UNEXPECTEDLY! Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy Says “It’s Entirely Possible” For Phoebe Waller-Bridge To Take Over Indiana Jones Franchise.

Kennedy spoke with Variety about the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny film, where she was asked if Disney and Lucasfilm see potential for Phoebe Waller-Bridge and her character, Helena Shaw, to carry on the franchise.

Kennedy informed the outlet that “it’s entirely possible.” However, she also added, “We’re not having any of those conversations right now. We’re just focused on finishing this with Harrison.”

I’ve got a bad feeling about this…

UNEXPECTEDLY! The Spectacular Corporate Hypocrisy on Gay Rights and Uganda.

Uganda modified its recent laws punishing homosexuality, and so it’s no longer a crime to say you’re gay. But it is still a crime to exhibit any form of homosexual desire:

Existing, colonial-era law in Uganda already allows life sentences for homosexuality, but no one has been convicted of consensual same-sex relations since the country gained independence from Britain in 1962. The new bill reaffirms that punishment and allows prison terms of up to five years for actions such as touching another person “with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.”

Uganda also kept the provision that included a “death sentence for what it calls ‘aggravated homosexuality,’ acts that include same-sex intercourse with a minor or an HIV-positive person convicted for the second time for intercourse with someone of the same gender.”

I think we can all agree that an adult having sex with a minor is a serious crime; here in the U.S., as of 2018, the average sentence for offenders convicted of statutory rape was 30 months. Hopefully we all agree that those who are HIV-positive have a responsibility to inform their partners and take appropriate precautions. But to enact the death penalty against HIV-positive Ugandans is almost absurd, as HIV has already been a de facto death penalty for roughly 1.4 million Ugandans since the advent of the virus. This is not all that far from criminalizing attempted suicide and then punishing it with the death penalty.

Even those with the most cursory knowledge about Uganda know the country faces some real problems. As the CIA World Factbook summarizes, Uganda “faces numerous challenges that could affect future stability, including explosive population growth, power and infrastructure constraints, corruption, underdeveloped democratic institutions, and human rights deficits.” Uganda ranks 166th out of 191 in the United Nations’ annual ranking of human development, 125th out of 139 countries on the rule of law, 142nd out of 180 in corruption, and 121st out of 163 in peace and stability, and ranked 115th out of 141 in pre-Covid economic competitiveness. Roughly one in five Ugandans lives below the poverty line. Roughly one in five children between the ages five and 14 are in the workforce instead of school. As of 2019, just 17 percent of the country’s rural areas had access to electricity. As the Factbook states, “Uganda is subject to armed fighting among hostile ethnic groups, rebels, armed gangs, militias, and various government forces that extend across its borders.”

And this is all separate from the Ebola-virus outbreak.

The heterosexuals of Uganda have their own major challenges as well:

“Except in urban areas, actual fertility exceeds women’s desired fertility by one or two children, which is indicative of the widespread unmet need for contraception, lack of government support for family planning, and a cultural preference for large families. High numbers of births, short birth intervals, and the early age of childbearing contribute to Uganda’s high maternal mortality rate.”

Add it all up, and Uganda looks like a deeply troubled country beset by poverty, instability, violence, lack of infrastructure, insufficient educational and economic opportunities, corruption, and ineffective government policies. And in this light, gay and lesbian Ugandans start to look like a very convenient scapegoat for the state. (For example, the challenges connected to the country’s high birthrate are really not the fault of the country’s gays and lesbians.)

With so many problems, you might wonder who would want to do business in a place like Uganda. The answer turns out to be quite a few multinationals: Coca-Cola, Unilever, Diageo, Citibank, Hilton and Sheraton hotel chains and . . . wait for it . . .

Anheuser-Busch InBev. Yes, the same company that is seeing plummeting sales of Bud Light over the perception that it jumped into the culture wars in the United States also operates breweries, factories, and distribution networks in a country that criminalizes homosexuality. Call me crazy, but I think I see some inconsistencies there.

Related: Corporate accounts reflect Pride Month (but there are exceptions).

UNEXPECTEDLY! Fed researchers: $15 minimum wage in Minneapolis and St. Paul boosted pay — but cost jobs.

The push to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour in both Minneapolis and St. Paul has successfully boosted the average worker’s hourly pay in both cities, but it has also led to sharp drops in the numbers of available jobs and hours worked, new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has found.

Many economists have reached similar conclusions about minimum wage increases in the past. Still, the size of the impacts the researchers measured — by comparing Minneapolis and St. Paul to data culled from other Minnesota cities from 2017 through 2021 — were eye-popping, especially in low-wage industries.

Especially? Really? Minimum wage laws have always put the squeeze on the entry-level positions teens need to get their first taste of the real world.

UNEXPECTEDLY! Just When Dem Debates Would Have Been Interesting, DNC Says There Will Be No Debates.

Add in Marianne Williamson, and the proceedings would get even more fun. The self-help guru and author of A Return to Love got some attention during her 2020 candidacy for her unforgettable quips, which include “You need not apologize for being brilliant, talented, gorgeous, rich, or smart” and “The reason we’re such fertile ground for the dark forces of such lies and social manipulation is that we’re dissociated from the genuine light of self-awareness.” There is a lot of truth to that, and a Biden-Kennedy-Williamson debate could be a marvelous show, featuring the garrulous old liar rattling on about how he got arrested for trying to visit Nelson Mandela in prison or about how his son Beau was killed in Iraq, Kennedy calling out state and corporate fascism, and Williamson waxing philosophical.

That’s precisely why the debates won’t happen. The Democratic National Committee knows that Williamson is nutty, and it thinks Kennedy is nutty, too, and it’s well aware that the less the public sees the dementia patient who pretends to be president, the better. They’re going with Biden for reelection, and they know that he can only hurt his own chances by standing toe-to-toe against a man who can actually articulate a coherent sentence and defend his positions, as well as against a woman who, however loopy she may be, looks like Madame Curie next to Old Joe.

And so despite the fact that RFK, who has never been a national figure, immediately jumped to 14%, there will be no real Democrat race. There will just be a coronation.

And there could very well be: ‘Years of liberal indoctrination:’ Scott Walker warns Republicans about assuming Biden losing is a ‘sure thing.’

UNEXPECTEDLY! Bud Light’s marketing leadership undergoes shakeup after Dylan Mulvaney controversy. Alissa Heinerscheid, who has led the brand since June, takes leave of absence and is replaced by Budweiser global marketing VP Todd Allen.

Anheuser-Busch InBev has changed marketing leadership for Bud Light in the wake of controversy over the brand sending a can to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney with her face on it.

Alissa Heinerscheid, marketing VP for the brand since June 2022, has taken a leave of absence, the brewer confirmed, and will be replaced by Todd Allen, who was most recently global marketing VP for Budweiser.

Heinerscheid did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

As Charles Cooke wrote last Thursday: Bud Light’s Not-So-‘Inclusive’ Marketing.

In explaining her mandate as Bud Light’s VP of marketing last month, Alissa Heinerscheid made sure to hit all of the requisite buzzwords. “If we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand,” Heinerscheid warned, “there will be no future for Bud Light.” “What I brought to that” endeavor, she continued, “was a belief in, okay, what does ‘evolve and elevate’ mean? It means inclusivity. It means shifting the tone. It means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive and feels lighter and brighter and different and appeals to women and to men.” “Representation,” Heinerscheid concluded, “is sort of the heart of evolution.”

As a non-native speaker of this peculiar form of English, I feel obliged to ask what all of this actually means. Evidently, Alissa Heinerscheid believes that these unusual strings of words provided a comprehensible answer to the question she was being asked. To me, they merely invite more inquiries. Heinerscheid took over in July of 2022. Are we to conclude that, before that point, Bud Light was uninclusive, heavy, and dark? That there were large numbers of Americans who suspected that Bud Light was quietly bigoted? That the country’s bars were chock full of anguished “young drinkers” worrying audibly about the presumptive social trustworthiness of Corona versus Allagash White? And if they were, are we to believe that they’ve been assuaged by the company’s mystifying decision to place the face of a performing minstrel atop its brand?

Heinerscheid’s bid for “inclusivity” has certainly succeeded — check out the enormous ratio of comments to retweets on Bud Light’s last communication so far on Twitter:

Meanwhile, in attempt to put a Band-Aid on its self-inflicted bullet wound, Budweiser is reduced to running an ad built around all of its old cliches: John Nolte: Patronizing Budweiser Ad Laughed off Internet After Dylan Mulvaney Debacle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTMZKlkXP_k

The ad reeks of 1) desperation and 2) an ad campaign where someone wrote the following phrases on a whiteboard—heart of America, hope in tomorrow, American spirit—and then smugly walked off in the certainty we RedStateTards would forget all about the transvestite who prances around like an astonished reindeer.

These scenes look like they were generated by AI prompts.

“Two firefighter bros, one black and one white, doing a shake-hands-hug.”

“Two trucker-looking bros sharing a Bud on a porch in the country.”

“A Keith Olbermann look-alike wearing a shoulder patch that says “LAND OF THE FREE” raising an American flag (but don’t show the full flag).”

The ad’s Twitter “ratio” is hilarious…

“Hey @Budweiser. What’s next on your agenda after mocking women? Are you going to ridicule disabled veterans? Demand to defund police? Maybe dabble in a little bit of antisemitism?” asked one.

“My favorite advertisement by a mile was the Clydesdales after 9/11. It was absolute perfection. After your embrace of the trans agenda, glorifying a man looking for his 15 mins of fame by mocking women. I will never buy, drink or serve your beer again. #BoycottAnheuserBusch,” said another.

“Transgender rights and inclusion are issues that are proving deeply polarizing,” a Newsweek scribe who refers to Dylan Mulvaney as “her” notes. “A survey by the Pew Research Center last year found that 38 percent of Americans believed that society had gone too far in accepting transgender people, while 36 percent said it had not gone far enough.

So why go there with your beer marketing? Say what you will about Don Draper, at least he knew how to move product.

UNEXPECTEDLY! $52 Billion Chipmaking Plan Is Racing Toward Failure.

Passed last year with bipartisan support, the law was meant to revive US chipmaking capacity. Although America is a world leader in cutting-edge chip design, its share of global semiconductor manufacturing has declined from 37% in 1990 to about 12%. Given the importance of such chips to the economy and especially to national security — the Defense Department needs about 1.9 billion of them a year — a more or less coherent case could be made for subsidies, prudently applied.

Yet simply writing checks was never going to be enough. Producing chips in the US still takes 25% longer and costs nearly 50% more than doing so in Asia. Significant policy changes would be needed for US-based manufacturers to be even remotely competitive. As things stand, they face three serious impediments — all inflicted by the government.

As predicted by pretty much everybody who wasn’t expecting a handout. Maybe soon we’ll get a study showing that the Inflation Reduction Act doesn’t reduce inflation.

UNEXPECTEDLY! ‘I can’t get my money out:’ Billionaire investor Mark Mobius says China is restricting flows of capital out of the country.

Mark Mobius, a pioneer in emerging markets investing, said China is restricting investment outflows from the country, a move that would be taking place as the world’s second-largest economy is trying to shake off pressure from COVID-19 lockdowns.

“I’m personally affected because I have an account with HSBC in Shanghai. I can’t get my money out. The government is restricting the flow of money out of the country,” Mobius said on Thursday on the Fox Business show “Mornings with Maria”. “So I would be very, very careful investing in China,” the founder of Mobius Capital Partners said.

Mobius, who has spent decades traveling the world searching for investment opportunities, said he hasn’t been able to get an explanation about why he’s running into the restrictions in China.

Flashback to November of 2019: How to Conduct Business with Chinese Companies That See a Dark Future.

UNEXPECTEDLY! ‘I’m a Black Woman in America:’ Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Blames Election Loss on Racism, Sexism.

Chicago has been a Democrat-monopoly stronghold since 1931. The last time the city’s voters elected a Republican to be their mayor was 1927. Almost a century later, Lightfoot calling her (now thankfully former) constituents sexists and racists is yet another reminder of how out of touch she was. Similarly, her administration being forced to deal with a pandemic that it was completely unprepared for simply “accelerated the contradictions,” as her fellow socialists like to say.

UNEXPECTEDLY! The Project Veritas Board Is Feeling the Pain After Ousting Founder James O’Keefe.

UNEXPECTEDLY! California’s Predicted Fiscal Firestorm Has Arrived. “The bad news for California starts out with ‘California tax revenues, a bellwether for the country, declined 42% year-over-year in January, led by a 50% decline in income tax revenues.'”

That’s where the bad news starts.

Related: You Won’t Believe How Many People Have Fled California.

UNEXPECTEDLY! Deficit set to hit $1.4T this year amid persistent inflation, federal experts say.

UNEXPECTEDLY!

CNBC: Producer price inflation "coming in hot," accelerating more "than expected." pic.twitter.com/cgWYwvGO4g

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 16, 2023

UNEXPECTEDLY! Disney To Cut Thousands Of Jobs To Save Money As DeSantis Set To Take Control Of Company’s Orlando District Under New Bill: Report.

The announcement comes after newly released legislation by Florida Republicans this week will allow Governor Ron DeSantis to appoint all five leaders of Disney’s tax district in Orlando and will officially rename the district.

The bill will turn the Reedy Creek Improvement District into the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District and will deliver on DeSantis’ promise last year to take over the district.

DeSantis’ office said that the special tax district, which has allowed Disney to govern themselves since 1967, turned the theme park into “an unaccountable Corporate Kingdom.”

“Florida is dissolving the Corporate Kingdom and beginning a new era of accountability and transparency,” DeSantis’ office said. “These actions ensure a state-controlled district accountable to the people instead of a corporate-controlled kingdom.”

Also a possibility for Disney? A hostile takeover: Thwarted Meetings, a Sailing Trip Excuse and an Angry Investor: Why Activist Nelson Peltz Threatens to Disrupt Bob Iger’s Disney Comeback.

The Critical Drinker drinks all of Disney’s self-inflicted chaos in and laughs:

UNEXPECTEDLY! California Activists Say $223,000 In Reparations ‘Not Enough.’

UNEXPECTEDLY!  ‘Bleeding blue’: Cops flee NYPD in biggest exodus since 9/11.

UNEXPECTEDLY!  Condo prices in San Francisco plummet as drug abuse and crime soar.

They were all pour epater les bourgeois until they realized they were the bourgeois.

UNEXPECTEDLY! Price of Wholesale Goods Jumps More Than Expected as Inflation Persists.

UNEXPECTEDLY! House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters doesn’t plan to subpoena Sam Bankman-Fried to testify at hearing on FTX collapse.

Bankman-Fried’s fall from grace was swift and unforgiving after spending years as the crypto “darling” on Capitol Hill. He donated almost $40 million toward the 2022 congressional midterm elections, with much of it going to Democrats.

Nishad Singh, who became FTX’s lead engineer in 2019 following a stint at Bankman-Fried’s trading firm Alameda Research, has donated more than $13 million to Democratic Party causes since the start of the 2020 presidential election.

Ryan Salame, the co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, donated another $23 million, with most of his contributions benefiting Republicans.

So no SBF this month. Starting next month, things could be very different: For the banks, a ‘more hostile GOP.’

UNEXPECTEDLY! Biden Education Official Says Democracy—And Everything Else—Is White Supremacy.

UNEXPECTEDLY! NBC Drops Colorado Shooting as Lefty Narrative CRUMBLES With Nonbinary Suspect.

Or as America’s Newspaper of Record reports: Journalists Rush To Scene Of Shooting To Determine Whether It’s Politically Useful.

Jon Gabriel’s handy chart is their guide:

UNEXPECTEDLY! Federal Judge Strikes Down Biden Student-Loan ‘Forgiveness.’

A federal judge in Texas on Thursday blocked President Biden’s student-loan “forgiveness” plan in response to a lawsuit from the Job Creators Network Foundation (JCNF).

The conservative advocacy group filed a suit in October arguing that the Biden administration violated federal procedures by not allowing borrowers to provide public comment before the program was unveiled.

Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas called the plan an “unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s legislative power” and noted the program failed to go through standard regulatory processes.

“No one can plausibly deny that it is either one of the largest delegations of legislative power to the executive branch, or one of the largest exercises of legislative power without congressional authority in the history of the United States,” Pittman wrote in a 26-page opinion.

But it did help President Klain to drum up some enthusiasm among his base to help tamp down the red wave this week, thus serving its purpose.

UNEXPECTEDLY! Right On Cue, Major Leftwing Pollsters Suddenly Credit the GOP with Having a Big Lead on the Democrats.

There is a very strong suspicion among poll analysts and critics. The People’s Pundit Richard Barris mentioned it in his last podcast, though he’s mentioned it before, and many people talk about it.

They talk about major pollsters deliberately publishing polls they know for a fact oversample Democrats and are therefore just wrong, in order to please their clients (who are often leftwing media companies and their gonzo shitlib audiences).

But then, right before the election, in the last poll before voting starts, they suddenly publish a poll showing the GOP in a much better position.

Suddenly, the Democrat oversampling they’ve been doing for months just poof! vanishes.

And why do they do this? Because, when people rank pollster’s accuracy, they usually only look at the last poll conducted before the election.

Still though, don’t get cocky. As Glenn likes to say, “Seriously, if you care about this election, you need to be out volunteering and donating. Commenting on the Internet doesn’t count.”

UNEXPECTEDLY! German inflation unexpectedly accelerated this month.

German inflation unexpectedly accelerated this month, following a trend already seen in France and Italy that will increase pressure on the European Central Bank to raise interest rates even as a recession looms.

Consumer prices in Europe’s largest economy rose 11.6% from a year earlier — far exceeding all estimates in a Bloomberg survey whose median forecast was 10.9%. Comparable rates were last recorded in the early 1950s in West Germany.

Don’t worry — what’s the worst that could happen?

UNEXPECTEDLY! Comcast Pulls Plug On G4 TV, Ending Comeback Try For Gamer-Focused Network.

Comcast’s Spectacor division is pulling the plug on video game-centric network G4 TV, whose early incarnation in the 2000s remains a cultural touchstone for many millennials, just a year after its relaunch.

In a memo set to be sent out to all employees, Spectacor CEO Dave Scott explained that the company’s investment and efforts to revive the network just didn’t gain traction.

A few dozen employees and contract workers are affected by the shutdown. Comcast said it will assist them with outplacement and consider some for internal opportunities.

If only there were warning signs that this was coming:

As G4TV Slides Towards Bankruptcy, They Finally Fire “Frosk.”

Obviously they were going in a different direction from Olivia Munn.

Frosk is a loud, obnoxious SJW feminist without an ounce of humor in her. She is full of hatred and rants. She also sometimes works for China and defends China.

G4 didn’t get a lot of watches on YouTube despite the high budget and its promotion and brand name. And Frosk started to get criticized because despite having very dogmatic and firm opinions about everything — like every leftwing feminist fatmouth — she was a leftist SJW, by which I mean, she did not know what in the hell she was talking about.

And I don’t mean about politics. I mean she would make dogmatic pronouncements about basic things about games and game systems and get them completely wrong. You know, her supposed field of expertise.

People would comment that she got them wrong, and she’d get angry.

That spurred her to go on this tirade against G4’s viewers — and remember, they didn’t have all that many viewers. She only briefly mentioned that bit about her getting a lot of things wrong, and then started insisting that everybody was always telling her how ugly and not-f***able she was, especially compared to the previous female hosts on G4.

* * * * * * * *

I will keep saying: SJWs, if you want to push your unpopular #Woke CRT poison on the public, you need to vote for Trump, or DeSantis. You need a booming Trump or DeSantis economy so that corporations are so flush with cash that they can limp along with the losses you’re incurring them.

In a Biden economy, you get fired. In a Biden economy — in a recession — they can’t afford failure. They demand profits.

I don’t know what it’s going to take before corporations finally turn away from woke propaganda. I don’t know how many millions of dollars they will have to pour gasoline on to and set aflame before they finally realize that everyone hates wokeness.

And I don’t know how quickly I want them to realize it. I don’t watch their horrible content any longer.

But I am extremely entertained watching them lose millions and millions of dollars.

Do you think the marketplace is being irrational in rejecting all of your beautifully elevated woke propaganda?

Well, as Wall Streeters used to say: The market can remain irrational for far longer than you can remain solvent.

Indeed. Got woke, went broke.

UNEXPECTEDLY! Voters care more about inflation than Democrats’ democracy fearmongering.

Well, how many people believe the Democrats actually care about democracy? They care about “Our Democracy,” but that’s just a catchphrase meaning Democratic Party power.