Walmart becomes latest — and biggest — company to roll back its DEI policies

https://apnews.com/article/walmart-dei-inclusion-diversity-34b06922e60e5116fe198696201ce4d9

Again this crusade is marketed as protecting the children from sexualized content. What do they call sexualized content? Chest binders for teenage girls and drag queens! Neither are sexualizing for children. Drag queens can run the gambit from guys dressed as grandmothers to guys dressed as sexy sex workers. It depends on the venue, and minors are not allowed in adult entertainment events. That is already the laws. But to the fundamentalist any guy dressed in anything thought of as women’s attire is sexualizing and a threat to children. Why? Kids don’t care if a man wears pants or a dress. And chest binders are not sexualizing nor confusing. They are a medical assistance tool. If a girl identifies as a boy and hates her body, he needs to hide or remove the sign or his boob development. Would these people be so outraged at binders if it was a boy with gynecomastia, which is when boys grow breasts, uses a bind to feel better about themselves? No it is because the person transitioning is trans that outrages them. We are losing the discussion on this topic because we are let the vocal outraged right set the narrative such as all drag is sexual and confusing kids, and anything trans is forced on kids sexualizing them so it also confuses them. Remember when they said gays recruit boys by molesting them so they would turn gay? That was easily shown to be ridiculous. We went on the offense then and won. We need to go back on the offense and show the haters are repressively backwards in their thinking who don’t understand the changing evolving society. Hugs

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FILE – A Walmart logo is displayed outside of a Walmart store, in Walpole, Mass., Sept. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO

Updated 11:10 PM EST, November 25, 2024

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is rolling back its diversity, equity and inclusion policies, joining a growing list of major corporations that have done the same after coming under attack by conservative activists.

The changes, confirmed by Walmart on Monday, are sweeping and include everything from not renewing a five-year commitment for an equity racial center set up in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd, to pulling out of a prominent gay rights index. And when it comes to race or gender, Walmart won’t be giving priority treatment to suppliers.

Walmart’s moves underscore the increasing pressure faced by corporate America as it continues to navigate the fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2023 ending affirmative action in college admissions. Emboldened by that decision, conservative groups have filed lawsuits making similar arguments about corporations, targeting workplace initiatives such as diversity programs and hiring practices that prioritize historically marginalized groups.

Separately, conservative political commentator and activist Robby Starbuck has been going after corporate DEI policies, calling out individual companies on the social media platform X. Several of those companies have subsequently announced that they are pulling back their initiatives, including Ford, Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s and Tractor Supply.

But Walmart, which employs 1.6 million workers in the U.S., is the largest one to do so.

“This is the biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in corporate America,” Starbuck wrote on X, adding that he had been in conversation with Walmart.

Walmart confirmed to The Associated Press that it will better monitor its third-party marketplace items to make sure they don’t feature sexual and transgender products aimed at minors. That would include chest binders intended for youth who are going through a gender change, the company said.

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer will also be reviewing grants to Pride events to make sure it is not financially supporting sexualized content that may be unsuitable for kids. For example, the company wants to makes sure a family pavilion is not next to a drag show at a Pride event, the company said.

Additionally, Walmart will no longer consider race and gender as a litmus test to improve diversity when it offers supplier contracts. The company said it didn’t have quotas and will not do so going forward. It won’t be gathering demographic data when determining financing eligibility for those grants.

Walmart also said it wouldn’t renew a racial equity center that was established through a five-year, $100 million philanthropic commitment from the company with a mandate to, according to its website, “address the root causes of gaps in outcomes experienced by Black and African American people in education, health, finance and criminal justice systems.”

And it would stop participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s annual benchmark index that measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees.

“We’ve been on a journey and know we aren’t perfect, but every decision comes from a place of wanting to foster a sense of belonging, to open doors to opportunities for all our associates, customers and suppliers and to be a Walmart for everyone,” the company said in a statement.

The changes come soon after an election win by former President Donald Trump, who has criticized DEI initiatives and surrounded himself with conservatives who hold similar views, including his former adviser Stephen Miller, who leads a group called America First Legal that has challenged corporate DEI policies. Trump named Miller to be the deputy chief of policy in his new administration.

A Walmart spokesperson said some of its policy changes have been in progress for a while. For example, it has been moving away from using the word DEI in job titles and communications and started to use the word “belonging.” It also started making changes to its supplier program in the aftermath of the Supreme Court affirmative action ruling.

Some have been urging companies to stick with their DEI policies. Last month, a group of Democrats in Congress appealed to the leaders of the Fortune 1000, saying that DEI efforts give everyone a fair chance at achieving the American dream.

ANNE D’INNOCENZIO

D’Innocenzio writes about retail, trends, the consumer economy and hourly workers for The Associated Press.

Wichita’s turkey traffic enforcer causes fowl play at busy intersection

by FOX Kansas NewsTue, November 26th 2024 at 9:24 AM

(I saw this on the news last night and thought it would be fun for us here. It’s actually our local/Wichita ABC affiliate news, on the Simpsons’s channel here. If you click through, you can watch just this story, or our whole little nighttime newscast, if you like. I can’t find the link to embed the video, which I recommend. -A)

An unexpected but welcome visitor is getting a lot of attention at an east Wichita intersection, whether he’s stopping traffic or trying to attack cars.

In a world of too much distracted driving, all of the drivers and passengers near Central and Greenwhich are paying attention to G.G. the Eastside Turkey.

Nancy Withers owns Kitchen Wow, one of several places the famous Eastside Turkey likes to hang out. She says he’s been around for almost a year now.

FOX Kansas News reporter Jocelyn Schifferdecker has more on the road warrior in the video posted above.

Thanks, Dark Brandon!

Thanksgiving dinner is historically affordable this year

Farm data shows [sic] holiday meal staples are collectively at their cheapest, after adjusting for inflation, in nearly 40 years — not including the Covid-hit year of 2020.

By Jing Feng

You may not know it by looking at sticker prices in grocery aisles, but Thanksgiving dinner is more affordable than it has been in years.

The costs of this year’s holiday feast — estimated at $58.08 for a 10-person gathering, or $5.81 a head — dropped 5% since last year, the lowest level since 2021, according to a nationwide survey of grocery prices by the American Farm Bureau Federation, which represents millions of U.S. farmers. But the picture improves further when adjusted for inflation. (snip)

A defining feature of the post-pandemic recovery, and the 2024 election, is the divergence between Americans’ sour views of the economy and its underlying strength. Many shoppers understandably focus on price levels — the dollar value of the things they buy — rather than those purchases’ inflation-adjusted, or “real,” costs. The latter is the true test of affordability, since it reflects an often underappreciated piece of the inflation puzzle: wage inflation.

And indeed, while Thanksgiving food prices are up 19% since 2019, according to the AFBF, federal data shows median household wages growing by about 25% during the same period.

What’s more, “the average American also has to work fewer hours to buy the same meal than in previous years,” the report added. “Wages continued to grow faster following the COVID-19 pandemic, even as inflation cooled. Because average wages rose 4% from 2023 to 2024, it took 9% less work time for us to pay for this year’s Thanksgiving dinner.” (Emph. mine -A)

Snip-there is more, and being a mainstream news outlet, they are both siding the economy by including people’s feelings about it as opposed to the facts, but still. They could have been saying these things for the past year and a half, because I don’t know about where everyone else here lives, but our prices in S. Central KS have been lower again for at least a year and a half now. Prices went through the roof after DJT and Republicans allowed suppliers to do what they needed to to solve the supply chain crisis they made during COVID, and so suppliers raised prices so severely.

But maybe that’s not true where everyone lives, either.

Thanksgiving by Nancy Beiman

(I love this toon on GoComics. The artist/author writes on Substack, and this one is especially nice. -A)

It should be every day. Read on Substack

American Thanksgiving is on Thursday, November 28. Grandma Heckel is visiting the FurBabies. This is only fair since she hosted the dinner last year and had the Buffet family visit for Canadian Thanksgiving this year. Grandma likes turkey.

Kate wasn’t allowed to make the pies last year. She was just an influencer.

FurBabies, November 19, 2023

Grandma did like it.

The Dog Family had a Friendsgiving with Mrs. Oldman and Buster.

FurBabies, November 21, 2023

Since Grandma is visiting, Mrs. Oldman is celebrating the holiday elswhere this year, possibly in Mexico. (I like to think that all of the off camera characters are living ordinary lives when I don’t have the ‘camera’ on them; we get glimpses when they do something funny.)

FurBabies is seen from the point of view of the Dog Family and Kate. The parents and Grandma never appear in the strip, so I had to find a situation that would allow us to guess their reactions to an unanticipated event. Luckily I found a great ‘human interest’ story about a dog and an Item that was perfect for the occasion.

Plans for the formal dinner began on Monday, November 25. Grandma likes dressing up. We see Shawm and Stella ‘suit up’ for a rehearsal, then cut to a night scene. Grandma Heckel is staying in Kate’s bedroom, which she shares with Sirius and Floof. Everyone has to find a new place to sleep. Sirius is not happy with his options. Sirius finds the Item on November 27, so I won’t reveal it here. I was happy with the results. We also see where Shawm and Stella sleep every night.

https://www.gocomics.com/furbabies/2024/11/26

The situation resolves on November 30, which then conveniently transitions into the Holiday strips. There’s a bit of repetition with variation when Kate once again tries to send a text to Santa. Things do not work out as planned.

Real life is like that, except it isn’t usually funny. (snip)

These Bees Hustle to Put Food on the Table | Deep Look

You know honeybees make honey, but did you know they make bread too? And four other types of bees are also dedicated chefs! Alfalfa leafcutting bees take a punch from a flower for your ice cream. Blue orchard bees bring you almonds and sweet cherries. Plus, stingless bees protect their tasty honey in creative ways. And bindweed bees’ way of gathering pollen deserves a fashion award.

These videos are done in 4K. Hugs

Some News From The Bee

Not Everything Is Clear Cut (a somehow Good News Post)

“Farmers Freaking Over Deportations”

by God

Whoops! Read on Substack

Dear Humans,

Jesus here.

As someone who has always taught inclusion, loving thy neighbor, and supporting marginalized groups, I’ve been deeply concerned about Trump’s mass deportation proposals that he spoke frequently about during his Presidential campaign.

To many in his uninformed and racist voter base, they hear about the proposal and think it’s a great idea.

What they don’t realize is how it’ll affect – among many things – their food supply.

You see, farmers depend on undocumented immigrants to manage their crops, because it’s a grueling job that most Americans don’t want to take. Immigrants, however, are looking for any life they can start in America and are willing to take on the job.

They’re also freakin’ tough-as-nails types of people!

We’re still nearly two months away from Trump returning to office (Sigh), and already, key U.S. agricultural organizations are advocating for the exclusion of farmworkers from mass deportation attempts.

Reuters spoke to numerous farm groups who said they are already working to ensure their workers are exempt from any deportations.

Should Trump’s ‘mass deportation’ idea go through (And let’s be clear: It would be a VERY difficult task – it’s basically his new ‘Build the Wall’ proposal), that would mean that about HALF of the two million farmworkers in the United States would be deported.

It’d be like a Thanos snap – it would have HUGE implications for the American food supply.

When all those workers disappear, the food would disappear too. And if you thought eggs were costly now, just wait until you lose half of your workers who are employed on farms and meat processing plants.

A More Jesus-y Plan

What Trump’s incoming administration should be doing instead of instilling fear in the American people is giving these undocumented migrants a path to citizenship. These people who live in America not only work tough jobs, but they also contribute to the American economy by supporting businesses that they visit. That in turn generates tax revenue for America.

EVERYONE benefits from having immigrants in their country.

In The Parable of the Good Samaritan, I taught that your “neighbor” is not limited to those within the same community or background but extends to anyone in need. I encourage Humans to cross cultural boundaries to show kindness and mercy. (snip)

Love, Jesus

Peace & Justice History for 11/26

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorynovember.htm#november26

“Delayza’s Necklace” by Max Early

(Tuesday’s poem.)

We enter to sounds of bells.
The hall’s warmth evokes
an imprint of my small self
standing by my grandparents.
Their presence I sense
in drums and singers’ voices.

Collective breath of all colors
hovers above the leaping herd.
Eagle and hawk feathers adorn
the deer dance’s rhythmic scent—
forest evergreen, damp earth.

Delayza puts her hand in mine.
The seated crowd hinders her view.
I lift her above the masses—
a butterfly beyond reach.

Her irises bloom to the choir
and drumbeats rumbling
nearby snowflakes.

I set her among the gold straw flecks
glistening on the mud plastered floor.
Her body sways back and forth,
she stands on tiptoe
to see over the crowd.

A charcoal faced hunter
in camouflage shirt and jeans
trots towards the small child.
He places a coral bead necklace
over her head as she smiles
at her new delight.

Devoted Aide Who Keeps Good News Flowing Will Follow Trump to the White House

49% of the US voted for a man who needs constant validation of being a good boy who is loved like a sick toddler. How child like this little boy mind in a man’s body who will be making the decisions that effect all our lives. How did out country become this way, come to this point? We used to have standards for president, until Grover Norquist famously said We don’t need someone who can think. We need someone with enough digits to hold a pen. We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals, and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship. Hugs

I just read that Arab leadership in Michigan and other states that voted for tRump as a protest vote against Harris are upset with tRump’s anti-Arab pro-Israel cabinet picks. What the hell did they think. tRump and all of us told them that tRump has long wanted the Palestinians gone and the West Bank and Gaza returned to the full Israeli country. He talked about resorts on the ocean of Gaza. We warned these people but they had to make a stand against Harris for not saying harder stuff against Israel when tRump was busy telling Bib to just go get the job done. They joined the leopard eat people face party and are upset the leopard is eating their face now. Hugs

Natalie Harp, a 33-year-old former anchor on a right-wing cable show, is poised to become the gatekeeper for information to and from the president.

Natalie Harp, little known outside President-elect Donald J. Trump’s immediate orbit, has become one of his closest aides.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

By Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan have covered Donald Trump for many years. They reported from Washington.

Nov. 25, 2024

President-elect Donald J. Trump has always demanded loyalty from his aides, but few have answered the call quite like Natalie Harp.

A 33-year-old former far-right cable host, Ms. Harp is nearly always at Mr. Trump’s side. She has written him a series of devotional letters, including one that said, “You are all that matters to me.” Once, when Mr. Trump was playing golf in Scotland, she ran behind his cart to keep him up to date with positive stories and social media posts.

Little known beyond Mr. Trump’s immediate orbit, Ms. Harp is now poised to play a potentially influential role in his White House, sitting right outside the Oval Office and acting as the conduit for a largely unsupervised flow of information to and from the president and helping him with his social media feed.

She has no official title, but during the campaign, colleagues referred to her as the “human printer” because she followed Mr. Trump around with a portable printer and a battery pack to charge it, so she could hand him information in hard copy, as he prefers.

But Ms. Harp also established herself at the center of a fast-moving carousel of text messages, articles and tidbits directed at Mr. Trump. This has generated concern among other aides who feel she has been far too willing to serve as a funnel for conspiratorial information at a moment when Mr. Trump appears more contemptuous than ever of attempts to manage or control him. One of her go-to news sources, people who have observed her say, is the website Gateway Pundit, which frequently disseminates conspiracy theories embraced by the far right.

Image

Ms. Harp shares text messages, articles and gossip with Mr. Trump that often ends up mirrored on his social media accounts.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

In recent weeks, people with knowledge of her performance say, she has been more willing to operate within the transition team’s chain of command. Still, her role over most of the past three years speaks to Mr. Trump’s desire to maintain open channels to a wide assortment of people and unvetted sources of information. And it underscores his tendency to surround himself with people who tell him what he wants to hear. A top adviser to Mr. Trump used to say he would ask 49 people what they thought of something, stopping only at 50 if the last person told him what he wanted to hear.

Ms. Harp fits well inside those patterns, people who work with Mr. Trump have said. They have described her as a conduit, rather than a filter, and an instant enabler of his impulses. She types up his thoughts as he dictates them and she quickly dispatches them onto social media. She has sometimes arranged media interviews for him without the knowledge of Mr. Trump’s press team.

The Trump transition team declined to make Ms. Harp available for an interview.

‘Trusted and Valued’

Mr. Trump has dismissed concerns about Ms. Harp, whom he calls “sweetie” and treats like a daughter, according to people close to him. They say he appreciates Ms. Harp in part because she was among the few aides working for him when he was still something of a political outcast, after he was voted out of office and after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s spokesman, said Ms. Harp was “trusted and valued” and credited her “work ethic and dedication” for helping Mr. Trump win the election.

In response to a request for comment for this article, the Trump campaign also asked several allies to provide character references. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina described Ms. Harp as professional and dedicated. Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas said she had a “bubbly, outgoing attitude” that helped keep Mr. Trump in high spirits.

But her direct relationship with Mr. Trump means that she has often operated largely outside the supervision of more senior aides, a situation that has at times raised alarms among some members of his inner circle who would like to see tighter control of what information he is receiving. When people seeking influence with Mr. Trump want to turn him against their rivals, they send damaging clips to Ms. Harp, knowing she will pass them along, unvetted.

Image

Mr. Trump and Ms. Harp during a tournament at Mr. Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, N.J.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

She is omnipresent in images of Mr. Trump on the campaign trail and in the days since he won the election. A Trump campaign documentary produced by Tucker Carlson showed Ms. Harp stationed next to Mr. Trump, taking dictation for Truth Social posts.

When Mr. Trump sent angry text messages to the billionaire donor Miriam Adelson over the summer, it was Ms. Harp who pressed send, according to two people with knowledge of the incident. The texts almost cost Mr. Trump the support of one of his party’s biggest donors, before intermediaries worked to repair the relationship.

Ms. Harp provided Mr. Trump an article that had an illustration of him wielding a baseball bat next to the head of Manhattan’s district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, who was on the verge of indicting him. Mr. Trump quickly posted it to social media but deleted it after his lawyers pleaded with him to do so.

She was by Mr. Trump’s side at Mar-a-Lago, taking dictation for his social media diatribe of more than 40 posts against E. Jean Carroll, whom he had been found liable for sexually abusing. Other Trump aides who were not at the club at the time were helpless to stop him.

The most recent incident was a sign of the higher stakes as Mr. Trump returns to the White House. Ms. Harp posted what was supposed to be a private message to Mr. Trump from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine for all to see, shortly before the two leaders met in person for the first time in five years.

‘I Want to Bring You Joy’

Ms. Harp, a devout Christian who grew up in California, first caught the attention of Mr. Trump in 2019 when she appeared on Fox News and credited him with saving her life.

She had bone cancer, she said, and legislation that Mr. Trump signed in 2018, the Right to Try law, saved her by giving her access to experimental treatments. It is unclear what drugs she was referring to.

Mr. Trump loved the story and invited her to speak on his behalf at the 2020 Republican National Convention. She joined his staff in 2022, after leaving her job as an anchor at the far-right One America News Network, where she further endeared herself to Mr. Trump by endorsing his baseless claims about the 2020 election being stolen.

Mr. Trump once remarked, while angry after his arraignment in Fulton County, Ga., in 2023, that Ms. Harp was the only member of his staff who cared about him, according to two people familiar with the comment.

Image

Ms. Harp with one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers during his criminal trial in New York this year.Credit…Pool photo by Charly Triballeau

In 2023, Ms. Harp sent a series of letters to Mr. Trump that unnerved people around him, according to a half-dozen people with knowledge of them.

“You are all that matters to me,” she wrote in one of the letters, which were seen by The New York Times. The letters’ authenticity was confirmed by two people with direct knowledge of them.

“I don’t ever want to let you down,” Ms. Harp wrote, thanking Mr. Trump for being her “Guardian and Protector in this Life.”

In another letter, she told Mr. Trump that she wanted to get back to “that synergy” she used to have with him, where “we’d talk about everything and nothing.”

“I want to bring you joy,” she wrote, “to feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk ‘work.’”

At the White House, Ms. Harp is likely to serve a role unlike any presidential adviser in modern history.

While the incoming staff secretary, Will Scharf, will be tasked with managing the paper flow in and out of the president’s office, those who have worked closely with Mr. Trump know that as long as Ms. Harp is around there will inevitably be an entirely separate stream of information to his desk.

That is a change from Mr. Trump’s first four years in office, when the staff members who controlled his social media feed usually alerted higher-ups of potentially problematic posts, like dismissals of significant advisers.

Ms. Harp, by contrast, has mostly run her own program.

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Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent reporting on the 2024 presidential campaign, down ballot races across the country and the investigations into former President Donald J. Trump. More about Maggie Haberman

Jonathan Swan is a political reporter covering the 2024 presidential election and Donald Trump’s campaign. More about Jonathan Swan