So, how about a 50,000-foot view of last night’s Republican debate? Just for starters. Of course, it wasn’t totally a Republican debate because Donald Trump wasn’t there. More on that later. Of those who were there, I thought many of them had good moments, but frankly, I don’t think they totally made the sale against Joe Biden.

They spent too much time sniping at each other, but they didn’t rip apart Bidenomics. Didn’t talk enough about the problem of middle-class affordability, the high price of basic necessities like groceries, gasoline, falling real wages, sky-high mortgage rates, Biden’s crazy climate change war against fossil fuels that has driven up hundreds of prices throughout the economy, telling them they can’t have appliances like gas stoves, hot water heaters, lightbulbs, dishwashers, microwaves, ceiling fans and on and on.

The candidates didn’t talk nearly enough about all the craziness, or the plain fact that Biden’s central planners — who are shoving modern socialism through the regulatory state down our throats, telling us how to live and behave — completely lack any semblance of common sense.

Most disappointing to me, I didn’t hear a single MAGA. “Make America Great Again” — first said by Ronald Reagan. Let me give you the quote again from the August 1988 Republican convention, when The Gipper said: “We left with a mutual pledge to conduct a national crusade to Make America Great Again.”

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Here’s a recent first-rate MAGA from Former President Trump, a couple of weeks ago in South Carolina:

DONALD TRUMP: With your help, your love, and your vote, we will put America First, and we will — I promise you — make America great again. Thank you very much! Thank you very much!

There you go! That was a good MAGA. The Republicans on the debate stage last night were too busy sniping at each other. Didn’t really produce what I would call a big, positive, optimistic “we will be the stewards of economic growth and prosperity” message, but there were some good moments. We’ll give you a couple. Mike Pence did argue for tax cuts — take a listen:

MIKE PENCE: I mean, a lot of people don’t know that those Trump-Pence tax cuts that we got signed into law go away at the end of 2025 if we don’t have a Republican president and a Republican House and a Republican Senate. When I’m president of the United States, we’re actually going to cut taxes further. We’re going to extend those tax cuts.

Good for Mr. Pence. Lots of tax cuts. I like that. Vivek Ramaswamy made minced meat of Joe Biden’s climate change war against fossil fuels. Take a listen:

VIVEK RAMASWAMY: Unlock American energy, drill, frack, burn coal, embrace nuclear.

Love that. Vivek will be with us in just a few moments. Senator Tim Scott had a nice whack at Bidenomics with this one — take a listen:

TIM SCOTT: What we also need to understand is that Joe Biden’s Bidenomics has led to the loss of 10,000 dollars of spending power for the average family. When you see 16% inflation, your gas is up 40%. Your food is up 20%. Your electricity is up 20%.

I also liked Gov. Ron DeSantis on law and order and firing local prosecutors. Here’s what he said:

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RON DESANTIS: When we had two of these, the district attorneys in Florida elected with Soros funding who said they wouldn’t do their job, I removed them from their post.

Then, of course, there’s Donald Trump, who is still the front runner and that’s my riff.

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the August 24, 2023, edition of “Kudlow.” 

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Hooters is facing a lawsuit alleging that one of its locations in North Carolina failed to recall certain employees after the COVID-19 pandemic because they were either Black or had “dark skin tones.” 

The Greensboro, N.C. Hooters laid off more than 40 employees in March 2020 in response to the pandemic. When the restaurant began recalling employees to return to work in May 2020, the restaurant recalled “mostly employees who were White or had light skin tones,” the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleges in its lawsuit. 

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The lawsuit alleges that more than half of the Hooters Girls were Black or had “dark skin tones” prior to the COVID-related layoffs. That figure dropped to only 8% of the Hooters Girls after the May 2020 recall, according to EEOC. 

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The complaint further alleges that Hooters Girls with dark skin tones “experienced racial hostility and observed preferential treatment of White employees while employed at the restaurant.” 

“When recalling employees from a layoff, it is critical that employers examine their selection criteria to ensure they are objectively verifiable and free from racial bias,” said Melinda C. Dugas, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Charlotte District. “Federal law protects employees from race-based decision-making in the terms of employment including in layoff, recall and hiring decisions.” 

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FOX Business has reached out to Hooters for comment and will update this story accordingly. 

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The CEO of Dollar Tree Inc. said Thursday the discount retailer is taking a “very defensive approach” to shoplifting.

The company, which runs Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, has “several new shrink formats” that it intends to roll out in the final six months of the year, CEO Rick Dreiling said in the morning. “Shrink” typically means theft and other types of inventory losses in the retail industry. 

“It goes everything from moving certain SKUs [stock-keeping units] to behind the check stand,” he explained to those who tuned into the company’s earnings call. “It has to do with some cases being locked up. And even to the point where we have some stores that can’t keep a certain SKU on the shelf just discontinuing the item.”

Dollar Tree pointed to shrink as a factor affecting its gross margin. That metric hit 29.2% in the second quarter, marking a 220-basis-point drop year over year.

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The company said “lower initial mark-on, unfavorable sales mix … and wage investments in distribution center payroll” also played a role.

CFO Jeff Davis noted at one point that shrink “is a sort of a trailing indication because stores are shrinking over the course of the year,” adding it “takes time” for measures to “actually take hold.”

In the prior quarter’s earnings call, the discount retailer flagged shrink as an issue it was facing, too.

Thursday morning’s comments from Dollar Tree Inc. executives come just a day after Kohl’s CFO Jill Timm described shrink as an ongoing “retail industry problem” and said it had “weighed in on our margins.” Like Dollar Tree, she explained some of the measures Kohl’s has taken to address it.

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Measures taken by Kohl’s include “cabling products to fixtures,” only having testers of beauty products, upping the presence of staff in fitting room areas and having more workers near the front doors, Timm said.

Other companies such as Walmart and Target have raised the alarm on shoplifting and organized retail crime in recent weeks.

The 2022 edition of the annual retail security survey from the National Retail Federation found that total losses from shrink increased roughly 4% in 2021, coming in at $94.5 billion. The survey, which came out in mid-September, linked the losses “primarily” to external theft like organized retail crime.

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Shrink and factors like sales mix, increased diesel prices, ocean freight savings and more factored into Dollar Tree’s updated projects for the fiscal year, according to the company. For consolidated net sales, Dollar Tree projected they would come in at $30.6 billion to $30.9 billion while diluted earnings per share would be in the $5.78 to $6.08 range.

Davis said Dollar Tree “see[s] nothing systemic or structural in the current environment that would have a lasting negative implication for the multiyear outlook that we shared in June.”

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Jennifer Aniston is a “self-made woman.” 

The 54-year-old actress has come a long way since her early days as girl-next-door Rachel Green on “Friends,” having co-founded two production companies, put her hand in multiple business ventures from haircare to nutritional supplements and executive producing.

The actress, who has also made a name for herself on the big screen with movies like “The Break-Up” and “He’s Just Not That into You,” has an estimated net worth of $230 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. 

“I feel like I am a self-made woman and I am really proud of that,” Aniston told The Wall Street Journal in a recent profile about her ventures behind the camera and into the business world.

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After Aniston married Brad Pitt in 2000, the couple co-founded Plan B Entertainment with producers Brad Grey and Kristin Hahn. 

The company produced such movies as “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” and Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award-winning film “The Departed.”

“Talk about a male-female situation,” Aniston said of her time at Plan B. “It was a male-dominated sort of environment, and it was like, ‘Oh, aren’t you two cute?’”

Aniston left Plan B after she divorced Pitt. “It was like, ‘Go with God and be successful and fantastic,’ which they have been,” she told the Journal. “It was the only decision. And not in a negative way. It just was what was right at the time.” 

Aniston and Hahn went on to co-found Echo Films in 2008.

“There was a time in my world, my career, where I realized it’s not being aggressive or combative or bitchy or emotional to stand up for what you deserve and what you want,” she said. “It’s a tough muscle to build. And also be loved and respected. It’s hard to achieve.”

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Aniston has also ventured into the business world over the last decade, including haircare more than once. She had a stake in Living Proof Haircare from 2012 until she left in 2016 after it was bought by Unilever, and launched haircare line LolaVie in 2021. 

In addition, she’s the first global face of the Pvolve workout method, which is a “low-impact workout that incorporates resistance equipment,” according to the company.

“I just want more people to know about it because I think it’s so good,” Aniston told People magazine this week of her new campaign.

Aniston has been the chief creative officer of Vital Proteins, a collagen supplement brand, since 2020. 

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The “Horrible Bosses” actress has also endorsed products like Aveeno, Eyelove, L’Oreal, Smartwater and Emirates. 

“Make sure you’re getting in bed with people you’re going to be happy to wake up with in the morning,” she said of her business partners.

“My dog,” she joked, “That’s who I’m sleeping with.”

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