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In quickly scanning the newspapers this morning, I was rather shocked by something concerning something that just lept out of the screen.  In reporting what hadn’t been funded in the next NH budget, this factoid just stared back at me (full part of that piece after the jump for context).  Concerning a program to get those on welfare back to work was this – just take money sitting in an account and spend it:

…All of which is somewhat ironic, since the Senate leadership made sure the workforce program was included as part of SB 7, a bill designed to tighten eligibility for the food stamp program. It made sense. If you’re going to make it harder to get food stamps, why not make it easier for people who take advantage of the program to find work.

…No one ever said, “If the House won’t pass our food stamp restrictions, they won’t get a workforce development program,” but that was the outcome. The House wanted to use $11.5 million in federal funds for a two-year pilot program estimated to help 600 people.

Did you figure out why this caught my eye? Yeah, $19,166.67 / per person each for 600 people.  Seriously – WHO comes up with this idea – and get it into actual legislation????

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All we’ve heard for years from Chiefs of Police in big urban areas (you know, Democrat strongholds that the Mayor appoints the Chief – go figure) that we shouldn’t go after illegal aliens for deportation as then they wouldn’t talk to the police about crime.  We have to treat them differently, we’re told over and over – we must build “trust”.  How much trust can there be when all it amounts to is “we won’t call ICE”?  But they continue to stick to The Big Lie for ideological reasons (seems that Dems much prefer illegal aliens to actual Americans).

But the Big Lie for Phoenix has turned out to be nothing but vaporware:

REPORT: After Phoenix Dropped Sanctuary City Status, Crime Rate Fell

When the City of Phoenix ended its sanctuary city status crime began to fall, the Arizona Police Association reports. Their statement contrasts sharply with politically motivated chiefs of police from around the country.

“When we eliminated our sanctuary policy back in 2008, we saw crime, violent and stolen vehicles fall by 25 percent,” former Phoenix police officer and Executive Director of the Arizona Police Association Levi Bolton told Fox News Channel’s William La Jeunesse in an interview. “We saw a 20-year low crime rate. When we were allowed and had the discretion to contact our federal immigration partners, crime fell drastically.”

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From my friend and loyal reader (emphasis mine):

Skip – thought you’d appreciate the irony.

After OH voters rejected marijuana on the Nov ballot, our Republican legislature passed it anyway – too much money at stake.

If you’re rich enough and can grow in large qtys, you can apply for a license.  Still illegal for homeowners to grow a few plants, and no chance for small investors to buy in.  My opinion is, if the big guys can do it, then so can the little guys.  I can only hope Pablo brings the just desserts.

and the punch line …

I just laughed when I read the next two lines – and then went silent and just shook my head in despair:

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All we hear from the Dems and the Media how BAD Trump has been – then why does the general public rate Trump better?  Mostly because, all tweets aside, he is getting things done which is what he campaigned on and is doing.  He is keeping his campaign promises for the most part and the voters see that and approve.  But the Media and the Dems (and I repeat myself again – I just can no longer tell whose dog is wagging whose tail) see Trump as the antithesis of everything they stand for and want especially in that he took their Power away LIKE A BOSS.  The public sees it – and likes what they see because they don’t care about the Inside The Beltway niceties, the nuances, the “correct way” or the Establishment.

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I’ve been saying it for years – the goal of Progressives is to make sure that someone making bad decisions should not suffer the consequences for doing so.  Further, we’re all hateful heartless people because we complain about the socialization of those costs.  But that’s what the Nanny State demands: SHUT UP!

First a dose of reality, then showing abuse will not stop, and then the willingness “taking someone else’s money”, to make others feel good and virtue signal (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Hot Air: Ohio Councilman: Maybe We Should Stop Responding To Repeat Overdose Calls

Give Middletown Councilman Dan Picard full marks for administrative ingenuity, if nothing else. Facing rising costs from the erupting opioid crisis plaguing the US, and angry at repeat offenders, Picard offered an “outside the box” solution. Why not just let them die after three responses?  Frustration over the amount of money and public safety services being devoted to drug overdoses led to one Middletown City Council member asking if it was possible for the city to not respond to such calls…“I want to send a message to the world that you don’t want to come to Middletown to overdose because someone might not come with Narcan and save your life,” Picard said. “We need to put a fear about overdosing in Middletown.” In fairness, the issue got prompted by the budget hit that Middletown’s taking. It’s not that they didn’t see issues with opioids as a potential crisis, but the costs have really exploded for it. The city budgeted $10,000 this year for Narcan, the antidote of choice for overdoses, but at the moment they’re on pace to spend $100,000 — and that might be a conservative estimate.

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It is no secret that I hold most of the MSM in rather low regard as they make themselves to be objective, non-biased – and of course, smarter than the rest of us – especially those of us of the “fly over country” persuasion (if not geographically, then sensibilities-wise).  Oh, the faux outrage, the horror that, oh my gosh, someone is insulting them:

Journalists reacted in horror Sunday morning after President Trump tweeted a fake video that showed him body-slamming “fraud news” CNN in a fake wrestling match.

While many of the president’s supporters online reacted to the video with humor, the consensus among journalists seemed to be that Trump was inciting violence against the media.

“It is a sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters,” CNN said in a statement responding to the tweet.

Humorless.  Utterly humorless – and too self-important.  And goes down hill from there:

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I have been involuntarily offline for a while – the Grandson has been staying up too late (his daytime nap times are changing affecting my “uninterrupted time” at night), certification exams for work – and my laptop crapped out early this week.  I just got it back thanks to Josh and his crew at Same Day Computer in Laconia.  In returning, I see that Steve covered the problem of Seattle’s “Government directed Economy” (otherwise known as Socialism / Fascism) in raising their minimum wage.  California is also having the same self-imposed “bad luck” (emphasis mine, reformatted):

Restaurant die-off is first course of California’s $15 minimum wage

In a pair of affluent coastal California counties, the canary in the mineshaft has gotten splayed, spatchcocked and plated over a bed of unintended consequences, garnished with sprigs of locally sourced economic distortion and non-GMO, “What the heck were they thinking?”. The result of one early experiment in a citywide $15 minimum wage is an ominous sign for the state’s poorer inland counties as the statewide wage floor creeps toward the mark.

Consider San Francisco, an early adopter of the $15 wage. It’s now experiencing a restaurant die-off, minting jobless hash-slingers, cashiers, busboys, scullery engineers and line cooks as they get pink-slipped in increasing numbers. And the wage there hasn’t yet hit $15.

As the East Bay Times reported in January, at least 60 restaurants around the Bay Area had closed since September alone.

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Even though he at least shows up here once in a while,  NH State Rep Timothy Horrigan’s comments are often off topic, irrelevant, or plain wrong.  In Steve’s post, McDonald’s Pulls the Trigger: Replacing Cashiers With Kiosks in 2500 Locations, he manages the trifecta of all three.  Like this one:

As for the $15 wage, McDonald’s already operates restaurants in many countries where the minimum wage is $15 or even higher. The Economist Magazine publishes a “Big Mac Index” which shows the costs of a Big Mac in every country where McDonald’s operates. The most expensive Big Mac is in Switzerland (where the minimum wage is about $13/hr), but it’s only $6.35, as opposed to $5.06 in the USA.

As for the kiosks, they are being developed even at a moment when there is little or no chance of the US federal minimum wage being increased.

My retort started like this: “…I certainly don’t go Switzerland just to buy a burger….”

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This is too good to not print!

O. Henry couldn’t have written a story with a more fitting surprise ending. The “hero” of this tale is 71-year-old Lawrence John Ripple, of Kansas City, Kan., who up until last September suffered under the weight of a bad marriage. It was then that he hatched a plan to escape from his wife. He entered a local bank and handed the teller a note that read, “I have a gun, give me money.” She complied, giving him all the cash in her till — $2,924 in total.

But instead of fleeing, Ripple did something unprecedented. He sat down in the bank lobby and waited for the police to arrive. When they did, he calmly announced,  “I’m the guy you’re looking for.”

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