who keeps calling the same play so long as it works, they keep doing the same thing until the profits dry up.

I'm here to tell you, their profits will dry up if they don't tend their garden. Someone will come along and eat their lunch. If you're one of the people who stops subscribing to NFL Sunday Ticket because you're disgusted with the NFL shitting on patriotism, if you're someone who avoids buying Nike because they associated Betsy Ross with racism, then you're evidence of this.

Their profits are limited because you've been turned off by their behavior, and when their revenue can no longer service their owners, their behavior will change, or someone else will take their customers. All the growth at Facebook is in Instagram. Facebook's brand is tarnished. If new people won't sign up for Facebook anymore, it hurts them--especially over the long run.

Do you not see that there are real world negative consequences to harming your relationship with your potential customers, and that those real world consequences can threaten the viability of a business long term? I run five miles every other day, and unless Nike comes out and apologizes for the awful shit they've done, I won't buy their products. I am not alone. It turns out that shitting on patriotism is bad for business over the long run, even if it helped their sales in this quarter or that quarter.

The future these companies would have had if they hadn't gone woke will never be, and the upper limit of their success has been lowered by their stupid and terrible behavior in the real world.

[middlefinger]

Nope. If the federal government bans my natural gas, or creates a hyperinflation of the price through Great Leap Forward policy, I don’t have a choice. I’m forced to buy union made solar panels that might have high inefficiency breakevens on lifespan. Solar panel manufacturing, just like health insurers will still make money.

[Ken Shultz]

They can't make you buy what you can't afford, that's what the Great Leap Forward was all about.

TNSTAAFL.

Even Lenin had to capitulate to to reality through the New Economic Policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy

They can implement destructive policies, but they can't escape the destructive consequences.

[Nardz]

^

[Nardz]

What Gray Jay said.

Ken, your immovable faith in the purity of systems keeps getting proven wrong.

[Gray_Jay]

I mean, I hope Ken's right, but go read the stuff the, e.g., World Economic Forum is putting out. Does it read like they're more interested in everyone making more money? Being more individually empowered to go forth and live the life that individual wants? Or does it read instead like they're more interested in accumulating personal and organizational power over that mass of individuals?

We GenXers did a really shitty job not stomping out this kind of culturally Marxist utopian thinking 10-20 years ago, and it's more than a mere trend now. Worse still, successive generations are adopting it. When those successive generations forget how to do things the way we used to, or that it was ever any different, that's how Dark Ages start.

Yes, a Dark Age. In the midst of the greatest information storage and retrieval revolution in human history. Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor?

[Square = Circle]

immovable faith in the purity of systems

I think what Ken is expressing faith in is the assumption that people will always and everywhere continue to act in their own self-interest.

A business that decides it no longer cares about making money isn't going to stay in business very long.

[Ken Shultz]

Incidentally, people can't live very long without food and water either--no matter what progressives say.

Publicly traded companies get a certain multiple on their current earnings because of what investors think about their future. If the customers don't show up, the value of the company collapses, and neither investors nor lenders are willing to finance the company's operations under the same terms anymore.

The Soviet Union imploded for the same reason. It doesn't matter what the progressives say. If the boat doesn't keep water out, it will sink.

These companies have alienated a fat slice of their potential customers, and plenty of their potential customers won't forget it anytime soon, and if you doubt the real concern companies have for how their potential customers think of them, how do you explain the $240 billion companies spend on advertising every year?

They went woke because it worked with new customer acquisition, especially in businesses that appeal to younger consumers, but at the expense of alienating other loyal customers over the longer term. We'll see how that plays out.

The question isn't whether these companies have been profitable despite going woke. The question is whether they can sustain that model when the wind blows in another direction.

If the NFL sold their old fans short, we'll see how that works out for them with Millennial customers. We'll see how many of them buy season tickets; we'll see how many of them buy NFL Sunday Ticket subscriptions, and we'll see how many of them watch the broadcasts. I bet there are a lot of people (especially in the Washington DC area) who are more or less over the NFL now.

And that is just one example.

As their customers depart and as their audience thins out, so will the money they get for advertising to that audience go away, so will the amount of money they can get for selling the rights to show their games start drying up, and so will the amount of money they can pay their athletes and line their own pockets. The willingness of local voters to finance their stadiums isn't likely to get any better for alienating half (or more) of their customers either.

And the NFL is just one example. It works the same way everywhere, including the Soviet Union. You can't get blood from a stone, and if your customers won't pay anymore, because you alienated them with your behavior, then either you either become a memory or you change.

[KillAllRednecks]

The NFL will be fine without racist hillbillies like you watching or going to games.

Fuck the owners and Goodell, but I support the players.

Mostly because "those uppity woke ni... players" piss you old racists off so much.

[Ken Shultz]

Actually, every dollar we don't spend on the NFL comes out of their profits.

[JesseAz]

Unless backed by government t. How much money is now pushed to these politically active companies?

[Square = Circle]

That can only work for a short time. The money has to come from somewhere. Printing currency doesn't create money - it only devalues existing money.

I'm not saying it does no damage, but the damage it does is because it's not sustainable.

[middlefinger]

A business that decides, through lobbying a political party, to force customers to buy its products (Solar, Wind, EVs) will still make money. They’ll make even more money when you ban the competition (natural gas)

[Square = Circle]

Which does not contradict the statement that a business that decides it no longer cares about making money isn’t going to stay in business very long.

Which brings us back to the proposition that corporations are only going to labor to "change society" if that results in them turning a profit. If it does not, they aren't going to stay a corporation.

Corporations lobbying to have the government forbid competition for them is always and everywhere wrong whether its being done under the guise of Social Justice or not.

[Ken Shultz]

"Ken, your immovable faith in the purity of systems keeps getting proven wrong."

The idea that unprofitable companies can ignore the evaporation of their customer base is stupid.

[Square = Circle]

Making profits isn’t the point. Helping change society is.

Maybe so, but a crucial difference between these two activities is that one of them is sustainable, while the other is not.

[Ken Shultz]

I'm not sure they understand the thing about how you can't dictate terms to the market.

You don't tug on Superman's cape.
You don't spit into the wind.
You don't pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger
And you don't try to dictate terms to the market.

[Gray_Jay]

How long did the Soviet Union get away with dictating terms to The Market? (How long might they have continued without the US/Europe/Japan as shining counterexamples?)

How long is China continuing to get away with it? I know about their middle income issues, and that they're in about as much deep shit as we are, structurally.

You are very likely right. In the long run. How long is that going to be?

[Ken Shultz]

"How long did the Soviet Union get away with dictating terms to The Market?

Not for a minute.

They suffered the negative consequences of their poor choices for 70+ years until they couldn't deny reality anymore.

[middlefinger]

Red Rocks hit the nail on this with idiotic spending. Obamacare was just the beginning. The crony takes from savers and subsidizes spenders.

From each according to his saving, to each according to his spending

[middlefinger]

“Move to the Suburbs”. Correct me if I’m wrong, the the Reason endorsed power grab of the federal government *Planning* of the suburbs means woke DAs and woke subsides to the suburbs. Planners are just getting started with the woke thing. Obamacare for the suburbs, 70 percent of residents will subsidize 30 percent and the grift and growth of government and woke teachers union employment.

I don’t blame Reason, they’re just central planning libertarians.

[Gray_Jay]

"Libertines, not Libertarians."

There's nothing Libertarian about the path we're headed along.

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

Just call it “climate pledge stadium” or similar woke pandering and you can build anything you want with tax dollars.

Signed; Seattle

[DesigNate]

Millenials have been moving to the suburbs and having kids for ten damn years. When are people going to understand that?

[CannedSaltyHam]

RIP Charles Grodin

[Briggs Cunningham]

That is a great loss.

[Gray_Jay]

I had no idea he was 84. Nor that his original commentary television show was classified as "liberal."

Things have really changed.

[CannedSaltyHam]

Yeah, I thought he was closer to my parents age based on seeing The Great Muppet Caper when I was a kid. Then again, it came out in 1980 and I probably first watched it in the late 80s. Regardless of his age, he was great and will be missed.

[Dillinger]

aw fuck. sir I need to commandeer this car. um, no.

[JesseAz]

Doj has hundreds of hours of jan 6th they have withheld from FOIA and discovery. Some are wondering if it is due to videos like this:

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/16/video-shows-u-s-capitol-police-gave-protesters-ok-to-enter/

[CannedSaltyHam]

There was evidence of this at the time, but we weren't allowed to talk about it.

[Sevo]

I saw WK's picture on a milk carton last week.

[R Mac]

She’s still here, posting as his old handle, Mike Liarson.

[Mother's Lament]

Or as I like to call it, "White Mike".

White Knight fucked itself by boldly and loudly proclaiming it was muting everyone it disagreed with or who had called it out on its bullshit. Forgetting its whole raison d'être was to shitpost and troll.

Upon realizing it had fucked itself, it had to rely more heavily on its other sockpuppets.

[Gray_Jay]

Mentioned that at the time, that you'd think the Capitol Building would have HD surveillance cameras everywhere, and yet no footage of that officer getting brained. Or of crowdshots that could show (when prodded by weaponized autism) that some of the well-behaved people in the crowd were the same ones chimping out in Portland, Kenosha, et al.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

the officer never got brained. It's be confirmed, reconfirmed, rereconfirmed, rerereconfirmed, and rerererereconfirmed.

[R Mac]

But ZIP TIES!

[R Mac]

How long til Twitter takes down all posts of this video?

[Longtobefree]

But Democrats have been calling it out abuse of Chinese Uighurs for at least as long and as loudly as some Republicans have.

Will someone please notify Joe Biden?

[Jerryskids]

Ask ENB who said a damn word about Democrats and Republicans? If you're criticizing "woke" companies, why does her mind automatically go to "they're criticizing Democrats"? Kinda of a tell there.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Hey ENB isn't a progressive sweep and subsequent single party rule bad from a libritarian perspective? Ohhh I see why you conciders the Philly story good

[JesseAz]

They totally don't support the left. Wink wink.

[R Mac]

Pretty noteworthy that ENB said a bunch of progressives winning elections is good news. Hasn’t told on Reason this bad since she admitted there’s a narrative they’re following back around the beginning of the year.

[Gray_Jay]

They're good employees, R Mac.

Koch getting into bed publicly with Soros (and God only knows who else privately) has turned out to be absolutely lethal for the credibility of this magazine and, unfortunately, for big-L Libertarianism as well.

I'm amazed they still allow comments here.

[Nardz]

Me too.
And the moment they nix the comments will be the last time I ever click this site.
I suspect I won't be alone in this.

[R Mac]

You will not.

[middlefinger]

Definitely Nanny Bloomberg is throwing money at Reason.

[Longtobefree]

"The lone actually conservative complaint about these companies concerns new voter laws. American Airlines is slammed for criticizing voter ID laws while requiring identification to fly. Never mind that one is a private commercial activity and the other a constitutional right,"

So we can all burn our pistol permits now?

[Idaho Bob]

"So we can all burn our pistol permits now?"

Never had one.

[Minadin]

I'm pretty sure everyone who received a vaccine had to show ID, too.

I sure did.

[JesseAz]

Reporters laugh as biden threatens to run down reporters.

https://mobile.twitter.com/mviser/status/1394733700953354248

Laughs would have been "cower in fear" if done just a year ago.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Hopefully he tries, and the reporter is armed. Good shoot.

[Nardz]

You're on a list.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

*crosses fingers*
Times most handsome men in America?

[JesseAz]

Is it sarcasmics? Hihns?

[Gray_Jay]

What an awful position the SS Presidential Detail officers are going to find themselves in quite soon. It cannot be pleasant working for a man who was acknowledged as a meathead bully when he had his full faculties, and now likely is declining into violent dementia.

Oh well, it's a volunteer position.

[Moonrocks]

The free press has been under attack by the state media all this time.

[JesseAz]

Biden seeks to make covid welfare programs permanent.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/biden-plan-to-expand-welfare-as-we-know-it-hampered-by-republican-resistance

[CannedSaltyHam]

Many Reason writers act "pro-business" but don't seem to know the first thing about the subject. Which is that a company has no one but themselves to blame if they change anything about their brand or marketing and it turns customers away in droves. Reason writers think businesses are like them and only care about freedom of spouting opinions. Maybe you guys need to hire some writers with actual business experience?

[Nardz]

Reason doesn't hire based on merit or competence.
They're obedient progressives.

[Briggs Cunningham]

The understand that perfectly when they want to. Whenever a business does something to anger the left and loses revenue and brand value because of it, reason somehow manages to understand what you are talking about here. They only forget it when things are going to other way. Funny that.

[JesseAz]

Party of science to be rebranded as party of control as democratic politicians refuse to give up covid powers.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/democratic-governors-defying-the-cdc-by-keeping-mask-mandates-in-place

Then again actual science said to never lockdown in the first place.

[Mike Laursen]

Following up on a story from last week, Ohio’s offering a $1 million lottery prize for getting vaccinated seems to be working as an incentive:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/18/turns-out-chance-winning-million-bucks-may-be-decent-vaccination-incentive/

[JesseAz]

Libertarians for government using taxpayer money as bribery!

[Don't look at me!]

A true signal that something fishy is going on.

[Mike Laursen]

How do?

[Mike Laursen]

That was supposed to say “How so?” but my iPhone felt that it needed to “correct” my sentence.

[JesseAz]

Nobody cares you had an autoccorect issue. You shouldn't be happy about government bribery.

[Jerryskids]

Some of us knew he was working on a Basic Minimum Income plan to be sold as a Trojan Horse months ago.

[R Mac]

It was just a coincidence that the benefits worked out to the same amount as someone making $15/hour.

[JesseAz]

. Did a business make a minor decision about how to manage its own property or staff?

Lol. Forcing employees into indoctrination of anti racism and crt that has no relations to a business is just a minor decision.

[JesseAz]

But Democrats have been calling it out abuse of Chinese Uighurs for at least as long and as loudly as some Republicans have.

Shown by the support of China by major democrats and major corporations. I mean... not like Biden just said some countries have different societal norms when asked about it..

[JesseAz]

American Airlines is slammed for criticizing voter ID laws while requiring identification to fly. Never mind that one is a private commercial activity and the other a constitutional right

First. Right of travel is also a presumed constitutional right.

Second.. the USSC has constant held up voter ID as constitutionally allowed.

What the fuck is this shit?

[Zeb]

And voting is more a privilege of citizenship and adulthood than an actual right.

[Briggs Cunningham]

When it comes to the subject of the writing of Elizabeth Nolan Brown, I will just leave this here

Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naïve despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit. They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel.

Antonio García Martínez

[JesseAz]

Lol. Good observation.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

You could say that about most of the liberal bourgeoisie in general.

[Briggs Cunningham]

Yes, yes you could. The only thing that prevents that paragraph from being a quote for the ages is that it limits the scope of the observation far too much.

[Gray_Jay]

That. The men are no great shakes either.

Now explain why a group of such pathetic weaklings, is winning.

[R Mac]

Because they’re just the useful idiots.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

That's ultimately what it boils down to--their pretensions and mental illnesses currently serve the interests of those in power, so their perceived influence is more outsized than what it might appear at first blush. It's not so much that they're winning; it's that they're effective as blunt instruments to enforce corporatism through the use of radical left ideologies as a branding exercise.

Keep in mind that roughly half the country can't stand this type of shit, and there's pushback on it even within left-wing circles. But they aren't the ones ultimately running things, and the general entitlement and childish behavior that marks today's liberal bourgeoisie, is useful for those in power. It's actually a lot easier to manipulate people who operate entirely off of their own solipsism, especially in the age of social media, because you can make anyone who doesn't conform to the agenda of neoliberal corporatism into a target for a nationwide mob.

[Briggs Cunningham]

Because we live in a world where there is no price to be paid for physical weakness. The good news is that the weaklings winning is likely going to change that.

[Mother's Lament]

Because the average prole has a life to live and isn't "politically conscious", to borrow a Marxian meme.

The woke bourgeoisie on the other hand, have nothing but the time, energy and money for political pursuits.

They will continue to win until there's a tipping point. Reaching that point however is very bad news for everyone.

This could be arrested earlier if there were people willing to stop them, but the unwoke politicians are usually grifters of a different sort (see GOPe).

[Briggs Cunningham]

Pretty much that Mother's Lament.

[American Socia1ist]

{snicker} LOL. Get a grip.

[Briggs Cunningham]

Don't worry, when the lights do go out, no one is giving a jerry can of diesel or even a single shotgun shell for your sorry ass. The good news is that I doubt you will linger long. So there is that.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

{snicker} LOL. Pay your mortgage.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Because the men that want to sleep with them control social media, and amplify their retardation, and any attempt to counter is met with government force.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

any attempt to counter is met with government force.

That's the other part, too, one that I keep hammering on--these companies have the reach that they do precisely because the government not only allowed them to do so, but in many cases acted as start-up funders and angel investors, either through front groups like Accel Partners, or directly through investment arms like In-Q-Tel. All these Congressional hearings on social media is just kabuki theater--both the Tech Trust and the federal government are full-on partners.

[American Mongrel]

They hide behind women and the weak, because they now honorable when wont attack them. It's probably why they have so much empathy for the palestinians, yet could give a fuck less about the handful of other oppressed people that arent completely immoral scumbags.

[American Mongrel]

Fucking phones...
know honorable men

[JesseAz]

As it stands, the only explanation is that the term woke has totally lost any semblance of meaning it once had and has become conservatives' catch-all term to lob against anyone or anything they're trying to insult.

The woman who doxxed someone for making a sandwich making joke is simply mad she gets called woke.

[CannedSaltyHam]

The funny thing is, she's probably the type of person who would never shop at Hobby Lobby because of their choice not to provide birth control pills to employees. She's pretending to be above the fray, but she's definitely taking sides. The impartial position would be acknowledging that ANY publicly known business decision can impact buying decisions.

[JesseAz]

She also ignores that it isnt the right who has largely stopped the push for birth control to go to OTC and not require prescriptions. She just wants others to pay for hers.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

it isnt the right who has largely stopped the push for birth control to go to OTC and not require prescriptions.

Funny how Cory Gardner proposing such a law stopped that effort dead in its tracks, with the usual suspects whiplashing all of a sudden to claim that OTC birth control pills was putting women's lives at risk--after previously arguing that such wasn't the case, as evidenced by countries that already offer the pill OTC.

[Mike Laursen]

The QAnon Shaman’s defense lawyer is goin with a “my client rides the short bus” defense:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-shaman-jacob-chansleys-lawyer-al-watkins-says-many-capitol-ioters-are-retarded?source=cheats&via=rss

[JesseAz]

Bet you're happy the media and politicians pressured lawyers to not take up these cases.

[sarcasmic]

Saw that on the Daily Mail.

Lawyer for QAnon Shaman says his client and other MAGA rioters are 'f***ing retarded and on the goddamn spectrum' after being subjected to four years of 'Hitler-like propaganda'

Same could be said of my Muted fan club that drops turds on every one of my posts.

[JesseAz]

Lol. He had to mention his list.

[sarcasmic]

Like that one right there. Constantly humping my leg. Can't make it go away.

[Don't look at me!]

There is an easy way to make it stop.

[R Mac]

Which he said he was going to do. A couple different times. Must have gotten banned from glibs.

[Mother's Lament]

Nobody paid attention to him, and that's all that he really wants.

[Mother's Lament]

When are you going to fuck off like you promised, sarc?

"my muted fan club"
Here's your attention sarcasmic, enjoy.

[JesseAz]

The list. Tell us your list!

It is funny watching fake libertarians cry so happily about a mute button.

Just yesterday you were advertising more people being muted because they destroyed your lack of argument. Lol.

[R Mac]

He gave Don’t look at me warnings, and he didn’t heed them, so sarc taught him a lesson!

[Sevo]

"Same could be said of my Muted fan club that drops turds on every one of my posts."

Yeah, you pathetic piece of lefty shit, the world is just so unfair!

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

Yup. And terrible.

[R Mac]

I’m ignoring the people that I mention every day!

[JesseAz]

He just proved he clicks at least the name to see who muted him. He can't help it. Lol.

[Mother's Lament]

"I'm a muting you, and you, and you, and you... Hey! Don't ignore me! I'm muting you...
What do you mean you don't care?!
I'm muting you, you HAVE to care...
But I'm muting you..."

[JesseAz]

Did you see his post yesterday declaring him,, jeff, and Mike the cool kids club for muting people who have destroyed their arguments? Lol. Kirkland even came to his defense.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

When kirk is on your side you need to rethink you beliefs

[DesigNate]

If you think that the 4 years under Trump were anywhere near "Hitler-like", you have officially crossed over into retard territory.

[Eeyore]

Shrinking leg room on planes is woke. Leg room is privilege, therefore racist, therefore shrinking it is woke.

If you don't think something is woke, you just aren't thinking woke enough.

[JesseAz]

Manspreading. Fat harm. Choose the woke narrative.

[Eeyore]

It's really a chose your own adventure. You just have to maintain the constant framing that people other than your group are inherently bad.

[Briggs Cunningham]

So when the left boycotts companies and gets people fired and engages in the cancel culture, reason's answer is "it is a private company you statist. If you don't like what they do, you don't have to give them your business". Then the right does exactly that and starts not frequenting companies that do political things they don't like, reason calls them hypocrites for doing exactly what reason claims is the only response to leftist political activism by private entities.

Why nearly everyone acquainted with the publication thinks reason is nothing but a concern troll outfit for the left; the mystery continues.

[Velvet Thunder]

I think the big problem is that most of them cavort in elite progressive social circles and don't want to upset their friends. On the Roundup podcast a week ago Suderman even admitted that he continues wearing a mask outdoors because he doesn't want his neighbors to think he's republican.

[Briggs Cunningham]

On the Roundup podcast a week ago Suderman even admitted that he continues wearing a mask outdoors because he doesn’t want his neighbors to think he’s republican.

Hashtag: profiles in courage. God what a soulless dirtbag.

[Mother's Lament]

That made me laugh.

Since a mask is all about signaling their political tribe now, what other stupid shit can we get them to wear?

Prove you're not Republican by wearing a tiny top hat. Prove you're not Republican by wearing a corduroy codpiece.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Prove your not a republican by wearing a mink coat

[R Mac]

This suggestion should be shared with the 4chan guys. Is there a more impressive troll job than convincing half the country that the ok hand sign is for nazis?

[R Mac]

Really? That’s seriously a sign of mental problems.

[JesseAz]

He is as libertarian as David hogg.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

On the Roundup podcast a week ago Suderman even admitted that he continues wearing a mask outdoors because he doesn’t want his neighbors to think he’s republican.

Suderman and McCardle are well-known DC media creatures, and embody why "cocktail partiez!" became a meme on this site (McCardle's 2009 Atlantic column where she admitted they were dating, in response to a hit piece on her by Yasha Levine and Mark Ames, provides a fascinating window into just how connected everyone in the Gen-X pundit class really is). They probably haven't lived in a neighborhood that wasn't dominated by upper-class Democrats since college, and maybe not ever.

[Gray_Jay]

"...McCardle’s 2009 Atlantic column where she admitted they were dating, in response to a hit piece on her by Yasha Levine and Mark Ames,"

Talk about a fight where you hoped that everyone would lose. Painfully.

Though I did enjoy reading Dolan's psychology articles masquerading as military history in "The eXile."

[Briggs Cunningham]

They are just boring, awful people both of them. I can't imagine many worse evenings then having to spend it with those two.

[sarcasmic]

SOL Burger? Is that Spanish for sun, or Shit Outta Luck?

[JesseAz]

Nope. Not funny.

[icandrive,nigga]

Can ENB really be this dumb? If an ostensibly "right" org is going after "woke" companies it's not going to work to hit them on DEI/CRT. Hit them where they live on ESG and stir up their traditional enemies on the left and maybe they'll decide woke just isn't worth it.

[Moonrocks]

Can ENB really be this dumb?

None of the Reason staff are as dumb as they pretend to be. They're very intentionally dishonest.

[R Mac]

In general I think you’re right, but with ENB...? Not so sure.

[LibertyWeeb]

Attacking the left from the left is a perfectly reasonable tactic. That it's being lamented suggests it may also be effective.

Something about flak and being over the target.

[buckleup]

"Never mind that one is a private commercial activity and the other a constitutional right, nor that it's the government (not individual airlines) who set traveler ID policies."

So in other words the government can compel you to show ID to fly AND to vote. You just trashed your argument in one sentence.

[Talcum X]

Remember, "Have a Coke and a smile"? That was it. That was the whole message. Nothing else. That is what companies should concentrate on, consumer satisfaction. Anything else is an intrusion into people's personal lives. Why in the hell would they think that their left, right, or center views will sell more Cokes?

[Briggs Cunningham]

Or all those cute hippie chicks singing about teaching the world to sing? Politics is by its very nature divisive and nasty. If a subject isn't divisive and nasty, it isn't political. So introducing politics into any subject where politics doesn't somehow introduce itself, always makes things worse.

[Mike Laursen]

Don Draper pauses his fucked-up personal life to once again pull a professional win.

[Mike Laursen]

Have you met the people in Marketing? In my corporate life, I avoided them whenever possible. They never added anything real or useful to any product or project.

[Sevo]

You bet! Those companies just pour money into marketing since they're not as smart as this piece of shit!

[R Mac]

Dee doesn’t think marketing ever works.

[Zeb]

I kind of feel the same about marketing. Which is why I'm an engineer and not a marketing person. It's really just my preferences and interests. I do my thing, they do theirs. Of course they have their place, or they wouldn't exist. Someone has to figure out what we can make that people will want to buy.

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

The beginning of the end was when ACE became the place with the helpful hardware “folks”. It’s all been downhill from there.

[KillAllRednecks]

You're TOO funny!

[Nardz]

https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1395014759142109186?s=19

JUST IN - IDF artillery opens fire on targets in Lebanon after multiple rockets were launched from Lebanon into northern Israel.

[Moonrocks]

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that all of Iran's proxies suddenly have suddenly felt the urge to go active only a couple of months after the coup in the US.

[KillAllRednecks]

*coup attempt

The Trump fellating Nazis didn't succeed.

[Gray_Jay]

Player Hezbollah has entered the game.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Southern Lebanon isn't nearly as populous as Gaza. Break out the cluster bombs and napalm.

[CannedSaltyHam]

Anti-woke people have the most purchasing power in this country. Progressives hate that.

[middlefinger]

Not for long, remember “Infrastructure”

[Nardz]

https://twitter.com/DrKarlynB/status/1395011556119879686?s=19

You know why critical race theory is going to win?

Because people would rather their children be taught they are racist than speak out against it.

That’s it.

The people have no one to blame but themselves.

They did it to themselves by not speaking up.

[Briggs Cunningham]

The villains of these sorts of stories are the parents. They know this is wrong and refuse to stand up and say anything. They refuse to do so not out of fear of prison or death or even losing their jobs. They cower our of the fear of not being accepted by their social circle.

Bari Weiss had an article a while back about parents who send their kids to some obscenely expensive Manhattan prep school and refuse to speak up against the critical race theory that is taught there and that they know is poisoning their kids' minds. The money quote of that article is a New York City teacher saying "To speak against this is to put all of your moral capital at risk.” Ah no, to speak against it is to preserve your moral capital. Not speaking against it is what puts your moral capital at risk. What you put at risk when you speak against it is your social capital. These people are so bereft of values and morals they confuse social capital with moral capital. When you don't believe in anything higher than yourself and even question the existence of the truth at all, all you have to justify yourself is the acceptance of your peers. And that is about as debased and sad of an existence that I can imagine living. The people who debase themselves every day to the Castros or the Kims have more dignity than these parents. At least those people can tell themselves it is necessary to save their lives. What is these people's rationalization? They might not get invited to the good book club?

[Zeb]

Weiss has also had some great interviews with some parents and teachers from those schools who are speaking up. Hopefully it gives more the confidence to do likewise.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

They know this is wrong and refuse to stand up and say anything. They refuse to do so not out of fear of prison or death or even losing their jobs. They cower our of the fear of not being accepted by their social circle.

Yeah, that's a big part of it. Look what's going on in Louden County, Virginia. People who speak against it are being put on Enemies Lists by the school teachers, school board members, and their allies within the community. If they had pushed back on this to begin with, they wouldn't be in the position of having a bullseye on their backs.

Again, this is why I keep saying that this "government is the problem" mindset is what ultimately led to this happening. You can't treat politics, ESPECIALLY at the local level where a lot of this shit germinates, as if you're too pure to sully your hands with being involved. Look at the average suburban city council these days, and a lot of them are woketards who just arrived in town in the last five years, and have NO appreciation for the culture that provided them such a nice community to live in the first place.

If parents want this shit to stop, they need to start attending school board meetings and town council meetings, and even running for election on these things. You might not have the time or energy to get involved at the state or federal level, but you can resist it at the local one. This "I'm not corrupt enough to be involved in government" is a bullshit pretension that is ultimately suicidal. You need to make it as uncomfortable as possible for the woketards to establish themselves, and eventually they'll migrate back to their blue havens out of frustration with living in a "backward" community.

[Gray_Jay]

"You might not have the time or energy to get involved at the state or federal level, but you can resist it at the local one. This “I’m not corrupt enough to be involved in government” is a bullshit pretension that is ultimately suicidal."

Needs repeating.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Keep in mind that civic involvement was pretty common across party lines all the way up until around the late 1980s or early 1990s. Democrats have always naturally had an advantage with this because of their long-standing political machine tradition going back to Van Buren, but Republicans didn't always take this pretext that attending school boards or volunteering for local water or planning commissions was a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. After World War II, for example, most suburban towns leaned Republican, and thus most of their civic government was run by Republicans--in fact, the abandonment of the cities by Republican voters is what ultimately led to the cities being deep-blue shitholes from the 1960s-onward. The Equal Rights Amendment was killed in the late 70s precisely due to Republican activism in the face of intense media and cultural pressure.

When they started abandoning that field, younger and, over time, increasingly liberal Democrats stepped in to fill the void. Now, if you're a Republican or Libertarian voter, and you're sitting on your ass at home saying "government is the problem," who do you think is setting the agenda for the schools your kids attend, the taxes you pay, the roads you drive, the commercial and recreational areas where you gather and spend your money? This refusal to put skin in the game is precisely why the Wokesters gained the sense of entitlement that they did--who the fuck is going to push back on them? Certainly not the liberal bourgeoisie.

You can't win a culture war if you willingly cede the field.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Karlyn's starting to become insufferable. One day she's celebrating one state or another banning CRT, then the next day she's whining about how CRT is going to win.

[Nardz]

She's a bit inconsistent, but she's right that refusing to oppose is the same thing as submission.
Her oddest take, and it seems to have passed, was obsessing over Jenner for Cali gov.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Thinking that would cause cognitive dissonance on the left was just dumb. Jenner became the enemy as soon as she announced.

[middlefinger]

I heard a clip from a Hodgetwins episode, one of the brothers lost it and yelled- why don’t you white peoples defend yourselves

[Ken Shultz]

It's time to start talking about UFOs.

I've seen perfectly normal people from the military repeatedly confirm the same stories. I've seen all the video that's come out lately, and all the supposedly legit media that's been covering it. There are a couple of things being reported that I haven't seen in the videos, which I need to see before I believe this stuff may be of alien origin.

1) They say the objects are accelerating and traveling faster than anything we've ever seen before.

2) They say the objects are defying more in the way of g-forces that a craft or a human being could handle as it maneuvers.

I can't see any of that in any of the videos I've seen.

I have seen other videos like this one--where marines in the British Royal Navy are doing things I didn't think were possible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suHOLFhbwsM

Somali pirates seeing those guys coming after them at night might imagine they were being boarded by aliens.

I will say this, the alien origin explanation for flying craft that can do these maneuvers--defying our abilities with acceleration, g-forces, speed, and with an energy source that doesn't leave any kind of jet plume--gets around some of the good reasons not to believe it's the Russian or Chinese technology.

I once had a discussion with a guy who believed that cancer was easily treatable, and that doctors were refusing to tell us how to cure it, just so they could make money. When Steve Jobs died of cancer, he was worth around $35 billion. If he were willing to pay $34 billion for a cure, but not a single doctor came forward to offer that to him, does the idea that doctors are keeping quiet about the cure for cancer to get rich kinda fall apart?

If China or Russia had this kind of technology, it wouldn't be a secret. We're talking about breaking the laws of physics and maybe a completely new source of energy. They'd have commercialized it and completely obliterated our economy wherever possible. You might be able to make a scientist shut up about it, but trying to keep bureaucrats who know about it quiet?

Imagine if the Russians in 1949 could have tested their first nuclear device--but decided they didn't want us to know they had it. Why would they do that? Why would they launch Sputnik in 1957 and not want us to know? Why wouldn't the Chinese want us to know if they landed on the moon before we did? They just sent a rover to Mars that's more or less like the one we sent 17 years ago--for bragging rights. They can tear up the laws of physics, but they don't want us to know?

I haven't seen any video that shows objects defying our capabilities in terms of g-forces, acceleration, direction changes, and speed, but if I see that, I'll have a hard time believing it's the Chinese or the Russians. I'm not sure I will see it or that it can be captured on video, but this kind of thing being of American origin may be a more likely explanation than anything else. In southern California, we used to experience sonic booms on clear days without anything obviously in the sky in weird places. It turned out to be stealth technology tests, spy planes, etc.

Color me skeptical.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

In southern California, we used to experience sonic booms on clear days without anything obviously in the sky in weird places. It turned out to be stealth technology tests, spy planes, etc.

You'd think people living in what was at the time the center of the military aerospace industry would have thought that through.

[Ken Shultz]

They did, and everybody, including the local news, were saying it was the military. It's just that the military kept denying it because it was a skunkworks project.

These kinds of booms are still happening by the way, and sometimes the military may really not know that they're the ones who did it--that it was some other department. Why would you keep the PR guys informed about everything?

"Did you hear that? Another mystery boom leaves San Diego grasping for answers"

----San Diego Union-Tribune

March 13, 2021

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/science/story/2021-03-13/big-boom-mystery-noise

[Gray_Jay]

The rocket tests "OMG UFOs!" out of Mugu and Vandenberg were always good for a laugh. 'Frozen Lightning' is really very pretty near sunset.

[Ken Shultz]

Some of the videos released by the Pentagon are impressive.

The infrared film of the craft with no apparent heat source as it moves around without falling is impressive.

But the proof is in the radar and sonar data, etc., which the Pentagon won't release as classified. They say that one of these objects descended from 100,000 feet, brakes instantaneously at the ocean's service, changed direction, and then sped off at a rate of speed that's incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz-6jRrbtuI

We need to see the data for that rather than have someone at the Pentagon releasing a report that says this, rather than four eyewitness accounts of the white, oblong tic-tac object, etc. hovering over the surface and disappearing in a flash, etc.

And, just for the record, I'm seeing some rather famous Republican commentators go after the Biden administration over this, as if this could be a Chinese or Russian threat to our national security--and Joe Biden isn't doing anything to stop it. We need to see the radar, sonar, and other data they have that show the way these objects performed, but if this becomes a political struggle, where Republicans insist its the Russians or Chinese because they want to make Biden look bad and the Democrats insist that it must be extraterrestrial because they don't want Biden to look bad, then they're both making themselves and everyone who listens to them look ridiculous.

[Ken Shultz]

"The infrared film of the craft with no apparent heat source as it moves around without falling is impressive."

I am by no means an expert on this, but someone who knows more than I do, tell us about the laws of thermodynamics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics

I should have said it "seems" impressive. There could be any number of other things happening that either weren't captured on the video or weren't explained properly. My understanding of how these things work, likewise, could be flawed. But if there's a suggestion in these videos that this object is doing something really impressive, maybe breaking a law of thermodynamics would evidence of that.

[Gray_Jay]

It would explain it. But, borrowing from Larry Niven, breaking a law of Physics is worse than trying to eat just one potato chip.

Invoking the presence and utility of higher dimensions could explain these observations. Maybe the waste heat is dumped along an dimensions we can't perceive? Like how certain stealthy objects---even satellites---can be made very difficult to observe along one axis, but stand out like sore thumbs when viewed along another.

Alternately, these are examples of the Roadside Picnic metaphor. I.e., we stand as much chance of comprehending them as ants do of a human trash pile.

[Zeb]

There are also some pretty compelling optical illusions.

[Ken Shultz]

+1

Is that pyramid shaped object a solar panel from a satellite falling to earth as its refracted through the camera lens?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

This is the same issue as when people are told a reaction shot of someone watching the video is the same as evidence

[Gray_Jay]

I'm just tired of the hype. .Mil has some amazing surveillance and observation stuff---paid for with billions of our tax dollars---that have been used to watch other countries' ICBM tests etc. Show the tapes, radar tracks, EM signatures, etc... Use the ones utilizing 70s tech, if we're scared about giving away the game.

But tell us what you know about them, .Gov. Or shut the hell up about it. This cabalistic "I know something you don't know, and if I only I could tell you!", is really played out at this point.

That said, the USN guy's publicly disclosed recent patents on inertia less movement, would explain what those USN pilots were allegedly seeing. But if we could replicate that, we not only wouldn't be fucking around with SpaceX, we'd hop and skip right past The Expanse while we were at it.

Reactionless drives mean we as a species have probably gotten past a Great Filter. Which is about the biggest deal of all Big Deals.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

This cabalistic “I know something you don’t know, and if I only I could tell you!”, is really played out at this point.

Obama did that coy-assed shit a couple of days ago. "I've seen some stuff, but I can't really talk about it." Well, then why the fuck are you going along with this shit, then?

[Nardz]

https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1395018830058082308?s=19

These freaks are at their manipulative crap again.

"@wef
Screen time isn't bad for teenagers after all, study finds.
Learn more about the importance of digital mental health: [video]"

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Love the passive-voiced comments in that video; "researchers say changes are slight."

Yeah, take away their digital umbilicus for a week and see how they react.

[Nardz]

https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1395023581554233351?s=19

They’re hunting down Jews on the street in LA. (Thread below.) Note this video won’t be on CNN, and there will be no condemnation by the Democrats.

Prove me wrong, @jaketapper @brianstelter @SenSchumer @SpeakerPelosi. (Not bothering to tag the Hamas wing AOC Omar etc.)

“West Hollywood:
Gang of Palestinians asked people in the street who is Jewish and proceeded to beat them up.
[Video]”

“Tonight pro-Palestinian individuals were driving with megaphones around La Cienega & Beverly (a heavily Jewish area) in Los Angeles and threw objects at Jews at a restaurant table. Some threw things back.
The pro-Palestinian group came to the sidewalk to fight.
[Video]
Reportedly the drivers were yelling “F**k the Jews.”
You can see the pro-Palestinian group attacking two people on the sidewalk In this video, and one of them fights back.
A victim is hospitalized.
[Video]
UPDATE: Some LA Jewish community leaders are trying to get more information about this disturbing video which is being shared on WhatsApp.
It appears to show an Orthodox Jew being chased by two cars from the pro-Palestinian caravan above.
[Video]”

[Briggs Cunningham]

Jew hating is the mother tongue of collectivist hate. All leftists eventually revert back to it to some degree at some point.

[middlefinger]

We live in a country that is framing white supremacy for the decades long conflict and now violence as urban blacks attack Asians.

[Moonrocks]

It's sad that I'm not surprised.

[Gray_Jay]

There was footage of a similar incident in NYC on Twitter, the first night of Rocket Bowl 2021. Twitter nuked it in an hour or so.

Be careful, be prepared, and don't rely on the cops to help you.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Semi-Related - Rashida Tlaib bitches about the "Apartheid Israel" violating human rights (including a number of her family members, who live in Gaza), while ignoring Hamass deliberately targeting civilians.

The reality is that if Israel was violating human rights, they could wipe out Gaza in a matter of hours. Hamass not only violates human rights, they boast about it.

But Tlaib won't speak out about Hamass. Why? It's not just that she's anti-semitic, and supports their goals. It's that if she said one unkind word, they'd murder her entire family in a heartbeat.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

It’s not just that she’s anti-semitic, and supports their goals. It’s that if she said one unkind word, they’d murder her entire family in a heartbeat.

It doesn't have anything to do with worry about her family getting slaughtered by Hamas. There's nothing about her takes that is insincere--she's fully invested in the Palestinian liberation narrative and, like most of those who live here, considers herself a Palestinian Arab first and foremost, whose responsibility is to subvert American support for Israel. Most Palestinians in the US are turbo-lib cultural Marxists who were supporting critical race/post-colonialist theory before it was cool to do so--Edward Said is basically their philosophical voice.

[Nardz]

Remember too that the people at the top of leftism now spent their 20s palling around and training with the PLO.
Islamists and marxists/leftists have been actively working together for 50+ years

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Fox is reporting that Netanyahu said reoccupying Gaza is on the table.

[Gray_Jay]

He can't afford to do it without ethnically cleansing the area. Israel, per the wiki, is 9.3 million people. Gaza, all by itself, is around 2 million. Further, guess which one is growing faster.

Goodbye, Likud plurality...

[Moonrocks]

The statistics on the Palestinian population are notoriously inaccurate because of really poor methodology. Most estimates tend to count Israeli Arabs as Palestinians and often count people multiple times (eg. an Israeli Arab living in Jerusalem gets counted as a Palestinian, a resident of the Palestinian Authority and a resident of Jerusalem). The actual numbers of the Palestinian population is a big opaque black box.

[Gray_Jay]

Fair, although I didn't even count the West Bank in my statement.

They still can't absorb an additional 20, 10, however many percent of broke Palestinians, without cratering both their economy and politics.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

I was too late Twitter took it down already

[middlefinger]

Somehow Trump will be blamed

[Nardz]

https://twitter.com/jsolomonReports/status/1394757724542484486?s=19

.@georgesoros kicked in $2M to elect the Maricopa County sheriff who's now stonewalling the #Arizona election audit
#JustTheNews
[Link]

[Briggs Cunningham]

Nothing says "clean and fair election" like refusing to let anyone see the books or in this case the servers.

[Don't look at me!]

It’s fortified for your own good!

[CannedSaltyHam]

Thank God that Texas rejected those machines. I have no doubt they would've gone blue, otherwise.

[CannedSaltyHam]

Also, in MI, investigators for Attorney Deperno found modem chips in the machines. WTF? Nothing to see here!

[Rich]

The sign is required to read, "This facility maintains as a policy of allowing the use of restrooms by either biological sex, regardless of the designation on the restroom." The bill demands ... certain colors be used.

"Pink for female biological sex; blue for male biological sex; purple for mixed or indeterminate biological sex."

[Don't look at me!]

certain colors be used
Racist.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Department of Justice (DOJ) ditches attempt to out politician parody account.

Justice can't doxx someone who is making fun of one of his betters? What do we even pay them for?

[Gray_Jay]

"Ditches [publicly known] attempt," more like. They know.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Florida Constitution prohibits using government power to benefit a favored economic group at the expense of others.

There is no way this is consistently honored.

[Gray_Jay]

'Looks to Florida prison system, doesn't see it full of lobbyists...'

[Fist of Etiquette]

It's about an orange grove in MN, a tree nut farm in Palm Beach & a cattle ranch in Beach Haven, NJ. And a lot more businesses that don't exist.

"And with Darren's help, we'll get that chicken!"

[Fist of Etiquette]

A new law in Tennessee requires any business that "allows a member of either biological sex to use any public restroom within the building or facility" to post warning signs about it.

Unisex bathrooms. Hot.

[Moonrocks]

Starship Troopers soon.

[Cyto]

If you believe the problem with "woke" is that some conservatives are using it as a catchall label, your opinions on this issue are not worth considering.

Do such things exist? Sure. Is it regrettable... Yeah, maybe.

Is it at all a relevant problem to what is happening in this space?

Please....

Caitlyn Jenner and Martina Navratilova are transphobic pariahs for having the temerity to opine that biological women should be able to compete in sports leagues that are reserved for biological women only. It is impossible to find two people more qualified to speak on the issue. Both are among the most elite athletes of all time, and both are among LGBTQIA royalty.

But yeah, the real problem is some Republican politician you never heard of putting something about the problems of woke in a fundraising letter.

[Briggs Cunningham]

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/05/18/biden-russia-can-have-a-new-pipeline-but-america-cant-n1447893

Pipelines are evil and must be stopped, unless Russians are building them.

[Moonrocks]

That kind of says it all, doesn't it?

[Briggs Cunningham]

I am sure Hunter Biden has gotten or will receive shortly, a large check for doing "consulting work" on the project.

[Fist of Etiquette]

"Prosecutors and a judge agreed that she never should have been convicted of killing a man she said tried to rape her in her Irish Channel apartment."

40 years. Well, no harm done at least.

[JesseAz]

Not to be contrarian... but did she merely claim he tried to rape or did he actually try to rape her? See campus courts.

[Zeb]

Well, we'll never know. All that matters is if her claim of self defense is plausible enough to introduce reasonable doubt.

[Nardz]

Are we back to paying attention to reasonable doubt again, or are we just going by who the accused is?

[Zeb]

Depends on who "we" is, I guess.

[mad.casual]

See also, ENB.

Broaden was convicted 40 yrs. ago, not exactly the modern heyday of ham sandwich convictions and ENB has an almost refined habit of finding Sharon Stone/Basic Instinct characters and portraying them in an almost surreally positive light.

[mad.casual]

There are only 2 people who know and one of them is dead.

Her own (corrected) testimony, she let him in to the house and he 'attempted to rape her multiple times' before she shot him point blank with his own gun.

Imagine if Zimmerman had run into Treyvon Martin several times that night and wound up shooting Martin with his own gun.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Maryland restaurants will be allowed to serve to-go cocktails through June 2023.

Sunset laws on personal liberties. How novel.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Good news out of Philadelphia...

Only good news is when you get out of Filthadelphia.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Good news out of Philadelphia, where incumbent District Attorney Larry Krasner, who was vehemently opposed by the local Fraternal Order of Police, won tidily.

No mention that his own party refused to endorse him? I wonder why...

[Nardz]

Or that he's another one of Soros' creatures who's presided over violent crime rates skyrocketing?

[Fist of Etiquette]

4 progressives who ran for judgeships on curbing bail & incarceration won

Which is it? Progressives or criminal justice reform advocates?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Texas has passed a free-range kids law.

Cue the angry social media videos recorded in parked cars.

[Nardz]

https://twitter.com/JordanSchachtel/status/1395040895163117572?s=19

Pay no attention to the dozens of domestic and international crises facing this country, the real story is THE ALIENS! [Link]

[American Socia1ist]

Proud Boy bumps into his contradictions.

WASHINGTON – Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean lashed out at President Donald Trump, accusing him of misleading his supporters and then deserting them despite their unwavering loyalty.
“We are now and always have been on our own. So glad he was able to pardon a bunch of degenerates as his last move and s--- on us on the way out," Nordean said in an expletive-laden message about the former president. "F--- you trump you left us on [t]he battle field bloody and alone."

[Brian]

Silly Proud Boys: they thought Trump was a fascist white supremist.

Shows what they know.

[American Socia1ist]

I know! They just didn’t realize that he was completely full of shit— just like everyone else in the GOP. If only they could see past their dawgs, and God, and abortion and guns. You know... their contradictions. Like I said.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Or your contradiction in taking out a mortgage and not paying for it.

[Briggs Cunningham]

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/hitler-and-stalin-loving-socialist-whose-statue-no-daniel-greenfield/

I always knew Shaw was an ass but I had no idea he was a full on monster.

Mussolini, Kemal, Pilsudski, Hitler and the rest can all depend on me to judge them by their ability to deliver the goods," he wrote. "Stalin has delivered the goods to an extent that seemed impossible ten years ago... Jesus Christ [Stalin] has come to Earth. He is no longer an idol. People are gaining some sort of idea of what would happen if He lived now.

That included the Jews of whom Shaw wrote, “I think we ought to tackle the Jewish Question by admitting the right of the State to make eugenic experiments by weeding out any strains they think undesirable”, but as a committed eugenicist he was hardly going to stop there, writing that, "the majority of men at present in Europe have no business to be alive.

"Appeal to the chemists to discover a humane gas that will kill instantly and painlessly," he wrote. "We shall find a use for it at home." Who was it to be used against? Everyone.

“I think it would be a good thing to make everybody come before a properly-appointed board, just as they might come before the income tax commissioner, and say every five years, or every seven years, just put them there, and say, ‘Sir, or madam, now will you be kind enough to justify your existence?’ If you’re not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more, then, clearly, we cannot use the big organizations of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us and it can’t be of very much use to yourself.”

“The ungovernables, the ferocious, the conscienceless, the idiots, the self-centered myops and morons, what of them? Do not punish them. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill them,” he raved in one essay.

Aside from conventional biological eugenics, the “ungovernables” were enemies of the state.

"The essential justification for extermination," Shaw argued, "is always incorrigible social incompatibility and nothing else" in a paragraph defending Soviet purges.

Since he is basically a typical leftist and just said what most of them believe, Shaw is still accepted as a hero on the left.

[Gray_Jay]

Thank you for the link. I knew he had some Progressive leanings, but I was unaware of how odious some of his views were.

[I, Woodchipper]

A new law in Tennessee requires any business that "allows a member of either biological sex to use any public restroom within the building or facility" to post warning signs about it.

this law is stupid. Like a vegan, these places will definitely tell you about their restroom policy loudly and proudly. They are doing it to get kudos after all.

[Zeb]

I like the old way of dealing with this. No laws or rules. You use the bathroom of the sex that you are most likely to pass for.

[Moonrocks]

Thanks to the overwhelming success of the public school system, that's now too complicated for the average person.

[mad.casual]

You use the bathroom of the sex that you are most likely to pass for.

As courtesy/convenience/availability dictates. If you think cis persons never peed in the opposite gender's restrooms prior to the 21st century, you'd be retarded.

[Azathoth!!]

How do you know the new ad campaign against the wokistas is working?

The wokistas at Reason who feign libertarianism think it's stupid.

What's that? 'Feign' libertarianism?

Yeah. How often to libertarians cheer on progressive victories--

• Good news out of Philadelphia, where incumbent District Attorney Larry Krasner, who was vehemently opposed by the local Fraternal Order of Police, won tidily. Voters also approved other criminal justice reforms elsewhere in Pennsylvania:

In Pittsburgh & its county (Allegheny), in today's elections:

—voters banned no-knock warrants
—voters banned solitary confinement in jail
—Pittsburgh fired its mayor for a progressive challenger
—4 progressives who ran for judgeships on curbing bail & incarceration won

— Taniel (@Taniel) May 19, 2021

Not only did Krasner win, but right now he's leading by 28%. https://t.co/vZgQsJjg0V

— Jesse Walker (@notjessewalker) May 19, 2021

[Nardz]

Army recruitment...

America’s army doesn’t stand a chance at this rate. https://t.co/p85DmRceSX

[Moonrocks]

Opening in existing browser session.

That's the point.

[Moonrocks]

God damn it, why doesn't my clipboard work today?

[Gray_Jay]

Considering who those "Apache attack helicopters" are likely to be used against in the near future, is that a bad thing if the US military becomes a very pretty, hollowed-out rotten shell of its Cold War self?

Jesus Christ, what a thing to write as an American citizen in 2021.

[R Mac]

You just got DOL aroused.

[Gray_Jay]

I thought the quotation marks might be laying it on too thick, but still.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Wokeness has been a real cancer upon our nation (and a racist cancer at that) and Reason has been mostly AWOL (except for some attempts by Robby to cover it) on the subject, then the backlash starts and that's what we criticize.

Fine, I get it, and even I knew that the "Official" backlash would probably be a befuddled campaign, ineffective at best, silly at worst, but still I find it telling.

Here's a publication that's been covering this topic extremely well.

Sometimes it feels like we’re being overwhelmed by a tidal wave of woke. Expressing perfectly ordinary opinions can get you shamed and sacked. Historical buildings and statues are renamed or torn down for centuries-old crimes. And in the past year or so, every major institution has sworn its fealty to Black Lives Matter.

But despite the widespread influence of what is often called wokeness, this thinking is the preserve of a small minority. A new poll from YouGov makes this clearer than ever. It shows that woke causes don’t register with most Brits. In fact, 59 per cent say they don’t even know what the word ‘woke’ means.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

And more.

In an age of gender-fluidity, ‘woman’ has become a dirty word. Healthcare providers are now being urged to purge it from their language, even from invitations to smear tests. Otherwise, they may discourage trans men from attending, according to a new study.

Smear test invitations should not refer to women as it is discouraging trans men from accessing cancer screenings, a new study has suggested

It used to be obvious that it was women who needed a cervical smear test. So to get around this, the study’s authors propose a new way to find out: ‘a body-organ checklist.’ This would allow doctors to keep a record of which patients have which organs. This would allow patients to ‘opt out of reminders they find triggering’.

[mad.casual]

Mrs. Casual's upbringing was Catholic and her professional education was in smear testing. She used to joke about how, on rotations with certain hospitals, you had to write down 'foreign reproductive byproduct' or similar rather than just 'sperm'. It will be interesting to hear about how now that it will likely be 'dermally reconstructed reproductive tissue', or whatever, she's glad those days are behind her.

[Tony]

You forgot to explain what the problem was.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Don't forget the Louden County parents and residents who finally got so fed up with the Wokesters' antics there that they managed to put together a recall effort for the school board.

[Kyle T]

"Bless Consumers' Research for illustrating this tendency so nicely. The group has launched a major new campaign to protect consumers from "woke companies" ..."

So calling out the hypocrisy of companies that criticize conservative views is wrong? What about the Woke going after the Brenden Eich, then CEO of Mozilla for donating to a Proposition that the left didn't like, the Space Force firing the Lieutenant Colonel for speaking out against the 1619 project, the police officer fired for donating to the defense fund that the left didn't like. Talk about "cue the pitchforks." Heaven forbid a writer for a libertarian publication actually have libertarian views.

Is Elizabeth Nolan Brown really that dense? The shouldn't be writing for Reason if she is incapable of reasoning.

[R Mac]

ENB is a libertarian on exactly one issue: legalize prostitution.

[mad.casual]

As her stance on abortion and women's rights elsewhere demonstrates, not even really then. She's a libertarian as much as libertarianism condones/tolerates/supports misandry.

[KillAllRednecks]

I don't know how anyone can be anti choice and claim to be libertarian...

[mad.casual]

Yeah, ENB's definition includes leniency for women who drown their 3-yr.-old kids.

[Azathoth!!]

ENB is a libertarian on exactly one issue: legalize prostitution.

So long as being a john is severely punished.

[Roberta]

Why wouldn't "woke" broaden its meaning? "Politically correct" got picked up by all parts of the political spectrum to mean their own thing, didn't it?

[mad.casual]

'Alt-right' subsumed everything from David Duke and Richard Spencer to Gavin McInnes and Ben Shapiro whether they wanted the term or not.