It has been one week since the reelection of Barack Obama and the reality of Obamacare’s permanence in the American landscape is beginning to set in for many business owners.
Papa John’s founder and CEO, John Schnatter made headlines last week along with a slew of other companies when he announced some changes that would likely occur as Obamacare continues to be implemented. Schnatter commented that many of his company’s franchise owners will have to cut employees’ hours in order to avoid falling under Obamacare’s coverage requirements, and stay fiscally sound.
“That’s probably what’s going to happen,” he said according to NaplesNews.com. “It’s common sense. That’s what I call lose-lose.”
Schnatter’s comments have outraged many of Obama’s supporters on the left who are now calling for a boycott of the pizza giant, and attacks on Twitter and elsewhere:
This attempt at a boycott is is overwhelmingly ironic for two separate reasons.
First, recall back to the Rush Limbaugh-Sandra Fluke controversy when advertisers were pulling their money from the program in response to the left’s astroturfed secondary boycott that attempted, and failed, to get Limbaugh off the air.
Who was one of those heroes that stepped in, removed their advertising dollars, and added to the left’s effort to silence one of their greatest foes? You guessed it:
None other than Papa John’s.
It appears, however, that the left’s love fest with Papa John’s has since come to an abrupt end.
In an attempt to demonize Papa John’s, the familiar cries of racism and class warfare have ensued in the wake of Schnatter’s announcement. The overtones of class warfare are particularly evident in the Huffington Post’s take on the situation.
We’re guessing Obamacare won’t impact life at Schnatter’s lavish home, a 40,000 square-foot mansion in a tony suburb of Louisville, Kentucky, that features several swimming pools, a private golf course and a 22-car garage among other amenities, according to CelebrityNetworth.com.
“Who would’ve imagined pizza could build this,” said former presidential candidate Mitt Romney earlier this year. This is really something. Don’t you love this country? What a home this is, what grounds these are, the pool, the golf course…. This is a real tribute to America, to entrepreneurship.”
Now that the left has begun to paint Papa John’s executives and franchise owners as greedy racists, they feel justified in punishing the company by way of a boycott.
Yet, utilization of this tactic brings me to the second element of irony in this utterly bizarre situation.
The hallmark of any successful boycott is the limitation of revenue for the company you are targeting. So, if somehow this boycott were to be successful, the logical result would be that Papa John’s would lose money forcing them to cut more jobs, and more hours. Fewer people will be employed, and still fewer will have quality health benefits.
In achieving their goal, the boycotters will have achieved the exact opposite of their goal.
In the words of John Schatter, that’s what I call a lose-lose.
Similar to the situation that Chick-fil-a found itself in this past summer, as word of this boycott has spread, loyal patrons of the pizza company have organized a National Papa John’s Appreciation Day. It is currently scheduled for this Friday.
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Comments
This doesn’t surprise me. The left uses people to attain their goals and then kicks them to the curb when it suits them.
Breitbart is reporting that UPS has pulled its $85,000.00 funding of the Boy Scouts of America because the BSoA doesn’t allow homosexual scout leaders.
So, I am asking all of you, go to the BSoA website, donate just $10.00 and in the comment section tell them you are donating to help make up what they lost from UPS. It will only take 8,500 of us to do that. Surely, there are 8,500 Americans who will support the BSoA against this slam by UPS.
We need to go Chick Fil A with the Boy Scouts who refuse to cave to the politically correct that would destroy them. We took a stand on Chick Fil A and it backfired on the secular left. Now it is time to do that for the sake of the young men that the Boy Scouts have instilled honorable values in for over 100 years.
Stand with the Boy Scouts and stand against UPS.
WE CAN DO THIS.
Link, man, link.
It’s almost 2013.
It is the continued Liberal fallacy that “everything will be alright if we just do what they want.”
The proper analogy is more of a medical one, though. What the Liberals are trying to accomplish is the equivalent of “curing the disease by killing the patient.”
I was happy to join the “buy-cott” for Chick-fil-A.
But I admit to being less excited to help out a guy who went with the crowd and pulled his ads from Rush.
Just sayin’.
Plus, their pizza is pretty cheap, to be honest.
What you are hearing is the sound of ears wanting to be tickled crying out in pain at hearing the truth instead.
These people are just dumb. Some are probably Papa John delivery drivers.
Let them eat Twinkies.
Well played.
Love song for these Libtards:
When the truth hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie…
That’s DELICIOUS!!!
Push-back is great, was especially great and appropriate for Chick-Fil-A. This is NOT a similar situation.
In this case, it’s the wrong strategy. Let the Left drive companies out of business. Make the rubes that voted for the Left hurt. Sad, but this is war!
At the same time take over the narrative! Learn their tricks and employ them. Seize the initiative and keep it!
This is exactly what Andrew Breitbart said. Learn their tricks, own them and use those tricks against them. We have to learn how to fight fire with fire. The old turn the other cheek stance is no longer sustainable. Time to really fight.
Excellent! This is what I have been thinking about the entire situation. When lefties fight lefties, you just get out of the way.
I love (as in ‘beat my head against the wall’ kind of love) that these geniuses can’t grasp a simple point. A promotion is money spent in hopes of generating additional sales from which the profits will more than cover the cost of the promotion.
If someone is handing out “free sample” cookies in the grocery, the manufacturer is hoping you’ll like it and buy some.
We all know how well progressive boycotts work, just ask Chick-fil-A
I got about half way through Atlas Shrugged and can’t continue, it it too sickeningly familiar.
Where does this end?
Finish the book – then you’ll know.
Unless somehow a miracle happens and we can get people to understand that SOCIALISM=BAD, FREEDOM=GOOD.
Yeah. Sickening.
This reminds me of that old Foxtrot from the ’20s:
“In the morning, In the evening, Ain’t we got fun? . . .. The rich get rich and the poor get laid off. . .. Ain’t we got fun?
One thing’s for certain; the next four years are going to be very interesting.
(Isn’t there an old Chinese curse that states, “May you live in interesting times.”?)
What the boycotters are not aware of is that the people on the front lines are small business owners who need to make a payroll and a profit. Fast food franchising is also one of the most successful niches in this country for minority entrepreneurship. So in fact it is those promoting a boycott who are actually being racist against all of the minority frachisees.
Yes, but it takes brains to understand that concept. All they really want now is “free stuff” without questioning where it comes from and whether or not it is indeed free!
First, Instead of running and letting go of employees, why don’t all these businesses stand as one voice and proudly say,
“Noncompliant” Act like Obamacare, in masses, does not exist, and it won’t. Use Hussein’s own Rule of Denial against him and his regime.
Second, you all hear about the the petition for an executive order to exile all those that sign secession petitions? Silly, first blue states start petitions to secede and now this — all trying to mock and make fun of the opposition. http://offthefbwall.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/petition-for-executive-order-to-strip-citizenship-everyone-who-signed-petition-secede-and-exile/
Certainly there’s strength in numbers. If the founders did not unite in their rebellion, England would single them out one by one, executing each for treason. However, if they united, it would be harder to isolate and punish them. This can be applied to situations universally. Teachers pull this stunt routinely on students. (Where’s the left on this incredibly unfair power-play situation?) Oodles of examples could be given, but one that is au courant (usually 3d to 7th grades) is the game of “Pretending we’re all Muslims for the day;” so we’ll learn how to dress as Muslims and, this is the real penetrating offense, learn how to pray as Muslims. When a child/student resists, the teacher threatens the retaliation of being sent to the principal’s office. Pure Alinksy: name the enemy, isolate him/her, ridicule.
But if other students would reason, “she can’t send EVERYONE to the principal’s office,” then freedom might prevail. Akin to Ben Franklin “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
The left, Obama, counts on the people cowering. That’s something “we much” overcome.
The problem that I see with this is the administrative processing that the Democrat Congress put in place when they set it up. They made it enforceable through the Tax Code.
We all know the IRS has a type of “fast tracked” system, where they get to act first and explain later. The big problem is that they just have to pick one major employer and lock their doors, and anybody who is only marginal or subsistence through their business is going to buckle.
The big question would be who would the employees of that employer back if push came to shove? Would they support their employer and riot in the streets against the government, or would they blame their employer for not following the rules and burn their place of employment to the ground for now being out of a job?
The left’s irrational equivalence > gives away 2M free pizzas can’t afford healthcare.
Remember when people were God fearing?
Wouldn’t it be something if “Liberals” mind their own business? You know like I won’t tell you what to do or take your property if you don’t try to tell me what to do or take my property? You know, like the American social freaking contract? What is wrong with these people?
>> What is wrong with these people? <<
35 years of hard left indoctrination which fosters the worst emotions in people – resentment and envy.
They don't seem to realize that the reason Papa has a 22 car garage is because he provided something of value that others voluntarily traded the green paper in their wallet for. His customers voluntarily made him rich because they wanted what he's selling. The beauty of our system is voluntary exchange. The customers ultimately decide the winners and losers.
The reason I was so disgusted by the Chick-fil-A episode is because government officials were trying to use the force of government to impose their values on a private company and crush economic liberty. That just can not be tolerated.
That is not happening here. As long as customers and potential customers are free to chose to either patronize the business or join the boycott, I'm ok with it. Again, as long as the government is out of it, let the customers will decide Papa's fate.
P.S. I personally hope he has to expand his 22 car garage just to stick it in the eye of these misguided, control freak, statists. But the customers will decide that when they vote with their dollars.
Peddling hate and class warfare becomes the new cottage industry of liberals. Sheeples are stupid and liberal overlord are laughing all the way to the bank.
I think Papa Jon’s should sue the government over Obamacare and claim an equal protection defense. Obama cannot pass an onerous bill and then allow all his politically connected supporters who include Papa Jon’s competitors get a waiver. That’s inherently unconstitutional to flagrantly disregard to hold everyone equally above the law, nor more than the President could get waivers to his own supporters to commit murder.
“more than the President could get waivers to his own supporters to commit murder”
What makes you think he can’t, imfine?
Before you object, remember all the dead as a result of Operation Fast & Furious. You don’t see Holder in jail, do you? >:-(
Leftists don’t understand the tax code [or I don’t..]
“Promotional Expense” : “A cost that a business incurs to make its products or services better known to consumers, usually in the form of giveaways. The IRS considers promotion expenses to be tax-deductible as business expenses, provided they are ordinary and necessary. When writing off promotion expenses on their tax returns, companies should take care to ensure that these expenses would not more accurately be classified as advertising expenses or charitable contributions.”
Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/promotion-expense.asp#ixzz2CCwi0FCn
Consider the difference between a tax deductible write-off of promotional pizzas versus the extra direct cost of ObamaCare. I’m not a tax lawyer [or any lawyer] nor do I know what the IRS considers “ordinary” and “necessary” with respect to promotional expenses, but it seems to me that the free pizza giveaway is being paid for by a combination of our tax dollars and federal debt – not Papa John’s bottom line. ObamaCare, however, is being paid for from their bottom line.
The leftists have so corrupted our tax code that we cannot afford to pay to fix our bridges, but we can afford to pay for 2 million pizzas.
HuummmmH–I wonder whether I can “give” away my translating services and claim them as a promotional expenses? After all, I need to promote myself and how best to do that? Why with sample translations. Have to look into that.
I’m experiencing a slight twinge of schadenfreude from the delicious irony of the fact that the demographic segments that preponderantly voted in favor of Obama’s polices are the very same ones that are most likely to suffer from their implementation.
Like all those retirees in Florida? So many of them either don’t know, or just don’t believe, that Obamacare cuts $716 Billion from Medicare spending. Or else they bought the ludicrous Dim fiction that cutting 3/4 of a trillion dollars from Medicare somehow isn’t going to affect their Medicare benefits! Wonder how they’re going to feel when they start getting those letters from their doctors, informing them that they are no longer treating Medicare patients? (Don’t worry about those huge Medicare cuts, old folks; the cuts only affect your medical providers, not you!)
Perhaps it might be time for someone to refresh Papa John’s memory regarding his treatment of Rush. I’m having a tad bit of trouble working up my indignation level against the Left’s stupidity.
[…] businesses are already taking measures to protect themselves against ObamaCare, some businesses that had inhaled the unicorn dust early on, we all need to sit down and seriously evaluate what will happen to our own medical comfort zones, […]
I wrote about this a few days back. One of the revealing things about these calls for boycotts against businesses being forced by reality to cut back or refrain from expanding is the notion that the left thinks that it is normal human behavior to financially cripple others as a means to a political end–and despite the financial cost to the punisher. Their misunderstanding of capitalism and capitalists is astonishing.
Let me see if I can fix this.
It’s all right there in the professor’s post–just using the wrong logic, arriving at the wrong conclusion.
Now that the left has begun to paint Papa John’s executives and franchise owners as greedy racists, they feel justified in punishing the company by way of a boycott.
Papa Johns does not embrace the Glory and Prosperity of Dear Leader’s revolutionary health program as being a benefit for all, and must be portrayed as an enemy of the collective.
Papa John’s would lose money forcing them to cut more jobs, and more hours. Fewer people will be employed, and still fewer will have quality health benefits.
The masses, both guilty and innocent, will suffer mercilessly for defying the collective.
..achieving their goal…
As you can probably tell, it reminds me of the Ukrainian farmers that refused to embrace the farming collective. What followed was a propaganda campaign to convince the masses that they were evil, greedy, sub-human, and needed to be punished as they had no place in the “modern” world.
We all know what happened next-
Well, everyone except..
http://weaselzippers.us/2012/11/12/liberal-montclair-state-university-professor-i-have-yet-to-find-one-crime-that-stalin-committed/
I dunno about pizza, but the left definitely eat their own when they fall out of line.
Just what is it that Papa John’s has done to elicit appreciation from Conservatives?
I hope you’re kidding about that Papa Johns Appreciation Day Friday.
Because I’m having pizza Friday night with my family and it will never, ever come from Papa Johns.
Adios, John. You lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
Eat it. All of it.
[…] Read it. […]
More bad publicity for Papa John’s
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/papa-john-s-faces–250-million-spam-lawsuit.html
You totally OWN IT, John Schnatter. Now — EAT IT, Chump.
We actually prefer(ed) Papa John’s pizza when ordering pizza delivery and patronized Papa John’s since they started business in this neck of the woods years and years ago. But we’ve already [unanimously] been boycotting Papa John’s since John-boy Schnatter caved to the Libtard agenda and HE boycotted Rush Limbaugh in his oh-so BRAVE stance AGAINST Free Speech.
Screw John Schnatter — and Screw Papa John’s.
BUYcott Papa John’s? Not in a hundred years.
We’d sooner eat old shoe leather than eat Papa John’s pizza ever again. We have a great locally family owned pizzaria we discovered after we kicked John-boy Schnatter to the curb that delivers delicious piping hot hand made pizza and breadsticks just as quickly and just as inexpensively — but with absolutely zero Libtard lickspittle acquiescence.
…
Never ate Papa John’s pizza before – see no reason to start now.
You supported the insane, inane Left, Papa John. Enjoy!
Are you serious? This is an opportunity for them to learn a valuable lesson about how leftists treat others. Let them learn it.
I think it is Papa johns that is being penalized to the tune of $250 million for unsolicited texting people about pizza deals, irony anyone?
Too bad PapaJohn’s was about the only one that would deliver. I will NOT trade with them any more…I hope they MISS my business! Not the world’s greatest pizza, but as a shut-in I can’t go out and get one.
Papa John’s always pulls ads from folks who start a kerfluff.
Not a bad policy, since they’re pretty even about it– “Piss off a lot of folks, we don’t need the drama.”
[…] to Rick Bulow for pointing out this great take from Legal Insurrection, on the Papa John’s […]