Top Story: Four Years Later, CDC Documents on COVID-19’s Origin in China Emerge as Oversight Wanes
Day: July 8, 2024
Top Commentary: Stephanopoulos, Biden, and the Lord Almighty
Check’s Not In Mail: Postal Service Re-Organization Failed to Stem Billions in Losses
The U.S. Postal Service has now accumulated a whopping $98 billion in losses since it went into the red in 2007 and its much-ballyhooed reorganization has failed to reverse the trend as expected, according to a sobering new report from the iconic mail agency’s watchdog.
The Postal Service inspector general reports that the mail service recorded losses of $950 million in 2022 and $6.5 billion in 2023, in the first two years after implementing its decade-long Delivering for America (DFA) reorganization plan.
Read MoreBiden’s White House Spending Dwarfs Trump, Obama
President Joe Biden’s White House staff has grown to historic highs, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, according to a new report.
An analysis from OpenTheBooks of the recently released White House payroll found the Biden White House staff spending has hit new highs.
Read MoreTSNN Featured: Dave McCormick Argues Sen. Bob Casey, Democrats Engaged in ‘Conspiracy of Silence’ to Protect President Joe Biden
Oklahoma Becomes Latest State in Court over Illegal Immigration, Arguing It’s a State Issue
Oklahoma is the most recent state facing a legal battle with the Biden administration on the issue of illegal immigration, with a federal judge blocking legislation that would make entering the country illegally a state crime.
Oklahoma’s House Bill 4156 makes it a crime to be in Oklahoma without legal status. The legislation was signed into law on April 30, but was blocked by a federal judge in June after the Biden administration filed a lawsuit against the state.
Read MoreDuke University Dumped Doc Who Exposed Lack of Evidence for ‘Racism’ as a Public Health Crisis
Two years ago this month, the University of Pennsylvania law school stopped accusing a tenured professor of making up statistics about black student performance, which she called defamatory, after ignoring requests for the supposedly correct statistics going back four years.
Dean Ted Ruger still sought “major sanctions” against Amy Wax for “intentional and incessant racist, sexist, xenophobic, and homophobic actions and statements,” and disgraced ex-President Liz Magill approved a hearing board’s recommended one-year suspension, slashed pay and mandatory scarlet letter in her public appearances.
Read MoreAudit: Georgia SOS Should Act to Ensure It Meets Federal Reporting Requirements
Georgia’s Secretary of State’s office should take additional action to ensure it meets federal reporting and inventory requirements tied to federal election grants.
The Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts included the finding in a new audit following a March 2022 examination.
Read MoreCommentary: Stephanopoulos, Biden, and the Lord Almighty
George Stephanopoulos’ interview of President Biden was painful to watch — unless, probably, you’re Donald Trump. Even partisan Trump supporters could feel sorry for the president — though that would be a mistake: if you were in Biden’s shoes, he would not feel sorry for you.
At least some people were not sure Stephanopoulos would ask, and then press, hard questions. He did. But there was no real reason to suppose he would let Biden off lightly: he surely wants the Democrats to win the election as much as any other partisan Democrat, and letting Biden remain the party’s candidate is — now, clearly — not in their best interest.
Read MoreCommentary: The Emerging Trump Coalition
Will Hispanics and young voters help propel former President Donald Trump to a second term in the White House? New polling suggests so, strongly.
But first some background on the larger macro shifts in the electorate and party identification: Bigger picture, the populist-nationalist revolt continues to reshape politics in America in ways that are systemic and, likely, generational. This political tectonic shift is transforming the Republican Party into a party of workers, claiming whole demographic groups that were formerly considered the political provenance of the Democrats.
Read MoreCalifornia Joins 26 States in Requiring Students Take Personal Finance Class
Over half of U.S. states now require high school students to receive a financial literacy course before they graduate after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill passed by the California Legislature.
With the passage of California’s law requiring schools to offer a course in personal finance by the 2027-28 school year and requiring the class of 2031 to receive at least one class, a total of 26 states now require students to take a course on how to manage money, according to a nonprofit spearheading efforts to pass such laws.
Read MoreFour Years Later, CDC Documents on COVID-19’s Origin in China Emerge as Oversight Wanes
Newly released documents from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal early evidence and analysis four years ago in which U.S. government officials indicated that COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, China.
These findings in the CDC documents obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, dating from about six months after the disease’s initial outbreak, are coming to light only now because of the government’s repeated delays in releasing relevant documents through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Read MoreBiden White House Staff Is Largest Since Nixon, Costs Taxpayers $225 Million
President Joe Biden has spent $225 million paying hundreds of White House staffers since the 2021 fiscal year, federal records show.
The president’s spending on staffers totaled $60.8 million for the 2024 fiscal year, marking the highest level adjusted for inflation recorded over the past two presidential administrations, according to an analysis conducted by Open The Books. Biden employed over 500 staffers in three of the four fiscal years he has been in office, including 565 during the 2024 fiscal year, a headcount benchmark not hit since the Nixon administration in 1971.
Read MoreUnemployment Insurance Claims Continue to Rise
The number of insured unemployed individuals increased by 26,000 to 1,858,000, in the week ending June 29, the highest level since November 2021.
Seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims reached 238,000, marking an increase of 4,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 234,000.
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