On the eve of Puzder’s long-delayed confirmation hearing, some Republicans said Wednesday they’re concerned over his failure to pay taxes for five years on a former housekeeper who wasn’t authorized to work in the U.S.
One Republican senator said more than six GOP senators asked the White House to not go through with Puzder’s hearing Thursday because they don’t see themselves voting to confirm him. That would put the nomination in jeopardy, since Senate Republicans have a 52-48 majority and Democrats are solidly opposed.
Guardian:
Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison said Puzder was not to be trusted. “How can we expect Puzder to do his job and protect workers when his own employees are having their wages stolen?” said Ellison. “Good jobs and fair wages aren’t in Puzder’s vocabulary.”
Both the congressman and Hernandez, the fast food cook, pointed out the gulf between Puzder’s salary and Hernandez’s own wages. “Puzder is paid more in one day than we each make in one year working at his restaurant chains, and that’s the way he wants to keep it,” Hernandez said.
Ellison concurred: “While he takes home a multimillion-dollar salary, many of his own employees are barely getting by.”
Puzder opposes an increased minimum wage and a lower threshold for overtime pay, both of which would raise costs at the restaurant company’s main businesses: hamburger chains Hardees and Carl’s Jr. Earlier this year the executive made headlines when he moved the company headquarters from Carpinteria, California, to Nashville, Tennessee, where there is no state tax on personal income. In 2012, Puzder’s compensation from CKE was $4.4m.
Puzder also drew controversy last year with Carl’s Jr Super Bowl ads starring scantily clad models devouring hamburgers, which he characterized as patriotic at the time.
“I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis,” he told Entrepreneur magazine. “I think it’s very American,” he said. “I used to hear, brands take on the personality of the CEO. And I rarely thought that was true, but I think this one, in this case, it kind of did take on my personality.”
this link
CKE is a privately held company. In 2013 the company was acquired by Roark Capital Group, an Atlanta-based private equity firm named for Howard Roark, the leading protagonist in Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead. Rand and her books remain significant influences on American libertarians and conservatives.
This Andrew Putzder, his nomination cheapens the "Trump brand" and that's with the bar set as low as it was before his name surfaced.
It is unclear how the wife-beating part of the Guardian's coverage arose, if in fact it happened, Putzder denies it. Perhaps the ex-wife suggested he pay his workers a living wage; and he lost it on hearing apostasy in his family.
UPDATE: The "I Love Texas" YouTube, here. There appears to be no online video of the wife-beating. Nor of the illegal housekeeper; how she dressed while keeping the man's house; washing his automobile; doing very American chores for the boss. For all we know, she may have had an Ayn Rand haircut.
_______________FURTHER UPDATE______________
Strib, source of image; story here. Hell, no fight in that dog. He's got his sure-fire DeVos-trained tie-breaker skulking around in the background; so where's his chutzpah?
DeVos is the one who should have withdrawn. Putzder at least is no fumbling ignoramus; just a flat-out mean SOB. Unfit for the job. But wasn't that the nub of the entire DeVos situation?
Putzder must wish he'd contributed more to GOP campaigns; that clearly being the touchstone. Not quality. Nor experience. Nor sagacity.