Prices Drop after Argentina’s Free-Market President Repeals Rent Control

Matthew Doarnberger
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Prices Drop after Argentina’s Free-Market President Repeals Rent Control

(Matthew Doarnberger, Headline USA) The price of rent in Argentina has dropped significantly following the repeal of its rent-control law, as noted in a recent editorial by the Las Vegas Review–Journal.

After Argentinian President Javier Milei signed a bill ending rent control throughout the country in December 2023, the results of the repeal were swift and effective.

A report from February indicated that rent prices had dropped by over 20% and had continued a downward trajectory. Meanwhile, the supply of rental properties increased over 200% during the same time.

These reforms occurred in the aftermath of a form of tenancy rent control that was introduced by Melei’s predecessor, Alberto Fernández, in 2020. Following that decision, researchers estimated that around 45% of rental properties in the country were sold by the owner. Some also opted to list their previously rented properties on Airbnb as the number of available units on that website nearly tripled in the country’s capital, Buenos Aires.

It did not take long to notice the benefits of Milei’s repeal of the rent control law.

“Until about 20 days ago there was zero supply, we did not reach 50, 60 homes; and as of January 2024, there were more than 7,000 on offer,” said Enrique Abatti, president of the Chamber of Property Owners of the Argentine Republic, describing the rapid change in behavior that followed the law’s removal.

Though the evidence refuting rent-control legislation is significant, various governments around the world still enact it to see if it will work. Scotland has placed a 3% rent cap since 2022. The result has been a 12.7% increase in rental prices in 2023 compared to a 10.5% average across the United Kingdom.

“By shifting more financial risks and hassle onto landlords, tenancy rent controls encourage property owners to get out of the rental market,” noted the Cato Institute’s Ryan Bourne, describing how the economic impacts of rent control would be worse in Argentina.

However, the same economic principle of supply and demand would have the same effect everywhere it would be tried, he added.

“Argentina’s high inflation exacerbated these risks, meaning they were particularly destructive,” he said. “But the same underlying economics applies everywhere.”

Trump Reveals How Son Barron Learned of Assassination Attempt

Ken Silva
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Trump Reveals How Son Barron Learned of Assassination Attempt

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron, learned of the assassination attempt against his father during a tennis lesson, the presidential candidate revealed in a recent interview with Fox News host Mark Levin.

“Barron was outside having a tennis lesson,” Trump, 78, told Levin in an interview aired Saturday. “He’s a good tennis player. And somebody ran up and said, ‘Barron! Barron! Your father’s been shot!’”

Trump also revealed that his wife, Melania, was watching the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania live.

“She couldn’t believe it. She was actually watching it live, can you imagine? And then I get up, and I let people know I was okay,” Trump said.

According to Trump, Melania doesn’t like thinking about the attack.

“When I could talk to people I said, ‘So what was your feeling?’, and she said she can’t even talk about it, which is okay because that means she likes me,” he said.

The GOP candidate for the 2024 election further speculated that God protected him so he could “straighten out” the country.

“I think you think like, if you believe in God, you believe in God more. And somebody said like, why? And I’d like to think that God thinks that I’m going to straighten out our country,” Trump said. “By luck or by God—many people are saying it’s by God—I’m still here.”

While Trump escaped the July 13 rally with his life, fire chief Corey Comperatore was killed in the shooting. David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township, Pennsylvania, were also hospitalized with serious injuries.

Authorities still haven’t announced a motive for the gunman, Thomas Crooks.

“We have a clear idea of mindset, but we are not ready to make statements on motive,” FBI Assistant Director Bobby Wells told reporters last week.

According to the FBI, Crooks engaged in a “sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack” and “looked at any number of events and targets” before ultimately “hyper-focusing” on the Trump rally after it was announced in early July. The Trump rally appears to have been a “target of opportunity,” the FBI said last week.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

New York Times Article Suggests the U.S. Constitution is ‘Dangerous’

Matthew Doarnberger
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New York Times Article Suggests the U.S. Constitution is ‘Dangerous’

(Matthew Doarnberger, Headline USA) The far-left New York Times once again said the quiet part out loud, calling for the cancellation of the U.S. Constitution in an unhinged rant about University of California law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky’s new book, No Democracy Lasts Forever, as the Daily Caller reported.

Nonfiction book critic Jennifer Szalai published the review on Saturday, titled “The Constitution Is Sacred. Is It Also Dangerous?” The subheading stated that “One of the biggest threats to America’s politics might be the country’s founding document.”

The article went on to assert that, because of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, America’s founding document had become a “threat to American democracy” and was “beyond redemption.”

Szalai, who was born and attended school in Canada, blamed several constitutional provisions—some of which were affirmed by recent rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court with justices Trump himself had appointed—fow allowing Trump to ascend to the presidency.

“After all, Trump became president in 2016 after losing the popular vote but winning the Electoral College (Article II),” she wrote. “He appointed three justices to the Supreme Court (Article III), two of whom were confirmed by senators representing just 44 percent of the population (Article I).”

Ironically, Szalai also fumed over the court’s revocation of a longtime legal precedent that had never been enshrined in the Constitution, outraged that they had the audacity to undo an activist court’s earlier efforts to legislate from the bench.

“Those three justices helped overturn Roe v. Wade, a reversal with which most Americans disagreed,” she claimed.

While being interviewed about his book on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Chemerinsky went into further detail about why he thought the Constitution was so outdated and problematic.

“Choices that were made in adapting the Constitution have come to haunt us,” he claimed.

“The Electoral College increasingly is choosing the president who lost the popular vote,” he continued. “Two senators per state is undermining democracy. In the last session of Congress, there were 50 Democratic senators and 50 Republican senators, but the 50 Democratic senators represented 42 million people.”

The Berkeley radical made no mention of the fact that many of the people residing in blue “sanctuary states” like California and New York were illegal immigrants who were imported courtesy of the Biden–Harris administration’s open borders specifically so those states could have greater political influence in the U.S. House of Representatives.

As the Constitution’s framers observed in the Federalist Papers, the Senate was intended not to represent the masses, but rather the interests of the states themselves—one of several checks and balances against unbridled populism.

Likewise, Democrats may yet take advantage of the Electoral College during the upcoming presidential race due to the fact that unelected bait-and-switch candidate Kamala Harris may be ineligible for the ballot in several key swing states.

Several high-profile figures expressed strong disagreement with Szalai, Chemerinsky and others critical of the founding document.

Billionaire Elon Musk slammed the article in a post on X, stating that “They want to overthrow The Constitution.”

Musk followed up by posting, “Long Live America and our Constitution!”

Fox News host Laura Ingraham criticized the New York Times in general by saying, “Does the NYT hate the Constitution? Of course it does.”

The Times has published several other articles in recent memory calling for an end to the Constitution and the abolishment of free speech due to the fact that they afford those who disagree with leftist viewpoints the same rights that they, themselves, enjoy.

At the same time, those very leftists have quickly pivoted toward panickmongering about the threat that Trump might cancel the Constitution when it is their own viewpoints and political influence under fire.

Harris-Walz Campaign Selectively Bars Reporters from Campaign Coverage

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Harris-Walz Campaign Selectively Bars Reporters from Campaign Coverage

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) In his op-ed, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editor Brandon McGinley claimed that the Harris–Walz campaign has continuously denied the newspaper’s reporters and photographers access to the campaign events, reportedly due to labor action within the company.

The Daily Caller reported that Harris and Walz began their bus tour in the battleground state of Georgia, kicking off their outreach to voters after the Democratic National Convention.

On Aug. 31, 2024, McGinley called out the Democratic campaign, claiming it has barred “Post-Gazette reporters from the veep announcement, from parts of the Democratic National Convention and (as of this writing) from all future events where they have the ability to control access.”

“It’s a form of political pandering at the expense of core democratic principles — exactly what the campaign claims to be fighting against in the Republican Party,” he wrote.

The news source reported that the barring from the campaign is connected to labor actions that began in October 2022, when a journalists’ strike erupted after a Teamsters unit, one of the largest labor unions in America, went on strike over the suspension of a legacy health care plan.

McGinley added that as negotiations continued, the union interfered with the newspaper’s reporting and persuaded Democrats to decline interviews with the outlet.

“Denying access to disfavored press as a favor to political allies, however, just further institutionalizes the new normal, where the application of all principles depends on whether you’re a friend or an enemy. Today, the Harris-Walz campaign considers the Post-Gazette to be its enemy, and it denies us the rights accorded to others. Tomorrow, who’s next?” McGinley wrote.

The largest labor union’s endorsement remains undecided as International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien declined on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sept. 1, 2024, to endorse Harris or Donald Trump. Even though the group has not endorsed a Republican president since 1988, O’Brien said that Harris will not receive their endorsement until a meeting determines their choice.

“You don’t hire someone unless you give them an interview. And you know, this is our opportunity to ask her about Teamster specific issues and also labor issues. So until we have that meeting, you know, obviously, we will wait to make that determination,” he said.

Tim Walz’s Brother Completely Opposes Veep Hopeful’s Commie Ideology, Doesn’t Want to See Him in Power

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Tim Walz’s Brother Completely Opposes Veep Hopeful’s Commie Ideology, Doesn’t Want to See Him in Power

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) This week, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s older brother warned people in a series of Facebook posts that Tim is not the “type of character” who should make decisions about America’s future.

“I’m 100% opposed to all his ideology,” Jeff Walz said on Aug. 31, 2024, about the far-left Minnesota governor and Kamala Harris’s running mate.

The New York Post reported that Jeff doesn’t believe in his brother so much that he is considering publicly endorsing Donald Trump as president. The information comes from his reply to one of the people on Facebook who urged him to “Get on stage with President Trump and endorse him.”

“I’ve thought long and hard about doing something like that! I’m torn between that and just keeping my family out of it. The stories I could tell. Not the type of character you want making decisions about your future,” the 67-year-old living in Florida wrote.

Jeff said he hadn’t spoken to his brother in eight years. Even though he didn’t clarify why that happened, it would be safe to assume that Tim’s radical, far-left, and communist beliefs were the reason why the two brothers still don’t talk to each other.

Federal Election Commission records indicated that Jeff’s support of Trump could be another possible reason. It was also recorded that Jeff donated $20 to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign while never donating to his brother.

Tim became infamous for tyrannical coronavirus lockdowns and plummeted education levels in Minnesota, as well as accepting the “transgender” and communist ideologies.

“Tim Walz’s own brother knows his socialist ideology is dangerous for America. Together with Kamala Harris, inflation will get higher, the illegal immigration crisis will get worse and our nation will look more like Venezuela. Someone who puts tampons in boys’ bathrooms, lets their cities burn during defund police riots and taxes citizens saddled with debt to give illegal immigrants free tuition should not be in elected office, let alone vice president,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., also noted that people should have the right to know about the radical politician’s brother.

“If the mainstream media has no problem amplifying the voices of Mary Trump and the family of RFK Jr. who speak out against Republicans, then the American people deserve to hear more from Tim Walz’s brother,” she said.

Harris Aides, White House Staffers Vilify Her in Shocking Book

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Harris Aides, White House Staffers Vilify Her in Shocking Book

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Leftist authors of the newly resurfaced book criticized Kamala Harris for her inability to define a political agenda and her total reliance on personality.

The book, “The Truce: Progressives, Centrists, and the Future of the Democratic Party,” was published before Harris’s coronation at the Democratic National Convention and resurfaced eight months after its release.

“It was rotten from the start. A lot of us, at least folks that I was friends with on the campaign, all realized that: ‘Yeah, this person should not be president of the United States,’” a top aide from her 2020 campaign told the authors.

The comments from insiders of her failed 2020 campaign presented Harris as a vapid and ineffectual leader who offers no clear picture of who she is politically or how she would govern as the leader of the entire nation.

Some staffers noted that part of the problem was tensions between Harris’s sister Maya, who served as the campaign chair, and Bearstars Strategies’ Juan Rodriguez, who served as her campaign manager. They hated each other so much that they moved to opposite wings of campaign headquarters and held separate meetings with staff.

According to the staffers, another major problem was poor management of funds.

“She cared less about how much money I was raising for her and more about what I was doing to create a good inclusive workspace,” one of the consultants told the authors.

Harris’s 2020 campaign’s state operations manager, Kelly Mehlenbacher, also previously stated in her scathing letter leaked to the New York Times that staffers working for her were all treated poorly.

“This is my third presidential campaign, and I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly,” she said.

The book’s authors pointed out that, instead of all of those cases being anecdotal examples, they are the complete opposite since reports of toxicity came from staffers who worked with her in San Francisco, the Senate, her presidential campaign and as Vice President.

They wrote that the complaints “came from sources who signed up to work for her and, at least at one point, wanted her to succeed. It’s impossible to dismiss all of their critiques as entirely the result of prejudice.”

What Happened to the Pittsburgh Cops Injured at the Trump Shooting?

Ken Silva
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What Happened to the Pittsburgh Cops Injured at the Trump Shooting?

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) In the wake of the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump, there’s been much reporting on the rallygoers who were either injured or killed at the Butler, Pennsylvania campaign event—and for good reason.

However, relatively little attention has been paid to the four Pittsburgh cops injured at the event. Those cops are back on duty after experiencing minor injuries when they were hit by shrapnel, but questions remain about whether those officers’ were supposed to be at the July 13 Trump rally in the first place.

According to a July 16 report from WPXI in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State Police requested Pittsburgh motorcycle officers to assist with former President Trump’s motorcade from the airport in Allegheny County to Butler County, and back again. Pittsburgh sent 10 officers.

However, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police reportedly said that those motorcycle officers weren’t actually approved to help with the Trump rally. Instead, they should have been available to help with First Lady Jill Biden’s visit to Pittsburgh at the same time, according to WPXI.

“Sources said cycle units from nearby universities had to be called in to assist Pittsburgh Police with Jill Biden’s motorcade,” WPXI reported on July 16.

At the Trump shooting, four of the Pittsburgh cops were hit with shrapnel. They were treated at the scene, and two were briefly hospitalized with minor injuries.

Two days later, two of the injured Pittsburgh cops were transferred to other units. The President of the Pittsburgh police officers’ union blasted the move at the time.

“In a time when we should be honoring the heroics of these officers, we’ve created some petty administrative investigation in the midst of a serious political race,” Fraternal Order of Police President Bob Swartzwelder said last month.

Since then, there have been no public updates about the matter. Headline USA reached out to the parties involved, but they were tight-lipped—with Pittsburgh police denying that the transfer of the two officers had anything to do with their presence at the Trump rally.

“We are grateful our Pittsburgh Police officers were in position to assist in helping extricate injured victims from the crowd and get them to safety, along with our regional law enforcement partners. The two transfers—not four—were part of an administrative decision by the Chief to reallocate personnel. They were unrelated to the officers’ deployment to the rally,” Pittsburgh police spokesperson Cara Cruz said in an email to Headline USA.

Swartzwelder, for his part, initially agreed to talk to this reporter and provided his phone number. However, he never answered his calls and stopped responding to messages.

Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board director Beth Pittinger did not respond to a phone call seeking comment. Pittinger said last month that “there’s a dispute whether they had authorization to be there [at the Trump rally], of they decided on their own they were going to go.”

Headline USA has filed a Pennsylvania Right to Know Law request for records that may shed light on the matter—including whether the officers were assigned to the Trump rally or went there on their own accord. This publication will keep readers posted on its effort to obtain records.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Army Private Who Fled to North Korea Will Plead Guilty to Desertion

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Army Private Who Fled to North Korea Will Plead Guilty to Desertion

(Headline USA) An Army private who fled to North Korea just over a year ago will plead guilty to desertion and four other charges and take responsibility for his conduct, his lawyer said last Monday.

Travis King’s attorney, Franklin D. Rosenblatt, told the Associated Press that King intends to admit guilt to a total of five military offenses, including desertion and assaulting an officer. Nine other offenses, including possession of sexual images of a child, will be withdrawn and dismissed under the terms of the deal.

King will be given an opportunity at a Sept. 20 hearing at Fort Bliss, Texas, to discuss his actions and explain what he did.

“He wants to take responsibility for the things that he did,” Rosenblatt said.

In a separate statement, he added, “Travis is grateful to his friends and family who have supported him, and to all outside his circle who did not pre-judge his case based on the initial allegations.”

He declined to comment on a possible sentence that his client might face. Desertion is a serious charge and can result in imprisonment.

The AP reported last month that the two sides were in plea talks.

King bolted across the heavily fortified border from South Korea in July 2023, and became the first American detained in North Korea in nearly five years.

His run into North Korea came soon after he was released from a South Korean prison where he had served nearly two months on assault charges.

About a week after his release from the prison, military officers took him to the airport so he could return to Fort Bliss to face disciplinary action. He was escorted as far as customs, but instead of getting on the plane, he joined a civilian tour of the Korean border village of Panmunjom. He then ran across the border, which is lined with guards and often crowded with tourists.

He was detained by North Korea, but after about two months, Pyongyang abruptly announced that it would expel him. On Sept. 28, he was flown to back to Texas, and has been in custody there.

The U.S. military in October filed a series of charges against King under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including desertion, as well as kicking and punching other officers, unlawfully possessing alcohol, making a false statement and possessing a video of a child engaged in sexual activity. Those allegations date back to July 10, the same day he was released from the prison.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Wisc. Supreme Court Rejects Lawfare Effort to Recall Republican State Assembly Speaker

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Wisc. Supreme Court Rejects Lawfare Effort to Recall Republican State Assembly Speaker

(Headline USA) The effort to salvage an attempt to recall Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos from office suffered another legal defeat last Tuesday.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, without comment, refused to hear an appeal of a lower court’s ruling rejecting an attempt to revive the recall effort, which was led by supporters of former President Donald Trump.

That means if the case is to proceed, it first must be heard by a state appeals court.

Dane County Circuit Judge Stephen Ehlke in July ruled that signatures collected on petitions circulated in an attempt to recall Vos were wrongly collected under legislative boundary lines now barred from use in any election. His ruling came after the Wisconsin Elections Commission also rejected the petition.

Trump supporters had targeted Vos for recall after he refused calls to decertify President Joe Biden’s narrow win in the state. Biden’s win of about 21,000 votes in 2020 has withstood two partial recounts, lawsuits, an independent audit and a review by a conservative law firm.

Vos further angered Trump supporters when he did not back a plan to impeach Meagan Wolfe, the state’s top elections official.

Those who organized the recall attempt had originally wanted to force an election in August, a week before the primary. Even if they had succeeded, Vos would only have been recalled from office for the remainder of this calendar year. It’s unclear when any election would be held if they were to prevail in court.

Vos won his primary in August after the other Republican on the ballot dropped out of the race. He faces Democrat Alan Kupsik on Nov. 5. The winner will serve a two-year term starting in January.

Attorneys for the recall organizers and Vos did not immediately return emails seeking comment Tuesday.

Vos is the longest-serving Assembly speaker in Wisconsin history. He has held the post since 2013.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Dems Sue to Block Ga. Election Board’s New Election-Integrity Rules

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Dems Sue to Block Ga. Election Board’s New Election-Integrity Rules

(Headline USA) The state and national Democratic parties sued last Monday to block two recent rules adopted by Georgia’s State Election Board that could be used by county officials who want to ensure that the 2024 election will be fair, potentially causing delays in finalizing the state’s results.

The lawsuit, filed before a state judge in Atlanta, argues the rules violate a state law that makes certification a mandatory duty. The suit asks the judge to find the rules are invalid because the State Election Board, now dominated by allies of former President Donald Trump, is exceeding its legal authority.

The actions of the board alarm Democrats and voting rights activists, playing out against Georgia’s background of partisan struggle over voting procedures that predates even the 2020 presidential election. It’s a battle in yet another state over what had long been an administrative afterthought, state and local boards certifying results.

The lawsuit says the rules invite post-election chaos, that the board is defying state law that says county officials “shall certify” results, and that more than a century of court precedent in Georgia finds county officials have no wiggle room.

“According to their drafters, these rules rest on the assumption that certification of election results by a county board is discretionary and subject to free-ranging inquiry that may delay certification or foreclose it entirely. But that is not the law in Georgia” states the lawsuit, filed in Fulton County Superior Court.

Pro-Trump Republicans argue the rules just reinforce a county election board’s existing duty to thoroughly examine election results, noting each board member must swear an oath to compile “true and perfect” results.

“These common-sense changes will benefit all Georgians, regardless of political affiliation as they are all designed to increase transparency and public confidence regarding our elections,” state Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon said in a statement defending the rule changes earlier Monday, before the lawsuit was made public.

A trio of Republican partisans aligned with Trump took control of the five-member regulatory board earlier this year. It has no direct role in determining election results, but writes rules to ensure that elections run smoothly and hears complaints about violations.

Trump praised those members by name during an Aug. 3 rally in Atlanta saying the three “are all pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory,” but criticizing the Democrat on the board and the nonpartisan chairman appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp, saying they “aren’t so good.”

That, plus McKoon praising the takeover of the board and later emailing proposed rules to board members, has led Democrats to allege a once sleepy board is now a direct tool of Trump.

“The Georgia state elections board is becoming an equal co-conspirator in this effort to suppress our votes,” Democratic U.S. Rep Lucy McBath charged Monday in a news conference at the Georgia Capitol. “With passing this new rule, they are creating barriers to counting votes and certifying the election so Donald Trump can once again attempt to throw our country into chaos.”

A Democratic state senator and the former chair of the Fulton County elections board have both sent letters demanding that Kemp remove the three Trump-aligned members for violating state ethics laws. Kemp on Monday asked Republican Attorney General Chris Carr to determine whether Kemp has legal jurisdiction to consider the demands.

The Democratic lawsuit specifically cites language added by one rule to require county election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying results. It also takes aim at a second rule that allows county election officials “to examine all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections.”

Alleged fraud or misconduct should be handled by the courts, not by county officials as they tally results, the suit argues, citing more than a century of Georgia court rulings.

While the new rules could be read as consistent with Georgia law, allowing only review or examination that wouldn’t delay certification, “that is not what the drafters of those rules intended,” the lawsuit says, citing their testimony before the board.

The first rule does not define “reasonable inquiry” and the second “has no basis in the election code or case law,” the suit argues.

It’s unclear whether counties could successfully refuse to certify. They would face lawsuits asking judges to order county boards to perform their legal duties. And it’s unlikely Fulton County or any of the state’s five other most populous counties, all reliably Democratic, would reject certification. Instead refusals to certify would likely come from smaller, more Republican counties.

In Georgia, state officials had to order rural Coffee County to certify in 2020. In May Republican-appointed Fulton County election board member Julie Adams refused to certify primary election results after she filed a lawsuit backed by the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute that argues county election board members have the discretion to reject certification.

The lawsuit was filed by county election board members from counties in metro Atlanta, most chosen by the local Democratic Party, as well voters who support Democrats, two Democratic state lawmakers running for reelection and the state and national Democratic parties.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

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