Digital Alaska News

Bethenny Frankel Sues TikTok Over Ads She Says Misused Her Image https://digitalalaskanews.com/bethenny-frankel-sues-tiktok-over-ads-she-says-misused-her-image/ A prominent online influencer and reality TV star filed a lawsuit Thursday against TikTok, claiming that the platform has failed to crack down on scam ads using her videos to promote counterfeit products. Bethenny Frankel, who has more than 990,000 followers on TikTok and was featured in the Bravo television series “The Real Housewives of New York,” says she was scrolling through TikTok on Sept. 16 when many of her followers began asking about an ad they’d seen featuring her promoting a cheap knockoff designer cardigan. But Frankel, as she alleges in the suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, said she never agreed to promote the knockoff cardigan. Instead, she said, a scammer had taken a previous video in which she talked about a different cardigan and edited it to make it look like she was endorsing the knockoff. According to the lawsuit, a summary of which was provided to The Washington Post, Frankel immediately posted a TikTok video alerting her followers to the fake ad and reported the ad through TikTok’s content-flagging system. Within minutes, her video about the incident was removed for bullying. Frankel is now seeking damages from TikTok for the harm that the fake ad has caused to her brand and wants the company to agree to institute better protections surrounding a creator’s likeness. “First and foremost, I want there to be a tangible change, whether it’s an act, a law, a process, a step, that protects content creators,” Frankel said in an interview. “An effort needs to be made by TikTok to protect creators and consumers. There are people who purchased these products after they saw these ads with me in them.” TikTok said it takes claims of copyright and intellectual property infringement very seriously and offers several portals on its website where users can flag content that violates the platform’s guidelines. “We have strict policies to both protect people’s hard earned intellectual property and keep misleading content off of TikTok,” said Ashley Nash-Hahn, a TikTok spokesperson. “We regularly review and improve our policies and processes in order to combat increasingly sophisticated fraud attempts and further strengthen our systems.” The use of video creators like Frankel to market products on the internet has become a major industry in recent years and influencer marketing spend is expected to total approximately $16.4 billion by the end of this year, according to industry analysts Influencer Marketing Hub. That market is likely to grow at an annual rate of more than 33 percent between the years 2022 to 2030, according to Grand View Research, a business consulting firm. But that growth has not been accompanied by similar developments of guidelines and rules about how influencers’ images can be used, and abuse, creators say, is common. Influencers’ reputations are built on maintaining trust with their followers. As more creators post content on TikTok, they say their videos are being used for spammy advertisements hawking subpar products. These ads aren’t simply a nuisance, creators said — they can have major consequences for a creator’s business. Frankel said she was flooded with messages for days when the fake ad was running on TikTok. “People were saying, ‘I thought you sold out. You’re hawking these bad products,’ ” she said. “It’s such a violation of me as a brand, a media figure. You can’t decide to just use me as an advertisement day in and day out.” Vanessa Flaherty, president of Digital Brand Architects, an influencer management company, said such abuse can damage a creator’s business. “The value of a creator is in how they recommend products and what brands they stand behind,” she said. “If that’s being taken out of context and being applied to a brand they have not and may never want to endorse or support, that puts their credibility at risk.” The spam ads can also have legal consequences for creators. Often, content creators sign exclusive deals with brands in specific categories. An ad promoting a competitor’s product, even if their likeness was used unlawfully, could put them in breach of contract with a brand they’ve signed a partnership deal with, Flaherty said. Tamping down on these fake ads has been a struggle for influencers and brands alike. In her suit, Frankel asks that TikTok create a way for influencers to flag unauthorized ads internally so that they can be swiftly removed. A representative from Jenni Kayne, a clothing brand, said the company contacted TikTok in mid-September to report ads for a counterfeit product, featuring influencers including Frankel. Representatives from Jenni Kayne submitted a trademark certificate, links to the offending ads and screenshots of the third-party site, along with a formal report to TikTok. Still, the ads weren’t removed for at least 10 days, the company said. “It was over 20 emails of us begging them,” said Alexa Ritacco, Jenni Kayne’s chief marketing officer. “It took TikTok so long to respond. It was so clear they did not have a protocol for this. We were getting hundreds of direct messages per day about the counterfeit ads.” “Users can report content in the app, and they may escalate concerns related to copyright or trademark infringement via our website,” said Nash-Hahn, the TikTok spokesperson. “Advertising content passes through multiple levels of verification before receiving approval, and we have measures in place to detect and remove fraudulent or violative ads.” Still, some ads slip through the cracks and creators have taken to TikTok themselves to try to get the message out to followers. “I can’t believe I have to say this,” Lindsay Albanese, a TikTok creator and founder of online marketplace TheFileist.com, said in a TikTok video to her 656,00 followers in late September. “But if you see an ad out there of me trying to sell a bra, it is a scam. They took my TikTok video … and edited it like I was talking about their bra.” She said that attempts to flag the issue to TikTok were fruitless and that the fake ad was harming her brand. “It is so infuriating,” she said on TikTok. “I don’t know if these products were ethically made, if this company was following labor laws and fair wages.” Frankel’s suit alleges that TikTok has not mitigated these problems because it profits from the sales taking place through the phony ads. The suit claims that TikTok generates revenue through advertisements and that scammers are paying the company to run ads for their counterfeit goods, misusing influencers’ likenesses. “Although the platform is not an e-commerce site, it facilitates and promotes the sale of products,” a summary of Frankel’s complaint reads. “The promotion of products, particularly counterfeit products, garner millions of views and incentivize TikTok to increase their revenue streams by allowing the counterfeit products to be presented to users.” “They’re using us to sell products, these counterfeit companies,” Albanese said. “It’s just going to get worse until the social media platforms start cracking down quickly. I should be able to email TikTok, say this isn’t me and have it taken down immediately.” Nash-Hahn said that from July 2021 through December 2021, TikTok received 49,821 global copyright takedown notices and successfully addressed 40,469, or 81.2 percent, of the takedown requests by removing violative content. In 2017, the Federal Trade Commission urged influencers to disclose partnerships, and platforms such as Instagram and Twitter have since built tools to make partnerships between brands and creators more obvious to viewers. However, because most influencer marketing deals are negotiated outside of tech platforms’ purview, apps like TikTok may be unaware of what deals are fraudulent. To make matters worse, some influencers fake sponsored content, promoting brands as if they have partnerships, to boost their image. Most brands are okay with the free advertising, but many luxury brands are not. Frankel said much of this could be solved if platforms such as TikTok had a clearer way to address issues between brands and creators. Influencers, she said, should be able to work with the platforms to ensure they retain control over their image on the app, and brands should be able to flag fraudulent ads or counterfeit products. “I want to be a voice for change in this space,” she said. “I have a platform, I have influence, and I want to make a difference on a greater scale.” She has set up an email address for creators who have been similarly affected to join her suit. There is bipartisan agreement in Congress that something should be done. On Wednesday, Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Gus M. Bilirakis (R-Fla.) introduced legislation to combat the sale of counterfeit products online. The Integrity, Notification, and Fairness in Online Retail Marketplaces for Consumers (INFORM Consumers) Act would require online platforms to collect, verify and disclose certain information from third-party sellers. Jessica Rich, the former director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the FTC, said lawmakers are increasingly interested in holding platforms accountable for the ads and content they host. She pointed to the INFORM act and the movement to revamp Section 230, the legal provision that protects websites from liability for what a third party posts. “The fact that you’ve got so many proposals in Congress to hold platforms liable for content on their sites does tell you that this issue is not adequately addressed under current law,” she said. Read More Here

Madison https://digitalalaskanews.com/madison/ MADISON – Madison city officials have wrapped more than a dozen dormant absentee ballot drop boxes in art and criticism of a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling barring voters from returning their ballots anywhere but a clerk’s office or polling station. The drop boxes, once painted to resemble the capital city’s bright blue flag, have been transformed into permanent monuments against the court’s July ruling that arrived amid a two-year battle between city officials and Republicans who promoted former president Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud. The boxes now feature the artwork of New York-based artist Jenny Holzer that includes Sojourner Truth’s “Truth is powerful and will prevail.” Madison city officials previously featured Holzer’s work in 2020 as part of a voter outreach campaign.  “It’s really important for us to acknowledge that the state Supreme Court made a very bad decision and to acknowledge the Legislature has failed to act to make it easier and safer for people to vote,” Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said. “We do not want to remove the drop boxes in the wake of the state Supreme Court decision — I wanted to transform them to acknowledge what’s happening in this state and let them stand as a testament to the fact that the truth is powerful and will prevail.” “They are not a memorial. I hope they are a marker and perhaps a placeholder for the future.” The court’s 4-3 ruling was a win for Republicans who now oppose the longstanding use of ballot drop boxes after their use proliferated during the coronavirus pandemic and was heavily criticized by Trump, who alleged with no evidence that absentee voting was rife with fraud and led to his reelection loss in 2020. The court’s conservative majority said state law does not permit drop boxes anywhere other than election clerk offices and only state lawmakers may make new policy stating otherwise — not the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which issued guidance to clerks allowing them.  More: How to register to vote, request an absentee ballot and answers to other questions about voting in Wisconsin “WEC’s staff may have been trying to make voting as easy as possible during the pandemic, but whatever their motivations, WEC must follow Wisconsin statutes. Good intentions never override the law,” Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote for the majority. Hundreds of absentee drop boxes were installed across the state in 2020 to help voters cast their ballots without interacting with other people. More than 40% of all votes cast that year were through absentee ballots.  Republicans began scrutinizing their use as Trump launched a baseless campaign against absentee voting ahead of his election loss that continues today.  Madison’s defunct drop boxes also feature voting instruction for residents to help them return their ballots.  Contact Molly Beck at molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck. Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal. Read More Here

Money Flowing To Some Election Deniers Sets Off Scramble In Secretary Of State Races – KYMA https://digitalalaskanews.com/money-flowing-to-some-election-deniers-sets-off-scramble-in-secretary-of-state-races-kyma/ By Fredreka Schouten, CNN Election skeptics who are their state’s Republican nominees for secretary of state have outraised their Democratic rivals in two races viewed as competitive by political handicappers — in the key presidential battleground of Arizona and in Indiana — according to a new analysis from a nonprofit watchdog group shared first with CNN. Overall, Republican secretary of state nominees across the country who have denied the 2020 election results have raised more than $12 million in this election cycle — some with financial assistance from deep-pocketed GOP donors, according to research by the nonpartisan group Issue One. “This is absolutely a wake-up call,” Nick Penniman, Issue One’s CEO, said of the financial support for some Republicans who have raised doubts about the 2020 election results. “For a long time, the political bet-makers wrote off some of these extreme candidates and assumed that they couldn’t win, that they weren’t viable.” “But I think they have proven that they are viable because they have been able to tap into veins of money that are willing to support them,” he added. In one sign of the Democratic concern about Arizona, officials with one liberal outside group, iVote, tell CNN that they plan to invest a total of $5 million to help boost the Democratic nominee, former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes. That spending has not been previously reported. The once low-key secretary of state races have garnered more attention than ever before in the aftermath of the 2020 election, which saw former President Donald Trump attempt to pressure public officials to set aside the will of voters after he lost the presidency. The people who win these jobs in November will play key roles in overseeing and certifying the results of the 2024 election — which could feature a rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden. An analysis by CNN’s Daniel Dale showed that in at least 11 states — out of 27 with secretary of state contests on the ballot this year — the Republican nominee for election chief is someone who has questioned, rejected or sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Issue One’s researchers examined roughly four dozen races this year that featured candidates who have questioned the 2020 results and explored in more detail those who have secured their party’s nomination. Among the races highlighted in the report: Arizona, where GOP state Rep. Mark Finchem has raised more than $1.2 million in his bid to become the top election official — far surpassing the nearly $700,000 collected by Fontes, the Democratic nominee, state campaign records show. Finchem, who was endorsed by Trump in 2021, has called for the decertification of the 2020 election in three Arizona counties, although there is no evidence of widespread fraud and legal experts say there is no mechanism to set aside the results of that election. He also co-sponsored a bill that would have empowered state legislators to reject election results. In Arizona, iVote is teaming up with the state’s Democratic Party to make what its president, Ellen Kurz, called an unprecedented $5 million investment in the race there to boost Fontes. “With a candidate who has a proven history of rejecting results in a critical swing state, who wins this seat in 2022 will determine whether we have a constitutional crisis or not in 2024,” Kurz said in a statement. Finchem did not respond to CNN interview requests. Funders examined The Issue One report zeroed in on who has helped fund the candidates who have challenged the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Donors include Trump’s Save America leadership PAC; Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock.com who is a prominent funder of efforts to challenge the 2020 election results, and Lewis Topper, a Florida-based fast-food entrepreneur. Byrne has been at the forefront of efforts to challenge the legitimacy of the last presidential election. A group he helped found, The America Project, helped underwrite a widely derided review of ballots cast in Maricopa County, Arizona, that in the end only confirmed Biden’s victory there. And the America Project is among the donors to a political action committee, Conservatives for Election Integrity, overseen by Jim Marchant, the Republican nominee for Nevada secretary of state, who has said he would not have certified Biden’s victory there and has led a campaign to encourage counties to ditch voting machines and instead hand count ballots. Individually, the Issue One report found — and state records show — that Byrne has contributed to Marchant; Kristina Karamo, the GOP nominee for Michigan secretary of state, and to Tina Peters, the Mesa County, Colorado, clerk and recorder, who lost the GOP nomination for Colorado secretary of state this year. (A county grand jury indicted Peters earlier this year following an election breach investigation by local authorities. Last month, she pleaded not guilty to felony and misdemeanor charges.) In a text message exchange with CNN on Wednesday, Byrne said he did not recall donations directly to those candidates, but he described an election system “riddled with security failures” and said he’s committed to “stimulating” citizen efforts “to get involved with election integrity this cycle.” That includes, he said, One More Mission — an initiative to recruit veterans and first responders to become poll workers. Issue One’s analysis also found that Topper, a major Republican donor, contributed to the campaigns of five secretary of state candidates it examined: Finchem, Peters, Karamo, Marchant and GOP Rep. Jody Hice, who ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination this year in Georgia. (Hice had been among the congressional Republicans who objected to the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021.) Topper declined to comment on his political contributions. Democratic activity Issue One’s Penniman said the money to influence these races is unprecedented. “These are races that typically used to cost less than $100,000. They were the most uninteresting, boring things on the ballot,” he said. “Now, they are front and center.” In other key contests examined by the group — including Michigan and Minnesota, where Democrats are up for reelection — those incumbents have far outraised their Republican rivals. Meanwhile, outside Democratic groups are collecting records sums, even as they urge donors to contribute more in the home stretch to Election Day. The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State has a $25 million budget for this cycle, up from about $1.5 million in 2018, when the organization had no paid, full-time staff, said Kim Rogers, the group’s executive director. The group is primarily focused on races in Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, Minnesota and Arizona, where Rogers said the organization will help underwrite ads with the state party to support Fontes. In addition, she said, the group is working to protect Democratic incumbents in Colorado, Washington state and New Mexico. “2020 was a huge seismic shift for democracy, and secretaries of state are on the front lines,” Rogers said. “Many donors are stepping up at levels that have not happened before,” she said. “And we still need more because we’ve never been in this situation before.” The-CNN-Wire & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. Read More Here

How Did Brazil’s Pollsters Underestimate Support For Bolsonaro? https://digitalalaskanews.com/how-did-brazils-pollsters-underestimate-support-for-bolsonaro/ Far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro left pollsters scratching their heads this week, after he secured millions more votes than expected in the country’s October 2 election, despite ending up in second place behind his left-wing rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro finished the first round with 43.2 percent support compared with 48.4 percent for Lula, according to Brazil’s Superior Electoral Tribunal, forcing a run-off on October 30 as neither candidate was able to secure more than 50 percent. Yet prior to the election, renowned polling agencies such as IPEC and Datafolha had shown Lula, who served as Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010, with an advantage of as many as 14 percentage points over Bolsonaro. The former army captain‘s surprisingly successful showing is one of several examples in recent years where polling has been off the mark, experts said, especially when it comes to support for right-wing and far-right politicians. Gustavo Flores-Macias, a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University in the United States, said the Brazilian election results showed that pollsters “clearly haven’t figured out”  how deep support runs for the country’s right-wing. “It gives a sense the polls cannot be trusted, or the integrity of the election is in question,” he told Al Jazeera. Voters wait in line to cast their ballots in Brazil’s capital Brasilia, October 2, 2022 [File: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters] Global phenomenon Brazilian polling agencies are not alone in underestimating support for right-wing figures. In 2016, Donald Trump’s US presidential election victory over Hillary Clinton sent shockwaves around the world. And while Trump lost in 2020 to current US President Joe Biden, he still managed to once again outperform in the polls. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019 also stunned observers after winning an outright majority, despite most pollsters predicting that he would need to form a coalition government. According to Flores-Macias, one reason support for right-wing and far-right candidates is underrepresented globally is due to hesitance on the part of their supporters to reveal their real plans on Election Day. “This often has to do with social desirability bias – in that a lot of voters a reluctant to show their true preferences, thinking that if they do it’s not the response that is politically correct or socially acceptable,” he said. Bolsonaro has been widely criticised at home and abroad for remarks disparaging minorities, including members of the LGBTQ community; his government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic; destruction of the Amazon rainforest, and support for mining and other economic projects that rights groups have said have led to a surge in violence against Indigenous people. The far-right leader “represents social conservatism in the country”, said Flores-Macias, and his supporters may not want to reveal that they support such views. Former US President Donald Trump outperformed 2020 election polls [File: Joe Raedle/Getty Images via AFP] Distrust in institutions For months, Bolsonaro also sowed distrust in Brazil’s electronic voting system, saying without evidence that it was vulnerable to fraud, and attacked Supreme Court justices in what Brazilian political observers said had sparked an “unprecedented crisis” in public trust. That distrust and suspicion in state institutions is another reason why far-right voters are less willing to talk to pollsters, experts said. “Polls often rely on people’s goodwill and trust in the organisations carrying out the polls,” said Christopher Hanretty, a professor of politics at Royal Holloway, University of London. “Far-right parties often draw support from people who don’t have a lot of trust in others. This means that people who support far-right parties are more likely to decline requests to be interviewed,” he told Al Jazeera in an email. Lawrence Rosenthal, chair of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said this phenomenon also exists in the US among evangelical Christian voters, who live in “self-exile” from mainstream institutions that they perceive as having a liberal bias. “If you are convinced the mainstream media and pollsters from academic institutions and agencies lie … and you get your news for right-wing sites like Breitbart, you are not going to be the type of voter pollsters assume have a kind of predisposition to answer sincerely,” Rosenthal said. A The Hill-HarrisX poll in 2018 showed that while a majority of Americans were doubtful about survey accuracy, only 36 percent of Republicans said polls were mostly or almost always accurate, compared with 60 and 49 percent of Democrats and independents, respectively. Polls not getting ‘worse’ Despite these shortcomings, Hanretty said polling “hasn’t gotten worse” over time, instead pointing out that “everyone forgets the times polls got the results right.” The victory of a right-wing-led coalition in Sweden last month by the slimmest of margins was accurately predicted by most polls, for example, and the same scenario played out in Italy when far-right leader Giorgia Meloni’s party won the most votes in September’s general elections. “It’s probably not about right-wing candidates … Polls can underestimate left-wing parties if they are in some sense populist or ‘anti-system’ parties,” said Hanretty, pointing to how polls accurately predicted the success of Italy’s centrist and populist Five Star Movement in 2013. Sanjay Kumar, a political analyst at The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi, India, said vote-share underestimation is unlikely based on ideological grounds, but rather an attempt by pollsters to provide balance in their findings and “maintain their own integrity”. “Whenever an agency finds there is a very high vote share for any one party,” he told Al Jazeera, “there is a tendency to moderate … to make adjustments in order to remain on the safe side.” Nevertheless, miscalculations by polling agencies have the potential to encourage conspiracy theories and could fuel further distrust in state institutions, said Flores-Macias at Cornell University. In Brazil, Bolsonaro spent weeks denouncing polls that showed him trailing Lula as inaccurate.  “Bolsonaro consistently [made] very serious accusations about the elections beforehand,” Flores-Macias said. “This [underestimation of Bolsonaro’s vote share] results in people thinking, ‘Well, Bolsonaro clearly knew these polls were wrong,’ and feel there was an attempt to fool the population or steal the election.” Read More Here

Post Politics Now: Biden Heads To New York To Herald IBM’s Major Investment In Hudson Valley https://digitalalaskanews.com/post-politics-now-biden-heads-to-new-york-to-herald-ibms-major-investment-in-hudson-valley/ Today, President Biden is traveling to New York to tour IBM’s facility as the company promotes a $20 billion investment in the Hudson Valley over 10 years, focused on semiconductors, computers, artificial intelligence and other programs. Ahead of the midterm elections, Biden and Democrats have highlighted the bipartisan law to boost production of domestic semiconductor chips. Biden late Wednesday criticized a federal appeals court ruling that said a program to protect nearly 600,000 young immigrants, known as “dreamers,” from deportation is illegal. The three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit allowed those already enrolled to renew their status, but the future of the program — commonly known as DACA — is uncertain. Your daily dashboard 2 p.m. Biden delivers remarks on job creation at the IBM plan. Watch live here. 4 p.m. Vice President Harris swears in Arati Prabhakar to be director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. 5 p.m. Biden participates in a reception for the Democratic National Committee in Red Bank, N.J. 8 p.m. Biden participates in a reception for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in New York City. Got a question about politics? Submit it here. After 3 p.m. weekdays, return to this space and we’ll address what’s on the mind of readers. Noted: In Ariz., Cheney urges voters to reject GOP nominees for governor, secretary of state Return to menu Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) is urging Arizona voters to reject GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, calling them threats to democracy and urging voters to back their Democratic rivals. “If you care about democracy, and you care about the survival of our republic, then you need to understand, we all have to understand, that we cannot give people power who have told us that they will not honor elections,” Cheney said. The congresswoman is one of former president Donald Trump’s fiercest critics and vice chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. She spoke late Wednesday at the McCain Institute’s “Defending American Democracy Series” at Arizona State University. Noted: Fetterman campaign says it raised $22 million in third quarter Return to menu Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) on Thursday announced that his campaign for Senate had raised $22 million in the third quarter — doubling his second quarter total of $11 million. Fetterman is running against Republican Mehmet Oz to fill the seat of Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), who is retiring. The massive reported fundraising haul indicates Fetterman’s campaign has not slowed down, despite fears that it might be hampered after he suffered a stroke in May and was absent from the campaign trail for weeks. On our radar: Republicans target a House seat in deep-blue Rhode Island Return to menu JOHNSTON, R.I. — Seth Magaziner, the Democratic nominee for an open House seat in Rhode Island, stood in a senior center in this Providence suburb on Wednesday morning, trying to convince Democrats frustrated with high inflation and a weakening economy not to vent their frustrations by voting Republican. The race should not be competitive. President Biden won the district by nearly 14 points in 2020. Democratic Rep. Jim Langevin has held the seat with little trouble for more than two decades, winning by almost 17 points two years ago. A Republican has not won a House seat in Rhode Island in 30 years. This is an excerpt from a full story. Noted: Governor races in at least five states could determine abortion legality Return to menu The future of abortion access in a handful of battleground states may be determined by the winners of their governor’s mansions in November. Democrats are leaning into that message on the campaign trail, seeking to make the November elections a referendum on what they describe as the Republican Party’s extreme position on abortion. This dynamic is playing out in gubernatorial contests in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona — all of which have GOP-controlled state legislatures. As Rachel Roubein reports in The Health 202: This is an excerpt from a full story. On our radar: Biden’s visit to Hudson Valley a reminder of Democrats’ win Return to menu One of the highlights for Democrats this past summer was a surprising win in New York’s 19th Congressional District, which encompasses the Catskills and the mid-Hudson Valley. Democrat Pat Ryan — who made abortion rights the centerpiece of his campaign — defeated Republican Marc Molinaro in a special election in August by just over two percentage points. President Biden had won the district by a little more than one point in 2020. Democratic leaders were buoyed by the results as they face the traditional head winds that cause a party in power to lose seats in a midterm year. They also remain convinced that the Supreme Court decision that took away a national right to an abortion will energize voters as they cast their ballots in the coming weeks. On our radar: Majority of GOP nominees — 299 in all — deny 2020 election results Return to menu A majority of Republican nominees on the ballot in November for the House, Senate and key statewide offices — 299 in all — have denied or questioned the outcome of the last presidential election, according to a Washington Post analysis. Candidates who have challenged or refused to accept Joe Biden’s victory are running in every region of the country and in nearly every state. Republican voters in four states nominated election deniers in all federal and statewide races that The Post examined. Although some are running in heavily Democratic areas and are expected to lose, most of the election deniers nominated are likely to win: Of the nearly 300 on the ballot, 174 are running for safely Republican seats. Another 51 will appear on the ballot in tightly contested races. This is an excerpt from a full story. Noted: Biden ‘disappointed’ in ruling that DACA program is unlawful Return to menu President Biden said he was disappointed in a ruling late Wednesday by an appeals court that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, was unlawful. The ruling ordered a lower court review of the program, which was started in 2012 under the Obama administration and prevents “dreamers” — undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children — from being deported. While the program is intact for now, the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit stops new DACA applications. Read More Here

PolitiFact – No, Aileen Cannon, The Judge In Trump Documents Case, Wasn’t Arrested https://digitalalaskanews.com/politifact-no-aileen-cannon-the-judge-in-trump-documents-case-wasnt-arrested/ Stand up for the facts! Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy. We need your help. More Info I would like to contribute No, Aileen Cannon, the judge in Trump documents case, wasn’t arrested If Your Time is short Aileen Cannon wasn’t arrested.  U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing former President Donald Trump’s legal challenge to the FBI’s recent seizure of documents from his Mar-a-Lago estate, has drawn scrutiny for rulings siding with Trump.  But a recent Facebook post implies that whatever allegiance Cannon might have for the former president, who nominated her for her judicial post in southern Florida, was misguided.  “Trump betrays Judge Cannon and police have just taken her away, she was being used by Trump,” the Oct. 1 post says.  This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook.) We contacted the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida about the post but didn’t immediately hear back. However, we found no evidence to support the claim that Cannon was arrested. We didn’t find news articles or other reports corroborating the post in online searches or in the Nexis news archive.  The high-profile case Cannon is presiding over has drawn widespread media coverage. On Sept. 9, The Washington Post reported that “her profile soared” as she intervened in the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Trump mishandled classified information. Her arrest would be closely watched and covered.  But she hasn’t been taken into custody. We rate that claim Pants on Fire!  Facebook post, Oct. 1, 2022 The Washington Post, In ruling for Trump, low-profile judge Aileen Cannon invites scrutiny, Sept. 9, 2022 Ballotpedia, Aileen Cannon, visited Oct. 4, 2022 New York Times, ‘Deeply Problematic’: Experts Question Judge’s Intervention in Trump Inquiry, Sept. 5, 2022 Politico, Judge again sides with Trump in Mar-a-Lago documents fight, Sept. 29, 2022 In a world of wild talk and fake news, help us stand up for the facts. Sign me up Read More Here

Morning Consult: ‘Democrats Are Maintaining An Advantage’ In The Midterm Generic Ballot Despite President Biden’s Low Approval Rating https://digitalalaskanews.com/morning-consult-democrats-are-maintaining-an-advantage-in-the-midterm-generic-ballot-despite-president-bidens-low-approval-rating/ WASHINGTON (Gray DC) – While midterm elections are often seen as a referendum on the sitting president, Democrats may overcome Joe Biden’s low approval rating according to Morning Consult’s senior reporter Eli Yokley. Morning Consult surveys show 45 percent of Americans approve of the job President Biden is doing. And while a majority disapprove, Yokley says the president’s approval rating has not hurt Democratic candidates this year. “He’s very unpopular. But Democrats are maintaining an advantage in the generic ballot. This is pretty rare when it comes to midterm elections. And it’s one of the strange things facing Democrats this year as they try to hold on to their congressional majorities,” said Yokley. Democrats are hoping voters remember two things as the vote: Biden’s legislative accomplishments and how extremist Republicans have continued to back former President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen. “Rather than breaking with Donald Trump, the Republican Party has found itself more beholden to him. And across the country, extreme MAGA Republicans are winning nominations and promising to that if they win power, that they will pave the way to cancel votes in elections that they don’t agree with,” said DNC Rapid Response Director Ammar Moussa. 54 percent of Americans have an “unfavorable opinion” of Trump according to FiveThirtyEight. However, RNC National Spokesperson Danielle Alavarez says not only is ‘MAGA extremism’ not real but this election is about the current president and what she says are the economic failures of his administration. “That is what keeps people up at night thinking about how they’re going to put food on the table, thinking about how they’re going to fill their car with gas to get to work. I think it’s really difficult. And I know that Republicans are going to work hard when we’re elected in November to turn this country around,” said Alvarez. Morning Consult surveys show Democrats hold a narrow edge over Republicans when it comes to who likely voters are more likely to vote for in the midterms. Copyright 2022 Gray DC. All rights reserved. Read More Here

S&P 500 Falls Thursday As Investors Weigh Recent Swings In Rates https://digitalalaskanews.com/sp-500-falls-thursday-as-investors-weigh-recent-swings-in-rates/ U.S. stocks seesawed Thursday, as traders weighed sharp swings in stocks and rates to start the month. The S&P 500 fell 0.7%, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 237 points, or 0.8%. The three stock benchmarks opened the session lower. All of the major averages are on pace to end the week about 5% higher. Energy was the best-performing sector, gaining 1.2%. Utilities lagged, falling more than 1%. The benchmark 10-year rate climbed 2 basis points to 3.785%. The 2-year yield, which is more sensitive to monetary policy changes, rose 3 basis points to 4.18%. Wall Street started the week on a high note, with the S&P 500 staging its biggest two-day rally since 2020. Stocks fought to keep the winning streak going Wednesday but ultimately fell short. The Dow closed about 42 points lower, or 0.14%. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite slid 0.20% and 0.25%, respectively. “Few are convinced that the recent move is more than a bear market rally, with skepticism over the durability,” said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide. “Confidence remains weak, ranging from CEOs, small businesses, consumers, and investors. Universal pessimism is bullish from a contrarian perspective, though timing of the pendulum swing is difficult to predict.” Investors continue to monitor economic data to see if inflation is cooling off, or if the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes are pushing the U.S. closer to a recession. Data from ADP showed that the labor market remained strong among private companies in September, when businesses added 208,000 jobs. That beat the 200,000 job estimate from Dow Jones. On Friday, the September jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics will be released, giving the central bank and investors another piece of data. Energy prices stage a big comeback with SPDR ETF on pace for best week since late 2020 Energy prices have rebounded big time lately, starting in anticipation of the OPEC+ agreement Wednesday to cut production. The Energy Select Sector SPDR is ahead 11.5% week-to-date and on pace for its single best weekly performance since November 2020, when it surged more than 17%. Some individual stock moves have been even more outsized. Marathon Oil is up almost 20% this week, Halliburton has climbed almost 19% and APA (formerly Apache Oil) is ahead 18.5%. Prices are uniformly higher across the complex. November heating oil futures are up 8% week-to-date and November gasoline is ahead by almost 7.2%. Natural gas was below $6.40 per million BTUs Monday and is above $7.00 Thursday. — Scott Schnipper and Gina Francolla Tesla added to Deutsche’s top investments list Tesla is among stocks considered a top investment over the next 12 months by Deutsche Bank. The tech stock was among 10 additions for the new quarter due to what the bank sees as a “pivotal” upcoming year. The electric vehicle maker is poised to see upward revisions to expectations as it grows sales and breaks into new categories such as cybertrucks and semis. Meanwhile, Tesla stands to benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act’s electric vehicle credits and simmering headwinds. “We view Tesla as one of most attractive stories in the autos sector thanks to its pricing power, superior cost structure, strong execution, and having secured supply and now establishing more meaningful capacity to support considerable growth,” the bank said. Other additions include Restaurant Brands International, Prologis and Eaton. — Alex Harring, Michael Bloom Jobless claims rose more than expected last week Weekly jobless claims rose more than expected last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Initial filings for unemployment benefits totaled 219,000 for the week ended Oct. 1, up 29,000 from the week before and higher than the 203,000 estimate. The downwardly revised 190,000 from the previous week was the lowest level since April 23. Continuing claims, which run a week behind the headline number, edged higher to 1.36 million. Treasury yields moved lower while stock market futures trimmed losses following the release. —Jeff Cox This week’s recovery has further to go, says Credit Suisse Stocks appeared to take a breather in the previous session, with the major averages trading firmly in the red for much of the day. They rallied in the final hour of trade but ultimately failed to hold onto any of their sharp gains from earlier in the week. Credit Suisse says the recovery isn’t over yet though. “[The] S&P 500 has held support from the price gap from Wednesday morning and although our broader outlook stays negative we continue to look for a deeper but still corrective rally to emerge prior to this broader downtrend resuming.” Oversold conditions made the two-day rally unsurprising to some. Credit Suisse sees the next resistance levels for the S&P at 3,807, 3,828 and then 3,867. On the way down, the index could find support at 3,753 initially. A move below 3,678 would suggest the rally is over, the firm said in a note Thursday. The S&P 500 closed at 3,783.28 on Wednesday. — Tanaya Macheel Stocks making the biggest moves premarket These are some of the companies making headlines before the bell: Peloton — Peloton slid 4.1% in premarket trading after announcing it would cut another 500 jobs, or about 12% of its remaining workforce following several previous rounds of job cuts. Splunk — Splunk shares slid 3.1% in the premarket after the stock was downgraded to “neutral” from “buy” at UBS, which said the data platform provider faces a number of headwinds on top of the macroeconomic outlook. Shell — Shell fell 5.4% in premarket trading after saying third quarter earnings will take a hit from significantly lower profits from trading gas and cited higher costs for delivering fuel. Check out other stocks making big moves premarket here. — Peter Schacknow, Tanaya Macheel Wells Fargo double downgrades Silvergate Capital Wells Fargo lowered its rating on Silvergate Capital to underweight from overweight, sending the crypto-focused bank down 4%. “Crypto Winter [is] Freezing Our Enthusiasm,” wrote analyst Jared Shaw. “We continue to believe these are early days of broader digital asset adoption, but the growth outlook for SI as a pure-play crypto banking solution is significantly limited in the current environment.” CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here. — Sarah Min Pinterest pops after Goldman upgrade Pinterest shares rose more than 4% after Goldman Sachs upgraded the social media company to buy from neutral, citing potential improvements in user engagement and monetization. “We upgrade the shares of Pinterest … on the back of improved user growth/engagement trends in the short/medium term and the potential for upside to revenue growth trajectory and operating margin estimates as we move into 2023/2024,” Goldman said in a note. CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here. — Fred Imbert Mizuho says OPEC+ supply cut confirms ‘naked desire for price buoyancy’ OPEC and its allies’ decision to cut production by 2 million barrels per day confirms the group’s “naked desire for price buoyancy, not just support,” said Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank. A supply cut of around 1 million barrels per day would have resulted in price gains without a compromise on volumes, but a larger cut shows the alliance’s “disregard for the economic woes of, and geo-political alignment with, global partners,” he wrote. “What may have been argued as an opportunistic gamble exploiting geo-political supply kinks for self-interest advantage is now in danger of being interpreted as an affront to the U.S. and its allies (in protestation of Russia price cap plans) that aligns with Russia,” he added. — Abigail Ng CNBC Pro: Time to buy the dip? Some stocks are still trading at lows with further big upside The beginning of this week has brought something of a relief rally to stocks. Still, global as well as Wall Street indexes, are still well in the red year-to-date. That could present an opportunity for investors looking for quality stocks and future upside in a volatile environment. CNBC Pro screened for stocks trading within 10% of their 52-week low, but have a buy rating from more than 50% of Wall Street analysts that cover them. The stocks have an average price target upside of 20% or more, and earnings growth expectation for 2022 of at least 10%. Here are the stocks that turned up. CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here. — Weizhen Tan CNBC Pro: NYU’s Aswath Damodaran names big tech stocks that are a better bet than ‘traditional safe’ ones NYU’s Aswath Damodaran loves companies that can “withstand a hurricane, a catastrophe if it does happen.” The professor of finance at New York University, who is sometimes referred to as the “Dean of Valuation, believes big tech stocks can do just that, and reveals the stocks he owns. Pro subscribers can read more here. — Zavier Ong October could be the start of a bull market rally, Detrick says Even though stocks pulled back Wednesday, stopping a major two-day win streak, October may still be the start of a new bull market rally according to Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group. “We think this could be the start of a pretty decent-sized end of year rally,” Detrick said during CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime.” That’s because, traditionally, stock performance improves in October in midterm election years, said Detrick. He also noted that even though markets ended the day lower, stocks posted a major rally in the afternoon that regained a lot of lost ground. That’s a positive, according to Detrick. —Carmen Reinicke Stock futures open flat Wednesday Stock futures opened flat Wednesday evening after all three major averages closed lower, failing to ...

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Wanted Crypto Exec Linked To $60 Billion Crash Faces Passport Freeze https://digitalalaskanews.com/wanted-crypto-exec-linked-to-60-billion-crash-faces-passport-freeze/ South Korean authorities are seeking the arrest of Do Kwon, co-founder and chief executive officer of Terraform Labs. His company is behind the now-collapsed terraUSD and luna cryptocurrencies. South Korean prosecutors are now seeking to freeze bitcoin linked to Kwon. Woohae Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images South Korean authorities on Thursday began the process of canceling the passport of Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon whose company was behind a dramatic $60 billion cryptocurrency collapse. Police have also arrested one person in connection with Kwon’s operations. Kwon has been ordered by the South Korean foreign ministry to return his passport by Oct. 19 or face having the document canceled. The saga between Kwon and South Korean authorities continues to intensify after the collapse of terraUSD and luna wiped billions off of the cryptocurrency market and sent shockwaves through the industry. Terraform Labs, Kwon’s company, was behind both of those digital coins. South Korean authorities looked to arrest Kwon’s last month and claimed he is on the run. The prosecutors said that Interpol, the global policing organization, has issued a “Red Notice” for Kwon. Such notices are issued for fugitives wanted either for prosecution or to serve a sentence. Kwon, however, insists he is not on the run. His whereabouts is still unknown. The Seoul Southern District prosecutors’ office, who is chasing Kwon, has accused the founder and five others of violating capital markets law and fraud. On Thursday, the office confirmed to CNBC that it had arrested one of the people it was looking for surnamed Yu. No arrest warrant has yet been issued. But authorities are able to arrest someone on the grounds of concern that this person may feel. A warrant needs to be granted within 48 hours of the arrest or the person must be let go. South Korean prosecutors have also put in a request to KuCoin and OKX, two cryptocurrency exchanges, to freeze more than $60 million bitcoin tied to Kwon. On Wednesday, local media reported that prosecutors had frozen an additional 56.2 billion South Korean won ($39.9 million) of digital assets belonging to Kwon. However, the crypto founder refuted those claims on Twitter. Kwon said no funds have been frozen. The Seoul Southern District prosecutors’ office declined to comment on the report of the frozen funds. Read More Here

WATCH: Trump Touts https://digitalalaskanews.com/watch-trump-touts/ October 06, 2022 09:15 AM Former President Donald Trump touted the “free publicity” his Mar-a-Lago estate received amid the Justice Department’s investigation into documents obtained during the FBI raid of his Florida home. “Has anyone heard about the document hoax? Helicopters flying over Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said while speaking at the National Hispanic Leadership Conference on Wednesday. “Well, they’ve given us about $5 billion worth of free publicity, I will say.” “People said, ‘That’s a nice house.’ If it weren’t so nice they probably wouldn’t be doing it because it gets ratings,” Trump added. WATCH: TULSI GABBARD ‘DUSTING OFF THE COBWEBS’ IN FIREARM DRILL VIDEO Trump’s remarks came after an appeals court granted the DOJ’s request to expedite its appeal of the special master’s appointment who is set to examine documents obtained in the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago. Trump and his legal team have maintained that he is being unfairly targeted. “Everyone knows we’ve done nothing wrong,” Trump said. “They are targeting me because they want to silence me, silence you, and silence our amazing movement. There’s never been a movement like this in the history of our country.” Trump attorney Alina Habba has likened the legal battle to tennis. “It’s all a bunch of junk. It’s as if you’re playing tennis and you have a machine that’s just throwing tennis balls at you and you just keep getting them left and right,” Habba told Newsmax, noting that no one litigation issue is more pressing. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER “It’s one political attack after another,” Habba added. “That’s the way we kind of look at this, and it’s just getting through them, and he is incredibly resilient. So, I’m not concerned.” Read More Here

“The More We Learn, The Worse Things Look”: Court Error Exposes Judge https://digitalalaskanews.com/the-more-we-learn-the-worse-things-look-court-error-exposes-judge/ A court docketing error on Tuesday briefly exposed documents in the Mar-a-Lago probe that were supposed to be sealed — and revealed a stark difference between U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s description of documents and the actual documents she described. A court error briefly exposed a sealed Justice Department filing detailing lists of potentially privileged materials seized from Mar-a-Lago, which were published by Bloomberg’s Zoe Tillman. The Aug. 30 letter to Cannon, a Trump appointee who ordered a special master review of the documents at the former president’s request, detailed the DOJ’s efforts to set aside any potentially privileged material that was unrelated to the investigation. Cannon in her initial order barred the DOJ from continuing its criminal investigation into classified documents, citing potential harm to Trump, but that part of her order was later overturned by an appeals court, which agreed with the DOJ that Cannon “abused” her authority. Legal experts on Wednesday also noted that the letter undercut Cannon’s description of the documents in the matter. “It is interesting to see the difference between how Judge Cannon described documents and the underlying documents she purportedly described,” tweeted former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti. In one case, Cannon expressed concern that the documents included “medical records” that could leak and risk “irreparable injury” to Trump actually appears to be the infamous note from his former doctor, Harold Bornstein, that Trump already publicly released during his 2016 campaign. “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” the letter said. The “correspondence related to taxes and accounting information” that Cannon cited as a reason to order a special master review also appears to be a one-page letter, an IRS form regarding a deadline extension and an accounting firm retention letter, The New York Times’ Charlie Savage reported. Cannon appears to have “overstated the quantity of ‘personal records’ seized by the FBI that would justify a special master,” wrote Asha Rangappa, a former FBI special agent and CNN national security analyst. “The more we learn, even by accident, the worse things look for Judge Aileen Cannon,” wrote Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe. The letter further raised suspicions over “how far Cannon went to appease” the president who appointed her, reported The Daily Beast’s Jose Pagliery, noting that Trump’s lawyers have “gone judge-shopping for her in the past” and seemed to do it again to avoid the judge that authorized the Mar-a-Lago search warrant by marking the case as unrelated to other pending litigation and diverting the case to another judge who ended up being a Trump appointee. “I just don’t think she ever had jurisdiction,” Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, told The Daily Beast. “She could have kicked this back to the magistrate. To the extent this case had any validity, it belonged there—rather than have this. They forum-shopped to get her. It raises all kinds of issues.” Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course. Peter Shane, a legal scholar at New York University’s law school, added that Cannon is giving Trump the “delay he asked for.”  “She has obvious sympathy for Trump’s contention that, as a former president, he deserves super-consideration,” he told the outlet. Cannon tried to block the DOJ’s investigation at Trump’s behest and agreed to his request to appoint a special master, picking longtime federal Judge Raymond Dearie from a list proposed by Trump’s lawyers. When Dearie pressed Trump’s lawyers to provide evidence of Trump’s dubious claim that he “declassified” the documents he took home, Cannon overruled his order. “This is how a judge would behave… if her motivation was simply to be helpful to Trump,” Shane told The Daily Beast. The DOJ successfully appealed to the 11th Circuit Court to get permission to review about 100 documents marked classified that were taken from Mar-a-Lago and the court on Wednesday again sided with the DOJ by agreeing to expedite an appeal that could shut down the entire “special master” process. Some legal experts have even wondered whether Dearie, who has been a federal judge for 38 years, would agree to comply with orders from Cannon, who was appointed to the federal bench in 2020. “She seems to be cooperating quite well with the former president,” Tobias told The Daily Beast. Dearie “is a person who spent 38 years building his enormous reputation. If I were a judge for 38 years… I wouldn’t want to be ordered around by someone who’s a lackey to Trump.” Read More Here

Midterms 2022 Updates: Republicans Hold Historic Polling Lead; Herschel Walker Scandal Grows https://digitalalaskanews.com/midterms-2022-updates-republicans-hold-historic-polling-lead-herschel-walker-scandal-grows/ The 2022 midterm elections will be held Nov. 8 and will feature several races in the House and Senate that are set to determine which party will have control over Congress for the next two years. Democrats hold a tight majority over Republicans in the House, 221-212, and have a 50-50 tie in the Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote. All 435 seats in the House are up for grabs this year, as are 35 of the 100 Senate seats. READ THE LATEST MIDTERMS NEWS FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER The House is likely to lean Republican, according to analysts, but the future of the Senate has shifted in recent months to become a toss-up — prompting both parties to push ahead to November to seize control of the upper chamber. MIDTERMS 2022: TRACKING THE ISSUES THAT MATTER TO VOTERS AHEAD OF ELECTION DAY Lower down the ballot, 36 out of 50 states are set to elect governors, 10 states will choose their attorneys general, and 12 states will pick their secretaries of state — all crucial offices that have control over state laws and how states administer elections. Follow our rolling Midterms 2022 live blog for the latest news and updates. 8:56 AM Oct 6, 2022 Midterm elections 2022: Here are the issues South Carolina voters care about the most As the country inches closer toward Election Day, voters are homing in on issues that may decide the fate of Congress and several state governments in November. The Washington Examiner is tracking which issues are on the top of voters’ minds as they prepare to head to the polls, particularly in key battleground states that could bring a shift in power to the federal government. Specifically, we’re tracking how voters are researching our top five issues — abortion, crime, education, inflation, and taxes — and how these interests fluctuate as we get closer to Election Day. Click here to see an analysis of our key issues in South Carolina. 8:34 AM Oct 6, 2022 Colorado and Utah see big ad spending as races become more competitive With less than five weeks until Election Day, fundraising groups are pouring money into key battleground races as a last-ditch effort to seize control of Congress in November. From left to right: Evan McMullin and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). (AP Photos) Colorado and Utah received the biggest ad spending increases over the last month as the Senate races in the two states are seen as increasingly competitive as the election nears. Advertising spending in Colorado has nearly tripled since Labor Day for both sides even as spending for Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Republican challenger Joe O’Dea has either stayed flat or decreased, according to AdImpact. In Utah, independent candidate Evan McMullin‘s advertising spending has increased by 93% over the last month and Republicans have boosted their own spending by 65% as Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) seeks to defend his seat. 8:03 AM Oct 6, 2022 Young women increasingly trending liberal while young men stray away: Poll Young women are more likely to identify as liberal-leaning now than at any other point over the last two decades while young men have begun to stray in the other direction, marking the largest gender gap in almost 25 years. About 44% of women ages 18-29 identified as liberal in 2021 compared to just 25% of men, according to Gallup Poll data. Those numbers show a sharp increase for women over the last four years as only 35% of women identified as liberal-leaning in 2018. Young men have remained somewhat steady over the last few years, experiencing a decline in the number of men who identified as liberal from 2016 to 2019, according to the data. However, that number experienced a spike in 2020 when about 27% identified as liberal-leaning, falling again to 25% in 2021. 7:28 AM Oct 6, 2022 Republicans hold historic lead in midterm polling Voters are more likely to say they believe Republicans are better equipped to handle the issue they are most concerned with regardless of whatever that issue may be, according to a new Gallup poll. The Gallup poll asks voters to submit whatever issue they consider to be most important, leaving the question open-ended rather than multiple choice or from a list of options. Almost half (48%) of voters said they believe the Republican Party is more prepared to address those concerns, compared to 37% who said the same about Democrats. That polling gives Republicans an 11-percentage-point lead, its biggest lead since 1946. 7:00 AM Oct 6, 2022 Oz appears on Fox Business Dr. Mehmet Oz appeared on Fox Business to discuss his Senate race in Pennsylvania against John Fetterman. “I’m very confident,” the GOP candidate said of his campaign when asked by host Larry Kudlow, who noted that the latest polls show the candidates “about even.” 6:24 AM Oct 6, 2022 Charlie Crist appears for MSNBC interview Charlie Crist, the Democratic challenger to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, appeared for an MSNBC interview. 5:51 AM Oct 6, 2022 Former Florida GOP chairman endorses Democrat in race for Congress Former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Al Cardenas endorsed Democrat Annette Taddeo in her campaign for Florida’s 27th Congressional District. Taddeo is seeking to unseat incumbent Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), whose district is in Miami-Dade County. October surprise Whoa – Former Republican Party of Florida Chair Al Cardenas is endorsing Democrat Annette Taddeo in the race for Miami-Dade Congress D27… one of the most watched in the nation. He announced it at this gathering @WPLGLocal10 pic.twitter.com/rWWae5JHd8 — Glenna Milberg (@GlennaWPLG) October 5, 2022 5:15 AM Oct 6, 2022 Oops: Florida state representative says she didn’t approve endorsement A state representative in Florida said she did not sign off an a mailer with an endorsement for a county commissioner. Democratic state Rep. Allison Tant told WFSU she was in for a surprise when she got a flyer in the mail that featured her embracing the reelection campaign of Leon County Commissioner Nick Maddox. “Nick is a trusted leader with a heart for service, and he will continue to serve Leon County well!” Tant is quoted as saying, along with a photo of her. “Nick is a longtime friend,” Tant said in a text to the news outlet. “I told him I wasn’t doing big endorsements, but if there was a small way to help, I’d look at it. But I never heard back.” Sean Pittman, an ally to Maddox, attributed the mistake to “human error and miscommunication,” per the report. 4:40 AM Oct 6, 2022 ‘Los Angeles Times’ endorses Katie Porter The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times endorsed Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), urging Orange County voters to reelect her. The endorsement, published Wednesday, said Porter “has proved to be an effective consumer advocate with a knack for grilling corporate executives and government officials — and an unusual method of conveying information.” She is facing Republican candidate Scott Baugh in the November election. 4:33 AM Oct 6, 2022 One poll shows Kemp with slim lead over Abrams A new poll showed Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) holding a slim lead over Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams. The survey, conducted by 11Alive, showed Kemp leading 47%-45%, which is a minimal change from the same poll conducted in July showing him ahead 45%-44%. Generally, according to RealClearPolitics’s aggregate, polls have shown Kemp with an even larger lead over Abrams, particularly as time has gone on, and the midterm elections are now about one month away. This year’s race is a rematch of their 2018 gubernatorial faceoff. 4:01 AM Oct 6, 2022 Charlie Crist says climate change ‘exacerbated’ Hurricane Ian Charlie Crist, the Democratic nominee for governor of Florida, appeared on MSNBC and spoke about climate change on the same day President Joe Biden met with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to survey the devastation left by Hurricane Ian. “Climate change is real. It is a present danger to us. It exacerbated the effect of Hurricane Ian,” he said. Crist, a former governor of the state, made the comment after host Joy Reid said DeSantis and his GOP predecessor Rick Scott “have seemed” not to care about taking action to mitigate the power of hurricanes. 3:32 AM Oct 6, 2022 Liz Cheney goes after election deniers in Arizona Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) urged voters not to support GOP candidates in Arizona who have denied the 2020 election results during an event in the state on Wednesday. “If you care about democracy and you care about the survival of our republic, you need to understand — we all have to understand — that we cannot give people power who have told us that they will not honor elections,” she said, according to tweets from reporters. Tonight in Arizona, @Liz_Cheney addresses the @McCainInstitute: “If you care about democracy, and you care about the survival of our republic, you need to understand–we all have to understand–that we cannot give people power who have told us that they will not honor elections.” — Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) October 5, 2022 3:00 AM Oct 6, 2022 Rep. Mayra Flores talks about ‘why Democrats are losing ground with Latino voters’ Rep. Mayra Flores (R-TX) appeared on Fox News, which said she spoke about “why Democrats are losing ground with Latino voters as President Biden still refuses to visit the southern border.” 2:30 AM Oct 6, 2022 Blake Masters appears for Fox interview Arizona Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters appeared on Fox News to talk about his race against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) as well as inflation and the border. 2:00 AM Oct 6, 2022 Poll shows Sununu and Hassan with edge in New Hampshire races A new poll indicated that incumbents in New Hampshire have an edge over their opponents, with Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) and Sen. Maggi...

GOP Optimistic About Senate Chances Despite Walker Turmoil https://digitalalaskanews.com/gop-optimistic-about-senate-chances-despite-walker-turmoil-2/ VOL. 46 | NO. 40 | Friday, October 7, 2022 By Steve Peoples | AP National Politics Writer Updated 6:50AM NEW YORK (AP) — Leading Republicans are entering the final month of the midterm campaign increasingly optimistic that a Senate majority is within reach even as a dramatic family fight in Georgia clouds one of the party’s biggest pickup opportunities. And as some Democrats crow on social media about apparent Republican setbacks, party strategists privately concede that their own shortcomings may not be outweighed by the GOP’s mounting challenges. The evolving outlook is tied to a blunt reality: Democrats have virtually no margin for error as they confront the weight of history, widespread economic concerns and President Joe Biden’s weak standing. There is broad agreement among both parties that the Democrats’ summertime momentum across states like Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin has eroded just five weeks before Election Day. “There’s reason to be apprehensive, not reason to be gloomy,” veteran Democratic strategist James Carville said. “It looked like at the end of August we had a little momentum. I don’t know if we’ve regressed any, but we’re not progressing in many places.” That tepid outlook comes even as Republicans confront a series of self-imposed setbacks in the states that matter most in the 2022 midterms, which will decide the balance of power in Congress and statehouses across the nation. None has been more glaring than Herschel Walker’s struggles in Georgia, where the Republican Senate candidate’s own son accused him of lying about his personal challenges — including a report from The Daily Beast alleging that the anti-abortion Walker paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009. Walker called the accusation a “flat-out lie” and said he would sue. Walker had not taken legal action as of late Tuesday, but he repeated his denials Wednesday morning during a Fox News interview, even as he talked generally of a difficult past as a husband and father. Shown an image of the “get well” card the Daily Beast reported that he sent to the girlfriend — which was signed with an “H,” not his full signature — Walker said, he doesn’t sign cards with just an initial. The Republican establishment, including the Sen. Mitch McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund, and former President Donald Trump himself remained staunchly behind Walker on Tuesday in his bid to oust first-term Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. A Walker campaign adviser said the candidate has raised at least $500,000 since he first responded publicly to The Daily Beast report. “If you’re in a fight, people will come to your aid,” said Steven Law, head of the Senate Leadership Fund and a close ally of McConnell, R-Ky. Law said the Georgia race had grown increasingly competitive despite the Democrats’ focus on Walker’s personal life. And looking beyond Georgia, Law said the political climate was predictably shifting against the party that controls the White House, as is typically the case in midterm elections. “It certainly seems that voters are returning to a more traditional midterm frame of mind,” Law said. Should Republicans gain even one Senate seat in November, they would take control of Congress’ upper chamber — and with it, the power to control judicial nominations and policy debates for the last two years of Biden’s term. Leaders in both parties believe Republicans are likely to take over the House. Even facing such odds, it’s far too soon to predict a Republican-controlled Congress. Democrats remain decidedly on offense and are spending heavily to try to flip Republican-held seats in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina. Voter opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision this summer to strip women of their constitutional right to an abortion has energized the Democratic base and led to a surge in female voter registrations. Republicans are most focused on Democratic incumbents in Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Nevada, although Republican officials believe that underwhelming Trump-backed nominees in Arizona and New Hampshire have dampened the party’s pickup opportunities. “The Republican candidates they’re running are too extreme,” said J.B. Poersch, who leads the pro-Democrat Senate Majority PAC. “I think this is still advantage Democrats.” Meanwhile, conditions in the top battleground states are rapidly evolving. In Pennsylvania, Republican Senate nominee Mehmet Oz faced difficult new questions this week raised by a Washington Post article about the medical products he endorsed as a daytime television star. Another news report by the news site Jezebel detailing how his research caused hundreds of dogs to be killed rippled across social media. Still, Democratic officials acknowledge the race tightened considerably as the calendar shifted to October. And while there is disagreement within the White House, some officials there are concerned about Democratic nominee John Fetterman’s stamina as he recovers from a May stroke. “Senate Republicans had a very bad start to October, but we know each of our races will be tight and we’re going to keep taking nothing for granted,” said Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, who leads the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm. The GOP Senate candidates’ latest challenges in Georgia and Pennsylvania dominated social media Monday and Tuesday, according to data compiled by GQR, a public opinion research firm that works with Democratic organizations. News stories about Walker’s abortion accuser and Oz’s animal research had the first- and second-highest reach of any news stories on Facebook and Twitter since they surfaced Monday, topping content related to the television show “Sons of Anarchy,” another report about Planned Parenthood mobile abortion clinics and news about Kanye West. GQR used the social listening tool NewsWhip, which tracks over 500,000 websites in more than 100 languages roughly in real time. In swing-state Nevada, the rhetoric from Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto has become increasingly urgent in recent days as she fends off a fierce challenge from former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt. Within the White House, there is real fear that she could lose her reelection bid, giving Republicans the only seat they may need to claim the Senate majority. “We have a big problem, friend,” Cortez Masto wrote in a fundraising appeal Tuesday. “Experts say that our race in Nevada could decide Senate control — and right now, polling shows me 1 point behind my Trump-endorsed opponent.” Democrats and their allies continue to hope that backlash against the Supreme Court’s abortion decision will help them overcome historical trends in which the party controlling the White House almost always loses seats in Congress. Democrats, who control Washington, are also facing deep voter pessimism about the direction of the country and Biden’s relatively weak approval ratings. The traditional rules of politics have often been broken in the Trump era. In past years, Republicans may have abandoned Walker. But on Tuesday, they linked arms behind him. Law, of the Senate Leadership Fund, said he takes Walker at his word that he did not pay for a former girlfriend’s abortion, despite apparent evidence of a “Get Well” card with Walker’s signature and a check receipt. He said voters believe that “Walker may have made mistakes in his personal life that affected him and his family, but Warnock has made mistakes in public life in Washington that affected them and their families.” There were some signs of Republican concern on the ground in Georgia, however. Martha Zoller, a popular Republican radio host in north Georgia and one-time congressional candidate, told her audience Tuesday that the latest allegations require Walker to reset his campaign with a straightforward admission about his “personal demons” and what he’s done to overcome them. “He needs to fall on the sword. ‘I was a dog. … And I have asked forgiveness for it,'” she said, detailing the kind of message she believes Walker must give voters. “It would be so refreshing to have somebody just tell the truth.” Walker attempted his version of that strategy Wednesday on Fox News. “It’s like they’re trying to bring up my past to hurt me,” he said, before quoting Christian New Testament text. “I’m a sinner. We all sin before the glory of God.” Yet Walker insisted his past transgressions don’t include encouraging and paying for an abortion. “Everyone is anonymous, and everyone is leaking, and they want you to confess to something you have no clue about,” he said. Veteran Democratic strategist Josh Schwerin warned his party against writing off the Georgia Republican. “I wouldn’t say Walker is done. Over the last couple of cycles we’ve certainly seen Republican candidates survive things that are not supposed to be survivable,” Schwerin said. “There are a lot of close races, and the dynamics of this election are difficult to predict. Everybody is expecting multiple shifts in momentum between now and Election Day.” ___ Associated Press writers Zeke Miller in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report. Read More Here

Trump Tells Miami Audience That Immigration Policies Are Driving Latinos To The Right https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-tells-miami-audience-that-immigration-policies-are-driving-latinos-to-the-right/ MIAMI — With about a month left until Election Day, former President Donald Trump touted his administration’s accomplishments as he courted a crowd of conservative Latinos in Miami, home to a growing community of Republican Hispanic supporters in Florida. During his nearly hour-long keynote speech at the America First Policy Institute’s Hispanic Leadership Conference, Trump — who isn’t on the ballot but is expected to run for president in 2024 — slammed President Joe Biden’s immigration policies and inflation, while emphasizing his support among Latinos. In 2020, Trump’s support among Hispanic voters in South Florida buoyed his numbers throughout Miami-Dade County and ultimately helped him win comfortably in the state. Since then, Florida Republicans — with some financial backing from Gov. Ron DeSantis — have doubled down on those gains statewide and surpassed Democrats in voter registration numbers for the first time in recent Florida history. The party now has a greater than 1% advantage over Democrats among registered voters in Florida, according to a Miami Herald analysis of state voter data. In majority-Hispanic Miami-Dade County, Democrats have lost over 1,500 voters since 2018, while Republicans have gained over 3,300 new party members. “It’s just a great community … I know it’s going more and more for Trump, but I think it’s gotten more and more for the Republican Party,” said Trump, who spoke Wednesday afternoon at the InterContinental Hotel in downtown Miami. “And they should be, actually, when you look at what’s happened,” he added. Between tangents about the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago home and foreign policy, Trump said his own hardline immigration policies — namely, building a wall all along the southern U.S. border — are widely supported by Hispanic voters. “One of the worst lies of the radical left is that Hispanic Americans want open borders. See, when I ran, I was talking about a wall,” Trump said. “But what they said is, ‘Oh, you’re going to lose the Hispanic-American vote.’ I said, but I have to do what’s right. And it was just the opposite. … And we had the best numbers ever.” The two-day Hispanic Leadership Conference event, which featured panels on building out support in Hispanic communities across the country, was co-hosted by Bienvenido and Hispanic Impact Panel. Cuban-American Republican lawmakers from South Florida, including U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Gimenez, were also in attendance. “Hispanics are rallying to our cause for a simple reason, because you love America and you believe in America. And you know that the time has come to stand up and defend America and everything it stands for,” Trump said during his Wednesday speech. A few hours away from Trump’s speech, on the west coast of the state, Biden was also in Florida surveying the damage left behind by Hurricane Ian and pledging federal support during a meeting with DeSantis. The two leaders — who’ve often sparred over political differences, including immigration — held an amicable meeting and praised each other’s responses. Get insights into Florida politics Subscribe to our free Buzz newsletter Political editor Emily L. Mahoney will send you a rundown on local, state and national politics coverage every Thursday. You’re all signed up! Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started. Explore all your options During his speech, Trump expressed his sympathies for the victims who were affected by Ian’s landfall in the state. He went on to praise Hispanic communities for their contributions in the U.S. “There is no city that Hispanic Americans have not made better. And there is no part of America that has not been uplifted by Hispanic Americans, and not made greater. The Hispanic community is a blessing to our nation,” Trump said. Read More Here

Analysis: North Korean Missile Launches Are A Test For Biden https://digitalalaskanews.com/analysis-north-korean-missile-launches-are-a-test-for-biden/ North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walks near an intercontinental ballistic missile in this undated photo released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, March 24, 2022. (KCNA) TOKYO — A drumbeat of increasingly powerful North Korean missile launches. A U.S. aircraft carrier floats off the Korean Peninsula. North Korean warplanes buzz the border with South Korea. Worldwide cries of condemnation and worry. It’s a pattern that has repeated many times over the years, and, as in the past, there are plenty of signs in the latest cycle that point to North Korea eventually testing a nuclear bomb. Yes, this is part of North Korea’s dogged march toward building a viable arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles able to target any city on the U.S. mainland. But the nation’s extraordinary run of missile tests this year — its most ever — is also meant to grab the attention of an important, and decidedly distracted, audience of one: Joe Biden. Washington has responded to the missiles with tough statements and weapons launches of its own in military drills with ally Seoul. So far, however, there’s been little indication that the Biden administration will — or even can — pursue the messy, politically dangerous diplomacy needed to peacefully solve a problem that has bedeviled U.S. presidents for decades. Thursday’s launches, believed to be two short-range ballistic missiles, were North Korea’s sixth round in less than two weeks. On Tuesday, Pyongyang staged its longest-ever launch, sending a missile capable of hitting U.S. military concerns on Guam flying over U.S. ally Japan and into the Pacific. Later Thursday, North Korea flew 12 warplanes near the Korean border, the world’s most heavily armed, prompting South Korea to launch 30 military planes in response. President Joe Biden listens to doctors speak during a meeting in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022. (Susan Walsh/AP) North Korea is a small, impoverished, widely shunned nation sandwiched between great powers, but it has built, against great odds, its atomic weapons program through tenacity, shrewd political maneuvering and cutthroat persistence. Each North Korean weapons test does at least three things at once. It allows Kim Jong Un to show his people that he’s a strong leader capable of standing up to foreign aggressors. His scientists can work on solving the technological issues still holding back the weapons program, including miniaturizing warheads so they fit on an array of missiles and making sure the long-range missiles can smoothly reenter the Earth’s atmosphere. And, perhaps most important, each test sends a clear message that despite all the many problems the Biden administration faces — the war in Ukraine; increasing Chinese aggression; a shaky economy at home — Washington must deal with North Korea as it is. Meaning, a nation that, after many years of striving, is on the edge of being a legitimate nuclear power, and not one that has shown any recent signs of being willing to abandon its nuclear weapons. Long-term, Kim likely wants U.S. recognition that North Korea is a full nuclear state. Negotiations could then arrange a North Korean roll-back of parts of its weapons program in return for lifting crippling international sanctions and eventually signing a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War. Further down the road, North Korea wants the nearly 30,000 U.S. forces in South Korea to leave, opening the way for its eventual control of the peninsula. In the short term, Pyongyang has maintained that talks can’t happen unless Washington abandons its “hostility.” Presumably, this means economic sanctions, the presence of those U.S. troops and their annual military drills with South Korean soldiers that the North sees as invasion preparation. It is unclear, however, how patient Kim can afford to be. The North’s economy, never great, appears to be worse than at any time in Kim’s rule, after three years of some of the tightest border controls in the world during the pandemic, crushing sanctions, natural disasters and government mismanagement. Its weapons tests may be a move to force more favorable conditions in future talks. Something similar happened after a sequence of long-range missile and nuclear tests during the Trump administration that had many fearing war. Then-President Donald Trump speaks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the North Korean side of the Joint Security Area in the Demilitarized Zone, June 30, 2019. (KCNA) Donald Trump staged face-to-face summits with Kim in 2018-19 aimed at convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear program in return for economic and political benefits. These ultimately failed, with North Korea refusing to go far enough in its disarmament pledges. After taking office last year, Biden signaled a rejection of both Trump’s personal diplomacy with Kim and Barack Obama’s more hands-off “strategic patience” policy, in favor of a more incremental approach, where the North gave up parts of its program in return for benefits and sanctions relief. The goal, however, remained the same: North Korea’s total denuclearization. A growing number of analysts believe that this might now be impossible, as Kim likely sees a completed nuclear weapons program as his sole guarantee for regime survival. In the meantime, confrontation rules the day. For the second time in two weeks Washington has sent the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier to waters east of South Korea, a move North Korea called “a serious threat to the stability of the situation on the Korean Peninsula.” The United States and South Korea responded this week to the missiles with their own land-to-land ballistic missiles and precision-guided bombs dropped from fighter jets. As the Biden administration considers next steps, it is closely watching how North Korea’s weapons tests influence its allies in Northeast Asia. When the North fired its midrange missile over Japan on Tuesday, there were moments of panic as sirens alerted residents in northern Japan to evacuate, train service stopped and newspapers put out special editions. In South Korea, whose capital Seoul is about an hour’s drive from the inter-Korean border, each progression in the North’s nuclear program raises doubts about Washington’s pledge of nuclear protection, leading to calls for an indigenous nuclear program. The question for some in Seoul is: If North Korea threatens to hit U.S. cities with its nuclear-armed missiles, will Washington really step in should Pyongyang attack? Looking ahead, then, expect more missile tests — and, possibly, just in time for crucial U.S. midterm elections in November, a nuclear explosion — as North Korea continues to maneuver in its long face-off with Washington and its allies. Foster Klug, AP’s news director for the Koreas, Japan, Australia and the South Pacific, has covered North Korea — from Washington, Seoul and Pyongyang — since 2005. Read More Here

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IMSD Fall Food Fair Part 1: Countries A-K – Fort Leavenworth Lamp https://digitalalaskanews.com/imsd-fall-food-fair-part-1-countries-a-k-fort-leavenworth-lamp/ Greater Kansas City People to People sponsors, Command and General Staff College international military students and their families fill their plates along long tables filled with dishes from the United States and abroad during the International Military Student Division Fall Food Fair Sept. 30 in the Hearth Room of the Frontier Conference Center. Photo by Charlotte Richter/Fort Leavenworth Lamp Read More Here

Forecasters Track Disturbance, Depression https://digitalalaskanews.com/forecasters-track-disturbance-depression/ SHORT. THIS MORNING, WE ARE ONCE AGAIN TREKKING THE TROPICS. SHELDON: WE METEOROLOGIST KELLIANNE KLASS HAS BEEN MONITORING THAT SYSTEM IN THE CARIBBEAN. WHERE IS IT HEADED? KELLIANNE: THERE ARE TWO THAT WE ARE WATCHING. WE HAVE TROPICAL DEPRESSION 12 AND INVEST 91-L THAT IS EXPECTED TO MOVE WESTWARD. HAPPY TO SAY, NONE OF THESE SYSTEMS ARE GOING TO IMPACT CENTRAL FLORIDA. IT IS JUST A GOOD REMINDER THAT WE ARE NOT DONE WITH HURRICANE SEASON JUST YET. TROPICAL DEPRESSION 12 IN THE EASTERN ATLANTIC IS EXPECTED TO BECOME A REMNANT LOW LATER ON TODAY, NOT LOOKING LIKELY THAT IT WILL BE NAMED. THEN, WE HAVE INVEST 91. IT COULD BE OUR NEXT TROPICAL DEPRESSION IN THE NEXT DAY OR SO, AS IT CONTINUES THAT WESTWARD TREK. IT LOOKS LIKE IT WILL CLIP THE NORTHERN PORTIONS OF SOUTH AMERICA AND CONTINUE ON ITS WESTWARD JOURNEY THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN AND INTO CENTRAL AMERICA. IT GETS NAMED, IT WOULD BE JULIA, BUT IT HAS TO BECOME A TROPICAL STORM OR HIGHER TO GET A NAME. BACK AT HOME, WE WI Forecasters track disturbance, depression As Florida still reels from Hurricane Ian, forecasters are keeping an eye on two activity spots in the Atlantic Ocean.As of Thursday morning, Tropical Depression 12 was about 635 miles west of the Cabo Verde islands. The storm had winds of 35 mph and was moving west-northwest at 13 mph.”Slow weakening is forecast, and the depression is expected to become a remnant low on Thursday,” the National Hurricane Center said.A second disturbance is brewing over the far southeastern Caribbean Sea, and the NHC gives the system an 80% chance of formation in 48 hours and a 90% chance of formation in five days.”While land interaction with the northern coast of South America may hinder significant development during the next day or so, environmental conditions are expected to be mostly conducive for development as the system moves generally westward, and a tropical depression is likely to form in the next couple of days by the time the system enters the south-central Caribbean Sea,” the NHC said.Neither of these systems are expected to impact Florida.KNOW WHAT TO DO WHEN A HURRICANE WATCH IS ISSUEDStay tuned to WESH 2 News, WESH.COM, or NOAA Weather Radio for storm updates.Prepare to bring inside any lawn furniture, outdoor decorations or ornaments, trash cans, hanging plants, and anything else that can be picked up by the wind.Understand hurricane forecast models and cones.Prepare to cover all windows of your home. If shutters have not been installed, use precut plywood.Check batteries and stock up on canned food, first-aid supplies, drinking water, and medications.The WESH 2 First Warning Weather Team recommends you have these items ready before the storm strikes.Bottled water: One gallon of water per person per dayCanned food and soup, such as beans and chiliCan opener for the cans without the easy-open lidsAssemble a first-aid kitTwo weeks’ worth of prescription medicationsBaby/children’s needs, such as formula and diapersFlashlight and batteriesBattery-operated weather radioWHAT TO DO WHEN A HURRICANE WARNING IS ISSUEDListen to the advice of local officials. If you are advised to evacuate, leave.Complete preparation activities.If you are not advised to evacuate, stay indoors, away from windows.Be alert for tornadoes. Tornadoes can happen during a hurricane and after it passes over. Remain indoors, in the center of your home, in a closet or bathroom without windows.HOW YOUR SMARTPHONE CAN HELP DURING A HURRICANEA smartphone can be your best friend in a hurricane — with the right websites and apps, you can turn it into a powerful tool for guiding you through a storm’s approach, arrival and aftermath.Download the WESH 2 News app for iOS | AndroidEnable emergency alerts — if you have an iPhone, select settings, then go into notifications. From there, look for government alerts and enable emergency alerts.If you have an Android phone, from the home page of the app, scroll to the right along the bottom and click on “settings.” On the settings menu, click on “severe weather alerts.” From the menu, select from most severe, moderate-severe, or all alerts.PET AND ANIMAL SAFETYYour pet should be a part of your family plan. If you must evacuate, the most important thing you can do to protect your pets is to evacuate them too. Leaving pets behind, even if you try to create a safe space for them, could result in injury or death.Contact hotels and motels outside of your immediate area to see if they take pets.Ask friends, relatives and others outside of the affected area whether they could shelter your animal. ORLANDO, Fla. — As Florida still reels from Hurricane Ian, forecasters are keeping an eye on two activity spots in the Atlantic Ocean. As of Thursday morning, Tropical Depression 12 was about 635 miles west of the Cabo Verde islands. The storm had winds of 35 mph and was moving west-northwest at 13 mph. “Slow weakening is forecast, and the depression is expected to become a remnant low on Thursday,” the National Hurricane Center said. A second disturbance is brewing over the far southeastern Caribbean Sea, and the NHC gives the system an 80% chance of formation in 48 hours and a 90% chance of formation in five days. “While land interaction with the northern coast of South America may hinder significant development during the next day or so, environmental conditions are expected to be mostly conducive for development as the system moves generally westward, and a tropical depression is likely to form in the next couple of days by the time the system enters the south-central Caribbean Sea,” the NHC said. Neither of these systems are expected to impact Florida. This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. KNOW WHAT TO DO WHEN A HURRICANE WATCH IS ISSUED Stay tuned to WESH 2 News, WESH.COM, or NOAA Weather Radio for storm updates. Prepare to bring inside any lawn furniture, outdoor decorations or ornaments, trash cans, hanging plants, and anything else that can be picked up by the wind. Understand hurricane forecast models and cones. Prepare to cover all windows of your home. If shutters have not been installed, use precut plywood. Check batteries and stock up on canned food, first-aid supplies, drinking water, and medications. The WESH 2 First Warning Weather Team recommends you have these items ready before the storm strikes. Bottled water: One gallon of water per person per day Canned food and soup, such as beans and chili Can opener for the cans without the easy-open lids Assemble a first-aid kit Two weeks’ worth of prescription medications Baby/children’s needs, such as formula and diapers Flashlight and batteries Battery-operated weather radio WHAT TO DO WHEN A HURRICANE WARNING IS ISSUED Listen to the advice of local officials. If you are advised to evacuate, leave. Complete preparation activities. If you are not advised to evacuate, stay indoors, away from windows. Be alert for tornadoes. Tornadoes can happen during a hurricane and after it passes over. Remain indoors, in the center of your home, in a closet or bathroom without windows. HOW YOUR SMARTPHONE CAN HELP DURING A HURRICANE A smartphone can be your best friend in a hurricane — with the right websites and apps, you can turn it into a powerful tool for guiding you through a storm’s approach, arrival and aftermath. Download the WESH 2 News app for iOS | Android Enable emergency alerts — if you have an iPhone, select settings, then go into notifications. From there, look for government alerts and enable emergency alerts. If you have an Android phone, from the home page of the app, scroll to the right along the bottom and click on “settings.” On the settings menu, click on “severe weather alerts.” From the menu, select from most severe, moderate-severe, or all alerts. PET AND ANIMAL SAFETY Your pet should be a part of your family plan. If you must evacuate, the most important thing you can do to protect your pets is to evacuate them too. Leaving pets behind, even if you try to create a safe space for them, could result in injury or death. Contact hotels and motels outside of your immediate area to see if they take pets. Ask friends, relatives and others outside of the affected area whether they could shelter your animal. Read More Here

Peloton To Cut 500 More Jobs In Last Bid For Turnaround https://digitalalaskanews.com/peloton-to-cut-500-more-jobs-in-last-bid-for-turnaround/ Peloton has been on a wild ride, announcing its CEO was stepping down and thousands of jobs would be cut, despite seeing a surge in sales early in the pandemic. Here’s why Peloton became a viral success, and why it is spinning out now. Photo illustration: Jacob Reynolds Peloton Interactive said it plans to cut about 500 jobs, roughly 12% of its remaining workforce, in the company’s fourth round of layoffs this year as the connected fitness-equipment maker tries to reverse mounting losses. Chief Executive Barry McCarthy, who took over in February, said he is giving the unprofitable company about another six months to significantly turn itself around and, if that fails, Peloton likely isn’t viable as a stand-alone company.  Read More Here

House GOP Amps Up Talk About Impeaching Biden's Border Chief, Posing A Test For McCarthy | News Channel 3-12 https://digitalalaskanews.com/house-gop-amps-up-talk-about-impeaching-bidens-border-chief-posing-a-test-for-mccarthy-news-channel-3-12/ By Melanie Zanona and Manu Raju, CNN House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy will be swiftly confronted in a Republican majority with a politically dicey proposition gaining steam within his conference: Launching impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden’s top official in charge of the southern border. Senior Republicans and a number of McCarthy allies are signaling little appetite — for now — in immediately impeaching Biden himself, despite the push among a handful of far-right Republicans seeking to remove the sitting President from office if their party takes the House in next month’s midterms. But more than a dozen of former President Donald Trump’s top congressional allies — and several Republicans close to the leadership — told CNN that the focus instead should be on targeting Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and that a new GOP majority should hold impeachment proceedings over the problems at the border. Senior GOP sources close to leadership say it’s a matter of when — not if — House Republicans initiate an impeachment inquiry and that Mayorkas has become their No. 1 target, with their base itching for revenge after Trump’s two impeachments. Impeaching a Cabinet official has only happened once in US history, and the issue would become moot if Mayorkas were to resign. But talk of impeaching Mayorkas already has prompted internal pushback among some veteran Republicans who are skeptical that their policy disputes with the Cabinet secretary meet the bar of charging him with committing “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Yet as they have railed over the migrant crisis in their push to regain the House, a number of leading Republicans fully endorse the idea and acknowledge it’s one that McCarthy will have to deal with if he wins the speakership following the midterms. “Mayorkas deserves (impeachment) for sure, because we no longer have a border,” said Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a McCarthy ally who is in line to chair the powerful House Judiciary Committee, which oversees impeachment proceedings. But while Jordan personally supports the idea, he believes it will be “a conference decision,” saying, “I think we’ll all sit down. Kevin is open to sitting down and figuring out what we do.” Added Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a freshman GOP firebrand who has already endorsed impeachment articles for both Biden and Mayorkas: “Secretary Mayorkas should be a priority. Joe Biden’s his own demise.” Yet McCarthy must also contend with a larger yet less vocal group of moderate and mainstream Republicans, who are wary of the potential political blowback over such a move and warning their colleagues not to weaponize the most powerful oversight tool at their disposal. GOP Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas said Republicans “should focus on policy” and “leave some of the other more emotional topics for another day.” “The risk is if people lose faith in the ability of Congress to even do its basic function,” Womack said of voter blowback for impeaching Mayorkas. “The people that I talk to from all stripes tell me they want a Congress that works — not a Congress that is preoccupied with kind of revenge-type agendas. Because then a lot of other things (that) need to happen don’t get to happen. And then that hurts the country.” So far, McCarthy has carefully sidestepped impeachment questions, insisting Republicans are not going to pre-determine the outcome but are willing to go wherever the facts and the law lead them. Yet McCarthy has not shut the door on the idea either, particularly when it comes to Mayorkas. And when pressed by CNN on whether Mayorkas is vulnerable to impeachment in a GOP-led House, he replied: “What happens at the border is above everything else.” Democrats argue the talk is politically motivated and have instead called for Republicans to revisit immigration legislation that they say would alleviate the influx at the border. Biden’s Homeland Security Department has strongly defended its handling of the migrant crisis at the border, and said Mayorkas is solely focused on his mission at the agency — and has no intention of stepping down. “Secretary Mayorkas is proud to advance the noble mission of this Department, support its extraordinary workforce, and serve our country,” a DHS spokesman said in a statement. “He has no plan to resign.” Inside the strategy shift How McCarthy handles the impeachment drive from his right flank will be a defining moment of his potential speakership. Those calls — while doomed in the Senate — may be difficult, if not impossible, to resist if McCarthy is working with narrow margins in the House, and those demands are only going to grow louder in the immediate aftermath of a potential GOP takeover next month. Some lawmakers think McCarthy may be more amenable to impeaching Mayorkas than Biden, describing it as a release valve for the inevitable pressure from his right. Going after Mayorkas, even if it’s a fruitless endeavor that would almost certainly fail in the Senate, would also force more attention on immigration and the border, two issues that rile up the GOP base and that Republicans are eager to keep in the spotlight. Indeed, part of the reason for the shift in strategy: These Republicans believe they’ll have an easier time convincing McCarthy and their GOP colleagues to go along with impeaching a Biden political appointee versus a President who was elected to his position, a more politically tenable move that still would throw red meat to the base, according to GOP sources familiar with their thinking. And of all the various impeachment articles already filed by House Republicans, the resolution calling for Mayorkas to be removed from his post has by far the most cosponsors, with 31 GOP lawmakers backing the effort thus far — including Rep. Yvette Herrell of New Mexico, who is in a competitive reelection race, and Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, who is poised to take over the conservative Republican Study Committee next year. “There is a greater appetite among Republicans to impeach Mayorkas,” said conservative Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, a member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus. “The reason is, in my opinion, some don’t have the stomach for impeaching Biden or are fearful of the political impact of impeaching Biden. So, (the thinking is) here’s a consolation prize.” Republicans say there’s ground to impeach Mayorkas over allegedly failing to maintain operational control of the border, which they argue caused an influx of fentanyl and illegal immigration, while accusing him of standing in the way of more stringent border controls like constructing Trump’s border wall. One GOP congressman, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, accused Mayorkas of lying to him under oath. The DHS has begun staffing up and taking other steps to prepare for potential investigations and impeachment proceedings in a GOP-led House, according to sources familiar with the situation. But the agency has defended how it has handled the situation at the border, while arguing they’re dealing with a broken immigration system. The Biden administration is still implementing a Trump-era pandemic emergency rule, known as Title 42, that allows authorities to turn away migrants at the US-Mexico border following a court order earlier this year. But that authority has limits, and border officials have been overwhelmed by shifting demographics — many of the migrants are now from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. The department maintains that the border is secure, but the change in people arriving at the US southern border has posed a steep challenge given in part frosty relations that largely bar the US from removing those nationalities. DHS has also noted that more individuals encountered at the border will be removed or expelled this year than any previous year, while the agency has stopped over 10,000 pounds of fentanyl from coming into the country during the first six months of this year, though the majority of fentanyl drug smuggling attempts occur at ports of entry. If Mayorkas were to be impeached, he would join the ranks of William Belknap, the secretary of war, who was the only Cabinet official ever to be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors by the House before being acquitted by the Senate in 1876, according to congressional records. Some Republicans don’t think it would be the right move to have Mayorkas meet the same fate. “I don’t think it’d be a very wise decision, and I don’t think (premature impeachment talk) would be appropriate to engage in,” said veteran Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who is the ranking member of the House Rules Committee. “Even talking about that impeachment right now is irresponsible, because it’s a very serious thing. And it’s gotta be handled seriously.” said moderate Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. “I felt the same way about the previous attempts as well. We have to restore it to what it was always intended to be, which is a last resort.” Republicans setting stage for impeachment inquiry Regardless of whether Republicans end up going the impeachment route, there will be aggressive oversight of Mayorkas in a GOP-led House, as well as fierce funding fights over border security. Of the more than 500 preservation letters that House Republicans have sent to the Biden administration, a substantial chunk of them have been focused on the border, according to sources familiar with all the requests. Republicans are seeking more information from the Department of Homeland Security about who is coming across the border; the status of the border wall; the administration’s plan to stem the flow of fentanyl and other drugs com...

Jim Hurt: Carbon Dioxide Removal Is Profitable Now https://digitalalaskanews.com/jim-hurt-carbon-dioxide-removal-is-profitable-now/ This commentary was written by Jim Hurt of Woodstock. News flash: Enlightened Republicans have been sighted deep in the forest, traveling in dense packs with Bigfoot and other tree huggers who are guiding them gently back into the light. These tired huddled Conservatives are yearning to be free of Trump’s shadow. They actually want to save democracy, climate, forests, economy and Ukraine with a free market, free enterprise, for-profit solution to our CO2 crisis. After six years in the wilderness, they just want to get along to make America great again as it was before Trump divided our country.  To be honest, though, we were hardly “great” before Trump thanks to the history of racism but we had a shot at greatness and may still again after Trump is gone. An intelligent compromise on climate policy can help begin the process of reunion.  Ideally, CO2 reduction at the point of emission should come hand in hand with the active removal of CO2 from the sky simultaneously and profitably. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference known as COP26 say we need to reach net-zero globally by the early 2050s, which is far too slow. Then they say we need to begin carbon dioxide removal from the air as soon as we can.  McKinsey Sustainability, which reviews IPCC papers, put it like this; “The IPCC’s latest report outlines the scale of the challenge, saying that limiting warming to 1.5C translates into around 6 GtCO2 of carbon dioxide removal per year by 2050. To put this into perspective, that is more than all the petroleum produced today, a monumental endeavor.” Indeed, to attain that carbon dioxide removal goal, the world has to reach net-zero emissions long before 2050 or by about 2035.   The new IRA climate law all but reverses the Supreme Court’s backward Environmental Protection Agency’s ruling on power plants just in time. Recent advances in chemistry, agriculture and renewable energy technology now make it profitable to renovate and transform all central plants into negative emission, power and storage stations. Instead of closing coal, gas or wood plants due to age, CO2 and competition from solar and wind, they can be turned into utility-scale, fully renewable, power and storage stations that make clean watts, green hydrogen and synthetic fuels.  Much profit can be had by cultivating hemp biofuels, as Canada is doing, and then reusing CO2 emissions to make synfuels and other products. Solar and wind are zero-emission except for the gas to build them. They do not actively or directly remove CO2 from air. Industrial hemp removes CO2 better than trees via photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide removal can and must be profitable or it will not help save us in time. The EPA now cannot force utilities to shift to solar and wind. Utilities can still make the shift themselves for profit with EPA guidance and Department of Energy support with carbon dioxide removal included. Again, speaking of MAGA, one way to make America great for the first time perhaps is to create green jobs for all kinds of Americans, including immigrants. We mustn’t let these good desperate people get away without exploiting them as future citizens, voters, taxpayers, consumers, workers and community developers. They’re good for gross national product. Immigrants are still the life’s blood of our not-yet-great nation. They, too, deserve a Green New Deal to retrain them as farmers, foresters and firefighters.  Irrigating deserts will help cool the climate significantly and boost food and biofuel crops, i.e. hemp. Hemp is also food for milk and bread. Carbon forests need protection to expand. Besides, except for Native Americans, we are a nation of immigrants and their children after all.  America can be great like never before if we unite with native people and immigrants and all kinds of Americans in support of free and fair elections. Climate justice and civil rights will only come hand in hand. These truths can blow away the dumb rage of Trumpism and Putinism at the ballot box, even if Attorney General Merrick Garland fiddles as Trump burns the clock. Need we ask, what is Garland doing that he might have done a year ago? What about Jan. 6? Adam Schiff wants to know. Isn’t that even more important than secret documents at Mar-a-lago?   Be that as it may, Gov. Phil Scott, the Climate Council and Vermont utilities should now support a profitable carbon dioxide removal plan. CO2 can be reused to make H2, synfuels and other products, i.e. plastic, concrete, fertilizer, graphite, graphene and carbon fiber.  Paving the way, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne reports that a graphene filter lowers the cost of CO2 capture to $30 per ton. SkyNano claims their process is “profitable based on the value of the output product from CO2” — carbon nanotubes. Tax incentives are a trivial bonus.  Moreover, central power and storage that is clean and green can only benefit distributed renewables that, in turn, support electric vehicles and heat pumps. The ever-useful switching yard is key to integrating new inputs, i.e. local solar farms and megawatt-scale storage.  Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Energy is allocating $3.5 billion for direct air capture, even though it is still too expensive. Some DOE money should go to projects that cultivate hemp biofuels to pull CO2 from the sky and then capture their CO2 at the point of emission to make hydrogen and synthetic fuels and feedstocks. Vermont and Vermont utilities should seek DOE support to renovate the state’s wood plants and Vermont Yankee both to reduce CO2 at the point of emission and remove CO2 from the atmosphere at the same time. And that will set a good example to the nation, the world and Joe Biden, too. Did you know VTDigger is a nonprofit? Our journalism is made possible by member donations. If you value what we do, please contribute and help keep this vital resource accessible to all. Read More Here

Comedian Russell Brand: ‘Fascist,’ ‘Nazi’ Just Convenient Terms For ‘people You Don’t Agree With’ https://digitalalaskanews.com/comedian-russell-brand-fascist-nazi-just-convenient-terms-for-people-you-dont-agree-with/ Comedian and commentator Russell Brand roasted Hillary Clinton and other liberals on Tuesday for tarring people they don’t agree with as “Nazis” and “fascists.” In a new YouTube video posted to his channel, Brand spoke about Hillary Clinton’s appearance at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, where she compared a Trump rally in Ohio where his supporters raised index fingers in salute to the Roman salutes at rallies in Nazi Germany.  “Hillary Clinton has called Trump supporters Nazis, but she has declared that she admires that new Italian leader who the left say is a ‘fascist,’ and also ,though, aren’t there Nazis fighting for the Ukraine?” Brand exclaimed. “Is ‘fascist’ just a convenient term to bring down people you don’t agree with?”  He suggested that Clinton and many liberal leaders are comparing their opposition to Nazis insincerely, so they can “disparage them rather than having a genuine concern.” Actor and comedian Russell Brand. (Reuters) WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS SLAMMING HALF OF AMERICA AS ‘SEMI-FASCIST,’ ‘TERRORISTS’ DESPITE BIDEN UNITY PLEDGE Brand noted that despite the fact there are millions of normal people who support Trump, those on the political left will attempt to marginalize them by claiming they subscribe to an extreme ideology that killed millions in the 20th century, “a pretty serious allegation” and “a really heavy thing to call someone.” “There are families where there are Trump supporters and Democrats in the same family,” he noted. “Once you say someone’s a Nazi you know you’re saying ‘We don’t have to deal with you, we don’t have to talk to you, you’re out of the conversation.'” Brand also called out Democrats for funding “MAGA candidates” they tar as extremists because they theorize they would be easier opponents to defeat in elections.  Hillary Clinton discusses President Biden’s ‘MAGA Republicans’ speech on ‘The View,’ September 7, 2022.  (ABC The View) BIDEN SAYS ‘EXTREME’ MAGA PHILOSOPHY IS ‘LIKE-SEMI-FASCISM’: ‘IT’S NOT JUST TRUMP’ “If you want to prevent extremism, what you have to have is a functional democracy, not a democracy where you highlight Trump in order to ensure that your own party, in this case the Democrat Party, can neglect ordinary blue-collar Americans of all hues, colors, and persuasions,” Brand said. “I think using the specter of 20th century fascism in order to avoid confronting the inefficiency of contemporary neoliberalism is the real crime here,” Brand noted. “If you want people not to be drawn to what you regard as extremism then present alternatives and options instead of increasing the social tensions, exacerbating existing cultural conflicts, pretending that Trump is worse than he is.” Former President Donald Trump greets supporters during his Save America rally in Perry, Ga., on Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Ben Gray) (AP) CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Brand slammed the type of liberal leaders and commentators, suggesting they use Trump as a scapegoat to hide their own flaws: “Whether you like Donald Trump or don’t like Donald Trump, comparing him to a Nazi is illegitimate, it’s wrong, and it’s a way of avoiding your own political shortcomings, and that’s the real problem.” Alexander Hall is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Alexander.hall@fox.com. Read More Here

Court Declares DACA Program Illegal, But Leaves Policy Intact For Nearly 600,000 Immigrant https://digitalalaskanews.com/court-declares-daca-program-illegal-but-leaves-policy-intact-for-nearly-600000-immigrant/ A federal appeals court on Wednesday said the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy violates U.S. immigration law, dealing a blow to an Obama-era program that provides deportation protection and work permits to nearly 600,000 immigrant “Dreamers” who lack legal status. A three-judge panel for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded the Obama administration did not have the legal authority to create DACA in 2012, affirming a July 2021 ruling from a federal judge in Texas who barred the Biden administration from enrolling new immigrants in the decade-old program. Despite its conclusion, the appeals court did not order the Biden administration to shut down DACA completely or stop processing renewal applications, deciding instead to leave in place an order from U.S. Judge Andrew Hanen that left the policy intact for current beneficiaries. The government, however, will continue to be prohibited from approving first-time DACA applications.   The appeals court sent the case back to Hanen, tasking him with reviewing regulations that the Biden administration unveiled in August to address the legal challenges over the Obama administration’s decision to create DACA through a memo, instead of a rule open to public comments. The regulations are currently slated to go into effect on October 31.  The Justice Department, which represents the federal government in lawsuits, said it disagreed with the ruling and vowed to “vigorously defend the lawfulness of DACA as this case proceeds.” The Biden administration is likely to file a formal appeal, paving the way for the conservative-leaning high court to issue a final decision on DACA’s legality next year. In a statement issued late Wednesday night, President Biden said he’s “disappointed.” “The court’s stay provides a temporary reprieve for DACA recipients but one thing remains clear: the lives of Dreamers remain in limbo,” he said, adding, “it is long past time for Congress to pass permanent protections for Dreamers, including a pathway to citizenship.”  Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said he was “deeply disappointed” by Wednesday’s court decision, denouncing the “ongoing uncertainty it creates for families and communities across the country.” He said his department would continue processing DACA renewal cases. “We are currently reviewing the court’s decision and will work with the Department of Justice on an appropriate legal response,” Mayorkas added in his statement. In its ruling Wednesday, the three-judge panel concluded that DACA had the same legal defects as another Obama-era program that would have offered deportation protection to the unauthorized immigrant parents of U.S. citizens and green card holders. The program, known as the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), was blocked in court and was never implemented. “Like DAPA, DACA “is foreclosed by Congress’s careful plan; the program is ‘manifestly contrary to the statute,'” the ruling said. Like Hanen, the Texas judge who declared DACA unlawful last summer, the appeals court expressed sympathy for immigrants currently enrolled in the program in justifying its decision to allow the government to continue accepting renewal applications.   “We also recognize that DACA has had profound significance to recipients and many others in the ten years since its adoption,” the court said. As of June 30, 594,120 immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children were enrolled in DACA, half of whom live in California, Texas and Illinois, according to data published by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that administers the program. Wednesday’s court ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in 2018 by Texas and other Republican-controlled states that have argued DACA was an overreach of the federal government’s immigration powers. While DACA allows beneficiaries to live and work in the U.S. legally without fear of deportation, it does not qualify them for permanent legal status or citizenship. Those enrolled in DACA had to prove they arrived in the U.S. by age 16 and before June 2007, studied in a U.S. school or served in the military, and lacked any serious criminal record.   The court ruling could create a renewed sense of urgency in Congress to pass legislation that places the program’s beneficiaries on path to citizenship, a proposal with robust bipartisan support among lawmakers and the American public. For over two decades, however, proposals to legalize Dreamers have died in Congress amid intense partisan gridlock over other immigration issues. In the current Congress, Democrats would likely need to accept border security measures to secure the necessary number of Republican votes to pass such a legalization bill. Mayorkas on Wednesday urged Congress to “swiftly” take action. “Last month, DHS issued a final rule to preserve and fortify DACA, recognizing that it has transformed the lives of so many Dreamers who have enriched our nation through their contributions,” he said. “It is clear, though, that only the passage of legislation will give full protection and a well-deserved path to citizenship for DACA recipients.” Camilo Montoya-Galvez Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the immigration reporter at CBS News. Based in Washington, he covers immigration policy and politics. Read More Here

Fed Rate Hikes: What Will And Won https://digitalalaskanews.com/fed-rate-hikes-what-will-and-won/ Fed rate hikes have triggered a stock sell-off and heightened the risk of recession. But they also aim to stop rising prices. Which prices could the hikes lower and which prices won’t be affected? The Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes this year have triggered a massive stock market sell-off and significantly increased the risk of recession all in the name of bringing down soaring inflation.  But will it work?  Rising rates increase consumer and business borrowing costs, which reduces demand for products and services broadly, leading suppliers to cut prices or stop raising them. But the immediate effect varies significantly across individual goods and services. “When consumers start to feel those higher interest rates hitting wallets… and when their desire or ability to buy is diminished, you’ll start to see demand ease,” says Katie Thomas, who leads the Kearney Consumer Institute, a think tank that studies consumer behavior.  For instance, some prices, like food, continue to go up, in part, because demand is so strong, said John Cochrane, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. “People are paying those higher prices. If people weren’t paying those higher prices, the prices would go down.”  Hikes and your wallet:: Fed raises interest rates by 0.75% again: Here’s how it will hit your wallet and portfolio What happens when the Fed raises interest rates? Traditionally, higher interest rates have had the most profound effect on big-ticket purchases like houses, cars and appliances that rely heavily on consumer financing, says Laura Veldkamp, a professor of economics and finance at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business.  Where higher interest rates may help lower prices:   Appliances, furniture  The Fed’s actions should help lower the prices of appliances and furniture. Low and middle-income shoppers frequently finance purchases of living room sets or appliances with in-store financing at rates that can range from zero to upward of 30%.  As rates rise, some shoppers are likely to turn to less expensive models or forgo purchases altogether, Veldkamp says.  That softer demand should, at least on the margins, help nudge prices lower. But such impacts can take about two years to play out, Veldkamp says.  Homes  Home prices should continue to decline as a result of the hikes. The housing market already has significantly weakened because of the Fed’s hiking campaign. The average 30-year mortgage rate has shot up to more than 6% from 3.2% in January. That increases the monthly payment on a typical $312,000 mortgage by nearly $500.  A homebuyer’s market?: Home prices decline at rates seen close to a decade ago Inflation Reduction Act of 2022: Answering your common questions about the legislation. Existing home sales are down 20% from a year ago as of August and median home prices are down 6% since reaching a record high in June, according to the National Association of Realtors.  Rent  Rent should go down as the central bank raises borrowing costs. Wages are up almost 7% compared with a year ago, according to the Atlanta Fed’s Wage Growth Tracker. That’s the fastest rise in more than 20 years. That’s allowing producers to pass on more price increases to consumers.   To get inflation under control the Fed needs to slow wage growth, said Omair Sharif, founder of research firm Inflation Insights. The Fed can accomplish that by raising interest rates to a point where it causes employers to slow hiring or lay off workers. That’s already happening in the tech sector.   When hiring demand slows, the wages employers are willing to pay for workers go down and raises are harder to get. Landlords typically base rental rates off renters’ incomes, which is often a requirement to disclose in a rental application. Last year when applicants’ incomes were higher than those in the prior year, landlords knew they could hike rent, Sharif said.   “If they see income going up 4%, they’re not going to raise rent by 6%,” he added.  Also, lower home prices should spur more renters to buy, easing demand and prices in the rental market, said Kathy Bostjancic, U.S. chief economist at Oxford Economics.  For the first time since December 2020, rents across the country fell by 0.1% in August, according to a report from property data company CoStar Group.  Airfares and hotels  Airfares and hotels should go down as rates go up. Since these purchases are discretionary, higher credit card rates, along with higher prices, should prompt many consumers to put off expensive trips until rates and borrowing costs come down, Channel and Thomas say.  Where higher interest rates may not help lower prices:   For the most part, the increase or decrease in supplies of goods is outside the Fed’s control. Yet they’re playing a significant part in boosting prices. For instance, nationwide outbreaks of avian flu, which began in February and continue to spread, are causing farmers to kill flocks of chicken. As a result, a carton of eggs is costing consumers nearly 40% more than a year ago.   Here the Fed’s primary tool, raising interest rates, isn’t going to help.  In Cochrane’s view, lawmakers bear a significant amount of blame for the inflation we’re experiencing as a result of doling out $5 trillion in stimulus aid during the pandemic. The aid, which included stimulus checks and enhanced unemployment benefits, successfully gave consumers an appetite to spend money. But because of supply side problems, producers couldn’t accommodate the spike in demand leading to persistently higher prices, Cochrane argued.   “Congress put the gas pedal on the floor and now they’re asking monetary policy to pull on the parking brake. That’s an imperfect way to run the economy.”  Cars  Fed rate hikes aren’t likely to help lower the price of cars just yet. New vehicle prices were up 10.1% annually in August, according to the consumer price index. Meanwhile, interest rates on auto loans are the highest in 12 years, according to Bankrate.   But that isn’t deterring consumers from buying cars. Sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers rose by 2.8% in August on a monthly basis, according to retail sales data figures published by the Census Bureau.  Hate car shopping?: Here’s how to navigate the current seller’s market Brace yourself: Winter bills will send shivers up your spine with energy prices set to rise Historically, rate hikes have helped bring down car prices because so many consumers need to borrow money to buy a car, said Jacob Channel, senior economist at LendingTree.    But they’ve had a minimal impact on car prices lately since they’ve been overpowered by the effect of ongoing computer chip shortages which have constrained production and resulted in lower vehicle supplies and higher prices, he said..   Food  Fed rate hikes should have a minimal effect on food prices. Those prices, up 11.4% annually, largely have been propelled higher by supply chain bottlenecks, higher cost of labor, ingredients and fuel, unfavorable weather and Russia’s war in Ukraine, said William Snell, an agriculture economist at the University of Kentucky.  Consumers have already changed their buying habits as a result of high prices, opting for generic brands and fewer organic produce and meat alternatives, Snell said. But these switches aren’t significant enough to bring down prices, he added.  ‘Most expensive crop in decades’: Farmers face higher stakes than ever with inflation Cutting costs wherever possible: How farmers are managing sky-rocketing inflation Many consumers, of course, do pay for groceries by credit card, whose rates are directly affected by Fed rate moves. Yet since food is a necessity, shoppers are unlikely to stop buying bread or milk because their credit card rate rises, Channel says.   Gas  Gas prices won’t be very responsive to Fed hikes. Gasoline prices are mostly determined by oil prices, which are set on a global market, Veldkamp says. Still, Americans have driven less since U.S. gas prices peaked at about $5 in June, helping lower pump prices by about 20%.  Like food, even though consumers often pay for gas with a credit card, rate increases aren’t likely to cause them to cut back on gas, Veldkamp says.  Read More Here

Thailand Shooting: Children Among At Least 34 Killed At Child Care Center, Officials Say | CNN https://digitalalaskanews.com/thailand-shooting-children-among-at-least-34-killed-at-child-care-center-officials-say-cnn/ Bangkok, Thailand CNN  —  At least 22 children were among 34 people killed in a mass shooting at a child care center in northeastern Thailand on Thursday, officials in the country said. Authorities immediately launched a manhunt for the suspected shooter, later identified by Thailand’s Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) as a 34-year-old former policeman who had been involved in an ongoing court case for allegedly selling drugs. The suspect had appeared in court in Nong Bua Lamphu province hours before “opening fire while the kids were sleeping,” according to Maj. Gen. Jirapob Puridet of the CIB. Investigators later confirmed the suspect had killed his wife and child before taking his own life. It is unclear if the shooter and his family are included in the current death toll. The mass shooting took place at the Child Development Center in Nong Bua Lamphu province’s Uthaisawan Na Klang district, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office. “The prime minister has expressed his condolences on the shooting incident,” the statement read. Puridet told CNN the former officer was dismissed from duty and “charged with selling narcotics” last year. Gun ownership in Thailand is relatively high compared with other countries in Southeast Asia. Mass shootings in the country are rare but a 2020 incident saw a soldier kill 29 people in a shooting spree that began at a military site and then sent shoppers hunting for cover after the gunman entered a mall. Read More Here

The Cartel, The Journalist And The Gangland Killings That Rocked The Netherlands https://digitalalaskanews.com/the-cartel-the-journalist-and-the-gangland-killings-that-rocked-the-netherlands/ Towards the end of 2016, four years before one of the Netherlands’ best-known journalists was fatally shot in the middle of Amsterdam, a 30-year-old man named Nabil B was about to upend his life for ever. Nabil was one of five children born to Moroccan parents who emigrated to the Netherlands in the 1970s and settled in Utrecht, a medieval city in the centre of the country. While his siblings all went on to become entrepreneurs and successful businesspeople, Nabil struggled academically. After finishing a metalworking degree, he started selling weed and dabbling in smalltime crime. He was a young man who wanted “a lot”, his best friend from that time later told police. “He had big stories, he loved money.” One night in 2006, Nabil says, he met a man named Ridouan Taghi at a local shisha lounge. Taghi was 29, about 10 years older than Nabil, but the two shared a fondness for chess and family connections to Chefchaouen, a 15th-century Moroccan city whose blue buildings are said to provide divine protection. At the time, Taghi was living between Dubai and Morocco and making a fortune smuggling hash across the strait of Gibraltar and into the coffee shops of Amsterdam and Utrecht. Over the next few years, Taghi, whose nickname was Kleine, or Tiny, would become a rising star in the global cocaine trade. Around 2008, when many South American cartels decided to shift their trafficking operations from the US to Europe, using north-western Africa as a jumping-off point, Taghi was ready to accommodate them. He shipped a fleet of high-powered speedboats to Morocco to scale up deliveries, hired fishermen to receive shipments of cocaine and built out his empire. Taghi is now thought to share control in up to a third of all cocaine trafficking in Europe, and to be personally worth more than €1bn. Soon after they met, Nabil says, Taghi started giving him small jobs in the Netherlands. For the next 10 years, Nabil worked as a lookout for Taghi’s organisation, arranging getaway cars and gathering information about rival gang members, which would then be passed on to the “heads” – that is, professional assassins. While Nabil was at the bottom of the organisation, which the press nicknamed the “Mocro Maffia” because of the Moroccan heritage of some of its members, he had some insight into what was happening at the top through his friendship with Taghi’s right-hand man, Saïd Razzouki. While Taghi denies ever having met him, Nabil later told prosecutors that during his time working for Taghi he witnessed at least 13 murders, several of which he helped arrange. In December 2016, Nabil was assigned to shadow an associate suspected of leaking information to a rival cartel. Taghi, who liked to describe his enemies in flamboyant terms, instructed a colleague that “the dirty whore child … must be taken out”. On 12 January 2017, just before 2am, two men in a black Audi drove to a split-level home in Utrecht’s leafy Overvecht neighbourhood, tasked with doing just that. They fired multiple shots at a man on the porch, killing him instantly. They threw their weapons in a nearby canal and abandoned the Audi about a kilometre from the scene, setting it on fire before they fled. Nabil had provided them with the car. It was only once Nabil woke up the next morning to 10 missed calls that he realised things had gone wrong. Rather than the intended target, the killers had hit Hakim Changachi, the 31-year-old scion of a family alleged to have gangland connections, who happened to live in the same building. It wasn’t only a disastrous case of mistaken identity. For Nabil, it was personal. Changachi had been a childhood friend of his. The Changachis soon learned of Nabil’s involvement in their son’s murder, and reached out to arrange a meeting. Nabil claims Taghi instructed him to blame the killing on a rival gang. Nabil did so, but as he would later tell police, his conscience was weighing on him. “I couldn’t live with that family going through hell while I perpetuated a lie,” he said. He had grown up with Changachi and had attended his wedding. He knew the situation wouldn’t simply go away. He suspected the family knew the truth, and he didn’t trust Taghi to protect him should they decide to retaliate. One way or another, Nabil realised, somebody was going to have him killed. With no good options, on 14 January 2017, Nabil told one of Changachi’s relatives that the murder had been ordered by Taghi. Hours later, he called a police station in central Amsterdam and offered himself up as a witness. It was a decision that would set in motion a series of shocking events: at least 20 arrests, including the capture of one of Europe’s biggest drug kingpins; three killings, including the assassination of one of the nation’s most famous public figures; five years and counting of often chaotic trial proceedings, conducted under previously unseen levels of security. The effect on Dutch society has been profound. Having witnessed all this mayhem, a country that has long prided itself on its tolerance of drugs is now starting to question that approach. Until early 2012, when a crew called the Turtles stole 200kg of cocaine belonging to a rival group from Amsterdam, and inter-gang violence spilled out into the streets of Dutch and Belgian cities, Dutch people had little sense of how deep the country’s organised crime problem went. Over the previous few years, cocaine had become more readily available, but murder rates stayed low – less than 130 a year. Natural disasters such as flooding were considered more immediate threats to public safety than crime. To recoup the losses from the stolen cocaine, rival gang members, disguised as police, kidnapped one of the Turtles and took a photo of the man suspended over a meat grinder. They sent the image to his brothers, who promptly paid the debt – and then declared war. Before long, Amsterdam became the setting for terrifying gangland violence: AK-47s fired at cops, grenades detonated in residential neighbourhoods. By 2018, attacks were no longer limited to people associated with organised crime. When mainstream journalists reported on this, they too were targeted. In just over a single week, a rocket was launched into the office of the tabloid magazine Panorama, and a delivery van was driven into the lobby of the national newspaper De Telegraaf, whereupon the driver set fire to the vehicle and ran off. A low point came on 9 March 2016, when a severed head belonging to a 23-year-old drug runner was left outside a shisha lounge in downtown Amsterdam. The evening that gruesome discovery was made, Peter R De Vries appeared as a guest on a popular TV news panel programme. Then in his mid-50s, De Vries was a familiar and trusted face in the Netherlands. Athletic and squarely handsome with a streak of masculine bravado, he was “the Keith Richards of crime reporters”, as one interviewer put it, the rare journalist with “rock-star status”. Over the years, as his reputation grew, De Vries leaned into the role, giving up his 80s moustache and maths-teacher blazers for leather jackets and black dress shirts. On TV that night, he compared the beheading to the scene in The Godfather where a mafioso leaves a horse’s head in its owner’s bed. Not long before, he noted, the Openbaar Ministerie, or OM – the equivalent of the prosecutor’s office in the US justice department – had issued a triumphant statement announcing that the country had “won” its war on drugs by increasing sentencing for offenders. This, declared De Vries, was crazy, reflecting “a level of naivety [he] had rarely seen before”. Peter R de Vries in June 2021. Photograph: Robin Utrecht/Rex/Shutterstock De Vries had been around long enough to know. He became a household name in the Netherlands in the 80s, when he covered the kidnapping of beer mogul Freddy Heineken as a cub journalist for De Telegraaf. This was the biggest crime story in Dutch history – Heineken was eventually rescued after three weeks in captivity and an £8m ransom was paid – and De Vries parlayed his reporting into a bestselling book and a lifelong friendship with one of the kidnappers. In 1995, he launched his weekly TV show, Peter R de Vries: Crime Reporter, establishing himself as a dogged investigator with a tabloid sensibility and a seemingly inexhaustible work ethic. To generations of viewers raised on the show, De Vries was best known for his investigations of sensational cold cases. In 2006, an American college student, Natalee Holloway, was murdered on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba. Years after most people had accepted that the suspected killer, a young Dutchman, would never be convicted, De Vries shocked more than 7 million viewers by staging an elaborate hidden-camera sting to extract a confession. While the man later claimed he had been lying, the stunt won De Vries an Emmy, and the suspect is currently serving a 28-year sentence for a different murder. Another celebrated De Vries intervention concerned the case of Nicky Verstappen, an 11-year-old boy who was found dead after disappearing from a summer camp in 1998. After the family contacted him, De Vries launched his own investigation, raised money to reward tipsters, publicly berated the police for not doing enough, and elevated Verstappen’s disappearance into one of the highest-profile unsolved crimes in the Netherlands. Two decades later, he encouraged nearly 15,000 men in the area where Verstappen had disappeared to submit to genetic testing, building what would become the largest DNA dragnet in Dutch history. As a result, a man was arrested in Spain, convicted of murdering Verstappen and eventually sentenced to 16 years in prison. The Holloway and Verstappen murders were typical of the kinds of cases De Vries gravitated ...

Biden Visiting Poughkeepsie With IBM Poised To Announce $20B Program; What To Know https://digitalalaskanews.com/biden-visiting-poughkeepsie-with-ibm-poised-to-announce-20b-program-what-to-know/ Journal staff  |  Poughkeepsie Journal IBM is expected to announce a $20 billion initiative when President Joe Biden visits the company’s Poughkeepsie facility Thursday afternoon. Biden’s visit, a rare appearance for a sitting president in Dutchess County, is expected to create traffic congestion for stretches of the late morning and early afternoon in the Town of Poughkeepsie. The president is expected to fly in to Newburgh’s Stewart Air National Guard Base before touring IBM and speaking to the press around 2 p.m. CVA: Most Child Victims Act claims against NY are being dismissed: Why and what’s being done Prisons: NY bans personal packages. Families say they’ll pay the price. Poughkeepsie hotel shooting: Where accused killer of Marist parent was before Courtyard USA TODAY Network reporters and photographers will be with Biden for each step of his visit, providing live updates, photos and video. Here’s what to know: What’s being announced? IBM on Thursday is expected to announce a $20 billion investment over the next decade, in the areas of research and development, semiconductor manufacturing, mainframe technology, artificial intelligence and quantum computing in the Hudson Valley, according to the White House, which noted “good-paying manufacturing jobs” would be created. Details of the program, including the impact on local sites, is expected to be discussed. The Poughkeepsie IBM site is where the z16 mainframe, a product which utilizes artificial intelligence, was tested and is manufactured. IBM also opened up the first Quantum Computation Center in Poughkeepsie in 2019. There are roughly 3,000 employees working at the plant from entry level to engineers. IBM in a statement said it is “deeply honored” to host Biden and is looking “forward to highlighting our commitments to the innovations that advance America’s economy.” Biden is also expected to discuss the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which he signed in August and aims to boost domestic manufacturing of computer chips. Democratic Congressmen Sean Patrick Maloney, 18th, Pat Ryan, 19th, and Paul Tonko, 20th, are expected to be in attendance, as is Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. What can residents expect? State police Trooper Steven Nevel said road closures are expected in both Dutchess and Orange, where Air Force One will land. IBM is located off Route 9 and Spackenkill Road in the Town of Poughkeepsie, and subsequently that’s where heavy traffic delays can be expected between 11 a.m. and late afternoon, state police announced. According to the county, Route 9 between Marist and IBM Road, and in the area of Spackenkill Road near IBM, will be the most impacted areas. What are Biden’s plans? The presidents’ Poughkeepsie visit is part of a full day in the northeast. After leaving Dutchess County, Biden is bound for Red Bank, New Jersey to attend a reception for the Democratic National Committee. He’ll then cap the day at a reception for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in New York City. A spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said Biden planned to depart John F. Kennedy International Airport 9:30 p.m. Thursday. When have presidents visited before? Dutchess County has had several brushes with presidents, including most notably Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was born and is buried in Hyde Park. However, visits from sitting presidents in recent decades have been rare. Bill Clinton made several visits during his presidency, the most recent being May 2000, when he flew in to Dutchess County Airport to deliver a speech at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park. He also surprised staff by taking an impromptu tour. Previously, he held a summit with then-Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin at the FDR property in October 1995. Bill and Hillary Clinton’s daughter Chelsea famously was married in Rhinebeck in 2010. Of course, President Donald Trump owns Trump National Golf Club Hudson Valley in Stormville, and has returned to the property since leaving office, but never made an official visit to Dutchess County while in office. John F. Kennedy was also a frequent visitor to Dutchess, including a 1960 trip as a presidential candidate in which he delivered a historic speech at the Roosevelt estate marking the 25th anniversary of Social Security. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, who attended Vassar College in the Town of Poughkeepsie from 1947 to 1949, attended Eleanor Roosevelt’s funeral in Hyde Park, along with then-Vice President Lyndon Johnson and former presidents Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Read More Here

Obama Accused Netanyahu Of Being A Dictator https://digitalalaskanews.com/obama-accused-netanyahu-of-being-a-dictator/ This from the president that used the IRS and the DOJ to go after his political enemies. (October 6, 2022 / JNS) All of this bad-faith posturing garbage was fairly recent, yet it feels like the narrative of a million years ago. The one where Obama used the IRS and the DOJ to go after his political enemies, where investigators were dispatched over a depiction of him in an outhouse, where he spied on his opponents, including Netanyahu, and befriended Islamist tyrants. And then compared a democratically elected Jewish leader to a dictator. Former U.S. President Barack Obama credited ex-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with fueling the rise of Putinism, alongside other authoritarian leaders, before stepping down from office, newly published quotes reveal. “What I worry about most is, there is a war right now of ideas, more than any hot war, and it is between Putinism — which, by the way, is subscribed to, at some level, by [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan  or Netanyahu or [former Philippines President Rodrigo] Duterte and [former U.S. President Donald] Trump — and a vision of a liberal market-based democracy that has all kinds of flaws and is subject to all kinds of legitimate criticism, but on the other hand is sort of responsible for most of the human progress we’ve seen over the last 50, 75 years,” he told reporters in off-the-record comments first published by Bloomberg. Erdoğan was one of Obama’s great pals. The Islamist terrorized and brutalized his own people, staging a fake coup and then having his thugs sexually assault his political opponents, seize control of the press (without a word of protest from our media) and run a totalitarian state. Subscribe to The JNS Daily Syndicate by email and never miss our top stories Comparing Trump and Netanyahu to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Erdoğan  is particularly ironic coming from a guy who spied on both. Trump and Netanyahu were freely elected leaders. And had Trump acted like Obama, we’d have had DOJ and FBI types entrapping Obama and Clinton associates. Obama’s theory of “Putinism” is a new level of dishonesty. Erdoğan  isn’t copying Putin, he’s following the Islamist plan of the Muslim Brotherhood. But Obama can’t say that. Netanyahu is not a strongman. As a prime minister, he’s fairly weak, and there’s nothing that Obama could point to that’s authoritarian. Netanyahu actually liberalized the Israeli economy significantly. If Obama wants to talk about “a liberal market-based democracy that has all kinds of flaws and is subject to all kinds of legitimate criticism,” Israel has that. Under Obama, it began to disappear in the United States as socialism was imposed and speech was suppressed. But notice how Obama emphasized “legitimate criticism.” Legitimate criticism is leftist speech. Illegitimate criticism is conservative speech. Leftists falsely equate conservatives with authoritarianism, when they’re the “I have a pen and phone” authoritarians. Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism. This article was first published by FrontPage Magazine. Support Jewish News Syndicate With geographic, political and social divides growing wider, high-quality reporting and informed analysis are more important than ever to keep people connected. Our ability to cover the most important issues in Israel and throughout the Jewish world—without the standard media bias—depends on the support of committed readers. If you appreciate the value of our news service and recognize how JNS stands out among the competition, please click on the link and make a one-time or monthly contribution. We appreciate your support. topics: Barack Obama Benjamin Netanyahu Read More Here

Program Aims To Unite Communities To Prevent Targeted Violence In Pa. https://digitalalaskanews.com/program-aims-to-unite-communities-to-prevent-targeted-violence-in-pa/ Franklin County will be part of a program that aims to prevent targeted violence across southcentral Pennsylvania. The Department of Homeland Security awarded a $769,190 grant last month to the organization Urban Rural Action. The two-year grant from the Targeted Violence and Domestic Terrorism Grant Program will be used to implement the organization’s Uniting to Prevent Targeted Violence program with the help of local organizations in Franklin, Adams, York and Dauphin counties. “We are grateful for this critical support from DHS to advance locally-led efforts that address risk factors for radicalization to violence,” said Logan Grubb, the Hummelstown-based chief of staff for United to Prevent Targeted Violence. “This program will achieve meaningful impact due to UR Action’s trusting local relationships, credibility across the ideological spectrum, and application of learning from years of strengthening community resilience.” The program will work to prevent targeted violence by strengthening social cohesion, forming and deploying “threat assessment and management teams,” and raising awareness of targeted violence, according to a news release. The organization over the next several months will form an ideologically, racially and generationally diverse cohort of 30 people who will “work across difference” in 2023 and 2024 to carry out prevention projects and build awareness of targeted violence. These “Pennsylvania Uniters” will come from all four counties. Urban Rural Action will collaborate with five organizations around the region to implement Uniting to Prevent Targeted Violence: South Central Community Action Programs, CONTACT Helpline, Just for Today Recovery & Veterans Support Services, Mediation Services of Adams County and Suicide Prevention of York. To help residents build media literacy skills, the News Literacy Project will also play a role. What is targeted violence? According to the Department of Homeland Security, targeted violence involves “dangerous acts to human life” that are planned and have a pre-determined target, either an individual or a group of people or property, based on real or perceived identity traits or affiliation. These acts “appear to intend to … intimidate, coerce, or otherwise impact a broader population beyond the targets of the immediate acts” or to “generate publicity for the perpetrator or his or her grievances.” Targeted violence does not include acts within an organization or affiliated group, such as gang violence. Shootings at schools and churches and other mass shootings often qualify as targeted violence. The Jan. 6 takeover of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump was an act of targeted violence, according to Urban Rural Action. How big of a risk is targeted violence in southcentral Pa.? The rise in political violence is behind the organization’s push in Pennsylvania. The state is home to more Jan. 6 arrestees (62 people) than any other state except Montana, said Urban Rural Action representative Joseph Bubman, citing a Philadelphia Inquirer story. “During our needs assessment, conversations with highly engaged community members in Adams and Franklin Counties indicated widespread concern about targeted violence, particularly around potential triggers such as the upcoming midterm and presidential elections,” Bubman said. The Risk Index for Politically Motivated Violence and Democratic Disruption, a tool created by Princeton University, indicates that Franklin, Adams, York and Dauphin counties have a higher risk of targeted violence than other counties around the nation, Bubman said. Urban Rural Action originated in conflict zones in Africa, Asia and South America. Now it focuses on the U.S. “because underlying dynamics that fuel violent conflict globally (e.g., widespread distrust of governing institutions; toxic polarization; income inequality; misinformation; divisive leaders) are also present in our own country,” according to the organization’s website. Amber South can be reached at asouth@publicopinionnews.com. Read More Here