1) We Swear on a Bible This Really Happened in the Once-Great City of Chicago
A Chicago TV news crew reporting on a string of robberies in the city’s West Town neighborhood became the story themselves when they were robbed at gunpoint early Monday.
Doesn't this just completely encapsulate progressive governance in one headline?
2) Typical First-Time Homebuyer Has Lost $71,000 in Purchasing Power on a Home in Just the Last Year
Biden is making the American Dream of homeownership a lot more out-of-reach for Millennial and Generation Z.
Redfin reports that a 30 or 40-something first-time homebuyer with roughly a median income could afford down payment and interest payments on a 30-year mortgage loan on a home of $500,000 this time last year. Thanks to higher interest rates, that same buyer can now only afford a home valued at $429,000 – which in many areas is a condo, not a house. If we go back to Trump-era interest rates of 2.9%, the homebuyer has lost well over $100,000 in the price of a home they can afford.
No wonder so many young workers are still residing in their parents basement’s.
The budget battle is still in overtime in the Keystone State, where Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro claims to support scholarships for poor kids in failing schools, but vetoed it anyway.
Our friend Jeff Yass nails it in today's WSJ:
Teachers unions need to kill Lifeline Scholarships in the crib, because they know that Lifeline Scholarships will work, allowing students to leave their schools. Students attending dangerous, failing public schools are generally low-income. Providing resources to these students will create a stampede out of deficient public schools as evidenced by the long waiting lists for charter-school seats and tax-credit scholarships.
Lifeline Scholarships are the canary in the coal mine, in Pennsylvania and nationally. If teachers unions allow a $100 million program today, parents desperate for a taste of freedom will rush to enroll their children in better schools and demand larger funding programs. If the unions allow even one of their financially supported Democrats to buck the antichild orthodoxy and do the right thing for their desperate constituents, other Democrats will surely follow, in Pennsylvania, in other states and in Congress.
We have said many times that we are NOT against private sector unions – and we believe that joining a union for the purpose of collective bargaining is protected by the first amendment right of association. What we are ferociously against is forced unionism -–which is also a violation of first amendment rights.
But it appears from this survey of Seeking Alpha readers (anything BUT a conservative outlet) that a majority of Americans now see the radicalization of labor unions (and their one-sided political giving) as a big problem for the country.
We suggest that the next poll should be: Do you think PUBLIC sector unions are a good or bad thing? Our view: overwhelming bad for the country and for our school kids.
Your editors don’t usually watch beauty pageants, but we loved what our friends at the Daily Caller have reported about this year’s Mrs. America contest:
Beauty pageant winner Hannah Neeleman gave a pro-family response to a judge’s question at the Mrs. American contest Friday.
Neeleman, who is known online as “Ballerina Farm,” is a mother of seven and a farmer in Kamas, Utah. Her business sells farm-grown meat, kitchen supplies and her popular sourdough starters. The 33-year-old’s Instagram account is popular for promoting a traditional agrarian lifestyle.
"When have you felt most empowered?” a judge asked Neeleman onstage.
“I have felt this feeling seven times now as I bring these sacred souls to the earth,” Neeleman responded. “After I hold that newborn baby in my arms, the feeling of motherhood and bringing them to the earth is the most empowering feeling I have ever felt.”
The crowd burst out in long applause.
What an inspired response and right from the heart. So much more sincere than the ladies who robotically blabber about feeling made whole by attending a Climate Change protest or a Black Lives Matter parade.
ERRATUM: In Friday's HOTLINE we reported the lifetime cost of median homeownership is $32,000 under Biden, and $50,000 in high-cost areas. We missed a zero. The correct figures are ten times higher, $320,000 and $500,000. We regret the error.
