Report: States with Low Taxes, Fewer Restrictions Tops for Economic Outlook

Work Meeting

States with lower tax rates, lower debt and fewer government restrictions generally have stronger economic outlooks, according to the latest report that ranks states from best to worst based on how friendly their policies are to economic growth.

The American Legislative Exchange Council released its “Rich States Poor States” report Tuesday. The report ranks states based on “economic outlook” using 15 factors.

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Commentary: The Battle Begins as Trump’s Trial Tests American Justice

Donald Trump

Monday, April 15, 2024, is not only Tax Day in the United States.  It is also the day that this country will take another fateful step towards banana republic-like tyranny.  For it is the day that New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg—or, to give him his full title, “Soros-funded District Attorney Alvin Bragg”—will begin his 34-count felony trial against Donald Trump.

Exactly what is the presumptive Republican nominee for president charged with by the Biden Department of Justice?  Paying Stormy Daniels—or to give her the invariable epithet, “porn star Stormy Daniels” (think “swift-footed Achilles,” “gray-eyed Athena”)—to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter in 2006 (which Trump has consistently denied).

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Commentary: North Carolina Could Be Ground Zero for the Gen Z Revolt Against Democrats

Gen Z Trump Voter

What began as imprecise theories among a handful of forward-looking political observers and youth organizers is materializing this election year, and poll after poll is now showing young voters deserting Democrats in droves.

Mainstream news outlets have little choice but to acknowledge the vast, double-digit declines in support for Biden among younger voters, a group which supported him by 25 percentage points in 2020. Now we are seeing tentative coverage of the youth shift and warnings to Democrats in Vox, NPR, CNN and other mainstream outlets.

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GOP Representative Blasts Squad Democrats for Trying to Block Sale of F-35s Israel Used to Defend Against Iran Attacks

Rep. Brian Mast

Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida blasted Democrats for trying to get the Biden administration to block the sale of advanced F-35 jets to Israel that defended on Saturday against Iran’s large-scale drone and ballistic missile attack in an exclusive statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi joined 39 Democratic colleagues, including members of the “Squad,” in an April 5 letter urging the president to reverse his decision authorizing a weapons sale to Israel after an Israeli airstrike killed seven humanitarian workers in Gaza. The transfer included U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets and other American-origin weapons needed “to ensure Israel can survive” amid threats and attacks from Iran, Mast, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement to the DCNF.

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Harvard-Affiliated Cancer Center Retracts Several Studies

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Building

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute retracted seven studies and is investigating multiple researchers after allegations were made that images had been manipulated or duplicated, according to NBC News.

Dr. Sholto David, a molecular biologist, investigated in January multiple studies from top researchers within the institute, which is a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and concluded that several images had possibly been manipulated by software such as Adobe Photoshop, according to The Wall Street Journal. The institute originally said they were retracting six studies but have added a seventh, while also requesting corrections in an additional 31 papers, according to NBC News.

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Education Department to Open Civil Rights Probe into UC Berkeley Allegedly Banning White People from Farm

University of California Berkeley Campus

“We envision a vibrant community farm, a model of shared governance and co-stewardship that helps restore community resilience,” the farm’s website reads.

The Department of Education is looking into an allegation that the University of California at Berkeley is prohibiting white residents from using a community farm on Saturdays.

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Americans Face Rising Gas Prices Again

Gas prices are steadily rising around the U.S. again, leaving many cash-strapped Americans struggling to keep up.

According to AAA, the current average price for a gallon of regular-grade gas nationally is $3.63. That is a sharp increase from $3.39 just one month ago. Crude oil prices have risen steadily over the last 30 days, from about $77 per barrel to $85 per barrel.

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Saving Whales Started as Left-Wing Cause, but Now Conservatives are Taking Up the Fight

Whale breaching the surface

Saving the whales was once a leading cause of left-wing environmental groups like Greenpeace. But offshore wind development has created an ironic twist in which conservative groups are now the loudest voices raising concerns about the North Atlantic right whale’s extinction.

The Heartland Institute, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and the National Legal and Policy Center, want to draw attention to what they say is a connection between an increase in dead whales along the East Coast and industrialization of the U.S. Coast. A new study by an independent acoustician concludes that they may be right.

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Commentary: Making a Case for Cursive

Person Writing

Recently, I asked my fifth graders if they enjoyed writing in cursive. Students at the all-boys Catholic school where I work start training in cursive penmanship in third grade, so my students had been practicing it for the better part of three years. I expected them to say that it is boring, that they do not like it, but they all said that they preferred cursive to printing. One boy explained that it allows him to develop his ideas more easily. Another one liked the way the strokes of the pencil obey the natural movement of his hand and shoulder. Most surprising of all: They all find writing in cursive fun.

Cursive penmanship is a dying art. History professor and former president of Harvard Drew Gilpin Faust wrote an essay in 2022 lamenting that Generation Z never learned cursive. She acknowledges that “the decline in cursive seems inevitable. Writing is, after all, a technology, and most technologies are sooner or later surpassed and replaced.”

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