0540: Spread the word to end the word – use of the R-word

Andrew Sullivan asks:

A small question: if an ally launches a war that directly threatens precipitating a global conflict in which the US would be directly affected, and if that ally does so in defiance of the pleas of the US government, is it still an ally?

1558: That R (RETARDED) Word
1326: Spread the word to end the word – use of the R-word
1320: Swearing in Wal-Mart, let’s outlaw it

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees, Robert Feinman and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

JUST ANOTHER ABANDONED WALMART… There” a piece of information concerning abandoned Walmarts that I”d like to have: how much public money went into the construction of the store and how much of that money returned to the public treasury in the form of income, property and sales taxes? Keep reading…

THAT”S FEMALE EXECUTIVES … Standby for a broad generalization: personal loyalty belongs to the smallest association in people”s lives. That”s why The National Association of Female Executives has given named Walmart to its 2009 NAFE Top Companies List. Keep reading…

HOW DO YOU USE A CONDOM…? WELL, YOU… I”m sure that the Walmart worker assigned to put the sale rollback tags on the condoms didn”t think about the pun involved, but the blogger at Bit”s & Pieces clearly did when they were shopping. (But did you buy the rolled-back condoms, Jonco?) Keep reading…

ALL THE WAY BACK TO MAGNA CARTA…? Who first said that justice delayed is justice denied, is hidden in History. It may stretch back to 1215 and the those disgruntled English nobles. But in the case of Dukes vs. Walmart, waiting eight years for a bit of justice clearly applies. Keep reading…

MORE ON THAT OHIO OPTICAL LAB… Al Norman has weighed in on Walmart”s abrupt, and possibly illegal, closing of its optical lab in Columbus, Ohio, dumping 650 workers (with the usual we”ll find them jobs elsewhere mea culpa) and ripping $1.8 million dollars out of the pockets of Ohio taxpayers. Keep reading…

SMILEYMAN… SMILEYMAN… … does whatever a smiley can he feckin” wants. Jack Neff at is clearly enamored with Walmart online. And just as clearly, Neff hasn”t taken a long look at the consistent way Walmart stumbles about in cyber space like a superhero with a cattle prod up his bum. Keep reading…

Roldo Bartimole writes:

More discouraging words about the Medical Mart planned here by MMPI and its use of $1 billion tax dollars – a furniture mart in plan.

Here”s what MedCity News, a publication that deals with “health care as an economic engine of American cities,” says of MMPI”s plans for Cleveland:

“When you try to picture what Cleveland”s Medical Mart will look like – at least at first – think of a Medical Furniture Mart. (Its emphasis on furniture.)

“It”s likely many initial tenants in the permanent showrooms of the proposed medical showplace will feature beds, chairs and floor tiles meant for hospitals, private practices and home health care settings.”

Sounds like a barn-burner hot economic plus for downtown Cleveland – County Commissioner style. Can”t wait for the jobs to roll into the city.

“The bulk of the companies touted as possible initial tenants are similar to Brandrud, a Herman Miller company that makes chairs and cabinets for hospitals or Arc/Com, which makes fabrics and other textiles for the health care industry.”

Weren’t you imagining high tech medical equipment?

Tim Russo writes:

There are many reasons why Rush-ifying Republicanism is genius, and this may be the most powerful. The increasingly hysterical and paranoid lunacy of Republicanism sounds and looks like your crazy old uncle because that is, in fact, what it is – the slow death throes of a narrow racial and age demographic”s reactionary stupidity, clinging to an America that is long gone and may never actually have been, about to be overwhelmed and erased by facts on the ground.

I’ve written about the Limbaugh army of quaker cannon.

Yes, squeaky wheels get greased. But they’re not representative of the health of the wagon.

We just need to keep asking ourselves: who has time in the afternoon to listen to Limbaugh and sit on hold to make a comment?

1736: Spread the word to end the word – use of the R-word

At The Writing On The Wal we’re still following how Walmart has flipped the bird at Ohio’s taxpayers and walked away with $1.8 million in tax incentives. Al Norman at The Huffington Post had this to say this morning:

In 2004, the group Good Jobs First released a study, which found that Wal-Mart had benefited “from more than $1 billion in economic development subsidies from state and local governments across the United States.” The Washington, D.C.-based research group released its 65-page report, Shopping for Subsidies, profiling more than 240 cases in which the building of a Wal-Mart store was aided with corporate welfare.

For years, states and municipalities have pushed corporate welfare on Wal-Mart, in an attempt to lure the company to their jurisdiction. In many cases, these special tax deals were not necessary at all, and amounted to little more than a corporate subsidy that gave Wal-Mart another financial advantage over its smaller competitors. In the case of eyewear, Wal-Mart is both the manufacturer and the retailer. It even controls the medical personnel that recommend the products—its “doctor partners.” Wal-Mart says that any eyewear orders previously sent to the Columbus lab will now be redirected to one of its three other lab locations.

OK, it’s official, the buycott now includes eye glasses. If every single optical center in a Walmart doesn’t immediately become a ghost town then Ohioans should hang their heads in shame.

Stephen M. Walt writes:

The Palestinians, of course, will remain locked up in Gaza and a handful of enclaves on the West Bank. In essence, Netanyahu and his two key ministers — Ehud Barak (Defense) and Avigdor Lieberman (Foreign Affairs) — are committed to creating a Greater Israel, which will cover all of the territory that was once Mandate Palestine.

This is not a happy day.

Andrew Sullivan writes:

Barack Obama”s most underrated talent is his ability to get his enemies to self-destruct. It takes a lot less energy than defeating them directly, and helps maintain Obama”s largely false patina of apolitical niceness.

Obama is about as far from apolitical as you can get; and while he is a decent fellow, he is also a lethal Chicago pol. His greatest achievement in this respect was the total implosion of Bill Clinton around this time last year: Hillary was next. Then came John McCain, merrily strapping on the suicide bomb of Sarah Palin. With the fate of all these formidable figures impossible to miss, one has to wonder what possessed Dick Cheney, the former vice-presi-dent, to come lumbering out twice in the first 50 days of the Obama administration to blast the new guy on national television.

0904: Energy from “laser fusion” – the perpetual motion machine of the 21st century.

0703: Does being a mother qualify as “work”?

Politicians wield two tools that matter: taking less money from people (taxing less) and giving people more money (spending). Everything else, including regulation, is bullshit. If a politician doesn’t either take less money out of, or put more of other-people’s money into the pockets of the people who got them elected, then the chances of re-election disappear.

It’s that simple.

Really.

And when it comes to corporations, the quid pro quo is even more blatant. Take Walmart and the $1.8 million Ohio taxpayers stuffed in corporate pockets only seven years ago.

From The Associated Press (it’s not like The Plain Dealer has anyone on the business desk who could have covered this):

Ohio gave the world’s largest retailer a $1.8 million job-creation tax credit in 2001 on the condition that the company create and maintain jobs at the facility in Lockbourne, which makes eyewear for vision centers in Wal-Mart stores.

Wal-Mart announced Friday that it will shutter the optical lab near Columbus to cut costs.

There is no mention in the story that Walmart reported a profit in excess of $5 billion last year and paid a $3.5 billion dividend to Walmart stockholders. And then there’s the $200 million the company has spent to defeat The Employee Free Choice Act.

Kelly Schlissberg, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Development, said the agency is reviewing its agreement with Wal-Mart to determine if the state can recoup money.

“We’ve spoken to the company and expressed our disappointment,” Schlissberg said.

Expressed our disappointment? That was gutsy.

I thought we were all about fulfilling contracts? Wasn’t that the meme coming out of Washington?

Or, more likely, was the contract written to only favor Walmart and to hell with Ohio’s taxpayers?

Would Walmart have gone to another state if there had been a clause stating something like this:

If Walmart should find it economically necessary to close the facility before the following agreed upon date, then Walmart will return an agreed upon percentage of the tax credit to the citizens of Ohio.

Maybe Walmart would have said, thanks, but no thanks, will go to another state where the politicians know how to stay in our pockets.

Corporations are amoral institutions driven by the lust, greedy, sloth, gluttony, wrath, envy and pride of all too often despicable individuals unwilling to recognize the social contract.

As U.S. Representative Paul Gilmore (R-Ohio) says:

[Walmart] demonstrate a clear pattern of deception.

Roldo Bartimole writes:

Brent, always “ahead” of the game, has taken his winning, just as the sheepish Claude Rains did in movie Casablanca.

It only took 30 years to “get” Sheriff Gerry McFaul. [Spell check wants to change that to Mug Full] No wonder President Bush couldn”t get Osama Bin Laden in eight.

Larkin”s [spell check wants to change this to larking] column is priceless. The PD endorsed McFaul “all eight times” he ran, writes Larkin. “Bad things kept going undetected,” he brilliantly adds.

This despite signals way back when he was a Councilman that rules hardly made a difference to McFaul”s actions. Despite his “inexcusable behavior toward women.” His crudity toward women earned him a buffoon starring role in one of those early night national TV shows of idiots doing idiotic things. Helping, of course, Cleveland”s image but not raising questions apparently at the PD editorial desk. That was back in the 1980s but not a clue to the Plain Dealer editorial whizzes.

Is this the kind of stuff Larkin”s going to serve us as a visiting columnist once he leaves the PD? Susan, wake up.

Roldo is much kinder to the Plain Dealer — saying of reporter Mark Puente that, He was a bulldog on this story — than I was yesterday when I called into WCPN’s Sound of Ideas program to ask why after many years of corruption, the paper was suddenly taking credit for bringing down McFaul.

1159: A Little More On Prince Jones

1109: Keep talking about teleprompters. Please.

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes:

Some folks asked about my buddy from Howard who was murdered by a police officer. The Washington Post did a very good investigation of the case, unfortunately it’s behind a curtain. Here’s a piece on the settlement. Here’s some info on the cop, who is a piece of work, to put it mildly. And here’s the reason I started writing. I knew for years that the Prince George’s County police department was one of the most brutal in the nation, and had wanted to write about them. Prince’s murder gave me that last push. It really was a small act. But it was something, and it was better than sitting at home stewing.

What’s not in that article, is the profound personal effect Prince’s death had on me. When I went down to his memorial service at Howard, I was upset, but not beside myself with grief. Truthfully, Prince had closer friends than me, and we’d been out of touch for a year or so. But I was disturbed, and didn’t realize how profoundly until a year later when 9/11 happened. Everyone I knew was deeply shaken by it. And yet, again, I was disturbed, but not as grief-stricken as most of my friends.

I have a weird way of dealing with big, emotional events. My brain moves slow, and I tend to experience things in waves–it took weeks for me to understand, emotionally, what Obama’s election meant. Ditto for 9/11, except longer. And then one night I woke up yelling and bawling like a four-year old. I’d had this dream where I saw Prince, alive and well, and tried to warn him, repeatedly, of the impending danger. But whenever I tried to explain, he would cut me off and tell me he didn’t want to know.

Tuesday afternoon Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish linked to my update on the dino-riding Jesus. My traffic jumped by a factor of five in 12-hours. It was cool while it lasted, but now that the post has moved off Sullivan’s front page, I imagine my numbers will plummet back to normal.

As of 1100 today, my unique-visitor numbers for Tuesday were 4,237; Wednesday, 2,733 and today their back to normal.

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees, Robert Feinman and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

HE”S SO CUTE… I don”t have any teenage daughters of my own, but I do teach 6th graders and I”ve been surprised – given the recent media hysteria – at their disinterest in the whole Twilight brouhaha. Maybe my kids are just different? Or maybe smarter? Keep reading…

BEHOLD…! EL SUPERMERCARDO DE WALMART…! Walmart has long marketed to Spanish-speaking consumers in the United States, but now it is going far beyond secondary signage and cultural/regional foods. Walmart announced Friday its intent to dedicate whole stores in Arizona and Texas to the market niche. Keep reading…

CHECKING IT TWICE…? MAY BE NOT ENOUGH… One of the really cool aspects of the Internet in general and blogs in particular is that you can find a story written today just as quickly as one written years ago, and then you can leave a comment and join the conversation. Keep reading…

WHAT TIME IS IT…? What is a consultant? A consultant is a person who you pay to borrow your watch and tell you what time it is. That”s the way I read this working paper by Kusum Ailawadi, Jie Zhang, Aradhna Krishna, and Michael W. Kruger at Tufts School of Business at Dartmouth. Keep reading…

HERE”S A BAFFLER… Remember all those stories about Walmart in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? Reading this morning I found that that particular story is far from over as a mobile health clinic is packed up and moved from the vacant parking lot of the Walmart in Chalmette, Louisiana. Keep reading…

THE LABOR LITMUS TEST IN CONGRESS… Our Jonathan has been following Jonathan Tasini for sometime, but I only stumbled across him myself this morning as I was reading up on the what I think may be the story of the 2009 legislative year: The Employee Free Choice Act. Keep reading…