Woke corporations vs their customers

[DKG]

The American left's big business backers crawl back to Trump.

Welcome to January 6, 2025. Everything is different. From Washington to Los Angeles, prominent figures are unafraid of their associations with America's 45th and 47th president and corporate money is once again flowing to a populist disruptor deemed anathema just one year ago.

Four years ago, on January 6, 2021, a mixture of angry Republicans, serial agitators, street performers, and frustrated, forgotten Americans rioted at the U.S. Capitol. Within two days, Twitter banned the president of the United States from communicating with his 90 million followers on its platform. The move marked a major escalation in corporate America's war on Trump but was quickly surpassed by Amazon, Apple, and Google, which ganged up to destroy Parler (a popular competitor to Twitter) for no reason at all except to censor dissident thought.

[DKG]

McDonald's is the latest large corporation to announce that it's unwinding some of its diversity initiatives.

The fast-food giant said it is changing its approach to "inclusion" at the company, according to a memo to restaurant owners and operators as well as employees worldwide, which was posted on its corporate website on Monday.

Specifically, the company will no longer set "aspirational representation goals," or targets for achieving diverse representation in senior roles. McDonald's is also ditching a program it created to encourage its suppliers to make their own diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) pledges and invest in diversity training for their employees. Instead, the company says it will have conversations "with suppliers about inclusion as it relates to business performance."

Another change: McDonald's will refer to its diversity team as the "Global Inclusion Team."

"This name change is more fitting for McDonald's in light of our inclusion value and better aligns with this team's work," the company said.  Additionally, McDonald's said it will pause "external surveys," without providing specifics.

McDonald's follows a slew of high-profile corporations including Ford, Lowe's, John Deere and others, in rolling back its DEI efforts after a Supreme Court ruling reversing affirmative action in college admissions.

[DKG]

The infamous executive who was blamed for the Bud Light transgender marketing debacle has landed another prominent job working for LIV Golf.

Alissa Gordon Heinerscheid was the vice president of marketing at Bud Light when the brand decided to partner with transgender TikTok activist Dylan Mulvaney in 2023. The resulting controversy led to a boycott against the brand that erased millions in market valuation and saw Heinerscheid step down from the company.

Years later, it appears that Heinerscheid has been able to obtain employment at the controversial LIV Golf, the competitor to the PGA Tour that is backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. Heinerscheid indicated on an update to her LinkedIn account that she has worked for LIV Golf for eight months.

[DKG]

There is a battle under way over the ownership and identity of the iconic ice cream brand Ben and Jerry's — and its radical leftist founders, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, appear to be losing badly.

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal indicated that Cohen was trying to gather investors to buy back the brand that he and Greenfield sold to Unilever 25 years ago.

This buyback initiative came just weeks after Unilever removed the company's anti-Trump CEO Dave Stever, allegedly on account of his commitment to Ben and Jerry's leftist activism and despite a letter of support from Cohen and Greenfield; after years of clashes over how the ice cream company communicates its politics; and amid Unilever's preparations to spin off its ice cream assets.

"In the year 2000, Unilever loved us for who we were," Cohen told the Journal. "Now we've gone separate ways in our relationship. We just need them to set us free."

Unilever crushed Cohen's dream this week, indicating that Ben and Jerry's is "not for sale," reported Bloomberg.

As of July 1, Unilever ice cream will reportedly become the Magnum Ice Cream Company and be listed in the Netherlands as a separate entity.

After tolerating decades of radioactive politics, Unilever appears keen to decontaminate Ben and Jerry's.

[Prof Emeritus at Fawk U]

Good, I'll be able to buy Ben and Jerry's again and not feel like I'm giving money to Che Guevara.

[Lokmar]

its been over 20 years or more since I bought ben and jerrys.

[DKG]

It's been a while since Americans could actually sit back and enjoy June. Now, instead of bumping into rainbows in every aisle and choking on the colored logos of every conceivable brand, there's some freedom from the suffocating fumes of Pride Month.

In these last two years, the march to pull companies back to neutral has outperformed everyone's expectations. But in this process of rolling back decades of corporate wokeism, one thing is clear: This isn't over. No matter how much success conservatives have, not everyone will go quietly.

While most of this week's coverage seems to be about who isn't joining the parade, there's a proud contingent of CEOs who have no intentions of backing off their radicalism.

The corporate darling of this year's celebration, the Trevor Project, isn't just another rah-rah LGBT crusader. Billed as a youth suicide prevention organization, one look under the hood shows that this group is anything but uncontroversial. And yet sponsors are lining up to finance the group — to the tune of millions of dollars.

The heavy hitters, who are giving more six-figure donations, are mostly familiar names: Macy's, Petco, Abercrombie & Fitch, Pure Vida, Guess Watches, Kohl's, Lululemon, MAC Cosmetics, and a collection of lesser-known brands.

Interestingly, the brands that are listed as year-round Trevor Project partners also happen to rank the highest on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index. With a few exceptions, almost every company that submitted its information to HRC earned a perfect score — meaning these companies are completely on board with transgender insurance coverage and benefits, gender-neutral restrooms and dress codes, and preferred pronoun usage, as well as LGBTQ hiring quotas, non-discrimination standards, sensitivity trainings, recruitment efforts, community outreach, philanthropic support, and lobbying on local, state, and federal issues.

In other words, the hardest of the hard-core:

$1 million: Abercrombie (100%), Lululemon, Macy's (100%)
$500,000: AT&T (100%), Deloitte (100%)
$250,000: Coca-Cola (100%), Gen Digital (100%), Gilead (100%), Harry's, Hot Topic Foundation, Jingle Jam, Sephora (100%), MAC Cosmetics, Procter & Gamble, Rare Beauty, the Game Company
$100,000: David Yurman, Delta Air Lines, Delta Dental, Dolce Vita, FedEx (85%), Forever 21, H&M, Humble Bundle, Kate Spade, Kohl's (100%), Lemonade, Makeship, Maybelline, National Education Association, Native, NFL, OPI, Pair of Thieves, Petco (95%), Saks Fifth Avenue, United Airlines (100%), Wells Fargo (100%), Williams-Sonoma (90%), XBox
And while the Trevor Project claims to be harmlessly dedicated to "advocacy, education, and crisis support for LGBTQ+ young people," it's the nature of that advocacy and education that should disturb Americans.

For starters, this is a group that, just three years ago, was exposed for stealthily grooming children online. A suspicious mom, whose daughter struggled with gender dysphoria, logged on to the organization's TrevorSpace chat room to see what kind of advice she was getting — and was horrified at the graphic and disturbing nature of the site.

She sent the screenshots to National Review. They are a "Pandora's box" of "sexually perverse content, aggressive gender reassignment referrals, adults encouraging minors to hide their transitions from their parents, and many troubled kids in need of psychological counseling." Like most moms, she said she'd turned to the Trevor Project in "desperation."

"In TrevorSpace," NRO explains, "she got a bird's-eye view of the progressive non-profit giant that is claiming to save young lives but is really driving them further into existential rabbit holes, depravity, and potential danger."

Equally as disturbing, the Trevor Project has its hooks in countless K-12 classrooms across the country with its so-called "resources for educators and school officials, including the Is Your School LGBTQ-Affirming? checklist and Creating Safer Spaces in Schools for LGBTQ Young People, which can help determine whether a school is adequately supporting LGBTQ+ students."

These are the kind of anti-parent zealots Macy's, Abercrombie, Petco, and others are donating your June dollars to. Sometimes it's 10% of the purchase price. Other times it's the change you round up.

But whatever the amount, it's fueling a team of ideologues intent on destroying America's children — and keeping it a secret while they do.

[DKG]

Last fall, the luxury car company Jaguar released a bizarre commercial featuring "nothing but androgynous, strange people cavorting in dresses." Their product — you know, cars — didn't make the cut. Zero Jaguar vehicles were featured in the advertisement that was intended to launch their nonbinary rebranding campaign.

But that's not all Jaguar did. As part of its "Reimagine" campaign aimed at transitioning into an all-electric, ultra-luxury brand by 2025, the company discontinued nearly all of its beloved previous models.

And Jaguar is paying sorely for it. This April, it registered just 49 cars in all of Europe — a 97.5% drop from 1,961 sales in April 2024.

Go woke, go broke.

[Prof Emeritus at Fawk U]

Last fall, the luxury car company Jaguar released a bizarre commercial featuring "nothing but androgynous, strange people cavorting in dresses." Their product — you know, cars — didn't make the cut. Zero Jaguar vehicles were featured in the advertisement that was intended to launch their nonbinary rebranding campaign.

But that's not all Jaguar did. As part of its "Reimagine" campaign aimed at transitioning into an all-electric, ultra-luxury brand by 2025, the company discontinued nearly all of its beloved previous models.

And Jaguar is paying sorely for it. This April, it registered just 49 cars in all of Europe — a 97.5% drop from 1,961 sales in April 2024.

Go woke, go broke.

PWNED!!!      

[Oliver the Second]

50-year-old 'Gunsmoke' Reruns More Popular than Disney's Star Wars/Marvel Junk



Throughout the entire first half of 2025, reruns of Gunsmoke earned more streaming minutes than any of the super-expensive woke crap pumped out by the Disney Grooming Syndicate on Disney+.

Despite literally spending billions of dollars on a countless number of Marvel and Star Wars streaming shows, not a single one placed in the top 20, and yet a whole bunch of older shows did, including Grey's Anatomy (#2), NCIS (#3), Family Guy (#4), Spongebob (#6), Criminal Minds (#13), and, yes, Gunsmoke (#18).

The television show premiered in 1955 and ran straight through to 1975 with 635 episodes. Unless you count the few seasons where Burt Reynolds appeared, there are no A-list stars. What you have in Gunsmoke is a traditional TV Western set in Dodge City, Kansas, starring James Arness as Sheriff Matt Dillon.

But what you also have in Gunsmoke is something sorely missing in television today, especially on Disney+, and that's complicated but relatable characters who strive to do the right thing and are often faced with difficult choices. Gunsmoke has endured because its themes are timeless. It's a mature, very well-written and acted drama that appeals to normal people because it is about normal people. There's nothing simplistic about Gunsmoke. It is an impressive piece of human drama that understands human nature, which is something no one can say about the crap Disney+ produces, which is all about sexuality, identity politics, and political posturing.

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2025/07/16/nolte-50-year-old-gunsmoke-reruns-more-popular-than-disneys-star-wars-marvel-junk/

[formosan]

50-year-old 'Gunsmoke' Reruns More Popular than Disney's Star Wars/Marvel Junk



Throughout the entire first half of 2025, reruns of Gunsmoke earned more streaming minutes than any of the super-expensive woke crap pumped out by the Disney Grooming Syndicate on Disney+.

Despite literally spending billions of dollars on a countless number of Marvel and Star Wars streaming shows, not a single one placed in the top 20, and yet a whole bunch of older shows did, including Grey's Anatomy (#2), NCIS (#3), Family Guy (#4), Spongebob (#6), Criminal Minds (#13), and, yes, Gunsmoke (#18).

The television show premiered in 1955 and ran straight through to 1975 with 635 episodes. Unless you count the few seasons where Burt Reynolds appeared, there are no A-list stars. What you have in Gunsmoke is a traditional TV Western set in Dodge City, Kansas, starring James Arness as Sheriff Matt Dillon.

But what you also have in Gunsmoke is something sorely missing in television today, especially on Disney+, and that's complicated but relatable characters who strive to do the right thing and are often faced with difficult choices. Gunsmoke has endured because its themes are timeless. It's a mature, very well-written and acted drama that appeals to normal people because it is about normal people. There's nothing simplistic about Gunsmoke. It is an impressive piece of human drama that understands human nature, which is something no one can say about the crap Disney+ produces, which is all about sexuality, identity politics, and political posturing.

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2025/07/16/nolte-50-year-old-gunsmoke-reruns-more-popular-than-disneys-star-wars-marvel-junk/

I've never seen an episode of Gunsmoke Oliver.

[DKG]

Cracker Barrel could be headed for the Bud Light treatment after the brand unveiled changes that have Americans fuming.

The bad news for the company was delivered by around 500,000 posts made about the brand on X alone, with many calling for a boycott.

One call to avoid the brand had over 410,000 views and pointed out one specific change that has consumers outraged.

Customers quickly noticed a change to the iconic logo, which removed the country man sitting on a chair next to a barrel. In fact, the barrel was also removed, and so was the text "Old Country Store," leaving just black and yellow "Cracker Barrel" text.

At the same time, Cracker Barrel also has a program about "empowering" women and another regarding "strengthening Cracker Barrel's relationship to the LGBTQ+ community."

Felss Masino became CEO of Cracker Barrel in 2023, which means she was also at the helm when the brand sponsored the Nashville gay Pride event in 2024, as reported by brand investigator Robby Starbuck.

Even first son Donald Trump Jr. asked, "WTF is wrong with [Cracker Barrel]??!"

The rejection of these simple changes shows once again that not only are retro and simple the preferred branding style of most consumers these days, but removing iconic mascots and logos in the name of woke ideology is still upsetting consumers to a demonstrable degree.

[Herman]

[DKG]

After a week of online outrage over its rebranding, the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain announced that it was giving in on one key part of its revised image.

In a statement to Fox Business on Tuesday, the company said it would be reverting back to its original logo after having released a cleaner, text-only logo that excised the "old-timer" character.

[Prof Emeritus at Fawk U]

At least Cracker Barrel got the message quickly instead of waiting too damn long like Anheuser Busch.