woke Archives - The Wisconsin Daily Star

Commentary: Big Pharma’s Wokeness

March 24, 2024 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

Big Pharma is not your friend. Whether it’s hiking up drug prices or bribing the Swamp, the pharmaceutical industry works against the people’s interests. Many Americans are aware of Big Pharma’s greed and the power it wields over Washington, D.C., but fewer are aware of just how left-wing the industry is. It serves as a cash cow for the left and pushes woke ideas on its employees and the country at large. This may explain why Democrats, who act like they hate Big Pharma, serve the industry’s interests.

While the drugmakers spread their cash around all of DC, they overwhelmingly prefer Democrats. In recent elections, Big Pharma donated significantly more money to Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. From 2016 to 2022, the industry gave a whopping $29 million to Democratic candidates. This trend stands true for the current election cycle, with more cash going to Democrats once again. This favoritism extends to the presidential race. The drug lobby has donated four times more money to Joe Biden than it has to Donald Trump. And the industry’s generosity to Team Blue doesn’t end with individual candidates. Its chief lobby, PhRMA, also gives millions to liberal campaign arms like the Democratic Attorneys General Association.

Commentary: America’s Priorities Need to Change in Order to Protect Its Citizens

March 15, 2024 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

The horrific murder of Laken Riley by a repeated felony offender and illegal alien Jose Ibarra, 26, a Venezuelan citizen, was preventable—had federal immigration laws simply been enforced by the Biden administration.

When called out in his recent State of the Union address, President Biden referenced the deceased Ms. Riley. But Biden misidentified her as “Lincoln Riley”—the USC football coach!

Commentary: Bidenomics Is Behind Jerome Powell’s Woke Turn

July 22, 2023 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

In February 2021, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told Congress, “We are not climate policymakers here who can decide the way climate change will be addressed by the United States. We’re a regulatory agency that regulates a part of the economy.” When Powell said that, less than a month into the Biden administration, inflation was 1.6%.

Just eight months later, in remarks on November 22, 2021, President Biden said Powell – then up for renomination and facing stiff opposition from congressional progressives – “made clear to me: A top priority will be to accelerate the Fed’s effort to address and mitigate the risks – the risk that climate change poses to our financial system and our economy.” At that time inflation was 6.8%, on its way up to a 40-year high of 9.1%.

Commentary: Chick-fil-A’s Woke Turn Signals Larger Problem of DEI in Corporate America

June 1, 2023 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

Chick-fil-A apparently has joined the cultural revolution.

Social media was buzzing on Tuesday about Chick-fil-A Inc. announcing the hiring of a vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Commentary: Identity Studies in Academia Is the Birthplace of Woke

May 31, 2023 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

In 1983, having spent four years earning a PhD in English, I instantly turned down the reasonably secure entry-level faculty position my alma mater offered me and chose instead to sign up for that most financially insecure of all professions: freelance literary journalist. Why? Partly because it had taken me that long to face the fact that I just wasn’t the academic type. And partly because I saw that the kind of jargon-heavy approaches that were taking over America’s English departments — from politics-driven “feminist criticism” to pretentious postmodern “deconstruction,” straight out of France by way of Yale University — had nothing whatsoever to do with my own reasons for wanting to spend my life reading and writing about books.

Commentary: Biden-Era Funding Is Skewing Scientific Research More Woke

May 17, 2023 RealClearWire

While pushing record spending for research and development, the Biden administration is working not just to advance science but also progressive ideology. In line with the administration’s “whole of government” commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, recent grants and requests for proposals from the National Science Foundation encompass research that:

Commentary: Equity and the Race to the Bottom

April 30, 2023 RealClearWire

Over the last few years, the rallying cry of “woke” activists has become “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (often abbreviated to DEI). There is little reason to object to such principles on the surface. After all, America was founded on the principle that all people are created equal. Unfortunately, the meaning of words can change over time.

Rather than the Founders’ vision of equal opportunity for all, the use of the word “equity” today denotes equal outcomes for all. The implementation of this “equity agenda,” however well-intentioned, will lead to terrible consequences.

Commentary: Understanding ‘Woke’ Supremacy

April 10, 2023 Admin

In a recent interview, Bethany Mandel, author of Stolen Youth, a book discussing how woke ideology is erasing childhood, was asked to define the term woke and froze. The media has predictably had a field day with this. We can be sympathetic to Mandel’s explanation of the stress she was feeling in the moment. At the same time, this situation can remind us that when engaging in such conversations, having clear definitions and logical arguments is foundational. So what do we mean by woke?

Wisconsin Law Firm Files Discrimination Lawsuit Against Biden’s Woke Small Business Agency

March 22, 2023March 22, 2023 M.D. Kittle

The Biden administration is facing another discrimination lawsuit, accused once again of employing identity politics to play favorites.

On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed the complaint in U.S. District Court-Northern Texas alleging President Joe Biden’s Minority Business Development Agency “violates the Constitution’s core requirement of equal treatment under the law.”

Red States Use Purse Strings to Check Momentum of ESG Woke Investing Movement

February 26, 2023 Just the News

With the woke investing movement known as Environmental Social and Governance gaining steam in corporate boardrooms and asset management firms across the U.S., red states are pushing back.

The ESG counteroffensive includes economic and legislative moves ranging from the leveraging of public investment to laws mandating that fiduciaries of public funds make investment choices based on financial rather than ideological criteria.

Sun Prairie School District Accused of Using AmFam Donation for ‘Discrimination Laundering’

February 23, 2023February 22, 2023 M.D. Kittle

Sun Prairie Area School District’s use of American Family Insurance grant funds to promote programs that appear to be exclusively for black students is an attempt to launder race discrimination, a public interest law firm attorney told The Wisconsin Daily Star.

Documents obtained by The Star News Network show Madison-based American Family Insurance cut a check for $35,000 to fund a cross-country field trip in October for Sun Prairie East High School students to visit Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU).

Wisconsin Law Firm Sues Biden Administration over Woke ESG Investing Policies

February 22, 2023February 21, 2023 M.D. Kittle

The Biden administration’s woke Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) policies are putting politics ahead of people and hurting retirees savings, a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges.

The complaint, filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) on behalf of two Waukesha County residents, seeks a temporary restraining order prohibiting the U.S. Department of Labor from implementing its controversial ESG rule, pending the resolution of the lawsuit. Ultimately, the suit seems a declamatory judgment that the rule violates federal law on administrative powers.

Seven Questions for ‘Capitalist and Citizen’ Vivek Ramaswamy as He Jumps Into the Race for President

February 21, 2023 M.D. Kittle

Vivek Ramaswamy went from “strongly considering” to a headlong plunge into the race for the White House.

Wisconsin Law Firm Sues Biden Administration over Woke ESG Investing Policies

February 21, 2023 M.D. Kittle

Threats of Violence Cloud Conservative Events in Wisconsin

January 25, 2023January 24, 2023 M.D. Kittle

The organizers of a Milwaukee-area event on the dangers of woke indoctrination say they’re working with local law enforcement after receiving a number of threats.

Meanwhile, a theater in suburban Chicago has canceled a “reforming sex education” event after reportedly being bombarded with threats.

Commentary: Individuals Can Realign America

January 12, 2023January 11, 2023 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

We live in tumultuous and often troubling times, but that does not make them unique. The ordeals and challenges we face are as old as our species: war, famine, disease, poverty, hate, mass psychosis, greed, brutality, tyranny. Nature is often cruel, and the human capacity to inflict harm on other humans is bottomless.

New Country Music Label Baste Records Launched for Anti-Woke Artists

December 24, 2022 Rachel Alexander

A new country music label is recruiting and promoting anti-woke artists, launched by the young founder of The Post-Millennial. Matthew Azrieli, who is also a singer, songwriter, and guitarist, started Baste Records to promote talented country singers who are struggling to survive in the mainstream music business due to their right-leaning political and cultural views. He’s brought on talent like Chris Wallin, also a singer and songwriter who has written music for some of the biggest country stars, including Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney, Garth Brooks, and Trace Adkins.

Azrieli told The Arizona Sun Times that he started Baste Records because music is a passion. He wanted to “provide a healthy outlet for conservatives, instead of just complaining.” Baste Records intends to appeal to a certain niche, the center right, instead of attempting to have a broad appeal that risks alienating factions. He pointed out Netflix is an example of an entertainment company that is engaging in the latter, angering both conservatives and the transgender community, causing it to lose market share. He said, “Cultural and political identities are driving entertainment media.”

New Republican Majority Plans to Target ‘Woke’ Businesses

November 19, 2022November 18, 2022 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

One of the top agenda items for the GOP’s new majority in the House of Representatives is the targeting of “woke” corporations on Wall Street, threatening investigations and other government action if such companies do not reverse anti-American policies and practices.

Politico reports that some of the measures the GOP will be scrutinizing include “ESG (environmental, social, and governance)” policies, divesting from fossil fuels, and race-based affirmative action hiring policies for the sake of “diversity.”

Commentary: Undermining U.S. Citizenship at K-12 Schools on American Military Bases

September 27, 2022September 26, 2022 RealClearWire

Schools on American military bases, educating almost 70,000 children of service personnel, push the same anti-racism curriculum found in America’s most liberal school districts, with the goal of preparing these students for lives dedicated to a global citizenship meant to displace American citizenship and the American way of life.

‘TikTok Channel for Cosmic Gendersmurfs’: Science Journals Bow to Woke Orthodoxy, Provoke Ridicule

September 6, 2022September 5, 2022 Admin

Before “The Science” became the default invocation in response to criticisms of COVID-19 policies, scientific journals, academic departments and faculty sought to unshackle the discipline from its purported white male heterosexist biases.

With COVID mitigations receding from American public life, the earlier ideological battles in science are are now reemerging.

Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Here Come the Bad Old Days

September 6, 2022September 5, 2022 Admin

There is no end of history. Instead, civilization is a constant fight to embrace what has worked for the common good through the ages – and to reject what in the past has failed abysmally.

Bad and bankrupt ideas, protocols, and ideologies – like McCarthyism, communism, various cults, or fascism – resurface not because of their intrinsic or lasting value or record of success, but because civilizations become less vigilant and allow human vanities, ignorance, arrogance, and evil to reassert themselves.

Commentary: Woke Retailers Seek Congressional Smash-and-Grab on Your Credit Card

August 29, 2022August 28, 2022 Admin

Woke retailers like Home Depot, Kroger, and Walmart are asking Congress to pass their own special smash and grab worth billions of dollars by mandating changes to how credit cards are processed.

Joining forces with far-left Democratic Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, retailers are seeking changes in federal law threatening rewards programs that many consumers use to take some of the sting off of the high cost of everything from food and gas to furniture and travel.

Commentary: Drain the Academic Swamp

August 29, 2022August 28, 2022 Admin

Recently, a number of medical schools have joined the anti-European, anti-Christian, pro-Marxist woke bandwagon. According to physicist Lawrence Krauss, “the American Association of Medical Colleges has approved a Diversity-Equity-Inclusion based curriculum, which the AAMC Council of Deans Chair says is as important as teaching the latest scientific breakthroughs.”

Meanwhile, our military leadership continues to push incoherent gender ideology upon a captive audience of young soldiers, sailors, and airmen. And justices at the heights of our judiciary system, because of political correctness, dare not even define the word woman.

Woke USA Gymnastics Pres Says Organization Will Boycott States That Don’t Align with its Pro-Abort ‘Value System’

August 20, 2022August 19, 2022 Admin

In an interview Wednesday, the president of USA Gymnastics announced plans to boycott states that have limited abortion because pro-life views do not align with USAG’s values.

Commentary: The Decline and Fall of Newspapers

August 9, 2022August 8, 2022 RealClearWire

A few years ago, you would have unfolded your newspaper and read opinion and analysis like this. Those days are gone. Today, most of us get our news and commentary online, perhaps supplemented by network or cable television, although TV viewership is far smaller than in the days of “The Big Three.” Buried alongside those iconic broadcasters is the public’s confidence in news from all sources. Only 16% of Americans say they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers, only 11% in TV news. Those numbers keep sinking. Today, if Walter Cronkite ended his broadcast, “And that’s the way it is,” most people would just smirk.

Commentary: The Democrats’ New Political Norms May Soon Come Back to Haunt Them

August 2, 2022August 1, 2022 Admin

In the era of peak woke we are supposed to accept any radical departure from long-held custom and tradition as the new normal.

Perhaps. But if so, is the improved new code of behavior at least reciprocal? Will the radical Left really wish to live by its own novel normality when it loses power?

Commentary: ‘Woke’ Corporate Support of Black Lives Matter Has Deadly Consequences

July 21, 2022July 20, 2022 RealClearWire

You’ve heard the chants in the streets of America: “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon.”

You’ve seen the graffiti scrawled on walls and monuments and broken windows in the wake of “peaceful protests”: ACAB, which stands for “All Cops Are Bastards.”

Commentary: U.S. Spirals Toward Lawless Carnage; BLM and Woke Corporations Silent

May 25, 2022May 24, 2022 RealClearWire

Being “woke” once symbolized one’s awareness of the historical and present injustices faced by an individual or group in the pursuit of their advancement or being. It meant that the blinders of matters of racism and systems of oppression were removed so that one could fully awaken to the reality that racism exists. It is a continual and daily acknowledgement of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

I am a young, 26-year-old black man in America. I have seen true racism, and the racist carnage in Buffalo, Charleston, Houston, and other cities across our country, and it has stirred in me and in many others a desire to see justice served.

Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: The Cycles of Revolutions in Our Midst

May 17, 2022May 16, 2022 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

We are witnessing a number of radical military, social, and political revolutions that are changing the United States—and the world—in fundamental ways that we still have not appreciated.

The taboo about never mentioning the first-strike use of nuclear weapons in a major conventional war is now apparently over. Vladimir Putin routinely threatens their use. Communist China hints at its growing nuclear capability and is hell-bent on rushing into production a huge new nuclear missile force. The world is defining nuclear incineration down.

Academia’s Woke Influence on the Media: Analysis

February 28, 2022 Admin

Higher education’s push for Critical Race Theory influences not just college campuses, but also American society and media.

Earlier this year, Campus Reform reported on a Jan. 20 speaking event at the University of Pittsburgh where three scholars used the Critical Race Theory framework to examine three controversial court cases decided in Nov. 2021.

Commentary: The Woke War Machine vs. America’s ‘Minutemoms’

February 15, 2022February 14, 2022 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

Group protesting; "no justice no peace" sign

Critical social justice’s (CSJ) march through America’s institutions is very nearly complete. CSJ, and its woke evangelists, easily penetrated and commandeered U.S. colleges and universities.

Even White House occupant Joe Biden speaks incessantly about “white supremacy.” The Department of Homeland Security tells us white domestic terrorism is the top threat to America.

Not to be left out, corporate America has proclaimed its total fealty to woke ideology. Leaked documents show companies like Coke imploring their employees to “be less white.” Raytheon—whose laser-guided bombs are disproportionally dropped on people of color—tells its white, straight, Christian, able-bodied, English-speaking employees to deconstruct their identities, “identify [their] privilege,” and “step aside” in favor of other identity groups. AT&T offers employees training that says racism is a “uniquely white trait,” telling white employees that they “are the problem.” It’s pure racism, of course. But not a single Fortune 500 CEO has spoken out against it. They’re too frightened to do so.

Commentary: Woke Is Broke and Costing Democrats

January 25, 2022January 24, 2022 RealClearWire

We are in the first month of 2022, and, from every sign, it appears my Democratic friends are determined to stick to their guns when it comes to both their agenda and how they intend to sell it. In other words, America has not heard the last of the Woke Police.

The 2021 elections, especially in Virginia, could have served as a wake-up call for Democrats. When Terry McAuliffe announced he thought parents should not be telling schools what to teach, the voters spoke loudly and clearly that they felt differently. Attempts to make Republican Glenn Youngkin into the Old Dominion’s version of Donald Trump fell flat as he scored a solid victory.

You might think that after the events of 2021, Democrats would be inclined to engage in some self-reflection. You would be wrong. How do we account for the largest increase in the inflation rate in a generation? President Biden has decided Sen. Elizabeth Warren has it right. Defying logic, gravity, and common sense, they have placed the blame on “meat conglomerates.” Why the cost of a steak would cause spikes in the cost of so many other items, including gasoline, is a carefully guarded secret. Why don’t Democrats in a position of leadership make clear they will not submit to viewpoints held by such a small percentage of the public?

Commentary: The ‘New Normal’ and the Assault on Reason

January 18, 2022January 17, 2022 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

Our political situation is so chaotic and strange right now that we can’t take anything for granted—including what is normal. So it’s often necessary to explain what may seem obvious to readers of American Greatness, but is regarded as strange or almost incomprehensible to other people.

For example, it is obvious to me, and probably to you, that today’s “progressive” agenda is actually pushing our country back to a more primitive past.

Consider some of the most urgent priorities of woke ideology:

Commentary: Five Times Campuses Ruined Holidays in 2021

December 24, 2021 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

two people with Santa hats looking at Christmas tree

Woke and leftist ideologies often target traditions and celebrations around holidays, particularly those that pertain to Christianity and American identity.

With 2021 coming to an end, Campus Reform has compiled a list of the top five instances of colleges and universities ruining holidays on campus.

1. Colleges celebrate Valentine’s Day with ‘Sex in the Dark’

Multiple colleges hosted a question and answer “Sex in the Dark,” a virtual Q&A event with health experts, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Commentary: Five Times Campuses Ruined Holidays in 2021

December 24, 2021 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

Woke and leftist ideologies often target traditions and celebrations around holidays, particularly those that pertain to Christianity and American identity.

With 2021 coming to an end, Campus Reform has compiled a list of the top five instances of colleges and universities ruining holidays on campus.

1. Colleges celebrate Valentine’s Day with ‘Sex in the Dark’

Multiple colleges hosted a question and answer “Sex in the Dark,” a virtual Q&A event with health experts, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Commentary: Christmas Movies Without the Hollywoke Scrooge

December 19, 2021 Admin

Christmas tree, TV playing The Grinch and stockings on chimney

Hollywoke may be spearheading the War on Christmas, but three cable channels are mounting a far more effective counteroffensive, running traditionalist Christmas movies 24/7. And one of them, Lifetime, is a surprising beachhead. While HBO Max is showcasing the insufferable Seth Rogan’s latest bomb, Santa, Inc. (angry elf girl wants to succeed white male Santa Claus), the once male-bashing Lifetime “for Women” now boasts such romantic “heteronormative” fare as My Sweet Holiday, A Sweet Christmas Romance, and A Christmas Village Romance. Lifetime has joined the Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies and Mysteries to reflect a realistic rather than fantastical vision of and for women, and their genuine desire for true love over a feminist-fueled man-light career pursuit.

Some Grinches criticize the films as bland, corny, and predictable. They’re certainly not on par with Yuletide classics by Ernst Lubitch (The Shop Around the Corner) or Leo McCarey (An Affair to Remember), and they do stress a secular more than spiritual Christmas magic. But normal viewers gleam from them values no longer found in the tiresomely “dark, edgy” mainstream series and feature films, such as beauty, sensitivity, warmth, uplift, and niceness.

Start with beauty. The movies are gorgeously photographed to resemble, yes, Hallmark cards. Many depict Robert Frostian villages and valleys in holiday winter, but even major cities like San Francisco in A Christmas Village Romance, Chicago in A Kiss Before Christmas, and New York in the majority appear as lovely metropoles instead of the crime-ridden progressive hellholes the Left has made of them.

Commentary: America at the Intersection of Woke and Incompetent

November 19, 2021November 18, 2021 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

For as long as most of us have been alive, there have been declarations that America’s best days are behind us and that we are in a slow, steady decline. Against this backdrop, there is a growing sentiment that our present leadership in Washington is something altogether different, and worse.

Commentary: Ground Zero of Woke

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

Many of our once revered and most hallowed institutions are failing us. To mention only the most significant ones: our top-ranking military echelon, the leadership of our federal investigatory and intelligence agencies, the government medical establishment—and of course the universities.

For too long American higher education’s reputation of global academic superiority has rested mostly on the sciences, mathematics, physics, technology, medicine, and engineering—in other words, not because of the humanities and social sciences, but despite them. The humanities have become too often anti-humanistic. And the social sciences are deductively anti-scientific. Both quasi-religious woke disciplines have eroded confidence in colleges and universities, infected even the STEM disciplines and professional schools, and torn apart the civic unity of the United States. Indeed, much of the current Jacobin revolution was birthed and fueled by American universities, despite their manifest hypocrisies and derelictions.

Analysis: Woke Teaching Programs Create K-12 ‘Social Justice Educators’

October 20, 2021October 19, 2021 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

Integrating activism in the K-12 classroom is the trickle-down of liberal bias in higher education. The results are seen as educators mirror anti-racist trainings and social justice workshops, which evolved from college campuses.

For instance, University of California, Los Angeles’ Teacher Education Program (TEP), trains “social justice educators” and follows an “anti-racist and social justice agenda.”

Commentary: Spy Couple Follow in the Grand Tradition of Treasonous Leftist Couples

October 18, 2021October 17, 2021 Wisconsin Daily Star Staff

In the wake of the recent arrest of Maryland nuclear engineer, Jonathan Toebbe, and his wife, Diana Toebbe on charges they tried to sell classified nuclear warship information to a foreign country, the mainstream media has focused on the “mystery” of how this could happen. But very little media coverage has focused on their progressive political background—the most likely key to their misdeeds.

In fact, strangely enough, husband and wife traitor teams are often linked to left-wing politics. Why hasn’t the establishment media focused on this tie?