"Confirming widespread perceptions, the nation's largest crime survey finds that violent crime in urban areas rose dramatically from 2020 to 2021. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the statistical arm of the Department of Justice, recently released findings from the 2021 National Crime Victimization Survey. According to the NCVS, which dates to the Nixon administration, the rate of violent crime rose only in urban areas. It did not change to a statistically significant degree in suburban or rural areas.

"The NCVS involves about a quarter of a million interviews each year with a nationally representative sample of U.S. residents. The federal government's field agents ask respondents whether they were the victim of a crime within the past six months. According to the NCVS, violent crime in urban areas rose 29 percent from 2020 to 2021, from 19.0 to 24.5 victimizations per 1,000 persons aged 12 or older.

"From 2018 through 2020, the NCVS found that the violent-crime rate in urban areas was between 29 percent and 42 percent higher than the rate in rural areas. In 2021, however, the violent-crime rate in urban areas was 121 percent higher, more than doubling the rate in rural areas (24.5 victimizations in urban areas, versus 11.1 in rural areas, per 1,000 persons). In addition, the violent-crime rate in urban areas was 48 percent higher in 2021 than in suburban areas, more than tripling any difference in urban and suburban rates registered from 2018 to 2020. The property-crime rate in urban areas was nearly twice as high in 2021 as in suburban areas (157.5 to 86.8 victimizations per 1,000 households) and nearly three times as high as in rural areas (157.5 to 57.7 victimizations per 1,000 households)."

Read the entire article here.

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) has seen her net worth increase by $140 million since the 2008 financial crisis thanks in no small part to her husband's fortuitous trades in companies she has worked to subsidize. Now, she's rying to pull up the ladder behind her: In what may be her final months as a member of Congress, she's backing a proposal that would prohibit her colleagues from buying or selling individual stocks.

"Pelosi scoffed at the idea of banning lawmakers from trading individual stocks as recently as December, saying that she and her colleagues should be able to fully participate in the free market economy. After rejecting similar proposals, Pelosi is throwing her weight behind legislation that would ban stock trading among members of Congress and other senior government officials. House Democratic leaders introduced the Combating Financial Conflicts of Interest in Government Act last Tuesday but failed to bring the measure to a vote before adjourning for the midterm elections.

"Pelosi has been dogged by allegations that her husband, Paul Pelosi, trades stocks on inside information gleaned from her position in Congress. In March, Paul Pelosi exercised options to buy up to $5 million worth of Tesla stock as the speaker pushed for electric vehicle subsidies, the Washington Free Beacon reported. And in June, Paul Pelosi exercised call options to buy up to $5 million in the graphics card manufacturer Nvidia just weeks before the House considered a bill to provide more than $50 billion in subsidies to domestic semiconductor manufacturers."

Read the entire article here.

"To the surprise of no one outside the White House, a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that 74 percent of Americans believe the economy is in bad shape, up from 58 percent in the spring of 2021. With 84 percent or respondents identifying the economy as a top issue in the upcoming midterm elections and 74 percent saying the same about inflation, why does the Biden administration seem more intent on exacerbating the problems than addressing them? Let's take a look at how Biden got us into the current economic crisis and what he could do to get us out of it.

"While there are many moving pieces in any economy, the root causes of inflation are relatively straightforward. In normal economic times, the markets balance supply and demand minimizing inflation. For example, if the demand for a particular retail good is high, but the supply of that good is low, retailers will increase prices resulting in reduced demand. When the supply of a particular good is greater than the demand, retailers will lower their prices increasing demand.

"The goal is to keep supply and demand in balance and our free market economy naturally trends towards that balance (which was the case during the Trump administration). Problems arise when the government intervenes."

Read the entire article here.

"In an effort to boost its policies and chart a path to the future ahead of the November midterm elections, the White House released the Biden-Harris Economic Blueprint. The 58-page document showcases a five-part plan that will build on 'historic legislative successes' and 'executive actions' that the administration claims have rebuilt the economy 'now and for years ahead.'

"But a close reading of the self-promotional Sept. 9, 2022, blueprint reveals that, like the American Rescue Plan Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, the policies promoted in the Economic Blueprint will increase spending and regulation, make the government larger and more intrusive, and consolidate power in the hands of federal bureaucrats at the expense of state autonomy.

"Onerous conditions and requirements attached to federal funds distributed to the states have been a hallmark of the Biden administration's approach to spending. All three of Biden's agenda items have given federal agencies significant powers to set guidelines and requirements that usurp federalist principles. If enacted, the policies proposed in the Economic Blueprint promise to be no different.

"For example, the first pillar of the Blueprint, 'Empowering Workers,' highlights the need for 'greater worker power to unionize.' In practice, this means federal agencies may require state and local governments to prioritize union workers, regardless of the potential for added costs and limited availability in certain locales. Likewise, the Blueprint calls for an expansion of Green New Deal policies included in the IRA that will compel states to pay for progressive priorities instead of focusing on taxpayer needs."

Read the entire article here.

"The world is waking up to the fact the climate-policy goal of achieving 'net-zero' CO2 emissions brings crippling economic pain.

"Fossil-fuel prices shot up 26% across industrialized economies last year and will rise globally by another 50% this year. Politicians blame Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but the long-term trend stems mostly from governments demonizing fossil fuels while their societies remain dependent on them. Since the 2015 Paris climate agreement, global fossil-fuel investment has halved, inevitably driving up prices.

"As fossil-fuel prices climb, activists believe people will shift painlessly to renewable energy sources. But they've made a major miscalculation: Renewables are far from ready to power the world.

"Solar and wind can only work with massive amounts of backup power, mostly fossil fuels, to keep the world running when the wind dies down, the sky clouds over or night falls. And renewables mostly generate electricity, which is just one-fifth of our total energy use -- the vast majority is non-electric like transport, industrial processes and heat."

Read the entire article here.

"On December 15, 2021, President Biden released an Executive Order related to global drug trade and stated, 'I find that international drug trafficking -- including the illicit production, global sale, and widespread distribution of illegal drugs; the rise of extremely potent drugs such as fentanyl and other synthetic opioids -- constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.'

"If that's true, then why is Biden leaving the border wide open? ...

"As the Border Patrol is conducting migrant processing on an unimaginable scale, the cartels are taking complete advantage of the vulnerabilities and are blitzing the country with people and drugs. ...

"Biden's policies not only are killing Americans, they are directly enriching the cartels. ... The Drug Enforcement Administration seized enough fentanyl last year to kill every American."

Read the entire article here.

"The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sent over $1.1 billion in child tax credit payments to incorrect recipients during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an audit by the Department of the Treasury's Inspector General (IG) for Tax Administration on Tuesday.

"The IRS sent the payments to 1.5 million people between July and November of 2021 during the pandemic, according to the audit. Additionally, the IG noted that 4.1 million taxpayers did not receive payments they should have, amounting to $3.7 billion withheld. ...

"Additionally, the report noted that the IRS incorrectly sent out 6,829 reconciliation letters to taxpayers who received the credit, a document required to prepare their 2021 tax returns. ...

"The report further noted that the IRS erroneously changed 1,610 taxpayers' bank account information used to receive direct deposits of the credit.

"The payments were made under provisions of the American Rescue Plan Act, President Joe Biden's main legislative response to the pandemic. ...

"'We have cataloged numerous examples of ridiculous waste of federal tax dollars from the American Rescue Plan,' said Republican Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, during a hearing in June."

Read the entire article here.

"Now they tell us. We're referring to the Congressional Budget Office, which finally rolled in Monday with its cost estimate for President Biden's unilateral student-loan write-down: $420 billion. ...

The cost of Mr. Biden's unilateral extension of the moratorium on student loan payments for another three months through December will be $20 billion. But that's a bargain compared to the $400 billion cost of canceling up to $10,000 in debt issued by June 30 this year, plus another $10,000 for recipients of Pell grants.

CBO says that doesn't even count the cost of Mr. Biden's steps to ease the terms on federal income-based repayment plans that are on top of the $10,000-$20,000 loan forgiveness. Independent analysts have estimated that cost at $150 billion or more, which would take the cost to $570 billion.

This is an unprecedented act of peacetime fiscal recklessness."

Read the entire article here.

"A coalition of 18 Republican states wrote a letter to Senate leadership Monday, announcing their opposition to Democrats' permitting reform legislation.

"The states' attorneys general, led by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, argued in the letter that the Energy Independence and Security Act -- which Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., unveiled last week -- would strip states of the authority to regulate their own power grids. The states also ripped the deal for being rushed, not allowing the public to understand its provisions or costs.

"'The undersigned attorneys general write with strong opposition to the misnamed Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022,' Landry and the other attorneys general wrote in the letter first obtained by FOX Business.

"'The Act contains assorted provisions that would effectively create a backdoor Clean Power Plan, allow the restricting of the electric grid by abrogating states' traditional authority to set their own resource and utility policies, and upset the careful balance of state and federal authority that has been a cornerstone of the Federal Power Act for nearly a century,' they added."

Read the entire article here.

"Voters largely support policies allowing police to detain suspects charged with violent crimes, a new poll shows.

"Convention of States Action, along with Trafalgar Group, released the poll, which found that the vast majority of surveyed Americans do not support policies that keep law enforcement from detaining those accused of violent crimes.

"The poll found that 95.6% of those surveyed 'say they are less likely to vote for a candidate who supports policies which prevent police from detaining criminals charged with violent crimes, such as kidnapping and armed robbery.'

"'Crime is the beneath-the-iceberg issue for voters in 2022, it's absolutely clear in these numbers,' said Mark Meckler, president of the Convention of States. 'Ameicans of all political backgrounds have a strong belief in protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty.'"

Read the entire article here.