On Tuesday night, Jon Stewart looked at all the whining CEOs threatening to now lay off and fire some workers because Obama got re-elected, and had a message for them.
It was just one week ago, tonight, that Barack Obama won re-election to the Presidency in a heated political campaign, and hopefully setting the stage for the healing that this country so desperately needs.
LYNN BERRY (11/12/2012): The White House has received online petitions from not-so-proud Americans in 20 states who would like to secede from the Union.
Hmm. (audience boos) Wait, I'm not sure exactly which 20 states those are, or which people in those 20 states. But I think I can best express how I feel about these states and people in the words of the great William Wonka.
WILLIE WONKA: Stop. Don't come back.
(wild audience cheering and applause)
At least now, I'm beginning to understand why southern states were always so hesitant to get rid of the Confederate flag. It's like keeping your fat pants after you lose some weight. You're happy for now with the new you, but you're pretty sure you're gonna need those fat pants again!
....
Job creators, meet me at Camera 3.
Hey, thanks for joining me, I know you got a busy schedule with the job creating and the bootstrap-pulling, so I'll keep this brief, or I'll proactively downsize the time span intensity of our dialogue vis-à-vis... whatever.
All right, guys, I get it. Providing health care benefits to employees cost money, and as a group, you tend to prefer things that do not cost that. I watch Undercover Boss.
But own your layoffs and your policies. Let's stop pretending that suddenly with this election, bosses have been transformed into reluctant assholes. Obamacare is just the latest excuse to wriggle out of the social contract. For many years now, full-time benefits like sick days and maternity leave, pensions, lunch hours, chairs... have disappeared by magically transforming full-time workers into independent contractors, or part-time 20-year temp help. Want to avoid paying half of your employees' Social Security tax? Reclassify them as independent contractors, so they pay it all themselves. Make 'em fill out a 1099. That's not a full-time busboy, that's JuanCo, LLC. Don't forget to invoice us, JuanCo.
....
Not that you guys don't have a legitimate gripe against this President. If Obama had fought harder for single-payer health care, business owners like you would never have to pay another premium in your lives. (thunderous audience cheering and applause) You could stuff your pizza crust with money, still sell 'em for $10 dollars.
And if Obama banned natural gas fracking, then coal wouldn't be getting it's ass kicked in the — ah, what's it called again? — free market.
So maybe next time, take all the millions you donated for partisan political purposes, and pump it back into the type of health care advances that may ultimately increase business productivity. (audience cheering and applause)
Video and full transcript below the fold.
It was just one week ago, tonight, that Barack Obama won re-election to the Presidency in a heated political campaign, and hopefully setting the stage for the healing that this country so desperately needs.
LYNN BERRY (11/12/2012): The White House has received online petitions from not-so-proud Americans in 20 states who would like to secede from the Union.
Hmm. (audience boos) Wait, I'm not sure exactly which 20 states those are, or which people in those 20 states. But I think I can best express how I feel about these states and people in the words of the great William Wonka.
WILLIE WONKA: Stop. Don't come back.
(wild audience cheering and applause)
At least now, I'm beginning to understand why southern states were always so hesitant to get rid of the Confederate flag. It's like keeping your fat pants after you lose some weight. You're happy for now with the new you, but you're pretty sure you're gonna need those fat pants again! You got the pizza, oh Denino's in Staten Island, muah!
I'm not surprised. We were warned that re-electing Obama would have dire consequences for our union, for our standing in the world, and retail.
CHRIS HAYES (10/14/2012): Westgate Resorts CEO David Segal ... e-mailed his employees and said that he will have no choice but to fire people if President Obama is re-elected and his personal income tax rates go up. ... Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy, sent a letter to his employees hectoring them to donate to the company's political action committee, telling them if they did not, "the coal industry will be eliminated, and so will your job".
Well guess what? Those people were right! Despite no objective change in who's running the country, or the situation the countries are in, CEOs are taking action, like coal magnate Robert Murray, who said he would have to fire people if Obama won, and then fired people while they were still counting Florida. Who woulda thought? A prophecy fulfilled by the prophecy-or. It's like a weatherman forecasting scattered showers, and then running up on the roof and peeing on people. "Yer lucky I didn't call for hail!" (audience groans in laughter as they get the joke)
ROBERT MURRAY (11/11/2012): Well, they left me no choice. We're going to see reduced economic activity in America, we're going to see reduced electric power consumption, we're going to see drastically reduced coal markets.
A greedy black-hearted man who owns a coal mine — well, now I've seen everything. (audience laughter)
But it's not just those who provide compressed lumps of dead animals to fuel your home who are affected. It's also those who provide compressed lumps of dead animals to fuel your body.
STUART VARNEY (11/8/2012): Our next guest said he might have to move some of his employees from full-time to part-time if President Obama got re-elected. ... Joining us now is Zane Tankel. He runs, I think, what is it, 42 Applebee's franchises.
I'm gonna stop you right there. Zane Tankel? (audience laughter) That's who you want me to accept? Zane Tankel? No. No. Zane Tankel does not run an Applebee's. Zane Tankel is an intergalactic bounty hunter who gets in fights with Buck Rogers.
I'm sorry, resume your interview with Zane Tankel.
ZANE TANKEL (11/8/2012): We won't build more restaurants, we won't hire more people.
You run an Applebee's. Here's a cost-cutting idea. Don't serve your double-barreled whiskey-fried creamy steak and chimichanga sliders in troths. Not only should you be providing your employees with health care, you should be personally apologizing to our nation's physicians. Anybody else got a problem with it?
CHARLES PAYNE (11/12/2012): Papa John's CEO, well he says the company may have to reduce worker hours to save money on health care.
(in Italian accent) Oh no, not Papa John's! Anybody but Papa John's! I'd rather Papa Nazi, or Papa Smear!
What's his problem?
STEVE DOOCY (11/13/2012): The CEO says Obamacare will cost their chain up to $8 million dollars a year, and could force it to cut employee hours.
All right, that's not nothing. Now, you are a $3 billion dollar a year business for corporate and franchisees, but you gotta find that $8 billion dollars somewhere, and it's not nothing. OK, so let me just... I apologize. (starts writing) The pie is $10 bucks, I thick, at Papa John's, right? That's the equivalent of one million pizzas. I mean, where are you gonna find a million pizzas? That's....
PEYTON MANNING: What are we gonna do to kick off this season?
CEO JOHN SCHNATTER: Same thing as last season. One million free Papa John's pizzas.
PEYTON MANNING: Good idea, two million free pizzas, I like it.
CEO JOHN SCHNATTER: No, no, no, no.
VOICEOVER: All season long, Papa John's has two million free pizzas.
I just have no fucking idea how they're going to do that. Hey, I know! Job creators, meet me at Camera 3.
Hey, thanks for joining me, I know you got a busy schedule with the job creating and the bootstrap-pulling, so I'll keep this brief, or I'll proactively downsize the time span intensity of our dialogue vis-à-vis... whatever.
All right, guys, I get it. Providing health care benefits to employees cost money, and as a group, you tend to prefer things that do not cost that. I watch Undercover Boss.
But own your layoffs and your policies. Let's stop pretending that suddenly with this election, bosses have been transformed into reluctant assholes. Obamacare is just the latest excuse to wriggle out of the social contract. For many years now, full-time benefits like sick days and maternity leave, pensions, lunch hours, chairs... have disappeared by magically transforming full-time workers into independent contractors, or part-time 20-year temp help. Want to avoid paying half of your employees' Social Security tax? Reclassify them as independent contractors, so they pay it all themselves. Make 'em fill out a 1099. That's not a full-time busboy, that's JuanCo, LLC. Don't forget to invoice us, JuanCo.
So let's cut the "I'd love to be able to give employees health care, I just can't!" Let's face the facts. Pizza and coal companies are just unlucky enough to have a labor force that can't be outsourced. You happen to be in one of the few industries that still has to hire Americans! I'm sure if you could outsource your pizza making to China, Papa John's would quickly become Papa San's. (audience applause) It's actually Japan, but you know, for the joke, you understand.
It's your fault! You could've gone tech, Papa John's! Founded Instagram and made a billion dollars. But instead, you make pizzas with a filter that make them taste like it's 1979. (audience laughter) And Murray, with the coal company. Don't pretend you're not going to fire all your human coal miners the minute you figure out how to train bats to carry coal lumps out of the ground.
Not that you guys don't have a legitimate gripe against this President. If Obama had fought harder for single-payer health care, business owners like you would never have to pay another premium in your lives. (thunderous audience cheering and applause) You could stuff your pizza crust with money, still sell 'em for $10 dollars.
And if Obama banned natural gas fracking, then coal wouldn't be getting it's ass kicked in the — ah, what's it called again? — free market.
So maybe next time, take all the millions you donated for partisan political purposes, and pump it back into the type of health care advances that may ultimately increase business productivity. (audience cheering and applause)
And then, we can just finally keep pizza out of politics. 'Cause at a certain point, it's gonna make children's parties very uncomfortable.
CHUCK E. CHEESE: Hey citizens, you must resist the sham presidency of Barack Hussein Nobama! Send him back to Kenya! Show your birth certificate and play for free!
We'll be right back.
Jon then had
more about the growing Petraeus scandal.
Meanwhile, Stephen started
looking ahead to the 2016 elections... and beyond.
Jon talked with actor
Jason Sudeikis, and Stephen talked with Newt Gingrich, who got two segments.
Part 1
Part 2