Elderly Black Voters Allegedly Intimidated At Their Homes In Texas
Two middle-aged white Republican activists in Texas allegedly harassed and intimidated at least seven elderly African-American voters at their homes in eastern Texas, according to a complaint filed with the Justice Department on Thursday.
Gerry Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, submitted a report to DOJ alleging that two unidentified women visited elderly African-American voters at their homes in Bowie County and questioned them about their mail-in ballot applications, Mother Jones first reported.
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McDonald’s Employees Told That, Unless Republicans Win, They Won’t Get Raises Or Benefits
WASHINGTON — There may be something rotten at McDonald’s — and it’s not a year-old Happy Meal.
The owner of a franchise in Canton, Ohio enclosed a handbill in employees’ paychecks that threatened lower wages and benefits if Republicans don’t win on Tuesday.
“As the election season is here we wanted you to know which candidates will help our business grow in the future,” reads the letter. “As you know, the better our business does it enables us to invest in our people and our restaurants. If the right people are elected we will …
Pigs.
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I smirked at the owner’s statement that he didn’t intend to offend anyone.
Hey, Mister Dumbass McDonald’s Manager, it’s not about whether you offended anyone, it’s about whether you intimidated your employees into voting for your favorite candidates. If one of your employees handed out a voting guide, you would probably fire them for it. If a customer were to hand out Democratic campaign literature in your store, you’d probably kick them out. A scientifically verifiable hypothesis.
Oh, and sorry about the “dumbass” comment. I didn’t mean to offend anyone. Much.
Is it just me or is America, disturbingly, starting to resemble the Weimar Republic?
I think it’s just you. As it happens, it’s disturbingly resembled the Weimar Republic for quite some time now.
Tea party movement alienating young voters
duh
2 things:
a) I dislike the headline because it implies MacDonald’s Corporation did this. No, it was just some asshat franchisee. Why not more accurately state “Ohio business owner”? Oh, yeah. Attention grabbing headline – no one one would bat an eye at my rendition.
2) The guy must be prosecuted. He clearly broke the law and if the rule of law is to have any meaning at all he must suffer the consequences. I wouldn’t even be able to get out of a traffic ticket with a lame apology like that. Offended? I doubt any employee was offended. They were threatened. With REAL harm. Harm he has the ability to inflict. And, more to the point, a threat he has NOT retracted!
Don, both my headline and the headline at the original source are perfectly accurate, and neither states or implies that MD’s HQ did this. Yet, MD’s is responsible for what happens in their franchise, to some degree. THis is a run of the mill HR issue, very common, and should never have happened. MD’s tells the “ohio business owner” what to pay the help, what kind of help to hire, how to clean the facility, what to serve, how to serve it, etc. etc. etc. I doubt very much that the Ohio Business Owner has his own accountant and bank accounts for paying the employees. A franchise is not independent in regards to many different aspects of the business, and MD’s runs a tight ship. This IS the corporations fault to some extent; If they handle it well, they’re off the hook. If they’ve been leaving hints about doing this at Franchise training sessions then they are at guilty as sin. Until you mentioned it, I don’t think anyone was ready to blame Ronald, but now that you mention it…
I’m absolutely certain that if Huffpo or I said “Ohio Business Owner” instead of McDonalds Employees, many people would see that as dishonest. In contrast, people who respond to a headline with an important detail (that it was a McDonalds) that this was the wrong thing to say would be rare.
Don Smith @ #2:
That would have been too unspecific. After all, there are quite a few business owners who might legitimately advise their employees that Republican political control would be good for their bonuses: mortgage fraudsters, armament companies, drug runners, back-alley abortionists, televangelists…
The company in question being a McDonald’s franchise makes the story particularly poignant – essentially, the guy was telling his employees that Republican candidates would help him grow his business, but in truth they would do that by removing specifically those protections (like minimum wages) that would make the employees benefit from that growth. Unhealthy and disingenuous – I’m loving it.
I was not for not mentioning McDonald’s at all just a rephrasing of the headline. Also, Greg, I wasn’t blaming you for your headline since it was a repeat of the HuffPo headline. I guess I didn’t make that clear. How about a compromise and insert the indefinite article in front of McDonald’s? To me that would be more accurate and still retain the punch.
I am personally not ready to blame the entire McDonald’s Corporation just yet, but you do have some valid points. However, as I understand it, franchisees are independent business owners, which is what the McDonald’s rep said. I believe they do have their own business accounts for payroll and do get to decide what to pay their employees. All that other stuff you mentioned is in the franchise agreement, the violation of which causes the revocation of the franchise.
All that being said: Yes, let’s see how McDonald’s handles this. Disavowing the owner’s actions is a good start. Are there going to be repercussions for the owner? Is there something in the franchise agreement about this sort of thing? I don’t know.
P.S. Perhaps you are thinking of McDonald’s Corporation owned restaurants which do have the kind of relationship you are talking about.
Oh,crap. Again I was talking about the HuffPo headline, your rephrasing of it makes my comment about inserting “a” strange. Yours should say “Employees of a McDonald’s in Ohio Told That…” That way it won’t imply that the McD’s down the street from me is doing this. (I don’t live in Ohio)
Oh and all this defense of McD’s doesn’t mean I think they are not evil, just not blatantly evil in that particular way.
Putting “a” in front would be ok, but I still don’t really see the need to do so in order to mitigate. I guess I don’t feel like spending any calories of energy protecting McDonalds from myself (or Huffpo)!
I’m not sure about the payroll thing. You are probably right about that. Some franchises do almost noting via a corporate center, others do almost everything. I will guess that McDonalds controls their franchises more than most do, and what I’ve heard about McD’s is that this is part of their secret: If you go into a McDonalds, it will be a lot like the last one you were in. It may be that they pay their employees different amounts and in different ways, but I’ll not be sure of that until I see some evidence of it.
Well, at least it was clarified inside the article. Still though, how many only scan headlines and will not see the truth? To me it is a form of lying. Hasn’t the other side been excoriated for such things? We shouldn’t stoop to their level.
Yeah, but “Voter Intimidation At McDonald’s: Employees Told That, Unless Republicans Win, They Won’t Get Raises Or Benefits” is not a lie. When I go to McDonalds, I go to McDonalds. I went there because a McDonald’s ad told me to go there. I knew where to go because the big sign says McDonakds. I give McDonalds’ my money. I get McDonalds food. The people who work there, who take my money and make my food and give it to me are McDonald’s employees. I don’t see how that headline is even slightly miseading.