October Surprise 2016 - octobersurprise2016.orgThe post Jacob deGrom sets MLB record for fastest pitcher to 1,800 strikeouts … first appeared on FBI Reform – fbireform.com.
The left is trying its best to stir up a furor over the recent Sydney Sweeney jeans (or is it genes) TV commercial to ignite a backlash similar to the Dylan Mulvaney-Bud Light debacle.
Sorry progressives, it ain’t happening.
Yes, there’s lots of chirping from lefty columnists, purple-haired TikTok influencers, late-night hosts who are still employed, and assorted wokesters after American Eagle had the audacity to feature the attractive blond, blue-eyed actress expressing her sartorial flair in a pair of tight-fitting blue jeans.
“Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color . . . my jeans are blue,” the “Euphoria” star says.
The ad ends with a voice-over: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
Blond women? Blue-eyed? Good genes (I mean jeans)? Oh, the horror! That’s if you are listening to the leftist commentariat that still hasn’t piped down weeks after the spot first appeared. The lefties are freaking because they think the jeans company is looking to bring back the bad old days, pre-George Floyd of course, when white blond oppressors ruled over American culture.
It’s all very Hitler-like to the progressive numbskull class, but not to just about every other segment of American society. Most Americans of all colors and genders either don’t care, or they know good genes and jeans when they see it.
I know this based on lots of reporting on the mind virus known wokeness — the progressive orthodoxy that embraces everything from cultural Marxism, DEI and, of course, the oppressor-oppressed theology.
We are a diverse country, and that’s good. The wokesters take it to a level that excludes rather than includes. Good-looking white people, particularly if their hair is that evil shade known as blond, are nowhere near the intersectional matrix they demand for hiring or image making in their version of America.
I chronicled this spectacle with a healthy dose of schadenfreude in my book “Go Woke Go Broke: The Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America.” Just a few short years ago, DEI was the norm; so was radical environmentalism pushed by asset managers through something called ESG investing. It was difficult finding a straight man or woman — God forbid a blond — who survived the Madison Avenue woke censor machine.
Budweiser thought its customers were ready for a commercial featuring a half-naked trans woman in a bubble bath. Disney decided it could sell more kids programming featuring same-sex kissing scenes. Money managers like BlackRock thought they could increase returns by advocating environmentalism and de facto racial quotas on their portfolio companies.
All of the above resulted in some of the biggest brand-destroying disasters in modern business history.
Marketing is a lot like politics. It’s a business of addition, not subtraction. You build customers just like you attract voters, through messaging that unites rather than divides — or customers flee. There are exceptions, of course. Niche brands like Ben & Jerry’s ice cream attempt and succeed at targeting the tree-hugger demo.
Try this stuff on a mass audience and you will get the beatdown of the century. The predictable customer revolt impacted the businesses of Budweiser, Disney and BlackRock in such a measurable way that shareholders revolted, too, forcing some of the most progressive CEOs in the world to course-correct.
That’s why the Sydney Sweeney uproar will go nowhere with the people who matter most: Most American consumers, and American Eagle shareholders. Unless you’re stretching it like Silly Putty, there’s nothing inherently political about a pretty blond (dare I say “All American”-looking) woman in jeans and pointing out the health of her genes to sell stuff. Zero. Zilch. Otherwise, Pamela Anderson would have been a poster child for Aryan Nations instead of the “Baywatch” babe most American men and many women adored, and still do.
Shares of American Eagle are up since the Sydney Sweeney ad ran, despite the backlash. NYU Marketing Professor Eitan Muller points out the obvious, telling Fox Business’s Teuta Dedvukaj that the commercial “attracts attention, drives Google searches, and boosts the brand. Yes, she does have great genes — and it rings authentic. That’s what you want from an ad.”
My bet: You will be seeing a lot more of Sydney Sweeney. Most men will be rejoicing, many women will buy the company’s jeans. Management will be rewarded with higher sales and a stock price that matches. The attacks will ultimately fail for the same reason Mulvaney’s tenure as a spokeswoman for Bud Light was so short-lived. Recall: The nation’s Number 1-selling beer dropped to Number 3 and never recovered.
Sydney Sweeney has both good jeans and genes and there’s nothing the wokesters can do to change that reality.
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Courtesy Matthew Pastorius
Matthew Pastorius, 34, has worked in sales and hopes to work in human resources. In 2023, after receiving a speedy rejection for a job he said he was well-qualified for, he contacted the hiring manager and ultimately landed the role. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
I saw the job posting, and was like, “Oh my God. This is the perfect role for me based on my experience and my interests.” I was infatuated with the company from the jump, so I threw my hat in the ring. Within 24 hours, I got what seemed like an automated email response: “Thank you, but no thank you,” essentially.
I was just like, “Wait a second. That is not possible. You can’t tell me that you looked at my résumé and said, “This guy doesn’t even come close to what we’re looking for.”
I thought, I’m not going to take ‘no’ for an answer because I feel so passionate about this opportunity and so confident that this is a fit. So, I reached out to a couple of people on LinkedIn who would either know the hiring manager or at least be in the vicinity of the hiring manager. One of them, fortunately, got back to me and told me that I should reach out to this person, and gave me her email.
Essentially, I said, “I got your contact information from this person. I’m just reaching out to introduce myself. I applied for the senior manager of brand partnerships role. I’ve already received notice that I was denied. But, like anyone in sales, I can’t simply take ‘no’ for an answer, which you can appreciate.”
I also said something like, “I’m a longtime admirer of the company. I wanted to reaffirm my unwavering interest in joining your team, which I would be honored to represent and grow. And basically, “If you’re hiring again in the future, please let me know. I am attaching my résumé, and hoping we can meet in person one of these days.”
This person said, “Thanks for connecting. I’m putting you in contact with the recruiter.
There wasn’t anything malicious about my wanting to email. I was just like, “You’ve got to be kidding me. This doesn’t make any sense. Why would I get not even an initial screening call?”
When I got connected with the recruiter, who is lovely, I had such a great experience. It was almost as if that initial rejection had never happened. We spoke as if she came across my résumé and picked me out as a needle in a haystack, and proceeded as if nothing had ever gone awry earlier on.
Further down the line, when I met with the company’s president, who was my last interview before getting hired, I explained how I was rejected and reached out. He was like, “I can’t believe that you were rejected so quickly. Looking at your résumé, you’re exactly the kind of person that would want for this role, so I’m going to have to look into that.” It was along those lines.
Think about how many people that might be happening to. I don’t know who’s programming these ATS screening agents. The sad part is that it seems like an ever-evolving game. If you don’t play the game, you can kiss your chances goodbye.
If I have an initial interview, and even if I think it goes great, and they get back to me and they’re like, “You didn’t have this kind of experience that we’re looking for” — whatever it is — at least then I’d be like, “OK, fair point. Totally understand.”
But to get an auto-generated, “Thank you, but no thank you” email, it was just like “Hell, no.” After all the years I put into developing a career in this particular path, you can’t tell me that I’m not qualified for at least a screening interview. It’s maddening.
Looking back on when my cold outreach did work, the graciousness and the humanity of the individual who replied to me and told me to reach out to the woman I wrote the email to — if it wasn’t for their goodness, then this never would have happened.
I don’t think they realized this at the time, or that anyone ever realizes this, but the person on the other side really needs your help. Whether they’re struggling at work, struggling in their career broadly, or their family is dependent on them getting a job, there’s always something very weighted. There’s a lot of gravity behind these cold outreaches.
It’s been really discouraging and sad that when I tried that approach again, I was ignored. I don’t know if it’s sort of a symptom of the job market right now or if more people are starting to do similar things, where they’re just barraging hiring managers and people on LinkedIn for jobs because it’s a really tough market out there.
It used to be that you had to know somebody. But in my experience in the last three months, since I’ve been looking for a job, is that it’s now not even a matter of who you know anymore. I don’t have an answer. Hence why I don’t have a job.
Do you have a story to share about your job search? Contact this reporter at tparadis@businessinsider.com.
The post The company rejected my job app. I reached out to the hiring manager anyway — and landed the role. first appeared on Capitol Riot – capitol-riot.com.
🇲🇩 The Russian-controlled company Moldovagaz has been stripped of its license to supply gas to Moldova. The state-owned Energocom will now take over this function.
“The state will now be directly responsible for gas supplies to the population,” said PM Dorin Recean. pic.twitter.com/I6kAgpb3Hy
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) August 4, 2025
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Hicham El Bouhmidi, a French freelance photojournalist who had been covering the capital’s ongoing protests, was recently denied entry to Georgia, a move that appears to be part of a broader pattern of border refusals targeting journalists, activists, and human rights defenders.
“After being interrogated and waiting for six hours at the Armenian-Georgian border I got handed the long-awaited paper,” the photographer wrote on Instagram on August 3, referring to the official entry refusal document. He said the official reason for denied entry was “other cases envisaged by Georgian legislation,” a vague provision frequently cited in similar cases.
El Bouhmidi noted that the same motive “has reportedly been used over the past months to refuse the entry in the country to fellow journalists reporting on the authoritarian slide of the Georgian government”, citing, among others, cases of fellow French journalists Jérôme Chobeaux, Clément Girardot, and Marylise Vigneau.
He also said that the same clause has been used by Georgian border authorities against Russian and Belarusian citizens who “confronted their regimes.” The photographer said he was expecting such a decision.
The streak of refusals has recently affected journalists and activists, including those who had lived in Georgia for years, many of whom believe their political views or reporting critical of the ruling Georgian Dream party were key factors in their rejection. In May, EU diplomat Simon Vanderbroucke was denied entry to Georgia, marking the first such reported case involving a diplomat.
In July, OC Media also reported that Dutch journalist Joost Bosman, who had for years covered developments in Georgia, including recent protests, was turned away at the Georgian border twice in a single month. The refusal was officially based on similarly vague grounds, with border officials additionally citing an administrative fine that, according to the journalist, had already been waived at the time of the first entry attempt.
In late May, the Polish and French embassies in Georgia issued advisories calling their citizens to consider potential entry risks, including participation in protests and social media activity, before traveling.
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