Culture

• Walmart rides the anti-DEI wave: Elections have consequences, and one of them is the movement of institutions in response to the clear-cut will of the American people. Such appears to be the case at the nation’s largest retailer, where Walmart has announced changes to its DEI policies and thus joins a growing list of major corporations that are putting the kibosh on wokeness. As Fox Business reports, Walmart might’ve been feeling some heat: “Anti-woke activist and filmmaker Robby Starbuck, who has been leading a campaign exposing major corporations’ woke policies, said on X on Monday that he warned Walmart executives last week that he would be doing a story on ‘wokeness’ at the retail giant. … Starbuck outlined the changes Walmart agreed to make, including working to remove sexual and transgender products inappropriately marketed toward children and reviewing grants to Pride events to avoid funding sexualized content targeting kids.” Whether Walmart really saw the light or simply saw some bad PR on the horizon, we’re happy to see it arrived at the right conclusion.

• U.S. military may medically discharge trans members: We could practically hear the anguish in the voice of the UK Times when it reported that Donald Trump was weighing an executive order that would undo the morale-depleting scourge of so-called transgenderism from the U.S. military. “The order could come on his first day back in the White House, January 20,” reports The Times. “There are believed to be about 15,000 active service personnel who are transgender. They would be medically discharged, which would determine that they were unfit to serve. It would also lead to a ban on trans people joining the military and would come at a time when almost all branches of the American armed forces are failing to meet recruitment targets.” While it’s true that all branches have struggled to hit their recruiting numbers in recent years, The Times seems to be incapable of connecting the dots for this shortfall. Could it be that young American warrior-types have been turned off by the prospect of serving in a woke military? If so, such a ban is just what the doctor sergeant ordered. The article’s slant is, not surprisingly, pathetically anti-Trump. It cites unnamed sources throughout, but not until its final paragraph do we hear from Karoline Leavitt, Donald Trump’s choice for press secretary: “These unnamed sources,” Leavitt says, “are speculating and have no idea what they are actually talking about. No decisions on this issue have been made. No policy should ever be deemed official unless it comes directly from President Trump or his authorized spokespeople.”

• Judge allows male in women’s volleyball: U.S. District Judge S. Kato Crews ruled against removing San Jose State University volleyball player “Blaire” Fleming, a male identifying as a “transgender woman,” from the women’s team for the Mountain West Conference championship. Eleven current and former members of the SJSU team and an associate coach filed the lawsuit seeking to get the Transgender Participation Policy revoked prior to the tournament, which would have resulted in Fleming getting booted from the team. In his ruling, Crews wrote, “Considering the nature of this relief, the Court finds it alters the status quo because SJSU’s alleged trans teammate has been on its roster since 2022 and throughout the 2024 season, and because the TPP has been in effect (whether or not posted publicly) since August of 2022.” Furthermore, he contended that the emergency motion request came too late in the season — i.e., after the tournament seeding and brackets had already been determined. The conference winner will go on to the national NCAA Division I championship tournament. If SJSU ends up winning the Mountain West championship, the havoc will only get worse.

• Missouri judge says a law banning surgery, medications for gender-confused minors is constitutional (AP)

• Transgender British police now allowed to strip-search women (Not the Bee)

Government & Politics

• GoFundMe for DNC layoffs: A number of Democratic National Committee staff are raising a stink after they were abruptly laid off last week in the wake of Kamala Harris’s election loss. The laid-off staff members called it a “betrayal” of party values, as they were given little notice and “no severance” package. In an effort to compensate them, DNC union organizer Jill Brownfield set up a GoFundMe account, writing, “We are heartbroken to see our colleagues — who dedicated countless hours to electing Democrats up and down the ballot — depart under these circumstances, and we are furious with DNC leadership for failing to provide severance to those affected.” The DNC defended its actions, stating, “Every cycle, political organizations scale up to meet the demands, and as the cycle comes to a close, it’s a tough reality of our industry that we must part with talented, hardworking staff.” The union blasted the DNC, contending, “The DNC’s senior leadership has chosen to leave loyal staff scrambling to cover rent, medical expenses and childcare costs.” Maybe next time these laid-off staffers will think twice about working for a Democrat Party that spent more than a billion dollars on the Harris campaign — and still ended up in debt.

• Harris’s future: What will Kamala Harris do after a crushing election defeat to Donald Trump? She apparently still envisions a future for herself in politics. Harris has reportedly told her allies and advisors that she is “staying in the fight,” which might mean another presidential run. “Could she run for [California] governor? Yes,” said former Harris aide Brian Brokaw. “Do I think she wants to run for governor? Probably not. Could she win? Definitely. … Could she run for president again? Yes.” Current polling shows Harris with a lead over other prominent names like California Governor Gavin Newsom and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro for the 2028 primary. Such polling is not uncommon immediately following an election loss. Hillary Clinton held similarly leading numbers following her loss in 2016. Yet Harris is a loser, and at least one Democrat strategist “can’t conceivably imagine the party turning to her a second time.” Brokaw observed, “She takes, sometimes, a painfully long time to make decisions. So I would pretty much guarantee you she has no idea what her next move is.” One thing is certain: Republicans would love to see Harris run again.

• Have downtrodden lefties turned off the news? As children, we sometimes cupped our hands over our ears and yelled “La la la la la la” when we knew bad news was coming. It’s hard to tell whether that’s what leftists are doing now, but perhaps the prospect of four years in the political wilderness has them shutting out the bad news. After Donald Trump’s election win, “several outlets have seen ratings plummet,” reports Fox News. “MSNBC posted its lowest ratings in 25 years in the week following the 2024 presidential election with an average of 487,000 total viewers. CNN managed only 337,000 average total viewers to finish fifth among cable networks.” We hate to see it. Hate to see these lefties so distraught and these corporate purveyors of fake news taking it on the chin in the ratings game. But it seems to be the reverse of what we saw in 2016 when Trump’s improbable electoral victory led to a spike in ratings for left-leaning news sites. The Trump Bump has given way to the Trump Slump, at least temporarily.

• HHS spent $911M on COVID propaganda: The House recently issued a report on how the Department of Health and Human Services handled the COVID pandemic. One revelation: HHS spent some $911 million from 2021 to 2023 on its “We Can Do This” campaign. That campaign pressured Americans into adhering to the Biden administration’s COVID recommendations, including vaccines, boosters, masking, and social distancing. Many of these recommendations have subsequently been shown to be scientifically suspect and flawed. To push this COVID propaganda, HHS partnered with the Fors Marsh Group, a firm that focuses on “behavior change research and strategy.” The report notes that Fors Marsh used “a strategic mix of paid and earned media with exclusive radio partnerships, research-based messaging, and reinforced messaging from trusted influencers, celebrities, and sports figures.” Fors Marsh used Big Tech to monitor and categorize people to cater its messaging to manipulate people’s behavior, which the report contends raises “serious questions over further entrenching Big Tech’s role in surveilling Americans and in seeking to influence public opinion.” The next HHS secretary must clean up a lot of corruption.

• Biden proposes Medicare and Medicaid cover costly weight-loss drugs for millions of obese Americans (AP)

Economy

• Trump says he will impose new tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China on first day (The Hill)

• Trump planning to lift Biden’s LNG pause, increase oil drilling during first days in office (Fox News)

• Newsom wants CA consumers to pay to replace $7,500 federal EV credit, Tesla excluded (Just the News)

• More high school grads are choosing trade jobs over college: If ever there was an idea whose time had come, it’s that of young Americans saying “no thanks” to the woke racket of higher education and “yes please” to the prospect of far more practical skilled-trades education. “More college-age students have shunned costly degrees and pursued nonacademic ‘microcredentials’ to work in the skilled trades,” The Washington Times reports. “Microcredentials are short, hands-on courses that industry employers recognize as certifications for skilled jobs. They can be acquired within a week to less than two years and are often ‘stackable,’ allowing earners to return for broader credentials, certifications or degrees.” Such a degree would seem far preferable to the massive debt often racked up by a young person pursuing a typical college degree — to say nothing of the relative worthlessness of so many college degrees these days. “The incentive is quality education that doesn’t put them in debt,” said David Will, the engineering school dean at one such microcredentialing school, Ivy Tech. “We give them hands-on skills for a lifelong career to support their families.” What’s not to like?

Misc.

• Americans strongly supportive of Trump’s mass deportation agenda (Daily Wire)

• Ahead of expected truce, Israel vows to act forcefully to stop Hezbollah regrouping (Times of Israel)

• Humor: Eight better things to argue about during Thanksgiving than politics (Babylon Bee)

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