White House Dossier's

Biden Is Killing the American Dream of Homeownership . . . Joe Biden keeps making first-time homeownership harder for young families for two reasons. One is that the overall jump in inflation and the slower increase in wages and salaries means that homes are more expensive. High home prices benefit those who already own their homes, but much of the increased value is due to general inflation, which reached a high of 9% last year and hurts everyone. A bigger killer for first-time homebuyers has been the steady rise in mortgage rates under Biden. When he came into office, the mortgage rate was 2.9% nationally. Now it is 7.1%, thanks in no small part to the Federal Reserve’s 11 interest rate increases prompted by the $6 trillion Biden spending and borrowing spree in 2021 and 2022. Daily Signal

Biden plans even bigger student loan handout, dumping the bill on you . . . In response to the Supreme Court overturning President Biden’s $300 billion student debt scheme, the Biden administration is now taking a shot at an even larger plan to transfer student debt onto taxpayers. President Biden’s "SAVE Plan" radically overhauls the Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) program meant to aid lower-income borrowers in paying back their loans and turns it into yet another massive loan forgiveness scheme. This latest attempt to cancel student debt would allow a majority of bachelor’s degree student loan borrowers to not even pay back the principal on their loans. President Biden’s student loan handout is not a fix. It is a politically motivated giveaway. Fox News

‘Quite Maddening’: Jonathan Turley Explains Why 14th Amendment Strategy Against Trump Is The ‘Most Dangerous Theory’ . . . Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley explained Tuesday why calls to invoke the 14th Amendment to prevent former President Donald Trump from running are “dangerous.” William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas wrote an article set to be published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review suggesting Trump may be ineligible for the 2024 race due to his efforts to contest the 2020 election. “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin said Tuesday that the legal theory should be used to block Trump from running for office.

“I think it’s the most dangerous theory that has emerged in decades. I think it’s entirely unsupported by the text and the history of the 14th Amendment. This provision was written after the Civil War of an actual rebellion where hundreds of thousands of people died — there was an army on the other side. They had their own foreign policy,” Turley said. Daily Caller

Why Trump must drop out . . . The Hill

Funny.

Democrats have to dump Joe Biden as their 2024 nominee - NY Post

James Comer calls Biden investigation ‘biggest political scandal’ of his lifetime . . . House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said that President Joe Biden’s “countless lies” uncovered by congressional investigations “could potentially be the biggest political scandal in [his] adult lifetime.” “We’ve been obstructed at every turn, not only by Biden attorneys but by the Department of Justice, by Homeland Security now. We’ve been obstructed by the media, by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, the FBI, and the list goes on and on,” Comer told Hannity. “But we are still able to produce new evidence every week that no one knew beforehand, and I believe all this evidence that we’ve gathered, we are finally starting to piece it together and put together a timeline, and what we are finding is very concerning about the current president of the United States.” Washington Times

DeSantis built a massive network of big donors. Many have ditched him . . . The top 50 list includes five donors who are now financially supporting rival presidential candidates. And of those who are giving money to the DeSantis campaign or his super PAC, five are splitting their funds with other candidates. The inability of DeSantis to convert more of his gubernatorial donors into presidential ones is emblematic of a larger shortcoming of his current campaign. Politico

J.D. Vance moves to ban mask mandates in schools or public transit . . . "Democrats say they’re not going to bring back mask mandates – we’re going to hold them to their word," he vowed.

Republican Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance on Tuesday announced that he would introduce a bill to prevent the government from imposing mask mandates and bar officials in myriad institutions from refusing to serve unmasked individuals. Dubbed the "Freedom to Breathe Act," the bill would "ensure that no federal bureaucracy, no commercial airline, and no public school can impose the misguided policies of the past," Vance said, according to Cleveland.com. "Democrats say they’re not going to bring back mask mandates – we’re going to hold them to their word," he vowed. Just the News

 How Covid-19 is resurfacing after months of calm . . . In the past month, rates of hospitalization related to Covid-19 slowly have risen throughout the United States. Not unexpectedly, more severe cases and the overall proportion of all emergency room visits ascribed to Covid-19 are being seen in less-vaccinated areas. Most ominously, weekly deaths are just now beginning to rise, though overall numbers remain low compared with the 2022 experience. There are several plausible reasons why this latest bump is occurring now after months and months of calm. Most attention is focusing on the latest variant, labeled BA.2.86, which is quickly replacing the strain that predominated for most of 2023, XBB.1.5. CNN

Here'they come, the police state operatives.

US consulate staff in Mexico told to 'shelter in place' amid border violence . . . The U.S. Consulate in Matamoros, Mexico, issued an emergency alert to shelter in place amid an outbreak of gun violence on Monday. The consulate announced that its "employees are currently under a shelter in place order" due to violent crime in the city.  Four individuals were killed in a shootout with Mexican marines on Monday. Fox News

US Military Successfully Test Launches Unarmed Nuclear ICBM . . . The United States tested an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday, the country's military said. "This test launch is part of routine and periodic activities intended to demonstrate that the United States' nuclear deterrent is safe, secure, reliable and effective," the US Air Force Global Strike Command said in a statement. Barrons

100% response to Russia's launch of Sarmat. Looks like Biden decided to show Putin whose button is bigger.

But everyone knows that Trump's button is bigger than everyone else's.

Blinken in Ukraine for unannounced visit, expected to announce more than $1 billion in new US aid . . . Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the capital of Ukraine Wednesday in an unannounced visit just hours after the city was struck by a Russian missile attack. Blinken’s trip to Kyiv is meant to show the United States’ “unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, territorial integrity and democracy,” according to State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. The Hill

China Bans iPhone Use for Government Officials at Work . . . hina ordered officials at central government agencies not to use Apple’s iPhones and other foreign-branded devices for work or bring them into the office, people familiar with the matter said. In recent weeks, staff were given the instructions by their superiors in workplace chat groups or meetings, the people said. The directive is the latest step in Beijing’s campaign to cut reliance on foreign technology and enhance cybersecurity, and comes amid a campaign to limit flows of sensitive information outside of China’s borders. Wall Street Journal

Armenia to exercise with US troops next week, Russia voices concern . . . Armenia said on Wednesday it would host a joint military exercise with the United States next week, a development that Russia said was cause for concern. The Armenian Defence Ministry said the purpose of the Sept. 11-20 "Eagle Partner 2023" exercise was to prepare its forces to take part in international peacekeeping missions.

A U.S. military spokesperson said 85 US soldiers and 175 Armenians would take part. He said the Americans - including members of the Kansas National Guard which has a 20-year-old training partnership with Armenia. Despite the small scale of the exercise, the Kremlin said it would be watching closely. Reuters

ISRAELI JUDICIAL REFORM . . . By Ken Abramowitz Israel’s governing coalition, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, passed the first of its legal reform provisions, restricting the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down government decisions they did not like – even though these did not violate the rule of law. Israel has no constitution, but rather has embodied it’s fundamental legal framework in “the Basic Laws” that govern Israel in the absence of a formal constitution. In recent years, the Supreme Court has ruled against government decisions solely on the subjective basis of being “unreasonable” without any further legal justification. Judicial Reform is needed in Israel because the Supreme Court has taken on more and more power since 1992, when then-Supreme Court President Aharon Barak slowly began changing and expanding the Court’s capacity. Save the West

UK to declare Russia's Wagner a terrorist organisation . . . Britain is set to declare the Russian mercenary Wagner Group to be a terrorist organisation, making it illegal to be a member or to support it, the government said on Wednesday. A draft order due to laid before parliament will allow Wagner's assets to be categorised as terrorist property and seized, the interior ministry said in a statement. Interior minister Suella Braverman described Wagner as "violent and destructive". It had acted as "a military tool of Vladimir Putin's Russia overseas," she said. Reuters

Ukraine’s internal battle against graft . . . been waging wars on two fronts. One is the existential fight against an external aggressor. The other is the continuing internal struggle against the corruption that sapped Ukraine’s independent statehood even before Kremlin tanks rolled over its borders. Just as Kyiv’s counteroffensive shows tentative signs of making gains, fraud charges against a Ukrainian oligarch and the replacement of its defence minister signal a determination by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to advance in the domestic struggle, too. Financial Times

There's nothing one can do to root out corruption in Ukraine. Or Russia for that matter. It's built in into the system of governance. It's been there for centuries. Let's not be naive.

Money

Democratic deficits could doom US economy . . . The U.S. government’s spending deficit of roughly $2 trillion for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 is an atrocity perpetrated by President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats. It is a grave threat to America’s future. Former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump also had terrible records of spending unnecessarily and massively beyond what is prudent, but it took Biden and the Nancy Pelosi Democrats to make those terrible records look good in comparison. Biden and the Democrats have engineered a fiscal wreck. Washington Examiner

U.S. UNEMPLOYMENT RATE JUMPS TO 3.8%, MORE DOWNWARD REVISIONS . . . Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 187,000 in August and the unemployment rate rose to 3.8%.
Consensus among economists was a gain of 170,000 jobs. The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for June was revised down by 80,000, from +185,000 to +105,000. In August, health care added 71,000 jobs, leisure and hospitality added 40,000 jobs, social assistance increased by 26,000, and construction increased by 22,000. Transportation and warehousing lost 34,000 jobs in August.

Employment showed little change over the month in other major industries, including mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, financial activities, other services, and government. Right Facts

Saudi Cuts Send World Diesel Prices Soaring . . . One corner of the global energy market is getting especially squeezed by Saudi Arabia and Russia’s oil-production cuts: diesel. Diesel prices have climbed more than 40% in the U.S. and Europe since May, when surprise output cuts by Saudi Arabia and some other members of the OPEC+ oil cartel took effect, Argus data showed. Most actively traded futures prices for Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate, the benchmarks for crude oil, are up 13% and 14% in the same time frame. In the U.S., while the national average price for unleaded gasoline added 7 cents a gallon in August, according to AAA, the cost of diesel rose by 42 cents a gallon. Wall Street Journal

Culture

Are the ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ Really Allowing Our Taxes to Pay for ‘Bags of Fudge Rounds’? . . . “If you’re five-foot-three and you’re 300 pounds, taxes ought not to pay for your bags of Fudge Rounds,” opines Oliver Anthony in his No. 1 hit debut country song “Rich Men North of Richmond.” The timing of the song’s release could not have been better: Constituents have undoubtedly raised the issue of how our tax dollars are being spent with members of Congress during their August recess. And that particular line touched on an issue that Congress should address when the House and Senate reconvene this month: the nutritional benefits for the poor that the average taxpayer is paying for.

In the coming weeks, the House and Senate Agriculture committees will consider the next “farm bill.” Contrary to the bill’s common title, more than 80% of the spending actually goes to food stamps recipients via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, not directly to farmers. Daily Signal

The Millennial Job Interview

Pennsylvania prisoner manhunt: Details of Danelo Cavalcante's escape emerge . . . As the manhunt for convicted killer Danelo Souza Cavalcante enters its seventh day Wednesday, a local report has revealed new details on how he escaped a Pennsylvania prison last week. Cavalcante, 34, escaped from Chester State Prison on Thursday morning, police said. While law enforcement has released few details on the escape, multiple sources told KYW-TV that Cavalcante is believed to have busted out by climbing up to the roof of the facility. Calvacante is originally from Brazil, where he is also wanted for homicide, and is allegedly in the United States illegally. Fox News

Biden blasted for walking out before end of Medal of Honor ceremony: ‘Lack of respect’ . . . President Biden was accused of being disrespectful after he quickly exited the East Room of the White House before the conclusion of a Medal of Honor ceremony honoring a Vietnam War veteran on Tuesday. Biden, 80, abruptly left the ceremony after fastening the nation’s highest military decoration around the neck of retired Army Capt. Larry Taylor, 81, before the closing benediction was read by Chaplain Brig. Gen. William Green Jr. Military veterans slammed Biden afterward, arguing that the commander-in-chief showed a startling lack of respect. NY Post

Kaiser Permanente Workers Poised to Launch Largest Health Care Labor Strike in US History . . .  Kaiser’s union workers are asking for a pay raise of 7% to keep up with the cost of living across the country Tens of thousands of healthcare workers with Kaiser Permanente have threatened to strike later this month, calling for more pay and increased hospital staffing. More than 1,000 workers rallied Monday near the healthcare giant’s headquarters in Oakland, California, arguing that they are struggling to make ends meet and that Kaiser has repeatedly failed to address burnout among its hospital and clinic staff since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Messenger

Bear breaks into Florida family's screen porch, drinks three White Claws . . . A three-legged bear broke into a Florida family's enclosed porch and helped itself to three White Claws from the fridge.

Josaury Faneite-Diglio said her 13-year-old son, Joseph Diglio, was inside their Lake Mary home when the family dog's barking alerted him to a bear outside. "He ate the fish food we had outside next to our fish tank and then proceeded to the bar," Faneite-Diglio told WESH-TV. "He took three White Claws, drank, and left very happy. His favorite flavor is mango and strawberry."