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Autism Rates Per Year (ASD)

Surveillance YearBirth YearNumber of ADDM Sites ReportingCombined Prevalence per 1,000 Children (Range Across ADDM Sites)This is about 1 in X children
202020121127.6
(23.1-44.9)
1 in 36
201820101123.0
(16.5-38.9)
1 in 44
201620081118.5
(18.0-19.1)
1 in 54
201420061116.8
(13.1-29.3)
1 in 59
201220041114.5
(8.2-24.6)
1 in 69
201020021114.7
(5.7-21.9)
1 in 68
200820001411.3
(4.8-21.2)
1 in 88
20061998119.0
(4.2-12.1)
1 in 110
2004199688.0
(4.6-9.8)
1 in 125
20021994146.6
(3.3-10.6)
1 in 150
2000199266.7
(4.5-9.9)
1 in 150

What would this suggest to you about Autism?

Robert MacNeil, urbane anchor who founded ‘PBS NewsHour,’ dies at 93

Another good one gone:

Robert MacNeil, a Canadian-born broadcast journalist who built what is now “PBS NewsHour” and served for two decades as its urbane, evenhanded co-anchor, died April 12 at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 93.

His daughter Alison MacNeil confirmed the death but did not cite a cause.
Mr. MacNeil, known as Robin, and Jim Lehrer, a former Texas newspaperman, formed one of television journalism’s most successful and enduring partnerships in 1975, when they launched what became “The PBS NewsHour.” As the news world transformed around them with the arrival of 24-hour cable news and combative political talk shows, they maintained a reputation for sober, straightforward reporting and analysis.


The duo met in 1973 while anchoring public television’s gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings. Teaming up again two years later, they decided to offer a sophisticated supplement to the network nightly news, focusing on a single issue each night that they addressed in interviews with experts.
“We decided to do a program for the curious, and the informed, and the interested,” Mr. MacNeil later told the Toronto Star. “And it worked.”
Mr. MacNeil, right, with Lester M. Crystal, the longtime executive producer of “PBS NewsHour.” (Courtesy of PBS NewsHour)
Known early on as “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report,” the show anticipated network programs such as ABC’s “Nightline” and expanded from a 30-minute time slot to become the country’s first national, hour-long nightly news broadcast in 1983.



Although it was accused at times of being boring and elitist, the program developed a loyal audience, with about 5 million viewers tuning in each night by the time Mr. MacNeil retired as executive editor and co-anchor in 1995.
“In Mr. MacNeil and Mr. Lehrer, ‘The NewsHour’ has the only two major anchors on television who actually practice journalism,” New York Times media critic John Corry wrote in 1983. “They ask questions and then listen to the answers. Network anchors just read the news.”
Linda Winslow, “NewsHour's” executive producer, walks past a framed photo of Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil at WETA-TV's office in Arlington, Va., in 2011. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)
In addition to Lehrer, who remained as the sole anchor after Mr. MacNeil’s retirement and who died in 2020, “NewsHour” has featured journalists including Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Elizabeth Farnsworth, Gwen Ifill, Roger Mudd and Judy Woodruff.

Mr. MacNeil had a distinctive and reassuring baritone, with a cultivated accent that complemented Lehrer’s folksier delivery. He saw himself as a writer trapped in a broadcaster’s body — he and Lehrer were both novelists in addition to newscasters — and said that he turned to journalism in financial desperation while struggling to make a living as a playwright in London.


He began writing for Reuters in 1955 and, five years later, joined NBC News as a foreign correspondent, covering fighting in the Belgian Congo, the Algerian war of independence and the construction of the Berlin Wall. After moving to the network’s Washington bureau, he was assigned to cover President John F. Kennedy’s November 1963 visit to Dallas, where he was sitting at the front of a press bus when shots rang out.
Mr. MacNeil ran off the bus, followed police officers up a grassy knoll and searched for a phone to call his editor. Sprinting toward the Texas School Book Depository, the building from which Lee Harvey Oswald was later found to have shot Kennedy, he came face to face with a “young guy in shirt sleeves” who suggested that Mr. MacNeil “ask inside” for a phone.

“I didn’t register his face because I was obsessed with finding a phone,” Mr. MacNeil told the Canadian Press in 2013. “Much later,” he added, “it occurred to me that I was going in just about the time Oswald had been going out.”


A decade later — while moderating “Washington Week in Review,” his first job at PBS — he started covering the Watergate hearings with Lehrer, with whom he bonded over shared literary interests. They spent more than 300 hours together in front of the camera, anchoring live coverage of the Senate hearings that helped lead to President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation in 1974.
Mr. MacNeil and Lehrer received an Emmy Award for their Watergate coverage and soon formed “The Robert MacNeil Report,” initially broadcast by WNET in New York, with Lehrer serving as Washington correspondent. After a few months, the show was distributed nationally by PBS and renamed “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report,” with the two men as co-anchors.
Jim Lehrer, Mr. MacNeil and civil rights lawyer Vernon Jordan at a 1985 party celebrating “NewsHour's” 10th anniversary. (Rich Lipski/The Washington Post)
The duo formed a production company in 1981, making “NewsHour” the only major nightly news show to be independently produced and owned by its anchors.



With their focus on informing rather than entertaining, the anchors joked that the show’s motto was, “We dare to be boring.” “NewsHour” left coverage of sensational stories such as the 1995 O.J. Simpson murder trial to the major networks, gravitating instead toward foreign conflicts, trade negotiations, nuclear arms deals and the like.

Mr. MacNeil interviewed foreign leaders including Ayatollah Khomeini, who was exiled in France when he urged Iranians to overthrow the Shah, and Cuba’s Fidel Castro, who two decades earlier had placed the young foreign correspondent under house arrest in Havana during the Cuban missile crisis.
Backed by corporate sponsors such as PepsiCo and AT&T, the show endured despite being eclipsed in the ratings by the major network programs and facing a budget shortfall that contributed to Mr. MacNeil’s decision to retire on its 20-year anniversary.
“I think we helped create a place for a civil discourse and respect for complexity in a medium which often respects neither — you could even argue increasingly respects neither,” he told the Times in 1995, shortly before stepping down. “Those aren’t small things.”

Those damn Republicans and not handling the border issues

Arizona's Democratic governor vetoes border bill approved by Republican-led Legislature​


PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona bill that would have made it a crime for noncitizens to enter the state through Mexico at any location other than a port of entry has been vetoed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

The Republican-controlled Legislature approved the measure late last month along party lines. Arizona has emerged as a popular illegal border crossing point, and the bill would have let local law enforcement arrest non-U.S. citizens who enter Arizona from anywhere but a lawful entrance point. A violation would be a top-tier misdemeanor – or a low-level felony for a second offense.

In a letter to Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen on Monday, Hobbs said the measure raised constitutional concerns and was expected to lead to costly litigation.

“This bill does not secure our border, will be harmful for communities and businesses in our state, and burdensome for law enforcement personnel and the state judicial system,” Hobbs wrote.

The move comes as Republicans in several states, most notably Texas, trumpet tough immigration policies in the lead-up to this year’s presidential election.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Janae Shamp, said in a statement that the veto “is a prime example of the chaos Hobbs is unleashing in our state while perpetuating this open border crisis as Biden’s accomplice."

Federal law already prohibits the unauthorized entry of migrants into the United States. However, Republicans in Arizona and Texas say that the U.S. government is not doing enough and they need additional state powers.

This isn’t the first time Republican lawmakers in Arizona have tried to criminalize migrants who aren’t authorized to be in the country.

When passing its landmark 2010 immigration bill, the Arizona Legislature considered expanding the state’s trespassing law to criminalize the presence of immigrants and imposed criminal penalties.

But the trespassing language was removed and replaced with a requirement that officers, while enforcing other laws, question people’s immigration status if they’re believed to be in the country illegally.

The questioning requirement was ultimately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court despite the racial profiling concerns of critics, but courts barred enforcement of other sections of the law.

The law touched off a national furor with supporters calling for similar legislation for their own states and detractors calling for an economic boycott of Arizona.

Several other Arizona immigration laws have been thrown out by courts over the years.

Another proposal at the Legislature this year would bypass any possible veto by Hobbs by sending the measure straight to voters to decide as a ballot measure.

The proposal would require municipalities and counties that receive state money for welfare programs to use a federal employment verification database to check whether recipients are in the U.S. legally — and if so, the recipients are to be removed from the program.

It also would make it a low-level felony for employers, who are already required by an earlier Arizona law to use the database when hiring new employees, to refuse to carry out their legal duty to use the database when they know an employee is not in the country legally.

The proposal has already cleared the state House. The Arizona Senate hasn’t yet taken any action on the proposal.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...S&cvid=480ee8e8141d49ed938ec55d70e6cd61&ei=15

Biden Administration Raises Costs to Drill and Mine on Public Lands

Good for him:

The Biden administration on Friday made it more expensive for fossil fuel companies to pull oil, gas and coal from public lands, raising royalty rates for the first time in 100 years in a bid to end bargain basement fees enjoyed by one of the country’s most profitable industries.
The government also increased more than tenfold the cost of the bonds that companies must secure before they start drilling.
The new rules are among a series of environmental regulations that are being pushed out as President Biden, in the last year of his term in the White House, seeks to cement policies designed to protect public lands, lower fossil fuel emissions and expand renewable energy.
While the oil and gas industry is strongly opposed to higher rates, the increase is not expected to significantly discourage drilling. The federal rate had been much lower than what many states and private landowners charge for drilling leases on state or private property.
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“These are the most significant reforms to the federal oil and gas leasing program in decades, and they will cut wasteful speculation, increase returns for the public, and protect taxpayers from being saddled with the costs of environmental cleanups,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said.
The government estimates that the new rules, which would also raise various other rates and fees for drilling on public lands, would increase costs for fossil fuel companies by about $1.5 billion between now and 2031. After that, rates could increase again.
About half of that money would go to states, approximately a third would be used to fund water projects in the West, and the rest would be split between the Treasury Department and Interior.

“This rule will finally curtail some of these wasteful handouts to the fossil fuel industry,” said Josh Axelrod, senior policy advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Communities, conservationists, and taxpayer advocates have been demanding many of these changes for decades.”
The rate increase was mandated by Congress under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which directed the Interior Department to raise the royalty fee from 12.5 percent, set in 1920, to 16.67 percent. Congress also stipulated that the minimum bid at auctions for drilling leases should be raised from $2 per acre to $10 per acre.



But the sharp jump in bond payments — the first increase since 1960 — was decided by the Biden administration, not Congress. It came in response to arguments from environmental advocates, watchdog groups and the U.S. Government Accountability Office that the bonds do not cover the cost of cleaning up abandoned, uncapped wells, leaving taxpayers with that burden.
Price to Plug Old Wells in Gulf of Mexico? $30 Billion, Study Says.
“Taxpayers have been losing billions of dollars on a broken leasing system with these ridiculously low royalty rates, rents, and minimum bids for far too long,” said Autumn Hanna, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a fiscal watchdog group. “Adding insult to injury, taxpayers were left holding the bag for damages from wells oil and gas companies left behind, long after they had already profited from them. We own these resources and it’s about time we are fairly compensated.”
The new rules increase the minimum bond for an individual drilling lease from $10,000 to $150,000. The cost of a bond for a drilling lease on multiple public lands in a state would rise from $25,000 to $500,000.

.
Oil and gas companies said the changes, which could take effect in as few as 60 days, would damage the economy.
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“As energy demand continues to grow, oil and natural gas development on federal lands will be foundational for maintaining energy security, powering our economy and supporting state and local conservation efforts,” said Holly Hopkins, a vice president at the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for oil companies. “Overly burdensome land management regulations will put this critical energy supply at risk."
Image

President Biden delivers remarks on clean energy and manufacturing, the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act in Belen, New Mexico last year.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
The oil and gas industry will continue to receive nearly a dozen federal tax breaks, including incentives for domestic production and write-offs tied to foreign production. Total estimates vary widely but the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Tracker, run by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, calculated the total to be about $14 billion in 2022.
But more expensive bonds could put drilling out of reach for smaller oil and gas producers, said Kathleen Sgamma president of Western Energy Alliance, an association of independent oil and gas companies. “They are ludicrously high, ludicrously out of whack with the problem,” she said. “They could actually put companies out of business and create new orphan wells.”
The Interior Department estimates that there are 3.5 million abandoned oil and gas wells in the United States. When oil and gas wells are discarded without being properly sealed, which can happen when companies go bankrupt, the wells can leak methane, a powerful planet-warming pollutant that is a major contributor to global warming.

The Biden administration has had to navigate challenging terrain when it comes to extraction of fossil fuels on public lands and in federal waters, which is responsible for almost a quarter of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.
As a candidate, Mr. Biden promised “no more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period.” He also campaigned to end billions of dollars in annual tax breaks to oil and gas companies within his first year in office.
But since Mr. Biden took office, his administration has continued to sell leases to drill, compelled by court decisions. The Biden administration approved more permits for oil and gas drilling in its first two years (over 6,900 permits) than the Trump administration did in the same period (6,172 permits). Congress has done nothing to end tax breaks for oil and gas companies. And in 2023, the United States produced more oil than any country, ever.
Environmentalists excoriated Mr. Biden for his administration’s final approval earlier last year of an enormous $8 billion oil drilling project in Alaska known as Willow.
At the other end of the political spectrum, Republicans have accused the administration of waging a “war” on fossil fuels that threatens the nation’s economy and national security.
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Cooper DeJean at Spring Scrimmage Tailgate Fundraiser for Swarm / Iowa Baseball Swarm

Good morning Iowa Baseball Friends!


We are excited to invite you to join in a Swarm Baseball fundraising tailgate on Saturday, April 20 surrounding both the football spring practice and Iowa Baseball game vs. Rutgers. See attached invitation for complete details.

The tailgate begins at 9:00 a.m. and there will be a brief break at 10:30am for guests to attend the football spring practice. Tailgate will resume again at 12:00pm prior to first pitch at 2:05pm.

Special guests, Cooper DeJean and an Iowa Baseball representative will stop by prior to the football spring practice - between 9:00-10:30am.

Cost is $100 per person and includes tailgate food and beverages - including Swarm Beer. Reply to this email by April 17 with your RSVP. Payment link will be sent along with parking details with your RSVP confirmation.

Special thank you to our host Steve Eliason and sponsors Rebecca Phipps with Urban Acres, Marco's Grilled Cheese, and RTI Threads for their generous support of this fundraiser and Swarm Baseball!


Go Hawks!
Jayne




AIorK4zd6hEW2fT4qElPwXqWJg1qHrBSbqfaZC9wBXLAiJLBRS41YAq_WCTqdPyWn5LB3IaFfURac0Y

Cooper DeJean at Spring Scrimmage Tailgate Fundraiser for Swarm / Iowa Baseball Swarm

Good morning Iowa Baseball Friends!


We are excited to invite you to join in a Swarm Baseball fundraising tailgate on Saturday, April 20 surrounding both the football spring practice and Iowa Baseball game vs. Rutgers. See attached invitation for complete details.

The tailgate begins at 9:00 a.m. and there will be a brief break at 10:30am for guests to attend the football spring practice. Tailgate will resume again at 12:00pm prior to first pitch at 2:05pm.

Special guests, Cooper DeJean and an Iowa Baseball representative will stop by prior to the football spring practice - between 9:00-10:30am.

Cost is $100 per person and includes tailgate food and beverages - including Swarm Beer. Reply to this email by April 17 with your RSVP. Payment link will be sent along with parking details with your RSVP confirmation.

Special thank you to our host Steve Eliason and sponsors Rebecca Phipps with Urban Acres, Marco's Grilled Cheese, and RTI Threads for their generous support of this fundraiser and Swarm Baseball!


Go Hawks!
Jayne




AIorK4zd6hEW2fT4qElPwXqWJg1qHrBSbqfaZC9wBXLAiJLBRS41YAq_WCTqdPyWn5LB3IaFfURac0Y

Having turned down $29M from feds, Gov. Reynolds announces $900K summer meal program for children

What a POS she is:
More than three months after turning down $29 million in federal funding for low-income families to spend on food for their school-aged children in the summer, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds announced Wednesday a $900,000 grant program with similar goals.



In December, Reynolds announced the state will not participate in the federal Summer EBT program, which provides low-income families with $40 per month in benefits during over three months.


That program started during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency and now is being made permanent. It was designed to provide free meals in the summer months to students from low-income families who receive free or reduced-price meals during the school year.




States were given the option of remaining in the program. Iowa was among 17 states, nearly all with Republican governors, that declined. Reynolds at the time said she believed the program was not sustainable and did not promote nutrition.


The new state grant program is being funded by federal pandemic relief funds. It is designed to create additional summer meal sites that will serve more children in currently underserved areas across the state, the governor’s office said in a news release.


“Providing young Iowans with access to free, nutritious meals in their communities during the summer months has always been a priority,” Reynolds said in a statement. “With the Summer Meal Program Expansion Grant, we will expand these well-established programs across our state to ensure Iowa’s youth have meals that are healthy and use local community farms and vendors when possible.”


The number of eligible applicants and their proposals will determine the number and amount of grants awarded across the state, the governor’s office said.





The grants will help school districts and other qualified organizations expand participation in two current federal summer child nutrition programs — the Summer Food Service Program and Seamless Summer Option. Those programs are administered by the Iowa Department of Education in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.


Qualifying schools can participate in either federal program, and private nonprofit organizations, community and faith-based organizations, higher education institutions and local government agencies will be eligible to participate in the Summer Food Service Program, the governor’s office said.


New meal sites must be located in an area where at least 50 percent of the children are eligible for free or reduced-price meals. The meals can be served at schools, churches, parks, libraries and other public spaces, according to the governor’s office.


Luke Elzinga, board chair of the Iowa Hunger Coalition, said the daily average participation at summer meal sites in Iowa in 2023 was 21,557, which is less than 10 percent of the more than 245,000 Iowa children who would have received the $40 per month from the Summer EBT that Reynolds rejected.


“While we certainly welcome the new grant program to expand summer meal sites, we also recognize that barriers will remain for families to access those sites. Summer EBT is meant to complement, not replace, summer feeding sites,” Elzinga said in a statement.


“We truly hope this grant program increases access to nutritious food for low-income kids during the summer — but the fact remains that our governor chose to deny $29 million in federal funds that would go directly to low-income families with children who face additional financial struggles during the summer months when kids are out of school,” the statement continued.


Under the new state grant program, priority will be given to applicants seeking to establish a new meal site and to schools or organizations that did not participate in the federal programs last year or are in a county with two or fewer meal sites.

Iowa Department of Education Director McKenzie Snow Iowa Department of Education Director McKenzie Snow
Schools and organizations can apply for reimbursement funding for up to $10,000 for the first new site and $5,000 for each additional site, up to a total of $20,000 for current program sponsors and $30,000 for new sponsors.


“Through partnerships with community-based providers and schools, the Summer Meal Program Expansion Grant will build upon family-focused solutions to support child nutrition and well-being in the summer,” Iowa Department of Education Director McKenzie Snow said in a statement. “The Iowa Department of Education remains committed to supporting students with healthy meals and food options, as it supports communities in growing the impact of existing child nutrition programs.”


Statehouse Democrats continued Wednesday to express their disappointment that Reynolds declined the larger federal program.


“While I appreciate the governor finally doing something for hungry children in our state, the competitive grant program announced today amounts to crumbs for Iowa kids,” Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, a Democrat from West Des Moines, said in a statement. “Gov. Reynolds could have accepted $29 million in federal food assistance that would’ve reached 240,000 children in every corner of the state. The $900,000 state program she announced today is tiny by comparison — and forces Iowa communities to compete for a sliver of that much-smaller pie. It’s not enough to meet the real needs facing our state. And it doesn’t make up for her decision to let Iowa kids go hungry.”

Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, D-West Des Moines Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, D-West Des Moines
Trone Garriott and Elzinga said the new state program does not account for some barriers to low-income families getting help from food assistance programs, like a lack of transportation to get to meal sites or who live in areas without meal sites.


“While summer feeding programs have their place, they are not accessible to all Iowa families,” Trone Garriott said. “Families must bring their children to and from the site every day, which is impossible for most working families. There are many Iowa school districts and entire counties that don’t even have a feeding site. As a result, these programs assisted less than 20,000 children last year.


“The governor could have expanded these programs and participated in the Summer EBT program. But instead, she put politics before the health and well-being of our kids.”


Applications for the new state program are being accepted at iowagrants.gov through May 7.


Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com

38 year old sicko arrested at Planet Fitness in North Carolina

Gross - Yahoo News

WJZY

Man accused of exposing himself inside women’s bathroom at Gastonia Planet Fitness​

WJZY
Thu, April 11, 2024 at 3:51 PM EDT·1 min read

70c75c5d737039e55570b581c4728e57

GASTONIA, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A 38-year-old man has been arrested for exposing himself to a minor inside a women’s bathroom at a Gastonia Planet Fitness.
Jail records show that Christopher Allen Miller has been charged with felony indecent exposure.
The crime occurred just before 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 4, at the Gastonia Planet Fitness gym located at 202 S New Hope Road in Gastonia.

Juvenile offenders escape while in transit to Cabarrus County detention center
Court documents state Miller exposed himself in the women’s bathroom at Planet Fitness in the presence of a 17-year-old girl for the purpose of “arousing and gratifying the defendant’s sexual desire.”
Miller’s bond was set at $25,000 in this case.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News.
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Who was greater - Jimmy Buffett or Jesus?

People say how great Jesus was, but I think Buffett has the edge.

Jesus: Celebrate his birth on Christmas.
Buffett: Actually born on Christmas
Advantage Buffett

Jesus: Fisherman of men.
Buffett: Fly fisherman
Advantage Buffett

Jesus: Turned water into wine at a wedding
Buffett: Made Frozen Concoction Maker so everyone can have boat drinks at home.
Advantage Buffett

Jesus: Returned from the dead.
Buffett: Nothing yet.
Advantage Jesus

Jesus: Walked on water
Buffett: Excellent surfer, paddle boarder
Advantage Tie

Jesus: Died for our sins.
Buffett: Great discography
Advantage Jesus I guess

Buffett wins 3-2-1


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Antifa:



So the dude is going to jail for attempting to blow up the Alabama attorney generals office...but.... he is also charged with getting people to join antifa.


What is that actual charge?

Is old school, vengeful God making a comeback?

Two state legislatures in Maine think so...offering their opinion that the Lewiston shoot spree was God's rath for Maine's abortion law and other immoral statutes:

“Meditate on this, Madam Speaker,” Lemelin said, addressing House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, a Democrat. “When (L.D.) 1619 passed and went into law on Oct. 25, you told God life doesn’t matter.”

Lemelin then drew parallels between a state law expanding abortion access and the Lewiston mass shooting.

“Keep in mind that the law came into effect on October 25. God heard you and the horrible events on October 25 happened,” he said.

Republican state Rep. Shelley Rudnicki later endorsed Lemelin’s remarks.

“I just want to stand and say that I agree with Rep. Lemelin and everything he said,” Rudnicki said on the chamber floor.


Biden screwed up life for young voters and it could cost him dearly!!!

Democrats are reeling after Wednesday’s Department of Labor report showed consumer prices rose in March, likely delaying the Federal Reserve’s effort to cut rates ahead of November’s election. While the Biden campaign was projecting an air of confidence due to a surge in the polls showing Joe Biden and Donald Trump virtually tied, it is evident that the aging and unpopular Democratic president is facing a problem connecting with young voters.

Nothing encapsulates Democratic panic more than former White House chief of staff Ron Klain’s public criticism of the campaign’s economic message. "I think the president is out there too much talking about bridges," Klain said, imploring Biden to focus on the high cost of living affecting everyday people.

Indeed, nowhere is this more true than with young voters struggling to make ends meet. For a campaign whose candidate’s approval rating is reliably underwater, averaging 41%, Biden cannot afford to shrink his coalition from 2020, especially among voters under 30 whom he won by 24 points, 59% to 35%.

A recent Fox News poll shows Biden is at risk of losing this coalition as Donald Trump currently carries voters under 30 by 21 points, 46% to 25%. Worse, 1-in-5 (18%) young voters, feeling alienated by both parties and the political system more generally, say they will vote for RFK Jr. Moreover, Biden has lost 14-points among voters of color, including Black and Hispanic voters, a group he won 71% of in 2020.

It is in this context that we must see Biden’s effort to cancel student debt for 30 million borrowers as part of a desperate plea to hold the youth vote. However, Americans, especially young voters, have hardly taken notice of the program due to myriad factors: inflation, the crisis at the Southern border, and devastating foreign policy in Israel and Ukraine.

While Biden’s program could provide some benefit, it does not speak to the majority (53%) of 18 to 34-year-olds who do not have a college degree. This group, which reliably swings for Trump by 31 points, has been hit the hardest by record high rent and food prices.

Put another way, Biden lacks a comprehensive, coherent message to appeal to young voters.

Former President Trump has made it clear, in a public statement on Monday, that he will leave the issue of abortion to the states. Trump’s decision is a tactical one, a compromise which leaves the potential for a weakened Democratic Party to make inroads with young people, an issue which is now glaringly obvious and apparent from the highest levels on down.

So far, the president has run an extremely partisan campaign, principally speaking to Democrats and Democratic-leaning undecided voters, two groups he has always been likely to carry. And, while it was once an open question, it is now clear to us that this election has undoubtedly become a referendum on the incumbent, Joe Biden.

As campaign season heats up, Biden must do much more than provide student debt relief to make his case to young voters, a group who will no doubt make the difference in securing key swing states this November.


Tim Lester mic’ed up

If nothing else, the vibes at practice seem substantially better. You get a great sense of Lester as a teacher and not only HOW he drills down on mechanics, but WHY.

Obvious caveat is that we’re watching closely edited “state media,” plus the season’s 4 1/2 months away, but he looks and sounds like a guy with a plan for the offense.

What did you guys notice from this?

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Hawks to compete at Women’s Nationals







It is great to be an Iowa Wrestling fan.

Go Hawks!
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