The mayor of Kansas City, Kansas, in an address to the radical socialist organization National Council of La Raza, bragged that his city is no longer majority white and the city’s schools now have students who speak 62 different languages.
According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Kansas City, Kansas, was 52 percent white.
But in a speech before the La Raza National Affiliates Luncheon earlier this week in Kansas City, Mayor Mark Holland boasted that only five years later his city’s white population has been reduced to 40 percent.
He seemed to suggest that La Raza was at least partly responsible for the progress. But he also cited the refugee resettlement work of the United Nations and U.S. State Department for the city’s transformation into a gleaming example of multicultural diversity.
Kansas City, he said, “is very proud of the work of National Council of La Raza.”
“Kansas City, Kansas, is a city with no ethnic majority. Kansas City, Kansas, is 40 percent white, 28 percent Latino, and 26 percent African-American,” Holland said. “Our school district speaks 62 different languages by the children every single day. And Kansas City, Kansas, has a proud heritage of welcoming all people into the community, people who are not welcome in other places.”
Latinos started coming with the Santa Fe railroad more than 100 years ago, to build the railroad, he said. Another railroad, the Underground Railroad, brought African-Americans to Kansas. “If they could get across the river they were free and settled in a township of Quindero.”
“We continue to have a number of groups of refugees from around the world,” he added, mentioning the large Hmong community that came in the 1970s and 80s following the Vietnam War.
In recent years, the city has welcomed more refugees from other parts of the world, including Muslim Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq, Hindus from Bhutan and Buddhists and Muslims from Burma.
“Nip/Tuck” actress Kelly Carlson began training in Kali, a form of martial arts from the Philippines, when she was 19. But despite her extensive self-defense training, she found herself in a life-threatening scenario where her martial arts background wasn’t enough.
"Owning a firearm...was life changing for me because women for sure, but even men too can be in a very, very vulnerable position with no options if you have intruders or any scenario where you're being dominated physically," Carlson told FOX411. "[A firearm] is the only equalizer you have."
The 39-year-old revealed a person in her past began stalking her in 2012 and even hired people to break into her home and tap her phones. After several break-ins and being followed on the streets, she contacted law enforcement who were not sympathetic to her situation.
“Law enforcement, they didn’t take me seriously. probably because I’m an actor but also because my situation was a little crazy,” she admitted.
One good thing came out of the scary ordeal: Carlson met her husband Dan after hiring him to teach her counter-surveillance.
"I had learned self defense for many years but I just knew around that time I needed some help," she admitted. "My attorney and I were interviewing some people that provide security but no one that we interviewed understood counter-surveillance." Carlson ended up calling a friend on the East Coast who recommended someone who could help her.
Major Garrett had the audacity to ask Obama why, with all the fanfare around the Iran deal, that he’s content to leave four Americans in Iran. Well, that kinda pissed Obama off and he scolded Major Garrett for suggesting that he’s content:
Obama pretends that if he had made the four Americans part of this deal, that Iran could have used them to squeeze even more concessions out of them. Heh, is that even possible?
In reality Obama could have demanded the release of the Americans as a pre-condition to negotiation, so that before the negotiations had even begun, they would have been home already and wouldn’t be part of the actual negotiations.
So he can scold reporters and feign outrage that Iran is holding these four Americans, but in reality if he really cared, they would be home already.
A Democratic congressman wants millions of people who hold U.S. green cards to become American citizens in order to send Donald Trump and other Republicans a message that they're 'mean and frankly, let’s be honest, racist.'
Louis Gutierrez, who is the senior House Democrat from Illinois and a Puerto Rican immigrant, spoke on the House floor just after 10:00 Wednesday morning, delivering a message especially to more than 5 million Hispanic U.S. residens who are eligible for citizenship today.
'Every time you see Trump’s face on your TV, vow to learn a little more English or a few more history facts so you can take the [citizenship] test,' he said.
'Let’s turn Trump’s negative words into something positive. That is how you deal with bullies and bigots.'
Gutierrez spoke next to a poster of an angry-looking Trump, at times becoming just as animated himself.
Gutierrez said Hispanics with temporary immigration status in the U.S. should take a page from other groups throughout American history and join the group of voting-eliible Americans.
'Latinos should do just what the Irish and the Polish and the Italians did. Become citizens and vote,' he said.
'Almost all of the immigrants in this country are going to remain in this country until the day they die, let’s be honest. So for the millions who meet the requirements of citizenship I say: take the step.'
Gutierrez spokesman Douglas Rivlin told DailyMail.com that while Trump's rhetoric has energized the national debate about illegal immigrants, 'he is not making a prediction about who will be the nominee. Only that for many Americans, right now, Trump is the face of the Republican Party.'
'In the past, anti-immigrant rhetoric has had a political consequence for the GOP,' Rivlin said in an email, 'and the congressman hopes that citizenship and voter registration are among the consequences for the GOP in the wake of Trump’s attacks.'
Trump has emerged as the GOP's presidential front-runner, placing first with 17 per cent support in a new Suffolk University/USA Today poll. Just six weeks ago he was polling at 2 per cent.
But his campaign launch lit up the airwaves with the claim that 'rapists' and other criminals are streaming into the U.S. from south of the border, and the Obama administration is unwilling to stop it.
A Trump campaign official told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that 'Mr. Trump believes a nation without borders is not a nation at all.'
'He is the only candidate who will build a wall to secure our border and maintain the rule of law. The silent majority will no longer be silent.'
Sailors outraged over the Navy’s plan to phase out fried foods from its menus have found the perfect vessel for their anger in First Lady Michelle Obama.
The First Lady doesn’t set nutrition policy for the nation’s fleets. But that hasn’t stopped more than two dozen critics—many of them current and former Navy personnel—from flooding a Navy Times Facebook thread to blame FLOTUS, who has made combating obesity and promoting healthy eating her signature issues.
“Is Michelle Obama now playing big sister to the military hotline?” asked Robert Leon Harke?
Mike Dibble chimed in: “First the kids, now the troops.”
Others reacting to the story soon piled on.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus hinted at a host of sweeping changes to sailor fitness and nutrition back in May, The Navy Times reported. In addition to forgoing french fries and fried chicken, sailors will also no longer be able to order whole milk at chow halls. Instead, they will have to go with either skim or soy milk.
The fried food ban is expected to go fleet-wide in 2017
We know now that the state’s supposed dumping of Common Core educational standards is a politically motivated sham. Assistant Education Commissioner Kimberley Harrington told the state Board of Education last week that a review of the standards is designed more to tweak than reconstruct. The special committee conducting the review will have little choice; it must complete its work in less than six months, not nearly enough time for a more thorough overhaul.
There is nothing wrong with periodically refining the state’s education standards; Common Core has been in place since 2010, and New Jersey typically reviews its academic principles every five years anyway. But the premise in this case is Gov. Chris Christie’s explanation that Common Core isn’t working because there isn’t enough buy-in from parents and teachers who don’t believe the standards are sufficiently local. That’s why he’s talking as if he’s scrapping Common Core and replacing it with a New Jersey-developed model, but it won’t be close to that. There will be some nips and tucks and a rebranding, with the same related standardized testing that has been the focus of so much of the opposition.
That won’t generate more buy-in.
Christie is merely appeasing right-wingers who perceive federal intervention in the Common Core national standards that each state can choose to adopt (with incentives encouraging adoption). But Christie was a past supporter of Common Core, and he won’t entirely back away from an initiative that is promoted as raising the academic bar.
So Common Core will be refined and renamed. That’s not by itself anything to fear. The problem for critics of the standards is that this modest review process will likely be the last meaningful reconsideration for years to come in New Jersey. After this, we’ll be stuck with the rebranded Common Core, and the controversial PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) tests that administration officials continue to support.
We can also expect officials to declare any deficiencies largely fixed after the review, which raises the likelihood that the state will quickly and recklessly raise the stakes of the PARCC scores. Those stakes had been wisely curtailed by Christie himself, cutting the impact on teacher evaluations from 30 percent to 10 percent in the past school year. That percentage is set to grow to 20 percent in the coming year and back to 30 percent the year after that. Many individual school districts have also minimized the influence of PARCC scores, but so far the Legislature has yet to deliver on similar statewide action.
So watch carefully how the state discusses the first year’s worth of PARCC scores. If used strictly to help identify individual student weaknesses, those results can have value. But there will be no comparable data to draw any meaningful conclusions. Christie, however, has relentlessly attacked teachers and the quality of public education since he first campaigned for governor. He still has a point to “prove” and may use those PARCC scores to try to do it. If he or administration officials try to portray results as somehow exposing failing schools, it will be wildly irresponsible.
A lot happened during President Obama‘s Iran presser today, but the moment getting the most attention is when CBS’ Major Garrett confronted the president by asking, “Why you are content with all the fanfare around this deal to leave the conscience of this nation, the strength of this nation unaccounted for in relation to these four Americans?”
Obama took some offense at the question, saying, “That’s nonsense, and you should know better.”
Garrett defended himself a little later, insisting he intended to pose a provocative question. But a fellow reporter thought he went a little too far.
CNN’s Dana Bash said after the presser, “There’s a fine line between asking a tough question and maybe crossing that line a little bit and being disrespectful, and I think that happened here.”
The General Assembly by law shall make appropriations for all expenditures of public funds by the State. Appropriations for a fiscal year shall not exceed funds estimated by the General Assembly to be available during that year.
There’s nothing mysterious or complicated about the Illinois Constitution’s directive on state expenditures. They all must be defined by the General Assembly. Without an appropriation, there is no authority to spend.
It’s very simple and for good reason. In theory it forces the General Assembly and the governor to draft an agreed-upon spending plan before the budget year begins. Failure to do so invites painful consequences as government attempts to function with no money. More precisely, with no authorization for discretionary spending of the money it has. (And in theory it also requires spending to not exceed revenue for the coming year, something the Democrats in the General Assembly disregarded in 2014.)
This is why Attorney General Lisa Madigan is correct in arguing that the Illinois Comptroller’s Office has no legal authority to issue state employee paychecks. She’s also doing the right thing in pursuing a ruling from the Illinois Supreme Court on whether Illinois state employees can be paid without a state budget.
Due to a pair of dueling circuit court rulings last week, first in Cook County and then in St. Clair County, the Illinois Comptroller’s Office has begun processing payroll as usual. Which is to say, processing payroll as if there is a state budget that authorizes said payroll spending.
This arrangement of business as usual with state employees will only enable Gov. Bruce Rauner and his Democratic counterparts to further avoid their responsibility so they can continue their political stare-down. Without unpaid state employees pounding down their doors, Rauner and the Democrats at the center of this scrum have little incentive to abandon their war of attrition.
Article VIII, section 2 (b) exists to ensure that lawmakers and the governor take their fiscal responsibility seriously. It’s designed to throw a big wrench into state government operations if there’s no budget. A government shutdown should not be comfortable, least of all to those who caused it. It’s something that should be avoided at all costs, not embraced as a tool in a strategy of one-upmanship.
A similar episode played out in the summer of 1991 when a new Republican governor, Jim Edgar, squared off with House Speaker Michael Madigan over the budget. A lawsuit to force Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch to issue paychecks without a budget was dismissed by a Sangamon County judge who cited the constitution’s appropriations clause. The Fourth District Appellate Court agreed.
“We are in sympathy with the broad spectrum of State workers, including those of the courts and even counsel who argued before us on behalf of the State, who are being subjected to financial hardship and frustration because of the continuing governmental impasse,” the appellate court wrote. “This sympathy is tempered by the limitations imposed upon us by our constitution. We recognize that the constitution places specific and general obligations on the State for the benefit of the people of the State.” (The appellate court’s ruling is here: afscme-v-netsch.)
If you’ve followed the current cases, that quote should sound familiar. Here’s thestatement from Lisa Madigan as her office sought to stop the comptroller from issuing paychecks:
“I absolutely want State employees to be paid their full wages. But the Illinois Constitution and case law are clear: The State cannot pay employees without a budget. The judge’s order reaffirms this. It remains up to the Governor and the Legislature to enact a state budget to allow for necessary government operations and programs to continue.”
Madigan’s petition to the Illinois Supreme Court seeks to combine the appeals of both the Cook County ruling and the St. Clair County ruling — opinions that are
diametrically opposed in interpreting state law — and get a single answer from the state’s ultimate legal authority.
Rauner has said throughout this stalemate that he wants to see all state employees fully paid for their work. My money says he’s about to get a message from the Illinois Supreme Court justices that he and his Democratic adversaries never needed a
Mark Levin opened his show tonight saying that Barack Obama has planted the seeds for World War III and sealed the fate of the next generation. Levin pointed out that he believes the next big war will now be in the Middle East and it will be horrific, especially with other countries arming up with nukes to protect themselves from Islamo-Nazi regime in Iran who constantly chants ‘death to Israel’, ‘death to America’. And Levin says they mean it
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said that “five different sources” told him that Mexico’s government is sending people to the US on Wednesday’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC.
Trump was asked, “Do you believe that Mexican immigrants are rapists and murderers?” He said, “Illegal immigrants are causing tremendous problem[s] coming in. I want legal immigrants, illegal immigrants are causing tremendous problems, Mika. There’s crime. It’s a crime wave. It’s a disaster. Do I believe many people — I mean, look, as far as I’m concerned, I hire, I have hundreds and hundreds of Mexicans working for me. I love Mexican people. I love their spirit. The problem we’re having with Mexico is that their government officials and negotiators are far smarter than ours, like from a different planet. And they are negotiating deals, trade deals, the border, everything else. We are getting the short end of the stick in every single instance. And we are having a big problem. Let me just tell you just to finish, Mexico is sending a lot of their people over that they don’t want. And that includes people that should be in Mexican prisons and you know it and I know it and nobody wants to talk about it.”
Trump was then asked how he knew the Mexican government is sending people to the US, he said, “Because I heard from five different sources. And if you speak to the border guards, who I’ve spoke to many of, if you speak to border guards, and these guys are terrific. They’re almost crying, they’ve almost got tears in their eyes when they explain that they’re not allowed to do their job.”
After he was asked by panelist Mark Halperin what these five sources were, Trump stated, “I’ll reveal my sources when you reveal your sources, Mark. I have a lot of information on it, and so does everyone else. And you probably do, too. And for some reason they don’t want to put out this information. Mexico — and if you remember, many years ago when Fidel Castro opened [his] prisons and sent the people over, and everybody knew it. We never sent them back. We took these — all of these prisoners. Mexico, in a far more sophisticated way, is doing something very similar. They’re sending tremendously — you look at the man that killed Kate. You look at Jamiel, Jamiel Shaw, you look at so many — thousands of instances where illegals are coming in, and it’s a crime wave. And, frankly, Mexico doesn’t care, from the standpoint that they don’t want to house these people for a long period of time in their prisons. They say, ‘Let the United States take care of them. Let the United States put them in their jails. Why should we pay for it?’ And believe me it’s happening, and it’s happening big league, and this country doesn’t know.”
Earlier, Trump said of the Iran deal, “It’s a ridiculous deal. Even a thing like, you know, nuclear’s so important, and stopping nuclear proliferation, which this deal, I think will enhance, but so important. But something like at the beginning, when they were discussing it, we had three prisoners. We now have four prisoners. Automatically you say, ‘Listen, not going to do you any good. Release the prisoners.’ We’d send a great signal to everybody, you don’t care about them, but we do, important for the United States, just release the prisoners. Now, if that’s delivered by right messenger, they would have done it a long time ago. Amazingly, they — I don’t even think that Kerry brought it up. It sounds like he never even brought it up. He said one thing has nothing to do with the other. The other thing is giving billions and billions of dollars to them, releasing the money before you even do the deal, where they’re getting billions of dollars, they are going to be so rich and so powerful. And when you talk about the deal itself, anytime, anywhere, you have to go in and inspect anytime anywhere. Now, they have a 24-day notice provision. Give a 24-day notice to go in and inspect? I think it’s made by people that are incompetent. And it might very well get by, because probably the veto is, you know, it’s going to be — he’s in pretty good shape in terms of that. But I think it’s a disgrace. And we should have doubled up the sanctions, and we should have made a deal where they caved. We were dealing from desperation. We look so desperate, and it’s a disgrace. … I love the idea of a deal, by the way, but it’s not a well-negotiated deal. We should have doubled up the sanctions and made a much better deal.”
Trump was then asked if he’d read the deal, he answered that he had “seen the deal,” had “seen it broken down in every newspaper you can imagine” and had read “the good points and the bad points. And the good points aren’t very strong.” Trump was then questioned about whether the US could have held the sanctions together, he responded, “If you had a president that was a leader, he would be able. He can’t even talk. When you look at where we are with countries, with — as an example, with Russia, they can’t even talk together. Putin can’t stand him, in all fairness, he can’t stand Putin. But Putin doesn’t respect him. It’s about leadership. You have to hold the sanctions together. And if they — if we had the right leadership, it would be something much different. You know, Russia is a big beneficiary of this deal. There are numerous places that are going to be big beneficiaries of this deal.”
Imagine you are dining in a restaurant with a dozen other people and the governor of California. While you are studying the menu, the governor starts ordering for the table.
Platters arrive, and glasses are filled … and more platters and more refills.
Then the check comes.
You know how the rest of the evening goes. Who ordered the market-price renewable energy? Who ordered the coal-free electricity? Who had the rainbow smelt? How much did you put in? We’re still short. Does that include the tip? Tax is HOW much?!
For customers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the bill has just arrived. Over the next five years, ratepayers will have to shell out an additional $230 million for water and another $900 million for power. Three-quarters of the new money for power is needed to meet state mandates — including the Governor’s Special, a requirement to use 33 percent renewable energy by 2020.
Electricity rates will go up 3 percent per year for the “typical residential” user of 500 kilowatt hours per month. It’s worse for businesses: “Small commercial” users will see their power costs rise 3.8 percent per year, and rates for “high-use residential” customers who consume 900 kilowatt hours per month will shoot up 4.7 percent per year — plus taxes.
The DWP says 85 percent of the additional $230 million in water revenues — a 3.8 percent annual hike for “typical” users — will go toward “infrastructure repair and replacement” and “water quality.” But a big slice of that — 4 percent overall — will go to pay for the Owens Lake Dust Mitigation Project. That’s our DWP-negotiated penance for the construction of the 100-year-old Los Angeles Aqueduct. Since 2000, the DWP has been pouring 25 billion gallons per year of water — drinking water — on a dry lakebed to hold down dust, at a cost to L.A. ratepayers of $1.3 billion. In November, the DWP reached a settlement that allows the use of less water-intensive dust control methods, cutting the annual water use to 22 billion gallons in 2014 but doubling the annual cost to $217 million.
Hillary Clinton this morning at a speech in Manhattan's New School laid out what's hyped as the heart of her economic message.
One aspect cemented her efforts to brand the Democratic Party she is apparently the inevitable leader of as the party of reaction, regression, and making the world harder on everyone in the defense of entrenched interests—all hidden under a thin veneer of "helping out the little guy at the expense of the big guy."
alluded to companies like Uber, saying she'd crack down on businesses that classify their workers as independent contractors in order to avoid providing benefits.
"This 'on demand' or so-called 'gig economy' is creating exciting opportunities and unleashing innovation but it’s also raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like in the future," she said.
I wrote a big feature for Reason's November 2014 issue about government efforts to restrict or stymie app-driven ride hiring services such as Uber and Lyft. In reporting it I talked to many drivers directly and read the online discussions and kvetching of many, many others.
Almost universally one of the big selling points of being a driver is the flexibility of the relationship between driver and app company; that you can work largely when you want without having to follow a set and largely unyielding schedule imposed on you from above. That's very much unlike standard full-time employment which, with some caveats, locks you into working a set number of hours in set blocks all the way down the line.
As Flint, Michigan, Uber driver Hunter Lawrence (she also has a chauffeur's license and has been a driver-for-hire pre-Uber) told me today in a written interview, she's been happy enough with the steady 80 percent cut of fares she's gotten, and is against the idea of becoming a "real employee."
Why? "Being a contractor allows me the freedom to make my own schedule, wear my own "uniform", drive my own high-end vehicle, get multiple tax write offs, and so much more. I drive with Uber and Lyft full time because I am a contractor. If this changes, I will leave them immediately."
She certainly doesn't feel like Uber treats her like an employee: "For the most part the company doesn't care when or how often I work, as long as I complete at least one ride per two weeks. If I don't, my account is suspended. This can be avoided by contacting them and telling them that I'm on "vacation", though."
Some people who apparently didn't really understand what they were getting into, or were just professional troublemakers or provocateurs, have sued to claim they ought to be classified as employees and managed like them, not be independent contractors, trying to do Hillary's work for her in the courts.
Uber also said the three plaintiffs did not represent the majority of drivers, who the company said appreciated working as contractors.
“Plaintiffs, three individual drivers, seek an outcome that many, if not most, proposed class members oppose — a classwide determination that would destroy the very independence and flexibility that countless drivers love about Uber,” the company said in its filing with the court.
To bolster its case, Uber submitted declarations made by more than 400 drivers who support their contractor status.
“I extremely value the flexibility that Uber gives me because for the last 30 years I've worked independently,” said Larry Adams, who drives in the San Francisco Bay Area. “I worked briefly on an employee basis and I didn't like the control the employer had over me.”
The company also submitted to the court testimony from a University of California, Berkeley, economist Justin McCrary — who examined the declarations made by the drivers.
“Each driver’s relationship with Uber is unique,” he wrote. “This is not unexpected; indeed, I am not aware of any evidence that Uber exercises control uniformly, reserves the right of control uniformly, or has any uniform policy describing control over the physical conduct of drivers’ work.”
Clinton and the Democrats need to realize that these services are generating at least half a billion in income for the over 160,000 Americans who choose to be drivers, as well as adding unquantifiable but huge improvements in the quality of life of the services' customers. Research shows that about a quarter have Uber as their sole source of income, and only 8 percent were unemployed entirely before starting with Uber.
Because of the manifold advantages to drivers and customers, they are quite popular with a class of urban professionals the Democrats should not go out of their way to alienate.
While I am not a programmer and cannot speak authoritatively to the technological possiblities, if a more decentralized and peer-to-peer system of connected peer-rated service providers and customers with rides (or anything else) is possible, one that merely skims something more like micropayments (or perhaps even just a one-time app purchase or membership fee) rather than a hefty 20 percent of the payments, it will eventually drive your Ubers and Lyfts off the stage as they will, if allowed to, drive the traditional regulated taxi model off the stage.
It's a radically uncertain world for everyone but consumers out there, and no one can consider market control or profits a given minus political clout. But we are all consumers, and progress toward getting human needs met easier and cheaper is a good thing, even if Clinton doesn't quite grok that and thinks her would-be voters don't either.
But "cheaper" will often mean that profits that used to be readily available to concentrated interests (whether "big corporate" or individual provider) won't be available anymore. For Hillary and the Democrats to fight on the side of those concentrated interests is as pure an example of being on the "wrong side of history" and progress as one could imagine.
Everything about techno-modernity is moving toward things being cheaper and more widely and easily available to consumers, as long as people like Hillary Clinton don't stand in the way.
Hillary's anti-"gig economy" stance is alas probably going to be a decent selling point for her for some, especially for the vast majority who don't work such jobs, relying on a basic "let's help the little guy" desire to make corporations give more and the ol' working (wo)man to get more.
But that basic motivation can led to all sort of mischief and lost opportunities for would-be workers and frustrated customers.
Bonus awful Uber and politics story of today: Los Angeles cops are actively wasting time entrapping Uber drivers by tricking them into accepting illegal instant street flag ride requests, as opposed to the legal-in-California use of the app. Appallingly stupid waste of police time.
Reason TV on the sharing economy and its political fights:
CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP)– Keeping energy costs down can be a challenge.
“Yeah we try to save money. Installing new windows and new doors, and new installation and stuff like that too,” Ron Staslowski, from Chicopee, told 22News about how his family tries to save on energy costs.
Now, the latest Wallethub study shows that Massachusetts now ranks 3rd overall as the most energy expensive state in the nation.
Specifically, the study found that Massachusetts ranks in the top five most expensive states for heating your home using oil.
The study also found Massachusetts is in the top 20 most states expensive for fuel costs, and is in the top 10 most expensive states for electricity costs.
Eversource Energy spokeswoman Priscilla Ress told 22News that as the summer heats up there are some inexpensive ways to keep electricity costs down each month.
“You want to be sure that you’re running that air conditioner as efficiently as possible. You want to make sure that the unit is clean, that there is nothing that is blocking the flow of that cold air,” Ress said.
Ress also told 22News to be sure the air conditioner you use is the right size for the room you’re trying to cool.
Other money saving tips include making sure the seal around your refrigerator door is effective. You can also keep your shades down during the day to keep the sun’s heat out, and open up your windows at night to allow the cool air in.
There’s a lot of politicizing and anger over Whataburger’s decision to not allow open carry inside its restaurants. Moms Demand Action is proclaiming from the rooftops it was their advocacy which caused Whataburger to end open carry.
Whataburger initially prohibited open carry last June after the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action repeatedly urged the company to change its policy through social media and by making numerous calls to the corporate headquarters.
There’s just one problem with this statement: it might be a lie. There’s no actual mention on either Whataburger’s website or Moms Demand Action’s website of an open carry ban in June 2014. It doesn’t exist. There’s no mention of Whataburger banning open carry on either website in June 2015. In fact, Whataburger President and CEO Preston Atkinson says the open carry ban has existed for a long time (emphasis mine):
Whataburger supports customers’ Second Amendment rights and we respect your group’s position, but we haven’t allowed the open carry of firearms in our restaurants for a long time (although we have not prohibited licensed conceal carry). It’s a business decision we made a long time ago…
It would be nice if Atkinson defined “a long time,” but it’s important to note he made sure to point out no specific group caused the policy to be put in place. Atkinson even says customers and employees didn’t want to see people openly carry who weren’t law enforcement. That doesn’t completely blow the Moms Demand Action narrative out of the water, but it does make it a little less likely Moms Demand had major involvement in the decision. If Atkinson is lying, there’s no evidence of it at the moment.
Sadly, the reaction by the mainstream media and the right is almost as bad as MDA’s, if not worse. The AP claimed, “Whataburger takes stand against Texas’ new open carry law,” without providing any factual evidence. Their story flat-out ignores Atkinson’s “a long time” and “we have not prohibited licensed conceal carry” statements. Newsweek was just as bad with its headline “Whataburger to Armed Customers: Keep Your Guns at Home,” which is entirely false. Concealed carry is welcomed in Whataburger, as the company said in their statement. People on the right took to Twitter saying Whataburger was “defying TX law” by not allowing open carry and claimed they were being anti-Texan. They also promised to boycott Whataburger and take their service to another burger chain. But that’s buying into the possible lie by Moms Demand Action hook, line, and sinker without bothering to make sure it was true. It’s just sad how people reacted instead of looking at the details.
There needs to be a little historical perspective on Texas and guns. The state didn’t allow concealed carry until 1995. In fact, Ann Richards lost the 1994 governor’s election to George W. Bush because of her veto of a concealed carry bill. That bill was introduced after the infamous 1991 Luby’s shooting in Killeen, which left 23 dead. Suzanna Hupp, the anti-Shannon Watts who later became a Texas state representative, told the Legislature she probably could have stopped the Luby’s shooting if the law allowed her to concealed carry. Her gun was in her car 100 feet away from where she was in Luby’s when bullets started flying. So Texas’ gun-friendly legislative attitude has only existed for 20 years.
Whataburger doesn’t get much credit for welcoming customers practicing concealed carry in their restaurants, which considering the current climate is pretty amazing. They’re still gun friendly, even if they’re wrong on open carry, but that’s a business decision based on customer response, as Atkinson correctly notes. It’s well within Whataburger’s right to say no to open carry, but yes to concealed carry, because they’re a private business.
There’s an even bigger point to all this everyone needs to realize and remember. The left’s Whataburger stance shows just how hypocritical they actually are. They’re perfectly fine with Whataburger not allowing open carry, but look at how absolutely bonkers they go and lose their collective minds when private businesses give answers which don’t fit the left’s agenda. Remember how they reacted to Memories Pizza in Indiana or Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Oregon? The private businesses were excoriated for acting like a private business. Memories Pizza temporarily closed. Sweet Cakes was sued and shut down. Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver is facing a similar suit for denying service. The left will cheer on companies for appearing to go along with them, but they’ll run for the lawyers if companies don’t. The right has to be willing to point this stuff out and make the left defend their hypocrisy. Put them on the defensive. Turn the questions around. Force the left to actually get outside their, “oh we’ve got a friendly media which will always defend us” and actually have to provide a response. The biggest part of the entire Whataburger thing isn’t the private business’ stance on open carry. It’s showed just how hypocritical the left actually is.
