Month: August 2023

The Fed’s Favorite Inflation Measure Just Ticked Back Up

Georgia Star News Staff

The Federal Reserve’s preferred method of tracking inflation went up in July, following a similar move by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index rose 0.2% for the month of July, culminating in a 3.3% rise for the year in the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, up from 3.0% year-over-year in June, according to BEA data. The CPI, which is another measure of inflation, rose 3.2% in July, up from 3.0% in June year-over-year.

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Newt Gingrich: House GOP Should Broaden Biden Investigation to Include Hillary Clinton and Obama

Just the News

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says that Republicans in the House should expand their Biden investigation to look into other Democrat politicians such as former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“There’s, I think, a second reason for dramatically broadening the investigation,” Gingrich said on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast. “I’m working now on a series of articles for the American Spectator – making the case that this is really about the weaponization of government, the collapse of the rule of law and its replacement by the rule of power. And that really involves three principles. It involves Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden.”

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Michigan Police Memos Raised Concern About Possible Nationwide Voter Registration Fraud Scheme

Just the News

Michigan authorities suspected there was a possible voter registration fraud scheme occurring across multiple states during the 2020 election and were concerned enough to bring in the FBI, according to police memos reviewed by Just the News. But what happened since remains mostly a mystery.

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Trump Can’t Be Barred from Arizona’s 2024 Ballot, Says Democratic Secretary of State

Admin

The Hill Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) said he does not have the ability to bar former President Donald Trump from running for president in his state Wednesday. There have been calls to bar the former president from being able to run in 2024 related to language in the 14th amendment where it states those who “have engaged in…

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Economy Grew Less than Previously Thought in Second Quarter

Georgia Star News Staff

Economic growth was revised downward for the second quarter of 2022, coming more in line with economists’ original expectations, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

Yearly real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was revised down from 2.4% to 2.1% growth in the second estimate for the second quarter of 2023, according to the BEA. The revision is more in line with original expectations from economists of around 2% growth for the second quarter, showing signs of a cooling economy.

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Consumer Confidence Hits Near-Recession Low

Georgia Star News Staff

The latest index of U.S. consumer confidence fell to a new low in the month of August, hitting levels that would normally indicate a coming recession.

As Breitbart reports, the Conference Board confirmed on Tuesday that the index fell to 106.1 in August, down from 114 in July. Economists had originally projected that it would rise to 116.6, and had predicted that July would reach 117.0.

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Researchers Warn About Synthetic Opioids More Powerful than Fentanyl

The Center Square

Synthetic opioids estimated to be 10 times more potent than fentanyl are creeping into the illicit drug market in the U.S., according to new research. 

“Synthetic opioids, such as the fentanyl analog and nitazene drug class, are among the fastest growing types of opioids being detected in patients in the emergency department with illicit opioid overdose,” researchers warned in a paper published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open.

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Giuliani Loses Georgia Election Workers’ Defamation Lawsuit by Default

Just the News

Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani lost by default Wednesday in a defamation lawsuit filed by two Georgia election workers and a judge imposed sanctions on him in the case. 

In a scathing 57-page ruling, federal Judge Beryl Howell criticized Giuliani for not producing evidence as required for the case filed by election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, resulting in the default loss.

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Commentary: Saving the Environment from Environmentalists

Georgia Star News Staff

The oceans director of Greenpeace told USA Today that groups attempting to link offshore wind to whale deaths are part of a “cynical disinformation campaign.”
–  Whale carcasses on Martha’s Vineyard fuel speculation about wind turbines, New Bedford Light, June 22, 2023

If you want to know just how far the environmentalist movement has fallen in recent years, the destruction of marine life off the coast of Massachusetts in 2023 provides a disgraceful example. Greenpeace, an organization that not only led the earliest vanguard of the modern environmental movement, but was specifically formed to save the world’s whales, is actively denying what is likely the most egregious massacre of whales by Americans in more than a century.

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Commentary: ‘The Thales Way’ Is the Book That Can Save American Education

Georgia Star News Staff

Would you be interested in a book on reforming education by a man who created flourishing grade, middle, and high school charter schools, all with waiting lists today, found them too mired in government bureaucracy and so started 13 even more successful purely private campuses in 2007 — and who is willing to share his secrets of success with you?

In hiring young people for his large private business, Bob Luddy of Raleigh, North Carolina, ran head-long into the problem shared by other employers — namely, that many potential employees with a public-school education did not have the elemental skills required to hold jobs, some unable to understand basic logic or even to read.

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Food Prices Expected to Continue Rising Through 2024

The Center Square

Recently released federal pricing analysis from the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that food prices will continue to rise through 2024.

The USDA pointed to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index released earlier this month, which showed consumer prices overall rose 3.2 percent in the previous twelve months. Food prices, though rose more quickly at 4.9 percent during the same time.

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Comer Accuses Biden of Abusing Power by Letting Son Travel on Foreign Trips, Demands Flight Records

Georgia Star News Staff
Joe Biden with Hunter Biden

House Government and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer on Wednesday formally accused Joe Biden of abusing his power as vice president by allowing his son to travel aboard Air Force Two to help score foreign business deals, formally demanding the National Archives turn over all flight records from such trips.

“The Committee seeks unrestricted special access under the Presidential Records Act (PRA) to certain records related to then-Vice President Biden’s foreign travel with his family on Air Force Two and Marine Two,” Comer and fellow committee member Rep. Byron Donald, R-Fla., wrote in a letter to the National Archives and Records Administration.

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Illegal Migrants from Mexico Assault Northern Border Agent, Official Says

Georgia Star News Staff

Three illegal migrants from Mexico assaulted a Border Patrol agent along the northern border on Aug. 20, according to an Instagram post from Swanton sector Chief Robert Garcia.

The three illegal migrants crossed the northern border from Canada illegally before assaulting the agent near Churubusco, New York, according to Garcia’s post. Border Patrol agents in the Swanton sector, which includes areas of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire have made more than 4,900 arrests of illegal migrants from 68 countries between October 2022 and July, amounting to more apprehensions than the last eight years combined in the region.

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Trump Open to Vivek Ramaswamy as Vice President

Admin

Axios Former President Trump showered Vivek Ramaswamy with praise when asked in an interview if he’d considered the 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur for vice president. It’s the most Trump has weighed in on Ramaswamy’s presidential candidacy, revealing his openness to a significantly younger and arguably more radical anti-Washington unknown. Trump called Ramaswamy “smart” and “young”…

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Democrat-Corporate Alliance: Big Banks, BlackRock, Pfizer Back Hochul Plan to Have Americans Bail Out New York for Illegal Immigration

Admin

Breitbart News The nation’s biggest banks on Wall Street, investment firms, and pharmaceutical companies are among a number of multinational corporations throwing their support behind a plan from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) that would have American taxpayers bail out the sanctuary state for an illegal immigration influx. As…

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Biden Admin Seeks Long-Term Ukraine Aid Plan to Prevent Next President from Scaling Back Funding

Georgia Star News Staff
Joe Biden and Vladimir Zelensky

The Biden administration is seeking to hammer out a long-term Ukraine aid agreement with European allies in hopes of both preventing Russia from gaining an edge on the battlefield and hamstringing a future president’s ability to scale back U.S. commitments, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The scheme emerged during sideline talks among Group of Seven leaders at a NATO summit in July, and so far involves negotiations between the U.S. and Ukraine, and between the United Kingdom (U.K.) and Ukraine, according to the WSJ. It’s an attempt, in part, to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin he can simply wait until a new American administration, as several top GOP political contenders have expressed intention to reduce or eliminate U.S. aid that makes up the brunt of Western support.

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Commission Chair: Georgia CON Laws ‘Intended to Stifle Competition’

The Center Square

When officials in Lee County tried to build “a small acute care hospital” with 60 beds and four operating rooms, it began a multi-year process that cost millions of dollars and didn’t end with the construction of a facility.

“When we started our quest to build a hospital, we knew that it was going to be an uphill battle,” Billy Mathis, the Lee County Commission chairman, told lawmakers during a Senate Study Committee on Certificate of Need Reform hearing on Monday. “For the first couple of years, after you are granted a certificate of need, you fight litigation. The code in Georgia encourages litigation, basically. So, you get your certificate of need, and then all sorts of folks sue you — to put it very plainly.”

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Average American Workers Now Demand $80K Salary to Start New Jobs

Georgia Star News Staff

On Monday, the Federal Reserve published research suggesting that the preferred starting wage for the average American worker is at an all-time high.

According to Fox Business, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York determined that the average “reservation wage” – that is, the lowest salary at which a prospective employee will accept a job – reached $78,645 in the second quarter of 2023. This is an 8% increase from the second quarter of 2022, when the average reservation wage was approximately $72,873.

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Commentary: Left Seizes Election Worker Training Organization

Georgia Star News Staff

A nonpartisan organization that trains election workers from across the country is now being run by two liberal voting activists—one who previously worked for the nonprofit that distributed hundreds of millions of dollars of Mark Zuckerberg’s election grants during the 2020 elections. The grants were supposedly to “help” local governments run elections, but most of the money went to election offices in Democrat-run localities.

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Trump’s Lead Grows Following Georgia Indictment, Poll Shows

Kaitlin Housler

Former President Donald Trump is leading the field of candidates in the 2024 GOP presidential primary among Georgia voters, according to a new poll by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The poll surveyed 807 likely Republican primary voters in Georgia from August 16-23.

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Poll: Oregon Voters Want to Repeal Drug Decriminalization

Georgia Star News Staff

A new poll shows that residents in the state of Oregon now want to repeal a law that they previously passed which led to the decriminalization of drug use in the state.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Emerson College reveals that a clear majority of 56% want a full repeal of the law, while 64% said they would prefer a partial repeal over simply leaving it in place.

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Biden’s Mining Strategy Is Undermining His Agenda and Helping China, Experts Say

Georgia Star News Staff

President Joe Biden’s climate agenda is handicapping America’s ability to source key raw materials to build green technologies that the agenda simultaneously requires, a reality that experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation makes America more dependent on China in the long-term.

The Biden administration has blocked several domestic opportunities to mine raw materials for which China is the global leader in extraction, refining or both, according to a 2022 report on electric vehicles (EVs) by the International Energy Agency (IEA). Many of the minerals and materials that Biden’s agenda is restricting domestically are essential components for green technologies that his climate agenda depends upon at the same time, such as electric vehicles and solar panels, according to a different report by the IEA.

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Commentary: The Specter of the Far Right and Its Hidden Asymmetry

Georgia Star News Staff

“Aspecter is haunting Europe — the specter of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter,” is the first sentence of perhaps the most important political pamphlet in history — the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. That famous sentence would still be relevant today only if we change one word, that is, if we remove the word communism and replace it with the “far right.”  

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Commentary: Woke U.S. Diplomacy Is Not Popular Around the Globe, nor at Home

RealClearWire

The Biden administration is fraying relations with some allies and generating pushback from Congress by spending millions of taxpayer dollars to promote the woke ideology abroad that has stirred controversy at home since President Biden took office.  

In a “national security memorandum” shortly after his swearing-in, Biden ordered all federal agencies with dealings abroad not only to protect LGBT rights in the face of discrimination and violence but to actively advance them. His State Department has said one of its goals is to “embed intersectional equity principles into diversifying public diplomacy and communications strategies” in relations with other nations. 

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‘Total Lack of Critical Thinking’: Experts Question COVID Vax, Mask Mandates amid ‘Surge’

Just the News

by Greg Piper   Governments and private entities are using a small rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations and new viral variants to juice interest in bivalent boosters that only 1 in 6 Americans have taken and to urge a return to routine masking, if not outright mandating new jabs and face coverings. What they aren’t…

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More Than 1,600 Scientists, Nobel Laureates, Declare ‘Climate Emergency’ a Myth

Just the News

A coalition of 1,609 scientists from around the world have signed a declaration stating “there is no climate emergency” and that they “strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy” being pushed across the globe. The declaration does not deny the harmful effect of greenhouse gasses, but instead challenges the hysteria brought about by the narrative of imminent doom.

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IRS Lost Millions of Taxpayer Records That Could be Used for Identity Theft

The Center Square

The Internal Revenue Service lost millions of taxpayer records and federal employees don’t know where they have gone.

Lawmakers want answers and accountability for the IRS over those documents, which could be used by nefarious actors to steal Americans’ identity.

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Multiple Analyses: The California ‘Single-Use Plastic Bag’ Ban Is a Flop

The Center Square

According to a new analysis from the Los Angeles Times, California’s ban on thin plastic bags is a failure, as thicker, “recyclable” replacement bags are largely unable to be recycled in California, and the majority of consumers still opt not to bring their own bags to reuse for shopping.

Additional analyses have also found increases in purchases of plastic trash bags chip away at the plastics savings from single-use plastic bag bans, the pounds of plastic bags per-capita placed in landfills has increased since the ban, and many of the alternatives to single-use plastic bags typically end up being worse for the environment. Nonetheless, a major decrease in grocery bag litter suggests at least a partial success.

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‘Legal’ Concerns Halt NIH $154 Million ‘False Information’ Program

Georgia Star News Staff

The National Institutes of Health halted a $154 million research program intended to study “equitable health communication” and combat alleged medical misinformation.

The “pause” came “in the context of the current regulatory and legal landscape around communication platforms,” according to a website for the initiative.

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Consumer Goods Giant 3M Fined More than $6.5 Million for Wooing Chinese Government Officials with Overseas Trips

Just the News

The consumer goods company 3M agreed to pay more than $6.5 million to resolve charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act after its China-based subsidiary took Chinese government officials on overseas trips in an attempt to convince them to purchase 3M products, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said.

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Commentary: As Americans’ Righteous Indignation Grows, Out-of-Touch Power Brokers Believe Their Coup Has Public Support

Georgia Star News Staff

Looking at the multiple indictments against Trump, culminating in the former president’s humiliating arrest procedure in Fulton County, Georgia on August 24, some of us may feel dismayed by these highhanded actions. Both the Democrats and their allies in the Deep State and media are working, or so it seems, to create a one-party dictatorship, one in which the opposition party functions as an ineffectual check on the wielders of power.

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Georgia State Senators Spar on Special Session over Trump Indictment

The Center Square

While one Georgia state senator wants a special session to potentially act on the district attorney prosecuting former President Donald Trump, another says it’s impossible.

Last week, State Sen. Colton Moore, R-Trenton, sent a letter to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, calling for a special session “for all purposes, to include, without limitation, the review and response to the actions of [Fulton County District Attorney] Fani Willis.”

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Commentary: America’s Moms Saw a True Leader on the GOP Debate Stage

Georgia Star News Staff

Donald Trump’s decision to skip the first Republican primary debate left a huge vacuum on the stage in Milwaukee. That vacuum was filled by Vivek Ramaswamy, who showed poise, conviction, and grace under fire – in the process making most of his opponents look like the career politicians they are.

Like Trump, Ramaswamy is a businessman who feels called to run for office because he sees that the country is facing dark times and needs to be saved from the political establishment, which prioritizes self-interest and the status quo over patriotism and the sort of decisive action that our country needs.

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Commentary: Christianity and the Globalist Agenda

Georgia Star News Staff

The power of these 10 words threatens the most powerful individuals and institutions on the planet, and what might otherwise be their total control over governments. These words express a principle that an authoritarian government cannot tolerate. They proclaim “Government is not the ultimate sovereign. God is the ultimate sovereign. And if you challenge my God and make me choose, I will obey God, and I will defy you.”

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Commentary: Searching for Truth and Excellence in Youth Literature and Movies

Georgia Star News Staff

A couple of months ago, a friend of my wife and of mine, a young Italian priest, was visiting with us. Our conversation veered toward youth books and movies. Our friend lamented what he perceived as a lack of substance in contemporary books and movies for young people. He said that the books kids read and the movies they watch should reflect the truth and impel them toward right living and virtue, instead of simply mirroring the symptoms of a wounded culture. Perhaps my friend was onto something.

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Crime-Ridden Liberal Cities Have a New Favorite Scapegoat: Automakers

Just the News

Chicago is the latest major city to sue Hyundai and Kia for failing to equip their U.S. cars for more than a decade with anti-theft technology, which was exposed on social media last year and made the vehicles a target for criminals.

“Unlike the movies, hot-wiring vehicles is far harder than it appears—unless that vehicle was manufactured by Hyundai or Kia,” the lawsuit filed Thursday by the city of Chicago states.

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Report: Millions of Americans Struggling Due to Medical Debt

Georgia Star News Staff

A new report suggests that middle-class Americans are struggling with greater medical debt than any other class of Americans, with one out of every four having unpaid medical bills.

As Axios reports, the data comes from the left-wing think tank Third Way, which calculates that as many as 17 million middle-class Americans – those making between $50,000 and $100,000 per year – are struggling to pay off medical debts. Middle-class Americans in particular are even less likely to qualify for Medicare than low-income Americans.

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Texas U.S. Rep McCaul Presses Biden Admin for Info on Unknown Number of American Inmates in Dominican Republic

Georgia Star News Staff

Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas demanded answers from the Biden administration regarding the status of American prisoners in the Dominican Republic – the number of which is currently unknown – in a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday, and obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

A number of American citizens are currently imprisoned in the Dominican Republic, some of which are likely under the country’s “preventative detention” system, which requires no charges or evidence of crime for imprisonment, according to McCaul’s letter. McCaul expressed concern to Blinken that the Biden administration has failed to keep track of the number of these American prisoners and demanded action on behalf of the detainee’s families, who are unaware of the status or condition of their loved ones.

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Dramatic Video Shows Law Enforcement Clearing Nevada Highway Blockade, Arresting Climate Activists

Georgia Star News Staff

A dramatic video recording of law enforcement officers ramming through climate activists’ blockade as they attempted to stop traffic surfaced on Sunday.

Climate activists blocked a road leading into the Burning Man festival in Nevada on Sunday, causing a massive traffic jam, according to multiple reports and to video footage of the incident shared on Twitter. Video footage shared on Twitter appeared to show Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Police vehicles smashing through their barricade, and a law enforcement officer drawing his gun and arresting the protesters.

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Kari Lake Announces New Trial Date in Lawsuit to Obtain Mail-In Ballot Signatures

Just the News

Former GOP Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake announced an upcoming trial date in a lawsuit to obtain mail-in ballot signatures.

“We are scheduled for a 2-day trial set for September 21 & 25th,” Lake wrote on X, the platform previously called Twitter. “I will never stop fighting for Honest & Transparent Elections.”

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National Archives Acknowledges 5,400 Biden Pseudonym Emails, Faces Lawsuit for Their Release

Just the News

The National Archives and Records Administration acknowledged possessing potentially up to 5,400 emails connected to then-Vice President Joe Biden’s pseudonym accounts that he used to forward government information and discuss business with his son, Hunter Biden, and others, and on Monday the Southeastern Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit to compel the agency to turn over the emails.

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