Starbucks' free college education will cost you

Last week, Starbucks made headlines when it announced it would pay for the online college tuition at Arizona State University for its full-time employees. Unfortunately, now we know how Starbucks will pay for it: by raising prices on its customers.

The coffee chain announced Saturday that it will raise prices on its drinks across the board on Tuesday, between 10 and 15 cents each. In some markets, the price hike will be even higher. It also announced it was raising the price of bags of coffee sold in stores $1 per bag.

Prices on Starbucks drinks were raised just last year, and this new price hike is not connected to the price of coffee beans, as prices with suppliers are locked in for a year in advance. This leads many to believe the hike may be, in part, due to the new college plan they announced.

The Starbucks college plan sounded like a great idea when it was announced, and it will be a great investment in retaining quality employees for the chain and improving quality of life for a number of employees. However, many wondered how the chain could afford the cost, which could be as much as $30,000 per employee per year.

While Starbucks has made some impressive moves to support its employees, many are upset with the company's executive leadership, which often supports liberal causes. That includes a well publicized statement by CEO Howard Schultz last year that their efforts to support organizations working to legalize gay marriage meant there was no room for supporters of traditional marriage in the company.

Malia Obama steals a Hollywood job from an unemployed American

There are more than 20 million unemployed and underemployed workers in America, including many working on Hollywood productions. First Daughter Malia Obama, on the other hand, seems to have no problem finding a job in Tinseltown.

The 15-year-old just finished her school year at the exclusive Sidwell Friends private school in Washington, D.C., and immediately flew out with the First Lady to California ahead of her father's visit to Palm Springs this weekend. While the President played golf and attended a fundraiser in the area, Malia and her mother Michelle Obama went to the Los Angeles set of the CBS sci-fi series Extant, starring Halle Berry. According to The Wrap, Malia worked as a production assistant on the show while there, including assisting the computer shop alignments and "slating" a take. It is unclear how she got the job, as spokespeople for both CBS and the First Lady did not respond to The Wrap's request for a comment. Michelle Obama reportedly accompanied Malia to the set.

Halle Berry is a longtime supporter of President Obama. She made numerous donations to his campaigns, and during his initial Presidential run in 2008, Berry said "I'll do whatever he says to do. I'll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear."

Playing golf while Iraq falls and the world burns....

Considering the state of the world right now (especially Iraq), it seems like the President should be doing something other than fund raising and golfing in Palm Springs, and yet, that's just what's he's doing this weekend. So this cartoon from 2010 seemed fitting. Things never change.

Bigots pose a threat to the conservative cause

The recent influx of refugee children from Central American countries has not only exposed the flaws in our broken immigration system, it seems to have emboldened racial bigots who try to align themselves with the conservative cause. Despite their harsh and hateful rhetoric, they rarely go unchallenged by many on the right, creating the perception that this sort of racism is inherent within conservatism.

A Twitter user who calls himself "Lord Wabbit" and boasts over 1,800 followers recently tweeted a cartoon he created, criticizing the move to help the child refugees. The cartoon (shown here) includes dolls dressed in traditional Mexican attire (including serapes and sombreros), as well as a couple of chihuahuas, all demanding citizenship for their family, including "my uncle the drug dealer" and "my 37 cousins." The picture was retweeted by a number of people times, including "Marble," a popular conservative with 18,500 followers.

Jack Bauer & Ninjas beat Hillary Clinton in TV ratings

Have faith, folks: there's hope for America yet. It seems voters aren't exactly crazy for Hillary Clinton.

Monday night saw the much-heralded ABC interview between Hillary Clinton and her mainstream media BFF Diane Sawyer. The interview dominated news broadcasts in the days leading up to broadcast, as Clinton's new book, Hard Choices, is due to be released.

Some might think the first major interview with the front-runner to be the next President would attract a lot of attention. Those who do, however, don't know Jack.

According to overnight Nielsen ratings, more people tuned in to watch Kiefer Sutherland play Jack Bauer in the latest episode of the miniseries "24: Live Another Day" than the Hillary Clinton interview.

6.33 million viewers watched Sutherland's "24," while "Hillary Clinton: Public and Private with Diane Sawyer" attracted 6.08 million viewers to finish second. For Clinton, that's barely more viewers than what came in third: two repeats of Mike and Molly on CBS, which brought in 5.27 million viewers. NBC's "American Ninja Warrior" attracted 4.93 million viewers.

The news gets worse for Clinton in the key demographic rating of viewers 18 to 49 years of age. The interview scored a 1.0 key demo rating, meaning 1% of all TVs owned by viewers that age watched the interview. That was only good for fourth place among shows at that time, and it means more people 18 to 49 preferred to watch "24" (1.6 in the key demo), "American Ninja Warrior" (1.8 in the key demo), and reruns of "Mike and Molly" (1.2 in the key demo) instead of hearing Clinton. On the plus side, she did beat out the CW's "Beauty and Beast" in the ratings, a show that appeals to 13-year-old girls.

Rockwall Conservative to GOP: Alienate Hispanic voters at your own peril

The Rockwall Conservative is at it again! With so many blogs out there, it's hard to find the diamonds in the rough, those conservatives who are saying some truly profound things we should hear, not just regurgitating talking points and preaching to the choir. That's why I'm pretty picky with the folks I link to; I only want to list sites that I feel are worth your valuable time. The Rockwall Conservative is certainly one of them.

This past weekend, the Texas State GOP Convention was held in Ft. Worth, and an uprising of some Republican activists had the party's immigration platform removed. The platform, dubbed the "Texas Solution," not only acknowledged our system was broken, but set out common-sense reforms for the system, including a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for undocumented and illegal immigrants. Instead, the immigration platform now in place offers no reform or solution of any kind, and supports a stance that will keep our broken system in place for years to come. This is because the new immigration platform (and those who support it) insist that the border be secured first before reforms are made, a goal that could take decades to achieve, if ever. Meanwhile, millions of decent future Americans are subjected to mass poverty, high crime, drug-fueled violence, and socialistic governments. Our misguided hubris on this issue is costing lives south of the border.

I've posted on this site before that I feel comprehensive immigration reform is a concept supported by conservative principles, free-market capitalism, and Christian ethics. This concept is undermined by those who use vague buzzwords like "amnesty" to derail the process. The anti-reform forces in our party are amassing a political toll as well, one that we will pay in elections to come.

The Rockwall Conservative points out in a new column just what this sort of political grandstanding (and the shrill rhetoric that accompanied it) will cost us in terms of support by Hispanic voters. "I don’t know everything, but I do know some things well," he says in the column. "For example, I know the defeat of the Texas Solution is taken as an assault on legitimate Hispanic citizens and legal residents. Ah! Just what the Democrats wanted!"

To read the entire column, please click here to visit RockwallConservative.me.

You should really get to know the artist Sabo

If you haven't heard of the artist named Sabo, you should have. The underground artist has been responsible for some controversial (at least for liberals) artwork in the Los Angeles area. That includes the "Abortion Barbie" poster (left) and the "Tattoo Ted Cruz" posters that popped up around the city when he made an appearance.

On his/her website, UnsavoryAgents.com, Sabo promises to use the same tactics left-wing artists use, only this time, to fight for conservatism. " My aim as an artist is to be as dirty, ground level, and mean as any Liberal artist out there," Sabo said.

If you want to help Sabo out, visit the UnsavoryAgents website and buy some merchandise. Capitalism in support of a conservative artist only infuriates the left more.

Mad Magazine trolls President Obama

When even the left-leaning Mad Magazine is mocking you, you've pretty much lost all credibility with America. Wow.

CBO: Oh yeah, we were wrong about Obamacare, sorry about that...

Before Obamacare became the law of the land, supporters pointed to projections by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that said the new regulations would cut the federal deficit by $120 billion over ten years. Republicans said that was ridiculous, but the CBO stood by their numbers.

Now, the Republicans have been proven right.

The CBO recently, and rather quietly, admitted they were wrong about Obamacare, in a footnote buried in a recent report on new insurance regulations. Roll Call first caught the admission, which included this statement:

"CBO and JCT can no longer determine exactly how the provisions of the ACA that are not related to the expansion of health insurance coverage have affected their projections of direct spending and revenues,” the CBO wrote. “The provisions that expanded coverage established entirely new programs or components of programs that can be isolated and reassessed. Isolating the incremental effects of those provisions on previously existing programs and revenues four years after enactment of the ACP is not possible.”

This admission is probably of little solace to those Republicans who insisted Obamacare was bad policy, but at the very least, the CBO can now be counted as one sounding the alarm over the impending trainwreck the new law will bring. Estimates by the CBO now say the new regulations could cost over $1 trillion over ten years.

Sadly, Nacy Pelosi was right: we did have to pass Obamacare to find out what was in it. There just wasn't anything good to be found.

Wendy Davis calls unborn child a 'baby,' plays victim over 'Abortion Barbie' poster

Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis' latest fundraising tactic involves an open letter she reportedly penned in response to the "Abortion Barbie" poster controversy. While she attempts to play the helpless victim in the open letter, including referring to her critics as "attackers," Davis may have made her biggest political blunder to date. In the open letter, she refers to an unborn child as a "baby," a statement that is fully at odds with her support of late-term abortion. 

During her recent fundraising trip to Hollywood, Davis was greeted with some less-than-flattering posters plastered across the city. The posters, created by an artist named Sabo, feature Davis' face on a pregnant doll, while a cutaway stomach reveals an unborn baby inside. The doll is also holding the hand of an African-American baby while a large pair of scissors dangle overhead. The words "Hollywood Welcomes Abortion Barbie Wendy Davis" complete the image.

Remember the six heroes who died looking for Bowe Bergdahl

 

We don't know for certain if Bowe Bergdahl is a deserter and a traitor, although many who served with him seem to think so. It's pretty telling that his own sergeant started a Facebook page against him. The pro-Taliban tweets Bergdahl's father is sending out aren't winning him any fans.

Instead of focusing on Bergdahl, let's focus on the six brave Americans who lost their lives in the search for him. They are the true heroes.