More Opinion by The Springboard

The Issue of Terrorism Is Not A Jobs Issue
"Actor Mandy Patinkin suggested that, in regard to the Middle East, if we give them the best roads, the best medical technology, agriculture, and infrastructure they would not feel cheated. The crux of his argument is that if they (the Middle East) have all of these amenities afforded them, they won't be so inclined to go after Western civilization. The argument is reminiscent of many on the left who have made the suggestion that jobs are the key to ending terrorism."

Monday, March 18, 2024

Self-Checkouts Are Being Rethought

When self-checkout first came around as an idea, it was of course a response to calls for higher wages, made more through arbitration than through bottom lines that supported increases. Most recently, in just the past couple of years, the number of self-checkout lanes has surged.

But already we are beginning to see a pull back from them by the companies who were so eager to put them into use. It seems to be falling into a category of "be careful what you wish for." The idea was, of course, to reduce the need for human cashiers who of course require a W-2 wage and save businesses money.

But has it actually saved money? 

It was announced recently that our local Schnuck's grocery store would begin limiting self-checkout to 10 items or less. And more businesses are following suit, including the world's largest retailer, Walmart. The reason is something in business known as "shrink." In other words, these retailers are losing money due to customer errors and intentional theft.

The thing is, physical cashiers serve more than one function, really. Of course, the primary one is to scan your items and collect your payment. But the other is to act as a failsafe between you and the door to ensure all the items in your cart were paid for and accurately charged.

Receipt checkers may stop you at the door to check your cart. But what are they looking for? The bigger ticket items like beer, soda and TVs. If you've slipped a Snickers bar in your bag without paying for it, it may not be the highest dollar amount item, but those Snickers bars begin to add up to big bucks. And the receipt checkers aren't going to know if you have scanned your avocados as a tomato.

I don't even think all of these intentional thefts signal a dishonest consumer at large in so much as it simply gives consumers another reason to feel like they are owed something. "If I have to check myself out and bag my own stuff, shouldn't I be compensated in some way for doing that?"

It's enough that most consumers already feel like they are being ripped off. Now they have to serve themselves as well?

Limiting items being self-checked to 10 or less gives retail establishments more ability to actually check a receipt and make sure everything is accounted for. But ultimately it also means more people will be going back through the regular manned lanes to check out.

I think ultimately, I understand why businesses want to do these things. Install self-checkouts and ordering kiosks. At the same time, at the heart of any retail business is the interaction between store representatives and the public. Customer service is important. And you can't get that if there is little or no interaction.

It makes the experience feel cold and mechanical. But it also gives consumers less to consider on the other end of the transaction, like how what they do affects the livelihood of a real person. Are they stealing from Nancy on aisle 5 or the guy stocking the shelves? Or are they stealing from a phantom entity behind a curtain pulling levers?

It would not surprise me to see expanding self-checkout lanes to begin retracting more and more as the experiment falls flat. In order to deal with the rising demand for higher wages, businesses are going to simply have to go back to the drawing board to figure out the best way to handle those costs.

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Saturday, March 16, 2024

Mike Pence Not Endorsing Trump Doesn't Matter

In a recent interview with Fox News, former vice president and presidential candidate, Mike Pence, said that he cannot, in good conscience, endorse former president Donald Trump in the 2024 election, but that he also cannot vote for Joe Biden under any circumstance, but that he is keeping it a secret who he will be voting for.

I might assume it would be for RFK Jr., but who knows? And frankly, who cares? It doesn't matter anymore than his lack of endorsement for Trump does.

This is not to suggest that I had issues with Pence when he served as vice president or that I took issue with his failure to question the certification of electors in 2020. I said then that I thought he carried out his duty in necessary fashion, and I continue to believe that today.

My preference would have been for Trump to have conceded the election and ask questions later. But that also does not suggest I don't believe that 2020 may well have been a stolen election.

We still need to get to that truth regardless of what we find in any outcome, because as I have said many times, our elections matter and the American people must have faith in them. A large swath of citizens have questions, and I think that demands answers.

Nonetheless, it's his decision to make whether or not he wants to endorse Trump. At the same time, I disagree with his assessments that Trump has walked away from confronting the national debt or is shying away from his commitment to the sanctity of human life. I also do not agree with him that some of these criminal charges sway his decision either—because at this time no GOP member should be okay with what essentially equates to the weaponization of our justice system for political reasons and is designed to remove choice from the American voter and stack the odds in favor of a competing party.

Is Trump the best choice for America today? That is a question that can be hotly debated. But is Trump the only choice for America right now? I think he is.

I continue to believe that we have some deeply concerning things happening within our government that has very deep roots, and threatens our democratic republic in ways that are unimaginable. Part of my support for Trump stems from that, believing that no other candidate in the recent pool of GOP contenders would have done a thing about any of it, but would have rather simply entrenched themselves into the very deep state we are fighting against and embolden it.

I also believe that Mike Pence is part of that establishment. And perhaps that's really what his motivation is to choose not to endorse Trump. Not to protect the Union. But to protect those who wish to maintain their control and power over our government and the people of this country.

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Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Biden Regrets Saying "Illegal" In His Speech

Words are words and the left has forever been trying to change the meaning of them and what words are used in order to either fill an agenda or advance a cause, or as Jesse Waters of Fox News said on The Five, "To take the sting out of it."

When President Joe Biden delivered his final State of the Union address before the election, which I described as a not so state of the union in a recent blog post, Laken Riley's name, a 22 year-old Georgia nursing student who was killed by an illegal immigrant, was brought up.

In Biden's speech he referred to her killer, Jose Antonia Ibarra as, "an illegal."

Of course, that drew some attention from certain corners of the liberal media since liberals had decided long ago to ditch the term "illegal" and to instead use the term "undocumented." Of course, more often than not, these days, simply the term "migrant" is being used.

The word was the correct word to use. But of course, in using the term "illegal," in a back ended sort of way, it seems to want to imply something is wrong with the situation we have on our border. Something that the Biden administration has long contended is "under control" and not an issue until only recently, after receiving throngs of backlash from governors and mayors in his own party who are experiencing the issues illegal immigration poses firsthand. 

According to Biden and his administration, it was a bit of a slip of the tongue. As he told MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart in an interview after Biden delivered his address, "I shouldn't have used the word illegal. It's undocumented." 

Many saw his comments as an apology, and I think rightly so. But his administration was quick to run out and insist it was not an apology at all. When Olivia Dalton, the White House Deputy Press Secretary, was asked about her thoughts she said, "Regretting something doesn't equate to an apology."

I can agree with her statement to an extent. However, it was what Biden went on to say in expanding on his answer that suggested that it was, in fact, an apology. He was quick to point out that he disagrees with Trump's opinion of illegal immigrants, "The way he talks about vermin, the way he talks about them polluting the blood." 

And yet the very man Donald Trump has talked about are men like Jose Antonio Ibarra who aren't supposed to be here, and had he not been, Laken Riley would be alive today.

The American people, regardless of their political affiliations, should be astonished that Biden was so quick to defend his use of a word rather than address the real issue at hand. The tragic end of Laken Riley's life at the hands of an illegal immigrant. Because tragedies like this are the very reason having a secure border is so important—among many reasons. And it's not to say murders happen only because of open borders, of course. But at least in the case of this murder, it is one that could mostly have been avoided.

But it goes back to words and how they are used. Why is it felt, by the left, that it is needed to soften the language we use?  

As Fox News' Jesse Waters said on The Five recently, "You don't say a gun is undocumented. The gun's illegal. You don't say someone committed a nonconsensual sex act. You call it rape. You don't say Russia is expanding their borders. You say Russia invaded. You use precise language for a reason, and they are trying to pull the illegality out of border crossing because they want to take the sting out of it."

He further argued that they change the word because they (the Democrats, and Biden in particular) are complicit in it. 

It's their border through their policies which made it possible for Jose Antonio Ibarra to be in the country to kill Laken Riley, and that's the point Waters was making and part of the point I made earlier. We have a problem, it has gotten worse, Trump's argument has become a headline in the Georgia murder story, and they simply don't want to admit it's a problem.

Of course, changing the language we use doesn't negate the facts of what happened and under what circumstance it happened. But it does let us know where the priorities lie.

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Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Violence Out of Control, and the Media Is Absent

If you spend enough time on Twitter, videos like this one abound. While some of it may be anecdotal and not necessarily indicative of an epidemic of violence happening across America, the fact remains that there are simply too many videos to account for, and the frequency of this happening is something that we should all be deeply concerned about.

Where does it end? And more importantly, why isn't this violence being called out? Where are the advocates against bullying? Why are we not looking for a link between this and other violent crimes and other things that happen in our society? And where is the media to report on these things when they happen? Where are the police to call for a stop to this sort of thing? Where are our other elected officials and the leaders in our communities?

The question is, what is the culture of this, and why does it seem so important for many people to simply want to brush it under the carpet and remain silent about it?

It's not the way it is supposed to be in America. 

Granted, one can easily make the argument it's always been the way things are since our very early beginnings. From the raucous nature of the Wild, Wild West to the days of Jim Crowe and racially motivated lynchings and other crimes of violence.

But shouldn't we have moved towards more civility by now? 

And it's not just videos like this of kids running rampant stomping on each other and smashing heads against asphalt. It's adults lashing out in violent and criminal ways toward fast food workers and customer service personnel, and even strangers on the streets.

The violence is everywhere and there seems to be no end in sight.

Beyond that, there's another element here that I think is important. There aren't guns being used in much of these violent videos. It's fists flying and hair pulling and head slamming and gut kicking happening in them.

Which begs one other question. Where is the media? Because more often than not these displays of violence receive no coverage at all. But with all of the shootings we get to hear about, it seems clear that these acts of violence pose a much greater threat to all of society than even the high number of shootings does.

It seems like it is a bigger problem. But the problem is, there are no politics to be entered into the equation here. Politics on gun control. Politics on race and oppression. Politics on police violence. And because there is no agenda here to push, the media chooses to remain silent. And so do the community leaders.

The question becomes, what do we do about it? How do we stop it? How do we figure out what's causing it? And do we actually want to stop it? 

It's maddening to see these videos day in and day out, and what makes it more maddening to watch is that we also know nothing is being done about what we see happening in them. It's maddening that people are turning a blind eye to a very real problem while only focusing on things that aren't the big problems we are led to believe are.

On top of that, it's frankly disheartening. Our kids are supposed to be our future. They are supposed to be the epitome of innocence. If this is what the future of what will become our new adults look like, I can't even imagine how much worse it will get.

Because these are also our future leaders.

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Monday, March 11, 2024

Weirder and Weirder

Whenever you start raising bars and "breaking barriers," things never really ever go back. Long gone are the days when you would see married couples on TV sleeping in separate beds. Actual sex and some pretty raunchy sex scenes, including gay sex have hit prime time.

Not to say it is all bad, mind you. There are things that are just real, and we all know what those things are and what goes on.

I am just saying that at the pace that bars are being raised nowadays, I think it's going to be a fairly rapid pace to things becoming more and more bizarre. Not that things aren't already quite bizarre if you ask me, beyond just sex scenes on TV.

The world is becoming weirder and weirder. What happens is a sort of "scrubbing" of sorts. You just get used to it, and when you get used to it, you sort of become a bit immune to it.

Sort of like when a homicide detective can walk around rotting corpses and enjoy a sandwich for lunch while they investigate a scene. A situation that, for most of us, would find us looking for the nearest toilet to unload what we ate for breakfast, let alone mow down on anything new.

I get that people want to "express themselves." Take the story of the AirAsia CEO, Tony Fernandez who openly and unabashedly held a team meeting while shirtless and receiving a massage. "I want to be transparent," he says.

Is it entirely bad? No. But it's weird. Not that I am some morals zealot or anything, but I do believe that in most things there should be at least some modicum of decorum. What do we do next, have a bath while figuring out what profits should be at the next quarterly report? 

But then, at the same time, social media has become something wherein everyone wants to be a star. And let's face it. Many people become stars for all sort of things they do on social media. Not all of it good. And a lot it quite weird.

Everyone has a schtick, and when you get famous for going out there, eventually in order to become more famous you have to go farther out there than the last guy did.

Elon Musk became famous for being outspoken and sometimes saying some outlandish things. So, why not get out there too by having a shirtless massage during a team meeting? Musk raised the bar and Fernandez perhaps wants to raise it some more.

I don't know, I just think the phrase, "Truth is stranger than fiction," is becoming more and more true with each passing day, and I am not even sure I can predict what's coming next. I just know it's going to be stranger and stranger the more time that passes.

I wonder where that's going to leave us eventually.

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