Top Story: Americans Less Confident About Economy, Poll Shows
Day: May 5, 2024
01: Biden’s Basement
Americans Less Confident About Economy, Poll Shows
Americans are less confident about the economy, according to a new survey.
Gallup’s recently released economic confidence rating dropped from March to April as inflation remains elevated. Just after the polling was conducted from April 1-22, the federal government released underperforming Gross Domestic Product data.
Read MoreTop Commentary: Free Markets are Necessary But Not Sufficient
Americans Increasingly Turning to Discount Grocer Amidst Rising Prices
A German discount grocer has seen an increase in business from American customers over the last year, as inflation remains stubbornly high and presents an ongoing threat to Americans’ financial security.
The Daily Caller reports that Aldi, the German-based grocer, saw a staggering 26% increase in foot traffic at its store in March compared to March of 2023. This rise far surpassed increases at other popular grocery store chains, including the 6% year-over-year increase at Kroger and the 15% increase at Trader Joe’s.
Read MoreHouses Passes Bill to Protect Domestic Oil Production, Protect Iñupiat Community
The U.S. House passed another a bill to advance domestic energy production, this time in response to cries for help from an indigenous community living in the Alaska North Slope.
The bill’s cosponsor, a Democrat from Alaska, did not vote for her own bill. It passed with the support of five Democrats, including two from Texas who are strong supporters of the U.S. oil and natural gas industry.
Read MoreLatest Productivity Data Spells More Trouble for Future of American Economy
U.S. productivity growth slowed in the first quarter of 2024, casting doubt on the American economy’s future growth, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Thursday.
Growth in U.S. business productivity slowed to just 0.3% in the first quarter of 2024, below economists’ predictions of 0.5% and far lower than the 3.5% rate of growth achieved in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to the BLS. Sluggish growth in productivity bodes poorly for broader gross domestic product (GDP) growth, which slowed to 1.6% in the first quarter of 2024.
Read MoreTSNN Featured: During Oral Arguments at the Arizona Court of Appeals in Kari Lake’s Election Lawsuit, Her Attorney Alleged Numerous Lies by Election Official
Commentary: Free Markets are Necessary But Not Sufficient
For most of our lifetimes, classically liberal economics so dominated the Right that nobody wondered if conservatives were abandoning free markets. In recent years, though, a new generation of conservative thinkers—more traditionalist, populist, or nationalist than libertarian—has challenged the utility and even the morality of laissez faire economic policy.
We welcome their questions and critiques, as they have compelled American conservatives to have a long overdue conversation about the market, the family, and the state. But the blunt truth is the movement cannot abandon free markets. The moral and practical case for free enterprise is as necessary today as it was when Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher used it to rescue their nations’ economies and win the Cold War.
Read MoreOhio Targets Road Salt Runoff with New Grants
More than 30 Ohio municipalities will share in nearly $2 million in taxpayer funds in the state’s first effort to reduce the amount of salt used on the roads during the winter.
State officials hope the new program will reduce runoff into streams, rivers and lakes.
Read MoreMusic Spotlight: Skip Ewing
Donald Ralph “Skip” Ewing is a musician’s musician. To say that his singing and songwriting are brilliant is an understatement. And he can play almost any stringed instrument.
He said, “I don’t remember when I couldn’t play a guitar. I took a woman’s pink foam curler, took the plastic out of it, and stuck it up under my strings so I could play late into the night without the guitar making a sound.”
Read MoreAstraZeneca Admits in Court Documents That COVID-19 Vaccine Could Cause Serious Rare Side Effect
British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca admitted in court documents for the first time that its COVID-19 vaccine could cause a rare blood-clotting side effect.
The company is facing accusations that its vaccine contributed to the deaths or impairments of more than 50 people in the United Kingdom whose family are suing the pharmaceutical company. One claimant named Jamie Scott alleged the vaccine caused a permanent brain injury after a blood clot traveled to his brain. Scott claims he can no longer work because of the injury.
Read MoreLawsuit Accuses Pro-Palestine Groups of Being ‘Collaborators and Propagandists’ for Hamas
In a landmark lawsuit filed Wednesday, the law firm representing several victims of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel laid out compelling evidence that National Students for Justice in Palestine and its affiliates were acting as “collaborators and propagandists” for Hamas in the United States.
Earlier in the week, Just the News reported on the formation of National SJP—an umbrella organization purportedly organized by American Muslims for Palestine to coordinate the efforts of the hundreds of Students for Justice in Palestine groups at universities across the country.
Read MoreHiring of Police Officers Increased in 2023 After Years of Decline
The year 2023 saw an increase in the number of police officers hired for the first time in several years, after widespread anti-police sentiment as a result of the race riots in the summer of 2020.
According to ABC News, more sworn officers were hired in 2023 than in any of the preceding four years. At the same time, fewer officers resigned or retired than in recent previous years. The information comes from 214 different law enforcement agencies responding to a study conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).
Read MoreCommentary: Five Ways Campus Turmoil Hurts Democrats and America
Higher education is sinking lower and lower. That’s bad news for our country, which has benefited enormously from having the world’s best system of higher education. And it’s bad news for Democrats, who face a tight election. Their party is closely tied to education at all levels, especially at elite universities. It is the party of experts, after all, and the party of the left. Universities are both. Moreover, since the Democrats control the Executive Branch, the public holds them primarily accountable for ensuring social order. Their failures are obvious to the average voter. That’s bound to hurt Democratic Party candidates in November.
Parents with children in college or expected to matriculate soon have every right to expect their kids can learn in peace, hear diverse viewpoints, and speak freely without threats, intimidation, or indoctrination. That’s true whether the parents are Jewish or not. Decent Americans won’t tolerate threats against Jewish students any more than they would tolerate them against blacks, Muslims, Christians, or Asian Americans. Yet they now see those threats against Jewish students every day, and, at many universities, they don’t see administrators standing up for their rights.
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