Mike Pence Not Endorsing Trump Doesn't Matter

In a recent interview with Fox News, former vice president and presidential candidate, Mike Pence, said that he cannot, in good conscience, endorse former president Donald Trump in the 2024 election, but that he also cannot vote for Joe Biden under any circumstance, but that he is keeping it a secret who he will be voting for.

I might assume it would be for RFK Jr., but who knows? And frankly, who cares? It doesn't matter anymore than his lack of endorsement for Trump does.

This is not to suggest that I had issues with Pence when he served as vice president or that I took issue with his failure to question the certification of electors in 2020. I said then that I thought he carried out his duty in necessary fashion, and I continue to believe that today.

My preference would have been for Trump to have conceded the election and ask questions later. But that also does not suggest I don't believe that 2020 may well have been a stolen election.

We still need to get to that truth regardless of what we find in any outcome, because as I have said many times, our elections matter and the American people must have faith in them. A large swath of citizens have questions, and I think that demands answers.

Nonetheless, it's his decision to make whether or not he wants to endorse Trump. At the same time, I disagree with his assessments that Trump has walked away from confronting the national debt or is shying away from his commitment to the sanctity of human life. I also do not agree with him that some of these criminal charges sway his decision either—because at this time no GOP member should be okay with what essentially equates to the weaponization of our justice system for political reasons and is designed to remove choice from the American voter and stack the odds in favor of a competing party.

Is Trump the best choice for America today? That is a question that can be hotly debated. But is Trump the only choice for America right now? I think he is.

I continue to believe that we have some deeply concerning things happening within our government that has very deep roots, and threatens our democratic republic in ways that are unimaginable. Part of my support for Trump stems from that, believing that no other candidate in the recent pool of GOP contenders would have done a thing about any of it, but would have rather simply entrenched themselves into the very deep state we are fighting against and embolden it.

I also believe that Mike Pence is part of that establishment. And perhaps that's really what his motivation is to choose not to endorse Trump. Not to protect the Union. But to protect those who wish to maintain their control and power over our government and the people of this country.

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Donald Trump Crushes Iowa Caucus

Does the result of the Iowa caucus signal a virtual shoo-in for former President Donald Trump to win the GOP nomination? 

I think it does.

Normally we'd be at this particular point in the race and use the age-old line, "It's still too early to call anything." But that's when things are still rather undecided. Usually, even with a victory in Iowa, it's still a long race ahead.

But Trump won Iowa by a whopping 51% with Ron DeSantis taking a very distant second place and Nikki Haley running close to DeSantis. You can almost call that a no-contest race. It is not to say that the other candidates don't matter in the race for the GOP nomination. But let's face it. Do they?

I think it is clear that, at least when it comes to Republican voters, there were too many open questions about 2020, and regardless of where anyone stands on the idea of whether or not the election was stolen or won legitimately by President Biden, Republicans clearly want a do-over. 

And it seems apparent they are going to get it.

Vivek Ramaswamy has also ended his bid following the caucus results and turned to endorse Trump. A wise move, if you ask me, and I think it is quite possible Ramaswamy earns a position on Trump's cabinet if Trump should win the White House in 2024.

So, that really, mathematically speaking, only leaves two. DeSantis and Haley. I think based on the Iowa results, it is clear that the next primary coming up on January 23rd in New Hampshire will also go to Trump. And it will be another massive margin victory in my opinion.

I think DeSantis will likely maintain his position in second place—there's just not enough time for Haley to make a stronger case for her own bid—and I think after the New Hampshire primary Haley may also likely drop out of the race.

Especially if Trump wins similarly in New Hampshire as he did in Iowa, which I think he definitely could.

Like I said, this race is essentially already decided. Which is unusual, but considering all that's happened since 2020, it is clear where the interests of at least Republican voters are. They want Trump to be the nominee.

As I alluded to before, it's not even really a race. Trump is just too far ahead of the pack that even thinking anyone else can even come close to catching up is mathematically impossible. The primaries will still happen of course. But this time around, I believe, just as a formality. 

I think I can confidently declare that it's over for everyone else vying for a position on the stage. Trump has clearly already won. As for where the Ramaswamy voters go? I think they go to Trump. So, I also see no boost to Haley's campaign via Ramaswamy's departure.

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OTHER COMMENTARY BY JIM BAUER

Evaluating Politics Has to be On the Basis of Honesty and Openness, Not Party Divisions
Let's face it, political discussions are hard. What gets in the way is either denial, defiance, or outright bias. Often times, there's just no winning—but having an open and honest political dialogue is important because so much of what happens in politics has a direct impact on our lives and even our livelihoods. 

One of the REAL Reason Trump's Skipping the Debates
Normally, and under normal circumstances, I'd lambaste someone for not attending any presidential debate, regardless of the side. While I don't think debates are the end all to be all, I do think that they are important to better understand our candidates and what they are running for or on.

The Uprising of the American Party
These days, being a lifelong republican is met with some angst. Many times in the past I have written about the disarray of the democrat party and how that ultimately effects their standing with the voters, and of course, how it effects elections.

Donald Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth

I recall being captivated and mesmerized by the ever evolving and twisting plot lines of that TV show, House of Cards. Even if the show was pure fiction, one wonders how much of it was actually true? Not the story itself. But how politics really operates. Behind closed doors. What really goes on?

Especially in our current times.

A show like that gives us a deeper look into what power actually looks like, and what people may be willing to do to get it and hold onto it. It's a dangerous place, Washington D.C. And perhaps if House of Cards had any basis at all in fact, I'll be damned if wasn't a fictionalized documentary somewhat loosely based on the life and careers of the Clintons.

What we have unfolding before us now is a new show. Except that this one isn't fiction. It's a reality show unlike any other one we have seen before. And people are glued to their screens. There are twists and turns at every corner. And the plots seem to get crazier than ever.

It started at the first scene when Trump came down his escalator at Trump Towers to announce he was running for president. The fire of politics was set ablaze and the powers on both sides' insides churned. Perhaps the threat wasn't truly appreciated at first. Until one-by-one Trump toppled what would have been top contending opponents on the debate stage and all along the campaign trail.

He had to be stopped.

And they tried everything to do it. The GOP scrambled to find a reason to bar him being nominated. Even when it was clear he would be the nominee, they tried to find ways to deny it. The Democrats were already in talks long before Trump even won the election about impeachment in case he actually did win.

Ultimately Trump did get the nomination of course. In the end to deny it would have been a form of political suicide for the Republican party. "But he won't win," they thought and talked about in closed circles. "We'll just have to deal with the reality that Hillary will be the president and we'll work on the next election."

But he did win. Not by the popular vote. But he won the electoral college, and in the end that's all that matters. And he won despite what all the polls suggested that it was a practical shoo-in for Hillary Clinton.

The party had no choice but to rally around him. The people decided he was not only the president, but the presiding face of the Republican party.

But of course, his presidency was fraught with one challenge after another. He was caught in the crosshairs of investigations, impeachment hearings, a media onslaught and a long list of what became known as Never-Trumpers within his own party.

Not a single accomplishment would go without scrutiny and even denial it ever occurred. The Democrat party all but censured Trump, not by vote, but by their actions, dismissing nearly everything he tried to do, claiming his presidency was not only illegitimate. But that he stole it with the help of the Russians.

Without question, I don't think anyone can deny that Trump's presidency was perhaps the most sensationalized of any presidency ever. The entire term ran like a TV show right down to a Speaker of the House ripping up a State of the Union speech—something you would have thought you would never see in real life except on TV.

And then there was the election fallout. People went to bed with Trump clearly in the lead only to wake up the next morning and discover that Biden had won. And there were all sorts of controversy surrounding that. And then there was the "insurrection." 

This was a made for TV series of events unlike any other even the best writers could ever have dreamed up. And now we have all the king's horses and all the king's men once again trying to deny Trump's ability to even run with states sending cases to their state supreme courts to deny primary ballot access.

And of course, there are all the wild accusations of criminal intent and indictments stacked up against him—whether or not there is any merit to any of it isn't what matters. It's made the entire process a show that is impossible not to watch.

Because it's that power we're seeing coming front and center for us all to witness first-hand. This is the true nature of politics, or at least what it has become. 

It has been the greatest show on Earth, and we don't know how it ends yet. We're just in season 7. 

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Too Old to Serve? Election 2024

Age is certainly a factor in the next election for president in 2024. Beyond all of the flubs from the Biden administration, which is a complete disaster, and all of the chaos and infighting among republicans right now on the GOP side, the one thing that should be abundantly clear is this.

Joe Biden has not earned reelection and is too old to serve, and likely won't make it through another four year term. Kamala Harris is not fit to be president. And even though I think Trump not only deserved another four years in 2020, even he may be too old to serve.

It's a bit of a slippery slope because what it leaves us with is a "big picture" decision at the polls. Who exactly are we ultimately having to choose to vote for? The person running for president? Or the running mate? And while we have had times in the past when a vice president did become the president for various reasons, it has not always been the best course for America.

Trump seems vibrant and full of life, but that doesn't guarantee nothing will happen.

I do think that Trump still offers the best opportunity to get America back on track. He's become a politician, for sure. But he's still an outsider. He's got bite. He doesn't play like other politicians do. He fights back, gets contentious and pulls no punches. 

I like that.

DeSantis, so far, seems like a strong and clear alternative choice. But I also think that what DeSantis brings to the table is more of the same old politician stuff. He's an establishment guy even if he says he isn't.

He is also much younger which presents an interesting alternative as well. And regardless of what my opinion overall may be about DeSantis vs. Trump, the one thing I do know is that he would still present the better choice over Biden in 2024.

I do wonder, if Trump were to become the nominee, if there could ever be a Trump/DeSantis ticket that could potentially pave the way for a determinable victory for DeSantis in 2028 and beyond, and a victory for the republican party to boot.

The thing is, we're going to also be in this boat again in 2028 necessarily since Trump can't run for a third term no matter what. So, with that in mind, we also have to make sure that in 2024, at least on the GOP side, we have to get this right.

If the next four years with Trump, for example, is like the first four years with Trump, and I am not referring to what he did, because I think Trump's presidency was a stellar success, with the media and the democrats out to take him out at every turn, that will only present more of an uphill battle for DeSantis, if he were to be vice president, because he'd be running directly as a Trump candidate.

It's a lot to consider. There are so many moving parts here. We only know we can't afford another four years of Biden and we certainly won't survive a Harris administration. So, it's a big task ahead. I think what we need to do, not just as a party, but as Americans who want to see the country headed back in the right direction, is to really think long and hard about what the best course for America is.

In the end, nothing else matters more.

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On McCarthy: Obligations Now, Spending Later

Everyone is trying to suggest Speaker Kevin McCarthy rolled over on the debt ceiling debate. Maybe he did? Maybe he didn't. The thing is, getting anything agreed upon on any bill is a tough thing to do on its own. It's when we throw in all these add-ons and ultimatums that we get all tangled up, and processes take longer or shut down.

The key issue, in my opinion, regarding the debt ceiling is that it is about money already spent and making sure we honor our debt obligations. We have to pay our bills regardless of the reality of out of control spending. 

You can't go to Discover and say, "Let's hold my payment until we can talk about spending less." That's just not how it works. You spent the money, the bill has come due, and you have to pay it. Even if the spending was irresponsible or out of line.

McCarthy does assert that the dems are onboard with furthering the discussion to include some welfare reforms, cut spending and slash IRS funding. Who knows if they will actually be onboard when the real debate begins. 

Nonetheless, I think all of these are important issues and I truly hope McCarthy can bring these items to the table.

But the point is that that's the time to have the discussion. Before future spending occurs. And we need to stop just talking about cutting spending, but actually do something about it. That's where we always get stuck. When the bills come due and the other side wants something we use it as a tool but once all is said and done it's back to business as usual.

Almost as if the government is simply playing games with the American people to make the appearance they want to cut spending. If they really did then the issue would not come up nearly every time the bills come due and we have to raise the debt ceiling.

Because we spent too much, again.

Even when Trump threatened to shut down the government, I thought that was a wrong-headed approach, and I am a strong Trump supporter. To me, it serves no purpose to default on our obligations and shut down the government. It doesn't help any American if that happens. And beyond that, it does nothing to actually curb spending.

To further call for McCarthy's ouster for coming to some terms around the deal, I think, is wrong-headed.

Beyond that, the animus from our side, against our side, against McCarthy is just more of the same problem republicans always have. We simply have trouble rallying around and uniting as a party. Debt ceiling aside, it kills us in elections.

We already have an uphill battle to win seats and offices as it is. When we can't unite, the other side wins by default a lot of the time. And beyond that, it's fodder for the other side and its accomplice media to spread the news that our party is in chaos. It never looks good for us. 

Say what you want about Nancy Pelosi as Speaker, but no matter what she did the democrats stuck by her side come hell or high water. Regardless of what you think about McCarthy, I think our side needs to do the same.

Because while McCarthy might not be our "winner," so to speak, if we can't rally behind him now, how are we going to be united in 2024 to win back the White House? Because one can argue that because we have such animus toward certain candidates, if we don't go to the polls to vote for whoever the nominee winds up being, it may as well be a vote for the other side to win.

Frankly, the bottom line for me is this. We're being way too hard on McCarthy. We need to give him a chance and cut him some slack and stop fueling discussions of infighting and chaos that the democrats can use as a reason NOT to vote republican in 2024.

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Make Sure Bud Light Boycott Really Bites In

Most of the time when conservatives boycott something, the impact is short-lived, for whatever reason. I think most conservatives just eventually move on. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's a good quality to have, and a lot of times conservatives don't really participate in boycotts all that much anyway—although we will be apt to participate in more focused support for certain companies who follow certain principles and do the right thing.

Think Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A.

But the Bud Light controversy is sticking, and conservatives across the country are sticking it hard to parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev, not just leaving Bud Light on the shelves and refusing to order the beer in bars and restaurants. They are sticking it to their other brands as well and simply not buying any of the beers made by Anheuser-Busch. 

No doubt the pain is being felt. The company is losing billions of dollars in revenue each week and meanwhile, other beers like Miller Lite and Coors Lite are flying off the shelves.

There is even a beer that was launched being monikered Ultra Right, that is being contract brewed somewhere in Northern Illinois, created by Seth Weathers, a former director in Georgia in 2016 who headed up former president Donald Trump's campaign.

It should be noted that it was initially going to be contract brewed by Bent River Brewing, but company president Nick Bowes declined to brew it after he saw what the marketing would be for it. Perhaps conservatives should take note of Bent River as well?

Because again, as I have asked multiple times before, is business about money or politics? And if you want to inject politics into your business plan, maybe that should have an impact on your business? Good or bad mind you. Certainly, Ultra Right would be doing that with their own beer brand. And being marketed as an unwoke beer is certainly a political statement if there ever was one.

By the way, I should point out that Miller Lite and Coors Light are American beers of course. But the company that produces them are no longer American, and while that doesn't necessarily matter in light of the Bud Light controversy, perhaps just keeping that somewhere in the back of the mind is something to think about.

As far as large American breweries go there's Yuengling and the Boston Beer Company to consider. Boston Beer makes Sam Adams. Yuengling says they aren't woke. Boston Beer has not currently taken any position.

As far as the boycott is concerned, I think the message being sent needs to be a clear one. We are tired of this woke crap being shoved down our throats and being forced to submit to it. In other words, we can't just go back to business as usual when it comes to Anheuser-Busch InBev. In order for the message to have long legs it needs to serve as a warning and poster child for any other company who wants to engage in woke politics that their best move would be to cease and desist. Otherwise, businesses wanting to engage in such antics will simply calculate their short-term losses to maintain appeasement for the minority groups wanting to push their politics on everyone else.

In other words, businesses will be allowed to simply have their cake and eat it too.

At least for now it appears that this boycott will have a lasting impact. But it's also way too soon to assert that as a reality. And it's not about necessarily punishing or bringing down a company. It's simply about making it clear that businesses need to know their customers and simply stick to branding and selling products and leave the rest up to advocacy groups to have their say. It's to say that if you decide to cow-toe to minority pressures while alienating your core customers to accomplish it, there will be a price to pay for it.

Even if Anheuser-Busch backtracks and apologizes to save their business, I think conservatives need to say no. It's not enough. Your last move was the final straw. It's what broke the camel's back. We have to determine whether or not the apology is really genuine. We have to know that they really got the message. And other businesses need to be all too aware that if they decide to go the direction Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch did, there's not going to be an easy way out of it.

What's the old saying? You shouldn't have to say sorry to one's you love. Beyond that, sorry doesn't always cut it. And in this case, perhaps it shouldn't.

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What is Truth and the Silencing of Conservatives

It often becomes, to me, a confusing area of contention. Why does it seem that the only people being sought after to silence is targeted to silence only those who speak from the right? Granted, there may be no actual data to support the claim, so let's just call it an observation, shall we?

But you have to admit, it does seem a bit obvious. The right IS the target.

I will even grant you that most of the time there's "something" behind the silencing. Or at least, that is the impressive that wants to get left after the silencing occurs. 

Why is that, and again it seems, that the left can say anything it wants, call anything it wants to truth, and have their say and no one gets to question that? But when the right says something, everything is questioned. And in the minds of those asking the questions, and ultimately doing the silencing, there is no room for questioning the questioner. 

You will remember around 2017 Bill O'Reilly, then the top-rated cable news show host on television, was boost off the air amid sexual harassment allegations. Okay, sounds justified, right? Sure, according to all of the allegations and reports he was a bit of a fox in the den of Fox News. 

But was he? Or was he simply pushing back too hard and getting too big of an audience for his clearly conservative viewpoints? Maybe. Maybe not. It does seem odd that Fox News would want to remove a host who was clearly a large part of their bread and butter without at least good cause.

Or was the left just pushing too hard? Were the other things Fox News was concerned about that they used Bill O'Reilly as an opportunity to quiet the potential bigger onslaught?

Tucker Carlson, the latest target, was removed from their airwaves with his last show airing Friday, April 21st—which at the end of the show he told audience he would see them on Monday. So, it was a quick development over the weekend following the settlement of the Dominion voting machines defamation lawsuit.

Lou Dobbs was also recently cancelled, and he happens to be another one among those named in the filing against Fox News.

Before I go any further, might I remind people that there were many hosts on other networks who were offering up false information and lies galore during the entire Russia Collusion farce. Who fact-checked? Who offered redactions? Who corrected the record?

Why was no one sued for defamation in those cases? Okay, no one brought the suits. But should someone have? Maybe. Should calls to action have been encouraged? Probably. Should it have been important to set the record straight and tell the news straight? Would it even have been a good idea to maybe offer up apologies?

I mean, say what you want about the claims regarding Dominion sort of accusing Dominion of being the source for stealing an entire election from the American people. But one could easily argue that the entire left wing media news organization which is comprised of NBC, CNN and even media giants like Google and Facebook might have had more to do with rigging an election than Dominion ever was if the claims made against them by Tucker Carlson and others were true.

Whether it was about issues surrounding the election or the supposed insurrection of January 6th when it was supposed that angry conservative Trump supporters sought to storm the capital and overturn an election, the mere fact is that conservatives were literally silenced and shut down from having anything to say to potentially open a dialogue, even if was just to ask questions and see where those questions might lead.

Donald Trump was at the forefront of course. A former sitting president was literally kicked off of Twitter. And others followed him—all conservatives. All of them cited for supposedly spreading misinformation and lies.

Based on who's truth? I mean, that should be the question of the day, right? Who's truth is the Imperial truth and who gets to decide what that is? Why is always so immediately assumed the right is at the helm of harmful misinformation?

We have people out there who can openly debate that a woman exists for Heaven's sake. Isn't that patently false? Is it even an argument? Apparently it is. They can freely say that a woman cannot be defined by old outdated standards. But can we, the right, openly deny their truth?

No. We can't. Even if we are not silenced for that speech, surely we are made into pariahs for it. We're called liars and racists and homophobes, we're called out of touch and out of sync with the times. We are called imaginiationists (a word I just made up) instead of realists. We're labeled as bigots.

To be completely honest what I take issue with more than anything is the very use of the word misinformation. Frankly, I think it gets tossed around too readily and too easily—and of course it's the right being accused of it time and time again.

As I asked before, "Based on who's truth?"

Who are the fact checkers? The media of course. And what makes up the largest portion of the media? Liberals. The left. They are the ones cracking the code of truth and anyone who questions the person supposedly setting the record straight is simply spreading more misinformation and denying the truth. The truth they decide.

Now TikTok is up in arms and running a bit scared by the truth seekers of the world—particularly the United States government.

They say they have a team of individuals of more than ten thousand people scanning through the media being offered by members to root out the evils of hate speech and information. And who gets targeted? Not the woman sitting in her bath robe sipping on a cup of coffee in a live stream getting to voice her opinions about men and women not existing in the world and defending her use of the word cis to redefine non-transgender people, who before the word existed in the imaginations of the left, simply described men and women. No. She gets to keep talking even if she is offensive to tens of millions of people who disagree with her.

The ones getting silenced and banned and shut down are the ones who voice their opinions other than what the left has already predetermined to be the truth. A guy can be banned for a week for simply suggesting that president Biden may not actually be running the country. Not because he stole the election. But because maybe he does not have all his faculties and can't be in charge.

Granted, it's an opinion. Just like suggesting a man or a woman is somehow now a cis is an opinion. But of course the left are the ones who decided that there is a difference between fact and opinion. Saying a man cannot be a woman, even if biologically that's a true statement, is not allowed. It's misinformation that could potentially be harmful of disrespectful to others.

Never mind the harm or disrespect imposed on someone who thinks otherwise.

Will it ever change? Who knows? I can say that more people seem to be pushing back more than ever. Even coming from both sides—although of course most of the push back is coming from the right and those middle ground people who call themselves independents.

No one sought to silence that crazy democrat congresswoman Maxine Waters from California for shouting, "Impeach 45," with no basis for impeachment other than she disliked the president, or called her out for potentially inciting violence during the Derek Chauvin trial telling protesters to "get more confrontational." No one held Chuck Schumer to the fire for saying there would be "hell to pay" if Roe v. Wade would be overturned which sent a madman nearly to the door of Supreme Court Justice Cavanaugh wishing to murder him.

But people Mike Lindell and Tucker Carlson will be targeted and silenced. Donald Trump himself will be hounded by baseless accusations and investigations, impeachments and indictments. And rather than stack the courts the media and whoever can find any dirt to dig up will go after a Justice like Clarence Thomas and try to physically remove him from the courts.

It is literally a case of the fox minding the chicken coop here and people need to start paying better attention to what's really going on. The misinformation is happening not just on the right—in fact, I would strongly contend that the lion's bulk share of it is actually coming from the left. 

The left, by the way, who have become literal masters of fictional tales selling their books as gospels of truth and verifiable and undeniable correctness to the masses for wide consumption, also bearing the arms against anyone who might question their truths so that they may pounce swiftly and unleash their terrorism of their own defamation and destruction of character—hopeful that eventually all real truth might finally see its own abolishment so that the only thing ever labeled as truth is what they badly want you to believe.

Is Alissa Heinersheid Out, or Is She Over Bud Light Marketing Controversy?

Was the vice president of marketing, Alissa Heinsersheid, fired over the Bud Light controversy? Well, that depends on who you talk to and how you want to interpret words. Which, by the way, is an age-old tactic with the left that perhaps took root when Bill Clinton famously answered a question by asking another question, "That depends on what is is."

Or maybe it was something the left has been doing long before Clinton's now famous response to what was a rather simple question. They say things that sound like the same thing but aren't exactly necessarily the same thing.

What Anheuser-Busch InBev said is that she simply took a "leave of absence."

One thing the left, and particularly the woke and cancel culture people, hate to do is admit defeat. They very strongly don't want to be wrong. 

It depends on what "is" is.

Whether or not company officials say she was fired or not to me doesn't matter. As I have said before, business is about dollars and cents. Not politics—even if many corporate America executive boards and leadership now seemed to have tapped into woke people to lead them.

They chose to allow a bad idea to hit the airwaves thinking they were being inclusive and thinking that woke culture is "the new next best thing," and they thought that consumers would rejoice when they saw transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on their beer cans.

Because woke people, besides being misinformed about their own cause and popularity, and despite the feeling of power they think they have, are simply out of touch with reality. Consumers are having had enough of it and they sent a clear message to Anheuser-Busch InBev about it. They don't want to just come right out and say they were wrong.

So, they didn't fire the person behind the marketing idea gone wrong. She's just on a leave of absense. Okay. Whatever.

Meanwhile, Todd Allen, who is the vice president of global marketing for Budweiser takes her place, and other changes to marketing teams and leadership have also been made so that there is more oversight over how marketing campaigns will be conducted and reviewed in the future.

Sounds clear to me that Anheuser-Busch InBev is making these changes because of the Bud Light, Dylan Mulvaney controversy. What else would it be about?

Speaking about transgenderism, I think it is worth noting that the way the media is portraying any backlash on the issue, they say that the right (and republicans in general) are "fixated on transgender issues," with many state governors and legislators introducing bills that they claim infringe on transgender rights.

Wait a minute. Who is fixated?

For several years now I think the truth is that the left has been fixated on it, literally shoving their cause down everyone else's throats and forcing them to "accept this or else." Join our woke movement or be labeled as a racist, homophobe or demagogue.

They don't care what the majority wants. We are not supposed to have our voices heard. We are supposed to just quietly sit back and take it—all of it—and accept whatever their definition of the world is.

Regardless of whether or not Alissa Heinsersheid is out of a job or not I don't think makes a difference, ultimately. At least not in the short term. With this wording of her departure, I think consumers are smarter than the narrative. They want an admission of guilt, and they want the company execs to be honest about what happened and why, and admit they were wrong.

This isn't going to be a moment where consumers, essentially ignored and unappreciated, now simply go back to the stores and start buying Bud Light again. The damage has been done and the little token of a "white flag" being thrown up in a kinda sorta way isn't enough.

Besides, I think consumers need to continue to stand tall against what Bud Light tried to do. If the "moment" is one in which execs simply feel they dodged a little bullet here, the real message will be lost in translation.

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In Bud Light Debacle Workers Should Fight Too

I stand firmly with the Bud Light boycott over the controversy surrounding putting transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on their beer cans. And that's saying something since I am generally opposed to boycotts. However, when it comes to woke and cancel culture, which has permeated businesses of all kinds for some years now, I take a different stance.

Enough is enough.

The role of business is not to promote social causes or to necessarily have one position or another. It is to promote their products and services and make a profit. When they sway from this primary purpose, they jeopardize their ability to do that.

But it is not just owners and shareholders that suffer when a backlash happens. It's the workers who get hurt in the process as well.

Consumers who are unhappy with what a business is doing is going to make a stand against it with their wallets. As someone once was quoted as saying, "Every dollar we spend casts a vote for the kind of world we want to live in." In the case of the Bud Light controversy, consumers are speaking quite loudly about their unhappiness.

At some point the position the company is taking is going to affect the workers who produce the products and services and I think they should be fighting just as hard against this sort of thing as consumers are. It's their jobs at stake, after all.

Because let's not forget, while Bud Light is only one brand among many, consumers boycotting Bud Light aren't necessarily boycotting just that brand. They are boycotting the company behind it. Anheuser-Busch InBev. So, while one may consider that other brands being sold could pick up the slack, so to speak, that's not necessarily the case.

Workers need to stand up and tell the company they work for that this sort of thing doesn't do anyone any good. You are taking a stand for a group of people who represent only 1% of the population. The other 99% are standing against you and if profits fall, our jobs could be cut.

Granted, people in general do have short attention spans, and so it is reasonable to assume that perhaps this issue falls by the wayside sooner rather than later. Still, with losses looming around $7 billion and counting, and with woke and cancel culture becoming more and more disliked, the impact of Bud Light's decision to put Mulvaney on the can could well be a lasting one after all.

Part of the issue, I think, is that I don't think companies are necessarily getting the message clearly enough. The response from Anheuser-Busch InBev about the controversy, which was more of a non-response, seems to indicate that.

They sort of said to their customers, "We don't care what you think." And even if that's not word-for-word what they said, that's what customers heard. That was the essence of the company's response. "We are going to do what we want to do and you're just going to have to accept that and fall in line."

In other words, I don't think it is enough for just consumers to stop buying the products. I think other businesses should make a stand too and pull products from their shelves, and workers should step off the production line and say, "We're not returning to work until you understand your customers better."

You have to fight fire with fire. Because the woke and cancel crowd right now have all the fire, and a lot of it. The rest of us need to have as much fire individually as they do, because ultimately we will have more fire. We are the majority.

Whether or not workers would actually do this is debatable. Or even retailers. I understand, on a common-sense surface level why they might choose not to. Still, if the message is not delivered strongly enough, the other side will simply keep on winning, and the majority will have to continue to be bombarded with more of this nonsense that is becoming a deadly cancer on American business.

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QURAN BURNING IS MORE IGNORANCE

The burning of the Quran by a Florida pastor sort of reminds me of one of those TV infomercials where the host yells out to the eager, waiting audience, "But wait! There's More!" Ignorance, that is. That's what we're getting more of with this deal. Ignorance.

I spoke very loud and clear about the Mosque being built so near to Ground Zero being a very bad idea. I listened to all of the arguments that the proponents of the Mosque made about rights and the Constitution. I very quickly conceded that if Imam Rauf wants to build a Mosque anywhere he wants to, he most surely can. The Constitution clearly says so, and I don't dispute that fact one iota. The question for me was and is, if the vast majority of the American people are opposed to the building of the Mosque, and it is the desire of the builder to create a bridge between the Muslims and the rest of America, wouldn't it be the prudent thing to do to not build the Mosque?

Bridges aren't built by pissing off everyone on the bridge.

And what of this burning of the Quran? Sure, the pastor has every right in the world to light the thing on fire and chant whatever things he wants to chant while doing it. But should he do it? Is it the best judgement on his part? Is it the prudent thing to do? In this case do two wrongs make a right?

I think not.

I put the burning of the Quran in the very same light that I put the building of the Mosque. Both are bad ideas, and I think they are both bad ideas for very obvious reasons. The ignorance of both the Florida pastor and the New York Imam is as clear as the nose on my face.

READ MORE OF SPRINGBOARD ON HUBPAGES:
The Mosque Is Not About Religious Freedom
From Comments:Everything about this attack was based on the Muslim faith, in the name of Allah, and in the cause of Islamic Jihad...if you want to build an AMERICAN non-denominational center of worship and prayer, go for it. A Mosque is about victory plain and simple. A bridge, by the way, travels in both directions. A Mosque only travels in one.
It's Who You Know, And Who You Blow
From Comments:Mr. Rockefeller Sr. CAN look down at Jr. and say, "Junior, this here money is mine. This here acheivement is through my effort. My smarts. My guts. I will not give you the fruits of my efforts and you should not expect that I offer them to you. You CAN be a witness to my acheivement, and you CAN be inspired by the knowledge that we live in a world where IF you work as hard as I did, and do your very best as I did, that while you still may not acheive to the exact level that I did, that you will have at least had the exact opportunity that I did." Conceptually, if you succeed, you succeed on your own because you are meant to. And if you fail, you do that on your own as well for the same reason.
Climate Change and the Issue of the Falling Sky
From Comments:Curbing pollution and being responsible citizens of the earth is a very important thing. I do believe that we're doing plenty to hurt at least the ecosystem, and it could have a profound impact on even our own lives. But the gloom and doom stuff is just a lot of focus on hocus pocus and I think it's simply the wrong way to approach the underlying issue of pollution and the effects it could have on the environment.

We Do Have Term Limits in the USA

Term limits. It's a thing I think most Americans would say they are for. No one really thinks we should necessarily have career politicians in our Congressional ranks. Certainly any one person having too much power is something that we all have great concern about—it's why we limit the number of terms a person can serve as president.

We don't want dictators. We want leaders.

Of course there's a lot more chatter these days about term limits. The whole third party movement thing is helping to fuel this. The fact that so many democrats are simply not listening to the American people is helping to fuel this. And while we're at it, let me just make myself clear that I am not suggesting that the vast majority of republicans necessarily have it right either. Their ears are slammed shut in many ways as well.

We're tired of the status quo. That much is clear. But here's my thing. We don't need Congress to come up with a bill that establishes term limits. This doesn't have to be a law. Because we already have term limits in the USA. It's called our vote.

Look, the fact is we have to hold our elected officials responsible for their actions, or their inactions for that matter. We cannot simply keep on voting these fools back in and then complain they've been there too long. If we don't like what these guys are doing, we send them home. We put in new faces. We change the landscape.

Part of the reason most of these guys don't deliver on their campaign promises, and part of the reason they albeit shut out the voice of the American people is because they have no fear of reprisal. They don't feel that the American people are going to kick them out of their offices.

If we're not satisfied with what our elected officials are doing, rather than complain about it, I say we just vote them out. Two years. One shot. You get it right or you're out. That's your term limit. The American people will decide.

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SPRINGBOARD ON THE 5 O'CLOCK NEWS

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