Wednesday roundup

Gonna be interesting to see the sales figures on this line of products upon launch. Wokeness on steroids:

The glamorous world of Barbie just became a whole lot more welcoming for children with disabilities, after Mattel announced the launch of new disabled dolls, one of which has a prosthetic leg, while the other is in a wheelchair.  

Set to debut in the fall, the new diverse Barbie dolls will join the ever-expanding 'Fashionistas' collection - a range that includes characters of different shapes, sizes, and races. 

'Over the years, the #Barbie #Fashionistas line has evolved to be more reflective of the world girls see around them,' a post on Barbie's official Instagram account explained. 

Kristen Gillibrand disguises her contempt for economic freedom (organizations getting to set their own policies) with that tried-and-true Democrat positive spin: caaaaaaaring. In this case, as is often the case, doncha know, it's caaaaaaaring about the American family.

Just as our national debt surpasses $22 trillion for the first time in history, presidential hopeful Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., wants to rehash her worst idea: the FAMILY Act. 

Our least-principled senator has made the media rounds putting a shiny veneer on the FAMILY Act, dressing it up as a feminist dream. But given the ramifications it would have on women's progress in the workplace, it'd be anything but. 

Gillibrand's bill would guarantee 12 weeks of paid leave at a rate of at least 66 percent of earnings for new parents, as well as some coverage for other family caregiving. Unlike the Ivanka Trump plan backed by the White House and some Republicans, which claims to be deficit neutral by allowing adults to pull from "their" Social Security prematurely — remember folks, it's a lockbox and not a Ponzi scheme! — Gillibrand funds her paid leave with a payroll tax.

To force employers to fund their workers' paid leave, encouraging gender discrimination to avoid costly risks, is one thing. To force you, me, and every other average Joe on the street to do it is another thing entirely. Worst of all, it will stymie decades of progress made by women in the workplace. 

As it turns out, if you don't hand free cash to reward women for giving birth, they tend to work more over the course of their entire lifetimes. That's good for the nation's GDP, but it's even better for the individual progress of women. 

Now, with regard to one aspect of Tiana Loew's (author of the Washington Examiner piece linked and excerpted above) argument ("individual progress of women"), I wonder what her take would be on Dennis Prager's latest column, "Not 'All Americans' Are Proud That We Have More Women in the Workforce Than Ever Before.'" This is yet another example of a phenomenon within conservatism that must be reckoned with: young conservative women who see career equity as unqualified progress. National Review's Alexandra DeSanctis took Prager to task last year for a similar column.

Now, here's where it could get real silly and tribalistic. I could say one side or the other in this debate is absolutely right and the other side absolutely full of hooey. But Prager's questions must be addressed: are post-American women happier than they were sixty years ago? Are post-American families stronger than American families were?


Gavin Newsom is forced to face reality. Well, sort of. He still wants to see this boondoggle connect those economic powerhouses Bakersfield and Merced:

During Gov. Gavin Newsom's first State of the State speech Tuesday, he surprised listeners by announcing he would put the quest for high-speed rail connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles championed by his predecessor far on the back burner.

Instead, Newsom offered a consolation prize: high-speed rail between Bakersfield and Merced.

"Let's level about the high-speed rail," Newsom said. "Let's be real, the current project as planned would cost too much and, respectfully, take too long. Right now, there simply isn't a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A. I wish there were."

Because he'd rather spend the federal subsidy than return the money to the administration run by someone he, like any 2019 Dem, must unreservedly hate:

"Abandoning the high-speed rail entirely means we will have wasted billions and billions of dollars with nothing but broken promises... and lawsuits to show for it," Newsom added, explaining he wouldn't want to send the $3.5 billion in federal money the project has been granted back to the Trump administration.

Yeah, that would be terrible to return that money that me, out here in Indiana, kicked in for this idiotic west-coast scheme.

NRO editorial that says that while the border-barrier compromise is way less than what wall enthusiasts want, they'll have to take it, because Pubs squandered their opportunity for something more substantial when they had the White House and both chambers of Congress.

I would not normally provide a link to something this foul, but occasionally we need to look squarely at the enemy. This was written by a PhD candidate in history at Columbia.

More wokeness in the business world. Memo to the above-discussed Mattel: It works out badly:

Panera Bread has shuttered the last of its ideologically driven "pay what you want" restaurants. The socialist-tinged ventures were called "Panera Cares" and the higher-ups have finally figured out that "caring" is not synonymous with "viable business model." On February 15, the final Panera Cares, located in Boston, will close.

The website Eater gives Panera Cares' history and provides the company's motivation behind the now-defunct mission:

The chain opened its first donation-based community cafe in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2010. Under the model championed by the company’s founder Ron Shaich, the restaurant operated like a typical Panera, but offered meals at a suggested donation price, with the goal of raising awareness about food insecurity. “In many ways, this whole experiment is ultimately a test of humanity,” Shaich said in a TEDx talk later that year. “Would people pay for it? Would people come in and value it?” It appears the answer is a resounding no.

Food insecurity? While having a pretty good idea of what the term means, I still looked it up. According to Feeding Texas, "Food insecurity offers an accepted method for measuring food deprivation."

You know who's probably suffering from food insecurity? The employees of Panera Cares who are no longer employed and no longer receive paychecks. You can't buy food if you don't have a job, and providing jobs is only assured if companies are focused on making money. If Panera had cared more about making money than promoting a constantly refuted ideology, its employees would still be receiving paychecks. Frighteningly, though, a growing segment of the populace seems to be allergic to common-sense economic principles.

That's what happens when you decided to ignore the LITD First Law of Economics: The money has to come from somewhere.