Socialist Politicians Are Going All-In On Class Warfare

 They have deliberately robbed Canadians by reducing the value of our hard-earned money, so they hope to distract you by blaming others.

Socialists like Jagmeet Singh and Chrystia Freeland are going all in on class warfare.

https://spencerfernando.com/2024/06/10/socialist-politicians-are-going-all-in-on-class-warfare/

And in doing so, they are taking advantage of many misconceptions that exist about money.

Singh, Freeland, and other socialists want to convince you that all will be well if the government prints and borrows more money, takes money from highly productive people, and gives that money away.

But if that’s how things worked, why not just print 100 trillion dollars, give it out, tax it, and then have – supposedly – endless money for services and everything else?

Of course, that wouldn’t work.

Because for money to have value, things have to be produced.

A bag full of hundred-dollar bills wouldn’t do you much good on a deserted island.

Likewise, if there was a magic way to produce everything everyone wanted in unlimited quantities, there would be no need for money.

But so long as we live in the real world, where scarcity is a reality and where things must actually be produced before they can be consumed, money alone cannot bring goods into existence.

And so, you can’t print and borrow your way into prosperity.

If a country prints and borrows too much money, then everything simply gets more expensive. If there is more money but the same amount of goods, then prices go up as the money supply inflates. And because money is a store of value, the government is stealing from your hard work by reducing the value of your money.

And when you increase taxes on the most productive Canadians, less is produced, which mean there are fewer goods for your money to buy, which again makes you poorer.

This theft is what politicians like Jagmeet Singh and Chrystia Freeland want to distract you from.

They have deliberately robbed Canadians by reducing the value of our hard-earned money, so they hope to distract you by blaming others.

Don’t fall for it.

Spencer Fernando

It’s Open Season on Normal People

posted by Derek Hunter at Townhall 

Remember when Democrats insisted it was “open season on young black men” after Michael Brown was killed while attacking a cop? They’ve stuck with that lie in spite of the fact that even the Washington Post’s own Pulitzer Prize winning database of police encounters showed it was nowhere near true. Facts never help Democrats, which is why they rarely let them stand in the way of a good story. The facts, on the other hand, have indicated that it is open season on another group: normal people.

If you live in a Democrat-controlled city and are physically attacked on the street, don’t expect the law to help you. Charges that could be brought won’t be, and any charges that are brought will be downgraded or dropped once enough time has passed that people forget. 

You, the victim, are an inconvenience, and inconveniences are quickly made to go away.

Here is a story out of Washington, DC, where a woman named Kayla Kenisha Brown kidnapped and killed a woman during a carjacking and…the murder and kidnapping charges were dropped by a “progressive” prosecutor. 

NBC Washington reports, “Leslie Marie Gaines’ daughter left her mother in a Mazda SUV at MedStar Washington Hospital Center for a moment Monday afternoon to get her a wheelchair, police said. At the time, Brown was with her family at the … when she walked away from them, police said. Brown allegedly got into the driver’s seat and took off with the 55-year-old Gaines still inside.  Nineteen minutes later, Brown tried to turn left onto D Street but ‘failed to negotiate the turn’ and crashed into the … The building is the offices of the U.S. attorney and attorney general for D.C.”

The woman would otherwise be alive were it not for the kidnapping and grand theft auto. But the story opens, “Murder and kidnapping charges against a woman accused of carjacking and then crashing a car with a passenger inside were dropped, in part because the medical examiner has not ruled on the manner of the passenger’s death, prosecutors said.”

Yep, charges have been dropped. They say it’s because of the medical examiner, but do you really need that person to weigh in on the obvious? Would people be confused about what that giant ball of fire in the eastern morning sky was were it not known that that’s where it rises every day? I doubt it.

Now we go across the country for a different “crime.” It was a horrible, violent, “throw the book at them” crime that has shaken the nation. To what horrible event do I refer? Someone skidded on a rainbow flag painted on a crosswalk. Yep, that’s it. 

KREM in Spokane reports, “On Wednesday, SPD said they received a 911 call reporting multiple people on scooters causing damage to the mural. According to court documents obtained by KREM 2, many witnesses sitting at the bar at O'Doherty's Irish Grille saw around four people on Lime Scooters riding over the Pride flag mural.”

As a reminder, it’s painted on the actual street cars drive on, and you won’t find any paint on any road without tire marks on it. Also, the rainbow flag is not special. If your identity, happiness or mental stability is tied to a series of colors being displayed in a pristine manner, might I suggest that you are not mentally stable and should seek professional help.

All the recourses of the SPD were unleashed on the crime scene, and two teenagers were arrested 34 minutes after the 911 call. They “were arrested for first-degree malicious mischief.” 

Washington state law makes it “a felony to deface a public symbol of Pride in Washington state.” That means teenagers riding scooters on the road and skidding, as kids do, will now face more serious charges than a woman who killed someone in a carjacking. 

This is OK with Democrats, as they elected all the people involved in the decision-making process in each case. 

The DC case is not unique, as serious, violent crimes against Americans are watered down or dismissed by Democrat prosecutors across the country for everyone except Donald Trump, who didn’t even commit a crime. Meanwhile, when a “preferred” group of people are even offended, the book, the printing press and the whole damn library will be thrown at normal people doing normal things.

By the way, the “mural,” which is not a mural but a painted crosswalk, was “defaced” before when someone dumped a liquid on it and set it on fire. I wonder how these law “enforcement” officials would respond if someone burned an American flag on the crosswalk? Talk about conflicted. 

X22, On the Fringe, and more- June 11

 

The Left Knows Leftism Doesn’t Work ~ VDH

If Biden and his handlers have taught us anything, human nature cannot be fooled, and the current four-year experiment will have to end before it ends us—and soon.

by Victor Davis Hanson for American Greatness

Do not expect the radical left to survey the wreckage of socialism and communism in history and accept that statism impoverishes people and erodes their freedoms. There will never be admissions by our elite that progressivism exists mainly for the acquisition of power by the utopian and virtue-signaling few, who ensure that they are never subject to the baleful implementation of their ideological agendas on the rest of us.

Still, leftists look around at what they have done to America in the last four years and implicitly know that the plan did not work, the people detested it, or both.

How do we know this? By a variety of barometers.

None of the major Biden “achievements”—10 million illegal aliens across a nonexistent border, key components of the cost of living 25-30 percent higher than in 2020, wars and chaos abroad, DEI racial and tribal obsessions, wars on fossil fuels—poll at even 40-45 percent. Biden’s own approval ratings, as the nominal architect of the most left-wing agenda since the Roosevelt administration, hover between 36 and 34 percent.

But most importantly, the left is not running on its record of the last three-and-a-half years but instead studiously ignoring it, at least temporarily through November. Suddenly, we aren’t hearing so much about cancelling pipelines and freezing federal oil leases, or so much demonization of the “greedy” oil companies. Instead, Biden is further draining the strategic petroleum reserve and begging OPEC in general and the no-longer-demonized Saudi Arabia in particular to pump oil as fast as possible.

We were lied to for nearly four years that the border was “secure,” as 10 million foreign nationals flooded across. Then we were told Biden was helpless to stop the deluge since he had no legal right to enforce federal immigration law through executive orders—a ridiculous excuse that even he would soon drop. Despite their eagerness for new constituencies, no one on the left dares to openly praise the influx of the last four years, much less demand more illegal immigration.

Instead, as November looms, Biden is suddenly reinstating the very Trump executive orders that once, despite deep state and court obstruction, finally closed the border—and which Biden himself had originally overturned. Note that Biden is now partnering with the Mexican government—which terribly fears another Trump presidency endangering Mexico’s annual $60 billion in remittances from mostly illegal aliens in the United States—to curb some of the illegal immigration before the November election.

The administration’s pandering at election time is a de facto admission that its agendas did not work, permanently alienated the people they hurt, and are now being forgotten or reversed—albeit temporarily—to retain power at all costs.

Few on the left praise the disastrous COVID lockdown, the canonization of Dr. Fauci, the mask and social-distancing craze, and the gospel that endless boosters were necessary to protect Americans. Even the left, although again quietly, assumes that the lockdowns did more damage than the virus, that Dr. Fauci repeatedly lied when he swore he did not subsidize gain-of-function viral research at the Chinese top-security virology lab at Wuhan, and that the virus came not from the lab but from a wandering pangolin or errant bat.

Biden and his supporters are no longer blaming or firing the police but rather trying (albeit quietly) to get more law-enforcement officers to serve—given the predictable crime wave that followed the George Floyd riots.

Ditto for all the left-wing hysterias of the last eight years. No one any longer claims that Christopher Steele’s dossier was factual. No one insists that Hunter Biden’s laptop was likely “Russian disinformation”, or that “Anonymous” was a courageous “top-ranking” administration official. All these hysterias, it is tacitly admitted, were cooked-up left-wing canards to emasculate the Trump candidacy and presidency.

Outside of politics, leftists are quiet as their failed bromides are being undone. The idea of the FBI partnering with social media to suppress politically-dangerous news is something the left is not eager to repeat.

The same recognition is beginning to apply to the lawfare waged against Donald Trump. Jack Smith’s crusade to get Trump is undermined by prosecutorial misbehavior concerning the evidence seized at Mar-a-Lago and by the asymmetrical treatment by another special counsel accorded Biden in comparison with Trump. Smith’s efforts to speed up the trial before the election only made his persecution more politically transparent.

Fani Willis’s outrageous behavior will likely delay indefinitely her weaponized indictments. The James and Bragg convictions will likely be overturned and were intended mostly to embarrass Trump, bankrupt him, and harm his presidential campaign.

All of the left’s once-grandiose ideas of packing the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster, admitting two new states to win four more liberal senators, and destroying the Electoral College have little public support and will go nowhere. Corporations like Disney, Target, and Anheuser-Busch have all begun backtracking on their money-losing, market-share-eroding woke/DEI agendas.

Universities are terrified that their endowment income is either static or in decline, given a rising drop-off in public and alumni giving. They know their race-based, non-meritocratic admissions and hiring are increasingly destroying their brand names. To accommodate their new non-meritocratic student bodies, they have variously inflated their grades to the point of parody, watered down work requirements, or introduced gut courses—and as a result, they are quickly losing their once-coveted prestige. Some campuses are already reinstating the SAT and ACT requirements that were thrown out in 2020-21 in the hysteria that followed the death of George Floyd. Harvard and Stanford aren’t boasting that the erasure of the SAT created a more competitive student body and raised standards to new levels.

The twin ideas of foreign-funded Middle-Eastern-studies centers and of admitting tens of thousands of affluent, full-tuition-paying Middle-Eastern students led to institutionalized anti-Semitism on campus and eliminationist rhetoric right out the old Klan playbook. The appeasement by university presidencies only whets the appetites of those who unlawfully occupy, vandalize, deface, and disrupt. Their pro-terrorist chants and emblems are bleeding the universities of billions of dollars in lost donations.

In short, the policies that the left has given us over the last years—hyperinflation, spiking staple and gas prices, racial and tribal chauvinism, dangerous streets, an emasculated and politicized military, and wars abroad—did not work, and are now being masked to retain power, put on hold, or even reversed.

The reasons for the failure are ancient, given that socialism and progressivism are contrary to human nature.

Borders are essential to national sovereignty and confidence and delineate the unique values, traditions, and customs of a people, without which they revert to mere tribes without social commonalities and political cohesion. No society can pick and choose which national laws are enforced and which ignored—and still remain a nation of laws.

People obey laws because, in a cost-benefit analysis, they fear the consequences of lawbreaking. Otherwise, the laws of the wild prevail and the strongest dictate to the weaker. Citizens must be discouraged, not encouraged, from favoring their own tribe and race, tribalism being the oldest of human biases. Money is not a construct but represents the real value of capital and labor and cannot be printed into national wealth. Abroad, most nations are illiberal and their aggressiveness is deterred only through guarantees that they will lose more than they will gain through war.

We sometimes forget all that unpleasant human baggage, due to irrelevant distractions, or the utopianism that is the handmaiden of affluence and leisure. Often, the opulence and freedom arising from free-market economies and limited constitutional government create so much prosperity and liberty that its beneficiaries believe such good fortune to be their natural and commonplace birthright and so begin destroying the very system that blessed them.

But if Biden and his handlers have taught us anything, human nature cannot be fooled, and the current four-year experiment will have to end before it ends us—and soon.

🎭 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓

Welcome to 

The 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓 

Here’s a place to share cartoons, jokes, music, art, nature, 

man-made wonders, and whatever else you can think of. 

No politics or divisive posts on this thread. 

This feature will appear every day at 1pm mountain time. 

The West won the World Wars and the Cold War.

 We must win today too – but to do so Europe must rediscover its belief in democracy

(Holy Crap - Look how many talking heads... Its a wonder they get anything done IMO)

The West won the World Wars and the Cold War. We must win today too – but to do so Europe must rediscover its belief in democracy - Brussels Signal

It seems that every month the European project becomes more beleaguered. Some commentators and legislators (wearing my hat as a member of the British House of Lords), have been more vociferous in their scepticism about euro-integration than I have – but few have been more consistent.

The basic problem from the British perspective and this is not ultimately confined to Britain, is that the European project is undemocratic. The commissioners for the various policy areas are appointed and not directly answerable to the European Parliament in the same way they would be in a domestic parliament. They exercise a degree of authority unto themselves that is not reconcilable with the gradual devolution of British institutions of government.

The United Kingdom entered the Common Market and the Atomic Energy and Coal and Steel Communities in 1973, and ratified those decisions by referendum in 1975. It did not vote “for an ever closer union”, and when offered the choice, it withdrew following the Brexit vote in 2016.

Britain was never seriously prepared to put a European court at the top of its justice system, to reduce its parliament to little more than a regional council, and to hand its relations with the United States and the original members of the Commonwealth, especially Canada and Australia, to Europeans.

The strains upon democracy in a number of the newer EU member states, some of which have had little previous experience with democratic institutions, are likely to continue and in some cases to worsen. Polls indicating probable moves toward the National Front in France and the AfD in Germany – and similar trends in other European countries, evidence by recent elections in Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal – indicate somewhat parallel concerns to those of the British.

The Brussels mentality is one of meliorist authoritarianism that has become broadly identified with the post-Cold War social democratic, levelling dirigisme of the World Economic Forum of Davos.

While the Cold War continued, even as it moderated in the 80s under Gorbachev, the euro-integrationists cherished a dream of the end of the Soviet threat to Western Europe making the Americans dispensable as protectors of Europe. Then the Western Europeans, standing on each other’s shoulders, partially regained the great political influence and cultural preeminence that they squandered in 1914 as they blundered into the horrible hecatomb of World War I and the communist, fascist, and in Nazi monsters that hit spawned.

The implosion of the Soviet Union swiftly accelerated the dreamworks of Brussels and the European bureaucracy. With the cooperation of enough politicians – so long as public opinion didn’t stampede out from under them – they accelerated their pursuit of their social democratic ideal and proudly revealed it. They were absurdly confident that it would win the adherence of all Europe, possibly even including Russia. America could then be regarded as superfluous, and might even be expected eventually, after it had shaken off the entrails of Reaganism, to get in lockstep with Europe.

In any case, the correlation of forces in the West would have changed: the reunification of Germany and the enlargement of the European Union to include former Soviet satellite countries would make it steadily larger and self-affirming.

Europe would emancipate itself from what a great many Europeans purported to regard as the cavalier treatment of the Great American Chautauqua which bumptiously persevered even when disguised by the elegance of some of its more worldly presidents such as Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Nixon.

The fact that most of this was just dreams of sugar plums dancing in the overstuffed heads of the Brussels Curia and their acolytes should not cause anyone to discard the European project completely. It is a magnificent accomplishment that practicably all the states between Portugal and Finland, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria are working diligently to achieve a continental policy in many areas and have set aside a great many profound national hostilities that have riven Europe since the rise of the nation state and before.

When I controlled a national newspaper in London, we advocated a two-tier Europe: full integration for those countries which wished it, and a common market with as much additional cooperation as individual members who wanted to stop short of integration were comfortable with – all in the context of the Western alliance.

I also continually lobbied the Canadian government and appropriate members of the United States Senate to engage in at least exploratory talks on behalf of the North American Free-Trade Area with the EU.

I do not claim to have been remotely successful, any more than I was in urging upon my Conservative colleagues in their lordships’ house the reestablishment of the House of Lords foreign affairs committee.

An immense number of people in all of the Western European countries are now groping around among themselves and trying to conceive of a fallback position where as much as possible can be saved of European solidarity without trying to gallop away again into a fantasy land of continental homogenisation.

The Ukraine War and the lack of adequate leadership in recent months from the faltering Biden administration, aggravated by the irresponsibility of many Republicans who should know better, pose a serious threat to everything that all factions in the European debate and the current American contemplation of revisions to NATO continue to embrace.

But it has also shown a more robust and effective response from Europe than had been generally anticipated, certainly by the Kremlin. This is serving to remind Americans in this election year that in addition to complaining about European freeloading, they should not lose sight of the fact that if they want a fully paid up membership, they are going to have to show a good deal more imaginative and consistent geopolitical leadership than they have in the last three years.

On the one side of the Atlantic as on the other, as we change the bathwater, we should neither dispose with the baby, nor submit it to the torture of Solomonic division. The West won the World Wars and the Cold War. Whatever the current phase may ultimately be called, there is no excuse for us not to win this round too.

🎄 GAF announces it's start date for Great American Christmas 2024!

 

Source: https://itsawonderfulmovie.blogspot.com/2024/06/great-american-family-announces-new-christmas-movie-alexa-carlos-penavega-love-at-the-kettle.html

Wonderful and exciting CHRISTMAS MOVIE NEWS today from Great American Family! The network is working with real-life couple Alexa and Carlos PenaVega on an upcoming 2024 Christmas movie titled Love At the Kettle (wt). The story centers around giving back with The Salvation Army, and of course, there's music and a romantic story, too.

Alexa and Carlos have worked on many movies together through the years, including Enchanted Christmas (pictured above), Love at Sea, (three) Picture Perfect Mysteries, Love in the Limelight, Never Too Late to Celebrate, and other projects.

Their latest heartwarming film, Mr. Manhattan, premiered on Great American Pure Flix in May and will air on Great American Family later this Summer or early Fall. Love At the Kettle will be their first Christmas movie for Great American Family.

The press release below details Alexa and Carlos PenaVega's all-new Christmas movie, plus the start date for Great American Christmas 2024 (Friday, October 11th!!!) and a sprinkling of what's to come during Great American Christmas in July.

**********************

Great American Media Press Release:

GREAT AMERICAN FAMILY 

ANNOUNCES ALEXA PENAVEGA 

AND CARLOS PENAVEGA

SET TO STAR IN AND PRODUCE 

NEW ORIGINAL MOVIE, 

LOVE AT THE KETTLE (wt),

CO-PRODUCED WITH MARIO LOPEZ 

FOR GREAT AMERICAN CHRISTMAS 2024

CHRISTMAS ENTHUSIASTS 

WHO CANNOT WAIT FOR THE HOLIDAYS,

GREAT AMERICAN CHRISTMAS IN JULY 

RETURNS JULY 1

NEW YORK, NY – June 11, 2024 — Great American Family announced Carlos PenaVega (“Big Time Rush”) and Alexa PenaVega (“Spy Kids”) are set to star in the new, Original movie, Love At the Kettle (wt), which will have its World Premiere on the network as part of Great American Christmas 2024. The highly popular holiday movie event returns to air all-new Original movies, Friday, October 11. The PenaVegas will executive produce the film in Nashville, with pop culture multi-hyphenate, Mario Lopez (Once Upon a Christmas Wish) co-producing. For Christmas enthusiasts who cannot wait 125 days until the return of Great American Christmas, Great American Media announces Great American Christmas in July begins July 1 on Great American Family and streaming on Great American Pure Flix with 24/7, around the clock holiday movies, royal movie marathons, and beloved, faith-filled stories of the season.

In Love At the Kettle (wt), up-and-coming singer-songwriter Bella Harlan (Alexa PenaVega) comes home for Christmas and enlists her high-school songwriting partner Jack Grayton (Carlos PenaVega) to craft a song to win back her rockstar boyfriend by Christmas. As the two reunite for the first time in a decade, they embark on a Christmas journey down memory lane, and soon realize true love may be closer than they thought. The heart of the movie centers on Jack’s role with The Salvation Army, and Bella soon finds herself inspired by his devotion and passion to a life of doing the most good. Filled with charming original music and its share of twists and turns, Love At the Kettle (wt) demonstrates the importance of never losing sight of the ones who matter the most.

“This is our second film this year with Carlos and Alexa, and I am so excited to be reunited and working with them on a number of projects that are different from the typical rom com,” said Bill Abbott, President & CEO, Great American Media. “The PenaVegas are about faith, family, compassion, and love. With Alexa and Carlos starring in and co-executive producing with Mario Lopez a story that celebrates faith, Christmas, and one of the most beloved charitable organizations in America, The Salvation Army — it is guaranteed to be a winning moment for our viewers,” Abbott concluded.

“We are so excited about Love at the Kettle because it represents everything Carlos and I love about Christmas and the holiday season. We want to be a light in this industry and to offer families positive, uplifting and faith-filled stories,” said Alexa PenaVega. “We also feel fortunate to have worked with The Salvation Army for a number of years, and we look forward to representing the authentic goodness behind the brand and mission,” said Carlos PenaVega.

Love At the Kettle (wt) is executive produced by Mark Roberts, Mario Lopez, Alexa PenaVega, and Carlos Penavega. Brian Herzlinger directs from an Original screenplay written by Horace Priester.

Viewers who love the Christmas season have made Great American Christmas one of the most popular, seasonal program events on television. Each year, Great American Family gifts viewers a glimpse into the coming holiday by presenting Great American Christmas in July. Beginning July 1, fans will see beloved network stars like Candace Cameron Bure, Danica McKellar, Jill Wagner, Chad Michael Murray, Jen Lilley, Lori Loughlin, Trevor Donovan, Laura Osnes, Merritt Patterson, Paul Greene, Cameron Mathison, Jennie Garth, Christopher Russell, and more, as the network rolls out 24/7, around the clock entertainment. This year’s event on Great American Family includes encores of highly rated originals My Christmas Hero, A Christmas Blessing, A Paris Christmas Waltz, A Royal Date for Christmas, Christmas Keepsake, ‘Twas the Text Before Christmas, A Dash of Christmas, Christmas on Windmill Way, Destined 2: Christmas Once More, Meet Me Under the Mistletoe, and so many more original movies from the Great American Christmas library.

Viewers who stream on Great American Pure Flix will enjoy Peppermint & Postcards starring Ella Cannon and Christopher Russell (July 1), Bringing Christmas Home, starring Jill Wagner and Paul Greene (Great American Pure Flix premiere, July 4), My Christmas Hero, starring Candace Cameron Bure and Gabe Hogan (July 4), Designing Christmas, starring Susie Abromeit and Liam McIntyre (Great American Pure Flix premiere, July 11), and Sunrise in Heaven, starring Caylee Cowan, Travis Burns, and Corbin Bernsen (July 11).

ABOUT GREAT AMERICAN FAMILY

As the flagship linear TV network of Great American Media, Great American Family is America’s premiere destination for quality family-friendly programming, featuring original Christmas movies, rom-coms and classic series that celebrate faith, family and country. Founded in 2021, Great American Family is home to year-round seasonal celebrations the whole family can enjoy together, including Great American Christmas, the network’s signature franchise featuring holiday themed movies and specials. Great American Family is available in 50 million households via cable and satellite providers.

Visit https://www.greatamericanfamily.com/channel-finder/ or text FAMILY to 877-999-1225 to find your local channel.

ABOUT GREAT AMERICAN PURE FLIX

As the streaming service of Great American Media, Great American Pure Flix provides quality family-friendly programming that celebrates faith, family and country. With affordable flat-rate pricing, families can stream a prolific offering of unlimited movies and shows on demand. Great American Pure Flix features inspiring, uplifting and entertaining content the entire family can enjoy together, with new original and exclusive titles added every month. New customers can enjoy a 7-day free trial by visiting GreatAmericanPureFlix.com.

Watch Great American Pure Flix https://signup.pureflix.com/signup/c3e/email

(-----End of Press Release-----)

I hope you enjoyed reading about what's to come on Great American Family!

I'm such a big fan of Alexa and Carlos; I just adore all of their movies together! This new one from Great American Family, Love At the Kettle, already has me very intrigued. Any storyline about giving to others in need, especially at Christmastime, always touches my heartstrings.

Plus, we learned Great American Christmas in July will begin on July 1st! At this time, no new movies for July have been announced, but there will be plenty of encore showings of past Great American Family holiday favorites. (Stay tuned - if there are any changes/updates here.)

Also, did you catch in the press release, Great American Christmas will begin sooner than ever before—on Friday, October 11th! Wow! We can start decorating even sooner this year for the holiday season, along with all of the Christmas movies we love!

Have a Merry Day!

Net🎄

New Minimum Wage Bill Costs Californians Nearly 10,000 Jobs

 Governor Newsom claims a higher minimum wage will help create a more stable workforce.

A new California bill that raised the state minimum wage has cost the Golden State nearly 10,000 jobs since last September, according to a pro-business watchdog group.

Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1228 into law last September, which mandated a $20 hourly minimum wage for fast food employees, an increase of 25 percent. The law became effective on April 1 of this year.

In the aftermath of the minimum wage hike, a pro-business group, the California Business and Industrial Alliance, published an advertisement detailing the kinds of places that have had to close their doors or lay off their employees in response to the new law. 

The Hoover Institute estimates that between 9,500 and 10,000 employees have been laid off since last fall. Businesses such as McDonald’s, Subway, and Burger King now all face the dilemma of cutting operating costs, which often means laying off staff, or facing the closure of various locations.

When he signed the bill, Mr. Newsom said that the new law would bring the state “closer to fairer wages, safer and healthier working conditions, and better training by giving hardworking fast-food workers a stronger voice and seat at the table.” 

The advertisement documents the closure of various fast food locations as well as a local restaurant, Bar Moruno. 

“The economics of owning a restaurant are completely out of whack right now,” the former chef of Bar Moruno, Chris Feldmeier, said. “We used to try to keep our labor costs under 30 percent, but now they’re inching up to 40 percent. With cooks making $22 to $25 an hour, it’s just hard for a small, private restaurant.”

Within a week of April 1, Capitol Weekly reported several fast food chains were announcing layoffs, severely affecting over 1,200 delivery drivers, and several pizza outlets in California announcing permanent closure.

Rubio’s Coastal Grill filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy this week, after closing down 48 of its locations in California, according to the New York Post.

CBS reported that the average California restaurant is now facing an increased annual cost of $250,000 to account for the minimum wage increase.

The president of California Business and Industrial Alliance, Tom Manzo, told FOX News that two of California’s biggest problems are consistent rising costs and a “continued anti-business climate” since the bill took effect.

“Unprecedented wage hikes have unprecedented consequences, especially in California where the odds are already stacked against businesses,” Mr. Manzo said in a recent statement. “The rapid job cuts, rising prices, and business closures are a direct result of Governor Newsom and this short-sighted legislation.”

Mr. Manzo told FOX that individual franchisees are not multi-million dollar corporations like the companies they represent, and because of this, individual locations are responsible for meeting payroll, earning a profit, and incurring losses.

Mr. Newsom said that the bill would help bring about a “stable and engaged workforce” and especially help people of color, who comprise 80 percent of the fast food workforce, according to a report from Courthouse News Service.

The governor’s press office reported, in a statement on X, that AB 1228 has helped California add over 4,000 jobs in the fast food industry, contrary to reports claiming the bill has resulted in job cuts.

Many fast food employees also say that they cannot make ends meet on their previous, $16 minimum wage.

“Even though we are the engine of a billion-dollar industry, too many of us struggle to keep up with rent, our bills and the rising cost of living,” a McDonald’s employee Anjelica Hernandez told the Guardian.

In response to increased wages, Blaze Pizza, a California-based fast food chain, is moving its headquarters to Atlanta from Pasadena. The business sees more potential for growth in Georgia. 

Recent studies show a trend of businesses increasingly relocating out of California because of such high costs. Since April, prices at Wendy’s have increased by 8 percent, at Chipotle by 7.5 percent, and at Starbucks by 7 percent, according to a report from the Hoover Institute.

On Blaze’s website, California is listed under “limited availability” for employment opportunities. Other states, such as Texas and Florida, are tagged with “Inquire Now.”

Many business owners have also experimented with technological replacements for some aspects of human labor, such as preparing fried food and dispensing drinks, as the New York Sun previously reported. 

One Burger King franchisee on the West Coast announced that it planned to install digital kiosks at all of his locations in two months in an effort to offset costs, an example of how the minimum wage increase could have long-lasting effects on the general job market, according to the Daily Mail.

https://www.nysun.com/article/new-minimum-wage-bill-costs-californians-nearly-10000-jobs

RAFAEL OLIVEIRA

Mr. Oliveira is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Religion Unplugged and America’s Future.