Photo of a Pizza Hut Restaurant by Saumya Rastogi on Unsplash
Starting a brand new year by eliminating jobs from your nation-wide franchise is a terrible thing to do to workers. That said, it appears that Pizza Hut franchises in California decided to do exactly that. More specifically, the franchises (which are owned by Yum! Brands) decided to dump all their delivery drivers without notice.
Continue Reading “California Pizza Hut Franchises Laid-Off Drivers”
doctor wearing a white coat and holding a stethoscope by Online Marketing on Unsplash
Beginning Jan 1, for the first time, undocumented immigrants of all ages will qualify for Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance program for extremely low-income people. It makes California the only state to fund comprehensive health care for undocumented immigrants… (CalMatters)
…”This is the culmination of literally decades of work, and it’s huge,” said Sarah Darr, policy director for the California Immigrant Policy Center. “It’s huge because of all the work and effort and advocacy that went into making this possible, and it’s also because of the impact that it’s going to have.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state’s Democratic-led Legislature have committed more than $4 billion to the Medi-Cal expansion annually. Newsom’s 2022 budget made the expansion possible, and through the state is now headed into a $68 billion deficit, advocates say the positive impact Medi-Cal will have an individual health is priceless…
…The California Immigrant Policy Center along with consumer advocacy group Health Access California have been the leading force in the campaign to eliminate citizenship requirements for Medi-Cal. The work was not easy even in left-leaning California. Many moderate Democrats voted against the legislation or refrained from weighing in on the debate in the early days, but slowly, public opinion and political will shifted.
California will welcome the new year by becoming the first state to offer health insurance for all undocumented immigrants. (ABC News)
Starting January 1, all undocumented immigrants, regardless of age, will qualify for Medi-Cal, California’s version of the federal Medicaid program for people with low incomes.
Previously, undocumented immigrants were not qualified to receive comprehensive health insurance but were allowed to receive emergency and pregnancy-related services under Medi-Cal as long as they met eligibility requirements, including income limits and California residency in 2014.
The 2015, undocumented children were able to join Medi-Cal under a bill signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law an expansion of full-scope Medi-Cal access for young adults ages 19 through 25, regardless of citizenship or immigration status. Access was then further expanded to allow older adults aged 50 and older to receive benefits, also regardless of immigration status.
The final expansion going into effect Jan. 1 will make approximately 700,000 undocumented residents between 26 and 49 eligible for full coverage, according to California State Sen. María Elena Durazo.
As a Californian, I think this program to enable undocumented immigrants access to Medi-Cal is an excellent idea. Everyone needs access to health care, no matter who they are or where they come from. One of the best things about California is the government really makes an effort to provide care to the people who live here.
On December 22, President Biden posted: “A Proclamation on Granting Pardon for the Offense of Simple Possession of Marijuana, Attempted Simple Possession of Marijuana, or Use of Marijuana” on WhiteHouse.gov.
Continue Reading “President Biden Grants Pardon For Simple Possession of Marijuana”
a closeup of a blue suit and a red tie by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
The Colorado Supreme Court posted information about an appeal from a district court proceeding under the Colorado Election Code. The entirety of the information is approximately 200 pages long, and can be found and read on SCRIBD.com.
Here are some key parts of the information decided upon by the Colorado Supreme Court:
Continue Reading “Trump Is About To Find Out”
a group of grey lockers in a school – photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash
At first, I didn’t realize that I was losing my hearing. It started slow during my sophomore year in high school. I didn’t realize what was happening at first.
Continue Reading “The Year I Lost My Hearing”
woman smiling while wearing a green graduation cap by Juan Ramos on Unsplash
Recently, I was scrolling through my Twitter/X account, looking for new things that Activision-Blizzard was doing. I sometimes do this in order to find new gaming topics to talk about in the next episode of my podcast.
Continue Reading “Biden Has Been Working On Lowering Student Loan Debt”
President Biden announced, in a statement on the White House website, about new actions to lower health care and prescription drug costs. The statement was posted on December 7, 2023. Here are some key parts of it:
President Biden believes that health care should be a right, not a privilege. For too long, corporate special interest and trickle-down economics have allowed Big Pharma to make record profits, while millions of Americans struggle to afford health care and prescription drugs to treat common and chronic conditions.
As part of the President’s Bidenomics agenda, the Biden-Harris Administration is cracking down on price gouging and taking on special interests to lower costs for consumers and ensure every American has access to high-quality, affordable, health care.
Specifically, the Biden-Harris Administration will release a proposed framework for agencies on the exercise of “march-in-rights” on taxpayer-funded drugs and other inventions, which specifies that price can be a factor in considering whether a drug is accessible to the public.
What does “march-in-rights” mean? According to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), “march-in-rights” is a tool to help agencies evaluate when it might be appropriate to require licensing of a patent developed with federal funding. The draft guidance will help agencies work through a range of policy considerations relevant to a potential march-in-decision, including price.
This comes after previous actions by the Administration that lowered the cost of insulin at $35 per product per month for seniors, finally allowing Medicare negotiate to lower prescription drug prices, requiring drug companies to pay rebates to Medicare if they raise prices faster than inflation, and locking in $800 per year in health insurance savings for 15 million Americans under President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Here is the short version of what the Biden-Harris Administration is doing:
…The Biden-Harris Administration believes taxpayer-funded drugs and other taxpayer-funded inventions should be available and affordable to the public. When an invention is made using taxpayer funds, under certain circumstances march-in authority under Bayh-Dole Act enables the federal government to license the invention to another party…
The Biden-Harris Administration believes that the health care system should serve patients, not corporate profiteers. The Administration is concerned that our health care system is increasingly being financialized, with corporate owners like private-equity firms and others maximizing their profits at the expense of patients’ health and safety, while increasing costs for patients and taxpayers alike.
The Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and HHS will issue a joint Request for Information to seek input about how private equity and other corporations’ increasing power and control of our health care is affecting Americans…
HHS, through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), has taken unprecedented action to shed light on ownership trends in health care. The Biden-Harris Administration is the first to make ownership data on hospitals, nursing homes, hospice providers, and home health agencies publicly available, and today, CMS is releasing, for the first time, ownership data on Federal Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics on data.cms.gov…
Currently, about 50% of Medicare enrollment is in Medicare Advantage and the government is expected to spend over $7 trillion on Medicare Advantage over the next decade. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring Medicare Advantage insurance plans best meet the need of people with Medicare, there is timely access to care, and the market has healthy competition…
Thanks to President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the Administration has announced 10 prescription drugs for which Medicare will negotiate prices directly with participating manufacturers. These drugs cost people with Medicare $3.4 billion out of pocket in 2022. This builds on other progress to lower prescription drug costs.
Individuals with Medicare can now receive certain vaccines for free under the President’s lower cost prescription drug law, which previously would have a cost of an average of $70 in out-of-pocket costs…
In September, the FTC issued an enforcement policy statement explaining that Big Pharma companies may face legal action if they delay entry of generic competitors with improper patent listings in the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) publication “Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations,” commonly known as the “Orange Book.”
When a brand pharmaceutical company improperly lists a patent in the Orange Book, it may lead to a 30-month statutory stay that blocks the approval of competing drug products, including lower-cost generic alternatives. Some improper listings may delay competition and raise prices for live-saving products like asthma inhalers…
In addition, the Biden-Harris Administration is cracking down on anticompetitive and anti-consumer practices in Medicare Advantage, making hearing aides available over the counter, and cracking down on nursing homes that endanger resident safety.
President Biden also recently signed a bipartisan law, the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act, to break up the monopoly that has controlled the organ transplant system for its entire nearly four decade history.
CosMc’s logo from its website
Are you tired of deciding whether you want a drink from Starbucks or Jamba Juice? Soon, you might have the opportunity to get both from CosMc’s. It is a new creation that is part of McDonald’s.
The name CosMc comes from McDonald’s little-known alien mascot of the same name, pronounced “cosmic”,Forbes reported. It is part of a “small-format, beverage-led concept that McDonalds said is inspired by nostalgia and “truly out of this world.”
There is also a pared-down food menu that will include McDonald’s staples like McFlurry ice creams and egg McMuffin sandwiches, as well as hash brown bits, cookies, new sandwiches, donuts and pretzel bites.
According to Forbes, McDonald’s plans to open another nine CosMc’s restaurants by the end of next year, all of which will be based in locations across the Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio metro areas.
There’s also a CosMc’s in Illinois (possibly in Bollingbrook), BBC reported. The location is drive-through only, and on the second day of a rather well-publicized “soft” launch, customers waited in their cars for an hour or more in an orderly queue that snaked through a shopping center along a busy road in suburban Chicago.
The CosMc’s menu shows photos of brightly colored drinks which include lemonade, various kinds of tea, slushies, frappes, cappuchino, tumeric spiced latte, chai tea latte, and a regular latte. You can also order a mocha, brewed coffee, black tea, green tea, peppermint tea, hot chocolate, iced turmeric spiced latte, S’mores cold brew, regular cold brew, and a variety of iced lattes.
There are also some food options, including breakfast items like Egg McMuffin, Sausage McMuffin with Egg, or Bacon McMuffin with Egg. McFlurry drinks include Oreo or M&M. Or, you can get a milk shake. CosMc’s also has little hash browns, pretzel bites, cookie butter McPops and a snack box.
Put all of that together, and it feels like CosMc’s is creating its own version of what can currently be offered at Starbucks or Jamba Juice. My best guess is that this is McDonald’s attempt to attract people who would typically go to Starbucks, Jamba Juice, or their favorite local coffee shop.
People who, like me, have food allergies should be extremely careful when ordering drinks or food from CosMc’s. Fortunately, CosMc’s has posted its Nutrition Information on its items. In addition, there is a list of questions that CosMc’s answered.
Do you have vegetarian options?
Most items on our menu are vegetarian with the exception of our sandwiches and snack box.
Do you have any gluten free options?
Yes, all beverages are gluten free, and snack options such as savory hash brown bites, hot fudge or caramel sundaes, M&M’s McFlurry, and vanilla or chocolate soft serve without the cone.
Do you have any non-dairy options?
The following items on the menu are dairy-free. Most non-blended coffee and espresso beverages can be prepared with almond milk at customer request. (A list of beverages and food items follows.)
As someone who is allergic to way too many foods, I think it’s good that CosMc’s is offering some advice for people who cannot have milk or gluten. Some of the foods include eggs, which some people are allergic to. Some of the drinks include berries, that can also be an allergen for some people. That’s not clearly spelled out in CosMc’s “Frequently Asked Questions”.
If you have absolutely zero food allergies, you probably will be fine ordering drinks and food from CosMc’s. Those with food allergies need to keep in mind that there is plenty of room for cross-contamination to happen, not only inside CosMc’s, but also in pretty much every fast-food place.
Photo by Patrick Morris on Pexels
As you may have heard, Representative George Santos (Republican) has been expelled from the House. Here is a timeline of what happened:
November 17, 2023: House Ethics Chairman Michael Guest, a Mississippi Republican, introduced a resolution Friday to expel GOP Rep. George Santos of New York from Congress, one day after the Ethics Committee released a damning report on its investigation into Santos. (CNN)
Lawmakers are expected to address the resolution at the end of the month once they return from the Thanksgiving holiday.
…Expulsion is exceedingly rare and requires a two-thirds majority vote in the House to succeed. So far, 13 GOP lawmakers have come out in support of expelling Santos since the report was released, and that number is expected to grow in the days ahead…
…Santos, who has only been in Congress since January, announced that he will not seek reelection following the release of the committee’s report, though he remained defiant and denounced the investigation, calling it a “biased report.”…
November 25, 2023: Republican George Santos has said he expects to be expelled from Congress following a scathing report by the House ethics committee that found substantial evidence of lawbreaking by the lying New York Representative. (The Guardian)
In a defiant speech on Friday sprinkled with taunts and obscenities aimed at his congressional colleagues, Santos insisted he was “not going anywhere.” But he acknowledged that his time as a member of Congress may soon be coming to an end.
“I know I’m going to get expelled when this expulsion resolution goes to the floor,” he said on Friday night during a conversation on X Spaces. “I’ve done the math over and over, and it doesn’t look really good.”…
…While Santos has survived two expulsion votes, many of his colleagues who formerly opposed the effort now say they support it, citing the findings of the committee’s months-long investigation into a wide range of alleged misconduct committed by Santos…
…The report found Santos used campaign funds for personal purposes, such as purchases at luxury retailers and adult content websites, then caused the campaign to file false or incomplete reports.
“Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,” investigators wrote. They noted that he did not cooperate with the report and repeatedly “evaded” straightforward requests for information.
On Friday, Santos said he did not want to address the specifics of the report, which he claimed was “slanderous” and “designed to force me out of my seat.” Any defense of his conduct, he said, could be used against him in the ongoing criminal case brought by federal prosecutors…
November 29, 2023: Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday expressed “real reservations” about expelling Rep. George Santos from the House since the New York Republican has yet to be convicted of a crime – even as GOP support grows to make him just the sixth member of the chamber ever to be formerly ousted from his seat in the face of damning allegations about his conduct. (CNN)
Santos has survived previous attempts to remove him from the House, but momentum is building for the latest effort after the release of a scathing report from the House Ethics Committee earlier this month, which concluded that he “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.”
According to CNN, if he were to be expelled, Santos would be the first House member to be ousted without having been convicted or having supported the confederacy. House Republicans also control a very narrow majority, and expulsion would shrink it even further.
Santos announced that he would not seek reelection following the release of the ethics report, but he has said he will not resign and has denounced the congressional investigation and its report as “a disgusting politicized smear.”
December 1, 2023: Rep. Max Miller, a GOP freshman from Ohio, accused Rep. George Santos of stealing money from him and his mother, and attacked Speaker Mike Johnson for opposing Santos’ expulsion. (CNN)
“I think leadership – this is just another example of Republicans who can’t lead. And that’s a really shameful. You know, the speaker and everyone in leadership knows this man is a crook,” Miller said.
He accused the New York Republican of using his and his mother’s credit card information to steal $5,000 from each of them, and marking them as an over donation.
“In January, I got an FEC Complaint because of an over donation to George Santos, and I’ll explain why. I’m Jewish. My family’s Jewish and they were donors and they like to give money to people who are Jewish, who are Republicans, because that’s who we are.”
“And Mr. Santos took, not only my credit card personally, he took my mother’s credit card personally and he swiped them both for an additional $5,000, marking it as an over donation. And I have it by the FEC, and I have the document in my office. And what I can tell you is within that document – I won’t disclose other names – but he defrauded over 350 people for hundreds of 1000s of dollars under undisclosed amounts, and I had to hire an attorney to fight it by the FEC that I think cost me 15 or $20,000. Altogether, this man has cost my family $30,000.”
December 1, 2023: The House has voted to expel New York Rep. George Santos over ethics violations, making him only the sixth lawmaker ever to be kicked out of the chamber. (CNN)
The resolution requires a two-thirds majority vote to succeed. House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that 311 members of the House voted to expel Santos, which included 105 Republicans. Another 114 voted against the expulsion, with two members recording them selves “present.”
All four top House GOP leaders, including Johnson, voted to keep Santos in Congress.
Santos is the first member of Congress to be expelled since the Civil War who wasn’t first convicted of a felony…
December 1, 2023: GOP Rep. George Santos told CNN after the House voted to expel him that “it’s over.” (CNN)
“The House spoke, that’s their vote. They just set new dangerous precedent for themselves,” he added.
When asked if he would still stay and use nonmember privileges because he is not convicted, Santos said, “Why would I want to stay here? To hell with this place.”
Pressed if he knew this was how it was going to go, Santos said, “I had no skin in the game.”
And then he said, “You know what? As unofficially no longer a member of Congress, I no longer have to answer your questions.”
December 1, 2023: GOP. Rep. George Santos of New York was expelled from the House in a bipartisan vote Friday, with dozens of his Republican colleagues joining Democrats in ousting him from Congress. (CBS News)
Santos has been the center of overlapping scandals since he won election last year, and he faces a slew of federal charges related to alleged fraud and campaign finance violations. The explosive allegations were detailed in a pair of federal indictments handed down earlier this year, and the House Ethics Committee issued its own scathing report earlier this month.
Santos refused repeated calls for his resignation and survived two major prior attempts to remove him from office. The first attempt was led by Democrats in May after he was originally indicted by the Justice Department. Republicans renewed the expulsion effort in October following a superseding indictment. But Friday’s vote of 311 to 114 made clear that his support among many of his Republican colleagues had eroded…
…In total, Santos is charged with:
one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States
two counts of wire fraud
two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission
two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC
Two counts of aggravated identity theft
one count of access device fraud
seven counts of wire fraud
three counts of money laundering
one count of theft of public funds
two counts of making materially false statements to the United States House of Representatives
December 1, 2023: Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took aim at ousted Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) after he exited the House chamber Friday before his expulsion vote had come to an end, calling him a “coward” for doing so. (The Hill)
Pelosi said that while the historic 311-114-2 vote to boot Santos was “heartbreaking,” it was “necessary.”
“This is not a casual vote for us. It’s something you take very seriously, and and he should have taken it seriously,” Pelosi told reporters following the vote, adding that he “should have been a man about it.”
“This is a very serious matter to uphold the dignity and respect of the House of Representatives,” she continued. “He has not, and he didn’t today … by not even showing up and being a coward.”…
December 1, 2023: The expulsion of George Santos from Congress Friday has ramifications beyond the New York Republican’s career prospects (The Guardian)
The historic vote has sparked a scramble among Democrats and Republicans to elect a replacement for Santos, who was found by an ethics committee to have used campaign funds for purchases. A special election is likely to take place early next year.
Given Santos’s troubles – the now former congressman also faces 23 federal charges including fraud and conspiracy – several candidates have already announced they would run for his seat in New York’s third congressional district.
While New York legally requires to hold a special election in less than 90 days, the race for Santos’s Long Island district, which voted for Joe Biden in 2020, was represented by Democrats for 10 years before swinging Republican last year, has dramatically accelerated.
There will be no primary in the special election. Instead, local Democratic and Republican Party leaders will choose the parties’ nominees to replace Santos in a finely balanced House of Representatives – Santos’s expulsion reduced Republicans’ advantage over Democrats in the House of Representatives by eight seats: 221-213. Democrats are expected to announce their nominee on Tuesday, with Republicans also likely to reveal their candidate soon…
December 1, 2023: Sticky Fingers Diner posted the following on Instagram:
“Adios Santos! We’re serving up a Santos sendoff cocktail for disgraced Republican House member, George Santos. To celebrate, we’ve mixed up an “Adios Santos” Grapefruit Margarita & will be offering it all weekend for $10.
To help turn the grift into a gift, $1 of each cocktail will go to CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.”
This is what the “Adios Santos” drink looks like:
December 1, 2023: Former Rep. George Santos’s (R.N.Y.) name plaque was removed from his former office Friday, hours after he was expelled from Congress. (The Hill)
Surrounded by reporters, a House employee unscrewed the plaque from the wall and removed Santos’s name at about 3:30 p.m. It was replaced by a temporary sign stating “Office of the Third Congressional District of New York.”…
…In political terms, the expulsion leaves Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) with one fewer vote for an already slim GOP majority. The vacancy is expected to be filled in a special election in Spring 2024.
The 3rd District is expected to be tightly contested in 2024. It is considered a “Toss Up,” according to the Cook Political Report.
December 2, 2023: The House on Friday took the remarkable step of expelling George Santos (R-N.Y.), shrinking the GOP’s already thin majority and depriving Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) of a precious vote as the chamber charges toward a series of legislative landmines. (The Hill)…
…Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) is headed for the exits to lead Youngstown State University early next year, and there’s swirling speculation that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will quit Congress early after the House deposed him in historic and embarrassing fashion after just nine months with the gavel.
…Santos’s removal has immediately trimmed the Republicans’ four-seat advantage down to three – a wafer-thin cushion that leaves Johnson, just weeks into his Speakership, with little room for error as he attempts to steer the party’s conservative agenda through the second half of the 118th Congress with a deeply divided conference…
…Then, there’s the special election to fill Santos’s seat, which could either permanently deprive Republicans of the ousted lawmaker’s vote or keep the district red. Political headwinds are trending in Democrats’ direction: President Biden carried New York’s 3rd Congressional District by roughly 8 percentage points in 2020, and the Cook Political Report rates the area a “Republican toss up” for 2024.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) will call a special election within 10 days of Santos’s expulsion, and the election is required to take place between 70 and 80 days later, according to state law, teeing up a February or March election day…
December 2, 2023: Former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) in late-night posts on social media pledged to file ethics complaints against several of his House colleagues after he was expelled from office Friday. (The Hill)
His threats were levied against Reps. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), and Rob Menendez (D-N.J.), over campaign finance violations and other ethics claims. The embattled former lawmaker said he will file official complaints Monday…
…Santos said the complaint against Malliotakis will focus on “her questionable stock trading since joining the Ways and Means committee this Congress.”…
…The Lawler claims center on allegations that he funneled campaign expenses through a company he has a stake in…
…Against LaLota, Santos raised assertions that the fellow Long Island congressman was a “no-show: at his local board of elections job while attending law school…
Santos also demanded the Ethics Committee look into Menendez’s relationship with his father, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) who has been charged with multiple federal crimes in a bribery scheme…
Black Friday Sale sign by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
In what now feels like a long time ago, I was working in a big-chain bookstore. I worked the early morning shift, and typically ended my day in the afternoon. The place was super quiet as the early-morning workers arrived, and we actually had time to put books on the shelves and dust things before the store opened.
Continue Reading “How Black Friday Sales Stress Out Workers”