The entire purpose of a credit report is to give lenders some insight into whether or not a person will pay them back based on past history. It doesn’t matter where a person’s debt originated. In yet another election year stupid scheme, Biden is setting up the next debt bubble and market crash as he blinds lenders to the credit worthiness of their potential customers.
In a sweeping change that could improve millions of Americans’ ability to own a home or buy a car, the Biden administration on Tuesday proposed a rule to ban medical debt from credit reports.
The rule, announced by Vice President Kamala Harris and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra, comes as President Joe Biden beefs up his efforts to persuade Americans his administration is lowering costs, a chief concern for voters in the upcoming election.
[…]
CFPB’s research estimates that the new rule would allow 22,000 more people to get approved for safe mortgages each year — meaning lenders could also benefit from the positive impact on peoples’ credit scores, by being able to approve more borrowers.
I’ll admit it. I’m surprised. While it was obviously a slam-dunk case, I did not think that a Delaware jury would convict him. I don’t expect that he will see a day in jail, but the verdict surprises me. I doubt that the verdict moves a single vote for the presidential election, but it’s something.
Here’s where things currently stand:
Hunter Biden has been found guilty of lying about his drug use when buying a gun. After three hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty on all three counts.
Hunter faces a maximum of 25 years in prison for all three counts. An exact date has not been scheduled. The judge has said sentencing dates usually take place within a 120-day period.
Hunter showed little emotion as the guilty verdicts were read out, staring ahead with his arms folded before turning around to hug some of the associates on his legal team.
If you were coming here today to read my latest weekly column for the Washington County Daily News, I’m sorry to disappoint you. My time as a columnist for Conley Media has come to an end. Last week’s column was my final one.
The reason is simple. Money. It is no secret that traditional newspapers have suffered greatly in the internet age. With so many outlets for news, people have moved away from traditional local newspapers and their revenue has, consequently, suffered. And so, Conley has cut back on their budget for freelance writers like me and my column has been cut.
It’s been a helluva run and I am immensely appreciative to Conley. Jed and I started this blog in 2003. It was before social media and at the beginning of the heyday of blogging and citizen journalism. It was a lot of fun and we built a substantial audience with some significant influence.
In 2006, Conley did something really smart. In order to capitalize on the popularity of blogging, they asked several prominent Wisconsin bloggers, including me, to write a weekly column for them. I initially chaffed at the notion of a deadline and an editor. After all, blogging offers unlimited freedom of content and form. But I accepted the offer and figured I could always quit if it became onerous.
The column proved to be a joy. I came to appreciate the discipline of writing every week. I really tried to keep the column focused on state or local issues. There are plenty of other writers who write about national and international issues. My thought was that the readers of Conley’s papers wanted to read about home. My editors over the years (sans one) allowed me immense latitude and kept me honest on facts. They occasionally nudged me on tone, but never on content. A special shoutout to my editor of the past several years, Brian Huber, for his guidance and support.
I also enjoyed the column because it afforded me the opportunity to have a conversation with a different audience than this blog. There is some crossover, but they are different audiences. As I have put less effort into the blog in recent years as I have other life priorities, the column remained a weekly commitment. I believe I am the last remaining blogger columnist from that era. The others dropped off long ago for various reasons. Perhaps the death of my column will breathe new life into this blog. Perhaps not. Don’t get your hopes up.
All told, I wrote every week except for two. Once I missed my deadline because I broke my collar bone. I forget why I missed the other time. In total, I wrote 954 columns, or roughly 670,000 words over 18 years and 4 months from February 7, 2006, to June 4, 2024. The column ran every Tuesday in the Washington County Daily News, nee West Bend Daily News, and was regularly republished in other Conley newspapers around the state as they saw fit.
Thank you to all of the people who read and enjoyed (or hated) the column for the last almost two decades. And thank you to the good folks at Conley Media for publishing my work for so long. It was fun to write. I enjoyed the conversation. I hope y’all did too.
Of those who said they see the election as a judgement on Trump, most vote for Biden, 66 percent to 34 percent. When people see it as a judgement on just Biden, they vote for Trump, also 66 percent to 34 percent.
With voters who see it as a comparison between the two candidates, slightly more respondents are voting for Trump, 53 percent, over Biden, who shored up 47 percent support.
by Owen | 0626, 10 Jun 2424 | Politics | 4 Comments
Wow. This story cataloging a bunch of Biden’s repeated lies is in the New York Times. Of course, many of the folks on the right have been pointing out Biden’s lies for years and he has been a known BSer for his entire career, but the fact that the venerable liberal establishment paper of record is pointing them out is notable. They shy away from the work “lie” and use softer words like “hyperbole,” “yarns,” and “false,” but they published the story.
WASHINGTON — In President Joe Biden’s telling, he was a teenage civil rights activist, a former trucker, the first in his family to go college and the nephew of a cannibalism victim.
All of these claims stretch the truth or are downright false. But Biden persists in telling personal tales with rhetorical flourishes and factual liberty when he works a room or regales an audience. They are a way to connect with voters, emphasize his “middle-class Joe” persona and charm his audience.
Despite Biden’s penchant for exaggerating details when recounting episodes from his life, these autobiographical embellishments differ in scale and significance from the stream of lies about a stolen election peddled by his opponent, former President Donald Trump.
A White House spokesperson, Andrew Bates, said that Biden had “brought honesty and integrity back to the White House” and that he shared life experiences that had shaped his outlook.
Here are some of the president’s most repeated yarns.
A shooting at a rooftop party in Wisconsin early on Sunday left at least 10 people injured, including teenagers, police said.
Nine people were injured by gunfire and another was injured by broken glass at the party at a high-rise apartment in downtown Madison.
[…]
The victims ranged in age from 14 to 23.
“It is truly a miracle that no one is dead,” the Madison police chief, Shon Barnes, said at a news conference. “As a community, our hearts are hurting.”
[…]
No one was in custody on Sunday in connection with the shooting. Police did not offer a motive.
It’s a move in the right direction. Bear in mind, however, that when the media calls people “right wing,” they mean moderates from 10 years ago.
LONDON — Populist, far-right parties could have a bigger hand in European policymaking over the next five years after initial results from the EU election on Sunday suggested the parliamentary landscape is being redrawn.
Gains for the nationalist Identity and Democracy (ID) party — and losses for the Greens/European Free Alliance — could leave centrist parties dependent on the right for key votes in the 720 seat European Parliament.
The Parliament has, in the past, been led by a strong majority of centrist parties, who typically vote together on issues to win a majority in the 720 seat chamber. Indeed, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) is once again projected to win the most parliamentary seats and retain its dominance in the chamber.
But a centrist coalition led by the EPP might now depend on support from the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) to pass certain legislation, with research firm Eurasia Group describing the ECR in a pre-election note as potential “key players.”
[…]
Immigration will remain front and center of the policy agenda in the next Parliament, with right-wing parties expected to advocate for increased border security and a tougher stance on arrivals from outside the EU.
The Socialists continue to push Mexico into financial oblivion. This is why they support allowing their criminals and poor to cross into the United States. They need the inflow of money from expats and the outsourcing of social welfare to the American taxpayers.
But most worrisome to markets is that López Obrador’s Morena party won a two-thirds majority in Congress, which would allow them to pass changes to the Constitution, like the judicial reform, as well as mandates for a series of yet-unfunded government benefit programs.
López Obrador pledged Friday to continue to press for 20 constitutional changes, including one that would undo the country’s current system of individual retirement accounts and the elimination of most independent government oversight and regulatory agencies.
Sheinbaum has spoken by phone or in person this week with officials from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the head of the BlackRock investment company, after the peso plunged and the stock market briefly dipped on Monday.
When can you tell that a politician doesn’t give a crap but knows that he needs to pretend for the sake of appeasing the people? When they appoint a Blue Ribbon Committee. This is the same thing. Evers was head of the DPI for ten years and governor for six years. MPS has been a disaster for all of that time and longer. Throughout, he did nothing. This is more of the same. Evers owes his political fortunes to the money and manpower of the teachers’ unions. He is not going to even attempt to stand in the way of the gravy train in Milwaukee. And no… he doesn’t give a crap about the kids. If he did, he would have done something about MPS long ago.
MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – Governor Tony Evers announced on Friday that he is calling for operational and instructional audits of Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).
Officials say Governor Evers is proposing direct funding to support both audits. This proposal would give a more comprehensive review than the ongoing MPS audit, which focuses more on the district’s financial statements.
Normal people do not want to abandon modern life and modern conveniences for the sake of the climate change zealots – nor should they be forced to. And in this case, once again, it will be the poor countries who suffer most for the egotism of the rich countries.
PARIS – For all the steps Paris organizers have taken to put on the greenest Olympics ever, their boldest measure – the one they’ve touted again and again – pertains to the dorms in the Athletes’ Village. The rooms don’t have air-conditioning. Because of other cooling measures, organizers have assured, the athletes won’t need it.
But in a farcical turn, when the Games start next month, an Olympic Village designed to showcase sustainability will be more of an energy hog than organizers had hoped.
That’s because portable air-conditioning units will be everywhere. Wheeled in. Shipped in. Ordered by visiting countries that want their athletes to sleep well and perform at the highest level – even if it means a larger carbon footprint.
Worried about what potentially could be the world’s hottest year on record, wealthier nations have effectively undercut Paris’s marquee sustainability measure, signaling that, yes, they care about environmental aims – but not if it risks the comfort of their athletes. Some of those athletes are accustomed to temperatures cooler than what the dorms might have provided and raised concerns to their national Olympic committees.
“It’s a high-performance environment,” said Strath Gordon, the chief of public affairs for the Olympic committee of Australia, one of the countries opting for the ACs.
[…]
“We don’t have deep pockets,” said Donald Rukare, a lawyer who is president of the Uganda Olympic Committee. Rukare mentioned a sweltering international sports competition in Turkey a few years ago, where athletes stayed in rooms without air-conditioning. Some federations shipped in portable units; Uganda did not. “Because we didn’t have the money,” he said.
Four hostages kidnapped by Hamas from the Nova music festival during the 7 October attacks have been rescued in a daylight raid deep in central Gaza.
Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrei Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, were freed during a “high-risk, complex mission” from two separate buildings in the Nuseirat area, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The IDF said the four are in good medical condition and have been transferred to the ‘Sheba’ Tel-HaShomer Medical Center, where they have been pictured embracing family members waiting at the facility.
[…]
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said the mission was based on “precise” intelligence and that Israeli forces came under fire during the operation.
One special forces officer was wounded in the Gaza hostage rescue and later died in hospital, Israel police said.
Few comments. First, this is why the war continues. It all could have ended months ago had Hamas released the hostages and surrendered. Hamas is the aggressor and they will not stop until someone stops them. That is what Israel is doing… stopping them.
Second, I’ll admit, I thought all of the hostages were dead by now. The horror that must have experienced is unimaginable.
Third, it is notable that the hostages were being held in civilian houses protected by Hamas fighters and supporting civilian residents – if one can even articulate a difference between who is formally Hamas and who is just casually Hamas. And those differences fluctuate from moment to moment. Asking the IDF to tell the difference in real time is an unreasonable standard.
Fourth, I’ve been trying to think of how I would react – how most Americans would react – in a similar situation. Israel essentially gave Gaza to the Palestinians years ago. They have been self-governing while Israel continues to manage the borders. Israel has provided financial, infrastructure, and logistical support for the improvement of the Gazan condition. The Palestinians elected Hamas and have overwhelmingly supported them ever since. Over the years, Gazans have launched rockets and terror attacks into Israel.
Where is there a similar situation in America? The federal government has essentially ceded millions of acres of land to many Native American Tribes. They are effectively self-governing within the borders of the reservations. The taxpayers of the nation provide financial, infrastructure, and logistical support for the improvement of the Tribal condition. What if one of the tribes launched an attack on Summerfest, killed over a thousand people, raped old women and children, took hundreds of hostages, and retreated to the reservation? Would you support bringing down the full force of the U.S. Military on Tribal forces until every single hostage was freed? Would you support continuing the action until the people who launched and supported the attack are dead or in prison? Would you support a reconsideration of allowing the same people who launched the attack to continue to hold the reins of power and exercise self-governance?
I would. Most Americans would. That is what Israel is facing and why most Americans support them.
“That this adult felt emboldened to behave in this way in front of hundreds of students and other adults should deeply trouble us all; this type of behavior will not be tolerated,” the school board said, adding that it “condemns such actions and asks the community to take a stand and speak out against this type of behavior that threatens the fabric of our democracy.”
The story is that a dad went up on stage during graduation and pushed the superintendent because the dad didn’t want the superintendent to shake his daughter’s hand. The dad’s behavior is completely inappropriate. He’s been appropriately charged with disorderly conduct.
To extrapolate this dad’s idiotic, isolated, behavior as something that “threatens the fabric of our democracy” that requires that the “community take a stand” is absolutely idiotic. Get over yourselves, Baraboo School Board. This is one guy and he’s been dealt with. His behavior is not indicative of anything other than he’s a dolt. And I’m willing to bet that the Baraboo School Board is not the paragon of democracy.
The White House was forced into a fresh damage control effort Wednesday to defend the 81-year-old commander in chief’s acuity as he embarked on a grueling foreign trip and as the race gets nastier by the day.
The latest episode was sparked by a Wall Street Journal article that cited descriptions – disputed by the White House – of the president’s state of mind and fitness from what it described as more than 45 interviews with both Democrats and Republicans. The president was depicted as speaking so softly in one meeting about Ukraine that he was almost unintelligible to some participants. Other sources questioned whether he was fully in command of key details of his own policies.
Democrats accused Republicans quoted or referred to in the account of making false claims and contradicting previous statements to damage Biden politically. Washington Sen. Patty Murray, for instance, complained on X that her comments to the Journal about the president’s strong engagement in a meeting on Ukraine in January were not used by the paper.
Not that I want to help Biden, and not that they are reading a little Wisconsin blog… but this is idiotic PR. They would be much better off saying something like, “yes, he’s old and has slowed down a bit, but Biden is experienced and up the job for another term.” Yes, it’s still a lie, but flatly denying what all of us are seeing is stupid.
The measure takes effect immediately because the new policy is triggered when arrests for illegal entry reach 2,500. About 4,000 people already are entering the U.S. each day. It was a major policy shift on a critical election-year issue that’s exposed Biden to Republican criticism over an unprecedented surge in new arrivals in an election year.
First, Biden has been saying for years that he is unable to do anything at the border without congressional action. Then he pops up this week and does something via executive order. He lies because it is his nature.
Second, if we can close te border after 2,500, then why cant we do it at zero? Why do we just have to allow over 900,000 illegal aliens into our nation every year before we lift a finger? Why must Americans and American taxpayers take on the burden of supporting these people when we are already so, so broke?
Biden is intentionally destroying our country by throwing open our borders to allow in the refuse of the world. This is just a head fake during an election year to bamboozle the stupid.
My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Not withstanding the resignation of the superintendent last night, MPS is rotten to the core.
The Milwaukee Public School District is absolutely awash with money. Already one of the highest spending districts in the state, the district received hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars from state taxpayers, COVID money, and a new tax increase. They have so much money that they cannot even tell anyone where they are spending it. And yet, the kids in their charge continue to receive a terrible education. Milwaukee’s voters do not seem to care, but the cost to the rest of the state is enormous.
One cannot discuss MPS without reminding ourselves how terrible the district is at educating kids. After all, all of the money is supposed to be for educating kids, right? According to the state Department of Public Instruction’s district report card, only 17.3 percent of MPS students are proficient or better in language arts. That means that less than one in five district kids can read or write at or above grade level. For math, it is worse. Only 11.1 percent kids can do math at or above grade level.
The district’s graduation rate is a pathetic 71.1 percent compared with a 91.8 percent state average. Considering how abysmal the performance scores are for MPS kids, the fact that they are graduating over 70 percent speaks to how pathetically low the standards are to graduate from MPS.
Keeping in mind the knowledge of how bad MPS is at their core mission of educating kids, the recent debacle over finances should enrage you even more.
A couple of weeks ago, federal officials suspended funding for the Head Start program (a program that has proven to be ineffective and should be shuttered, but that is not the subject of this column) over MPS officials slipshod management of the program. Last week, state officials at the DPI threatened to withhold state funding until MPS submits mandatory financial reports to the state. MPS is eight months late in submitting the financial reports.
It is clear that MPS has become so dysfunctional that they cannot even manage to submit routine financial reports that have been done for decades. The more cynical of us might suspect that they have not submitted their financial reports because they do not want people to know where they are spending all of the money. As a practice, however, I try to not ascribe to malice what can readily be explained by rank incompetence. And if there is any word that describes MPS’ leadership, “incompetence” is a word that is easily defensible.
Federal and state actions come as MPS has submitted its budget for this year. At $1.47 billion, MPS intends to spend about $1.5 billion to educate about 62,000 students. For those doing quick math at home, yes, that is over $24,000 tax dollars being spent per student to ensure that one in five can read and one in 10 can do math.
Bear in mind that MPS has been rolling in cash for years. During the pandemic, MPS received over $1 billion in COVID relief money despite the fact that their schools were closed much longer than most other schools in the state.
In the most recent state budget passed last year, state lawmakers increased K12 spending by $1 billion. The lion’s share of that went to MPS.
Just a couple of months ago, district voters idiotically passed a referendum that allowed MPS to jack up property taxes to spend an additional $252 million. During the debate over that referendum, MPS officials were unable or unwilling to even tell voters where the money would be spent.
Given how bad MPS officials are at math, it is no wonder that they are terrible at teaching kids how to do it.
If there was ever a case for ending the government monopoly on the delivery of education, MPS is it. While they spend an eye-popping amount of money, they are unwilling or unable to give details on where the money is being spent. And at the end of the day, they are dreadfully bad at executing their core mission to educate kids. How much longer will parents and taxpayers ignore the fact that MPS is a failed institution? If history is any guide, the answer is “forever.”
‘Does (Trump) want to become a loser president? Do you understand what can happen… the institutions of the United States will become very weak – the US will not be the leader of the world anymore.’
[…]
‘A ceasefire is a trap,’ he said, adding that Putin would humiliate Trump by violating the terms of any deal to ‘go further’ in Ukraine and pursue his own goals.
He said that failure to continue providing Ukraine with aid and military support would degrade America’s reputation as a powerful world leader.
‘This is not about him [Trump], as a person but about the institutions of the United States. They will become very weak. The US will not be the leader of the world any more… in terms of international influence it will be equal to zero,’ the Ukrainian president declared.
He also warned a Trump decision to end US support of Kyiv could embolden other countries and groups with nefarious intentions to risk waging wars of their own.
And finally, he confirmed that he remains in close contact with former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whom he said he was ‘using as an instrument’ to hold informal talks with the US, and apologised for doing so.
She has said that it is important to tackle what she says are the roots of the violence and has promised to invest in welfare programmes to prevent poor young Mexicans from being recruited by criminal groups.
On relations with Mexico’s northern neighbour, the United States, which at times have been testy under her predecessor in office, she said she would ensure there would be “a relationship of friendship, mutual respect and equality”.
But in a reference to the many Mexicans living and working in the US, she promised to “always defend the Mexicans who are on the other side of the border”.
Pumping taxpayer money into welfare does not solve the “root causes” of crime. Locking up crappy violent people solves the root causes crime. History has shown this to be the case time and time again. If you want to see an American city with a hollowed out core riddled with crime, look to the ones with giant welfare roles.
Why? Simple. First, welfare murders the work ethic and creates a culture of dependence, entitlement, and resentment. These are the cultural predicates of a criminal mind.
Second, free government money being carelessly pumped into neighborhoods fuels crime. Criminals know how to work the system to get money and the money readily flows into the drug trade. In Mexico, with the cartels controlling entire cities, it is child’s play for them to reroute the money into their pockets.
In regard to her comments about Mexicans in America, until we here a Mexican government talk about creating a culture and economy that will keep their citizens home instead of fleeing to the United States for a better life, Mexico and Mexicans will continue to suffer. He goal should not be to defend her citizens who illegally fled to another country to escape the hellhole that is their homeland. Her goal should be to encourage them to come home and build their own country.
Despite the international celebration of Mexico electing its first woman president, it looks like it will just be more of the same.
Oh, and don’t forget this. The cartels are ensuring that the Mexican legislature and local governments are staffed with their supporters.
As well as a new president, voters were also electing all members of Mexico’s Congress and governors in eight states, the head of Mexico City’s government, and thousands of local officials.
And it was local candidates in particular who were targeted in the run-up to the vote.
The government says more than 20 were killed across Mexico, although other surveys put the total at 37.
Whatever. By the time we see if anything Biden does is real or just another show, the election will be over.
Biden is reportedly expected to sign an executive order this week that will address immigration and border security amid criticism from both parties over his handling of the situation at the border, NewsNation reported last week, citing a border community leader who requested anonymity. NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.
When asked on “Fox News Sunday” if Biden should receive credit for making moves on border security after months of requests from Johnson, the Speaker said, “I don’t … it’s too little too late now.”
“He’s trying to desperately show the American people that he wants to address the issue that he himself created,” Johnson continued. “We documented 64 specific actions that President Biden and Secretary [Alejandro Mayorkas] at [the Department of Homeland Security] took over … the course of three and a half years, beginning on the first day that President Biden [took office], to open the border. They did it intentionally; it’s had catastrophic effects upon our country that we’ll be living with for decades to come.”
Johnson and House Republicans have repeatedly lamented the Biden administration’s border policies, arguing they have contributed to the mass influx of migrants into the U.S. and the country’s fentanyl spread. In January, Johnson’s office released a list of 64 instances it claimed showed the Biden administration “undermining border security policy and encouraging illegal immigration.”
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican volunteer searcher criticized in the past by the government has found more human remains in Mexico City and officials have attacked her for it — again.
The existence of clandestine body dumping grounds is sensitive for Mexico’s ruling Morena party. Morena, which is running the former Mexico City mayor for president in Sunday’s elections, claims the kind of violence that plagues other parts of the country has been successfully combatted in the capital.
But volunteer searcher Ceci Flores, who has spent years searching for her two missing sons, says that’s because officials haven’t bothered to look for bodies. It’s a common complaint by relatives of missing people in many parts of Mexico, where drug cartels and kidnap gangs use shallow pits to dispose of the bodies of their victims.
On Thursday, Flores posted a video showing what appeared to be human femurs and craniums in the tall dry grass of a hillside on the city’s east side. She suggested there were at least three bodies, and noted there could be more on the hillside.
But a statement from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office on Saturday said Israel’s goals — “the destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel” — would need to be met before a permanent ceasefire can begin.
“Under the proposal, Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent ceasefire is put in place. The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter,” the statement said.
