Democrats, Break Up With Bruce Springsteen -

  POLITICO

And while you’re at it, stop relying on pop culture to score points with voters.

The Astute Bloggers

. . ."The fundamental goal of politics should be to make people’s lives better. In its best instances popular culture makes our lives better as well, but to imagine that as being its fundamental goal is deeply naïve. Pop culture’s fundamental goal is to make money and sell itself to us. When corporations like Disney and Netflix try to present themselves as progressive or humanitarian, these are PR campaigns. The idea that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is an ideologically righteous bastion of progressive ideals is exactly what Marvel Studios wants its progressive viewers to believe.

"Like many podcasts, “Renegades” has advertisers—Dollar Shave Club and Comcast, in the episodes I’ve heard. I recently joked to a friend that it’s a shame that Bruce and Barack don’t do their own ad-reads, because it’d be funny to hear Barack Obama tell folksy anecdotes about shaving, or to listen to the guy who sang this sing the virtues of a cable provider. But the more I think about it I really wish they did, because at least one of these guys is making real money off this thing—“Renegades” is produced by Higher Ground Productions, the Obamas’ media company. And that’s fine, just as its fine if lots of Democrats want to listen to it. I just hope they keep in mind that building America back better will take a lot more than listening to a couple of guys sell razors."

THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS: THE BOSS SHOULD STICK TO MUSIC AND LEAVE POLITICS TO PEOPLE WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH FACTS

. . ."BRUCE SHOULD LEARN THAT WHAT IS BANKRUPTING EUROPEAN NATIONS IS NOT THEIR "BUSH TAX CUTS" - THEY HAD NONE. AND NOT THEIR "UNFUNDED WARS" - THEY HAD NONE. AND NOT THEIR "OUT OF CONTROL MILITARY SPENDING" - THEY HAVE NONE.

WHAT IS BANKRUPTING EUROPEAN NATIONS IS THEIR WELFARE STATES.

DOES BRUCE REALLY WANT THAT HERE?

Erasing Women -

Meanwhile, from the administration that can’t define “woman,” our gormless Secretary of Transportation just announced that he will be spending $20 million dollars on female crash dummies. I mean, really, how can he tell them apart?

  American Thinker  "I’m not sure why it’s happening -- perhaps it’s a backlash from the most obnoxious of the feminists and their conduct or the widespread denigration of and discrimination against white heterosexual men, but there’s no doubt in my mind that there’s a concerted attack by the culture warriors to erase women, denigrate them, and allow them only symbolic powers -- like choosing the moronic Kamala Harris as vice president instead of someone with a demonstrated and earned record of competence. How long has it been since we’ve seen women we looked up to, like Golda Meier and Maggie Thatcher, wielding political power?

"Here's a sample of what I mean.

"In 2018, we were told “believe all women” in the context of the Kavanaugh hearings, when his accuser told a fabulous story for which there was no credible evidentiary support and nothing except political bias to believe her.

"Now just a few years later, an administration nominee for the Supreme Court down gets tongue-tied when asked to define “woman.” It’s confusing. How can we give someone automatic credence based on her sex when that sex defies definition?  Well, definitions other than “birthing persons” or “persons who menstruate,” but even then, some advance the notion that men (that is transmen) can give birth, and educational institutions are being forced to install free tampon dispensers in male bathrooms.

"ESPN honored Lia Thomas for Women’s History Month. Thomas, as far as I know, has all his original male equipment and simply grew his hair long and donned a woman’s bathing suit to cheat women competitors who worked hard to be the best in their ranks. If you recall, Title IX was enacted to ensure women a better shot in sports competitions. Why is it still on the books if anyone can “be” a woman? The pretense that there is no physical differences between the sexes defies all we know about substantial biological differences in strength. Good for Riley Gaines for calling them out on this absurdity: 

Riley Gaines: Lia Thomas is not a brave, courageous woman who EARNED a national title. He is an arrogant, cheat who STOLE a national title from hardworking, deserving woman. The NCAA is responsible.

Legendary Coach Phil Jackson Blasts the Woke NBA, Says He Doesn't Watch Games Anymore –

  RedState  "Eleven-time NBA champion coach Phil Jackson has lost interest in the basketball league because it’s simply gotten too political.

"The former coach of the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers appeared on the “Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin” podcast earlier this month and said he didn’t stop watching the game immediately after stepping away from coaching—it was the league’s woke messaging during the 2020 COVID lockdowns that turned him off.

"Although the conversation was recorded on April 5, it’s gone viral on social media over the weekend.

"Listen:

Phil Jackson, widely seen as the greatest coach in NBA history, says he doesn’t watch the NBA anymore because of all the political slogans introduced in 2020. He’s not alone in this. My oldest daughter and I used to love watching but it got too political to watch. pic.twitter.com/bV6Sb0qvrK

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) April 22, 2023

. . . 

Shooter Kills 5 To Get Guns Banned, Dems Are Happy To Oblige (thefederalist.com)

 The Federalist   "The U.S. is apparently at such a stage of degeneracy that anti-gun radicals are buying guns to shoot people and make the case for banning firearms. The man responsible for the deaths of five at Old National Bank in Lousiville, Kentucky, on April 10 reportedly admitted that the motivation for his killing spree was to further the left’s gun-control agenda.

"A 13-page manifesto uncovered by the Daily Mail allegedly disclosed that the 25-year-old shot and killed multiple colleagues in part to prove his belief that guns are too easy to obtain in Kentucky. The shooter also reportedly wanted to draw attention to mental illness, something his parents later disclosed he suffered from and took medicine for, and explicitly expressed a desire to kill himself."

"The shooter died after police officers shot him. Ironically, the shooter’s death illustrates that the best way to counter a trigger-happy madman is for good guys with guns to employ that great equalizer, but that’s not the message gun-control activists took away from the tragedy." . . .

What the Bud Light Fiasco Reveals about the Ruling Class

 Brownstone Institute "What were they thinking? How did someone believe that making “trans woman” Dylan Mulvaney the icon of a Bud Light ad campaign, complete with a beer can with Mulvaney’s image on it, would be good for sales? With an ad featuring this person vamping around in the most preposterously possible way? 

"Dylan, who had previously been interviewed on trans issues by President Biden himself, was celebrating “365 Days of Girlhood” with a grotesquely misogynistic caricature that would disgust just about the whole market for this beer. Indeed, this person’s cosplay might as well be designed to discredit the entire political agenda of gender dysphoriacs. 

"Sure enough, because we don’t have mandates on what beers you must buy, sales of the beer plummeted. 

"The parent company Anheuser-Busch’s stock lost $5 billion or 4 percent in value since the ad campaign rollout. Sales have fallen 50-70 percent. Now there is worry within the company of a widening boycott to all their brands. A local Missouri distributor of the product canceled an appearance by Budweiser Clydesdale horses due to public anger.

"Ads are supposed to sell products, not prompt a massive public backlash that results in billions in losses. This mistake could be for the ages, marking a distinct departure from corporate deference to wackadoodle ideas from the academy and a push for more connection to on-the-ground realities. 

"The person who made the miscalculation is Alissa Gordon Heinerscheid, Vice President in charge of marketing for Bud Light. She explained that her intention was to make the beer King of ‘Woke’ Beers. She wanted to shift away from the “out of touch” frat party image to one of “inclusivity.” By all accounts, she actually believed this. More likely, she was rationalizing actions that would earn her bragging rights within her social circle. 

"Digging through her personal biography, we find all the predictable signs of tremendous detachment from regular life: elite boarding school (Groton, $65K a year), Harvard, Wharton School, coveted internship at General Foods, and straight to top VP at the biggest beverage company in the world. ". . .

Hakeem Jeffries with his Relatives and friends

George Soros, other influential donors flocked to Hakeem Jeffries

Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries haunted by record of his antisemitic uncle: Who is Leonard Jeffries? [Video] (aol.com)   On July 20, 1991, a Black studies professor at the City College of New York named Leonard Jeffries gave a two-hour speech at the Empire State Black Arts and Cultural Festival in Albany, the New York state capital, that attacked Jews with what one observer would later describe as “snarling racism.”

"Even as he sometimes alighted on the purported subject of his talk — the need for New York state to implement a less Eurocentric curriculum in its schools — he returned repeatedly to blame “rich Jews” for slavery and contemporary American racism.

"Thirty years later, his nephew House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is being forced to explain why he defended that day’s infamous, inflammatory remarks — and why he failed to disclose that defense earlier, when he had opportunities to do so.". . .

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries under fire for defending uncle's antisemitic comments while in college (nypost.com)

A senior in college at the time, Hakeem Jeffries blasted black conservatives in his Vanguard opinion piece, calling them “house negroes” and lamenting their acceptance by the “white media.”

I suppose MSNBC's Joy Reid would be more to Hakeem's liking. TD

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries once defended antisemitic speech, Louis Farrakhan - The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)  . . ."In 2013, when he was first elected to Congress, Hakeem Jeffries told the Wall Street Journal that he had only a “vague recollection” of the controversy and that his parents sought to shield him from it. But a CNN report this week found that Jeffries — who was 21 and in college when the controversy began — defended his uncle in a student newspaper and was a board member of a student group that invited his uncle to give a speech on campus. The opinion piece he wrote also defended Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader with a well-documented history of antisemitic statements, and took aim at Black conservatives. ". . 

America needs a new GOP

"We do need a new Party, but we cannot win with a separate party, a third party. What must happen is that the true conservatives in the GOP must wrest control of it from the squishes." A Third party gave us the Clintons for decades. TD 

A Think Toon by David Hitch

  American Thinker   "You can't have a Republican Party if you don't have a coherent and cohesive agenda. What do Republicans stand for? We can't answer that question and get all Republicans to agree, judging by the way they vote with Democrats sometimes. 

"But with Democrats, you ask them what they stand for and they will all agree: Climate change mandates, avoidance of fossil fuels, trans rights, gay rights, drag rights, abortion, "social justice", pedophilia, free stuff, socialized medicine, anti-capitalism, dissolution of the Constitution, gun confiscation, the abolition of private property, defunding police, liberality in prosecuting criminals, legalizing all recreational drugs, DEI, SEL, ESG, CRT. Democrats are all in for lewdness, looseness, and loudness.

"The Left have a concrete agenda and it does not involve freedom, liberty, and self-sufficiency. It does not involve being left alone and leaving others alone to pursue happiness except when it is they doing the pursuing of said happiness. Republicans are not allowed to pursue happiness if Democrats have anything to do with it. Progressivism will seep into every conservative crack, like laundry scum. They are not content doing their own thing. They want to do ours as well.

"Republicans are notoriously squishy. People like Linsey Graham, who waxes hot and cold when it comes to being a conservative, are the ones hurting our brand, such as it is. Romney & Co. (the RINOs), have given conservatism not just a bad name, but another name: Cowards.". . .

"I have never spoken to Dylan Mulvaney nor will I. I try to be, for the LGBT community, the adult in the room. [He] is not."

Footage of Dylan Mulvaney Before Transition; PJ Media

 Althouse:   " '[He] is bouncing around all over the place. I have nothing in common with [him] The fringe is the worst thing that can happen to the trans community and the media only wants to report on that because of the sensationalization of it and honestly that’s got to stop."

Said Caitlyn Jenner, quoted in The NY Post.

Jenner also weighed in on Trump '24: "I think Trump is going to win this thing… He is a great man and he did tremendous things for this country.... We need an adult in the room and that adult right now is Donald Trump and that’s just kind of the way I feel right now."

She likes that word "adult." But that's a high level of generality. If you make looking for the adults your guiding principle, good luck finding your way around America.

I retreat to the OED. Here's the relevant definition, 2b: "Mature in attitude, outlook, behaviour, etc.; emotionally and mentally grown-up." There's a historical example from 1927 that I assure you I read only after writing the previous paragraph:

 "It is a widely-held notion in Europe..that the American is not adult, that he remains all his life a child." 

(nypost.com)

Evidence mounts that the problems at Bud Light and its parent go far beyond Alissa Heinerscheid - American Thinker

With its choice of Alissa Heinerscheid to be VP of marketing for Bud, AB InBev made waves in the industry by entrusting its top-selling brand to the marketing skills of a woman.  (They said it, not me. TD). . .

 Urban Dictionary defines "Influencer" thus: A word instagram users use to describe themselves to make them feel famous and more important when no one really know who they are or care, usually the type of people that call themselves foodies and post pictures of their avocado and toast cause they can't really do anything else interesting, usually also post their last holiday asking someone to #takemeback.

. . ."In fact, hiring online “influencers” may be part of the vaunted “creativity” that has garnered the company such global respect. After all, online influencers probably are cheaper than celebrity endorsers for athletic shoes,and reach demographic slices that don’t watch TV sports as much as the traditional Bud Light consumers, who are declining in number every year.

"Alissa Heinerscheid is not the disease, she’s a symptom. If she hadn’t made the condescending video presentation, she might have survived the imbroglio, but thanks to it, she is now forever the face of the disaster, and is seen as an antagonist by her former brand’s formerly loyal consumers.  A-B InBev was besotted with its highly successful (until a couple of weeks ago) creative marketing efforts.  She delegated (as capable managers do) some of her responsibilities to subordinates. Neither she nor her staff, however, had an inkling of the way their best customers would respond to a transsexual embodying the brand as an “influencer.”

"The beer business is tough, with worldwide consumption stagnant to declining, and trends favoring microbreweries over global brands. Creative marketing as a counterforce is an understandable response. After all, in a declining market something new needs to be done if there is to be growth.  

"But the fundamentals of marketing, especially the imperative to know thy customer must never be forgotten.". . .

RealityBites by Broc Smith