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USA’s Credit Rating Drops

by | 1030, 17 May 25 | , | 0 Comments

Frankly, Moody’s was negligent by not lowering it sooner. Until our politicians control spending and get our debt under control, we are a credit risk. Pretty soon our Congress is going to be getting payday loans to keep the spending going.

The US was stripped of its last top credit rating by Moody’s Ratings, reflecting deepening concern that ballooning debt and deficits will damage America’s standing as the preeminent destination for global capital and increase the government’s borrowing costs.

 

Moody’s lowered the US credit score to Aa1 from Aaa on Friday, joining Fitch Ratings and S&P Global Ratings in grading the world’s biggest economy below the top, triple-A position. The one-notch cut comes more than a year after Moody’s changed its outlook on the US rating to negative. The credit assessor now has a stable outlook.

 

[…]

 

The shift comes at a time when the federal budget deficit is running near $2 trillion a year, or more than 6% of gross domestic product. A weaker US economy in the wake of a global tariff war is set to increase the deficit as government spending typically rises when activity slows.

That outlook comes as the overall debt level for the US has already surpassed the size of the economy in the wake of profligate borrowing since Covid. Higher interest rates over the past several years have also pushed up the cost to service the government’s debt.

 

[…]

 

The US government is on track to surpass record debt levels set after World War II in just four years, reaching 107% of gross domestic product by 2029, the Congressional Budget Office warned in January.

Comey’s Shell Game

by | 1938, 16 May 25 | | 2 Comments

On the one hand, Comey clearly knew what he was doing when he posted the “8647” picture. He has hated Trump for years and apparently has the maturity of your average internet troll. On the other hand, while Comey is feeding into the pervasive violent rhetoric of the Left, I think the notion that his action constitutes a credible threat against the POTUS is overstated. All things considered, I’m glad that he was inconvenienced today, because I have absolutely no doubt that he did worse to conservatives as head of the FBI. 

Former FBI director James Comey has been interviewed by the US Secret Service after he shared then deleted a social media post that Republicans alleged was an incitement to violence against US President Donald Trump.

 

Comey voluntarily participated in the questioning at the law enforcement agency’s Washington DC headquarters and was not being held in custody, sources told US media.

 

It comes a day after he posted on Instagram a photo of seashells that spelled the numbers “8647”.

 

The number 86 is a slang term whose definitions include “to reject” or “to get rid of”, however, it has more recently been used as a term to mean “kill”. Trump is the 47th US president

 

Comey, whom Trump fired as FBI director in 2017, was interviewed on Friday afternoon about what he meant by the post, and whether he intended it as a threat to Trump or an attempt to inspire others to commit violence, according to CNN.

Big Beautiful Bill Stalls

by | 1852, 16 May 25 | | 1 Comment

It is, indeed, big, but it is not beautiful. Frankly, I would rather it fail and the House go about passing individual parts on their own merits. I’m sick of omnibus bills advocated by either party.

A budget bill, long touted by Donald Trump as the “big, beautiful bill” hit a roadblock on Friday when lawmakers from the president’s own party voted against it in congress.

 

Five Republicans joined all Democrats in delivering a stunning setback to President Trump’s domestic agenda, demanding deeper budget cuts.

 

Trump, who has muscled through close votes several times this year, urged lawmakers to unite behind the legislation. “We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!,” he posted on Truth Social.

 

The bill’s chances of success are not hopeless, but its failure gives the Trump administration its first legislative bruise of the year.

Support for the bill among Republicans varies. Some hard-liners want to see the budget cuts go further, while other Republicans have expressed concern about cuts to programmes like Medicaid, which their constituents are dependent on.

Content Creators Push Back on AI Using Their Work

by | 0726, 12 May 25 | , | 0 Comments

I’m with the content creators on this one. One could make the argument that having an AI model scoop up copyrighted material for training is okay as long as the model doesn’t actually copy it. In that sense it would not be any different than a person reading a book or listening to a song and using that knowledge to inform some future work. But there isn’t anything that prevents an AI model using the material in a way that violates the copyright. At the very least, it would seem that the tech companies should pay the content creators for their work or pay them if their work is used by the AI model in the future.

Late last year, the U.K. government kicked off a consultation on proposals that would give tech giants and AI labs like OpenAI a legally sound way of using copyrighted content to train their advanced foundational models.

 

Under the proposals, artists would have to opt out of having their copyright-protected works from being scraped by large language models. LLMs like OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini rely on huge amounts of data to generate humanlike responses in the form of text, images, video and audio.

This led to concerns from the U.K.’s creative industries, as it would mean placing the onus on content creators to request not to have their data used for the training of AI models — which, they argue, would amount to giving their valuable work away.

Federal Government Backs off on Regulations

by | 0717, 12 May 25 | , | 0 Comments

While this story is written to insinuate that the federal government is inappropriately favoring Musk, this is happening all across the country. It’s a good thing. The federal government’s regulatory overreach works to retard growth and we should celebrate the Trump administration for pulling the government regulators back.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s regulatory problems have started to fade into the past.

 

Since the start of the second Trump administration, federal agencies that had scrutinized Musk and his business empire in recent years have begun to look a lot different. At the Department of Agriculture, for example, President Donald Trump fired the person who had been investigating the Musk company Neuralink. At other agencies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Trump and Musk have tried to slash the number of employees — potentially hobbling those regulators’ ability to enforce the law against companies including Musk’s Tesla and X.

 

In the past few months, Trump’s Justice Department has dropped a case against Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, and his Labor Department has canceled a planned civil rights review of his automaker, Tesla. Another regulatory matter against SpaceX has entered settlement talks with the National Labor Relations Board.

Dad of School Shooter Charged with Felonies

by | 0834, 9 May 25 | , , | 0 Comments

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

MADISON, Wis. — The father of the 15-year-old girl who opened fire at Abundant Life Christian School last December, killing two people and injuring six more is in custody, online records show.

 

[…]

 

However, evidence collected from the Rupnows’ home and further testimony from Rupnow show his child had access to numerous guns while he was aware of her ongoing mental health struggles.

According to the complaint, Rupnow told police on the day of the shooting that he had 12 guns at his home, locked in a safe. However, police allegedly only found eight of those firearms when searching the home.

 

The complaint alleges that Rupnow took one of the guns out of the safe the day before the shooting at his daughter’s request, and he later told investigators that he couldn’t remember if the gun was returned before he closed the safe back up.

 

[…]

 

Jeffrey Rupnow had previously been questioned about his daughter’s suicidal tendencies in 2021. At the time he said he didn’t take things seriously. In 2022, Madison police spoke to him about high-risk behavior the eventual shooter was engaging in on the internet.

 

When asked why he allowed his daughter to unpack and pack the gun safe, Rupnow allegedly told investigators “I didn’t feel like I needed to babysit her with this.”

In general, I am in favor of charging negligent or criminal people who facilitate someone else committing a crime – even if that other person is their kid. Details matter here, though. In this case, it appears that the dad knew his daughter was not mentally stable and still gave her free and unsupervised access to guns. If those facts are true, then it rises to the level of negligence, at least.

What I worry about is prosecutors going too far. It is not a crime to have guns in your home. It is also not a crime to have unsecured guns in your home. It is a good idea if you have small or mentally disturbed children around, but if your kids are normal, responsible teenagers, it could be perfectly acceptable to have unsecured guns in your home. For generations, this was normal behavior. We don’t want our government to criminalize the “keep” part of the 2nd Amendment.

Hong Kong Dude is Proud to Report Neighbors to the Police

by | 2027, 8 May 25 | | 0 Comments

After seeing Americans react to COVID, I 100% believe that there are plenty of Americans who would do the same.

With new laws and arrests, there has been limited reporting on Hong Kong’s pro-China “patriots” – the people who are now running and policing the city, as well as the ordinary citizens who openly support them. But the BBC has spent weeks interviewing Innes Tang, 60, a prominent self-described patriot.

 

He and his volunteers have taken screen grabs from social media of any activities or comments they believe could be in breach of the NSL.

 

He also established a hotline for tip-offs from the public and encouraged his online followers to share information on the people around them.

 

Nearly 100 individuals and organisations have been reported to the authorities by him and his followers, he says.

 

“Does reporting work? We wouldn’t do it if it didn’t,” Mr Tang says. “Many had cases opened by the police… with some resulting in jail terms.”

 

Mr Tang says he hasn’t investigated alleged law breakers himself, but simply reported incidents he thinks warrant scrutiny – describing it as “proper community-police co-operation”.

Fed Holds Interest Rates

by | 0718, 8 May 25 | , | 0 Comments

I am one of those who thinks we should abolish the Federal Reserve Bank and this is one of the reasons why. Their decisions don’t follow any kind of data-driven process. Based on the rate of inflation, employment, and every other metric, the Fed would have lowered interest rates if Biden were president. Because they don’t like the current president, they decided to keep interest rates where they are. If the Fed is just another political body trying to manage our economy based on political motivations, then they are doing more harm than good.

The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday, just weeks after President Donald Trump intensified calls for lower borrowing costs and voiced eagerness about the potential “termination” of Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Leftists Defend Slave Labor Force

by | 0753, 7 May 25 | , , | 5 Comments

Some things never change. Just read the Leftists’ opposition to ICE raids. Illegal immigrants are exploited by employers who can underpay and abuse them because they know that the illegals will never go to the cops. This is this slave labor relationship that the Leftists persist in defending. And while they try to confuse the issue by lumping legal and illegal immigrants together, ICE is only concerned with the illegals.

“If ICE wants to snatch up every single immigrant working in food service and delivery, then the entire industry will collapse,” Amy Fischer, a core organizer with Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid, which supports migrants arriving in the capital, said in a statement.

 

The Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington — which represents the more than 60,000 restaurant workers in the area — said in a statement shared with ABC News that it was “deeply concerned” by the reports of ICE raids and drop-ins across Washington, D.C.

 

[…]

 

“Immigrants make up a significant portion of our workforce at all levels. From dishwashers to executive chefs to restaurant owners, immigrants are irreplaceable contributors to our most celebrated restaurants and beloved neighborhood establishments,” the statement said. “The immigrant workforce has been essential to sustaining and growing our local restaurant industry and has been a major contributor to our local economy.”

Racoon Narcs on Owner by Showing Cop Her Meth Pipe

by | 0746, 7 May 25 | | 0 Comments

Chewy had had enough.

A woman has been arrested after a raccoon named Chewy was found holding a meth pipe in the driver’s seat of her car in what police are calling a “strange encounter on patrol” in Ohio.

 

The incident occurred on Monday at approximately 7:15 p.m. when Springfield Township police officer Austin Branham decided to conduct a traffic stop on South Arlington Road after identifying a vehicle whose registered owner had an active warrant and a suspended driver’s license, according to a statement from the Springfield Township Police Department released on Tuesday.

 

When Officer Branham approached the car, he found 55-year-old Victoria Vidal of Akron, Ohio, and was able to detain her without incident, authorities said.

 

“However, things took an unusual turn,” according to the police statement, “As Officer Branham returned to the vehicle, he observed a raccoon named “Chewy” sitting in the driver’s seat with a meth pipe in its mouth. Chewy had somehow gotten hold of a glass methamphetamine pipe, leading officers to further inspect the vehicle.”

 

Police did confirm that Chewy was a pet raccoon and that he was not a wild animal after Vidal had the appropriate paperwork and documentation to own him.

Google Invests in Nuclear

by | 0731, 7 May 25 | , | 0 Comments

One of the societal benefits of AI may be the rebirth of the civilian nuclear age.

Nuclear developer Elementl Power said Wednesday it’s signed an agreement with Google to develop three sites for advanced reactors. It’s the latest example of tech giants teaming up with the nuclear industry in an effort to meet the vast energy needs of data centers.

 

Google will commit early-stage development capital to the three projects, although the exact terms of the deal remain private. Each site will generate at least 600 megawatts of power capacity, and Google will have the option to buy the power once the sites are up and running. The proposed locations remain private, but Elementl said Google’s funding will be used for things like site permitting, securing interconnection rights to the transmission system, contract negotiations and other early-stage matters.

“Google is committed to catalyzing projects that strengthen the power grids where we operate, and advanced nuclear technology provides reliable, baseload, 24/7 energy,” said Amanda Peterson Corio, global head of data center energy at Google.

 

“Our collaboration with Elementl Power enhances our ability to move at the speed required to meet this moment of AI and American innovation,” she added.

 

Elementl Power, which was founded in 2022 as a nuclear power project developer, hasn’t yet built any sites.

War Boils Between Pakistan and India

by | 1912, 6 May 25 | | 0 Comments

These are two large nuclear powers who hate each other. It could get very ugly.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — India fired missiles into Pakistani-controlled territory in several locations early Wednesday, killing at least eight people including a child, Pakistani authorities said. India said it was striking infrastructure used by militants.

 

Tensions have soared between the nuclear-armed neighbors since last month’s massacre of tourists in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir. India has blamed Pakistan for backing the militant attack, which Islamabad has denied.

 

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned Wednesday’s airstrikes and said the “deceitful enemy has carried out cowardly attacks at five locations in Pakistan” and that his country would retaliate.

Hegseth Orders Reduction of Top Leadership

by | 2034, 5 May 25 | , | 1 Comment

Seems like a good start.

Cedeno/Reuters
CNN — 

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered senior Pentagon leadership to cut the number of four-star generals and admirals by at least 20% across the military, according to a memo signed by Hegseth dated Monday and obtained by CNN.

As of 2023, there were 37 four-star generals and admirals across the entire military.

The memo also directs the Pentagon to cut the number of general officers in the National Guard by 20%, and to cut the total number of general and flag officers across the military by 10%. There are currently about 900 general and flag officers — those with the rank of one star or higher — across the military.

At the end of WW2, we had about 12 million active duty military and about 450 generals and admirals – about 1 general/admiral per 26,667 service members.

Currently, we have about 900 generals and admirals leading a military of about 1.26 million service members – about 1 general/admiral per 1,400 service members. We only have 241 active ships in our navy and over 300 admirals.

Yes, it’s time to streamline our armed forces and make them less top heavy starting with the 4-stars.

Josh Shoemann Runs for Governor

by | 1916, 5 May 25 | | 0 Comments

Story from Wisconsin Right Now. You can click through to watch his announcement video.

Schoemann, 43, who is running as a Republican, is holding an event on Sunday, May 4, 2025, to officially announce his campaign against Democrat Gov. Tony Evers.

 

“I’m Josh Schoemann, and I’m running for governor,” he confirms in the video, which sketches out his bio and strikes a theme of commonality and unity through being neighbors. The tone stands in stark contrast to the very partisan rhetoric and stances lately of Evers, and Schoemann also emphasizes his deep Wisconsin roots.

Let me start by saying that, barring some unforeseen circumstance, I don’t think Shoemann has a chance.

I’ve watched Shoemann’s public career since he started because I lived in his county. He started out as a hired County Administrator. He was effective, but in that role his responsibilities were to the board that hired him. He pushed to change Washington County into a County Executive form of government where the County Executive is an elected branch of county government. The County changed the form of government and Shoemann ran for, and won, that job. He’s been the Washington County manager and executive for the last eleven years.

Shoemann has a great biography for Wisconsin. He’s a combat veteran, lives on a farm, is a practicing Lutheran, a family man, and is involved in multiple local organizations. His governing style has been traditionally conservative. He navigated the urban/rural divide of an overly large county board, sought compromises, and incrementally helped lead the county in a conservative direction. The county has managed to keep taxes comparatively low, sought efficiencies, privatized the county old folks home, encouraged private investment, and, with a few exceptions, ran a good shop.

Shoemann is the kind of Conservative that I support. Shoemann’s challenge is that there aren’t enough people like me to elect him to be governor.

Shoemann’s headwinds are substantial. First, this election will be the midterm election after a new president. This is usually an election in which the opposition party of the president does well. Trump has defied all kinds of political norms and that may be true this time too, but odds are that any Republican will struggle to win the governorship next year.

Second, Shoemann lacks statewide name recognition. This is probably why he’s starting so early, but it’s a significant uphill climb.

Third, while not certain, it is looking more likely that Governor Evers will run for a third term. If he does, then the two challenges above are amplified by running against an entrenched, well-funded incumbent.

Fourth, the last few statewide elections have taught us something. Wisconsin is a blue-leaning state. There simply aren’t enough conservatives to win statewide anymore. Since the Walker era, too many conservatives have left the state and been replaced by growth in liberal bastion of Dane County and filtering into the WOW counties. The only thing that has defeated Democrats at the state level is a coalition of Populist/Trump and Conservative voters. For a Republican to win, he or she must turn out the traditional conservative Republican base in SE and somewhat NE Wisconsin, but also turn out the more rural outstate and disaffected minority and youth votes. It’s the Trump coalition. Yes, there may be another path to victory, but this is the only formula that has worked since 2016.

Given all that, Shoemann is not that guy. As Washington County Executive, he didn’t take the big swings that would attract the Trump voters. He didn’t cancel the sales tax. He didn’t drastically reduce the property tax. He didn’t take a DOGE-like hatchet to county government. He governed like a traditional conservative. He also governed a 94% white county that, while not without challenges, certainly doesn’t face the challenges that Milwaukee County did when Scott Walker ran it.

Josh Shoemann is the kind of governor that Wisconsin SHOULD elect, but I am almost certain that they won’t.

Warren Buffett to Step Down

by | 1900, 3 May 25 | | 0 Comments

The end of an era.

Warren Buffett has announced he will retire as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year.

 

The veteran investor, known as the Oracle of Omaha, told his company’s annual meeting he would hand over the reins to Vice-Chairman Greg Abel.

 

“I think the time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive of the company at year end,” said Buffett, 94.

 

Mr Buffett, who built Berkshire Hathaway from a failing textile maker into an investment juggernaut worth $1.16tn (£870bn), is arguably the world’s most successful investor.

Governor Evers Talks Tough

by | 1852, 3 May 25 | | 3 Comments

This has been entertaining to follow the back and forth the past few days. Notice how Scott Bauer from the AP continues to just regurgitate the spin and lies from Evers. Evers’ “guidance” was nothing of the sort. It was written as an instruction – one might even call it an order. I’m pretty sure that the Trump Administration wouldn’t arrest a sitting governor, but we can expect to see some government employees in cuffs if they follow Evers’ instructions.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said Friday that every American should be concerned about “chilling” suggestions from President Donald Trump’s top border adviser that he could be arrested over guidance the Democrat issued to state employees about what to do if confronted by federal immigration agents.

 

“I’m not afraid,” Evers said in the extraordinary video posted on YouTube. “I’ve never once been discouraged from doing the right thing and I will not start today.”

 

At issue is guidance Evers’ administration issued last month in response to state workers who asked what they should do if agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement show up at their offices.

Evers’ guidance advised them to contact an attorney immediately and ask the officers to return if an attorney is unavailable. The memo also advises state workers not to turn over paper files or give ICE officers access to computers without first consulting the state agency’s attorney and not to answer questions from the agents.

Prison Warden Gets Away With Homicide

by | 1845, 29 Apr 25 | , | 0 Comments

I’m certainly not a softy when it comes to crooks but making someone die of dehydration is beyond inhumane. This warden should be in jail for the rest of his life. Yet another example of our two-tier justice system.

In a move that is sure to have political repercussions, Dodge County District Attorney Andrea Will, an appointee of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, has slashed felony misconduct charges against former Waupun Correctional Institution Warden Randall Hepp to a misdemeanor, letting him off with a $500 fine for his role in the death of inmate Donald Maier.

 

The plea deal, finalized Monday in Dodge County Circuit Court, is the latest chapter in Governor Evers’ Wisconsin Department of Corrections’ ongoing saga of mismanagement and dodged accountability.

 

Hepp, who conveniently announced his retirement just days before charges were filed in June 2024, was initially accused of felony misconduct in office, a charge that could have landed him three-and-a-half years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The allegations stemmed from the deaths of two inmates at Waupun, Wisconsin’s oldest maximum-security prison: Cameron Williams, who died of a stroke in October 2023, and Maier, who succumbed to dehydration and malnutrition in February 2024 after guards shut off his cell’s water supply. Court documents paint a grim picture: Williams, ignored after begging for hospital care, collapsed and crawled to his cell, his body undiscovered for at least 12 hours. Maier’s death, ruled a homicide by the Dodge County Medical Examiner, was a slow torture of starvation and thirst, with staff failing to provide meals or water.

 

Yet, according to a report by WLUK, Will justified the reduced charge by claiming Hepp was “well respected” within Evers’ Department of Corrections and unaware his guards were flouting policy Hepp pleaded no contest, and Judge Martin Devries, an appointee of former Republican Governor Scott Walker, ordered the $500 fine and court costs, requiring Hepp to pay within 48 hours and submit a DNA sample. Maier’s mother, Jeanette, called the sentence a “slap on the wrist,” lamenting that her son was “treated worse than a caged animal.”

Source of Massive Power Outage is Unknown

by | 1916, 28 Apr 25 | | 0 Comments

I suspect that someone does know and they don’t want to say.

A sweeping power outage left millions of people in Spain, Portugal and parts of France without electricity on Monday, leading to chaotic scenes and widespread disruption.

 

A problem with the power connection between France and Spain was a contributing factor to the outage, the head of a trade body that represents Europe’s power industry said.

 

[…]

 

Mr Ruby said this “meant the Spanish grid was disconnected from the broader European grid”.

 

He added that the interconnector incident was unlikely to have caused the outage on its own and that there were “likely to have been other elements in this equation”.

 

A day of widespread disruption saw trains cancelled and evacuated in some regions, and traffic lights stop working as delays mounted at airports.

Ah, Eduardo… We Barely Knew Thee

by | 1907, 28 Apr 25 | , | 0 Comments

But we knew enough. This is the upstanding “migrant” that the Left and Judge Dugan are so worked up about.

He was previously removed from the U.S. through Arizona in 2013, authorities say.

 

The complaint charges Ruiz with domestic-violence-related battery and says that he told police that there was a fight that arose because he was playing loud music.

 

He was accused of intentionally elbowing a woman, causing her pain and bruising. Ruiz was also accused of striking his roommate 30 times with a closed fist and shouting obscenities when the man confronted him about the music, the complaint says. The roommate’s girlfriend tried to intervene, and Ruis struck her with a closed fist too and shoved her, the complaint says. He is also accused of grabbing the roommate by the neck.

Despite Evers’ “Year of the Kid,” Government Education is Failing Them

by | 1852, 28 Apr 25 | , | 0 Comments

I feel like I’ve been shouting about this for decades and nobody in government has ever expressed real concern. The government-education complex is just about funneling gobs of money to political-favored groups of people… the kids be damned.

The Department of Public Instruction on Monday released the scores from several years of the state’s Forward Exam, which is the state test taken mostly by kids in elementary school and junior high.

 

“The Forward Exam, revised extensively and administered during the 2023-24 school year, was updated to align with newer, revised Wisconsin Academic Standards in English language arts and mathematics,” DPI said in its announcement. “Given the differences between the previous and updated Forward Exam ELA and mathematics assessments, the trend data should be interpreted with caution.”

 

DPI’s release includes hundreds of pages of school-by-school test results, but it does not include any overall numbers. Parents would need to look for their kids’ school, broken down by year, and then look to compare those scores with earlier years.

 

Will Flanders, an education expert for the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, said any parents who do that will see the Wisconsin school kids continue to fall behind.

 

“To the surprise of no one, [the test scores] reveal that student proficiency is still down since the COVID 19 pandemic. Proficiency is about 3.61% lower in third grade reading statewide than the 2018-19 school year,” Flanders wrote on Twitter.

 

He also said the test scores show the DPI lowered the bar for kids.

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