U.S. and World Leaders Express ‘Serious Concerns’ About Venezuelan Election Results as Both Sides Declare Victory

Both Venezuela’s opposition coalition and communist dictator Nicolás Maduro declared victory in Sunday’s presidential election, setting the stage for a potential showdown in the South American country, according to widespread news reports.

The delay in announcing results, which took place six hours after precincts were originally scheduled to close, created debate within Maduro’s regime about how to proceed since polls continued to show the opposition with a sweeping lead.

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Biden Proposes Sweeping Changes to the Supreme Court, Constitutional Amendment

Joe Biden

An op-ed under President Joe Biden’s byline in the Washington Post on Monday outlined his proposal to make major changes to the U.S. Supreme Court, calling for a Constitutional amendment to “ensure no president is above the law.”

“[T]he Supreme Courts decision on July 1 to grant presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do,” Biden wrote. “The only limits will be those that are self-imposed by the person occupying the Oval Office.”

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Rate of Shoplifting Spikes Across U.S.

Shop Lifting

The rate of shoplifting saw a noticeable increase in the first half of 2024, even as the rates of other crimes fell to levels not seen since before the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic.

According to the Daily Caller, a study by the Council of Criminal Justice (CCJ) determined that shoplifting rose by 24% in 23 different cities across the country, compared to the first half of 2023. That rate is also about 10% higher than the first half of 2019. Meanwhile, the rates of homicide and robbery fell to lower than the levels seen in 2019.

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National Study Finds Giving Americans $1,000 per Month Results in Less Productivity

People Getting Money

Giving Americans $1,000 per month in taxpayer-funded guaranteed income makes them worse off, says a new three-year, 3000-participant study. The National Bureau of Economic Research’s massive study found recipients and their partners work and earn less, with the negative effect on wages and earnings getting worse over time.

While proponents of universal basic income theorized such programs would improve non-economic metrics for recipients, the study surprisingly showed leisure time only increased as recipients spent less time on sleeping, child care, community engagement, caring for others, and self improvement. Transfers also reduced recipients’ non-transfer incomes significantly, with the study finding “for every one dollar received, total household income excluding the transfers fell by at least 21 cents, and total individual income fell by at least 12 cents.”

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California Punished Female Inmates for Reporting Male Assault with Revoked Parole, Solitary: Suit

Woman Inmate

With leading Democrats lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris for the party’s presidential nomination and their telegenic party attack dog California Gov. Gavin Newsom seen as a potential second banana, Republicans are likely to warn voters what they can expect if the woke Californians reach the White House.

That includes taxpayer funding for prison inmates who identify as the opposite sex to get so-called gender-affirmation surgery, for which Harris took credit as California attorney general, and a law signed by Newsom (SB 132) that grants inmates placement based on their self-declared gender identity, setting off a wave of transfer requests to women’s prisons.

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Commentary: Don’t Be Surprised If It’s Buttigieg

It started on Thursday. Ever so softly the chorus seemed to build:

The odds on Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg being the Democratic Party‘s 2024 vice presidential candidate have improved with one leading bookmaker over the past 24 hours, following media reports that the campaign team of Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is considering him for the role.

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Report: Eighth-Grade Students Need Whole School Year to Reach Pre-Pandemic Performance

Teacher and Students

An education organization that administers a nationwide assessment has found that students are still not performing as well as they were immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic and that students’ achievement gap worsened in the 2023-24 school year as compared to before COVID.

NWEA, which issues the Measures of Academic Progress, said in a report this week that some middle school students are still an entire school year behind where they were before the pandemic in almost every grade as schools are slated to run out of federal relief this fall.

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Kamala Harris Would Not Seek Fracking Ban If Elected to White House in November: Campaign

Fracking

A spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign said on Friday that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee would not seek a federal ban on fracking if she’s elected to the White House in November.

Harris previously claimed that she would support a ban on the technique during her initial run for the Oval Office in 2020, but the Biden administration has not sought such a ban.

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Percentage of Americans Who Believe U.S. Is Ready for a Female President Drops

Kamala Harris

The amount of Americans that believe the U.S. is ready for a female president has dipped according to a poll published Friday, with just over half claiming they believe the country is ready this year.

The poll, conducted by YouGov for The Times, found that just 54% of respondents believe the country is ready to elect a female president in 2024, compared to 63% in a 2015 YouGov poll. The question comes as Vice President Kamala Harris emerges as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president now that President Joe Biden has withdrawn his bid for reelection.

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Justice Department Says TikTok Has Collected User Data on Issues Such as Gun Control and Abortion

The Justice Department on Friday evening accused the social media app TikTok of gathering information on users’ opinions on social issues such as abortion and gun control.

Attorneys for the DOJ said in documents filed at an appeals court in Washington that TikTok and its parent company ByteDance used an internal web-suite system called Lark to get TikTok employees to communicate with ByteDance engineers in China.

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Commentary: With Chevron Dead, It’s Time to Challenge the Feres Doctrine

Supreme Court

Last month the Supreme Court ended the 40-year precedent known as the Chevron Doctrine. When the Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council ruling was handed down in 1984 there was nil understanding that it would enable the burgeoning 20th Century administrative state to dig its foundation down to societal bedrock. This legal precedent tied the hands of lower courts over the next 40 years, forcing them to defer to administrative agencies on how to interpret the law in areas that congress did not offer crystal clarity.

Chevron opened the door for succeeding precedents like the 2005 ruling in the National Cable & Telecommunications Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Services case, which enabled governmental agencies to “override judicial constructions of ambiguous federal laws by promulgating their own conflicting, yet authoritative, interpretations.” In 2020, Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the Brand X opinion, lamented the ruling, rightly noting that it further ensconced judicial doctrine to the point of “administrative absolutism.” In essence, Chevron, and subsequent precedent under its umbrella, allowed presidential administrations to legislate around congress through cabinet agency directors.

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Commentary: Electrification Without the Infrastructure

Electrical Grids

As state and federal policies mandate the electrification of virtually all end uses to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels. For example, 18 states have adopted California’s Advanced Clear Car II rules requiring increasing percentages of new vehicle sales to be EVs, reaching 100% for the 2035 model year. In 2019, New York City enacted Local Law 97, which requires all residential buildings larger than 25,000 square feet to convert to electricity by 2035. Other states, such as New Jersey seek to convert all residential heating to electricity.

Together, mandates for electric vehicles (EVs) and electrification of space and water heat will likely double electricity consumption and peak demand. Coupled with policies that mandate supplying the nation’s electricity with zero-emissions resources, notably intermittent wind and solar power, not only will electricity prices continue to increase but the ability to meet consumers’ increased demand will become more problematic.

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Cambridge ‘Psychological Inoculation’ Lab Claims Conservatives, Millennials, Gen Z More Susceptible to ‘Misinformation’

People on Laptop

The Cambridge Social-Decision Making Lab (CSDMLab) has a Misinformation Susceptibility Test (MIST) that purports to test people’s susceptibility to so-called “misinformation.” Researchers at the lab have used the results of the test to portray younger people (millennials and Gen Z) and conservatives, who tend to rely less on mainstream media sources for news, as particularly susceptible to misinformation.

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College Board is Making It Easier for High School Students to Pass Prestigious Exams: Report

The College Board recently made changes to the Advanced Placement (AP) tests that have resulted in more student test-takers receiving higher scores, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The AP tests’ scoring changes involve replacing a panel of experts with a large-scale data analysis to determine skills students learned throughout the courses, the WSJ reported. Educators and test-prep companies are skeptical of the changes, alleging it is another form of grade inflation and a way to increase College Board’s business.

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Environmentalists Grateful for Appellate Win over Chemical Industry Giant

Chemours

Health advisories issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about the risks of chemicals produced at a North Carolina plant on the Cape Fear River are lawful and not reviewable by a court.

In a ruling by three judges Tuesday at the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, Justice Arianna Freeman wrote, “The health advisory provides guidance, but it imposes no obligations, prohibitions, or restrictions. The health advisory also does not give rise to any ‘direct and appreciable legal consequences.’”

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NRA Files Lawsuit Against Biden ATF over New Gun Dealer Rule

Gun Owner

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), as well as Attorney General Merrick Garland, over a new federal rule pertaining to firearms dealers.

As the Daily Caller reports, the ATF first imposed a new rule in April redefining what it means to be “engaged in the business” of selling firearms, so that the law would now include anyone who simply sells a smaller number of guns. The NRA filed its lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, seeking an injunction to block enforcement of the regulation.

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U.S. Oil, Gas Hit Record Production Despite Opposition from OPEC, Activists, and Biden Administration

Oil Rig

The United States is producing more oil now than any nation in the world has ever produced. In 2008, the U.S. produced only 5 million barrels of oil a day. Last year, the country produced 13 million barrels daily.

The United States’ record-breaking production is often used to knock back the argument President Joe Biden’s energy policy aims to minimize domestic fuel fuel production – to cut carbon emission and make way for more renewable energy.

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Whistleblower Report: Local LEOs Refuse to Share Information with FBI Due to ‘Disturbing Loss of Trust’

FBI logo outside of building

Police departments throughout the United States have stopped sharing information with the FBI due a “disturbing loss of trust” in the Bureau, an alarming new whistleblower report has found.

An alliance of retired and active duty FBI special agents and analysts examined the attitudes of the Bureau’s “local law enforcement partners,” drawing on the testimony of more than 30 “independent, highly credible law enforcement sources and sub-sources” across the country.

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Woke 2.0: ESG Critics Say the Same Movement Marches on, Only with a New Name

BlackRock began renaming environmental, social and governance (ESG) earlier this year. It’s now calling it “transition investing.”

The company recently updated its climate and decarbonization stewardship guidelines. The document makes no mention of ESG, but it shows in many ways, the world’s largest investment manager with $10 trillion in assets under management is still pursuing many of the same goals.

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Kamala Harris’ Direct Connection to Bidenflation: a Tie-Breaking Senate Vote for Stimulus Package

Kamala Harris

Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate for the first COVID-19 stimulus package in 2021 which led to inflation, in what critics call a sign of what’s to come in a possible Harris administration.

Harris, who is the President of the Senate, has cast the most tie-breaking votes in the Senate of any vice president, a total of 33 thus far. Her second tie-breaker was for the stimulus package at the beginning of the Biden administration, which has significantly impacted the economy, as inflation has skyrocketed.

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Commentary: President Biden – A Single Point of Failure for America

Joe Biden

On Sunday, President Joe Biden made the appropriate decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race amid pressure and a soft coup attempt from Democrats. While dropping out, Biden, our sitting commander-in-chief, hid in Delaware for almost a week without being seen by the American people, prompting “proof of life” demands. Unfortunately, this past week is not the first time this has happened before – Joe Biden has been missing in action for the last four years as our country has been falling apart around him.

As a retired Navy SEAL and former Marine, I’ve had the honor and duty of serving this country in some of the most challenging and dangerous situations imaginable. Our missions demanded precision, adaptability, and unwavering leadership. Any failure, any gap in our planning or execution, could cost lives. That’s why it is deeply troubling to see the current state of leadership under President Biden, who has become a “single point of failure” as our commander-in-chief. His weakness continues to put America in grave danger as our enemies seek to capitalize from America’s missing leader.

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1990s Country Legends to Headline the Ryman

Sammy Kershaw, Collin Raye, and Aaron Tippin, collectively known as Roots & Boots, are playing their first show together at the Ryman on July 31st.

The trio, the brainchild of Kershaw, started playing together more than 10 years ago when Joe Diffie initially held the spot now occupied by Raye. The show is a collaborative event to celebrate 90s country music, with all three on-stage together using one band, and trading hit songs and stories.

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Commentary: Racism and Sexism Are the Campaign Theme of the Harris-Whoever Ticket

Kamala Harris Speaking

Is Kamala Harris the quintessential DEI hire? It’s a legitimate question, given that Joe Biden made it clear during his 2020 election-year campaign that he would only consider a black woman for his VP slot. As president, he also claimed that the choice of Supreme Court Justice replacement for Stephen Breyer would be limited to a black woman. Not even the most qualified black woman, just someone possessing dark skin and lady parts.

Biden could have simply told the country that he was going to choose the most qualified person for either position. Instead, he said that his choice was going to be based primarily on skin color and gender.

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Another Left-Wing News Outlet Tries to Re-Write History to Help Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris

Another left-wing news outlet is scrambling to re-write history to prevent Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president, from attacks by her opponent, former President Donald Trump.

“Trump claims Harris helped raise millions and personally donated to a fund that got extra support to bail out protestors in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death,” says a report by WCCO, the Minneapolis affiliate of CBS, titled “Trump falsely accuses Harris of donating to Minnesota Freedom Fund, bailing out “dangerous criminals.”

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Chairman Michael Whatley: Republican National Committee Working ‘Aggressively’ to Ensure 2024 Election is Secure

Michael Whatley

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Whatley said the Republican Party is working “aggressively” to ensure states conduct secure elections for the upcoming November 5 general election.

Whatley said the RNC has filed 96 election-related lawsuits across the country to ensure the upcoming election is conducted in the most secure way possible. This includes cleaning up states’ voter rolls, preventing illegal immigrants from voting, and enforcing voter identification requirements.

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Election Integrity Law Expert Phill Kline: ‘The Democratic Party Lost Faith in Democracy a Long Time Ago’

Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris

Phill Kline, former Kansas Attorney General and current law professor at Liberty University School of Law, said the Democratic Party “lost faith in democracy a long time ago,” specifically citing multiple occasions when Democrat-occupied executive branches “stretched the law” to act without legislative consultation or approval on partisan issues.

Kline said Democrats have abused the executive branch to stretch emergency powers to advance partisan policies, including the environment, gun control, and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Obama Endorses Harris, Tells Vice President They’ll Be ‘Underdogs’ in Presidential Campaign

Barack Obama and Kamala Harris

Former President Barack Obama endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president on Friday, five days after President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid.

Harris reportedly secured the support of the necessary delegates to claim the Democratic nomination Tuesday, two days after Biden announced he would not accept the Democratic nomination and endorsed her as his replacement in the 2024 presidential election against former President Donald Trump. Obama and his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, vowed to do “everything we can” to support the vice president in the upcoming election.

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Musk Denies News Reports He’s Donating $45 Million a Month to Trump-Aligned PAC

Elon Musk

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says news reports that he is contributing $45 million a month to a pro-Donald Trump political action committee are false.

“What’s been reported in the media is simply not true. I’m not donating $45 million a month to Trump,” Musk said during an interview Monday with Jordan Peterson, a conservative Canadian psychologist and YouTube star.

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62 Percent of Voters are Concerned Cheating will Affect the 2024 Election: Poll

People Voting

A new poll found that 62% of voters are concerned cheating will affect the outcome of the 2024 election.

According to a poll by Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute released Wednesday, 62% of likely national voters have concerns about cheating in the election. A total of 37% of likely voters nationwide were “very” concerned, with 25% “somewhat” concerned, with likely voters in battleground states splitting similarly.

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U.S. Economic Growth Beats Expectations in Second Quarter

The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 2.8 percent in the second quarter of 2024, according to gross domestic product (GDP) statistics released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) on Thursday.

Higher growth in the second quarter follows poor growth in the first quarter of 2024, which measured 1.4 percent after being revised down from an initial estimate of 1.6 percent, according to the BEA. Economists expected that GDP would increase by around 2.1 percent in the second quarter of 2024, in line with typical U.S economic growth rates.

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Commentary: Obama Decided Biden’s Fate, and Democratic Elite Got Their Way

Obama, Biden, and Harris

Obama elevated Biden to presidential prominence; only he could remove Biden from it. Biden’s leftward policies had created a political deficit that his June 27 debate performance proved he could not communicate his way out of. Democrat elite’s efforts to prod Biden off the ticket had not succeeded. With time running short, push came to shove, but to succeed, that shove could not come from them alone.

Despite Biden having spent more terms in the Senate (six) than Obama spent years (four), the latter raised the former to presidential level by making him his vice president. Exact opposites in every respect, Obama had finally done for Biden what Biden couldn’t do for himself in two short-lived, ill-fated presidential runs (1988 and 2008).

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Commentary: Government Policies are Exacerbating Evictions

Eviction Notice

Evictions are soaring, and Americans can’t pay the rent, potentially throwing hundreds of thousands of families out of their homes at a time when homeless shelters are jammed to the rafters with 10 million illegal immigrants.

It’s a useful reminder that the problem with our ruling elite isn’t just President Joe Biden’s dementia. They’ve made a very big bed we’re all going to be lying in.

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Six Democrats Join Republicans to Pass Resolution Condemning Harris’ Performance as ‘Border Czar’

Kamala Harris in front of illegal immigrants at border wall (composite image)

There were six Democrats who joined Republicans in the House to pass a resolution “strongly condemning” Vice President Kamala Harris, now the top 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, for her performance as the border czar.

The resolution, introduced by Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., the House Republican conference chair, formally condemns Harris and the Biden administration for failing to “secure the U.S. border.” The resolution notes that there have been about 9.7 million illegal immigrant encounters nationwide since January 2021.

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Music Spotlight: Jet Jurgensmeyer

Jet Jurgensmeyer

Nashville native Jet Jurgensmeyer has been performing all his life. At age 19, his resume is longer than that of many who are three times his age. Jurgensmeyer has been acting since he was a small child and has recently done a lot of voice-over work. He can be seen in everything from Last Man Standing to Bubble Guppies.

When I met Jurgensmeyer at the 2024 Country Radio Seminar, I discovered that his passion for singing and songwriting may almost be greater than his affinity toward acting. Growing up in Nashville, his parents are the former owners of the Nashville Palace, a long-time popular music venue across from the Opryland Hotel and Grand Ole Opry.

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New American Greatness Poll Shows Trump Winning Pennsylvania

Donald J. Trump

Brand new battleground polling reveals Trump leading a tight race in the battleground state of Pennsylvania over Kamala Harris. In the survey of 600 likely voters, using a sample that reported as +2 percent for Biden in 2020, Trump is now +2 percent for a 47-45 percent lead.

The survey was conducted both before and after the Biden withdrawal announcement, with one-quarter of the weighted respondent interviews occurring before Biden dropped out.

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House Passes Bipartisan Resolution Establishing Trump Assassination Attempt Task Force

House Speaker Mike Johnson with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (composite image)

The House passed a resolution to form a bipartisan task force on Wednesday to investigate the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump on July 13.

H.R. 1367, which was spearheaded by House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, passed the House in a unanimous vote. The task force was announced in the aftermath of U.S. Secret Service (USSS) Director Kimberly Cheatle’s evasive testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Monday, which sparked bipartisan outrage and her subsequent resignation on Tuesday.

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