Okay for Homeless to Defecate on the Street, But No Free Popcorn?

Okay, there are probably daily instances of local laws and ordinances across the country which impact businesses, but they are in place for a good reason; usually pubic safety.

But what of the damage done by those laws and ordinances to the intent of a business to generate a climate which fosters a positive community relations climate with their customers? Say, for instance, providing free popcorn to customers who step into their store.

Do those offices or agencies within the local community, county, or state care at all about the adverse impact which results from those laws or ordinances on businesses? One has to really wonder.

Take, for instance, this story of a community store in the San Diego area of California where for decades a hardware business has had free popcorn for those in the store, but has now been ordered to cease providing it because the health department claims it's not safe in preventing communicable diseases of those who might reach in and grab a handful of popcorn, rather than using a scoop and bag to put it in. What?

I understand the premise, but the bigger question to me is, is this action by the health department overkill? Surely, there's got to be a more simple answer or fix to this. Something tells me that this news report, once again, doesn't provide all the details in reporting this story that actually occurred.

I don't know about you, but have you ever been in a theater buying a hot dog and seen the teen behind the counter wipe his/her hands on their pants after coughing, then, without any protective gloves pick up a customer's hot dog off the shelf and place it into the cardboard tray, then attempt to serve it to them? If it were mine, I'd reject it and get something else!

Of all the food franchise establishments across the country, how many employees faithfully follow the health department's requirement for every employee to thoroughly wash their hands regularly... especially after going to the restroom? I mean, if the health department was really intending to stop potential situations where various pathogens or viruses could be transmitted to customers in such places, one would see someone from that agency at every establishment monitoring every employee as to whether or not they were following the requirements... or at least video cameras monitoring such things.

Currently, in many west coast cities the homeless problem is out of control and the unsanitary public conditions on those city's streets are way beyond "safe" for the public. Yet, we can't have free popcorn in a hardware store?

Where's the reasonable, common sense balance regarding this issue? Why is it that our tendency today is to have our civic leaders treat its people they serve as though they're our elite overlords? If they really cared about our health, they'd change their policies about the homeless for a start!

The Makings of One of the All-Time Congressional Scandals

This post's title are part of the opening words of Congressman Ron DeSantis (R) FL, in this Full Measure article, Cyber Security, by Sharyl Attkisson, a weekly investigative report show.

The subject... how the Democratic Caucus in Washington, D.C. under the leadership of Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz hired five Pakistani IT workers who conducted activities outside the rules of Congressional workers who allegedly hacked personal emails of both Congress and their constituents, along with thousands of documents which may be classified, and sent them overseas, but which has met with stonewalling by both Democrat and Republican leaders of Congress.

Most of the public has not learned about this matter as the mainstream media and congressional circles have deliberately withheld information and news about it. I urge you to view this presentation by Attkisson on the link provided above to understand what occurred.

The particular remarks which caught my attention in this piece was from the defense attorney for Imran Awan, the principal person of interest in this case. He asserts the scenario that the five Muslims involved are simply victims of American bias against them... as Muslims, of course. 

That because they were stealing cyber information from Congress, then they're automatically doing it for Al-Quaida. How typical of him! Use the straw man strategy to explain why Awan is now in jail for bank fraud and money laundering; Awan apparently sent out hundreds of thousands of dollars to Pakistan just before he attempted to flee the country, but was arrested at the airport. It will be interesting to learn details of this lawyer's defense once the trial gets underway and, if at all, is reported in the media.

I wrote my congressman several months ago who had one of his aides call me directly. The conversation, to say the least, was extremely revealing in that the aide's approach in discussing the issue with me was one which shifted from him answering my inquiry on the subject to one where I was being asked to provide proof of the details regarding the issue for him to understand it; as though I was somehow privy to that information.

BREAKING NEWS – CITY COUNCIL’S FINANCE COMMITTEE APPROVES THE HEAD TAX

The following is a Saturday morning email sent out by the Senate Republican Campaign Committee:
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Friends,

We can’t believe it. Despite so many businesses and voters joining together against Kshama Sawant’s head tax, the Seattle City Council still decided to advance it.

There are still a few hoops to jump through before it goes into effect, but that could happen as soon as Monday! Donate right now to give us the tools we need to fight back.

The Seattle City Council is prepared to work through the weekend to pass this job-destroying head tax. The next 48 hours are critical! If people come together right now to push back (and hard!), I know we can make a difference come Monday. It will only happen if you chip in right now.

Senate Democrats are looking to Seattle to set their agenda. If the head tax passes, you know Senate liberals will try to take this bad idea statewide. Republicans must take back the majority in the Senate – it’s more important than ever.

Best,

Justin Matheson 

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And, from ShiftWA.org:

“I am pretty blown away that an adult would behave this way, I find it appalling.” That’s what Seattleite Ari Hoffman said of Kshama Sawant’s rhetoric around the head tax. Unable to make an economic argument for the head tax, Sawant has instead called Jeff Bezos a “bully” and anyone opposing the head tax “right-wingers.” (Q13 Fox)

In an interview with Q13 Fox, Sawant took the recent pushback from workers and business owners as a reason to double down on the head tax. In a testy segment with Q13’s Brandi Kruse, Sawant called for an increase in the tax proposal from $75 million to $150 million a year. (Q13 Fox)

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Personally, I suspected this would go through. It makes perfect sense to me since it is clear that the leftists are desperate to maintain a semblance of control over their rapidly shrinking support base. Just consider how California's Governor Jerry Brown, and Oregon's Governor Kate Brown are conducting their states! Their policies are consistent with what Seattle's Mayor Jenny Durkan is doing with this head tax. 

If, as Justin implies in his message, the Senate liberals are looking at this move to take it statewide, should they gain any more seats in our state legislature over what they had last year, this could be devastating for our state's businesses.

Update: Here's a quote from a one week later article on this issue in the Daily Signal. 

The reasons for the surge in Seattle homelessness are many. Some argue that the presence of the rich simply increased the ranks of the poor as everything naturally becomes more expensive. But this misses the fact that government policies, such as extremely restrictive building codes and low-growth housing plans, have forced prices upward.

It appears from these developments that next fall's mid-term election races are going to be all the more critical.

Do I Have This Right?

Funny how a review of events in our recent past makes things a bit clearer...

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If we get nuked by missiles from Iran,

it'll be by missiles built with technology given to China by Bill Clinton,

funded by Iran with money Obama gave them,

with warheads developed from uranium sold to Russia by Hillary,

and refined by Iran into weapons-grade plutonium in Russian centrifuges,

bought with money Obama gave them.

And Trump is trying to undo this shit storm...but HE'S the Traitor to America according to the Democrats?!? No wonder they've come up with this claim Trump was colluding with Russia! They're using the art of misdirection... again!

Are We Getting Close?

I've deliberately avoided touching on this subject for some time now; the whole "Trump/Russian Collusion" allegation that has been dragging on in the mainstream/liberal media for over a year. It's getting to the point now where the average consumer who's been paying any attention to this issue is convinced that this is a witch hunt on Special Prosecutor Mueller's part in that nothing whatsoever has surfaced that indicates Trump, or his campaign, is guilty of any such collusion.

So much so, that Kimberly Strassel - columnist for the Wall Street Journal - has come out with the following statement in her latest article:

We’ve barely scratched the surface of the FBI’s 2016 behavior, and the country will never get the straight story until President Trump moves to declassify everything possible.

Of course, the liberals defending their accusation - mostly because they hate that Trump won and Hillary didn't - are going to make all kinds of excuses for these revelations because they are primarily habitual liars and deniers about what they've alleged when the evidence that's been coming out says otherwise; that the Democrats have been abusing the law and are hell-bent on conducting a stealth coup on getting Trump out of office. They just want some type of revenge and victory over him because he's making their former president look like a community organizer, rather than a world leader.

The final nail through the heart of liberals across the country will be when Trump gets the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Korean War. And, of course, we all know what Obama did in getting his.

Liberal Hypocrisy - Again and Again and Again!

Yes, a "Blue Wave" is coming, only not in the form of Democrats winning elections. No, it's rather obvious, that if there's any "Blue Wave" it's in the form of a parade of liberals being exposed for their lies and hypocrisy, isn't it?

Pointing out the latest glaring example on her Reality Check, Brittany Hughes tells it best. 

And it's not just about the New York D.A. The very women who lauded him last week, are now turning on him with the very kinds of accusations he was their champion for in the #MeToo movement.

Democrats are now embracing socialism and it’s frightening

Ed Rogers  Special to the Washington Post

Speaking at an event in New York City this month, Hillary Clinton said something interesting about Democrats and their lurch to the left. Clinton said being a capitalist "probably" hurt her when campaigning in the 2016 primaries against democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats.

Think about that. Part of the reason so many Republicans are frozen like a deer in headlights when it comes to President Donald Trump is the horror of thinking about Clinton as president. It is stunning to realize how in today’s Democratic Party that being a capitalist is something one must either apologize for or at least give qualified acceptance.

Talk about nostalgia for the 1950s. It seems that socialism is making a comeback.

I think if Bill Clinton had been asked the same question Hillary was, he would have thought it was a softball and proceeded to give a valuable history lesson on the negative impact of socialism versus the global benefits of capitalism. Of course, Hillary Clinton’s instinct is to pander and hedge, but it is nevertheless revealing that she thought she had to do so to keep from alienating the socialists.

Democrats want to talk about Republicans living in the past, but the new progressives, as they like to call themselves, are in fact a lot like the old socialists. They want free college, free cash, free health care, new mandates for this and that. The latest progressive policy du jour to be gaining traction among Democratic presidential hopefuls is the so-called "job guarantee." Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., announced one, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has one in the works, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., says she supports the idea, too.

Yet there are some signs of intellectual honesty on the left. Kevin Drum, a liberal blogger for the progressive gospel Mother Jones, thinks the jobs guarantee is a ludicrous idea: "Even our lefty comrades in social democratic Europe don’t guarantee jobs for everyone. It would cost a fortune; it would massively disrupt the private labor market; it would almost certainly tank productivity; and it’s unlikely in the extreme that the millions of workers in this program could ever be made fully competent at their jobs." Well said.

If Democrats go down this road, their only way forward will be to one-up each other in every primary election. Clueless liberals such as Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes want to guarantee $500 per month for every American earning less than $50,000 a year. But why not $550? Or should we go ahead and call it an even $600? A guaranteed monthly stipend would become the floor. And every subsequent election would be a referendum on whether voters want to support the candidate promising the larger pay raise from Washington. Is that where we want our elections to go?

Anyway, Clinton’s admission of the Democrats’ matter-of-fact acceptance of socialism couldn’t have been any timelier. Saturday marked the bicentennial of Karl Marx’s birth, and as Paul Kengor reminded us in his smart Wall Street Journal commentary last week, Marx’s communist philosophy "set the stage … for the greatest ideological massacres in history." Marx’s rebuke of capitalism and individual property rights inspired the likes of Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong, the Kim family, the Castros and countless others to wage mass murder against millions of innocents.

But never mind that, at least according to many of today’s millennial voters. According to the 2017 You Gov-Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Report on U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism, more millennials would prefer to live in socialist countries than they would in capitalist countries.

That fact reveals a powerful force shifting today’s Democratic Party. Barack "you didn’t build that" Obama and his contempt for private business is starting to seem quaint. It certainly means every Democrat running for president in 2020 will be asked if they favor socialism or capitalism. It will be interesting to see if they blush, stammer and wince, or if any of them will have the confidence to give a robust endorsement of free enterprise and a historically accurate critique of socialism vs. capitalism. I’m not holding my breath.

Socialism is just a kinder, gentler version of communism. Democrats should think twice before they abandon capitalism.

Rogers, a UA alumnus, worked for the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.