Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Freedom, Humor, Terrorism | Tags: Chick-fil-A, Confederate Flag, The Left Attacks
Re-blogged from Never Yet Melted
Seven people were killed this morning when a Confederate flag walked into an Alabama shopping mall and started shooting.
According to local reports, the flag entered Cherrywood Mall outside Huntsville armed with two AK-47 assault rifles, a P 228 handgun and several grenades. It immediately proceeded to unload its ordinance on unsuspecting shoppers.
In addition to those killed, 23 people were injured and are currently being treated in area emergency rooms. Several are in critical condition and not expected to survive.
The flag’s motivations are uncertain at the moment. However, according to witnesses the flag did specifically target White people with Northern accents.
“The flag chased us down the hallway screaming ‘Die, Yankees Die!’, says Justin Anderson, a aeronautical engineer originally from New Hampshire. “Luckily flags don’t move very fast, so my girlfriend and I managed to outrun it.”
Complete story
Hysteria seems to come and go. It was not long ago that Chick-fil-A was being demonized and attacked because of the Christian values of its owners, and there were efforts to boycott the stores. One opened here a few weeks ago in the location of a former Denny’s and the drive-thru and parking lot have been so crowded that long lines of cars are choking up the intersection.
The American Customer Satisfaction Index named Chick-fil-A America’s favorite fast food place. The ACSI asked more than 5,000 customers their opinion on fast-food chains and compiled a list of the best and the worst. Chick-fil-A finished in first place with the highest score ever given to a fast-food chain. Good service and good food apparently trumps hysteria every time.
The one here is still messing up traffic.
Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Regulation, The United States | Tags: Obama Administration, Overregulation, Small Business
The health of small business may be the most important indicator of long term growth in our economy. But this spring has been a hard time for small business. Only 119,000 jobs were added in March, and although April and May saw the jobs market perform better, small businesses who make up the bulk of payroll services firm Paychex Inc.’s customers said the measure of small business hiring was off by half a percentage point by the end of May. Not a good sign.
In today’s world, when the shift from a manufacturing economy to the information economy is the major trend in American business, the health of small business may be the most important indicator of long term growth. We need hundreds of thousands of creative new small businesses led by entrepreneurs who are attempting to take advantage of the riches of the information sector to provide new products and services.
The Left’s push for a higher minimum wage, and Obama’s new order to force businesses to pay overtime to anyone making less than $50,000 a year will simply encourage the proliferation of robots, electronic cashiers, and more part-time workers. Over time the creativity of entrepreneurs could provide the new jobs that will replace the ones being automated or outsourced. Cheap money and relatively cheap labor should be helping, but a number of factors are at work. We have an administration that deeply believes that more regulations makes life better, which is clearly part of the problem.
Big businesses can cope. When the minimum wage jumps to $15 an hour, a chain of drugstores can afford to install automatic checkout machines that won’t get $15 and hour plus overtime, plus healthcare, plus sick leave, plus being late for work. It’s not so easy for small business.
Control and Regulation and the heavy hand of government have a cost. The Left is basically clueless. This time it’s affecting us all.
Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Health Care | Tags: A Touch of Tyranny, IRS, Obamacare
Some small businesses who reimburse their employees for the cost of the premiums for individual health insurance policies, or who pay their employees heath costs directly will be fined up to $36,500 a year — per employee — under a new Internal Revenue Service regulation that took effect July 1, 2015.
The IRS is considering an employer arrangement that reimburses or pays for employee individual health premiums to be “a group health plan” that is subject to the $100 per-employee per-day penalty. The penalty applies whether the reimbursement is considered a before-tax or after-tax contribution. This doesn’t sound like it would pass the smell test in the courts.
That penalty is enough to destroy most small businesses. This rule under which small businesses that get caught helping their workers to buy insurance or pay medical bills —can be fined 18 times more than large businesses that don’t provide coverage at all.
Under the rule, which appears nowhere in the Affordable Care Act, employers who do not offer a group health plan, but give their workers additional pay to compensate for the purchase of health insurance or direct medical expenses can be fined $100 per day, per employee. Over the course of a year that’s $36,500 per employee up to $500,000 in total. The penalty on businesses for failing to comply with the employer mandate is only $2,000 per year. …
In fact, according to NFIB research 14 percent of small businesses that don’t offer group insurance reimburse their workers instead. They think they’re doing a good thing but they’re walking into a minefield.
There is legislation in both houses awaiting action (S. 1697/H.R. 2911).
This seems to fall into the “You Will Obey” category. The EPA also goes in a big way for enormous fines designed to make people fall into line quickly. I wonder how many owners of small businesses have even heard of this regulation? Typical Obama administration act — force compliance, issue more regulations, and be completely puzzled about why the economy is still in the toilet — but brag about the success of administration policies in the marvelous recovery. Sigh.
American Elephants 