Category Archives: Business

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Another Pie-In-The-Sky Green Energy Project Meets Economic Reality

My good friend and occasional blog pinch hitter William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove noted on Wednesday that General Motors is cutting back significantly on its commitment to produce the plug-in electric vehicles the global warming climate emergency activists and Biden Administration have pushed:

After investing billions to adhere to President Joe Biden’s green energy agenda, General Motors (GM) is backtracking on all fronts when it comes to Electric Vehicles (EVs).

As GM was the last of the Big Three to strike a tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers (UAW), the automaker’s green energy dreams — championed by the Biden administration — have come crumbling down. Continue reading →

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2 + 2 ≠ 5

Why should the taxpayers be on the hook to pay for other people’s transportation?

The money lines are far down in the story:

The authority projects an annual operating deficit of $240 million beginning next July 1 as the last of its federal pandemic aid is spent, a situation dubbed the “fiscal cliff” that afflicts most transit systems in the United States.

SEPTA and the state’s other public transit agencies are pushing for the legislature to adopt a measure that would give them a greater share of the sales tax to support operations.

Continue reading →

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This is what’s wrong with Cracker Barrel!

Laying in bed this morning, I saw this story on my iPad news reader:

‘The over-65 group is particularly value-conscious’: Older Americans are losing their appetite for restaurants such as Cracker Barrel and Olive Garden — here’s what’s keeping them away

by Serah Louis | Thursday, October 12, 2023 | 8:00 AM EDT

Several fast-casual restaurant chains have reported declining foot traffic and sales following the COVID-19 pandemic — especially among their older clientele.

Company representatives at Cracker Barrel CBRL: (%) and Darden Restaurants — owner of Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse — have pointed to increased prices and ongoing health concerns alienating some of their over-65 customers.

“We just have not yet recovered the visits with that group [over 65 years old] to the extent we thought we would, really, since the pandemic,” Cracker Barrel CEO Sandra Cochran said during a September earnings call.

But while some of these eateries have taken these changes in spending in stride by appealing to different demographics, it’s possible that others are being held back by their original consumer base.

Well, Sandra Cochran, net worth $51 million, you need to pay attention to that last quoted paragraph. From further down in the article:

When the chain introduced plant-based breakfast sausage last year in an effort to accommodate more consumers, there was a mix of praise and backlash on social media.

“Stop pushing this woke garbage,” wrote one outraged user in response to a Cracker Barrel Facebook post promoting the new product. “We go to Cracker Barrel for Traditional Values and Traditional Country Cooking… If you want to serve Lefty food, open an alternative store.”

You know, I really don’t care if Cracker Barrel has a “plant-based breakfast sausage,” as long as they have their real breakfast sausage available as well. The far bigger problem is their biscuits and gravy. Southern-style biscuits and gravy uses a sausage gravy, but the restaurant replaced that with their “sawmill” gravy years ago, and it really should be named sawdust gravy, because they removed the sausage and replaced it with some combination of spices which they somehow believed would taste the same.

Well, it doesn’t taste the same, and doesn’t taste even remotely close. Sawdust gravy would be a far more accurate name for the stuff. That’s what you need to fix first! If you want the older customers, the ones you’ve lost since the panicdemic, to return, the best way is through returning to better food!

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I love it when a plan comes together . . . and when someone else’s plans fall apart! When people tell you who they are, believe them!

Perhaps my good friend Christine Flowers didn’t get to cancel these people herself, but it does show that while we all have our freedom of speech, other people have a freedom to listen, and some people might not like what you have to say!

Harvard students scramble to take back support for letter attacking Israel as some CEOs look to blacklist them

By Melissa Koenig | Wednesday, October 11, 2023 | 2:34 PM EDT

A flurry of Harvard University students and groups are desperately trying to backtrack on their support of a letter blaming Israel for the mass slaughter of its own people by Hamas terrorists — as some business titans seek to blacklist them from future jobs. Continue reading →

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Odd question: will LGBTQ+ population decrease with end of Affirmative Action?

The Wall Street Journal is on top of the trends in business, as you’d expect, and reported that Chief Information Officers are worrying that employee ‘diversity’ — and how I’ve come to hate that word — will decrease following the Supreme Court’s  decision  in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, declaring what we all knew, that the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment prohibited Affirmative Action using racial preferences in collegiate admissions.

CIOs Say Affirmative Action Ruling Could Set Back Progress in Tech Diversity

Executives are questioning what a landmark Supreme Court decision on college admissions means for diversity hiring efforts

by Belle Lin | Monday, July 17, 2023 | 7:00 AM EDT

Business technology leaders said that last month’s Supreme Court’s ruling that colleges can’t consider race in admissions policies could have a chilling effect on initiatives aimed at diversifying the information-technology workforce.

The court’s decision is likely to alter the pipeline of diverse graduates entering the job market, they said, and may introduce challenges to companies’ existing hiring and promotion practices.

By removing race from college admission considerations, the pool of tech talent entering the workforce may not only be less diverse, it could also be smaller if underrepresented minorities don’t see the field as a welcoming or viable option, those executive say.

There’s more at the original.

The Court’s decision applied to universities, public and private, that accept federal money, including in the form of student financial aid. However, as Chief Justice John Roberts noted in the Court’s opinion, roughly 60% of colleges and universities admit all applicants. If the pool of graduates from certain technical specialties from Ivy League colleges becomes less diverse — there’s that word again! — then corporations might look at graduates from Middle Tennessee State (Acceptance rate = 87.1%) or Eastern Kentucky (Acceptance rate = 98.3%) or Jacksonville State University of Alabama (Acceptance rate = 76.3%), Robert Stacy McCain’s alma mater. After all, Alissa Heinerscheid proved that being a Hahvahd graduate was no guarantee that stupid decisions wouldn’t be taken!

Then I saw these interesting paragraphs in another Journal article:

The elevation of victimhood over achievement has led many to misrepresent their racial and gender identities in pursuit of advantages in professional and academic positions. Students at selective colleges are identifying as non-heterosexual at rates several times higher than historic or national averages, though University of London political scientist Eric Kaufmann noted that there hasn’t been a corresponding increase in sexual behavior tied to those identities. I’ve heard of parents at elite private high schools using genetic testing services hoping to identify any ethnic heritage that would boost their children’s college applications and of young professionals falsely identifying as bisexual for a career boost.

Racial and gender quotas result in liberals’ willful hypocrisy and convoluted rationalizations when they are confronted with the reality that aptitudes, interests and effort aren’t always evenly distributed among their superficial and shifting politicized racial categories. Liberals have translated their calls for increased diversity into demands that colleges admit and employers hire black and Hispanic applicants in proportion to their group’s share of the U.S. population.

Wait, what? “Students at selective colleges are identifying as non-heterosexual at rates several times higher than historic or national averages” but “there hasn’t been a corresponding increase in sexual behavior tied to those identities”? From the linked report:

  • When we look at homosexual behavior, we find that it has grown much less rapidly than LGBT identification. Men and women under 30 who reported a sexual partner in the last five years dropped from around 96% exclusively heterosexual in the 1990s to 92% exclusively heterosexual in 2021. Whereas in 2008 attitudes and behavior were similar, by 2021 LGBT identification was running at twice the rate of LGBT sexual behavior.
  • The author provides a high-point estimate of an 11-point increase in LGBT identity between 2008 and 2021 among Americans under 30. Of that, around 4 points can be explained by an increase in same-sex behavior. The majority of the increase in LGBT identity can be traced to how those who only engage in heterosexual behavior describe themselves.
  • Very liberal ideology is associated with identifying as LGBT among those with heterosexual behavior, especially women. It seems that an underlying psychological disposition is inclining people with heterosexual behavior to identify both as LGBT and very liberal. The most liberal respondents have moved from 10-15% non-heterosexual identification in 2016 to 33% in 2021. Other ideological groups are more stable.

So, what do we have here? A significant increase in the number of younger people who are also mostly self-identified liberals? Does this mean that these people might be more open to take a walk on the wild side, but mostly haven’t yet, or is it some sort of ‘siding with the oppressed’ help, or could it possibly, just possibly, going the Elizabeth Warren/Rachel Dolezal route of ‘identifying’ with a particular minority for some real or perceived Affirmative Action benefit?

  • Very liberal ideology and LGBT identification are associated with anxiety and depression in young people. Very liberal young Americans are twice as likely as others to experience these problems. 27% of young Americans with anxiety or depression were LGBT in 2021. This relationship appears to have strengthened since 2010.
  • Among young people, mental health problems, liberal ideology, and LGBT identity are strongly correlated. Using factor analysis in two different studies shows that assuming one common variable between all three traits explains 40-50% of the variation.

LOL! I have long believed that “very liberal ideology” is indicative of some sort of mental problem, because, especially with the new #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading left, to be that far left requires a delusional mindset, ignoring the reality that is all around us. As we have previously reported, the areas in Philadelphia which were most seriously impacted by violent crime recently voted for a tougher-on-crime candidate, while the more ‘progressive’ candidates had far greater support in the wealthier, whiter — Philly is very internally segregated — areas.

You can’t pay attention to the news in Philadelphia without realizing that crime is a serious problem, but the anti-police, anti-incarceration leftist candidate won her votes in the areas experiencing far less crime.

There is, at least at the margins, some socialization concerning what is and is not acceptable when it comes to sex. For boys growing up, the idea of fellating another boy, or receiving anal intercourse from such, is strongly reinforced as something which is humiliating, completely unmanly, and just about every other negative connotation that can be put on it. It is at least arguable that forces pushing acceptance of male homosexuality can lessen the effects of the normal socialization, and perhaps some teenaged and twenty-something males might not be quite so averse to trying something, if the right situation arose. Porn has lessened the stigma against female homosexual liaisons.

But if actual homosexual activity is being reported at significantly lower rates than abnormal sexual identification — and let me be explicit here: anything other than strictly heterosexual identification is considered abnormal by me — then there must be some other incentive for people to identify as something other than normal.

  • College students majoring in the social sciences and humanities are about 10 points more LGBT than those in STEM. Meanwhile, 52% of students taking highly political majors such as race or gender studies identify as LGBT, compared to 25% among students overall.

Realistically, what can the incentive be other than politics or some perceived advantage to be gained? And if the perceived advantage would be the shortcuts offered by Affirmative Action, shouldn’t the elimination of Affirmative Action in collegiate admissions reduce the percentage of those claiming abnormal sexual orientations and identities?

References

References
↑1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.
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Dumb as a box of rocks

Were intelligence indicated by a light, there is a good chance that Dylan Mulvaney would be represented by a 15-watt refrigerator bulb. The backlash against Bud Light for using Mr Mulvaney in any form resulted in a customer backlash and boycott that not only hasn’t faded, but seems to be gaining steam three months after the incident. Executives Alissa Heinerscheid and Daniel Blake, initially reported to have taken ‘leaves of absence,’ have reportedly been terminated.

Transgender Influencer Speaks Out After Backlash Against Bud Light

Dylan Mulvaney has faced stalking and personal attacks since featuring Bud Light on her (sic) social media in April, she (sic) said, adding that the beer maker did not contact her (sic) in light of the hostility.

by John Yoon | Thursday, June 29, 2023 | 6:49 PM EDT

A transgender influencer whose social media promotion of Bud Light drew attacks from conservatives and a boycott of the brand spoke directly about the controversy for the first time on Thursday, saying that she (sic) had been bullied and that the beer maker had failed to contact her (sic) in light of the hostility.

Since April, when the influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, featured Bud Light in an Instagram video, she (sic) has faced stalking and personal attacks, she (sic) said in videos she (sic) posted on social media.

“What transpired from that video was more bullying and transphobia than I could have ever imagined,” Ms. (sic) Mulvaney, 26, said. “I’ve been followed, and I have felt a loneliness that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

Throughout the controversy, she (sic) continued, Bud Light has not reached out to her (sic). She (sic) was scared to leave her (sic) home while the company failed to stand by her (sic), she (sic) said.

“I was waiting for the brand to reach out to me, but they never did,” she (sic) said. “For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse, in my opinion, than not hiring a trans person at all.”

As per our Stylebook, The First Street Journal does not change the direct quotations of others. And while we realize that many professional media organizations specify using the names and pronouns that the ‘transgendered’ claim for themselves, the use of fifteen separate pronouns plus a feminine honorific to refer to Mr Mulvaney, in the subtitle and five short paragraphs, just 191 words of story text plus 34 words of the subtitle, 7.11% of the total words in the story, seems so excessive in normal prose that we believed we needed to note each erroneous usage.

As for Mr Mulvaney’s complaint that no one at Anheuser-Busch BUD: (%) has “reached out” to him, he, and really anyone brighter than the aforementioned 15-watt refrigerator bulb, ought to realize that he’s simply toxic. Who at Anheuser-Busch, unless directly ordered to by CEO Brendan Whitworth — who has been doing his best to isolate himself from the decisions of his minions — would contact Mr Mulvaney in any way, after seeing what happened to Mr Blake and Mrs Heinerscheid? Anything that anyone from the company said to Mr Mulvaney would be reported to the media by him, possibly with a recording. If it was sympathetic to Mr Mulvaney and his plight, such would be used against the company yet again, potentially costing Bud Light even more sales. If it was of the “Get lost and stay lost” variety, it would also be used against the company, to show that they were just [insert plural slang term for the rectum here]. Any contact with Mr Mulvaney is a lose/lose proposition for Anheuser-Busch at this point. And it would be a Career Limiting Move for anyone to do unless so directed by Mr Whitworth.

Calls for a boycott followed, fueled in part by those who had previously attacked the transgender community. One of the most prominent voices included the musician Kid Rock, who posted a video of himself shooting a stack of Bud Light cases.

Bud Light’s sales plummeted. Since then, two of the company’s marketing executives have gone on leave. The company also said in May that it would focus marketing campaigns on sports and music. This month, Bud Light was dethroned as the nation’s top-selling beer. The brand is still struggling to win back customers.

Bud Light has been criticized by some members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community for its tepid response to the backlash.

But the conservative outburst has spread to brand partnerships that other companies have struck with transgender people. Like Bud Light, the retail company Target shifted its marketing because of opposition to the company’s inclusion of L.G.B.T.Q. communities. The country singer Garth Brooks was criticized when he said at a music event that his new bar in Nashville would serve many types of beer, including Bud Light.

Simply put, it doesn’t matter what the #woke think. Not everyone is ‘woke,’ and when a lot of your customers don’t go along with the far-left ideology, leave politics out of your advertising, or those customers will leave dollars out of your pocket.

“Supporting trans people shouldn’t be political,” she (sic) said. “There should be nothing controversial or divisive about working with us.”

Sorry, but regardless of how Mr Mulvaney thinks things should be, ‘transgenderism’ is controversial and divisive. While Hahvahd educated Mrs Heinerscheid wasn’t as bright as that 15-watt bulb, almost everyone else can see that it is.

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Get #woke, go broke!

We have previously reported on the self-inflicted brand wound Budweiser and Bud Light suffered. Bud Light Vice President for Marketing Alissa Heinerscheid and her boss Daniel Blake, who oversees marketing for Anheuser-Busch’s mainstream brands, took ‘leaves of absence’ in April, leaves which were reported to not have been voluntary.

Report: Bud Light Makes Decision On Execs Responsible For March Madness Controversy

Story by Chris Rosvoglou • Tuesday, June 27, 2023

According to a report from the Daily Caller, the executives at Anheuser-Busch responsible for the Bud Light controversy that took place during March Madness are out.

Bud Light partnered up with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney during the NCAA Tournament. That didn’t sit well with a large portion of Bud Light’s consumer demographic.

The Daily Caller was told that group vice president for marketing Daniel Blake and Bud Light marketing vice president Alissa Heinerscheid are “gone gone.”

Assuming that this report is accurate, it sends a strong message to other corporate executives: f(ornicate) up like this, and you are toast. Not just toast, but toast which has fallen on the floor, buttered side down.

Just Embarrassing! Bud Light Hits New Weekly Low In Sales After Dylan Mulvaney Disaster, Down Nearly A Whopping 30%

Story by Andrew Powell • Monday, June 26, 2023

It just gets worse and worse for Bud Light.

Also see: William Teach: Bud Light Continues Digging, Brings Back “Old” Mascot

Under the Anheuser-Busch umbrella, Bud Light has been tanking in sales ever since their horrendously bad decision to partner with Dylan Mulvaney. And judging by the latest sales data, it doesn’t look like the bleeding will stop anytime soon. As a matter of fact, the blows to Bud Light have gotten worse.

Compared to the same time period of 2022, sales for the beer company are down a whopping 28.5%, according to data for the week ending June 17 from Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ via the New York Post.

Last week, Bud Light’s decline was at 26.8%, making this week actually worse than prior.

When it comes to the Anheuser-Busch brand altogether, Bud Light isn’t their only beer taking a hit because of their “wokeness.” With their other drinks, Budweiser’s sales are down 12.3%, while Busch Light has dipped 8.1% and Michelob Ultra took a 4% slide, according to Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ data.

Bud Light’s competition, meanwhile, is taking complete advantage of their collapse with skyrocketing numbers. Rival Yuengling Lager has shot up 25.1%, while Coors Light is seeing green at 21.8% and Miller Lite is at 16%.

It’s not just sales either. The stock price of Anheuser-Busch has slipped 15.33% since the Mulvaney campaign. At the end of March around the time of the NCAA college basketball tournament, the beer corporation’s stock was at $66.73. As of Monday afternoon, it’s down to $56.50. In total, Anheuser-Busch’s stock has seen a 15% decline.

There’s more at the original, and while I hate to see anyone get fired, Mr Blake and Mrs Heinerscheid caused a backlash that has cost Bud Light more than a quarter of its total sales. I’m guessing that the lawyers have managed to get some non-disclosure agreement contract buyout for the former execs, but tanking your company’s sales by more than a quarter is an unrecoverable error.

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All the News That’s Politically Correct: The Journolism of The Philadelphia Inquirer

No, that’s not a typo in the headline; I spelled journolism exactly as I had intended, reflecting the liberal bias of the newspaper.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is, as I have noted many times, our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper, and the winner of twenty Pulitzer Prizes, so one would think that that august journal would cover news that involves the City of Brotherly Love. Well, maybe not, if such news might violate publisher Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Hughes’ edict that the Inky would be an ‘anti-racist news organization.’ From The New York Times:

White Starbucks Manager Fired Amid Furor Over Racism Wins $25 Million

The company fired a former regional manager because of her race amid the fallout from the arrests of two Black men at a Philadelphia store, a federal jury found.

by Ed Shanahan | Tuesday, June 13, 2023

The episode plunged one of America’s most ubiquitous brands into crisis.

In April 2018, two Black men entered a Starbucks shop in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philadelphia for a business meeting with a white man who had not yet arrived. While they waited, and before ordering, one of the two asked to use the bathroom. He was refused. Eventually, they were asked to leave. When they did not, an employee called the police.

Note the date of the Times story: Tuesday, June 13th. A site search of the Inquirer’s website for “Shannon Phillips”, conducted at 9:38 AM EDT on Wednesday, June 14th, turned up a story, dated October 31, 2019, on Miss Phillips’ lawsuit being filed, but absolutely nothing on her winning that lawsuit, and $25.6 million in damages.

Could it be because Miss Hughes wasn’t publisher of the newspaper in 2019? The newspaper quoted her as having said:

Nothing matters more in our democracy than local journalism, to speak truth to power, to hold elected officials accountable, to celebrate our sports teams’ wins and losses, and to report on justice reform and the education system and gun violence, all of which has been part of The Inquirer’s beat for 190 years.

Apparently, “local journalism” and “speak(ing) truth to power” go into the trash bin when that “local journalism” and “truth” do not fit the newspaper’s “anti-racist” direction!

Back to the Times:

The subsequent arrests, captured in videos viewed millions of times online, prompted accusations of racism, protests and boycott threats. The company’s chief executive apologized publicly, describing the way the men had been treated as “reprehensible.” Starbucks took the extraordinary step of temporarily closing 8,000 stores to teach workers about racial bias.

On Monday, in a surprising twist, a federal jury in New Jersey ordered Starbucks to pay $25.6 million to a former regional manager after determining that the company had fired her amid the fallout from the Rittenhouse Square episode because she was white.

The jury found that Starbucks had violated the federal civil rights of the former manager, Shannon Phillips, as well as a New Jersey law that prohibits discrimination based on race, awarding her $600,000 in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages.

Note that while the Times’ story was dated Tuesday, the verdict was reached on Monday; the Inky had plenty of time to get this story onto its website.

There’s more at the Times’ original, which is interesting, but this article is not about the verdict, but the Inquirer’s biased journolism. An important story about an incident in Philadelphia does not get covered because it doesn’t fit the newspaper’s meme.

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Get #woke, go broke: this is what can happen when companies start getting involved in political controversies All too often, it's not just the #woke who go broke

Everybody has heard the expression, ‘Get #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading, go broke.’

Some on the left thought that the backlash against Bud Light over the Dylan Mulvaney stunt would fade relatively quickly. In news which might call into question other corporations and their ‘celebration’ of homosexual ‘Pride Month,’ it looks like that hasn’t happened yet. From The Wall Street Journal:

Bud Light Loses Title as Top-Selling U.S. Beer

Modelo Especial in May took over the top sales spot, reflecting the enduring damage from a Bud Light boycott

By Jennifer Maloney | Tuesday, June 13, 2023 | 8:58 PM EDT

Bud Light no longer rules the American beer market.

Modelo Especial overtook the brand as the top-selling U.S. beer in May, punctuating a monthslong boycott of Bud Light that has reshuffled the beer industry.

Modelo represented 8.4% of U.S. retail-store beer sales in the four weeks ended June 3, compared with 7.3% for Bud Light, according to an analysis of Nielsen data by consulting firm Bump Williams.

Bud Light’s sales have tanked since April, when transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted an image on Instagram of a personalized Bud Light can that the brand had sent her as a gift. The Instagram post sparked an uproar, and brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev’s BUD: (%) response to the boycott angered even more people.

Bud Light’s sales were down about 24% in the week ended June 3 compared with the same week last year, according to Bump Williams. Other Anheuser-Busch brands also have taken a hit, including Budweiser and Michelob Ultra.

At least as of June 1th, it was “unclear” whether Bud Light’s vice president for marketing Alissa Heinerscheid remains on her ‘leave of absence’ or has returned to work. That was the latest information I could find in a Google search for Alissa Heinerscheid.

One would have thought that other corporate leaders, seeing what happened to Mrs Heinerscheid and her boss, Group Vice President for Marketing at Anheuser-Busch Daniel Blake, who also took a ‘leave of absence,’, reportedly involuntarily, would have tempered the response of other corporate executives to going all-in on ‘Pride Month,’ but some took the leap anyway.

The continued decline through May is an ominous sign for Bud Light distributors during what they say is a make-or-break stretch between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Most Anheuser-Busch distributors are independently owned, many of them by families who have sold Budweiser for generations. Some Anheuser-Busch distributors said they are now contemplating layoffs. Others who also carry Constellation brands said their losses have been partially offset by Modelo’s surge.

“Our year is screwed,” said an Anheuser-Busch distributor who doesn’t carry Modelo.

In other words, it isn’t just Mr Blake and Mrs Heinerscheid who have suffered[2]I have not seen any public information as to whether Mr Blake or Mrs Heinerscheid are being paid during their involuntary leaves of absence.; many small business owners have lost a lot of business, and some of their employees may lose their jobs.

Since the boycott, Anheuser-Busch has accelerated production of new Bud Light ads, leaning into the themes of football and country music. The brewer also told its distributors that it would buy back unsold cases of beer that have gone past their expiration date.

In other words, ‘leaning into the themes’ that are not controversial or political, which is pretty much what sensible advertisers have been doing since advertising began. Try to get a few new customers, and don’t piss off the ones you already have. One would have thought that the Harvard-educated Mrs Heinerscheid would have already known that, but apparently if one did think that, one would have been wrong.

References

References
↑1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.

↑2 I have not seen any public information as to whether Mr Blake or Mrs Heinerscheid are being paid during their involuntary leaves of absence.