Republican States to Ignore Biden’s Title IX Rewrite Recognizing Gender Identity, File Lawsuits: ‘We Will Not Comply’

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders with Riley Gaines

Calling the Biden administration’s recent decision to include gender identity in Title IX “election-year pandering” and a threat to women — and the “truth” — Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed an executive order telling schools in her state to ignore the guidance.

“The educational institutions of Arkansas will continue to enforce state law guaranteeing the right of students to maintain their privacy. Students must not be forced to shower or undress with members of the opposite sex,” states the executive order, signed Thursday by the Republican governor.

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Reports: 2023 Was a Record Year for Natural Gas Consumption

Natural Gas Plant

2023 was a record year for domestic natural gas consumption, and its supply wouldn’t have been possible without record U.S. production, led by Texas, according to several reports.

Texas produced the equivalent of one-third of the natural gas consumed last year, with Texas producers breaking multiple records last year, The Center Square reported.

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Biden Administration Defends Treatment of Veterans Despite IG Report

Dept of Veteran Affair Secretary Denis McDonough

The U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs pledged to protect veterans and address any problems identified by federal watchdogs after an Inspector General report raised concerns about the physicians employed by the VA.

Press Secretary Terrence Hayes responded to an inquiry from The Center Square about recent IG reports. The reports in question said that the healthcare wing of the VA was paying doctors to care for veterans even after those doctors had been disqualified for safety reasons.

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Commentary: College Protests Then and Now

UPenn Gaza Solidarity Encampment

Like every major college protest since the 1960s, the pro-Palestinian — which is to say, the anti-Israel — protests sweeping college campuses today have early and often been compared with the protests of that annus horribilis, 1968.  There are plenty of similarities but also plenty of differences. History repeats itself as student and faculty protestors align themselves with the totalitarians.  Then it was the Viet Cong, Mao, and the Khmer Rouge. Today it is the Sunni Muslim terrorist group Hamas, the main puppet master of the “pro-Palestinian” agitators.

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Americans Less Confident About Economy, Poll Shows

Stressed Workers

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.

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Americans Increasingly Turning to Discount Grocer Amidst Rising Prices

Grocery Shopping

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.

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Houses Passes Bill to Protect Domestic Oil Production, Protect Iñupiat Community

Alaska North Slope

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.

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Latest Productivity Data Spells More Trouble for Future of American Economy

Staff Meeting

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.

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Commentary: Free Markets are Necessary But Not Sufficient

Family Prayer at Dinner

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.

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Music 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.”

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AstraZeneca Admits in Court Documents That COVID-19 Vaccine Could Cause Serious Rare Side Effect

COVID-19 Vaccine

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. 

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Lawsuit Accuses Pro-Palestine Groups of Being ‘Collaborators and Propagandists’ for Hamas

Pro-Palestine Protest

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.

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Hiring of Police Officers Increased in 2023 After Years of Decline

New Police Officers

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).

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Commentary: Five Ways Campus Turmoil Hurts Democrats and America

Campus protesters

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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Trump Whodunnit: Prosecutors Admit Key Evidence in Document Case Has Been Tampered With

In a stunning admission, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team is admitting that key evidence in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents criminal case was altered or manipulated since it was seized by the FBI, and that prosecutors misled the court about it for a period of time.

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Biden Administration Finalizes Rule That will Open Up ObamaCare to Illegal Immigrants

DACA Supporters

The Biden administration published a new rule Friday that will allow tens of thousands of illegal immigrants to receive health care through ObamaCare.

The new rule, according to a White House statement, removes a prohibition on illegal immigrants protected from deportation under the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program from accessing healthcare through the Affordable Care Act.

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Majority of Small Businesses Say Colleges are Failing to Prepare Gen Z for the Workplace, Survey Shows

A recent survey conducted by RedBalloon and PublicSquare found that a majority of small businesses believe colleges are failing to prepare Gen Z for the workforce and that nearly half of small businesses said that a college degree has zero value in their hiring decisions.

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Gains in Government Jobs Couldn’t Save Biden’s Economy in April

Business Meeting

Growth in government jobs slowed in April, bucking the pattern that has contributed to above-trend job growth over the past several months, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Employment in government grew just 8,000 in April, lower than the average over the past year of 55,000 per month, according to data from the BLS. A slowdown in government hiring led total job growth in April to be largely anemic compared to recent months, with the U.S. adding only 175,000 nonfarm payroll positions in the month, lower than the average over the past year of 242,000.

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Youngkin Meets with President of Finland During International Trade Mission

Glenn Youngkin Finland

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin met with Finland President Alexander Stubb, discussing opportunities the commonwealth and the northern European country can strengthen their business relationship.

The two leaders met in the nation’s capital, Helsinki as part of the governor’s economic tour of Europe. Youngkin used the visit to cement an established relationship between Virginia and Finland.

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Commentary: Jobs Report Shows the Specter of Stagflation Has Returned

Meeting

The specter of stagflation has returned. The monthly jobs report released Friday showed only 175,000 jobs were created last month, well below the recent average and expectations.

More than half of new jobs were created in the unproductive government and quasi-government healthcare and social services sectors that don’t generate growth. Average wages grew at a slower rate than inflation, meaning Americans’ real wages and living standards are declining.

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Bill Would Alert Immigration When Non-Citizen Tries to Buy Guns

Gun Store

Nearly 15 million people living in or entering the country illegally are on an FBI list prohibiting purchase of firearms.

However, the National Instant Criminal Background Check system isn’t required to let immigration authorities know if one of those 14.8 million is an applicant and in America. Legislation is proposed to change it.

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Commentary: Finding Authentic Male Friendship in a Loneliness Epidemic

Male Friendship

In an increasing online world, people are lonelier than ever, especially men. In a 2021 study, 15 percent of men reported having no close friends, up from only three percent in the early 1990s. Perhaps more alarmingly, 28 percent of young men (under 30 years old) reported not having any close social connections.

As a man, I can speak to this deficit of male friendship. Many of us can say hello in passing, talk about the weather, and maybe discuss the latest sports news, but how many of our connections truly care about us and would be there when we need them?

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Harvard Commencement Speaker Published Editorial Likening Israel to Hitler

Washington Free Beacon  Harvard’s commencement speaker, media CEO Maria Ressa, published an editorial that compared Israel after Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack to Nazi Germany and accused the Jewish state of “targeting” news reporters in an “unprecedented attack on journalist safety.” Ressa, the CEO of the Philippines-based news site Rappler and a Nobel Peace…

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Swing States Using Taxpayer Dollars to Turn Out Democratic Voters

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes

Election officials in two key swing states are using taxpayer money to register and turn out voters who will most likely vote for Democrats in the November election.

As reported by The Federalist, Democratic officials in the states of Arizona and Nevada have announced initiatives to turn out younger voters, who overwhelmingly lean Democratic, with roughly 6 months to go before the election in the fall. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D-Ariz.) announced that his office will partner with the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge to promote the “Arizona Campus Voting Challenge,” which Fontes falsely claims is a “nonpartisan initiative.”

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United Methodist Officially Lifts Ban on LGBTQ Members Joining Its Clergy

LGBTQ members at United Methodist Church congregation

The delegates are also expected to vote on whether to replace its “Social Principles” document with one that changes the definition of marriage from being between a man and a woman to a union between “two people of faith.” It would also remove a line in the document that considers the practice of homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

United Methodist delegates voted to remove a ban on members of the LGBTQ community serving as clergy members on Wednesday, ending decades of controversy around the issue.

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Emails Show Facebook Chafed at Biden White House Pressure to Suppress COVID-19 Lab Leak Story

Facebook on a smartphone

The preliminary staff report is the result of a months-long investigation into the alleged coercion, where President Joe Biden’s White House reportedly pushed social media platforms such as Facebook, Amazon, and YouTube, to censor books, videos, and posts.

Emails released Wednesday show Facebook officials chafed at the Biden White House pressure campaign to censor reports that the COVID-19 pandemic came from a lab leak in China.

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Commentary: Unredactions Reveal Early White House Involvement in Trump Documents Case

Stern Su Trump

Top Biden administration officials worked with the National Archives to develop Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case against Donald Trump involving the former president’s alleged mishandling of classified material, according to recently unsealed court documents in the case pending in southern Florida.

More than 300 pages of newly unredacted exhibits, containing emails and other correspondence related to the early stages of the hunt for presidential papers, challenge public statements by Joe Biden about what he knew and when he knew it regarding the case against his political rival.

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Lawsuit Alleges Pro-Palestinian Groups Behind Campus Protests Collaborate with Hamas

Sign at a Palestine campus protest

American and Israeli victims of the Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against pro-Palestinian and Muslim advocacy groups over their alleged promotion and support for Hamas.

Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing roughly 1,200 people and kidnapping hundreds of others, which prompted sweeping pro-Palestinian protests across the country. A group of law firms representing the victims are suing American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) over allegations that the groups have worked to propagandize and advance Hamas’ goals — including through recruitment efforts on embattled college campuses — thereby making them accomplices in the terrorist group’s atrocities.

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Congressional Republicans’ Bill Seeks to Crack Down on DEI in Med Schools

Congressman Greg Murphy

Bills that seeks to block med schools from receiving federal funds if they maintain diversity equity and inclusion mandates are winding their way through Congress.

“Embracing anti-Discrimination, Unbiased Curricula, and Advancing Truth in Education,” or the EDUCATE Act, would limit the availability of funds for medical schools that “adopt certain policies and requirements relating to” DEI, it states.

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Records Show Archives Official Met With Biden White House Counsel Day of Indictment Against Trump

Richard Sauber

On June 8, 2023, Gary Stern, the General Counsel of the National Archives arrived at the White House for a meeting with Special Counsel to President Biden Richard Sauber. The meeting reportedly took place in the Navy Mess, a “nautical” themed dining room run by the seafaring military branch, according to White House records.

It is not known what Stern and Sauber discussed, but the very same day, the Justice Department filed its indictment against former President Donald Trump alleging he “unlawfully” retained classified documents.

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Commentary: Biden FCC Threatens Free Speech by Restoring Internet Regulations

Jessica Rosenworcel Net Neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission has revived regulations for “net neutrality.” According to FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, “the action we take here is good for consumers, public safety, national security and network investment.” The people have room for doubt and the “neutrality” concept requires some explanation.

The internet developed in fine style long before any such regulation appeared, but in 2015, the FCC reclassified Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from “information services,” to “common carrier services.” The government treated an innovative new technology like a public utility monopoly, in effect turning back the clock to the Communications Act of 1934.

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Mexican Smugglers Are Increasingly Using Semitrailers to Transport Migrants

Axios Smugglers in Mexico are increasingly using overloaded semitrailers to transport people trying to enter the U.S., often with deadly consequences, an investigation from Noticias Telemundo found. The situation lays bare the human toll of modern migration amid the growing and increasingly dangerous human smuggling industry. Noticias Telemundo, the Latin American journalism consortium…

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Tennessee U.S. Rep. Mark Green Introduces Bill to Prohibit New Firearm Export Rule from Being Implemented

Tennessee U.S. Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07) introduced a bill this week that would prohibit federal funds from being used to finalize, implement, or enforce the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) interim final rule amending the Export Administration Regulations.

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Flight Docs Reveal Which Cities are Receiving Migrants Under Biden’s Parole Program

Passengers on a flight

Nearly 200,000 migrants from four countries have flown into America’s biggest airports under a Biden administration parole program, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents reveal.

The House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday publicized documents, obtained through a subpoena to DHS, that identifies over 50 airport locations used by the federal government to process hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals via a parole program between January-August 2023. About 200,000 foreign nationals were processed under the program — known as the Humanitarian Parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, or CHNV — which was initially launched in October 2022 and grants a two-year parole period as well as work authorization eligibility.

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Wind Energy Industry Produced Less Power in 2023, Despite Having Increased Total Generation Capacity

Wind Farm

The wind industry produce 2.1 percent less electricity in 2023 compared to the previous year. Total wind capacity in the U.S. has tripled from 47 gigawatts in 2010 to 147.5 gigawatts by the end of 2023.

The wind energy industry managed to increase total generation capacity by 6.2 gigawatts in 2023, but the actual electricity generation decreased.

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