It’s Monday, April 11th, 2016…but before we begin, the great Thomas Sowell offers all that need be said about the very concept of a “minimum wage”:
“Just as we can better understand the economic role of prices in general when we see what happens when prices are not allowed to function, so we can better understand the economic role of workers’ pay by seeing what happens when that pay is not allowed to vary with the supply and demand for labor. Historically, political authorities set maximum wage levels centuries before they set minimum wage levels. Today, however, only the latter are widespread.
Minimum wage laws make it illegal to pay less than the government-specified price for labor. By the simplest and most basic economics, a price artificially raised tends to cause more to be supplied and less to be demanded than when prices are left to be determined by supply and demand in a free market. The result is a surplus, whether the price that is set artificially high is that of farm produce or labor.
Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed. Yet minimum wage laws are almost always discussed politically in terms of the benefits they confer on workers receiving those wages. Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is alwayszero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they either lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force.“
To quote one of the last words from the all-too mortal Harry Ellis,…
…capisce?!?
Now, here’s The Gouge!
First up, it’s The President Acted Stupidly segment, courtesy of the WSJ and the treasonous Islamofascist snake who put the “asp” in “asphole”:
“President Obama chooses his words carefully, so it was startling on Sunday when he chose to opine on the Justice Department’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. All the more so in the way that he phrased his defense of the Democrat he wants to succeed him as President in January.
On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace rolled a clip from October of Mr. Obama saying that “I can tell you this is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.” Mr. Wallace then cited the 2,000 or so emails we have since learned contained classified information, including 22 that included “top secret” information, and he asked: “Can you still say flatly that she did not jeopardize America’s secrets?”
Mr. Obama replied: “I’ve got to be careful because, as you know, there have been investigations, there are hearings, Congress is looking at this. And I haven’t been sorting through each and every aspect of this. Here’s what I know: Hillary Clinton was an outstanding Secretary of State. She would never intentionally put America in any kind of jeopardy.”(Since he’s fibbing about the former, it’s safe to assume he’s lying about the latter!)
Mr. Wallace pressed further on the jeopardy angle, and Mr. Obama responded again: “I continue to believe that she has not jeopardized America’s national security. Now what I’ve also said is that—and she has acknowledged—that there’s a carelessness, in terms of managing emails, that she has owned, and she recognizes.”
Yo…BO; it ain’t like Hillary got caught with her hand in a cookie jar!
Hold on there, big fella. That is one loaded apologia. A more scrupulous President would have begged off the question by claiming that he can’t comment on an ongoing investigation in a department he supervises. So saying anything was bad enough.
But even more notable was Mr. Obama’s use of the word “intentionally” regarding Mrs. Clinton’s actions. As a lawyer, the President knows that intent is often crucial to determining criminal liability. And he went out of his way—twice—to suggest that what Mrs. Clinton did wasn’t intentional but was mere “carelessness, in terms of managing emails.”
…Our own view of the public email evidence is that Mrs. Clinton’s actions go far beyond mere “carelessness.” She knew she was setting up a private server in violation of State Department policy, she did it deliberately to prevent her emails from becoming public if she ran for President, and she knew classified information was bound to travel over that server.
As former Attorney General Michael Mukasey has written on these pages, “gross negligence” in handling classified information related to national defense is enough for criminal liability. That Mr. Obama would issue such a public defense, and use such legally potent words, suggests that there’s more culpability than he cares to admit.“
There sure as hell is; and as this old headline from Drudge details…
…the culpability isn’t confined to Clinton! Then again, in light of the facts, should such a connection in a matter so threatening to national security…
…really surprise anyone?!?
Speaking of aspholes, the favorite son of the Father of Lies…
went on during the Wallace interview to blame his ineptitude on The Fall:
“When you’re outside of the system, you are properly outraged at this ineptitude of the government, or this corruption or this issuethat you feel deeply about,” he said. “When you’re in it, what you realize is that, if you follow this process, if you’re respectful of this process, then we can sort it out and not everybody’s going to be completely happy with it. But it will beat any other system given that we are human, and given original sin.”
In all seriousness, WTF is this Islamofascist clown even trying to say?!? As usual, Hope n’ Change puts it best:
Here’s the juice, via a picture truly worth a thousand words…and which states all that need be said about Hillary’s potential as President:
In a related item, the WSJ‘s Kimberly Strassel relates how when it comes to…
“…Speaking of the judge’s words, they too are a testament to Mrs. Clinton’s mess. Judge Lamberth was unplugged in his order, calling the former secretary of state’s email set up “extraordinary,” and slamming “constantly shifting admissions by the government and former government officials” about the setup. Judge Emmet Sullivan, the first to allow discovery, referred in his own hearing to Mrs. Clinton’s “totally atypical system” and noted that it “boggles the mind that the State Department allowed this circumstance to arise in the first place. It’s just very, very, very troubling.”
Fueling the judges’ suspicions has been new evidence that Mrs. Clinton didn’t turn everything over. Judicial Watch recently obtained emails showing that State Department and National Security Agency personnel had big concerns with Mrs. Clinton’s early demands that she be allowed to use a BlackBerry for secure correspondence. They wanted her to sit at a computer in a secure facility—as everyone else does. These documents include a February 2009 email from then-Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills to her boss, crowing that State was coming around to Mrs. Clinton’s demands, and a return email the same day from Mrs. Clinton saying, “That’s good news.”
These are clearly work-related emails. They speak to the question of Mrs. Clinton’s communications while at the State Department. They aren’t about yoga routines. And yet, guess what? That email chain was notincluded in the 55,000 pages of documents Mrs. Clinton turned over. Perhaps it was an oversight, but far more likely, the Clinton team—knowing the firestorm over a home-brew system—chose to withhold documents showing that State and NSA considered Mrs. Clinton’s email demands unsafe and unreasonable. What else did Mrs. Clinton choose to withhold from the public?
One other aspect of these new emails: Mrs. Clinton sent her “good news” email to Ms. Mills via her private hdr22@clintonemail.com account in February 2009. And yet the former secretary of state has publicly claimed she didn’t start using that address until March 2009, well after she was sworn in as secretary of state…”
Oops! You’ll forgive us for observing “Secretary” Clinton’s email explanations evoke memories of her days as the Brave Bitch of Bosnia:
Sorry folks, but while we recall amazing feats of derring-do during our time as an F-14A driver, dodging sniper fire ain’t among them.
Next up in the Follow-Up segment, more Progressive prevarication regarding the Mississippi religious freedom law, this time in the form of outrageously inaccurate opinion masquerading as reporting via AOL News:
“On Tuesday, Mississippi legalized a business’s right to refuse service to gay and trans people if the owner feels religiously or morally obligated to do so, and (huge shocker) lots of restaurateurs immediately started sweating the fallout for the service industry and tourism in their state. The law will clearly rally some restaurants to discriminate even more boldly than they already were…”
Like…banning Blacks from sitting at the lunch counter…or perhaps the front of the bus?!? What the hell does AOL News think goes on in modern Mississippi?!?
“…You’d think, from a quick read, that Mississippi had passed a virulent anti-LGBT law.You definitely wouldn’t know that there’s overwhelming popular support for the bill from both Democrats and Republicans in the state of Mississippi. You might not be sure if we’d been flung back to the era of Jim Crow laws, to the Middle Ages, or a cave-dwelling existence sometime before then, but there’d be no doubt in your mind that things are really, really bad.
So what about it: Does the Mississippi law allow people to discriminate, to refuse service to someone based purely on their sexual orientation? Does it hurl us back thousands of years into the past?
No, it doesn’t.
For most businesses, the law won’t make any difference at all. It doesn’t allow religious restaurant owners not to serve a gay man a sandwich because of their convictions. It doesn’t let religious booksellers refuse to sell a book to a lesbian. It does, however, protect the religious freedom of certain business-owners who provide wedding-related services, without in any way infringing upon the right to same-sex marriage. A Christian cake baker cannot, under this law, refuse to sell a cake to an LGBTQ individual. He can, however, refuse to express a message that violates his beliefs — so he can choose not to craft a custom wedding cake for a same-sex wedding. To force him to do so would be to compel speech.
American citizens’ freedom from “compelled speech” is part of the freedom of speech enshrined in the Bill of Rights.This principle holds that the government can’t force citizens to express convictions they don’t hold any more than it can silence them for expressing convictions they do hold, and it’s a crucial element of American political life.
For example, in the 1943 Supreme Court case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the Court ruled that the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses could not be forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance, because certain phrases in the Pledge violated their religious beliefs. The opinion contained this statement: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word of act their faith therein.”
In one sense, then, the Mississippi law is a throwback — a throwback to the days of this “fixed star in our constitutional constellation.”Today that star is in serious danger of being extinguished by the penumbras of Political Correctness, which strive to dictate what we can and cannot express in every area.Mississippi’s legislature has simply said that business owners cannot be compelled by the government to express something that violates their religious beliefs, or be punished if they choose to abide by their consciences…”
And they sure as hell can’t refuse simple, everyday business services to customers based on their particular peculiar perversions.
Since we’re on the subject of the peculiarly perverted, while we were never a fervent fan of Dubya, we always found Laura Bush worthy of respect…until we read the following from The Telegraph:
“I can see the sufferings of Afghan women from my house…in Kennebunkport!”
“Laura Bush, the former first lady, has hinted she would rather vote for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump,saying she wants the next American president to be someone who cares about women in Afghanistan.
…“I want our next president – whoever he or she might be – to be somebody who is interested in women in Afghanistan and who will continue US policies…that we continue to do what we’re committed to do as a country,” she said, as she appeared on stage alongside her twin daughters Jenna and Barbara.
“That’s who I want – or the kind of people that will do that and will pay attention to our history, and know what’s what’s happened before and know specifically how we can continue to do the good things that we do around the world…”
Forget the fact, were Laura actually making sense, Hillary is the polar opposite of her preferred President; as so often with The Dear Misleader, we’re left wondering WTF Mrs. Bush II was actually trying to say!?!
Moving on, courtesy of Townhall.com, Leah Barkoukis covers the politically-correct, modern-day equivalent of Benedict Arnold, who knows exactly what he’s trying to say:
“…“In terms of carrying privately owned weapons on military bases … that is not authorized, that is a DoD policy and I do not recommend it be changed,” he said.
Law enforcement on bases is more than adequate, he said, explaining that during the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, the police responded ‘pretty quick.’ “You take the Ft. Hood incident … those police responded within 8 minutes … so that’s pretty quick, and a lot of people died in the process of that, but that was a very fast evolving event and I am not convinced from what I know that carrying privately owned weapons would’ve stopped that individual,” he said.(Then you’re either an idiot or a politically-correct Progressive parrot!)
“I’ve been around guns all my life, I know how to use them, and arming our people on our military bases and allowing them to carry concealed privately owned weapons I do not recommend that as a course of action,” Milley continued.
Considering that the average police response time for emergency calls is 10 minutes, Milley is correct to point out that law enforcement’s 8-minute response to Fort Hood was relatively quick. But, as he also noted, many people died within that time—13 to be exact, with 30 others injured.
Unfortunately Milley did not elaborate on why he believes someone with a privately owned firearm couldn’t have stopped Nidal Hasan, but DoD policy aside, providing personnel with at least the opportunity to defend themselves immediately seems like a course of action that should be considered.Allowing them to continue being sitting ducks seems like the bigger issue here.“
Which is, “Like my predecessors, I put career and personal gain above country”. This could be the most ignorant, politically-correct nonsense ever uttered by a general officer since…
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to today’s Muslim Moment, as PJ Media details the latest beneficent act of the Religion of Pieces:
“Another secular writer has been hacked to death in Bangladesh for criticizing Islam in the sixth such assassination in the country’s capital since February 2015.
Nazimuddin Samad, 28, a law student at Jagannath University, was walking down a Dhaka street with a friend on Wednesday evening when a trio of men approached on a motorbike and attacked him with machetes, police said. As Samad lay on the ground, his attackers shot him before fleeing.Police said witnesses reported hearing the killers shout “Allahu Akbar.” They said Samad had recently moved to Dhaka to begin his law studies, and he was likely on a hit list before that.
A collection of some of Samad’s Facebook posts mocking Islam was posted on a file-sharing site in an attempt to justify the terrorists’ actions, complaining that the western media made an “extreme anti-Islamic” young man a hero despite “heinous” crimes against Islam.
Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) has been systematically murdering secular bloggers and publishers, with ISIS joining the killing spree by murdering a longtime convert to Christianity near his home last month with the same street attack style. AQIS was announced by Ayman al-Zawahiri in September 2014 to united South Asia jihadist groups under the al-Qaeda banner. They’ve even issued assassination guidelines for which people to target next. Ansar al-Islam Bangladesh, the local wing of AQIS, has circulated a timeline graphic of their murders: assassinations of bloggers and thinkers deemed to have insulted Islam…”
But remember, you racist reactionary Republicans..,.
“A 2-year-old boy hospitalized after a small octopus became wedged in this throat showed signs of improvement Thursday as the investigation pressed on, Wichita police said.
…the child’s 21-year-old mother returned home from work Tuesday night and found her boyfriend performing CPR on her son. Espinoza said the couple took the boy to the hospital, where doctors found and removed the dead octopus — its head about 2 inches in diameter — from the boy’s throat.
The hospital notified police after the 36-year-old boyfriend’s account about how the boy swallowed the octopus and sustained minor injuries to his face were inconsistent with the evidence, Espinoza said. The boyfriend, Matthew Gallagher, was arrested on suspicion of child abuse and later released on bond.
Police said the octopus was not a family pet and likely was to be used for sushi…”
So much for the socially-elite status of sushi.
Finally, we’ll call it a day with News of the Perverted, and this just in from jolly old England:
“A mother reunited with the son she gave up for adoption 30 years ago says now they’re in love – and trying for a baby together. Kim West, 51, has been in a relationship with her biological son Ben Ford, 32, for two years and believe they are ‘meant to be’ after she was forced to give him up for adoption just a week after he was born.
But the couple, who say their sex life is ‘incredible’ and are planning to get married, insist their relationship is not incest, the New Day reports.Instead they claim it is ‘Genetic Sexual Attraction’, a term used for relatives who feel sexual attraction for each other after meeting as adults.
The couple were brought together after Ben, who was living in the US, sent his England-born mum a letter out of the blue in 2013. Two years before Ben had married his wife Victoria, who he later split up with to be in a relationship with his mum. The pair began exchanging phone calls before agreeing to meet up, Kim saying it was like they had ‘known each other for years’.
Interior designer Kim started to realise her attraction to her son and found herself having ‘sexy dreams’ about him. Feeling confused about the attraction, Kim decided to look it up on the internet and came across an article on Genetic Sexual Attraction (GSA), and felt like a weight had lifted. She said: “This is not incest, it is GSA. We are like peas in a pod and meant to be together. “I know people will say we’re disgusting, that we should be able to control our feelings, but when you’re hit by a love so consuming you are willing to give up everything for it, you have to fight for it…”
This did King David justify his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah. You say “to-may-to”, we say “to-mah-to” this ain’t; as our online dictionary defines…
And anyway you cut it, not only is it an abomination unjustifiable by any moral definition, it’s illegal in every state in the union.
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