Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

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Author: Owen

Painting for an Appointment?

by | 1828, 24 Jul 2323 | , | 0 Comments

Everyone. And I mean EVERYONE. Called Hunter’s painting scam for what it was at the time – a way to funnel money to the Bidens in exchange for… whatever. The value of art is subjective, so it is a perfect cover for bribery.

In 2021, when a New York art gallery debuted Hunter Biden’s paintings with asking prices as high as $500,000, the White House said that Hunter Biden’s team had a process for carefully vetting buyers, and that their identities were known only to the gallery, and not to Hunter Biden himself. The messaging seemed to suggest that Hunter Biden’s art patrons came from a rarified universe of collectors who had nothing to do with the hurly burly of politics.

 

Neither of those things has turned out to be the case. Hunter Biden did in fact learn the identity of two buyers, according to three people directly familiar with Hunter Biden’s own account of his art career. And one of those buyers is indeed someone who got a favor from the Biden White House. The timing of their purchase, however, is unknown.

 

That buyer, Insider can reveal, is Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Los Angeles real estate investor and philanthropist. Hirsh Naftali is influential in California Democratic circles and is a significant Democratic donor who has given $13,414 to the Biden campaign and $29,700 to the Democratic National Campaign Committee this year. In 2022, she hosted a fundraiser headlined by Vice President Kamala Harris.

 

Insider also obtained internal documents from Hunter Biden’s gallery showing that a single buyer purchased $875,000 of his art. The documents do not indicate the buyer’s identity, which is also unknown to Insider at this time.

 

In July 2022, eight months after Hunter Biden’s first art opening, Joe Biden announced Hirsh Naftali’s appointment to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. It is unclear whether Hirsh’s purchase of Hunter Biden’s artwork occurred before or after that appointment. Membership on the commission is an unpaid position that is often filled by campaign donors, family members, and political allies — the same crowd that often winds up with US ambassadorial appointments. Hirsh Naftali’s fundraising activities mark her as the kind of well-connected donor who often wins such appointments, regardless of any relationship they might have with the president’s family. But they do not address the possibility that Hunter Biden might have voiced his support for her appointment.

Arizona’s Universal School Choice Proves More Popular than Projected

by | 1820, 24 Jul 2323 | | 0 Comments

Wow

In a plan approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature last year, Arizona became the first state to make every student, even those from wealthy families, eligible for a school voucher — on average worth about $7,200 per student annually.

 

The state deposits the money into Education Savings Accounts for parents, which can be used to pay for private school or home schooling. If the student was enrolled in public school, the money follows the student. If the student was being privately educated, the voucher is a new cost to the state.

 

The program has been highly contentious — and hugely popular.

 

Since launching in September, it has grown from about 12,000 students to more than 59,000, outpacing projections. State education officials estimate enrollment could grow to 100,000 by next summer.

Oppenheimer Review

by | 1731, 23 Jul 2323 | | 2 Comments

I saw Oppenheimer today and thought it was a truly excellent movie. As is always the case when trying to cover so much in the confines of a movie, it left out some things and consolidated others, but it was very well done.

The treatment of the nuanced and weighty issues of pacifism, communism, MCCarthyism (go Wisconsin!), and the horrors of war was superb. Interlaced with those issues were the story lines of love, infidelity, bureaucracy, egotism, interpersonal conflicts, political swampiness, revenge, aging, bigotry, and massive accomplishment. It dealt thoughtfully with some of the controversial issues like whether or not we should have dropped the bomb, the Red Scare, and the nuclear arms race.

Go see it. It’s worth the three hours.

AI Mimics Dead Loved Ones

by | 0804, 22 Jul 2323 | , | 2 Comments

No. It strikes me that people would be far better off working through their grief than pretending that their loved one is alive through a bot. Death is the natural end of us all and it is unhealthy to pretend that it doesn’t exist.

What does the future of grief and loss look like? An AI company called You, Only Virtual is creating chatbots modeled after deceased loved ones, with its founder, Justin Harrison, telling “Good Morning America” that he hopes people won’t have to feel grief at all.

 

You, Only Virtual scans text messages, emails and phone calls shared between an individual and the deceased person to create a chatbot that composes original written or audio responses mimicking the deceased person’s voice and modeling the relationship and rapport that the two shared in life.

The company, founded in 2020, hopes to offer a video-chat option later this year, “and ultimately provide augmented-reality that allows for interaction with a three-dimensional projection,” GMA reported.

Texas A&M President Resigns

by | 2059, 21 Jul 2323 | , | 0 Comments

Huzzah to my fellow former students for trying to maintain standards of equality, merit, and excellence. Like every other large public university, Texas A&M is riddled with Marxists and leftist ideology, but the student body and the former students trend conservative and are trying to maintain the university’s integrity and identity amidst the onslaught.

The head of Texas A&M University has suddenly left her role amid “negative press” surrounding the hiring of a journalism professor.

President Katherine Banks said she took responsibility for the “flawed hiring process” involving former New York Times editor Kathleen McElroy.

 

[…]

 

Dr McElroy, a 20-year veteran of The New York Times, has previously conducted research on the role race plays in the media.

 

Texas A&M had originally hired her on a tenured track to revive the school’s journalism programme, which was later changed to a five-year and ultimately a one-year offer. She declined the offer.

 

The initial move to hire her was reportedly met with criticism from some staff members and members of the school’s alumni network.

 

In a resignation letter, Dr Banks said that “negative press” over Dr McElroy’s job had “become a distraction” at Texas A&M, which has a student body of about 70,000.

 

“The recent challenges regarding Dr McElroy have made it clear to me that I must retire immediately,” she wrote.

A university statement added that Dr Banks suggested to colleagues Dr McElroy had fallen victim to “anti-woke hysteria” and “outside interference” in the hiring process.

 

[…]

In the case of Dr McElroy, the Rudder Association – a collection of current and former Texas A&M students and staff – said it had concerns that, in hiring Dr McElroy, the university was not embracing “egalitarian and merit-based traditions” and was instead turning towards the “divisive ideology of identity politics”. It objected to claims that alumni, donors and taxpayers constitute “outside influence”.

I will say that I liked a lot of the work that Dr. Banks had done for the engineering college and some other things in her short tenure. But I understand that she was not well liked by the students, the former students, or much of the staff.

A long stride on the path of racial equality

by | 2046, 21 Jul 2323 | , , | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week.

In the United States Supreme Court’s landmark ruling Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College, the court prohibited universities from discriminating against prospective students because of their race. While the ruling is specific to racial discrimination by universities, it has much broader implications.

 

The brilliant Justice Clarence Thomas revealed the broad consequences of the ruling in his concurring opinion when he definitively wrote, “the Fourteenth Amendment outlaws government-sanctioned racial discrimination of all types.” In the majority opinion of the court, Chief Justice John Roberts definitively stated that, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”

 

It does not get any clearer than that. Discrimination in favor of one race consequently discriminates to the detriment of another race. Equality can only exist when we actually treat people equally.

 

For this reason, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, Wisconsin’s most important private organization in defense of the Constitution, launched the “Equality for All Agenda,” in which they are calling for the repeal of all race-based laws and programs. WILL’s accompanying report highlights several examples of how various Wisconsin governments discriminate on the basis of race.

 

For example, the state of Wisconsin’s Ben R. Lawton Minority Undergraduate Grant Program gives grants to anyone who is a black American, American Indian, Hispanic, or people who hail from Laos, Vietnam, or Cambodia. This grant program specifically excludes white Americans, Middle Eastern Americans, Persian Americans, Indian Americans, non-Hispanic South American Americans, and all of the other races that make up the kaleidoscope of the American experience. The grant program is inherently racist.

 

In a throwback to the era of “separate but equal,” the University of Wisconsin-Madison offers racially segregated student housing, “to provide a living experience focused on supporting students and allies who self-identify within the Black diaspora.”

 

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development launched the New Workforce Equity Grant program after the pandemic. These grants are awarded companies in southeastern Wisconsin that create training programs for underserved communities, which are defined as, “Black, Indigenous, and people of color, women.”

 

The University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine gives grants to programs that, “focus on underserved and marginalized communities, including but not limited to, Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native American, rural, and low-income communities.” One can focus on underserved communities without segregating them into racial categories. Poverty, for example, affects all races.

 

The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation runs a Diverse Business Development Program that only provides support to, “minority-, woman-, LGBT and veteran-owned businesses.” Once again, the program specifically discriminates on the basis of race and other factors that have nothing to do with the worthiness of the business.

 

The list goes on. The fact is that racial discrimination permeates our governments at every level. From the state of Wisconsin to our local government school districts, people of favored races are granted preferential treatment, opportunities, and money while people of disfavored races are excluded from these opportunities. This kind of racial discrimination was intolerable in 1860. It was intolerable in 1960. It is intolerable in 2023.

 

As Justice Thomas so eloquently put it in his concurring opinion, “the solution announced in the second founding (his reference is to the transformative 14th Amendment written after the Civil War) is incorporated in our Constitution: that we are all equal, and should be treated equally before the law without regard to our race. Only that promise can allow us to look past our differing skin colors and identities and see each other for what we truly are: individuals with unique thoughts, perspectives, and goals, but with equal dignity and equal rights under the law.”

 

Our nation has had a long road to racial equality. We have a long way yet to go. The Supreme Court’s ruling is a long stride in the right direction. Now it is up to all of us to see that the principles announced in our Declaration of Independence, written into the Constitution in the 14th Amendment, and affirmed in Students v. Harvard, are upheld by our government, our businesses, and ourselves.

The Biden Coverup

by | 0836, 20 Jul 2323 | , | 46 Comments

Consider that we have solid proof that several federal agencies were actively covering up the crimes, and likely treason, of the nation’s First Family. It’s not that they were lazy or negligent. They proactively covering up the hide the crimes of favored people.  This is Banana Republic stuff.

The mystery surrounding the identity of Whistleblower X ended Wednesday when Joseph Ziegler, who has worked with the IRS since 2010, appeared before Congress to claim that Hunter Biden received preferential treatment in the investigation into his financial dealings.
Ziegler and IRS Supervisory Agent Gary Shapley testified before the House Oversight Committee that their investigation ‘supported felony and misdemeanor tax charges,’ which were ultimately not brought against the president’s son Hunter due to political pressures.
Ziegler, a 13-year veteran of the IRS who was the main case agent on the Hunter probe, claimed the federal tax investigation into the president’s son ‘supported felony and misdemeanor tax charges’ – rather than just the misdemeanor tax charges Hunter is scheduled to plead guilty to next week as part of a deal that allows him to and avoid prosecution for a separate gun charge.
The agents said under oath that U.S. Attorney David Weiss, the lead Hunter Biden prosecutor, asked Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves to bring those charges. But after Graves refused, Weiss threw out the potential felony charges and struck a plea deal with the president’s son.
‘I watched U.S. Attorney [David] Weiss tell a room full of senior FBI and IRS senior leaders on October 7, 2022, that he was not the deciding person on whether charges were filed,’ Shapley said, contradicting Weiss’ previous public statements.
‘If the Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss followed DOJ policy as he stated in his most recent letter, Hunter Biden should have been charged with a tax felony, and not only the tax misdemeanor charge,’ said Ziegler. ‘We need to treat each taxpayer the same under the law.’

Republicans Retain Assembly Seat

by | 0718, 19 Jul 2323 | | 0 Comments

Good. It was low turnout, as expected for a special election, but the GOP managed to hold onto the seat by a decent margin.

GRAFTON — A Republican will hold the District 24 Wisconsin Assembly seat after Paul Melotik comfortably defeated Democrat Bob Tatterson in a special election Tuesday. The Grafton businessman, Ozaukee County Board member and Grafton Town Board member will replace fellow Republican Dan Knodl, who vacated the seat earlier this year after being elected to replace Alberta Darling in State Senate District 8. Assembly District 24 covers parts of Grafton and Mequon in Ozaukee County, Germantown and Richfield in Washington County and Menomonee Falls in Waukesha County. Melotik won Ozaukee and Washington counties by about 6% points each. Tatterson won by nine votes in Waukesha County, which is made up of nine wards in Menomonee Falls.

 

Melotik said during the campaign that the district remains a conservative one, and that he was the best choice for the seat because, as a conservative Republican, he has “a proven record of advocating for smaller, more efficient government.”

Biden’s Unpopularity

by | 2041, 18 Jul 2323 | | 8 Comments

He’s unpopular because he’s a terrible president. Let’s hope that the Republicans aren’t so stupid as to nominate the only candidate that Biden can beat.

At this point in his term — about 910 days in — Joe Biden is the second-most-unpopular president in modern U.S. history. As of July 18, Biden’s average job-approval rating, according to the poll aggregators at FiveThirtyEight, is a paltry 39.1%; his average disapproval rating is 55.4%. That means his “net approval rating” is -16.3%, which is well “underwater,” as pollsters like to say.

 

Negative 16.3% is also really bad historically speaking. In fact, the only president with weaker numbers than Biden was Jimmy Carter, who hit -28.6% on day 910. At the time, just 29% of Americans approved of Carter’s performance on average, while 57.6% disapproved.

A long stride on the path of racial equality

by | 0715, 18 Jul 2323 | , , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

In the majority opinion of the court, Chief Justice John Roberts definitively stated that, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”

 

It does not get any clearer than that. Discrimination in favor of one race consequently discriminates to the detriment of another race. Equality can only exist when we actually treat people equally.

 

For this reason, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, Wisconsin’s most important private organization in defense of the Constitution, launched the “Equality for All Agenda,” in which they are calling for the repeal of all race-based laws and programs. WILL’s accompanying report highlights several examples of how various Wisconsin governments discriminate on the basis of race.

 

[…]

 

The list goes on. The fact is that racial discrimination permeates our governments at every level. From the state of Wisconsin to our local government school districts, people of favored races are granted preferential treatment, opportunities, and money while people of disfavored races are excluded from these opportunities. This kind of racial discrimination was intolerable in 1860. It was intolerable in 1960. It is intolerable in 2023.

 

As Justice Thomas so eloquently put it in his concurring opinion, “the solution announced in the second founding (his reference is to the transformative 14th Amendment written after the Civil War) is incorporated in our Constitution: that we are all equal, and should be treated equally before the law without regard to our race. Only that promise can allow us to look past our differing skin colors and identities and see each other for what we truly are: individuals with unique thoughts, perspectives, and goals, but with equal dignity and equal rights under the law.”

 

Our nation has had a long road to racial equality. We have a long way yet to go. The Supreme Court’s ruling is a long stride in the right direction. Now it is up to all of us to see that the principles announced in our Declaration of Independence, written into the Constitution in the 14th Amendment, and affirmed in Students v. Harvard, are upheld by our government, our businesses, and ourselves.

Milwaukee County to Vote on Tax Increase

by | 1811, 17 Jul 2323 | | 1 Comment

As sure as Chris Christie won’t pass on a free doughnut, yes, they will vote to increase taxes.

A special joint County Board committee recommended approval of the county tax increase with two key votes — a 5-0 vote by the personnel committee and 4-3 vote from the finance committee. Supervisors Sequanna Taylor, Steve F. Taylor and Juan Miguel Martinez voted against the hike.

 

With the committee approvals, the full Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors will take a final vote on July 27 on the measure, which would nearly double the current county sales tax from the existing 0.5% to 0.9%.

Canada Legalizes Euthanizing the Mentally Ill

by | 2039, 16 Jul 2323 | , | 5 Comments

It’s a death cult, and it’s unconscionable.

An expansion of the criteria for medically assisted death that comes into force in March 2024 will allow Canadians like Pauli, whose sole underlying condition is mental illness, to choose medically assisted death.

Canada legalized assisted death in 2016 for people with terminal illness and expanded it in 2021 to people with incurable, but not terminal, conditions. The legal changes were precipitated by court rulings that struck down prohibitions on helping people to die.

 

The new mental health provision will make Canada one of the most expansive countries in the world when it comes to medical assistance in dying (MAID), according to an expert panel report to Canada’s parliament.

Killing a City

by | 2029, 16 Jul 2323 | , , | 0 Comments

While the story blames the pandemic, we know it is much more than that when it comes to cities like San Francisco. Permissive vagrant and drug policies, lack of police enforcement, prioritizing the homeless over the people who pay taxes, the list goes on.

Data bears out that San Francisco’s downtown is having a harder time than most. A study of 63 North American downtowns by the University of Toronto ranked the city dead last in a return to pre-pandemic activity, garnering only 32% of its 2019 traffic.

 

Hotel revenues are stuck at 73% of pre-pandemic levels, weekly office attendance remains below 50% and commuter rail travel to downtown is at 33%, according to a recent economic report by the city.

 

Office vacancy rates in San Francisco were 24.8% in the first quarter, more than five times higher than pre-pandemic levels and well above the average rate of 18.5% for the nation’s top 10 cities, according to CBRE, a commercial real estate services company.

 

Why? San Francisco relied heavily on international tourism and its tech workforce, both of which disappeared during the pandemic.

 

But other major cities including Portland and Seattle, which also rely on tech workers, are struggling with similar declines, according to the downtown recovery study, which used anonymized mobile phone data to analyze downtown activity patterns from before the pandemic and between March and May of this year.

I’ve gone to San Francisco two to six times a year for the past decade or so. In fact, I was in San Francisco and went to a basketball game right as the pandemic began. It was my last business trip for a while. While the city had its bums and nasty areas, it was a vibrant, fun city. It was also relatively safe – as far as cities go. I once took a run from Fisherman’s Wharf, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and back through the city. I never felt any less safe than any other large city. I usually stayed in the financial district or by the wharf because I liked the restaurants.

I was in San Fran again a few weeks ago. I stayed two nights in Fisherman’s Wharf. The place was a ghost town and one of my colleagues had his luggage stolen from his rental car in a smash-and-grab. When he returned the car, they said that they have difficulty maintaining inventory because the cars come back with smashed windows so often. I went for a short walk and had to avoid bums and feces. It was gross and while I wasn’t threatened, the glares made me lament that I wasn’t carrying a weapon. I cut my walk short.

It’s a shame, but the city isn’t dying. It’s being killed.

The beginning of a long winter

by | 1817, 14 Jul 2323 | | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week:

One must give credit where credit is due. Democrat Gov. Tony Evers has had as successful a year as any governor in Wisconsin history, and he did it with strong Republican majorities in both houses of the Legislature. He has begun his second term in office with a lengthy string of accomplishments.

 

Earlier in the spring, the governor struck a blockbuster deal with the Republican Legislature regarding shared revenue. In this deal, the state would increase spending through the shared revenue program by a record $275 million. The deal also increased spending on government K-12 schools by a record $1 billion. The governor negotiated with the Republicans to allow the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County to increase sales taxes (without asking the voters via a referendum) to help plug the massive budget hole that threatens to put both governments into bankruptcy after years of mismanagement.

 

For all of those spending increases, the governor agreed to increase spending on school choice and to allow some restrictions and requirements on the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County in exchange for their authority to increase taxes. Milwaukee leaders are already threatening to sue over the restrictions while they keep the tax money. The Wisconsin Supreme Court will toggle to a radical leftist majority on August 1 and liberal leaders throughout the state are counting on the court to advance leftist policies by striking down conservative laws. The governor is also counting on the court to require onerous restrictions on school choice schools, which is why his agreeing to an increase in spending on school choice was likely considered to be a minimal price to pay for such government expansion.

 

Evers was just getting started. Taking the big-spending budget bill crafted by legislative Republicans that already increased spending by almost 10%, Evers used his powerful veto to reshape the budget to his liking.

 

The biggest change was in the income tax. The Republicans had written a tax cut into the budget that would have simplified and lowered the state income tax such that it would have resulted in a $3.5 billion tax decrease. Evers reshaped the tax plan to where it is actually a $603.4 million tax increase. That is a swing of $4.1 net increase in taxes with a strike of his pen according to the estimate by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The governor does not have the power to appropriate that money, so it will be seen in future years as an unallocated budget surplus that will burn holes in the pockets of politicians. We remember that we entered this budget with a $7 billion budget surplus that was completely spent.

 

In addition, the governor used his veto pen to give local school districts the power to increase the property tax levy by $325 per pupil per year until the year 2425. That is over four centuries of tax increases that, if local school districts tax to the max like usual, will result in an increase in school spending of $130,650 per student, or $111 billion increase in K-12 taxing and spending with the current student population.

 

The governor was not done. Not by a long shot. Evers vetoed the part of the budget that would have eliminated the 188 diversity equity and inclusion positions currently in the University of Wisconsin System. These are positions specifically designed to advance the latest leftist doctrine on race and gender. In an era of declining enrollments, closing campuses, and scarce money, the governor ensured that the primary purpose of using the university system to preserve and advance leftist ideology is protected.

 

In this same vein, the governor vetoed a provision that would have prohibited the use of tax dollars being used for gender reassignment or gender transition programs for adults and children through Medicaid. These programs will continue unabated under the governor’s watch.

 

The governor even found time to protect leftist interests in Washington County, where he vetoed a provision that would have begun the process to fund the joining of UW-Milwaukee at Washington County and Moraine Park Technical College into a single school. Both campuses have seen drastic reductions in enrollment, but the taxpayers will continue to support both campuses thanks to the governor.

 

All told, the governor delivered on his campaign promises and advanced his ideology. Under his watch, Wisconsin will see record increases in government spending coupled with record increases of property, sales, and income taxes to support that spending. He has reset the baseline of state government spending to the highest level it has ever been. His party has waged successful campaigns to put radical leftists on the Supreme Court to further protect and advance his ideological beliefs. 

 

Were I a leftist, I would be applauding his success in the face of a Legislature controlled by the oppositions. As a conservative, however, I lament that Evers has pushed Wisconsin into what will be at least a decade of decline.

 

Pray that it is only a decade.

Milwaukee Mayor Brags About Tax Increase to Ask for Campaign Contributions

by | 2235, 13 Jul 2323 | | 5 Comments

Wow. The balls on this guy…

Friend,

 

This week, our city marked a monumental victory with the approval of a local sales tax by the Milwaukee Common Council. This new revenue stream is a triumph not only for our city’s financial independence but also for every person who calls Milwaukee home.

 

For the first time, Milwaukee will have some ability to control our future. This new sales tax means visitors to our city for the first time will be paying to help underwrite city services.

 

And, we as residents will ensure that we get to keep police officers and firefighters on the street, keep our libraries open, and make sure we can continue to provide basic services like snow plowing, garbage pickup, streetlight repair and filling potholes.

 

Over the last few months, I have worked closely with both Republicans and Democrats to get us to this point. While no elected official ever wants to raise taxes, this is an important step to keep us working towards our goal of a stronger, safer, and more prosperous city for all of us. The creation of a local sales tax now aligns Milwaukee with other major cities around the country.

 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the tremendous efforts of my colleagues on the Common Council, especially President José Pérez. They have been strong advocates for Milwaukee, and came together to do what’s right for Milwaukee. Together, we will continue to address new state rules limiting our flexibility, including finding creative ways to invest in our transportation infrastructure, supporting our diversity and inclusion efforts, and ensuring we are policing the smartest way possible.

 

Since taking office, I have spent every day fighting for the betterment of this city and every day it is an honor to serve. Though we have accomplished a lot, there is still a ton of work to be done. I look forward to getting it done.

 

I will be up for election again in April, and we must have the resources necessary to run a robust campaign.

 

I need your help now. During this crucial week, can you please chip in $25, $50, or $100 to help us gear up for next April?

 

Donate

 

Thank you for your continued support. Together, we are absolutely making a difference.

 

Best,

 

Mayor Cavalier Johnson

 

Paid for by Cavalier for Milwaukee

 

Cavalier for Milwaukee
5027 W. North Ave
Milwaukee, WI 53208
United States

Mileaukee Jacks Up Sales Tax

by | 1455, 11 Jul 2323 | | 4 Comments

But of course.

What began as a tense and unpredictable day at Milwaukee City Hall Tuesday ended with the Common Council’s backing of a 2% local sales tax by a wider margin than required.

 

The critical vote offers the city a new revenue source to avert major service cuts in 2025 even as some council members said it would put additional financial pressure on residents living in poverty.

 

[…]

 

Afterward, Pérez said he was a bit surprised it passed with more than the minimum 10 votes required. Ultimately, the tax passed with 12 in favor and 3 opposed.

 

Milwaukee County Looks at Ways to Get Landlords to Rent to Section 8 Tenants

by | 0710, 11 Jul 2323 | , | 2 Comments

This is a good example of the power of incentives.

“If Milwaukee County cannot use a metaphorical stick to force landlords to accept tenants with a Section 8 voucher, then we should consider offering a carrot,” Rolland told the Journal Sentinel. “At the end of the day, Milwaukee County is healthier when everybody can find a safe place to live.”

 

The Section 8 tenant-based Housing Choice Voucher Program was designed to help with rental assistance for low-income residents and families with a family income of no more than 50% of the median income of the county, roughly $27,396, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

 

[…]

 

In 2018, the County Board amended the County Code of General Ordinance about fair housing and included “receipt of rental or housing assistance” as a protected class.

“Big picture: the ordinance was well-intentioned, but after five years of it being in place we can see that renters were not getting the help that they needed,” Rolland said. “And today we know that punishments for landlords are unenforceable.”

Milwaukee County tried to force landlords to rent to Section 8 tenants and it failed. In the end, whatever minimal risk a landlord takes to avoid renting to Section 8 tenants is outweighed by the potential risk of renting to them.

What the politicians fail to understand is why many landlords avoid renting to Section 8 tenants. We all know why… you can identify the apartments in town that accept Section 8 tenants. They tend to be the ones that are the most run down and trashy. They are the apartments that we encourage our adult children to avoid.

Why? Because many (not all) Section 8 tenants treat their apartments like crap. They don’t care for it and often leave it damaged when they leave.

Why? Because they aren’t using their own money to pay for it. The tenant lacks the pride of ownership, even if it is rented, that comes with paying for something with money that he or she earned through the sweat of their brow or firing of neurons. There is no incentive for the tenant to care for the apartment because it costs them nothing to treat it like crap. Thus, many landlords avoid them because the landlords do bear the costs of damage and neglect.

So let’s follow the train of thought… if Milwaukee County creates a bundle of financial incentives for landlords to accept Section 8 tenants, it will likely work for some. More landlords will accept Section 8 housing. Why? Because they are no longer bearing the burden and cost of damage and neglect to their properties. That burden will shift to the taxpayers who are funding the incentives.

So in the end, the taxpayer becomes the forgotten man who bears all of the risks and costs and derives none of the benefits. The tenants benefit from subsidized rents. The landlords benefit from both the additional tenants and the additional incentives. The taxpayer is paying both bills plus their own rent.

Thus spins the flywheel of ever-growing government.

The beginning of a long winter

by | 0628, 11 Jul 2323 | , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

One must give credit where credit is due. Democrat Gov. Tony Evers has had as successful a year as any governor in Wisconsin history, and he did it with strong Republican majorities in both houses of the Legislature. He has begun his second term in office with a lengthy string of accomplishments.

 

[…]

 

Evers was just getting started. Taking the big-spending budget bill crafted by legislative Republicans that already increased spending by almost 10%, Evers used his powerful veto to reshape the budget to his liking.

 

The biggest change was in the income tax. The Republicans had written a tax cut into the budget that would have simplified and lowered the state income tax such that it would have resulted in a $3.5 billion tax decrease. Evers reshaped the tax plan to where it is actually a $603.4 million tax increase. That is a swing of $4.1 net increase in taxes with a strike of his pen according to the estimate by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The governor does not have the power to appropriate that money, so it will be seen in future years as an unallocated budget surplus that will burn holes in the pockets of politicians. We remember that we entered this budget with a $7 billion budget surplus that was completely spent.

 

In addition, the governor used his veto pen to give local school districts the power to increase the property tax levy by $325 per pupil per year until the year 2425. That is over four centuries of tax increases that, if local school districts tax to the max like usual, will result in an increase in school spending of $130,650 per student, or $111 billion increase in K-12 taxing and spending with the current student population.

 

[…]

 

All told, the governor delivered on his campaign promises and advanced his ideology. Under his watch, Wisconsin will see record increases in government spending coupled with record increases of property, sales, and income taxes to support that spending. He has reset the baseline of state government spending to the highest level it has ever been. His party has waged successful campaigns to put radical leftists on the Supreme Court to further protect and advance his ideological beliefs. 

 

Were I a leftist, I would be applauding his success in the face of a Legislature controlled by the oppositions. As a conservative, however, I lament that Evers has pushed Wisconsin into what will be at least a decade of decline.

 

Pray that it is only a decade.

Suspected Tylenol Terrorist Dies

by | 2106, 10 Jul 2323 | , | 0 Comments

He sparked a half century of annoyed people with headaches.

The suspect in the 1982 Tylenol poisonings that killed seven people in the Chicago area, triggered a nationwide panic, and led to an overhaul in the safety of over-the-counter medication packaging, has died, police said on Monday.

 

Officers, firefighters and EMTs responding to a report of an unresponsive person at about 4 p.m. Sunday found James W. Lewis dead in his Cambridge, Massachusetts, home, Cambridge Police Superintendent Frederick Cabral said in a statement. He was 76, police said.

 

“Following an investigation, Lewis’ death was determined to be not suspicious,” the statement says.

 

No one was ever charged in the deaths of seven people who took the over-the-counter painkillers laced with cyanide. Lewis served more than 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, demanding $1 million to “stop the killing.” He and his wife moved to Massachusetts in 1995 following his release. Listed numbers for his wife were not in service.

When Lewis was arrested in New York City in 1982 after a nationwide manhunt, he gave investigators a detailed account of how the killer might have operated. Lewis later admitted sending the letter and demanding the money, but he said he never intended to collect it. He said he wanted to embarrass his wife’s former employer by having the money sent to the employer’s bank account.

 

Lewis, who had a history of trouble with the law, always denied any role in the Tylenol deaths, but remained a suspect and in 2010 gave DNA samples to the FBI. He even created a website in which he said he was framed. Although the couple lived briefly in Chicago in the early 1980s, Lewis said they were in New York City at the time of the poisonings.

Federal Judge Forces Trans Agenda on School District

by | 0721, 10 Jul 2323 | , | 2 Comments

Ridiculous. It seems that a girl could countersue under Title 9.

A federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order against the Mukwonago Area School District. preventing the district from enforcing a recently adopted restroom and locker room policy. The policy, approved June 26, requires students to use restroom and locker room facilities consistent with the sex they were assigned at birth.

 

An 11-year-old transgender student and her mother filed a lawsuit against the district and sought the restraining order while the suit is pending.

 

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman granted the temporary restraining order July 6. The action allows the student, who identifies as a girl, to access girls’ restrooms at school and school-sponsored events and prohibits the district from imposing discipline against the student for use of those restrooms.

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