'You're not hurt, are you'

"They are living like barons."

'Indiana taxpayers should be furious'

Baizhi has quickly become my favorite healer and support character in Wuthering Waves. She’s dynamic in her setup, which can make her a threat. However, knowing the best Baizhi team comps in Wuthering Waves can bring out the best in her. Wuthering Waves: Best Baizhi team comps This four-star healer can help her team last and provide damage boosts to any one character. The only fault that I have found is that unlike the other support character Verina who’s abilities cover the whole team, Bazihi can only do single target moves for the most part. So let’s run through some team comps that utilize her best aspects.  Best comps for Baizhi  Each of the following team compositions is not ranked, they offer a different play style. Which is what Wuthering Wave is about. The more you experiment with other characters or different combos, the more you can adjust to the ever-changing meta of the RPG. Balanced comp for Baizhi Screenshot: PC Invasion Rover –...

California now leads the nation in imposing dumb wage laws. The state just raised the hourly minimum wage for fast food workers to $20. Gov. Gavin Newsom said, “We saw the inequities … we had a responsibility to do more.” Unions pushed for the higher minimum, and in Democrat-run states, unions usually get what they want. CNN announced, “Half a million California fast food workers will now earn $20 per hour!” Gullible leftists at the Center for American Progress claim, “A higher minimum wage would boost millions of families out of poverty and further stimulate the economy.”   Yippee! It’s a happy cycle! Win-win. But wait, if it’s win-win, why just make the minimum $20? Why not $30? Or $100? Because government requiring higher wages is not a win-win. Interfering with market prices always creates nasty unintended consequences.   Frederic Bastiat, in his work “That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen,” points out that there are always seen and unseen consequences when government force impacts economic decisions. “Almost always,” he wrote, “the immediate consequence is favorable, the ultimate consequences are fatal.” In this case, the immediate consequence is that existing workers get a raise. Great. That’s the seen. That’s what the media, unions, and Center for American Progress see. But the unseen effect is bigger, and worse: No. 1: Thousands of Californians have already lost jobs because some restaurants closed. Others lost income because their employer cut worker hours. The chain El Pollo Loco cut employees’ hours by 10%.   Pizza Hut announced that it will lay off more than a thousand delivery drivers. One, Michael Ojeda, understandably asked, “What’s the point of a raise if you don’t have a job?” No. 2: Workers who still have jobs will lose them because now their employers have more incentive to automate. Chipotle just created a robot that makes burrito bowls. Even CNN acknowledged, “Some restaurants are replacing (fast food workers) with kiosks.” No. 3: Prices go up. The day Newsom signed the bill, he was asked, “Can Californians expect the prices of their McDonald’s and Starbucks to go up?” Newsom deceitfully replied, “I’ve heard that rhetoric before. And it didn’t happen!” Nonsense. It did happen. It always happens when government forces wage increases. In this case, Starbucks prices have increased as much as 15%. Customers will pay about $200/year more for their coffee. A chicken burrito at Chipotle will cost up to 8% more. No. 4: Perhaps the worst unseen harm from minimum wage laws is that young and unskilled people won’t even be hired. They won’t gain valuable experience from a first job at a fast food restaurant. In 2014, when Seattle politicians raised the minimum wage to $15, I asked some teenagers what a higher minimum wage could do for them.   “Minimum wage actually hurts my chances of getting employed,” said one, Rigel Noble-Koza. “If I cost more, why would a company take a risk on hiring me? They’ll hire the worker with more experience instead.” Another, Dillon Hodes, talked about his friend who had fast work but got her hours cut because “she was young and inexperienced.” Of course, these students were unusual. They were finalists in a “Stossel in the Classroom” contest. They are not economically ignorant. They knew to look for the unseen. If only politicians were that smart.   Government price-fixing like minimum wage laws hurt the young and the poor—the very people these laws are supposed to help. COPYRIGHT 2024 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC. The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. The post $20 Minimum Wage Folly appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor visited Harvard University last week to accept the Radcliffe Medal, which, says Harvard, “is presented annually to an individual who has had a transformative impact on society.” In 2018, Harvard gave the award to Hillary Clinton—the former secretary of state who lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump. In 2015, they gave it to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—who was then Sotomayor’s Supreme Court colleague and ideological compatriot. In 2009, they gave it to then-retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor—who co-authored the court’s 1992 opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld Roe v. Wade in declaring abortion a constitutional right. In accepting her own Radcliffe Medal, Sotomayor told the audience at Harvard that she was saddened by some of the decisions the Supreme Court had made during her tenure. “There are days that I’ve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,” Sotomayor said, according to The New York Times. “There have been those days. And there’s likely to be more.” “There are moments when I’m deeply, deeply sad,” Sotomayor said. “There are moments when, yes, even I feel desperation. We all do. But you have to own it, you have to accept it, you have to shed tears and then you have to wipe them and get up.” The Times reported that Sotomayor made these remarks “without citing any specific cases.” Sotomayor herself, however, has joined in some opinions that could make other humans cry. Specifically, she took the wrong position in two of the most significant cases the court has reviewed during her tenure. In 2014, the court took up the case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores. It involved the freedom of conscience and the free exercise of religion—a right expressly protected by the First Amendment. After enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—Obamacare—the Obama administration issued a regulation that required the health insurance plans that businesses were mandated to purchase for their employees to cover all “Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods” and “sterilization procedures.” Some of these “contraceptive methods” were in fact abortifacients. The Green family, who owns Hobby Lobby Stores, went to court to protect their right not to provide those methods. “The Greens and their businesses … refrain from business activities forbidden by their religious beliefs,” they said in a brief submitted to the Supreme Court. “The Greens believe that human beings deserve protection from the moment of conception, and that providing insurance coverage for items that risk killing an embryo makes them complicit in the practice of abortion,” said their brief. “Hobby Lobby’s health plan therefore excludes drugs that can terminate a pregnancy, such as RU-486. The plan also excludes four drugs or devices that can prevent an embryo from implanting in the womb—namely, Plan B, Ella, and two types of intrauterine devices.” They argued that the federal government could not force them to violate their religious beliefs by compelling them to provide health insurance that covered these drugs and devices. The Obama administration took them all they way to the Supreme Court. Fortunately, the court ruled 5-4 in favor of Hobby Lobby. The majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, argued that the government’s contraceptive regulation violated a federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA—rather than simply the First Amendment. “We hold that the regulations that impose this obligation violate RFRA, which prohibits the federal government from taking any action that substantially burdens the exercise of religion unless that action constitutes the least restrictive means of serving a compelling government interest,” Alito wrote. Sotomayor was one of the four who voted against Hobby Lobby. She joined a dissenting opinion written by Ginsburg. Ginsburg argued that the government could force a family-owned for-profit corporation to buy an insurance policy that violated their religious beliefs. “The ACA’s contraceptive coverage requirement applies generally,” she wrote in the opinion joined by Sotomayor. “It is ‘otherwise valid,’ it trains on women’s well being, not on the exercise of religion, and any effect it has on such exercise is incidental.” In 2021, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. At issue in this case was a Mississippi law that banned abortion after 15 weeks. During oral arguments in this case, Sotomayor told the Mississippi solicitor general that when a human life begins is debatable. “The issue of when life begins has been hotly debated by philosophers since the beginning of time,” she said. “It’s still debated in religions.” “So, when you say this is the only right [abortion] that takes away from the state the ability to protect a life, that’s a religious view, isn’t it,” she said, “because it assumes that a fetus is a life at—when?” In this case, the court ruled 6-3 that there is no constitutional right to abortion. Sotomayor joined Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan in dissenting. Did Sotomayor then retreat to her office and cry? We do not know. But the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade did make many who respect the right to life cry out in joy. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. The post Should Sotomayor Cry Some More? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Pain in CA? It Pours, Man, It Pours - Mileage Tax Edition

Shock: Protecting Children From Peanuts Causes Peanut Allergies

On Wednesday morning, NBC’s “Today Third Hour” had a puff piece about a new Peacock series titled, “It’s Ok to Ask Questions.” The series is all about pushing LGBTQ-ness and NBC used it as a precursor to Pride month, which starts on June 1. The show, set to air on Saturday, is hosted by Matthew Rodriguez, a co-host of “Chicago Today” on NBC Chicago. In it, Rodriguez sits down with various lefties who talk about their experience and intersection with the LGBTQ movement.  During one episode, which “Today Third Hour” promoted, Rodriguez talked to actress Rosie O’Donnell, who conversed about parenting a non-binary child. Another episode showed Rodriguez talking with pop star Jojo Siwa, who promotes gay pride to her audience of young kids. Rodriguez was invited onto the Wednesday morning show to talk about the Peacock series.  “Thank you for having me. Happy, almost pride,” he said before starting to talk about how the show came together (this is the second season of the series, fyi). First season was really just my boss coming to me and saying, hey, we should do something for pride. At first I was nervous about that. I thought, even with this yellow flower on my jacket, I thought I wasn't gay enough. And what I mean by that, what I mean by that is I didn't feel like I was ready to represent a community, right? I was like, I don't know everything about non-binary. I don't know what it means to be a transgender person. So because of that, I was like, I just wish it was okay to ask questions. My boss is like, that's the title. And we leaned into that, the ‘not knowing’ because so many of us don't know and tend to be afraid of what they might do if they offend someone. And oftentimes people want to talk about their story. “Today Third Hour” hosts nodded along and audibly agreed that the gays want a chance to tell their stories and talk about their delusions. Later on in the segment, Rodriguez was asked about his own “coming out” story. He noted that he was raised Catholic and it took time for his traditional parents to fully understand what he meant when he told them he was gay. Rodriguez noted that the show has helped him “heal” and “think about my own relationships and self.” Rodriguez specifically felt impacted after talking with O’Donnell about her own coming out journey. He loved O’Donnell’s tattoo on her wrist that reads “they” to remember what pronouns to use for her child, Clay.  Rodriguez also loved talking to Siwa and learned a bunch from her despite the fact that Siwa is likely more than half Rodriguez’s age. “For her to come out when she did was a really bold move so to me, I’m gonna honor that,” he told the hosts before noting how she handles the “negativity” she gets thrown her way. “Today Third Hour” gave nothing but praise to Rodriguez for his guesting, for his commitment to the gays and for his contribution to the Peacock show. What a waste of air time.

“The Riot Report,” the latest entry in PBS’s historical documentary series American Experience, regrets the lack of influence of the radical 1967 government-issued report on race relations, widely known as the Kerner Commission Report. The report’s infamous concluding statement encapsulated liberal pessimism on race, and that the billions of dollars spilled out for anti-poverty programs wasn’t nearly enough: “This is our basic conclusion. Our nation is moving toward two societies. One black, one white. Separate and unequal.” The two-hour PBS program was larded with left-wing voices like Elizabeth Hinton of Yale University, and Jelani Cobb, dean of Columbia Journalism School. Before the main course, a small sample platter was another cold serving of misguided Nixon-bashing. Hinton came out against preventive policing designed to keep crimes from happening. "The police also supported tactical patrol units who walked the streets in order to prevent crime before it occurred. Essentially subjecting people of color to a set of laws that people in middle-class suburban and white communities would never be subjected to," she said. Later, she enthused the Kerner Commission wanted even more spending to address the inner city “rebellions” (don’t call them riots). Jelani Cobb of Columbia was pleased that the report led to more media diversity and coverage of urban issues “with more nuance, and more balance” -- in other words, the coverage became even more liberal as the 1960s and 1970s wore on.     In February 2023, Cobb appeared on PBS to forward the wild argument that the five black police officers who killed Tyre Nichols could have been motivated by self-hatred, having internalized “white supremacy.” Robert Kennedy, who would run for president in 1968 before being assassinated in Los Angeles, was lauded by another hand-picked liberal historian, John Powell of the UC Berkeley Othering & Belonging Institute (gee, wonder which way he leans politically?): I think Robert Kennedy really cared about the country. And increasingly to him that included marginalized people, including African Americans….I have to believe, maybe 'cause I wanna believe, that if Kennedy had lived, the Kerner Commission would've lived and the country would be in such a different place. But instead Nixon comes along and says, we're not doing this. The producers found a convenient long-time liberal bogeyman in new president Richard Nixon. President Nixon, archive: For the past five years, we have been deluged by government programs for the unemployed, programs for the cities, programs for the poor, and we have reaped from these programs an ugly harvest of frustration, violence, and failure across the land. I say it's time to quit pouring billions of dollars into programs that have failed in the United States of America. (...) Hinton: Lyndon Johnson had introduced a new punitive element in national policy. Of course, Johnson did this alongside his ambitious social welfare program. But when Richard Nixon took office, he abandoned the social welfare part and really seized on the punitive elements of the Great Society and expanded them. Over the scene of Nixon being sworn into office, Hinton lamented: "So we begin to see even more aggressive policing tactics being embraced by national policy makers. We begin to see more draconian laws and sentencing provisions being enacted. And the carceral state continued to expand." Commission staffer David Boesel huffed that the riots ushered in “a racially conservative political era in which law and order and repression pretty much prevailed, and that suited most of the white citizenry of the country.” Despite the liberal conventional wisdom spouted on PBS, Richard Nixon, his administration actually proposed a precursor to the left-wing notion of Universal Basic Income and ended up expanding the welfare state, according to scholar Richard P. Nathan: “Over the six years Nixon held office, Nathan writes, total domestic spending rose from 10.3 percent of the gross national product to 13.7 percent.” No such inconvenient thoughts pieced the left-wing tax-funded bubble. Columbia’s Cobb paid tribute to Kerner via a left-wing “touchstone,” the 1992 Rodney King “uprisings” (or as normal people know them, riots): "My first serious engagement with the Kerner Report was in 1992, in the aftermath of the Rodney King uprisings in Los Angeles…"