Digital Arkansas News

Seven Democrats Likely To Run For President If Biden Bows Out https://digitalarkansasnews.com/seven-democrats-likely-to-run-for-president-if-biden-bows-out/ By Ashe O Washington, Sep 26 (IANS): US President Joe Biden’s statement this week that it “remains to be seen” if he’ll run for re-election and his low approval ratings among the American people that voted him in 2020 has prompted Democrats to think if they should have a different candidate in the White House in 2024 irrespective of whether Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis emerge as the Republican candidate. Democrats want a strong candidate who is a fighter and yet young. According to the list drawn up by Democratic funders and Democratic Party hardliners privately, there seem to be seven Democrats fit to run for the White House in 2024. But only three of them appear to be top contenders — Vice-President Kamala Harris, Governor Gavin Newsom and Senator Elizabeth Warren. If Biden doesn’t run again, a number of Democrats are expected to wade into the Presidential waters. But even Harris isn’t seen as a definitive leading contender in such a situation, Democrats acknowledge privately. “There’s not one clear candidate and there’s not a rising star,” said one top Democratic donor. But a section of Democrats and funders believe that Kamala Harris, who lost to Biden in the primaries and who was picked by him to be his running mate, has the President’s ears and trust to take his Build Back Better (BBB) initiatives forward. Others feel she is not strong enough to take on the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) Republicans like Trump or Ron DeSantis. Here’s who is generating the most talk and the most confidence, says the Hill in a special report based on the new approval ratings of the incumbent President Joe Biden which appears to be sliding again. Though his legislative successes and EO on abortion rights propped him up from last September’s ratings that saw a historic low for an incumbent president at 33 per cent. The November midterms could be a game changer for both parties ahead of 2024. Kamala Harris While Harris, 57, has seen her own approval ratings fall at times during an up-and-down tenure as vice president, she remains the top non-Biden possibility for 2024. Strategists say it would be difficult to convince Black women – who helped catapult Biden to the White House – to vote for anyone else as the party’s torch-bearer. And as one strategist pointed out, “No one is going to win the nomination without winning in the South. She has settled into the role. She has also made women’s rights one of her issues out on the trail, an issue that can only help her political prospects with the Democratic base as the Supreme Court decision overturning the Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion rights continues to reverberate.” Pete Buttigieg Just last month, Buttigieg, 40, the Transportation Secretary appeared in the swing states of Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada and Ohio. Buttigieg’s stature with voters could have taken a beating with the railway strike earlier this month but after Biden’s late-hour intervention, it never amounted, solidifying his standing with Democratic voters. And he has a young face at 40 years. But he’s not a top contender. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer The two Biden administration fixtures are the top two non-Biden Democrats on our list, says the Hill. At a recent event she highlighted her role in the Abortions rights fight. “The only reason Michigan continues to be pro-choice state is because of my veto and my lawsuit,” she said, according to CNN. The remarks refer to a lawsuit Whitmer filed to prevent a Michigan abortion ban from happening. Gov. Gavin Newsom At a time when Democrats have been craving for a leader who would get in the faces of Republicans, Newsom, the California governor, appears to do the battle, capable of taking it right into the MAGA Republicans camp. He’s tough as Ron DeSantis, the latter has however taken a beating with his planeload exports of illegal immigrants seeking asylum to blue state Michigan’s Martha’s Vineyard. They were relocated to New York. Newsom, 54, made headlines in July when he took the fight directly to Ron DeSantis (R), running an ad in the Sunshine State blasting the Florida governor and the conservative culture there. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) The one-time presidential hopeful has made it clear she has one race on her mind in 2024: her own re-election to the Senate. She doesn’t appear keen on the 2024 presidential run, except saving her seat in Massachusetts against the powerful campaign of MAGA Republicans. Warren, 73, has continued to be a top advocate on Capitol Hill for issues important to Democrats including climate change, abortion rights and gun safety. Again she is old, she will be 75 in 2024. Nevertheless a top contender given her experience. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) It’s tough for some Democrats to see the senator from Vermont launching another presidential campaign. After all, he is 81 years old and – if elected – would be nearing 90 by the end of his term. But Sanders has become such a staple of the Democratic Party since his first White House bid in 2016 that it’s hard to rule out a run. And if he did compete, he’d definitely have support. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) Almost no one in the Democratic Party has had the meteoric rise of “AOC”, as she’s known. And while most strategist’s doubt that the congresswoman from New York will run for president just yet, her name is constantly bandied about when Democrats complain that their bench is weak. She turns 35 a month before the 2024 election. She’s a young face which electors want but may yet lack the experience for the high office. Read More Here

Families Of Murder Victims Come Together On The Steps Of Arkansas State Capitol https://digitalarkansasnews.com/families-of-murder-victims-come-together-on-the-steps-of-arkansas-state-capitol/ by: Brandon Ringo Posted: Sep 25, 2022 / 10:29 PM CDT Updated: Sep 25, 2022 / 10:29 PM CDT LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Family members who lost a loved one to violence gathered at the State Capitol Sunday afternoon for the National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims. The local chapter of the organization Parents of Murdered Children brought the group together. Families were invited to bring a framed picture of their loved one and to share their stories. Bilenda Harris-Ritter said that the event isn’t just to help the families, but to help them find resources. “This is an organization that is there for people who have had a loved one murdered, and need someone to comfort them or to help them find resources,” Harris-Ritter said. “It can be a child, or someone else in your family.” The group Parents of Murdered Children began in 1978 in Cincinnati after a couple were forced to deal with the violent death of their teenaged daughter. The local chapter of the group offers free monthly grief support meetings for anyone affected by homicide or struggling with grief due to homicide. For more information check out Parents of Murdered Children.org. Read More…

Nikkei, Kospi Fall 2%; Asia-Pacific Markets Drop As Negative Sentiment Remains https://digitalarkansasnews.com/nikkei-kospi-fall-2-asia-pacific-markets-drop-as-negative-sentiment-remains/ The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), operated by Japan Exchange Group Inc. (JPX), in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020. Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images Shares in the Asia-Pacific fell sharply on Monday as negative sentiment continues to weigh in on markets. The Nikkei 225 in Japan dropped 1.97% in early trade, and the Topix slipped 2%. South Korea’s Kospi lost 2.3% and the Kosdaq shed 3.12%. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 1.94%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 1.19% lower. Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 0.38%, with the Hang Seng Tech Index bucking the trend and rising by 2.45%. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite rose 0.3% and the Shenzhen Component was up 1%. The Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy committee is scheduled to meet later this week, and China is expected to release data on factory activity at the end of the week. Onewo, a subsidiary of property developer China Vanke, is set to debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange this week as well. CNBC Pro: Morningstar reveals its top high-dividend global stocks — and gives three 30% upside Morningstar has revealed its pick of global stocks with the highest dividend yields, saying they stand out in an environment where many companies may not be able to maintain their dividends due to “economic strain.” Pro subscribers can read more here. — Ganesh Rao China raises FX risk reserve ratio to support yuan strength CNBC Pro: Dan Niles predicts when the S&P 500 might bottom, and reveals how he’s profited this year Asian currencies weaken against the greenback The Japanese yen lost ground against the U.S. dollar in Asia’s morning trade, changing hands at 143.60. The offshore Chinese yuan weakened to 7.1475 per dollar. South Korea’s won was at its weakest levels since 2009, trading at 1,423 against the greenback. Australia’s dollar, meanwhile, strengthened slightly to $0.6532. — Abigail Ng Stocks prepare to test their lows in the final week of trading for September Heading into the final week of trading for September, the Dow and S&P 500 are each down about 6% for the month, while the Nasdaq has lost 8%. Both the Dow and S&P are now sitting 1.2% and 1.6%, respectively, above their lows from mid-June. The Nasdaq is 2.9% above its low. — Tanaya Macheel Read More Here

Rep. Nancy Mace, Who Voted Against Impeaching Trump, Says There's 'a Lot Of Pressure' On Republicans To Impeach Biden: 'I Think That Is Something That Some Folks Are Considering' https://digitalarkansasnews.com/rep-nancy-mace-who-voted-against-impeaching-trump-says-theres-a-lot-of-pressure-on-republicans-to-impeach-biden-i-think-that-is-something-that-some-folks-are-consideringx/ Rep. Nancy Mace says there’s “a lot of pressure” on Republicans to impeach President Biden. On NBC’s Meet The Press, Mace said impeachment is being considered by some in the GOP. She told host Chuck Todd that if the party chooses to hold a vote, she believes it will be divisive. Loading Something is loading. Rep. Nancy Mace says there’s pressure on Republicans to vote to impeach President Biden if the party wins the midterms and gains control of the House.  Mace was on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday, speaking with host Chuck Todd who asked: “Do you expect an impeachment vote against President Biden if Republicans take over the House?” The South Carolina congresswoman answered, “there’s a lot of pressure on Republicans to have that vote, to put that legislation forward. I think that is something that some folks are considering.” To which Todd responded, simply: “Wow.” On Wednesday, Rep. Adam Kinzinger said a GOP-majority Congress might try to impeach the president every week. Kinzinger was referring to Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has made impeaching Biden part of her official platform. Last year, several Republicans filed impeachment articles criticizing Biden’s withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, his immigration policies, and his administration’s eviction moratorium. When asked by Todd how she would vote if impeachment was on the floor, Mace said she would look at the evidence and vote constitutionally.  “I will not vote for impeachment of any president if I feel that due process has been stripped away for anyone,” she told Todd.  Mace said if the party chooses to hold this vote, she believes it will be divisive. “Which is why I pushed back on it personally when I hear folks saying they’re going to file articles of impeachment in the House,” she said. While Mace voted against impeaching former President Donald Trump, she was critical of his role on January 6, telling CNN that Trump’s “entire legacy was wiped out” in the aftermath of the Capitol riots. Before January 6, Mace was a supporter of Trump’s and even worked for his campaign in 2016. During the interview with NBC, Todd asked the congresswoman if she would back Trump’s presidential bid in 2024. “I’m going to support whomever Republicans nominate in ’24,” she said. Representatives for Mace did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment. Read More Here

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly: Packers Vs Buccaneers https://digitalarkansasnews.com/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-packers-vs-buccaneers/ Geez Nadz, you were a little rough on Aaron Rogers. God knows I’m not the biggest A.R. fan and I call him out when needed but I think the sideline was the bigger issue tonight esp in the second half. Yes there seemed like a disconnect between him and Matt in the second half but to hang it all on Rogers is a little tough. The Good: The Goat screws up and comes up short. We win a squeeker in a great game to watch. Defense is making steady fearsome progress thanks to play-makers that are beginning to standout, have to mention Campbell, Clark and Gary. I sensed Brady was not feeling his normal comfort. To that point he had only one 3rd down conversion in the entire 1st half. D line did very well containing, holding their lanes and bringing the heat. Nice to see Romeo getting a few thrown his way and getting his first NFL/Packer touchdown. The Bad: The second half. First half we were winning 3rd downs 11 to 7 by the final gun we lost that hill 19 to 14. What happened to A. Jones? On top of the end zone fumble he only had 24 yards rushing and he and Dillon only combined for 53. The Ugly: Our coaching staff got rolled in the 2nd half. Losing J. Alexander with a groin injury. Tampa came out second half with adjustments to our play, We did not stay ahead of it. As good as the defense is getting there is still plenty to tighten up in linebackers and secondary. It’s now very clear on tape and teams will exploit. All in all, happy for the win, the blood and color has returned to my knuckles… Go Pack ! Read More Here

Tropical Storm Ian To Strengthen, Storm Watch Issued For Florida Keys https://digitalarkansasnews.com/tropical-storm-ian-to-strengthen-storm-watch-issued-for-florida-keys/ Tropical Storm Ian was strengthening Sunday night, and it is forecast to intensify more rapidly Monday and Tuesday — possibly into a high-end Category 4 storm as early as midweek this week. State of play: Tropical Storm Ian was some 390 miles southeast of the western tip of Cuba at 11pm ET, and its maximum sustained winds had strengthened to 65 mph, up from 45 mph Sunday afternoon, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was moving to the northwest at 13 mph. A tropical storm warning has been issued for the lower Florida Keys and a tropical storm watch has been issued for the west coast of Florida. The big picture: President Biden declared a federal state of emergency for multiple Florida counties on Saturday night, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency for the entire state. What to watch: In its 11pm update, the National Hurricane Center said Ian was expected to become a hurricane Monday and a “major hurricane” on Tuesday before hitting western Cuba. The National Hurricane Center forecast two to four inches of rainfall from the Florida Keys into the southern and central Florida Peninsula from Monday through Wednesday morning. Threat level: Studies show an increase in the occurrence of rapid intensification due to human-caused climate change. The western Caribbean Sea is a powder keg for hurricanes right now, with high ocean heat content and weak upper-level winds. Tropical Storm Ian’s latest projected track, issued at 11pm ET Sunday by the National Hurricane Center. Image: NOAA What they’re saying: Even if the west coast of Florida doesn’t sustain a direct hit from Ian, “it doesn’t take an onshore or direct hit from a hurricane to pile up the water,” acting NHC director Jamie Rhome said in a Sunday briefing. He urged Florida residents to find out if they’re in a likely evacuation zone at FloridaDisaster.org in case evacuations are ordered. What’s next: The key questions facing forecasters, public officials and tens of millions of residents along the Gulf Coast are where the storm will head once it becomes a hurricane, and how strong it will be once it gets there. The computer models have been diverging, with some showing a landfall in northwestern Florida or perhaps southeastern Alabama. Others show a hit much farther east, closer to Tampa. Forecast trends since Friday have nudged the most likely track of the center of Ian to the west, closer to the Panhandle region of Florida. While the likelihood of significant impacts in South Florida has decreased, it has not entirely disappeared, and the Hurricane Center is urging all Floridians to prepare for storm impacts. Context: Human-caused climate change is altering the characteristics of nature’s most powerful storms. For example, sea level rise from melting ice sheets makes a hurricane’s storm surge more harmful. This story has been updated with the storm’s strengthening and the latest estimates of when the storm is expected to become a hurricane. Read More Here

Giorgia Meloni: Italy's Far Right On Course To Win Election https://digitalarkansasnews.com/giorgia-meloni-italys-far-right-on-course-to-win-election/ By Paul Kirby BBC News, Rome Image source, Reuters Image caption, Ms Meloni said Italians had sent a clear message calling for a right-wing government Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni has claimed victory in Italy’s election, and is on course to become the country’s first female prime minister. Ms Meloni is widely expected to form Italy’s most right-wing government since World War Two. That will alarm much of Europe as Italy is the EU’s third-biggest economy. However, speaking after the vote, Ms Meloni said her Brothers of Italy party would “govern for everyone” and would not betray people’s trust. “Italians have sent a clear message in favour of a right-wing government led by Brothers of Italy,” she told reporters in Rome. She is predicted to win up to 26% of the vote, based on provisional results, ahead of her closest rival Enrico Letta from the centre left. Ms Meloni’s right-wing alliance – which also includes Matteo Salvini’s far-right League and former PM Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia – now looks to have control of both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, with a projected 42.2% of the Senate vote. But the decision on who becomes Italy’s next leader is up to the president, not Giorgia Meloni, and that will take time. Although she has worked hard to soften her image, emphasising her support for Ukraine and diluting anti-EU rhetoric, she leads a party rooted in a post-war movement that rose out of dictator Benito Mussolini’s fascists. Earlier this year she outlined her priorities in a raucous speech to Spain’s far-right Vox party: “Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology… no to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration… no to big international finance… no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!” Projections put the centre-left alliance well behind with 26% and Democratic Party figure Debora Serracchiani said it was a sad evening for Italy. The right “has the majority in parliament, but not in the country”, she insisted. The left failed to form a viable challenge with other parties, after Italy’s 18-month national unity government collapsed in July, and officials were downbeat even before the vote. The Five Star Movement under Giuseppe Conte is on course for third place but despite having several centre-left policies does not see eye to eye with Enrico Letta. Turnout was dramatically low – 63.82% by the time polls closed – said Italy’s interior ministry, almost 10 points down on 2018. Voting levels were especially poor in southern regions including Sicily. Italy is a founding father of the European Union and a member of Nato, and Ms Meloni’s rhetoric on the EU places her close to Hungary’s nationalist leader Viktor Orban. Her allies have both had close ties with Russia. Mr Berlusconi, 85, claimed last week that Vladimir Putin was pushed into invading Ukraine while Mr Salvini has called into question Western sanctions on Moscow. Ms Meloni wants to revisit Italian reforms agreed with the EU in return for almost €200bn (£178bn) in post-Covid recovery grants and loans, arguing that the energy crisis has changed the situation. Image source, Reuters Image caption, There was little cause for joy at Enrico Letta’s Democratic Party headquarters on Sunday night The Hungarian prime minister’s long-serving political director, Balazs Orban, was quick to congratulate Italy’s right-wing parties: “We need more than ever friends who share a common vision and approach to Europe’s challenges.” In France, Jordan Bardella of the far-right National Rally said Italian voters had given European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen a lesson in humility, She had earlier said Europe had “the tools” to respond if Italy went in a “difficult direction”. However, Prof Gianluca Passarrelli of Rome’s Sapienza University told the BBC he thought she would avoid rocking the boat on Europe and focus on other policies: “I think we will see more restrictions on civil rights and policies on LGBT and immigrants.” Mr Salvini will be hoping to return to the interior ministry to halt migrant boats crossing from Libya. This election marks a one-third reduction in the size of the two houses, and that appears to have benefited the winning parties. A Rai TV exit poll suggested the three parties would hold 227-257 seats in the revamped 400-seat Chamber and 111-131 seats out of a total of 200 seats in the Senate. Mr Salvini said the right had a clear advantage in both houses. The same Rai poll also reveals just how dominant the Meloni-led coalition is likely to be, The centre left would hold a mere 78-98 seats in the Chamber and 33-53 in the Senate. More on Italy’s election Read More Here

Democrats Are Warming To A Biden 2024 Campaign. They https://digitalarkansasnews.com/democrats-are-warming-to-a-biden-2024-campaign-they/ The mood has notably shifted among top Democrats in recent months. During the depths of Biden’s political struggles in March, some party leaders from all over the country huddled in the hallways of the Hilton a few blocks from the White House for the annual Democratic National Committee meeting, according to four people involved in the conversations. Over drinks, while looking around to make sure no one overheard, they winced and grimaced and whispered: What could they do to stop Biden from running for reelection again? “There were people who were not certain he would be the right candidate,” said Jim Roosevelt, a top DNC member and the grandson of a president who ran for reelection more than any other. When those same state party chairs and executive directors returned to the capital for their fall meeting two weeks ago, the disposition had whipped around. Biden’s summer of successes has started to permeate. Fears of a radical Donald Trump restoration remain high, mounting legal problems regardless. A potentially bruising open primary would loom if Biden decided against seeking another term. “In New Mexico I’ve seen a radical shift after his speech in Philadelphia,” said the state’s Democratic Party chair Jessica Velasquez, referring to the President’s battle for the soul of democracy speech. “Part of that is he just keeps showing up.” A state party chair who asked not to be named added, “People were grumbling because nothing was passing. Now we’re getting the Biden we all voted for.” Inside the White House — both in the West Wing and in first lady Dr. Jill Biden’s offices — the last six weeks have renewed confidence of the President’s chances in a reelection run. They’ve developed a chip-on-the-shoulder underdog mentality, saying people doubt Biden and claim they’re not excited by him before he pulls it all together and comes out on top. He did it after he was counted out during the 2020 primaries, they say, he did it in going up against Trump and he did it again when his presidency was assumed to have sputtered out in the spring. Now they were ready to get on board — if he is. “If he feels he can do it,” Roosevelt said, “people would want him to do it.” Biden is already the oldest president ever and tends to keep a lighter public schedule than his predecessors, which has led to questions about how extensive a campaign he’d engage in. But even with those limited appearances recently, his poll numbers have been slowly moving upward. Already at his rally in Washington on Friday, Biden delivered another in what has become a series of much more energetic speeches, ripping into Republicans while pacing the stage on a handheld mic, and then walking off the stage to the beat of Daft Punk’s “One More Time.” But as much as most Democrats would love to be finished with the endless “Is he going to run?” discussion, Biden keeps stoking it. “My intention, as I said to begin with, is that I would run again. But it’s just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen,” Biden said in his “60 Minutes” interview that aired last Sunday. Advisers dismissed that answer as simply trying to listen to lawyers’ warnings of not preemptively triggering Federal Elections Commission laws around fundraising and activity. Many others are not convinced. People in and around the President’s orbit would like him to make a decision by early 2023, after he comes back from his traditional Biden family Christmas, possibly by Martin Luther King Jr. Day. “He will decide when he decides,” a top Democrat who speaks to the President told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a highly sensitive subject. “And rarely has he ever decided anything a minute sooner than he has to.” Even in-the-know supporters who say they’re completely gung-ho about Biden 2024 quickly add that of course he’ll have to talk with his family to see what’s right for him — and that more than anything, they know everything hinges on the first lady. No incumbent president has faced these kinds of continued doubts about running for reelection, which stretch from Pennsylvania Avenue to Pennsylvania. Dave Henderson, the executive director of AFSCME Council 13 in Pennsylvania — who as a union leader from Pittsburgh is about as core a Biden voter as exists — said he’d supported the President from the start of his 2020 campaign and remains enthusiastic, but paused when asked if he’d support Biden for reelection. “Tough question, because I’m not sure he’s going to run for reelection,” Henderson said. Told that Biden has said he intends to run, Henderson signed on immediately: “If he’s running, then I’ve got his back.” Sen. Chris Coons, the Delaware Democrat who holds Biden’s old seat and has stayed a confidant, told CNN the President “is seriously considering running,” and dismissed any static from the “60 Minutes” interview or elsewhere. “He beat Donald Trump before; he’ll beat Donald Trump again. If that’s the way this race plays out, I think Joe Biden is the best Democrat to beat Donald Trump in 2024,” Coons said. Standing on the White House driveway earlier this month after attending the Inflation Reduction Act celebration, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet said that as one of the incumbent Democrats facing a strong GOP challenger in November, he’d be eager to have the President come campaign for him. “People have connected that it’s Democrats delivering,” Bennet said, “But I’d say it’s something more important than that: It reflects a very different ethic than the chaos of the Trump White House.” Those who know the first lady’s thought process, and are familiar with the strength of the Biden clan’s input, tell CNN that the last few months have also made them feel more open to another campaign. At times, they’ve expressed a little excitement at the prospect. Jill Biden “is still processing” the idea, says a person with knowledge of the first lady’s recent conversations on the topic. She was never sold on Biden’s running in 2016, when he ultimately didn’t. She was in favor of his running in 2020, when he did. “She will want to know if he can win, first and foremost. She will not want him put in a position where he could be embarrassed,” said one person who has worked for Biden for a long time and has witnessed the first lady’s tenacity with assessing data. “She will want to see a strategy for a primary and for a general (election).” With the exception of Hunter Biden’s toddler-aged son, the other five Biden grandchildren are old enough, and care enough, to have an opinion on whether their “Pop” should run again. The President himself has recently returned to recounting the input his grandchildren gave him about getting into the 2020 race. “Jill would make sure this decision would be made as a family — Hunter, Ashley, Val (Biden’s sister) and the grandchildren,” says the person who has worked with Biden. “She would want to know how they individually feel.” A senior Biden adviser insisted there’s no wavering. “The President has consistently said he intends to run for reelection and that is something both Dr. Biden and the family fully supports,” the adviser said. “The first lady will be an active campaigner for Democrats this fall and will carry a message of optimism and hope, focusing on the accomplishments of her husband’s administration. ‘Joe is delivering results’ will be a frequent message from her on the stump, name checking his achievements, and calling on voters to imagine what more he could do with larger majorities in Congress.” The questions over Biden’s age get a little quieter Biden is now a couple of months older than he was when many Democrats were gingerly trying to nudge him off the stage in the spring, but suddenly they’re insisting age is just a number for a man who’d be an unprecedented 86 years old by the end of his second term. “The age thing is a convenient place to go for people who had other reasons to say they didn’t want him to run,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania congressman who was rooting for Biden to run in 2016, attended the first fundraiser of his 2020 campaign and is eager to see him go again. “It will be unique to have someone that age running for president. It was two years ago. It was in 2016 with Trump.” Standing in a hallway in the Capitol, Boyle motioned toward the House floor, where all three top members of the Democratic leadership are already in their 80s. “I serve in Congress,” he said. “To me, Joe Biden is young.” Biden has always been sensitive about being seen as or called old, but he and others now say that all the talk over the summer that he wasn’t up to the moment and shouldn’t run for reelection was just Democrats voicing their despair that he and his White House seemed unable to get anything done. “First half of the administration, people were basically describing him as Johnny Carson in his retirement year,” said Quinton Lucas, the 38-year-old mayor of Kansas City. “What you are seeing now is someone who is very active, going on trips, engaging with different parts of the administration.” Getting results on “issues that not only are important for all Americans but issues the base has been talking about for a long time — guns, climate — that quells that discussion,” Lucas said. Sitting at a bar in the Pittsburgh suburbs, Summer Lee, the young outspoken progressive almost certainly headed to Congress to succeed a retiring Democrat, said she’s not ready to commit to Biden — but is ready to hear him out. “You can have a man for the moment, but it doesn’t matter unless we have a movement for the moment,” she said. Whatever happens, Biden “deserves to be able to set up that vision.” “The best thing that could set us up for whatever it’s going to be, whether it’s President Biden or…. somebody else….is if we do...

Putin Will Happily Nuke A Ukrainian City…just Maybe Not The One You’re Thinking Of. https://digitalarkansasnews.com/putin-will-happily-nuke-a-ukrainian-cityjust-maybe-not-the-one-youre-thinking-of/ I’m reading the articles here and elsewhere in the news, and seeing a serious misread of Putin, and the situation in Ukraine. Putin loves using misinformation and gaslighting others. Like Trump, he projects his own villainy onto opponents. He’s attempting “nuclear blackmail”, not suffering that from NATO.    Putin will happily use a 500KT ‘baby’ nuke on Ukraine. He can drop it on Kyiv, or better yet Lwow. Either city’s loss will break the Ukrainian war effort in the east. Not that Ukraine won’t fight on. They will, but the loss of the conduit of NATO supplies coming in through Lwow and on to Kyiv is critical to their offensive capability. If he nukes Kyiv, he probably kills Zelensky, a propaganda victory of great value. Zelensky is a symbol of his people, and has built personal relationships with many leaders of NATO countries.  But, I doubt he will, as Kyiv is close to the Russian border. As a prior blog here pointed out, the radioactive fallout from Kyiv, would be horrendous to Russia as well. However, Putin, like Trump, believes other people exist for his use, not to be protected. He has never hesitated to murder anyone…Chechnyans, Russians, Ukrainians…killing anyone is fair game to this guy. Nuking Kyiv is the simple way to ‘win’ the war. Or…maybe he does not need to do that…at all.   If he hits Lwow, the radioactive fallout is moved hundreds of miles to the west, away from Russia and the places he wants to absorb. Also, that creates an ecological catastrophe for Poland and Eastern Europe to distract them from helping Ukraine. NATO logistical support all comes through Lwow…without that city, the country falls. All Putin needs to hit either city is the excuse that Russia is being invaded. Then he can use a nuke. By doing these sham elections in Kherson, Luhansk, etc., he is making them part of Russia. Ukraine will not stop winning conventional victories. But it will be hard to stop a nuke. Russia developed 500KT and 1MT nukes. These are smaller than standard, intended for tactical use on the battlefield. But, they can quite handily level a city. Putin knows that defeat in the war will invariably cause his death. He cares nothing for most people, even his own countrymen. He has motive and soon will have opportunity to use a ‘baby nuke’. It will upset Europe, but it will make many NATO countries fear him. The war might escalate at that point. But more likely, Ukraine will be abandoned, despite much lamenting. Read More Here

Criminal Referrals In Jan. 6 Attack Probe Weighed-Rep. Schiff https://digitalarkansasnews.com/criminal-referrals-in-jan-6-attack-probe-weighed-rep-schiff/ Published Sep 25, 2022 01:51PM EDT Credit: REUTERS/POOL U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, a Democratic member of the special panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, on Sunday said he likely would support approving criminal referrals against those involved in the violence, but that it would take a unanimous decision by its nine members. WASHINGTON, Sept 25 (Reuters) – U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, a Democratic member of the special panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, on Sunday said he likely would support approving criminal referrals against those involved in the violence, but that it would take a unanimous decision by its nine members. The committee has focused much of its year-long investigation on the actions of then-President Donald Trump and his associates in the aftermath of the November 2020 presidential election culminating with the deadly Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol. Trump has falsely claimed without evidence that widespread voter fraud tainted the election result and that he should have been declared winner. “It is, I think, apparent that there is evidence that Donald Trump was involved in breaking several of those laws” in relation to the Jan. 6 attack, Schiff told CNN’s “State of the Union.” He did not provide further details, but criticized the Justice Department for being “slow” in its independent investigation of the attack. Representative Liz Cheney, an outspoken critic of Trump and one of two Republican members of the committee, this summer also raised the possibility of the Justice Department charging Trump with criminal behavior, even before the panel wraps up its work. The committee is due to meet on Wednesday, which Chairman Bennie Thompson has said likely would be the final investigative hearing following a series of eight such sessions this summer. Democratic Representative Pete Aguilar told CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation” that Wednesday’s hearing will expose new details about the investigation. He did not elaborate. Asked about the possibility of former Vice President Mike Pence being subpoenaed to testify, Aguilar said: “I think it’s important that we hear from the vice president, but the committee’s work continues. We haven’t made a determination on where we go with the vice president, specifically.” Pence was presiding over Congress’ formal certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election when Trump supporters stormed through barricades, fighting with police and smashing their way into the Capitol. Trump repeatedly urged Pence to refuse to certify Biden’s win. Pence declined, saying he had no such power. Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, also a panel member, told NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press” that there could be an additional hearing to publicize legislative recommendations stemming from its probe. “I’m hopeful … that we will have a hearing that lays out all of our legislative recommendations about how to prevent, coups, insurrections, political violence and electoral sabotage in the future because that is a clear and present danger that is continuing up right to this day,” Raskin said. Raskin said he did not know whether that report would be finished before the Nov. 8 congressional elections that will determine whether Democrats continue to control the U.S. House and Senate. “Our plan is to complete our report before the end of this Congress” in December, he said. (Reporting by Richard Cowan and Daniel Burns; Editing by Daniel Wallis) ((Richard.Cowan@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging: richard.cowan@thomsonreuters.com; 202-898-8391; Reuters Messaging; richard.cowan.reuters.com@reuters.net)) The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc. Reuters Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest international multimedia news provider reaching more than one billion people every day. Reuters provides trusted business, financial, national, and international news to professionals via Thomson Reuters desktops, the world’s media organizations, and directly to consumers at Reuters.com and via Reuters TV. Learn More Read More Here

In Race For 1st District, Ashley Ehasz Takes Aim At Brian Fitzpatrick https://digitalarkansasnews.com/in-race-for-1st-district-ashley-ehasz-takes-aim-at-brian-fitzpatrick/ Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick’s bipartisan brand — which includes serving as co-chair for the 50-member Problem Solvers Caucus and voting in for several bills that were favored by Democrats — has served him well politically, helping propel the veteran legislator to victory in his prior two re-election campaigns, in 2018 and 2020. It’s earned him detractors, as well, from conservative Republicans who feel he’s not supporting the values of the party. And his opponent in this year’s election, Democrat Ashley Ehasz, is calling his bipartisanship into question, especially when it comes to high-profile issues such as abortion. “When we look at what is different in 2022, we are now in a post-Jan. 6 world; we are now in a post-Roe v. Wade world,” Ehasz said during a recent appearance before this news organizations’ editorial board. “Would a moderate person or a moderate leader vote against the formation of the January 6 Committee, which would have investigated the events of that day, but also the events that led to lost of lives of several police officers that were there?” But, will that be enough to unseat an incumbent who’s leading in the polls and in financing? Terry Madonna, a respected political scientist and co-founder of the Franklin & Marshall College Poll, said Fitzpatrick is well-positioned going in to November. “I think Fitzpatrick’s bipartisanship has been helpful, particularly in Bucks County,” Madonna said. “It’s hard to be a MAGA Republican in a suburb so close to Philadelphia. You can’t do that very well and expect to win.” Analysis:Ehasz fundraising suggests 1st District is likely to stay red with Fitzpatrick Third-party challenges:Why some candidates in Bucks County are being thrown off ballot in the 2022 election Election 2022:What the Pennsylvania primary tells us about the GOP in Bucks. A county divided? How Brian Fitzpatrick has voted Fitzpatrick’s most recent voting record has opened him up to criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike that he is neither bipartisan enough nor conservative enough when it matters most. Of key issues in this, the 117th Congress, Fitzpatrick was one of only 11 Republican representatives to vote in favor of removing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from all committee roles on Feb. 4, 2021, but he joined with every other Republican representative in voting against statehood for Washington, D.C. Fitzpatrick also voted in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act, joining 46 other Republican representatives in supporting the recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages. All of that is overshadowed, perhaps, by Fitzpatrick’s votes against impeaching former president Donald Trump and for voting against the January 6 Commission. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has long chided Fitzpatrick on his record, intimating that Fitzpatrick cherry picks safe bipartisan issues but sides with Republicans in everything else. “Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick has been all talk, no action in Washington,” said DCCC Chairperson Sean Patrick Maloney in a statement in May. “Bucks and Montgomery counties deserve a member who will represent them, not a coward who will fold to MAGA party bosses.” In an open letter published on the DCCC’s website, it stated “Rep. Brian Fitizpatrick is not who he claims to be,” and that when it matters most, Fitzpatrick voted with MAGA Republican leadership in Congress to oppose small business aid and middle-class tax cuts to Pennsylvania families, protect Donald Trump at all costs, and he “wants to criminalize abortion” without any exceptions for victims of rape and incest. “Bucks and Montgomery Counties deserve a representative who will protect the right to an abortion, support middle class tax cuts, and work to find bipartisan solutions to solve the real problems they face every day,” the open letter continued. “Ashley Ehasz has spent her career fighting for our country and its values, in stark contrast to the mealy-mouthed, DC parlor games of Brian Fitzpatrick.” DCCC spokesperson James Singer doubled down on the assertion. “When it matters most, Brian Fitzpatrick will always side with the MAGA leaders in the Republican party,” Singer said. “Fitzpatrick opposed impeaching Trump and refused to protect a woman’s right to an abortion—– what else do voters need to know?” Ehasz said Fitzpatrick’s “self-stylized, or self-determined moderatism” deserves further scrutiny and that he has failed constituents in Bucks County and nationwide with his recent downvotes on several crucial issues. “If this is someone who’s moderate, then why didn’t he vote to codify Roe V. Wade at the federal level?” she said. “If this is someone who is moderate and wants to make sure crime is not committed in our community, why did he cosponsor and then vote against the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Bill?” At the time, Fitzpatrick said he voted against the plan to investigate the Jan. 6 riot because he wanted a truly bipartisan committee to look into what happened when the Capitol was stormed, injuring more than 100 police officers and leading to the deaths of five people. Fitzpatrick, in his own meeting with this news organization’s editorial board, focused on his overall bipartisan record and said the Problem Solvers “were the ones that brought (the 2020 COVID relief fund) package together,” and that the caucus was instrumental in the passage of the transportation bill President Joe Biden recently signed. “We’re not engaged in (ceremonial issues such as) the naming of the post office, we’re going into the really controversial areas,” Fitzpatrick said, “which is a challenge for some of our members who exposed themselves in their primaries, but that’s what we ask of them.” In respect to naming post offices, Fitzpatrick did join a bipartisan effort to designate the United States Postal Service facility in Houston, TX, as the Benny C. Martinez Post Office Building. Related:Rep. Fitzpatrick: Any investigation of US Capitol riot must be bipartisan Bucks County GOP ouster: Bucks County Republicans remove Jan. 6 rioter from Doylestown committee seat Abortion decision fallout:Abortion rights advocates rally outside office of Bucks County Congressman Fitzpatrick Ehasz targets Fitzpatrick on abortion, reproductive rights Ehasz in her campaign is taking aim at Fitzpatrick’s anti-abortion position, and his votes against the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022, which prohibits governmental restrictions on the provision of, and access to, abortion services. The bill ultimately passed the House in July. Voters, she said, are “concerned about the loss of the right to privacy and the loss of the right to a safe and legal abortion,” and that Fitzpatrick “has been given multiple opportunities” to protect a woman’s right to choose. “When we look at what Americans need to see (from our leaders) is (them) stepping up to the plate in those moments of courage,” said Ehasz, “and he has let down this community on those issues, and that is what will be his legacy.” “It is something that needs to be protected on the federal level, and I am speaking as a combat vet; I gave years of my life serving this country overseas, and now I have fewer rights at home than when I left,” Ehasz said. “So we must protect it at the federal level, and yes we must also protect it at the state level … in (Republican state Sen. and gubernatorial candidate) Doug Mastriano and Brian Fitzpatrick, they have both been given opportunities to protect the right to choose as elected officials, and they have both not done so, so we need to hold them accountable for their votes.” While Fitzpatrick voted against the Woman’s Health Protection Act of 2022, he did vote in favor of the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act of 2022, a bill which prohibits anyone acting under state law from interfering with a person’s ability to access out-of-state abortion services. Fitzpatrick did not discuss his anti-abortion position during his editorial board meting, but after the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year to overturn Roe v. Wade, he released a statement noting that “any legislative consideration must always seek to achieve bipartisan consensus that both respects a woman’s privacy and autonomy,” and also respects the sanctity of human life. “In our community, and across America, the vast and overwhelming majority do not support rigid, single-party, all-or-nothing solutions,” Fitzpatrick said in his statement. “The vast and overwhelming majority do not support complete legislative bans, nor do they support a legislative-absent Wild West ‘anything-goes’ scenario that would allow for the atrocities committed by Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia. As our community, and our nation, do not support all-or-nothing approaches, nor should any representative who seeks to reflect the will of the people.” Fitzpatrick also didn’t have much to say regarding Mastriano. “I will say this: every candidate has got to own their own statements, their own votes and their own positions; I certainly will do that,” Fitzpatrick said. “He’s got to do it. Every senate candidate has got to do it … my colleagues endorsed him, but I didn’t. “I never met the man and never spoken to him; if he’d like to sit down I’d welcome the opportunity to ask him some questions.” ‘Still have a way to go’ before election day As questions persist regarding Fitzpatrick’s bipartisanship, Madonna said data shows Fitzpatrick isn’t in any real danger. “Fitzpatrick is not on anyone’s endangered list I’ve seen. The 7th, 8th and 17th districts are considered the districts being watched by most analysts,” Madonna said. “You look at that and you wonder why he isn’t on any endangered lists as an incumbent, and that’s because most analysts think he’s in good shape.” In the 7th congressional district...

The ‘DeSantis Is Worse Than Trump’ Campaign Begins https://digitalarkansasnews.com/the-desantis-is-worse-than-trump-campaign-begins/ When New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote a love letter of sorts to Donald Trump and his “soft edges and eccentricity,” it didn’t take long for people to see this for what it is: an opening salvo by the press to start demonizing the next Republican. In his column, Bouie coos about how Trump is “funny, he has stage presence, and he has a kind of natural charisma. He can be a bully in part because he can temper his cruelty and egoism with the performance of a clown or a showman. He can persuade an audience that he’s just kidding — that he doesn’t actually mean it.” Anyone not blinded by Trump hatred would probably agree with this description. But it is Bouie who doesn’t actually mean what he’s saying. Bouie is a guy who, when Trump first ran for president, declared definitively that “Trump is a fascist,” and that this was “the political label that best describes what the GOP front-runner has become.” Then he spent four years recoiling at the horror of the Trump presidency. Bouie’s new-found love of Trump has nothing to do with a change of heart and everything to do with portraying the other leading presidential contender — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — as far worse than Trump. And the only reason to do so now is because of the fact that DeSantis’ recent actions have raised his profile nationally and increasingly endeared him to conservatives. As Republican communicator Matt Whitlock noted, “ ‘The soft edges of Donald Trump’ is a hilarious set-up to the inevitable ‘actually DeSantis is worse than Trump’ we all knew was coming.” Exactly. Anyone who has followed the news over the past several years could see this coming a mile away. What’s surprising is how clueless Bouie — and all those who will inevitably follow him down this path — are to the fact that they are just repeating a tired ritual. When Trump his campaign and his presidency, he was a fascist. Now that DeSantis looks as though he could claim the nomination for 2024, he’s the fascist. When George W. Bush was president, guess what, he was fascist, too. Back then we were told that Bush displayed the “supremacist ideology of Nazi Germany” that “you and I live under the rule of an official dictator,” that his administration “had begun to implement the 10 steps to take down a democratic nation,” and that he “is trying to bring to himself all the power to become an emperor — to create Empire America.” Once Bush was safely out of power, the fascist label fell off him and landed on Mitt Romney, whose campaign at one point complained that Democrats were trivializing fascism by constantly referring to Republican candidates as Hitler reincarnated. Some in the press have noticed that this bad habit is backfiring. The Atlantic asked in 2016: “Did liberals botch their chance to take down Trump by hyperbolically attacking past Republican nominees? Probably.” Nothing will change, of course. The media might navel gaze a little, but they will never admit their biases or change how they cover politics. Whoever the Republican nominee is, the press will attack him, or her, as a dangerous extremist. What’s refreshing about Trump and — so far at least — DeSantis is that unlike Bush, Romney, John McCain and so many other GOP candidates, they don’t seem to care about these vile attacks. — Written by the I&I Editorial Board Read More Here

Nationalist Meloni Set To Smash Italy https://digitalarkansasnews.com/nationalist-meloni-set-to-smash-italy/ Please try another search World 15 minutes ago (Sep 25, 2022 09:45PM ET) © Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Leader of Italy’s nationalist Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) party and frontrunner to become prime minister Giorgia Meloni, holds a closing rally in Naples, Italy, September 23, 2022. REUTERS/Ciro De Luca By Crispian Balmer ROME (Reuters) – In 2019, Giorgia Meloni made a speech that came to define her: “I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian, and you can’t take that away from me,” she told cheering supporters. Fast forward three years, and the nationalist leader is also poised to become Italy’s first female prime minister. Provisional results from Sunday’s general election showed Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI) group topping the polls with almost 26% of the vote, propelling an alliance of right-wing parties to clear majorities in both houses of parliament. At the last general election in 2018, FdI won just 4.3%. As head of the largest single party, Meloni will almost certainly get the nod from the head of state to form a new government and face up to a daunting array of problems, including surging energy prices and war in Ukraine. “When this night is over, we must remember that we are not at the end point, we are at the starting point. It is from tomorrow that we must prove our worth,” the 45-year-old Meloni told party faithful early Monday morning. The rapid rise in her fortunes is intricately tied to the transformation of Brothers of Italy, which has moved out of the shadows and into the mainstream without ever fully repudiating its post-fascist roots. Friends and critics alike say the surge in support is largely due to the steely determination of Meloni, who won her first local election at 21 and became Italy’s youngest ever minister when, at the age of 31, she was given the youth portfolio in Berlusconi’s 2008 government. MUSSOLINI’S SHADOW Her ascent is especially notable considering her humble background in a country where family ties often trump merit. She was brought up by a single mother in a working class district of the Italian capital after her father abandoned them following her birth, and has made no attempt to lose her strong Roman accent. In her 2021 autobiography, ‘I am Giorgia’, Meloni says she found a new family aged 15, when she joined a local youth section of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), created in 1946 by supporters of the disgraced fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Hard-working and feisty, she soon caught the eye of party activist Fabio Rampelli, who organised courses to train what he hoped would be a new generation of conservative politicians. “My idea was to imagine a right-wing government, which had nothing to do with the (fascism of the) 1930s,” said Rampelli, who is deputy head of the Brothers of Italy in parliament. “Meloni was blonde, blue-eyed, petite, easy-going and witty. She was also very concrete and not ideological. All the characteristics we needed to take the Italian Right to the next level,” he told Reuters. FLAMES AND ANGELS The MSI was folded into a new body called National Alliance (AN) in the mid-1990s before merging with a mainstream conservative group created by former prime minister Berlusconi. In her biggest political gamble, Meloni and a contingent of AN veterans left Berlusconi in 2012 and co-founded Brothers of Italy, named after the opening lines of the national anthem. The party maintained the old flame symbol of the original MSI group and Italian media occasionally publish photographs showing fascist memorabilia in the offices of some Brothers of Italy regional politicians. No such relics adorn Meloni’s office. Instead there are numerous angel figurines, snaps of her 5-year-old daughter, chess sets, a photograph of Pope John Paul with Mother Teresa, and pots of coloured pens she uses to take meticulous notes. In an interview with Reuters last month, she dismissed any suggestion that her party was nostalgic for the fascist era and distanced herself from comments she had made as a teenager praising Mussolini, an ally of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in World War Two, as a “good politician”. “Obviously I have a different opinion now,” she said, without elaborating. Meloni compares her party to the U.S. Republican Party and Britain’s Conservative Party. Patriotism and traditional family values are exulted, while “woke” political correctness and global elites are excoriated. “Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology, yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death,” she said in a speech in June to supporters of the Spanish rightist party Vox. “No to the violence of Islam, yes to safer borders, no to mass immigration, yes to work for our people, no to major international finance,” she continued, speaking in Spanish, her voice raising to a crescendo of red-faced anger. “UNDERESTIMATED” Pollsters say the secret to her success lies in her novelty value in the old-man world of Italian politics and the steadfastness of her uncompromising messaging. Whereas her allies Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi joined forces with the centre-left last year to form a unity government under Mario Draghi, Meloni refused, saying appointing an unelected former central banker was undemocratic. The decision left Brothers of Italy as the sole major party in opposition, giving it a pass on having to defend unpopular decisions taken during the COVID emergency. Meloni has been cautious ahead of the election, urging her allies not to make pledges they cannot keep and promising to be a safe pair of hands managing Italy’s fragile public accounts. She has reassured Italy’s establishment, touting a strong pro-West message, vowing to boost defence spending and undertaking to stand up to Russia and China. “It will not be the usual ‘spaghetti and mandolin’ Italy that fails to show up when history beckons,” Meloni said. All the tough talking inevitably draws comparisons in the Italian press between Meloni and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The Italian leader has played on this, saying one of her main inspirations is the English philosopher Roger Scruton, who provided intellectual vigour to Thatcherism in Britain. Just as Thatcher shattered Britain’s glass ceiling to top office 43 years ago, so Meloni looks set to follow suit in Italy. But this is not something she dwells on. She is opposed to diversity quotas to boost female presence in parliament or the boardroom, saying women have to get to the top through merit. However, she says that being a woman has its advantages in macho Italy. “When you are a woman you are often underestimated, but that can help you,” she said. Related Articles Read More Here

At Elton John’s White House Concert, Tears And A Trip Down Memory Lane https://digitalarkansasnews.com/at-elton-johns-white-house-concert-tears-and-a-trip-down-memory-lane/ When Donald Trump asked one of his favorite musicians, Elton John, to perform at his 2017 inauguration, the knighted singer politely declined in an email: “Thank you so much for the extremely kind invitation to play at your inauguration,” John wrote. “I have given it at lot of thought, and as a British National I don’t feel that it’s appropriate for me to play at the inauguration of an American President. Please accept my apologies.” Friday night, Sir Elton offered a different statement in the form of the ebullient six-song, solo piano concert he played to a crowd of 2,000 people on the South Lawn of the White House at the invitation of President Biden and first lady Jill Biden. “I don’t know what to say. What a dump!” said John, laughing, in a sparkling black blazer as he peered through red-tinted glasses at the floodlit columns of the South Portico towering above him, playing under a glass-paneled tent, while members of the Marine Corps band fanned out along the steps to the Truman Balcony in red dress uniforms. “I’ve played in some places before that have been beautiful, but this is probably the icing on the cake.” Tears and joy were more the order of the day than politics at an event the Bidens said they intended to be a concert for the American people called “A Night When Hope and History Rhyme.” The evening ended with the president surprising John with the National Humanities Medal, to which the singer welled up with tears, but that felt like a capstone to the larger message of celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the bipartisan unity needed to bring an end to the disease by 2030 — as John and the United Nations have said is the goal. The last time John played the White House was at a 1998 state dinner during the Clinton administration honoring British Prime Minister Tony Blair. According to a video feed of the event and interviews with those in attendance (media access was restricted), John appeared genuinely thrilled as he played beneath a glass-paneled tent, with the audience surrounding all sides of his stage. He plowed through several greatest hits: “Your Song,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Rocket Man,” “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” “Crocodile Rock” and “I’m Still Standing.” Teachers, first responders, and LGBTQ activists made up the largest portion of the crowd, and had all been allowed to bring plus ones. They were the ones John thanked first, well before he acknowledged the Bidens: “They’re the heroes to me.” Other guests included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, and Attorney General Merrick Garland — not to mention actress Anna Kendrick and John’s dear friend Billie Jean King. To those who recognized her, Ruby Bridges, the civil rights advocate who became one of the first Black children to integrate New Orleans’ all-White public school system when she was 6 years old, might have been the most impressive luminary there. Charlotte Clymer, a D.C.-based writer and LGBTQ activist who was pleasantly surprised to get the invite, found herself overcome with emotion. “I wouldn’t even say bipartisan, it felt more nonpartisan,” she told The Washington Post. “Everyone was there because they cared about folks with HIV and AIDS. And of course, they wanted to see Elton John perform.” The White House had focused on inviting members of vulnerable communities, and Clymer said the crowd felt notably diverse — racially diverse, politically diverse, even gender diverse. For once, she added, “I was not the only trans person at one of these events, which was nice to see.” As appealing as the narrative is of Dark Brandon sub-tweeting his predecessor by feting his favorite musician, this was not an event instigated by John as a form of high-level trolling. The conversation had started with an invitation to a “History Talks” symposium on Saturday at Constitution Hall, featuring the likes of Serena Williams and former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, sponsored by the History Channel and A&E, which also sponsored the concert. But that set date was also the day of John’s concert in the District at Nationals Park, “so it evolved into the opportunity to perform the night before on the South Lawn of the White House. And, you know, what a spectacularly beautiful setting,” David Furnish, John’s husband and manager, said on Sunday. “Elton loved the idea and the whole evening was pitched to us as a nonpartisan event even though President Biden is in the White House,” Furnish continued, “but a nonpartisan event which was really to talk about common humanity, healing through unity, philanthropy.” In the past, though, John did have a friendly relationship with Trump. He played at the former president’s third wedding, and Trump had even gone around telling people he’d secured John for the inauguration. Despite John asking him not to, Trump frequently used “Tiny Dancer” at his rallies. He also gave the nickname “Rocket Man” to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Instead, at this concert, John acknowledged a different Republican, former first lady Laura Bush, who had come with daughter Jenna Bush Hager and her children, saying that the Bush administration’s creation of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, “was the most incredible thing,” adding, “We never would have got this far without the President Bush administration giving us that money.” He even gave a shout-out to Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) as a supporter in the fight against AIDS, who, said John, “to his credit has always come through.” As John came up with his set list, Furnish said, there was only one song he wanted to make sure to sing: “Crocodile Rock.” Years ago, when he and Biden, the vice president at the time, were on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” the same night, Biden told him that, as a single father, he used to drive his two sons around and sing that song in the car. Later on, said Furnish, he and John went to visit President Barack Obama in the White House during the time when, unbeknown to them, Biden’s son Beau was terminally ill with brain cancer and unconscious in the hospital. Biden had asked John to meet with his staff, “which I thought really said so much about him,” said Furnish. As Furnish remembers being told, Biden went to the hospital and told the unconscious Beau that Elton John had come by the White House that day and he sung “Crocodile Rock” to him. “He didn’t come back to consciousness. But we’d been told that he smiled and it definitely, you know, triggered something,” said Furnish. “So we knew that was a song with a real journey that had been on a real journey for the president. And so it was important for Elton that it was included in the set.” Before he launched into “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” John also acknowledged Jeanne White-Ginder, the mother of Ryan White, who had died of AIDS-related complications in 1990 and in his short life had become a symbol of the cruelty endured by the epidemic’s victims. The White family was John’s entry into becoming an AIDS activist. He’d met them, “and I got to love them and look at them and they faced such terrible hostility,” he said from the stage. “And yet when Ryan was dying in the hospital in Indianapolis, the last week of his life where I went and tried to help Jeanne do menial things, there was no hatred. There’s no hatred. There was just forgiveness.” “It was a very heartwarming experience to see somebody that gives so much of themselves and wants no attention whatsoever,” White-Ginder told The Post on Sunday, recalling those days. Six months after White’s death, John checked into rehab for cocaine and alcohol addiction and got sober. Onstage Friday he said the family “saved my life. The moment when Biden gave John the National Humanities Medal was a complete surprise not just to John, but also to Furnish, who as his manager usually knows everything. John had said he was completely “flabbergasted,” and burst into tears during his citation. “Elton had absolutely no idea he was getting the medal. It’s very rare to see Elton rendered speechless on anything, and when that came out, he was completely gobsmacked,” said Furnish. “And just everyone felt the love.” Read More Here

U.S. Warns Russia Of ‘Catastrophic Consequences’ If It Uses Nuclear Weapons https://digitalarkansasnews.com/u-s-warns-russia-of-catastrophic-consequences-if-it-uses-nuclear-weapons/ The comments by the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, illustrate how quickly the rhetoric has intensified as Russia has faltered on the battlefield in recent months. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, this month. American intelligence officials say they still believe the chances that nuclear weapons will be used in the conflict are low.Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times Sept. 25, 2022Updated 9:36 p.m. ET WASHINGTON — President Biden’s national security adviser said on Sunday that the United States had warned Russia that there would be “catastrophic consequences” for the country if Moscow used nuclear weapons in its increasing desperation to hold on to territory in Ukraine, adding that in recent days the United States has “spelled out” how the world would react in private conversations with Russian officials. The adviser, Jake Sullivan, repeated the comments several times in three Sunday television interviews, though he left deliberately vague whether those consequences would be military, economic or diplomatic. Officials were quick to say they still had not seen any movement in Russia’s stockpile of 2,000 or so small tactical weapons — which can be launched from a short- or medium-range missile — despite President Vladimir V. Putin’s threats in a televised address last week that “this is not a bluff.” But Mr. Sullivan’s use of the word “catastrophic” as a deliberately ambiguous warning of a major — if almost certainly non-nuclear — response to a Russian nuclear detonation illustrated how quickly the rhetoric has intensified as Russia has faltered on the battlefield in recent months. In late May, Mr. Biden wrote a guest essay in The New York Times in which he said that “any use of nuclear weapons in this conflict on any scale would be completely unacceptable to us as well as the rest of the world and would entail severe consequences.” American intelligence officials say they still believe the chances that nuclear weapons will be used in the conflict are low. But they believe those chances are significantly higher than they were in February and March because Mr. Putin has lost confidence in the ability of his ground troops to hold territory, much less take over Ukraine. Mr. Sullivan is a longtime student of nuclear escalation risks, and he has been walking a fine line between orchestrating repeated warnings to the Russians and avoiding statements that could prompt Moscow to raise the stakes, perhaps by beginning to move weapons toward the border in a menacing show of seriousness. He indicated as much on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “We have communicated to the Russians what the consequences would be,” Mr. Sullivan said, “but we’ve been careful in how we talk about this publicly, because from our perspective we want to lay down the principle that there would be catastrophic consequences, but not engage in a game of rhetorical tit for tat.” The White House declined to say who in Russian leadership the officials had communicated with, or to characterize the Russian response. But even before Mr. Putin issued his latest threats last week, the White House and the Pentagon had quietly engaged in detailed tabletop exercises, senior officials say, to think through how the United States and its allies might react to a variety of provocations. Those varied from a detonation over the Black Sea by Mr. Putin to the actual use of a weapon against a Ukrainian target. The first of those would be more akin to a North Korean nuclear test, intended as a warning shot. The second would be the first use of a nuclear weapon against a population since the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. For months, administration officials have said they could think of almost no circumstances in which a nuclear detonation by Russia would result in a nuclear response. But there has been discussion of several non-nuclear military responses — using conventional weapons, for example, against a base or unit from which the attack originated, or giving the Ukrainian forces the weaponry to launch that counterattack. In the minds of many officials, any use of nuclear weapons would require a forceful military response. But many of the options under discussion also involve nonmilitary steps, casting Mr. Putin as an international pariah who broke the nuclear taboo for the first time in 77 years. It would be a chance, some officials say, to bring China and India, along with much of Asia and Africa, into the effort to impose sanctions on Russia, cutting off some of the biggest markets that remain for its oil and gas. Mr. Putin’s nuclear threats have hung over the war from its opening days, when he publicly ordered that nuclear forces be placed on a heightened alert status. (There is no evidence it ever happened.) More recently the shelling, apparently by Russian forces, of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has raised the specter of deliberately turning a commercial facility into a potential dirty bomb. Shelling near the plant has continued in recent days, though the reactors have now been shut down, lowering the risk of a runaway nuclear accident. On Wednesday, for the first time in more than six months, Mr. Putin revived his nuclear threats, saying he could use all arms available to him in the war — remarks interpreted by officials in both Russia and the West as a veiled threat about the use of nuclear weapons. “If Russia feels its territorial integrity is threatened, we will use all defense methods at our disposal, and this is not a bluff,” he said. “Those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the winds can also turn in their direction.” Mr. Sullivan said in several interviews that he was taking Mr. Putin’s nuclear threats seriously — saying at one point that the United States was preparing for “every contingency” in the conflict and working to deter Russia from using nuclear weapons. “We do have the capacity to speak directly at senior levels and be clear about our messages to them,” he said, adding: “Russia understands very well what the United States would do in response to nuclear weapons use in Ukraine because we have spelled it out for them.” Mr. Sullivan’s message was echoed by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in an interview, broadcast Sunday evening on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” that was taped at the United Nations last week. Mr. Blinken said the direct conversation with Russian leadership took place because “it’s very important that Moscow hear from us and know from us that the consequences would be horrific. And we’ve made that very clear.” On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Sullivan said there would be announcements in the coming days of new economic sanctions from the Group of 7 nations against Russia — including on Russian entities operating in other countries — in response to Moscow’s “sham” referendums in portions of Ukraine it is occupying. The voting, which ends early this week, is widely believed to be a pretext for Russia to annex those territories. “We’ve been clear: We’re not going to stop or slow down our support to the Ukrainians, no matter what Putin tries to do with these fake elections and fake referenda and annexation,” Mr. Sullivan said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” Ukrainian and Western officials believe that the rushed voting would open the door for Mr. Putin to claim that Kyiv’s defensive war was an attack on Russian territory. On Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine reiterated that annexation by Moscow would scuttle any fleeting hopes for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis. Mr. Sullivan put it even more bluntly, citing plunging Russian troop morale and shortages of precision-guided weapons. “What we are seeing are signs of unbelievable struggle among the Russians,” Mr. Sullivan said. “You’ve got low morale, where the soldiers don’t want to fight. And who can blame them because they want no part of Putin’s war conquest.” He continued: “You’ve got Russia disorganized and losing territory to a capable Ukrainian force. And you’ve got a huge amount of infighting among the Russian military leadership. And now the blame game has started to include these replacements.” Eric Schmitt contributed reporting. Read More Here

In China, Home Buyers Occupy Their 'rotting', Unfinished Properties https://digitalarkansasnews.com/in-china-home-buyers-occupy-their-rotting-unfinished-properties/ By Eduardo Baptista and Xiaoyu Yin GUILIN, China (Reuters) – For six months, home for Ms. Xu has been a room in a high-rise apartment in the southern Chinese city of Guilin that she bought three years ago, attracted by brochures touting its riverfront views and the city’s clean air. Her living conditions, however, are far from those promised: unpainted walls, holes where electric sockets should be and no gas or running water. Every day she climbs up and down several flights of stairs carrying heavy water bottles filled with a hose outside. “All the family’s savings were invested in this house,” Xu, 55, told Reuters from the Xiulan County Mansion complex, her room bare except for a mosquito net-covered bed, a few necessities and empty bottles on the floor. She declined to give her full name, citing the sensitivity of the matter. Xu and about 20 other buyers living in Xiulan County Mansion share a makeshift outdoor toilet and gather during the day at a table and benches in the central courtyard area. They are part of a movement of home buyers around China who have moved into what they call “rotting” apartments, either to pressure developers and authorities to complete them or out of financial necessity, as numerous cash-strapped builders halt construction amid the country’s deep real estate slump. Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute estimated in July that stalled projects accounted for 3.85% of China’s housing market in the first half of 2022, equivalent to an area of 231 million square metres. While some local governments have taken steps to prop up the property market by setting up bailout funds, buyers like Xu, who paid deposits in advance and are on the hook for mortgages, remain in limbo. MORTGAGE STRIKES The proliferation of unfinished apartments has sparked unprecedented collective disobedience, fuelled by social media: in late June, thousands of home buyers in at least 100 cities threatened to halt mortgage payments to protest stalled construction. The overall property market is highly sensitive to cases of unfinished apartments because 90% of new houses bought in China are purchased “off plans” while still under construction, said Yan Yuejun, research director at Shanghai E-House. “If this issue is not resolved, it will affect property transactions, the government’s credibility, and it could exacerbate the developers’ debt problems,” he said. China’s deep property slump, along with disruptions caused by strict anti-COVID measures, are dragging on the world’s second largest economy just as the ruling Communist Party gears up for its once-in-five-years Congress next month. ‘CRASHING FROM PARADISE’ Xu bought her two-bedroom, 70 square metre flat in early 2019, about a year after its developer, Jiadengbao Real Estate, started construction and began marketing apartments for around 6,000 yuan ($851) per square metre, which they said would come with facilities such as floor heating and a shared swimming pool. Work progressed quickly at first, with blocks in the planned 34 tower complex going up one after another. But in June 2020, Jiadengbao Real Estate hit the headlines after a court accused its parent company of illegal fund-raising and seized 340 million yuan worth of its properties, including a number of flats in Xiulan County Mansion. Construction stopped in mid-2020, which Xu found out months later, describing her feelings at the time as “crashing from paradise”. Jiadengbao Real Estate did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters. Since the debt crisis erupted in 2021, thousands more home buyers have been caught in similar predicaments as cash-strapped developers went into bankruptcy or abandoned struggling projects. FENCING AND UNDERGROWTH On a recent day, the main block of buildings at Xiulan County Mansion was surrounded by a tall blue fence while the clubhouse, touted in promotional materials, was covered in a dense undergrowth. Cement mixers, iron poles, and piles of debris lay strewn around. Xu, who is unemployed, said she bought the apartment for her only son, with the hope that he would be able to raise a family there. She said her son and her husband, who live far away in the northern province of Hebei, blame her for their financial predicament, and no longer speak to her. “We don’t know how long we will have to live here because the government has not said anything officially,” she said. She hopes the Guilin government will step in to help. The city government did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters. Housing authorities in Baoding, the northern city where Xu is from and where Jiadengbao Real Estate’s parent company is registered, said last November the city government and Communist Party committee had set up a group to resolve the issue. “If the government really wants to protect people’s livelihoods, and resume construction, we will go back home,” Xu said. ($1 = 7.0508 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Eduardo Baptista and Xiaoyu Yin; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom and Xihao Jiang; Editing by Lincoln Feast.) Read More Here

Revered Jazz Saxophonist Pharoah Sanders Dead Aged 81 https://digitalarkansasnews.com/revered-jazz-saxophonist-pharoah-sanders-dead-aged-81/ Revered jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders has died peacefully aged 81 surrounded by his loved ones. News the musician – whose playing has been hailed a “force of nature” – had passed was confirmed by his record label, Luaka Bop. It said on Twitter: “We are devastated to share that Pharoah Sanders has passed away. “He died peacefully surrounded by loving family and friends in Los Angeles earlier this morning. “Always and forever the most beautiful human being, may he rest in peace.” Pharoah’s representative Anna Sala added his death was a “huge loss for the music world”, telling CNN: “His work influenced many generations of artists.” Prolific Pharoah’s discography includes more than 30 albums dating back to 1965. Born in Arkansas, he collaborated with jazz icons including John Coltrane and in 1988 earned a Grammy for best jazz instrumental performance, group, for his work on ‘Blues for Coltrane – a Tribute to John Coltrane’. His style was so “transcendent” some referred to it as “spiritual jazz”. British electronic producer Floating Points is among those who have paid tribute, saying online: “My beautiful friend passed away this morning. I am so lucky to have known this man, and we are all blessed to have his art stay with us forever. Thank you Pharoah.” Born Farrell Sanders in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1940, the saxophonist’s career started in Oakland, California. After moving to New York in the 1960s, he started collaborating with Sun Ra, who gave him the name Pharoah, before he joined John Coltrane’s band and played with his fellow saxophonist until John’s death in 1967. He had continued to tour and collaborate throughout the 2000 and in the mid-2010s, Pharaoh heard a composition by the British electronic producer Sam Shepherd, AKA Floating Points, and asked to collaborate with him. Their 2021 album ‘Promises’, recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra and highly acclaimed, was Pharoah’s first new album in more than a decade. Read More…

GOP Lawmaker Suggests There https://digitalarkansasnews.com/gop-lawmaker-suggests-there/ GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina said Sunday she believes there is “pressure” for House Republicans to move to impeach President Joe Biden if they gain control of the chamber after the midterm elections. Allison Joyce/Getty Images (CNN) — GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina said Sunday she believes there is “pressure” for House Republicans to move to impeach President Joe Biden if they gain control of the chamber after the midterm elections. “I believe there’s pressure on the Republicans to put that forward and have that vote,” Mace told NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” when asked if she foresees impeachment proceedings should her party win control of the House. “I think that’s what some folks are considering.” But the freshman lawmaker added: “If that happens, I do believe it’s divisive.” Mace did not mention the source of the alleged pressure and was not asked to elaborate on who is considering the move. Asked Sunday how she would vote if an impeachment vote came to the floor, Mace said: “I will not vote for impeachment of any president if I feel that due process was stripped away, for anyone. I typically vote constitutionally, regardless of who is in power.” CNN reported earlier this year that hard-line elements of the House Republican Conference were agitating to launch impeachment proceedings against Biden if the GOP takes power after the midterms — a move GOP leaders have so far declined to embrace. House Republicans are also plotting revenge on the select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection, CNN has reported. Former President Donald Trump has been leaning heavily on his Capitol Hill allies to defend him against a slew of damaging revelations about his role in the deadly attack on the US Capitol. And as Republicans search for ways to undermine those findings, their party has started to lay the groundwork to investigate the January 6 panel itself. Some of Trump’s fiercest acolytes have also begun publicly pushing for hearings and probes into his baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election. While House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has vowed to conduct aggressive oversight and investigations in a GOP-led House, it’s unclear just how far he would be willing to go when it comes to January 6 and the 2020 presidential election. Mace, who flipped a Charleston-area seat in 2020, voted to certify Biden’s presidential election victory, earning Trump’s wrath. Faced with charges of insufficient loyalty to the former President, she drew a Trump-backed primary challenger but ended up prevailing by 8 points in her June primary. Mace told NBC she was “very much hopeful” to see “a deep bench of Republicans and Democrats who will be running for president” in 2024. But she left the door open to possibly supporting Trump again if he were the 2024 GOP nominee for president. “I’m going to support whomever Republicans nominate in ’24,” she said. The-CNN-Wire & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. Read More Here

Italy's New Leader Is A Very Weird, Tolkien-Obsessed Right-Wing Extremist https://digitalarkansasnews.com/italys-new-leader-is-a-very-weird-tolkien-obsessed-right-wing-extremist/ Italy Photo Press/Zuma Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. Early polls out of Italy following its Sunday election suggest that Giorgia Meloni, an ultra-conservative leader known for her opposition to gay rights and immigration, will become its first female prime minister—and the most extreme right-winger to run the place since, you guessed it, Benito Mussolini. Meloni’s victory makes her party, Brothers of Italy, the most successful of the new radical-right movements thriving on Europe’s economic struggles and migration crisis. Its predecessor was a neo-fascist party formed by Mussolini supporters after World War II, although Meloni claims that she’s gotten rid of the Brothers of Italy’s outright fascists. Her fixation on the Great Replacement Theory and her vendetta against George Soros are nothing to worry about, I’m sure. Meloni is also completely obsessed with J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, regarding the series—which has been venerated by Italian fascists for decades—as an almost Biblical text. In her early twenties, Meloni haunted the web as “Khy-ri, the dragon of the Undernet.” Tolkien, she told the New York Times, explains “better than we can what conservatives believe in.” Her take on Mussolini? “Everything he did, he did for Italy.” Meloni insists that she isn’t a fascist herself, even if her party’s flag includes the symbol of the old pro-Fascist party whose youth wing she belonged to. She praised Il Duce at the time, decades before her small, splinter party leaped to the top of the polls. Italians aren’t necessarily turning far-right themselves, one analyst told NBC—but after decades of gridlock and stagnation, they’re desperate for something “new and disruptive.” Disaffected Italians turned out to vote in record low numbers, seemingly bearing that out. But early exit polls show the country’s far-right coalition winning about 45 percent of the vote, much more than any other parties. That puts Meloni on track to be the country’s first ultra-right prime minister since World War II, a prospect that worries everyone from gay couples to women seeking more social and economic power. Election results are expected to be finalized by tomorrow, but Trump cheerleader Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s authoritarian head of state, has already congratulated Meloni. It looks like authoritarianism is still spreading. Read More Here

Trump Even https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-even/ Former President Donald Trump was more of a menace than anyone may have realized because he was clueless enough to believe he could declassify sensitive top secret documents with his mind — and put the safety of the nation at risk, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday. CNN’s Jake Tapper played a clip on “State of The Union” of Trump insisting earlier this week to Sean Hannity that he could declassify anything just by saying so — even simply by merely “thinking about it.” “Is that how it works?” Tapper asked Schiff. “That’s not how it works,” Schiff responded. “Those comments don’t demonstrate much intelligence of any kind. If you could simply declassify by thinking about it, then, frankly, if that’s his view, he’s even more dangerous than we may have thought,” he told Tapper. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Donald Trump saying he could declassify anything just by thinking about it: “No, that’s not how it works. Those comments don’t demonstrate much intelligence of any kind … If that’s his view, he’s even more dangerous than we thought.” pic.twitter.com/iUHTlIweXT — The Recount (@therecount) September 25, 2022 Distributing or blurting out information about the identities of spies or the location and details of weapons systems could cost countless lives, experts have warned. Yet Trump’s former White House chief of staff, John Kelly, told The Washington Post that the former president was disdainful of the secrets shield and had no comprehension of its importance. “His sense was that the people who are in the intel business are incompetent, and he knew better,” Kelly told the Post. “He didn’t believe in the classification system.” People “work hard” to obtain important intelligence, said Schiff, who is serving on the House panel investigating last year’s Jan. 6 insurrection. “People put their lives at risk to get that information. That information protects American lives. And for him to treat it so cavalierly shows both what a continuing danger the man is, but also how very little regard he has for anything but himself,” the lawmaker added. In Trump’s view, he could ”simply spout off on anything he read in a presidential daily brief or anything that he was briefed on by the CIA director to a visiting Russian delegation … and simply say, ‘Well, I thought about it and therefore, when the words came out of my mouth, they were declassified,”’ Schiff scoffed. A process is required for declassifying documents. It cannot be done in secret because several federal departments and officials would need to be informed to handle the material differently. For one thing, the records would be then accessible to the Freedom of Information Act and other records requests by the press and public, former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton has pointed out. So far, only QAnon disciple and former Trump administration Defense Department aide Kash Patel has backed up Trump’s claim that he had a “standing order” to declassify everything that was taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. Court-appointed Special Master Raymond Dearie, who is reviewing records seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago, has challenged Trump’s attorneys to prove that any of the documents marked “classified” had actually somehow been declassified by Trump. Schiff on Sunday also complained to Tapper that the Department of Justice was too slow to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection. Read More Here

Packers Vs. Buccaneers Score: Aaron Rodgers Trumps Tom Brady In Low-Scoring Thriller Decided On Final Play https://digitalarkansasnews.com/packers-vs-buccaneers-score-aaron-rodgers-trumps-tom-brady-in-low-scoring-thriller-decided-on-final-play/ The Green Bay Packers moved to 2-1 on Sunday as they defeated Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their home opener, 14-12. This was Aaron Rodgers’ second career win over Brady in five total contests, including playoffs, and their first matchup since the 2020 NFC Championship game. This game came down to the very final play. Brady led the Buccaneers 89 yards down the field to cut the deficit to two points with a touchdown pass to Russell Gage with just 14 seconds remaining. However, there was a miscommunication on the potential game-tying two-point conversion, and the Buccaneers drew a delay-of-game penalty. That cost them five yards, and Brady couldn’t find Gage in the end zone to tie the game.  Both star quarterbacks were missing multiple starting wide receivers, which explains the shortage of points scored. Rodgers completed 27 of 35 passes for 255 yards, two touchdowns and one interception, while Brady completed 31 of 42 passes for 271 yards and one touchdown. For the Packers, rookie Romeo Doubs stepped up at receiver, catching all eight of his targets for 73 yards and one touchdown. For Brady, Gage was his favorite target. He caught 12 passes for 87 yards and a touchdown, but also lost a fumble. This was a tale of two halves, as 17 of 26 total points were scored in the first two quarters. After Green Bay dominated the first two quarters, this affair turned into a slugfest dominated by both defenses.  Check back soon, as this article will be turned into a takeaways piece that dives more deeply into what transpired in Tampa Sunday.  4:25 P TB -1.5, o42.5 FOX Season Leaders passing A. Rodgers429 YD, 2 TDS, 1 INT A. Rodgers429 YD, 2 TDS, 1 INT T. Brady402 YD, 2 TDS, 1 INTT. Brady402 YD, 2 TDS, 1 INT rushing A. Jones20 ATT, 181 YD, 1 TDA. Jones20 ATT, 181 YD, 1 TD L. Fournette45 ATT, 192 YDL. Fournette45 ATT, 192 YD receiving S. Watkins6 REC, 111 YDS. Watkins6 REC, 111 YD M. Evans8 REC, 132 YD, 1 TDM. Evans8 REC, 132 YD, 1 TD See New Posts Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned DELAY OF GAME ON THE TWO-POINT CONVERSION ARE YOU SERIOUS Pinned Pinned Russell Gage!!!! Star of the game. Hauls in the touchdown with 14 seconds left. He has 12 catches for 87 yards and a touchdown! Pinned Pinned 20 seconds to go! This quickly turned into a thriller. Bucs have the ball on the 1-yard line.  Pinned Maybe the Buccaneers should have gone up-tempo all game. This is the first time they are driving effectively. Up to 10 plays, 79 yards. Pinned Pinned Eight-point game! This is a one-score affair. Brady hasn’t got anything going up to this point, but there’s a reason he’s the GOAT. He’s got that clutch factor. Watch for some short passing over the middle, and some quick pace.  Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned Pinned Doesn’t look like they were very serious. Good try though.  Pinned There’s been no offense this half! Defensive slugfest. Looks like Aaron Rodgers is going to stay on the field on fourth down. wow Pinned Pinned See More Read More Here

Public Safety Officials Interdict Human Smuggling Attempt At Texas Airport https://digitalarkansasnews.com/public-safety-officials-interdict-human-smuggling-attempt-at-texas-airport/ Officials from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) have busted a human smuggling operation that was underway at an airport located in McAllen, a border city. “WESLACO–A @TxDPS Special Agent & Pilot stopped a human smuggling attempt at McCreery Aviation Co. in McAllen, TX. 19 illegal immigrants (12m/7f) from Central America were being smuggled by plane to Houston,” Texas DPS said in a Sept. 24 tweet. Officials received a tip about three vehicles dropping off potential illegal immigrants at the local airport. The special agent and the pilot who stopped the smuggling were working under Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border security mission. The duo ordered air traffic controllers to ground a Raytheon aircraft. While checking the plane, the special agent discovered the illegal immigrants. The failed smuggling attempt is being investigated by the Texas DPS Criminal Investigations Division as well as other federal agencies. DPS special agents had earlier intercepted an attempt to transport 50 illegal immigrants in an 18-wheeler. Two men were arrested on charges of smuggling, the agency said in a Sept. 22 tweet. Around two weeks ago, Border Patrol agents at the Rio Grande Valley Sector made 30 arrests involving smugglers who attempted to use airplanes to transport illegal immigrants. On Sept. 13, the Department of Justice announced it had disrupted a “prolific human smuggling operation” in Texas. The criminal organization carrying out the activities used drivers to pick up illegal immigrants near the U.S.-Mexico border to transport them to the interior of the United States. Drivers even used suitcases to hide the illegal immigrants. Migrant Influx, Transporting Aliens Out of State Since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, after which he loosened and reversed several Trump-era policies restricting illegal immigration, there has been a massive influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows border agents apprehended 186,424 illegal migrants in August, up from almost 48,000 in August 2020 and 50,684 arrests made in August 2019. Meanwhile, Texas has been busing illegal immigrants to Democrat-run “sanctuary cities” such as Washington, D.C., New York, and even Martha’s Vinyard, as a way of raising public awareness of the Biden administration’s lax border policies. While Texas used to spend around $400 million a year on border security, the costs have now shot up to around $4 billion, according to the state’s Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. “They’ve been dumping people in America for a long time, a long time,” Patrick told Fox News in an interview that aired on Sept. 17. “And now Texas is saying, we’re fighting back. We’re going to send them to your neighborhood and we’re going to keep those buses coming until finally this administration wakes up.” Follow Naveen Athrappully is a news reporter covering business and world events at The Epoch Times. Read More Here

California Gov. Newsom Signs Bill Allowing Illegal Immigrants To Obtain A State ID https://digitalarkansasnews.com/california-gov-newsom-signs-bill-allowing-illegal-immigrants-to-obtain-a-state-id/ NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! California residents can now acquire a state ID regardless of immigration status under a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday.  “We’re a state of refuge – a majority-minority state, where 27 percent of us are immigrants,” Newsom said after signing the legislation. “That’s why I’m proud to announce the signing of today’s bills to further support our immigrant community, which makes our state stronger every single day.” A law passed in 2013 allows California residents to obtain a driver’s license, but the bill that was signed Friday will allow non-driving residents to acquire a government-issued ID, even if they are not a legal immigrant.  Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a bill signing ceremony on Feb. 9, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) The bill’s sponsors framed ID cards as “passports to economic and societal participation” that allow individuals to access banking services, obtain government benefits, and acquire health care.  About 22% of California’s nearly 11 million immigrants are in the United States illegally, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.  GAVIN NEWSOM SAYS PEOPLE LEFT CALIFORNIA BECAUSE OF TRUMP’S VISA POLICIES One day after signing the bill, Newsom traveled to Texas, where he targeted Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for bussing and flying migrants to blue cities, and despite California’s 2017 ban on official travel to the Lone Star State.  Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks during a press conference on May 27, 2022. (Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a press conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “The one thing that he did is he broke with precedent, any precedent of decency and honor, his lack of character on display,” Newsom said at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin about DeSantis.  “He comes into another state – your state – to try to find pawns in a political game, rounds them up, sends them to an island, and then fundraises off it. What does that say about his character, and the character of the Republican Party that celebrated that act of cruelty and dehumanization?” Paul Best is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Paul.best@fox.com and on Twitter: @KincaidBest.  Read More Here

Giorgia Meloni Set To Be Italy's Most Far-Right Prime Minister Since Mussolini — Exit Poll | CNN https://digitalarkansasnews.com/giorgia-meloni-set-to-be-italys-most-far-right-prime-minister-since-mussolini-exit-poll-cnn/ 02:57 – Source: CNN Ultra-conservative likely to become Italy’s first female prime minister CNN  —  Italy will be led by the most far-right government since the fascist era of Benito Mussolini, early exit polls suggest. An alliance of far-right parties, led by Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party – whose origins lie in post-war fascism – were on track to win between 41 and 45% of the vote in Sunday’s general election, according to data from the Rai exit pollster Piepoli. The ultra-conservative Brothers of Italy party looks likely to win between 22 and 26% of the vote, with coalition partners the League, led by Matteo Salvini, taking between 8.5 and 12.5% and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia scoring between 6 and 8% of the vote. As the leader of the far-right coalition, Meloni is now set to become Italy’s first female prime minister. Final results are expected early Monday. Meloni’s party has seen an astronomical rise in popularity in recent years, having won just 4.5% of the vote in the last elections, in 2018. Their popularity underscores Italy’s longstanding rejection of mainstream politics, seen most recently with the country’s support of anti-establishment parties such as the Five Star Movement and Salvini’s League. Celebrating the early results on Sunday evening, Salvini said on Twitter, “Center-right in clear advantage both in the House and in the Senate! It will be a long night, but already now I want to say THANK YOU.” Meloni, a 45-year-old mother from Rome who has campaigned under the slogan “God, country and family,” leads a party whose agenda is rooted in Euroskepticism, anti-immigration policies, and one that has also proposed curtailing LGBTQ and abortion rights. The center-left coalition, led by the left-wing Democratic Party and centrist party +Europe are set to win between 25.5% and 29.5% of the vote, while former prime minister Giuseppe Conte’s bid to revive the Five Star Movement appeared to have been unsuccessful, taking just 14 to 17% of the vote. The Democratic Party conceded defeat early Monday morning, calling the results a “sad evening for the country.” “Undoubtedly we cannot, in light of the data seen so far, not attribute the victory to the right dragged by Giorgia Meloni. It is a sad evening for the country,” Debora Serracchiani of the Democratic Party told reporters. Sunday’s snap national election was triggered by party infighting that saw the collapse of Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s government in July. Voters headed to the polls amid a number of new regulations, with voting hours also contained to one day rather than two. Other changes included a younger voting age for the Senate and a reduction in the number of seats to elect – down from 685 seats to 400 in the Senate and from 315 to 200 in the lower House of Parliament. That parliament is scheduled to meet on October 13, at which point the head of state will call on party leaders to decide on the shape of the new government. The buildup to the election was dominated by hot-button issues including Italy’s cost-of-living crisis, a 209-billion euro package from the European Covid-19 recovery fund and the country’s support for Ukraine. Meloni differs from coalition partner leaders Berlusconi and Salvini on a number of issues, however, including Ukraine, and has no connection to Russian President Vladimir Putin, unlike the pair, who have said they would like to review sanctions against Russia because of their impact on the Italian economy. Meloni has instead been steadfast in her support for defending Ukraine. The incoming prime minister – the sixth in just eight years – will be tasked in tackling those challenges, with soaring energy costs and economic uncertainty among the country’s most pressing. And while Meloni is slated to make history as Italy’s first female prime minister, her politics do not mean that she is necessarily interested in advancing women’s rights. Emiliana De Blasio, adviser for diversity and inclusion at LUISS University in Rome told CNN Meloni is “not raising up at all questions on women’s rights and empowerment in general.” Sunday’s results come as other far-right parties in other European countries have marked recent gains, including the rise in Sweden’s anti-immigration party, Sweden Democrats – a party with neo-Nazi roots – who are expected to play a major role in the new government after winning the second largest share of seats at a general election earlier this month. And in France, while far-right ideologue Marine Le Pen lost the French presidential election to Emmanuel Macron in April, her share of the popular vote shifted France’s political center dramatically to the right. Read More Here

LinkedIn Ran Social Experiments On 20 Million Users Over Five Years https://digitalarkansasnews.com/linkedin-ran-social-experiments-on-20-million-users-over-five-years/ A study that looked back at those tests found that relatively weak social connections were more helpful in finding jobs than stronger social ties. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. Researchers examined changes that LinkedIn had made to its “People You May Know” algorithm to test what sociologists call the “strength of weak ties.”Credit…Sundry Photography/Alamy By Natasha Singer Natasha Singer, a business reporter at The New York Times, teaches a tech accountability journalism course at The Times’s summer program for high school students. Published Sept. 24, 2022Updated Sept. 25, 2022, 7:13 p.m. ET LinkedIn ran experiments on more than 20 million users over five years that, while intended to improve how the platform worked for members, could have affected some people’s livelihoods, according to a new study. In experiments conducted around the world from 2015 to 2019, Linkedin randomly varied the proportion of weak and strong contacts suggested by its “People You May Know” algorithm — the company’s automated system for recommending new connections to its users. Researchers at LinkedIn, M.I.T., Stanford and Harvard Business School later analyzed aggregate data from the tests in a study published this month in the journal Science. LinkedIn’s algorithmic experiments may come as a surprise to millions of people because the company did not inform users that the tests were underway. Tech giants like LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, routinely run large-scale experiments in which they try out different versions of app features, web designs and algorithms on different people. The longstanding practice, called A/B testing, is intended to improve consumers’ experiences and keep them engaged, which helps the companies make money through premium membership fees or advertising. Users often have no idea that companies are running the tests on them. (The New York Times uses such tests to assess the wording of headlines and to make decisions about the products and features the company releases.) But the changes made by LinkedIn are indicative of how such tweaks to widely used algorithms can become social engineering experiments with potentially life-altering consequences for many people. Experts who study the societal impacts of computing said conducting long, large-scale experiments on people that could affect their job prospects, in ways that are invisible to them, raised questions about industry transparency and research oversight. “The findings suggest that some users had better access to job opportunities or a meaningful difference in access to job opportunities,” said Michael Zimmer, an associate professor of computer science and the director of the Center for Data, Ethics and Society at Marquette University. “These are the kind of long-term consequences that need to be contemplated when we think of the ethics of engaging in this kind of big data research.” The study in Science tested an influential theory in sociology called “the strength of weak ties,” which maintains that people are more likely to gain employment and other opportunities through arms-length acquaintances than through close friends. The researchers analyzed how LinkedIn’s algorithmic changes had affected users’ job mobility. They found that relatively weak social ties on LinkedIn proved twice as effective in securing employment as stronger social ties. In a statement, Linkedin said during the study it had “acted consistently with” the company’s user agreement, privacy policy and member settings. The privacy policy notes that LinkedIn uses members’ personal data for research purposes. The statement added that the company used the latest, “non-invasive” social science techniques to answer important research questions “without any experimentation on members.” LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, did not directly answer a question about how the company had considered the potential long-term consequences of its experiments on users’ employment and economic status. But the company said the research had not disproportionately advantaged some users. The goal of the research was to “help people at scale,” said Karthik Rajkumar, an applied research scientist at LinkedIn who was one of the study’s co-authors. “No one was put at a disadvantage to find a job.” Sinan Aral, a management and data science professor at M.I.T. who was the lead author of the study, said LinkedIn’s experiments were an effort to ensure that users had equal access to employment opportunities. “To do an experiment on 20 million people and to then roll out a better algorithm for everyone’s jobs prospects as a result of the knowledge that you learn from that is what they are trying to do,” Professor Aral said, “rather than anointing some people to have social mobility and others to not.” (Professor Aral has conducted data analysis for The New York Times, and he received a research fellowship grant from Microsoft in 2010.) Experiments on users by big internet companies have a checkered history. Eight years ago, a Facebook study describing how the social network had quietly manipulated what posts appeared in users’ News Feeds in order to analyze the spread of negative and positive emotions on its platform was published. The weeklong experiment, conducted on 689,003 users, quickly generated a backlash. The Facebook study, whose authors included a researcher at the company and a professor at Cornell, contended that people had implicitly consented to the emotion manipulation experiment when they had signed up for Facebook. “All users agree prior to creating an account on Facebook,” the study said, “constituting informed consent for this research.” Critics disagreed, with some assailing Facebook for having invaded people’s privacy while exploiting their moods and causing them emotional distress. Others maintained that the project had used an academic co-author to lend credibility to problematic corporate research practices. Cornell later said its internal ethics board had not been required to review the project because Facebook had independently conducted the study and the professor, who had helped design the research, had not directly engaged in experiments on human subjects. Image Whether most LinkedIn members understand that they could be subject to experiments that may affect their job opportunities is unknown.Credit…Linkedin The LinkedIn professional networking experiments were different in intent, scope and scale. They were designed by Linkedin as part of the company’s continuing efforts to improve the relevance of its “People You May Know” algorithm, which suggests new connections to members. The algorithm analyzes data like members’ employment history, job titles and ties to other users. Then it tries to gauge the likelihood that a LinkedIn member will send a friend invite to a suggested new connection as well as the likelihood of that new connection accepting the invite. For the experiments, LinkedIn adjusted its algorithm to randomly vary the prevalence of strong and weak ties that the system recommended. The first wave of tests, conducted in 2015, “had over four million experimental subjects,” the study reported. The second wave of tests, conducted in 2019, involved more than 16 million people. During the tests, people who clicked on the “People You May Know” tool and looked at recommendations were assigned to different algorithmic paths. Some of those “treatment variants,” as the study called them, caused LinkedIn users to form more connections to people with whom they had only weak social ties. Other tweaks caused people to form fewer connections with weak ties. Whether most LinkedIn members understand that they could be subject to experiments that may affect their job opportunities is unknown. LinkedIn’s privacy policy says the company may “use the personal data available to us” to research “workplace trends, such as jobs availability and skills needed for these jobs.” Its policy for outside researchers seeking to analyze company data clearly states that those researchers will not be able to “experiment or perform tests on our members.” But neither policy explicitly informs consumers that LinkedIn itself may experiment or perform tests on its members. In a statement, LinkedIn said, “We are transparent with our members through our research section of our user agreement.” In an editorial statement, Science said, “It was our understanding, and that of the reviewers, that the experiments undertaken by LinkedIn operated under the guidelines of their user agreements.” After the first wave of algorithmic testing, researchers at LinkedIn and M.I.T. hit upon the idea of analyzing the outcomes from those experiments to test the theory of the strength of weak ties. Although the decades-old theory had become a cornerstone of social science, it had not been rigorously proved in a large-scale prospective trial that randomly assigned people to social connections of different strengths. The outside researchers analyzed aggregate data from LinkedIn. The study reported that people who received more recommendations for moderately weak contacts generally applied for and accepted more jobs — results that dovetailed with the weak-tie theory. In fact, relatively weak contacts — that is, people with whom LinkedIn members shared only 10 mutual connections — proved much more productive for job hunting than stronger contacts with whom users shared more than 20 mutual connections, the study said. A year after connecting on LinkedIn, people who had received more recommendations for moderately weak-tie contacts were twice as likely to land jobs at the companies where those acquaintances worked compared with...

On The Road With The Pig Trail: The Star https://digitalarkansasnews.com/on-the-road-with-the-pig-trail-the-star/ by: Will Moclair Posted: Sep 25, 2022 / 06:00 PM CDT Updated: Sep 25, 2022 / 06:02 PM CDT by: Will Moclair Posted: Sep 25, 2022 / 06:00 PM CDT Updated: Sep 25, 2022 / 06:02 PM CDT FAYETTEVILLE, AR. (KNWA/KFTA) – The Pig Trial Nation goes on the road for the Southwest Classic, but it’s not just the game on their list of to-dos. The team also stopped by The Star for a tour from Cowboys’ sideline reporter Kristi Scales. Scales, who has been with the Cowboys for 24 years, pulled out all the stops, including a lot of stops that are not on the public tour. Pig Trail Video HOGSCHEDULE SECSTANDINGS Trending Stories Read More Here

GOP Lawmaker Suggests There's 'pressure' On Republicans To Impeach Biden If Party Wins The House https://digitalarkansasnews.com/gop-lawmaker-suggests-theres-pressure-on-republicans-to-impeach-biden-if-party-wins-the-house/ (CNN)GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina said Sunday she believes there is “pressure” for House Republicans to move to impeach President Joe Biden if they gain control of the chamber after the midterm elections. “I believe there’s pressure on the Republicans to put that forward and have that vote,” Mace told NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” when asked if she foresees impeachment proceedings should her party win control of the House. “I think that’s what some folks are considering.” But the freshman lawmaker added: “If that happens, I do believe it’s divisive.” Mace did not mention the source of the alleged pressure and was not asked to elaborate on who is considering the move. Asked Sunday how she would vote if an impeachment vote came to the floor, Mace said: “I will not vote for impeachment of any president if I feel that due process was stripped away, for anyone. I typically vote constitutionally, regardless of who is in power.” CNN reported earlier this year that hard-line elements of the House Republican Conference were agitating to launch impeachment proceedings against Biden if the GOP takes power after the midterms — a move GOP leaders have so far declined to embrace. House Republicans are also plotting revenge on the select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection, CNN has reported. Former President Donald Trump has been leaning heavily on his Capitol Hill allies to defend him against a slew of damaging revelations about his role in the deadly attack on the US Capitol. And as Republicans search for ways to undermine those findings, their party has started to lay the groundwork to investigate the January 6 panel itself. Some of Trump’s fiercest acolytes have also begun publicly pushing for hearings and probes into his baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election. While House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has vowed to conduct aggressive oversight and investigations in a GOP-led House, it’s unclear just how far he would be willing to go when it comes to January 6 and the 2020 presidential election. Mace, who flipped a Charleston-area seat in 2020, voted to certify Biden’s presidential election victory, earning Trump’s wrath. Faced with charges of insufficient loyalty to the former President, she drew a Trump-backed primary challenger but ended up prevailing by 8 points in her June primary. Mace told NBC she was “very much hopeful” to see “a deep bench of Republicans and Democrats who will be running for president” in 2024. But she left the door open to possibly supporting Trump again if he were the 2024 GOP nominee for president. “I’m going to support whomever Republicans nominate in ’24,” she said. CNN’s Melanie Zanona, Manu Raju, Gabby Orr and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report. Read More Here

Arkansas's Top News Stories For September 25, 2022 https://digitalarkansasnews.com/arkansass-top-news-stories-for-september-25-2022/ Sarah Horbacewicz delivers Arkansas’s top news stories for September 25, 2022, including a new mural that was unveiled on 7th Street in Little Rock. Author: thv11.com Published: 5:40 PM CDT September 25, 2022 Updated: 5:50 PM CDT September 25, 2022 Read More…

Biden Struggles, As Does His Party, As Most Democrats Look Elsewhere For 2024: POLL – Everett Post https://digitalarkansasnews.com/biden-struggles-as-does-his-party-as-most-democrats-look-elsewhere-for-2024-poll-everett-post/ (NEW YORK) — With his party struggling in the midterms, his economic stewardship under fire and his overall job approval under 40%, a clear majority of Democrats in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say the party should replace Joe Biden as its nominee for president in 2024. In the November midterm election ahead, registered voters divide 47%-46% between the Republican and the Democratic candidate in their House district, historically not enough to prevent typical first-midterm losses. And one likely voter model has a 51%-46% Republican-Democratic split. Looking two years off, just 35% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents favor Biden for the 2024 nomination; 56% want the party to pick someone else. Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, for their part, split 47%-46% on whether Donald Trump should be their 2024 nominee — a 20-point drop for Trump compared with his 2020 nomination. The unpopularity of both figures may encourage third-party hopefuls, though they rarely do well. In a head-to-head rematch, the poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds a 48%-46% Biden-Trump contest, essentially tied. Among registered voters, the numbers reverse to 46%-48%. That’s even while 52% of Americans say Trump should be charged with a crime in any of the matters in which he’s under federal investigation, similar to views after the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. On issues, the survey finds broad opposition to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling eliminating a constitutional right to abortion and a big Democratic advantage in trust to handle the issue. But there’s no sign it’s impacting propensity to vote in comparison with other issues: four rank higher in importance and two of them — the economy, overall, and inflation, specifically — work strongly in the GOP’s favor. Biden and the midterms The president’s standing customarily is critical to his party’s fortunes in midterms — and Biden is well under water. Thirty-nine percent of Americans approve of his job performance while 53% disapprove, about where he’s been steadily the past year. Specifically on the economy, with inflation near a 40-year high, his approval rating is 36% while 57% disapprove — a 21-point deficit. Each election has its own dynamic but in midterm elections since 1946, when a president has had more than 50% job approval, his party has lost an average of 14 seats. When the president’s approval has been less than 50% — as Biden’s is by a considerable margin now — his party has lost an average of 37 seats. There’s one slightly better result for Biden: 40% say he’s accomplished a great deal or a good amount as president, up from 35% last fall. This usually is a tepid measure; it’s averaged 43% across four presidents in 11 previous polls since 1993. There’s something else the Democrats can hang on to; their current results are better than last November, when the Republicans led in national House vote preferences by 10 percentage points, 51%-41% — the largest midterm Republican lead in ABC/Post polls dating back 40 years. It’s true, too, that national House vote polling offers only a rough gauge of ultimate seats won or lost, in what, after all, are local races, influenced by incumbency, gerrymandering, candidate attributes and local as well as national issues. Issues The Democrats are not without ammunition in midterm campaigning: As noted, Americans broadly reject the U.S. Supreme Court ruling eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion — 29% support it, with 64% opposed. (Indeed, 53% strongly oppose it, compared with 21% strongly in support.) And the public trusts the Democratic Party over the Republican Party to handle abortion by a wide 20 points. In another measure, while 31% say the Democratic Party is too permissive on abortion, many more, 50%, say the GOP is too restrictive. But if abortion keeps the Republicans from entirely nationalizing the election around the economy, it doesn’t defang the public’s economic discontent. Seventy-four percent say the economy is in bad shape, up from 58% in the spring after Biden took office. The GOP leads the Democrats by 16 points in trust to handle the economy overall and by 19 points in trust to handle inflation. Equally important, 84% call the economy a top issue in their vote for Congress and 76% say the same about inflation. Many fewer, 62%, call abortion a top issue. Other issues also differentiate the parties. In addition to the economy, the Republicans can be expected to focus on crime in the campaigns’ closing weeks; they lead by 14 points in trust to handle it, and it’s highly important to 69%. Democrats, in return, hold a wide 23-point advantage in trust to handle climate change, though it’s highly important to far fewer, 50%. The parties run closely on two other issues — education and schools, Democrats +6, highly important to 77%; and immigration, essentially an even division, highly important to 61%. When these are assessed as a combination of importance and party preference, inflation and the economy top the list, followed by abortion, then climate change, crime, education and immigration. While inflation, the economy and abortion are marquee issues, one stands out for another reason: The Republicans’ 14-point advantage in trust to handle crime matches its largest since 1991. Among independents, it’s a whopping 34-point GOP lead. Indeed, on abortion, supporters of the Supreme Court ruling are more apt than its critics to say voting is more important to them in this election than in previous midterms, 73% vs. 64%. Also, 76% of the ruling’s supporters say they’re certain to vote, as are 70% of its opponents. Intention to turn out is influenced by other factors. Among all adults, it’s considerably higher among whites — 72% certain to vote — than among Black people (55%) or Hispanics (46%) — a result that advantages Republicans, whose support is strongest by far among whites. Groups Beyond differential turnout, weakness in midterm vote preference among Black and Hispanic voters may compound Democratic concerns. While Democratic House candidates lead their Republican opponents by 61 points among Black adults who are registered to vote, that compares with at least 79-point margins in exit polls in the past four midterms. This survey’s sample of Hispanics who are registered to vote is too small for reliable analysis, but the contest among them looks much closer than recent Democratic margins — 40 points in 2018, 27 points in 2014 and 22 points in 2010. Republican candidates, meanwhile, show some strength among registered voters who don’t have a college degree, +11 points in vote preference compared with an even split in the 2018 ABC News exit poll. A factor: Non-college adults are 8 points more likely than those with four-year degrees to say they’re not just concerned but upset about the current inflation rate. Results among other groups don’t provide evidence for the hypothesis that the abortion ruling might boost the Democrats, compared with past years, among some women. Women younger than 40 support the Democratic candidate in their district by 19 points, but did so by 43 points in the 2018 exit poll. Suburban women split about evenly between the parties (44-47% Democratic-Republican), about the same as among suburban men (45-50% Democratic-Republican). Independent women are +5 GOP in vote preference; independent men, essentially the same, +3. Independents overall — often a swing voter group — divide 42-47% between Democratic and Republican candidates. This is a group that voted Democratic by 12 points in 2018 — but Republican by 14 points in 2014 (when the GOP won 13 House seats) and by 19 points in 2010 (when the GOP won 63 seats). Lastly, there are some milestones in Biden’s approval rating. He’s at new lows in approval among liberals (68%), Southerners (33%) and people in the middle- to upper-middle income range (34%). And his strong approval among Black adults — among the most stalwart Democratic groups — is at a career-low 31%. Methodology This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Sept. 18-21, 2022, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,006 adults, including 908 registered voters. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions in the full sample are 28%-24%-41%, Democrats-Republicans-independents, and 27%-26%-40% among registered voters. Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Read More Here

The Megastate G.O.P. Rivalry Between Abbott And DeSantis https://digitalarkansasnews.com/the-megastate-g-o-p-rivalry-between-abbott-and-desantis/ Political Memo Publicly, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has not criticized the migrant flights from his state by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Privately, the Florida governor’s stunt stung the Texas governor’s team. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, left, and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas in 2021 in Del Rio, Texas.Credit…Office of the Texas Governor Sept. 25, 2022Updated 5:42 p.m. ET AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida wanted to irritate a set of wealthy, liberal elites when he flew migrants to Martha’s Vineyard from Texas, delivering them a slice of the humanitarian crisis simmering along the nation’s southern border. But Mr. DeSantis’s stunt also annoyed an entirely different group — fellow Republicans in Austin, including some of the allies and aides of Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas. Publicly, Mr. Abbott has not criticized Mr. DeSantis’s migrant flights from his state. “Every state that wants to help, I’m happy for it,” said Dave Carney, Mr. Abbott’s top campaign strategist. But privately, the Florida governor’s gambit stung Mr. Abbott’s team. No one in the Texas governor’s office was given a heads-up that Mr. DeSantis planned to round up migrants in San Antonio, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Abbott had spent months — and millions of state tax dollars — methodically orchestrating a relocation program that, since April, had bused 11,000 migrants to Washington, New York and Chicago. Mr. DeSantis’s adaptation was considerably smaller. But it immediately put the national spotlight on Mr. DeSantis, garnering headlines and earning him praise from Republicans and condemnation from Democrats. It also led to an investigation by the sheriff in San Antonio and a lawsuit from migrants who said they had been lured onto the planes under false pretenses. Mr. DeSantis grabbed the attention of right-wing America, using Mr. Abbott’s tactic, on Mr. Abbott’s turf, to bigger and more dramatic effect. Image Members of the media gathering in Edgartown, Mass., after the arrival of migrants from San Antonio.Credit…Matt Cosby for The New York Times Mr. DeSantis’s instinct for political theater has helped him quickly turn into Republicans’ leading alternative to former President Donald J. Trump. Even Texas Republicans tell pollsters that they prefer Mr. DeSantis over Mr. Abbott for president in 2024. The two Republican governors have been locked in an increasingly high-stakes contest of one-upmanship, wielding their own unique brands of conservatism and pushing boundaries by using desperate migrants for political gain. In Florida, Mr. DeSantis mused to donors last year about Mr. Abbott’s good political fortune to share 1,254 miles of border with Mexico and complained that he didn’t have the same to use as a backdrop, according to one person familiar with the conversation. For all the bluster, the war between Austin and Tallahassee is decidedly more cold than hot. Yet, the two governors’ policy moves antagonizing the Biden administration and the Democratic Party as a whole have been unfolding as an interstate call and response, with national repercussions. In August 2020, Mr. Abbott proposed legislation to punish cities in Texas that took funding away from police departments by preventing them from raising more property tax revenue. The following month, Mr. DeSantis went further, saying he would seek to cut state funding from municipalities that defunded the police. In February of this year, Mr. Abbott ordered state officials to open child-abuse investigations into medically accepted treatments for transgender youth, including hormones and puberty-suppressing drugs. Last month, Mr. DeSantis said doctors who “disfigure” young people with gender-affirming care should be sued. In June 2021, on the first day of Pride Month, Mr. DeSantis signed a bill into law that barred transgender girls from playing on female sports teams at public schools. Mr. Abbott followed suit with a similar measure that October. The competition between Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Abbott has more to do with their job descriptions than any personal animosity. Governors elected to lead megastates like Florida and Texas — two of America’s three largest states that accounted for 15 percent of the Republican presidential vote in 2020 — are automatically injected into the national political arena, where they are sized up and watched closely for signs of White House ambitions. “Love Florida. Love Texas. Love Florida more,” Jeb Bush, a former Florida governor with deep familial ties to Texas, said when asked about the rivalry between the two states. When Rick Scott was the governor of Florida and Rick Perry was the governor of Texas, the two Ricks shared a bromance even as both eyed the White House. From Florida, Mr. Scott spoke glowingly of his counterpart’s record of luring businesses. In Texas, Mr. Perry admired his rival’s refusal to accept federal stimulus money for railroads or to expand Medicaid. Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Abbott have lacked such camaraderie. Their brinkmanship has played out against the backdrop of their re-election bids. Both men are seeking additional four-year terms while facing challenges by well-known Democrats in contests that could help determine their presidential aspirations and the direction of the Republican Party for years to come. “No one has ever been elected governor of even a small state who didn’t, somewhere deep in their heart, start dreaming about being president,” said Chris Wilson, a pollster who has worked for both men. “So it’s not shocking to see both Abbott and DeSantis jockeying at least a little toward 2024 or beyond.” Mr. Abbott is the more institutional politician. He faced no opposition in his first primary election for attorney general in 2002, and was effectively unopposed inside the party when he ran to succeed Mr. Perry as governor in 2014. He has worked to maintain ties with business groups, social conservatives and fellow Republican governors. A former Texas Supreme Court justice, he is a rather lawyerly governor. Mr. DeSantis is more instinctual. He emerged from a six-way Republican primary in his first race for the House of Representatives in 2012. He was viewed as an underdog in the 2018 governor’s primary until he became separated from the pack, thanks to an endorsement — and constant promotion — from Mr. Trump. A former lawyer for the Navy at Guantánamo Bay, he is more pugilistic than judicial. Image Both Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Abbott are running for re-election this year and face challenges by well-known Democrats. Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times Still, Mr. DeSantis has positioned himself as something of a political loner. He has eschewed events coordinated by the tight-knit Republican Governors Association. Instead of joining a group of current and former Republican governors on the campaign trail this year to support fellow incumbents, Mr. DeSantis embarked on his own victory lap, promoting the migrant flights during campaign stops with Republican candidates for governor in Kansas and Wisconsin. Those events were organized not by the Republican Governors Association, but by Turning Point USA, a group of younger and more provocative conservative activists close to Mr. Trump and his family. In Tallahassee, the migrant flights had been discussed for more than a year and had, at one point, centered on relocating the migrants to the Hamptons, the popular Long Island destination for wealthy New Yorkers, according to people familiar with the talks. Initially, the proposal caused some division within Mr. DeSantis’s team. The contrasting styles of Mr. Abbott and Mr. DeSantis were on clear display last year in their handling of high-profile election bills. When Mr. Abbott signed a new round of voting restrictions, he traveled to Tyler, the hometown of one of the bill’s chief proponents, and was surrounded by Republican lawmakers, supporters and reporters. When Mr. DeSantis signed his state’s voting restrictions, he, too, was surrounded by fellow Florida Republicans, but the only network that was allowed to cover the event was Fox News, which aired the footage live on its program “Fox & Friends.” Image Mr. Abbott in Tyler, Texas, after signing an election bill last year that restricts voting.Credit…LM Otero/Associated Press The coronavirus pandemic has been a defining moment for both governors. Mr. DeSantis burnished his conservative bona fides by challenging Covid safety guidelines from public health officials. He lifted pandemic restrictions on businesses in Florida in September 2020, earlier than most governors. By contrast, Mr. Abbott found himself clashing with conservatives over the business restrictions and mask mandate that he had ordered. Some donors confronted Mr. Abbott, expressing their disappointment that he was not following Mr. DeSantis’s lead and suggesting that he could lose re-election if he did not move quicker to reopen businesses and return the state to normalcy, according to two Republicans who participated in the meeting. Mr. Abbott eventually lifted restrictions on businesses in March 2021, months after Mr. DeSantis did. “Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis have a solid working relationship, having worked together on various initiatives through Republican governors organizations,” Renae Eze, Mr. Abbott’s press secretary, said. A spokeswoman for Mr. DeSantis did not respond to requests for comment about his relationship with Mr. Abbott and his remark about the border to donors last year. Last year, after the start of the Biden administration and as migrants arrived at the border in increasing numbers, Mr. Abbott and Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona sought assistance from other states to ...