It's about the business model

These tweets completely miss the point of the "whining". People (some of them liberals) are protesting a business model that pays its employees such low wages that these almost full time employees have to be on benefits programs such as food stamps and Medicaid to survive.

Won't even go into the economic issues about Walmart squeezing it suppliers so hard that some of them have failed. That having Walmart come into a rural area will cause most local retail business to fail leaving more people unemployed than the new store will employ. That their food prices really aren't that good and that the poor shop there because the commercials Walmart runs tell them that the prices are lower. That Walmart varies its prices by area so that in some places (like where I live Plano, TX) their prices are even with standard grocery stores)...

This post is a simple attack on the word liberal. I'm not on the jury or really much a part of the DU universe, but this post sounds like something you might find on another type of site.

These tweets are almost Fox-like in how they make points without context and leave out a lot of very important info (some of which I detail above). Just to take a swipe at those silly liberals.

The primary point to keep in mind is that Walmart and its business model is a major factor in creating these poor that can only shop at Walmart. Walmart is such a huge part of the national economy that it influences the national economy. I think you could make a pretty strong anti-trust argument about Walmart. It is so big that, to compete with it, other retailers have to also pay low wages, squeeze their suppliers, have excessively harsh job rules, be rabidly anti-union, buy everything from China etc.

Look at what happened when they decided to open on Thanksgiving. Most retailers followed suit.

I believe (and these tweets do nothing to change my mind) that Walmart needs to be unionized. But I also believe that we need to petition our government to look at breaking up Walmart due to its almost monopolistic power in our economy. This is what anti-trust laws were designed for.

Oh, and I bet the economic impact of Walmart paying better wages would have such a positive impact on the economy that many of the poor would end up being able to pay the somewhat higher prices that would be necessary to maintain Walmart's current margins.

The Media will Eat Up Republican Convulsions

I agree will much of what you said. We may, in some ways, be watching the twitching of a still warm corpse. The Republican party in its current form may well be dead.

I watch this with some unease. Not because I feel any sympathy or empathy for these heartless psychopaths, but because of the damage they can do while the body decays.

The media, including the left leaning media, will be eating up the sound and the fury that will come with a major party dying and then being reborn.

I don't see how Republicans can survive. Reaganism has been a proven failure that was always based on economic wishful thinking. Supply side economics was always, at its core, a yearning for a free lunch. Reaganism imagined sn Oz-like paradise where cutting taxes leads to more revenue and the government shrinks away to nothingness because regulation just isn't needed due to the all-powerful and infinitely wise free market. This vision of the world has always had less reality to it than found in a Grimm fairly tale.

Because this kind of radical magical thinking has led to a decades long purging of anyone remotely rational from the GOP there isn't really anyone left to bring them back into the light of reason. All their thinkers and intellectuals have long since become independents or, worse still, Democrats. Even Barry Goldwater thought these folks nuts by the time he died--if that gives you any indication of just how lunatic this fringe has become.

My fear is that they'll not go gently into their good night. And in making all their furious noise they'll suck the air out of the national conversation that we should be having right now. The Republicans have finally shown their true colors in all their nasty, simple meanness. The ugliness just came pouring out, first in their convention which resembled a white power rally more than a major party convention, and then in the constant, so-called gaffes that were more unwitting revelations of truth.

These people are mean and they don't like being told they're wrong and they're willing to fight over it. This cast of idiots has already announced to the world that they don't see anything wrong with their ideas and message there was just something wrong with their packaging.

The death throes are going to be violent and there will be collateral damage. The media. always eager for a great story, will feast on this. I just hope we survive it intact and not in civil war.

Minority within a minority

This million people is the minority within the minority. Have these folks even been taught how a democracy (even one as imperfect as ours) operates? We really have to go back to requiring Civics in high school.

This little tiny splinter group is going to disassemble the Union. How cute.

Perhaps we should create a reservation for them somewhere...

I just like the term "pandas of politics"...

Sorry for your loss

I've stopped talking to a lot of people or they've stopped talking to me. The one that's bothered me most is my ex-wife.

We've had a great relationship since we split up and we've remained close friends for over 25 years. This hasn't always gone over well with my wife and daughters but it was innocent.

She live in Missouri and when the Akin thing broke I sent her a snarky text that I thought she'd completely agree with. Now that I think back on it I don't think we'd ever discussed politics. Not when we were married and not after.

The text I got back stunned me. She didn't defend Akin, but she talked about how much she hated Claire Mckaskill and then went on an anti-Obama rant about how he was a "right wing socialist". We went back and forth a couple of times with my pointing out that she was just spewing boiler plate, Fox talking points without anything to back them up.

Then I ended the conversation.

I haven't heard from her since. I miss her and I'm worried about her. She's unemployed and she's depressed and I'm sure she's scared. But you get to where you can't communicate anymore when someone is spewing hatred and lies and now thinks you are evil incarnate because you don't agree.

Do what I'm going to do. Let it die down a bit. And then be the peacemaker. Reach out to her. Maybe you'll turn her around. That's better than writing off a friendship like that.

Colbert Rocks!

Oh, Steven you got this one soooooo right!

Simply Evil

Some bills are simply evil. This is one of them.

I know that this goes along with the "women getting rich off of welfare by having more babies" meme, but c'mon! Do the math. And then when you've finished doing that think who really gets screwed on this one...Those little babies you're always mewling about when they're fetuses.

Of course, none of these folks give a rip once the kid leaves the birth canal.