Free Republic

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed legislation that strips Walt Disney World of its independent, special district status after the company objected to the state's new law regarding discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms. While the motive behind this action is problematic, some of its supporters argue that there is nothing to fret about, since it was time to revoke a cronyist privilege granted to Disney 50 years ago anyway. But if this is really a fight against cronyism, the legislation goes about it the wrong way.Cronyism is the unhealthy alliance of business and government. It takes...

If you thought the news about Woke Disney World couldn’t get worse, hang onto your hats because this latest development is going to shock even those of us who cannot be shocked anymore. (For those of you keeping track of the slippery slope, the bottom is nowhere in sight, unfortunately.) A new Disney Zoom video has been leaked by City Journal’s Christopher Rufo, who is truly doing God’s work letting parents know what the Mouse is up to—and it’s worse than you can imagine. Rufo tweeted, “Disney has adopted a benefits program to assist employees and their minor children with...

During a staff meeting on Florida’s recent enactment of the Parental Rights in Education bill, an executive producer at Disney said she was advancing a “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” to insert queerness into children’s animation. Latoya Raveneau, executive producer for Disney Television Animation, talked about how the studio’s treatment of her progressive ideas defied her negative expectations of the company, in a video obtained by journalist Christopher Rufo. Instead of vetoing her pitches for LGBTQ-friendly Easter eggs or overt references in her series, Disney gladly accepted and included them, she claimed. “In my little pocket of Proud Family Disney TVA, the...

Corporate America is “woke.” “Woke” means being aware of alleged social injustice – sometimes that injustice is real, but sometimes it’s just a contrived media narrative that stokes fear to gain viewers. Now, instead of just pitching their products, companies today are pitching political causes. Liberal political causes. Shampoo makers like Pantene used to run commercials about shampoo. Now they’re showing lesbian parents helping a biological boy become a girl. Dove is celebrating women’s different body types. Vaseline is “fighting for equity in skincare.” The gay agenda now has the support of the Oreo cookie. And Burger King is warning...

The San Francisco Giants will debut special uniforms to honor the LGBTQ+ community this week, the team announced on Tuesday, the first day of Pride Month. The move will make the Giants the first team in Major League Baseball to incorporate the 11 Pride colors into an on-field uniform. “We are extremely proud to stand with the LGBTQ+ community as we kick off one of the best annual celebrations in San Francisco by paying honor to the countless achievements and contributions of all those who identify as LGBTQ+ and are allies of the LGBTQ+ community,” Giants president and CEO Larry...

In a democracy, every vote is supposed to be equal. If about half the country supports one side and half the country supports another, you may expect major institutions to either be equally divided, or to try to stay politically neutral. This is not what we find. If it takes a position on the hot button social issues around which our politics revolve, almost every major institution in America that is not explicitly conservative leans left. In a country where Republicans get around half the votes or something close to that in every election, why should this be the case?...

The other day I wrote that “Woke” was the new conformism. It is, of course, but I undersold it. It is much more than that and more dangerous. As Tal Bachmann notes at Steynonline, it is now our state religion, a state religion in a country that—constitutionally and for good reason—is not supposed to have one. * * * * * * * * “Woke” gains adherents much in the manner of “est”—the cult-like Erhard Seminars Training—that I attended in the 1970s at the behest of a movie producer interested in making a film about it. (It never happened.) If...

Starbucks is reportedly considering closing its Facebook page as a result of the 'hateful comments' in response to some of their posts. An internal memo, obtained by Buzzfeed, showed concern within Starbucks at the rhetoric on the site. Starbucks mainly posts information about their beverages on the page, which is followed by 35 million people - but they also respond to social issues, such as the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, and the wave of anti-Asian attacks.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick hits back at corporations opposing proposed voting changes in his state.

Corporations have taken advantage of Republicans for too long. I won’t take their PAC dollars anymore. [cut] For too long, woke CEOs have been fair-weather friends to the Republican Party: They like us until the left’s digital pitchforks come out. Then they run away. Or they mouth off on legislation they don’t understand—and hurt the reputations of patriotic leaders protecting our elections and expanding the right to vote. Enough is enough. Corporations that flagrantly misrepresent efforts to protect our elections need to be called out, singled out and cut off. In my nine years in the Senate, I’ve received $2.6...

Hysteria, groupthink and a fair amount of hypocrisy are the key ingredients in a ­ruinous cocktail that has managed to intoxicate some formerly profit-focused boardrooms. One day, it’s the Adena Friedman-led Nasdaq stock market demanding that its US-listed companies have fully diverse boards even as it ignores a Chinese company’s treatment of the oppressed Uighur ethnic minority. The next, it’s Larry Fink of BlackRock pushing President Biden’s green-energy agenda while hawking high-priced funds that invest in such boondoggles. The latest episode of this farce involves Georgia’s new voter law, which we’re supposed to believe is the second coming of Jim...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Wednesday walked back his call for corporate America to “stay out of politics” after several big businesses publicly voiced opposition to Georgia’s voter integrity law. “I didn’t say that very artfully yesterday,” McConnell replied when asked about his comments. “They’re certainly entitled to be involved in politics. They are.

Former President Donald Trump fired a high, hard fastball at Major League Baseball on Friday night, urging fans to boycott the "national pastime" over its decision to pull this year’s All-Star Game from the Atlanta area. Trump asserted MLB’s leadership was "afraid of the Radical Left Democrats," claiming the party pressured MLB to relocate its mid-summer game because of Georgia’s new election law, recently signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. The former president also took aim at large "woke" corporations that issued statements against the Georgia law. "Baseball is already losing tremendous numbers of fans," Trump wrote, "and now they...

A shift in the corporate world with big American companies embracing so-called “woke” leftist policies along with increased retirements among the old guard of the GOP is fueling a populist surge inside the Republican Party, a new memo from GOP insiders reveals. The memo from CGCN, a government affairs firm staffed by top GOP insiders, is titled: “The Party They’ll Get, Not the Party They Want.” In the memo, which has no named author, CGCN warns the “business community” that their previous allies in the Republican Party are moving on from protecting business interests to instead focusing on populist priorities...

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms launched an initiative last year aimed at providing information to Second Amendment-loving Americans. The goal was to provide a comprehensive list of companies and/or CEOs who back gun control initiatives and legislation or have anti-firearm corporate policies in place. “When we started this project last year, we were actually surprised, and in some cases disappointed, at some of the businesses we added to the list," CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said in a statement. "We discovered several brand name businesses and corporate leaders who evidently have a nefarious agenda to...

America under the sway of the Black Lives Matter movement is reminding me of life in the Soviet Union: One's entire existence is premised on something believed to be untrue. The worst thing about socialism is not empty grocery stores or even the Gulags. The worst thing is harder to represent visually or to pinpoint, but it’s inescapable, and its damage extends for generations. The worst thing about socialism is what being forced to live a lie does to one’s psyche. Save for the few true believers whose numbers dwindle as time passes, virtually everyone experiences this mental toll.By “living...