Target: Only ‘Extremists’ Think Child Grooming is Bad

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Target: Only ‘Extremists’ Think Child Grooming is Bad

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) While Target faces backlash over its “Pride” collection that has resulted in losing billions of dollars, the company sent an internal memo, in which it stated that those who worry about the sexualization of children are extremists.

“As political and social tensions rise ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Target will face a continued increase of physical security threats related to our commitments on contentious social issues including support of the LGBTQIA+ community and Pride Month,” the internal memo, titled “Threat Overview,” said.

Target then said that online campaigns and boycotts that have emerged in the wake of the company’s launch of its “Pride” collection from a self-identified Satanist “have the potential to motivate extremists to violence.”

Among the “recent extremist focuses” that are listed in the memo are “‘sexualization’ of children, gender issues and drag performances.”

After that, Target said that some people may “express their opposition to Target’s support of the LGBTQIA+ community” by causing disruptions in the store or making threats of violence.

The store brand also added that the recent “Pride” collection may “spark disagreements” among employees or “prompt concerns that Target’s values don’t align with their own.”

“Physical security risks will be highest for team members within the LGBTQIA+ community,” the memo stated.

At the end of the memo, Target concluded by saying that the company doesn’t see any indicators of a “unique risk to Target” yet in 2023.

“Our retail competitors have similar positions supporting the LGBTQIA+ community and Pride-specific merchandise assortments,” the store wrote, in hopes it will be able to survive the boycott.

According to the Post Millennial, Target moved its recent “Pride” collection to the back of the store in certain areas of the country after the company faced backlash to the said collection which includes a “tuck-friendly” swimsuit and a line catered toward grooming children and babies into accepting sexual deviancy and delusion.

Due to the boycott, Target lost $9 billion in one week. On Friday, the company’s stock fell to the lowest point in three years, at $137.39.

Businesses Banning Teenagers Unaccompanied by Adults

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Businesses Banning Teenagers Unaccompanied by Adults

(Headline USA) Starting April 18, Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey — the second largest mall in the state — is requiring anyone under 18 years old to be accompanied by a chaperone at least 21 or older on Fridays and Saturdays after 5 p.m.

The move, according to the mall, follows “an increase in disruptive behavior by a small minority of younger visitors.” That included a reported brawl in the food court last year and a fight in March that brought swarms of policemen to the center but ended up being a smaller altercation than initially reported.

Requiring an adult chaperone at malls, at least for certain times of the day, is not new. Mall of America, the nation’s largest shopping mall, imposed a chaperone policy back in 1996 and has been increasingly tightening it as recently as 2020 when it mandated that teens be accompanied by adults after 3 p.m. daily.

But experts say Garden State Plaza joins a growing number of shopping centers, amusement parks and even a few restaurants that have implemented similar policies in the last few months ahead of the summer season. And they all cite increased incidents of bad behavior among teens as the reason, some of it inspired by social media like TikTok.

Even a Chik-fil-A franchise in southeast Pennsylvania caused a stir with its social media post earlier this year that announced its policy of banning kids under 16 without an adult chaperone, citing unruly behavior.

In the years since 2020, authorities in some areas report a rise in crime among youth, including New York, Washington, D.C. and Colorado.

Many praise chaperone policies as a way to reduce disruptions to business and create a safer shopping environment.

At Garden State Plaza on a recent Friday night, the chaperone policy was clearly being enforced, with security guards stationed at each entrance and checking IDs of young shoppers they suspected were under 18 and who were not accompanied by an adult chaperone. Some were turned away. A cluster of policemen were also at the gates.

Meanwhile, several amusement parks with chaperone policies are generally requiring teens 15 years old or younger to be accompanied with adult chaperones after 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. every day. The largest group has been amusement park operator Cedar Fair Entertainment Co., which recently implemented adult chaperone policies for at least eight of its 13 parks including Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, Missouri, and King Dominion in Doswell, Virginia.

“Over the past two years, we have seen increasing incidents of unruly and inappropriate behavior across our industry and at other major entertainment venues,” said Gary Rhodes, a spokesman for Cedar Fair in a statement. “We believe these changes will help ensure that our parks continue to provide a safe and positive environment.”

At Worlds of Fun, for example, a fight involving more than 100 teenagers broke out during the park’s opening weekend in early April.

Some businesses say the new rules have been effective.

The Mall in Columbia, Maryland instituted a chaperone policy at the end of March after a rise in disruptive teen behavior over the past eight months, according senior general manager Mary Williams. She said that the weekend scene has turned into a pleasant family atmosphere because of it.

Noah Peters, district manager at three Capital 8 Theater locations in Missouri and Illinois, said that the chaperone policy implemented in Missouri in October 2021 requires teens under 17 to be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian after 6 p.m. And despite some outcry, it has been a “huge success,” citing anywhere from a 80% to 90% reduction in disruptive episodes.

“The reality is that the amount of money we lose turning those without a chaperone away pales to the amount we were losing providing refunds night after night to frustrated guests whose movie going experience was marred by the noise and disruptions,” Peters said.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Budweiser Teams Up with Harley-Davidson to Save Brand

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Budweiser Teams Up with Harley-Davidson to Save Brand

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Budweiser teamed up with Harley-Davidson to make a commercial that is more appropriate for beer-drinking people after Anheuser-Busch — the parent company — faced an enormous backlash from its Bud Light ad with Dylan Mulvaney.

According to the Daily Mail, the commercial featured a gray-haired, male mechanic working on a Harley bike. After that, the commercial showed three men drinking Budweiser beer.

“The greatest legacies are built with grit and resilience, one detail at a time. Limited edition Budweiser Harley-Davidson cans – for those who give everything to their craft,” a male narrator said, speaking over a rock instrumental.

“This Bud’s for you.”

The masculine tone of the commercial is a clear contrast between the previous partnership of Bud Light with Mulvaney, a 26-year-old “transgender” influencer, who promoted a can of beer with his face on it to celebrate 365 days of his “womanhood.”

Anheuser-Busch, the company that owns both Budweiser and Bud Light, has lost $15 billion since the ad with Mulvaney was released. The bosses in the company are now desperately trying to win back customers who started to boycott the beer.

The Budweiser commercial with Harley-Davidson was released last week alongside the launch of the limited-edition cans. That was the first time when the two companies have partnered.

The Daily Mail reported that each can feature the slogan “Kings of our Craft” and the words “brewed and built in the USA.”

“The greatest legacies are built one detail at a time. Here’s to an American collaboration for the ages,” Budweiser said.

However, people on social media saw what the company was trying to do and expressed their criticism by saying that the attempt to move past the Mulvaney debacle has been unsuccessful.

The backlash against Bud Light led to calls from some people to boycott of all Anheuser-Busch’s beers, among which are Michelob Ultra and Stella Artois.

Missing WWII Pilot Accounted For

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Missing WWII Pilot Accounted For

(Headline USA) An Army Air Force pilot from Pennsylvania killed during World War II has been accounted for almost eight decades later, military authorities said.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said last week that 2nd Lt. James Litherland, 25, of South Williamsport was accounted for in March.

In February 1944, Litherland was co-piloting a B-17F Flying Fortress that was struck by anti-aircraft fire after a bombing raid on a German V-2 rocket site in Bois-Coquerel, France. Three airmen parachuted to safety but Litherland and six other crew members were still on board when the plane crashed near Le Translay, France, authorities said.

Six sets of remains were recovered near the crash site but only five were identified. In 2018, more material was recovered from the crash site and the unknown remains were exhumed from a cemetery in France. Dental and anthropological analysis and DNA evidence was used to identify the remains as those of Litherland, officials said.

Litherland’s daughter, Suzanne Walker, called the efforts to identify his remains “amazing,” PennLive.com reported. Born on the day of the crash — “I imagine the grief of my mother” — Walker said she learned the recovery team used Google maps to locate the crash site and did a hand dig to find the remains, which included one of his dog tags she now has.
“That was the biggest surprise,” she said. “I never expected it.”

Walker said she has little memorabilia about her father and hopes someone comes forward with pictures or other items. Through her research, she has learned he was an outdoorsman and with friends built a toboggan slide on the side of the mountain near their home.

She thinks about “what he may have been.” He would now be a great-grandfather.

Litherland will be laid to rest in Williamsport. Walker said she had the opportunity to have her father buried in France but “wanted him to be with his family.” His father and grandfather are buried in Wildwood Cemetery, where there is a headstone for him, she said.

Literland’s name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at Ardennes American Cemetery in Neupré, Belgium, along with others still missing from WWII. Military authorities say a rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate that he has been accounted for.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

The Real Reason Beer Companies Are Going Woke Exposed

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The Real Reason Beer Companies Are Going Woke Exposed

(By Jon Miltimore, FEE)The puns were flowing like wine, or rather, beer, on social media this week when Miller Lite went viral for an ad campaign that blasted its own brand for “sexism.”

“Hold my beer, Budweiser! Miller Lite’s new feminist spokeswoman is here to cuss at you and explain why men are evil,” wrote Not the Bee.

“Miller Lite apparently wants the Bud Light boycott treatment too,” said Rogan O’Handley, a Hollywood lawyer turned conservative commentator and supporter of former President Donald Trump. “Newsflash: After a hard day’s work, working-class beer drinkers don’t want to be lectured like they’re in a gender studies class at SUNY-Oswego.”

The ad features Ilana Glazer, a comedian who claimed women were the first brewers in history but were betrayed by corporate America.

“From Mesopotamia to the Middle Ages to colonial America, women were the ones doing the brewing,” Glazer said. “Centuries later, how did the industry pay homage to the founding mothers of beer? They put us in bikinis.”

To make amends, Miller Lite is buying up vintage ad art featuring women in swimwear, which it will turn into compost to support female brewers. “That good s*** helps farmers grow quality hops,” one woman explains.

Many accused Miller Lite of following the “woke” path of Bud Light, which witnessed a collapse in sales following a March Madness ad campaign featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney that prompted Anheuser-Busch to issue an apology.

“We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people,” wrote CEO Brendan Whitworth.

What many on social media failed to realize is that Miller Lite’s ad was released before Bud Light’s implosion. It had just received little attention. It’s not clear if Miller Lite’s ad will have the same effect on beer sales as Bud Light’s. Some commentators on Twitter said they appreciated the ad.

“I actually think that Miller Lite got it a lot more right than Bud Lite in how it approached a female demo,” wrote Emily Zanotti of Fox News.

That’s the nature of commercials, of course. They are subjective. What might make one person feel uncomfortable might appeal to someone else.

I’m apparently a Neanderthal who likes the old-school Miller Lite commercials, whether they feature women in bikinis or Bob Uecker masquerading as Rodney Dangerfield at a costume party. I don’t like feeling lectured. That’s just me.

People naturally have different preferences and tastes in commercials, and that’s OK. The thing is, I’m actually Miller Lite’s target demo: a 40-something male beer drinker.

This invites questions. Why are Bud Light and Miller Lite making commercials that alienate their own consumer base? More importantly, why are they wading into controversial matters such as transgenderism, third-wave feminism, and nonbinary gender at all?

The primary answer is the rise of environmental, social, and corporate governance, a term coined during a 2004 United Nations initiative (“ Who Cares Wins ”) that grades companies on social performance.

ESG was born from the idea that traditional capitalism needs to be replaced with a more caring, socially conscious capitalism that serves other “stakeholders.” And what started as “guidelines and recommendations” have become explicit standards set by ESG rating agencies that impose steep costs on publicly traded companies, especially those that don’t comply.

The thing is, companies are not jazzed about having to dance to the tune of a small cabal of central bankers and asset managers. A 2022 CNBC survey showed that while executives support ESG publicly, privately, they harbor serious concerns. Yet not playing ball is not an option.

“If a company has to do disclosures, and it has some executives who are ‘not into ESG,’ it should be thinking about the cost of not becoming more concerned,” Eileen Murray, a former executive of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world, told CNBC .

Miller Lite and Bud Light drinkers have every right to be annoyed by ads they don’t like. But they should understand these publicly traded companies are playing a balancing act on who they risk alienating, their consumers or ESG puppeteers.

DeSantis Plans to Abolish IRS, If Elected President

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DeSantis Plans to Abolish IRS, If Elected President

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently said that he would be open to abolishing the IRS if he is elected the president of the United States in 2024.

According to Becker News, DeSantis made this remark during an interview with radio host Dana Loesch on The Dana Show.

“I think the IRS is a corrupt organization and I think it’s not a friend to the average citizen or taxpayer. We need something totally different,” he said.

“I’ve supported all of the single rate proposals, I think they would be a huge improvement over the current system and I would be welcoming to take this tax system, chunk it out the window and do something that’s more favorable to the average folks.”

DeSantis has a history of criticizing the IRS for its unfair practices that are targeted toward the American middle class. He previously opposed the Biden administration’s plan to expand the agency with 87,000 new agents, which he described as a “middle finger to the American public” in August of 2022.

“Of all the things that have come out of Washington that have been outrageous, this has got to be pretty close to the top,” he said. “I think it was basically just the middle finger to the American public, that this is what they think of you.”

DeSantis added that this expansion would very likely result in increased scrutiny on small business owners and other hardworking Americans.

“They are going to go after independent contractors, they’re going to go after small business people, they’re going to go after someone that may be driving an Uber or a handyman or all these things,” he said.

“Why would they do that? Because you’re not going to be able to contend with the audit, so they’re going to crush a lot of people by doing that.”

Ed Ames, The Last Living ‘Ames Brother’ Dies at 95

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Ed Ames, The Last Living ‘Ames Brother’ Dies at 95

(Headline USA) Ed Ames, the youngest member of the popular 1950s singing group the Ames Brothers, who later became a successful actor in television and musical theater, has died. He was 95.

The last survivor of the four singing brothers, Ames died May 21 from Alzheimer’s disease, his wife, Jeanne Ames, said Saturday.

“He had a wonderful life,” she said.

On television, Ames was likely best known for his role as Mingo, the Oxford-educated Native American in the 1960s adventure series “Daniel Boone” that starred Fess Parker as the famous frontiersman. He also was the center of a bit on “The Tonight Show” that — thanks to his painfully uncanny aim with a hatchet — became one of the show’s most memorable surprise moments.

Ames had guest roles in TV series such as “Murder, She Wrote” and “In the Heat of the Night,” and toured frequently in musicals, performing such popular songs as “Try to Remember” and the song that became his biggest hit single, “My Cup Runneth Over.”

As part of the 1950s music scene, he and his brothers were one of numerous pop quartets that included the Four Aces, Four Lads, Gaylords, Hilltoppers, Lancers, Four Knights, Ink Spots and, still around from a previous era, the Mills Brothers. But the Ames Brothers — Ed, Joe, Gene and Vic — had a unique tone: they were basses and baritones, not tenors.

Their recordings of “Rag Mop,” “Sentimental Me” and “Undecided” became big hits, and they launched a busy career appearing on TV variety shows, recording 40 albums and playing in night clubs and auditoriums across the country.

By the end of the 1950s, rock ‘n’ roll had overtaken the pop charts and singing quartets were on the decline. The Ameses, meanwhile, had tired of the constant travel and absence from their growing families. The finale for Ed came when he arrived home unexpectedly and his wife called to their 3-year-old daughter: “Who is it?” The girl replied, “One of the Ames Brothers.”

“That did it,” he told a reporter. “My brothers and I agreed that we had all had it and should go our separate ways.” The group, which was earning $20,000 a week, played its last engagement at the Sahara in Las Vegas on New Year’s 1961.

Ed’s efforts to establish himself as a solo singer were not immediately successful and he turned to acting. He almost lost his house before he found a role in a production of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.”

In the long-running musical “The Fantasticks,” he sang “Try to Remember,” which became one of his theme songs. He joined the traveling company of Gower Champion’s “Carnival” and transferred to the New York company until the show’s final performance.

In a role that presaged his future role on “Daniel Boone,” he then won attention as the stoic Native American in the 1963 Broadway play “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” with Kirk Douglas and Gene Wilder in the adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel.

Ames earned top money at Las Vegas casinos and in hotel supper clubs and toured extensively in the musicals “Man of La Mancha,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “South Pacific” and “I Do, I Do.”

“I Do, I Do” provided his biggest hit single, “My Cup Runneth Over,” a gold record winner in 1967. He had another hit in 1968 with “Who Will Answer?”

It was during his run on “Daniel Boone” that he contributed to what was called the longest sustained burst of laughter in the history of “The Tonight Show.”

For a 1965 episode he was persuaded to demonstrate the hatchet-throwing skills he learned as Mingo. The silhouette of a cowboy was painted on a piece of wood, and Ames threw a hatchet at the target. It landed on squarely on the cowboy’s crotch.

Ames was born Edmund Dantes Urick in Malden, Massachusetts, the youngest of 11 children, four who died in childhood. Their parents were Ukrainian immigrants and their mother taught the children to read Shakespeare and to appreciate music they heard every Saturday on the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts.

The four youngest boys began singing at local events as the Urick Brothers. Ed was still in high school when they moved to night clubs, but as a husky six-footer with a deep voice, he was able to pass for 21.

In New York, comedy writer Abe Burrows advised a name change because Urick was hard to remember. Ames was the brothers’ choice.

After the four brothers split up, the other brothers also continued performing and recording, but gained less notice than Ed. Vic died in 1978, Gene in 1997 and Joe in December 2007.
Ames and his first wife, Sara Cacheiro, had three children: Sonja, Ronald and Linda. The couple divorced in 1978, and in 1998 he married Jeanne Arnold.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Feds Seizing Private Donations Given to J6 Patriots

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Feds Seizing Private Donations Given to J6 Patriots

(Headline USA) Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn appeared on Tucker Carlson‘s then-Fox News show and promoted a website where supporters could donate money to Goodwyn and other political prisoners.

The ‘Justice’ Department now wants Goodwyn to give up more than $25,000 he raised — a clawback that is part of a growing effort by the government to prevent political prisoners from being able to defend themselves.

An Associated Press review of court records shows that prosecutors in the more than 1,000 ‘criminal’ cases from Jan. 6, 2021, are increasingly asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from American citizens.

Dozens of defendants have set up online fundraising appeals for help with legal fees.

Most of the fundraising efforts appear on GiveSendGo, which bills itself as “The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site” and has become a haven for Jan. 6 defendants barred from using mainstream crowdfunding sites, including GoFundMe, to raise money.

Their fundraising success suggests that many people in the United States still view Jan. 6 protestors as patriots, and know that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump.

The former president himself has pledged to pardon these political prisoners if he is elected.

Markus Maly, a Virginia man scheduled to be sentenced next month for the January 6th protests, raised more than $16,000 from an online campaign that described him as a “January 6 P.O.W.” and asked for money for his family. Prosecutors have requested a $16,000-plus fine.

So far this year, prosecutors have sought more than $390,000 in fines against at least 21 protest defendants, in amounts ranging from $450 to more than $71,000, according to the AP’s tally.

Judges have imposed at least $124,127 in fines against 33 January 6th defendants this year. In the previous two years, judges ordered more than 100 of these defendants to collectively pay more than $240,000 in fines.

Separately, judges have ordered hundreds of convicted protestors to pay more than $524,000 in restitution to the government.

More protestors facing the most serious charges and longest prison terms are now being sentenced.

Earlier this month, the judge who sentenced Nathaniel DeGrave to more than three years in prison also ordered him to pay a $25,000 fine. Prosecutors noted that the Nevada resident “incredibly” raised over $120,000 in GiveSendGo fundraising campaigns that referred to him as “Beijing Biden’s political prisoner” in “America’s Gitmo” — a reference to the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

GiveSendGo co-founder Heather Wilson said her site’s decision to allow legal defense funds for January 6th defendants “is rooted in our society’s commitment to the presumption of innocence and the freedom for all individuals to hire private attorneys.”

The government’s push for more fines comes as it reaches a milestone in the largest federal investigation in American history: Just over 500 defendants have been sentenced for participating in the Jan. 6 protests.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Mass Shooter Positioned Cellphone to ‘Livestream’ Shooting

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Mass Shooter Positioned Cellphone to ‘Livestream’ Shooting

(Headline USA) The man who killed five co-workers at a Kentucky bank last month placed his phone in a front shirt pocket to livestream the mass shooting on social media, according to police records recently released.

The 25-year-old shooter had also attempted suicide around the same time last year, according to four search warrants sent to tech and phone companies seeking access to information on his phone.

Sturgeon’s parents have spoken publicly about their son’s mental health issues, and said they were helping him seek treatment. They told police that his “mental health disorders may have played a part during this criminal act,” according to one of the warrants.

“Messages and notes from the device were shown to have plans on how to conduct” the murders, a police investigator wrote in one of the warrants.

Sturgeon attacked Old National Bank in downtown Louisville before he was fatally shot in the lobby by a responding police officer.

Eight others were injured, including a Louisville patrol officer, Nicholas Wilt, who was shot in the head and continues to recuperate. Wilt had just graduated from the police academy and had been on the job a few days.

The warrants do not give any details about what was found on the phones or the note found at Sturgeon’s home. Before the shooting, he went live on Instagram and placed his phone in his shirt pocket “to capture the mass shooting,” the warrants said.

The four unsealed warrants sought information from Google, AT&T, Apple and Snap Inc.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

NYC Signs Legislation Banning Discrimination Based on Weight, Height

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NYC Signs Legislation Banning Discrimination Based on Weight, Height

(Headline USA) New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed legislation Friday that will ban discrimination based on body size by adding weight and height to the list of protected categories such as race, sex and religion.

“We all deserve the same access to employment, housing and public accommodation, regardless of our appearance, and it shouldn’t matter how tall you are or how much you weigh,” said the mayor, who joined other elected officials as well as fat-acceptance advocates at a City Hall bill-signing ceremony.

Adams, a Democrat who published a book about reversing his diabetes through a plant-based diet, said the ordinance “will help level the playing field for all New Yorkers, create more inclusive workplaces and living environments, and protect against discrimination.”

Exemptions under the ordinance, which the city council passed this month, include cases in which an individual’s height or weight could prevent them from performing essential functions of a job.

Some business leaders expressed opposition to the legislation when it was before the council, arguing that compliance could become an onerous burden.

“The extent of the impact and cost of this legislation has not been fully considered,” Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, said in a statement.

Several other U.S. cities have banned discrimination based on weight and physical appearance, including San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Madison, Wisconsin. And legislation to ban weight and height discrimination has been introduced in states including New Jersey and Massachusetts.

Tigress Osborn, the chair of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, said New York City’s weight discrimination ban should serve as a model for the nation and the world.

Osborn said the city’s adoption of the new ordinance “will ripple across the globe” and show that “discrimination against people based on their body size is wrong and is something that we can change.”

The ordinance will take effect in 180 days, on Nov. 22.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

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