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The market value of Anheuser-Busch InBev, whose fourth bestselling brand is Bud Light, dropped $15.7 billion since April 1, based on a conversion to U.S. dollars by Investor's Business Daily using data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That's the day Dylan Mulvaney, a TikTok influencer and transgender woman, pitched the Bud Light brand during the NCAA March Madness tournament.

Meanwhile, the other major publicly traded global beer brands have added $3.2 billion in market value during the same time.

The Bud Light backlash to the promotion was almost instantaneous. Conservative consumers called for a boycott of the beer. Bud Light sales are down more than 23% as of the week ended on May 6, said Jared Dinges, beverage analyst at JPMorgan Chase in a note to clients Tuesday, citing data from NielsenIQ.

"We believe there is a subset of American consumers who will not drink a Bud Light for the foreseeable future," Dinges said. "We believe a 12% to 13% volume decline on an annualized basis would be a reasonable assumption."

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Target has lost $9 billion in market value since angry social media users called for a boycott of the Minneapolis-based retailer over its rollout of the “PRIDE” collection featuring LGBTQ-friendly clothing for children.

A week ago Wednesday before the controversy erupted, Target’s stock closed at $160.96 a share, giving the big-box chain a market capitalization of $74.3 billion.

As of early trading on Thursday, however, shares of the company were trading off 1% at $141.76 — capping a weeklong tumble that has shrunk the “cheap chic” discount retailer’s value to $65.3 billion.

That amounts to a 12% drop that has shaved a whopping $9 billion off the company’s market capitalization.

Target said on Tuesday it was removing some items from its stores and making other changes to its LGBTQ+ merchandise nationwide ahead of Pride month after intense backlash from some customers who confronted workers and tipped over displays.

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Originally posted by second:
Americans drink too much alcohol: hundreds of billions of dollars worth.

Americans buy too many clothes: again, hundreds of billions of dollars worth.

Americans gamble too much on sports: also, hundreds of billions of dollars in bets.

It would not be bad for Americans to spend only half as much on what they have too much of.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I think it wasn't a boycott as much as near-universal and visceral revulsion.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

For once, Second and I are in complete agreement about something.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I think it wasn't a boycott as much as near-universal and visceral revulsion.

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Indeed.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Revulsion is what keeps people from eating spoiled food, living in unsanitary or septic conditions, getting physically close to someone who is obviously diseased, or engaging in socially destructive behavior.

It's probably a good thing, from an evolutionary standpoint.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

As an aside, I've often wondered how gays ram their dicks into shit

But in the context of socially destructive behavior, well, that accounts for the social context and the measure of sociopathy. Maybe liberals are really sociopaths. Judging by WISHY, REAVERBOT, and SECOND, I'd say that's a good working hypothesis.

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Internet Trolls Are Narcissists, Psychopaths, and Sadists
Trolls will lie, exaggerate, and offend [also threaten] to get a response.

Posted September 18, 2014

Key points
An Internet troll is someone who enters an online discussion and posts comments designed to upset or disrupt the conversation.

"Dark Tetrad" personality traits include narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism.

In a study of 1200 people, Dark Tetrad scores were highest among people who said trolling was their favorite Internet activity.

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Newsom Blasts Target CEO 'Sell-Out', Claims Nationwide "Systematic Attack" On LGBTQ People Imminent

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Since you like to make people cry, that must mean you think you're God?

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Since you like to make people cry, that must mean you think you're God?

SECOND: God was divinely indifferent while Russians killed 62 million Russians ...

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Since you like to make people cry, that must mean you think you're God?

SECOND: God was divinely indifferent while Russians killed 62 million Russians ...

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Oh yeah, let's bring RUSSIA!RUSSIA! into the thread!
Idiot.

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Since you like to make people cry, that must mean you think you're God?

SECOND: God was divinely indifferent while Russians killed 62 million Russians ...

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Oh yeah, let's bring RUSSIA!RUSSIA! into the thread!
Idiot.

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Have you ever heard of meat puppets?

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Yeah. You're a meat puppet. I've called you that many times before.

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Yeah. You're a meat puppet. I've called you that many times before.

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6ix, do you remember your alcoholism? That is a classic example of your viscera pulling your strings. Addicted to tobacco? Need caffeine? Obesity? Again, gut feelings pulling the strings. With your brother weighing 450 pounds, there are a lot of gut feelings.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Yeah. You're a meat puppet. I've called you that many times before.

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6ix, do you remember your alcoholism? That is a classic example of your viscera pulling your strings. Addicted to tobacco? Need caffeine? Obesity? Again, gut feelings pulling the strings. With your brother weighing 450 pounds, there are a lot of gut feelings.

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I'm not obese. I was never obese. I quit drinking cold turkey without any outside assistance and that will be for 6 1/2 years in 4 days. I quit smoking weed over 8 years ago.

And now, because of an auto immune disease, I get to count carbs for the rest of my life.

Don't talk to me about self control, you little fucking worm.


We want to know all the fucked up things about you, other than the fact you're a chronic liar, serial plagiarizer and a sociopath.

--------------------------------------------------

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Can a Soldier Come Home From War?

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Target Stores Hit With Bomb Threat After 'Turning Its Back' On LGBTQ+ Community

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I'm not obese. I was never obese. I quit drinking cold turkey without any outside assistance and that will be for 6 1/2 years in 4 days. I quit smoking weed over 8 years ago.

And now, because of an auto immune disease, I get to count carbs for the rest of my life.

Don't talk to me about self control, you little fucking worm.


We want to know all the fucked up things about you, other than the fact you're a chronic liar, serial plagiarizer and a sociopath.

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They often:
break rules or laws
behave aggressively or impulsively
feel little guilt for harm they cause others
use manipulation, deceit, and controlling behavior
https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/sociopath#What-is-a-so
ciopath?

Sociopaths have less consistent behavior than psychopaths. Psychopaths are more controlled and charming. ... Sociopaths experience anxiety and find rage far harder to control. They may act without thought and, as a result, they may have a harder time blending in. Inconsistencies between their words and their lives may be easier to see.
Consistent behavior patterns in sociopaths include:
Lack of empathy for others
Impulsive behavior
Attempting to control others with threats or aggression
Using intelligence, charm, or charisma

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to manipulate others
Not learning from mistakes or punishment

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Lying for personal gain [or pleasure]
Showing a tendency to physical violence and fights

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https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/signs-sociopath

Sociopathy refers to a pattern of antisocial behaviors and attitudes, including manipulation, deceit, aggression, and a lack of empathy for others...Sociopaths may or may not break the law, but by exploiting and manipulating others, they violate the trust that the human enterprise runs on.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/sociopathy


The list of common traits you might see in someone who has antisocial personality disorder, says Dr. Coulter, include:
Not understanding the difference between right and wrong.
Not respecting the feelings and emotions of others.
Constant lying or deception.
Being callous.
Difficulty recognizing emotion.
Manipulation.
Arrogance.
Violating the rights of others through dishonest actions.
Impulsiveness.
Risk-taking.
Difficulty appreciating the negative aspects of their behavior.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/sociopath-personality-disorder/

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Internet Trolls Really Are Horrible People
Narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, and sadistic.

... They even constructed their own survey instrument, which they dubbed the Global Assessment of Internet Trolling, or GAIT, containing the following items:

I have sent people to shock websites for the lulz.
I like to troll people in forums or the comments section of websites.
I enjoy griefing other players in multiplayer games.
The more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt.
Yes, some people actually say they agree with such statements. And again, doing so was correlated with sadism in its various forms, with psychopathy, and with Machiavellianism. Overall, the authors found that the relationship between sadism and trolling was the strongest, and that indeed, sadists appear to troll because they find it pleasurable. “Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others,” they wrote. “Sadists just want to have fun … and the Internet is their playground!”...

https://slate.com/technology/2014/02/internet-troll-personality-study-
machiavellianism-narcissism-psychopathy-sadism.html

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Which is worth a full read.

Anyway, don't take what SECOND posts seriously.
I know I don't.
HE'S JUST A TROLL.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Humorless activists want this scene cut from The Life of Brian

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOD, I just don't take your lies as truth.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Get the fuck out of this thread with your dumb shit, Second.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
The Atlantic is not a legitimate source.

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
The Atlantic is not a legitimate source.

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6ix, for any fact you dislike, just say the words "Fake news." Trump said it after he lost a trial involving sexual assault. Putin said it after Russia murdered civilians in Ukraine. "Fake news" is a workable defense against news that you are rotting from the inside out.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Canadian PM Justin Trudeau Says American Pushback Against Woke Politics Is "Scary"

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Originally posted by second:
Right-wingers like Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis have become fond of citing the alleged power of the “woke mind virus” to explain why major corporations are tolerant of and even cater to social liberalism. They need to invoke this mysterious contagion to avoid accepting the obvious explanation: Most Americans have become relatively liberal on social matters — look at the transformation of attitudes on same-sex marriage — and corporations have been adjusting to their customer base.

But while talk of the woke mind virus manages to be both sinister and silly, I’d argue that there really is what we might call an anti-woke mind virus — a contagion that spreads not across people but across issues.

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Originally posted by second:
The GOP has manufactured 5 fake crises to deflect and distract from a real crisis:

1. “Woke.”

2. “Trans people.” Former President Donald Trump says that one of his top priorities if he’s reelected in 2024 will be a “sweeping federal rollback of transgender rights.” But why have he and so many Republican lawmakers targeted transgender people as dangers to the public? There’s not a shred of evidence that trans people are threats to anyone. But they’re easy scapegoats.

3. “Critical race theory.” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s “day one” executive order banned the teaching of critical race theory. DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have also banned it from the schools. Here again, though, there’s no evidence of a public threat. CRT simply teaches America’s history of racism, which students need to understand to be informed citizens. Banning it is a scare tactic to appeal to a largely white, culturally conservative voter base.

4. “Couch potatoes.” Ronald Reagan railed against so-called “welfare queens” who allegedly collected benefits without working. Today’s Republicans rage about “couch potatoes.” Both characterizations are cruel pretexts — and racial dog whistles — for imposing additional work requirements on public assistance for those in need, when the needy often have difficulty finding work that pays enough to live on.

5. “Out-of-control government spending.” Rubbish. In fact, discretionary spending has fallen more than 40% in the past 50 years as a percentage of the nation’s gross domestic product (from 11% to 6.3%). Lately, rising deficits have been driven by Social Security and Medicare (to be expected, as boomers retire), and by defense spending and George W. Bush’s and Donald Trump’s huge tax cuts that mostly benefited the wealthy and big corporations — and that will have added $8 trillion and $1.7 trillion, respectively, to the debt by the end of the 2023 fiscal year.

All five of these so-called crises have been manufactured by the GOP. They’re entirely made up.

Why? To deflect attention from the near-record share of the nation’s income and wealth now going to the richest Americans.

As the super-wealthy and big corporations pour money into politics — especially into the GOP — they don’t want the rest of America to notice they’re rigging the economy for their own benefit, their unrestrained greed is worsening the climate crisis, and they’re also undermining democracy.

So, the game of the Republican Party and its major donors is to deflect and distract — to use scapegoating, racism, and outright lies to disguise what’s really going on.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I see you got the Target info

Target Plunges For 10th Day As Boycott Leads To "Traffic Weakness", JPM Downgrade Adds To Groom And Doom
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/target-plunges-10th-day-boycott-resu
lts-traffic-weakness-jpm-downgrade-adds-groom-and-doom

It's a shame bc Target is a decent company, relative to Walmart. What a stupid mistake. Still, their head on a pike will serve as a warning to other companies.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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If the goal was to chill corporate speech, right now a lot of corporate executives are shivering.

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Omitting or burying crucial context is one of the many ways in which newsrooms can, either intentionally or subconsciously, obscure the truth and mislead audiences.

And when it’s intentional, we may call it what it is. After all, a lie of omission is still a lie.

And as far as lies of omission are concerned, certain newsrooms are guilty of it last week following a spate of bomb threats leveled against Target stores. The threats were made by individuals who claim they’re upset about the retailer’s decision to remove certain pride-month related merchandise, not its decision to sell that merchandise. But you’d hardly know this from a casual glance at the news.

“Target stores see more bomb threats over Pride merchandise,” the Washington Post reported this week. The subhead adds, “Locations in at least five states were evacuated this weekend, and no explosives were discovered.”

And this is how the story’s opening paragraph reads, “Target stores in at least five states were evacuated this weekend after receiving bomb threats. Though no explosives were discovered, the incidents tie into the backlash over the retail chain’s Pride Month merchandise.”

You may be shocked to learn that it was the self-declared allies of the pride movement, not its conservative adversaries, who made the bomb threats, according to both local media and law enforcement officials. Yes, the threats allegedly came from people claiming to be upset about the removal of pride-themed merchandise, not from belligerent conservatives upset about the merchandise itself.

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