AFA’s 2009 Nauty and Nice Christmas Retailer List
Based on current advertising, below is a list of companies that avoid, ban, or use the term “Christmas” in their advertising.
AFA reviewed up to four areas to determine if a company was “Christmas-friendly” in their advertising: print media (newspaper inserts), broadcast media (radio/television), website and/or personal visits to the store. If a company’s ad has references to items associated with Christmas (trees, wreaths, lights, etc.), it was considered as an attempt to reach “Christmas” shoppers.
If a company has items associated with Christmas, but did not use the word “Christmas,” then the company is considered as censoring “Christmas.”
The list is arranged in alphabetical rather than rank order. Among retailers favoring Christmas are Amazon.com, Family Dollar, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn Fabrics & Crafts, Lowe’s, Rite Aid, Walgreens, Wal-Mart.
Among retailers marginalizing Christmas are Banana Republic, Best Buy, Old Navy, Toys R Us. Under the flat out against Christmas category, some notable retailers include Advance Auto Parts, Aldi, Kroger, Radio Shack, SUPERVALU — what a shame.
If you disagree with the listings, visit the AFA website.
To see the entire Nauty and Nice list, go to Nauty and Nice Christmas List 2009
Add comment December 19, 2009
Support Liberty In Jamestown
The Jamestown Liberty Group welcomes Lt. Col. John Mitchel USAF (Retired) to their monthly meeting this Monday, December 21st at 6pm at the Phoenix Restaurant in downtown Jamestown.
Lt. Col. Mitchel is a member of the Greene County Republican Central Committee and is the founder of Patriots Against Public Corruption. He is a former congressional candidate for Ohio’s 7th district and has written a book entitled “America Into The Abyss: A View From The Heartland” which exposes the corruption and pay to play politics here in Greene County and Washington DC.
Lt. Col. Mitchel will discuss the ongoing law suit against the Greene County Commissioners and the County Prosecutor along with current events and the upcoming 2010 elections.
Please support our local hometown small business by arriving early for a delicious home cooked meal before the meeting. For more information call 937-414-6182
Add comment December 19, 2009
The Fluoride Racket
It amazes me the audacity many elected officials have when it comes to deciding public health issues. The “one size fits all” policy seems rampant these days. I’m not sure if they are aware of the potential short and long term effects due to dumping a poison in the water supply, or if they are just ignorant. Let me explain just some of the reasons why you should not allow fluoride-a poison in the city water. Fluoride or hydrofluorosilicic acid, is an industrial “waste” product from the fertilizer industry. This bright idea came to be about the same time as did the bright ideas of asbestos lined pipes, lead in our gasoline and DDT, and was assumed safe and effective by public officials. I’m too young to remember, but some of you may remember seeing the “fogger” vehicles spraying neighborhoods and schools with what turned out to be a very, very bad idea. Today though, fluoride is the devil in disguise that is being propagandized as to the supposed health benefits of preventing tooth decay. Like any good propaganda, millions are spent on advertising to convince the trusting public to believe everything our leaders tell us. Sadly, many including the ADA and many of our dentist go along with this deception.
Fluoridation is unsafe because in accumulates in our bones and makes them brittle and more prone to fractures especially in the elderly. It accumulates in our pineal gland in our brain and possibly lowers the production of melatonin a very important regulatory hormone. It damages the enamel on our teeth especially in younger children. There are serious yet unproven concerns about the connection of osterosarcoma (cancerous-malignant bone tumors) in young men along with the possible connections to arthritis and hypothyroidism. Animal studies showed that 1ppm in drinking water showed an increase in aluminum in the brain. Places where there are 3ppm in public drinking water have proven lower fertility rates. In human studies, the agents in fluoride has been linked to increased lead in children’s blood and associated with increased violent behavior. Lastly, the safety and therapeutic benefit of reducing dental decay is so low that the concerns stated above and those not stated should be enough reasons to not be forced upon those of us who do not want to be “medicated” from our drinking water. I highly encourage everyone concerned to Google “weston price fluoride fraud” and determine yourself. As for me, I even avoid toothpaste with fluoride-but then again shouldn’t that be “my” decision.
Add comment December 17, 2009
Evidence of Counseling Abuse at Planned Parenthood Continues to Surface in Undercover Student Video
New undercover footage from an Appleton, WI Planned Parenthood abortion clinic shows clinic staff, including the abortion doctor, lying to two young women about fetal development and encouraging the one who is pregnant to obtain an abortion because “women die having babies.”
In the undercover video, when the two women ask a Planned Parenthood counselor if the pregnant woman’s 10-week-old unborn child has a heartbeat, the counselor emphasizes “heart tones,” and answers, “Heart beat is when the fetus is active in the uterus–can survive–which is about seventeen or eighteen weeks.” On the contrary, embryologists agree that the heartbeat begins around 3 weeks. Wisconsin informed consent law requires that women receive medically accurate information before undergoing an abortion.
The counselor then says, “A fetus is what’s in the uterus right now. That is not a baby.” Dr. Prohaska, the abortion doctor, insists, “It’s not a baby at this stage or anything like that.” Prohaska also states that having an abortion will be “much safer than having a baby,” warning, “You know, women die having babies.”
The video comes one month after the widely reported resignation of Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson. Johnson left her leadership position at Planned Parenthood in Bryan, TX after watching a 13-week old fetus being aborted in her clinic on ultrasound. She said during a recent interview, “Planned Parenthood really tries to instill in their employees and the women that are coming in for abortions that this is not a baby.” In another interview, she noted, “They don’t want to talk about when your baby has a heartbeat,” because “they don’t want to give the woman information that could give her a connection with her baby.”
The investigation is organized by Live Action, a nonprofit student group. Lila Rose, the 21-year-old UCLA student and Live Action president, says medical lies and manipulative counseling are routine at Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion chain.
“They will do or say anything in order to sell more abortions to more women, whether it is covering up sexual abuse or lying to women about medical facts,” says Rose. “Our team has visited dozens of Planned Parenthood clinics undercover. Planned Parenthood, while claiming to support patient self-determination, operates with an ‘abortion-first mentality.’”
The video is the first in Live Action’s “Rosa Acuna Project,” a multi-state undercover audit documenting Planned Parenthood’s abortion counseling. Planned Parenthood has come under fire recently after Live Action’s investigations found them willing to conceal sexual abuse and accept donations targeted to abort African-Americans only. Videos of abuse cover-up prompted state investigations of Planned Parenthood and diversion of the abortion giant’s public subsidies.
“Planned Parenthood is a billion-dollar organization with nearly $350 million of government funding, and stands to gain hundreds of millions more from national health care,” says Rose. “Do we really want to subsidize an organization that gives women in need atrocious misinformation and predatory abortion practices?”
To see the new video, go to: liveaction.org/rosaacuna. To learn more about Live Action, visit: liveaction.org.
Add comment December 16, 2009
A Real Job Creation Plan
By Marc Kilmer
While the state budget impasse remains unresolved, legislative leaders are fighting over which government programs to cut. Unfortunately, one area of state spending seems sacrosanct — corporate welfare. As long as state politicians continue to lavish money on ineffective programs like the Third Frontier or the Department of Development instead of working on real reforms to promote economic growth, Ohio’s unemployed will continue to find little relief.
With a deficit of $853 million, it seems a strange time for state policymakers to be proposing to borrow $1 billion to spend on corporate welfare. Yet this, along with Governor Ted Strickland’s recent executive order to refinance the Ohio Venture Capital Program, shows that Ohio’s politicians have learned little about job creation.
Politicians support these programs because they think they provide jobs. This reflects a mindset that is all too prevalent among those who work in Columbus (or Washington, D.C.) — an inflated view of how much the government affects the economy. Instead of viewing job creation and economic growth as the result of the daily interactions of business owners, workers, and consumers, too many politicians see it as a top-down process that can be heavily influenced by government programs.
The constant talk of the jobs “created” by the government is a symptom of this peculiar mindset. The Obama Administration, for instance, claimed its stimulus plan would create or save 3.5 million jobs. As Buckeye Institute fellow Sam Staley wrote about in a recent National Review article, though, this estimate was entirely lacking in credibility. As he pointed out, the Obama Administration estimated Ohio’s Sixth Congressional District would benefit from 7,200 stimulus jobs. Between 2001 and 2007, the area had only seen 3,500 real jobs created. It strains one’s imagination to think the stimulus bill would double the job growth occurring during the national economic boom.
In early November the Obama Administration said that 640,000 jobs had already been created or saved by the stimulus. Of course, as this claim was investigated it quickly became apparent that this was just wishful thinking. Lynn Walsh of the Buckeye Institute pointed out that many of the jobs in Ohio were created or saved in Congressional districts that didn’t even exist. The Columbus Dispatch noted that many of the education jobs claimed to be “saved” by the stimulus weren’t in danger. Other news organizations around the nation also found that local job creation claims were just as bogus.
At the state level, supporters of extending the Third Frontier program tout the 40,000 jobs it has allegedly created. While this number comes from a consulting firm and is on firmer ground than the Obama job creation numbers, it too is suspect. To truly gauge the impact of this program on employment, the analysis should determine whether these jobs would have been created without government spending. It also needs to take into account the jobs destroyed by government taking this money out of the economy through taxes and borrowing.
While Ohio politicians have been relying on the Third Frontier, the Department of Development, and other government agencies to create jobs, the state’s economy has declined. Even before the current recession, Ohio’s job growth lagged behind the national average. Where is the evidence that the top-down, corporate welfare mentality so popular in Columbus has worked?
Instead of expanding state debt and wasting more money on the Department of Development, state policymakers should enact an economic growth platform of tax reduction, ending mandatory unionization, eliminating the prevailing wage law, and cutting state bureaucracy. Ohio will once again be an economic powerhouse when its politicians recognize that the only effective government job creation program comes from creating an environment for individuals to start businesses, employ workers, and grow the economy.
Marc Kilmer is a policy analyst with the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a research and educational institute located in Columbus, Ohio.
Add comment December 15, 2009
