The following gets my Orchid of the Day.
Per the Detroit News, a group from Michigan including Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom that had been trapped in Haiti was rescued overnight Tuesday in an operation organized by Florida U.S. Rep. Cory Mills, lawmakers said.
Albom was in Port-au-Prince for a monthly visit to the orphanage operated by his charity, Michigan U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain told The Detroit News.
McClain, who represents northern Macomb County and the Thumb in Congress, said she learned about Albom’s situation Saturday from a constituent.
“I mean, the work he does is really good work,” McClain said of the longtime Detroit newspaper columnist, author and radio host. “But he took 10 individuals down there and they were stuck.”
McClain, a Republican from Bruce Township, disclosed the helicopter rescue mission Tuesday morning during a House Armed Services Committee hearing, saying that she had asked Mills to get involved because there was “no plan” from the U.S. government to get out those who were stranded amid major civil unrest in Haiti.
In an interview, McClain confirmed Albom was among the evacuees who fled the island nation in the Caribbean after plane flights were suspended amid widespread gang violence. Albom could not be reached Tuesday for comment.
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Home ownership is one of the keys to obtaining wealth over time and allowing families to be able to pass down wealth from generation to generation. Unfortunately, homeownership, part of the American dream, is dead for a portion of America according to The Guardian.
Per The Guardian, the American dream of owning your own home is dead, according to the majority of renters surveyed in a new poll shared exclusively with the Guardian, and the areas they live in have become so unaffordable they are “barely livable”.
The poll, conducted by the Harris Poll Thought Leadership and Future Practice, asked survey takers to identify themselves as renters or homeowners, along with other demographic information. Those polled were asked their opinion on home ownership in the United States.
For many, especially renters, the outlook is bleak. Though the vast majority of renters polled said they want to own a home in the future, 61% said they are worried they will never be able to. A similar percentage believe no matter how hard they work, they’ll never be able to afford a home.
“When you think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and housing is right at that foundational level of security, the implications on consumer psyche when things feel so unaffordable is something that will impact everyone,” said Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at Harris Poll. The American dream of owning a home “is looking more like a daydream for renters”.
The state of the US housing market underlines just how difficult the situation has become. Redfin estimates only 16% of home listings in 2023 were affordable to the typical US household. In comparison, 50% of listings in 2013 were affordable on a median income.
The rise in home prices coincides with a severe drop in new housing construction after the Great Recession, the report said. Though construction on single-family homes bottomed out in 2009, the number of new single-family homes being built has been far below pre-recession levels, while the US population has continued to grow.
So even when interest rates come down, home prices will still be high as inventory remains low. This is good news for homeowners, who are seeing their wealth rise, but bad news for more and more renters who are being priced out of the housing market.
Because of the rise in home prices, the wealth gap between homeowners and renters has only been growing. In 2010, homeowners made up 54% of bankruptcies. In 2023, they made up only 23.4%, according to an Axios/Harris poll published in January. Nearly half of renters in the poll said they didn’t have enough money at the time a bill was due in the last month, compared to 29% of homeowners.
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Jim Sciutto is a CNN anchor and national security analyst. His new book, The Return of Great Powers, will be published on Tuesday. CNN published a preview on Monday. The following are excerpts from his book including interviews with retired Marine General John Kelly, who served in the former president’s administration as Secretary of Homeland Security and more importantly as Chief of Staff to the President for over two years.
Kelly told Sciutto: “The point is, [Trump] saw absolutely no point in Nato. He was [also] just dead set against having troops in South Korea, again, a deterrent force, or having troops in Japan, a deterrent force” to North Korea.
Kelly told Sciutto Trump thought US generals would prove as loyal to him as German generals did to Hitler.
“He would ask about the loyalty issues,” Kelly said, but “when I pointed out to him the German generals as a group were not loyal to [Hitler], and in fact tried to assassinate him a few times, he didn’t know that.
“He truly believed, when he brought us generals in, that we would be loyal – that we would do anything he wanted us to do.”
Kelly said: “My theory on why [Trump] likes the dictators so much is that’s who he is. Every incoming president is shocked that they actually have so little power without going to the Congress, which is a good thing. It’s civics 101, separation of powers, three equal branches of government.
“But in his case, he was shocked that he didn’t have dictatorial-type powers to send US forces places or to move money around within the budget. And he looked at Putin and Xi [Jinping, of China] and that nutcase in North Korea as people who were like him in terms of being a tough guy.”
Finally, my Quote of the Day. “When Donald Trump talks like a dictator, praises dictators, and says he wants to be a dictator, we should probably believe him.” Retired Marine General John Kelly.
The above is coming from a retired general who was part of the former president’s inner circle. This scares the hell out of me. Our next presidential election is not about the security of our borders, the economy, foreign relations, abortion, or any other political talking point. Our next presidential election is about democracy, the future of our democracy in the U.S as we know it. The democracy that people died to protect.
The former president has proven to me that he never took the oath of office seriously. I never thought it would ever come to this in my lifetime, but the next presidential election is about our democracy.
My Question of the Day. Do we want a president who respects our democracy, or do we want a president who wants to be a dictator? Nothing else matters.
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Per the NY Times, you can’t say gay, no longer applies to the Florida education system.
The State of Florida and plaintiffs who challenged a parental rights law that critics nicknamed “Don’t Say Gay” agreed to a settlement on Monday that clarifies the reach of the legislation, which prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through eighth grade.
The plaintiffs, a group that included students, parents, educators and L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organizations, had blamed the law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022, for causing confusion and fear in public schools. The settlement says that students and teachers are allowed to talk about sexual identity and gender orientation in public schools, as long as it is not part of formal classroom instruction.
The plaintiffs claimed victory, saying it would put an end to discrimination that resulted from ambiguities in the law, officially called the Parental Rights in Education Act.
The administration of Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, also portrayed the settlement as a major win, saying it confirmed that critics had willfully misinterpreted the law as applying more broadly than it actually did.
This settlement makes sense to me.
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My good friend Dan Maulsolf, former golf course superintendent at Radrick Farms Golf Course, has sent me a link to the 12th annual Tee times 4 turf auction. This is an online auction allowing people to bid on foursomes at some of the best courses in Michigan. The auction is sponsored by the Michigan Turfgrass Foundation. This will make great birthday gifts, Mother’s Day gifts or Father’s Day gifts, for the golfers in your family.
Michigan Turfgrass Foundation – Tee Times 4 Turf (wildapricot.org)
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Quote of the Day: See above by former Retired Marine General John Kelly
Orchid of the Day: See above story about the rescue of Americans in Haiti.
Onion of the Day: No Onion today.
Question of the Day: See above.
Video of the Day:
I love this new commercial by All State
Larry Bird and Mayhem