Free Republic

My husband and I have been Amazon users for about 15 years. In college, I used it to buy and sell books, rolling the cost of last semester’s books I didn’t plan to keep into the next semester’s set.We became Prime members in July 2017 and delighted in two- and even one-day shipping of everything from diapers to canned goods to dry erase markers to work boots, eliminating the annoyance of running to the store over one or two items. I developed Prime Day and Black Friday strategies for getting loads of deals, eagerly watching sales on coveted items open...

A usually reliable source informs me that the Walmarts in the area are doing land office business. Something like 50% more than normal, with one store having over double expected. I don't know of any specific news that would drive this, perhaps the smelly Walmart shoppers are prepping for a long Dark Winter?

I chuckled at Mellow Lemoncello’s (aka Betty Ann) comment about her trip to the farmers’ market yesterday: “I just walked around at the farmer’s market, everyone’s face plastered by masks, without one on my self. I took pictures and talked to everyone. Only one lady said, Are you protesting the masks? I said yes ma’am. Later as I left, I saw her pulling hers off.” And I nodded in agreement at Lisa D’s reply: “…Are they in happy compliance, like our daughter, or trying to avoid the Karens and judgemental looks? We are forced to wear them in every...

Amazon reported blowout second-quarter results on Thursday, including a huge beat on the top line and double-digit revenue growth year-over-year, helped by surging sales amid the coronavirus pandemic. Here's how the company did:  Earnings: $10.30 per share vs. $1.46 expected, according to analysts surveyed by Refinitiv Revenue: $88.91 billion vs. $81.56 billion expected, according to analysts surveyed by Refinitiv

I went online shopping, and found three sites which apologized on behalf of white people for being white. Excuse me? I'm sure that these retailers have been coerced or threatened with burning and looting these retailer's facilities. I did not murder anyone, especially anyone of another race. These sites are advertising up front that they are racists. The retailers are Amazon, Walmart and Bed Bath & Beyond. I won't be shopping at these sites in the foreseeable future. There are many ways to lose money besides looting and burning. This is one of them. If you know of other major...

In April, Hendrik Streeck, a virologist at the University of Bonn, determined that it was highly unlikely that shoppers would contract the virus when buying groceries. He told media at the beginning of last month that, through a survey of the disease's spread in Germany, he found "no significant risk of catching the disease when you go shopping." "Severe outbreaks of the infection were always a result of people being closer together over a longer period of time," he said, remarking that in the outbreaks he studied, "infection didn’t come from supermarkets or butchers or restaurants. It came from long...

An emergency proclamation issued Thursday in Stillwater, Oklahoma, requiring the use of face masks in stores and restaurants was amended Friday after threats of violence. "In the short time beginning on May 1, 2020, that face coverings have been required for entry into stores/restaurants, store employees have been threatened with physical violence and showered with verbal abuse," Stillwater City Manager Norman McNickle said in a statement.

In certain counties, first responders (police) are allowed to enter stores before others and make their purchases without any rationing. As Orwell wrote, some pigs are more equal. Everyone should have to live under the same rules, ESPECIALLY THE POLICE. To allow them special privileges and to escape the inconveniences associated with this lockdown is disgusting. Law enforcement must understand what it is like to live like those they have power over. To allow them special privilege is license for abuse and makes them more inclined to enforce laws that have no impact on them what so ever. . It...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awhgm2jlk2o&feature=emb_title A group of Massachusetts shoppers tackled a man and pinned him to the ground until police arrived after catching him allegedly coughing and spitting on produce, fanning coronavirus fears. Cell phone video shot from inside a Stop & Shop in Kingston on Saturday showed at least three men on top of the man as in the produce aisle. “Don’t try and get up,” one of the shoppers tells the man pinned to the floor. Witnesses told police they spotted the 65-year-old man from Duxbury, whose name was not released by authorities, coughing and spitting on produce. Kyle Mann, an 18-year-old shopper from...

Walmart announced it will limit the number of people inside its stores at the same time during the COVID-19 pandemic.....“Starting Saturday, we will limit the number of customers who can be in a store at once. Stores will now allow no more than five customers for each 1,000 square feet at a given time, roughly 20 percent of a store’s capacity,” according to a release. Store employees will start a line at a single-entry door and will tell customers to go there to queue. They will then be allowed in the store one-by-one, according to the company. “Associates and signage...

Grocery giant Costco has enacted a new rule to limit crowding in its stores across the country as the company faces a surge in business and sees items like toilet paper and hand sanitizer fly off the shelves. Costco announced Wednesday that starting Friday April 3 only two people per membership card will be allowed into stores at a time. 'Costco will allow no more than two people to enter the warehouse with each membership card. This temporary change is for your safety and the safety of our employees and other members, and to further assist with our social distancing...

It started with an unsubstantiated rumor. “You can laugh now,” Johnny Carson said on The Tonight Show on December 19, 1973, “but there is an acute shortage of toilet paper.” There wasn’t—but it didn’t matter. The broadcast sent America into a mass panic. Millions of shoppers swarmed into grocery stores and began hoarding toilet paper. Ex nihilo, a shortage was born. The Scott Paper Company urged people to stop panic-buying the product. Nevertheless, for four months, toilet paper—absent from shelves—was bartered for, traded, and even sold on the black market....Some experts regard the toilet-paper shortage of ’73 as a...

The local Walmart has 5 quart bottles of Conventional Super Tech 10W-30 for $13.98 and Synthetic for $14.88. Regular quart bottles of all brands/grades are also at months ago prices. These are the same prices for which it has been selling for months. With the price of oil at around $22 a barrel, that is WAY too high for oil. Doesn't seem to be right with what is going on right now with the whole region in economic distress. Never did see Walmart as gouging, but on this item they are.

I stopped in at the Draeger's Supermarket in Menlo Park this afternoon and there was an armed private security guard stationed outside the store with a bullet proof vest on and a hefty sidearm in his holster. I asked him why he was stationed there and he replied that there has been an increase of people hitting stores up to the new $950 misdemeanor/felony limit. He also told of a large gang that hit a grocery store in Mexico City (story below). He said that the police were outnumbered and stood down. It was a bit of shock seeing an...

Major grocery chains Kroger and Publix have both announced that they will install Plexiglas barriers in an effort to mitigate the spread of coronavirus. According to a spokesperson with Publix, the Florida grocery-store chain is installing Plexiglas barriers at its registers, customer service desks and pharmacies. Installations will begin this coming weekend, Publix said.

I just got back from trying to get some common items I need in my refrigerator: carrots, Lactaid milk, and Stok unsweetened coffee. Now I feel very depressed and apprehensive for what's gonna be coming up in the next few weeks. Went to BJs, as they have great prices on all of the above. I walked into a near-empty store--and immediately the theme music from "The Twilight Zone" started playing. Vegetables--pretty wiped out, and NO carrots. Milk--NO milk of any kind, except goat milk. Guys, you can have my portion of the goat milk! I bought some Silk Almond Milk...

"We don't have any...!" Fill in the blank. People are stocking up on things, fearing that we will be stuck in our homes, under quarantine, without essential supplies.Some hoard toilet paper. A popular internet video features someone driving up to what appears to be a drug dealer but is really someone selling toilet paper.When it became hard to find hand sanitizer in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state would produce its own, made by prison labor.Yet in-demand items like masks and hand sanitizer can still be found. It's just that we have to pay an inflated price.People on...

With some experts predicting, at a minimum, anywhere from 480,000 to 1.6 million American deaths from the coronavirus over the next three to 18 months, how smart does urban living, mass transit, open borders, reusable straws, reusable grocery bags, reusable water bottles, gun restrictions, over-regulated housing, using the Centers for Disease Control to fight gun violence, and outsourcing to China look now? Hey, we don’t know what’s going to happen with the coronavirus. What we do know, though, is that between last Sunday and this Sunday, things went from Zero to Crazy in one week: We shut down our economy,...

Today my wife and I went to the local H.E.B. grocery store to purchase some things we needed. The shelves in the store were largely empty. There was a young couple shopping who were complaining about the empty shelves. Each of them was wearing a Bernie Sanders for President tee shirt. I walked up to them and said, "Are you feeling the Bern?" They stared blankly. I then said, "Welcome to the Havana H.E.B." The continued to stare blankly at me so I continued, "This is what grocery store look like under socialist and communist regimes."

I want to share with you some scenes that greeted me at my local Kroger today. These are scenes from a panicked populace. Like locusts, they are stripping the shelves bare. Kroger Toilet Paper aisle.Kroger Deli Meat aisle.Kroger bottled water aisle.