Category: Culture

Commentary: The Corrupt Economics of Immigration

American Greatness

The common refrain among supporters of the Democratic Party’s open borders policy is that immigration helps the economy. A very recent example of this was published in MSNBC Daily last month, where the author, David Bier of the Cato Institute, claims that “The Congressional Budget Office finds that the surge will boost the economy by $7 trillion and reduce the federal debt by nearly $1 trillion by 2034.” That’s actually an unimpressive statistic since the cumulative GDP of the United States over the next decade will easily exceed $300 trillion, but Bier is probably not wrong in his assertion that immigration increases GDP.

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Arizona State University Scholars Ruben Espinosa and Curtis Austin Condemn ‘White Ownership’ of English Playwright and Poet William Shakespeare

The College Fix
Ruben Espinosa, Curtis Austin

Two faculty members condemned “white ownership” of William Shakespeare and the state’s manipulation of black history during an “Appropriation Series” at Arizona State University last week.

The scholars are pushing for changes in curriculum and leadership that reflect more “diverse” voices. During the panel, they spoke to eleven ASU students in the audience and other faculty members via Zoom.

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Commentary: Make America Healthy Again

The Center Square
Salad

Nearly 50 percent of American children and almost three-quarters of adult Americans are obese or overweight. Forty percent of 18-year-olds have a diagnosed mental health issue. Autism incidence has risen from 1 in 150 to 1 in 36 since 2000—in California it is 1 in 22. Americans aren’t just sick. They’re being destroyed.

That’s the conclusion that Calley and Casey Means draw in their #1 New York Times bestselling book, Good Energy. In the book—as well as in a fascinating interview with Tucker Carlson—the Means lay out a case against Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, and Big Government. And their work has caught the ear of both Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) and Donald Trump, who are now running on a unity ticket to make America healthy again.

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Poll: Almost 30 Percent of Democrats Think America Better off If Trump Had Been Assassinated

Just the News
Donald Trump

In a shocking display of how vitriolic U.S. politics has become, more than a quarter of Democrats believe America would be better off if GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump had been killed during one of the two assassination attempts on his life, a new survey revealed Wednesday.

The new poll of 1,000 registered voters taken by veteran pollster Scott Rasmussen’s Napolitan News Institute after the second assassination attempt against Trump on Sunday at a Florida golf course revealed that 17% of voters say it would have been better for America had Donald Trump had been killed last weekend.

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House Committee Demands Answers on Walz’s China Connections

The Center Square
Tim Walz

The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability is demanding answers about any ties Democratic vice-presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has to the Communist Party of China. Walz has said he’s proud of his ties to China dating to 1989.

The committee has spent several years investigating CCP political warfare operations involving influencing “important figures in elite political circles to the benefit of the communist People’s Republic of China.”

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Commentary: More Than Just Millions of People

American Greatness
Illegal Border Crossers

by Michael A. Letts   It’s not just millions of unvetted illegal aliens — the left likes to call them “migrants” and “refugees,” to give this dangerous deluge a better mouthfeel — who have poured across the uncontrolled southern border in the three-and-a-half years since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris…

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CNN’s Harry Enten Warns Harris Currently In Polling ‘Danger Zone’

Daily Caller News Foundation

CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten warned on Monday that Vice President Kamala Harris’ current national lead over former President Donald Trump is too slim to signal a likely victory in the November election due to the electoral college.

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U.S. Toolmaker Stanley Black and Decker Under Fire for DEI Hiring and LGBTQ Lobbying, Faces Boycott

Just the News

U.S. toolmaker Stanley Black and Decker is under fire for embracing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies that conservatives describe as “woke,” which could lead to a boycott of the company’s products.

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Commentary: Rediscovering Long-Lost Conservatism

Intellectual Takeout
President Calvin Coolidge

Have the political parties always held the positions they do today? Has the right moved further right, or the left further left?

The Republican Party of 2024 is far more liberal than the Democrat Party of the 1990s. With few exceptions, Republicans have consistently supported deficit spending, corporate welfare, and social welfare for decades now. This leaves many true conservatives looking like outliers.

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Commentary: Reversing the Military Decline

RealClearWire
Marine Corps

Since 2020, the nation’s military has undergone one of the most humiliating periods in its history. The disgraceful rout at Hamid Karzai International airport during the Afghanistan withdrawal. Soon after, the decrepit state of naval maintenance and shipbuilding is the worst since the Navy’s founding.

Further compounding the humiliation, the Marine Corps has been castrated into a regional force whose legendary force in readiness is being replaced by a combination of colonial light infantry and coastal defense artillery.

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Commentary: Reasons Women Don’t Dress Traditionally

Michigan Star Staff
Long Dress

I wrote an article this past year detailing my experience of wearing exclusively dresses and skirts, due to symptoms of my third pregnancy. I am now on the other side of this experience—I delivered my third son and am healing very well postpartum. To my own surprise, I find I have not gone back to wearing my old favorite jeans! (Teenage me would gasp in shock.)

I continue to wear traditional clothes most of the time, to the point that I own mostly dresses now. I find myself looking back on the surprising discoveries this time has taught me. I used to have a myriad of reasons why I didn’t want to wear skirts, of course. Most women do. But now, I have experienced firsthand how inconsequential these arguments actually are. There are far fewer practical objections to traditional dressing than many of us think. Let’s go through three common reasons women cite as to why they don’t want to wear dresses, and why in reality, this type of wardrobe is still perfectly accessible.

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Commentary: Nazis, Marxists, and the History of Ideas

American Greatness
Mussolini and Hitler

In light of recent events and discussions attempting to rehabilitate the historical reputation of Germany’s Nazis, it might be worthwhile to re-examine the foundations of the ideology that underpinned National Socialism and its close cousin fascism. Those who embrace the revisionism that excuses the Nazis’ crimes appear to believe that by doing so, they are defending themselves and their ideological brethren from unfair and ahistorical attacks by the broader left. They think—or at least seem to think—that because fascism is considered a “right-wing” ideology that was specifically pitted against both Communism and Western liberalism, it can hardly be as awful as has been assumed and that its association with unvarnished evil is mere propaganda.

They are wrong. Indeed, the very foundations of their sentiments are mistaken and result from the radical mischaracterization of history and the evolution of ideas in the two centuries after the Enlightenment.

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HHS Pushes Child Gender Transitions with Threats of Suicide

Michigan Star Staff
Transgender youth

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is using “Suicide Prevention Awareness Month” this September to push the lie that transgender medical interventions stop children from committing suicide.

The Daily Signal obtained a newsletter the HHS sent on Friday sharing resources on suicide prevention for “LGBTQIA2S+ Youth.” The resources promote the idea that LGBTQ+ children are likely to commit suicide if they don’t receive irreversible gender transition procedures, like surgeries and hormone replacement regimens.

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Major Beer Company Becomes Latest to Scrap Diversity Policies

Daily Caller News Foundation
Coors Light Delivery Truck

Molson Coors announced Tuesday it would walk back a number of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, joining a number of other major U.S. corporations that have revoked such practices this summer.

The company will ensure “executive incentives” are not tied to meeting “representation” targets, end its participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Corporate Equality Index and axe its “supplier diversity” efforts, according to a memo obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Several other companies have taken similar measures, including home improvement retailer Lowe’s and Ford Motors.

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Commentary: The Fading of Freedom in the Western World

American Greatness
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov

The recent arrest of Telegram CEO, Pavel Durov, has been in the news. Anti-Russian westerners cheered these events on, even though Durov had fled Russia years ago in order to pursue his techno-libertarian dreams in peace. Adding to the intrigue, the arrest may have included an element of treachery, as some reports say he was invited to visit France by French President Emmanuel Macron, only to be arrested on the tarmac. Mon Dieu!

The ostensible basis for Durov’s arrest is criminal responsibility for various unsavory things that have happened on his Telegram platform. This kind of vicarious liability for hosting websites, particularly those involving user communications and forums, is not entirely new, but it is controversial and always applied very selectively.

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Commentary: The Sad Reasons Americans Give for Not Having Kids

Michigan Star Staff
Parents teaching child how to ride a bike

The baby bust is here.

The reality is clear: Americans are having fewer kids. In 2023, America had 2 percent fewer births than in 2022, hitting a record low, according to newly released finalized data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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The U.S. ‘Hates Women,’ Faces Future of Cannibalism, ‘Forced Breeding Camps,’ Arizona State University Professors Posit

The College Fix
ASU Professors Jenny Irish (r) and Angela Lober (l)

Two professors discussed dismantling capitalism and electing a female president to restore reproductive rights, and warned of a dystopian future with “cannibalism” and “forced breeding camps,” at an event held Wednesday at Arizona State University.

“Jenny Irish’s HATCH: A Speculative Future for Reproductive Rights” was held both in person and via Zoom.

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‘Never Walz’ Booth Draws Crowds as State Fair Political Scene Turns Attention to Minnesota’s Governor

ANews
Minnesota State Fair "Never Walz" Booth

The sound of a gameshow-like spinning wheel was almost as constant as the smell of fried foods on a stick along a stretch of Underwood Street on a mostly sunny Wednesday afternoon. A line of about five dozen people snaked its way down the boulevard stretching southward to Ye Old Mill at Carnes Avenue.

“You landed on Covid snitch line!” a volunteer from behind the “NEVER WALZ” booth shouted to a throng of onlookers who either cheered, jeered or were indifferent.

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Commentary: Time and Again, Kamala Harris Demonstrates She is ‘The Committee’s’ Candidate

American Greatness
Kamala Harris, CNN interview

So on Thursday, Kamala Harris was finally allowed out to meet the press.

Well, she was allowed to sit for about 18 minutes for a carefully scripted interview on a Dem-friendly network — CNN — with a partisan media head — Dana Bash — who came with a satchel of softballs. Apparently, Harris has yet to be certified for solo flight, however, since she was chaperoned by her pick for VP, Minnesota governor and serial fantasist Tim Walz.

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Commentary: This Labor Day, Remember the True Value of the American Worker

Michigan Star Staff
Mechanic

The American worker lives by the motto “an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.” While the attitude behind that adage is celebrated this Labor Day, it is important to remember that Americans work for more than just money — we take pride and purpose in what we make and accomplish.

American workers are not some cog in a machine. They are craftsmen, perfectionists, innovators and, most of all, worthwhile investments. Ipsos polling in 2023 showed that a majority of Americans believe it is “extremely important” that their work “helps people and society.”

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Commentary: The Forgotten Meaning of Labor Day

Michigan Star Staff
Labor Day Celebration

Labor Day is a U.S. national holiday held the first Monday every September. Unlike most U.S. holidays, it is a strange celebration without rituals, except for shopping and barbecuing. For most people it simply marks the last weekend of summer and the start of the school year.

The holiday’s founders in the late 1800s envisioned something very different from what the day has become. The founders were looking for two things: a means of unifying union workers and a reduction in work time.

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‘Further Away than It’s Ever Been’: Vast Majority of U.S. Adults Believe the American Dream Is Dead, Poll Shows

Daily Caller News Foundation
Home Buyer

Only about a third of U.S. adults believe the American dream is still alive, a Wall Street Journal / NORC poll published Wednesday found.

A survey of 2,501 people conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute twelve years ago found more than half of respondents believed the American dream “still holds true,” but now only a third feel that way, according to a recent WSJ/NORC poll of 1,502 adults. The study also found an increasingly large gap between people’s economic goals and what they think is actually attainable — a trend that was consistent across gender and party lines, but was especially common amongst younger generations.

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Media Narratives on Climate Change Driving ‘Climate Anxiety’ and Harming Young People, According to Experts

Just the News
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

In the wake of widespread fears of climate change, an entire new field of psychotherapy has sprung up to treat what is being called “climate anxiety.”

Climate-aware therapists are specialists who treat people whose anxiety about climate change interferes with their enjoyment of life. These specialists are now available in just about every major city across the United States.

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Asian Enrollment Explodes at Elite University Following Race-Based Admissions Ruling

Daily Caller News Foundation
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) freshman class for this year has a significantly larger share of Asian American students than in previous years following a recent Supreme Court ruling, according to a first-year class profile released Wednesday.

The share of Asian-American students enrolled at MIT increased from 41 percent in the 2024-2027 classes to 47 percent for the class of 2028. The enrollment data is the first since the Supreme Court struck down race-based admissions in June 2023 due to lawsuits brought up by Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

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Commentary: Gen Z Is More Religious than You Think

Michigan Star Staff
Rosary

Many Americans believe our world’s becoming more secular. While that’s true, many of today’s fastest-growing religious denominations aren’t progressive—they’re traditional. Here’s what the data show.

In the 1990s, 90 percent of Americans identified as Christians on Pew surveys. Today, that number has fallen to about 67 percent. Among young adults, over 40 percent are religiously unaffiliated.

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Almost 50 Percent of Voters Think Illegal Immigration Will Increase Under a Harris Presidency

Just the News
Illegal Immigrants

A new survey finds 47% of American voters believe that illegal immigration will increase if Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris becomes the president. 

The survey by the Napolitan News Service also showed 60% of those surveyed believed that illegal immigration would likely decrease under GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. 

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Non-Profit Launches Investigation into Secret Service Use of DEI Policies

American Greatness
Secret Service

A non-profit organization has started its own investigation into the Secret Service’s use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices that many have suggested has compromised the quality of the agency’s protection, following the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump last month.

According to Fox News, the investigation is being carried out by the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), a Colorado-based non-profit. MSLF’s probe will take a closer look at how DEI has negatively affected the agency’s hiring, retention, and promotion of agents, prioritizing race- and gender-based identity politics over competence.

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Commentary: Diversity Is a False Religion to Destroy America

American Greatness
A group of college students stuying

This week, the National Association of Scholars (“NAS”) and the Heritage Foundation are sponsoring a panel discussion on diversity ideology in higher education. A number of reports have recently been published on the topic, with most documenting monies spent by state universities on “diversity, equity and inclusion” (“DEI“). The Maryland affiliate of the National Association of Scholars released the most recent such report this summer, but the Virginia affiliate issued one last year, while Idaho, North Carolina, Maine, and Tennessee produced similar documents before that.

The Maryland report reminds state officials that “diversity” is usually a cover for race-based practices that are now likely illegal under the 2023 United States Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (or “SFFA”). That opinion found that racial preferences in university admissions were a violation of federal civil rights laws and also the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause. SFFA means that any race-based practice in college is presumptively unlawful. As the Court said, “Eliminating discrimination means eliminating all of it … distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their nature odious.”

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Commentary: The Rise of the Red Fascists

American Greatness
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz

In the 1920s, a term was coined that is very appropriate for what is taking place in America today: red fascism. It was a term that likely originated with an Italian anarchist, Luigi Fabbri, who wrote in 1922 that “‘red fascists’ is the name that has recently been given to those Bolshevik communists who are most inclined to espouse fascism’s methods for use against their adversaries.” This description and behavior of course should not come as a surprise to anyone. Socialism is intrinsic to both communism and fascism, as both are movements of the left with a massive, oppressive, and powerful State central to achieving their goals.

Consider where we are right now in this country: some people have said that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are the farthest left ticket ever run by the Democrat Party in this country’s history. That’s not quite correct. “Leftist” has lost some of its meaning because more traditional liberals are on the left. Harris and Walz are so far left they’re actually off the charts and into neo-Marxist territory. If for nothing else, their strong advocacy for the Green New Deal plants them firmly in that Marxism camp.

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Commentary: An Ancient Faith Grows in Modern Times

Michigan Star Staff
Eastern Orthodox Mass

As a journalist, it’s easy to turn around copy on any of the public policy and political debates of the day, but I struggle to write about religious issues in a meaningful way. My American Spectator columns detail the usual insanity in the California Capitol and Washington, DC, but what can I say about matters of faith, where my usual tool — reason — isn’t entirely useful?

I grew up Jewish, the son of a Nazi Holocaust survivor. Our religion was important, but I was raised in a secular home where religious observance didn’t reflect any deep expression of faith. That led me on a journey to try to make sense of this inexplicable world.

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Most Law School Students Say Social Justice More Important Than Winning in Court: Poll

The College Fix

About two out of every three law school students believe social justice is more important than obtaining a winning result for a client, according to the results of a recent survey of current law school students conducted by the Buckley Institute.

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Commentary: The Demographics of Realignment

American Greatness
Voters casting ballots

It has become a truism among right-of-center voters in America that as the percentage of non-Hispanic whites in the population decreases, the percentage of registered Democrats increases. This truism is shared, of course, by the progressive left in America. That might lead one to conclude that if Democrats wanted to turn America into a one-party nation, they would do everything in their power to increase the percentage of voters who are not “non-Hispanic whites.”

There is evidence to support this truism. For example, in 1970, the population of California was 80 percent non-Hispanic whites, with Republican governor Ronald Reagan and both houses of the state legislature controlled by Republicans. That was the last year Republicans had a trifecta in the state. Today, California’s population of non-Hispanic whites has declined to 34 percent, and the state is under the absolute control of Democrats. They have held both houses of the state legislature since 1997, and apart from Schwarzenegger’s anomalous presence from 2004 through 2010, the state hasn’t had a Republican governor since 1998.

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Seattle Children’s Hospital Segregates Doctors by Race in Leaked Training Materials

American Greatness
Seattle Children's Hospital

Newly-leaked training material from Seattle Children’s Hospital reveals how the hospital segregated doctors by race and asked them to invoke “repressed racial memories” and “race-consciousness” during their training.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the training in question took place in August of 2022, and was mandated for all employees in the gastroenterology department. The training session divided staff into three “racial caucuses:” White, black, and “non-black people of color (POC).” The segregation was justified as being an effort to “minimize harm to our black learners and facilitator.”

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Commentary: The Fight to Push Latinos Right

RealClearWire
Latinos for Trump

In the past four years, approximately 4 million Latino Americans have become eligible to vote, making the Latino population account for 14.7% of all eligible voters. This increasingly independent cohort is up for grabs, and one conservative Latino-focused PAC intends to win them over.

The bloc was a key part of the coalition that helped deliver President Joe Biden to the White House in 2020. In 12 of the 13 states with the largest Latino populations, Latinos supported Biden over former President Donald Trump by a margin of at least two to one. And in nine of the 13 states, that margin was at least three to one. Only in Florida was Biden’s margin less than two to one.

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Pro-Life Org Sounds Alarm on ‘Extreme’ Agenda to Eliminate ‘All Limits on Abortion’

Daily Caller News Foundation
Abortion Protest

A prominent pro-life group is warning Republicans about the “extreme” abortion platform of the Democratic presidential ticket, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA) sent a memo, obtained by the DCNF, to GOP candidates, leadership and state leaders about Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who have a record of supporting unlimited abortion and voting against life-saving legislation.

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Majority Says First Amendment ‘Goes Too Far,’ According to Poll

The Center Square
Peaceful Protest

Free speech suppression on college campuses and social media censorship often spur debates over how far the First Amendment should go to protect Americans’ rights to express their opinions – and who should be entrusted with those decisions. 

About 53% of Americans believe the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it protects, according to a new poll by the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE.

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Abortion Numbers Up Since Overturning of Roe v. Wade, According to Report

Just the News
Abortion Protest

Abortion occurred more often across the United States in the first three months of this year than prior to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, a new report from the Society of Family Planning released on Wednesday showed.

The organization, which supports abortion rights, attributed the increase in abortions to laws in Democratic-controlled states that protect abortion doctors who use telemedicine to see patients from states with limits on abortion.

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Majority of Americans Would Not Advise Family Members to Join Military, Poll Finds

Michigan Star Staff
Boot Camp

The majority of Americans would not advise their family members to join the military, according to a Defense Priorities/YouGov poll released on Thursday.

Only 37% of respondents would encourage their family to serve in the military, while 63% would not, according to the poll. Several branches of the military have been plagued with recruiting and retention problems in recent years as the Pentagon continues to look for solutions.

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Commentary: Battle for the Soul of America

Michigan Star Staff
Donald Trump

There is a battle for the soul of America. 

The first shots of a long simmering revolt were fired when Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama pledged to “fundamentally transform” America five days prior to his winning the presidency in 2008.

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Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Trump Can Win (or Lose) the Election

Michigan Star Staff
President Donald Trump

The good news for the Trump campaign is that the sure Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is a lifelong California hard leftist at a time when the state is emblematic of progressive nihilism. Her extremist advocacies as a San Francisco county and city attorney, state Attorney General, and senator are on record. And they are consistent with what has virtually destroyed the state.

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Half of Americans View Large-Scale Migration to Be a ‘Critical Threat,’ Majority Want More Wall: Poll

Michigan Star Staff
Border Wall

Half of Americans believe a large number of migrants entering the country poses a “critical threat” to the interests of the United States, and a majority favor expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall, a Chicago Council survey found.

Fifty percent of Americans view large numbers of migrants and refugees entering the U.S. to be a “critical threat” to the nation, a survey released Friday by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found. The poll additionally found wide support for a border wall and the use of U.S. troops to stem illegal immigration.

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Commentary: Let’s Leave the Marxism on the Capitol Steps

RealClearWire
Elizabeth Warren

The United States has become the largest market in the world, and at the same time it delivers the highest standard of living to its citizens compared to the world’s other major economies. Contrast this success with other large economies such as China, where despite being the world’s second-largest economy, its citizens have a standard of living that has more in common with the developing world than a global powerhouse. Now China is facing demographic challenges that raise the prospect that as a nation, it may get old before it gets rich. Layer its long-standing repression and authoritarianism on to its economic challenges, and one is hard-pressed to see a domestic policy regime worthy of emulation.

Likewise looking to America’s south, and one is struck by the generations of squandered opportunities for prosperity in South America. As a region, South America has been buffeted by financial collapses, runaway inflation, and geopolitical instability. For nations digging out from a legacy of ruinous fiscal and economic policies, there is no easy route forward, only difficult tradeoffs. Argentina has certainly charted a new course and there is hope that near-term pain may pave a path forward to stability and long-term growth. But the present pain is very real.

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Study: After COVID Pandemic, Only 40 Percent of Americans Now Say They Trust Doctors

Michigan Star Staff

A stunning 50-state survey of U.S. adults has found that trust in physicians and hospitals collapsed during the COVID-19 pandemic, going from from 71.5 percent in April 2020 to 40.1 percent in January 2024.

Roy H. Perlis, MD, MS, Katherine Ognyanova PhD, and Ata Uslu, MS, researchers from the Center for Quantitative Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Rutgers University, and Northeastern University, surveyed 443 455 individuals in every sociodemographic group aged 18 years or older residing in the US.

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