On Thursday, the House Education and Workforce Committee passed three bills to boost flexibility, wages, and efficiency for workers. These three bills would modernize the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act to provide flexibility for workers, simplicity for tipped employees, and more efficient resolutions to payroll errors. Importantly, none of these provisions will cost taxpayers a single dime because they simply remove unnecessary barriers to flexibility and higher pay. In fact, at least one of the bills would likely save taxpayers from unnecessary administrative costs. The first bill, H.R. 2870, is the Working Families Flexibility Act. This act would allow lower-income hourly workers to choose whether they want to accumulate paid leave overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week. Paid leave, or so-called comp time, would accumulate at 1.5 times the rate of overtime, meaning if a worker performed four hours of overtime one week, he would accumulate six hours of paid leave to use in the future. This proposal would particularly help lower-income workers, who are the least likely to have access to paid family leave. If an employee regularly worked 5 hours of overtime per week for one year, she would accumulate 10 weeks’ worth of paid leave—time that could be used, for example, in the case of a birth, a family medical need, or even just wanting to attend a child’s soccer game. Public sector workers already have access to this flexible comp-time option; it’s time to provide private sector workers the same choice. The second bill, H.R. 2312, is the Tipped Employee Protection Act. In general, the FLSA allows for lower base wages for tipped employees, but their total wages—including their base pay plus tips—must meet or exceed the minimum wage. Problems have arisen as different administrations and different courts have come to different interpretations of who qualifies as a tipped worker. Moreover, the Biden administration imposed an unreasonable—if not impossible—tipped minimum wage rule that required employers to separate tipped workers’ activities into three different buckets and keep track of the time spent on each—down to the exact minute and second. Take restaurant waiters, for example. Under the Biden rule, making a salad is “not part of the tipped occupation,” but applying dressing to the salad is “tip-producing.” Wiping up a spill in the bathroom is “not part of the tipped occupation,” wiping up a spill in the dining room is “direct tip-supporting,” and wiping up a spill at or adjacent to the server’s customer table is “tip-producing.” How are workers and employers possibly supposed to keep track of and properly classify every minute and second of their work? The Tipped Employee Protection Act would provide clarity to businesses on the definition of a tipped employee, which would better protect the rights of tipped workers. By removing the complexity and administrative costs of confusing regulations, the act would reduce compliance costs and free up opportunities for tipped employees to work and earn more.    Last is H.R. 2299, the Ensuring Workers Get PAID Act. This act would permanently authorize the successful and voluntary Payroll Independent Audit Determination, or PAID program, at the Department of Labor. Initially launched in 2018, the PAID program promotes compliance without litigation. By allowing employers to conduct self-audits to identify potential payroll violations and to then work with the Department of Labor to correct those violations without litigation, the PAID program resulted in faster and more efficient resolution for workers. Before the PAID pilot program was cancelled by the Biden administration, the average back wages paid per case in the PAID pilot were four times the back wage payments of compliance actions. Cases included just one-tenth the costs of compliance actions and each resulted in nearly 10 times as many back wage payments as traditional compliance cases.     As Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Mich. noted, “These three bills together provide clear, modern, and flexible solutions that expand flexibility for families, boost earnings for tipped workers, and ensure workers get paid faster when payroll mistakes occur. Simply put, they are commonsense solutions that put workers and families first.” The post Education and Workforce Committee Passes 3 Bills to Expand Flexibility, Boost Earnings, and Hasten Back Pay appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The first cannon shot in a new kind of free speech war came not from Washington or Silicon Valley, but from Cheyenne. Wyoming Representative Daniel Singh last week filed the Wyoming GRANITE Act. The “Guaranteeing Rights Against Novel International Tyranny & Extortion Act,” passed, would make Wyoming the first state to let American citizens sue foreign governments that try to police what they say online. The bill traces back to a blog post by attorney Preston Byrne, the same lawyer representing 4chan and Kiwi Farms in their battles against censorship-driven British regulators. Byrne’s idea was simple: if the UK’s Ofcom or Brazil’s Alexandre de Moraes wanted to fine or threaten Americans over online speech, the US should hit back hard. Exactly one month after that idea appeared on his blog, it’s now inked into Wyoming legislative paperwork. Byrne said: “This bill has a long way to go until it becomes a law, it’s got to make it through legislative services, then to Committee, and then get introduced on the floor for a vote, but the important thing is, the journey of this concept, the idea of a foreign censorship shield law which also creates a civil cause of action against foreign censors, into law has begun.” That “journey” may be the kind of slow procedural trudge that usually kills most ideas in committee, but the intent here is anything but mild, and, with the growing threat of censorship demands from the UK, Brazil, Europe, and Australia, there is a lot of momentum here to fight back. “For the first time, state legislators are moving to implement rules that will allow U.S. citizens to strike back, hard, against foreign countries that want to interfere with Americans’ civil rights online,” Byrne continued. The Act would let American citizens and companies sue foreign governments or their agents for trying to censor them, and, crucially, it strips away the usual escape hatch of sovereign immunity. In its legal filing responding to the 4chan and KiwiFarms lawsuit, Ofcom insisted it has “sovereign immunity” and told the court there were “substantial grounds” for throwing out the case on that basis. The regulator’s lawyers framed Ofcom as a protected arm of the British state, immune from civil claims even when its decisions target a platform based entirely inside the United States. Ofcom treats the idea of “sovereign immunity” as something substantial but the First Amendment as something that does not exist at all. The GRANITE Act is a defensive maneuver against a growing global trend. “Foreign governments and their agents increasingly seek to restrict, penalize or compel disclosure concerning speech occurring wholly within the United States,” the bill warns. Such efforts, it argues, “conflict with the constitutions of the United States and of Wyoming and chill speech by Wyoming residents and entities.” The act’s definition section is where its true reach becomes clear. It covers “any law, regulation, judgment, order, subpoena, administrative action or demand of a foreign state that would restrict, penalize or compel disclosure concerning expression or association” that would otherwise be protected under US law. The text is well-researched and knows all the buzzwords of tyranny, naming the categories most likely to cause friction: “foreign online safety, hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, defamation, privacy, or ‘harmful content’ laws.” It’s a catalog of the modern speech-control toolkit, all of which Wyoming now places firmly outside its borders. Wyoming’s approach also bars its own agencies from playing along. “No state agency, officer, political subdivision, or employee thereof shall provide assistance or cooperation in collecting, enforcing or giving effect to any measure” that qualifies as foreign censorship. The phrasing borrows from the constitutional doctrine of anti-commandeering, warning that local officials won’t be drafted into enforcing foreign censorship orders. In Byrne’s view, that legal protection has let overseas bureaucrats act like international hall monitors, wagging fingers at Americans through threats of fines or content bans. Byrne didn’t mince words about what he thinks this law could mean: “If we get corresponding federal action, this law, and laws like it, could represent the single greatest victory for global free speech in thirty years.” The teeth of the bill lie in its damages. The minimum penalty: ten million dollars. It matches the scale of fines already threatened by the UK and others, which have been dangling penalties of $25 million or 10 percent of global revenue for non-compliance. The math, as he puts it, is simple. A country can censor an American, but that choice now comes with a very real price tag. “Foreign countries can bully the shit out of American citizens and companies because they know that US law potentially protects them from consequences for doing so. We should take that immunity away from them.” Byrne’s theory is that once the threat of US civil suits hangs over foreign regulators, the entire global “censorship-industrial apparatus” starts to wobble. Byrne notes that the GRANITE Act would also relieve the White House from having to deal with diplomatic flare-ups over censorship complaints. Trial lawyers would take over that job, freeing the president to “move on to other, more important matters.” If the Act becomes law, the power to fight foreign censorship wouldn’t rest with federal agencies but with American citizens, state courts, and civil litigators. It would empower them to fight back against foreign censors. In the global tug-of-war over speech, Wyoming could suddenly become a frontline jurisdiction. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post The GRANITE ACT: Wyoming Bill Targets Foreign Censors With $10M Penalties appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Between the face scan at the airport and the cookie banner you rage-clicked through before finishing your coffee, you lost another inch of control over your own life. It did not feel like a big deal, just a few seconds shaved off your day, but that is how it always happens. The great privacy heist of the twenty-first century is not conducted by hackers in dark rooms. It is carried out by cheerful pop-ups and bored clerks saying, “Just look at the camera, please.” Become a Member and Keep Reading… Reclaim your digital freedom. Get the latest on censorship, cancel culture, and surveillance, and learn how to fight back. Join Already a supporter? Sign In. (If you’re already logged in but still seeing this, refresh this page to show the post.) The post How to Say No: Everyday Tactics to Take Back Your Privacy appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Is It Racist to Notice That Somali Refugees Have Brought a Crime Wave?

Cat-lovers may appreciate all these species getting along, but for prey, these forests offer nowhere to hide.

Iconic doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Could we offer you some stoßlüften?

The distinction isn't as big as you might think, and is more about humans than the weeds themselves.

It will cost less to provide a traditional Thanksgiving feast to family and friends this year than it did last year, according to the 40th annual analysis released Wednesday by The American Farm Bureau Federation. Each year, the Farm Bureau estimates the cost of feeding 10 people a Thanksgiving dinner featuring the same Thanksgiving staples. These items include: “turkey, cubed stuffing, sweet potatoes, dinner rolls, frozen peas, fresh cranberries, celery, carrots, pumpkin pie mix and crusts, whipping cream and whole milk.” This year, Thanksgiving dinner will cost $55.18, a decline of about 5% from the $58.08 tab in 2024. The price of the turkey, stuffing, cranberries, and dinner rolls accounted for the lower cost, offset partially by the higher cost of sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, celery, milk, and whipping cream. The cost of making a pumpkin pie was essentially unchanged.  While turkey prices fell over the past year, the cost of side dishes containing fruits, vegetables and potatoes rose as severe weather such as the hurricane damage suffered in North Carolina, limited crop yields.  In a separate analysis, the Farm Bureau added ham, Russet potatoes, and frozen green beans to the shopping list in order to reflect a wider variety of Thanksgiving favorites. When these items are included, the cost of Thanksgiving dinner falls from $77.37 to $77.09. There is a regional difference in pricing with either list. People living in the South and the Midwest pay less for their meal than they do in the Northeast and West.  [AI image of meal by Grok.]

Four unidentified individuals arrived at a south Florida home Saturday evening and tried to force their way inside, the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office told WPLG-TV.However, the homeowner was armed with a gun and opened fire.'Everyone has a duty and a right to defend themselves when attacked. Good job homeowner!!!'Indeed, gunshots and a male hollering in pain are audible on two home surveillance videos that are part of WPLG's report. The station in a separate story said it all went down in the area of Southwest 141st Street and 110th Avenue in Miami-Dade’s Richmond Heights neighborhood around 6:40 p.m.The homeowner struck one of the subjects in the upper body, deputies told WPLG, adding that the other three individuals fled the scene in an unknown direction.The wounded male died at a nearby hospital, the station said, adding that the Homicide Bureau of the sheriff's office has taken over the investigation.RELATED: Elderly Texas homeowner armed with hunting rifle spots burglar who broke through back door. It doesn't end well for intruder. The mother of the fatally shot male told WPLG the next morning in the separate story that she's "in shock, disbelief" and "hurt."The mother, who did not provide her name, added to the station that while she was told that her son "tried to break into someone's house," she also noted, "That's not him.”Commenters under WPLG's Facebook post about the mother's reaction offered a number of opinions in the aftermath:"I am truly sorry for this mother, but the son apparently was involved with the wrong people and participated in a fatally stupid crime," one commenter wrote. "No doubt that the homeowner feared for his life with four men trying to force their way inside. Either she really didn't know her son at all, or he was easily misled.""I'm pretty sure she is distraught," another user observed. "But the bottom line is her son committed a crime. I feel bad for her, but not for him. Break into my home and find out.""Everyone has a duty and a right to defend themselves when attacked," another commenter declared. "Good job homeowner!!!""The son should have made better choices, and he would still be here," another user noted."Play FAFO in Florida and this is the result!!!" another commenter exclaimed. "Love our freedom to protect ourselves."Authorities were continuing to search for the three remaining suspects, WPLG reported, adding that those with information can call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!