Would you like fries with your voter intimidation?

Story

Quote :

A handful of McDonald's employees in northeastern Ohio received handbills in their most recent paychecks suggesting they vote for three Republican candidates.

"If the right people are elected we will be able to continue with raises and benefits at or above our present levels," the insert said. "If others are elected we will not."

Yeah, that's not intimidating or anything now is it?

The full text of the insert is here. And guess what? It's blatantly illegal under Ohio law.

Quote :

No employer or his agent or a corporation shall print or authorize to be printed upon any pay envelopes any statements intended or calculated to influence the political action of his or its employees; or post or exhibit in the establishment or anywhere in or about the establishment any posters, placards, or hand bills containing any threat, notice, or information that if any particular candidate is elected or defeated work in the establishment will cease in whole or in part, or other threats expressed or implied, intended to influence the political opinions or votes of his or its employees.

The head office is rapidly distancing itself from this franchise owner, who of course did the usual "I'm sorry I got caught" routine.

Quote :

Siegfried issued an apology later Friday, emphasizing the value he places on employees and their freedom of choice in the upcoming election.

"Distributing this communication was an error of judgment on my part," Siegfried said in a statement. "Please know, it was never my intention to offend anyone. For those that I have offended, I sincerely apologize."

Yeah, sure you are. And I'm sorry that you're such a worthless hunk of protoplasm that you're going to turn around and squeeze your employees even more because you didn't get your way.

Oh please. The guy practically threatened his employees and their voting decisions. "Error of judgement" my ass. Don't vote republican? No raise or benefits for you.

"Don't Vote Republican? We might just need to cut a few jobs, you know what I mean?"

Yeah, that's really some nice campaigning. I wonder if other companies have done this and not gotten caught?

Quote :

"If the right people are elected we will be able to continue with raises and benefits at or above our present levels," the insert said. "If others are elected we will not."

Because McDonalds offers so much in the way of raises and benefits in the first place.

THERE WILL BE IF YOU VOTE REPUBLICAN

DUH

Yeah, but how do you justify it when the goal is to re-elect a Republican incumbent, which this seems to be? Most franchises' Christmas bonus is a ten-dollar gift certificate, and many don't offer any insurance at all (mine does because you have to in Massachusetts, and it even says in the fine print that it's not sufficient to cover the state "you must have health insurance or your income taxes get fucked" law.)

Most McDonalds employees are stupid, but even stupid people know what good pay/benefits is and know they aren't getting it in the first place.

Ronald McDonald seems like a solid Republican guy, and the Republicans have had a clown called Ronald in the White House before so it goes both ways.

But don't worry guys, definitely no class war going on at all. Nosiree.

TheHermit wrote:

But don't worry guys, definitely no class war going on at all. Nosiree.

It's worse if you work retail, where your immediate superiors are completely out of the loop. Oh, for the days when I taught my retail managers the concept of scarcity...

TheHermit wrote:

But don't worry guys, definitely no class war going on at all. Nosiree.

Shh...don't agitate the media. They've got to spend 20 minutes talking about planes possibly-kinda-if the wind is right blowing up and have no time for such petty stories.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

>Democrats whining about class warfare.
>mfw

Oh come on, Mikey, I know it was rough watching Big Ben get roasted by the Saints...but at least try to bring your A-game.

Spotts1701 wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

>Democrats whining about class warfare.
>mfw

Oh come on, Mikey, I know it was rough watching Big Ben get roasted by the Saints...but at least try to bring your A-game.

. . .

How to Be a Democrat:

Step #1: When your likely voters stand outside polling places with nightsticks while blatantly trying to intimidate voters, ignore it.
Step #2: If someone brings it up, say it's being handled then quietly sweep it under the rug. Do not, under any circumstances, prosecute those responsible, even if they so obviously broke the law a third grader could realize it.
Step #3: Shit the bed when a likely republican voter does something considered voter intimidation.
Step #4: ????
Step #5: PROFIT!!!

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

How to Be a Democrat:

Step #1: When your likely voters stand outside polling places with nightsticks while blatantly trying to intimidate voters, ignore it.
Step #2: If someone brings it up, say it's being handled then quietly sweep it under the rug. Do not, under any circumstances, prosecute those responsible, even if they so obviously broke the law a third grader could realize it.
Step #3: Shit the bed when a likely republican voter does something considered voter intimidation.
Step #4: ????
Step #5: PROFIT!!!

1. The criminal charges you allude to were dropped by the Bush Administration Justice Department for lack of evidence 11 days before President Obama took the oath of office. All the current Attorney General did was drop the civil charges.
2. This is blatantly a violation of Ohio state law (threatening an employee's job, wages, or livelihood to influence their vote), which even Mr. Magoo could recognize as criminal.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Spotts1701 wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

>Democrats whining about class warfare.
>mfw

Oh come on, Mikey, I know it was rough watching Big Ben get roasted by the Saints...but at least try to bring your A-game.

. . .

How to Be a Democrat:

Step #1: When your likely voters stand outside polling places with nightsticks while blatantly trying to intimidate voters, ignore it.
Step #2: If someone brings it up, say it's being handled then quietly sweep it under the rug. Do not, under any circumstances, prosecute those responsible, even if they so obviously broke the law a third grader could realize it.
Step #3: Shit the bed when a likely republican voter does something considered voter intimidation.
Step #4: ????
Step #5: PROFIT!!!

Because political party, rather than the environment of politics in general and the fact that the uberwealthy learned five generations ago what parts of the law they can apply money to as though a soothing balm to an aching muscle, determines the amount of bullshit running contradictory to the ideal "for the people" government we're taught we have in grade school.

The difference between democrats and republicans is how they want to maintain economic segregation, not which one might make things better. Saying otherwise is like saying the World of Darkness is about Good vampires versus Bad vampires, when it's actually Bad vampires versus Worse vampires.

Sorry to interrupt, but Alhazred, you live in Massachusetts? Where?

How to Be a Republican:

1) FUCK YOU
2) GOT MINE
3) No PROFIT, because you've just voted against your own self-interests
4) Die in poverty, still convinced it was blacks and Islamics rather than rich white men that cheated you out of the millions you "deserved"


How to Be a Democrat:

1) Fail to notice your own candidate takes bribes from the same people the other guys do
2) Be genuinely surprised when your candidate flakes in the face of the people he took bribes from
3) No PROFIT, because you've just voted against your own self-interests
4) Die in poverty, still convinced your party could have changed the country if they were able to elect more candidates


death to the two-party system, death to america

EileenK98 wrote:

Sorry to interrupt, but Alhazred, you live in Massachusetts? Where?

Berkshires, the places where it snows in the morning and hits 70 in the afternoon.

TheHermit wrote:

death to the two-party system, death to america

Because our system, where we have a 'coalition' in power that nobody wanted, doing things which will make the poor considerably poorer, predating on the weak and the helpless while using one of the partners in the coalition as some kind of (unconvincing) cover is obviously so much better. At least you know you're electing bastards.

Alhazred wrote:

EileenK98 wrote:

Sorry to interrupt, but Alhazred, you live in Massachusetts? Where?

Berkshires, the places where it snows in the morning and hits 70 in the afternoon.

Oh. So that wasn't you I saw in Stop and Shop last night?

I've been bedridden for a month and probably will be for another month, so unfortunately not.

Lexin wrote:

TheHermit wrote:

death to the two-party system, death to america

Because our system, where we have a 'coalition' in power that nobody wanted, doing things which will make the poor considerably poorer, predating on the weak and the helpless while using one of the partners in the coalition as some kind of (unconvincing) cover is obviously so much better. At least you know you're electing bastards.

Remind me where you're from, again? Not being flippant, genuinely curious.

Lexin wrote:

TheHermit wrote:

death to the two-party system, death to america

Because our system, where we have a 'coalition' in power that nobody wanted, doing things which will make the poor considerably poorer, predating on the weak and the helpless while using one of the partners in the coalition as some kind of (unconvincing) cover is obviously so much better. At least you know you're electing bastards.

How exactly does Britland work? I know if some party gets 10% of the vote, they get 10% in whatever your equivalent to the House of Representatives is called (House of Commons?). But do you know what idiots will fill that 10%, or does the party arbitrarily select them after the election?

Lexin wrote:

At least you know you're electing bastards.

Lexin, everybody elects bastards. In my country we keep electing the same bastards because we don't trust the other shower of bastards not to fuck everything up worse.

Meanwhile no-one listens to my solution to the economic crisis, which is to fire at least 66 of the fucking leeches sitting in Leinster House drawing five and six figure salaries for 90 days' work a year, and publish the annual income of every goddamn talking head and opinion columnist to shame them into shutting their fucking pieholes about the unions.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Lexin wrote:

TheHermit wrote:

death to the two-party system, death to america

Because our system, where we have a 'coalition' in power that nobody wanted, doing things which will make the poor considerably poorer, predating on the weak and the helpless while using one of the partners in the coalition as some kind of (unconvincing) cover is obviously so much better. At least you know you're electing bastards.

How exactly does Britland work? I know if some party gets 10% of the vote, they get 10% in whatever your equivalent to the House of Representatives is called (House of Commons?). But do you know what idiots will fill that 10%, or does the party arbitrarily select them after the election?

You're thinking of proportional representation.

How it works here is that 600 or so constituencies (which is equivalent of the size of a smallish town) each elects an MP (Member of Parliament, or "representative"). We have three major parties and a few small ones (such as the Greens, Scottish National Party, etc). Each MP gets a seat in the House of Commons. It is then the job of the MPs to vote for the Prime Minister. What usually happens is that there is a majority of one party--Labour or the Conservatives. So with 300+ seats, that party can easily elect their leader as Prime Minister.

What happened in this election was that no party got the outright majority of that magic number where they could automatically elect their Prime Minister. So the Conservative party--who had about 270 seats--made a pact with the Liberal Democrat party, who have enough seats to bring them over the magic number.

The main decision-makers are the "Cabinet", which is about 25 people selected by the Prime Minister from his or her own party. They're our government, the ones who make all the decisions, which are then voted through in the House of Commons. If it passes in the Commons, it goes through the House of Lords, who rarely rock the boat, and then the Queen rubber-stamps it.

Because of the pact, we have a coalition government, which means five Lib Dem MPs are in the Cabinet. They don't really do anything. It's basically a Conservative government with the Lib Dems supporting everything they do. I hope the Lib Dems get something good in return.

So, that's Britlandish politics in a nutshell. Well, most of it. We won't bother with the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. That's really fucking complicated and I'm English so I don't actually care

Lexin, darling, I think Tory voters got exactly what they wanted. Unfortunately, I voted Lib Dem and this was pretty much the opposite of what I wanted