EXCLUSIVE: Trump Axes Intern Program After Biden Officials Hid Signs Of DEI
'Cancelled due to recent Executive Orders'
A progressive pastor in North Carolina was recently removed from his very liberal church after parishioners complained that they were being lectured about "whiteness," LGBT causes, and illegal immigrants.
Ben Boswell had been a pastor at Myers Park Baptist Church, a progressive church in Charlotte. The church is located in the affluent neighborhood of Myers Park, which has a median household income of $193,672, and where nearly 91% of the population is white.
'I am tired of being indicted because I am white.'
The Myers Park Baptist Church is "opposed to all forms of injustice and oppression, and we are unafraid to plainly say who and what we are."
The church's website states that it has a mission to "welcome and affirm all persons without regard to race, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation or attraction, biological sex, age, economic status, physical or mental capacity."
The Sunday after Donald Trump won the 2024 election, Boswell delivered a sermon warning of the doom and gloom of Trump being elected.
According to NPR, Boswell likened the election of Trump to a "gathering dark of Hitler's rule."He claimed that Trump being president would lead to the "crucifixion" of immigrant families as well as transgender and nonbinary people.
"But our faith also teaches us … that every crucifixion needs a witness," Boswell told the congregation. "The fight is not over; it's just beginning."
However, Boswell was booted from the progressive church a few weeks later. The board of the Myers Park Baptist Church voted 17-3 to ask Boswell to resign.
During the board meeting, then-Deacon Allen Davis warned that removing Boswell would make it difficult to portray a progressive agenda.
"What will come out is that we've snatched the keys from the … minister who had been pushing us to confront whiteness, to challenge racial justice in our community," Davis said.
Davis and two other deacons resigned in protest of Boswell's removal.
Marcy McClanahan — then head of the church's board — said the main reason why Boswell needed to be removed was plunging attendance. Myers Park Baptist Church went from an average weekly attendance of around 350 when Boswell arrived in 2016 to about 150 last year.
McClanahan said, "Ben has been given every chance to change his words and actions to appeal to a broader audience but has not been successful in doing so."
Fellow DeaconRobert Dulin added, "We have got to put more butts in the seats, butts in the seats."
Some parishioners at the church complained that Boswell was always lecturing them about racial justice, transgender issues, and other progressive causes.
Dulin paraphrased what he had heard from those who quit the parish: "I am tired of being indicted because I am white. I am tired of being banged over the head every week about immigrants and LGBTQ, and I just want to come to church and be encouraged."
Church members compared Boswell's sermons to a "guilt trip."
Boswell admits that he pushed his congregation to confront its "whiteness." During an anti-racism seminar, the pastor called for a "whiteness audit" to "decolonize" the church's interior space. Boswell said the congregants demanded that he take down the Black Lives Matter signs at the church, but he refused.
One parishioner felt "betrayed" by the church over Boswell's dismissal. Bob Thomason, a former chairman of the board of deacons, noted that most, if not all, of the congregation supports social justice.
"But for some people, being able to focus on social justice … would be a welcome luxury because they have alcoholic spouses," Thomason said."They have children that are addicted. They have cancer. They have these personal needs."
NPR reported, "Boswell says the conflict at Myers Park is part of a much bigger national trend to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion programs."
Boswell proclaimed, "My feeling is that as a progressive congregation, as a progressive pastor, our job right now is not to back away, but to double down."
When asked if the church will continue to advance racial and social justice, McClanahan asserted, "One person's leaving does not change that path at all."
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Target shareholders filed a class action lawsuit against the retailer on Friday, claiming that it misused funds "to serve political and social goals."
The legal action, led by the City of Riviera Beach Police Pension Fund, slammed Target for failing to disclose the risks of pushing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives that ultimately led to customer boycotts and a drop in stock prices — including a 22% dip on November 20.
'Advancing "racial equity" for its own sake, even if it was "provocative."'
In May 2023, Target faced intense pushback from consumers for creating a "Pride" section in its store locations that featured "tuck-friendly" bathing suits, LGBTQ onesies for babies, and other "gender fluid" merchandise.
The fallout prompted the retail giant to pull some of the products from its shelves and relocate the section to the rear of its stores but not before some customers called for a boycott.
By June 2023, JPMorgan Chase had downgraded Target's stock from a bullish "overweight" rating to "neutral," blaming the change on "recent company controversies."
Target admitted that the "negative reaction" to its controversial merchandise contributed to a decline in sales.
Brian Craig, a shareholder, sued the retail giant in August 2023, calling the blowback from its pro-LGBT products "disastrous." He noted that his stock was valued at roughly $35,000 before the initiatives and dropped to $29,000 afterward.
Craig accused Target of misusing investors' funds "to serve its divisive political and social goals — and ultimately lose billions."
A similar class action lawsuit was lodged on Friday against the company that, too, claimed Target misused funds to push a political agenda.
It claimed that the retailer misled shareholders into purchasing stock at "artificially inflated prices." The complaint accused the company of making fraudulent statements and failing to disclose the "known risks" of its DEI initiatives.
"This deceit, through misleading statements in the Company's public filings, including its 10-Ks and proxy statements, caused Target's investors to purchase Target stock at artificially inflated prices and to unknowingly support Target's Board and management in their misuse of investor funds to serve political and social goals," the complaint read.
"Target's chief diversity officer also indicated her personal commitment to advancing 'racial equity' for its own sake, even if it was 'provocative,' and singled out 'white women' for special obligations to this cause," the filing added.
Target did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
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President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order that prohibits biologically male athletes from participating in women's sports, delivering on a campaign promise.
The post Trump Signs Executive Order Banning Biological Men in Women's Sports appeared first on .
In July 2007, Steven Joseph Hayes and his accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky, broke into the home of the Petit family in Cheshire, Connecticut. After the duo savagely beat and restrained the father, William Petit, Hayes forced Jennifer Hawke-Petit to take $15,000 out of her bank account, then brutally raped and murdered the mother of two.
After Hayes' accomplice similarly tortured and raped 11-year-old Michaela Petit, the duo tied the little girl and her 17-year-old sister, Hayley, to their beds, then set the house on fire.
Newsweek published a puff piece by its chief investigative reporter, Joshua Rhett Miller, on Friday that not only painted the murderous rapist in a sympathetic light but presented the transvestite with his preferred pronouns and narrative framing.
Critics incensed by Newsweek's apparent attempt at reputational rehab for Hayes — who previously bragged in a series of letters that he allegedly murdered 17 girls and women and made a snuff film documenting one of the slayings — concluded that Americans "don't hate the media enough."
The subject of Miller's piece originally was sentenced to receive the death penalty for his gruesome crimes. Hayes — who now calls himself Linda Mai Lee — reportedly smiled in the courtroom during his sentencing.
ABC News reported at the time of the unanimous jury verdict condemning Hayes to death that William Petit, the only survivor of the home invasion, expressed satisfaction that justice was being served, telling reporters, "We all know that God will be the final arbiter, and I think the defendant faces far more serious punishments from the Lord than he can ever face from mankind."
The bereaved father was, however, subsequently denied the justice he desired when Connecticut abolished the death penalty in 2012. Hayes' sentence was commuted such that he is now serving a life sentence without the hope of parole but with the guarantee of sex-change procedures.
After first demanding kosher meals, having supposedly self-converted into an Orthodox Jew, Hayes began masquerading as a woman, enjoying virtually every possible accommodation from the Oregon State Penitentiary, where he is now reportedly seeking breast implants and hormone replacement therapy.
Newsweek ran with Hayes' narrative that he has long suffered confusion over his sex and that he internalized the "intolerance of others." Newsweek's Miller also incorporated Hayes' insinuation that had he accepted his autogynephilia earlier, his victims might still be alive.
"I hurt, so I hurt others," the murderous rapist told the liberal publication.
'Everyone involved in the writing of this piece should be fired.'
In addition to humanizing the murderous rapist and detailing his supposed difficulties with drugs, his in-prison romance, and his daily routine, Miller made sure both to portray transvestites in general as a victimized group, claiming they are disproportionately likely to fall prey to violent crime, and to again paint Hayes in a sympathetic light with regard to his lawsuit, Hayes v. Houser.
The murderous rapist, now part of an LGBT group, filed a lawsuit in 2022 against several prison employees and officials at State Correctional Institution, Benner Township, for supposedly violating his right during his imprisonment there to "be free of cruel and unusual punishment." The supposed cruelty the murderous rapist suffered consisted of officials allegedly preventing him from ordering eye shadow and a cup-style bra and having him use the facility barber whenever he wanted to remove his chest, facial, and pubic hair.
Despite the apparent attempt to frame Hayes as a reformed man coming to grips with his imagined identity, Miller included an apparent threat from the murderous rapist. Hayes said with regard to his lawsuit, "If they choose to go to trial, I will take their head off by keeping my promise and putting every trans-female in PA on the stand to share the abuse they suffer in that system."
Laura Powell, a civil rights attorney in the San Francisco Bay area who founded Californians for Good Governance, blasted the Newsweek article, tweeting, "Newsweek now publishes a puff piece on how he is now happy and at peace since he came to terms with his gender confusion. They claim his 'former anger' had been fueled by this distress. Now he is seeking treatments to feminize his appearance. (Undoubtedly funded by taxpayers.) You don't hate the media enough."
Normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck similarly noted, "People really don't hate the media enough."
"Everyone involved in the writing of this piece should be fired and bullied out of journalism forever," wrote Bill D'Agostino, a senior research analyst for the Media Research Center.
Helen Joyce, the author of "Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality" wrote, "He raped an 11 year old and her mother, and murdered both, as well as the 11 year old's sister. And we're supposed to pity him because his crimes were supposedly because of his confusion about his gender identity? And to give a toss that he's 'happy to be alive?'"
"He murdered a mother and her two daughters and raped two of them before doing so. But now he's kind of sorry for what he did, but he’s also at peace with it," wrote T. Becket Adams, program director at the National Journalism Center. "The feel-good story of the year."
"Ted Bundy has rebranded as Buffalo Bill, and that's a beautiful thing," added Adams.
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Over the past few years, many of us have been totally mystified by positions that are growing in popularity that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
The list is long, but three quick examples include: giving puberty blockers to children, the movement to defund the police, and the claim that not voicing your agreement with certain brand-new ideologies is the same as committing physical violence. I don’t want to talk about the arguments for or against these positions, because so many of these conversations serve to hide the real root of the problem.
'We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.'
And that root is really simple to understand.
First, it’s important to note that the root of the problem is not individual radicals. In every age, there are tiny minorities that have radical opinions, and that will never change. That is not why these ideologies are growing in their popularity with a larger segment of society. There are many smaller causes that all contribute to this change, but I want to put forth the single cause that I feel is most responsible for why these movements grow, and this thesis will also help predict what other ideologies will grow and spread in the future.
Here’s my take in three words: premature institutional success.
Premature institutional success happens when a movement funded and led by a group of institutions is growing in momentum but achieves its original goals too quickly. What do the leaders of these institutions do? They have two choices.
Which one do you think they choose?
Which would you choose if you dedicated your life to a movement?
A perfect example of this happened during the movement to legalize same-sex marriage. This issue resonated deeply not only with those personally impacted by it but with a much wider group of supporters. The result was that huge, well-funded organizations with talented activists emerged and prepared for a pitched multi-decade, state-by-state series of legal and legislative battles. And then it happened almost overnight. Right as the movement was hitting its peak financial and popular support, state after state legalized same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court issued a ruling, the Republican Party removed its opposition from its platform, and victory was achieved.
So what do these institutions and activists do at the peak of their power? In order to survive, they must find new issues to funnel their finances and energy toward, and they found that issue in this little-known area called "trans rights."
This pattern is playing out over and over again. Because of social media, it’s becoming far less expensive and much easier for activist institutions and individuals to get their message out and sway public opinion, so they keep achieving this problem of premature success, which forces them to focus on smaller and smaller issues.
The need for LGBT+ institutions to find systemic examples of homophobic and transphobic incidents is far outstripping the supply. The need for anti-racist organizations to find examples of systemic racism is outstripping the supply. These organizations need to find more victims, and most importantly, they need to identify more and bigger oppressors.
If they can’t find them, then they’ll have to make them.
Activists activate. They don’t deactivate. And deactivation is often what is needed in the face of premature success.
The first time I remember this happening was when the manager at a Starbucks with outspoken leftist views decided to call the cops on two black men who wouldn’t buy a drink in order to stay at their table. The image of the police handcuffing two black men and escorting them out of a Starbucks was all that was needed for every anti-racist organization to declare this manager a racist.
I found this so confusing at the time because it seemed common sense to investigate whether this woman had a history of racism or whether it was just circumstantial that these men were black and whether she would have done the same if they were white.
But the supply of racism was at an all-time low at the time, and powerful organizations were on high alert to find examples of racism. They had been prematurely successful, and their very survival depended on increasing the supply.
Since then, I could list hundreds of more recent examples of this, which is why I’m searching for the root, and I believe this is perhaps the most important element to understand.
This same pattern plays out in every institution.
In the government, the Department of Education cannot get behind educational endeavors that make the department less significant. That’s why effective decentralized educational strategies will be ignored and sometimes even opposed. That’s how something called the Department of Education can actually oppose education. Institutional survival comes before the mission.
This is easy for me to relate to because I’ve seen this play out in Christian institutions that I’m familiar with. A founder of one of these organizations once told me the organization had achieved its original mission, but right as it crossed the finish line, the organization had more donors than ever lining up to support it, so leaders had to find another mission to keep going.
This is a perfectly understandable pattern, but its impact on a culture when you have activist organizations with millions of dollars and nothing meaningful to do is tearing us apart.
Let me end with one glimmer of hope.
There's a Christian organization called Wycliffe Bible Translators that started in the 1940s, and I once heard that it was written into the organization's original charter that once it had translated the Bible into every language in the world, leaders would would shut down the organization. I love this idea. I can’t find any evidence of this self-destruct clause online, but ever since hearing it, I wondered if there might be a way for a mission to have an organization rather than the other way around.
Churchill once said, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us,” and I think the same can be said of activist institutions.
This essay was adapted from an article originally published at Jeremy Pryor's Substack.