“Corporate Social Justice Warriors”

A US judge on Monday rejected Ben & Jerry’s attempt to stop its parent Unilever Plc ULVR.L from allowing its ice cream to be sold in the West Bank, which Ben & Jerry’s said undermined its values.

US District Judge Andrew Carter in Manhattan said Ben & Jerry’s did not deserve an injunction to halt ice cream sales and marketing because it did not show it would suffer irreparable harm, or that customers would be confused.

h/t MP

Contrasting reactions to rising crime from Starbucks and McDonald’s highlight the greater risks minorities in dangerous neighborhoods face.

Last week, 23-year-old Matthew Webb died after getting shot in the neck at the Brooklyn McDonald’s where he worked, allegedly by the adult son of a customer enraged over cold French fries. Earlier this year, 19-year-old Burger King worker Krystal Bayron-Nieves was shot and killed at a Harlem Burger King, even as she complied with a robber’s demands. Yet neither of these fast-food giants is leaving the inner city. By contrast, Starbucks is closing locations across the country, including in Washington’s Union Station—not because any worker has been killed recently, thankfully, but because of rampant disorder. The different corporate reactions offer a parable for our times: poorer people stuck living and working in increasingly dangerous inner-city neighborhoods suffer far more than the affluent newcomers who can come and go at will. Unlike McDonald’s, Starbucks could afford to support progressive policies a few years back because it knew that leaving was an option if things got rough.

Starbucks announced that it would be closing 16 locations in cities across the country last month — and not for lack of business, but for their proximity to the wrong kind of foot traffic.

In an email explaining the decision to employees obtained by the Wall Street Journal, Starbucks executives Debbie Stroud and Denise Nelson wrote “we read every incident report you file—it’s a lot.”

“We cannot serve as partners if we don’t first feel safe at work,” added Stroud and Nelson.

The Walt Disney Co. won’t say gay in the Middle East.

After picking a political fight with Florida over the state’s Parental Rights in Education Law, and declaring itself an LGBTQ ally to boot, Disney is reportedly censoring gay and transgender content on the version of the Disney+ streaming service that it launched in the region in June.

The label has become indistinguishable from a scam

When Standard and Poor’s (S&P) threw Tesla out of its ESG index, a list of companies dedicated to “excelling” in “environmental, social, and governance” issues, the charges were wide-ranging. Pointing to allegations of racial discrimination and poor working conditions in one of its factories, and how it handled deaths linked to its “full self-driving” system, Tesla was unofficially excommunicated from ESG investing. Unsurprisingly, Elon Musk quickly returned fire, calling ESG “a scam”. 

The CEO of Starbucks is shuttering 16 profitable stores nationwide over disruptions that he’s blamed on the cities’ woke leaders for ‘abdicating their responsibility’ to fight crime.

Howard Schultz said ‘America has become unsafe’ after he announced that 16 stores will close in several left-leaning cities across the country because staff are being attacked and reports of drug use at the popular cafés.

The cities set to see closures include the company’s hometown of Seattle, as well as four other liberal-run municipalities – Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland and D.C – where crime rates have soared due to woke policies including police cuts.

Banks, brands and all sorts of companies are rushing to align themselves with fashionable political causes, but we should ask hard questions about what this incessant and aggressive virtue-signalling is designed to hide

Twenty years ago there was a famous marketing campaign featuring a jolly banker named “Howard” dancing and singing about the allegedly great advantages of being with the Halifax building society. Last month the Halifax hit the news for a less happy marketing gimmick. Customers were no longer being invited to answer the question, “Who gives you extra?” Nor was there any other question or invitation. Just an assertion, “Pronouns matter”, followed by the hashtag “It’s a people thing”. Below was a photograph of a name badge of a Halifax staff member called “Gemma” with pronouns listed below. In this case “She/ her/ hers”.

The major coffee chain Starbucks has announced that it will be shutting down at least 16 locations across the country due to employees’ safety concerns.

As reported by CNN, all of the stores that are closing down are located in just five cities: Los Angeles, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; and Washington, D.C. The stores will shut their doors by the end of July.

They did away with the iconic Victoria’s Secret Angels, replaced models with the likes of soccer star and liberal activist Megan Rapinoe, and even hired the company’s first biologically male transgender model — but, unsurprisingly, the wokeness has not paid off.

Victoria’s Secret is firing a whopping 160 management-level employees at its Ohio headquarters, an effort to save the business $40 million.

As a consequence of US copyright law, entertainment giant Disney could soon lose the exclusive rights to some of the characters most responsible for the brand’s universal recognition, including the mouse that acts as its mascot.

Mickey Mouse will enter the public domain in the year 2024, almost 95 years after his creation on 1 October 1928 – the length of time after which the copyright on an anonymous or pseudo-anonymous body of artistic work expires.