Cracker Barrel Rebrand Backfires, Workplace Text Scandal, Why Americans Stopped Reading

TJ Walker covers Cracker Barrel's rebrand disaster that tanked profits 94%, a Texas congressman's text scandal that led to a staffer's suicide, and new data showing only 16% of Americans read for pleasure, down from 28% in 2004.
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Ultimize. Cracker Barrel's controversial rebrand continues to haunt the company as profits collapse by 94% and customer traffic plunges. A Texas congressman says he won't seek reelection after texts reveal he pressured a staff member for explicit photos, a woman who later died by suicide. Americans are reading far less than they used to. Only 16% now read for pleasure. On a typical day, President Trump fires Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after explosive testimony about a $220 million government ad campaign and controversial claims about domestic terrorism. And a Florida Republican Party official faces a political firestorm after a student WhatsApp group chat filled with racist and anti-Semitic slurs leaks to the press. All that and more today on Filtered. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker. Hi and welcome. Thanks for joining me on the show. Cracker Barrel in the news again. According to reporting highlighted by the Daily Mail, Cracker Barrel is still struggling to recover from last year's controversial rebrand. The restaurant chain reported that profits plunged 94%, dropping to just $1.3 million for the quarter. Sales fell about 8% and customer traffic dropped roughly 10%, costing the company an estimated $74 million in lost revenue. The controversy began last year when the company unveiled a redesigned logo that removed the iconic rocking chair imagery long associated with the brand. Conservative commentators quickly blasted the change as an example of corporations going woke. Donald Trump wrote at the time that Cracker Barrel should leave the rocking chair alone, while Donald Trump Jr. mocked the change online. Executives later reversed the logo redesign and restored the traditional branding, but the episode highlights a deeper challenge facing many legacy companies. When a brand built on nostalgia changes too quickly, Loyal customers can revolt. Let's go a little deeper into this because this now seems like it happened a million years ago. Long forgotten, it's just one of these ephemera that floats up and disappears, but not to the people who run Cracker Barrel, not to their shareholders. It's pretty sad what's happened, and I don't think it's gotten fair analysis in the media. My friends, this is what conservatives have been warning against for the last 60 years in America. The idea of a socialistic government controlling things, picking winners and losers, having a Politburo pick who gets to win and who gets to lose, having a Fidel Castro-style ruler picking among favorites. That's essentially what happened. Here was a company, essentially minding its own business, trying to do what you do in a free market enterprise society. Their sales were going down. They figured, how can we make our brand seem fresh, seem relevant? Let's update things. That's what companies do. They improve things. That is the nature of capitalism. As much as you like your iPhone, iPhone doesn't just say, well, we made one phone, let's just do the same one for— no, they're making improvements every single year. Sometimes people don't like it all. They've changed the interface on the iPod and the iPhone and the thick— they change things. Sometimes people don't like it, but they have to keep changing. Well, restaurants are no different. Sometimes you change the product, sometimes you change the imagery, sometimes you change the logo. You know, McDonald's used to tell you exactly how many billions of hamburgers were sold. And then at some point they just switched to billions and billions. I don't recall in the year that happened that the President of the United States denounced them for no longer counting how many burgers were sold. So conservatives have been warning us about the day when creeping socialism takes over America, and it turns out those warnings were correct. The problem is it's happening from within. The political party that claims to be conservative now has a political leader, i.e., Trump, who is acting like a Fidel Castro, who's acting like a Leonid Brezhnev trying to control an entire Soviet economy, telling people, I like this, I don't like that. We're supposed to have a rule of law in America, and in the rule of law, Governments don't pick winners and losers. They create laws and then they let the private sector make decisions. A business is not supposed to face a backlash because it somehow offended or hurt the feelings of a president or his son, but that's exactly what has happened and it's cost Cracker Barrel $74 million. Because I seriously doubt if we had not had the President of the United States and his imbecilic son weighing in on this matter, I don't think they would've lost $74 million. Some more facts about this company. Again, sales declined nearly 10% over the year. Customer traffic's down 10%. $74.6 million in lost revenue. Company operates 660 stores across 45 states. Have I been to one? Yes. Is it my style of fine dining? No. But there are times when you're driving along a highway, everyone in the family needs a break, needs a rest. You've just got to stop for a restroom, a quick snack. And yeah, Cracker Barrel is there for you. It's a known commodity. Now, they began their rebrand less than a year ago. This was August 2025. With all the scandals an outrage we've seen about people who are supposedly so outraged about woke all the time. It seems like about 10 years ago, but it was only last August. The company had spent $700 million on a modernization plan. Now, part of that involved redoing inside the stores and restaurants. They've had corporate layoffs that has supposedly saved $20 million. Now, I'm not friends with the people who run Cracker Barrel. I'm not saying this, but I do feel sorry for them. So here's what the CEO, Julie Massino, said in this updated story: we're seeing improvement there, and that feels good to us because obviously an increasing frequency with people that know us and are already in our ecosystem is really important to us. That's just a polite way of saying, you know, we're glad this ordeal's almost over and we can stick with our customers. Now, a retail strategist named Carol Spiekermann told this same publication, the $20 million from savings won't fix what's fundamentally broken here: a loss of confidence and clarity about what Cracker Barrel stands for. Again, a little background, especially for those of you watching and listening in other countries. Cracker Barrel, that's their image where it's a barrel and there's an old guy there sitting around, you know, eating crackers, things like that. Cracker's also a nickname sometimes considered derogatory for a white person. So Cracker Barrel had a long track record of frankly being discriminatory against Black customers. So they already had kind of a positioning as We're the restaurant for white people. Now, that's not their official mantra, and that was a long time ago, but that was kind of the position they were in. So this controversy erupted, and Donald Trump Sr. had to say, Cracker Barrel going woke is not what people want. Leave the rocking chair alone. As if Donald Trump had ever been to a Cracker Barrel in his life. Highly unlikely. Donald Trump Jr. had to weigh in. Why do companies keep doing this? Nobody asked Cracker Barrel to go woke. So again, the whole, the whole point of this is they simply updated their logo to look more modern and they got rid of some old white guy who was on it. And they didn't— it's not like they put all of a sudden Martin Luther King on their logo. It's not like they all of a sudden put AOC on the, on the logo or Barack Obama. No, they just didn't put a human being's face or outline on the logo. And we live in times when everyone's feelings are what matter the most if they're in power. The irony, of course, it's by the very so-called conservatives, these MAGA Republicans who claim the biggest problem in our society is the so-called woke left are always getting their feelings hurt. I don't recall the woke left saying, oh, Tony the Tiger's got to be taken off of Frosted Flakes because that's exploitation of animals. No, the people who are so upset and are constantly getting their feelings hurt and want big government to pick winners and losers are coming from the MAGA right. And the enemy is within. And if you care about capitalism at all, care about the rule of law, this should be an outrage. But we can always change the topic and get people to not talk about this by going to wars and doing other outrages. So that, unfortunately, is what's happened. I'm TJ Walker. There's lots more to come today on Filtered.
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Texas congressional scandal. Texas Republican Congressman Tony Gonzalez announced he will not seek reelection after a scandal involving explicit text messages to a staff member. The images showed Gonzalez using sexual language and repeatedly pushing the aide, Regina Santos-Aviles, to send explicit photos. One reported message asked her to send a sexy pic. The relationship itself would violate House ethics rules banning sexual relationships between members of Congress and their staff. Makes me think of, like, George Costanza when he was caught fooling around with the maid at the office. Was that wrong? Was that— if somebody told me that was wrong, I mean, this guy seems utterly clueless. Now, the woman later died by suicide in September 2025 after setting herself on fire, according to police records. Investigators have not concluded that Gonzalez caused her death, but the revelation of the text triggered outrage and calls for his resignation from members of both parties. After initially denying the relationship, Gonzalez publicly acknowledged the affair in an interview. The House Ethics Committee has begun reviewing the matter. Okay, so this is a nasty, tawdry little piece of news. I didn't want to talk about it initially, but there are, I think, some important lessons and principles here. There are some limits. We have lived in a world, certainly in the last 10 years since the arrival of Trump, where it seems like politicians can get away with anything. You can grab them by the genitalia. I'm cleaning it up here. You can pay off porn stars. You can toss your wives to the gutter for newer models. And seemingly, that's just laughed off by political supporters of at least one party. But apparently there are some lines you can't pass. You can't commit adultery and force, pressure, and coerce a woman into having an affair with you when she works for you, when taxpayers are paying for her salary and your salary, and she ends up killing herself. And she does so by lighting herself on fire. Apparently, that's a bridge too far. Okay, it's nice to know there's at least some standard. Now folks, I spent a lot of my time doing crisis communication, sometimes for politicians. This seemed to be an unwinnable situation. I can only imagine the commercials that the opponent of this candidate would face if he did indeed decide to run for reelection. How bad is Congressman Tony Gonzalez? People would rather light themselves on fire and kill themselves than have to spend one more minute with him. Now, that might be considered too harsh if an opposing candidate did that, but certainly A super PAC non-aligned with a candidate could do that, and that would get attention, believe me. Now let's be adults here. I understand that this congressman, Congressman Gonzalez, is not the first person in America to have an affair, not the first politician to have an affair, not the first politician to have an affair with someone who worked for him. But I think he is the first politician to do all of those things and for there to be an explicit track record of text documenting that he's, you know, demanding her nude photos or asking for them nicely, I should say, and asking for sexy pics for the affair to have been acknowledged, and then for the woman to have not just killed herself— I mean, there are gentler ways of killing yourself. You can take pills, slitting your wrists, bleeding out. Horrible things, certainly not advocated. But lighting yourself on fire, I think, is pretty much the most dramatic thing you could do, short of being a Timothy McVeigh and bringing a whole building down. That's just dramatic. It's visual. And he's already admitted to having an affair with the aide. At least if you're borrowing the Trump playbook, and they're members of the same party, you just deny, deny, you say it's all fake news until, you know, 5 years later and more corroborating evidence comes out. So again, it's been confirmed according to the Texas Tribune's reporting that this congressman sent the staffer a request for sexy pics. Congressman, I think, finally read the room because it wasn't just Democrats, it wasn't just the liberal media, it wasn't just his opponents saying get out, it was Republicans in his own party saying, hey, you're making us look like jerks. Please leave. Representative Anna Paulina Luna, not exactly an AOC liberal type, she's a member of the far right. She said, quote, every member of the House should be condemning a sitting member of Congress asking for explicit photos of their staff. When even a far, far, far right, MAGA-loving, Trump-loving member of Congress says you've gone too far, it's time to pack your bags. So some scandals you can recover from. This one I don't think you can. So again, I've worked with a lot of politicians who've had problems, who've had, let's, shall we say, baggage. And some political figures I've worked for have been less than perfect spouses, believe it or not. But I've never had anything like this. So if you were to hire me, Congressman Gonzalez, I don't think I would be able to help you. My advice, and maybe someone gave this to you, sounds like you did it, is just resign, slink away before this becomes the number one news story every day for a month and you become a laughingstock as big as George Santos. As it is right now, The congressman should be able to sort of lie low for a year or two, get a job as a lobbyist, maybe not a $2 million a year lobbyist, but some foundation, some nonprofit, and make a nice living for yourself in anonymity. That, I think, is the best course of action. If you're in a crisis, and I hope you're not in a crisis this big, and you need help handling the media, figuring out what to say, you can reach out to me. That is what I do primarily when I'm not here with you. I do media training, crisis communications training, public speaking training. If you want more information on that or figuring out a way to work one-on-one with me, you can always go to ultimize.com to either get some free courses or to contact me directly. That's ultimize, U-L-T-A-M-I-Z-E dot com. .com. More in a moment.
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According to the Associated Press, Americans are reading far less for pleasure than they once did. A new analysis of U.S. government data shows that only 16% of Americans read for pleasure on a typical day in 2023. That's down from 28% in 2004. That's a pretty significant drop. Experts say the decline reflects the enormous competition for attention created by smartphones and social media. Many people say they simply feel too busy or mentally exhausted to read after work. Still, researchers say reading remains one of the most powerful habits for improving mental health and cognitive performance. Studies show that reading can reduce stress, boost creativity, and increase empathy. Libraries and reading advocates recommend starting small, choosing books that feel enjoyable rather than difficult, and setting a simple routine. Even reading just a few pages each day to rebuild the habit. So this is something that's not dominating news everywhere. This isn't the number one story on CNN and the BBC, but I did feel it was important to bring attention to it because this is a pretty significant drop-off. If you're feeling more stressed, don't use the fact that you're feeling stressed to be an excuse not to read because reading reduces stress. Now I do read on my Amazon Kindle Fire— Fire, uh, paper— I'm sorry, Paperwhite. The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, because it's great, because it emits so little light. I can read that in the evening, sometimes even the middle of the night, and the light doesn't wake me up. But I love reading an actual paper book. The beauty of a book is you don't get a text in the middle of it, you don't get a tweet in the middle of it. You're not tempted to Google every word or go down some rabbit hole. You can focus on one thing in a linear fashion, whether it's fiction or nonfiction. Now, I will confess there are times in my life where I go periods without reading much fiction. I've tried to change that recently and I've started reading fiction again. The beauty of fiction is it transforms you to a different place and. It's not the same as watching a movie. I'm sorry, it just isn't. It stimulates parts of the brain that are not stimulated when all the imagery is right in front of you. It allows you to concentrate and focus and build concentration and focus skills by reading an actual book. Now, I've written half a dozen books. You can see some of them behind me. You don't have to read my books, but just read a book. Read any book. If you haven't read fiction in a while, I urge you, read fiction from time to time. But at least read nonfiction. Read about something that fascinates you. Don't read something that you think is supposed to be good for you. Read something that's fascinating to you. Could be a book filled with Jerry Seinfeld jokes if that's what you're interested in. But read something that's fascinating. It stimulates your brain. It boosts creativity. I want to give you a few more tips. If nothing else, read 5 pages at lunch today. Read 1 page before you go to bed tonight rather than doing what unfortunately so many people do is one last scroll on the cell phone, one last check of texts, one last quick look at emails, put your phone away an hour before you go to sleep, spend at least some of that time in reading a book. And the sad thing now is if you are a poor person and you have access to an old cell phone, you already have access to more books than the richest, most powerful kings and queens throughout the history of the world. They might have had a library of tens of thousands of books in their palace. If you have a cell phone, you have a library of a million free books. That's right, Google, other platforms have a million free books, plus local libraries will often loan you books electronically for free. Plus there is a thing known as a local library. At least in many cultures in the world, where you can go and check out books and it doesn't cost anything. Sadly, in many parts of America, libraries have become a place just where people go to get free Wi-Fi or free internet connection or to sleep the day away because they don't have housing. Guess what? There's still books in the library. So I urge you, check them out figuratively and literally. Read them. There's just something about reading that stimulates the brain. You know, sometimes people ask me, you know, TJ Walker, why are you successful? Why have you done well? Why do you have prosperity? Why do you have comfort? Why have things worked out for you? It's not because I went to some fancy, expensive private school in kindergarten, middle school, junior— it didn't even have middle school— junior high school, high school. I went to public school. But one of the things that I give the most credit to is when I was a kid, certainly from kindergarten through 6th grade at least, I prided myself in reading one book every single day. Now, these were short books, but it became a part of my identity. I am a reader, a reader of books, not just a newspaper or a magazine or these days social media. Yes, I read all of those things. But actual books, there's something about going all the way through a sustained argument on a single topic. That's what a book is. So I urge you, if you're telling me you don't have enough time, you're lying to yourself. I could go to your phone right now and check out your screen usage. And I bet it would say something like hours and hours and hours a week on Facebook or TikTok. And I appreciate if you're watching, some of that time is watching or listening to me on social media. But carve out some of that and redirect it to reading books. It will make you more creative. It will make you more focused. Even if you're reading garbage, frankly, read a trashy novel. There's just something about how it has an impact on the brain. This is a topic I discuss a lot in my personal development courses. If you are interested in a free personal development course that includes things like how to actually schedule reading into your day, reading of books, you may want to check it out. There's a free course for you if you go to ultimize.com. No charge. I'm TJ Walker, back in a moment. We'll be right back after this break. Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements.
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President Trump has fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and announced plans to replace her with Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin. The immediate trigger appears to have been explosive testimony during congressional hearings about a $220 million taxpayer-funded advertising campaign. That prominently featured Noem herself. Under oath, Noem suggested the president had approved the campaign. She told lawmakers, quote, the president asked me or tasked me with getting the message out to the country. But Trump later told Reuters something very different. I never knew anything about it. Noem was also facing criticism over her response to the killing of two civilians during immigration protests. Let's be honest, that's not why she was fired. That's where she described the incidents as acts of domestic terrorism, claiming claims later questioned by lawmakers. The firing ends months of turmoil inside the Department of Homeland Security. Okay, this is something that's been talked about for a long time. It finally came. Interestingly, it's known by all accounts was not fired for reasons that people would have expected her to be fired. She's not, she's not fired for essentially killing people, for creating Gestapo-style military presence in America, for creating concentration camps that are un— she wasn't fired for any of that. When you really boil it down to is she was fired for potentially telling the truth about Trump. She says she received approval from Trump to spend the $220 million on some ridiculous advertising campaign. Now, what she may have meant is she sent a request over the White House and some lower-level staffer, Deputy Chief of Staff, said, yeah, Trump says okay. In her mind, okay, Trump approved this. Now that it doesn't look popular, Trump's like, I never approved that. Now, we all know Trump's well-known propensity for forgetting things if it makes him look bad, and for just lying about stuff if he thinks it will make him look better. So I don't really know who to believe because she's a proven demonstrable liar, as is Trump. So I don't know who to believe. But the one thing we do know is she was not fired for all the reasons most decent human beings would think she should be fired. She wasn't fired for specifically calling Alex Preddy a domestic terrorist. You may recall, this was the American citizen, a middle-aged white man whose profession was helping the healthcare of veterans in this country, who had a legal permit to own a gun, who had a gun on him concealed, not being pulled, not out, not flailing it around like people do at NRA rallies, but simply on his person, and he was murdered. He had 10 bullets put into him by henchmen under the direction of Kristi Noem, and she just patently lied about it and said Prudy was a domestic terrorist. And I'm sorry, folks, but that is just Hitlerian in its level of wickedness and deception. That's calling black white and white black and up down and down up. That's not why she was fired. It is not why she was fired at all. She was fired apparently for two reasons. One, she made Trump look bad because this whole 220 $220 million ad campaign, which apparently was funneled off to her political cronies, now looks bad at congressional hearings. And Trump wanting to distance himself, "Oh, I don't know anything about it." I mean, here's my prediction. We're probably only about 2.5 weeks away from Donald Trump saying he doesn't know Kristi Noem, he's never met her. Why are people asking him about her? Never met the woman. He's not saying that yet, but knowing Trump, we're not that far away from that being the official position of the White House. And his spokesperson saying, anyone who says that Donald Trump ever knew or met Christine Ohm is a slanderous left-wing propagandist spewing fake news. I think that's the kind of thing we would hear from this White House press secretary. Hasn't happened yet, That's the prediction. So remember it. You heard it here first. The other concern that is coming out from a variety of sources that Trump is concerned— Kristi Noem's getting a little too big for her britches, putting her face on an ad campaign ostensibly to share important messages with the American public, but really to bolster her own name recognition so she can run for president. And if there's one thing we know about Trump, he doesn't want any other candidate getting the limelight. He wants the spotlight. As you'll recall, I've been predicting now since 2025 that Trump does not officially endorse any Republican to succeed him because I don't think he's going to ever step down unless it is his own son, because then the word Trump will still be on the ballot. So a lesson to the Marco Rubios and the JD Vances of the world: unless you want to be fired, canned, pushed out, you better act like the last thing in the world you would ever want is to be president of the United States. Because Trump, he doesn't like to fire people, but if you look like you're trying to get more of a spotlight or you make him look bad, you're not willing to do whatever he says at all times, he'll get rid of you. I mean, that's what happened to his very first Attorney General in the first term, Jeff Sessions. Jeff Sessions would not just automatically get rid of the whole Russiagate thing, and for that sin of doing what every single ethics and legal expert says he should have done, he was fired. So that's a real message. So those of you thinking that Pete Hegseth wildly incompetent and ill-suited for a job like Secretary of Defense, and that is the official title, don't hold your breath. He's not going to be fired. No one has been fired for incompetence, arguably ever, from Trump. You're fired for one of two sins. One, making him look bad in some way. Two, not doing something he wants you to do that makes him look good even if it's illegal. Those are the only two things. So for all the other incompetence you see out there, get ready to see them for a long time because they are not going anywhere.
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According to the Times, a leaked WhatsApp group chat created by a Miami organization, a Miami-Dade County Republican Party official, has triggered a political scandal in Florida after messages filled with racist and antisemitic slurs were exposed. The chat was created by Abel Alexander Carvajal, a law student at Florida International University, for conservative students at the school. Screenshots of the messages were first reported by the Miami Herald and other outlets. Some of the messages were shocking. One post read, avoid the coloreds. 'Like the plague.' Those of you who don't know, 'colored' is a word used maybe 50 years ago in the United States to talk about Black people or African American people, and it's considered widely derogatory—not quite the N-word but kind of the N-word light. Another message declared 'total Negro death.' Same thing—the word Negro used to be considered neutral and objective. The United Negro College Fund still has that name, but about 50, 60 years ago, people said, "Hmm, that sounds kind of racist and nasty," so people don't really use that term anymore unless they're explicitly trying to be offensive towards Black people. A separate message warned participants that they could "F all the" and then a Jewish slur. Was put in. You want, just don't marry them. So strong antisemitism. Republican leaders in Florida quickly condemned the messages, calling them disgusting and repugnant, while Florida International University confirmed the chat is now under investigation. Okay, look, college kids do stupid things. I get it. But we live in a a false equivalence society. We're constantly told there are extremes in both sides, and both sides are guilty of extremes. So supposedly everyone on the right is racist, and behind closed doors they are using the N-word and saying offensive things and anti-Semitic. And on the left, everybody is so crazy that they force their 6-year-old sons to have sex change operations at lunchtime, and they only want transgender kids to swim against your daughter. That's what we're told. Those are the alleged stereotypes. Here's the problem though. I look and look and look. I don't see any example of the so-called loony left forcing their kids to have sex change operations at lunchtime when they're 6 years old. That's just complete hyperbole. We're told the loony left is running pedophile rings out of pizza basements in Washington, D.C., but in fact, they don't exist. So one set of stereotypes, if you actually look at the facts, they blow away. They don't really exist. They're just absurdities. And yet time after time after time, we see these very real specific chats coming out from Republicans, young Republicans, in some cases student Republicans, and it's filled with every sort of racist bile that the left accuses the right of, but it's factually backed up. So at some point, it's not just a stereotype if the facts demonstrate again and again and again, this is what people actually say, this is how people feel, this is what they totally believe. So I want to share with you again some of the nasty, vile things that came out. So again, this was created by the Secretary of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party, and it was for conservatives. It wasn't for left-wing students, wasn't for progressive students. It was explicitly designed for conservative Republicans at this university, which is really just a few dozen miles away from me now. So let me share with this— the— a variation of the n-word appears 400 times in this group chat, and no one stopped to think about, huh, maybe this isn't a good idea. Maybe I should leave this chat. Maybe I should say, hey folks, let's cut out the racism. It's making us look bad and it's not the right thing to do. Doesn't seem to be a lot of comments like that. Here are direct quotes from this official Republican Party chat that was set up by officials of the Republican Party. Avoid the coloreds like the plague. Ooh, you had colored professors? You can F all the— and then a slur was used for Jewish people— you want, just don't marry them and procreate. I would death not marry a Jew. Again, this is all reported by The Guardian. Nazi heaven, sort of. Apparently they think they're Nazis in heaven because I guess in their view they're the good guys. So again, we're told again and again and again that it's somehow demagoguery, it's somehow over the top, it's somehow extreme when centrist liberals, progressives, those on the left say, hey, some of you on the right are kind of flirting with Nazi stuff and Hitler stuff. But here we have them saying Nazi heaven, like it's a good thing. Total Negro death, as reported by the Miami New Times. Well, I'm sorry, if you don't want to be called similar to Nazis, perhaps not asking for the death of an entire race of people would be a good start. Especially talking about never have children with Jews might be a good start if you don't want to be told you kind of look and sound and walk and talk like a Nazi. Another one says, "I refuse to be indoctrinated by the coloreds." FIU President Jeanette Núñez put out a statement that the university does not and will not tolerate violence, hate, discrimination, harassment, racism, or antisemitism. Okay, sure seems like the Republican Party does. Senator Rick Scott, a Republican, said it's disgusting and cannot be tolerated. Sure seems like it's tolerated. It just seems like every other day we see something like this coming out of some official— I mean, again, this is official chat group set up by an official of the Republican Party. So it makes you wonder, what do they actually say when it's just a private text between two people? When they get together at the Republican enclaves for social gatherings over a beer or a fine glass of champagne or whiskey, what are they actually saying then when they're not putting anything on the record? This is what they're willing to put on record. And they can say, well, kids are kids and it's just a joke. It's amazing how tolerant somehow the JD Vance of the world become. If someone wants to say something overtly racist, like, let's kill all Black people, that's somehow kids being kids in a joke. But wow, someone dares say it, and you're supposed to be an awful person if you can't just take a joke. But wow, someone says something even mildly critical of Charlie Kirk, oh, JD Vance can't take that. That's awful. That person needs to be kicked out of school. That person needs to have their career destroyed. So it's a very, very strong double standard. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. I would love to hear from you. Feel free to weigh in on any of the issues I've opined on today. You can post your comments right here on the TJ Walker Success Channel. On YouTube or any other social media outlet or podcasting platform you're listening to. Thanks so much, have a great weekend. And looks like I did get a couple of comments that came in. Sorry for reaching that— for, for missing that, but I do appreciate everyone stopping by today. Thanks so much, have a great weekend.
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