Jim Acosta shows us why he is no longer employed.
California is suffering through the consequences of a high minimum wage. Will they learn anything? Of course not.
And a student from Clemson University gets some justice and rich. But is this really true justice.
No Wonder He’s Out of a Job
Who’d of Thunk It?
According to the Post Millennial:
A newly published economic analysis has found that California’s 2023 fast-food minimum wage hike has led to the elimination of thousands of jobs across the sector.
According to a working paper released this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), employment in California’s fast-food industry dropped by 18,000 jobs after the new $20 minimum wage took effect in April 2024—a 3.2 percent decline compared to other states, according to Fox News.
“Following AB 1228’s enactment, employment in the fast food sector in California fell substantially, with estimates ranging from 2.3 to 3.9 percent across specifications, even as employment in other sectors of the California economy tracked national trends,” researchers Jeffrey Clemens, Olivia Edwards, and Jonathan Meer wrote. They added that fast-food jobs in the rest of the US increased slightly over the same period, by about “0.10 percent.”
California approved AB 1228 in September 2023. The legislation created a new “Fast Food Council” with the authority to set wages for the sector. Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law the following April. The text of the law reads: “The hourly minimum wage for fast food restaurant employees shall be twenty dollars ($20) per hour, effective April 1, 2024. Thereafter, the council may establish, pursuant to this subdivision, minimum wages for fast food restaurant employees that take effect on an annual basis, beginning on January 1, 2025.”
The report notes that prior to the new law, employment trends in California’s fast-food sector largely mirrored those across the country. After implementation, however, the state saw a sharp divergence.
Critics of the wage increase were quick to highlight the study’s findings.
“When it comes to central planning, history keeps the receipts: Wage controls never work. That’s because policymakers can set wage laws, but they can’t outlaw the consequences,” Rachel Greszler, an economic analyst at The Heritage Foundation, wrote in The Daily Signal.
She added, “The consequences of that wage hike on the fast-food industry should be a warning sign” for cities like Los Angeles, which voted to raise the minimum wage for hotel and airport workers to $30 by 2028.
We Have a Two-Tiered Justice System
According to the Daily Wire:
A Clemson University student who was awarded $5.3 million after being falsely accused of sexual assault must continue to fight for his award money.
Andrew Pampu was awarded the money in April 2022 after he sued his accuser, Erin Wingo, her father, David, and her ex-boyfriend, Colin Gahagan, for defamation. But last month, South Carolina’s Court of Appeals overturned the ruling and set a dangerous precedent —that quasi-judicial campus tribunals carry the same weight as jury trials.
A jury unanimously agreed that Pampu had been defamed and ordered Erin to pay $700,000 in actual damages and $450,000 in punitive damages, her father to pay $230,000 in damages, and Gahagan to pay $700,000 in actual damages and $220,000 in punitive damages for defamation. Erin and Gahagan were also ordered to pay damages for civil conspiracy, with Erin ordered to pay $2 million in actual damages and Gahagan ordered to pay $1 million, Greenville News reported in 2022.
The three appealed the ruling, even though the lawsuit kicked off after Gahagan admitted to Pampu that he had helped Wingo falsely accuse him.
“You’re innocent,” Gahagan wrote in a January 2017 text message, months after Pampu had been suspended from Clemson based on Wingo’s claims. “I lied in that hearing. Erin wanted to have sex that night. Get your brothers away from me and never touch your [sic] life again and I’ll come through with the truth that she lied. I deleted the texts from that night prove [sic] she was f****** crazy. You’re innocent. Just pull your f****** boys off me and never touch me again. It’s sad that you were like a brother to me and this happened[.] You’re innocent. Send this to your lawyer. Just don’t call me into the hearing and leave me alone. You’re welcome. That’s all I ask. You’re innocent bud.”
But the Court of Appeals overturned the unanimous jury ruling, in part by claiming the trial that led to the ruling was unnecessary because the case had already been litigated by Clemson University administrators.
This, despite the fact that campus tribunals provide little to no due process for accused students, including discovery or even the right to properly question their accuser and call witnesses. The Court claimed that “fundamental fairness requires the court to give preclusive effect to the administrative hearing board’s February 29, 2016, findings.”
What happened? The article continues:
Pampu’s struggles began nearly a decade ago, in early September 2015, when Wingo pursued him for sexual activity leading up to a fraternity party where Gahagan, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, was ignoring her, as The Daily Wire previously reported. Wingo propositioned Pampu and the two ended up having sex outside near a shed. Following the encounter, Wingo complained about Gahagan and ended up crying over him for the rest of the night, sending him numerous text messages.
The next morning, she texted Pampu to ask him not to tell Gahagan about their night together. When she admitted to Gahagan what she had done, she claimed not to remember most of the night, so Gahagan told her that if she couldn’t remember, it was rape. Even though Wingo clearly remembered the night in text messages to multiple people, she told investigators she didn’t, even deleting her text to Pampu. When Pampu showed the text to campus investigators, they ignored it.
Wingo didn’t report the alleged sexual assault to Clemson until two weeks after she and Pampu had engaged in sexual activity. Even though all sides were precluded from retaliation, Clemson allowed Gahagan to call Pampu a “rapist” around campus. Pampu also reported other incidents of harassment and retaliation by Gahagan and Wingo, all of which were ignored.
Dumbass of the Day
Some things:
- These young people need to stop posting everything online. This is probably something she is not going to want out there in the future.
- She’s probably not that amazing and smart. She probably doesn’t over-perform.
- You only work 40 hours a week. There are 168 hours in a week. I think she might be able to find some time for a shower and get 8 hours of sleep and work 40 hours.
- Welcome to life. People have spent their entire lives working. In fact, we have it easy.
- Think about what people had to do just to eat and shelter themselves a a century ago.
- Reality doesn’t care. No one will be taking care of her.
Go Woke, Go Broke
According to the Daily Wire:
Albertsons, one of America’s largest grocery store chains, does not allow store managers to keep transgender-identifying men out of women’s bathrooms, a conservative watchdog warned Tuesday.
The policy was revealed in a “Woke Alert” campaign from Consumers’ Research targeting Albertsons over its promotion of gender ideology and DEI. Albertsons owns popular chains like Safeway and Vons and operates over 2,000 stores across the country.
In a document obtained by Consumers’ Research and shared with The Daily Wire, Albertsons writes that “requiring a transgender individual (customer or employee) to use the restroom of her gender at birth” would “be a form of transgender discrimination prohibited by our Company policy.”
Albertsons did not respond to requests for comment on when the policy was implemented or whether it was still in place.
God Is Coming
According to the New York Post:
What happens if an asteroid the size of a 15-story building crashes into the Moon in 2032?
While the chances of the newly discovered asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting the Moon in seven years are slim – there is currently a 96% chance it won’t happen – an impact of this size would not come without consequences for the Moon, astronauts and spacecraft orbiting Earth.
A new study submitted for review by scientists with the University of Western Ontario and Athabasca University in Canada took observations from the James Webb Space Telescope of asteroid 2024 YR4 and used simulations to show how much lunar debris would be ejected out into space, sending pieces of the Moon toward Earth.
After its initial discovery late last year, the asteroid appeared to have a small chance of impacting Earth, warranting international attention, and jumping to the highest asteroid threat ever given on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale. By February, more ground-based observations of the asteroid helped clear the threat to Earth, but the Moon still faces a possible impact.
Earlier this year, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope helped scientists determine that the asteroid is between 175 and 220 feet in diameter.
If Asteroid 2024 YR4 crashes into the Moon, it would create a crater more than half a mile in diameter (1 km), becoming the largest impact in about 5,000 years, according to the study. Current calculations show, if it happens, an impact would occur on the Southern Hemisphere.
The researchers said this impact would threaten satellites in low-Earth orbit for days or up to a few months, and send a fraction of the ejecta toward Earth.
Any lunar debris that makes it within Earth’s atmosphere could create a meteor shower event over the planet.
It’s About Time
According to Fox News:
The St. Louis couple who went viral in 2020 for wielding guns as Black Lives Matter protesters marched outside their property have regained possession of their semiautomatic rifle.
After a yearslong and complex legal struggle to reclaim their weapons after they were seized by authorities more than five years ago, police have returned the AR-15 to St. Louis lawyers Mark and Patricia McCloskey.
“It only took 3 lawsuits, 2 trips to the Court of Appeals and 1,847 days, but I got my AR15 back!” Mark McCloskey posted to his X account on Friday, along with several photos of him carrying the gun.