Posted on by A View From The Middle (Class)

Grover Norquist and “Papa John” have seen better days

It was around this same time last year that I wrote an article here titled “Another pleasant valley Sunday,” based on things that I’d seen on the Sunday morning news talk shows.  Grover Norquist was a topic of discussion then, and he’s a topic of discussion now.

And then there’s “Papa John” Schnatter and a bit of damage control he’s been facing that kind of goes hand in hand with Grover.

Grover Norquist, Bathtub Killer
Grover Norquist, Bathtub Killer (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

Norquist’s a topic of discussion now because we’re facing talk of another “fiscal cliff” in our government’s budget, and after too long it seems that Americans want our nation’s leaders to do something leaders are supposed to do — negotiate and come to some form of compromise on how to solve a deficit problem.

That seems to have been a prevailing message that came out of the last general election, with the majority of voters in national races saying to those running for office, in effect, “We’ll let a lot of you keep your jobs, except for some of these more extreme Tea Party members, but you’d better figure out a way to work together or you’re out in the 2014 mid-term elections.  Now, stop screwing around, get to work, and figure out how to solve some problems.”

Since then, it seems, Republican lawmakers have been tripping over themselves to back away from their no-tax-increase pledges that they signed with Norquist, the UNELECTED YET ALL-POWERFUL lobbyist/conservative activist/founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR).  In the meantime, Norquist — who’s only been able to wield any form of power because he was asked to help out by President Reagan way back when (making Norquist a sort of … gasp! … “Reagan czar!”) — has been working overtime to hold on to any sense of power he can, and it’s dwindling by the day.

Republicans like Saxby Chambliss, Peter King, Lindsey Graham, Bob Corker, even House Majority Leader Eric Cantor have all said they’re willing to back away from the no-tax-increase deal they signed with the dev … err, Norquist … because they now seem convinced that the majority of Americans want revenues raised through tax increases on the top 1-2% to go along with reasonable spending cuts.

Grover Norquist is starting to look more and more like a king without a country, when for all too long he was claiming that ATR and his “pledge” was speaking for the majority of the people.  And many of the things that were predicted in this “60 Minutes” profile from a while back are — to Norquist’s dismay — coming true.

Along with the power that seems to be returning from the voices of the majority of voters at the ballot box comes what could be seen as the return of the power of consumers at the cash register, with a case in point coming from John Schnatter, owner of the Papa John’s pizza franchise.

Schnatter was among those major CEOS speaking loudest both pre- and post-election about the possible dire consequences the Affordable Care Act would have on Papa John’s customers through increases in the cost of a pizza by 14 cents a pie, and/or on employees through reduced hours.

Papa John's Pizza
Papa John’s Pizza (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The end result has been a public backlash, leaving Schnatter and other “anti-Obamacare” CEOs or franchise owners from other chains with the proverbial pizza dough all over their faces, with large numbers of customers or potential customers saying in effect, “Papa John’s, your pizzas just aren’t THAT good, and if you can afford to give away 2 million pizzas in a National Football League promotion then why can’t you absorb the cost of health care?”

Now, it appears that — just like we’re seeing with lawmakers backtracking on their “no tax increase” pledge to Grover Norquist — Schnatter is trying to backtrack in a public way on his “Obamacare” statements.

FORBES.COM:  Papa John’s Schnatter Says He Will Honor Obamacare And Give Health Insurance To All Employees

Of course, the thing to be aware of here is that not all people you see working at a Papa John’s pizza joint are employees of Papa John’s but of the individual franchise owners, which could be John Schnatter or John/Jane Doe.  Oh, and Schnatter has been offering health care to those same full-time Papa John’s corporate and company-owned restaurant employees all along, so it leaves a person to scratch their head as to why Schnatter was raising such a fuss in the first place.

I love it!  That’s amore!

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Posted on by A View From The Middle (Class) · 2 Comments

How many more Robert E. Murrays are out there?

I need to say this up front.  The article you’re reading now was written by someone who is a miner’s kid, someone who lost his father in a mining accident before I was born.  My father was a miner’s kid from Kentucky, and he never really knew his parents either because they both died when my dad was very young.

The only thing I really know about my grandparents on my father’s side is something that an aunt said on a cassette tape that was recorded and sent to me by a cousin years ago before my aunt, my father’s only sibling, passed away — they were both very sick before they died.  It wouldn’t surprise me if my grandfather Miller had black lung disease from working in the mines.

Robert E. Murray

That’s the end of my “disclosure statement.”  Now, allow me to talk a bit about Robert E. Murray, the CEO of Murray Energy, an Ohio-based coal company, the largest privately owned coal company in the U.S. with subsidiaries spread across the country — including Utah.

Murray is accustomed to being in the news, and he jumped back into the spotlight last week, the day after the presidential election, when he followed through on a threat to let employees go if President Obama were re-elected.  He even saw fit to say a lengthy prayer asking for forgiveness just before laying off 54 people at his subsidiary American Coal, with another 102 let go at Utah American Energy.  He blamed a “war on coal” by Obama, although if you ask many energy analysts they’ll say that the coal-mining business is suffering because of competition from low-cost natural gas and rising production costs of coal.

WASHINGTON POST:  After Obama reelection, Murray Energy CEO reads prayer, announces layoffs

The political sour grapes are hitting the fan, and it’s not helping the image of companies like Murray’s or Papa John’s Pizza — where founder and CEO John Schnatter said the cost to his business of the Affordable Care Act would likely result in the cost of a pizza to the customers going up 14 cents, and/or reducing work hours for employees.

The word “boycott” is being seen a lot more lately on the web now when it comes to any mention in comments about Papa John’s.

So, just how many more Robert E. Murrays are out there?  How many more people are or will be losing their jobs or seeing their hours cut because there just aren’t quite enough millions being made?

Murray’s story is particularly sickening.  The next time you see him whining on the television with some bogus story about the president’s re-election literally costing people their jobs, please take the words coming out of his mouth with a grain of salt.

This is, after all, the man whose face was plastered all over TV screens around the nation and the world when unsafe mining techniques — known as “retreat mining” when columns of earth are left to hold up a mountain — were practiced at Utah’s Crandall Canyon Mine, resulting in a collapse in August of 2007 that registered 3.9 on the Richter scale and claimed the lives of six miners and three rescue workers in the days that followed.

The Crandall Canyon Mine collapsed after numerous safety violations were found.  The men who were killed and their families paid a heavy price, due in large part to safety regulations not being followed — all to make bigger bucks.

Robert Murray was front and center through it all, defending himself and his company, blaming the collapse on an earthquake (when the earthquake was actually the mountain collapsing), boasting about all the things he was doing personally to pull the miners out of the hole that came down on them to any camera that happened to be recording at the time, and coming across more like a clown in the process.

I remember it all very well, because I was seeing his mug on the national and local news on a daily basis, and I was seeing his bombastic temper.

It’s the same temper that he’s been showing before and after the 2012 election.  But don’t take my word for it.  See him for yourself, and while you’re at it travel back in time to see and hear the emotions coming from the families of the men who were killed at the Crandall Canyon Mine as they gave sworn testimony in front of Congress back in 2007.

I feel for them.  I feel sorry for Robert E. Murray, and every other joker out there like him.  How many jobs could he have personally saved if he’d seen fit to pump a bit less money into a failed political campaign?

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Posted on by A View From The Middle (Class)

A few quick takes on Papa John’s, Kochs & “komedy” …

I was going to write something funny about the name of the Mars rover, but when I googled “mars rover curiosity killed the cat” and saw that it wasn’t exactly an original idea, I found a few other odd things to write about that caught my eye in the news today …

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Papa John's Pizza
Papa John’s Pizza (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Wow!  It appears that more and more businesses are feeling more powerful when it comes to speaking out on political issues now that Citizen’s United is there to protect entities’ rights to freedom of speech.  First we had the Chick-fil-A “issue,” and now we have Papa John’s Pizza CEO John Schnatter announcing that his company will have to raise prices (11-14 cents per pizza!!! ) so it can offer health care to more of its 16,500 total employees.  Oooooohhhhh!!!

“We’re not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in our industry,” Schnatter was quoted as saying in Politico.  “But our business model and unit economics are about as ideal as you can get for a food company to absorb Obamacare.”

It may not have been intended for humor, but Schnatter’s announcement brought about some funny responses in comments from potential customers leaning more toward comments like “11-14 cents per pizza, no big deal, so what’s up with the whining?”

As for me, chalk this up to yet another fast food place where I’m not that big on the product in the first place so no big deal if I continue to choose to get my pizzas from other more local restaurants anyway.  I am wondering what new political “drama” will come from these national fast food chains.

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What does it take to get a serious rise out of the Koch brothers?  I wrote what I thought was a decent bit of satire involving them and their “willingness” to take on the nation’s health care coverage situation months ago, even sent a link to my article directly in an email to Koch Industries … nothing.  I guess I’m not even a blip on the Kochs’ radar screen.  Too bad, so sad.

English: Zach Galifianakis as Alan from "...
English: Zach Galifianakis as Alan from “The Hangover” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What does it take to get on the Kochs’ radar screen?  Have the name Zach Galifianakis, apparently.

The new comedy “The Campaign” features Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow portraying a pair of wealthy political donors named “The Motch Brothers.”  Galifianakis — one of the stars of the raunchy “The Hangover” comedies who co-stars along with Will Ferrell in “The Campaign” — explained in an interview with the New York Daily News while promoting the new movie, “Whether you are on the right or the left, everyone can agree that there are a lot of outside influences in American politics that are not good for the system. There’s just too much money.” He went on to describe the Koch brothers as “creepy” and confessed, “I disagree with everything they do.”

That got the “Koch Kamp” koncerned.  They issued a statement through their spokesman Phillip Ellender.

“Last we checked, the movie is a comedy.  Maybe more to the point is that it’s laughable to take political guidance or moral instruction from a guy who makes obscene gestures with a monkey on a bus in Bangkok,” Ellender said, talking about a scene from the movie “The Hangover Part II.”

“We disagree with his uninformed characterization of Koch and our beliefs.  His comments, which appear to be based on false attacks made by our political opponents, demonstrate a lack of understanding of our longstanding support of individual freedom, freedom of expression, and constitutional rights.”

So the Kochs get upset about comments made by a popular comedic actor, and that’s what it takes to get an official statement from them.  I’ll remember that next time I want to try and get a rise out of them.

I’ll post it under the name Louis C.K. next time.

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