Sen. Rick Scott alters policy plan causing heartburn for GOP
By KEVIN FREKING
2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida has amended his plan to overhaul how the federal government works after Democrats, including President Joe Biden, repeatedly invoked it to accuse Republicans of looking to cut Medicare and Social Security.
Scott unveiled his original plan last year when serving as chair of the campaign committee for Senate Republicans. It called for all federal legislation to sunset in five years, and if a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.
His revised plan specifies exceptions for Social Security, Medicare, national security, veterans benefits, and other essential services. The change comes as Democrats work to drive a wedge between GOP lawmakers and their base of older voters who rely on government programs for income and health insurance.
Biden held up a pamphlet of Scott's original plan when he visited the senator's home state of Florida last week, saying “I know that a lot of Republicans — their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare. If that’s your dream, I’m your nightmare.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has also been highlighting Scott’s proposals to criticize the GOP's budgetary demands. And Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has consistently sought to distance Senate Republicans from Scott, telling reporters this week: “Let me say one more time, there is no agenda on the part of Senate Republicans to revisit Medicare or Social Security, period."
Scott's new plan takes a shot at his critics, saying in bold typeface: “Note to President Biden, Sen. Schumer, and Sen. McConnell – As you know, this was never intended to apply to Social Security, Medicare, or the US Navy."
Scott explained the changes he made in a Washington Examiner op-ed that lashed out at Biden as well as McConnell.
“I have never supported cutting Social Security or Medicare, ever. To say otherwise is a disingenuous Democrat lie from a very confused president. And Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is also well aware of that. It’s shallow gotcha politics, which is what Washington does," Scott wrote.
The White House wasn’t buying Scott’s explanation, though. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said cutting Medicare and Social Security was a “longstanding passion” for Scott.
“Make no mistake, his true colors are undeniable and on the record,” Jean-Pierre said.
McConnell and Scott have been at odds for some time now. Scott challenged McConnell in November to become the chamber's minority leader, but McConnell easily prevailed in the first attempt to oust him. The vote was 37-10, senators said, with one other senator voting present.
House Republicans have been calling for reducing government spending as part of any agreement to increase the nation's borrowing authority in the coming months. Democrats have been calling for a clean debt ceiling with no strings attached and are challenging Republicans to spell out any cuts they propose to make. Scott's overhaul Friday signals the difficulty Republicans will have in answering that challenge.
____
Associated Press staff writer Christopher Megerian contributed to this report.
if cutting medicare and social security were not initially part of the plan before, why did he have to change the plan?
that tells me he was cutting those programs. if he wasn't, why did he have to change it and change the language?
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Republicans to adopt loyalty pledge for debate participants
By STEVE PEOPLES
Yesterday
NEW YORK (AP) — Republican presidential candidates will be blocked from the debate stage this summer if they do not sign a pledge to support the GOP's ultimate presidential nominee, according to draft language set to be adopted when the Republican National Committee meets next week.
The proposal sets up a potential clash with former President Donald Trump, who has raised the possibility of leaving the Republican Party and launching an independent candidacy if he does not win the GOP nomination outright. While RNC officials and Trump aides downplay that possibility, such a move could destroy the GOP's White House aspirations in 2024 and raise existential questions about the party's future.
“After the primary, it is imperative to the health and growth of our Republican Party, as well as the country, that we all come together and unite behind our nominee to defeat Joe Biden and the Democrats,” RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said in a statement to The Associated Press when asked about the loyalty pledge.
As many as a dozen Republicans are expected to enter the 2024 presidential contest as the GOP braces for an all-out civil war in the months ahead.
Much of the party is eager to move past Trump and his divisive politics, but in reality, Republican leaders have few, if any, tools to control the former president given his popularity with the GOP's most passionate voters. RNC leaders are hopeful that a loyalty pledge, while ultimately unenforceable, would generate some shared commitment to unity, albeit a fragile one, as the presidential primary season takes off.
A senior Trump aide could not say whether the former president would sign the pledge to support the eventual nominee but suggested privately that he plans to participate in the debates. Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung declined to answer the question directly as well.
“President Trump is the undisputed leader of the Republican Party and will be the nominee," Cheung said. “There is nobody who can outmatch President Trump's energy or the enthusiasm he receives from Americans of all backgrounds.”
Facing similar concerns in 2016, Trump signed a similar loyalty pledge that was not tied to debates, but he later reneged as the primary campaign became more contentious. At the very first Republican primary debate that year, Trump was the only candidate on stage who refused to commit to supporting the party's eventual nominee unless it was him.
And just last December, Trump shared an article on social media encouraging him to seek a third-party bid to punish the GOP should Republican primary voters select another presidential nominee in 2024.
Meanwhile, there is no such threat on the Democratic side.
Virtually every Democrat thought to have presidential aspirations has already promised to unite behind President Joe Biden, assuming the 78-year-old Democrat follows through on his plan to seek a second term. Biden may face token resistance from a lower-profile intra-party rival — activist and author Marianne Williamson is exploring another White House bid, for example — but the Democratic president would face little pressure to appear on the debate stage before the fall of 2024 for the general election debates, should they occur.
The Republican loyalty pledge is among several provisions likely to be adopted as the RNC's Temporary Standing Committee on Presidential Debates meets next week to determine the rules governing which candidates may participate in the GOP's upcoming debate season — and which media networks will host the events.
The committee is considering between 10 and 12 debates to begin in late July at the Reagan Library in California or at the RNC’s summer meeting in Milwaukee, the host of the GOP’s next national convention.
Committee officials are sorting through proposals from as many as 18 media companies eager to host a debate. They include major television networks like CNN, MSNBC and Fox and lower-profile conservative favorites like Newsmax, according to people directly involved in the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal discussions.
While the likes of CNN and NBC hosted Republican primary debates in 2016, Republican officials suggest it would be a mistake to assume they will be selected this time around given widespread disdain for the networks among the party's base. Representatives from each network will pitch the RNC in person next Wednesday and Thursday.
Meanwhile, the criteria for debate participants will almost certainly include a new donor threshold to demonstrate broad support among the party's grassroots in addition to a polling threshold of either 1% or 2%. Participants will also be asked to sign a pledge to avoid any general election debates hosted by the Commission for President Debates; the commission has hosted every general election presidential debate since 1988, but Republicans increasingly believe the non-partisan group is biased against them.
While there are many moving pieces, GOP leaders are most concerned about the party's ability to come together after what promises to be a divisive primary election season.
Dave Bossie, a former Trump aide and current RNC member leading the debate committee, noted that the committee is modeling its 2024 loyalty pledge after the 2016 pledge that every Republican candidate signed.
“All Republicans can agree that Joe Biden has been a disaster for America," Bossie said. "Therefore, it should be easy for every candidate to pledge unity toward defeating the radical Biden administration.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe out at right-wing org
Today
MAMARONECK, N.Y. (AP) — Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe said in a speech posted online Monday that he has been removed as the right-wing group's leader.
In remarks that appeared to have been made at a Project Veritas' office, O'Keefe said the board had stripped him of all decision-making. The move comes after the board reportedly put him on leave from his role as chairman amid complaints about his treatment of staff at the organization, which is known for using hidden cameras and hiding identities to try to ensnare journalists in embarrassing conversations and to reveal supposed liberal bias.
“So currently, I have no job at Project Veritas," O'Keefe said in the video. “I have no position here based upon what the board has done. So I’m announcing to you all that today on President's Day, I’m packing up my personal belongings.”
Messages seeking comment were left with O'Keefe, the group's executive director, and attorneys for Project Veritas and O'Keefe, as well as other officials with the organization, which is based in Mamaroneck, New York.
O'Keefe, who choked up and wiped away tears during his remarks, said several times that the nearly 45-minute speech was for staff internally, but it was posted on the Vimeo platform.
The announcement comes after the group's executive director and several board members put out a statement last week saying that “a number of our staff members provided leadership with some verbal feedback describing real management concerns regarding the treatment of people and our internal processes.”
Project Veritas, which identifies itself as a news organization, is best known for its hidden camera stings that have embarrassed news outlets, labor organizations and Democratic politicians. O'Keefe founded the nonprofit group 13 years ago, and its most recent IRS filings provided to charity regulators in Florida show it brought in more than $20 million in revenue in 2021.
Last year, two Florida residents pleaded guilty to selling a diary and other items from President Joe Biden’s daughter to Project Veritas for $40,000, prosecutors said. As part of its investigation, the FBI searched the group’s New York offices and the homes of some employees in 2021.
Neither Project Veritas nor any staffers have been charged with a crime, and the group has said its activities were protected by the First Amendment.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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The Juggler
Behind that bush over there. Posts: 47,324
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
It's like Marxism these days. It's defined as "things I don't like".
Every right wing insult/pejorative seems to eventually devolve into that. Replacing "PC" (and snowflake, etc.) with "woke" was kind of a stroke of genius because they're every bit as snowflakey as the left. So, they eventually glommed onto essentially the same phrase but only for liberal ideals. But those moments of brilliance always end up being short-lived and now you can be called woke for just about any reason, whether connected to the original meaning or not.
"Just another wokester supporting a bridge infrastructure bill."
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So keep voting those repubs into office. Its serving you well. Someone ought to tell Maggie Three Names that the South would be a third world country within 10 years of seceding. Gift article but notice the map of counties. It'd be interesting to see an overlay of congressional districts. Yea, but fuck Obamacare and lets sunset Medicaid and Medicare and now that we've been exposed, lets try to hide it (but shhhh, even that fails-read the full article). Repub playbook: under-educate your populace, keep 'em unhealthy and poor, gerrymander the disctricts to dilute power sharing, get them addicted to Faux, ignore facts and real-life data and blame dems, particularly Hillary, Obama and Brandon.
Today, we look at a big, fat map of credit scores reproduced from a recent economics paper. And while the map suggests any number of tantalizing questions, we are most intrigued by that big band of credit-score calamity that stretches across the American South.
Almost every corner of America’s most populous region — every race, every income bracket — appears to have low credit scores. But why?
With precious few exceptions, it looks to be a neatly regional phenomenon. We spent hundreds of hours scraping Airbnb listings to determine the true extent of the American South, but we could have saved a lot of time if we’d just drawn a line around the contiguous places with low credit scores.
The region’s poor credit means Southerners are paying more to borrow money, assuming they can qualify for loans at all. That sets them back in everything from car and home purchases to credit card rewards. Yes, even credit card rewards.
The researchers behind the map — Sumit Agarwal of the National University of Singapore, Andrea Presbitero of the International Monetary Fund, and André Silva and Carlo Wix of the Federal Reserve — examined 2019 data from 238 million credit cards and found that rewards programs such as American Express Gold effectively siphon billions of dollars a year from lower-income counties, many of them in the South, and transfer the cash to well-heeled enclaves loaded with professionals who tend to take advantage of such programs.
Our first guess about what might be happening here involves race. Almost 3 out of every 5 Black Americans live in the South, and they make up almost 20 percent of the region’s population. Centuries of slavery, sharecropping, apartheid and exclusion from many elite educational institutions left some Southern Black folks with little credit and even less collateral.
But when we ran the numbers, the Blackest parts of the South had roughly the same credit scores as the least-Black areas. And their scores were far lower than places with similar Black populations outside the South. So while race may play a role, it’s probably not the defining factor.
Next, we wondered about poverty. After all, the South has the highest poverty, lowest income and lowest education rates of any region in the country. And as you might expect, counties with lower income and lower college graduation rates tend to have lower credit scores.
Ranking the regions, 2017-2021
Table with 6 columns and 4 rows. Currently displaying rows 1 to 4. Sorted descending by column "Poverty rate"
REGION
POPULATION
BLACK POPULATION
MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME
POVERTY RATE
BACHELOR'S DEGREE OR HIGHER
South
125.4M
23.9M
$63,524
13.9%
31.6%
Midwest
68.8M
7.1M
$65,858
12.0%
32.1%
West
78.1M
3.6M
$77,477
11.9%
34.8%
Northeast
57.4M
6.7M
$77,015
11.6%
38.4%
Note: Education is among the population 25 years of age or older.
Source: Census Bureau's American Community Survey
DEPARTMENT OF DATA THE WASHINGTON POST
But in this case, demography is no match for geography. Even some of the South’s biggest, most dynamic cities — think Atlanta or Dallas — have the same below-average credit scores as their more rural Southern neighbors. Within every income bracket, the typical Southerner has a lower credit score than someone who lives in the Northeast, Midwest or West.
With the obvious factors ruled out, we were stumped. Until we called economist Breno Braga at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan D.C. think tank. Braga, who studies how credit-ratings data quietly determines so much about our lives, took about 16 seconds to diagnose the problem.
“The reason why credit scores are so low in the South has gotta be connected to medical debt, because that’s the most common type of unpaid bill that people have,” Braga said. And the South, he said, easily has the highest levels of medical debt in the country.
Of the 100 counties with the highest share of adults struggling to pay their medical debt, 92 are in the South, and the other eight are in neighboring Oklahoma and Missouri, according to credit data from the Urban Institute. (On the other side, 82 of the 100 counties with the least pervasive medical-debt problems are in the Midwest, with 45 in Minnesota alone.)
And sure enough, when you look at areas across the nation where adults are struggling to pay down medical debt, they have similar credit scores.
Medical debt may not be the only force behind the South’s credit struggles, but it appears to be a key contributor. So where did it all come from? And why is it concentrated in the South?
One answer is that the South is simply less healthy than any other region. Data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services shows that among Medicare recipients, the population for which we have the best data, those in the South are substantially more likely to suffer from four or more chronic conditions. And poor health tends to go hand in hand with people having overdue medical debt and poor credit scores.
But health alone does not solve the puzzle:Several Northeastern states struggle with chronic health conditions and have good credit.
A clue to the broader answer comes from a recent analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found that medical debt “became more concentrated in lower-income communities in states that did not expand Medicaid” after key provisions of the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2014.
To reach that conclusion, Raymond Kluender of Harvard Business School, Neale Mahoney of Stanford University, Francis Wong of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Wesley Yin of the University of California at Los Angeles looked at detailed credit-report data from 2009 to 2020. (Mahoney is currently on leave to serve on President Biden’s National Economic Council.)
Of the 11 states that have yet to expand Medicaid, eight sit in the South, according to KFF, a San Francisco health-policy nonprofit. Southerners were more likely to be behind on medical debt even before the ACA, but the reluctance among the region’s mostly Republican governors to participate in the Medicaid expansion has increased the gaps between the South and the rest of the country.
In states that immediately expanded Medicaid, medical debt was slashed nearly in half between 2013 and 2020. In states that didn’t expand Medicaid, medical debt fell just 10 percent, the JAMA team found. And in low-income communities in those states, debt levels actually rose.
Kari Lake looks to harness her movement after Arizona loss
By JONATHAN J. COOPER
Today
PHOENIX (AP) — Brett Foto and his fiancee were vacationing in Phoenix last fall when they heard about a rally nearby for Kari Lake, then running for governor of Arizona.
No matter that they don't live or vote in Arizona. Lake was going places, an emerging star on the populist right, and they had to see her.
“We’re seeing something very interesting tonight,” said Foto, a 52-year-old sales representative who lives outside Denver. "We’re going to look back and say, ‘We saw her when we went to this little hangar in Phoenix.’”
Lake went on to lose that race to Democrat Katie Hobbs, a setback that would typically thwart political ambitions. But among conservatives, defeat has done little to erode Lake's standing. If anything, her refusal to acknowledge her loss only enhances her stature well beyond Arizona.
In the months since the election, Lake has popped up at former President Donald Trump's Florida estate and a palatial California hotel, where she unsuccessfully lobbied members of the Republican National Committee to defeat Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. A more recent swing through Iowa sparked speculation about whether she may run for president or angle for a role as Trump's running mate if he clinches the GOP nomination again.
Wherever she is, she's doubling down on the formula that enthralled the Republican base but was rejected by a broader electorate: unflinching fealty to Trump, a relentless focus on unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, and tough talk about securing the U.S.-Mexico border with force.
Lake will have another chance to showcase her bond with the GOP base next month with a prominent speaking role at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in Washington.
“She speaks MAGA,” Chuck Coughlin, a longtime political consultant in Arizona who was one of former Gov. Jan Brewer's top advisers, said, referring to Trump's “Make America Great Again” slogan. “She’s better than Trump in many respects. She’s a cultural warrior. She expresses their angst and anxiety over the way the country’s going.”
Meanwhile, Lake is continuing to fight her loss in the Arizona appellate courts, which rejected her election challenge Thursday. She vowed to take her lawsuit to the state Supreme Court. She held a campaign-style rally this month to draw attention to her case.
“Kari Lake is the total package. She’s articulate. She’s confident. She’s beautiful, but not in a threatening way,” said Linda Greulich, a 70-year-old retiree in Phoenix. “And I think if she wants to stay in politics, I see her going all the way to the top.”
The flurry of activity comes as Lake considers running for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Kyrsten Sinema, an independent and former Democrat. She met recently with National Republican Senatorial Committee officials in Washington.
Republicans outnumber Democrats in Arizona, yet they've struggled to win during the Trump era. The GOP lost three straight Senate races in Arizona as ticket-splitting voters who mostly support Republicans refused to vote for candidates closely aligned with Trump.
Eleven percent of voters identifying as Republicans voted for Hobbs last year, compared with just 4% of Democrats who voted for Lake, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 3,200 voters in Arizona.
Sinema has not said whether she'll run for a second term, a decision that could have a monumental impact on the battle for control of the Senate. Democrats worry a three-way race between Sinema, a Democrat and a Republican will scramble the formula that's worked so well for them, creating an opening for a candidate like Lake.
Other Republicans looking at running include Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb. Also considering a bid are Jim Lamon, Blake Masters and Karrin Taylor Robson, candidates in 2022 for either the Senate or governor.
Lake is pushing back against those in the GOP trying to move past claims of election fraud that have proved toxic in swing states, including Arizona, where Lake and three other Trump-backed Republicans lost their races. She told Iowans, who are proud of their role in vetting presidential hopefuls, to press candidates about “where they stand on stolen elections."
“We need to make sure all of these candidates think that election integrity is a No. 1 issue,” she said.
Lake was a news anchor for nearly 30 years in the Phoenix market. She left the Fox affiliate in 2021, saying journalism had strayed into advocacy. She began her campaign for governor a short time later, channeling Trump with frequent attacks on the news media she left behind.
She records every interaction with reporters, often posting contentious exchanges on social media and earning plaudits from her fans, and she still attracted unprecedented attention from global media.
Money has continued to pour in for Lake since her loss. Her campaign raised $2.6 million from Election Day through the end of the year, with the biggest haul coming on the day the race was called for Hobbs.
She's raised more money through a nonprofit group her advisers created in December, which doesn't have to disclose details about its donations and has become her main fundraising vehicle.
Foto, who saw Lake on his Arizona vacation, was not deterred by her loss to Hobbs and hopes she'll take another stab at running for office.
“I pray for that to happen and I pray for that for this country,” Foto said by phone. “I think we need people like her to make sure of a strong future for all of us.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Does anyone give this guy a snowball chance in hell in winning the nomination, or is just an audition to be Deathsantis' running mate?
Vivek Ramaswamy, a tech entrepreneur, announces 2024 presidential run
A young, rich and little-known tech entrepreneur who calls “wokeism” a national threat announced Tuesday night he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.
Vivek Ramaswamy, 37, announced his candidacy in a five-minute video posted online. In it, Ramaswamy downplayed the importance of tax policies and the science around the coronavirus in favor of liberating what he says are voices that have been unfairly silenced.
“Maybe you disagree with each other about whether corporate tax rates should be high or low,” Ramaswamy says in the video. “Whether ivermectin treats covid, and that’s fine. But those are details. We still agree on the most basic rules of the road …”
“If you ask me, the best measure of the health of American democracy is actually the percentage of people who feel free to say what they actually think in public,” Ramaswamy said in the campaign-launch video. “And right now we’re doing abysmally.”
Ramaswamy says in the biography on his website that he founded Roivant Sciences in 2014 along with other health-care and technology companies. He said he created Strive Asset Management last year to restore “the voices of everyday citizens in the American economy by leading companies to focus on excellence over politics.”
Ramaswamy, who wrote the books “Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam,” and “Nation of Victims,” was dubbed “The C.E.O. of Anti-Woke, Inc.” in a recent New Yorker profile.
Earlier this month, Fox News host Tucker Carlson praised Ramaswamy’s criticism of efforts to curb climate change as “one of the smartest observations I’ve heard in, I can’t remember — a long time.”
But despite his success in the business world and appearances in conservative media, Ramaswamy enters the 2024 presidential primary race far less known than most of his opponents.
Other Republican candidates for the 2024 nomination include former president Donald Trump and 51-year-old Nikki Haley, who served as United Nations ambassador during the Trump administration and was governor of South Carolina before that. Both Ramaswamy, who was born in Ohio, and Haley, who was born in South Carolina, are children of immigrant parents from India.
“Faith, patriotism, hard work and family have disappeared,” Ramaswamy says in his video, replaced with what he calls “covid’sim,” “climatism,” and “gender ideology.”
“If you question that orthodoxy,” he adds, “they call you a bigot, a homophobe, a climate denier, a racist.”
“This is psychological slavery,” Ramaswamy said. “And that’s created a new culture of fear in our country that has completely replaced our culture of free speech in America.”
And this from the comments section, which I did not know:
As someone from India, I find this funny. Vivek Ramaswamy is truly out of his mind!
He will be accepted in this country as the CEO of a company with his brown skin and Indian name. But Republicans even if they read/agree with/follow his economic ideas are NOT EVER going to vote for a Brown dude with a non-Christian name. He should have learned from Obama that this is a party that regards dark skinned people with non-Christian names as being the Anti-Christ.
Why else would Nimrata Randhawa work so hard to reject her Sikh roots, marry a Christian, convert and change her name to Nikki Haley?
Her name at birth was Nimrata Nikki Randhawa, then she married a guy with the last name Haley. I don’t know anything about her religion, but I do know republicans aren’t voting for anyone other than a self identified Christian.
Comments
that tells me he was cutting those programs. if he wasn't, why did he have to change it and change the language?
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
How about Ron DeRacist?
Perfect number of syllables and good cadence
After he singled out Advanced Placement African American studies and no other courses, the shoe fits.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
NEW YORK (AP) — Republican presidential candidates will be blocked from the debate stage this summer if they do not sign a pledge to support the GOP's ultimate presidential nominee, according to draft language set to be adopted when the Republican National Committee meets next week.
The proposal sets up a potential clash with former President Donald Trump, who has raised the possibility of leaving the Republican Party and launching an independent candidacy if he does not win the GOP nomination outright. While RNC officials and Trump aides downplay that possibility, such a move could destroy the GOP's White House aspirations in 2024 and raise existential questions about the party's future.
“After the primary, it is imperative to the health and growth of our Republican Party, as well as the country, that we all come together and unite behind our nominee to defeat Joe Biden and the Democrats,” RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said in a statement to The Associated Press when asked about the loyalty pledge.
As many as a dozen Republicans are expected to enter the 2024 presidential contest as the GOP braces for an all-out civil war in the months ahead.
Much of the party is eager to move past Trump and his divisive politics, but in reality, Republican leaders have few, if any, tools to control the former president given his popularity with the GOP's most passionate voters. RNC leaders are hopeful that a loyalty pledge, while ultimately unenforceable, would generate some shared commitment to unity, albeit a fragile one, as the presidential primary season takes off.
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A senior Trump aide could not say whether the former president would sign the pledge to support the eventual nominee but suggested privately that he plans to participate in the debates. Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung declined to answer the question directly as well.
“President Trump is the undisputed leader of the Republican Party and will be the nominee," Cheung said. “There is nobody who can outmatch President Trump's energy or the enthusiasm he receives from Americans of all backgrounds.”
Facing similar concerns in 2016, Trump signed a similar loyalty pledge that was not tied to debates, but he later reneged as the primary campaign became more contentious. At the very first Republican primary debate that year, Trump was the only candidate on stage who refused to commit to supporting the party's eventual nominee unless it was him.
And just last December, Trump shared an article on social media encouraging him to seek a third-party bid to punish the GOP should Republican primary voters select another presidential nominee in 2024.
Meanwhile, there is no such threat on the Democratic side.
Virtually every Democrat thought to have presidential aspirations has already promised to unite behind President Joe Biden, assuming the 78-year-old Democrat follows through on his plan to seek a second term. Biden may face token resistance from a lower-profile intra-party rival — activist and author Marianne Williamson is exploring another White House bid, for example — but the Democratic president would face little pressure to appear on the debate stage before the fall of 2024 for the general election debates, should they occur.
The Republican loyalty pledge is among several provisions likely to be adopted as the RNC's Temporary Standing Committee on Presidential Debates meets next week to determine the rules governing which candidates may participate in the GOP's upcoming debate season — and which media networks will host the events.
The committee is considering between 10 and 12 debates to begin in late July at the Reagan Library in California or at the RNC’s summer meeting in Milwaukee, the host of the GOP’s next national convention.
Committee officials are sorting through proposals from as many as 18 media companies eager to host a debate. They include major television networks like CNN, MSNBC and Fox and lower-profile conservative favorites like Newsmax, according to people directly involved in the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal discussions.
While the likes of CNN and NBC hosted Republican primary debates in 2016, Republican officials suggest it would be a mistake to assume they will be selected this time around given widespread disdain for the networks among the party's base. Representatives from each network will pitch the RNC in person next Wednesday and Thursday.
Meanwhile, the criteria for debate participants will almost certainly include a new donor threshold to demonstrate broad support among the party's grassroots in addition to a polling threshold of either 1% or 2%. Participants will also be asked to sign a pledge to avoid any general election debates hosted by the Commission for President Debates; the commission has hosted every general election presidential debate since 1988, but Republicans increasingly believe the non-partisan group is biased against them.
While there are many moving pieces, GOP leaders are most concerned about the party's ability to come together after what promises to be a divisive primary election season.
Dave Bossie, a former Trump aide and current RNC member leading the debate committee, noted that the committee is modeling its 2024 loyalty pledge after the 2016 pledge that every Republican candidate signed.
“All Republicans can agree that Joe Biden has been a disaster for America," Bossie said. "Therefore, it should be easy for every candidate to pledge unity toward defeating the radical Biden administration.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
strange....I responded to this tweet with "She does kind of look like a gorilla....a really stupid gorilla" and Twitter locked my account
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
proof again that some of the tamest comments I make get me banned....I was previously banned for calling Jill Stein a "sea hag"
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
MAMARONECK, N.Y. (AP) — Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe said in a speech posted online Monday that he has been removed as the right-wing group's leader.
In remarks that appeared to have been made at a Project Veritas' office, O'Keefe said the board had stripped him of all decision-making. The move comes after the board reportedly put him on leave from his role as chairman amid complaints about his treatment of staff at the organization, which is known for using hidden cameras and hiding identities to try to ensnare journalists in embarrassing conversations and to reveal supposed liberal bias.
“So currently, I have no job at Project Veritas," O'Keefe said in the video. “I have no position here based upon what the board has done. So I’m announcing to you all that today on President's Day, I’m packing up my personal belongings.”
Messages seeking comment were left with O'Keefe, the group's executive director, and attorneys for Project Veritas and O'Keefe, as well as other officials with the organization, which is based in Mamaroneck, New York.
O'Keefe, who choked up and wiped away tears during his remarks, said several times that the nearly 45-minute speech was for staff internally, but it was posted on the Vimeo platform.
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The announcement comes after the group's executive director and several board members put out a statement last week saying that “a number of our staff members provided leadership with some verbal feedback describing real management concerns regarding the treatment of people and our internal processes.”
Project Veritas, which identifies itself as a news organization, is best known for its hidden camera stings that have embarrassed news outlets, labor organizations and Democratic politicians. O'Keefe founded the nonprofit group 13 years ago, and its most recent IRS filings provided to charity regulators in Florida show it brought in more than $20 million in revenue in 2021.
Last year, two Florida residents pleaded guilty to selling a diary and other items from President Joe Biden’s daughter to Project Veritas for $40,000, prosecutors said. As part of its investigation, the FBI searched the group’s New York offices and the homes of some employees in 2021.
Neither Project Veritas nor any staffers have been charged with a crime, and the group has said its activities were protected by the First Amendment.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
lol
"Just another wokester supporting a bridge infrastructure bill."
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Today, we look at a big, fat map of credit scores reproduced from a recent economics paper. And while the map suggests any number of tantalizing questions, we are most intrigued by that big band of credit-score calamity that stretches across the American South.
Almost every corner of America’s most populous region — every race, every income bracket — appears to have low credit scores. But why?
With precious few exceptions, it looks to be a neatly regional phenomenon. We spent hundreds of hours scraping Airbnb listings to determine the true extent of the American South, but we could have saved a lot of time if we’d just drawn a line around the contiguous places with low credit scores.
The region’s poor credit means Southerners are paying more to borrow money, assuming they can qualify for loans at all. That sets them back in everything from car and home purchases to credit card rewards. Yes, even credit card rewards.
The researchers behind the map — Sumit Agarwal of the National University of Singapore, Andrea Presbitero of the International Monetary Fund, and André Silva and Carlo Wix of the Federal Reserve — examined 2019 data from 238 million credit cards and found that rewards programs such as American Express Gold effectively siphon billions of dollars a year from lower-income counties, many of them in the South, and transfer the cash to well-heeled enclaves loaded with professionals who tend to take advantage of such programs.
Our first guess about what might be happening here involves race. Almost 3 out of every 5 Black Americans live in the South, and they make up almost 20 percent of the region’s population. Centuries of slavery, sharecropping, apartheid and exclusion from many elite educational institutions left some Southern Black folks with little credit and even less collateral.
But when we ran the numbers, the Blackest parts of the South had roughly the same credit scores as the least-Black areas. And their scores were far lower than places with similar Black populations outside the South. So while race may play a role, it’s probably not the defining factor.
Next, we wondered about poverty. After all, the South has the highest poverty, lowest income and lowest education rates of any region in the country. And as you might expect, counties with lower income and lower college graduation rates tend to have lower credit scores.
Ranking the regions, 2017-2021
But in this case, demography is no match for geography. Even some of the South’s biggest, most dynamic cities — think Atlanta or Dallas — have the same below-average credit scores as their more rural Southern neighbors. Within every income bracket, the typical Southerner has a lower credit score than someone who lives in the Northeast, Midwest or West.
With the obvious factors ruled out, we were stumped. Until we called economist Breno Braga at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan D.C. think tank. Braga, who studies how credit-ratings data quietly determines so much about our lives, took about 16 seconds to diagnose the problem.
“The reason why credit scores are so low in the South has gotta be connected to medical debt, because that’s the most common type of unpaid bill that people have,” Braga said. And the South, he said, easily has the highest levels of medical debt in the country.
Of the 100 counties with the highest share of adults struggling to pay their medical debt, 92 are in the South, and the other eight are in neighboring Oklahoma and Missouri, according to credit data from the Urban Institute. (On the other side, 82 of the 100 counties with the least pervasive medical-debt problems are in the Midwest, with 45 in Minnesota alone.)
And sure enough, when you look at areas across the nation where adults are struggling to pay down medical debt, they have similar credit scores.
Medical debt may not be the only force behind the South’s credit struggles, but it appears to be a key contributor. So where did it all come from? And why is it concentrated in the South?
One answer is that the South is simply less healthy than any other region. Data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services shows that among Medicare recipients, the population for which we have the best data, those in the South are substantially more likely to suffer from four or more chronic conditions. And poor health tends to go hand in hand with people having overdue medical debt and poor credit scores.
But health alone does not solve the puzzle: Several Northeastern states struggle with chronic health conditions and have good credit.
A clue to the broader answer comes from a recent analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found that medical debt “became more concentrated in lower-income communities in states that did not expand Medicaid” after key provisions of the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2014.
To reach that conclusion, Raymond Kluender of Harvard Business School, Neale Mahoney of Stanford University, Francis Wong of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Wesley Yin of the University of California at Los Angeles looked at detailed credit-report data from 2009 to 2020. (Mahoney is currently on leave to serve on President Biden’s National Economic Council.)
Of the 11 states that have yet to expand Medicaid, eight sit in the South, according to KFF, a San Francisco health-policy nonprofit. Southerners were more likely to be behind on medical debt even before the ACA, but the reluctance among the region’s mostly Republican governors to participate in the Medicaid expansion has increased the gaps between the South and the rest of the country.
In states that immediately expanded Medicaid, medical debt was slashed nearly in half between 2013 and 2020. In states that didn’t expand Medicaid, medical debt fell just 10 percent, the JAMA team found. And in low-income communities in those states, debt levels actually rose.
Continues.......................
https://wapo.st/3SmsLqv
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
lol....expect more of this
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
PHOENIX (AP) — Brett Foto and his fiancee were vacationing in Phoenix last fall when they heard about a rally nearby for Kari Lake, then running for governor of Arizona.
No matter that they don't live or vote in Arizona. Lake was going places, an emerging star on the populist right, and they had to see her.
“We’re seeing something very interesting tonight,” said Foto, a 52-year-old sales representative who lives outside Denver. "We’re going to look back and say, ‘We saw her when we went to this little hangar in Phoenix.’”
Lake went on to lose that race to Democrat Katie Hobbs, a setback that would typically thwart political ambitions. But among conservatives, defeat has done little to erode Lake's standing. If anything, her refusal to acknowledge her loss only enhances her stature well beyond Arizona.
In the months since the election, Lake has popped up at former President Donald Trump's Florida estate and a palatial California hotel, where she unsuccessfully lobbied members of the Republican National Committee to defeat Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. A more recent swing through Iowa sparked speculation about whether she may run for president or angle for a role as Trump's running mate if he clinches the GOP nomination again.
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Wherever she is, she's doubling down on the formula that enthralled the Republican base but was rejected by a broader electorate: unflinching fealty to Trump, a relentless focus on unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, and tough talk about securing the U.S.-Mexico border with force.
Lake will have another chance to showcase her bond with the GOP base next month with a prominent speaking role at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in Washington.
“She speaks MAGA,” Chuck Coughlin, a longtime political consultant in Arizona who was one of former Gov. Jan Brewer's top advisers, said, referring to Trump's “Make America Great Again” slogan. “She’s better than Trump in many respects. She’s a cultural warrior. She expresses their angst and anxiety over the way the country’s going.”
Meanwhile, Lake is continuing to fight her loss in the Arizona appellate courts, which rejected her election challenge Thursday. She vowed to take her lawsuit to the state Supreme Court. She held a campaign-style rally this month to draw attention to her case.
“Kari Lake is the total package. She’s articulate. She’s confident. She’s beautiful, but not in a threatening way,” said Linda Greulich, a 70-year-old retiree in Phoenix. “And I think if she wants to stay in politics, I see her going all the way to the top.”
The flurry of activity comes as Lake considers running for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Kyrsten Sinema, an independent and former Democrat. She met recently with National Republican Senatorial Committee officials in Washington.
Republicans outnumber Democrats in Arizona, yet they've struggled to win during the Trump era. The GOP lost three straight Senate races in Arizona as ticket-splitting voters who mostly support Republicans refused to vote for candidates closely aligned with Trump.
Eleven percent of voters identifying as Republicans voted for Hobbs last year, compared with just 4% of Democrats who voted for Lake, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 3,200 voters in Arizona.
Sinema has not said whether she'll run for a second term, a decision that could have a monumental impact on the battle for control of the Senate. Democrats worry a three-way race between Sinema, a Democrat and a Republican will scramble the formula that's worked so well for them, creating an opening for a candidate like Lake.
Other Republicans looking at running include Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb. Also considering a bid are Jim Lamon, Blake Masters and Karrin Taylor Robson, candidates in 2022 for either the Senate or governor.
Lake is pushing back against those in the GOP trying to move past claims of election fraud that have proved toxic in swing states, including Arizona, where Lake and three other Trump-backed Republicans lost their races. She told Iowans, who are proud of their role in vetting presidential hopefuls, to press candidates about “where they stand on stolen elections."
“We need to make sure all of these candidates think that election integrity is a No. 1 issue,” she said.
Lake was a news anchor for nearly 30 years in the Phoenix market. She left the Fox affiliate in 2021, saying journalism had strayed into advocacy. She began her campaign for governor a short time later, channeling Trump with frequent attacks on the news media she left behind.
She records every interaction with reporters, often posting contentious exchanges on social media and earning plaudits from her fans, and she still attracted unprecedented attention from global media.
Money has continued to pour in for Lake since her loss. Her campaign raised $2.6 million from Election Day through the end of the year, with the biggest haul coming on the day the race was called for Hobbs.
She's raised more money through a nonprofit group her advisers created in December, which doesn't have to disclose details about its donations and has become her main fundraising vehicle.
Foto, who saw Lake on his Arizona vacation, was not deterred by her loss to Hobbs and hopes she'll take another stab at running for office.
“I pray for that to happen and I pray for that for this country,” Foto said by phone. “I think we need people like her to make sure of a strong future for all of us.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Vivek Ramaswamy, a tech entrepreneur, announces 2024 presidential run
A young, rich and little-known tech entrepreneur who calls “wokeism” a national threat announced Tuesday night he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.
Vivek Ramaswamy, 37, announced his candidacy in a five-minute video posted online. In it, Ramaswamy downplayed the importance of tax policies and the science around the coronavirus in favor of liberating what he says are voices that have been unfairly silenced.
“Maybe you disagree with each other about whether corporate tax rates should be high or low,” Ramaswamy says in the video. “Whether ivermectin treats covid, and that’s fine. But those are details. We still agree on the most basic rules of the road …”
A spokesperson for Ramaswamy did not respond when asked for the candidate’s views on corporate taxes or ivermectin, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns against using to treat or prevent the coronavirus.
“If you ask me, the best measure of the health of American democracy is actually the percentage of people who feel free to say what they actually think in public,” Ramaswamy said in the campaign-launch video. “And right now we’re doing abysmally.”
Ramaswamy says in the biography on his website that he founded Roivant Sciences in 2014 along with other health-care and technology companies. He said he created Strive Asset Management last year to restore “the voices of everyday citizens in the American economy by leading companies to focus on excellence over politics.”
Ramaswamy, who wrote the books “Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam,” and “Nation of Victims,” was dubbed “The C.E.O. of Anti-Woke, Inc.” in a recent New Yorker profile.
Earlier this month, Fox News host Tucker Carlson praised Ramaswamy’s criticism of efforts to curb climate change as “one of the smartest observations I’ve heard in, I can’t remember — a long time.”
But despite his success in the business world and appearances in conservative media, Ramaswamy enters the 2024 presidential primary race far less known than most of his opponents.
Other Republican candidates for the 2024 nomination include former president Donald Trump and 51-year-old Nikki Haley, who served as United Nations ambassador during the Trump administration and was governor of South Carolina before that. Both Ramaswamy, who was born in Ohio, and Haley, who was born in South Carolina, are children of immigrant parents from India.
Ramaswamy is honing a popular message among Republicans, aimed at defeating progressive ideas they loosely define as “wokeism.”
“Faith, patriotism, hard work and family have disappeared,” Ramaswamy says in his video, replaced with what he calls “covid’sim,” “climatism,” and “gender ideology.”
“If you question that orthodoxy,” he adds, “they call you a bigot, a homophobe, a climate denier, a racist.”
“This is psychological slavery,” Ramaswamy said. “And that’s created a new culture of fear in our country that has completely replaced our culture of free speech in America.”
And this from the comments section, which I did not know:
Republican Vivek Ramaswamy announces he is running for president - The Washington Post
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Brilliantati©