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Teachers Facing Mass Layoffs Due to Terrible Budget Practices

by | 0927, 12 May 24 | , | 0 Comments

There. I fixed their headline. The “free” covid bonanza allowed school districts across America to delay adjusting staffing for declining enrollment. With the money coming to an end, there is a glut of unfunded and unjustified positions that need to be reduced all at once instead of gradually. If the school districts had managed their staffing to need instead of to available funding, they would all be flush with surpluses and not have this problem.

Schools across the country are announcing teacher and staff layoffs as districts brace for the end of a pandemic aid package that delivered the largest one-time federal investment in K-12 education.

 

The funds must be used by the end of September, creating a sharp funding cliff as schools also struggle with widespread enrollment declines and inflation.

 

Many districts have warned of layoffs as the current school year comes to a close and next year’s budgets are planned. The local headlines about teachers likely won’t help Americans who remain stubbornly pessimistic about the economy feel any better, adding to the challenge President Joe Biden faces to show voters how things are better than they were four years ago.

Newsome Makes Severe Cuts to Budget in Face of Deficit

by | 0759, 11 May 24 | | 2 Comments

“Severe” lol. Californians are adorable about what they get worked up about. Bless their hearts.

While Newsom has not taken away health insurance from anyone, he proposed the state stop paying for health care workers to care for some 14,000 disabled immigrants in their home. That would save the state $94.7 million. While he hasn’t pulled back the state’s commitment to expanded kindergarten, he proposed eliminating $550 million that would have helped school districts build the facilities they need to teach all of those extra students.

 

After promising to pay for child care for another 146,000 children from low-income families, Newsom on Friday proposed pausing that expansion at 119,000. And after promising to boost how much money doctor’s get to treat Medicaid patients, Newsom on Friday proposed canceling $6.7 billion that had been set aside to do that.

 

[…]

 

In total, Newsom is proposing $32.8 billion in cuts over two years, including eliminating 10,000 unfilled state jobs and an 8% cut to state operations — including things like eliminating landlines. He promised there would be no layoffs, furloughs or salary cuts for the state’s more than 221,000 state workers.

Wisconsin Supreme Court to Decide Fewest Cases in 40 Years

by | 0809, 10 May 24 | , | 3 Comments

Is this a problem? I rather like a minimalist court. Although it does seem that this particular court is usurping power and running roughshod over the Constitution where they choose.

It would be the first time the court has issued fewer than 40 decisions in a term in at least four decades.

 

According to Ball’s analysis, the court filed more than 130 decisions in its 1980-81 term and has generally fluctuated between 40 and 100 per term in subsequent years. Before the late 1970s and the creation of the court of appeals, the state Supreme Court often filed more than 200 decisions per term and sometimes more than 300.

 

[…]

The number of petitions for review has dropped significantly. The court received 658 petitions in its 2020-21 term, 624 in 2021-22 and 573 in 2022-23. According to a March 2024 report from the court, 332 petitions have been filed in the current term.

“In addition to a smaller number of petitions for review, the justices have clearly decided that fewer of the petitions merit acceptance. Why that might be is harder to say,” Ball said.

It is interesting that there are so few petitions. Does this indicate a lack of confidence in the court? Maybe. Maybe it’s just coincidence.

Virginian School Board Reinstates Historic School Names

by | 0757, 10 May 24 | | 0 Comments

This is an interesting push back.

The school board in Shenandoah County, Virginia, early Friday approved a proposal that will restore the names of Confederate military leaders to two public schools.

 

The measure, which passed 5-1, reverses a previous board’s decision in 2020 to change the names of schools that had been linked to Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby, three men who led the pro-slavery Southern states during the Civil War.

 

Mountain View High School will go back to the name Stonewall Jackson High School. Honey Run Elementary School will go back to the name Ashby-Lee Elementary School.

U.S. Strengthens Border… for Dogs

by | 0716, 9 May 24 | | 1 Comment

But if you’re a Chinese national coming across the southern border, we’ll just wave you through.

NEW YORK — All dogs coming into the U.S. from other countries must be at least 6 months old and microchipped to help prevent the spread of rabies, according to new government rules published Wednesday.

 

The new rules require vaccination for dogs that have been in countries where rabies is common. The update applies to dogs brought in by breeders or rescue groups as well as pets traveling with their U.S. owners.

Hochul Apologizes for Being Racist

by | 2016, 8 May 24 | | 1 Comment

Ope.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says she regrets making an offhand remark that suggested Black children in the Bronx do not know what the word “computer” means.

 

Hochul, a Democrat, made the extemporaneous comment Monday while being interviewed at a large business conference in California to discuss expanding economic opportunities in artificial intelligence for low-income communities.

 

“Right now, we have young Black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word computer is. They don’t know, they don’t know these things,” Hochul said while on stage at the Milken Institute Global Conference.

Trans Activists Thwart Efforts to Enforce Law

by | 2013, 7 May 24 | , | 2 Comments

This is a pretty effective bit of civil disobedience.

In the week since it launched, the online tip line already has received more than 10,000 submissions, none of which seem legitimate, he said. The form asks people to report public school employees who knowingly allow someone to use a facility designated for the opposite sex.

 

Utah residents and visitors are required by law to use bathrooms and changing rooms in government-owned buildings that correspond with their birth sex. As of last Wednesday, schools and agencies found not enforcing the new restrictions can be fined up to $10,000 per day for each violation.

 

Although their advocacy efforts failed to stop Republican lawmakers in many states from passing restrictions for trans people, the community has found success in interfering with the often ill-conceived enforcement plans attached to those laws.

 

Within hours of its publication Wednesday night, trans activists and community members from across the U.S. already had spread the Utah tip line widely on social media. Many shared the spam they had submitted and encouraged others to follow suit.

 

Their efforts mark the latest attempt by advocates to shut down or render unusable a government tip line that they argue sows division by encouraging residents to snitch on each other. Similar portals in at least five other states also have been inundated with hoax reports, leading state officials to shut some down.

Boy Scouts Embrace History of Being Safe Space for Sex Offenders

by | 2001, 7 May 24 | | 1 Comment

Another great institution destroyed.

IRVING, Texas (AP) — The Boy Scouts of America announced after 114 years that it will change its name and will become Scouting America in an effort to emphasize inclusion as it works to move past the turmoil of bankruptcy and a flood of sexual abuse claims.

 

The rebrand is another seismic shift for an organization steeped in tradition that did not allow gay youths or girls to begin joining its ranks until relatively recently. Seeking to boost flagging membership numbers, the Irving, Texas-based organization announced the name change Tuesday at its annual meeting in Florida.

Young Voters Are Upset About the Economy Too

by | 1958, 7 May 24 | | 0 Comments

Yup. They may be bigots, but they still have bills to pay.

But these headlines are not reflective of young voters’ top concerns this election year, according to recent polls. Surveys taken in recent months show young voters are more likely to sympathize with Palestinians in the conflict, but few of them rank the Israel-Hamas war among their top issues in the 2024 election. Like other voters, young people often put economic concerns at the top of the list.

 

And while young voters are cooler to Biden than they were at the same point in 2020, there is little evidence that American support for the Israeli invasion of Gaza is a critical factor in their relative discontent.

 

“When you have two presidents that have the same stance on one issue, that automatically puts that issue — I hate to say lower down the list, because it’s obviously an important issue, but it doesn’t make it an issue where I’m going to choose Donald Trump over Joe Biden,” said Devon Schwartz, a student at the University of Texas at Austin.

 

[…]

 

In an Economist/YouGov poll taken more recently, in late April, 22% of voters ages 18 to 29 listed inflation as their most important issue. Two percent named foreign policy as their top concern. (The poll did not specifically ask about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.)

Biden Holds Back Ammunition Allocated to Israel

by | 1951, 7 May 24 | , | 5 Comments

So now our president is withholding ammunition from our ally as they try to root out and eliminate an Islamic terror group. Oh, how far we have come in the War on Terror.

According to one U.S. official, the U.S. Air Force has been told by the White House National Security Council to pause the delivery of ammunition already approved and under contract, waiting to be shipped from Dover Air Force Base.

 

A second U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that the NSC was behind the decision to pause the munitions. U.S. officials said the delay is being done intentionally.

 

The NSC has not confirmed the decision or said why the shipment was put on hold. Instead, administration officials have noted that the overall U.S. policy toward Israel hasn’t changed.

They Seemed so Normal

by | 0736, 7 May 24 | , | 3 Comments

TBF, I think this about Biden supporters nowadays.

A former CNN reporter took to social media Sunday to talk about how she is  ‘haunted’ by a dinner with several Donald Trump supporters who, at first glance, seemed ‘normal.’

 

‘All were well-educated and successful in careers,’ Michelle Kosinski recalled of the recent dinner party that she described on X.

 

‘They seemed great! On the surface. For like an hour ‘ the one-time NBC News correspondent continued, categorizing the Trump-leaning guests as ‘closeted.’

 

‘But slowly, over a few drinks, they began to let slip their true MAGA natures.’

 

The 50-year-old who served as CNN’s White House Correspondent until 2020 went on to add how  she was surprised by the revelation – marveling at how a ‘normal’ a group of people could support a politician she does not approve of.

Government solutions make things worse

by | 0727, 7 May 24 | , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here you go.

President Joe Biden is continuing his illegal and obvious effort to buy votes by “forgiving” student loans. It is a healthy reminder that government involvement makes everything worse. Let us remind ourselves of how we got here.

 

The cost of college has been increasing for decades far in excess of almost any other major expense. Throughout this period, our culture shifted and parents and K-12 educators pushed more and more kids to college by portraying college as a requirement for future financial stability and personal fulfillment. This characterization is not wrong, but it is also not universal. There are many paths to financial stability and personal fulfillment.

 

As demand for college continued to swell, the prices continued to rise (basic demand curve consequences), and students took on more and more debt to pay for their sheepskin Golden Ticket to the Middle Class. According to The Education Data Initiative, the cost of college has risen by 747.8% since 1963 after adjusting for inflation.

 

Prior to 2010, college students primarily had to get student loans from private financial institutions. In this construct, the private financial institutions were taking a risk loaning tens of thousands of dollars to 18year-olds with no credit history and no current means of paying the loan back. Those institutions generally required a co-signer from a responsible adult before issuing the loan. Private institutions were taking a risk on the future earning potential of college aspirants. The risk and apposite interest rates served as market pressures to limit the amount that students could borrow.

 

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson pushed for and signed the Higher Education Act. Part of that law was the Guaranteed Student Loan Program or Federal Family Education Loan Program. In this scheme, the federal government became the co-signing guarantor for student borrowers based on a few qualifications. With the federal government guaranteeing the loans, the private financial institutions providing the loans relaxed their requirements and were much more willing to provide more money to students.

 

Demand was rising and the supply of money to meet that demand became easier to get. America’s colleges rose to the challenge by continuing to increase prices to accept the available money supply.

 

Over the decades, the qualifications for the loans guaranteed by the federal government were gradually loosened to allow more students to borrow more money. Between 1965 and 1992, all federally guaranteed loans were subsidized with the taxpayers paying the loan interest while students were still in school. In 1992, the federal government began guaranteeing unsubsidized loans where the student loans would continue to accrue interest for the student to pay back after graduation.

 

In 2005, President George W. Bush signed a law that had the federal government allow higher interest PLUS student loans for graduate students that would also allow them to borrow up to the total cost of attendance.

 

2010 was a pivot point. President Barack Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act. This law eliminated the Federal Family Education Loan Program by requiring all federal student loans to be Direct Loans. Effectively, it was a government takeover of student loans as it was no longer economically viable for private financial institutions to compete with the federal government for high-risk borrowers.

 

With the federal government now in charge of student loans, any remaining market pressures to regulate the issuance of debt were eliminated. With an unlimited supply of money, the decision to issue a loan to a student became perfunctory. The people issuing the loans did not care about the risk because it was not their money. The students taking the loans were willing to take as much money as possible. The politicians overseeing the programs were, and are, motivated by political considerations and not economic considerations.

 

We have created a third-party payer system in higher education where the people paying for the service (taxpayers) are paying for an unrelated person (students) to receive a service from provider (colleges). By trifurcating the financial transaction, market forces that might otherwise provide downward pressure on prices or demand are obscured.

 

The result was inevitable. With students able to borrow as much as they want from an unlimited vat of cash, colleges raised prices to capture as much money as possible. According to the Education Data Initiative, College tuition inflation averaged 12% annually from 2010 to 2022. That is twice as fast as tuition was increasing in the previous decade and well above the rate of currency inflation.

 

With the federal government now fully in charge of student loans, political motivations trump economic realities, fairness, and common sense. In a tough election year on the tail end of a disastrous presidency, Biden is willing to violate the law to force the taxpayers to eat the debt of borrowers in order to buy their votes. In doing so, Biden will further exacerbate the problem of rising college costs and debts for short-term political gain.

 

LBJ created the problem by having the federal government guarantee student loans. Obama accelerated the problem by having the federal government take over student loans. Biden is inflaming the problem by effectively having the federal government eliminate loans and just pay for college through debt “forgiveness.”

 

Government intrusion always makes things worse. President Reagan was right. “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

Hamas Pretends to Accept Ceasefire After Israel Responds to Attacks

by | 1853, 6 May 24 | | 3 Comments

Hamas’ actions are so obviously insincere and designed to play to their fellow supporters of geocide that you have to willingly suspend reason to believe them.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Hamas announced its acceptance Monday of an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but Israel said the deal did not meet its “core demands” and that it was pushing ahead with an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Still, Israel said it would continue negotiations.

 

[…]

 

Hamas’s abrupt acceptance of the cease-fire deal came hours after Israel ordered an evacuation of some 100,000 Palestinians from eastern neighborhoods of Rafah, signaling an invasion was imminent.

[…]
On Sunday, Hamas fighters near the Rafah crossing fired mortars into southern Israel, killing four Israeli soldiers.
Uh huh. Whatever.

Abbott Rejects Demands of Hamas Supporters

by | 2135, 5 May 24 | , | 0 Comments

Good.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a defiant statement Sunday, vowing that the demands made by student protesters at the University of Texas at Austin will “NEVER happen.” The students called for the school to divest itself from companies manufacturing weapons for Israel and demanded the resignation of university President Jay Hartzell.

 

“This will NEVER happen,” Abbott wrote on X about the demands. “The only thing that will happen is that the University and the State will use all law-enforcement tools to quickly terminate illegal protests taking place on campus that clearly violate the laws of the state of Texas and policies of the university.”

Key word in that statement is “illegal.” Protests are fine. People have a right to speak. They do not have a right to infringe on the rights of others.

Also, if these student protestors are so appalled by the fact that the University invests in companies that manufacture weapons for Israel, then why are they helping fund the university through their tuition? They should all immediately withdraw if they are sincere.

Outside Agitators Join Protests

by | 2112, 4 May 24 | , | 0 Comments

Meh.

Large, drawn-out protests like the one at Columbia have a tendency to attract people with a diffuse set of ideologies and motivations, experts say. Roughly 30% of those arrested at Hamilton Hall on Tuesday had no affiliation with the school, according to university officials.

 

But while there is no doubt that the occupation of the building amounted to a dramatic escalation in tactics, it remains unclear how large an influence outsiders like Carlson have had on the overall student protest movement at Columbia and nearby colleges, which began more than two weeks ago.

 

Some of the student protesters think the narrative pushed by city and university officials — of dangerous outsiders co-opting the demonstrations — is fueled by ulterior motives.

 

“I really struggle a lot with the whole narrative of outside agitators because I see it as a means through which to justify violence,” Soph Askanse, a junior at the neighboring Barnard College, said in an interview. “And to claim that because individuals are not students, they are thus deserving of police brutality.”

The entitlement dripping off of the students is ridiculous. The underlying assumption is that students are a special class of adults who should be immune from consequences for their actions. I don’t care if they are a student or a 42-year-old anarchist from Oregon… if they are breaking the law, they should be arrested.

100,000 DACA People to Get Tax Breaks to Sign Up for Obamacare

by | 0718, 3 May 24 | | 0 Comments

This kind of goes against the narrative that they are productive, contributing participants in our economy. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Roughly 100,000 immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children are expected to enroll in the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance next year under a new directive the Biden administration released Friday.

 

The move took longer than promised to finalize and fell short of Democratic President Joe Biden‘s initial proposal to allow those migrants to sign up for Medicaid, the health insurance program that provides nearly free coverage for the nation’s poorest people.

 

But it will allow thousands of migrants to access lucrative tax breaks when they sign up for coverage after the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace enrollment opens Nov. 1, just days ahead of the presidential election.

While it may help Biden boost his appeal at a crucial time among Latinos, a crucial voting bloc that Biden needs to turn out to win the election, the move is certain to prompt more criticism among conservatives about the president’s border and migrant policies.

 

The action opens up the marketplace to any participant in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, many of whom are Latino.

Trump Likely to Roll Back Onerous Regulations

by | 2007, 2 May 24 | , | 0 Comments

I’m in.

If Trump were to defeat President Joe Biden in November, the SEC under his administration would likely start by curtailing many of the rules recently put in place tied to the environment, according to experts and people close to the former president. An initial target of the SEC under a second Trump administration would be to roll back the new climate disclosure rules, these people explained.

Gensler and the SEC adopted a rule in March requiring large publicly traded companies to disclose their levels of greenhouse gas emissions. The largest companies are required to make climate disclosures as early as fiscal 2025, with specifics on greenhouse gas emissions as soon as fiscal 2026.

 

Gensler argues greenhouse gas emission levels and other climate related data have a material impact on businesses, and investors deserve to know this information.

 

But an SEC chaired by a Trump appointed Republican would likely remove these Biden-era disclosure requirements, these people said.

 

The rule “costs companies and investors a tremendous amount of money, and provides them no benefit,” said a person advising Trump on SEC related matters. Like others in this story, they were granted anonymity in order to recount private conversations.

 

The prospect of a Trump pullback on the SEC’s climate disclosure rules is also tied to the former president’s dislike of environmental, social and governance investment standards, some of these people explained.

During his term in office, Trump issued an executive order that made it harder for employers to offer ESG funds in employees’ 401(k) retirement plans. The Biden administration later softened the Trump rule.

 

In February, he said in a Truth Social post that if he is elected to a second term, he would reinstate his previous rule.

Biden Attacks Close Allies While Explaining Why He Opened the Border

by | 1753, 2 May 24 | , | 0 Comments

What a total jackass.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has called Japan and India “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, lumping the two with adversaries China and Russia as he tried to explain their economic circumstances and contrasted the four with the U.S. on immigration.

 

The remarks, at a campaign fundraising event Wednesday evening, came just three weeks after the White House hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a lavish official visit, during which the two leaders celebrated what Biden called an “unbreakable alliance,” particularly on global security matters.

 

[…]

 

“Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” Biden said. “Look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants.”

 

The president added: “Immigrants are what makes us strong. Not a joke. That’s not hyperbole, because we have an influx of workers who want to be here and want to contribute.”

IRS to Dramatically Increase Audits

by | 1750, 2 May 24 | | 0 Comments

Uh huh.

Werfel noted that the IRS’ strategic plan over the next three tax years include a sharp increase in audits, although the agency reiterated it won’t boost its enforcement for people who earn less than $400,000 annually — which covers the bulk of U.S. taxpayers.

 

Here’s who will face an increase in audits

 

At the same time, the IRS is increasing its audit efforts, with Werfel noting on Thursday that the agency will focus on wealthy individuals and large corporations:

 

The IRS plans to triple the audit rates on large corporations with assets of more than $250 million. Audit rates for these companies will rise to 22.6% in tax year 2026 from  8.8% in 2019.Large partnerships with assets of more than $10 million will see their audit rates increase 10-fold, rising to 1% in tax year 2026 from 0.1% in 2019.Wealthy individuals with total positive income of more than $10 million will see their audit rates rise 50% to 16.5% from 11% in 2019.

 

“There is no new wave of audits coming from middle- and low-income [individuals], coming from mom and pops. That’s not in our plans,” Werfel said.

Let’s set aside, for a moment, the notion that imposing rectal audits on thousands of American companies won’t have negative consequences in terms of passing costs onto consumers, sucking wind out of the economy by diverting cash from productive activities to regulatory enforcement, or forcing companies to move operations overseas to friendlier environments. For a moment, let’s ignore that fact.

While the IRS Commissioner’s statement may be being made in good faith, there is absolutely no way that they will not go after small businesses and middle class folks. They may show restraint for a few months or even a year, but they are coming after all of us. They are like the scorpion. It is in their nature. And you can thank Joe Biden for that.

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