LOS ANGELES (AP) — A U.S. Secret Service agent was robbed at gunpoint as President Joe Biden was visiting Los Angeles for a fundraising event over the weekend, officials said.
The agent was returning from work Saturday night when he was accosted in a residential community in Tustin, about an hour’s drive southeast of Los Angeles, according to the U.S. Secret Service.
Someone called the Tustin Police Department shortly after 9:30 p.m. to report the robbery. Police said the agent had his bag stolen at gunpoint. The agent, who was not injured, fired his gun during the confrontation, police said. The Secret Service said they did not know if anyone was shot.
Tustin Police said Monday they had not found a suspect. Officers did find some of the agent’s stolen belongings in the area. Police reported a silver Infiniti FX35 was seen leaving the scene.
MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear a challenge to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto that locked in a school funding increase for the next 400 years, the justices announced Monday.
The Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Litigation Center filed a lawsuit in April arguing the governor exceeded his authority. The group asked the high court to strike down the veto without waiting for the case to go through lower courts.
The court issued an order Monday afternoon saying it would take the case. The justices didn’t elaborate beyond setting a briefing schedule.
At issue is a partial veto Evers made in the state budget in July 2023 that increased revenue public schools can raise per student by $325 annually until 2425. Evers took language that originally applied the $325 increase for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years and vetoed the “20” and the hyphen to make the end date 2425, more than four centuries from now.
By the law, it seems clearly unconstitutional. While the Wisconsin Constitution stupidly gives the Governor the power to veto individual letters, it is clear that the power to write laws and raise taxes lies exclusively within the power of the legislature.
Politically, the leftists control the court. One might instinctively think that they will rule in favor of Evers to support “their guy.” However, handing that kind of power to the governor in perpetuity is fraught with risk for the Liberals. Wisconsin is an evenly divided state and there is no certainty that the Democrats will control the governorship last Evers’ current term. If the court enhances the power of the governor’s veto, what will a Republican governor do with it?
Remember that the court just unconstitutionally redrew the legislative districts in the hopes of taking back one or both houses of the legislature. Will the shoot themselves in the foot by disempowering the legislature just when they are poised to take it back?
If I were a betting man, I’d bet that the court’s liberals will make the correct ruling that the governor exceeded his authority. It’s smarter politics to play the long game for legislative power. It also allows them to portray the court as balanced just before a pivotal court election next spring.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Biden administration’s effort to expand protections for LGBTQ+ students hit another roadblock Monday, when a federal judge in Kentucky temporarily blocked the new Title IX rule in six additional states.
U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves referred to the regulation as “arbitrary in the truest sense of the word” in granting a preliminary injunction blocking it in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. His ruling comes days after a different federal judge temporarily blocked the new rule from taking effect in Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi and Montana.
Attorneys general in more than 20 Republican-led states have filed at least seven legal challenges to President Joe Biden’s new policy. Republicans argue the policy is a ruse to allow transgender girls to play on girls athletic teams. The Biden administration said the rule does not apply to athletics.
Democrats are really trying to scare people with SCOTUS’ bump stock ruling by making it about guns because they want you to ignore that the ruling was really about reining in rogue agencies who are abusing their authority. For example:
“But now that they have got a Supreme Court that seems ready to unwind the entirety of the Second Amendment and take away from Congress or the executive branch the ability to keep our communities safe, they’re once again lining up behind the gun industry.”
Murphy’s comments echo the response of gun control advocacy groups, which argued Friday that the court’s ruling will have a dangerous impact in a country constantly reeling from gun violence.
Held: ATF exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a Rule that classifies a bump stock as a “machinegun” under §5845(b). Pp. 6–19.
(a) A semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a “machinegun” as defined by §5845(b) because: (1) it cannot fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger” and (2) even if it could, it would not do so “automatically.” ATF therefore exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a Rule that classifies bump stocks as machineguns. P. 6.
(b) A semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock does not fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger.” The phrase “function of the trigger” refers to the mode of action by which the trigger activates the firing mechanism. No one disputes that a semiautomatic rifle without a bump stock is not a machinegun because a shooter must release and reset the trigger between every shot. And, any subsequent shot fired after the trigger has been released and reset is the result of a separate and distinct “function of the trigger.” Nothing changes when a semiautomatic rifle is equipped with a bump stock. Between every shot, the shooter must release pressure from the trigger and allow it to reset before reengaging the trigger for another shot. A bump stock merely reduces the amount of time that elapses between separate “functions” of the trigger.
What Democrats really want to preserve is the ability of federal agencies to operate on their own without the authority of Congress. They WANT to empower the Executive Branch at the expense of the Legislative Branch because they know that their agenda is too unpopular to implement with the consent of the governed. That is why they are up in arms, so to speak, to usurp the court as a means to usurp the Congress.
SCOTUS ruled how all Americans should want them to rule. They simply said that a federal agency may not make up laws. Congress has the sole authority to make laws. If you wanted a different ruling, then you don’t really support democracy.
That is the message Milwaukee activist Dr. Tamika Johnson and other concerned citizens had for the Milwaukee Public School Board on Wednesday. The group calls itself the Recall MPS School Board Collaborative.
[…]
According to the group, “MPS’ gross financial mismanagement, irresponsible and unresponsive leadership, and inadequate governance by the elected MPS School Board Directors” led them to launch a recall of selected members.
Those members are Board President Marva Herndon, Board Vice President Jilly Gokalgandhi, Erica Siemsen, and Missy Zomber. The group says those four members have not been transparent over the last few years and have deceived the public.
The National Weather Service warned people in the South and Midwest planning to celebrate dads outdoors on Sunday to stay cool amid a major heat risk, with high temperatures into the 90s in some areas.
The intense heat wave won’t stop there. An expansive and exceptionally strong heat dome will build Sunday over the East and stretch into the Midwest and Great Lakes over the next few days, with the heat expected to persist through the week.
Heat domes trap air in place and bake it with abundant sunshine for days on end, making each day hotter than the last.
Conservative media outlets selectively used a camera angle that left out important context to spread a claim Thursday and Friday that President Joe Biden wandered off from a meeting of world leaders, but the full video at another angle captured by NBC News tells a different story.
Instead of wandering off, Biden was walking toward a group of parachutists who had just landed in an Italian clearing and gave them two thumbs-up.
The deceptive video began spreading online shortly after a photo opportunity at the G7 summit in Puglia, in southern Italy. Biden and other leaders from some of the world’s largest economies stood on a green lawn while people in military uniforms parachuted in carrying oversized flags of the different countries.
First, that video came out days ago. What was it? Wednesday? Maybe early Thursday? It is now Sunday and suddenly every news outlet is jumping on this like a hog on slop to claim that it was faked. If it was fake, why wasn’t there a response the afternoon it came out? Or the day after? Or the day after that? Clearly, it took a few days before someone thought it would be a good idea to at least try to counter the claim.
Second, this is part of a pattern for Biden. The story isn’t that he wandered off at this event. The story is that he keeps wandering off all over the place. It is a clear sign of age when he continually gets distracted, loses focus, or forgets to abide by social norms for public events.
by Owen | 2109, 14 Jun 2424 | Politics | 0 Comments
This is the plan all along. Throw open the gates of America, import millions of people, and then make the citizens. I’m not saying anything that anyone with a brain didn’t already know. All of the people who immigrated legally to America are suckers for going through the trouble of following our laws.
To protect the spouses of Americans, the administration is expected to use a process called “parole-in-place.” It not only offers deportation protections and work permits to qualifying immigrants but also removes a legal obstacle that prevents them from getting on a path to a green card, and eventually, U.S. citizenship.
That power has already been used for other groups of immigrants, such as members of the U.S. military or their family members who lack legal status.
For Biden’s actions, White House officials were narrowing in on a plan that would offer parole in place for spouses of Americans who have been here for at least five or 10 years, according to the people briefed on the deliberations. The people were granted anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.
The immigrant advocacy group FWD.us estimates that there are roughly 1.1 million immigrants without legal status married to Americans. However, depending on how the Biden administration writes the proposal, the actual universe of people who could qualify for the president’s plan is likely far smaller.
Advocates were also lobbying the White House to include benefits for immigrants lacking legal status who provide caregiving roles for American family members, according to two of the people familiar with the discussions, although that provision was seen as far less likely to be enacted for now. Allowing such caregivers to apply for a so-called “cancellation of removal” would affect immigrants like family members of Americans who have specific needs or disabilities.
When Biden looks back at those two round trips — roughly a day and a half of flying, all told — he may remember only what happened in between: the conviction of his only living son, Hunter Biden, on charges of lying to obtain a gun permit.
But the two round trips raise the question: Why didn’t he just stay in Europe for a couple of days, play a round of golf, visit some U.S. troops, maybe huddle with a foreign leader or two? He is, after all, 81, and some of his aides who are half his age were complaining about lost sleep cycles.
The White House’s explanation for four trans-Atlantic crossings in nine days was simply that Biden had commitments in Washington. But by presidential standards, his public schedule looked light: a lunch with Vice President Kamala Harris, a Juneteenth concert and a speech to a gun safety group.
Hunter Biden’s trial also loomed over the planning, though it was impossible to know when these trips were planned that the case would go to the jury and a verdict would be rendered in the three days between the D-Day trip and the G7 meeting. As it turned out, Biden shuttled back to Delaware on Tuesday afternoon to be with his son before taking off again in the morning.
But privately, some aides said there were election-year optics to be considered. There was no urgent reason to stay in Europe, and a few down days “might not look right,” one of Biden’s advisers conceded, though the aide quickly added that Biden never really took a down day. In any case, no one wanted images of the president on what his political opponents might cast as a European holiday, at least while he is running for reelection. A long weekend in Rehoboth, the Delaware town where he and his wife, Jill, have a beach house, might be one thing; a few days in France or Italy have an entirely different look.
Realize where we are. The Democrats are willing to weaponize any office to punish their political opponents. In this case (setting aside the Scott Bauer’s comically rank bias by using the phrase “fake electors”), we had some honest people who were doing what they thought right, proper, and within the law in response to a tightly contested election riddled with issues. For their care for the rule of law and preservation of democratic rule, the state’s Attorney General is using every resource at his disposal to ruin their lives. Liberals are burning cities without consequence while dreary lawyers get prosecuted for having a legal opinion contrary to the ruling order.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday suspended former President Donald Trump’s Wisconsin lawyer from a state judicial ethics panel a week after he was charged with a felony for his role in a 2020 fake electors scheme.
Liberal advocates have been calling for Jim Troupis to step down from the Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee, saying he is unsuitable due to his role advising the Republicans who attempted to cast Wisconsin’s electoral votes for Trump after he lost the 2020 election in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.
Troupis, a former judge, Kenneth Chesebro, another Trump attorney, and former Trump aide Mike Roman were all charged by state Attorney General Josh Kaul last week for their role in the fake electors plot.
The entire purpose of a credit report is to give lenders some insight into whether or not a person will pay them back based on past history. It doesn’t matter where a person’s debt originated. In yet another election year stupid scheme, Biden is setting up the next debt bubble and market crash as he blinds lenders to the credit worthiness of their potential customers.
In a sweeping change that could improve millions of Americans’ ability to own a home or buy a car, the Biden administration on Tuesday proposed a rule to ban medical debt from credit reports.
The rule, announced by Vice President Kamala Harris and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra, comes as President Joe Biden beefs up his efforts to persuade Americans his administration is lowering costs, a chief concern for voters in the upcoming election.
[…]
CFPB’s research estimates that the new rule would allow 22,000 more people to get approved for safe mortgages each year — meaning lenders could also benefit from the positive impact on peoples’ credit scores, by being able to approve more borrowers.
I’ll admit it. I’m surprised. While it was obviously a slam-dunk case, I did not think that a Delaware jury would convict him. I don’t expect that he will see a day in jail, but the verdict surprises me. I doubt that the verdict moves a single vote for the presidential election, but it’s something.
Here’s where things currently stand:
Hunter Biden has been found guilty of lying about his drug use when buying a gun. After three hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty on all three counts.
Hunter faces a maximum of 25 years in prison for all three counts. An exact date has not been scheduled. The judge has said sentencing dates usually take place within a 120-day period.
Hunter showed little emotion as the guilty verdicts were read out, staring ahead with his arms folded before turning around to hug some of the associates on his legal team.
If you were coming here today to read my latest weekly column for the Washington County Daily News, I’m sorry to disappoint you. My time as a columnist for Conley Media has come to an end. Last week’s column was my final one.
The reason is simple. Money. It is no secret that traditional newspapers have suffered greatly in the internet age. With so many outlets for news, people have moved away from traditional local newspapers and their revenue has, consequently, suffered. And so, Conley has cut back on their budget for freelance writers like me and my column has been cut.
It’s been a helluva run and I am immensely appreciative to Conley. Jed and I started this blog in 2003. It was before social media and at the beginning of the heyday of blogging and citizen journalism. It was a lot of fun and we built a substantial audience with some significant influence.
In 2006, Conley did something really smart. In order to capitalize on the popularity of blogging, they asked several prominent Wisconsin bloggers, including me, to write a weekly column for them. I initially chaffed at the notion of a deadline and an editor. After all, blogging offers unlimited freedom of content and form. But I accepted the offer and figured I could always quit if it became onerous.
The column proved to be a joy. I came to appreciate the discipline of writing every week. I really tried to keep the column focused on state or local issues. There are plenty of other writers who write about national and international issues. My thought was that the readers of Conley’s papers wanted to read about home. My editors over the years (sans one) allowed me immense latitude and kept me honest on facts. They occasionally nudged me on tone, but never on content. A special shoutout to my editor of the past several years, Brian Huber, for his guidance and support.
I also enjoyed the column because it afforded me the opportunity to have a conversation with a different audience than this blog. There is some crossover, but they are different audiences. As I have put less effort into the blog in recent years as I have other life priorities, the column remained a weekly commitment. I believe I am the last remaining blogger columnist from that era. The others dropped off long ago for various reasons. Perhaps the death of my column will breathe new life into this blog. Perhaps not. Don’t get your hopes up.
All told, I wrote every week except for two. Once I missed my deadline because I broke my collar bone. I forget why I missed the other time. In total, I wrote 954 columns, or roughly 670,000 words over 18 years and 4 months from February 7, 2006, to June 4, 2024. The column ran every Tuesday in the Washington County Daily News, nee West Bend Daily News, and was regularly republished in other Conley newspapers around the state as they saw fit.
Thank you to all of the people who read and enjoyed (or hated) the column for the last almost two decades. And thank you to the good folks at Conley Media for publishing my work for so long. It was fun to write. I enjoyed the conversation. I hope y’all did too.
Of those who said they see the election as a judgement on Trump, most vote for Biden, 66 percent to 34 percent. When people see it as a judgement on just Biden, they vote for Trump, also 66 percent to 34 percent.
With voters who see it as a comparison between the two candidates, slightly more respondents are voting for Trump, 53 percent, over Biden, who shored up 47 percent support.
by Owen | 0626, 10 Jun 2424 | Politics | 4 Comments
Wow. This story cataloging a bunch of Biden’s repeated lies is in the New York Times. Of course, many of the folks on the right have been pointing out Biden’s lies for years and he has been a known BSer for his entire career, but the fact that the venerable liberal establishment paper of record is pointing them out is notable. They shy away from the work “lie” and use softer words like “hyperbole,” “yarns,” and “false,” but they published the story.
WASHINGTON — In President Joe Biden’s telling, he was a teenage civil rights activist, a former trucker, the first in his family to go college and the nephew of a cannibalism victim.
All of these claims stretch the truth or are downright false. But Biden persists in telling personal tales with rhetorical flourishes and factual liberty when he works a room or regales an audience. They are a way to connect with voters, emphasize his “middle-class Joe” persona and charm his audience.
Despite Biden’s penchant for exaggerating details when recounting episodes from his life, these autobiographical embellishments differ in scale and significance from the stream of lies about a stolen election peddled by his opponent, former President Donald Trump.
A White House spokesperson, Andrew Bates, said that Biden had “brought honesty and integrity back to the White House” and that he shared life experiences that had shaped his outlook.
Here are some of the president’s most repeated yarns.
A shooting at a rooftop party in Wisconsin early on Sunday left at least 10 people injured, including teenagers, police said.
Nine people were injured by gunfire and another was injured by broken glass at the party at a high-rise apartment in downtown Madison.
[…]
The victims ranged in age from 14 to 23.
“It is truly a miracle that no one is dead,” the Madison police chief, Shon Barnes, said at a news conference. “As a community, our hearts are hurting.”
[…]
No one was in custody on Sunday in connection with the shooting. Police did not offer a motive.
It’s a move in the right direction. Bear in mind, however, that when the media calls people “right wing,” they mean moderates from 10 years ago.
LONDON — Populist, far-right parties could have a bigger hand in European policymaking over the next five years after initial results from the EU election on Sunday suggested the parliamentary landscape is being redrawn.
Gains for the nationalist Identity and Democracy (ID) party — and losses for the Greens/European Free Alliance — could leave centrist parties dependent on the right for key votes in the 720 seat European Parliament.
The Parliament has, in the past, been led by a strong majority of centrist parties, who typically vote together on issues to win a majority in the 720 seat chamber. Indeed, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) is once again projected to win the most parliamentary seats and retain its dominance in the chamber.
But a centrist coalition led by the EPP might now depend on support from the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) to pass certain legislation, with research firm Eurasia Group describing the ECR in a pre-election note as potential “key players.”
[…]
Immigration will remain front and center of the policy agenda in the next Parliament, with right-wing parties expected to advocate for increased border security and a tougher stance on arrivals from outside the EU.
The Socialists continue to push Mexico into financial oblivion. This is why they support allowing their criminals and poor to cross into the United States. They need the inflow of money from expats and the outsourcing of social welfare to the American taxpayers.
But most worrisome to markets is that López Obrador’s Morena party won a two-thirds majority in Congress, which would allow them to pass changes to the Constitution, like the judicial reform, as well as mandates for a series of yet-unfunded government benefit programs.
López Obrador pledged Friday to continue to press for 20 constitutional changes, including one that would undo the country’s current system of individual retirement accounts and the elimination of most independent government oversight and regulatory agencies.
Sheinbaum has spoken by phone or in person this week with officials from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the head of the BlackRock investment company, after the peso plunged and the stock market briefly dipped on Monday.
When can you tell that a politician doesn’t give a crap but knows that he needs to pretend for the sake of appeasing the people? When they appoint a Blue Ribbon Committee. This is the same thing. Evers was head of the DPI for ten years and governor for six years. MPS has been a disaster for all of that time and longer. Throughout, he did nothing. This is more of the same. Evers owes his political fortunes to the money and manpower of the teachers’ unions. He is not going to even attempt to stand in the way of the gravy train in Milwaukee. And no… he doesn’t give a crap about the kids. If he did, he would have done something about MPS long ago.
MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – Governor Tony Evers announced on Friday that he is calling for operational and instructional audits of Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).
Officials say Governor Evers is proposing direct funding to support both audits. This proposal would give a more comprehensive review than the ongoing MPS audit, which focuses more on the district’s financial statements.
Normal people do not want to abandon modern life and modern conveniences for the sake of the climate change zealots – nor should they be forced to. And in this case, once again, it will be the poor countries who suffer most for the egotism of the rich countries.
PARIS – For all the steps Paris organizers have taken to put on the greenest Olympics ever, their boldest measure – the one they’ve touted again and again – pertains to the dorms in the Athletes’ Village. The rooms don’t have air-conditioning. Because of other cooling measures, organizers have assured, the athletes won’t need it.
But in a farcical turn, when the Games start next month, an Olympic Village designed to showcase sustainability will be more of an energy hog than organizers had hoped.
That’s because portable air-conditioning units will be everywhere. Wheeled in. Shipped in. Ordered by visiting countries that want their athletes to sleep well and perform at the highest level – even if it means a larger carbon footprint.
Worried about what potentially could be the world’s hottest year on record, wealthier nations have effectively undercut Paris’s marquee sustainability measure, signaling that, yes, they care about environmental aims – but not if it risks the comfort of their athletes. Some of those athletes are accustomed to temperatures cooler than what the dorms might have provided and raised concerns to their national Olympic committees.
“It’s a high-performance environment,” said Strath Gordon, the chief of public affairs for the Olympic committee of Australia, one of the countries opting for the ACs.
[…]
“We don’t have deep pockets,” said Donald Rukare, a lawyer who is president of the Uganda Olympic Committee. Rukare mentioned a sweltering international sports competition in Turkey a few years ago, where athletes stayed in rooms without air-conditioning. Some federations shipped in portable units; Uganda did not. “Because we didn’t have the money,” he said.
