By Rick Manning
Woke retailers like Home Depot, Kroger, and Walmart are asking Congress to pass their own special smash and grab worth billions of dollars by mandating changes to how credit cards are processed.
Joining forces with far-left Democratic Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, retailers are seeking changes in federal law threatening rewards programs that many consumers use to take some of the sting off of the high cost of everything from food and gas to furniture and travel.
All with the stale promise that they will return some of their federal government mandated booty to consumers. Yeah, right.
The real question for Republican lawmakers is why would they even consider mandating changes to the law to benefit retailers who have firmly financially attached themselves to the very Black Lives Matter/Defund the Police Marxist movement that advocated defunding the police and not prosecuting property crimes. The very changes which have fueled the crime wave engulfing many of our nation’s largest cities.
Changing law to put billions more into the pockets of these retailers so they can continue to spend that money supporting the fundamental transformation that is being crammed down America’s throats is not just stupid, it is suicidal.
Collectively, the trade group representing large retailers, the Retail Industry Leaders Association supported the mini-green new deal legislation that masqueraded as the Inflation Reduction Act writing, “The deal struck to combat climate change strikes the right balance of goals and incentives to ensure we make measurable strides without hammering private industry with job-killing mandates.”
Note to GOP Senators who voted against the bill, these ‘incentives’ are the very life blood of the left’s attempt to reduce America into an energy dependent corpse ending any hope of the return of domestic energy security at the altar of the false promise of renewables. But for those who now come to GOP Senate offices asking for them to support Dick Durbin’s credit card cash grab, support for the mini-green new deal was par for the course.
But retail giants not only act collectively to spend taxpayer dollars on green incentives to feather their own nests, but also are engaged individually in funding socialist activism under the guise of social justice activism, as well as subjecting their employees to extremist Critical Race Theory training.
Earlier this year, Home Depot was exposed as shaming employees in its Canadian branch to extremist white privilege literature and training even going so far as attacking Christmas celebrations as being something called “Christian privilege.” While Home Depot announced that the training documents were not authorized by corporate headquarters, they both failed to denounce their racist intent and there is no evidence that anyone was held accountable for their branch-wide inclusion as training materials. As the left often says, silence is complicity, and Home Depot’s failure to denounce and fire employees responsible equals acceptance of the content.
Walmart is not only giving $100 million over five years to racial and justice groups as part of their reaction to the George Floyd riots, they have embraced Critical Race Theory training for their employees. Christopher Rufo tweeted, “@Walmart … denounces the United States as a “white supremacy system” and teaches white hourly-wage workers that they are guilty of “white supremacy thinking” and “internalized racial superiority.”
The grocery store chain, Kroger has been dubbed, “America’s Wokest Corporation” as they subject employees down to the level of the person who unloads trucks to a toxic combination of cutting edge gender bending indoctrination programs to dedicating $5 million for “diversity, equity and inclusion” whatever that means. Kroger even took away vacation days and increased individual insurance costs for employees who chose not to be vaccinated.
Kroger has also been caught pandering to social justice twitter warriors complaints demanding that drink cozies emblazoned with the messages, “Give me liberty or Give me death” and “Arms Change, Rights Don’t” in reference to the Second Amendment, were being offered in their stores. Both retailers duly bowed to those who hate America and our individual rights by removing the products.
The list of woke corporations is long and getting longer. The question is will Republicans in the Senate join with their misguided colleague Roger Marshall from Kansas in supporting legislation that merely replenishes the dollars they are spending on destroying America.
The saying is, “go woke and go broke” but by attempting to get billions by having Congress tweak the law governing credit cards, the corporate socialists in big retailer think they’ve found a way to fund the left and put a little cash into their pockets on the side.
The Senate GOP needs to just say no, at this obscene credit card smash and grab scheme.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
