As the wind slowly goes out of the sails of corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, it’s worth noting just how much purveyors of this nonsense have peddled their ideology under the false premise of data, science, and research. The Wall Street Journal published an article Friday about how the consulting firm McKinsey announced in 2015 that it had “found a link between profits and executive racial and gender diversity.” This research was “used by investors, lobbyists, and regulators to push for more women and minority groups on boards, and to justify investing in companies that appointed them.” It certainly has paid big dividends for peddlers of DEI. Within five years, there was a massive shift in how many companies hired and conducted their business. In 2020, the DEI ethos metastasized. Companies not only embraced the “racial reckoning,” they began to implement full-scale—and almost certainly illegal—racial quotas. The study gave corporations air cover to promote ideologically motivated diversity programs while saying that it was simply “good for business.” It wasn’t. What it was good for was transforming the world of Big Business into an outpost of academia. In that sense, it worked. But the original pro-business justification has turned out to be a scam. According to The Wall Street Journal, “academics have tried to repeat McKinsey’s findings and failed, concluding that there is in fact no link between profitability and executive diversity.” The only thing that the study found was that profitable companies ended up with more diversity—after they had succeeded, not before. That makes sense in a lot of ways. Big companies that are highly profitable could more easily afford to simply promote DEI with fewer consequences. A company that’s scrambling to launch itself doesn’t have that luxury. The authors of the McKinsey study say they’ve found a way to prove correlation between DEI programs and profitability, but even that is in doubt. The Wall Street Journal noted that McKinsey won’t release the names of the companies it used for the study, and it was unable to show benefits from diversity on a large range of metrics. There was just no link at all between diversity and corporate success. Now, that may not seem like a big deal. What’s one sham study among many other spurious studies? One would think it would take more than one study to persuade companies with billions of dollars on the line that using race, gender, and identity over merit is a risky proposal. But in this case, it matters a whole lot. Not only did many companies adopt the research as true, but the most powerful financial and governmental institutions with vast powers over the market picked it up and used it to foist DEI on corporate America. From the Journal: McKinsey’s research figures first in BlackRock’s references for supporting a board diversity target of 30% in its proxy voting guidelines.  It featured prominently among studies used by a Securities and Exchange Commission commissioner in 2020 to explain why she supported corporate disclosure of diversity metrics. Nasdaq cited it as evidence when the exchange applied to the SEC for a rule requiring companies it lists to have minimum diversity on boards, or explain why they don’t.  It has been cited by dozens of campaign groups pushing for rules to support consideration of social issues by pension funds and others, too. BlackRock, according to the Journal, cited the study as evidence that diversity created financial benefits when it created an exchange-traded fund that tracked a diversity index. That index has done quite poorly, “returning about 55% against more than 70% for the global index without diversity conditions.” BlackRock has gotten into hot water over its corporate practices and has announced that it is stepping away from environmental, social, and governance investing. We’ll see if that continues. What’s been clear to me from the beginning is that DEI is not merely about “diversity” in the general sense. It’s about ensuring a certain mindset. Paradoxically, the DEI industry is about creating a conformity of worldviews where every institution, every CEO, every employee is roped into the same left-wing beliefs and swims in the same direction. Those who dissent are punished and ostracized. There is now a growing counter movement to prevent this full-scale transformation. And it’s getting harder for businesses to justify their ideological commitments when they are bleeding money. Nevertheless, the DEI ethos has dug deep into America’s powerful institutions—and that includes corporate America—despite its increasing unpopularity. Don’t count on its purveyors to suddenly give up after real world failures. They undoubtedly will say that true DEI hasn’t been tried and will find new ways to impose their ideology on the American people. The post The Bogus Study at the Heart of Corporate DEI appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The world (and the US with it, with the current US administration pretty much leading the way) has for the last few years witnessed what has obviously been a concerted effort to make “AI-powered deepfakes” a thing. Specifically – a thing that can negatively shape up an election, or even break a democracy. Anyone, especially apolitical people but those with even a cursory knowledge of the “deepfakes” tech and how long it’s been around in all sorts of media, might have been confused as to why this rhetoric is happening, and why now? Well – now – months before a US presidential election, we’re starting to get answers. President Joe Biden is trying to remain in office – and now the White House is giving the world an indication of why the “deepfakes” scaremongering was launched in the first place (and then dutiful picked up by certain – or let’s say, most – corporate media.) “Confused and disoriented” is a (believe it or not) nicer way to describe the situation with President Biden and his public appearances; the latest, and at this time, the most important, concerns his performance during debates last week. Instead of trying to prop their candidate up (figuratively and literally) in some credible way, the current White House decided to label the media showing clips of Biden “malfunctioning” as, in addition to being “disinformation, misinformation” – also “cheap fakes.” But what in the world is that? Is it a video that somebody just happens to dislike, so it’s branded in a way deceptively invoking the dreaded “deepfakes”? White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre was certainly working hard to earn her salary when she tried to explain this one. “Not at all,” Jean-Pierre said, when quizzed if there was regret over criticizing the media for “clips showing the president appearing to be confused, freezing at times, and you (White House) called it ‘cheap fakes,’ misinformation, disinformation.” “At the end of the day, they were fakes,” the press secretary asserted. “And the cheap fakes didn’t come from me, I didn’t coin that. That came from the media… I don’t regret it at all, it was just the facts.” https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/kjp-cheap.mp4 If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post White House Defends Labeling Critical Biden Videos as “Deepfakes” appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Even the New York Times looks like it’s treading somewhat lightly while publishing articles aimed at dismantling the very concept of the First Amendment. An opinion piece penned by an Obama and Biden administration adviser, Tim Wu, is therefore labeled as a “guest essay.” But was it the author, or the newspaper, who decided on the title? Because it is quite scandalous. “The First Amendment is Out of Control” – that’s the title. Meanwhile, many believe that attacks on this speech-protecting constitutional amendment are what’s actually out of control these days. Wu takes a somewhat innovative route to argue against free speech: he painstakingly frames it as concern that the universally mistrusted Big Tech might be abusing it, with the latest Supreme Court ruling regarding Texas and Florida laws, (ab)used as an example. When the government colludes with mighty entities like major social platforms – the First Amendment becomes the primary recourse to defend speech now expressed in public square forums forged through the pervasiveness of the internet. So despite Wu’s effort to make his message seem unbiased, the actual takeaways are astonishing: one is that the First Amendment is an obstacle for the government to protect citizens (for being invoked as a tool restraining censorship?) But this means that the First Amendment, designed to protect citizens from government censorship, is doing its job. In the same vein, contrary to the sentiment of this “essay,” the amendment is there not to protect “national security” – nor does free speech undermine that, in a democracy. You don’t like TikTok? Let’s just ban it…but the pesky First Amendment stands in the way of that? What Wu ignores here is that the bill that allows banning TikTok is so ambiguous it can be used to get rid of other, for whatever reason, “disliked” apps. Wu also doesn’t like that the amendment is used to counter privacy and security-undermining age verification laws, like California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code. “Suicide pact” is how Wu referred to the impact of the First Amendment in the 1949 dissenting opinion in the Terminiello v. City of Chicago “riot incitement” case. As has lately become the norm with the First Amendment detractors: this is lots of words, most of them empty, some dramatic, but overall, free speech-unfriendly. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Former Biden Advisor Claims “The First Amendment Is Out of Control,” Hinders Government Action appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

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The internet is buzzing with delight over a unique and captivating video featuring Badu, the singing cat. Badu, a beautiful black cat, has captured the hearts of millions with his soulful blues singing. This charming feline lays comfortably on his owner’s music camp, where a magical musical interaction unfolds, creating a heartwarming scene that has... The post Dad plays the Blues but watch his cat hilariously transform it into a duet appeared first on Animal Channel.

In Petaluma, California, a one-of-a-kind beauty pageant unfolds each year, drawing crowds and canine contestants alike. This isn’t your typical dog show – it’s the world-renowned competition aimed at finding the “world’s ugliest dog.” The event celebrates the unique appearances and stories of various dogs, showcasing their charm and resilience. Amidst the excitement and wagging... The post Pekingese is crowned ‘World’s Ugliest Dog’ but wait till you see his adorable face appeared first on Animal Channel.

A new study conducted over a nine-month period determined that among guests who discussed political issues on late-night programs, an overwhelming 94% were liberal.Between October 2023-June 2024, guests of the following late-night talk shows were analyzed: "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" (ABC), "Late Night with Seth Meyers" (NBC), "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" (NBC), "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" (CBS), and "The Daily Show" (Comedy Central).Guests were tallied as either liberal or conservative regardless of the subject matter but were labeled based on what they said in the segment. Categories of guests included celebrities and journalists and partisan officials. Former partisan officials who changed jobs were counted among celebrities and journalists. The politician label included current and previously elected office holders, staffers, spouses of politicians, etc.The study found that the overwhelming majority of guests could be considered liberal, totaling 137 versus just eight conservatives.Host Stephen Colbert has the highest discrepancy between hosting Democrat and Republican officials, at a ratio of 14:1. Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon did not host any Republicans at all. The various "The Daily Show" hosts, however, hosted the most with four. The Comedy Central show had Republicans Nancy Mace and Nikki Haley on its program, while Colbert's Republican of choice was Liz Cheney, Media Research Center reported.'Late-night hosts have abandoned comedy to dutifully deliver regime-approved talking points in lockstep.'For Democrats, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and former Obama staffers were just some of the left-leaning individuals who were welcomed on the shows.In terms of journalists and celebrities, 104 liberals were interviewed versus just three conservatives. Colbert again had the most partisan showing with 34 left-wing interviewees and none from the right wing. "The Daily Show," on the other hand, had 29 liberals compared to three conservatives; Meyers went 21 to zero.Those who were tallied in the conservative category weren't exactly hard-line Republicans, either. The three who were noted as journalists or celebrities were Dr. Phil, author Jonathan Haidt, and comedian Bill Burr, who makes it a point to consistently mock both sides of the political spectrum.The most frequent appearances by partisan guests were led by a fellow late-night host John Oliver, who had seven guest spots on the shows. MSNBC's Chris Hayes, CBS's Gayle King, and CNN's Jake Tapper were some of the more frequent guests as well. Host Meyers himself made three appearances on the circuit.Other notables included Arnold Schwarzenegger, CNN's Anderson Cooper, and ABC host George Stephanopoulos. A complete list of guests is available online."Late-night hosts have abandoned comedy to dutifully deliver regime-approved talking points in lockstep," political strategist Kingsley Wilson told Blaze News. "The only thing amusing about these hosts is their inability to connect with the average Americans outside their elitist bubbles.""It's no wonder late-night TV is losing viewers and money faster than Joe Biden loses his train of thought," Wilson joked.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Christian and pro-life Republicans are bracing for a betrayal in Milwaukee when Republican National Committee members gather the week ahead of the convention to hammer out and vote on a party platform. Word is spreading around town that the Trump campaign wants a smaller, simplified party platform — one that excludes (or at least waters down) the pro-life plank. The 2016 platform, which was used again in 2020, states: “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.” Similar language has been included since Ronald Reagan was nominated in 1980. Now, that forceful stance is on the chopping block. The moves, planned in secret, are intended to broaden former President Donald Trump’s appeal but risk backfiring badly, fracturing the party and dominating RNC headlines. Warning signs abound. For the first time since conservatives forced entry into the party’s back rooms in 1980, activists have been barred from the proceedings. Those original activists, spearheaded by the late conservative legend Phyllis Schlafly, knew that sunlight disinfected the closed-door process — and fought to keep that light shining. Exorcising the socially conservative parts of the platform won’t bring in new voters, but it will alienate committed voters. Worse yet, the party has barred media, including C-SPAN, from Platform Committee deliberations. While media have never had access to the smaller subcommittee meetings held in the lead-up to the Platform Committee meeting, barring cameras from capturing the arguments and stands of the 112 committee members is a serious break in precedent — and a serious cause for worry. Next, the campaign seized control of the process. There are 2,429 delegates to the convention, and each state and territory gets to nominate some of their numbers to the Platform Committee and to its subcommittees. “When the Trump campaign was working with state parties to name delegates, absolute loyalty to whatever platform changes the Trump campaign wanted was a mandatory qualification,” one person familiar with the matter told Blaze News. It was an “unprecedented” level of “command and control.” “We're being shut out for the first time,” Catholic Vote director of public affairs and Platform Committee veteran Tom McClusky told Blaze News. “At the state level, delegates with strong pro-life credentials are being blocked and replaced. … It’s a series of troubling occurrences that make me wary for when we see the language.” “It isn’t just pro-life stuff,” another person long connected to the process told Blaze News, pointing to the former president’s turn away from the defense of traditional marriage. “But the fundamental problem is unlike any campaign in the past; they’re insisting this is the campaign’s platform,” the convention veteran said. “It's not: It's supposed to be the party’s platform. Until you address that, the rest is just circumstantial.” It’s unusual for a campaign to make these sorts of demands. No administration since Richard Nixon’s in 1972 has worked so imperiously to exert itself over the process. That’s not to say there haven’t been fights, but they came with pushback from the ground up. When then-Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) demanded that the pro-life aspects of the platform be watered down during his ill-fated presidential bid, independent-minded committeemen ( and a little staff sabotage) aborted his plans. The problem for pro-lifers today, McClusky dryly notes, is that Trump generates a lot more excitement and loyalty than Dole, then-Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Mitt Romney, or George W. Bush did. And the campaign is counting on that. "Unfortunately the votes are probably not there to prevent changes," one activist said. "As of right now, they are planning to simplify and stick to the president's 10th Amendment [back-to-the-states] language, which is going to really anger the pro-life people no matter what." There’s a point to the platform. It’s long and complicated but represents a thousand party interests, with all of them paying in. More, it’s a useful tool to organize. For example: The IRS allows churches to post the platform, even if they’re technically not allowed to endorse candidates. Evangelical Republican activist Ralph Reed mastered this in decades past, sending out portions of the Democrat and Republican platforms and allowing them to speak for themselves. “That’s the problem,” another person familiar with the process explained to Blaze News. “Trump people marched in, said, 'We’re running this show. Now, how does this show work?'" And it’s essential to understand that changing the platform doesn't deter Democrats’ attacks. The campaign of Joe Biden or Kamala Harris (or whomever) is going to paint Donald Trump as anti-abortion, anti-contraceptive, and anti-woman. You can bet the house on that. So what is stripping it from the platform actually going to achieve? The short answer is a lot of things Republicans don’t need to be dealing with right now. Trump has unified the Republican Party. Democrats are in total meltdown. Exorcising the socially conservative parts of the platform won’t bring in new voters, but it will alienate committed voters. What’s more, it will hijack the proceedings, and the infighting will dominate headlines. Conservatives are already clamoring about the rumored changes, and people and organizations new to the process are suddenly making noise about it. “There are people who have never worked on the platform suddenly caring for the platform,” McClusky said, citing groups like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Students for Life. That is not to say that conservatives can’t live with an altered platform — just not one that kicks abortion entirely to the states without tackling the federal government’s active, 50-year role in abortions at home and abroad. “No one in their heart of hearts can believe there is no federal role,” McClusky explained. “The federal government has been pro-abortion since Roe v. Wade, sending billions of dollars toward abortions. At the very, very, very least, Donald Trump should call for neutrality at the federal level — that he will not block states and that he will stop subsidizing abortion.” “You can change the language to say we’re working toward a culture that accepts a pro-life stand and, at that point, a constitutional amendment, but if you walk away from backing a constitutional amendment, it will deflate a lot of pro-lifers.” The first sign delegates can look to will be Sunday, when they arrive at the welcome reception. There’s no rule that they have to be given a party platform to read over that night, but it would be highly unusual if they weren’t — and a sign that the authors don’t to give much time to read it at all. "It's going to come in a tricky way,” one of the conservative activists working on the issue predicted. “Here's how it’s going to play out: The Trump campaign is going to have the RNC delegates introduce a pre-written platform, and it’s going to be streamlined and it's not going to include any of the abortion language. Then the committees will deliberate for one or two days, and they'll make changes and add amendments, but we've looked through the list and it's stacked for the campaign. The campaign really thinks abortion is going to kill us this year.” A streamlined platform “makes a nice, clean platform,” one platform veteran said, “but it makes a sterile platform.” “It’s like Jenga,” McClusky explained. “If you take a piece out, and Trump nominates a bad vice president like [Gov.] Doug Burgum, then suddenly pro-lifers realize they don’t have a party any more.” “I don’t think the people writing the platform understand the significance of the platform.” “We don't have a majority to keep it,” one activist worried, “so the hope is the Trump language isn't as bad, or it is bad and you pull together 30, 35 delegates to amend the language. We’re willing to accept some watering down of the language so long as it maintains the message. You need to throw a bone to these people. It's just a needless provocation.” “They don’t have to do this! The Democrats are going to spend a billion in attack ads regardless, so you're not gaining — you're just losing. You've got the party united behind you. This divides the party.” National Review: For guidance on ensuring a good Republican platform, look to the past Sign up for the Beltway Brief by Blaze Media newsletter Sign up to get Blaze Media senior politics editor Christopher Bedford's newsletter. The fire rises: The Daily Caller News Foundation: Communist Party talent program scooped up former Microsoft researchers. Now they work in China’s AI industry. China has no greater ally or asset in the United States than our own greedy corporations. Some of them are even dumb enough to brag about it. Will Kessler reports: ...Microsoft boasted in a 2016 news release that 20 alumni of its Asian research institute, called Microsoft Research Asia, had been selected for membership in the Thousand Talents Program. Through Chinese-language news reports, the DCNF identified six prominent former Microsoft researchers who went on to join the CCP’s Thousand Talents Program while working for China-based companies and universities. ... More than 10,000 scientists have been recruited as part of the program, former CIA Senior Intelligence Service member William Hannas told The New York Times. “This isn’t just any old recruitment program that recruits and trains technologists like we would have in America,” Geoffrey Cain, an author and journalist who’s spent a decade investigating Microsoft in China, told the DCNF. “This is a communist party-run project to ensure that China can achieve technological supremacy over the Western liberal democratic world.”

Disney's "She-Hulk: Attorney At Law" was a total disaster. The budget for each episode of the lecturous series was reportedly $25 million — an investment that translated neither into quality nor viewership. The audience score for the show on Rotten Tomatoes is 32%. Even woke blogs like the Daily Beast couldn't stand it, noting it offered "every tired 'man=bad' trope you've ever seen" and nothing of substance. While Disney ultimately mercy-killed the series after nine episodes, its star, Tatitana Maslany, has not given up on blathering leftist talking points to small audiences of fellow travelers. Maslany recently returned to her hometown of Regina, Saskatchewan, to receive a plaque commemorating her 2022 induction into Canada's Walk of Fame. She seized upon the opportunity to decry the democratic will of the people of Saskatchewan and the parental rights they hold dear. 'It should not be in the control of parents how a child identifies.' In recent months and years, there has been an effort in Canada to replicate American red states' success in bolstering parental rights. The province of Saskatchewan, for instance, ratified a parental bill of rights in October. Blaze News previously reported that Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe's government, handed an overwhelming majority and clear mandate by the electorate in 2020, announced in August 2023 new parental inclusion and consent policies aimed at protecting parental rights in the classroom. The province would accordingly not only temporarily cut radical LGBT activist groups out of sex education in the classroom, but require that if a child wanted to identify as a member of the opposite sex in school, educators could not play along unless the student's parents consented. This would help ensure that educators would not groom students for transition behind parents' backs. The socialist New Democratic Party, LGBT activist groups, and other radicals fought ardently to keep parents in the dark. The LGBT activist group UR Pride Centre for Sexuality and Gender Diversity even secured a temporary injunction against the proposed policies. However, the Moe government and parents in the province prevailed. Moe's education minister introduced the act to the legislature as Bill 137 on Oct. 12, revealing that the province would invoke section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to see it through. This maneuver, called the "notwithstanding clause" or the "nuclear option," enabled Saskatchewan to override certain Charter rights with which the legislation might conflict, thereby protecting it from court challenges as well as challenges under the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code. In addition to making sure teachers couldn't use pronouns mismatched with a student's actual sex, the legislation underscored that parents were the primary decision-makers with regard to their kids' education. The bill passed in a 40-12 vote and subsequently became the law of the land. Maslany, who has apparently lived in Los Angeles for years, claimed at her plaque conferral last week that the law affirming parents' rights amounted to "overreach," reported CTV News. "It should not be in the control of parents how a child identifies. How a child knows themself to be. That isn't a parent's place — it's an overreach," said Maslany. "It's an overreach on the part of the provincial government to legislate that. It's absurd." After implying that it wasn't overreach for teachers — also government employees — to shape how other people's children identify, the Hollywood script reader said, "Children have rights. Children are human beings who have knowledge and who know themselves, and we should be taking cues from them. In so many ways, we should be taking cues from them." "Listening to them, empowering them to know who they are and to name that," continued Maslany. "It's their right. It's not the parent's right." Footage of Maslany's remarks obtained by state media reveal that she did not limit herself to bemoaning parental rights. Fighting back tears, she also accused Israel of genocide. "As a Canadian, it's strange to be standing up here when we are witnessing the genocide of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israeli settler colonial state," said the script reader. "We watch and we do nothing, and I would say with whatever platform I have that we can't do nothing and I would demand that our government demand a ceasefire. Stop funding the genocide. Stop being complicit in it." She concluded her rant with, "Free Palestine." Bounding into Comics highlighted that Maslany's radicalism is nothing new. Before it was altogether clear that her Marvel show was a dud, Maslany told Elle magazine in 2022 that she had worn pro-transgenderism apparel in "She-Hulk" publicity videos in protest of Florida's Parental Rights in Education law. "I felt, as an employee of Disney, that I had to speak," said Maslany. "Stand with the people who I stand with. I wanted to let people know, who needed to know, that I was with them." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!