Advocates Admit $15 Minimum Wage ‘May Not Make Sense,’ but Offer a Glimpse of Motivation for Hike | TheBlaze.com

Advocates Admit $15 Minimum Wage ‘May Not Make Sense,’ but Offer a Glimpse of Motivation for Hike | TheBlaze.com:

"California Gov. Jerry Brown and other advocates of hiking the minimum wage to $15 per hour have conceded that the pay increase might not be the best way to help workers, causing questions about the sincerity of the “Fight for 15” movement.

“Economically, minimum wages may not make sense,” Brown told the Sacramento Bee before signing the wage increase for his state. The governor followed suit with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who did the same last week."

Worthy read-Science is not unbiased----------The sugar conspiracy

The sugar conspiracy | Ian Leslie | Society | The Guardian:
In 1972, a British scientist sounded the alarm that sugar – and not fat – was the greatest danger to our health.
But his findings were ridiculed and his reputation ruined. 
How did the world’s top nutrition scientists get it so wrong for so long?
...“If only a small fraction of what we know about the effects of sugar were to be revealed in relation to any other material used as a food additive,” wrote Yudkin, “that material would promptly be banned.” The book did well, but Yudkin paid a high price for it.
Prominent nutritionists combined with the food industry to destroy his reputation, and his career never recovered. 
He died, in 1995, a disappointed, largely forgotten man.

Good guy. He's not alone-----Here’s the Struggle You Don’t See Fox News’s Neil Cavuto Going Through When You Watch Him on TV

Here’s the Struggle You Don’t See Fox News’s Neil Cavuto Going Through When You Watch Him on TV:
"...And his struggle to maintain good health hasn’t exactly been a secret.
He battled advanced non-Hodgkins lymphoma (cancer) in the late 1980s, and in 1997, was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
The effects of MS can be so severe that many who have it are unable to continue working, and Cavuto admits that the symptoms can be unpredictable and quite severe:
“I’ve heard MS described as a mercurial menace in that it can rob senses and muscles indiscriminately, anytime and anywhere.
It’s a disease that doesn’t much care about what you’re doing when one, or several, of its infamous exacerbations hits.
All I know is it hits hard, and to this day, I never seem quite ready when it does. 
Over the years, it has literally taken the legs right out from under me.
There are times when I can’t walk, other times when I am walking as if I’m dragging an anchor, as I’m trying to ‘be’ an anchor.”
...“Its vagaries are as weird as their fallout is fast. Mid-shows, I’ve been blinded, literally, as my vision is all but blacked out.
Adjusting to that alone took years.
I’m now at the point I no longer use a TelePrompTer at all, not because I’m smooth, but because I have no choice.
I’ve taken to memorizing scripts and bullet points, even guests’ points of views and myriad of segment facts, so I’m ready for anything, any time.
These weren’t choices I wanted to make; these were choices I ‘had’ to make..."

Hillary’s State Department Pressured Haiti Not To Raise Minimum Wage to $.61 An Hour

Hillary’s State Department Pressured Haiti Not To Raise Minimum Wage to $.61 An Hour
In Haiti, people work for peanuts.
Slave wages.
Less than $5 per day, but they supply the U.S. with tons of affordable clothing from big-name brands like Levi’s, Hanes and Polo.
Haiti’s big advantage, compared to Asia, is their proximity to us, and thousands of Haitians are employed in the textile industry in part because of that.
When Haiti passed a wage raise from $.24 per hour to $.61 per hour, American companies were predictably outraged.
U.S. companies, especially the clothing manufacturers, outsource their manufacturing to places like Haiti specifically because they can get away with paying slave wages.
They would only support a minimum wage increase to $.31 per hour, and decided to get the U.S. Department of State involved to try and pressure Haiti’s government to keep the wage raise down.
This took place in 2011, and Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State. 
...In 2012, everyone from Clinton herself, to celebrities like Ben Stiller and Sean Penn, gathered at the opening of a new industrial park in Haiti.
In 2015, Hillary said this about it :
“We had learnt that supporting long-term prosperity in Haiti meant more than providing aid. So we shifted our assistance to investment to address some of the biggest challenges facing this country: creating jobs and sustainable economic growth."
...the U.S. government interfered with a foreign, sovereign government for the benefit of rich American corporations. 
This particular instance happened under a Secretary of State who promised jobs, but probably didn’t let on that those jobs would pay next to zilch. 
Investing is good.
It’s better than aid, but we’re half-assing it there, all in the name of profit.”

Takers always gonna take-----White Folks Gonna Have To Give Up Stuff, Sacrifice - For Black Lives Matter

White Folks Gonna Have To Give Up Stuff, Sacrifice - For Black Lives Matter | RickWells.US
With arguments consistent with those of the race-baiters Hussein Obama and Eric Holder, Black Lives Matter co-founder Marissa Johnson blames white people for everything that’s wrong with her life. 
When she can’t deal with reality it’s because her reality is too hard.
There are lots of white people going hungry; her life seems to be much easier than theirs.
She doesn’t want a real reality, she wants a separate, on demand, “more fair reality,” crafted for her by a redistributive Marxist government.
White People Are To Blame And This Commie Wants To Take Their Stuff
...The over-acting agitator asks, “Do you know what I’d give to live in a world where I didn’t have to say black lives matter? 
Do you know how horrific it is to grow up as a child in a world that so hates you that you have to literally say to other people, ‘my life matters?’”
She mocks a response of the “white people” saying that every life matters and then complains that blacks are being shot in the streets or being rounded up and mass incarcerated.
...She spells it out, saying, “What it’s gonna take to dismantle white supremacy is white folks actually got to give up something,” bringing out her first smile of the interview.
She continues, saying, “You have to actually sacrifice yourself.
You have to be willing to give up the things that you currently benefit from..."

Chris Matthews Asks Sanders Supporter If She Knows Who Will Pay for His Free College Tuition ‘for Everybody’ Idea. Watch Her Stunning Answer. | Video | TheBlaze.com

Chris Matthews Asks Sanders Supporter If She Knows Who Will Pay for His Free College Tuition ‘for Everybody’ Idea. Watch Her Stunning Answer. | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"“He’s talking about free tuition at the University of Wisconsin, wherever the campus is,” Matthews said Tuesday. “Free for everybody, free at University of Michigan, free Berkeley, free Penn State, free for every state university, and I keep asking myself, ‘Where is all that enormous amount of money coming from?’ And do you think he has a way of getting that money?”

“Of course he does,” Lawton replied. But after she continued further, Matthews apparently wasn’t satisfied.

“You say ‘we,’ but who is going to pay for it, who?” Matthews asked."

Cowardice always fails...and kills-----How Islamists Are Slowly Desensitizing Europe And America

How Islamists Are Slowly Desensitizing Europe And America
The freakouts when people raise valid questions over Islamist actions are meant to frighten people into silence so Islamists can continue their attacks.
Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine whose offices Islamists attacked in 2015, published an editorial recently titled “How Did We Get Here?” that has raised some eyebrows.
In it, they ask how Europe has become where European-born Muslims have attacked the hearts of Paris and Brussels. 
Their answer has proved distasteful to many on the Left.
The editorial has been harshly criticized and the magazine accused of racism and xenophobia. 
The Washington Post says Charlie Hebdo blames extremism on individual Muslims—the veiled woman on the street, the man selling kebabs.
There’s some truth to this accusation, and to the extent that there is, Charlie Hebdo is wrong.
But this, and other critiques, miss the larger point of the article, which is to demonstrate the gradual and quotidian way in which criticizing Islam has been silenced.
It’s worth quoting Charlie Hebdo at length:
"In reality, the attacks are merely the visible part of a very large iceberg indeed. They are the last phase of a process of cowing and silencing long in motion and on the widest possible scale. Our noses are endlessly rubbed in the rubble of Brussels airport and in the flickering candles amongst the bouquets of flowers on the pavements. All the while, no one notices what’s going on in Saint-German-en-Laye. 
...Tariq Ramadan is never going to grab a Kalashnikov with which to shoot journalists at an editorial meeting. Nor will he ever cook up a bomb to be used in an airport concourse. Others will be doing all that kind of stuff. It will not be his role. His task, under cover of debate, is to dissuade people from criticising his religion in any way. The political science students who listened to him last week will, once they have become journalists or local officials, not even dare to write nor say anything negative about Islam. The little dent in their secularism made that day will bear fruit in a fear of criticising lest they appear Islamophobic. That is Tariq Ramadan’s task."
The Charlie Hebdo editorial correctly points out that in Europe the dominant liberal culture has pounded into us that we must adapt to Muslims who come to our country, and never ask them to adapt to any of our ways. 
Doing so would be colonialist and wrong.
It’s a double standard, of course.
As the welcoming countries, Europeans must suppress their own culture and ideals for those of the Islamic immigrant population.
But when they go abroad to non-Western countries, either to live or to visit, it’s considered offensive not to adapt to their ways of life..."

AM Fruitcake

History for April 9

History for April 9 - On-This-Day.com:
Charles Proteus Steinmetz 1865, Frank King 1883 - Cartoonist, creator of "Gasoline Alley" cartoon strip, Ward Bond 1903 - Actor ("It’s a Wonderful Life", "The Maltese Falcon") 


Hugh Hefner 1926 - Publisher, Michael Learned 1939 - Actress ("The Waltons", "All My Sons"), Dennis Quaid 1954 - Actor ("Wyatt Earp", "The Right Stuff"), brother of Randy Quaid 


1865 - At Appomattox Court House, Virginia, General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate Army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in the parlor of Wilmer McClean's home. Grant allowed Rebel officers to keep their sidearms and permitted soldiers to keep their horses and mules. Though there were still Confederate armies in the field, the war was officially over. The four years of fighting had killed 360,000 Union troops and 260,000 Confederate troops.


1867 - The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty with Russia that purchased the territory of Alaska by one vote.


1916 - The German army launched it’s third offensive during the Battle of Verdun.


1940 - Germany invaded Norway and Denmark.


1942 - In the Battle of Bataan, American and Filipino forces were overwhelmed by the Japanese Army.


1950 - Bob Hope made his first television appearance on "Star-Spangled Review" on NBC-TV.


1959 - NASA announced the selection of America's first seven astronauts.


1967 - The first Boeing 737 was rolled out for use.

AZ to Grant Driver's Licenses to Illegal Immigrants

AZ to Grant Driver's Licenses to Illegal Immigrants:

"Earlier today, a three-judge panel of the infamous Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an injunction against an Arizona policy denying drivers licenses to DACA recipients.  That initial injunction was ordered by a Republican-appointed judge, which tells you the insufferable judiciary is a bipartisan problem.
Whereas for 200 years our judicial system ruled that Congress has full authority over immigration and that illegal immigrants have no affirmative right to remain in the country, Judge Pregerson, the judge writing this liberal screed, ruled that Arizona had violated … you guessed it … the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.  Illegal aliens, who are to be placed into deportation proceedings pursuant to laws duly passed by Congress, now have an equal “right” to not only remain in the country but receive driver’s licenses. "

Pay Up: Americans Spend More on Taxes Than on Food, Clothing, Shelter

Pay Up: Americans Spend More on Taxes Than on Food, Clothing, Shelter:
"...it takes Americans 

• 46 days to earn enough to pay federal, state and local individual income taxes, 
• 26 days for payroll taxes, 
• 15 days for sales and excise taxes, 
• 11 days for property taxes, 
• 9 days for corporate income taxes and 
• 7 days for estate, inheritance, customs duties and other taxes."

Only 3 US Airports Screen Employees Daily Before Work

Only 3 US Airports Screen Employees Daily Before Work:
"At Senate Commerce Committee session, lawmakers heard that only three airports in the United States require their employees to undergo a security check before they begin their work day.
“Atlanta, Miami, Orlando.
What about the other 297 airports nationwide?” asked committee co-chair Senator Bill Nelson (D-Florida).
TSA (Transportation Security Administration) head Robert Neffenger answered that while the TSA has “increased the inspection of employees five-fold in the last five months,” more needs to be done.
Neffenger said that all airports were asked to provide a report by the end of the month assessing their vulnerabilies.
A 2015 TSA committee concluded most airports could not afford daily employee screening.
In addition, they said the full screening would not “appreciably increase the overall system-wide protection.”
“No single measure can provide broad-spectrum protection against risks or adversaries,” the committee concluded.
“Therefore, risk-based, multi-layered security offers the greatest ability to mitigate risks through the application of flexible and unpredictable measures to protect commercial aviation.”
The report argued daily screening “is incapable of determining a person’s motivations, attitudes and capabilities to cause harm, among other limitations.”
The Senate committee also heard from Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who assured the Senators recent reports that 73 airport employees were suspected to have terrorist ties were misleading."

Democrats keep using Benghazi as a pejorative. Here’s why they should take it seriously. | Select Committee on Benghazi

Democrats keep using Benghazi as a pejorative. Here’s why they should take it seriously. | Select Committee on Benghazi:

"Contradicting Sen. Reid’s accusations is the fact that seven Democrats joined House Republicans in voting to create the Select Committee, and its membership ratio (seven to five) is less partisan than others created in the past under then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (nine to six). The top Democrat on the committee even admitted in a moment of honesty that Republicans’ questioning of Huma Abedin was “overall fair,” and after Cheryl Mills testified she said Republicans were respectful and professional. As Chairman Gowdy explained, “The integrity of this investigation is my utmost concern. In fact, I have refused requests from the majority staff of other congressional committees to view our transcripts.”

As for the idea that the committee’s October hearing was “a flop” that produced “no new information,” in fact, it yielded numerous significant revelations, as many have reported:"

How the ACA Is Really Performing

How the ACA Is Really Performing | Economics21:
In March of this year the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released a presentation on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) six years in. 
The document portrays the ACA in a very favorable light, as one would expect for one of the Obama administration’s signature pieces of legislation. 
A fuller and more objective understanding of the ACA, however, requires examination of facts beyond those which its advocates, or its detractors, may wish to emphasize.

The CEA presentation is notable in reflecting the core components of ACA advocates’ case for the law.
 It is fourteen slides long, and I find that its points break down into five main themes (in my own words):

1. The ACA represents a historic expansion of health insurance coverage (slides 2, 3 and 4).
2. The ACA is achieving policy goals such as reducing patient harm and hospital readmissions (slides 5, 12 and 13).
3. The ACA is helping to slow the growth of health care costs (slides 6, 7, 8 and 11).
4. The ACA has been good for job creation (slide 14).
5. The ACA is improving the federal fiscal outlook (slides 9 and 10).

The first two of these are reasonable, defensible claims, though they also involve subjective value judgments. 

The last three are more problematic; there is little evidence for #3, whereas the totality of the evidence points in the opposite direction from assertions #4 and #5. 
Dissecting the five themes in order:
Read on!

Do we even own things anymore?

Glenn Reynolds: Do we even own things anymore?
"...But back to Gilbert’s story.
He’s a gadget fan, and Google has left him hanging. 
Here’s how he tells it:
“Seventeen months ago, Google acquired Revolv, a very cool home automation hub. 
It is a small circular device about the size of a small container of hummus that uses a variety of common home automation radios to communicate with light switches, garage door openers, home alarms, motion sensors, A/C controllers etc. ... 
When I arrive home my lights turn on. 
In lieu of motion detecting lights, I have a Z-wave motion detector that notifies my Revolv when there is motion on any side of our home and turns on the appropriate lights. 
Although I do set a home alarm, there is really no more effective vacation security than the programmatic turning on, dimming, and turning off of lights in a manner that would indicate that people are home. 
After buying my Revolv I put my outdoor landscaping light on it and threw away the old timer. 
Now at Sunset my landscape lighting turns on. Holiday lighting does the same. It’s magical.”
But as we all know, in the fairy tales the “magical” tool that makes everything wonderful always has a catch. 
In Gilbert’s case, the catch is that Google will shut down his device. 
They won’t just stop updating it, or end support. 
They’ll turn it off. 
Even though it “belongs” to Gilbert.
Gilbert notes: “On May 15th, my house will stop working. 
My landscape lighting will stop turning on and off, my security lights will stop reacting to motion, and my home made vacation burglar deterrent will stop working. 
This is a conscious intentional decision by Google/Nest.”
They’re “bricking” his device, making it an inanimate lump of circuitry that no more useful than a brick.
Or, actually, less useful, since you can build things with bricks.
They can do this because although you own the hardware, you don’t actually own the software in your devices; technically, when you buy the device, you just get a license to use the software.
(In a similar situation, General Motors and John Deere have said that they still own the software in the cars and other vehicles you buy.)

Lunch video-----After 70 years, World War II Pilot Flies the B-25 again!

Noon-toon

Limbaugh Heard The Warning Obama Admin Just Issued, Immediately Exposes What It's REALLY About...

Limbaugh Heard The Warning Obama Admin Just Issued, Immediately Exposes What It's REALLY About...:

"A new edict from the Obama administration has its roots in race-based thinking and a purpose that lurks below the surface, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued guidelines saying that because there is “widespread racial and ethnic disparities” in the U.S. criminal justice system, landlords who refuse to rent to convicted criminals could “lack a legally sufficient justification” in doing so. The current Fair Housing Act does not make it illegal to refuse to rent to criminals.

“The Regime has told landlords they cannot refuse to rent to criminals,” Limbaugh said. “Wait ’til you hear why.”"

Government Will Soon Owe More Money Than Entire Economy Produces

Government Will Soon Owe More Money Than Entire Economy Produces
Report finds issues with reliability of government’s financial statements, improper payments
An auditor for the Government Accountability Office told lawmakers Wednesday that in the next few years the federal government will owe more than our entire economy produces.
Gene Dodaro, the comptroller general for the Government Accountability Office, testified at the Senate Budget Committee to provide the results of its audit on the government’s financial books.
“We’re very heavily leveraged in debt,” Dodaro said.

• “The historical average post-World War II of how much debt we held as a percent of gross domestic product was 43 percent on average; right now we’re at 74 percent.”

Dodaro says that under current law, debt held by the public will hit a historic high.
“The highest in the United States government’s history of debt held by the public as a percent of gross domestic product was 1946, right after World War II,” he said.
“We’re on mark to hit that in the next 15 to 25 years.”
Another economic projection which assumes that cost controls for Medicare don’t hold and that healthcare costs continue to increase, shows debt rising even further.

• “These projections go to 200, 300 percent, and even higher of debt held by the public as a percent of gross domestic product,” said Dodaro. 

“We’re going to owe more than our entire economy is producing and by definition this is not sustainable.”
Additionally, the audit found fault with the number of improper payments that should not have been made or were the incorrect amount.

• The audit found that in fiscal year 2015 there were $136.7 billion improper payments, which was up by $12 billion from the year prior.
• The audit also called into question the reliability of the government’s financial statements..."

Richmond, California gang members are being paid to stop shooting each other

Richmond, California gang members are being paid to stop shooting each other | Daily Mail Online

Gang members in Richmond are being paid $1,300 a month to stop shooting each other and even get to go on all expenses paid trips to New York (if they travel with a rival)

• Part-taxpayer-funded scheme has been introduced in the Californian area
• Gang members receive a maximum $1,300 if they refrain from gun crime
• Paired with men from rival neighborhoods as officials try and decrease rate
• DeVone Boggan founded scheme and said it was about 'paying attention'

Millennials Want Socialism, But Don’t Want to Foot the Bill for It

Millennials Want Socialism, But Don’t Want to Foot the Bill for It | Intellectual Takeout
"...But the Washington Post also offers another bit of telling information. 
Millennials love socialistic ideas – until it’s their turn to fork out the funds to pay for them:
“The expanded social welfare state Sanders thinks the United States should adopt requires everyday people to pay considerably more in taxes. 
Yet millennials become averse to social welfare spending if they foot the bill.
As they reach the threshold of earning $40,000 to $60,000 a year, the majority of millennials come to oppose income redistribution, including raising taxes to increase financial assistance to the poor.”
Similarly, a Reason-Rupe poll found that while millennials still on their parents’ health-insurance policies supported the idea of paying higher premiums to help cover the uninsured (57 percent), support flipped among millennials paying for their own health insurance with 59 percent opposed to higher premiums.
When tax rates are not explicit, millennials say they’d prefer larger government offering more services (54 percent) to smaller government offering fewer services (43 percent). 
However when larger government offering more services is described as requiring high taxes, support flips and 57 percent of millennials opt for smaller government with fewer services and low taxes, while 41 percent prefer large government.”...

Cruz: Look at Trump’s checkbook to see ‘New York values’ | TheHill

Cruz: Look at Trump’s checkbook to see ‘New York values’ | TheHill:

"The Texas senator ticked through a list of high-profile New York liberals and disgraced former officials from the state that he said have long been in the pocket of Trump. The billionaire businessman has admitted to donating to Republicans and Democrats alike to curry favor for his business interests.

“The people of New York know exactly what those values are — they’re the values of liberal Democrats like Andrew Cuomo, like Anthony Weiner, like Eliot Spitzer, like Charlie Rangel, all of whom Donald Trump has supported,” Cruz said.

“If you want to know what liberal democratic values are, follow Donald Trump’s checkbook,” he continued. “He has been funding these policies.”

Climate Model Predictions On Rain And Drought Wrong, Study Finds

Climate Model Predictions On Rain And Drought Wrong, Study Finds | The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF):
"Predictions that a warmer ­climate will lead to more rain for some but longer droughts for others might be wrong, according to a study of 12 centuries worth of data.
The study, published today in science journal Nature, found there was no difference between 20th-century rainfall patterns and those in the pre-­industrial era. 
The findings are at odds with earlier studies suggesting climate­ change causes dry areas to become drier and wet areas to become wetter.
Fredrik Ljungqvist and colleagues at Stockholm University analysed previously published records of rain, drought, tree rings, marine sediment and ice cores, each spanning at least the past millennium across the northern hemisphere.
They found that the ninth to 11th and the 20th centuries were comparatively wet and the 12th to 19th centuries were drier, a finding that generally accords with earlier model simulations covering the years 850 to 2005.
However, their reconstruction “does not support the tendency in simulations of the 20th century for wet regions to get wetter and dry regions to get drier in a warmer climate”.
“Our reconstruction reveals that prominent seesaw patterns of alternating moisture regimes observed in instrumental data across the Mediterranean, western USA and China have operated consistently over the past 12 centuries,” the paper says.
The research also highlights the importance of using paleo­climate data to place recent and predicted rainfall-pattern changes in a millennium-long context, the report says."

AM Fruitcake