Two Minimum Wage Charts for Andy Puzder

Two Minimum Wage Charts for Andy Puzder | Cato @ Liberty:
"Donald Trump has tabbed Andy Puzder to lead the Department of Labor. Puzder is the CEO of CKE, the restaurant outfit (read: Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.). CKE, thanks to Puzder saving it from the bankruptcy hammer, employs 75,000 workers (read: jobs). 
Puzder knows that “high” minimum wages, such as the $15 per hour one thrown around by progressives, is a job killer for low-skill workers.

During his nomination hearings, Andy Puzder will no doubt be grilled about his views on “high” minimum wages. 
His inquisitors will trot out glowing claims about the wonders of a $15 per hour minimum wage, as did President Obama in his 2014 State of the Union address. 
As the President put it: “It’s good for the economy; it’s good for America.” 
Not so fast.

The glowing claims about minimum wage laws don’t pass the most basic economic smell tests. 
Just look at the data from Europe. 
The following two charts tell the tale and should be tucked into Andy Puzder’s briefing portfolio.

There are six European Union (E.U.) countries in which no minimum wage is mandated (Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Italy, and Sweden). If we compare the levels of unemployment in these countries with E.U. countries that impose a minimum wage, the results are clear. 
A minimum wage leads to higher levels of unemployment. I
n the 21 countries with a minimum wage, the average country has an unemployment rate of 11.8%. 
Whereas, the average unemployment rate in the seven countries without mandated minimum wages is about one third lower — at 7.9%.

This point is even more pronounced when we look at rates of unemployment among the E.U.’s youth — defined as those younger than 25 years of age.

...As Nobelist Milton Friedman correctly quipped, “A minimum wage law is, in reality, a law that makes it illegal for an employer to hire a person with limited skills.”

AM Fruitcake

History for December 21

History for December 21 - On-This-Day.com:
Benjamin Disraeli 1804 - Author, statesman: "No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition.", Joseph Stalin (Dzhugashvili) 1879 - Georgian Marxist revolutionary and later dictator of USSR (1928-53), Phil Donahue 1935 - TV host ("The Phil Donahue Show"), known for pioneering the audience-participation style of TV talk shows.


Jane Fonda 1937 - Daughter of actor Henry Fonda and sister of actor Peter Fonda, Frank Zappa 1940 - Musician (The Mothers of Invention, Valley Girl (w/daughter Moon)), Kiefer Sutherland 1966 - Actor ("The Lost Boys," "Young Guns," "A Time to Kill"), son of actor Donald Sutherland


1620 - The "Mayflower", and its passengers, pilgrims from England, landed at Plymouth Rock, MA.


1898 - Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discovered the radioactive element radium.


1913 - Arthur Wynne published a new "word-cross" puzzle in the "New York World" in England. The name was later changed to "crossword."


1937 - Walt Disney debuted the first, full-length, animated feature in Hollywood, CA. The movie was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."


1945 - U.S. Gen. George S. Patton died in Heidelberg, Germany, of injuries from a car accident.


1968 - Apollo 8 was launched on a mission to orbit the moon. The craft landed safely in the Pacific Ocean on December 27.


1978 - Police in Des Plaines, IL, arrested John W. Gacy Jr. and began unearthing the remains of 33 men and boys that Gacy was later convicted of killing.


1988 - 270 people were killed when Pan Am Boeing 747 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, due to a terrorist attack.

Judge Orders Release of Search Warrant That Reopened Hillary Email Investigation - Cortney O'Brien

Judge Orders Release of Search Warrant That Reopened Hillary Email Investigation - Cortney O'Brien:

"A U.S. District Court judge wants to make public the search warrant that led to the controversial reopening of the FBI investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails just 11 days before the November election."

Only One Protester Shows Up At Wisconsin Electoral College Protest

It IS true-----On Gilbert's building costs claim: How do city's numbers compare?

On Gilbert's building costs claim: How do city's numbers compare? - Crain's Detroit Business:
"One of the arguments Dan Gilbert has used to push for a new tax incentive for sweeping developments is that it costs just as much to construct a new building in Detroit as it does in three of the biggest and priciest real estate markets in the country.
Whether that's actually true isn't entirely clear.
Gilbert's team says its calculation includes all components of new building — minus the cost of land — ranging from materials to permitting and insurance costs.
Yet data from a well-known construction cost estimator puts Detroit's per-square-foot rate for new office construction well below New York City, Chicago and San Francisco, and construction laborer wages in those markets — a key variable from city to city — are more than 10 percent higher.
"It costs the same to build a skyscraper or building in New York City, Chicago, as it does in Detroit," Gilbert said in an interview with Paul W. Smith on WJR-AM 760 last week.
"The rents have come up in Detroit, but they are nowhere near the double to triple, if not more, rents that happen in those other cities."
The second sentence in that statement is undeniably true.
The first claim is dubious."

Bill Clinton blames ‘angry white men’ for Hillary’s loss on Election Day – TheBlaze

Bill Clinton blames ‘angry white men’ for Hillary’s loss on Election Day – TheBlaze:

"But while Bill Clinton is blaming Comey and “angry white men,” Hillary Clinton has recently shifted the blame to Russia. The former secretary of state said Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to “undermine our democracy” because of his “personal beef” with her.

With this latest report, Democrats have blamed just about everyone — except Hillary herself — for the stunning loss in November."

Dakota Pipeline Decision Is Obama’s Last ‘Screw You’ to Rural America

News - Dakota Pipeline Decision Is Obama’s Last ‘Screw You’ to Rural America | Heartland Institute:
"The Obama administration’s decision to deny an important easement needed to complete the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) represents one last single-finger salute to Middle America from the outgoing president.
Rural Americans face tough challenges, and by killing the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines and by imposing several costly regulations on energy development, President Barack Obama has only served to make these challenges worse.
People living in rural areas face high levels of poverty.
...According to data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual earnings for oil and gas jobs are about $67,400, a figure that is much higher than the average earnings received by workers in rural areas.
This means every family-supporting job killed by unnecessary regulations or government mandates, such as Obama’s proposed methane regulations and the politically motivated pipeline rejections/delays, has hurt workers substantially more in rural areas, where there aren’t as many good-paying blue-collar jobs, than they might in suburban or urban parts of the United States.
 Even worse, without the 4.3 million jobs generated over the past several years by the hydraulic fracturing industry, which has largely been opposed by the Obama administration, only five million jobs would have been created since Obama took office in 2009. 
Without hydraulic fracturing, Obama’s paltry job creation numbers would have been the worst of any two-term president in recent history..."

Fun!-----Woman Snaps At Wisconsin Electors: "You Don't Deserve To Be In America!" "This Is Not America!"

Woman Snaps At Wisconsin Electors: "You Don't Deserve To Be In America!" "This Is Not America!" | Video | RealClearPolitics:
"A woman lost control Monday afternoon when members of Wisconsin's electoral college delegation met to certify the results for Donald Trump. 
“You sold out our country,” the woman screamed at the electors, standing up. “Everyone of you, you’re pathetic. You don’t deserve to be in America.”
The crowd responded by chanting: "Shame, shame, shame."
"This is my America," the woman yelled.
MoveOn.org Executive Director Anna Galland said Monday evening that protests like this one were "a marker for what's to come."

Alternate angle from Wisconsin:

Lunch video-----Denzel Washington Destroyed the Liberal Media over "Fake News"

Noon-toon

Caddell: ‘Fake News’ Issue Part of Media Outrage That the ‘Peasants’ Revolted

Caddell: ‘Fake News’ Issue Part of Media Outrage That the ‘Peasants’ Revolted:


"“The elite of this country has nothing but contempt and no respect for the American people who built this country,” political pollster and analyst Pat Caddell told Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Friday."

The decimation of the Democratic Party, visualized

The decimation of the Democratic Party, visualized - The Washington Post:
"...It can be hard to see the extent to which the Democratic collapse has occurred. 
...That whistling sound you hear is the party Thelma-and-Louiseing.
Two days after its candidate for the presidency suffered a stunning loss, the tension within the party became uncontainable. 
The Huffington Post reports that at a party meeting on Thursday, a staffer named Zach yelled at Donna Brazile, who took over as chair following the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz this summer.
"Why should we trust you as chair to lead us through this?" he said, according to HuffPo's Jennifer Bendery. 
He went on to accuse Brazile of having "backed a flawed candidate," Hillary Clinton, and having "plotted through this to support your own gain and yourself."
"You are part of the problem," Zach reportedly said.
We tend to focus on the loss of the presidency as the example of Democratic failure. 
That's blinkered. 
Since 2008, by our estimates, the party has shed 870 legislators and leaders at the state and federal levels -- and that estimate may be on the low side. 
As Donald Trump might put it, that's decimation times 50.
No wonder Zach got mad..."

The Associated Press Admits Defeat

The Associated Press Admits Defeat | Power Line:
"The Associated Press did all it could to elect Hillary Clinton, but today it (almost) gave up the ghost. 
The “news” service headlined: “Trump cruises to Electoral College victory despite protests.”

“Despite protests”? 
What does that mean? 
Are we supposed to take seriously the idea that a handful of slackers waving signs at state capitols around the country could somehow reverse Donald Trump’s victory?

Trump’s polarizing victory Nov. 8 and the fact Democrat Hillary Clinton had won the national popular vote had stirred an intense lobbying effort, but to no avail.

Why was Trump’s victory “polarizing”? Would it be any less polarizing if Hillary Clinton had won? No.

...Despite everything, the AP hasn’t quite given up hope:

A joint session of Congress is scheduled for Jan. 6 to certify the results of the Electoral College vote, with Vice President Joe Biden presiding as president of the Senate. Once the result is certified, the winner — almost certainly Trump — will be sworn in on Jan. 20.

“Almost certainly Trump”? 

I have no idea what loophole the AP has in mind. Trump won the election, and it is 100% certain that he will be certified as the winner, however much that may dismay America’s reporters and editors."

‘Fake’ News and the Victorian Gentleman

‘Fake’ News and the Victorian Gentleman | commentary
"...Because it is difficult for liberals to understand that people might oppose them on substantive as well as moral grounds, their analyses of the election results were as flawed as their takes on the horse race. 
Many liberal commentators simply ascribed Trump’s victory to the supposed racism, misogyny, and authoritarianism of his supporters, reducing varied and complex motivations to base, irrational, and impermissible drives.

...Such was the genesis of the controversy over “fake news.”
“News websites designed to trick and mislead people seem to pop up every single day,” wrote Brian Stelter of CNN.
...And yet the argument over fake news is about more than due diligence.
...In November, for example, an explosive Washington Post story claimed, “The flood of ‘fake news’ this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy,” according to “independent researchers who tracked the operation.” 
The Post quoted an anonymous source: “It was like Russia was running a super PAC for Trump’s campaign.”
...Also on the list were heavily trafficked populist websites such as Infowars and the Drudge Report.
...Long ago the press changed its job description and went from telling readers what had happened to telling them what to think.
...Why the obsession with fake news?

• Readers with long memories will note that the mainstream media did not use this term to describe the work of Janet Cooke, 
• Stephen Glass, and 
• Jayson Blair, or 
• the reporters who vilified and maligned the Duke Lacrosse Team, or 
• the disgusting fabrications Rolling Stone told about fraternity life at the University of Virginia, 
• or the myths parroted on CNN that Michael Brown shouted “hands up, don’t shoot” before he was killed in Ferguson. 
• Nor was fake news a problem in 2012 when a man named Floyd Corkins said he shot an employee of the conservative Family Research Council in the arm because the Southern Poverty Legal Center had accused it of being a hate group. 

And yet four years later, when an armed man showed up at a D.C. pizzeria after reading online that it might be connected to human trafficking, the mainstream media’s quest to anathematize fake news intensified...
What makes the controversy salient is the uncertain social position of the mainstream media.
The press, Tom Wolfe wrote, is a Victorian Gentleman, the arbiter of manners and fashion, the judge of right conduct and good breeding.
But the fragmentation of the media landscape, the decentralization of the Internet and social media, and the rise of Donald Trump have set this Victorian Gentleman back on his heels.
Long ago he changed his job description and went from telling his readers what had happened to telling them what to think.
And the fact that so many people now have the means to disagree with him, to challenge him, to speak unmediated and uncensored, is profoundly disturbing to his sense of authority and self-worth..."
Read the whole article!

Hillary's Popular Vote Win Came ENTIRELY From California | The Federalist Papers

Hillary's Popular Vote Win Came ENTIRELY From California | The Federalist Papers:

"The purpose of the Electoral College is to prevent regional candidates from dominating national elections.

California is now a one-party state. There were zero Republicans running for statewide office and no GOP candidates in nine of California’s congressional districts. At the state level, Investor’s Business Daily reports, six districts had no Republicans for the state senate and 16 districts had no Republicans for the state assembly."

Out of Karakter - an Electoral College primer for the masses

Out of Karakter - an Electoral College primer for the masses:

"Now that everybody has discovered that we have an Electoral College and that the cat's out of the bag, so to speak, let's take a quick look at why we have what on the surface appears to be a quirky method of choosing our executive head.
We all remember the Great Compromise, right? 

That was when at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 two plans of representation were proposed, each with a legitimate argument in favor of it. 

Virginia, the most populous state, naturally thought a legislature in which states were represented by population was fair. 

After all, why should the clear majority of the people be effectively thwarted by a small state? 

The New Jersey delegates, needless to say, saw it differently. 

Each state should be represented equally. 

After all, why should a small state be rendered irrelevant by a domineering large state?
So, what to do? 

A Connecticut delegate, Roger Sherman, seeing the justice of both positions, proposed that both could be done. 

He wasn't the first to conceive of the idea, but he did manage to persuade the Constitutional Convention to buy into the idea. 

Thus was born a bicameral (two house) legislature in which there would be a House of Representatives in which states would be represented by population, and a Senate in which states would be represented equally. 

For a bill to become law requires the approval of both houses..."

Interesting!

Read on!

AM Fruitcake

History for December 20

History for December 20 - On-This-Day.com:
Samuel Mudd 1833 - Physician that set John Wilkes Booth's leg after the assissination of President Lincoln, Harvey Firestone 1868 - Founder Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Walter Adams 1876 - Astronomer



Max Lerner 1902, George Roy Hill 1922 - Director, Uri Geller 1946


1606 - The "Susan Constant," "Godspeed" and "Discovery" set sail from London. Their landing at Jamestown, VA, was the start of the first permanent English settlement in America.


1699 - Peter the Great ordered that the Russian New Year be changed from September 1 to January 1.


1860 - South Carolina became the first state to secede from the American Union.


1880 - New York's Broadway became known as the "Great White Way" when it was lighted by electricity.


1892 - Alexander T. Brown and George Stillman patented the pneumatic tire.


1946 - The Frank Capra film "It's A Wonderful Life" had a preview showing for charity at New York City's Globe Theatre, a day before its "official" world premiere. James Stewart and Donna Reed star in the film.


1989 - General Noriega, Panama's former dictator, was overthrown by a United States invasion force invited by the new civilian government. The project was known as Operation Just Cause.


1990 - The world's first website and server go live at CERN. The first website was http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html.

None of the Hollywood celebrities who vowed to leave American if Trump won have left the U.S. – TheBlaze

None of the Hollywood celebrities who vowed to leave American if Trump won have left the U.S. – TheBlaze:

"None of the celebrities who vowed to move out of the United State if Donald Trump became president have followed through on their promise to do so.

According to Heat Street, in the nearly six weeks following President-elect Donald Trump’s Election Day victory, only 28 Americans have applied for “Trump related refugee status” to Canada — with none of them appearing to be celebrities.

More from Heat Street:"

The Video That Just May Sink Hillary's Ship... »

The Video That Just May Sink Hillary's Ship... » Louder With Crowder:
"...But this ad, is without a doubt, the most effective anti-campaign ad that I’ve ever seen.
And it shows Conservatives the blueprint on how to beat Hillary.
Attack the dishonesty.
I’ve been saying this for years.
Hillary Clinton is more than a slimy politician, she’s a compulsive liar.
She lies about big things, but more importantly, she lies about little things when she thinks that nobody’s watching. 
For no reason!
Ignore the “sexism” claims from the left, speak freely, and focus on this.
Watch below.
It’s a must."

Data Shows Fake News Sites Have Tiny Audience

Data Shows Fake News Sites Have Tiny Audience | The Daily Caller
"Despite a media blitz portraying fake news sites as having a real impact in national politics — and even capable of affecting the outcome of a presidential election — fake news sites struggle to reach any sort of real audience.
Fake news site DenverGuardian.com, subject of coverage from the New York Times and the Washington Post, is ranked 91,688 in web traffic in the U.S., according to web analytics firm Alexa. To put that number in perspective: the site supposedly impacting the national political scene is more than 84,000 slots behind the website for a Virginia community college.
On Sunday, the New York Times devoted front-page coverage to a site called the “Patriot News Agency.” 
The Times’ story emphasized the fact that “operators of Patriot News had an explicitly partisan motivation: getting Mr. Trump elected.” (RELATED: NYT Devotes Front-Page Coverage To Irrelevant Fake News Site)
But “Patriot News Agency” is even less popular than the “Denver Guardian,” ranking in at 184,898 in the country, according to Alexa.
The site’s Facebook page has 113 total likes at this time.
Fake news site “MSNBC.com.co,” whose name meant to fool readers into confusing it with liberal network MSNBC, received mentions from the Washington Post and liberal website Vox.com, among others.
But “MSNBC.com.co” reaches a tiny audience, according to Alexa’s data, which has the site ranked 549,714 in the United States.
The minuscule reach of fake news sites hasn’t kept the Times from running headlines like “As Fake News Spreads Lies, More Readers Shrug At The Truth” or “Media’s Next Challenge: Overcoming The Threat Of Fake News.”
...In response to public pressure to do something about “fake news,” Facebook has appointed four “fact-check” organizations to label stories deemed “fake” as illegitimate.
One of Facebook’s newly-appointed fact-checkers, the mythbusting website Snopes, almost exclusively employs leftists and has a history of itself getting the facts wrong while trying to “fact-check” conservative news stories.

Report: One of Facebook’s new ‘fact checkers’ almost exclusively employs liberals – TheBlaze

Report: One of Facebook’s new ‘fact checkers’ almost exclusively employs liberals – TheBlaze:

"Snopes.com, which will be one of Facebook’s U.S.-based “fact checkers,” employs almost exclusively liberals, according to a report.

From the Daily Caller:
Almost all of the writers churning out fact checks for Snopes have a liberal background, and many of them have expressed contempt for Republican voters. The Daily Caller could not identify a single Snopes fact-checker who comes from a conservative background. Snopes did not respond to a list of questions from TheDC regarding the site’s ideological leaning."

8-Year-Old Girl Carries Out Suicide Bombing in Damascus

8-Year-Old Girl Carries Out Suicide Bombing in Damascus
"The girl was strapped with a homemade bomb.
When she entered a police station, the bomb was detonated by remote control.
An eight-year-old girl carried out a suicide bombing attack at a Damascus police station, according to SANA (the Syrian Arab News Agency) and as reported by RT.
The agency cited a source in the Damascus Police Command that reported, “Terrorists sent an eight-year-old girl with a small homemade bomb to a police station in the Midan neighborhood.
When she entered the building, militants activated the explosive device with a remote control, the child died at the scene, one police officer suffered light injuries.”
The bombing has not been claimed by any group as yet. The girl reportedly came to the police station and said she was lost.
The blast killed her and lightly injured one policeman."

The Liberal Ideological Complex

The Liberal Ideological Complex | The Weekly Standard:
".  .  . vast bureaucracies of civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil." (Winston Churchill)
In 1961 President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the danger of a military-industrial complex.
This powerful public-private collaboration, he said, had the potential to exert "unwarranted influence" over America's democratic processes.
A half-century later, there are still those on the left who cling to this fear.
But it seems that Eisenhower's warning had its intended effect—and perhaps then some.
In 1961 defense spending constituted 9.1 percent of the gross domestic product, and there were 2,483,000 uniformed military personnel.
Today, defense spending is 3.2 percent of GDP and 1,390,000 men and women serve in the uniformed military.
If this behemoth is threatening America's democratic processes, it is not doing so very successfully.
There is, however, another interlocking public-private collaboration that is at once more insidious, more powerful, and more straightforwardly partisan: the liberal ideological complex. 

• We do not always see this collaboration so clearly, because we tend to view each aspect of it as unique and not part of a larger picture. 
• We look, for example, at public sector unions as a labor issue. 
• We look at funding for Planned Parenthood through the lens of abortion policy. 
• We look at EPA regulations and grants in terms of global warming and job destruction. 
• And so on and so forth, down to the smallest, most narrowly tailored grant awards of the federal government.

Yet in each of these cases, the complex functions in essentially the same way.
Federal funds are provided for organizations that carry out liberal policies.
In turn, these groups employ like-minded staff and both the leadership and the staff of these groups contribute money, time, and services to the politicians who favor this use of federal funds.
This creates a vicious circle in which campaign funds are indirectly skimmed off the top of taxpayer-funded organizations, all in the service of liberal ideology..."

Lunch video-----Dennis Miller: Nancy Pelosi is Bat Shit Crazy