PrairiePundit

  The Federalist Wire: ... In a pointed critique following the recent 2024 election, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stressed the need for the Democratic Party to prioritize the concerns of working-class Americans. Sanders’ comments come in the wake of a significant Republican victory, with President-elect Donald Trump defeating Vice President Kamala Harris and sweeping all seven swing states. This outcome has sparked discussions on the Democratic Party’s current direction and strategy, with some questioning whether it has strayed too far from the core issues that matter to everyday workers. Sanders, who comfortably secured re-election in Vermont, has been vocal in his concerns, arguing that the Democratic Party has drifted away from its working-class roots. Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, he emphasized that Democrats need to show stronger support for economic policies aimed at benefiting working Americans. “We need an agenda that says to the working class, we’re going to take on ...

 UnHerd: The Democrat plan to censor America They don't believe the First Amendment is fit for purpose Perhaps we should censor the "woke" movement that is behind the desire to censor speech they do not agree with. 

 DC Dail;y Journal  says Kamala Haris urged everyone to become "woke" and urged people to be more "woke." Conservatives see this as extreme liberalism. See also: Video Resurfaces of Raskin Seditiously Plotting to Block Trump Election, Trigger Civil War 'I believe this is called a criminal conspiracy to commit election interference...' And:   Dems outspending GOP nearly 2x on presidential race

 Washington Times: Rather than go broke, a merchant isn’t going woke. One of America’s leading rural-supply merchants announced Thursday that it is ending all “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion” programs and will no longer support LGBTQ and global warming causes. Tractor Supply Co. posted a statement on social media detailing its new direction after three weeks of social media and other backlash over the previous attachments to left-wing causes that are not popular with its customer base. ... I occasionally shop at Tractor Supply and I am amazed that management even thought their customers would embrace their woke agenda.  

 Business Insider: The military has been struggling to recruit new members . And according to the nation's top general, "wokeness" is playing at least a small role. In an interview with the Washington Post , Gen. Mark Milley — the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a key reason driving the recruitment shortfalls, noting that military recruiters couldn't engage in normal on-campus high school recruitment for two years. He also pointed to data showing that recruits are failing a key academic test to get into the military, which he also suggested was caused by the pandemic. But while Milley insisted that "wokeness" isn't the main reason for the recruitment shortfall, he did say it was a "contributing factor." "I personally think that it's overstated," Milley said of "wokeness," adding: "There are things that are done in the military that certainly, you know, raise that as an issue, b...

 Warner Todd Huston: Calif. Democrats Floating Law to Take Kids Away from Parents Who Aren’t Woke Enough ... Worse, the idea is to beat down a parent’s door and take the kids away without notice or explanation (until later) if those parents are not woke enough. ... It is strange that the state thinks people are crazy if they are not "woke."  See, also: NIH guide warns against describing pronouns as ‘chosen,’ pushes slew of 40 different options According to the NIH document, intentionally using an incorrect pronoun could be 'a violation of one’s civil rights' An office within the National Institutes of Health published a guideline that outlines how professionals should use gendered pronouns to "affirm gender identity" for themselves and colleagues, warning that intentionally using the wrong pronouns is "equivalent to harassment." Fox News Digital reviewed the NIH Sexual & Gender Minority Research Office’s "Gender Pronouns & Their Use i...

 Dan McLaughlin: It’s Not Hard to Define Wokeness If You’re Honest  Wokeness is a real ideology that makes everything revolve around hierarchies of identity groups. Anyone who says it can’t be defined is hiding something. ...  I get the impression that I am not "woke." 

 The Lid: WAR On Woke: DeSantis Team Reveals First PR Strategy Here Comes The First Iteration Of Ron DeSantis’ Presidential Persona. Florida appears to be prospering by avoiding the woke policies of the left. 

 The Hill: Top House Republicans say the Pentagon’s budget will be on the table as Republicans seek to negotiate spending cuts in exchange for raising the federal debt ceiling — and have placed a bullseye on “wokeness” in the military. Exactly what that means remains somewhat unclear, but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and others in his caucus have pointed to programs including efforts to diversify the military, identify alternative fuels and other environmental initiatives. “We’re going to cut money that’s being spent on wokeism, we’re going to cut legacy programs, we’re going to cut a lot of waste,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told The Hill on Wednesday. When asked specifically what programs they will push to cut, Rogers said to stay tuned to subcommittee hearings. In his bid to become Speaker, McCarthy agreed with conservative lawmakers to cap all new discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 levels, which would amount to a...

 Washington Post: She named her breakfast cafe Woke. A conservative backlash followed. This name was not the best marketing ploy for a diverse client base. 

  wretchardthecat @wretchardthecat The only way Woke could have sprung, as full grown censors from the forehead of culture is if they had quietly infiltrated institutions until it was safe to ditch the mask. Even Rowling didn't see it coming until too late. Quote Tweet Katherine Deves  @deves_katherine · Jan 15 “Belief in biological sex has been redefined as bigotry. Standing up for women’s sex-based rights has been rebranded as transphobia. So Rowling’s perfectly normal views, which are likely shared by most people out there, can be talked about as hate crimes” https:// spectator.co.uk/article/the-wa r-on-jk-rowling/ … 3:11 PM · Jan 15, 2023 · 4,450 Views 15 Retweets 1 Quote Tweet 53 Likes The woke insistence that everyone should have to pretend that men who pretend to be women really are women is absurd.

 Breitbart: The vast majority of U.S. active duty military members believe the Pentagon has become politicized, according to data obtained exclusively by Breitbart News. Sixty-eight percent of active duty members say they have “witnessed a growing politicization,” while 53 percent say the military has become “too politicized.” Sixty-eight percent also say such politicization would impact their decision to encourage their children to join the military. The data, gathered by the National Independent Panel on Military Service and Readiness (NIPMSR), show specific policy areas of concern for active duty military at a time when President Joe Biden’s Pentagon has been criticized by many for conducting social experiments in the ranks of the military, as opposed to focusing on national defense. The NIPMSR was empaneled by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. “The Pentagon should be focused on winning America’s future wars rather than prioritizing divisive programs and issues,” Rep....

 Fox News: ‘Woke’ military provisions are sticking points for GOP as vote on defense policy bill looms Republicans say they might prefer to delay NDAA until next year, when they will control House Democrat Sen. Schumer is accused of delaying the bill so that they're would be no time to debate the issue.  Making the military more "woke" will make it less effective and destroy morale.

 Michael Lind: ... In isolation, the transgender controversy might have been viewed as a strange aftershock of the gay rights movement, which achieved its much more moderate goals of civil and marriage equality for gay men and lesbian women by the first decade of the 21st century. But the imposition of transgender ideology through economic compulsion by the federal government and major private sector institutions was only the beginning. It was followed by the march through the institutions of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) based on “critical race theory” (CRT), a sectarian ideology that holds that all whites and “white-adjacent” Asian Americans, no matter how poor and powerless, are “privileged,” while all Black and Hispanic Americans, no matter how rich and powerful, are “marginalized” members of “underserved communities.” By the 2020s, at one university after another, applicants for faculty positions were required to submit “DEI statements,” listing the ways that they w...

 Reuters: Republican-led states have unleashed a policy push to punish Wall Street for taking stances on gun control, climate change, diversity and other social issues, in a warning for companies that have waded in to fractious social debates. Abortion rights are poised to be the next frontier. This year there are at least 44 bills or new laws in 17 conservative-led states penalizing such company policies, compared with roughly a dozen such measures in 2021, according to a Reuters analysis of state legislative agendas, public documents and statements. While some of the individual moves have been reported, the scale and speed at which such "anti-woke" state laws and policies are ballooning and the challenges they are creating for Wall Street companies is detailed here for the first time. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "woke" as being aware of and actively attentive to issues of racial and social justice, but it is often used by conservatives to disparage prog...

 Power Line: We haven’t written much about Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing, which is one of the evils of our time. Basically, it seeks to force publicly-traded companies to take left-wing policy positions. Perhaps the number one force behind ESG has been BlackRock, Inc., the world’s largest asset manager with  $10 trillion  under management. Given BlackRock’s prominence in the ESG movement, this headline couldn’t be more welcome:  BlackRock ditches green activism over Russia energy fears. BlackRock has warned it will vote against most shareholder green activism this year for being too extreme, in a significant u-turn by the world’s biggest money manager. The company said it was concerned about proposals to stop financing fossil fuel companies, including forcing them to decommission assets and setting absolute targets for reducing emissions in their supply chains. *** In a stewardship report, the asset manager said: “We do not consider [the propos...