New York City is having a bit of trouble with repeat retail crime offenders, but Mayor Eric Adams’ latest soft-on-crime approach to solving the problem is downright laughable.

You’ve all seen the videos — a number of punks barge into a store at once, grab whatever they can, and then flee the scene. Here’s an example of what that looks like:

Per Fox 5, retail theft in general jumped 44% in 2022 in NYC. The crisis is so bad that Adams even mandated that masks should be taken off to enter stores — the opposite of the COVID days — to help reduce this sort of crime.

It apparently didn’t work because now he has a new plan, one that he says is top-notch.

“Last year alone, 327 repeat offenders were responsible for 30 percent of the more than 22,000 retail thefts across our city, ” Adams said this week. “This hurt our businesses, our workers, our customers, and our city.”

That’s putting it mildly, Adams, but let’s hear what this plan does.

“This plan will help us invest in diversion programs and in underlying factors leading to retail theft, work upstream to stop some of the factors leading to a crime before one takes place, trains retail workers in de-escalation tactics and security best practices, and takes numerous actions to increase necessary enforcement against repeat shoplifters and deter organized crime rings perpetrating these thefts,” he said.

Wow, based on that you might expect the Big Apple to be returning to its days of broken-window policies, stop-and-frisk, and other tough-on-crime methods. Nope, you’d be wrong to expect that.

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According to Fox 5, the plan “includes giving first-time offenders intervention programs instead of prosecution, de-escalation training for retail employees, establishing neighborhood retail watch groups to share information about a theft in real-time with one another and the police, and installing kiosks in stores to connect would-be thieves with social service programs.”

What sort of criminal, intent on stealing everything and anything he can, would stop and say, “Hey, look, a kiosk. I think I’ll get a pamphlet.”

Ralph Cilento, a retired NYPD Lieutenant Commander of Detectives and adjunct professor, also wasn’t very impressed with the strategy.

“So when people come in that were just about to steal, they won’t because they realize that stealing is a source of a different problem for them. So they’re going to use the kiosk to access social services,” Cilento told the local Fox affiliate. “I’m sorry, but that’s just a pipe dream. And that is he’s doing that specifically to satisfy his liberal base, which I understand he has to do.”

And Cilento hit the nail on the head with that last part. Despite the Democrats’ insistence that they support the police as well as law and order, they know that if they ever put in the policies needed to stop this problem, then the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s of the world would protest to no end. So the best they can offer is a kiosk, a slap on the wrist, and training for innocent store employees.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The Ford Raptor is very gay. That’s not a middle school joke, it’s an actual vehicle offered by The Ford Motor Company, which created a special edition “very gay” version of its Raptor pick-up truck two years ago, complete with a rainbow paint job. Yet nobody even noticed it until recently — which sort of makes the whole thing a lot more funny.

On May 18, Robby Starbuck tweeted, “Did you know that Ford has a truck they call their ‘Very Gay Raptor’? Check out their ad where the truck ‘comes out’ of mud to reveal its trans/queer flag colors.” 

Did you know that Ford has a truck they call their "Very Gay Raptor"? Check out their ad where the truck "comes out" of mud to reveal its trans/queer flag colors. Does this make you more or less likely to buy a @Ford? @budlight showed people are sick of this. pic.twitter.com/hRqsdw8M3N

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) May 18, 2023

Technically, it isn’t an advertisement — it’s just a social media video. According to The National Pulse’s Raheem Kassam, a spokesperson for Ford has been very quick to point that out. 

Me when the Ford comms guy slides into the DMs crying that we told the world about their “Very Gay Raptor”… pic.twitter.com/3vxpBzKnbx

— Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) May 20, 2023

While the very gay truck has gained new prominence, or infamy depending on your persuasion, it has actually been out of the closet for some time, and Ford Europe was quite proud of its Very Gay Raptor (VGR).

“Created in 2021, ‘Very Gay Raptor’ was born in response to a negative comment on social media, with Ford rendering its most badass nameplate in sparkling gold adorned with rainbow graphics,” a Ford Europe press release said. “The positive response online was so overwhelming the manufacturer decided to make it real, and has been using it as a tool to help drive out discrimination ever since.”

Per the company, it was created as part of an effort “to redefine what ‘tough’ actually means.” One might argue responding to internet trolls in the first place isn’t very tough, but that’s neither here nor there.

However, it seems like the stunt is backfiring in the wake of Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney fiasco as it receives renewed attention.

Now, the real kicker in all this is that you’ll note that the pride flag shown in the Ford Europe video is actually outdated as far as 2SLGBTQIA+ standards go. That’s the actual acronym for the rainbow alphabet movement now.

Why is it outdated? Well, if you take a few minutes out of your day, you’ll notice that the flag at the very beginning of the video does not contain a purple circle. What does that non-existent purple circle stand for? It represents “intersex.”

Somewhere along the line, an intersex individual or an “ally” felt that individuals born with an extremely rare condition where they have a combination of both male and female parts weren’t represented on the flag.

So, the flag has now been updated to include intersex as seen here, shared by the United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken just this past week.

On International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia, and Transphobia we call for an end to harmful conversion therapy practices, including those that attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics. #IDAHOBIT pic.twitter.com/DA5XRXvb2Y

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) May 17, 2023

In other words, the pride agenda has already redefined “inclusivity” to mean having pride in being intersex  — and supporting every single sex and make-believe gender represented on the flag.

So, while Ford was busy redefining the word “tough,” their comrades in the LGBTQ never-ending train of cultural Marxism were busy conjuring up new ways to undo every social norm in the book. Now, if you don’t include intersex individuals, you’re being “interphobic” — as is the official position of the U.S. State Department highlighted above.

So, in short, there is no appeasing this movement. Individuals who supported gay marriage less than 10 years ago, but don’t support radical gender ideology are labeled bigots. If you’re a Christian, Jew, or Muslim who is against same-sex “marriage,” then you’re considered a super bigot  — even if you explain you love everybody, you just believe in the institution of marriage as defined by practically all of the West until 2015.

Somewhere along the way, black and brown stripes were added — even though skin color has nothing to do with sexual orientation.

Companies, such as Ford, are dumb to think that if they show support for this movement their sales will increase. In turn, they push the entire world more woke and down the slippery slope — even if unwittingly.

Now, companies such as Bud Light are finding out that conservatives are starting to wake up and vote with their dollars. That’s why BudLight’s parent company AB-InBev has attempted to distance itself from Mulvaney and is rolling out camo-themed cans, perhaps in an attempt to appease consumers.

It won’t work, and now Ford could quite possibly become Bud Light 2.0.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.