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Venezuela police are investigating the murder of former Miss Venezuela 2004, her ex-husband and injuries sustained by their 5-year-old child.

Photo release of alleged Bigfoot kill and Rick Dyer

There has been a lot of uproar in the media lately about raising the minimum wage so that those people earning it would earn a “living wage.” But what do demographics about those earning the minimum wage tell us?

According to the Current Population Survey (CPS), which is a joint effort of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau, 3.7 million workers reported earning the minimum wage of $7.25 or less per hour. Now 3.7 million is a lot of people, but when looking at the entire workforce, it’s a small portion – only 2.9 percent. Slightly more than half of them are aged 16 to 24, and 62 percent of that group are students.

Nearly 80 percent of those earning the minimum wage work part-time jobs and belong to families that earn nearly triple the poverty level for a family of four at $65,900 a year, while only 22 percent live at or below the poverty line. Three percent have finished college and obtained a degree, and 5 percent are married.

Many of those aged 25 and older work in jobs where they also earn tips, like restaurant workers, so their total pay most nearly always exceeds the minimum wage. While most do not live in middle- and upper-income families, they also are not living in poverty, having an average family income of $42,500, just less than double the $22,350 poverty line level for a family of four.

Advocates of raising the minimum wage – and many minimum wage earners who respond to the hype those advocates produce – complain that you can’t raise a family or even live a decent life on the minimum wage, so therefore it should be raised to provide a “living wage.”

When you realize that only 3 of every 100 workers earn the minimum wage, the problem doesn’t seem as dire as the advocates for a wage hike want you to believe. And when you look at the kinds of work that minimum wage earners perform, and who minimum wage earners are, it seems even less dire. These jobs require little education or training, and are overwhelmingly held by young people living at home.

Based upon the demographics, there’s no economic reason for a higher minimum wage.

You won’t find trained and educated people like electricians, mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, nurses, pilots or teachers, or lawyers, doctors, CPAs, engineers, and others who have gotten an extensive education and additional training making minimum wage, or anything near it.

But more importantly, the number of minimum wage employees who really need a “living wage” because of family or unusual personal needs is very small, and there are better ways to help them.

Assuming all minimum wage employees worked 20 hours a week, a $2 increase in the minimum wage would cost employers $2,080 a year for each employee, plus increased payroll taxes. For all 3.7 million workers, the increase would cost $7.7 billion a year, plus increased payroll taxes. Those working more than 20 hours a week adds even more costs.

Additional costs arise when those making between the old and new minimums get increases to get them to the new minimum, and when those making close to the new minimum get increases to keep them proportionately higher than the new minimum. The costs would be substantially higher than $7.7 billion. And guess who bears that cost? Employers? No.

Consumers will pay higher prices, producing reduced sales, and those higher prices will also affect those who just got a raise.

A Heritage Foundation research report released last February notes that while many advocates of higher minimum wages suggest a higher wage “to help low-income single parents attempting to survive on just a minimum-wage job … just 4 percent of minimum-wage workers – or 148,000 – are single parents working full-time, compared to 5.6 percent of all U.S. workers.”

To add billions in increased consumer costs to benefit a relative few doesn’t make sense. They need to become qualified for better paying jobs, and if that is difficult or impossible for them, and if government is going to provide welfare, those people should receive help.

“Contrary to what many assume,” the Heritage report notes, “low wages are not [the] primary problem [of the poor], because most poor Americans do not work for the minimum wage. The problem is that most poor Americans do not work at all.”

The faction promoting a higher minimum wage consists primarily of two types of people: those who do not understand or don’t care about the most basic concepts of business economics, and politicians who benefit from pandering to minimum wage earners.

Current government policies are designed for purposes other than to help people escape poverty; therefore government needs to start encouraging job creation so that people in poverty have better opportunities to take control of their own lives and work their way out of poverty.

Returning America to the land of opportunity it used to be, where people were able to go as far in life as they were able, should be President Obama’s major goal.

Don’t fall for the climate change hype!

KTLA reports a religious liberty advocacy group has threatened legal action against the West Covina school district because a first-grade student was allegedly prohibited from distributing candy canes with attached Christian messages on campus.

Isaiah Martinez sought in December to hand out the red-and-white treats to his fellow students at Merced Elementary School, but a teacher threw the boy’s attached religious messages into the trash, telling him “Jesus is not allowed at school,” according to an attorney representing his family.

“The actions of the school district were hostile and intimidating to Isaiah,” stated a letter dated Monday and written to the West Covina Unified School District from a lawyer for the student.

Isaiah’s family is being represented by Robert Tyler, general counsel for Advocates for Faith & Freedom, a nonprofit Murrieta-based law firm that works on issues of religious liberty with a mission to protect America’s foundation on Judeo-Christian principles, according to the group’s website.

The boy’s First Amendment rights to free speech and protection from hostility toward religion were violated, and the family will “be forced to take legal action” if the school district does not respond by Jan. 13, Tyler said.

In a written statement, Superintendent Debra Kaplan said the district had not fully been able to investigate the claims.

“The District’s overriding concern was and is to honor and respect the beliefs of all students in matters of religion. To that end, the District strives to maintain neutrality in matters of religion, and to observe students’ rights of expression, in a manner that does not conflict with the rights of other students,” Kaplan said. “During the holiday season, and particularly when young elementary students are involved, this can require difficult balancing.”

More here

Sounds like this law firm is doing God’s work to me.

I don’t understand why Michael Bay needs a teleprompter to talk about what his job is.
NY Post Page Six

The Zeta criminal organization gave out Three Kings coffee cakes and gifts to locals in the city of Victoria. 

Your Papers, Please ...
You have, perhaps, relatives in Berlin, ya?
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
***************************
Now comes the National ID Cards and then ...  what? The concentration camps? The gulags?

If there any question at all that we have lost America, then this should remove all doubt.

America is GONE, dear reader.  Replaced by an all-out police state sometimes referred to as "Amerika."  The only thing the two share in common is geography.

I had hoped not to live to witness this a second time, but here it is,  and I am still on the sunny side of the grass.

For you younger folk who are wondering what this old man is babbling on about, understand, you are not old enough -- nor wise enough -- to understand, and to fear what's coming next.   But I am.

America is reliving the 1930's in Germany all over again!

Most of us have forgotten the "REAL ID Act of 2005."  But you can bet your bippy the feds haven't.  Now they're insisting they're going to begin enforcing that Naziesque law -- and soon. 

Do you have a valid drivers license issued by the state of your residence?  Then you will soon have a national ID card -- whether you want it or not.

But here's the thing:  The state driver's licenses will have to comply with the standards of our own American Gestapo -- the Federal Department of Homeland Security. The same goes for state issued ID cards, as well.  

You may have missed it, but just before Christmas, when everybody was busy and likely not paying attention, the DHS announced a final schedule for the full enforcement of the REAL ID Act of 2005

"That was set for a phased implementation beginning in January 2014 and full-scale enforcement planned no later than May 2017, at which time the federal government will no longer accept state-issued driver’s licenses and ID cards that do not meet the minimum security standards set by DHS." -- SOURCE:  http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/national-id-headed-for-your-wallet-purse/#T2YeRpyXEOAUvJ7K.99 

Carefully consider the following:  "Among the DHS requirements for a state-issued driver’s license to be DHS-compliant will be the presentation by the applicant of a valid birth certificate, verification of the applicant’s Social Security Number or documentation the person is not eligible for Social Security, and proof the applicant is either a U.S. citizen or lawfully admitted to the U.S. as a permanent or temporary resident.

Further, driver’s license and IDs issued by the states will have to meet stringent requirements as set by the federal government.

To qualify as DHS-compliant, state-issued driver’s licenses and ID cards must have built-in security features to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, and duplication of the documents for a fraudulent purpose.

They also must have features that establish the individual’s identity, including but not limited to full facial digital photographs, plus machine readable coded information in the form of a bar code that captures the key printed information on the card, such as name of the applicant, address, gender, unique driver’s license or card-identification number, state of issuance, date of application, and date of expiration.

Such state-issued enhanced drivers licenses, or EDLs, must be issued in state facilities in which all employees undergo background checks, including federal and state criminal record searches, as well as with technology that permit the state-issued cards to comply fully with travel rules issued under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, or WHTI, such that the EDLs meet valid passport minimums for travel within the United States, Canada, and Mexico, as well as with Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda."  -- SOURCE:  http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/national-id-headed-for-your-wallet-purse/#T2YeRpyXEOAUvJ7K.99

If you live in a state that does not have DHS compliant driver's licenses, you may not be allowed to pass through Transportation Security Administration security in order to  travel on airlines on trains within the United States or internationally.  Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/national-id-headed-for-your-wallet-purse/#T2YeRpyXEOAUvJ7K.99

It's that "POLICE STATE" thing again!  We've just lost more freedom in the name of security!   Funny, I don't feel a darn bit more secure.  In fact, I feel far more threatened by my own federal government than I EVER have from terrorists.

DHS has said that the TSA will continue to accept driver’s licenses and state-issued identification cards from all jurisdictions until at least 2016.  That appears to mean that enforcement for boarding aircraft will not begin until 2016.

I ask again -- What is wrong with Americans?  Have we forgotten who we are?
Yes, gentle reader,  something profound has happened to Americans.  That steel in our character is gone. That “damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead” characteristic of American manhood is not there any longer.  Our so-called "cowboy" instinct is gone.   "Home of the brave" in our national anthem should be purged from it's lyrics -- at least until we can regrow some cussed backbone. 

It is embarrassing.  We have become a nation of rude, crude, fat, slovenly, lazy scardy-cats!  As a result, our way of life, our freedom, indeed, our nation is at risk.

American used to be known for sticking their finger in the eye of government.  These days, however, we welcome their proffered "security."  We accepted. 

We don't seem to understand that those locked in cells are "secure."  Those with shackles on their ankles and wrists are "secure."  It makes no difference if the cell or the shackles are made of pure gold, they still bind us -- and bend us -- to someone else's will.   A gilded cage is STILL a cage!

The federal government was created BY THE STATES to be an AGENT OF THE STATES.  Today, however, it is the other way around -- the world turned upside down.

Consider the following closely:  It is said that sovereignty of the states died at Appomattox Courthouse in April of 1865 when Lee surrendered to Grant.  (And all this time you thought only the South lost!)  At that moment every state lost its standing as a republic.  Its sovereignty was gone  -- forever.  It makes no difference which side of the Mason-Dixon line your state happens to lie, it is no longer a sovereign state. It is, for all intents and purposes, a federal territory ruled over by the elite oligarchy in Washington , DC.

The historian Edward Gibbon had it about right when he wrote of ancient Athens:  "In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security.  They wanted a comfortable life and they lost it all…  security, comfort, and freedom.  When the Athenians finally wanted NOT TO GIVE TO SOCIETY BUT FOR SOCIETY TO GIVE TO THEM, when the freedom they wanted most was FREEDOM FROM RESPONSIBILITY, then ATHENS CEASED TO BE FREE...AND NEVER WAS FREE AGAIN! 

America is the new Athens.  Mr. Gibbon described modern America to a tee!

I had wanted my grandchildren to live, and grow up, in a free country.  A country, which would allow them to be everything they are capable of being.  I didn't want their prospects to be lessened by the intrusions of government.  I feel owe them that.  I owe them an America in which they can be FREE.   Free to succeed and, yes, free to fail!   I owe them an America my father, and my forefathers, placed in my safe keeping (as did yours) at my (our) birth.  To my eternal shame -- I have failed.

Sadly, it was not to be.  Free America is gone, perhaps forever. You see, to be worthy custodians of this nation’s freedom, it was incumbent upon us to insure that we pass America along no less free that when we received it.

That has not happened and all evidence available today seems to warrant that it will NOT happen -- ever again.

I have to conclude we have failed at the single most important task you and I had as adult Americans. That task was to preserve freedom in this country… to guarantee a future for our children in a free nation. 

Our failure must be a stench in the nostrils of Providence.

This new EDL (Enhanced Driver's License) IS a National ID Card. Its purpose, from the beginning, was to be such.  In my opinion, there is absolutely no difference between a national ID card and a tattooed number on your forearm.
"How the might have fallen," indeed!

© J. D. Longstreet

New 9 reports emergency crews are on the scene where two teenagers have been hit by a car Monday night in Yukon.
According to police, the two were hit by a vehicle at Cornwell and Vandament in Yukon at about 7:15 p.m. Monday.

Police say the car involved in the crash had a green light, and the teens were jaywalking when they were struck.

Both victims have been transported to OU Medical Center in serious condition.
Yukon police officers and firefighters responded to the crash. Authorities have not identified anyone involved in the accident.

Not so long ago I was in need for some color bomb or color blocking dose. It was a gloomy day and, on days like these I like to wear some really bright colors ( it really works for your morale). I was looking in my wardrobe for one of the brightest coats that I own and I decided that I will go bright with the whole outfit. In 10 minutes I was done and it was really fun (coloristic speaking).
A finish touch with textured espadrilles and a bag was the cherry on top of this look!
Casual & Colorful!

P.S. Congrats Dosta Radnjanska ! You are the winner of Shoptiques.com $50 gift card!


                                                                                Coat: Joe Fresh/ option Here and Here 
                                                                                Sweater: Preswick & Moore/ similar Here 
                                                                                Bag: Pierre Hardy/ Here and Here 
                                                                                Jeans: Mango/ option Here 
                                                                                Espadrilles: Celine/ another great pair Here and Here