Starbuck said Lowe’s is committed to ending identity-based employee resource groups and replacing them with a single group for employees of all backgrounds. Lowe’s also plans to limit its sponsorship to issues related to its business, such as affordable housing and disaster relief; end participation in Pride and other socially related community events; and stop submitting data to the Human Rights Campaign, he wrote.
The company joins firms such as Harley-Davidson, Tractor Supply and Deere in reining in their DEI programs in recent months after being targeted by Starbuck amid a broader corporate reassessment of a fast-shifting legal landscape marked by rising risk. Companies are increasingly facing pressure to scale back or do away with DEI initiatives from both external critics and U.S. courts as a wave of legal action challenges policies at scores of companies, including giants such as Starbucks, Meta and Pfizer.
I absolutely hate these fees. At the same time, I do not want to invite the federal government even further into our lives to regulate them. Let the market figure it out. And if you really hate surprise fees, have you seen the fees our governments charge?
Lawmakers want to crack down on “junk fees,” but restaurants are trying to stay out of the fight.
Surcharges or fees covering everything from credit card processing to gratuities to “inflation” have become more popular on restaurant checks in recent years.
Last year, 15% of restaurant owners added surcharges or fees to checks because of higher costs, according to the National Restaurant Association. In the second quarter, 3.7% of restaurant transactions processed by Square included a service fee, more than double the beginning of 2022, according to a recent report from the company.
Opponents of the practice say those fees and surcharges may surprise customers, hoodwinking them into paying more for their meals at a time when their wallets are already feeling thin. Fed-up diners compiled spreadsheets via Reddit of restaurants in Los Angeles, Chicago and D.C. charging hidden fees. Even the Onion took a swing at the practice, publishing a satirical story in May with the headline “Restaurant Check Includes 3% Surcharge To Provide Owner’s Sugar Baby With Birkin.”
The Biden administration has broadly targeted so-called junk fees, like an undisclosed service charge for concert tickets or unexpected resort fees when checking out of a hotel. This fall, the Federal Trade Commission is expected to publish a rule banning businesses from “charging hidden and misleading fees.”
And while it has come to a head in Europe, this is a global phenomenon. A Japanese town overlooking Mount Fuji erected view-blocking barriers in May (then removed them in August). Bali introduced a tourist entry tax for foreign visitors in February. And US national parks are full to bursting – with 13 million more visits in 2023 than in 2022, according to NPS numbers. In peak season, visitors must book ahead to enter.
[…]
“The tourism industry forgot about its most precious asset: the goodwill of locals. The edifice collapses without that. It’s been lost in many places and will be hard to win back.”
Francis puts it down to a combination of factors: the growth of low-cost airlines, vacation rentals, social media (which creates stampedes to “in” destinations) and expanding economies – meaning more people can afford to travel.
I am an incurable tourist with a pounding wanderlust disorder. I love to travel and I travel a lot. I have certainly witnessed some of this phenomenon.
I get where many of these people are coming from. It’s one thing when your town depends on tourism. It’s another thing when you are in a city that has its own thing going on and also happens to be a tourist destination.
But I think the problem with rude, inconsiderate tourists is just another facet of our culture. In almost every arena, our global culture has become less considerate, less polite, ruder, crasser, and generally less… cultured. This story isn’t about tourism. It’s about the decline of society.
Israel says its warplanes have struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon after detecting moves to launch an aerial attack on Israel.
The Israeli military said around 100 fighter jets had destroyed “thousands” of rocket launchers on Sunday morning, in what it described as an act of “self-defence”. Lebanon’s health ministry reported that three people had been killed.
Hezbollah later said it had fired hundreds of rockets towards northern Israel, calling it “phase one” of a multi-stage attack in retaliation for the killing of a senior commander. No casualties have been reported in Israel.
The exchange marks a major escalation of tensions between Israel and the Iran-backed Shia Muslim armed group.
For the most part, Ms Harris has shied away from describing in detail what her presidency would look like.
There’s talk of unity and a way beyond America’s divisive partisanship; a focus on strengthening the economy and reducing consumer prices; and a heavy emphasis on reproductive rights and abortion – an area of particular strength for Democrats.
But it is vague. And this vagueness may suit the Harris campaign just fine.
By largely being an empty policy vessel, Ms Harris has allowed various constituencies within the Democratic Party to project their hopes and priorities onto her.
If she can keep all those pieces together for the next few months, she might just win.
The media and Harris campaign, but I repeat myself, seems intent on pretending that Harris doesn’t have clear policy goals. She does. She is the SITIING VICE PRESIDENT. She also has a long and consistent history of policy action and stated positions as AG, Senator, and when she ran for president herself. We know her policy goals. She’s a Marxist.
Even recently, she has come out to support a command economy, increasing welfare, open borders, and a gigantic forced transfer of wealth. That is just the stuff she let slip out in the last few weeks that we’re supposed to ignore because they realized that Americans are still not down with the revolution. That’s on top of the fact that she is the SITTING VICE PRESIDENT of an administration with disastrous policies that she supported, advocated, and helped implement.
We know what a Harris Administration would look like. It would look like Biden’s administration but less competent.
Recognize that the Ukraine War has become both an offensive proxy war of America against Russia and a vast money laundering enterprise. If this continues, it is only a matter of time before Russia is backed into a corner and strikes out at the U.S. in an asymmetric attempt to reset the board.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s military says it used high-precision U.S. glide bombs to strike Russia’s Kursk region, and that is has recaptured some territory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv that has been under a Russian offensive since spring.
Ukraine’s Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleschuk issued a video Thursday night purporting to show a Russian platoon base being hit in Kursk, where Ukrainian forces launched a surprise cross-border incursion on Aug. 6. He said the attack with GBU-39 bombs, which were supplied by the United States, resulted in Russian casualties and the destruction of equipment.
The video showed multiple explosions and plumes of smoke rising at the site.
Many of Ukraine’s backers oppose the country using donated weapons for anything but defensive purposes. However, Ukraine has argued that its Kursk incursion is essentially defensive and aimed at minimizing attacks on Ukrainian soil from that Russian region.
Jay Weber, a talk show host on WISN-Milwaukee, was slammed online after he called 17-year-old Gus Walz a ‘blubbering b**** boy’ for his emotional reaction to his father’s speech at the Democratic National Convention.
[…]
In a now-deleted tweet, Weber wrote: ‘Sorry, but this is embarrassing for both father and son. If the Walzs represent today’s American man, this country is screwed; ‘Meet my son, Gus. He’s a blubbering b**** boy. His mother and I are very proud.’
[…]
The comment came after Gus, who is neurodivergent, has ADHD, an anxiety disorder, and a non-verbal learning disorder, was seen tearfully exclaiming, ‘That’s my dad,’ during Governor Walz’s speech.
His emotional support of his father had many quick to call it ‘cringe-worthy’ before realizing the extent of his disabilities.
Weber quickly backtracked, after learning of the teen’s disorders.
‘I didn’t realize the kid was disabled, and have taken the post down,’ he wrote in a follow-up tweet.
In a longer apology posted Friday morning on X, Weber wrote: ‘This is a fuller apology for something stupid and hurtful I said yesterday. I said it without thinking or having the facts. No excuses. Having been a teacher, I’ve had a standard of never involving children, I broke that and I’m disappointed with myself.’
by Owen | 2045, 23 Aug 2424 | Politics | 0 Comments
We are spending hundreds of billions of dollars PER YEAR on housing, schools, medical costs, law enforcement, welfare, etc. on illegal aliens. It is impossible to conceive a scenario where there isn’t a short ROI on deporting them as long as the border is secure enough to prevent most of them from coming back in.
SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. — Former President Donald Trump on Thursday said the cost to deport millions of undocumented immigrants is justified and would not rule out separating families made up of citizens and noncitizens.
“It’ll cost trillions of dollars to keep these people, and I’m talking about in particular starting with the criminals,” Trump told NBC News in an interview during a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona. “That’s costing us a lot more than deporting. But we have no choice, regardless, we have no choice. We’re going to have to deport.”
When pressed, Trump provided no details on how he would pay for his plan, which could cost billions of dollars to implement at scale. Trump spent much of his first term fighting with Congress to give him money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, an expensive undertaking that the legislative branch never agreed to fund. Ultimately, he took the money from other parts of the Pentagon budget.
But notice how the media is already pretending to care about the cost. They are silent when Democrats find hundreds of billions of dollars to support illegal aliens already in this country, yet seem to think that it would be impossible to find the money for deportations. Remember how they bemoaned $5 billion to build the wall, but were unconcerned with spending 100 times more to pay for illegals who flowed across the border? I do.
This happened a few months ago, but I missed it. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has lowered the performance levels for the Forward Exam – the state standardized test that we use to measure the success or failure of our schools. Put another way, the Government Education Complex was frustrated with the fact that test scores have been flat or declining for years, so they decided to lower the standards to make it look better.
The bars for labeling the comparative success of kids have been lowered. Lowered to levels that are more constructive, reasonable and realistic? To levels that undermine efforts to set rigorous goals and improve the overall achievement of Wisconsin students? Different people would have different opinions.
The bars — known as “cut scores” — mark the boundaries between one category of performance and the next higher or lower category on the tests. This fall, when information on state test results from last spring are released to the public, the percentages will rise, although by how much is not yet known.
They also changed the nomenclature to:
Advanced – The student demonstrates a thorough understanding of the
knowledge and skills described in the Wisconsin Academic Standards for their
grade level and is on-track for future learning.
• Meeting – The student is meeting the knowledge and skill expectations described
in the Wisconsin Academic Standards for their grade level and is on-track for
future learning.
• Approaching – The student is approaching the knowledge and skill expectations
described in the Wisconsin Academic Standards for their grade level needed to be
on-track for future learning.
• Developing – The student is at the beginning stages of developing the knowledge
and skills described in the Wisconsin Academic Standards for their grade level
needed to be on-track for future learning
It used to be Advanced, Proficient, Basic, and Below Basic.
Look for the news stories when this year’s test results are released. I expect to see educrats celebrating a “rise in scores,” but remember that what actually happened is that we lowered the standards to appease crappy teachers.
Our government education system has been failing and collapsing for decades. We are larding up the bureaucracy with administrators and cost while educational performance keeps falling. We are filling up the curriculum with useless information and social engineering while other countries are teaching their kids how to be successful in the 21st century. We are failing our kids and the government’s response is to lower the standards and use different words to obfuscate their failures. Bad test scores are not an indictment of the kids. It is an indictment of the system and adults who are failing the kids.
by Owen | 0816, 23 Aug 2424 | Politics | 0 Comments
Way to cap off the DNC convention with yet another lie. This rumor was swirling for days. The DNC could have denied it at any time and chose not to do so. They let the rumor continue because they liked the buzz that it created. But their refusal to reveal the truth was just another lie in a convention full of them. The Democratic Party is the party where everything is made up and the truth doesn’t matter.
Beyoncé fans flooded the internet with memes after she was rumored to be performing at the Democratic National Convention but didn’t show.
Speculation swirled that the pop megastar would appear to endorse Kamala Harris for president and sing for the convention crowd on Thursday night.
Hours before Harris’ nomination speech, TMZ claimed Beyoncé was indeed the guest star, after letting the Harris campaign use her song Freedom in its ads.
[…]
It’s unclear exactly how the rumor started – and why cold water was never thrown on it before the 11th hour.
The memes began in earnest, as they always do, joking that Beyoncé arrived but changed her mind in the parking lot and left, or slept through the convention.
Another showed the singer and Taylor Swift eating popcorn in an empty theatre, joking they were watching the DNC from home.
Others showed clips from Joe Biden angrily denouncing Donald Trump in a speech as if he were attacking whoever started the Beyoncé rumor.
This is happening all over the world. As the U.S. and European countries pile on the regulations that make our cars prohibitively expensive, the rest of the world is still looking for good, reliable, cheap transportation. China is filling the void. It is yet another area where the U.S. is ceding global leadership.
Last year, China was the leading car supplier to Mexico, exporting $4.6 billion worth of vehicles to the country, according to the Mexican Ministry of Economy. Even customers wary of EVs have been won over by affordable price tags. Tesla rival BYD sells its Dolphin Mini in Mexico for around 398,800 pesos, or about $21,300, a little over half the price of the cheapest Tesla.
“The Chinese automakers came to the country very aggressively,” said Juan Carlos Baker, former Mexican deputy minister for international trade. “They have very good promotions. It’s a good product that sells at a very reasonable price.”
Some Chinese EV makers, including BYD, have been looking for a further foothold in North America by exploring factory sites in the Mexican states of Durango, Jalisco and Nuevo Leon. The foreign investment would be an economic boost for Mexico. BYD has claimed that a plant there would create around 10,000 jobs.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Universities of Wisconsin regents agreed overwhelmingly on Thursday to ask Gov. Tony Evers for an additional $855 million for the cash-strapped system in the next state budget.
The Universities are educating 17,297 fewer people. That’s like the entire population of Kaukauna or Cudahy. Why would the taxpayers spend another $855 million to educate fewer people?
The leftist judges on the Wisconsin Supreme Court are actually doing the work of the DNC to keep the Green Party off the ballot. Where are the Greens?
(The Center Square) – Following the Wisconsin Election Commission’s dismissal of a complaint from a Democratic National Committee staffer, who seeks to remove Green Party candidate Jill Stein from the ballot, the plaintiff has doubled down and filed an expedited appeal with the state’s Supreme Court.
Court documents reveal it accepted the case Thursday and is requesting that the plaintiff provide additional information, actions that have caused two Supreme Court justices to dissent.
“The majority issues an unprecedented order directing the petitioner – within two hours – to give the court contact information for the respondents, which is currently absent from the record because no one has entered an appearance on behalf of any of those parties. How is the petitioner – an employee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) – supposed to know the name or physical address of an ‘attorney or other representative of each respondent who is authorized to accept service of orders issued by this court’?” Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley wrote in dissent of the Supreme Court’s majority ruling. “To my knowledge, at no time in history has the court issued orders before parties had made their appearances. Petitioner filed this original action on Monday, served the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Tuesday, and served the Wisconsin Green Party just yesterday. The majority steps beyond its neutral role to lawyer the case on behalf of the DNC, seemingly facilitating an expedited review of this original action. Other parties presenting original action petitions have not received such preferential treatment by this court.”
A White House aide reportedly called Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention an “implicit rebuke” to President Joe Biden’s term, perpetuating rumors that there is a rift between the president and his former boss Barack Obama.
[…]
“It was an implicit rebuke of the Biden era,” the source told Politico, claiming that the former first lady seemed to be blending together the Trump and Biden presidencies into one dreary era in US history.
The aide’s comment furthers swirling theories that there is some continuing tension between Obama and Biden.
Last week, sources told Politico that Biden will not stay in Chicago to hear Obama’s speech because he harbors resentment toward his former boss for not directly calling him to voice his concerns about his re-election chances.
Read this story and think to yourself… how much vetting did the Biden administration really do before granting the illegal immigrant protection from deportation? They are likely getting thousands and thousands of applications. Are they really checking the information in them if they are able to grant immunity in 24 hours?
Cecilia sat in front of her computer repeatedly refreshing the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services webpage on Monday, waiting for the application for the Biden administration’s “Keeping Families Together” program to show up on her screen.
Minutes later, she clicked it open and submitted the form in less than 20 minutes.
A little more than 24 hours later, she got an e-mail sharing the news that she had been waiting 20 years to hear.
“I see that I got approved, and I’m like, oh that was quick,” she told ABC News in an interview. “I was lost for words…a whole bunch of emotions were going on.”
Cecilia, who asked ABC News not to disclose her full name so she can freely disclose her immigration status, is one of the first immigrants to receive parole in place, a temporary relief from deportation under a new program that allows undocumented spouses and stepchildren of United States citizens to apply for permanent legal residence without having to leave the country.
There’s no room for price gouging in a ultra-competitive business like retail, Target CEO Brian Cornell said on Wednesday.
In an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” the retail chief disputed campaign talking points accusing grocers of inflating prices. He said retailers have to be responsive to customers or risk losing business.
He was asked by CNBC’s Joe Kernen, who referred to comments by Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and asked if Target or its competitors ever benefit from price gouging. Harris last week proposed the first-ever federal ban on “corporate price-gouging in the food and grocery industries,” saying some companies are charging excessively and fueling household inflation.
“We’re in a penny business,” Cornell responded, noting the small profit margins in the retail industry. He described the many places that customers can turn to check for lower prices or to find merchandise elsewhere, from going to stores to browsing on their phones to compare the prices of a gallon of milk at different retailers.
Sadly, Kamala Harris and the Leftists have been successful in pivoting the discussion away from inflation to corporate behavior. The reality is that prices have gone up substantially under Biden/Harris. This is textbook inflation. Inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods. This causes the value of the currency to decrease because it takes more money to buy the same value. Inflation cannot be caused by the private economy because that economy does not control the money. Government does. Inflation is caused by the government printing or spending more money than the economy can naturally absorb. In the case of our current economy, it is both. The federal government is spending a gargantuan amount of money, but since they don’t have enough tax revenue to cover the spending, they are just printing money to cover the cost.
The only real fix for inflation is to dramatically reduce government spending. The reason that the Democrats don’t want to do that is because federal spending has become a gigantic gravy train for millions of people. If they cut it off, it will anger those people. So the resistance to doing what needs to be done to fix inflation is not an economic one… it’s a political one.
Drastically reducing federal spending would also trigger a recession. All of that spending goes somewhere and if it is cut off, those jobs and businesses go away. It will take some time for the Invisible Hand of our economy to reallocate those resources to more productive means. It would be painful. But it is also the only way and the alternative is that we continue to devalue our currency to the point that there is no wealth left for anyone except political elites. This is where the current path leads and has been replicated dozens of times in modern history.
I know this seems elementary to most of our readers, but this kind of simple economic understanding is being lost. A natural result of the decline of education in America is that we have two generations of people who have not been taught the very basic understanding of how our government and economy works. And yes, I believe that our education was intentionally changed to achieve the level of ignorance necessary for communism to take root.
YORK, Pennsylvania (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Monday that if elected he would consider ending a $7,500 tax credit for electric-vehicle purchases and that he would be open to naming Tesla CEO Elon Musk to a cabinet or advisory role.
“Tax credits and tax incentives are not generally a very good thing,” Trump told Reuters in an interview after a campaign event in York, Pennsylvania, when asked about the EV credit.
Asked if he would consider naming Musk to an advisory role or cabinet job, Trump said he would. “He’s a very smart guy. I certainly would, if he would do it, I certainly would. He’s a brilliant guy,” Trump said.
Emotional Joe Biden cries then mangles his words during swansong speech that is bumped off primetime in final humiliation for dumped president
I stayed up late to watch Biden live. It was everything we have come to expect from Biden. Shouting. Outright lies. Slurs. Insults. Insults. One might have felt bad for him having to give his own political eulogy if one is willing to willfully forget how terrible a human being Joe Biden is. The only thing missing was the creepy whisper.
