Why US consumers may crush Biden’s reelection hopes Americans spent like crazy this summer. Now, they may be about to rain on Biden’s 2024 parade Liz Peek

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/us-consumers-crush-bidens-reelection-hopes

Summer is over. Kids are heading back to school, workers are heading back to their jobs, and the 2024 campaign is heating up. Joe Biden is touting “Bidenomics” to voters, boasting of job gains and, finally, some rise in real income.

But Americans, who have been spending like crazy on vacations, eating out and travel, may be about to rain on Joe’s parade. Consumers are stretched financially, having financed their summer holidays and post-pandemic spending by saving less and borrowing more – not a sustainable trend. People have been willing to pile up debt because jobs have been plentiful and they’ve not worried about a sudden loss of income. That appears to be changing.

Plunging consumer confidence, rising debt delinquencies and a weakening jobs market suggest that the party could soon come to an end, with the economy hitting an unexpected rough patch as we approach election season.  

Given that the Real Clear Average of polls on the president’s handling of the economy today shows only 38% approving and 58% disapproving, a downturn could clobber his reelection hopes.

A recession is not the consensus forecast. Despite aggressive interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve, the economy has remained resilient, mainly thanks to unexpectedly robust hiring.   

But now the jobs market is clearly sputtering, albeit from a frantic pace.  In August employers added 187,000 jobs, far below the monthly average of 271,000 over the past year. While job gains have plummeted, reported additions for recent months have been revised sharply downward. Also, wage gains slowed last month. That is what the Federal Reserve has been hoping to achieve through its aggressive interest rate hikes. The question is, will hiring slow or turn into layoffs? 

Employers across the country have defied prognosticators for months by continuing to add or keep workers even as corporate profits turned down. Companies had struggled to increase staff after the pandemic shutdowns, and were taking no chances of again facing a shortage of labor.

Oklahoma City School District Hires Drag Queen Elementary School Principal Once Arrested For Possessing Child Porn and Illicit Drugs By Debra Heine

https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/01/oklahoma-city-school-district-hires-drag-queen-elementary-school-principal-once-arrested-for-possessing-child-porn-and-illicit-drugs/

A “drag” performer arrested 22 years ago for possessing both child pornography and illicit drugs has been hired to be the school principal of an Oklahoma City elementary school, and the school district is defending its decision.

Dr. Shane Brent Murnan, 52, the new elementary school principal at John Glenn Elementary, had his personal devices confiscated by police in 2001 on suspicion of possession of child pornography, V1SUT reported on Substack. Almost 20 years later, he was investigated for another crime, according to a 2020 court filing.

Police arrested the then-30-year-old in August 2001 after a Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) search recovered four deleted images of children engaged in sex acts, according to court records. Police also found 6 grams of marijuana in his home. Murnan, at the time, was a fifth-grade teacher at Stillwater’s Will Rogers Elementary School. After the arrest, school officials suspended Murnan and he resigned in May 2002.

“From there, some unexplainable legal wrangling began in which Payne County Special Judge Phillip Corley ruled that prosecutors had not proven Murnan had possessed child pornography, claiming it could not be definitively proven the children in the photos were underage,” V1SUT reported.

Payne County prosecutors appealed Corley’s decision and prevailed in the Payne County Appeals Court.

In direct contradiction to the earlier ruling, Appeals Court Judge Dave Allen stated in his decision: “It is clear from a review of the pictures that they do represent child pornography”.

Later on, however, Payne County District Judge Donald L. Worthington reversed the reversal, dismissing the child porn charge.

Payne County prosecutors gave up, choosing not to appeal. In the end, it appears there was never any disagreement about the existence of the pornographic photos on Murnan’s computer, yet the charge was dropped. Was this a behind-the-scenes plea agreement to allow Murnan to accept only the drug charge (marijuana) and retain his teaching certificate?

Murnan’s record was expunged in October of 2003 after his short probation period on the drug charge.

What the Left Did to Our Country Will their upheaval  succeed? By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/04/what-the-left-did-to-our-country/

In the last 20 years, the Left has boasted that it has gained control of most of America institutions of power and influence—the corporate boardroom, media, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the administrative state, academia, foundations, social media, entertainment, professional sports, and Hollywood.

With such support, between 2009-17, Barack Obama was empowered to transform the Democratic Party from its middle-class roots and class concerns into the party of the bicoastal rich and subsidized poor—obsessions with big money, race, a new intolerant green religion, and dividing the country into a binary of oppressors and oppressed.

The Obamas entered the presidency spouting the usual leftwing boilerplate (“spread the wealth,” “just downright mean country,” “get in their face,” “first time I’ve been proud of my country”) as upper-middle-class, former community activists, hurt that their genius and talents had not yet been sufficiently monetized.

After getting elected through temporarily pivoting to racial ecumenicalism and pseudo-calls for unity, they reverted to form and governed by dividing the country. And then the two left the White House as soon-to-be mansion living, mega-rich elites, cashing in on the fears they had inculcated over the prior eight years.

To push through the accompanying unpopular agendas of an open border, mandatory wind and solar energy, racial essentialism, and the weaponization of the state, Obama had begun demonizing his opponents and the country in general: America was an unexceptional place. Cops were racist. “Clingers” of the Midwest were hopelessly ignorant and prejudiced. Only fundamental socialist transformation could salvage a historically oppressive, immoral, and racist nation.

The people finally rebelled at such preposterousness. Obama lost his party some 1,400 local and state offices during his tenure, along with both houses of Congress. His presidency was characterized by his own polarizing mediocrity. His one legacy was Obamacare, the veritable destruction of the entire system of a once workable health insurance, of the hallowed doctor-patient relationship, and of former easy access to competent specialists.

Yet Obama’s unfufilled ambitions set the stage for the Biden administration—staffed heavily with Obama veterans—to complete the revolutionary transformation of the Democratic Party and country.

It was ironic that while Obama was acknowledged as young and charismatic, nonetheless a cognitively challenged, past plagiarist, fabulist, and utterly corrupt Joe Biden was far more effective in ramming through a socialist woke agenda and altering the very way Americans vote and conduct their legal system.

Stranger still, Biden accomplished this subversion of traditional America while debilitated and often mentally inert—along with being mired in a bribery and influence-peddling scandal that may ultimately confirm that he easily was the most corrupt president to hold office in U.S. history.

How was all this possible?

Covid had allowed the unwell Biden to run a surrogate campaign from his basement as he outsourced his politicking to a corrupt media.

The Coverage of Ron DeSantis Is Historically Awful By Becket Adams

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/09/the-coverage-of-ron-desantis-is-historically-awful/

The downright dishonest press treatment of the Florida governor marks a disturbing new low.

Even by today’s low standards, the corporate press’s coverage of Ron DeSantis is breathtakingly bad.

Indeed, after the media’s exceptionally poor showing during the Trump years, it seemed unlikely that the quality of national news coverage, or lack thereof, could get any worse. But our vaunted Fourth Estate is yet capable of surprising us.

Take, for example, what the Associated Press did last week: It suggested Florida’s Republican governor bears responsibility for a racially motivated shooting in Jacksonville, in which a white shooter killed three black people.

“Ron DeSantis scoffed when the NAACP issued a travel advisory this spring warning Black people to use ‘extreme care’ if traveling to Florida,” AP reporter Steven Peoples announced on social media as he promoted a report he co-authored with AP colleague Brendan Farrington.

Peoples added, “Just three months later, DeSantis is leading his state through the aftermath of a racist attack that left three African Americans dead. Black leaders in Florida — and across the nation — say they’re outraged by his actions and rhetoric ahead of the shooting.”

DeSantis was correct to scoff. The “travel advisory” is abject nonsense.

But here’s the thing: The NAACP is free to be as asinine as it pleases. Partisan groups have a tendency toward the intensely stupid. But what excuse is there for the AP, once the gold standard in straight news reporting, to function as a public-relations firm for Democratic interests?

The hidden energy crisis By Dennis M. O’Connor

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/09/the_hidden_energy_crisis.html

America is wrestling with the worst energy crisis in its history, a period of high prices and limited supply.

America is wrestling with the worst energy crisis in its history, a period of high prices and limited supply. According to the Brookings Institution, in 2022, the average U.S. residential retail electricity price was 15.12 cents/kWh, an 11% increase from 13.66 cents/kWh in 2021. In the first three months of 2023, the average U.S. residential monthly electricity bill was $133, or 5% higher than for the same time in 2022. There is confusion with savings or cost expectation of solar and wind conversion, also government decisions have impacted the natural gas and energy supply. While electric vehicles are a much-touted solution for replacing oil, gasoline or diesel fuel contains 40 times the energy as a state-of-the-art battery. Questionable efforts are being made by utilities and government leadership to address our energy future. Critical solutions have been avoided and hidden. Fossil-fuel plants are closing faster than green alternatives can replace them. Producers of oil and gas can’t keep up with the confusion in supply. Fantasy thinking has taken hold of President Biden and Democrat leaders. Progressives and their media followers are guilty of denial concerning the reality of how to solve a potential climate/energy crisis.

Energy and climate change are complicated. Credible scientists challenge whether there is a climate crisis. The three U.S. electric grids are old and at capacity, and many power plants are outdated. California is one example of the problem. New plants have not been brought online due to environmentalists and demonization by politicians; some have even been targeted for shutdown.  Renewable energy has been identified as having benefits and can supply up to 35% of energy demand but is unreliable since it requires wind, sun, or flowing water.  It also creates energy storage and environmental issues. The Biden administration and Governor Gavin Newsom in California have embarked on plans to eliminate the use of gas and replace all transportation vehicles, garden tools, stoves, dryers’ etc. using electrical energy.  This approach will place an overwhelming timeline and demand on existing energy resources.  It will require a huge investment in new power plants, including the potential of nuclear.  This investment will create significant upward pressure on the cost of energy and create blackouts from poor planning

Caltech joins lesser colleges in lowering admissions requirements By Eric Utter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/09/caltech_joins_lesser_colleges_in_lowering_admissions_requirements.html

The dismantling of academic standards continues apace.

The California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the elite science and engineering university, is altering its admissions requirements in an effort to make access to the ultra-competitive institution more “equitable.”

Therefore, it is no longer requiring applicants to have already taken calculus, physics and chemistry in high school. 

According to the Los Angeles Times, prior to this decision, Ashley Pallie– Caltech’s executive director of undergraduate admissions– began to question whether the requirements were unfair to students from less advantaged backgrounds. Ergo, Caltech dropped its calculus, chemistry, and physics requirements, as long as applicants could supposedly prove their academic chops otherwise, such as through taking an online course.

Call me a skeptic, but this seems “problematic,” as the wokesters are wont to say, especially for an engineering school.

So the dismantling of standards continues apace. Liberal arts schools eschew previously popular classical courses like Western Civilization and Western Literature. Debate and rhetoric are now all but extinct, having given way to more progressive disciplines like women’s studies and gender race theory.

India: The Land of Deprived Childhood by Jagdish N. Singh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19945/india-child-labor

A large number of Indian children… are still subjected to bonded labour and forced employment. India today has more than 33 million children under the age of 18 in work requiring hard labour.

The welfare of children has long been a concern in India. Aware of this need, the founding fathers of independent India in 1949 wrote a Constitution that prohibits employing children under the age of 14 in factories and other hazardous work (Article 24).

India’s Parliament has also tried to safeguard children’s rights by passing legislation . The Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986 makes employing a child a criminal offence.[1] Parliament has also enacted other laws to prohibit, identify and prosecute child labour.

India’s agriculture sector accounts for the majority (70%) of employed children. Child labour, regrettably, is used in almost all of the informal sectors of the Indian economy, including coal mining, and the diamond, fireworks, silk and carpet industries.

A 2003 Human Rights Watch report claims that children as young as five work for up to 12 hours a day, six to seven days a week, in the silk industry.

Official estimates for children working as domestic labourers and in restaurants is more than 2.5 million; some NGOs estimate the figure to be around 20 million.

As of September 2022, the US Department of Labor lists India in its “List of Goods Produced by Child Labor of Forced Labor,” with 25 types of goods produced by child labour.

The main reasons for child labour, clearly, are poverty, illiteracy and malnutrition. Out of India’s 217 million children, 49.9% are poor. Children in this category have little choice but to join the labour force.

August Unemployment Rate Jumps, Employment in June and July Revised Downward

https://mrctv.org/blog/craig-bannister/august-unemployment-rate-jumps-employment-june-and-july-revised-downward

In August, the unemployment rate jumped 0.3 points, from 3.5% 3.8%, as the number of long-term unemployed increased, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday.

The nation’s unemployment rate jumped 0.3 percentage point to 3.8% in August, as the number of unemployed persons increased by 514,000 to 6.4 million.

Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs increased by 294,000 to 2.9 million in August, offsetting a decrease of 280,000 in July.

The rise in the unemployment rate, coupled an increase in job losers, highlights ongoing challenges in the economy. Meanwhile, the number of persons employed part-time for economic reasons remained unchanged.

Key economic measures for August:

The number of unemployed persons increased by 514,000 from July.
Increases were recorded in both the number of persons unemployed less than 5 weeks, at 2.2 million, and the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), at 1.3 million.
The long-term unemployed accounted for 20.3% of all unemployed persons.
Labor force participation rate rose by 0.2 percentage points, to 62.8%.

Only Thing Today’s Avant-Garde ‘Artists’ Challenge is Our Patience And some of their work is literally ‘wretched’ By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/03/only-thing-todays-avant-garde-artists-challenge-is-our-patience/

Let’s take a break from the depressing world of politics and talk for a moment about the equally depressing subject of the art world.

What is it about the word “art?” Pronounce it, and the IQ of susceptible folk is instantly halved. (I’ve seen cases where it is diminished by 87 percent). Normally sensible people who do not, as a rule, appreciate being being made fools of stand idly by as the chief art critic for The New York Times tells them that that a charlatan climbing naked up a scaffolding while applying vaseline to sensitive parts of his body is “the most important American artist of his generation.”

Instead of throwing something soft and rotting at such mountebanks, they nod solemnly and reach for their wallets. They are only too eager, when a stiffy arrives from the Museum of Modern Art or similar establishment, to don the soup and fish and buzz round to the super exclusive evening event where scores of beautiful people line up to sip the shampoo and admire a tank full of formaldehyde and a dead tiger shark.

What is it about the word “art” that endows it with this mind-and-character-wrecking property? Why does it induce incontinent gibbering, not to mention mind-boggling extravagance, among normally hard-headed souls?

A full answer would take us deep into the pathology of our time. It has something to do with what I’ve called elsewhere the institutionalization of the avant-garde, the contradictory project whereby the tics and outré attitudes of the avant-garde go mainstream. The half-comic, half-contemptible result is that ordinary bourgeois adults find themselves in the embarrassing position of celebrating the juvenile, anti-bourgeois antics of people who detest them.

Our misuse of the word “art” also has something to do with our age’s tendency to look to art for spiritual satisfactions traditionally afforded by religion. “In the absence of a belief in God,” Wallace Stevens observed, “poetry is that essence which takes its place as life’s redemption.”

John Singletary has a vision for one of America’s poorest, most crime-ridden cities By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/09/john_singletary_has_a_vision_for_one_of_americas_poorest_most_crimeridden_cities.html

Yesterday, I had a great conversation with John Singletary, who is running for Mayor of North Charleston, South Carolina. I came away very impressed with him. If he wins, by redirecting government funds to better causes, he might help break the poverty cycle in a city that has one of the worst crime problems in America and that has huge pockets of black poverty. However, I couldn’t help wondering whether government money, no matter how good the intentions behind it, can undo a situation that government money created in the first place.

Singletary, who was born and raised in North Charleston, is a Citadel graduate and a successful businessman. Despite having worked in places as far away as California, his heart and his home are in North Charleston. There are some things you need to know about North Charleston, not just on its own but also in the context of South Carolina and Charleston, to appreciate his concerns and understand his plans if elected.

South Carolina was a majority-black state almost from its inception until 1920. After the Civil War, Charleston’s population had a huge black majority. Beginning around 1920, though, the Great Northern Migration began, as blacks fled the South for economic opportunities in the North. Even today, the coastal part of the state, specifically Charleston, continues to hemorrhage black residents.