Monday, August 31, 2009

BUYcott Tomorrow Sept. 1 - Whole Foods - Meet Michael Patrick Leahy

So here are the final details for the 1st National BUYcott in support of Whole Foods:

The location is simple, about 1 mile south on highway 141 from Highway 40, at the intersection at Clayton Rd. and Woods Mill Rd. http://bit.ly/3KeHNj

Ground Rules:
1. They are requesting no signs on the premises, this is NOT a protest.
If people are there with signs, (we support free speech) please hang out on the roundabout off Woods Mill Rd. on the south side of the building - that is public property.
2. Think Ghandi and Trump. Spend like Trump, be peaceful like Ghandi. This is NOT a protest, it is a celebration of capitalism.

When you are there:
They have several entrances. We will be set up inside the south (flower) entrance, and inside the doors to the left by the coffee bar. That will be ground zero for our BUYcott. Say hello, do your shopping, and then bring your receipt to us to scan, tally, etc. so we can document our success.

Dinner:
Feel free to join many of us who will be dining there at 7pm.

Notes:
WF is going to have lots of extra help in the check out lanes and aisles, including their regional manager who is coming in from Chicago, and will be likely be "aproned" to help tomorrow!!!

Sales are denoted by chalkboards throughout the store, typically with yellow signage.

They are going to feature whole rotisserie chickens (organic and hormone free, of course) for only $5.99. I think that will be a first hormone free chicken for me.

They have some great sales items including fruit, like $4watermelons, cheese, steak, and shrimp skewers 10 for $10!!!

They are loading up their display cases for "value packs" for us RIGHT NOW!!! I saw it myself. They heard we are fiscally conservative--imagine THAT!!!

They will have beer and wine samples for us. Don't be cheap though and expect to wash your chicken down with samples. : )

They close at 9, but Matt the manager assured us they will not kick us out : )

Links:
Fb: whole foods market town and country

Twitter:
Twitter.com/wfm_tac

Other info:

Buy a Gift Card (here)
Have the card delivered to a food pantry as a gift
Forward the email receipt to gina-at-stlouisteaparty-dot-com.

I saw the very back of the store--shockingly clean!!! No funny old meat smell at all.

They will have their ppl available to talk to potential vendors/farmers who are local who would like to get their product into their store. I have sent out some invites to farmers I know.

Be nice or they will put you in the "Whole Body Lockup" located in the very back of the store. I saw it myself.

I won't say who, but I ran into the manager of the grocery store where I shop today at WF!

Michael Patrick Leahy, partiotic activist, founder of Top Conservatives on Twitter and author of the just released book "Rules for Conservative Radicals" will be joining us.

Please tell the media, Tweet, and fb about this so it is HUGE. They have really gone out of their way to stock up for us and create sales for us. Remember, the World is always watching for us to be the "mean-spirited haters" that so many of the statists actually are. I saw a young woman in dreadlocks working a register. This is a great time to cause others to wonder about the source of the joy in your heart.

All eyes are on St. Louis tomorrow, and if we make a big enough splash, this take-back-the-country tactic goes Nationwide!!!!

Saturday, August 29, 2009

The BUYcott to defeat the Boycott

"If we stand idly by...(and let) a patriot like John Mackey...fall, shame on us."

When
good people put their heads together to find ways to take back this country from any invader, foreign or domestic, there is no limit to what they can do. In this case, the battle lines are drawn at the board room of Whole Foods. When my wife, Gina told me the lefties were boycotting Whole Foods over a patriotic opinion piece written by their CEO and that they set up pickets in front of our local store, I was ready to run out and cross the line just for fun. She wanted to think bigger and better. Go figure. She suggested the Tea Partiers should organize and do something big. I suggested the Tea Partiers call it a "Teacott" which is a play on Tea Party and boycott, mixing in Michael Patrick Leahy's "TCOT" or Top Conservative on Twitter. Note the picture of my license plate to the right. When Gina, Bill, Dana and the gang got together on one of their power calls, they came up with the BUYcott!

This is perfect, because it is the pinko, anti-capitalist, ner-do-wells who are boycotting. So if the productive people counter with a buycott... Game on!

Bill's announcement from the St. Louis Tea Party website:

Whole Foods Tea Party BUYcott

by Bill Hennessy on August 29, 2009
in ACTION

When: Tuesday, September 1 at 5:00 p.m.
Where: Whole Foods–Clayton and 141 or Brentwood Blvd.
Why: We’re shopping Whole Foods to support a compassionate capitalist. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, one of the most generous CEOs in the country, wrote a WSJ op-ed describing his vision for a free-market healthcare reform package. Because the big union bosses stand to make billions of dollars from tax payers under ObamaCare, the unions are joining with socialists and other radicals trying to destroy John Mackey.


Friends, I have very little stomach for bullies and even less for cowards who cave into them. Speaking as a capitalist, there is nothing more pathetic than to watch a "captain of industry" cave to leftist bullies. It appears that is what may happen at Whole Foods. My knee-jerk reaction is to let them shove Mackey out and watch the cowards lose the whole company afterward as patriots, loyal to Mackey, find a good reason not to shop there. However, this being America, I follow the edict of Benjamin Franklin: We shall all hang together, or surely we shall all hang separately. As for me and my house, we are hanging with Mackey!

Remember one thing I tell my kids. Corporations cannot be expected to have hearts or even be patriotic. Their first duty is to measure the impact of every decision on the bottom line. Any deviation from that is a violation of the fiduciary duty of the board members. So, our patriotic duty is to coerce corporations into being the compassionate, patriotic operations we desire them to be. If we the consuming people endorse good behavior and vote with our wallets, then we will earn more good behavior. If we find ourselves "too busy" with our day to day activities and choose to stand idly by while a patriot like John Mackey, acting in the tradition of the patriots that built this country to fall, shame on us.

In the very near future I will write about my new favorite Corporate Patriot, Patrick Byrne of Overstock.com. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, if there is any company to boycott, let's consider where the Whole Foods board members work if they show cowardice.

The board: Dr. John B. Elstrott, Gabrielle Greene, Hass Hassan, Stephanie Kugalman, Jonathan A. Seiffer, Moris Siegel, Jonathan D. Sokolff, Dr. Ralph D. Sorenson, William A. (Kip) Tindell, III
####

Friday, August 21, 2009

Greed or Envy - Two Motivating forces

I saw this in the Investors Business Daily. It is an amazing summation of the competing ideologies at war in this country today. The more we learn about what President Obama meant by the word "change" (actually, what "independents who voted for Obama learn that conservatives already knew) the more people are rising up to resist. We see this in the Tea Partiers but also in the dramatic slip of the President in the polls. Support among independents is plummeting. Not one of the major policy initiatives of the Obama administration from the Employee Free Choice Act, to Health Care "Reform" to Cap and Trade enjoy anywhere close to 50% of popular support. So what motivates the leftist leaders that run our country? Do they really think that captalism is bad and socialism is good? We are in a war of ideaologies. This Russian immigrant offers up a history lesson that sums it up beautifully.

The Perspective Of A Russian Immigrant

By SVETLANA KUNIN | Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 4:20 PM PT

In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I was taught to believe individual pursuits are selfish and sacrificing for the collective good is noble.

In kindergarten we sang songs about Lenin, the leader of the Socialist Revolution. In school we learned about the beautiful socialist system, where everybody is equal and everything is fair; about ugly capitalism, where people are exploited and treat each other like wolves in the wilderness.

Life in the USSR modeled the socialist ideal. God-based religion was suppressed and replaced with cultlike adoration for political figures.

The government-assigned salary of the proletariat (blue-collar worker) was 30%-50% higher then any professional. Without incentive to improve their life, professionals drank themselves to oblivion. They — engineers, lawyers, doctors, teachers — earned a government-determined salary that barely covered the necessities, mainly food.

Raising children was a hardship. It took four to six adults (parents and grandparents) to support a child. The usual size of the postwar family was one or two children. Every woman had the right to have an abortion and most of them did, often without anesthesia.

There is a comparative historical reality that plays out the consequences of two competing ideologies: life in the USSR and in America. When the march to the worker's paradise — the Socialist Revolution — began in 1917, many people emigrated from Russia to the U.S.

In the USSR, economic equality was achieved by redistributing wealth, ensuring that everyone remained poor, with the exception of those doing the redistributing. Only the ruling class of communist leaders had access to special stores, medicine and accommodations that could compare to those in the West.

The rest of the citizenry had to deal with permanent shortages of food and other necessities, and had access to free but inferior, unsanitary and low-tech medical care. The egalitarian utopia of equality, achieved by the sacrifice of individual self-interest for the collective good, led to corruption, black markets, anger and envy.

Government-controlled health care destroyed human dignity.

Chairman Nikita Khrushchev released facts about Stalin and his purges. People learned of the horrific purge of more than 20 million citizens, murdered as enemies of the state.

Those who left Russia found a different set of values in America: freedom of religion, speech, individual pursuits, the right to private property and free enterprise. The majority of those immigrants achieved a better life for themselves and their children in this capitalist land.

These opportunities let the average immigrant live a better life than many elites in the Soviet Communist Party. The freedom to pursue personal self-interest led to prosperity. Prosperity generated charity, benefiting the collective good.

The descendants of those immigrants are now supporting policies that move America away from the values that gave so many immigrants the chance of a better life. Policies such as nationalized medicine, high tax rates and government intrusion into free enterprise are being sold to us under the socialistic motto of collective salvation.

Socialism has bankrupted and failed every society, while capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system.

There is no perfect society. There are no perfect people. Critics say that greed is the driving force of capitalism. My answer is that envy is the driving force of socialism. Change to socialism is not an improvement on the imperfections of the current system.

The slogans of "fairness and equality" sound better than the slogans of capitalism. But unlike at the beginning of the 20th century, when these slogans and ideas were yet to be tested, we have accumulated history and reality.

Today we can define the better system not by slogans, but by looking at the accumulated facts. We can compare which ideology leads to the most oppression and which brings the most opportunity.

When I came to America in 1980 and experienced life in this country, I thought it was fortunate that those living in the USSR did not know how unfortunate they were.

Now in 2009, I realize how unfortunate it is that many Americans do not understand how fortunate they are. They vote to give government more and more power without understanding the consequences.

Svetlana Kunin, Stamford, Conn.

Editor's note: Mrs. Kunin, an IBD subscriber, is a retired software developer. In the Soviet Union, she was a civil engineer.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Union Thuggery Caught on Tape - Unbelievable!

While documenting union thuggery is not expressly a taxpayer issue, certainly an organized effort to turn out union "brown shirts" who then assault an average joe who was peacefully trying to lobby his Congressman to not waste his tax dollars (with a massive $1.8 trillion takeover of healthcare) is. The leftists need to be called out for this thuggery. Fortunately, the peaceful attendees were prepared and had their cameras rolling.

While 1000 people stand in line at the front door of a public school to hear Congressman Carnahan on healthcare, a St. Louis County cop actually blocks town hall meeting attendees from using a side door reserved only for union members.

Check out this video:

Facts: public school, Cong. "town hall", one entrance for whites, one for blacks, I mean one union one non-union - is that legal at a public venue?

Next video:
A black man attending, whose offense is handing out "Don't tread on Me" flags is assaulted by thugs in SEIU t-shirts. Several thugs were arrested. Post-Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman who was videotaping the event himself, was also arrested for some reason. This is making national news including the unions planning to "counter protest" the protestors. Hopefully the Post-Dispatch and other major media will catch that every teaparty event before this one was peaceful, but that as soon as the AFL-CIO issued their call to "mobilize" that the union brown shirts turned to their usual tactic of thuggery, fear and intimidation. Maybe their effective use of thuggery is why they want to strip workers of the right to a secret ballot.

http://bit.ly/2s0OFF

http://bit.ly/aU9St

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Cap And Tax Redux

There are so many terrible ideas coming out of Congress that friends of mine are suffering from near protest fatigue. Ironicly, as I write this, democrat operative Bob Shrumm is repeating the Pelosi pie-in-the-sky wishful though du jour, that the protesters are hired hacks. Well, my CPA is no hired hack. This is a bookish guy who quietly runs an admirable business with his wife, also a CPA, in a small office in South St. Louis County. He is fed up enough that he penned this analysis and invited me to share it. Enjoy:

AMERICAN CLEAN ENERGY AND SECURITY ACT (aka The Cap and Trade Bill)

On June 26, 2009 the U.S. House of Representatives passed the so-called Cap and Trade Bill. The Bill is over 1400 pages long (including 300 pages added early in the morning on the day of the vote in a cynical political move designed to railroad the bill through without adequate time for study or debate). Cap and Trade is a cute marketing term. This Bill covers much, much more than just the trading of carbon permits to reduce emissions. The Bill even contains a section about light bulbs. The Table of Contents for the Bill is 16 pages long!

With all the news focusing on health care legislation, it is easy to forget that this Bill has already passed the House and has been sent on to the U.S. Senate. It is expected that the Senate will debate and vote on the Bill this fall. It must be defeated! Senators will be in their home states during the month of August. They need to hear from the voters. They need to hear from you!!

Cap and trade involves setting a total cap on national greenhouse gas emissions and establishing a market for a finite number of allowances to emit greenhouse gases up to the total amount of the cap, which would be lowered gradually over time.

This Bill will be very harmful to the Unites States.

First: The Bill sets the ambitious target of reducing total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 83% below 2005 levels by the year 2050! In effect, the U.S. will need to reduce emissions to a level last experienced in 1910 when the U.S. had a population of 92 million (compared to the forecast population of 420 million in 2050). As this level of reduction is simply not possible, the Bill includes a large number of “offsets” which are treated as part of the reduction. Offsets essentially consist of planting more trees here in the U.S. and in developing nations. Carbon emitters (e.g. coal burning companies such as electric utilities) will pay developing nations to increase reforestation efforts. This is essentially a huge foreign aid program.

Congress can mandate emissions reductions for the United States but they cannot mandate them for the rest of the world. China and India, two of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases, do not plan to reduce their emissions. Our adoption of these reductions will put us at a disadvantage to China and India and will not result in worldwide reductions of these emissions.

Second: If you own a home or other building, you need to be aware of Title II of the Bill which REQUIRES:

New buildings must be 30% more energy efficient than current building code standards effective immediately upon signing of the Bill. New buildings must be 50% more energy efficient by 1/1/2014 (residential) and 1/1/2015 (commercial). New buildings must become 5% more energy efficient every 3 years thereafter until they are 75% more efficient than current standards.

Existing buildings will be subject to inspection by the authorities to make certain that they meet the applicable energy efficiency standards: (1) When they are renovated, (2) when they are sold, or (3) when the person responsible for the utility bill is changed.

The Bill creates a big new Federal entitlement program which provides funds to pay up to 50% of the cost up to $12,200 to assist residential building owners and funds to pay up to 50% of the cost to assist non residential building owners to increase the energy efficiency of their homes/ buildings to prescribed levels. As expensive as this program will be to taxpayers, it still leaves the homeowner/building owner holding the bag for the other 50%.

As you can see, this Bill has a direct impact on you if you are a property owner. It will increase your costs, reduce your return or profit and reduce your freedom as a property owner to do with your property as you wish.

Third: The Bill is very harmful to the economy. The Heritage Foundation has estimated that the Bill will cause unemployment to increase by 2 million in 2012 and further increase to 2.5 million in 2035 and will cause GDP loss of $9.4 trillion by 2035.

Fourth: It will not even have a significant impact on global warming. Climatologist Chip Knappenberger of New Hope Environmental Services calculates that the Bill will reduce Earth’s temperature by .1 to .2 degrees Celsius by 2100.

This Bill needs to be defeated in the United States Senate. That can only be done if everyone contacts their Senator. If a Senator opposes the Bill, thank him or her. If a Senator is undecided make certain they know you oppose the Bill. If a Senator favors the Bill, make sure they know you don’t favor it, that you vote and that this Bill is important enough that you will vote against them in the next election.

The most effective means of contact is obviously person-to-person. Many Senators will be holding town meetings during the recess. If you can attend one, do so and speak up. If you can’t you should write an old-fashioned snail mail letter. The address is:

Office of Senator (Name)

United States Senate

Washington, D.C. 20510

Each Senator has local offices also. You can find your Senators’ local offices in the Government pages in your local phone book. Alternatively, you can contact your Senator, by e-mail at www.Senate.gov. You can access the Senate Web Site and find your Senator’s Washington office phone # and call that office. You can also call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and they will put you through to your Senator’s office or you can also call their local office.

Cap and Trade can be stopped if we act!!

Prepared by Brent P. Stewart, CPA