Ex-Democrat Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has offered his analysis of Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) and of Businessman Donald Trump and their relative values as Presidents of the US. See his two-minute YouTube video here.
Stipulate everything Reich said about Cruz is accurate (after looking past the hype): Cruz turns out to be pretty good. Cruz should thank Reich for the endorsement, and wear the description proudly.
It isn’t often that we get to run a controlled experiment in economics, but one seems to be beginning in Oregon on the matter of minimum wages.
Oregon lawmakers have approved landmark legislation that propels the state’s minimum wage for all workers to the highest rank in the US, and does so through an unparalleled tiered system based on geography.
The legislation will raise the state’s minimum wage to
$14.75 in metro Portland, $13.50 in smaller cities such as Salem and Eugene, and $12.50 in rural communities.
This will be complete in just six years, by 2022.
And that’s the experiment. Over the course of these next six years, watch employment rates adjust across the three geographies, and watch small business startup and development across those three geographies.
Hmm….
Hillary Clinton ratcheted up Democrats’ criticism of Senate Republicans in the debate over filling the Supreme Court’s sudden vacancy, suggesting Tuesday that those calling on President Obama not to nominate someone are motivated by race.
After all, it takes a strong measure of racism to manufacture a racist beef where no racism exists. She, and the Left who are silent on her slur, are also racist in this way: it isn’t possible to criticize a President’s policies or politics when he’s a black man because—he’s black. He can’t handle the criticism, Clinton and her cronies seem to be saying.
Congresswoman Mary Lou Marzian (D, Louisville, KY) has proposed—and she’s serious about it—House Bill 396, under which
Kentucky men would have to visit a doctor twice and have signed permission from their wives before obtaining a prescription for Viagra or other such drugs for erectile dysfunction[.]
She insisted
it is merely an effort to protect men’s health and ensure they are informed about a drug with potentially dangerous side effects.
“I want to protect these men from themselves,” said Marzian[.]
She compounded her hypocrisy:
This is about family values[.]
Leaving aside the fact that it isn’t government’s role to protect anyone from himself—only a Democrat insists on so intrusive a government—the lie in her claim of concern about men’s health is shown in her subsequent comments about her purpose in proposing this bill.
[S]he acknowledged the bill is a pointed response to several anti-abortion measures in the current legislative session, including Senate Bill 4, which requires a woman seeking an abortion to get counseling 24 hours in advance of the procedure from a health professional.
This bill is about family values and about men’s health? She wrote in a related op-ed for the Louisville, KY, Courier-Journal:
A rash of anti-abortion bills have been filed, and one is now law, that places extreme hardship and emotional stress upon women and strips away their rights to make choices about their health, future and well being.
And
The conservative movement sweeping Kentucky has put women in the cross hairs of its battle to take over government at all levels, and it’s time we recognize this hypocrisy for what it is.
As these legislators and our governor increase efforts to mandate their presence in our doctor’s examining rooms I believe it is time we regulate men’s reproductive choices.
No, Marzian is simply railing at those who oppose abortion, and being logically inconsistent in her plaints—and as a highly intelligent and accomplished woman she knows she’s being inconsistent, hence her hypocrisy—and placing those who oppose abortion in Kentucky in the cross hairs of her battle to intrude government into the lives of Kentucky citizens—including Kentucky’s babies.
There’s nothing in opposing abortion that concerns women’s health or their reproductive choices, there’s only concern for a human’s life, that baby’s life who hasn’t yet been born. That tale takes up after the “reproductive choice,” made voluntarily or otherwise, already has been made. Now there’s a baby whose right to life must be addressed.
Family values? Nonsense. The baby is as much a part of that family as are the mother and father. Marzian’s bill is simply another Liberal shot at those who oppose abortion; it has nothing at all to do with family values. As far as she’s concerned, the unborn baby is unimportant; the baby’s extreme hardship and emotional stress, his choices about his health, future and well being are beneath her notice.
Louisiana Democratic Gov John Bel Edwards is suggesting the legendary Louisiana State University football team’s 2016 season might be canceled—and other doomsday consequences—unless the GOP-legislature swiftly passes a package of tax increases to help close a looming $940 million budget shortfall.
The budget deficit is projected to reach $2 billion by the start of the next fiscal year. The Republicans should call him out on his naked extortion threats. And then pass a budget with $2.5 billion in spending cuts and $500 million in tax cuts. Does Edwards want to balance the budget, or is his precious spending and taxing all he cares about?
After all, the state’s economy runs over $250 billion as of 2015. Surely, they can find $2.5 billion just by shaking the state government’s couch cushions.