This just happened today, and it's kind of wild.

Florida has a new attorney general, in case you haven't heard. Our fabulous Ashley Moody was picked by America's finest governor, Ron DeSantis, to fill the Senate vacancy left when Marco Rubio was nominated for Secretary of State.

DeSantis then chose his chief of staff, a young lawyer and political campaign strategist named James Uthmeier, to become our 39th Attorney general of Florida.

He was sworn in three days ago.

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday named his former chief of staff, James Uthmeier as Florida’s attorney general, handing the state’s top law enforcement role to a trusted aide who has helped orchestrate and defend some of his most divisive initiatives.

Uthmeier was sworn in Monday during a ceremony in Tallahassee. The 37-year-old becomes one of the youngest state attorneys general and the latest person to benefit from the political shuffle sparked by President Donald Trump ’s drafting of Sunshine State Republicans for his new administration. Uthmeier is poised to spearhead Florida’s legal battles to bolster Trump’s sweeping conservative agenda, at a time when the state’s leaders are eager to pass new laws and challenge legal precedent to demonstrate their allegiance to the president.

Uthmeier succeeds former Attorney General Ashley Moody, whom the governor tapped to fill the U.S. Senate seat of Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick to be U.S. secretary of state.

DeSantis said Uthmeier was a “bulldog in our administration” who will not shy away from a difficult fight. The Republican governor praised Uthmeier’s work in his administration, including fighting federal mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic and combating diversity, equity and inclusion programs in higher education.

Classically, for a DeSantis team member, he got right to work. Today, he - representing the state - along with Stephen Miller's America First Legal and a few others, announced they'd filed a class action lawsuit against Target Corporation that could pretty much rock that retailer's world.

YES!
Do you know how many rants I have gone on about public companies sacrificing shareholders for DEI??
"Florida is not afraid of a fight"
We have another champion. https://t.co/C0i2CB8miH

— Frog Capital (@FrogNews) February 20, 2025

...Target’s efforts to sexualize children caused its stock price to plummet, harming Florida’s retirement fund and putting the retirements of our teachers and first responders at risk:

It's not going to do much for any firms who are clinging to their woke notions in hope of currying favor with progressives and the like, particularly if they're large enough public corporations that their stock is held in public portfolios for state retirement funds.

If you'll remember back to May of 2023, Target was having a heckuva time taking incoming from outraged parents while causing further and extensive self-induced wounds by doubling down on the indignant virtue-signaling. It started with parents discovering 'tuck suits' in the children's bathing suit section - in case a tiny child had any transgender impulses, they could indulge them at the pool or beach - and posted them on X or TikTok. And then rapidly escalated into a full-blown scandal complete with online pitchforks and torches when it turned out some of their pride designs - again for children - had been designed by a British Satanist.

...Not that they weren’t kinda pissed off at Target already…

…in a “Bud Light meets child groomers” sort of way.

Ahead of June’s so-called “Pride month,” the retail giant Target is displaying some options being referred to as trans-friendly for customers, including a line of swimsuits with “tuck-friendly construction.”

Comedian Chrissie Mayr shared the discovery after a recent trip to the retail giant. Taking to social media, the podcast host tweeted, “Thanks to [Target] I found the perfect swimsuit for creeping out all the women and children at the pool this summer. Can’t wait to tuck my cock into this little number while sipping a Bud Light!” (RELATED: DAMAGED: The Transing Of America’s Kids)...

...Now, I haven’t been to the Target around the corner from me in months, and I was going to check this out because it’s entirely too whacked out a story to even be true. Plus, if they’ve had the nerve to stock this in a Target on our redneck of the Riviera, someone has probably already lost their collective mind on management (and wouldn’t I have paid good money to see that).

As it’s been a while since I was a crime statistic from the criminal end, I thought I’d hold off. “Prudent” thy name is Beege.

Lucky thing I did, too, or I might have missed how super woke Target is compounding their Pride Month merchandizing ills.

It’s turns out one of the designers hired for rainbow gear month was a pretty well-known British transgender Satanist.

British.

Transgender.

SATANIST Yeah.

ERMAGERD – ISN’T THAT, LIKE, THE MOST WOKE THING YOU’VE EVER HEARD

But it was cool with Target because he was a TRANSGENDER British Satanist, so...they were like, 'BACK OFF, TRANSPHOBES!'

See, Target had its Minnesota values, and they couldn't give a rip about yours.

By August, as the stock and sales were tanking, the CEO held the traditional earnings call to explain what happened and their plans to rectify the situation.

See, they didn't have any other than yelling, 'BACK OFF, HATERS.'

...Now, they mentioned the brouhaha about transgender Satanists designing baby Pride clothes during the call. Not to forget the blowback after Target’s flirtation with “tuck-it” bathing suits – ever so helpful when one’s still fully intact dangly bits get in the way of making that ultra feminine bikini look smooth and sleek on a male body.

But, being woke af Target, they defended it and doubled down, having only removed “some items” in the interest of “employee safety.”

…And Target faced backlash in late May over its collection of merchandise celebrating Pride month, including some items it later pulled after threats to employees. The decision to remove certain items sparked more criticism.

Cornell said “negative reaction” to Target’s Pride collection had a material impact on sales. But he defended the company’s response and said after Target removed some items in June out of concern for employee and customer safety, it “saw things normalize.” He said it will continue to have a collection for Pride month and other heritage months.

We’re gonna keep doing it and “Pride” is a “heritage month.” Take that, cretinous peasants.

That was when AFL went after them the first time. That case is still in the courts.

The new AFL statement for this latest class action lays out exactly what happened to Target's bottom line when their in-your-face 'Pride Month' merchandise hit store shelves and consumer backlash blew the doors off of stores.

...The lawsuit alleges that Target violated Sections 10(b) and 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by failing to disclose known risks of customer backlash to its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) mandates, which culminated in its radical and extreme 2023 Pride Campaign. It further alleges that Target actively misled investors by claiming to monitor the social and political risks posed by its DEI and ESG initiatives. In reality, Target was only monitoring its alignment with left-wing activist groups.

The fallout from Target’s unlawful conduct was swift and catastrophic. Following the launch of Target’s 2023 Pride Campaign, Target’s stock price plummeted — wiping out $10 billion in market value in just ten days and erasing $25 billion in shareholder value over the course of six months, its worst performance and longest losing streak in 23 years.

This is the second lawsuit brought by AFL, Boyden Gray PLLC, and Lawson Huck Gonzalez PLLC against Target for securities fraud. The first case, filed in August 2023, remains ongoing after a federal judge denied Target’s motion to dismiss the case in December 2024, ruling that the company may have violated federal securities laws.

With this new lawsuit, AFL, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and the State Board of Administration of Florida are taking decisive action to hold Target accountable for violating federal law, defrauding its investors, and prioritizing radical activism over financial responsibility to shareholders.

The FL AG says the company flat-out lied.

...Florida accused Target of betraying investors and its core customer base of working families by making false and misleading statements in financial reports and proxy statements about its DEI mandate and environmental, social and governance mandate.

It also accused Chief Executive Brian Cornell of downplaying the intensity of customer boycotts following a “disastrous” and “exceptionally offensive” May 2023 Pride Month campaign, prolonging the decline in Target’s share price.

Even though Target has recently - and reluctantly - pulled back from it overt woke policies and DEI initiatives, it's too little, too late as far as the state of Florida and others are concerned. They believe, and federal securities laws may well support them, that major public corporations have a duty to stockholders to maximize profits, not pursue divisive policies and causes that jeopardize the business's bottom line.

Interesting case. I agree with Friedman, but would also say it’s not for the govt to decide what is in the best interest of shareholders - they have votes. But in the case of Target, largest s/h are institutions which may not be representing views on DEI of underlying investors.

— Evan (@KSU_Evan) February 20, 2025

This is much the same argument and line of reasoning that DeSantis used when he and the state legislature - and other states as well - pulled their retirement funds out of any investment firms that practiced ESG. The focus wasn't on the return for the fund, which is the fiduciary responsibility of the fund manager. It's also what began the big bank exodus out of such arrangements. They could well be liable for damages when the green, ESG, etc. businesses they were concentrating on and dictating compliance terms went belly up on their investors' retirement money.

No bueno.

This is also bad news for Target on a broader scale, as Walmart reported earnings today that were better than expected but said that profit growth was going to slow. It sent Wall Street into a bit of a swoon. 

Walmart continues to see higher income households showing up in their stores..
This is always a sign of a weakening economy.. pic.twitter.com/JJt2lI6eGR

— Frog Capital (@FrogNews) February 20, 2025

Where there's a problem for Target is that thanks to the wonders of #Bidenomics, their higher-end customer has been shopping at Walmart more often.

If consumers have the extra cha-ching to spend, they might be in the mood to forgive and forget.

If times get tight, they're not coming back, and remembering how the company dissed them will take some of the sting out of it.

I'm sure folks aren't convinced Target has sincerely changed their rainbow stripes anyhow.