[ARABNEWS] DENVER: A man who was convicted of pointing a gun at Burger King drive-thru worker who wouldn’t accept drugs for payment and later shooting at other people elsewhere the same night has been sentenced to 143 years in prison.
Prosecutors who announced the sentence Thursday said the drive-thru incident was the beginning of a series of crimes Eugene Robertson carried out in the Denver suburb of Aurora
…Aurora, Colorado seems to be an unpleasantly busy place…
on Oct. 17, 2022. No one was maimed.
In April, a jury found Robertson guilty of 17 crimes, including eight counts of attempted murder. The sentences for many of the crimes were stacked on top of each other, leading to a long sentence. Robertson had faced a maximum sentence of more than 400 years when he was sentenced Aug. 9.
"I hope this century-long prison sentence serves as a warning that my prosecutors and I will not tolerate violent mostly peaceful crime in our community," 18th Judicial District Attorney John Kellner said in a statement.
After Robertson pointed the gun at the drive-thru worker, prosecutors said he walked into a convenience store across the street and pointed a gun at the head of a clerk. When Robertson saw there was a surveillance video camera system there, he shot at the screen and left, then shot toward two people outside in the parking lot, Kellner’s office said.
The Sentinel Colorado in Aurora previously reported that a witness at the convenience store store told police there seemed to be "something off" about Robertson and that he was "talking about God" and carrying a Bible with a purple cover.
Later that night, a woman who was friends with Robertson called 911 to report that he had fired shots after she refused to open the door of her apartment, where she was with several people, prosecutors said.
Police spotted Robertson at the woman’s apartment complex. He hid behind some bushes before being arrested, prosecutors said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2024 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11130 views]
Top|| File under: Narcos
#1
Looking at this another way.
Only the CRIMINAL had a firearm.
While honest citizens obeyed a law which violates the US Constitution.
Instead, on banning Citizen Firearms.
Have a mandatory 12 year with no parole sentence for criminal acts with no injuries. Life to shootings with injuries and a mandatory firing squad death sentence for actual murders.
[NYPOST] A Florida man cruelly yelled that his neighbor ''cried like a baby'' in front of the man's widow, explaining during a wild, caught-on-camera courtroom outburst why he killed him.
Omar Rodriguez was sentenced to life in prison Thursday after he was convicted of second-degree murder and aggravated assault for the June 2015 shooting of Jose Rey.
That’s nine years ago. What took so long?
As Rey's widow, Lissette, read a statement at the hearing, Rodriguez rose from his chair and began shouting, causing several people in the courtroom to gasp.
''The coward was your husband,'' Rodriguez yelled out, according to a video obtained by NBC Miami. ''That's why I killed him — he cried like a baby.''
Several law enforcement officers pulled Rodriguez out of the courtroom and placed him in a holding cell as he continued shouting furiously.
Moments earlier, Lissette Rey had pleaded with Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Milton Hirsch to give Rodriguez the maximum sentence.
''I beg Your Honor, the harshest sentence imposed to the coward, the murderer,'' she said.
After the handcuffed, orange prison suit-clad Rodriguez was removed, Rey continued her statement as the murderer's voice rang throughout the courthouse.
''I wish though the death sentence ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead... would have been on the table, but at the end of the day, Mr. Rodriguez will continue to see his family, they will be able to see him, I'll never get to see my husband again,'' Lissette Rey said. ''I wasn't listening to exactly to what he was saying, I was tuning him out, I was just reading my thoughts. His words are irrelevant. He is irrelevant in my life right now. He's pond scum.''
The jury in Rodriguez's case had removed the possibility of capital punishment, leaving Hirsch the only option for a life prison sentence, with a minimum of 25 years, meaning the 75-year-old will remain behind bars for the rest of his life.
While Rodriguez wasn't giving the sentence Lissette Rey was looking for, she still wished ill toward her husband's killer.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2024 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under:
[JustTheNews] United States immigration authorities arrested a Peruvian gang leader on Wednesday in New York, who is wanted for allegedly killing at least 23 people in his home country, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Thursday.
Gianfranco Torres-Navarro illegally entered the U.S. through the southern border in Texas in May, where he was arrested before being told to appear in court for immigration proceedings, according to ICE. He allegedly fled Peru after the death of a retired police officer and the shooting of a municipal employee.
Torres-Navarro is the alleged leader of the Peruvian gang "Los Killers de Ventanilla y Callao," or "Los Killers" for short.
"Gianfranco Torres-Navarro poses a significant threat to our communities, and we won’t allow New York to be a safe haven for dangerous noncitizens," Thomas Brophy, the director of enforcement removal operations for ICE’s field office in Buffalo, New York said in a statement, per the News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
U.S. officials also arrested Torres-Navarro's girlfriend Mishelle Sol Ivanna Ortíz Ubillús, who has been described as his right hand, and a prominent member of the "Los Killers" gang. She is being held at a processing center in Pennsylvania, while Torres-Navarro is being held in Buffalo.
Officials said they moved to arrest the couple after receiving word from Peru that Torres-Navarro was wanted in his home country on July 8. Six other members of the gang were arrested in Peru in a string of raids in June for extortion, homicide, and contract killing.
Peruvian authorities say the gang, formed in 2022, has used violence to thwart rivals and further its core business of extorting construction companies in an area along the Pacific coast where Peru’s main port is located.
Torres-Navarro was previously a member of the Los Malditos de Angamos criminal organization, Peru’s Public Prosecutor’s Office said. He is also known as “Gianfranco 23,” a reference to the number of people he is alleged to have killed or ordered killed. He reportedly has the names of victims tattooed on his body.
Jorge Chavez-Cotrina, the head of Peru’s Special Prosecutor’s Office against Organized Crime, told The Associated Press that the crimes Torres-Navarro was wanted for include contract killings, extortion and running a criminal organization.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office has described Ortiz Ubillús as Torres Navarro’s romantic partner, lieutenant and cashier. She has a sizable following on TikTok, where she's shown off their luxe lifestyle, including designer clothes and resort vacations.
So your usual line of vicious thugs, but not an international narco cartel. Therefore Page 3: Non-WoT, not Page 1.
[FoxNews] Harley-Davidson CEO, accused of going woke, said he's 'trying to redefine' capitalism.
The Harley-Davidson motorcycle brand and business model are being "attacked" from within, social-media influencer Robby Starbuck suggested in a new post on X.
He cited the words of the company's own CEO, Jochen Zeitz, who's been accused of going woke as he oversees the iconic brand. The German-born Zeitz took over as CEO in May 2020.
"Imagine standing in front of CEOs of luxury brands that now think you are the ‘sustainable Taliban,’ as somebody once called me," Zeitz said in a speech at the Zermatt Summit in Switzerland in 2020, referencing his time as board member of Kiering, parent company of Gucci, Puma and Stella McCartney.
Suicide bombers killed 183 people, including 13 U.S. service members, on Aug. 26, 2021, during the U.S. military's mass evacuation at the Kabul airport.
This week, three years after that chaotic withdrawal, the Taliban paraded its U.S. military equipment through the streets of Kabul in celebration of the moment, as Fox News Digital reported on Wednesday.
"The first thing that jumps to my mind when I hear ‘Taliban’ is all the aggressive, horrible things they’ve done," said Starbuck, who has led a social-media effort to highlight Harley-Davidson's drift into controversial far-left management practices.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
08/17/2024 06:22 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11130 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
Brilliant choice in role model. Perhaps the next commercial can show the former Bud Light "Spokestran" sitting side saddle on a hog gingerly sipping said brew.
#3
That's just it, none of these people - and that includes these politicians especially the childless ones - put sweat in the bucket or have real skin in the game. This was all gifted.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] J.D. Vance's campaign plane was forced to make an emergency landing after a malfunction in flight on Friday afternoon.
The chartered Boeing 737 was forced to return to Milwaukee, where Donald Trump's running mate had appeared earlier with local police officers.
'The pilot advised there was a malfunction with the door seal. After declaring an emergency, Trump Force Two returned to Milwaukee,' said spokeswoman Taylor Van Kirk.
'As soon as the issue was resolved, the plane returned to its originally planned flight path back to Cincinnati.'
[FoxNews] "In this case, a person was infected during a stay in the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of (the more infectious mpox formerly known as monkeypox)," the Public Health Agency of Sweden announced on Thursday. Don't diddle the locals
[JustTheNews] Paxton sued GM for its alleged "false, deceptive, and misleading” practices related to its unlawful sale of over 1.5 million Texans’ private driving data.
In addition to suing the Biden administration on a range of issues from transgender policies to lizards in west Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton has taken on big tech and won, and is now taking on General Motors and CenterPoint Energy.
In the past two weeks, his office has sent out a flurry of announcements touting Texas’ ongoing commitment to challenge monopolies, invasive technologies, waste and misuse of taxpayer money and the “weaponization” of Biden administration policies.
This week, Paxton sued General Motors for its alleged "false, deceptive, and misleading business practices related to its unlawful collection and sale of over 1.5 million Texans’ private driving data to insurance companies without their knowledge or consent.”
The lawsuit was filed in the District Court of Montgomery County against General Motors LLC and ONSTAR LLC. It follows a broad data privacy and security investigation his office launched in June to determine if companies were violating privacy protection laws. The investigation was launched into several car manufacturers in response to allegations that massive amounts of driver data was being collected and sold to third parties.
“Our investigation revealed that General Motors has engaged in egregious business practices that violated Texans’ privacy and broke the law. We will hold them accountable,” Paxton said. “Companies are using invasive technology to violate the rights of our citizens in unthinkable ways. Millions of American drivers wanted to buy a car, not a comprehensive surveillance system that unlawfully records information about every drive they take and sells their data to any company willing to pay for it.”
According to the complaint, General Motors installed technology in most 2015 model year or newer vehicles in order “to collect, record, analyze, and transmit highly detailed driving data about each time a driver used their vehicle” and then sold the information to at least two companies. The data was then used to generate “Driving Scores” about GM customers that was sold to insurance companies.
When purchasing the vehicles, buyers were reportedly compelled to enroll in products like OnStar Smart Driver and told if they didn’t their vehicle’s safety features would be deactivated. By doing so, “General Motors deceived many of its customers,” Paxton said. Customers were never told that when enrolling in GM products that data about them and their vehicle was being collected and sold without their knowledge or explicit consent.
Paxton also recently announced major wins in lawsuits that Texas launched against tech giants Google and Meta.
In 2020, former President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice and 11 state attorneys general sued Google alleging it was engaging in anticompetitive and exclusionary practices that eliminate competition for internet searches and search advertising. “Google’s illegal conduct has allowed it to dominate the search industry by requiring exclusivity from business partners and avoiding competition on the merits while shielding itself from competitors who might threaten its market share,” Paxton said. At the time, Google controlled nearly 90% of all search queries in the U.S. and nearly 95% on mobile devices.
Four years later, Google lost, delivering “another major win against Big Tech,” Paxton said. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled earlier this month that Google’s anticompetitive business practices and monopoly violated the Sherman Act. The court ruled that Google engaged in illegal conduct to dominate the online search services industry and facilitated anticompetitive practices like requiring exclusive distribution agreements designed to undermine competition and solidify its monopoly.
“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act,” the court held.
This was not Texas’ only win against Big Tech. Paxton also defeated Meta in a lawsuit alleging it captured personal biometric data of millions of Texans without their permission. Texas and Meta entered into a $1.4 billion settlement agreement, representing the largest settlement ever obtained by an action brought by a state.
It’s also the largest privacy settlement an attorney general has ever obtained, dwarfing a $390 million settlement 40 states reached with Google in 2022.
The Meta lawsuit was the first filed and the first settlement reached after a new state law, the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, went into effect. The historic settlement “serves as a warning to any companies engaged in practices that violate Texans’ privacy rights,” Paxton said.
Paxton also announced this week that his office launched an investigation into CenterPoint Energy after a state Senate hearing uncovered numerous failures and potential fraud or misuse of taxpayer funds related to CenterPoint’s preparation or response to Hurricane Beryl. The Category 1 storm left Houston area residents without power for nearly two weeks, resulting in multiple lawsuits alleging negligence.
Lawmakers also said extended power outages were preventable and unacceptable. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick directed the Public Utility Commission to require the energy giant to repay $800 million for unused generators that were billed to ratepayers. Abbott instructed CenterPoint to implement a range of changes, resulting in it reversing a request to increase consumer rates to cover its costs associated with its failed response.
The OAG is looking into potential violations of Texas law in response to allegations that CenterPoint may have caused “significant harm to Houston residents, including rate increases, outages, and lengthy delays in restoring power” as well as allegations of “fraud, waste, and improper use of taxpayer-provided funds.”
[FE] Typically, people don’t like being treated as if they are stupid. Even stupid people. However, in certain circumstances, it’s smart to play dumb.
Douglas Hegdahl was born in South Dakota farm country. Tall and solidly built, he was a prototypical middle American. After graduating from high school, he decided he needed a change of scenery. It being the middle of the Vietnam War, Uncle Sam was all too happy to oblige. As with a good many of those called to serve, his initiation began with being fucked over by his recruiter. When asked what would get him to join the Navy, Hegdahl replied that he’d like to visit Australia. With a malicious grin, the recruiter assured him that this would not be a problem. Hegdahl was assigned to the USS Canberra, a ship named after the capital of his desired destination. Classic.
On April 6th, 1967, the USS Canberra was chilling around the Gulf of Tonkin, taking potshots along the Vietnamese coast. Before manning his station in the steamy bowels of the ship, Hegdahl decided he could use a little fresh air. Instead of a cool breeze, he was met with a full battery of naval guns firing into the distance, the concussion crashing across the deck and blasted him overboard three miles off the coast of Vietnam. Twelve hours later, a Vietnamese fishing boat scooped him up and turned him in to the Commies, leading to an extended stay in the Hanoi Hilton.
The nature of Hegdahl’s accidental capture put him in a tough position. Despite telling them everything they wanted to hear, his interrogators refused to believe his story, convinced that he must be some sort of commando. How could someone be so stupid and so lucky to survive being blown overboard their own ship? While receiving more than a few buttstrokes and baton strikes, Hegdahl realized the Commies’ incredulity about his story could be used to his advantage. It was at this moment he became a consummate method actor, playing up a dumb country bumpkin stereotype to Oscar-worthy believability. Slack-jawed, he stared blankly at his captors, drawling out his words slow as molasses. To stop his mistreatment, Hegdahl surprised the guards by agreeing to write a propaganda statement, incredibly rare for otherwise uncooperative American POW’s. Jumping over themselves with excitement, they provided him a pen and paper. With a goofy and bashful grin, Hegdahl admitted that being a poor farm boy, he never had any of that fancy book learnin’. Eager to get an easy propaganda victory by winning over this American peasant to their side, the Commies went so far as to provide him an English tutor. Nonetheless, Hegdahl’s stupidity proved stronger than Communist education, skillfully maintaining his illiteracy. After a few weeks, the guards gave up trying to teach "The Incredibly Stupid One."
This plan worked wonderfully for Hegdahl. His dim-witted demeanor turned him into something of a pet, and he was allowed almost total freedom to wander around the prison. Harmlessly and endlessly sweeping up around the grounds, Hegdahl passed notes between his fellow POWs and dispensed extra rations he was given. He even weaponized his janitorial services, covertly dumping small bits of dirt into the gas tanks of trucks, eventually disabling five.
#1
It’s amazing how effective playing stupid is. The Nazis had received a tip and were searching the house of the family sheltering my mother. She wasn’t truly hiding as such — her not-very-good papers said she was a little Catholic maid, and in that rôle she trotted off regularly to run errands, including for the Dutch Underground — so there she sat in the kitchen, peeling potatoes.
“Look at that one,” said the one officer to the other. “With her dark hair she could be Jewish.”
“Nah,” replied the other. “Look at how stupid she is. That’s not Jewish.”
My mother continued to sit there, unresponsive and slack-jawed, as she very carefully cut thick peels off the tubers. They left her there among the peels, having triumphantly borne off the son of the house and the little wireless radio he’d thought was so cleverly hidden.
Mama had to find another refuge shortly thereafter, but the new family treated her well instead of charging her for the privilege of being the overworked household slavey, so all’s well that ends well.
That flash of a moment figuring out how an intellectually limited person might do a task she decades later turned into a cutting edge occupational therapy program for a school and sheltered workshop for mentally and physically handicapped children and adults in Buffalo. See here.
#5
Thank you, gentlemen. Not the kind of heroism as shown by Douglas Hegdahl, who carried off in the face of extensive torment and torture, and managed to help his compatriots even so, but I am proud to be her daughter.
[PJ] After weeks of running the most nonsubstantive campaign, completely devoid of interviews, press conferences, and policy proposals—but loaded with flip-flops—Kamala Harris has finally started to reveal some policies to the American people. It’s not going well.
The first policy she dropped was Donald Trump’s "No Tax on Tips" plan, and even the media couldn’t ignore the fact she’d plagiarized that idea from him. Her latest attempt to come up with something original hasn’t gone much better. In fact, it’s already starting to look like a train wreck, and she hasn’t even officially unveiled it yet.
The proposal, of course, is Soviet-style price controls branded as a federal ban on price-gouging. The proposal tries to kill two birds with one stone by simultaneously deflecting blame for inflation onto corporate greed—rather than the economic policies of the Biden-Harris administration—and convincing the public that she has the solution to fix it.
But the proposal is so horrifying bad, that Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell absolutely destroyed it in a column Thursday evening.
Rampell, a liberal, pulls no punches in her piece. She asserts that it is "hard to exaggerate how bad Kamala Harris’s price-gouging proposal is."
"The most likely template for Harris’s proposal is a recent bill from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). (Harris co-sponsored similar legislation with Warren in 2020, when Harris was a senator.)," Rampell writes. "Warren’s bill would ban any 'grossly excessive price' during any 'atypical disruption' of a market."
#4
No it isn't. Tips are income. This just gives restaurants an excuse to pay waiters almost nothing and let the customers pay for the service.
The cook and the dishwasher get the minimum wage and pay full taxes on all income.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/17/2024 11:12 Comments ||
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#5
What I read on Quora:
"Federal law in the United States establishes a minimum hourly wage of $7.25 an hour for workers who are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Most individual states have adopted minimum wages that are higher than the federal minimum wage.
Food servers in the US who work in sit-down restaurants earn the bulk of their income through customer tips. They are covered by the FLSA and must be paid a total of at least $7.25 an hour. But the FLSA allows restaurants to take customer tips into consideration when it sets cash wages for these employees. As long as the server earns enough cash + tips to make at least minimum wage, the restaurant can pay the server as little as $2.13 an hour."
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/17/2024 11:18 Comments ||
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#6
Any tax collection scheme where costs of enforcement exceed the sums collection is bad. And I haven't mentioned external diseconomies yet.
#7
In Germany, tips are usually not taxed. Not that this is the law, tips are just ignored because they are mostly paid in cash.
From my experience in the U.S., customers usually add tips to their bill and pay everything by card. I don't see how enforcement should be more difficult and costly than other income.
It's about fairness. A good waiter/waitress will make most of his/her money with tips, but will pay almost no taxes on that income, while other people working in the same restaurant will pay full taxes.
Btw I read up a bit on price controls in the U.S. Many states (also Republican run) have price gouging laws in place.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/17/2024 12:01 Comments ||
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#8
There is something 'strange' about minimum wage in the US. It's has tiers. Certain jobs get a lower minimum wage depending on occupational descriptions. Depending on the state, agricultural workers and people like waiters in the food industry get a lower rate. The old assumption still in play is that the workers get their meals comped by the employer. Thus, their 'living' costs are lower.
#11
#5 - that's nonsense. Minimum Wage is an established wage per hour, not reduced by tips. If you suck as a server, you don't get tips
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/17/2024 13:04 Comments ||
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#12
So is this wrong?
"But the FLSA allows restaurants to take customer tips into consideration when it sets cash wages for these employees."
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/17/2024 13:21 Comments ||
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#13
Seems like the Libertarians find it a bad idea also:
"Alex Muresianu, a senior policy analyst at The Tax Foundation, spells out in detail why that's the case. He compares two hypothetical low-income service sector workers: a cashier and a waitress, both of whom earn $34,000 annually. Under the current tax code, both have the same baseline tax liability (roughly $2,000) even though about half of the waitress's earnings are via tips.
If those tips are exempted from income taxes, the cashier still owes that $2,000. The waitress, meanwhile, owes just $600.
Harris should have to explain why she thinks it's fair to ask some low-income workers to pay tax bills that will be two or three times higher than other workers who earn the same amount—because that's what she is proposing here. More generally, Muresianu's example is a nice reminder of why the government should pursue broad tax bases with low rates and few special exemptions, and why the tax code should treat all earnings equally."
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/17/2024 13:31 Comments ||
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#14
#12 - Not in most, if not all, states
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/17/2024 13:44 Comments ||
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#15
What seems to be a simple problem does not seem to have a simple answer. That's why we depend on our betters to tell us what's best! /sarc
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/17/2024 14:10 Comments ||
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#16
The minimum wage is always $0.00
As with all economic principals Dems have no clue.
Tipped employees are individuals engaged in occupations in which they customarily and regularly receive more than $30 a month in tips. The employer may consider tips as part of wages, but the employer must pay at least $2.13 an hour in direct wages.
"The employer who elects to use the tip credit provision must inform the employee in advance and must be able to show that the employee receives at least the applicable minimum wage (see above) when direct wages and the tip credit allowance are combined. If an employee’s tips combined with the employer’s direct wages of at least $2.13 an hour do not equal the minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference. Also, employees must retain all of their tips, except to the extent that they participate in a valid tip pooling or sharing arrangement."
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/17/2024 14:50 Comments ||
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#18
EC, the individual States actually have their own Labor Wage and Hour divisions of government. They set the minimum wage rules and definitions for each classification within their state, with the US Department of Labor standards as a baseline minimum.
The only time where the Federal Standards are 100% in effect is with specifically Federal properties and projects within that state (including US Military Bases and Native American territories). In those cases, that individual State's Labor laws are not enforceable, even if more advantageous for the worker.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/17/2024 15:14 Comments ||
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#19
I did check that, too, and came up with this list:
So only 7 out of the 50 U.S. states require employers to pay tipped employees full state minimum wage before tips.
State minimum wages vary, as does the relation between minimum wage and tips. States which don't have their own minimum wages (at least 14 out of 50) have to follow the federal rule.
So Frank G, in many, if not most states, tips may reduce the wage the employer is obliged to pay.
A lousy waiter will of course receive the minimum wage.
Example:
Betty in Texas is a great waiter. She receives $15 per hour in tips. Minimum wage in Texas is the federal one. So her employer, who would be required to pay Betty at least $7.25, can reduce the wage he pays her by $5.12, paying her only $2.13 per hour. Betty will therefore make $17,12 per hour, not $22,25. Her employer saves money and Betty only needs to pay taxes on $2.13 per hour.
John in Texas is a lousy waiter. He only makes 1$ with tips per hour. His employer will have to pay him at least $6.45 per hour so John gets the minimum wage, but John will pay taxes on $6.45 per hour.
Alberto is a cashier in Texas. He makes the minimum wage (no tips) of $7.45 per hour and pays taxes on that amount.
Sounds fair to you? And if you consider tips as a gift, why can an employer reduce the wage HE pays because his employee receives "gifts"?
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/17/2024 15:49 Comments ||
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#20
each of your sad-sack stories will pay near-zero actual taxes due to their low income. Keep trying.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/17/2024 18:07 Comments ||
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#21
Cause there are customers like myself who ask for specific a waitress who has demonstrated that they are efficient, cheerful, knowledgeable, attentive. It makes me (and my weekly gaggle of old geezers) repeat customers. And yes I tip very well. We've changed luncheon venues before after bad or mundane service. Good managers don't short good workers cause it can be hard to find good help which ultimately effects the bottom line.
And that's actually not true. Now, if you want to see tips as a personal gift you're under no obligation to give, then not taxing it may be warranted (that's how you do it in Germany). But tips must not reduce the wage the employer pays, and they can't be "pooled" either. If they are, they are taxed (in Germany).
Btw I'm a generous tipper, too. But in America, tipping is optional in name only. Legally it’s voluntary but if you slink out of a restaurant without leaving a gratuity of between 20 and 25 per cent, you’re likely to be chased by a waiter demanding to know why.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/17/2024 18:34 Comments ||
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Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/17/2024 18:38 Comments ||
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#24
I do enjoy a non-citizen tell me how Americans react especially since you visit "locals" in blue cities, no? When I was 16, I made minimum wage in So Cal. If they took money out for tips, even back then, I could have sued them.
The minimum salary level to even INCUR taxes is low. Something state by state and Fed rates. Look it up, you have the time...
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/17/2024 18:41 Comments ||
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#25
I know, I patronize bartenders
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/17/2024 18:42 Comments ||
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#26
I have lived and run a business in the United States. Employed more than 30 people there.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/17/2024 18:52 Comments ||
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#27
Tip-based? I thought not. Good night
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/17/2024 18:59 Comments ||
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#28
And good luck.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/17/2024 19:10 Comments ||
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Posted by: Frank G ||
08/17/2024 19:37 Comments ||
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#31
Yes, plus:
Do not put a $0.00 in the tip line leave it blank; look like someone unaccustomed to tipping.
Then, cash tip in smaller bills, act like you are dodging cameras because you are. A $20 tip in $5s allows server to distribute among other workers, like the dish washers.
I hustled, hustled, clearing tables for those servers who shared cash tips.
[Washington Examiner] As Election Day approaches, the bases of support for Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump grow more and more distinct from one another.
The most straightforward factor dividing voters is gender. This pattern is predictable, considering the campaign choices of the two candidates, and represents the Democratic Party’s working principle.
Most prominent in Harris’s campaign has been her abortion advocacy. It stands in for the larger mischaracterization that the GOP is anti-woman. The Democratic Party relies on this dichotomy not only for its present persuasiveness but for the coherence of its platform as a whole. Given that increasing numbers of young women identify as liberal, Democrats tailor their issues just so. It makes sense: They want to keep their bloc, especially one as easily mobilized as misguided women under 30 years old. Moreover, the Democratic Party has long claimed responsibility over women’s rights. A movement that was arguably innocuous at its inception has by now pitted men against any political or societal good a woman might pursue.
The Democratic Party has thus built its constituency on the lie that people (women, primarily) are happier without marriage. It is typical of the Left to divert attention away from truth and toward a shifty political agenda. We see this trend play out in attacks on Sen. J.D. Vance’s (R-OH) vice presidential campaign, notably with the obstinate misinterpretation of his "cat ladies" comments, and again as he explained his criticism of Gov. Tim Walz’s (D-MN) claims of wartime military service. Similarly, the empirical truth that marriage is good for society matters little in the face of the liberal status quo.
[WUNC] Trump’s Wednesday appearance in Asheville, a predominantly liberal city, had some locals scratching their heads. President Trump regularly campaigns in Democratic strongholds so they could see — and ask him questions — for themselves, without MSM gatekeepers lying about him.
The campaign event took place at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium and also included Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson and Congressman Chuck Edwards. About 2,500 rally attendees made it inside the venue with several hundred others turned away at the door. The Trump campaign paid $82,000 to rent the venue, which is the smaller of the two at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center complex.
A common refrain from Asheville residents on social media was ‘why is he coming here?’
Continued on Page 49
#4
Half Backs - Left the socialist utopias of NY, NJ, MD, and relocated to FL. Became tired of the bugs and heat. Left FL and moved half-way back to NY, NJ, and MD.
[BBC] A cargo spacecraft has arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) to deliver food, fuel and other supplies for those onboard.
The ISS is currently home to the Expedition 71 crew, and two Nasa astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni William, who are stuck on the station due to safety concerns over the Boeing Starliner capsule meant to take them home.
The unpiloted Progress 89 spacecraft delivered about three tons of supplies. Including 48 pairs of underwear each to Boeing's crew
It will remain docked for approximately six months before departing for re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere to dispose of trash, Nasa said.
[BBC] The UK military has launched its first ever dedicated Earth-imaging satellite.
Called Tyche, the washing machine-sized spacecraft will have sufficient resolution to identify battlefield troop positions and vehicles.
It's a demonstrator that should be followed by a network of satellites this decade using a variety of sensors.
Some of these future spacecraft will be able to see through cloud and even eavesdrop on radio transmissions.
Tyche's ride to orbit was booked on a SpaceX Falcon rocket flying out of California. Lift-off occurred at 11:56 local time (19:56 BST).
The British mission will circle the globe at an altitude of roughly 500km, where it's expected to operate for at least five years.
UK forces have long benefited from the use of their own, state-of-the-art satellite communications system, called Skynet, but getting access to surveillance and reconnaissance imagery from space has largely required a friendly request to allies, particularly the United States.
And while the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has contributed funds in the past to projects in the UK commercial sector, Tyche will be its first wholly owned imaging capability.
Commissioned by UK Space Command and built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) in Guildford, the 160kg satellite will collect its imagery at optical wavelengths - in the same light we sense with our eyes.
It's designed to capture 5km-wide spot scenes on the ground and have a best resolution of 90cm.
This is by no means the best performance possible (some classified US satellites are reported to see features as small as 10cm across), but it fits with the British military's generalised needs.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[ARABNEWS] DENVER: A man who was convicted of pointing a gun at Burger King drive-thru worker who wouldn’t accept drugs for payment and later shooting at other people elsewhere the same night has been sentenced to 143 years in prison.
...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead...
[Washington Examiner] As Election Day approaches, the bases of support for Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump grow more and more distinct from one another. 
[WUNC] Trump’s Wednesday appearance in Asheville, a predominantly liberal city, had some locals scratching their heads.
