A fresh poll shows Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton narrowly leading Democrat James Talarico in the must-win Senate race, offering Republicans a much-needed boost in a contest that has increasingly given party leaders heartburn.
<a href="https://emersoncollegepolling.com/texas-2026-poll-paxton-and-talarico/">An Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media survey</a> released Thursday shows Paxton with 47% support, narrowly ahead of Talarico at 46%. Another 5% of voters remain undecided, while 2% back another candidate.
The one-point difference falls within the poll&#8217;s three-point margin of error, making the contest effectively a dead heat. But it&#8217;s the first poll to show Paxton ahead since early June, according to <a href="https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/senate/general/2026/texas/talarico-vs-paxton">RealClearPolitics</a>, as Republicans worry that low GOP turnout and a Democratic-friendly political landscape could flip one of the reddest states in the nation — and with it, control of the U.S. Senate.
&#8220;Despite having a three-month head start and getting millions from out-of-state billionaires with deep ties to Jeffrey Epstein, James Talarico is already losing steam and falling behind,&#8221; RNC spokesman Zach Kraft told The Daily Wire. &#8220;It should come as no surprise that Texas wants a MAGA warrior like Ken Paxton over a gender-confused freak like Talarico.&#8221; 
Emerson College Polling Executive Director Spencer Kimball said the Texas Senate race is sharply divided by age, with voters under 50 favoring Talarico by 15 points, 53% to 38%, while voters over 50 back Paxton by 11 points, 53% to 42%.
Digging deeper, Paxton holds his strongest advantage among white voters and men, while Talarico leads among most black and Hispanic voters. Talarico holds just a one-point advantage among women after facing backlash over his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-book-is-gay-read-the-sexually-explicit-volumes-james-talaricos-church-gives-kids">views</a> on Christianity, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-james-talarico-says-he-loves-trans-children-in-unearthed-clip">“love” for transgender children</a>, and disdain for the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-audio-thats-blowing-a-hole-in-talaricos-christian-persona">American flag.</a> 
Top issues for Texas voters include the economy (30%), immigration (19%), threats to democracy (14%), and healthcare (13%). Republican voters rank immigration as their top issue (32%), while Democrats (33%) and independents (31%) rate the economy as their top concern.
Those issues have not stopped either campaign from diving into hot-button cultural issues as both sides wage a fierce battle for Christian voters who will likely play a pivotal role in November. <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/13/texas-ken-paxton-james-talarico-religion-campaign-christianity/">The Texas Tribune</a> reported Thursday that Paxton’s and Talarico’s differing views of Christianity have emerged as a defining issue shaping the race in a state where nearly half of voters say faith is “very important” in their lives.
A pro-Paxton super PAC <a href="https://x.com/approject/status/2085795525354234239?s=20">went viral</a> after using artificial intelligence to remake Lyndon B. Johnson’s famous “Daisy” ad, depicting a young girl being prepared to undergo a sex-change operation as an AI-generated Talarico stands at the operating table.
“She dreams of growing up, falling in love, becoming a mother,” an AI narrator says. “The trans industry preys on confused children. Irreversible puberty blockers. Cross-sex hormones. Sex-change surgeries.”
Talarico, meanwhile, is seeking to make inroads with evangelical voters — the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/state/texas/">largest religious group</a> in Texas — by touting his Baptist upbringing despite his support for abortion, calling God “nonbinary,” opposing the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools, and his affiliation to a progressive Presbyterian denomination.
A <a href="https://x.com/jamestalarico/status/2087706393247952952?s=20">30-second spot</a> features his grandfather: &#8220;As a Baptist preacher in South Texas, he taught me to follow the two great commandments — love God, and love your neighbor,&#8221; Talarico says, suggesting the Gospel message includes reducing the cost of healthcare, housing, and groceries. 
A recent Fox News poll found that <a href="https://x.com/JWheelertv/status/2082987392626020796?s=20">78% of white evangelical Christians</a> in the Lone Star State plan to vote against Talarico, despite concerns that Paxton’s personal scandals and marriage struggles could alienate the key demographic. 
“I truly believe that God just delivered me, not because I am a great person, because God is sovereign and he does what he wants to do,” Paxton said on Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgTrzsr0B_c">podcast</a>, referring to the unsuccessful 2023 impeachment effort against him. “I don’t take credit for it; it’s really by the grace of God.” 
The <a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/senate/race/488686">Cook Political Report</a> ranks the race as Lean Republican.

hc060226AbbottConvention – Ken Paxton

Ken Paxton Gets Some Much Needed Good News In Race Against Talarico

2026 elections

advertising

Christianity

Faith

James Talarico

Ken Paxton

Midterms

News

political surveys

Politics

Poll

polling

Religion

Texas

Washington residents who received certain promotional emails from Costco between June 2021 and July 2026 may be eligible for compensation under a proposed $14 million <a href="https://www.washingtoncommercialemailsettlement.com/">class action settlement.</a>
Under the proposed deal in Aaland v. Costco Wholesale Corp., Costco <a href="https://www.classaction.org/media/costco-settlement_1.pdf">agreed</a> to create a $14 million settlement fund while denying any wrongdoing.
“In agreeing to settle, Costco maintains that it complied with the law and does not admit any wrongdoing,” the document states.
The lawsuit claims that Costco used deceptive subject lines that created a false sense of urgency, including phrases like &#8220;Today is the last day to access Member-Only Savings&#8221; and &#8220;Hot Buys available for 5 Days Only.&#8221; 
According to the lawsuit, Costco continued offering some of the same promotions after telling customers they were about to expire, allegedly violating Washington’s Commercial Electronic Mail Act (CEMA) and the state&#8217;s Consumer Protection Act, the New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/07/28/lifestyle/costco-customers-could-claim-500-in-class-action-settlement/">reports</a>.
Washington residents whose email addresses are in Costco&#8217;s records and who received the promotional emails between June 2021 and July 2026 may be eligible to file a claim. 
Claim forms must be submitted by August 24, 2026. Those who wish to pursue their own lawsuit rather than participate in the settlement must opt out by the same deadline, Fox News <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/costco-shoppers-eligible-large-payout-multi-million-dollar-email-settlement">reports</a>.
Eligible claimants may receive up to $500 each qualifying email, though the actual payout will depend on the number of valid claims submitted and other court-approved deductions from the $14 million fund.
Costco also faces several other lawsuits over its products and business practices. A lawsuit filed earlier this month <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/07/09/business/costco-faces-class-action-lawsuit-alleging-protein-powder-was-laced-with-toxic-heavy-metals/">alleges</a> that one of Costco’s protein powders contains toxic heavy metals, while another <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/06/10/business/costco-fights-lawsuit-tied-to-5-rotisserie-chicken/">accuses</a> the company of falsely advertising its rotisserie chicken as containing “no preservatives.” 
A separate <a href="https://www.king5.com/video/news/costco-sued-over-claims-it-raised-prices/281-22d011e2-4918-4c67-abd2-357031c9fd03">lawsuit</a> alleges Costco continued charging higher prices tied to tariffs even after the tariffs were struck down.

Costco Wholesale in Folsom California

Costco Shoppers Have A Chance To Cash In Over Old Emails

Business

Costco

Lawsuit

Washington

Actress Sydney Sweeney is once again appearing in an American Eagle ad campaign, months after a previous promotion sparked widespread backlash. 
&#8220;What brand am I wearing?&#8221; Sweeney asks in the new commercial while sporting denim shorts. &#8220;Yeah, that one,&#8221; the “Euphoria” star says as the words &#8220;SYD FOR SHORT&#8221; flash across the screen.
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The new ad spot references the original jeans campaign, which made headlines for months and delivered a significant boost to the company&#8217;s sales. 
Last summer, all hell broke loose over the campaign featuring Sweeney in various seductive poses while saying she had “good jeans.” The double entendre with the word “genes” made leftists deem the ad racist, noting that Sweeney is white with blond hair and blue eyes.
In one of the ads, Sweeney says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”
American Eagle responded to the backlash at the time with a statement defending the campaign. 
&#8220;&#8216;Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story,&#8221; the company said. &#8220;We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”
Despite leftist calls for a boycott, the denim collection did exceptionally well, with most of the featured pieces selling out. 
American Eagle’s chief marketing officer, Craig Brommers, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2026/04/15/sydney-sweeney-american-eagle-ad-jeans-controversy-new/89605439007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> USA Today that the company’s stock jumped by 22% thanks to that campaign.
&#8220;A vast, vast, vast majority of Americans understood that the campaign was about jeans,&#8221; Brommers told the outlet, crediting Sweeney’s “duality” of being both casual and glamorous as the reason for the campaign&#8217;s success.
&#8220;American Eagle has a store in all 50 states and during that campaign, we saw new customer acquisition grow in every single county in America,&#8221; he added. &#8220;It is a fact that it was the most successful campaign in the history of the American Eagle brand.&#8221; 
&#8220;The world is curious and the world will be talking when we launch the campaign,&#8221; Brommers said. &#8220;As we learned in the fall campaign, there is noise, but there are also facts as well, and we&#8217;re excited to see where this campaign takes our brand.&#8221;

Sydney Sweeney

American Eagle Doubles Down On Sydney Sweeney After Failed Boycott

Celebrities

Entertainment

Leftism

Shares of Allbirds surged 600% after the footwear company announced it was pivoting towards AI computing infrastructure. 
At its IPO in November 2021, Allbirds was valued as a $4B shoe company but was recently sold for $39M. Allbirds shoes will continue to exist, but the brand, intellectual property, and inventory were sold to American Exchange Group on March 30. Left behind was a stock ticker, shareholders, and a stock market listing, allowing Allbirds’ CEO Joe Vernachio to effectively start a new public company, bypassing the traditional process of raising capital and going public through an IPO.
Traders buying shares today are no longer buying a shoe company but a newly formed AI venture which is built on the remnants of a failed retail brand. At market open, the stock was $4.40, hitting an intra-day high of $24.31 per share. The stock has since pulled back and is currently hovering under $20 a share. 
Allbirds, which will be renamed “NewBird AI,” secured $50 million to build the new AI company in a convertible financing facility allowing the investor to convert the debt into equity if desirable. The company states it will use the $50 million to purchase GPUs and rent them out to companies in need of computing power, positioning itself as a player in the AI cloud infrastructure market. If successful, Allbirds would ultimately be competing with dominant cloud providers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
The pivot is contingent on shareholder approval at a special meeting scheduled for May 18. If approved, and once the financing is completed, the company will move into the execution phase of its AI strategy.
The brand&#8217;s announcement shows the market’s appetite for companies tied to artificial intelligence, with it valuing the company tens of millions of dollars higher before the company has earned a single dollar from its new venture. Some see this enthusiasm as evidence of an emerging AI bubble driven more by hype than fundamentals.
Michael Burry, the investor famous for predicting the housing market crash in 2008, warns the AI boom is a bubble. “The government will put all the stops to save the AI bubble to save the market to save the economy,” he <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/big-short-investor-michael-burry-130840772.html">said</a>. “The problem is too big to save.” 
Others disagree. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has called AI a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” while BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says he does “not believe we have a bubble at all.” Supporters argue that, unlike the dot-com era, many AI companies today are already profitable and generating cash.
Critics, however, contend that the technology has yet to produce value commensurate with the hype.

In this photo illustration, the logo of footwear company

Failing Shoe Company Says Market’s Magic Word, Stock Skyrockets 600%

Free Market

An apparently random occurrence aboard the Orion spacecraft quickly resulted in an &#8220;out of this world&#8221; ad campaign for the hazelnut cocoa spread Nutella.
During a video clip posted by the crew of the Artemis II lunar mission — just moments before they broke the record, set by Apollo 13, for distance traveled from earth — a jar of Nutella floated across the cabin, tumbling end over end as it prominently displayed the label.
&#8220;A jar of Nutella was seen floating through the Orion spacecraft approximately 4 minutes before the Artemis II crew made history as they passed the Apollo 13 distance record from 1970 of 248,655 miles from Earth on Monday,&#8221; CBS News captioned a short video of the moment.
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A jar of Nutella was seen floating through the Orion spacecraft approximately 4 minutes before the Artemis II crew made history as they passed the Apollo 13 distance record from 1970 of 248,655 miles from Earth on Monday. <a href="https://t.co/wqt680thQL">pic.twitter.com/wqt680thQL</a>
— CBS News (@CBSNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/2041263539386458166?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Nutella quickly capitalized on what was being hailed across X as the best accidental product placement in history, sharing a video clip with the caption, &#8220;Honored to have traveled further than any spread in history. Taking spreading smiles to new heights.&#8221;
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Honored to have traveled further than any spread in history 🚀 Taking spreading smiles to new heights ❤️ <a href="https://t.co/vDUJMi1qbS">pic.twitter.com/vDUJMi1qbS</a>
— Nutella (@NutellaUSA) <a href="https://twitter.com/NutellaUSA/status/2041274623417795021?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Bright, bold letters on the screen — as the jar flipped across the frame — read simply, &#8220;Nutella is out of this world.&#8221;
NASA&#8217;s Kennedy Space Center got in on the joke, posting in <a href="https://x.com/NASAKennedy/status/2041285011467390990">response</a>, &#8220;Enjoying sweet treats while our Artemis crew takes sweet photos of the Moon!&#8221;
Hilton Hotels <a href="https://x.com/Hilton/status/2041314714194506195">posted</a>, &#8220;A suite touch to a historic journey.&#8221;
Ultrarunner Carilyn Johnson <a href="https://x.com/CarilynJohnson/status/2041303028196622436">suggested</a> a joint campaign with Moon Pies, saying, &#8220;There it is! We’ve been waiting. Now, consider a product mashup with @MoonPie. Their dialogue with NASA has been an absolute delight! And a Nutella Moon Pie sounds delish!&#8221;
The Moon Pies X account has been going back and forth with NASA since Artemis II launched, responding to photos of the <a href="https://x.com/MoonPie/status/2039482821392097425">rocket</a> and the <a href="https://x.com/MoonPie/status/2040082044361875607">earth</a> from space with comments like, &#8220;Please tell the moon how much we love her,&#8221; and, &#8220;Enough about Earth I wanna see that MOON.&#8221;

Screenshot/NASA

WATCH: Artemis Crew Delivers Wholesome Moment People At Home Can Relate To

Artemis II Accidentally Delivers 'Out Of This World' Ad Campaign

Artemis II

NASA

Outer Space

Space

A new ad for Disney Cruise Line is receiving rave reviews online thanks to its pro-family messaging and touching storyline.
The 90-second ad “Midnight Magic,” which debuted on Sunday during the Academy Awards, focuses on a father’s bond with his son. 
It opens with a father walking his infant son around on the ship in the middle of the night. The ad follows the pair as the son grows into an older kid and then a teen who briefly rejects the ritual. This heartwarming tale ends when the adult son knocks on the door and asks his now elderly father to go for a late-night walk on the cruise ship with him and his young daughter. 
Social media users loved the message of present fathers, family traditions, and making memories.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Where Magic Meets The Sea | Disney Cruise Line" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yw922nyPxZs?start=3&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
“Challenge any father to watch this without crying,” one commenter <a href="https://x.com/mondoggg/status/2033347711261348292">wrote</a>. 
“You crushed it with this one!!  Dads are amazing and well worth those quiet moments of reflection and the impact it has on kids. Love this!!!” another <a href="https://x.com/oyveynottoday/status/2033608013773148624">said</a>. 
Other commenters delighted in the company promoting traditional values once again.
“Back to the basics Disney..  your BRAND was built on this RIGHT HERE….,” one person <a href="https://x.com/THEprivbnkr/status/2033374671379247267">responded</a>.
“You guys really nailed it with this,” another reply <a href="https://x.com/JoshChavis65/status/2033351196174360701">said</a>. “More of this from this brand, please. It’s what it’s supposed to be.”
“The culture shift is real, this Disney cruise ship ad aimed at dads is fantastic,” echoed <a href="https://x.com/claytravis/status/2033719663624888745?s=43">another</a>.
“Disney has brought families closer together for generations,” <a href="https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/news/midnight-magic-cruise-line/">said</a> Asad Ayaz, Chief Marketing and Brand Officer for The Walt Disney Company. “This campaign embodies what guests tell us time and again: that the Disney experiences they cherish most are the ones spent with the people they love. We’re grateful to make that kind of Disney magic a reality.”
The ad comes as fans speculate over Disney veering away from the woke path it had been traveling down. The entertainment giant ended 2024 by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/will-woke-exit-stage-left-hollywoods-culture-clash-in-trumps-second-act">erasing a trans character</a> from one of their shows, followed weeks later by walking back their DEI policies.
While Disney hasn’t done a complete about-face, the company has been less controversial over the last year, especially as compared to when it was bragging about a “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” in 2022.

Disney Cruise

Did Disney Finally Get The Memo? Surprising New Cruise Ad Has Viewers In Tears

Disney Got The Memo? New Cruise Ad Celebrating Dads Has Viewers In Tears

Disney

fatherhood

Fathers

Parenting

The West is in trouble.
One of the reasons is that the West has fundamentally failed to distinguish between tolerance of one another&#8217;s traditions and lifestyles on the one hand, and the bizarre bend-over-backward celebration that accompanies the undermining of traditions unique to the West.
A perfect example is what&#8217;s happening in Germany now. It seems like a small story, but it is indicative of a broader mindset that has been setting in throughout the West for generations.
In Germany, McDonald&#8217;s decided on an ad campaign. The German population is roughly 6.5% Muslim at this point. Muslims celebrate Ramadan around this time of year, which means they are fasting from sunup to sundown.
Fine. That is the Muslim tradition. There are a lot of Muslims who live in the West who are perfectly fine Western citizens.
McDonald’s is not halal, meaning food that religious Muslims can eat. If you are a Muslim who is celebrating Ramadan or commemorating Ramadan, chances are that you are eating halal in your non-Ramadan hours and in your non-fasting hours, because if you&#8217;re religious enough to actually not eat all day, you probably don&#8217;t go at sunset and find a rasher of bacon and eat it.
But McDonald&#8217;s decided to put up an ad campaign in Germany. The ad campaign removes the food from the billboards during Ramadan hours out of respect for Islam. The food appears on the billboard after sunset, but it disappears during the day, presumably so as not to tempt Muslims to feel hunger pangs.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2376-wth-mc-donald-s-celebrates-ramadan"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
That is Bizarro World. It’s weird and self-defeating, and it bespeaks of something that lies at the heart of the cowardice of a lot of both corporations and people in the West.
It&#8217;s Bizarro World because McDonald&#8217;s is not halal. The people who are presumably going to be very moved by these billboards are not going to head over to McDonald&#8217;s after dusk and start chomping down on their cheeseburgers.
So what is McDonald&#8217;s doing? According to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/mcdonalds-new-ad-campaign-empty-boxes-no-food-ramadan-germany-11578866?utm_source=chatgpt.com">Newsweek</a>: 
<blockquote>The campaign was created by the German agency Scholz &amp; Friends, whose concept centers on removing McDonald’s most recognizable visual element—its food—as a gesture of respect for those observing Ramadan.</blockquote>
This is strange. The reality is McDonald’s is a food company that sells food, and the vast majority of the food that you sell is not to the people to whom they’re trying to appeal.
Who exactly is McDonald&#8217;s appealing to? Who&#8217;s the target audience?
The answer is: The dullards in the West who believe that it is a mark of virtue to subsume your own values beneath the values of other cultures.
That is the problematic part. It is a strange form of cultural reparation that somehow the West owes it to other cultures to participate in their religious activities while subsuming its own interests.
I don&#8217;t think McDonald&#8217;s cares all that much in Germany about whether or not Muslims like McDonald&#8217;s. I think what German McDonald&#8217;s cares about is that there are a lot of people in Germany who see this as a form of left-wing social virtue signaling, in the same way that in the United States, you have major corporations that every year decide they&#8217;re going to signal for Black History Month or Gay Pride month.
But the basic idea is not that you are going to earn vast oodles of cash from doing that. The idea is you&#8217;re appealing to left-wing people in the United States who will give you more money because they believe that you share their values.
The reason that you see all these companies doing DEI in the United States is absolutely not because they think it&#8217;s going to be good for their balance sheet. Hiring on the basis of non-merit is always bad for the balance sheet.
The reason these companies do it is because they believe they can appeal to an entire group of consumers who have warm feelings toward them if they take their own corporate business interests, throw those aside, and start signaling their politics.
This is a major problem. It&#8217;s not unique to Germany and is a widespread symptom of a disease that is spread across the West, where you are supposed to be overtly apologetic about not celebrating Ramadan.
This is not a sign of cultural respect.
It&#8217;s a sign of cultural disintegration.
It would be the same thing as if companies in the UK decided that they were suddenly going to take female models and suddenly cover up their faces out of respect for radical Islam.
It&#8217;s saying something, but it&#8217;s not the thing they think they&#8217;re saying.
There is an assumption that in the Trump era, DEI is basically dead, that we&#8217;re never going back to a time when corporations were virtue signaling like this, when policy did not reflect this idea that the dominant American culture ought to be put under the foot of splinter cultures.
But the reality is that it can very easily come back.
It doesn&#8217;t take a lot for it to come back. All it takes is a group of people who see it as a mark of virtue to yell at their own culture and pretend that it is somehow inferior and owes it to other cultures to demonstrate its own inferiority.
There&#8217;s a piece from Time magazine titled “<a href="https://time.com/7377439/donald-trump-cant-kill-dei/">Why Donald Trump Can&#8217;t Kill DEI</a>.” The point the piece makes is that the anti-DEI era, which is a backlash to the Barack Obama/Joe Biden era, will be followed by a backlash to the backlash, and that all this stuff will come back with a vengeance.
The piece states:
<blockquote>Ideas of inclusion and diversity also permeate everyday institutions, including schools, universities, foundations, nonprofits, and corporations. &#8230; Many companies have retreated from DEI under legal and political pressure. What makes fewer headlines is that most companies that have sidled away from the acronym continue to affirm the values of DEI under a different name. &#8230; 
Boeing stated that it maintains “procedures aimed at encouraging an equality of opportunity.” Lowe’s has proclaimed that it remained “committed to fostering an environment where individuals are treated fairly, valued, respected, safe, and inspired to serve customers and the communities where we live and work.” These statements sure sound like diversity, equity, and inclusion to us. &#8230; The education sector is equally if not more committed: a 2025 review of 262 colleges and universities found that 245 of them still maintained DEI offices and programs.</blockquote>
This is only going to continue. What does it mean?
It means this will come back if Republicans lose the forward momentum.
I know that we&#8217;re also riding high on the horse right now because Donald Trump won and because Republicans are in charge of the legislative branches of the government.
But if you think this stuff can&#8217;t come back, you’re wrong.

Germany’s Milder Recession With Stimulus Offsetting Shutdown

WTH?! McDonald’s Celebrates … Ramadan

Ben Shapiro

Europe

Germany

Islam

McDonald’s

Muslims

Opinion

Woke Culture

The following is an edited transcript excerpt of &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1909-treason-americans-trash-their-own-country-at-the-olympics?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show.</a>&#8220;
* * *
During the Bad Bunny halftime show at the Super Bowl a slogan appeared on the big billboard at Levi’s Stadium, right next to a Bud Light ad. Very fitting. 
The message was posted in all caps on a white background in black text and reads:
“THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE”
Then a guy on X <a href="https://x.com/WesleyBout/status/2020692160153370972">tweets</a> it out and writes this message above the image: “imagine getting mad about this and still thinking you’re a good person.”
The post has taken off and gone totally viral. Over 4 million views at this point.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Imagine getting mad about this and still thinking you’re a good person <a href="https://t.co/jWdNzJmCCE">pic.twitter.com/jWdNzJmCCE</a>
— Wesley (@WesleyBout) <a href="https://twitter.com/WesleyBout/status/2020692160153370972?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 9, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @WesleyBout/X.com
Why would you get mad at the transvestite, anti-American, vulgar, degenerate rap singer babbling in a foreign tongue that the vast majority of Americans don’t understand, featuring two men grinding on each other in front of a sports game that is supposed to be viewed by children? 
Why would you get mad about that? How could you get mad about that when he put up a sign that said, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love”?
Imagine getting mad about this meme. This is a meme that the Right uses to make fun of the Left, and the Left is just now doing it sincerely and unironically. And the meme is this: While they’re killing people, slaughtering babies, mutilating little children, flooding the country with rapists and poison peddlers and murderers, the Left comes out and says, Yeah, but we stand for love. We define everything we do as love and everything you do as hate. So we’re actually the good guys. Did you know that?
Did you know that when the libs redefined marriage for basically the first time anywhere in human history, they did so in such a way that excludes mothers from their children’s families — or alternately excludes fathers from families — and leads to all sorts of horrible things, up to and including creating children for the purpose of denying them their natural mother and father? Really heinous stuff. But what did they say? They said, Love is love. Love wins. How could you oppose love? We have defined the disordered things that we’re doing, that are contrary to reality and to the common good and human flourishing, we’ve defined them as love. And if you oppose us, you hate love.
Checkmate, conservatives.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1909-treason-americans-trash-their-own-country-at-the-olympics?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: &#8220;The Michael Knowles Show&#8221; on DailyWire+.</a></h3>
This is like when Anthony Kennedy decided to abdicate his responsibility to interpret the law as a Supreme Court justice. Instead, he decided to write cheap romantic poetry that is fitting for an eighth-grade English class. He decided that his interpretation of the Constitution was going to find a right to privacy, just as he earlier, in an abortion case, had found a right to define the sweet mystery of life somewhere in the Constitution.
I don’t know where it is.
And they say, Look, we support mystery, we support love, we support life.
That’s the key here. Because when your lib friends send that meme around — hate is worse than love, love beats hate — how could you get mad at that? 
At that point, you should tell them that you are pro-life. And they are angry at people who are pro-life. How? Imagine being against life and thinking you’re the good guy.
And what would they say? They’d say, No, no, no, but you’re not really pro-life. You’re anti-choice. You want to control women’s bodies.
They would use all of their own silly euphemisms.
That’s when you say to them: Okay, before we get into the abortion issue, I just want to point out you have granted me the premise. You have accepted the premise that sometimes people use words in ways that can be misleading or tell a partial truth, or at the very least can be euphemistic. You’ve granted that point, right? Okay, great. So you don’t like my phrase “pro-life”? I think pro-life is an honest phrase that accurately depicts what we’re talking about. But you dispute that. Okay, fine.
Then let’s dig into the real substance of it. I support the law coming in and restricting women from going to a medical professional to kill her baby. That’s what we’re talking about. You want to get past the euphemisms and the slogans? That’s what we’re talking about. And what you support is women being able to kill their babies in defense of their own disordered autonomy. Right? That’s what we’re talking about.
With marriage, you support excluding mothers or alternately fathers from marriage and denying babies their natural mothers or fathers. Okay. That’s what you support, along with other acts that we don’t even need to get into when it comes to gay marriage. I support that babies have a demonstrated right to their mothers and their fathers.
Nevertheless, I think you will find that the libs love to promote all their slogans: “love beats hate,” “love is love,” “love wins,” or whatever. I think you will find conservatives, on the other hand, are more than happy to put the slogans aside and talk about the real issue.
The libs will focus on more and more hyperbolic and preposterous slogans. They will do whatever they can to avoid looking at the real issue. They will only speak in euphemisms, and that very fact tells you everything you need to know.
Yes, all politicians use slogans, but the way they use them tells you everything you need to know about the issues.
Conservatives use slogans and euphemisms to try to convey the truth. The Left uses slogans and euphemisms to deny the truth.

Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show

When Super Bowl Slogans Replace Truth In American Politics

Bad Bunny

Conservatives

Democrats

Hate Speech

Leftists

Liberals

Michael Knowles

Super Bowl

WDRB News

Meet The DEI Activist Judge Who Let A Rapist Out Of Prison Early To Spite White People

Blacks

Criminal Justice

Matt Walsh

O.J. Simpson

Racism

Television

White Supremacy

Whites

Millions of Americans tuned in to the Super Bowl as the event marked its 60th anniversary, but amid football’s biggest night, viewers were reminded of an even greater anniversary — America’s 250th birthday. This year, a primetime ad marked the year-long celebration of America’s semiquincentennial year.
The commercial opened on the Statue of Liberty before sweeping through defining moments in American history. Glimpses of the Wright brothers, Mount Rushmore, the Declaration of Independence, and George Washington crossing the Delaware were interwoven with scenes of modern innovation and technology.
“After 250 years, the American experiment still isn’t finished. It’s been built, tested, carried forward, and fought for,” the ad read. “And we passed it on, hand to hand, life to life. Generations ago ordinary people risked everything to begin it.”
Throughout the thirty seconds, the military threads the scenes together acting as a guardian of America’s progress. The commercial closed celebrating America’s past but also looking towards its future. “250 years later the work continues because freedom is worth it. This year America turns 250.”
The ad aired as a Super Bowl Public Service Announcement (PSA), typically reserved for campaigns aimed at education or social awareness and often produced pro bono by nonprofits or foundations. This time, however, NBC donated the coveted 30-second slot, an opportunity that usually costs around $8 million, to Freedom 250.
Non-partisan Freedom 250 is spearheading the Nation’s 250th birthday celebrations. The organization works in tandem with the White House Task Force 250, along with other federal agencies, to bring the nation’s birthday to life.
“Just as Super Bowl Sunday brings Americans together around a shared love of competition, tradition, and excellence, the 250th anniversary will unite our entire nation in celebration of the values and freedoms that make America exceptional,” said Freedom 250 CEO Keith Krach. “This is our moment to come together as one country and honor the American story and celebrate the bright future ahead.”
While Freedom 250 is hosting events to celebrate the nation all year long, the biggest bash will take place on July 4, 2026. At the National Mall in Washington, D.C. there will be military flyovers, notable speeches, headline performances, and an ending firework display. On the same day in New York, ships and naval vessels from more than thirty countries will into New York Harbor around the Statue of Liberty.

TOPSHOT-AMFOOT-SUPERBOWL-CHIEFS-EAGLES

At Super Bowl 60, Ad Celebrates 250 Years Of America

America

United States

Svedka Vodka will make history on Sunday when it debuts the first ever Super Bowl commercial that’s made mostly from AI generated video.
Despite not having any living actors, a spokesperson for the brand Sazerac (owner of Svedka) insisted that the overall messaging is very “pro-human.”
“We always knew we were signing up for risk because a vodka ad in the Super Bowl is polarizing to a certain degree,” Sara Saunders, chief marketing officer at Sazerac, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/svedka-super-bowl-ad-ai-watch-1236493612/">told</a> The Hollywood Reporter. “So the rest of it was ‘we might as well create conversation.&#8217;”
Saunders said the message of the ad was really about reducing tech usage and meeting people the old fashioned way, like through dancing. This is shown through an AI-generated robot short circuiting after drinking Svedka.
“The entire idea of the campaign is that the robots have returned to remind the humans to be more human,” Saunders said. “Our message is ultimately pro-human.”
Though AI is recognized for having the ability to cut costs dramatically, which could be impactful considering how much it costs to run a Super Bowl commercial in the first place, the marketing exec insisted money wasn’t the driving force behind the AI ad.
“For us it&#8217;s never been an efficiency play, it’s been a storytelling play; that’s why we’ve always had strong hands on the keyboard,” she told THR.
The outlet noted that other Super Bowl commercials, including the “Jurassic Park” themed ad, will use AI elements, but noted that Svedka will be the first and only ad that’s almost completely created with AI.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Shake Your Bots Off - SVEDKA Big Game Commercial 2026" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pkeWRI2yJGM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The ad is currently available on YouTube. In it, Svedka’s robot character that was popularized over a decade ago is seen dancing with a new robot friend at a human party.
“After 12 years in sleep mode, I’m back online. And also apparently on advertising’s biggest stage,” the YouTube description says.
“My agenda is simple: More fun. More dancing. More human connection. More cocktails. Leave your texts on read. Mute your notifications. Stretch out your tech neck. The future isn’t going anywhere (I know, I&#8217;ve been there). Neither is your phone.”
“It’s hard to worry about tomorrow when you’re getting ‘super freaky’ on the dance floor. Join me,” it concludes. “Shake your bots off with SVEDKA.”
Comments on the video have been turned off.

Svedka Vodka

Svedka Vodka Insists AI-Generated Super Bowl Commercial Has ‘Pro-Human’ Message

Svedka Vodka Insists AI-Generated Super Bowl Commercial Has 'Pro-Human' Message

Alcohol

Artificial Intelligence

Media

U.S.

A rep from Spotify confirmed that they are no longer airing recruitment ads for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the last campaign ended in late 2025.
The update comes after left-wing organizations openly complained about the ads, which were run between songs for ad-supported free subscribers.
“There are currently no ICE ads running on Spotify,” a statement from the music streaming giant <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/09/spotify-no-longer-running-ice-recruitment-ads-after-us-government-campaign-ends">said</a>, per The Guardian. “The advertisements mentioned were part of a US government recruitment campaign that ran across all major media and platforms.”
Spotify previously addressed criticism of the ads, saying they did not “violate our advertising policies.”
“This advertisement is part of a broad campaign the US government is running across television, streaming, and online channels,” the company shared in a statement last October. “However, users can mark any ad with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to help manage their ads preferences.”
Similar ICE recruitment ads have been running on other popular platforms including Hulu, HBO Max, YouTube, and Pandora since last spring.
The non-profit organization Indivisible Project, best known for organizing the nationwide “No Kings” protests, called for a boycott of Spotify in an <a href="https://indivisible.org/statements/indivisible-announces-campaign-cancel-spotify-streaming-services-over-ice-recruitment">open letter</a> shared in October.
“Spotify is exploiting the work of artists to line their pockets while recruiting for ICE – a secret police force that is terrorizing American communities. Spotify is actively amplifying the Trump regime’s drive to authoritarianism,” the letter said in part.
The organization took credit for Spotify no longer running the ads, writing in an update on Friday that “months of public pressure” resulted in the music streaming service no longer running ICE advertisements.
Some minor musical artists also removed their music from the platform in protest. This includes the Australian psych-rock band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, the Canadian group Godspeed You! Black Emperor, indie band Deerhoof, and U.S. singer-songwriter Kadhja Bonet, per The Guardian.

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