Paid shills
Across the country, protesters brandishing “Fight for 15” signs are marching in front of McDonald’s restaurants and other establishments where the organization would like to shame the companies into offering their employees a minimum wage of $15 an hour, more than a 100 percent higher than the national minimum wage.
The organization would like people to believe the protesters are McDonald’s employees and others who toil for low wages, but many are actually being paid by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a conservative media and research organization revealed in videos it posted last week.
America Rising Squared interviewed people protesting in both Cleveland, Ohio, and Charlotte, N.C., where the protesters revealed for whom they worked.
The protesters said they did not know or refused to answer how much SEIU President Mary Kay Henry makes. In fact, while the paid protesters are shilling for a $15 per hour wage, she makes $296,549 per year, or $143 an hour. The top national organizer for the “Fight for 15” movement, Kendall Fells, makes $150,214 a year, or about $72 an hour.
America Rising Squared, launched by the conservative America Rising PAC, said on its website that its purpose in recording the protests was to expose “big labor-funded protests manned by union members who don’t even work at the fast food establishments they claim to speak for.”
Let them eat kale
While first lady Michelle Obama has made it her business to tell school children across the country what they ought to be eating and pushed for supposedly healthy changes to the school lunch program that caused massive waste and many children to remain hungry, she prefers different sorts of food.
“Hands down, pizza,” she said when a student asked her what her favorite food was at a White House event. She admitted she also liked French fries. However, those are not items likely to be found on most public school menus.
To allow hungry children to eat, many school districts have pulled out of the National School Lunch Program, eschewing federal dollars to help those who may not get fed much at home.
In one recent example, students at Bozeman, Mont., were leaving the school, as allowed, in droves because of the non-tasty lunches that had to be served. During the 2014-2015 school year, the food service program wound up $16,000 in the red. When the district cut the federal cord – $117,000 worth – the sale of school food rose nearly 50 percent. As of recently, the food service program was nearly $1,500 in the black.
Up with whatever’s on this sign
While waving signs and chanting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., recently, “Democracy Spring” protesters who referred to themselves as liberals, progressives and socialists didn’t have to strain much to hang themselves with their own words during interviews with MRCTV about what they were seeking.
One man carrying a sign warning of climate change said he had no idea what was on his sign. Asked if he thought he ought to know what was on a sign he was carrying, he said that he did not. Another said he was seeking “free college tuition” but was fairly sure the money to pay for such an animal just didn’t “mystically come out of nowhere.”
A third man had a little trouble understanding that corporations, which contribute to campaigns, are made up of people. No, he said, “corporations are like a figment of the imagination, really. They’re like an imaginary machine, basically.”
A woman protesting for universal health care opined that Americans did not like universal health care because “they’ve been brainwashed.” Asked about being brainwashed to support universal health care, she allowed that “everyone is susceptible to brainwashing.”
And there was the man who must have given his place in the political process a lot of thought because he said his choice for president in the fall was “Barry Sanders,” though he probably meant Bernie Sanders and not the former running back for the Detroit Lions.
Learn it! Know it! Live it!
Another recent MRCTV video tested Washington, D.C., residents on their opinion about the recent selection of Judge Reinhold for a seat on the Supreme Court. While interviewer Dan Joseph planted the name of the “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” actor, the interviewees had no clue he wasn’t referring to Judge Merrick Garland, the actual nominee.
“I think it’s a great nomination,” one man said. “Based on information I have,” another thought Reinhold would do a good job. “I support President Obama and his decisions. I don’t have an issue with it,” a woman said of the nomination. “I think it’s pretty smart,” another woman said.
Interviewees also were sure Reinhold’s “controversial” decision in the faux “Spicoli vs. Hand” (both characters in the movie), “Spicoli vs. Ridgemont High” and “Fast Times vs. Ridgemont High” cases – which said stupid people shouldn’t be allowed to vote – shouldn’t affect his confirmation.