1) Consumers More Pessimistic Than at Anytime During Trump Presidency
Americans are feeling worse about the economy than even during the height of the COVID lockdowns.
Consumer confidence crashed when inflation hit 9% in the summer of 2022, and then rose steadily until the last few months when we've seen a steady decline. It's not clear why, given the improvement in the employment situation and the better news on inflation. It could be that Americans see the out-of-control spending and debt as the curse that it is.
So we broke out loud laughing when we read this headline announcement from the World Bank.
Talk about grading inflation. If this is "exceptional", we shudder to think what "poor" looks like.
More than one-third of Americans live in these four largest states and look at where the growth and prosperity is. Over the past three decades, Texas and Florida have grown twice as fast as California and New York. Did we mention that Texas and Florida have no income tax? Maybe Trump is on to something.
We warned last week that many of our schools have been converted from learning centers to social welfare agencies and leftist propaganda factories.
Now we learn from Fox News host Pete Hegseth's new book that the left has deeply infiltrated another vital institution of government: the Pentagon.
Pete's book called, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, tells a disturbing tale of how the DOD has been converted into an agency that puts climate change and gender issues ahead of national security and military readiness. This is an administration that wants our tanks to be operated by batteries and women to be put in dangerous combat missions.
Wokism is hollowing out our defenses. It's a scary story, and Pete describes in great detail the dangerous repercussions of our longer term impact on the prowess of our armed forces.
CTUP co-founder Steve Moore interviewed Pete on his radio show, "Moore Money", about the book. You can listen to the whole thing by clicking here.
Here's how militaristic global warming obsession has gotten in Europe: in April something called the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Swiss government has violated the human rights of its citizens by not doing enough to fight climate change.
The court agreed with a group of Swiss seniors that the failure to move on climate change was subjecting them to more heatwaves. (We would think in some areas of frigid Switzerland, heat waves would be climate improvement.) The absurd ruling imposes fines on Swiss citizens.
In a blow to Swiss national sovereignty and basic common sense, the Swiss parliament just voted to reject the court's ruling by 111 to 72, accusing it of "inadmissible and disproportionate judicial activism."
Switzerland's rejection is important because climate groups are already preparing to use the court decision against other countries.
The U.S. is not immune from this madness. Last August, we covered the story of a judge ruling that the state of Montana violated its constitution when it approved fossil fuel projects without taking climate change into account.
A federal appeals court has set aside that ruling, but dozens of similar lawsuits have been filed, asking judges to begin legislating "climate justice" from the bench to stop global warming. They're coming for SUVs and air conditioners, folks.
5) Biden's Collapse Among Black Voters Leaves CNN Analyst "Speechless"
Regular HOTLINE readers know that we are always skeptical of election polls (they were completely wrong in 2016 and 2022). When it comes to the polling that shows more black voters trending toward Trump, we will believe it when we see it in November.
With that as a cautionary flag, the shift in black attitudes in the polls toward Trump and away from Biden is starting to profoundly worry The Left.
CNN's political data reporter Harry Enten shook up his audience on Monday when he unveiled his analysis of recent national polls on how African Americans are likely to vote.
Enten noted that Biden was getting 86% of the African-American vote in 2020 and now the polls have it at 70%, a 16-point drop.
Trump has gone from 7% to 21%.
Enten said he was "speechless" at the big shift with black voters under age 50. Joe Biden won this demographic by 80 points and now that lead has been cut almost in half. Why?
It appears that as we've said many times on these pages, black and Hispanic families have been crushed by Bidenflation.
More bad news for those thinking about changing horses. Kamala Harris is viewed LESS favorably than Biden among black voters in many states.
