**Written by Doug Powers
Another Sunday has arrived, meaning it’s time for an open thread.
Batting leadoff today is a story slightly outside the presidential race and national politics realm, but it’s one that is too great of a metaphor to ignore…
A vegan restaurant with a “progressive business model” opened in 2011 a few dozen miles drive west on I-96 from where I sit, and it’s turned into an interesting statement about socialism.
This was the vision:
The inspiration for the worker-owned restaurant was based on Cappelletti’s own restaurant experience.
“Because of our economy, people are working 12- to-15-hour shifts, servers take home $200 to $300 a night in tips, the cooks are making $10 an hour and the owner takes whatever he takes, ” Cappelletti told MLive in 2011. “We’re going to have equal pay and equal say across the board. Everyone working together.”
Employees would be expected to join the union, Industrial Workers of the World, he said.
In keeping with the worker empowerment theme, he commissioned a mural depicting Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong and other provocative leaders tackling restaurant duties.
If they weren’t vegans they could have sold fried chicken and called the place “Colonel (Bernie) Sanders” and probably made a fortune, but I digress.
Alas, over time, something fairly predictable happened to the restaurant modeled on socialism: Socialism:
But problems cropped up.
Customers complained about waiting 40 minutes or more for a sandwich. What’s more, employees set the restaurant’s hours by group decision, Heat Street said, so it would open and close at random times.
Not a very favorable combination — particularly given Bartertown Diner needed a high sales volume to keep pace with its operational costs, Thad Cummings, who took over the outfit in March, told MLive.
So Bartertown Diner — which in September was renamed The Garden Diner and Cafe — closed up shop Nov. 30.
The building should be renamed “Little Venezuela” and a plaque placed outside displaying the whole story as a cautionary tale. The only thing missing is an anti-capitalist leader who skipped the country with billions after putting up the “closed for business” sign.
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The line between reality and parody having been crossed long ago, Jill Stein figures it’s probably OK to call for a recount of the recount:
A national voter ID law should be passed for added backfire.
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Remember in 2012 when the Dems were mocking Mitt Romney for saying Russia still posed a threat? The Left would now appreciate it if everybody forgot about all that:
U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help President-elect Donald Trump win the White House, and not just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.
U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that as the 2016 presidential campaign progressed, Russian government officials devoted increasing attention to assisting Trump’s effort to win the election, the U.S. official familiar with the finding told Reuters on Friday night, speaking on condition of anonymity.
As of now, I’ve only read some anonymously sourced statements to that effect but haven’t seen any actual proof. I’ve also not seen top Dems explain why releasing hacked DNC emails would have helped Trump win the election since the Dems are always on the side of “working people” and never conspiring unfairly or misrepresenting themselves.
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Flashback (via Weasel Zippers) to Obama, just a few weeks ago, saying “no reasonable person thinks you can rig America’s elections”:
Then Hillary lost. All bets are off!
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How bad have things gotten for the Dems? Even John Kennedy is a Republican now:
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Al Gore is releasing a sequel to “An Inconvenient Truth,” and hopefully this one will explain why we’re not all dead by now like the first one predicted:
Al Gore is making a sequel to his 2006 environmental documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”
The former vice president’s next film will premiere at Sundance Film Festival in January, the Associated Press reported.
Paramount Pictures said the new film will focus on the continued rise of global warming and how to address it.
I’m told Gore decided not to go with my suggested title, “Why the F**k are Beachfront Property Prices Skyrocketing Even Though I Said Coastal US Will Be Under Water?”
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Last but not least, retiring Sen. Harry Reid has bid farewell to the Senate, and here’s the condition of the Democratic Party as he walks away:
Have a good Sunday all!
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
