Aldi is a discount grocery store with a unique product selection and great pricing, and the “Aisle of Shame” creates an atmosphere of community. When a new “customer” decided to check out the refrigerated produce aisle, he got a rude send-off. The incident resulted in an incredible “tail” for those who witnessed the coyote in the store. A coyote somehow entered the store after a customer noted it in the parking lot moments before. The Aldi is located at 800 North Kedzie in Humboldt Park, near Chicago. Staff contacted the Police and Animal Care and Control. The Aldi’s on Kedzie in Humboldt ParkI was prepared to see him pull out a opossum or a raccoon. Did NOT expect that pic.twitter.com/4CbaWkjhwy— Eddie (@EddieBarstool) January 13, 2025 After locating the animal, officers extracted the coyote from the refrigerated lunchmeat and cheese section. There are no reports of them singing, “Catch a coyote by the tail…” but you know someone was. Animal control personnel pulled the critter out of the cooler by the tail. He ran about ten feet and dived into another cooler. Officials were eventually able to remove the coyote from the store without injury. Stan Gehrt with the Cook County Coyote Project offered commentary on why the animal ended up inside the store. He stated it was common, especially with younger animals, to get confused and make a poor choice. He added that this is not the first incident of this type. Frank Schulenburg via Wikimedia Commons Coyotes prefer open areas, but humans continue to encroach on their homes. They are finding their way into more urban areas. Even in those urban environs, they will seek shrubs and wooded areas to hide. Without suitable hiding spaces, they may occasionally seek refuge inside a building. If you ever see a coyote, please notify the nearest wildlife rescue and allow them to move the animal to a more suitable location. Please share. You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Shoppers Didn’t Expect To See This Rogue Critter Being Kicked Out Of Store appeared first on InspireMore.

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A Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) officer fired pepper balls into a crowd after someone threw a snowball at his face early Wednesday, according to police. The officer was responding to reports of a crowd throwing snowballs at passing motorists in the College Town neighborhood when police said he was targeted, WTXL ABC 27 reported. One […]

In a shocking blow to the woke establishment and the LGBTQ mafia, Target has rejected the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement. In a blog post titled, “Target’s Belonging at the Bullseye Strategy,” the corporation laid out a new path forward that effectively disavows the woke movement. “We remain focused on driving our business by creating a sense of belonging for our team, guests and communities through a commitment to inclusion,” the statement began. “Belonging for all is an essential part of our team and culture, helping fuel consumer relevance and business results.” Yet the company added, “As we start a new fiscal year, we’re continuing to shape the next chapter of Belonging at the Bullseye.” The company announced new actions moving away from DEI and removing itself from the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. The actions include: Concluding our three-year diversity, equity and inclusion goals. Concluding our Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiatives in 2025 as planned. Ensuring our employee resource groups are communities fully focused on development and mentorship. These communities will continue to be open to all. Further evaluating our corporate partnerships to ensure they are directly connected to our roadmap for growth. Stopping all external diversity-focused surveys, including HRC’s Corporate Equality Index. Evolving our “Supplier Diversity” team to “Supplier Engagement” to better reflect our inclusive global procurement process across a broad range of suppliers, including increasing our focus on small businesses. What Does This Mean? As I explain in my book, “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” the Human Rights Campaign acts as a kind of LGBTQ mafia, forcing companies to embrace gender ideology in exchange for a high rating in the Corporate Equality Index. This index carried a great deal of weight with certain investors who took part in the environmental, social, and governance movement. HRC also attempts to bully government into adopting transgender policies and silencing dissent from them. Yet Target itself got burned by its pro-transgender policies in 2023. During June—or “Pride Month”—that year, Target prominently displayed LGBTQ merchandise, including female-style “tuck” swimsuits designed to hide male genitalia. Target’s sales slumped amid the outrage, and the company moved the displays further back in the stores. The Human Rights Campaign rates companies using five criteria: workforce protections, inclusive benefits, internal training and inclusive culture, corporate social responsibility, and responsible citizenship. The corporate social responsibility rating requires companies to publicly support LGBTQ causes, either through partnering or funding, and the responsible citizenship rating involves HRC deducting points from a company if it fails to toe the line on gender ideology. The entire enterprise amounts to a protection racket where HRC demands companies pay up or face protests. Target’s decision to remove itself from the index arguably marks the most consequential part of this move. The company recently had scored 100 on the 2025 index. Many other companies—including Molson Coors (the company that produces Bud Light beer), Ford, Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniels, and Lowe’s—have also pulled out of the index. These companies seem a poorer fit for woke activism than Target, which has a brand history of favoring leftist causes. The company framed the other moves as more an achievement of equity, rather than a rejection of the DEI movement, but if Target follows through on this policy, it will amount to a rejection of the woke movement. “Concluding our Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiatives in 2025 as planned,” seems more a claim that the woke plan was wise and has been fulfilled, rather than a rejection of DEI. Why Is Target Doing This? Target’s move follows President Donald Trump’s executive order “ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity.” This order declares that federal civil rights laws “protect individual Americans from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” The order states that this individual protection from discrimination is incompatible with DEI programs, which often elevate people from “disadvantaged groups,” at the expense of judging individuals based on merit and competence. “Yet today, roughly 60 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, critical and influential institutions of American society, including the Federal Government, major corporations, financial institutions, the medical industry, large commercial airlines, law enforcement agencies, and institutions of higher education have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI) or ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) that can violate the civil-rights laws of this Nation,” the order states. The order bans DEI and DEIA in the federal government and encourages the private sector to follow suit. Target’s move seems an attempt to at least publicly declare that the company is following the spirit of Trump’s order. Reason to Doubt While Target’s move is encouraging, woke activists are seeking ways to maintain DEI while changing its public image. Even while President Joe Biden was in office last May, The Washington Post reported that the DEI industry was attempting to rebrand, to keep the woke goals of elevating certain minorities while claiming to be more merit-based. “Amid growing legal, social and political backlash, American businesses, industry groups and employment professionals are quietly scrubbing DEI from public view—though not necessarily abandoning its practice,” the Post reported. Target may publicly reject DEI and withdraw from the Human Rights Campaign’s index, but that doesn’t guarantee that it will disavow the woke ideology it previously adopted. Similarly, bureaucrats in the federal government have attempted to change their job titles to hide their DEI functions. Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., highlighted one example: a leader at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives who changed her title from “Chief Diversity Officer” to “Senior Executive.” “The ATF defied [President Trump’s] order to place DEI workers on leave, instead giving their DEI officer a new title,” Burlison posted on X. “Enough is enough. Time to abolish the ATF!” The ATF defied @realDonaldTrump’s order to place DEI workers on leave, instead giving their DEI officer a new title.They attack citizens’ rights, ignore leadership, and act as though they’re above the law.Enough is enough. Time to abolish the ATF! pic.twitter.com/0JajAdeeXA— Eric Burlison (@EricBurlison) January 22, 2025 My book, “The Woketopus,” lays out the Left’s massive influence campaign. It features woke activist groups like the Human Rights Campaign, and explains how these groups manipulated policy in the federal government under Biden. It also explains why their influence is unlikely to end with Biden. The book may form a key resource for the new administration in seeking to root out the deep state, the bureaucrats who aim to oppose Trump from within. The post EYE ON THE TARGET: Major Corporation Turns on Woke and the LGBTQ Mafia appeared first on The Daily Signal.

My heart sank listening to Washington Bishop Mariann Budde during a post-inauguration service at Washington National Cathedral, the beautifully sculpted, limestone, crown jewel church for Episcopalians like me in the D.C. area. The majestic National Cathedral hosted similar inauguration prayer services 10 times before. This time, sadly, Budde gave the perfect illustration of why the Episcopal Church, and other Mainline Protestant denominations (including woke Lutherans and Presbyterians) are rapidly losing members nationwide.  Too often, Episcopal churches are narrow-minded, progressive political rallies instead of expansive, inspiring communities of God’s unconditional, eternal love. I say this as a proud baptized and confirmed member of the Episcopal Church, the church of George Washington and many other Founding Fathers.  Budde used her power at the pulpit to attack President Trump to his face for his policies on immigration and sexuality, lecturing Trump to “have mercy” on illegal immigrants and LGBTQ people, whom she falsely said are imperiled.   Budde engaged in hyperbole and ignored how open border policies create a chaotic environment where women and children are ransomed, sex trafficked, and abused on our border. Budde also didn’t mention the U.S. victims of illegal immigrant violent crime. Where is her mercy for these victims, including the murdered Laken Riley?  Where is Budde’s mercy for the nearly 82,000 Americans who died of opioid overdoses in 2022, including many from drugs pouring across our southern border with components originating from China?   Female inmates in prison and women and girls in domestic violence shelters also deserve privacy, safety–and mercy. Until Trump’s executive order reversing destructive gender ideology goes into full effect, male prisoners cloaked in false gender ideology can transfer to women’s prisons, easily overpower and sexually assault female inmates. Men and boys claiming to identify as females can sexually assault schoolgirls and women in bathrooms and locker rooms. Does Budde feel compassion for them? White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt noted on Fox News Thursday that Trump named the most senior cabinet member in U.S. history who is openly gay, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The first Trump administration led a global effort to combat LGBTI criminalization and violence against gays and lesbians, an effort under another openly gay man, Richard Grenell. Trump’s former national acting director of national intelligence and former ambassador to Germany, Grenell will now serve as Trump’s special missions envoy. I respect Budde’s position as bishop of my church. But she could have used the moment (as the Cathedral did for Trump’s first inauguration) to unify the country, to call us to a shared vision of Christ’s redeeming love, rather than hectoring and badgering President Trump. Her words had the opposite effect of her desired impact, with Trump demanding an apology and rejecting the partisan sermon outright.   I am a rare Episcopalian adult convert, baptized in December 2017. I am going against the grain both as an adult convert and conservative. The Episcopal Church is dying because it’s embracing progressive political ideologies over canonical scripture. I experienced it when I lived in Manhattan and attended St. Bartholomew’s Church and in the broader Anglican diaspora locally here at Restoration Anglican in Arlington, Virginia.  Religion scholar Ryan Burge reported, “Since 2012, the average yearly decline in Episcopal Church membership has been approximately 40,000. In 2020, it was about 55,000; the following year, it was 57,000; and between 2021 and 2022, it was 93,256—the largest single-year decline in the past 25 years.” I can’t know her heart, but I assume Budde would like to reverse this trend. The churches in America seeing rapid growth are ones that stick to basic, eternal, biblical principles rather than trendy, Progressive, partisan division. Memo to Budde and colleagues: Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Please leave the partisan rancor at home. Carrie Sheffield is author of ”Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness.” The post Partisan Episcopal Bishop Lecturing Trump Shows Why Mainline Protestantism Is Dying appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Philip Bump's Argument for DEI in the Federal Workforce Is Pretty Weak