“Monty Python” alumnus <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/monty-python-alum-john-cleese-slams-wokes-and-the-current-thrill-of-being-offended">John Cleese</a> blasted the current cancel culture and said when a person sets &#8220;out to get someone fired … that&#8217;s very totalitarian.&#8221;
Speaking to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfDBTpAzV4U">Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression group’s</a> Greg Lukianoff, the host asked the legendary comedian about the evolution of cancel culture, from when audiences freaked out over topics in his 1979 film “The Life of Brian” to now. 
“What I experienced [then] was people who were upset and offended by things,” the 84-year-old comedian said. “And once or twice, I’ve done things that afterwards I felt that I’ve crossed the line and thought I shouldn’t have done that. But people would get upset and complain to the BBC or something like that.”
“Or they might get up and walk out of the show,” he added. “The thing about Cancel Culture is, it seems to be very organized. And it’s not just protest. It’s trying to get people fired. I don’t mind people protesting, that’s fine. But if you set out to get someone fired … that’s very totalitarian.”
“The enemy of creativity is interruption,” Cleese continued. “And interruptions can come from inside, as well as outside. And if the moment you think of something you think, ‘Ooh, will that offend someone?,’ you’ve interrupted yourself and it will stop the creative flow.”
The “A Fish Called Wanda” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/monty-python-alum-goes-viral-after-tweeting-about-unfair-advantage-biological-men-have-in-womens-sports">star</a> said “all moments” in his life “that have been important in forming” his personality &#8220;came when I suddenly had a realization that something I believed wasn’t the case.”
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John Cleese on Cancel Culture: An ‘Organized … Totalitarian’ Movement <a href="https://t.co/HHPkkaIEGU">https://t.co/HHPkkaIEGU</a>
— MRC NewsBusters (@newsbusters) <a href="https://twitter.com/newsbusters/status/1782088168923160972?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 21, 2024</a></blockquote>
He said none of that would’ve happened if he had to deal with people around him “saying you mustn’t think like that.” Cleese said that you’ve got to “ignore the people who are trying to stop you from learning something new.”
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“A lot of people are very frightened of getting fired, and that’s awful, getting fired,” he added. “There’s good and bad in all of us, and the moment you think you’re more perfect than you are, then that’s trouble. … And that’s why all this virtue signaling is so foolish now … they also need to know they have a nasty streak, too, because we all have.”
The famed British comedian has been very outspoken in the past about cancel culture, labeling the “wokes” the new “authoritarians,” as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/beware-the-wokes-monty-python-alum-defends-new-show-tackling-cancel-culture-and-new-authoritarians">previously reported</a>.
“Like all people who believe that are purer than they actually are, they are authoritarians,” Cleese previously <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnCleese/status/1579397566655262720?s=20&amp;t=uUR-qN7yGJAx40uWiVuwFA">tweeted</a>. “Which is why all the best comedians make fun of them.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/beware-the-wokes-monty-python-alum-defends-new-show-tackling-cancel-culture-and-new-authoritarians">&#8216;Beware The &#8216;Wokes&#8221; : &#8216;Monty Python&#8217; Alum Defends New Show Tackling &#8216;Cancel Culture&#8217; And New &#8216;Authoritarians&#8217;</a>

Pendulum Summit In Dublin – Day 2

‘Totalitarian’: ‘Monty Python’ Star John Cleese Blasts Cancel Culture

‘Totalitarian’: 'Monty Python’ Star John Cleese Blasts Cancel Culture

Cancel Culture

Celebrities

Comedy

Entertainment

John Cleese

Wokeness

World

A group of children and adults staged an hours-long walkout at a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/utah" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Utah</a> middle school on Wednesday over an unusual issue — &#8220;furries.&#8221;
The protesters walked out of Mt. Nebo Middle School, which is about an hour south of Salt Lake City, claiming that students who dress as &#8220;furries&#8221; were being disruptive.
Furries are people who have an interest in animals with human qualities, <a href="https://www.webmd.com/sex/what-is-furry-sex" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to WebMD.
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What a time to be alive.
Yesterday, over 70 students walked out of Mt. Nebo School to protest the school for letting &quot;furries&quot; to bite, bark, &amp; lick them.
ABC even interviewed a &quot;member of the furry community&quot; (they/them) to give a comment about the situation: <a href="https://t.co/zIMjoy9U9b">pic.twitter.com/zIMjoy9U9b</a>
&mdash; End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) <a href="https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1780985197741121691?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
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lifeisdriving <a href="https://t.co/hNxRLGJuPv">https://t.co/hNxRLGJuPv</a>
&mdash; Adam Bartholomew 🗨️ (@lifeisdriving) <a href="https://twitter.com/lifeisdriving/status/1780604433052901488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2024</a></blockquote>
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In video of the protests shared to social media, students accuse the alleged &#8220;furries&#8221; at Mt. Nebo of biting, scratching, barking at, spraying air freshener on, and pouncing on other students.
Some students who walked out complained that the furries wore masks every day, according to a video of the protest shared to social media.
&#8220;They think they&#8217;re so cool,&#8221; one girl <a href="https://twitter.com/lifeisdriving/status/1780612860957360200?t=bUQt3iyNbuqAGJ8PGor2LQ&amp;s=19" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
&#8220;We can&#8217;t talk or say anything to the furries or even look at them, but they can come look at us and say stuff to us and touch us,&#8221; said another girl.
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However, the school district&#8217;s public information officer, Seth Sorensen, <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2024/04/17/fact-check-nebo-school-district/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pushed</a> back on claims about students dressing up as animals. Students may wear headbands with ears, but they do not dress up in full-body animal costumes, he said.
“Today, we had some students and parents choose to exercise their right to assemble, and do a little protest for what they perceived was something that was happening in the school,” Sorensen <a href="https://www.abc4.com/news/wasatch-front/utah-student-furry-protest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> ABC4. “It actually is not something that’s been occurring.”
“Interestingly enough, they really didn’t address us with anything they wanted changed,” he said. &#8220;We want every student to feel safe when they come to school, and we want students to get along. In fact, we want adults to get along.&#8221;
He <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2024/04/17/fact-check-nebo-school-district/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">added</a> that the protest may have been the result of a miscommunication via an email from the school about an altercation between two groups of students.
The school also said it has worked with some students whose dress and appearance might be disruptive to the school environment.
At Wednesday&#8217;s protest, children held signs reading “Compelled speech is not free speech,” as well as “I will not comply,” and “We just wanted to learn.”
A <a href="https://www.change.org/p/students-for-humans-at-school-not-animals-aka-furries" target="_blank" rel="noopener">petition</a> dubbed &#8220;Students for Humans at School, not animals aka furries&#8221; has garnered nearly 1,700 signatures so far. The petition asks the school to enforce a dress code, which the petitioners say prohibits students from presenting themselves in a way that disrupts the learning atmosphere or creates a welfare issue.
The online “furry” fandom often <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/desantis-law-forces-furry-convention-to-bar-children">has</a> sexual overtones, although some self-identified “furries” insist sex has nothing to do with their interest in the fandom.
A 2011 <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130308185939/https://sites.google.com/site/anthropomorphicresearch/past-results/international-online-furry-survey-2011" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a> of “furries” found that about a quarter of “furries” said they felt less than 100% human.

Eurofurence 2016 Furries Gathering

‘Furry’ Claims Spark Walkout At Utah Middle School; School Pushes Back

'Furry' Claims Spark Walkout At Utah Middle School; School Pushes Back

Education

Gender

Public Schools

Transgender

U.S.

Utah

Woke Culture

NPR&#8217;s president and CEO said she abandoned the idea of a &#8220;free and open&#8221; internet as the mission of Wikipedia, which she used to lead, because it is a &#8220;white, male, Westernized construct.&#8221;
In a newly resurfaced video clip, Katherine Maher, who took over as NPR&#8217;s chief executive in January says she found Wikpedia&#8217;s &#8220;free and open&#8221; ethos &#8220;inherently limited.&#8221; The clip was posted to X by Christopher Rufo, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Maher served as chief executive at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, from 2019 to 2021.
&#8220;I have come to the opinion and the perspective that &#8216;free and open&#8217; was a way of looking at the world that was inherently limited relative to what we were trying to achieve,&#8221; Maher says in the clip.
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EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher says that she abandoned a &quot;free and open&quot; internet as the mission of Wikipedia, because those principles recapitulated a &quot;white male Westernized construct&quot; and &quot;did not end up living into the intentionality of what openness can be.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/Ved9mgGvJH">pic.twitter.com/Ved9mgGvJH</a>
&mdash; Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1780929268949614848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
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EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher doesn&#39;t just want to &quot;stamp out bad information&quot; on the internet. She wants to replace it with &quot;good information&quot;—i.e., left-wing narratives—and force the public to &quot;sit within that good information&quot; as &quot;a collective.&quot;
Big Sister has arrived. <a href="https://t.co/7kfq8VYHfj">pic.twitter.com/7kfq8VYHfj</a>
&mdash; Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1781009614584381486?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
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EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher says the &quot;the number one challenge&quot; in her fight against disinformation is &quot;the First Amendment in the United States,&quot; which makes it &quot;a little bit tricky&quot; to censor &quot;bad information&quot; and &quot;the influence peddlers&quot; who spread it.
NPR&#39;s censor-in-chief. <a href="https://t.co/0vY6hIpbmO">pic.twitter.com/0vY6hIpbmO</a>
&mdash; Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1780597079439446250?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2024</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;&#8216;Free and open&#8217; has the best of intentionality, but in the end what &#8216;free and open&#8217; often ended up doing, and particularly in the case of Wikipedia, was recapitulating many of the same power structures and dynamics that exist offline, prior to the advent of the internet,&#8221; Maher said.
One of the problems with Wikipedia is the way it relies on a &#8220;written tradition&#8221; and &#8220;reliable sources,&#8221; Maher said.
&#8220;You see the exclusion of communities, of languages because of the ways in which Wikipedia is based on reliable sources. The idea of a written tradition, which is particular to some cultures and not to others,&#8221; the former Wikimedia CEO said.
&#8220;The ways in which we ascribe notability often really comes from sort of this white, male, Westernized construct around who matters in societies and who is elevated and whose voices. And so some of these ideas of sort of this radical openness really did not end up living into the intentionality of what openness can be,&#8221; she said.
X owner Elon Musk responded to the clip, <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1780962477011796287" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posting</a>, &#8220;That’s literally the point of Wikipedia.&#8221;
Maher has recently come under fire from conservatives after a former NPR editor blew the whistle on the outlet&#8217;s liberal bias. Former editor Uri Berliner resigned Wednesday after NPR suspended him.
In the wake of the NPR editor&#8217;s accusations, a slew of since-deleted tweets and previous statements from Maher have surfaced, adding fuel to the outrage.
In another clip posted by Rufo, Maher says she is interested in how we can &#8220;immerse ourself in good information,&#8221; not just &#8220;stamp out bad information.&#8221;
In yet another clip, Maher says the &#8220;number one challenge&#8221; for her in fighting disinformation is the First Amendment, which she calls a &#8220;fairly robust protection of rights.&#8221;
&#8220;It also means that it is a little bit tricky to really address some of the real challenges of where does bad information come from,&#8221; she said.
She has been accused of expressing explicitly biased views in her previous tweets.
In 2018, Maher <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/13/us-news/nprs-new-ceo-katherine-mahers-woke-tweets-arise-as-editor-claims-bias/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a>, “Donald Trump is a racist.”
In 2020 she wrote, &#8220;I mean, sure, looting is counterproductive. But it’s hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression founded on treating people’s ancestors as private property.&#8221;

Web Summit Lisbon 2023

‘White, Male, Westernized’: NPR President Said She Opposed Wikipedia’s ‘Free And Open’ Mission

'White, Male, Westernized': NPR President Said She Opposed Wikipedia's 'Free And Open' Mission

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

First Amendment

Free Speech

National Public Radio (NPR)

Wikipedia

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/oklahoma" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Oklahoma</a> public retirement funds are being “weaponized” to back decarbonization, racial audits, and push pro-abortion policies, according to a new watchdog report shared exclusively with The Daily Wire.
The <a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/OPERS-Woke-Investment-Managers-Final.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a>, from the American Accountability Foundation, found that three asset managers used by the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) have used money from state retirement accounts to support shareholder proposals rooted in woke politics and environmental, social, and governance principles. According to the report, three firms — State Street Global Advisors, Newton Capital Management, and Westfield Capital Management — have used some of the $1.7 billion they manage for OPERS&#8217; portfolio to support at least 216 ESG-tinged proposals that take aim at the oil industry and push leftist social values.
The AAF obtained data on all proxy votes cast by asset managers for Oklahoma’s public retirement funds since 2022 through an open records request. “Altogether, we identified 216 votes in support of troubling policies, including racial equity audits, gender pay gap reports, initiatives to silence conservatives and trade associations, abortion rights, and the radical climate agenda,” the watchdog wrote in a memo shared with The Daily Wire.
The memo comes as Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt (R) and Oklahoma Treasurer Todd Russ have <a href="https://oklahoma.gov/governor/newsroom/newsroom/2023/march2023/governor-stitt-joins-18-governors-in-joint-statement-opposing-ha.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spoken out</a> against ESG investing, calling the push harmful to the state. OPERS did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Wire.
State Street, alongside BlackRock, were both supposed to be dropped by OPERS because of new legislation restricting state entities from working with companies that are opposed to the oil and gas industry, but <a href="https://www.pionline.com/esg/oklahoma-pers-will-keep-blackrock-state-street-after-approving-divestment-exemption" target="_blank" rel="noopener">were exempted</a> after a vote from the board of OPERS.
In the last two years, State Street, Newton, and Westfield all backed resolutions that “call for increased climate disclosures or greenhouse gas emissions targets,” according to the AAF. For example, Newton backed a proposal for energy company Phillips 66 to adopt greenhouse gas “emissions reduction targets aligned with the Paris Agreement goal” at the company’s May 2022 shareholder meeting.
“We therefore support the Company to set emission reduction targets for all emissions: the emissions of the company’s operations and the emissions of its energy products (Scope 1, 2, and 3). Reducing Scope 3 emissions, the vast majority, is essential to limiting global heating,” the resolution said.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-724665 size-large aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-16-at-5.50.21-PM-883x576.png" alt="" width="883" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-16-at-5.50.21-PM-883x576.png 883w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-16-at-5.50.21-PM-300x196.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-16-at-5.50.21-PM-768x501.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-16-at-5.50.21-PM-1536x1002.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-16-at-5.50.21-PM.png 1799w" sizes="(max-width: 883px) 100vw, 883px" />In another instance, Newton voted to back a proposal for Wells Fargo to conduct a racial equity audit, according to the data shared with The Daily Wire.
Citing the death of George Floyd and “systematic racism,” the resolution urged the bank’s board of directors “to oversee an independent racial equity audit analyzing WFC’s adverse impacts on nonwhite stakeholders and communities of color.”
In a supporting statement, the resolution objected to $135,000 in Wells Fargo political donations going to “members of Congress who objected to certifying the election results.”
In another example from June 5, 2023, Westfield voted in support of a resolution saying that UnitedHealth Group should create a “report on congruency of political spending with company values and priorities.” The reason the report was needed was because of employee PAC donations to politicians “working to weaken abortion access” and backing of “state attorneys general seeking to revoke LGBTQ civil rights.”
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A similar resolution backed by Newton said that Coke’s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies may be hampered because of a Georgia law protecting unborn children six weeks into development. The resolution asked for a report “detailing any known and potential risks or costs to the company caused by enacted or proposed state policies severely restricting reproductive rights.”
Tom Jones, the president of the AAF, told The Daily Wire that the will of Oklahomans was being subverted by the use of OPERS funds to push ESG initiatives.
“For Oklahoma&#8217;s pension funds to be hijacked to push ESG nonsense is an affront to democracy,” Jones said. “The American people should decide our laws, not be dictated to by virtue-signaling corporations and government bureaucrats. Americans never voted to force businesses to conduct &#8216;racial equity audits&#8217; or to shut down oil and gas companies, yet that is what is being imposed on us by OPERS and the corporate advisers they hire. It&#8217;s time to put an end to this madness.”

Cash dollar bills and stock market indicators

EXCLUSIVE: Watchdog Warns About ‘Weaponization’ Of Red State’s Pension Funds For Leftist Causes

BlackRock

Oklahoma

Retirement funds

Social Issues

Comedian Bill Maher said over the weekend that if Americans wanted to see what would happen to the United States if it continued down the path to &#8220;extreme wokeness,&#8221; they should look no further than their neighbors to the north.
Maher argued — during Friday&#8217;s broadcast of &#8220;Real Time&#8221; on HBO — that Canada should serve as a &#8220;cautionary tale&#8221; for Americans who wanted the progressive utopian ideal and thought that they could see it just across the border.
WATCH:
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They say in politics, liberals are the gas pedal, and conservatives are the brakes, and I&#39;m generally with the gas pedal, but not if we&#39;re driving off a cliff. <a href="https://t.co/hutj3OUVQi">pic.twitter.com/hutj3OUVQi</a>
&mdash; Bill Maher (@billmaher) <a href="https://twitter.com/billmaher/status/1778989085362987082?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 13, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Maher began by saying that he agreed with those who said American liberals should learn from  progressive countries that were getting things right — but then he pointed out that it was equally important to recognize and acknowledge flaws when they were present.
Giving two examples, Maher noted that unemployment in the United States was 3.8% compared to Canada&#8217;s 6.1% — and that air quality in Canada was measurably worse than in the United States.
&#8220;They say in politics liberals are the gas pedal and conservatives are the brakes. And I’m generally with the gas pedal. But not if we’re driving off a cliff,&#8221; Maher said, adding, &#8220;Canada was where every woke White college kid wearing pajama pants outdoors who had it up to here with America’s racist patriarchy dreamt of living someday. I mean, besides Gaza.&#8221;
&#8220;There’s only one problem with thinking everything’s better in Canada: It’s not. Not anymore, anyway,&#8221; Maher said, arguing that the housing crisis in American cities was nothing compared to what was happening to the north. &#8220;The median price of a home here is $346,000. In Canada converted to US dollars, it’s 487. If Barbie moved to Winnipeg, she wouldn’t be able to afford her dream house and Ken would be working at Tim Hortons.&#8221;
Maher went on to note that the liberal dream of single-payer health care — which Canada has — is also not living up to its promise: &#8220;Their vaunted health care system, which ranks dead last among high income countries, and access to primary health care, and the ability to see a doctor in a day or two. And it’s not for lack of spending. Of the 30 countries with universal coverage, Canada spends over 13% of its economy on it, which is a lot of money for free health care. Look, I’m not saying Canada still isn’t a great country, it is, but those aren’t paradise numbers.&#8221;
&#8220;If Canada was an apartment, the lead feature might be America adjacent. And if America was a rental car, Canada would be America or similar,&#8221; Maher concluded. &#8220;And again, honestly, Canada, I’m not saying any of this because I enjoy it. I don’t because I’ve always enjoyed you, but I need to cite you as a cautionary tale to help my country. And the moral of that tale is ‘yes, you can move too far left, and when you do, you wind up pushing the people in the middle to the right.’ At its worst. Canada is what American voters think happens when there’s no one putting a check on extreme wokeness.&#8221;

Bill Maher

Bill Maher Warns Canada Is A ‘Cautionary Tale’ For U.S.: ‘We’re Diving Off A Cliff’

Bill Maher Warns Canada Is A 'Cautionary Tale' For U.S.: 'We're Diving Off A Cliff'

Canada

Donald Trump

Joe Biden

&#8220;Star Wars&#8221; actor Billy Dee Williams joined comedian Bill Maher on a recent episode of his &#8220;Club Random&#8221; podcast, and both lamented the state of today&#8217;s youth in America — a generation Maher referred to collectively as &#8220;house plants.&#8221;
Williams, who played the role of Lando Calrissian in the original George Lucas trilogy, said that he just didn&#8217;t understand the younger generations most of the time: &#8220;I don’t know what this generation is about.&#8221;
Maher argued that kids were being &#8220;raised wrong,&#8221; calling them &#8220;fragile&#8221; and comparing them to &#8220;house plants.&#8221; Williams was slightly more generous, noting that kids seemed to lack a real &#8220;sense of history&#8221; and asking whether it was possible that they were simply &#8220;misinformed&#8221; or not properly educated.
&#8220;They do not know anything, but it’s not their fault because, you know, it’s not the responsibility of the child to instruct themselves. I never had to worry about that in my little town, whatever color it was,&#8221; Maher said. &#8220;We just went to school. You went to school … they taught you the basics; they taught you the s***. I didn’t leave that school until I knew basically everything that a normal, intelligent person should know. Not anything from Nobel Prize winner in literature or science, just a regular person would know these things and kids today know nothing. You don’t have to know anything and they will sign that diploma and kick you out the door.&#8221;
One of the main issues Maher cited was the ongoing war between Israel and the terror group Hamas, saying that young people appeared to be uneducated on the history of the region – but they were getting involved in protests and political activism despite their lack of understanding: it &#8220;doesn’t sap their confidence.&#8221;
&#8220;That is what is so bad about the kids, getting back to that, not knowing anything. They think, oh, let’s give communism another try,&#8221; Maher said, coming back around to the topic a bit later. &#8220;No, kids! We did try it! We did try it. Vladimir Lenin took over Moscow in 1917, and it was a long experiment and it was horrible, so we don’t need to try that again.&#8221;
&#8220;Well, I don’t know, we got Lucifer in the world right now,&#8221; Williams said.
&#8220;Trump?&#8221; Maher attempted to get Williams to clarify.
&#8220;I’m just saying Lucifer,&#8221; Williams repeated.
Maher tried again: &#8220;Oh, you mean literally?&#8221;
&#8220;I’m just saying Lucifer,&#8221; was all Williams would say.
You can watch the podcast here: 
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The Kelly Clarkson Show – Season 5

‘Star Wars’ Actor Joins Bill Maher In Scathing Assessment Of ‘Fragile’ Kids Today: ‘House Plants’

'Star Wars' Actor Joins Bill Maher In Scathing Assessment Of 'Fragile' Kids Today: 'House Plants'

Hamas

Israel

Star Wars

Disney investor Nelson Peltz slammed the company for its turn to &#8220;woke&#8221; themes with its Marvel super hero films and said moviegoers &#8220;don&#8217;t go&#8221; to the theaters &#8220;to get a message.”
In recent comments to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0a182c97-6af7-42a6-ad9f-ae980562bb45">The Financial Times</a>, Peltz questioned whether Disney CEO Bob Iger and Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige forgot why people go to the movies. He alluded to the female-led &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-marvels-continues-to-flail-at-box-office-earns-worst-second-weekend-drop-of-all-time" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Marvels&#8221;</a> and the &#8220;Black Panther&#8221; films.
“People go to watch a movie or a show to be entertained,” Peltz told the outlet. “They don’t go to get a message.” 
“Why do I have to have a Marvel that’s all women?” he added. “Not that I have anything against women, but why do I have to do that?”
“Why can’t I have Marvels that are both?” Peltz continued. “Why do I need an all-black cast [like in &#8216;Black Panther&#8217;]?”
The <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/nelson-peltz-disney-woke-black-panther-marvels-1235859565/">Hollywood Reporter</a>, which reported on the interview, noted the comments were similar to remarks from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disney-cuts-marvel-entertainment-chair-ike-perlmutter-following-massive-layoffs">Ike Perlmutter</a>, a former Marvel Entertainment chairman and CEO who is friends with Peltz.
Last year, Disney confirmed that Perlmutter was out following massive layoffs by the House of Mouse as part of its cost-cutting efforts. Marvel Entertainment is a subsidiary of the Disney Company. 
Perlmutter was let go along with Marvel Entertainment’s co-president Rob Steffens and chief counsel John Turitzin, according to <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/news/disney-marvel-entertainment-ike-perlmutter-layoffs-1235567927/">Variety</a>.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Nelson Peltz, the activist investor trying to win two Disney board seats, questions Kevin Feige&#39;s track record and says Disney&#39;s current strategy is &#39;woke&#39; 
“Why do I have to have a Marvel that’s all women? Not that I have anything against women, but why do I have to do that?… <a href="https://t.co/YcdDy88kGx">pic.twitter.com/YcdDy88kGx</a>
&mdash; Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) <a href="https://twitter.com/CultureCrave/status/1772351072381886726?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 25, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Speaking to The <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-marvel-perlmutter-laid-off-fired-16821248?st=820hay8nuzdziv0">Wall Street Journal</a>, Perlmutter said he had “no doubt” his firing “was based on fundamental differences in business between my thinking and Disney leadership.” 
In a lengthy statement obtained by <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/ike-perlmutter-disney-politics-desantis-marvel-box-office-1235368346/">The Hollywood Reporter</a>, Perlmutter said that he “long expected that my working relationship with Disney would end.”
“That it should come as a result of my trying to help Disney improve its business should sadden many shareholders as it does me, the company’s largest individual shareholder,” he added.
Perlmutter’s <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/03/marvel-entertainment-chairman-ike-perlmutter-cut-from-disney-1235312663/">division,</a> which centered on consumer products, comic book publishing, as well as game licensing and arena shows, was folded into larger Disney business units, two unnamed Disney executives told The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/business/media/disney-marvel-ike-perlmutter.html?smid=tw-share">New York Times</a>.
The move came after Disney announced that 7,000 jobs were being eliminated to cut $5.5 billion. Perlmutter had been with the company for more than a decade after selling Marvel to Disney in 2009 for $4 billion, <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/03/marvel-entertainment-chairman-ike-perlmutter-cut-from-disney-1235312663/">Deadline</a> reported.

The Marvels three Picture1

Disney Investor Slams Shift To ‘Woke’ Marvel Films

Disney Investor Slams Shift To 'Woke' Marvel Films

Disney

Hollywood

Marvel

After Google Gemini was revealed to be rewriting history from a woke perspective, with racial history being distorted when it was asked simple prompts, numerous former Google employees spoke of the woke culture at Google and how it has zealously adopted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices.
In February, Google paused its AI chatbot’s image generation feature after it was accused of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/google-pauses-ai-chatbots-image-generation-feature-after-accusations-of-racism-toward-white-people">racism</a> against white people. The chatbot was accused of refusing to generate images of white people after Frank Fleming, a writer for Daily Wire scripted content, repeatedly asked the chatbot — whose “next-generation model” Gemini 1.5 offered image generation — for such images.
In a long X thread, Fleming began by asking for an image of a pope. Historically, popes have been white men, but the chatbot posted images of a dark-skinned man and woman. Fleming then proceeded to ask for images of medieval knights (garnering four images, two dark-skinned women and two dark-skinned men); jokingly asked for someone eating “a mayo sandwich on white bread;&#8221; asked for an image of a Viking; and then asked for images of groups that are traditionally non-white (such as Japanese samurai and Zulu warriors) to see if the chatbot would show diversity by including white people. It did not.
Shaun Maguire, a partner at Google Ventures from 2016 until 2019, told <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/ex-google-employees-woke-gemini-culture-broken?utm_source=post-email-title&amp;publication_id=260347&amp;post_id=142708370&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=false&amp;r=33gk4&amp;triedRedirect=true&amp;utm_medium=email">The Free Press</a>,
<blockquote>
I was not shocked at all. When the first Google Gemini photos popped up on my X feed, I thought to myself: Here we go again. And: Of course. Because I know Google well. Google Gemini’s failures revealed how broken Google’s culture is in such a visually obvious way to the world. But what happened was not a one-off incident. It was a symptom of a larger cultural phenomenon that has been taking over the company for years.
</blockquote>
Maguire recalled taking the job as an investing partner at Google Ventures:  “I was excited about the role, but I was a little wary of Google, which had already been getting a reputation. By the time I joined, the word around Silicon Valley was that Google had already lost its way. It was only when I got there that I realized the full extent of it.”
David Kiferbaum, a Google business manager who worked for Google from 2015 to 2023, said he was told regarding hiring, “We’re really looking for diverse candidates for this role.” He said he interpreted the comment to mean “a non-white, a non-hetero” applicant, adding, “I was like, ‘Whoa, I can’t believe this person is saying this out loud.’”
Maguire said a diversity working group at Google Ventures in 2017 made “unreasonable demands. &#8230; The demands included the insistence that senior leaders hire at least two additional female general partners — which is the senior role I was promised I’d get once I reached three years with the company. One of those hires, the group demanded, needed to happen within six months. If leadership refused, about a quarter of the firm, or 20 people out of the 80 employees at Google Ventures, threatened to quit.”
Although Maguire said hiring a female general partner was “a good goal,” he continued, “but they were trying to force a timeline that would ultimately lead to lowering standards. Hiring general partners into a venture firm is a very hard, laborious process, because the positions are so senior and require finding the right fit. The hiring process normally takes anywhere between one to two years.”
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He said that Ventures’ CEO, “like all of the senior leadership across Google, proved to be spineless in the face of these employee threats. Within a year, he hired a new female general partner, who was really smart but who wasn’t qualified for the job. Because of her lack of experience, she was never treated on the same level as the other general partners, which I believe was ultimately unfair to her.”
“Meanwhile, over the next two years, I started to notice the dynamics of our team change. Instead of highly experienced founders and seasoned investors, young people from minority backgrounds were coming in with virtually no investment experience whatsoever,” Maguire continued. “In this time, Ventures promoted a 25-year-old black woman to investment partner — the same position I held at the time — who had not yet made a single investment decision in her entire career.”
A former product manager at Google said it was mandatory for him to attend a session on “Psychological Safety for Inclusive Teams.” He said one of his coworkers asked him to update his pronouns and gave him this list: she/her, ey/em, zie/hir, ve/ver, he/him, ze/hir, zie/zir, it/its, they/them, ze/zie, xe/xem, any pronoun, name as my pronoun, and “ask me about my pronoun.”
After he lost out on a promotion, Maguire recalled, “I decided to slowly start looking for other jobs. When firms would ask me why I wanted to leave Google, I would be brutally honest. I’d say, ‘Because Google is f***ing woke. It’s not a meritocracy. And I want to work somewhere with a performance culture.’”

Google

‘Google Is F***ing Woke’: Former Employees Reveal Company’s Dedication To DEI

Big Tech

Politics

The below story is the first part of a series on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence&#8217;s DEI newsletter, &#8220;The Dive.&#8221;
Agents at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and throughout the intelligence community were distributed a newsletter that celebrated an intelligence official for crossdressing, saying that dressing up in women’s clothes makes him “a better intelligence officer,” according to an <a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/03/714636299-READ-ODNI-Newsletter-States-Crossdressing-Makes-Man-Better-Intelligence-Officer.pdf">internal document</a> obtained by The Daily Wire. 
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence sent its internal newsletter, called “The Dive” and obtained by The Daily Wire through a Freedom of Information Act request, to personnel across the entire Intelligence Community. Featured in the newsletter was an article by an anonymous official claiming that crossdressing makes him a better intelligence officer.
&#8220;I am an intelligence officer, and I am a man who likes to wear women’s clothes sometimes,&#8221; the article, titled “My Gender Identity and Expression Make Me a Better Intelligence Officer,” states in its opening line. The author goes on to argue that his decision to crossdress “merits attention given the climate of discussion around the topic and where it sits in the larger conversation about gender identity and expression and professional appearance.”
The unclassified newsletter, which specifies on each page that it is &#8220;for official use only&#8221; and &#8220;not cleared for public release,&#8221; was released to The Daily Wire last week, though information such as names of authors are redacted throughout. It was created by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence&#8217;s IC Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Office and sent to the entire Intelligence Community.
The ODNI is a <a href="https://www.dni.gov/index.php/who-we-are/leadership/director-of-national-intelligence">cabinet-level agency</a> overseeing the rest of the IC, including the CIA, FBI, NSA, and intelligence components in each branch of the military. The newsletter comes as both the Intelligence Community and the wider federal bureaucracy have institutionalized the DEI agenda throughout their practices under the Biden administration, all while Trump prepares to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/22/trump-presidency-schedule-f-federal-employees">gut the administrative state</a> if he returns to the White House.
“I think my experiences as someone who crossdresses have sharpened the skills I use as an intelligence officer,” the anonymous intelligence officer claims, going on to say he is now &#8220;more aware of, and hopefully more supportive of, my women colleagues.” He expands on the point, saying that he has a “better appreciation for how it can be uncomfortable to wear women’s clothes sometimes.&#8221;
<div class="image"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-711111" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-18-at-4.53.52-PM-624x576.png" alt="" width="624" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-18-at-4.53.52-PM-624x576.png 624w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-18-at-4.53.52-PM-300x277.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-18-at-4.53.52-PM-768x708.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-18-at-4.53.52-PM.png 838w" sizes="(max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px" /></div>
&#8220;I know firsthand how wearing heels can make your feet hurt and make it take longer to walk somewhere,” he says.
The anonymous intelligence officer also admits that crossdressing in the workplace causes a distraction within the intelligence office, but he pleads that those around him will grow more supportive of his choice to wear women’s clothes.
“When I crossdress it still distracts people, even though it is professional,&#8221; he writes. &#8220;It is my hope that we can learn to accept a wider range of gender identities and expressions.&#8221;
The anonymous intelligence official went into even greater depth on his crossdressing habits. “Although I like wearing a bra, I know it isn’t comfortable for everyone, and is less comfortable after a few hours,” the stunning document from the office of the United States’ most powerful intelligence official reads. “On top of the biases that women often face at work, it must be hard to be uncomfortable too.”
He even went on to claim that crossdressing also makes him a better ally for those who identify as “LGBTQIA+,” saying that “everyone is better off if they can bring their whole self to work. I definitely felt that, and now have supportive allies.” The official goes on to say, “I am part of a community that is not the majority and sometimes feel discriminated against.”
The intelligence officer also praised an <a href="https://www.odni.gov/files/documents/ICD/ICD_125-Gender-Identity-and-Inclusivity.pdf">ODNI directive</a> mandating that the intelligence community hold an annual transgender awareness training and requiring intelligence officials to use the “chosen name” and pronouns of colleagues who identify as the opposite sex.
He also discussed how crossdressing relates to gender more broadly. “It is challenging for some people to understand crossdressing, and non-binary or genderfluid people because gender is a part of overall identity,” the officer writes. “Many of us think of our identities as fixed, and some find this approach to gender threatening to their own identity.”
The author explains the difference between crossdressing and drag performances, the latter of which he says is “performative and traditionally associated with gay male culture” before pointing out that “crossdressing can be part of the journey of transgender people as they begin to affirm their true identity, but cross dressing is deliberately choosing to dress like the gender you aren’t.”
In addition to empowering him as an ally, the author says that his experience as a crossdresser has made him “better at understanding clandestine assets and their motivations” and “at understanding foreign actors.”
An ODNI spokeswoman confirmed that the newsletter was sent out to every element of the Intelligence Community.
“The IC Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (<a href="https://www.dni.gov/index.php/who-we-are/organizations/339-about/organization/diversity-equity-and-inclusion">IC DEIA</a>) Office manages the IC&#8217;s efforts to build a diverse and inclusive workforce, and as part of their work, they distribute The Dive, a quarterly magazine, to each IC element&#8217;s DEIA office and/or Equal Employment Opportunity office,” the spokeswoman told The Daily Wire.
The quarterly newsletter is an effort to &#8220;enlighten readers,&#8221; it explains.
“We seek to engage with officers across the IC, enlighten readers about advancements in DEIA, and empower every employee to speak their truth,” the end of the newsletter reads. “We have four teams: Analysis and Assessments, Communications and Branding, Outreach and Education, Strategy and Policy,” the IC DEIA Office went on to explain.
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and combat-decorated U.S. Army veteran who fought in the elite Green Berets, said the newsletter is another example of misplaced priorities.
“The world is on fire and our country faces unprecedented terrorist threats with an open southern border yet ODNI is prioritizing this?&#8221; Waltz told The Daily Wire. &#8220;Our intelligence officers should be 100% focused on preventing the next 9/11 rather than using resources promoting the next DEI initiative.”
The ODNI newsletter is the latest example of the United States Intelligence Community advancing far-left ideologies. The National Security Agency (NSA) published an internal DEI glossary, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-leaked-nsa-doc-reveals-massive-woke-glossary-pushing-critical-race-theory-gender-ideology-on-govt-employees">exclusively obtained</a> by The Daily Wire, that included terms like “white fragility,” “transmisogyny,” “settler colonialism,” and even the gender neutral pronouns of “ze” and “zir.”
Other federal agencies have poured millions of taxpayer funds into DEI initiatives, with the Pentagon spending as much as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bidens-pentagon-slated-to-spend-nearly-270-million-on-diversity-agenda">$270 million</a> under Biden to advance the leftwing agenda. There’s also the State Department, which the Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-state-department-forced-to-disclose-multi-million-dollar-cost-of-bidens-diversity-agenda">exclusively revealed</a> had spent over $77 million over two years under Biden on DEI programs, with hundreds of millions more in requests for DEI-related initiatives.
Far-left beliefs on race and gender have been embedded within both the intelligence community and the wider federal government in large part due to executive orders from Biden that sought to institutionalize extreme ideologies into the operations of the federal bureaucracy. Former President Donald Trump has signaled that he may gut the federal bureaucracy through an executive order called Schedule F, which would remove civil services protections from thousands of bureaucrats who threaten to undermine his agenda.
Others are preparing to fill in the gap left by outgoing officials, assembling a personnel database of those who might serve in the next administration through the <a href="https://www.project2025.org/">Project 2025</a> Presidential Transition Project, an initiative from the Heritage Foundation that seeks to “pave the way for an effective conservative Administration.”
The full article &#8220;My Gender Identity and Expression Make Me a Better Intelligence Officer&#8221; can be <a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/03/714636299-READ-ODNI-Newsletter-States-Crossdressing-Makes-Man-Better-Intelligence-Officer.pdf">read here</a>.

Obtained by The Daily Wire

Biden’s Top Intelligence Agency Says Crossdressing Makes Man ‘Better Intelligence Officer,’ Internal Docs Show

Biden Admin

National Security Agency (NSA)

An art museum in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/england" target="_blank" rel="noopener">England</a> has issued a warning to patrons that images of a British countryside in paintings can evoke what it labeled &#8220;dark,&#8221; &#8220;nationalist feelings.&#8221;
The Fitzwilliam Museum, owned by the University of Cambridge, decided to overhaul some of its displays, something that the museum&#8217;s director Luke Syson insisted is not being &#8220;woke.&#8221;
&#8220;I would love to think that there’s a way of telling these larger, more inclusive histories that doesn&#8217;t feel as if it requires a push-back from those who try to suggest that any interest at all in [this work is] what would now be called &#8216;woke,'&#8221; Syson told the Telegraph, as reported by <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/paintings-british-countryside-evoke-dark-140508085.html">Yahoo</a> News.
The paintings have been moved around into categories in an effort to make the museum &#8220;inclusive.&#8221;
&#8220;Being inclusive and representative shouldn&#8217;t be controversial; it should be enriching,&#8221; Syson said.
One of the signs in the Nature Gallery, showing the work of artist John Constable&#8217;s paintings of English hills, noted that the artwork can stir feelings of &#8220;pride towards a homeland.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
&#8220;The Fitzwilliam Museum has suggested that paintings of the British countryside evoke dark &#8220;nationalist feelings&#8221;. The museum, owned by the University of Cambridge, has undertaken an overhaul [&#8230;] in a move that its director insisted was not “woke”.&#8221;<a href="https://t.co/1t09LcYqEP">https://t.co/1t09LcYqEP</a>
— Kristian Niemietz (@K_Niemietz) <a href="https://twitter.com/K_Niemietz/status/1768550114660958412?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2024</a></blockquote>
&#8220;Landscape paintings were also always entangled with national identity,&#8221; the sign read.
&#8220;The countryside was seen as a direct link to the past, and therefore a true reflection of the essence of a nation,&#8221; it added. &#8220;Paintings showing rolling English hills or lush French fields reinforced loyalty and pride towards a homeland.&#8221;
However, another part of the sign told visitors that &#8220;there is a darker side&#8221; to the images of the British countryside. 
&#8220;The darker side of evoking this nationalist feeling is the implication that only those with a historical tie to the land have a right to belong,&#8221; it added.
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Constable is known for his famous landscapes of the Suffolk countryside, the <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/john-constable#:~:text=Constable%20is%20famous%20for%20his,worked%20up%20in%20the%20studio.">National Gallery</a> in London noted. Interestingly enough, as popular as his paintings are now, the London Gallery noted that &#8220;they were not particularly well received in England during his lifetime.&#8221;
In another part of the museum, the sign for the new Identity Gallery told patrons that portraits of wealthy and uniformed sitters &#8220;became vital tools in reinforcing the social order of a white ruling class, leaving very little room for representations of people of color, the working classes or other marginalized people,” the outlet noted.
And that, &#8220;portraits were often entangled, in complex ways, with British imperialism and the institution of transatlantic slavery.&#8221;
In the Migration and Movement gallery, signage noted that &#8220;while some people chose to leave their homes, global conflict, discrimination and European colonialism meant others fled or were exiled by force.&#8221;

Museum Painting

Art Museum Warns That Images Of British Countryside Can Evoke ‘Dark’ ‘Nationalist’ Feelings

England

General

Museum

The mission statement of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/west-point" target="_blank" rel="noopener">West Point</a> will no longer include the words “duty, honor, country,” as the over 220-year-old military academy choses to adopt a new mission statement based on “Army Values.”
The military academy <a href="https://www.westpoint.edu/news/press-releases/west-point-mission-statement-update-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> the proposed change on Monday, saying that the edits to the decades-old mission statement have already been approved by the Secretary of the Army and the Army Chief of Staff. West Point will still retain “duty, honor, country,” as the academy’s motto, saying that the changes to the mission statement came after a year and a half long assessment.
West Point&#8217;s new mission statement will be: “To build, educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets to be commissioned leaders of character committed to the Army Values and ready for a lifetime of service to the Army and Nation.”
The academy explained the change by saying that it was part of routine examination of the mission of the institution.
“Our responsibility to produce leaders to fight and win our nation&#8217;s wars requires us to assess ourselves regularly,” West Point said. “Thus, over the past year and a half, working with leaders from across West Point and external stakeholders, we reviewed our vision, mission, and strategy to serve this purpose. We believe our mission binds the Academy to the Army — the Army in which our cadets will serve.”
The mission statement has been changed nine times before and the lines “duty, honor, country,” were added in 1998.
“It defines who we are as an institution and as graduates of West Point,” the statement said. “These three hallowed words are the hallmark of the cadet experience and bind the Long Gray Line together across our great history.”
The news that West Point was changing its mission statement was criticized by some conservatives who said it was another example of the military’s mission drift.
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&#8220;The elimination of &#8216;Duty, Honor, Country&#8217; from West Point’s mission statement is a direct reflection of undesirable shifts in our service academies,&#8221; Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarshaBlackburn/status/1768659580551115069" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. &#8220;The values that have led generations should not be erased to appeal to the cultural moment.&#8221;
&#8220;Wow! #WestPoint announcing they’ve gone full globalist,&#8221; commentator Rachel Campos Duff <a href="https://twitter.com/RCamposDuffy/status/1768088990131847678" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> on X. &#8220;Purposely tanking recruitment of young Americans patriots to make room for the illegal mercenaries.&#8221;
&#8220;West Point has dropped ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ from its mission statement and replaced it with the more generic ‘Army Values,'&#8221; conservative think tank Center for Renewing America said. &#8220;Is allegiance to country no longer a requirement for U.S. military service?&#8221;

DOD Secretary Lloyd Austin Presides Over West Point Commencement Ceremony

West Point Removes ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ From Mission Statement, Replaces With ‘Army Values’

Military

U.S. Army

West Point

Here&#8217;s a statistic that, at least if you were born at any point prior to the 1990s, is probably pretty hard to believe. By revenue, the gaming industry is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2023/11/17/the-gaming-industry-a-behemoth-with-unprecedented-global-reach/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bigger</a> than both the movie industry and the music industry — combined. And for the past several years, it hasn&#8217;t been particularly close. The difference is consistently more than $100 billion per year. Games are a massive market, one that&#8217;s mostly targeted at young people. But despite those numbers, for the most part, the games industry has avoided mainstream scrutiny. You&#8217;ll see far more discussion about, say, Sydney Sweeney or Taylor Swift than you&#8217;ll ever see about prominent video game voice actors and directors — who pretty much no one knows anything about. Everyone&#8217;s heard of Lionsgate, or Paramount, but almost no one&#8217;s heard of studios like &#8220;Don&#8217;t Nod Entertainment,&#8221; for example.
And that&#8217;s significant, because these no-name studios are behind the single most coordinated effort to indoctrinate millions of children through entertainment that&#8217;s ever occurred in this country. This effort is maybe more powerful than teachers&#8217; unions, if only because these propagandists mostly work in secret. Even if you homeschool your children, they&#8217;re not immune to it. You might have heard something about one of the companies behind this indoctrination effort, called &#8220;Sweet Baby Inc&#8221; or SBI. In a moment, I&#8217;ll get into the details about what exactly they&#8217;re doing, and who&#8217;s helping them do it.
But first, I want to get the good news out of the way. If there&#8217;s any silver lining, it&#8217;s that this effort to indoctrinate children is incredibly hamfisted. Some of the dumbest people in the world are behind it. Take that studio I just mentioned — &#8220;Don&#8217;t Nod Entertainment.&#8221; They&#8217;re behind the very popular &#8220;Life is Strange&#8221; video game series, which has been played by tens of millions of people. To give you an idea of how overt the propaganda is in &#8220;Life is Strange,&#8221; here&#8217;s just one, mercifully short sequence involving — what else — a racist white guy. There&#8217;s some backstory about how he kidnapped an innocent Hispanic kid or something:
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&#8220;We need to build a wall,&#8221; says the white racist kidnapping the innocent Hispanic boy. This is a game that, if Wikipedia is to be believed, received &#8220;generally positive reviews. &#8230; Critics praised the story.&#8221;
So we can conclude that the bar is incredibly low in this entire industry. All that developers have to do is beat their audience over the head with rote Left-wing propaganda, and their game will be well-received. The more recent game &#8220;Suicide Squad&#8221; is another prominent example. They decided to write a story about Batman&#8217;s toxic masculinity, which ended with a girlboss shooting Batman. Here&#8217;s part of that sequence:
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You can just imagine how many purple-haired women must work at that studio. They probably provide the hair dye on tap. I didn&#8217;t play that game, obviously. I haven&#8217;t played any of these games. I am not a video game fan or player, as most people I think know by now. But the point is that these clips were all over the internet because of how awful they are. They&#8217;re just terrible in every way — even just from a quality perspective — even if you happen to agree with their politics.
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But the fact remains that, for children of a certain age, the propaganda doesn&#8217;t need to be subtle. All they need to do is present it to children, and it can be effective. That&#8217;s why some anonymous people using the games platform &#8220;Steam&#8221; decided to figure out exactly who&#8217;s putting this garbage in games, and why.
They found that the company I mentioned earlier, called &#8220;Sweet Baby Inc.&#8221; — no relation to the Sweet Baby Gang, I swear off any association and I would file a lawsuit for copyright infringement, if not for the fact that I don’t have a copyright, and also Sweet Baby Inc. existed first, technically, but never mind that — anyway, these people on Steam found that Sweet Baby Inc. has contracted with major publishers to push principles of DEI in video games, as aggressively as possible. Sweet Baby Inc., or SBI, worked with the developers of the game I just showed you, Suicide Squad. They&#8217;ve also had a role in several other major releases.
On their website, SBI boasts that they&#8217;re committed to installing principles of &#8220;diversity&#8221; into games. And they do it forcibly. In fact, the co-founder and CEO of SBI, a woman named Kim Belair, recently spoke to game developers and instructed them to threaten their companies unless they comply with Sweet Baby&#8217;s DEI mandates:
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This is how DEI works in every industry, of course. The goal isn&#8217;t to improve the company&#8217;s product in any way. It&#8217;s to blackmail companies and threaten them into submission. Pay the DEI tax, or we&#8217;ll destroy you. Only in the games industry, where everyone is dumber than they are in every other industry, do they just come right out and say it.
Along these lines, as you might have guessed, so-called games journalists are somehow even dumber than journalists in other industries, too — which is really saying something. They&#8217;re completely unable to hide their real goals or display any hint of subtlety whatsoever. For example, in response to clips like this surfacing, games writers have produced several articles portraying SBI as the victim of a &#8220;harassment campaign&#8221; — by which they mean people are noticing what SBI is doing. For example, here&#8217;s how a writer for the website Polygon, Joshua Rivera, <a href="https://twitter.com/jmrivera02/status/1767600140695867472?s=20">responded</a> to people who are concerned about SBI: &#8220;In a just world these clowns would have their steam accounts turned off, their PlayStations bricked and get booted from any respectable social platform.&#8221;
So in the games industry, the journalists just come right out and demand that you&#8217;re deleted from the Internet if you dare to look deeper into their narrative. So let&#8217;s do that. In a recent podcast, Kim Belair explains that her company&#8217;s mandate is to make every game political. There has to be &#8220;diverse representation&#8221; in all contexts, even in, say, World War I:
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So SBI wants to &#8220;build a narrative and a story that includes moments and elements custom-made to bring representation and joy to people.&#8221; And she uses the example of World War I. There weren&#8217;t a whole lot of women fighting on the front lines of World War I. But they shoehorn that into their game anyway, because at every possible opportunity, they need to minimize and demonize white men. White men cannot be the hero of anything, even historical events where they were the heroes, like World War I. The point is to attack white men whenever possible.
We&#8217;re seeing this at all levels in the gaming industry. Here, for example, is Dani Lalonders. She reportedly used <a href="https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1767681553755509171">to work</a> at Sweet Baby Inc. just a year ago. Now she works for a studio at EA, one of the biggest games studios on the planet. Watch as she explains why she doesn&#8217;t hire white people on her team, because they commit all kinds of microaggressions:
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Notice that she doesn&#8217;t say what the white microaggressions were. Maybe those nasty white people said something nice about her hair. Maybe they asked where she was from. Maybe they say, &#8220;Hey, cut that line of dialogue about building the wall — it&#8217;s a little too on the nose.&#8221; Who knows? In any event, this is an employee of a major games studio straight-up admitting that she doesn&#8217;t hire white people. This isn&#8217;t just unethical; it&#8217;s illegal. It&#8217;s the kind of thing that&#8217;s usually left unsaid in major corporations. But it&#8217;s standard practice in the games industry to just come right out and announce it. To give another example — also in response to the SBI story — a senior editor at the gaming site Kotaku wrote, &#8220;hi! you can&#8217;t be racist against white people! thanks for tuning in!&#8221;
The people writing this garbage are &#8220;true believers.&#8221; They&#8217;re the low-IQ foot soldiers. But the reason they&#8217;re so well-funded is more interesting. As the former games executive Mark Kern explained this week, the cost of producing games is extremely high. It&#8217;s higher than it&#8217;s ever been, in fact. So games studios are looking to raise money in any way possible. And one way to get a lot of money is through ESG financing:
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What <a href="http://e.sg/">ESG</a> financing entails, Kern goes on to say, is that games studios have to agree to all kinds of conditions — including hiring companies like SBI to &#8220;diversify&#8221; their games.
In other words, what&#8217;s happening here is much bigger than SBI. It&#8217;s about the companies that fund SBI. That includes a fund called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2Er7X1PSHM&amp;t=425s">Baby Ghosts</a>, which is also run by anti-white managers who are proud of their bigotry. It also includes the biggest institutional investors on the planet, like Vanguard and Blackrock, which own a substantial portion of gaming companies like Microsoft. These entities are creating the incentives. The only good news, as Kern points out later in that interview, is that ESG financing is drying up, in part because interest rates are changing. And there&#8217;s more exposure than ever to this propaganda, which makes it less effective.
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The U.S. government appears to be aware of that, and they view it as a potential problem. They want the propaganda to continue. We know that because, on its website, a nonprofit called &#8220;Take This&#8221; <a href="https://boundingintocomics.com/2024/03/12/us-government-funded-non-profit-take-this-responds-to-sweet-baby-inc-backlash-by-calling-on-video-game-industry-to-clearly-and-unequivocally-denounce-gamergate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">labels</a> all criticism of SBI as &#8220;harassment.&#8221; They&#8217;re coordinating a response to it. What&#8217;s &#8220;Take This&#8221;? Apparently, according to their website, they&#8217;re a &#8220;mental health nonprofit&#8221; that&#8217;s funded by the Department of Homeland Security. In other words, your tax dollars are paying for the defense of propagandists targeting children in the video game industry. For some reason, DHS is involved.
And actually, it&#8217;s worse than that. As the Intercept <a href="https://theintercept.com/2024/03/09/fbi-dhs-gamers-extremism-violence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> this month, &#8220;Gaming companies are coordinating with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to root out so-called domestic violent extremist content, according to a new government report. Noting that mechanisms have been established with social media companies to police extremism, the report recommends that the national security agencies establish new and similar processes with the vast gaming industry.&#8221;
What this means is that the video game industry — without a lot of fanfare — has transformed into a tool of both propaganda and surveillance. It&#8217;s an effective way to indoctrinate children precisely because it hasn&#8217;t received much attention. Now, finally, that attention is here. And it&#8217;s yet another reason to keep these games as far away from your children as possible. If you do that, games journalists — literally the lowest form of journalist on the planet — will accuse you of &#8220;harassment.&#8221; That&#8217;s how you&#8217;ll know you&#8217;re doing the right thing.

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