Credit Card Debt Hits Record $1.14 Trillion

Credit Card

More Americans are struggling financially as savings are significantly down and debt and delinquencies are up compared to four years ago.

Savings and disposable income are significantly down when comparing federal data under the Trump and Biden-Harris administrations.

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Commentary: Irresponsible School Districts Force Teachers to Create Amazon Wish Lists

Teacher

For several weeks, social media has been flooded by teachers’ posts with Amazon wish lists, soliciting others to stock their classrooms with basic supplies. Creating these lists has been commonplace in recent years as teachers look outside their schools and districts to fill their supply needs.

Some of the most popular requested items are dry erase markers, Kleenex, Lysol wipes, erasers, tape, pens, colored copy paper, file folders, and pencil sharpeners. Others request educational items such as a microscope, map, or globe, which seem essential for student learning.

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Commentary: American Natural Gas Is America’s Clean Energy Standard

Natural Gas Drilling

Abundant and affordable energy drives America’s powerful and productive economy. That’s been true throughout our nation’s history, and America’s recent achievement of energy independence provides the most concrete illustration of that fact.

But to keep our nation firing on all eight cylinders, we need government policies that prioritize providing adequate, reliable and secure domestic energy supplies.

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Commentary: Cell-Phone Free Classrooms Will Unleash Student Success

Students on Cell Phones

Amid the many battles over how to improve American schools, it’s often forgotten that what’s taught in the classroom is but one component of ensuring that students receive a high-quality education; it’s also important to remove barriers to children’s learning.

And the idea to remove one major impediment – cell phones in K-12 schools – has gained significant traction over the past year, most recently in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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Study Finds TikTok Manipulates Content to Favorably Promote Chinese Government

TikTok

TikTok uses an algorithm to promote content that puts the Chinese government in a favorable light in order to sway users’ views, according to a new study from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI).

The study builds off a previous report from December that found the social media site likely promotes pro-China content, as the app faces bipartisan criticism over national security concerns. The app is already facing a potential ban in the United States if the Chinese parent company ByteDance doesn’t divest its shares of the platform on time.

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Commentary: Every Leading Large Language Model Leans Left Politically

LLMS

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly integrating into everyday life – as chatbots, digital assistants, and internet search guides, for example. These artificial intelligence (AI) systems – which consume large amounts of text data to learn associations – can create all sorts of written material when prompted and can ably converse with users. LLMs’ growing power and omnipresence mean that they exert increasing influence on society and culture.

So it’s of great import that these artificial intelligence systems remain neutral when it comes to complicated political issues. Unfortunately, according to a new analysis recently published to PLoS ONE, this doesn’t seem to be the case.

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Former Health Officials Slam FDA Duplicity on ‘Puberty Blockers’ in Light of New Evidence

David Gortler

Former officials in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration condemned what they described as the FDA’s duplicity in allowing off-label use of so-called puberty blockers while loudly condemning the use of far safer drugs to treat COVID-19.

“During the Trump administration, the media falsely accused us daily of ‘politicizing America’s public health agencies.’ Yet the same media is now silent on [Vice President Kamala] Harris and [President Joe] Biden’s FDA’s anti-science, purely political insanity,” Brian Harrison, former chief of staff at HHS and now a member of the Texas House of Representatives, told The Daily Signal in a written statement.

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Congress Opens Probe into Whether Google Search Misled Americans on Trump Assassination

Already facing a potential breakup from a devastating antitrust court ruling, Google got more bad news Wednesday when the main congressional oversight committee announced it had opened a probe into whether the search engine misled Americans about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump last month.

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Commentary: ‘Zuck Bucks’ Need to Be Stopped Cold

It is less than 90 days to Election Day, and right on queue the group behind the “Zuck Bucks” campaign of 2020 is back with a new scheme. This time, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) is doling out millions in grant dollars to rural election administrators in 19 states.

Election officers beware. The group is trying to turn the government offices that run elections into bastions of partisan progressive activism. Election officials striving for nonpartisanship should steer clear.

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Disinformation Police Officer NewsGuard Goes After Free-Speech Lawyer, Olympics Narratives as Peers Fall to Scrutiny

Two months after the for-profit business NewsGuard came under congressional investigation for whether its business relationships with domestic and foreign governments are tantamount to state-sponsored censorship, the self-described “only apolitical service rating news sources” is taking on new targets like the Olympics and a high-profile free-speech lawyer.

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Analysis: Newsela Is the ‘Media Literacy’ Provider Active in 90 Percent of American Schools

Newslea Media Literacy

One of the nation’s largest and fastest growing  educational technology platforms, Newsela, is also a foremost provider of “media literacy” lessons for schools. The platform started in 2013 has experienced tremendous growth. Its educational products are used in over 90 percent of schools.

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New Platform Aims to Halt CCP Influence on States

Ryan Walker

There’s a new tool available for lawmakers and American citizens to combat the threat of the Chinese Communist Party. Today, Heritage Action for America launched the website CounterTheCCP.com, exposing the ways in which China stands to harm America’s sovereignty and offering model legislation and resources to deal with that threat.

“To win the new cold war with China, the United States needs a comprehensive strategy,” Ryan Walker, Heritage Action executive vice president, said in a statement.

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Report Shows Harris and Emhoff Donated to Defund Police and Pro-Sanctuary City Group

Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff

Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff donated to a liberal legal group in favor of defunding the police and permanently designating Washington, D.C as a “sanctuary city” that does not report illegal immigrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to their joint tax returns.

Harris and Emhoff donated $1,000 in 2021 and 2023 to Legal Aid DC, noted a Washington Examiner report.

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Venezuelan Dictator Suspends X After Sparring with Elon Musk

Nicolas Maduro

Venezuela’s dictator Nicolas Maduro temporarily banned X from the country on Thursday after accusing the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, of using it to stoke opposition against him.

Maduro declared himself the victor in the country’s July 28 elections, despite credible concerns that the race was rigged against his political opposition. Musk has been publicly critical of Maduro’s refusal to step down from power, and Maduro has now suspended X from Venezuela in retaliation.

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Kamala Harris Takes Questions from Reporters 18 Days After Becoming Nominee

Kamala Harris

On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) finally took questions from reporters after being criticized for dodging the media for nearly three weeks after becoming the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

As Fox News reports, Harris spoke to journalists on the tarmac at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport after a rally in Michigan. Her unplanned press gaggle took place after former President Donald Trump held an hour-long press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in the early afternoon.

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Advertising Coalition Accused of Censoring Conservatives Disbands amid Lawsuits

The influential advertising coalition known as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) announced their dissolution on Thursday after facing multiple lawsuits from social media companies accusing the group of censoring conservatives, Business Insider reported.

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Bipartisan Bill Introduced to Better Monitor Terror Threats on Foreign Mobile Apps Like TikTok

Rep. August Pfluger and Rep. Jimmy Panetta (composite image)

Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence, and Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., introduced a bill to “conduct annual assessments on terrorism threats to the United States posed by terrorist organizations utilizing foreign cloud-based mobile or desktop messaging applications, and for other purposes.”

Pfluger said that cloud-based technology has given “terrorist groups even more tools to use in their pursuit of deadly chaos” more than 20 years since the 9/11 attacks.

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Trump Suggests Congress Could ‘Shut Down’ Tech Giant over Alleged Censorship

Trump Google

Former President Donald Trump suggested on Friday that Congress could close down Google for its alleged bias and censorship.

Republican Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall demanded in a Wednesday letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai that the company provide answers relating to its apparent “censorship” of the Trump assassination attempt from the tech giant’s “autocomplete” feature. Trump on “Mornings With Maria Bartiromo” said the company could face additional congressional scrutiny and possibly closure for how its handled political issues.

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The Advertising Industry’s Deepening Role in Online Censorship

X User

In the arsenal of the censorship-industrial complex, few weapons have been more effective than advertiser boycotts. Long before online censorship reached its peak in 2020 and 2021, advocates of online censorship had identified online advertisers as the most important source of pressure on social media companies to restrict free speech. When direct appeals to social media platforms fail, pro-censorship campaigners use the threat of advertiser boycotts to produce the desired result.

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Gaetz Demands DHS Hand Over Docs on Big Tech Ties, Alleged Censorship of Trump Assassination Attempt Info

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz demanded Wednesday that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas provide any key documents that could shed light on his agency’s ties to Big Tech and alleged efforts to censor online information surrounding the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

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Trump Blasts Facebook, Google for ‘Wrongly Censored’ Photo of Assassination Attempt

Donald Trump in front of Google headquarters (composite image)

Former President Donald Trump blasted Facebook and Google Tuesday after Facebook admitted it had censored photos of Trump’s assassination attempt, images widely seen as a major moment and rallying point for the Trump campaign.

Users on X, formerly known as Twitter, began posting online this week that Google searches for Trump’s assassination, including the photo, were not being autocompleted like other searches. They also posted screenshots saying that searches for Trump turned up news for Trump’s opponent, Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

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Online Network Run by Chinese ‘Cyber Police’ Agent Promotes Prostitution, Sex Trafficking in the U.S.

A Telegram channel used by Chinese nationals to illegally immigrate to the U.S. also appears to be aiding and abetting prostitution and sex trafficking, a months-long Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered.

The “American Self-Guided Tour Channel” on Telegram is one of several that facilitates Chinese illegal immigration into the U.S., serving as a hub for documents detailing things like border wall gaps and scripts for obtaining asylum, the DCNF recently reported. The 8,000-member channel is controlled by a self-proclaimed Chinese “cyber police” agent, who regularly bans accounts critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

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Google Insists ‘No Manual Action’ to Hide Trump Assassination Attempt from Search Suggestions

Google’s search engine conspicuously left out Donald Trump in autocomplete suggestions for “assassination,” “assassination attempt” and even “president donald” Sunday, drawing criticism from social media users including X owner Elon Musk that it was censoring recent history.

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ABC’s ‘This Week’ Interviews SWAT Sharpshooters: Group Had ‘No Communication’ with Secret Service Prior to Trump Assassination Attempt

The lead sharpshooter of the SWAT Team working alongside the U.S. Secret Service during the attempted assassination against former President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the group had “no communication” with the agency until after the shooting.

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

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Left-Wing Media Scrambles to Distance Kamala Harris from ‘Border Czar’ Title

As Vice President Kamala Harris has become the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president, the left-wing media has scrambled to erase her title as President Joe Biden’s “Border Czar.”

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U.S. Voters Suspect AI Could Impact Their Lives as It Develops According to Poll

ChatGPT

New poll data of registered and potential voters reveals a general consensus that artificial intelligence could pose a threat to people as it further develops.

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is technology broadly used to complete tasks, learn information, and enable computers to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence. Recently, AI technology has become more sophisticated and more widely used at an increasing rate. 

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Musk Moving X and SpaceX HQ from California over Parental Notification Law

Elon Musk

Elon Musk has announced that X (formerly Twitter) and SpaceX headquarters will be leaving California and relocating to Texas.

The move comes after Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law on Monday requiring school districts to deny parents the right to know when their child is using a different name or pronoun at school.

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American Auto Giant Pivots Plans to Build Electric Vehicles at Major Plant to Produce Heavy-Duty Pickups Instead

Ford EV plant

Ford is reversing course on plans to manufacture electric vehicles (EVs) at a major plant and instead will produce gas-powered, heavy-duty pickup trucks at the facility, Reuters reported Thursday.

The company initially planned to build three-row electric SUVs at its facility in Oakville, Canada, between 2025 and 2027, but the plant will now add capacity to produce 100,000 F-Series Super Duty trucks at the plant, according to Reuters. Ford said that it is still committed to producing those EVs on that timeline, though it is unclear which of its plants will handle that production.

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Commentary: Consumer Choice over Automobile Mandates

The most refreshingly true statements articulated by Gill Pratt at the RealClearEnergy Future Forum are “Not everyone is the same” and “One size does not fit all.” As Toyota’s chief scientist, Pratt understands very well the complex nature of a very diverse consumer base (check the video link above to see his part).

That is why a multi-path approach that enhances the customer’s quality of life is the most productive strategy. America’s motorists come from a variety of backgrounds who purchase vehicles for a variety of purposes. “Our job as a manufacturer is to adapt and provide customers with choices to satisfy their needs and desires,” says the executive.

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Report Finds One Of Biden’s Favorite Green Industries to Miss 2030 Target by Years Despite Billions In Subsidies

Offshore Wind Farm

Offshore wind is likely to miss the Biden administration’s 2030 target for the industry despite receiving billions of dollars of subsidies, according to a Tuesday American Clean Power Association (ACP) report.

The administration has a stated goal of having the offshore wind industry provide 30 gigawatts (GW) of power by 2030, but the ACP report projects that capacity will only reach about 14 GW by then. The Biden administration has subsidized the industry to the tune of billions of dollars since assuming office in 2021, but those efforts appear unlikely to put the 2030 target in reach until at least 2033, per ACP’s analysis.

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‘Headed For Obsolescence’: Chinese Automakers Could Be Poised to Wipe Out American Car Titans

BYD Chinese electric vehicle

American automakers will need to make major changes to their businesses if they want to remain competitive with Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) poised to flood the global market, according to analysis published by auto industry consultants.

U.S. manufacturers currently do tens of billions of dollars of business abroad, but Chinese competitors are poised to take over approximately one-third of the global market share by 2030 with particularly strong growth in Europe, South America and Asia driven by EVs and plug-in hybrids, AlixPartners projects in its report.

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Meta Finally Lifts Lingering Restrictions on Trump Months Out from November

Trump Zuckerberg Shaking Hands

Tech giant Meta announced Friday it will be lifting former President Donald Trump’s “heightened suspension penalties” on Facebook and Instagram as the 2024 elections grow closer.

President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, released an updated statement on the company’s site, announcing the change to the protocols from January 2023, specifically for Trump’s restrictions, in order for users to “hear from political candidates.” The company stated the previous restrictions on Trump had been placed in “response to extreme and extraordinary circumstances” following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

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Biden Admin Cuts Another Huge Check for Automakers to Go Electric as Electric Vehicle Market Struggles

Tesla being assembled in factory

The Biden administration announced Thursday that it is spending billions of dollars more to help automakers mass-produce electric vehicles (EVs).

The Department of Energy (DOE) is spending $1.7 billion to help manufacturers convert closed or struggling manufacturing facilities to produce EVs or EV components in eight states, including swing states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, as the American EV market struggles. The funding complements $12 billion the DOE unveiled in August 2023 to help major manufacturers retrofit plants for EV production, and the agency projects that the cash announced Thursday will allow for the retention of 15,000 union workers while creating nearly 3,000 jobs.

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Batteries Needed for Green Transition Are ‘Unrecognized’ Source of Pollution, Study Finds

EV Battery

The lithium-ion batteries that are essential to the green energy transition are an “unrecognized and potentially growing” source of chemical pollution, according to a new study published in Nature.

The study sought to fill in knowledge gaps about whether or not chemicals used in lithium-ion battery components can pose environmental hazards, a key question given that Western policymakers are relying on the technology to help replace fossil fuel-fired infrastructure and meet long-term emissions reductions targets. After conducting “a cradle-to-grave evaluation” on the subject and collecting dozens of samples in the U.S. and Europe, the study’s authors “[confirmed] the clean energy sector as an unrecognized and potentially growing source” of chemical pollution, and that the growing prominence of lithium-ion batteries around the world makes pollution from their waste “an issue of global concern.”

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Commentary: The Nationwide 500,000 Electric Vehicle Charger Charade

Tesla charging stations

The word charade has several meanings, and including an act or event that is clearly false (Cambridge Dictionary), something done just for show (Vocabulary.com), or a situation in which people pretend that something is true when it clearly is not (Oxford Leaner’s Dictionary).

The charade I refers to is President Biden’s $7.5 billion dollar investment to install 500,000 electric charging stations along America’s highways by 2030. A reliable and convenient public EV charging infrastructure is critical to achieve the President’s goal of meeting the recent EPA CO2 emission regulation that require nearly 72 percent of U.S. new light vehicle sales to be fully electric or plug-in hybrid by 2032. Without diving deeper into the announcement, one would likely assume that $7.5 billion is sufficient to construct the 500,000 charging stations, one every 50 miles along the nation’s highways.

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Former Blackrock Adviser Argues at Energy Forum that Divesting from Oil and Gas is Not Sustainable

Terrence Keeley

The environment, social and governance (ESG) investing movement has faced a lot of criticism over the past couple years for undermining fiduciary responsibility and pushing progressive agendas through an undemocratic process.

At the Energy Future Forum presented by RealClearEnergyWednesday, Terrence Keeley, author and former senior advisor at Blackrock, argued that ESG is also misallocating resources and doing nothing for the environment it claims to protect.

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House to Expose TSA’s Airport Fiasco with Cuban Agents as Latino Vote up for Grabs

Carlos Gimenez

A House subcommittee is exposing the Transportation Security Administration’s decision to let Cuban agents visit a U.S. airport and tour agency facilities, a potentially embarrassing episode for the Biden administration as polls show Latino voters are up for grabs in the 2024 election.

Rep. Carlos Giminez, R-Fla., the chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security, has scheduled a hearing Wednesday titled “Protecting the Homeland – Examining TSA’s Relationships with U.S. Adversaries” that will focus heavily on the episode a few weeks ago at the Miami airport that has drawn widespread condemnation, particularly in the Cuban ex-pat community in America.

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Administrations Lay Plans to One-Up America’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm

Offshore Wind Farm

Installation of the country’s largest offshore wind farm began in earnest just two months ago off the coast of Virginia, and the Biden administration announced Friday it will be auctioninganother even bigger wind energy lease sale off the coast of the commonwealth. 

Dominion Energy leased the approximately 113,000 acres that would become the site of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project in 2013. After installing two pilot turbines in 2020, the utility began the installation of the rest of its 176 turbines in May.

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Commentary: Stephanopoulos, Biden, and the Lord Almighty

ABC News' Stephanopoulos interviews President Joe Biden

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.

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Commentary: Energy Innovation Is Key to Prosperity

Nuclear Power Plant

In a recent report, “Powering Human Advancement,” The Heritage Foundation laid bare the truth that the driving force behind wealth creation and raising human development standards is the innovative harnessing of energy.

As historian Vaclav Smil sees it, “Energy is the only universal currency.”

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Three Out of Four Electric Vehicle Charging Developers Say They Can’t Get Enough Electricity For Their Stations

EV Charging station

Green Energy Failure: Supply chain issues, financing, fleet-adequate solutions, engineering costs, and inadequate software among roadblocks cited in the survey.

Businesses building electric vehicle charging stations say that finding enough electricity is a major — perhaps fatal — problem.

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Commentary: TikTok and Instagram Turned Me into a Leftist, but X Helped Me Escape

Black Lives Matter Rally

Social media plays a significant role in shaping the opinions of those 35 and under — it’s the primary news source for most in that age group, one survey found.

Some stats report that daily screen time for 16- to 24-year-olds is nearly eight hours among females and seven hours among males. To put that in perspective — that’s equivalent to the average time in a school day.

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Biden Administration Strong-Armed FDA into Fast-Tracking COVID Vaccine

COVID Vaccine

A new report from the House of Representatives claims that the Biden Administration repeatedly pressured the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) into speeding up the approval of the Chinese Coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer.

According to the Daily Caller, the staff report from the Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust alleges that the FDA did not follow the usual regulatory guidelines when it came to approving the Pfizer vaccine. As such, when the FDA gave its approval to the vaccine, it allowed the Biden Administration to more quickly issue a mandate forcing federal workers and active duty troops to take the Pfizer vaccine or else risk losing their jobs.

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Commentary: Media’s Lies About Biden’s ‘Mental Fitness’ Finally Caught Up to Them

Joe Biden and Jake Tapper

For three and a half years, Joe Biden’s handlers have hidden him from public view and kept him locked deep inside the confines of the White House or at Rehoboth Beach—far away from “we the people.”

For three and a half years, Biden has barely averaged more than a 30-hour work week and has almost never said anything without the assistance of a teleprompter or a notecard. When he does speak, he gives terse remarks that rarely last more than 15 minutes and are almost never in prime time, meaning his audience is negligible.

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