Free Republic

The Minnesota chapter of the terrorist supporting organization the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), just continue to push their Islamic agenda and they keep on winning. Step by step they slowly change America to suit Islam.

WalMart's history with the city of Chicago is long and often contentious. So far, the city has two WalMart stores. That's only because WalMart has done an enormous amount of lobbying, and because the store chain didn't give up after being roundly rejected many times. WalMart often has problems finding their way into urban areas. That's because those areas are often run by Democrats. Those same Democrats are often tied to unions. Unions hate WalMart. First, WalMart refuses to unionize itself. Second, their superior price structure becomes an unacceptable alternative to unionized stores. For instance, here in Chicago, too many...

A few years back, Wal-Mart fought Maryland Democrats in various courts over their scheme to extort the big box giant into either providing employee health care or paying an additional 8% tax to the state. Maryland passed a law saying any employer with more than 10,000 employees had to pay or be shutdown. As the only employer fitting that description, Wal-Mart was the obvious target. The Democrats did this to suck up to their Union thug masters. Nevertheless, Wal-Mart successfully argued this was a “bill of attainder” meaning it was declared to be basically a retroactive law to punish a...

In 2005, Robert Greenwald directed a documentary entitled “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.” In the film, Wal-Mart was portrayed as soul-crushing titan of retail, destroying communities and small businesses around America. The film received great reviews and sparked a whole anti-Wal-Mart movement. It received endorsements from many unions, Wal-Mart watch groups, and organizations like MoveOn.org. In 2009, Barack Obama fulfilled his promise to the American people by proposing drastic healthcare reform legislation. While I can fill several pages with all of its fallacies and silliness, one facet that will be particularly detrimental to the average American is its...

Wal-Mart has just changed the game with respect to environmental issues. Now it doesn't matter whether Congress' new cap-and-trade law meets all its promises, nor whether the G-8 leaders dithered rather than acted on environmental issues. Wal-Mart's unilateral decision to put its purchasing and communication power behind going green also shows that a single company using its unique clout can accelerate public action to reduce greenhouse gases and reverse climate change. By rolling out an environmental labelling program disclosing to consumers the environmental costs of making products sold at Wal-Mart, the $401 billion retail behemoth has transformed green standards from...

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- A Palm Coast man bitten by a snake at Wal-Mart on U.S. 1 South in St. Augustine Tuesday afternoon is in critical condition after having a bad reaction to antivenom medication. According to the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office report, a pygmy rattlesnake bit Jeriel Joiner, 27, on the hand as he reached under a display of ferns to retrieve a baby bottle that had fallen. Witnesses said the snake was still on Joiner's pinky finger when he pulled his hand out. Jeremy Robshaw of St. Johns County Fire-Rescue said firefighters arrived at the garden center...

by OneVike On Thursday evening of July 16, 2009 @ 6:30pm in the City Council Chambers at 421 Main Street, a group of representatives from Wal-Mart will come before the Chico Planning Commission for approval on a new Supercenter to be built in Chico. They promise to create almost new jobs for those who live in and around Chico. So I did my civic duty and informed you of the meeting, now while I will tell you why I am against it. I originally started writing this article in favor of Wal-Mart and their new Superstore. However as I...

PORT ANGELES -- A 37-year-old woman was arrested after the Clallam County Sheriff's Department said she threatened several people with a handgun in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Clallam County Undersheriff Ron Peregrin said Teresa Nadine Dumdie of Port Angeles threatened four other customers with a .22 caliber handgun at 4:54 p.m. Friday outside the store at 3500 E. U.S. Highway 101. No one was injured. Peregrin said Dumdie had argued with customers in the store after they had asked her to stop cursing and yelling at an employee. Wrong ammunition He said she was upset with the employee, saying she...

Wal-Mart, the company the left loves to hate, has crawled in bed with Obama Recent press reports, including a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal, have the news that Wal-Mart has signed a letter to President Obama endorsing the idea of an “employer mandate” – a requirement that employers offer health insurance to their employees.Why would Wal-Mart – the nation’s largest employer – endorse such an idea?Simple: It would cripple many of their competitors. (Source: Heritage Foundation) Back in the 80's and early 90's Wal-Mart and Microsoft prided themselves on staying far away from politics: No lobbyists and no...

Behind the bipartisan motives for employer-provided health insurance. On Tuesday the CEO of Wal-Mart, long the bête noire of the American left, issued a joint statement with SEIU head Andy Stern and Center for American Progress President John Podesta, two close allies of Barack Obama, supporting the administration's health reform efforts. The letter called for bipartisan reforms that include an employer mandate to purchase health insurance for their employees. An odd alliance? Maybe. But when two camps eye the same goal for separate reasons, they can become unlikely bedfellows.

Your humble correspondent always checks out NeverPayRetailAgain very carefully every morning. That site often provides information about sales bargains that sometimes defy belief. In fact, yesterday at Publix I was able to purchase 2 packages of Ball Park Franks plus a large seedless watermelon for a total cost of just $4.98. $3.99 BOGO (Buy One Get One free) on the hot dogs minus a $1.00 Ball Park coupon so my cost was just $2.99. The watermelon was $4.99 but there was a $3.00 discount coupon if you bought two packages of Ball Park Franks so the watermelon only cost me...

The largest retailer in the world made a surprise announcement this week. Wal-Mart said that that it supports the White House's proposed health care reform that would require employers to provide health insurance to their workers. Many companies including Wal-Mart—the nation's largest private employer—have long opposed a mandate in fear of the cost burden it could bring to their businesses. So why would Wal-Mart change its mind? A responsibility in my previous job was to develop the marketing strategy for our Wal-Mart efforts. The most important thing I learned about the retailer was that there isn't a manager at Wal-Mart...

Wal-Mart buys protection by selling out its competitors. Corporate America's cheerleading for more government involvement in health care now includes Wal-Mart, that liberal paragon of social irresponsibility. The discount giant's ex-critics probably ought to be more skeptical, given that this seems to be anticompetitive special pleading in progressive drag. This week the nation's largest employer blessed an employer mandate, aka "pay or play." This would require businesses that do not offer "meaningful coverage" -- i.e., government-approved -- to pay some percentage of their payroll to a federal insurance plan. This mandate is one of the more controversial policies in the...

..."Before election, Wal-Mart Bad. After election, Wal-Mart Good!!! President Barack Hugo Obama has gone from joining with democrat unions to bash Wal-mart for not hiring union workers to loving Wal-mart for supporting his idea to mandate health insurance coverage by large employers. Wal-Mart used to be the bad guy and Obama’s campaign was critical of Hillary Clinton for her ties to the Wal-Mart Board. What he didn’t tell you then is that he and his wife made a lot of money from the Treehouse Foods Co., which does big-time sales with Wal-Mart. In at least two years he and Michelle...

In an almost incomprehensible act of political fealty, Wal-Mart has teamed up with its tormentors to send a clear and resounding message- they want the government to start rationing healthcare. Is that really what Wal-Mart wants or are they just practicing self-preservation in the era of big government control over everything?

On Tuesday the CEO of Wal-Mart, long the bête noire of the American left, issued a joint statement with SEIU head Andy Stern and Center for American Progress President John Podesta, two close allies of Barack Obama, supporting the administration's health reform efforts. The letter called for bipartisan reforms that include an employer mandate to purchase health insurance for their employees. An odd alliance? Maybe. But when two camps eye the same goal for separate reasons, they can become unlikely bedfellows. For the Obama administration, this announcement comes at a particularly convenient time. The president's health reform effort has hit...

Matthew Yglesias proudly announces that his employer the liberal thinktank Center for American Progress has convinced Wal-Mart (WMT) to support a law that would legally obligate employers to pay for their employees' health insurance. The Center for American Progress, the Service Employees International Union, and Wal-Mart joined forces today to release a letter (PDF) endorsing the dual ideas of an employer mandate to provide health insurance and “triggers” to automatically reduce costs if health care spending gets too high (more on that here). The highly ideological behavior of the business community, and high degree of class solidarity exhibited by the...

In a major break with most other large companies, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Tuesday told the White House that it supports requiring employers to provide health insurance to workers, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's effort to provide near-universal coverage to Americans. The support of Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, could give momentum to one of the most-contentious aspects of legislation taking shape in Congress to fix the health system. To help pay for covering the 46 million uninsured, lawmakers have proposed mandating that all but small employers provide insurance for workers or help pay for it. Lobbies for large...

We were just reading through a little more of this proposal from Wal-Mart (WMT) and liberal thinktank Center for American Progress for some kind of law that would require all employers to provide health insurance. We already said why we think it's a ridiculous idea and that the CAP and its star blogger Matthew Yglesias are being used big-time by a company that wants to raise costs for its rivals. In looking though their supporting letter (.pdf) this line jumped out at us big time: In 2008, half of all people filing for home foreclosure cited medical problems as a...

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest private employer, announced in a letter to President Obama today that it will support a requirement that all businesses provide health insurance coverage as part of sweeping health reform legislation. The endorsement of the so-called employer mandate represents a dramatic reversal for the retailing giant and a boost for the White House as it tries to inject momentum into its top domestic priority. “We are for shared responsibility,” Wal-Mart President and CEO Mike Duke wrote. “Not every business can make the same contributions, but everyone must make some contribution.” The letter, which was co-signed by the...

Wal-Mart Stores is striding into the market for electronic health records, seeking to bring the technology into the mainstream for physicians in small offices, where most of America’s doctors practice medicine. Wal-Mart’s move comes as the Obama administration is trying to jump-start the adoption of digital medical records with $19 billion of incentives in the economic stimulus package. The company plans to team its Sam’s Club division with Dell for computers and eClinicalWorks, a fast-growing private company, for software. Wal-Mart says its package deal of hardware, software, installation, maintenance and training will make the technology more accessible and affordable, undercutting...

Chicago aldermen will probably get a chance soon to vote for more jobs and tax revenue at a time when the city desperately needs both. A long-stalled bid by Wal-Mart to build a huge store on the South Side could come before the City Council's Rules Committee soon. If the Rules Committee approves, the measure could go to the full council for a vote by the end of July. Let's hope the aldermen aren't simply letting this thing surface so they can kill it. Chicago needs jobs. Wal-Mart wants to provide jobs.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is supposed to be the retail winner in a depression or recession as more and more consumers are forced to shop at the world’s largest retailer whether they want to or not. There is no arguing about the notion that consumers can save money if they buy at Wal-Mart. But several key issues have been happening here, and the company is at risk of having one of the worst charts of all current Dow Jones Industrial Average members.

OUR HERITAGE VERSUS A BIG BOX VIEWPOINTS, 6/14/09: The Wilderness battlefield--Ferry Farm--Wal-Mart battles, by Bill Beck Date published: 6/14/2009 THE THREAT of a Wal-Mart on George Washington's Ferry Farm galvanized many local preservation groups: Historic Fredericksburg Foundation Inc., the Stafford County Historical Society, and ultimately the Kenmore Association. These groups were supported by innumerable individuals, many of whom may not have identified themselves as preservationists but held a firm sense of right and wrong. While every effort was made to influence the Stafford County supervisors, we quickly realized that our best hope for success was to force the corporate heads...

Time for Walmart to lead the next wave: US manufacturing.

Let’s get this up front: One does not walk deliberately up to an armored car guard, aim a handgun at his face and unintentionally put a bullet through his head; a bullet that strikes an innocent bystander. But that is what 34-year-old Calvin Finley, one of four suspects in the brutal robbery/murder at the Lakewood Wal-Mart Tuesday, June 2 that left veteran guard Kurt Husted, 39, dead and customer Wilbert Pina wounded in the shoulder, is reportedly claiming in a court document that leaves one shuddering. Armed citizens carry guns not to commit heinous acts like this, but to defend...

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - As Wal-Mart Stores Inc. opens about 150 new or expanded stores in the U.S. in 2009, the company expects to hire about 22,000 people for new positions. Those positions include plenty of cashiers and stock clerks, but the world’s largest retailer will also be adding store managers, pharmacists and personnel workers. Wal-Mart is holding its annual shareholders meeting on Friday, and employees from its stores around the world are spending the week in Bentonville at company headquarters. Unlike many retailers, Wal-Mart has managed to keep sales growing since the recession began in late 2007, helped greatly by...

TACOMA, Wash. – Murder charges were filed Thursday against four people accused in the killing of an armored car guard as he carried a money bag out of a Wal-Mart. After the Tuesday afternoon heist, prosecutors say Williams-Irby and Walker went on a shopping spree and spent $175 on a dinner at Red Lobster.

Bentonville, AR (AHN) - Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT), the world's largest retailer, has committed to add at least 22,000 jobs in the United States in 2009 to staff new or expanded stores.The news is going to boost investor confidence in the sector as the retailers have been hit hard by sliding consumer spending, which is related to increasing unemployment rate. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company's announcement came ahead of its annual meeting on Thursday. "During this difficult economic time, we're proud to be able to create quality jobs for thousands of Americans this year," Vice Chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright said in...

As Wal-Mart Stores Inc. opens about 150 new or expanded stores in the U.S. in 2009, the company expects to hire about 22,000 people for new positions. Those positions include plenty of cashiers and stock clerks, but the world's largest retailer will also be adding store managers, pharmacists and personnel workers. Wal-Mart is holding its annual shareholders meeting on Friday, and employees from its stores around the world are spending the week in Bentonville at company headquarters. Wal-Mart, still the target of criticism from union-backed groups for its pay and benefits, has improved its health insurance coverage and opened it...

Wal-Mart Stores Inc employees could be shouting the retailer's corporate cheer with renewed vigor at this year's annual meeting. Thousands of employees from across the globe will descend upon Fayetteville, Arkansas for the retailer's June 5 annual meeting. After years of being hounded by union-backed critic groups, politicians and competitors, employees can revel in the fact that their employer has gotten its grove back and is gaining market share as the worldwide economic downturn drives frugal shoppers into its stores. Investors are eager for more gains, and Wal-Mart, under newly installed CEO Mike Duke, is focused on delivering them by...

NEW YORK (AP) — Green Day has the most popular CD in the country, but you won't be able to find it at your local Wal-Mart. The band says the giant superstore chain refused to stock its latest CD, "21st Century Breakdown," because Wal-Mart wanted the album edited for language and content, and they refused. "Wal-Mart's become the biggest retail outlet in the country, but they won't carry our record because they wanted us to censor it," frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said in a recent interview. Guitarist Mike Dirnt said: "As the biggest record store in the America, they should...

JOPLIN, Mo. - Police are looking for two women who pulled off the daring theft of a high-end television set from a Wal-Mart store. Police on Monday said one of the women posed as a Wal-Mart employee and the second played the role of customer Sunday night. The duo made off with a 52-inch, flat-screen Samsung TV worth $1,300. Police Cpl. Chuck Niess said that by the time any real Wal-Mart employees became suspicious, both women were gone. He said the phony employee was dressed as a Wal-Mart worker in tan slacks and a blue shirt and wore a communication...

What does selling panties have to do with corporate income tax rates? Sam understood that if it cost a customer less to do business with you than a competitor, you would attract a lot of customers. The United States can apply the Wal-Mart strategy and achieve the same results. According to The Tax Foundation, the "average combined federal and state corporate tax rate in the U.S. is 39.3 percent, second among OECD countries to Japan's combined rate of 39.5 percent." It costs a company in America more in taxes than almost anywhere else. That doesn't make the U.S. very attractive...

NEW ORLEANS - A Louisiana woman is suing a Wal-Mart store over what she claims was a much-too-close encounter of the furry kind. Rebecca White says in her lawsuit that employees at a Wal-Mart in Abbeville let a rat-tailed rodent known as a nutria run loose and scare her. She says that not only did employees know it was in their store, but gave it a pet name, Norman, and failed to warn shoppers. White says she was pushing a full shopping cart down an aisle in October when the nutria ran out from behind a rack. She says she...

Actor Duvall enters battle to save Va. battlefield By STEVE SZKOTAK LOCUST GROVE, Va. (AP) - Academy Award-winning actor Robert Duvall has fired a verbal salvo against plans to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter near a Virginia Civil War battlefield where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee first fought the Union's Ulysses S. Grant. Duvall, who is a descendant of Lee, said he will help preservationists in "chasing out" the retailer from a site near the Wilderness Battlefield. At a news conference on Monday, Duvall said he has no grudge against Wal-Mart but believes in capitalism coupled with sensitivity. Duvall was joined...

NORTH FORT MYERS — Tom Brennan finally found his bullets on Saturday. After waiting 20 minutes in line at a gun show, he handed over nearly $210 for 10 boxes of 9 mm ammunition. The price was almost twice what he’d normally pay at a retail store. Problem is, those retail stores can’t keep boxes of 9 mm ammunition in stock. When a shipment arrives, the boxes are snatched up immediately. “I’ve been going every day,” Brennan, 45, said. “I can’t get it by the time I get there.” His odds improved the moment he stepped inside the Suncoast Gun...

The German-owned grocery chain plans to expand its U.S. operations rapidly and grab market share from Wal-Mart. But its ownership and ubiquity has earned it some enemies. Aldi’s low prices—up to 40 percent lower than those of regular supermarkets—have won the chain many vocal fans. Amy Clark, creator of MomAdvice.com, a site focusing on lifestyle for stay-at-home mothers, “I often tell my friends and family that Aldi Supermarket is how I can afford to be a stay-at-home mom. Although I say this jokingly, I do credit Aldi a lot for allowing the room in our budget that we needed for...

PEÑITAS — What does a Hispanic-friendly Wal-Mart look like? Pretty much like any other Wal-Mart, it turns out. The first big-box store in western Hidalgo County opens today in Peñitas, a year after the retail giant delayed completion of the building to redesign the store, reconfigure departments and modify the product mix to try to boost the appeal to a Mexican-American population. The decision caused a stir among those curious to see what Wal-Mart would do to better accommodate its South Texas customer base. The results: Wider aisles uncluttered by extraneous product displays and sale racks; freshly made tortillas and...

Exxon Mobil has unseated Wal-Mart Stores to top the 2009 Fortune 500 list after a year the magazine called the worst ever for the country’s 500 largest publicly traded companies.

WALTON COUNTY, Ga. -- Loganville police said they arrested a man after he entered the automobile of two female waitresses from Hooters. Police said Christopher Childers, 40, saw the two 19-year-old girls walk into a Wal-Mart to do some shopping. While they were in the store, Childers allegedly got into their car. Police said Childers found pictures of the girls in their uniforms which he placed in his truck. He then got back into the girls’ car to wait for them, police said. When the girls returned, one girl slammed Childers leg with the car door and the other called...

Most lefties claim that "no" means "no," but not where it concerns unions that have lost the organizing argument over and over again. We can see that refusal to listen to the workers in the case of Unions vs. Wal-Mart. Repeatedly Wal-Mart workers have generally refused to unionize, yet instead of taking that as an answer, the unions continue to push. And they are at it again. The United Food and Commercial Workers is stepping up its efforts to organize Wal-Mart workers yet again. Since February, about 60 UFCW organizers have been dispatched to more than 100 Wal-Mart stores in...

The United Food and Commercial Workers union is ramping up organizing at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. after a five-year lull, dovetailing with its efforts to win support in Congress for a bill to make union organizing easier. The Bentonville, Ark., retailer, a leading opponent of the legislation, said managers have seen increased union activity at a number of stores, prompting mandatory meetings to discuss unionization. "We have noticed that the UFCW has been working harder lately in its attempts to get Wal-Mart associates to sign union cards, but we don't think our associates have any reason to be more interested than...

The United Food and Commercial Workers union is ramping up organizing at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. after a five-year lull, dovetailing with its efforts to win support in Congress for a bill to make union organizing easier. The Bentonville, Ark., retailer, a leading opponent of the legislation, said managers have seen increased union activity at a number of stores, prompting mandatory meetings to discuss unionization. "We have noticed that the UFCW has been working harder lately in its attempts to get Wal-Mart associates to sign union cards, but we don't think our associates have any reason to be more interested than...

The Wal-Mart I visited had Louisiana Sweet Potatoes on sale for 15 cents per pound. It is a reminder of the days when Senator Jay Rockefeller's grandpappy drove competitors from the oil market with one penny a barrel of oil in East Texas. I am referring to the infamous anti-trust case against Standard Oil, and how the company was broken up by the Governement into Standard of California, Standard of Indiana, etc. Louisiana law does prevent the dumping of milk -- one cannot sale milk below the cost of the milk. Apparently, Wal-Mart must feel there are too many sweet...

Although CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer has backed off his hyperbolic attacks on President Barack Obama ever since his "Daily Show" appearance, he's shown that he's not afraid to take on the Democratic-controlled Congress. So, to give credit where credit is due, the "Mad Money" host dedicated an entire segment to the Employee Free Choice Act, aka card check and how its passage by Congress could be detrimental to Wal-Mart's (NYSE:WMT) stock price on his April 3 program. And during the segment, Cramer used three references to Soviet/Russian communism to describe the Democrat effort pushing card check. "Right now,...

It's not cool to make us publicize our votes. Our votes are nunya bidness! At the end of the video are websites that feature me on there sites and have helped get me exposure. I do actually work with PJTV though. It's my way of giving back, and helping to show people who may not know of other good of conservative cyborhoods. God bless ya! (Video at link)

Last night at the Wal Mart on cantrell a gang of three attacked an elderly couple in the parking lot at 11pm. The suspects thought they would make easy targets. They were wrong, this from KARK, "Three people have been arrested after a would-be victim stopped a robbery attempt on a Wal-Mart parking lot in Little Rock Monday night. It happened around eleven o'clock at the store at 19301 Cantrell Road (Highway 10), when a woman was loading groceries into her car and was approached by a man holding a handgun. When the man grabbed her purse, the woman struggled...

BEIJING, March 23 (RIA Novosti) - China's defense minister has reaffirmed the country's plans to build its own aircraft carrier, the Sina news agency reported on Monday. It quoted Liang Guanglie as saying that "among the big world powers only China does not have an aircraft carrier, so it cannot be without an aircraft carrier forever." China's Ministry of National Defense spokesman said in December last year that aircraft carriers were "a reflection of a nation's comprehensive power" and were needed to meet the demands of a country's navy. Experts have suggested construction could be officially announced in April, when...

When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. opened a Supercenter in suburban Country Club Hills in 2006, Karen Talchik changed her shopping routine. With a Wal-Mart supermarket near her house, the Oak Forest teacher abandoned her old grocery standby. She said the service sometimes isn't as good at Wal-Mart—the lines at the deli and checkout counters can be longer than she was used to—but the prices can't be beat. "I stopped going to Jewel," Talchik said. While Wal-Mart has been in the spotlight for trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to plant its flag in the city of Chicago, the behemoth has been quietly building its...