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With President Barack Obama arriving in Mountain View this afternoon, activists working to raise the minimum wage in Mountain View are planning to greet the president when he arrives to speak at Walmart Friday morning.
The The Raise the Wage Mountain View Coalition plans to be at Walmart to “let President Obama know that we support his State of the Union call for cities to enact city-wide minimum wage measures, and to let him know that Mountain View and six other Northern California cities (Sunnyvale, Oakland, Davis, Eureka, Berkeley, and Richmond) are involved in city-wide minimum wage campaigns.,” said an announcement from campaign organizer Dr. Meghan Fraley.
The president is scheduled to speak at 9:55 a.m. Friday morning at Walmart on Showers Drive, where Walmart’s energy saving practices will get the spotlight in remarks about the importance of energy efficiency. Walmart boasts on its website: “From lighting and water conservation to refrigeration systems and building materials, we view our facilities as laboratories of sustainability.”
The coalition is seeking to have voters or the Mountain View City Council approve a new Mountain View minimum wage that’s significantly higher than California’s $8 an hour.
They point to reports that San Jose’s economy has grown and minimum wage jobs have increased since voters last year approved a minimum wage of $10 an hour. Mountain View City Council members have also expressed interest, and city staff members say they are tracking Sunnyvale’s efforts to possibly coordinate a wage raise with the neighboring city. Fraley says the minimum wage coalition now includes several groups: Politically Inspired Action, OUR Walmart, Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, Fool’s Mission, and Campus Alliance for Economic Justice.
Obama is also set to attend two fundraisers for the Democratic National Committee on Thursday, one at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose and another a dinner for 20 at Los Altos home of Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe CEO and wife of Google-founder Sergey Brin. The dinner is reportedly $32,400 a plate and tickets to the San Jose event reportedly range from $1,000 to $32,400 each.
The president is set to arrive by plane at Moffett Field around 3:50 p.m. on Thursday afternoon and will leave from Moffett Friday morning shortly after his talk at Walmart.
“I hereby deem this Walmart…. the worst Walmart in the United States.”
-Barack Obama
Who can afford that except the high end people! WOW he is supposed to be the peoples president. Why Walmart? they dont do much on saving energy. Iv worked there. He should talk to them about the money walmart takes from the gov.
With all the money they are saving on energy efficiency, maybe Walmart can afford to pay their workers a living wage …?
Of all the places in Mountain View, he’s talking at Walmart???
This is absolutely hilarious. Apparently he has never seen the “People of Walmart” website. Gotta love politicians… 🙂
What, exactly, is a living wage? Please be specific.
As is dollars per hour or month.
People use the term “living wage” but never supply any details.
Walmart…Enemy of all organized labor, fair wages, health benefits and anything that makes the average employee better off! The company that makes the government their health and retirement plan! I voted for Obama, but it scares me to see the power Walmart has when it comes to influencing our national economy and politics.
I can’t believe, in market soaked in Democrats, anyone even has to ask “Why Walmart?”
It’s obvious who’s Democratic vote this POS POTUS is pandering too.
I think the REAL question is why does Mtn. View have the most ghetto, dirty, filthy and disgusting Walmart (probably) all of Northern California, when on the same parcel of land, less than 200 yards from this Walmart, a 2 bedroom apartment costs $4,000!? Why don’t we ask Mr. President what he plans to do to help the MAJORITY of the shoppers inside THAT VERY STORE be able to afford the housing that overlooks it!
So, are they going to make all the surrounding stores and offices close for the day because of security????? Who would I contact to find out? I work at one of said locations and hope to find out the answer prior to that day. Thanks!
There is no such thing as a living wage anymore. Decades ago when the husband worked and the wife was a homemaker with two kids it meant what was the minimum income by the head of household that was required for a family of four to make ends meet in the area they live in. Yet if you have to put a label on it in today’s world it would mean the same except for one person, an often impossible task by most people in the bottom end of service jobs. Therefore in today’s tech oriented world workers that are uneducated with no skills should not expect that the world owes them a certain level of living just because they work eight plus hours a day. There is no justice in life, just the opportunity for educational betterment so you won’t have to complain about taking a service job at Walmart.
He should be talking at the unemployment office.
This is an old trick to balance the books. $4 happy meal, $32,400 lunch
$32,400 Dinner…. Ave meal $22K. That under the president budget.
He should just stay in Washington and get people working again instead of flying around in Air Force one campaining for his Liberal base.
I am glad to see there are other people on this site that are tired of this guy”s bloveating ways.
This is like a joke.
Barack Obama, Sheriff Joe, and a mountain lion walk into Mountain View. The bartender says …
Does he just happen to be in the area that day, and needs to make a speech at Walmart? Or is there something special about Mountain View’s Walmart?
Soaking up for more money, to fill his coffers. All the rich CEO give money like there is no tomorrow. These are the same 1% he cried foul against not to long ago and raising their taxes. But the rich are still rich and the poor are poorer. That’s the trick down effect of taxing the 1%.
If he just talks at the fund raiser, the DNC pays for the trip…. This talk at Walmart makes it an “official business trip” so we the taxpayers get to foot the bill.
He should go to Wholefoods across the street and get Michelle some veggies for mother’s day.
You should see how spiffy the end of the Mountain View Walmart near the in-store McDonalds looks. All the shelves and display cases have been moved away, the floor has been polished, the signs on the wall have been replaced with what appear to be “politically correct” product placement ads, it looks like some repainting has been done, and the sign on the door says the entire store will be closed from Thursday afternoon through noon on Friday “for a private event”.
So, no public viewing?
I dint like obammer for reasons that are smart.
Fund raising again.
Picking the pockets of the 1% and then telling the country how bad they are.
FYI In the 69 years since D-Day there has been 4 occasions when the President of the USA
chose not to visit the D-Day Memorial.
Obama 2010
Obama 2011
Obama 2012
Obama 2013
Every President other than Obama has attended.
Shame on you Mr President.
I think the President should buy Michelle a Mother’s Day present at the Milk Pail Market.
If the President is going to go to a huge Walmart and that seems to bother some people – then a solution could be to also visit the Milk Pail Market which is a very small privately owned European Open Air Market that has been in business for 40 years.
Why not support a small business that is a city treasure – supporting customers from diverse cultures, all economic levels along with generously giving weekly community donations to non-profits, public schools, senior programs and local foundation fundraisers.
What a nice message to give the people of our country that a small local business can also play a part in the President’s tour of this great Silicon Valley.
The Milk Pail Market continues to compete even though many national big stores have opened around them in the past years. I think the President should support the Milk Pail by getting all of the mothers who are traveling with him -flowers from there – that are grown at a small family farm on the coast!
I believe it would make a lot of people across this nation happy to see a business like the Milk Pail Market in the President’s Mountain View tour.
@Greg —
Congratulations for falling for and perpetuating an internet hoax.
According to snopes.com,
“This item claiming that President Barack Obama is the only U.S. President who has “failed to go to the D-Day Monument” on the anniversary of that event is a bit ambiguous, but by any reasonable interpretation it’s far from accurate… [snip]
…Between 1944 and 2012 — a span of 68 years — exactly four U.S. presidents have attended D-Day memorial ceremonies a total of exactly six times. Barack Obama was one of them.”
See http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/dday.asp
Next time you decide to pile onto an article with an unrelated political rant, maybe do some fact-checking first.
Overshadowed by the novelty of Pres. Obama actually setting foot in a Walmart, this story has a brilliant gem of (mis)information:
“San Jose’s economy has grown and minimum wage jobs have increased…[following min wage increase]” Are we to suppose that the SJ economy grew as a result of the minimum wage increase? If so, we should see that the economies of surrounding cities had not grown. But from all reports they have. And assuming the economy in San Jose is at least as good as it was before the mandated increase, simple arithmetic dictates the number of min wage jobs will increase as the existing $10/hr employees become minimum wage. The true impact of the new law was not explored, but hopefully Mr. Obama has advisors intelligent enough to see past the manure.
Milk Pail is still around because a lot of their product is basically like a day-old bread store for vegetables.
So they have closed the store that draws in the people (of a specific economic status) in which the President plans to pander to today? If the store is closed, what’s the motivation for that citizen to be there? To see him? Gag me. I’ll go to a Target thank you.
California is not a swing state, so there’s no need to win votes by speaking. This will, however, turn media attention on the plight of walmart and other minimum wage workers. Too bad he’s termed out or maybe he could completely undo the devastation done to this country by the “right”. (Why are they called “right”, when they are oh, so wrong…?
I can not stand OBAMA. The people that pay all of this money to support him are Hyporcrits.
He’s just stopping by to get Michelle a Mother’s Day present.