Thoughts on minimum wage and tipping. When is enough, enough? (Next year in WA? $16.28 per hour.)

Washington State has determined that beginning next year, the state’s minimum wage requirement will be $16.28.

There are as this is written, locations in this state where the minimum wage is $19.00 an hour. Most recently, the democrat’s practice of buying votes has come to include jacking up minimum wage along with obviously unconstitutional efforts to force taxpayers to pick up the tab for student loans, an effort continuing to this day; still just as unconstitutional and still an unvarnished effort to buy votes.

I have stopped tipping. Period.

Wait staff are already paid what amounts to an obscene amount of money for what they do. They spend, at most, 5 minutes tending to the customer: They hand you menus. They bring you water. They take your order, they refill your coffee cup. And that’s pretty much it.

And for that, there is an expectation that they ALSO get 15% of your ticket?

So, you take out a family of four, for example. You buy a $100 worth of food at a restaurant.

The wait staff, as I pointed out, expects, at minimum, a $15 tip for the 5 minutes they spent waiting on you, 5 minutes they’ve already been paid for?

How does that make any sense?

Think about it. Multiply that tip by 12. Add it to what they’re ALREADY paid.

12X16.28 = $195.36 + $16.28 = $211.64

Does that mean all wait staff makes that kind of money?

Of course not.

But how much SHOULD they make for what they do?

And yes, this applies to all of the other workers demanding to, effectively, be paid twice for their jobs, such as Door Dash and Uber and so forth.

The reality of life is this: we are EXPECTED to tip in some segments, and ignore tipping in the rest.

We do not, for example, tip our dentist, our doctors, or our mechanic, the cashier at the grocery store, the plumber, or any number of others we hire to work for us.

Why not?

If someone with zero higher education who saves your life isn’t eligible/worth tipping, then why is it that someone with zero job-related education is?

I don’t see it. I don’t get it. And I have stopped doing it.

ANOTHER democrat buying votes.

California's mental midget governor, Gavin Newsom, who wants to be president so bad he can taste it, just signed a law to give California burger flippers the highest minimum wage in the country.

The insanity of that is obvious.

1. If a fast food joint stays in business, they'll have to jack up prices an insane amount.

2. A massively inflationary move.

3. This will obviously result in massive unemployment in the sector Newsom is extorting money for votes from.

4.  This obvious lack of judgment shows Newsom is unfit for ANY elective office, let alone governor... or president.

Among the LEAST qualified people getting the highest minimum wage in the country.  And all of this is on him.

New California law raises minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 per hour, among nation’s highest

Among other insanity's this lowlife babbled was this:

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law Thursday amid a throng of cheering workers and labor leaders at an event in Los Angeles. Newsom dismissed the popular view that fast food jobs are meant for teenagers to have their first experience in the workforce.

“That’s a romanticized version of a world that doesn’t exist,” Newsom said. “We have the opportunity to reward that contribution, reward that sacrifice and stabilize an industry.”

Showing, clearly, once again, that Newsom and reality don't simultaneously occupy the same space, ever.

WHAT sacrifice do burger flippers make?

MOST of them ARE on their first, or close to their first job.  If they had the skills for some OTHER job, even a brain-damaged idiot like Newsom would know THAT's the job they be DOING.

Another sickening, corrupt move that will cause horrific damage to an industry already hard hit by inflationary pressures that will now have no choice but to severely cut an unskilled workforce, making it even MORE difficult for those kids to get a job.

President?

I wouldn't let this moron run an elevator for me.

Well, I'm not supporting Haley.

I can't say I disagree with this article... The Republican Debate is a Fake. "The great GOP establishment hope, that Trump’s legal problems might torpedo his campaign, was a mirage. If anything, the four indictments helped him in the primary."

Donald Trump with what might as well be his primary opposition. (Douglas Gorenstein/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images.

Folks, what the debates are about... without Trump... is the "Art of Shiny Object Politics."

The establishment... the same establishment that wanted Perez over Kent... is desperately trying to find someone else who'll "stick". This week's flavor is Haley.

Nikki Haley

Haley lost me when, as governor of South Carolina, she and Tim Scott had a melt down over the Confederate flag as a result of that scumbag who shot up a church.

Her decision was pure politics. There was zero altruism involved. She saw an opportunity to utilize earned media to raise her profile and took it... like any good little leftist.

Now, some reading this might be pissed. I get that: the Confederate flag has been consigned to the bin of history that has been leftist-labeled (as so much of our society has become "leftist labeled") as a/the symbol of slavery and the entire Civil War has been generalized as a "war to free the slaves." However, if one actually is concerned about symbols of slavery and racism, the democrat-control Ku Klux Klan hood might be a better place to start.

The Civil War was no such thing. Freeing the slaves was, at best, a secondary byproduct.

The basis for the Civil War was a combination of two primary factors: the 10th Amendment (Generally based on "states rights") and a snippet of the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

"...it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it..."

The Right.

Alter.

Abolish it.

A sober view of the Confederacy and the Confederate Army shows the vast majority of the Confederate military were not slave owners. The vast majority had never BEEN slave owners. The men fighting for the South would never even have hoped to own another human being.

Had slavery been one of the major motivations for the Union in the Civil War, then Lincoln would have said so from the start. (The same Lincoln frequently vilified by the left in modern times.)

The issue then, at base, was state's rights. For example, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was essentially a question of the legality within state's borders based on the 10th Amendment. But Lincoln himself had views that were in conflict with the equality of Blacks:

"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermingling with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior. I am as much as any other man in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

At the time of his inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven states, including South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, had seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. In his Inaugural Address, Lincoln primarily directed his address to White Southerners, attempting to draw them back into the Union. As a Republican, Lincoln adamantly opposed the expansion of slavery, yet, in his speech, he attempted to reassure Southerners that he had no intention of interfering with slavery where it already existed. To that end, Lincoln specifically referenced the Constitution’s Fugitive Slave Clause (Article IV, Section II, Clause III) that guaranteed enslavers the right to repossess enslaved individuals who escaped to other states."

To that end, the Civil War, then, was not about slavery, per se'.

The goal, then, of the Emancipation Proclamation was not specifically to free slaves, but to cause economic devastation to the Confederacy as a tactic.

Haley, for her part, eagerly grasped the opportunity provided by the low-life who murdered those men and women in the church.

America, generally, applauded. And while they clapped, I wondered (and still do wonder):

What would she have done if it had, instead, been the American flag on his jacket? Would she have stepped up and banned the American flag on/in government buildings in South Carolina? Would she have sounded even more leftist by giving speeches of outrage over OUR flag?

What if it had been a Dallas Cowboy's patch? Or a Chevy patch? or a "Drink Milk!" patch?

What then?

Would she have banned those symbols/products on state property?

To me, the symbolism is no different. It is reminiscent of leftist efforts to change the name of military posts since the names that have served us for far beyond my life span are somehow stained by their history.

Those being cancelled were Confederate officers. They opposed the Union. I get that. The likely opposed the abolishment of slavery. But what they opposed MOST was a Federal government which they feared was going to force a Federal position on an entire country in violation of the 10th Amendment.

Much like Roe v. Wade.

And they were willing to fight against it, as the Declaration and the Constitution instructed them to.

No. I am not and never will be a supporter of any form of slavery. What I am is a supporter of the Constitution, even when some people don't like it or the parts that they oppose... like, for an example, the left's opposition to the parts of the 1st Amendment that allow us to oppose them... or the Right's response to my essays on covid restriction.

And that same 1st Amendment is SUPPOSED to protect speech that others find "offensive."

Including the use of the Confederate Battle Flag.

As a result, I will not support Haley or any other political opportunist. regardless of party label.

Which brings us back to the dog and pony show of the GOP debates.

Trump, wisely, is not interested in being a piñata for a bunch of pretenders. And the American people have figured that out:

Everyone has to do what they have to do, and that includes me.

How the taxpayers in Washington State are getting screwed by public schools.

Yesterday, I stumbled across an article showing what a horrific academic disaster Baltimore Public Schools have become.

At 13 Baltimore City high schools, zero students tested proficient on 2023 state math exam

Pretty straightforward: Baltimore Public Schools are a disaster: an international disgrace, frequently exceeded in academic achievement by the most base, 3rd world schools.

My first thought was, that for the reader, that MUST mean they are horrifically underfunded.

It's an understandable, knee-jerk reaction. After all, the fringe-left neocommunist teachers unions want us to believe that money will solve ALL of the decades-long academic issues confronting our schools... and their willful accomplices in their media sidekicks go along cheerfully, reinforcing that utterly false messaging that we've been pounded with for years.

Except they are anything BUT "underfunded." Baltimore Public Schools expend $21,606 per student.

That equates to $4400 MORE per student than here in Washington State.

And folks, Washington State ain't got nothing to brag about, either.

Simply stated, contrary to the fallacious claims of the left generally and teachers unions particularly, money does NOT equal academic outcomes.

In recent years, the teacher's unions and their leftist/RINO scum colleagues in state/local government have RAPED us for massive, unconscionable increases in our property taxes.

I have, rightfully, claimed that these multi-billion dollar increases would accomplish absolutely nothing in the realm of the ONLY thing that matters from our school systems... and that is academic outcomes.

It would enrich teacher unions. It would put even more money in the pockets of these thugs for their 183 day, 7 hour per day per year prima donnas.

But when it came to OUTCOMES?

We would see no measurable improvement... PARTICULARLY where it matters most: academic outcomes.

Oh, they have time to program our little darlings into little leftist automatons. They've got time to ram pronouns for the 8,000 odd genders down their throats. They've got time to do all they can to get these kids mutilated into falsely changing genders. They've got time to orchestrate walkouts over their latest faux outrages designed to get media attention.

But as they jam this crap into the classroom day... as they program THEIR sense of morality into these kids psyche, as they do their best to remove parents from the equation altogether, (and you know leftists are attempting to do that through policy) academics... readin',  writin' and 'rithmatic get short shrift.

And isn't that what we send them there for?

Now, I led off this post with the horrific outcomes of just one complete failure of a school district... in this case, Baltimore. They've been a disaster for decades. And oddly, no one there seems to care.

I get that there've been riots around the country. Murders, assaults, arsons, looting... all in the name of social justice. (Whatever THAT is.)

But where's the social justice in sending kids to school for 13 years who can't do grade level work in English, math and science when they get out?

Where's the social justice in handing a kid a worthless piece of paper that says they've graduated from high school when they can't read, write or do math?

Where's the outrage? Where's the riots over an education system that condemns its children to lives of poverty, gangs, prostitution, drugs and all that goes with it? WHY AREN'T TEACHERS HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR OUTCOMES?

You know.... like the rest of us are out OUR jobs?

I provided Baltimore's years-long issues as AN example. But many school districts around the country are circling an equal-sized drain.

Locally, for example, Evergreen School District comes to mind.

Recently victimized... again... by teacher extortionists demanding to do even LESS work for MORE money... I was sure that it was because these teachers were doing an COMPLETELY OUTSTANDING job in their classrooms and they weren't getting paid for it (And EVERY teacher extortionist strike is for one reason only: more pay for the teachers) so, piss on the law (which states that teacher strikes are illegal and gives them something to laugh at while they're doing it) and lets hold the kids hostage for even MORE money...

Academic outcomes be damned.

So, we cruise on over to the easily accessed but typically ignored Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instructions Report card function and take a quick gander at the AMAZING academic outcomes the just-two-weeks-ago striking teachers of the Evergreen School District were providing.

Here's a screen capture.  See for yourself: 

Wow! Amazing!  Just not in a good way.

How is it even remotely possible for only 55.1% of the students to "attend school regularly" but still have 93% graduate?

And how is it possible for ANY student to graduate who is not at grade level in English (only 37.6%) or Math (26.9%) or Science (35.7%)?

And these teacher extortionists went on strike?  Instead of a pay INCREASE, they should be giving BACK their pay.

Paying those more to piss off on their job is inexplicable, It's inexcusable.

Is it any wonder that there are 700 fewer students going to these shithole schools this year than last year?

It's safe to say that at this point in time, Evergreen schools are somewhat better than those Baltimore Public School shitholes.

But the trend is heading the wrong way and soon, Evergreen and other school districts in the state will be fighting it out with Baltimore for the worst schools not only in the country... but on the planet.

And locally, if any group has a justification for rioting, it's the parents of the students in the Evergreen schools.

And yet.... once again. They do nothing. 

And this is yet another illustration of how the taxpayers in Washington State are getting screwed by public schools... because it ain't just happening in the Evergreen district.

The time has come for the military to remove women from ground combat MOS's.

Army’s top enlisted soldier backs ACFT as Congress mulls future of the fitness test

Soldiers take the Army Combat Fitness Test at Blue Mountain Track at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa., on Sept. 9, 2023. (Kate Kramer/U.S. Army National Guard)

Of COURSE this guy backs Army stupidity.

I'm happy that Congress has stepped in to deal with this insanity.

There needs to be only one fitness standard, regardless of gender.

Infantry qualified women, for example, need to be just as strong, just as fast and just as agile as the men. Otherwise, if they ever are allowed on the battlefield in an infantry role (Although there have been infantry qualified women since 2017, first, they do NOT have to meet these requirements in the infantry and second, no woman that I can find has ever been awarded the Combat Infantry Badge, which indicates that no woman has ever been deployed, trained or not, in the infantry ground combat role.) they will cause more of their own and others deaths in their unit than they will cause enemy deaths.

The Army's Command Sergeant Major would not have been given the job if he had not promised, directly or indirectly, to be anything less than a cheerleader for Army policies... no matter how obviously idiotic they may be.

In the House, the GOP plan is to get rid on this insanity altogether.

In the Senate, they opened Pandora's Box by requiring the ACFT to be what was initially promised: gender neutral.

That is, as it is now, women do NOT have to be as strong as men or as fast. There IS a double standard in the area of physicality, no matter how much Department of Defense/Department of the Army claims women are "equal."

If women in the military are equal, it's only in the Orwellian sense that all pigs are equal... but some pigs are more equal than others.

Bullets, however, don't care. And unbelievably, the standards in the Army have been lowered in the name of gender equality to, for example, this:

To pass this test... you need to be able to do ten pushups.

Ten.

I actually do get the Army's conundrum here: On one hand, the Army is well aware of the strenuous nature of combat. On the other hand, when they test women to the same standard as men for a genuine combat-needs physical test, the reality of women being typically unfit for the physical demands of combat becomes clear as the vast majority of women fail... which results in democrats delusionally demanding that women NOT fail... which resulted in this horrific reduction in standards to keep women in the military because of the reality that in a combat environment, women will be inferior, will get killed in greater numbers, will sustain more injuries, will lack the needed stamina and as a result, will cause more deaths and wounds to their fellow soldiers who have to not only close with and kill the enemy, but look out for the women who simply cannot keep up.

The solution is obvious: bow to reality and remove women from any ground combat role. This is the defacto policy of the Army anyway, since no women appear to have ever been deployed in the ground-combat role, even though thousands have allegedly been qualified to perform in such a role.

Leftists, of course, demand equality in all things, even when, for example, that equality is impossible to achieve as a result of physical inferiorities that are well known. Thus, they would rather go through the kabuki dance of claiming women in the infantry are a reality, even if, to date, none appear to have been deployed in the standard infantry unit in ground combat.

Leftists are more concerned with "equal opportunity" than equal qualifications and/or equal abilities.

And they'll stand on a mountain of dead soldiers to try and make their point. Even as they fail.

There's a reason women aren't protesting over the obvious inequity of the draft; where, for example, men have to register and women don't. Some inequalities appear to be JUUUUUUST fine when one is in the "situational equality" business as opposed to the genuine article.

The military's insistence on a false equivalency as equality puts the security of our nation at risk. And the illustrated lowered standards, done entirely to accommodate women and their supporters who simply do not understand nor care about the issue of lethality will, one day, cost us rivers of blood as we continue to waste hundreds of millions of dollars training women who, to date, have not been allowed to do the jobs that we the taxpayers have paid them to do.

Review Marine SGM Justin LeHew's response to the insanity of the Navy ignoring the findings of the only actual ground combat test involving three separate units, one of all men, one of mixed gender and one of all women to get a glimpse of the women in ground combat reality.

The "integrated task force experiment" showed the institutional weaknesses of women in the ground combat role, and Obama's Secretary of the Navy made it clear he'd reject any findings that did not support the derangement of that meme.

In short, facts had no place in the consideration of this lunacy.

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2015/09/14/marine-war-hero-secnav-off-base-on-women-in-combat/

https://ec.militarytimes.com/static/pdfs/Sgt-Maj-Justin-Lehew-Facebook-post.pdf

"I feared for my country then. I'm terrifed for it now."

 It is that time again, one of the many "Never Forget" moments that we've mostly forgotten.

I'm sure, if they were capable, that those slaughtered on that horrific, infamous day, would rise up in horror... both at what happened as a result... and at what this country has since become.

Thousands of our finest young men and women who answered the call.... lives thrown away by Administrations that didn't care, that lied, that engaged in shameless misdirection who failed in the primary, misguided mission of leaving these people better off than they were when we found them.

Tens of thousands maimed for life, both externally and internally... lives shattered... trillions wasted... billions in weapons to arm the greatest terrorist Army the world has ever known... a terrorist Army that inexplicably has continued to receive billions from the US government.

Third World, Nazi/Communist government agencies where the not-to-long-ago unthinkable idea that government agencies could not rise above partisan politics, instead, choosing to become enforcement arms of a political party so frightened of losing power they will cheerfully wipe their collective asses with the Constitution millions of us swore to protect and defend... while they happily lie to us repeatedly and do it with a smile.

I feared for my country then. I'm terrified for it now.

Written 3 years ago:

Hillsboro Hops threatening to leave town?

Remember the ballpark scam Steve Stuart and others tried to run on Clark County years back? The one where EVERYONE was going to have to pay a tax on admission to everything from movie tickets to golf courses to pay for it?

Well, ultimately, people wised up and that deal got killed.

So instead, the team from Yakima moved to Hillsboro; in the process, getting a much bigger/better facility in their sports complex... 4500 hundred capacity compared to Vancouver's planned 3000... for $7 to $10 million less... a facility estimated to cost $13 to $15 million back then.

Hillsboro did what Clark County SHOULD have done.

It's a great facility. It's located in a modern, well-built, well-designed neighborhood facility. It was generally fun to go to and watch these kids play... obscene vender prices notwithstanding.

Years went by... the team did well, the area did well and crowds grew. It was a success...

Until now.

Two years ago, Major League Baseball reorganized the farm system.

Several teams in the system, which essentially eliminated Short-Season Class A baseball, changing it over to full season; were eliminated from the Minor League system. Hillsboro was not one of them.

The problem?

MLB's requirement for Class A regular-length season baseball facilities to field a team. To remain a team in the Minor League (MiLB) system, Hillsboro and several other teams had to sign what amounted to a promissory note, in which they would declare that they would either improve their current facility to the MiLB specifications for Class A or build an entirely new facility that met the new specifications.

Such as:

Clubhouses for both home and visiting teams must be 1,000 square feet or larger. Again, most newer ballparks already feature larger home clubhouses; the issue for many teams will be expanding visitor clubhouses. The clubhouses must also feature improved lockers.

Nutrition is now emphasized for many organizations, some of whom send out their own food-prep staff and don’t rely on team for the post-game buffet. That’s why you see food-prep and dining areas for both home and visiting clubhouses as a new spec. The challenge here will be carving out the space out of existing office and storage space.

Better field lighting. This is an easy sell: installing the next generation of LED lights will both save money on daily usage and improve the player experience. The installation of new LED lights can be done with existing stanchions in some cases. This is not a new trend; newer ballparks feature LED lighting and beginning several years ago teams like the Lowell Spinners installed LED lighting.

Better training facilities for players. That means weight rooms and two pitching/batting tunnels. Many newer ballparks, like Hodgetown, feature indoor batting cages directly on the concourse. In Fort Wayne, the indoor batting cages at Parkview Field are a draw even when there’s not a game going on. Now, these batting cages don’t need to be located directly on the concourse–but for teams with flexible space, they may be a nice upgrade.

Separate spaces for female staffers. Welcome to the modern world, Minor League Baseball.

______________________

These are just the initial requirements.

Well, Hillsboro felt compelled to plan on an entirely new facility... as opposed to modifying the one already built.

A new facility that is budgeted at a paltry $120 million.

And if they don't get one, then they'll do what they do in the big leagues: threaten to move.

As near as I can tell, they expected Hillsboro to cough up $18 million and the State of Oregon's legislature to throw a paltry $20 million on the table.

Now, why they'd expect the legislature to do that is anyone's guess. Hillsboro certainly lacks the legislative muscle of, say, Portland, required to get that kind of check.

But that's neither here nor there:

The Hops are $20 million short of making their commitment.

Now, I freely admit we were season-ticket holders to the Hops. We traveled around the state to watch these guys... until we moved to a place that required a 104-mile round trip to go there and come back (52 miles there, 52 miles back)

Now, we just keep track of them... which is how I stumbled across this article.

Imagine if this facility had, somehow, been built in Vancouver and the Hops stuck an additional multi-million dollar weapon like this to the taxpayer's head.

I don't know why they went this route instead of merely improving the facility they already have.

But I'm reminded of the axiom concerning greed:

Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And no Class A baseball team is worth a facility costing $120 million.

No matter how much I support them

Lack of funding for new stadium could force the Hops to leave Hillsboro

The MLB requires teams to meet certain facility standards. To do that, the Hops plan to build a new facility. Now, they're scrambling to get the last $20 million.