Lurker > Humble_Novice

Ah well, you see I wanted a candidate that cared about people who have melanin in their skin and wouldn't stand by an ongoing genocide. Is that too much to ask for? Am I seriously asking too much for Joe Biden to not kill innocent Palestinians?

Wray said he has no control over outside groups like the CLC or any mailers they choose to send out but he added that he has never shied away from his pro-business record.

As to the mailers that have recently been sent on my behalf, those are independent expenditures that I am not allowed to coordinate or know anything about, Wray said. I have a strong record of supporting small businesses in my district and work very hard to bring needed resources back to my district. If outside groups want to highlight my record in this regard, I am delighted.

Rodney Pierce, the middle school history teacher whos challenging Wray in the Democratic primary, said hes particularly incensed by Wrays environmental record. The district includes Warren County, which is where the Environmental Justice movement began in the 1980s, before it spread nationwide with its goal of highlighting how pollution often disproportionately affects minority communities.

I dont understand how someone could represent the birthplace of the environmental justice movement and yet vote to override the governors veto on an anti-environmental bill, Pierce said.

In addition to his vote this year to undo wetlands protections as part of the annual Farm Act, Wray also joined Republicans in 2017 to co-sponsor a new law essentially banning North Carolinians from suing farms over nuisance issues such as excessive odor, noise and pollution. The legislature acted to stop those lawsuits after hog producers lost a series of legal fights in which juries ordered them to pay Eastern North Carolina families living near their hog farms hundreds of millions of dollars for harming their property values.

One of the three current leaders of the CLC is Jeffrey Turner, executive vice president of Murphy Family Ventures a management company run by the family behind Murphy-Brown, one of the defendants in the hog farm lawsuits. He didnt respond to a request for comment on the mailers. Nor did Michael Luethy, a GOP operative who has worked with the CLC.

The mailers mostly focus on highlighting parts of the new state budget, which passed with no Democratic support in the state Senate, and only five of the 48 House Democrats: Reps. Carla Cunningham, Garland Pierce and Shelly Willingham, plus Brockman and Wray.

The budget finalized Medicaid expansion a longtime goal of Cooper and other Democratic Party leaders but Democrats opposed the budget for a number of other reasons, including hundreds of millions of dollars extra per year to the voucher program that gives taxpayer-funded aid for private school tuition.

Wray has cited Medicaid expansion as a reason why he voted for the budget; Pierce has used the voucher piece of it to criticize him.

Wray and Brockman also both made news last year for a vote they missed to repeal the states pistol permit requirements. Their absence during that vote gave Republicans the numbers they needed to overturn Coopers veto.

Brockmans opponent James Adams, the former president of the local NAACP chapter, is highlighting that.

The James Adams campaign is aware of several mail pieces that have gone out from organizations with strong ties to Republicans in support of our opponent, aide Justin Cundall said. This demonstrates what we already knew. That Rep. Brockman is a key vote (or absence from the chamber) for them when the chips are down. Republicans want to see him stay in office enough to spend money to help make that a reality.

The Carolina Leadership Coalitions original founders included two Republicans from the same small town as House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland. Its current leaders include several politically connected businessmen who Moore and other GOP leaders have appointed to high-profile government positions. Tax records show its fundraising is handled by a limited liability corporation registered to a Republican political operative from Charlotte.

The group used to disclose where it got its money and how it spent those funds. But since the 2020 elections it has been allowed to keep that information secret by claiming a certain type of tax status, as a mostly non-political social welfare group.

Tax law says in order for those groups to keep their donors secret they cant primarily engage in political activities. But the law is vague and, in practice, given lax oversight.

Many groups organized as social welfare groups are well known for their political activities, including Planned Parenthood Action Fund and the National Rifle Association. In North Carolinas 2014 election for the U.S. Senate, one social welfare group spent 97% of its money on ads promoting Republican candidate Thom Tillis, despite the legal requirement to remain primarily non-political. The Federal Elections Commission declined to take any action.

In the case of the mailers this year, a spokesman for the North Carolina State Board of Elections said its seen the CLC fliers and doesnt believe they have legally crossed a line into political advocacy that would require the group to report more information to the state.

And while the elections board requires frequent filings by political groups sometimes with updates due every few days other nonprofits arent beholden to similar rules. The CLCs most recent publicly available tax filings are from the 2021-22 fiscal year, when it raised just over $1.1 million.

Its unclear who gave that money, what the money was spent on, or how much the group has raised for this years elections.

Election day for the primary is now less than two weeks away. And while neither of the challengers to Wray and Brockman have much money in their own campaign accounts, outside liberal groups are expected to back the challengers in the waning days of the race.

Enter the Carolina Leadership Coalition, a conservative group that recently started sending out pro-Brockman mailers in his High Point district and pro-Wray mailers in his district covering Warren, Halifax and Northampton counties in the area north of Rocky Mount.

The CLC made headlines in the 2022 elections for mailers with a digitally altered image of Democratic Rep. Ricky Hurtado, D-Alamance, falsely making it look as if he wore a Defund The Police shirt. Hurtado ended up losing reelection with 49% of the vote.

But now in 2024 the group is sending out mailers with high praise for two other Democrats, Wray and Brockman.

Each of them is making a BIG difference for our community, both mailers say.

Brockman and Wray are among a small handful of Democrats who sided with Republicans on some key votes during the 2023 legislative session, which also saw Charlotte-area Rep. Tricia Cotham switch parties to give Republicans a veto-proof supermajority in the legislature. Democrats are hoping to break that supermajority in 2024. Some believe itll require not only flipping Cothams seat back a top priority for a party out for political revenge but also using the party primaries in March to unseat members who might be swayed to cross party lines again in the future.

Its in that context that Wray and Brockman face challengers who are backed by activist groups including Carolina Forward, the Young Democrats of North Carolina and others on the partys left wing.

Theres a lot of people whove been watching Michael Wray and Cecil Brockman for a while, mostly because their voting records dont match their district, Carolina Forward leader Blair Reeves said.

Both lawmakers represent majority-minority districts. Brockman is Black; Wray is white. Brockman strongly contested Reeves criticism, saying in an interview that some progressive activists mistakenly assume all Black voters hold certain political views because of their race.

Just because its a strongly minority district doesnt mean it will necessarily vote the way you want it to vote, Brockman said. You do not own the Black vote.

In the 2023 session, Cooper vetoed 19 bills. Republicans successfully overrode all 19 sometimes purely along party lines, but other times with a small number of Democrats voting against Cooper. Wray sided with Republicans on new laws limiting transgender rights; Brockman sided with the GOP on two new charter school laws.

And both broke party ranks to join Republicans in passing a handful of new pro-business changes to state law, including:
1. Allowing consumer loan companies to charge higher fees and interest rates.
2. Banning any new energy efficiency rules for residential construction.
3. Rolling back environmental protections for wetlands.

It was possibly their votes on bills backed by the business community that won attention from the CLC, which advocates for limited government, free enterprise and low taxation, according to its website.

As North Carolinas 2024 primary elections heat up, it appears that at least hundreds of thousands of dollars have begun pouring in to influence some key races on the Democratic side from an unlikely source: Secretive outside groups tied to top Republican leaders.

The Democratic primary for attorney general pits U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson against Durham District Attorney Satana Deberry and Tim Dunn, a lawyer from Fayetteville.

On Friday Jackson accused an outside group which has been heavily promoting Deberry as the more progressive candidate in the race of being a fake liberal group thats actually backed by GOP interests, based on a report by Charlotte public radio station WFAE.

It is now on track to spend $1 million just to beat me in the primary, Jackson said in a social media video Friday. But here's the kicker: It's funded by the other party. So I'm now running in a primary where the top spender isn't me or my opponent, it's the other party.

Jackson, Deberry and Dunn are running to replace Democrat Josh Stein, whos running for governor to replace term-limited Gov. Roy Cooper, a fellow Democrat. The winner in the Democratic attorney general primary will face Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop in the general election. Bishop is running unopposed.

Deberry criticized Jackson for attributing the mailers backing her candidacy to a secret GOP operation, noting that there's not currently any indication of who paid for the effort.

"As any candidate for attorney general should know, it's wildly irresponsible to make assumptions about the source of funding without proof," she said.

Theres no direct proof the group behind the pro-Deberry ads, the And Justice For All PAC, is backed by Republicans. In part thats because almost nothing is publicly known about it. The group only formed this month and has yet to submit paperwork that could show whos funding it, or other identifying information. The political action committees physical address leads to a mail center in Washington, D.C., and its phone number goes straight to voicemail. The groups listed contact did not respond to a request for comment.

But there are some clues about who is behind it.

The small, niche bank in Virginia it uses was founded by a former Republican U.S. senator and media reports indicate it serves a clientele made up largely of Republican politicians and political groups. The PACs ad buyer is Political Communications Advertising, which public records show has worked almost exclusively for Republican clients in the past mostly the National Republican Congressional Committee, a group run by U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, a Republican from North Carolina and a colleague of both Bishop and Jackson in Congress.

While that PAC is seeking to bolster the more progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for attorney general, a separate dark money group with deep ties to GOP leadership at the state level is taking the opposite tactic.

In both cases, the group is supporting more moderate incumbents state Reps. Michael Wray, D-Northampton, and Cecil Brockman, D-Guilford against progressive challengers this March.

Republicans were adamantly against this a few years ago.

Donald Trump and his senior staff are pointing fingers after a leak from his camp wound up on the front page of the New York Times.

The newspaper revealed that Trump had privately told allies he supports a 16-week national abortion plan, with some exceptions. The former president's campaign reportedly greeted the story with anger, frustration and paranoia that's left them scrambling to clean up the political fallout.

The Trump campaign initially called the newspaper report "fake news," but did not deny or dispute the reporting, but a campaign spokesman said Wednesday the story was "fake and untrue."

But a source with direct knowledge of the situation confirmed to Rolling Stone that the former president had privately expressed enthusiasm for the 16-week prohibition, saying that was the position shared by most Americans.

He said it, that source said. Sixteen with exceptions.

Trump has been privately endorsing the 16-week ban in conversations with so many allies and confidants that a leak was inevitable, said that source and two others briefed on the matter, although the campaign's frustration is hardly surprising.

The former president has described himself as the most pro-life president ever," and certainly needs anti-abortion conservatives to turn out for him in November, but sources said Trump is terrified that his positions on abortion rights would alienate independents and suburban women voters.

But his camp is also apparently fearful that the leak of his stance will also hurt his election chances with anti-abortion supporters who don't think his position is extreme enough.

He is a negotiator by trade, and I think he will negotiate a good deal on this issue, and on a whole host of other issues, said megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, a longtime Trump adviser.

Just about three weeks ago, I was talking to President Trump about this issue, and he and I agreed that a six-week ban with no exceptions policy is not going to fly in America today, because the overwhelming majority of Americans are against something that is that extreme. But he also said they are against the extreme abortion-on-demand. So hes clearly trying to get to a position that is staunchly pro-life, but also realistic, given where most Americans are.

Some Trump advisers suspect the leak may have originated with anti-abortion conservatives in hopes of pushing the former president into committing to a federal ban before the general election race kicks off, which President Joe Biden and other Democrats would view as an even bigger gift than a leaked report.

But he has the money to appeal the $455 million judgment against his business empire.

I don't get it, I must admit.

More than one in five Idaho obstetricians have stopped practicing in the state since Idahos near-total abortion ban took effect in August 2022, according to a new report.

Data compiled by the Idaho Physician Well-Being Action Collaborative shows that dozens of obstetricians stopping practicing in Idaho in the last 15 months. Over the same period, only two obstetricians moved to the state to practice.

The number of obstetricians in Idaho decreased from 227 in 2022 to about 176 in 2023, a decline of 51 doctors, the report said.

The Idaho Physician Well-Being Action Collaborative is a group created by local physicians in 2018 to address problems affecting physicians and patients in Idaho communities, its website says. The collaborative is a group within the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare, which issued a news release Monday that said the numbers should concern every person living in or considering a move to Idaho.

The report also noted that two hospital obstetrics programs, at West Bonner General Health, a critical access hospital in Sandpoint, Idaho, and at Valor Health, the only hospital in Emmett, have closed since Idahos trigger law banning abortion took effect. An additional hospital obstetrics program is in serious jeopardy of closing, it said.

Donald Trumps legal woes continue in Wisconsin, where the states ethics commission has reportedly recommended felony charges against Trumps Save America Joint Fundraising Committee for its alleged role in a plot to bypass campaign finance limits.

Trump is already facing 91 felony charges in criminal cases across multiple states related to his political and business dealings. The newest allegations in Wisconsin were first reported on Friday by the news site WisPolitics.

The bipartisan ethics commission, which oversees the enforcement of campaign finance and lobbying laws in the state, recommended the charges in connection with a fundraising effort to target the Republican state assembly speaker, Robin Vos, during a 2022 primary challenge.

Vos, who is the longest-serving assembly speaker in the states history, has been a consistent target of Trump and his allies since refusing to aid Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Wisconsin. Trump personally urged Vos to decertify the Wisconsin election results and, when the speaker said he could not do it under the states constitution, released a statement accusing Vos of working hard to cover up election corruption.

The commission alleges Adam Steen, Voss primary challenger, coordinated with state Republican party chapters to evade Wisconsins $1,000 limit on individual campaign donations by having individuals funnel earmarked donations through the county parties, which face no limits on campaign spending. The commission found the effort generated more than $40,000 to benefit Voss primary opponent.

Vos survived the primary attempt, but barely. Steen, who earned Trumps endorsement, lost by a mere 260 votes.

Election-denying activists have most recently backed a campaign to recall Vos, which is still gathering petition signatures and has drawn the attention of national figures in the Maga movement, including the conspiracy theorist and MyPillow CEO, Mike Lindell. Lindell headlined an event and has promoted the effort on social media, writing that Vos had blocked our efforts to secure our elections in a post on the social media site X (formerly Twitter).

Pics? I gotta see this

America will never have a true left wing.

Vote and kick their motherfucking ass.

aoc 2028

California

The Republican party ladies and gentleman

When households in the United States pay their gas and electric bills, theyre paying for energy, the wires and pipelines it takes to get that energy into their home, and the costs of maintaining that infrastructure. But those monthly payments could also be funding efforts by utilities to lobby against climate policies.

While federal law prohibits utilities from recovering lobbying expenses from customers, consumer advocates say that those rules lack teeth and arent sufficiently enforced. Now, states are taking the lead to ban the practice. According to the utility watchdog group Energy and Policy Institute, lawmakers in eight states, including California and Maryland, have introduced bills this year that would block utilities from charging customers for the costs of lobbying, advertising, trade association dues, and other political activities. The measures build on a growing trend in state policy: Last year, Colorado, Connecticut, and Maine became the first states in the nation to pass comprehensive laws preventing utilities from passing on the costs of lobbying to ratepayers.

There is a lot of recent success that states can look to for inspiration, said Charles Harper, power sector policy lead at the climate advocacy group Evergreen Action. People are starting to pay attention because theyre realizing that theyre paying for climate denial in their bills every month.

Bump.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/400-current-events/80702175

Biden coming through

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/79a86b03.jpg

President Joe Biden on Wednesday will announce $1.2 billion of student debt relief for nearly 153,000 borrowers and hes sending emails to make sure they know whom to thank for it.

The administrations latest tranche of loan forgiveness covers borrowers who are enrolled in Bidens new loan repayment program, initially borrowed $12,000 or less and have been repaying their debt for at least 10 years.

Biden will tout the relief and his administrations broader efforts to cancel student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans during remarks in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

The White House said the event will include some of the borrowers who will benefit from the announcement as well as those whove previously had their debts canceled by Biden.

The administration says that it has now approved loan discharges totaling nearly $138 billion for nearly 3.9 million borrowers through dozens of administrative actions since coming into office.

But a challenge for the Biden reelection campaign and Democratic allies is making sure that the president gets credit for canceling that debteven as the White House explores ways to further increase the number of Americans receiving loan relief.

Congratulationsall or a portion of your federal student loans will be forgiven because you qualify for early loan forgiveness under my Administrations SAVE Plan, says the email message from Biden that the Education Department plans to send on Wednesday to the latest group of borrowers receiving loan forgiveness.

I hope this relief gives you a little more breathing room, Biden writes in the message.

The Education Department has previously sent out emails signed by Biden for some, but not all, previous rounds of debt relief. Many borrowers have posted screenshots of those emails in recent months across social media platforms.

Previewing the announcement on Tuesday, a senior administration official told reporters that the emails are an important way to communicate with borrowers, to make sure emails get opened, and to raise the profile of the benefits that were offering, and encourage more borrowers to take advantage of them.

The latest tranche of loan forgiveness is part of Bidens new loan repayment program known as the SAVE plan that the administration finalized last year. It offers lower monthly payments based on borrowers income and an easier path to getting their debts ultimately canceled after years of payments.

U.S. Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee is under fire for his comments on the war in Gaza. In a recently released video, Ogles can be seen walking through the U.S. Capitol, as a pro-Palestinian activist questions him on Americas support for Israels military.

Thats my taxpayer dollars going to bomb those kids, the woman said.

You know what? Ogles said. I think we should kill them all if that makes you feel better.

The American Muslim Advisory Council, or AMAC, has denounced Ogles comments and an earlier neo-Nazi rally held in Nashville over the weekend.

Such rhetoric is not only abhorrent but also antithetical to our values as a state. It is such rhetoric that has continued to foster a political climate where extremist ideologies flourish, empowering neo-Nazis to openly parade through our streets and allowing genocidal sentiments to go unchallenged, the Tennessee-based organization said in a statement. This cannot be tolerated any longer. As citizens of Tennessee, we deserve better representation from those elected to office.

House Majority Leader William Lamberth filed a resolution Tuesday that would condemn neo-Nazism in the state.

Racism and hatred in any form are repugnant and sinful, he wrote in the resolution. Neo-Nazi groups promote an ideology in conflict with our nations bedrock principles of liberty and justice for all.

AMAC said it has seen a rise in anti-Muslim attacks across the state, including a pregnant woman being attacked by a neighbor in Memphis, online threats to Muslim community in Hamilton County and teenagers in Nashville being assaulted and called terrorists after attending a rally.

Last week, AMAC was also forced to take down a student survey after receiving a threat associated with one of the submissions.