“When Seattle officials voted three years ago to incrementally boost the city’s minimum wage up to $15 an hour, they’d hoped to improve the lives of low-income workers. Yet according to a major new study that could force economists to reassess past research on the issue, the hike has had the opposite effect.
The city is gradually increasing the hourly minimum to $15 over several years. Already, though, some employers have not been able to afford the increased minimums. They’ve cut their payrolls, putting off new hiring, reducing hours or letting their workers go, the study found.
The costs to low-wage workers in Seattle outweighed the benefits by a ratio of three to one, according to the study, conducted by a group of economists at the University of Washington who were commissioned by the city. The study, published as a working paper Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, has not yet been peer reviewed.
On the whole, the study estimates, the average low-wage worker in the city lost $125 a month because of the hike in the minimum…”
Oops; but hey, what’s a little lost income compared with some well-intentioned Progressives sleeping better knowing their hearts were in the right place…even if their brains were MIA?!?
Since we’re on the subject of those hiding behind the door when the grey matter was distributed, writing at the New York Post, Michael Goodwin concludes…
“The rapid pace of change in American life does not exempt politics. Witness how fast Democrats are cycling through scapegoats.
First came Hillary Clinton. When she emerged to gripe about all the reasons she lost last year, except herself, party activists told her to be quiet and go away. She has, for now.
Next came Nancy Pelosi. When Republicans won four contested special elections for House seats, disgruntled Dems turned their fire on their minority leader, telling Pelosi it was time to get out of the way. She refuses, for now.
And now comes Barack Obama.The former president, shredding what was left of his promise not to interfere with his successor, is joining the fight against the repeal of ObamaCare. He called the Senate bill an example of “meanness,” and pledged to campaign for the Democrat in the Virginia governor’s race.
For Republicans, luck can’t get much better. While Clinton and Pelosi were hardly innocent bystanders in the historic rout of Democrats at every level of government, the main culprit was Obama.
It was Obamaism, more than Clintonism or Pelosism, that elected Donald Trump and gave the GOP both houses of Congress. The former president’s coercive liberalism at home and appeasement abroad led to the greatest upset in American politics.
His two biggest achievements, ObamaCare and the Iran nuclear deal, were sold on the backs of lies. President Trump is Obama’s legacy.
And now Dear Leader wants to “help” Dems again. Let’s see how many Clinton and Pelosi critics have the courage to tell him, “No, thanks, you’ve done enough.”…”
Now we know why tigers eat their young!
Then there’s this bit of disturbingly sober analysis from Ray Starmann, courtesy of U.S. Defense Watch and our old pal Breeze Gould:
“…Two days after the Gulf War ended, on March 2, 1991, elements of the 24th Mech were fired on by the Iraqi Hammurabi Division of the Republican Guard, which was retreating north in a five mile long convoy. McCaffrey ordered his division to destroy the Hammurabi and by the end of the day, the 24th Mech had annihilated the division, destroying 187 armored vehicles, 43 artillery pieces, and over 400 trucks. The Battle of Rumaila Oilfield was a classic showcase of the kind of warrior aggression the US military’s senior leaders used to display, but which, in the era of the perfumed prince with stars has all but disappeared. Barry McCaffrey would last about five minutes on active duty today, as would Norman Schwarzkopf.
McCaffrey and Schwarzkopf are the type of generals who win wars. What do the the generals (and admirals) do now?
Yet, the world saw none of those battles being fought as they saw no Marines storming through Kuwait. There were no journalists; hence no video, no film, no photos; nothing to show the world except a few shots of B Roll of the Iraqi Army surrendering to Marines on the border. To the American public, the Iraqis were surrendering en masse, when in actuality the Republican Guard was going down with the ship. For example, the 10,000 man Tawakalna Division was virtually annihilated, including the division commander who died in an artillery barrage on the night of February 26, 1991.
While General Schwarkopf’s power point presentations enlightened the world, the soldiers and Marines found themselves in a Dante’s Inferno, with smoldering vehicles, dead Iraqi soldiers strewn over tank turrets in a man-made darkness of oil fires that smothered any sunlight and the vast remnants of an army, which littered the battlefield: rifles, helmets, sundry equipment and arms and legs that were picked at by packs of roving wild dogs.
War is hell…but the American public never knew.
The day Desert Storm ended, the death of the US military commenced.
The Pentagon, basking in glory and bowing to pressure from the public and crackpot feminists like Patricia Schroeder, started drinking the Kool Aid and they’ve never stopped. The war was a video game, a clean, quick rout. Modern war was now sanitized, where the bad guys would die at stand-off ranges of a mile or two and explode in little black and white pixels on Pentagon TV screens. In fact, war was now so quick and so easy that women should be allowed to serve in the combat arms and Special Forces.
Our victory in Desert Storm became the catalyst for every left wing wacko to hack at the military with a meat cleaver.
Since, 1991, the US military has been slowly coming apart at the seams.Stress cards, open homosexuality, transgenders on active duty, sensitivity training, pregnancy simulators for male troopers, lactation stations in the field, babies born on US ships of war, female graduates of Ranger School, including a 37 year old mother (it’s funny how the women looked so well fed), women in the SEALs, women in Marine infantry units and females in the field artillery (even though most cannot carry a 155mm round) are just some of the insanity that has taken place in the last 26 years, but which snowballed into hell under the Obama administration. (Thank you, Mike Mullen!)
A social revolution engulfed the military, starting with Tailhook and continuing to this day. Warriors were forced out and feather merchants and PC flag bearers were promoted.Girl power was in and masculinity was out.The warrior culture was buried and a new culture was reborn that resembles corporate America, not the US military of yesteryear.
No, General Kennedy, it’s not your father’s army and that’s a problem, a big, festering problem.
And, now, with the world in flames, with ISIS blowing up Europe, with Putin pumping weights in the Artic while he watches his BMP’s on skis roll by, with Kim Jong-Loon on the loose with a toy chest of nukes and missiles and with Iran figuring out that Trump ain’t Barney Fife, the US military needs to be rougher and tougher and more ready for a fight than ever.
And, we ain’t.And, that’s the fact, Jack.
Many are waiting for Mad Dog Mattis to stick a pike in the heart of the military’s social engineering forever.
We are still waiting…
Perhaps, Secretary Mattis is so busy dealing with the thugs on the planet, that he has forgotten that the armed forces that will be engaging the thugs is still in trouble.
Secretary Mattis must once and for all shut down the feminist fantasy of women in the combat arms. There are thousands of jobs for women in the military where they can serve honorably and be promoted, without, in Mattis’ own words, ‘setting themselves up for failure in combat.’
Mattis also needs to get rid of the perfumed princes, and the feckless duds who have infested the senior ranks of the armed forces. I would rather have a sergeant with guts running a division than a two star coward who is more worried about his pension and future job on cable news than the mission and the troops.
The US military is still being led by people who believe that the military is nothing different than working for Google, except that the military has uniforms and weapons.When you eschew the glorious traditions of the military and combine that with ludicrous social engineering, you are setting yourself up for massive failure.
While the US military interpreted the results of Desert Storm incorrectly, the real lessons from that conflict are crystal clear. The US military functioned well in an environment that focused on the mission, not on political correctness, LGBT rights, day care centers on submarines and breastfeeding Rangers.
With our enemies stacking up against us, time is running out to fix the problems which were initially caused by a victory 26 years ago, in a war that has largely been forgotten.”
Mad Dog, we’re…
…still waiting!
Meanwhile, on The Lighter Side…
Finally, in the Sports Section, the older John McEnroe gets, the more we like him:
“…People are losing their minds.I’m reminded of the absurd recent “debate” over whether female UFC star Ronda Rousey could beat – of all people – Floyd Mayweather, Jr. That debate ended when Holly Holm knocked out Rousey with the “kick heard round the world.”
I’d be tempted to simply shake my head and laugh, but then I remember that radical gender politics are so ingrained in our national life that our military is even now in the process of integrating women into the infantry – a decision that will decrease the combat power of mixed-gender units and increase the physical risks to both men and the women alike.
Serena Williams is a tremendous athlete, a historic talent. There is no shame in being the best athlete in her sport, and her sport is women’s tennis. Let’s honor people for who theyare, not for who theyaren’t.In the meantime, it would behoove members of the so-called “party of science” to remember that biology actually does trump ideology.No amount of wishful thinking will change the facts of athletic life.“
Here’s the juice: anyone either too ignorant to understand McEnroe’s right, or too politically-correct to admit it, can…
We’ll be heading north to Upstate New York Wednesday afternoon for our late father’s memorial golf tournament; so ’til Monday…
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