The Feds are coming for Papa Sheetz.
It’s not because our favorite convenience store chain screwed up Clueless Joe’s order when he stopped at a Pittsburgh area Sheetz outlet last week. But, judging from the way this regime weaponizes the justice and intelligence operations to pursue political foes, it would not surprise.
No, this federal witch-hunt is because Sheetz chooses not to hire criminals. Specifically, two members of the protected class – with criminal records presumably – screamed discrimination when they weren’t hired on to the Sheetz empire.
Blacks, mixed race individuals, and assorted Native Americans were excluded at rates of 13 percent and above due to criminal records according to the Feds. Whites with criminal records supposedly were weeded out at a rate of just under 8 percent of applicants.
Understand, Sheetz is not accused of going out of its way to exclude non-whites as employees. But the Feds are involved because the Sheetz methodology is seen as disproportionately ruling out non-whites even if the intent is not racial discrimination.
I know what you’re thinking, avoiding hiring people with criminal backgrounds doesn’t seem to be that bad a policy. If a disproportionately high percentage of non-white applicants have criminal records, perhaps that speaks to a societal problem.
Social Justice warriors would claim non-whites are arrested more often by prejudiced cops, prosecuted more strenuously by a biased legal system and generally given an unfair experience in life.
Or, maybe the enablers would concede that the crime rate is greater among non-whites, but decry socio-economic conditions that make these minorities desperate due to lack of opportunity and therefore driven to commit crimes.
Another factor, one you won’t hear mentioned in polite company, is how the family structure in the non-white community is in tatters due to an abundance of hit-and-run fathers, irresponsible mothers and, consequently, people who are not the parents raising children. Think aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins, etc.
Regardless, the persecution of Sheetz for not hiring criminals is a ridiculous governmental over-reach straight out of Ayn Rand’s classic “Atlas Shrugged,” in which clueless governmental types instituted the Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog rule to eliminate competition and thereby penalized efficient businesses to keep the inefficient businesses operating.
It’s a lengthy read, but worth your time to experience firsthand how this book, released in 1957, so accurately predicts the absurdly dystopian status we have reached with governments doing their best to handcuff private industry and generally strip away individual rights and freedoms.
Rand even had ridiculous show trials in her book, along the lines of Donald Trump being persecuted for a “fraud” in which no one was harmed, or a hush money payoff (think Bill Clinton paying Paula Jones $850,000 to drop a sexual harassment lawsuit) in which the apparent problem is that Trump considered the payoff a business expense.
Sheetz officials reportedly have been trying to work with the feds FOR EIGHT YEARS to come up with an equitable solution to the matter of not hiring criminals.
If they’ve been watching Trump’s situation, they should know better than to expect a fair shake from the feds.
Expect the Sheetz chain eventually to bow to the unlimited resources to harass that is our federal government, kiss the ring, and admit to having been selfishly blind to the impact on the minority community of not hiring those with criminal records.
The situation was summed up nicely in a post from Elon Musk, himself once a fair-haired child among the Woke crowd who has become a persona non grata with the leftists and the federal government they control due to Musk becoming a proponent of free speech.
Before his – or your – free speech is cut off entirely, Musk got off this bon mot: “You know The Joker is running things when the law-abiding are being prosecuted by the government for not hiring criminals!”
Sam Ross Jr's site 