Thursday, August 08, 2019

More big box stores in trouble

First off, Trevon Austin (WSWS) reports:

The home improvement retailer Lowe’s announced an unspecified number of layoffs, expected to number in the thousands. According to the company and its employees, layoffs will consist of assemblers, who piece together items for customers, and maintenance and facility-service jobs such as janitors. Lowe’s will outsource these jobs to third-party companies.
“We are moving to third-party assemblers and facility services to allow Lowe’s store associates to spend more time on the sales floor serving customers,” a spokesperson for Lowe’s said.
The layoffs at the home improvement giant coincide with the further contraction of the retail sector of the economy. On Tuesday, Walgreens announced it will close 200 US stores, a few months after the pharmacy giant said it planned to cut $1.5 billion in annual costs by 2022. The shutdowns, whose locations have not yet been revealed, will start in the fall. On Wednesday competitor CVS Health said it would reduce the number of stores it planned to open over the next few years from 300 to 150 after announcing in May that it was closing 46 underperforming stores.


Wow.

Maybe they could save some money by ceasing to use Josh Lucas as a celebrity spokesperson?

Talk about waste of money.  Use a generic voice.  No one was ever going to hear Josh Lucas' voice and think, "That voice! That voice!  I must shop at Lowe's!"

Also true, why did they and Home Depot start carrying furniture?  No one with a working brain is going to say, "Let's go to Home Depot and Lowe's for living room furniture!"

If they'd wanted to go that way, they should have partnered with an established business like Rooms To Go.

And if the government wants to stop this, they're going to have to start taxing AMAZON.  I know that scares them.  Sadly, it doesn't scare them to tax us.  But it's past time AMAZON paid taxes and, while they're not paying taxes, it's not fair to the businesses that are.  That's why so many big box stores have closed and are closing.

Please read Elaine's "Will CDs go the way of cassette tapes?" -- she called me and read it to me before she posted it.  She is right, my husband needs to let his granddaughter put vinyl on the turntable.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq 

snapshot" for Thursday:


Thursday, September 8, 2019.  Tulsi continues her vanity campaign, a man dies in Iraq because the US deported him (that's on us, let's stop pretending it's Donald Trump -- our Congress could've stopped him, our courts could have stopped him, this is our tragedy, our crime), and much more.



US House Rep Tulsi Gabbard continues her vanity campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. She'll never get the nomination and her continued 1% polling is an embarrassment.  As she continues her vanity campaign, more catch on that she's not anti-war.  As Kyle Anzalo observed this week on FOREIGN POLICY FOCUS "There's plenty of war that Tulsi is in support of."

We're so desperate for an anti-war figure that we're willing to applaud someone who'd continue The Drone War?  Tulsi is a fake.  Last week, as Kyle notes, she voted to condemn the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.  BDS attempts to do what the anti-apartheid movement did to South Africa.

So basically Tulsi's condemning Dusty Springfield.  Considering Tulsi's anti-LGBTQ past, that's not surprising.  Dusty, for those who don't know, didn't just sing "The Look Of Love," "Son Of A Preacher Man," "Wishin' and Hopin'," "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" and countless other hits.  Dusty also stood up and was counted.

Do people not know this?  You won't find it in her CRAPAPEDIA entry -- no surprise there, sexism will always reign at CRAPAPAEDIA -- but Dusty stood up.  If this is news to you, you can stream a BBC report here about the 1964 tour in South Africa where Dusty refused to play to White only audiences.  She was a huge pop star and 25-years-old and when the South African government tried to force her to play to White only audiences, she pointed out that the contract she signed legally guaranteed mixed audiences.

The BDS movement needs support, not condemnation.  We discuss it when we speak to campus audiences.

I'm disgusted with Tulsi but she's a reactionary.  She's on the wrong side of history and she should pay for it.

I was part of the anti-apartheid movement -- a tiny part -- and was ridiculed for it by a number people when I was in college.  The campus paper waged a war on me when I countered the remarks of an idiot White person from South Africa who told the campus paper how wonderful life was for Blacks in South Africa.  For defending the rights of the persecuted, the campus paper attempted to ridicule me for months.  All it did was create sympathy for me and raise the issue more.  I still see those idiots from time to time today, pretending to be so left and liberal but we both know that they are racists to their core.  They only 'changed' because the times did.  If they had their way, they'd still support apartheid.

I can think of one woman who spearheaded the campaign -- and is a public person today -- and how she now pretends to be so lfet and so loving but she's not.  Not only was she in favor of apartheid back then, as late as the 90s she was marrying a known racist who she had to make promise not to use the N-word in front of the press.  There are a lot of fake asses out there.

People like her, they didn't grow, they were just shamed into silence and that's what appears to happen with Tulsi over and over.  She didn't really grow on the LGBTQ issue, she was shamed into silence.  If she'd grown, she'd have some story to share about it.  But she has none.  And blaming her beliefs on her father?  She's as ridiculous as Joe Biden.  Or did we all miss her tribute to homophobe father on Father's Day?

Tulsi needs to go.  She's not anti-war.  She's repeatedly on the wrong side of history and she never learns, she just retreats into silence.



Tulsi and others who voted for atrocious anti-Palestinian resolution HR 246 are feeling heat and that’s good. But this is a pathetic attempt to justify a wrong and indefensible vote that attacks and smears nonviolent BDS movement because “two-state solution something or other.”




Replying to   and

I've muted about 5 people who scold me whenever I dare to criticize—no matter how tepid said criticism is—our lord and savior, Tulsi Gabbard. You guys literally were rationalizing why BDS is bad after her vote. You lack the mental capacity to fight past that cognitive dissonance.





Again, people are catching on to Tulsi.



Replying to 


is pro-peace?
opposed
H.Con.Res55 Rep.Jim McGovern’s (D-MA)resolution which directed the President to withdraw U.S.troops from Iraq/Syria who were deployed on or after August 7,2014
THAT'S WAGING PEACE?
THINK!



If is Pro-peace
HOWCOME
OPPOSED
H.Amdt.1215 to H.R.5293 Rep. Jim McGovern’s(D-MA) amendment,which would have prohibited funds from being used for the engagement of U.S.Armed Forces in any combat operation in Iraq/Syria
RECORD VS SPIN
IS THAT'S WAGING PEACE?




 Last week at the debates, Tulsi was an embarrassment.  Jay Inslee and Bill de Blasio tried to talk about the Iraq War and war on Iran, not Tulsi.




While I was in Congress, I cast many votes that I was proud of. I voted against and vocally opposed the Iraq War.

And I know we cannot allow the Trump administration to thrust us into another disastrous war in the Middle East today.
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Tulsi didn't want a serious conversation in the debates.  She wasn't the only one, the Sally Jessy of cable 'news,' Don Lemon, didn't want a real discussion either (see Ava and my "TV: Swindling the audience").


In other news . . .



PLEASE READ.  THIS IS HORRIBLE.
"A 41-year-old diabetic man who grew up in Detroit died Tuesday after being deported to Iraq, the...







U.S. Deported a Detroit Man to Iraq, Where He’d Never Been and Didn’t Speak the Language. He Died on the Streets.



Immigrant rights advocates say diabetic man died after being deported to Iraq | TheHill



Search results


ICE deported a guy to Iraq who was not born there, never lived there, spoke no Arabic, and HAD TYPE 1 DIABETES. he died



  • Jimmy Aldaoud, a 41-year-old Detroit man who had spent most of his life in the U.S. and was deported to Iraq in June by the Trump admin, has died. The death appeared to be linked to the man's inability to obtain insulin in Baghdad to treat his diabetes.



    41-year old Jimmy Aldaoud was deported to Iraq by the Trump administration in June after living in the US ever since he was a child.

    He died on the streets of Iraq yesterday.










    The following sites updated: