Shame on Wal-Mart

LINK TO CNN STORY

Say what you will about big corporations, but, during the Sam Walton era, Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and all the related entities were true American Dream companies. Sam Walton took care of his employees first and foremost. He knew that taking care of your workforce creates positive word of mouth, better productivity, and better customer service, which all added up to create an unprecedented corporate empire. Wal-Mart has a higher profit margin than some entire nations have in their economy.

They profit in the billions with or without "Black Friday," the legendary Day-after-Thanksgiving Shop-a-Thon. Wal-Mart could close their stores for the rest of 2008 and still rank in the top 20 highest-grossing companies in the world.

Yet, somehow, just over $200,000 could break the back of the largest company in the world.

Or, at least that’s what Wal-Mart’s attorneys would have us believe.

You see, in the fine, fine print in Wal-MArt’s benefit and health care plans, there is a clause that allows Wal-Mart to recoup part or all of the money paid out for health care costs if the injuries end up recieving some sort of settlement. For instance, let’s say a Wal-Mart employee slips and breaks their leg in McDonald’s. Wal-Mart’s health plan covers the costs of the treatment and rehab for the break. The employee recieves a judgement of a couple million for the injury, so McDonald’s pays the couple million to the employee. Wal-Mart then has a right to get part or all of the money paid for the broken leg out of that settlement. Okay, thats understandable. I get that. Minor to moderate injury, life goes on, Wal-Mart’s health plan shouldn’t be drained on an injury that ends up creating a profit for the employee. That makes sense.
Now, lets look at this situation.

Let’s meet Debbie Shank. A loyal Wal-Mart employee for several years. She was then hit by a semi in a horrific traffic accident. Her brain is severely damaged. She has no short term memory left. Her 18 year old son was killed in Iraq. Due to the lack of short term memory, every time she asks how her son is doing, its like hearing for the first time all over again that he is dead. Have you ever seen "50 First Dates" with Adam Sandler and Drew Berrymore? Yeah, its like that, only much more tragic.

After a settlement with the trucking company, Debbie Shank and her loving husband Jim were awarded $1 million. After legal fees, the couple only recieved $417,000. Since then, the couple has spent over $200,000 of that on her long-term care. She resides in a nursing home. Jim works two jobs and is recovering from prostate cancer. Jim even divorced her so she could get help from Medicare.

All the couple have left in her trust is approximately $200,000. Jim can barely keep up with the bills and her long-term care costs. Their youngest son is not going to be able to afford college as the couple had planned on allowing to happen. The family is at its breaking point. They have suffered so much.

Yet, Wal-Mart might not make it through the year fiscally if they don’t recoup the costs of Debbie’s care. Wal-Mart paid approximately $470,000 for Debbie’s care after the accident, before cutting her off. Since several appeals have failed, Wal-Mart can come in any day now and drain the bank accounts of the Shanks to recoup as much as possible of that $470,000.

For a company that posted third quarter earnings of $90 BILLION at the end of 2007, you would think that in the interest of a family going through so much, half a million could be written off, right? Let these people suffer in peace, right? Wal-Mart could find other ways to recoup that $470,000, right? Maybe put a jar in every store to ask for loose change for Debbie Shank? Oh, wait, that would take away from the Children’s Miracle Network, where they take your loose change and then write it off as a deduction as if the store is donating the money, and not the customers.

If Sam Walton were alive today, he could be sickened to his core about how his children are operating his legacy. Sam might have asked the Shanks to give back to the fund, but he would have sent a check out of his pocket, if need be, to help them out.

Shame on you, Wal-Mart. Shame on you.

(After all the media attention and a lot of pressure from media and stockholders, Wal-Mart finally caved and dropped the suit.)

Women! Listen!

I wanted to discuss an important topic.

Ladies.

Yes, ladies. I am making some generalizations in this little rambling, but I think about everyone could take something out of what I am saying. I might sound like I am on some kind of high horse...and maybe I am. But I think this needs to be said and repeated over, and over and over and over...

The reason this is such an issue is that there is a serious lack of ladies in the world today. Even fewer little girls will grow up to be ladies in the years to come.
By lady, I mean a woman who is confident, modest, strong, and values herself as a person and refuses to be objectified as a "piece." I mean a woman who is strong enough to live and be happy without selling her body for acceptance and "love."

Too often, on TV, in movies, in songs, in every aspect of life, girls are taught that letting a boy have his way with them is acceptable and encouraged. Girls are ingrained with the idea that sex is their only asset to get what they think they want. And what they think they want is also ingrained by the same venues that teach them that they are only as good as the amount of cleavage they show or partners they have.

So, today, as a man, I want to stop the trend. I don't want some easy tramp who thinks the only way I might love her is if she sleeps with me. I don't want some woman who is incomplete by herself and needs to feel wanted, and they stoop to any level to get that feeling of want, even if it is misguided and more lust than true want.

Instead, what I want is a woman with confidence. A woman who knows that she is more that just a notch on a bedpost. A woman who thinks for herself and doesn't buy into the idea that showing more and giving more is the right way to live. A woman with morals. A woman with her head on straight. Someone who can intrigue me without unbuttoning her blouse.

Women, its time to stand up for yourselves. Stop letting yourself get walked on and treated as a piece of tail. You have so much more to offer. Be proud of who you are and be strong. Stop listening to what 50 Cent or Ludacris or Eminem or any of 1,000 singers might say...stop looking at movies and TV shows....you can still watch and enjoy them, but stop learning their misguided lessons.

Girls today have lost the innocence and modesty that makes women so incredible. High school girls compete for lovers and numbers of partners like boys used to only claim to have done in locker rooms. Far too many girls are running out of fingers to count their partners on before they get a high school diploma. Too many girls are under the impression that it is okay to be promiscuous and to dress in revealing and slutty clothes. Too many girls are growing up as cheap, easy, incomplete people whose life consists of too high an emphasis on sex.

Girls might want to blame guys...say guys are the reason because guys are brought up to think the same thing. To an extent, the girls do have a point. However, girls, it is up to you to take a stand and teach the boys that you are worth more than that. Stop giving in to the cute guys just because they are cute. Stop giving yourself away and stop degrading and devaluing yourself.

And guys...stop thinking with your penis. It is almost as much our fault for acting like sex-craved horn-dogs as it is the girls' fault for giving in and rewarding that kind of weakness. It is a far stronger man that waits to have sex for love then have sex for fun.

Having sex can be fun...but it can be so much more. It can be truly fulfilling and truly gratifying if you wait for the right partner and the right reasons. Having sex is not a way to create love where it doesn't exist, nor is it a way to extend a relationship. Sex is not an avenue to keep a person you care about with you. If you have to go to bed to keep someone, then they obviously do not value you enough. So, don't give in to pressure. That is not love, and that is not healthy.

We have become a free-sex society and it is tragically destroying our world and any semblance of morality. Guys and girls, stop going to bed with people you aren't married to. If you wait until there is a real sense of love and meaning between partners, everything will be so much better.

Ok, I am off the high horse now...but I am still right.

The Media Decides 2008

Well, the media won. The voting public was swayed and John McCain is the heir appearant to the Republican Nomination.

Mike Huckabee did nothing but play spoiler to the leading, true conservative Mitt Romney. If Huckabee had done the gracious thing and bow out like Thompson and Guliani, we would have a tight, two-man race. Instead Huckabee is hanging on till the bitter end.

My dream ticket of two conservatives in Mitt and Fred will not happen. Instead we will get a man who has publicly flirted with the idea of becoming a Democrat. But, how could he have made it were it not for the support of NBC, CBS, and ABC. They see him as one of them, a liberal on most social issues.

John McCain is a good man, a hero. He served and fought and was taken prisoner in Vietnam. Perhaps his military connections will give him the strength and wisdom to do the right thing by our national security and the safety of our troops abroad.

That is my one hope. That McCain will fight for our troops and not buckle to pressure from the left, as he did in McCain-Fiengold and McCain-Kennedy. I hope he can be a true leader and not a puppet for the left like he has been at times in the Congress.

I personally have mixed feelings about Ann Coulter coming out to say that she would campaign for and support Hillary if McCain gets the nomination. I can see her point that Hillary would be a 4 year debacle that could guarentee a resurgance of the conservative movement.

However, what sacrifices will we make in those four years? How many troops will be sacrificed as they are running out of Iraq? Who will die as a result of the terrorist attacks that we would be left vulnerable to?

On the other side, McCain could be nearly as bad. His constant flirting with the left is a scary idea. Can he be "The Sherriff" he claims to be? Or is he going to finally become a true republican and fight for the right? The fear is that if McCain fails, does that mean that the conservative movement will stall for 8, 12, or 16 years?

Only time will tell. All I know is that I am disappointed in the Republican party voters. I am truly disgusted with how Huckabee spoiled our chances at a conservative ticket. And, finally, I am cautiously hopeful that McCain will be loyal to the right if he is elected.

Code Name: Operation Chaos!

Mwah ha ha ha ha....I love when a plan comes together!

She is in it, and she is in it to win it!! And there is no turning back now!

The Clinton campaign, once on the brink of extinction, is now back and nastier than ever.

The Obama campaign has now taken off the proverbial gloves.

It is sudden death. A fight to the end.

There Will Be Blood...no longer an Oscar nominated movie with the outstanding performance of Daniel Day Lewis..oh, no...There Will Be Blood will now be the title of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The viciousness...the vitriol...the vileness of the worst mudslinging, spin doctor machine of the Clintonistas will be unleashed upon the up-until-now unscathed Hope and Change man, Barack Hussein Obama, and when the dust settles, the winner will be so worn out, so financially and emotionally spent and scarred, that Mr. McCain will have a cakewalk to the White House, and at least salvage the Republican Party.

Neither Clinton nor Obama are ready for the fight to get out of their own party...much less win on a national level. There are leaders within their own party that truly believe that neither candidate has the wherewithal and intestinal fortitude to "answer that 3 am call." Will she cry? Will he storm off after 8 tough questions?

Instead of the coronation for the original front runner, Clinton, or the heir appearant, Obama, it will now be a battle of mudslinging the likes of which we have never seen.

The dirty tricks, the backhanded commercials, the attacks, and all that democrats are capable of, all of that, will be unleashed within its own party. It is a civil war within the democratic party. Its a civil war within the ranks of the left cooks of the party. It is going to be NASTY!!!!

Meanwhile, Mr. McCain wil travel from fundraiser to fundraiser, stick to the issues, and wait for whomever escapes the Democratic National Convention alive. After the end of the civil war within the Democratic party, whomever McCain faces will be so scarred, wounded, and dissheveled, that there will be a republican for at least four more years.

And we can thank the ingeniousness of the EIB...the brilliance of the man who has 1/2 of his brain tied behind his back just to keep it fair...

That man, who encouraged his audiences in Texas and Ohio to partake in the open primaries...to jump to the democratic party and vote Hillary...to keep the war alive. Had this plan not come to fruition, Obama may well have sealed the nomination on ST II. Instead, we now have the Democratic Party in a civil war...

Thank you, Mr. Rush Limbaugh....It's going to be a fun 8 months!