Just when you think Gavin Newsom couldn’t be any more arrogantly clueless, he proves otherwise.
After Gov. Gavin Newsom placed pro-abortion billboards as part of his re-election campaign advertisements in states restricting abortions, Christians in California are responding.
On Sept. 15, Newsom, a Democrat, announced several versions of billboard advertisements that would be going up across seven states.
California is a “sanctuary state” for women seeking an abortion.
“Just launched billboards in 7 of the most restrictive anti-abortion states that explain how women can access care–no matter where they live. To any woman seeking an abortion in these anti-freedom states: CA will defend your right to make decisions about your own health,” Newsom wrote on Twitter.
One of the billboards placed in Oklahoma and Indiana, which reads “Need an abortion? California is ready to help” also included a verse from the Bible, “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these,” quoted from Mark 12:31.
Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles responded in an open letter to Newsom on Sept. 28, calling the governor’s actions “thoroughly rebellious against God” and that the billboards promote “the slaughter of children, whom He creates in the womb.”
“You further compounded the wickedness of that murderous campaign with a reprehensible act of gross blasphemy, quoting the very words of Jesus from Mark 12:31 as if you could somehow twist His meaning and arrogate His name in favor of butchering unborn infants,” MacArthur wrote.
MacArthur, 83, added the inclusion of scripture made it hard to “imagine a greater sacrilege.”
Kathleen Domingo, executive director of the California Catholic Conference—a public policy advocacy group for the Catholic Church in California—told The Epoch Times that the billboards are “unconscionable” and “co-opt” the meaning of Jesus’s words in the verse.
“He’s twisting the meaning of what Jesus and the Christian community meant for the last 2,000 years by this particular passage and using it to describe something that the Christian community traditionally has seen as absolutely adverse to their teachings,” Domingo said.
The advertisements placed in conservative states are nothing more than “political theater,” she added.
“The reaction even of the Christian community is probably what he was hoping for,” she said.
In the aftermath of Roe v. Wade being overturned on June 24, California’s Democratic lawmakers drafted bills to codify its abortion procedures into the state’s constitution. Newsom signed 13 bills that make abortion more accessible on Sept. 27, deeming California a “sanctuary state” for women seeking abortion.
This month, California also launched a taxpayer-funded website connecting women with abortion resources and services, including how to seek financial assistance.
Newsom promotes that website on 18 billboards placed in seven states: Oklahoma, Mississippi, South Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Indiana, and Texas. Each of those states has enacted some restrictions on abortion.
“An alarming number of states continue to outlaw abortion and criminalize women, and it’s more important than ever to fight like hell for those who need these essential services,” Newsom said in a Sept. 27 statement. “We’re doing everything we can to protect people from any retaliation for accessing abortion care while also making it more affordable to get contraceptives.”
Some of the state legislation signed include Senate Bill 1245, by Sen. Sydney Kamlager (D-Los Angeles), Senate Bill 1375 by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), and Assembly Bill 2223 by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland).
SB 1245 allocates $20 million to a Los Angeles County abortion pilot program, and SB 1375 will permit trained nurses to perform abortion in the first trimester without the supervision of a physician.
Decried by opponents as an “infanticide” bill, AB 2223 will shield mothers and certified medical providers from criminal prosecution in infant deaths resulting from “causes that occurred in utero” up to days after birth.
The California Family Council—a pro-life, “biblically faithful” nonprofit—also condemned the governor for signing the abortion bills in a Sept. 27 statement, saying the move was “meant to transform the state into a destination location for the country’s abortions.”
“With today’s abortion expansion, Gavin Newsom continues his shadow campaign for [the U.S.] president. By signing these 13 bills from the Future of Abortion Council, Newsom hopes to secure his spot in the White House at the expense of women and their unborn children,” the nonprofit’s President Jonathan Keller said in the statement. “Governor Newsom tells pregnant women California has their back, but only if they choose to end their pregnancies. This package provides NO care for women who choose to keep their children. Gavin’s not pro-choice; he’s no choice.”
Cuba entirely without power after Ian caused grid to collapse.
Some areas start seeing power restored on Wednesday, but…
Ian is seen near the coast of Cuba in this satellite image taken September 25, 2022. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/Handout via REUTERS /File Photo
PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba, Sept 27 (Reuters) – Cuba’s electrical grid collapsed late on Tuesday, local officials said, leaving the entire country in the dark shortly after Hurricane Ian plowed through the western end of the island leaving a path of destruction in its wake.
The sprawling Category 3 hurricane was barreling north towards the Dry Tortugas, off the Florida Keys, late on Tuesday, with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour (195 km per hour), the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
Cuba’s electrical grid – decades-old and in desperate need of modernization, has been faltering for months with blackouts an everyday event across much of the island.
“There is no electricity service in any part of the country right now.”
But officials said the storm had proven to be too much for the system, provoking a failure that shut off the lights for the island’s 11.3 million people.
“The system was already operating under complex conditions with the passage of Hurricane Ian,” said Lazaro Guerra, technical director of Cuba’s Electricity Union. “There is no electricity service in any part of the country right now.”
He said the union would work through the night and into Wednesday to restore power as soon as possible.
The countrywide blackout added insult to injury for exhausted Cubans.
Mayelin Suarez, a street vendor who sells ice cream in the provincial capital, called the night of the storm’s passage the “the darkest of her life.”
“We almost lost the roof off our house,” Suarez told Reuters, her voice trembling. “My daughter, my husband and I tied it down with a rope to keep it from flying away.”
The hurricane hit Cuba at a time of dire economic crisis. Blackouts and long-running shortages of food, medicine and fuel are likely to complicate efforts to recover from Ian.
“Ian has done away with what little we had left,” said Omar Avila, a worker at butcher shop in Pinar del Rio. “It’s a horrible disaster.”
A man carries his children next to debris caused by the Hurricane Ian after it passed in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, September 27, 2022. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
Ian made landfall in Cuba’s Pinar del Rio Province early on Tuesday, prompting officials early on to cut power to the entire province of 850,000 people as a precautionary measure and evacuate 40,000 people from low-lying coastal areas, according to local media reports. The storm left at least two dead in western Cuba, state-run media reported.
Violent wind gusts shattered windows and ripped metal roofs off homes and buildings throughout the region, where many houses are decades old and infrastructure is antiquated. Roads into the areas directly hit by the hurricane remained impassable, blocked by downed trees and powerlines.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Ana Julia Gomez, a 56-year-old woman who lives alone in Pinar del Rio, as she surveyed the wreckage inside her home. “I lost everything; nothing is left.”
Pinar del Rio Province is a rural, lightly populated region but a top producer of farm crops and tobacco. State-run media said farmers had secured 33,000 tonnes of tobacco in storage from prior harvests, but many farms buildings, made with thatched palm roofs, had been flattened by the storm.
“Sometimes hurricanes pass through here, but not of this magnitude,” said Abel Hernandez, a 49-year-old tobacco farmer. “It destroyed our houses, our drying huts, our farms, the fruit trees, everything.”
A family speaks in front of their destroyed home in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in El Cafetal, Cuba, September 27, 2022. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
Neighboring Artemisa Province, nearer Havana, reported that 40% of its banana plantations had been damaged by the storm.
LIGHTS OUT
Havana appeared to have escaped the brunt of the storm although rain and strong winds uprooted trees, flooded low-lying areas and left many of the city’s roadways impassable.
By 8 p.m. local time Tuesday, it appeared that virtually all of the city was without power, with only some of the larger tourist hotels still lit by generators.
Further north, in Florida, residents and officials were hunkering down in anticipation of what the NHC called a “large and destructive hurricane.”
Ian is expected to bring winds of up to 130 mph and as much as 2 feet of rain to the Tampa area on Florida’s Gulf Coast starting early on Wednesday through Thursday evening, the National Weather Service said.
A hurricane warning has been extended to portions of far southwestern Florida as the storm’s path veered slightly from previous predictions.
The storm surge along Florida’s Gulf Coast could cause devastating to catastrophic damage with some locations potentially uninhabitable for weeks or months, the service warned, urging residents to move to safe shelter before the storm’s arrival.
A Pima County judge cleared the way Friday for a 121-year-old near-total ban on abortion to go back into effect in Arizona.
Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson’s ruling reinstated a law from 1901 — more than a decade before Arizona was granted statehood — that banned abortion except to save the life of the mother, KOLD-TV reported. There is no exception for cases of rape or incest, according to the report.
Johnson’s ruling lifted a 1973 court injunction against the ban.
Johnson heard arguments one month ago in the case brought by Planned Parenthood of Tucson against the Arizona attorney general’s office, according to KGUN-TV.
Pro-abortion advocates, including Democratic gubernatorial nominee Katie Hobbs, were infuriated at the ruling.
Katie_Hobbs, pro-abortion AZ gubernatorial candidate
“I am outraged and devastated by today’s decision by the Pima County Superior Court to allow a territorial ban on abortion to take effect,” Hobbs said, according to KOLD. “There’s no doubt in my mind that this draconian 1901 law will have dire consequences on the health and well-being of Arizona women and their families.”
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich lauded the new development.
“We applaud the court for upholding the will of the legislature and providing clarity and uniformity on this important issue,” Brnovich wrote in a tweet.
“I have and will continue to protect the most vulnerable Arizonans.”
A Pima County judge lifted an injunction that was placed on AZ’s abortion statute. We applaud the court for upholding the will of the legislature and providing clarity and uniformity on this important issue. I have and will continue to protect the most vulnerable Arizonans.
KGUN reported that the 12-decade-old law, now codified in Arizona as Revised Statute 13-3603, “does not mention any timeline for when an abortion may be permitted. There’s no 15-week rule, like the one stated [in] the more recent state law, SB 116.”
The statute mandates a prison sentence of two to five years for abortion providers.
Johnson cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent overturning of Roe v. Wade as the legal basis for her ruling.
From 1951 to 2008, his programs reached as many as 24 million people per week. Paul Harvey News was carried on 1,200 radio stations, on 400 American Armed Forces Network stations, and in 300 newspapers.
Paul Harvey, (Paul Harvey Aurandt) was born Sept. 4, 1918, in Tulsa, OK and died Feb. 28, 2009, in Phoenix, Ariz. He was an American radio commentator and news columnist noted for his firm staccato delivery and his conservative but individualistic opinions on current events. He enjoyed almost unparalleled longevity as a national broadcaster.
Harvey was descended from five generations of Baptist preachers. He and his sister were brought up by their mother after their father was shot to death under uncertain circumstances.
His legend started following a medical discharge from the Army Air Corps in 1944, when he shortened his name to Paul Harvey and began broadcasting for Chicago radio station WENR. Paul Harvey News and Comment proved immediately popular in Chicago and was nationally syndicated by the American Broadcasting Company in 1951. In 1976 the program spun off The Rest of the Story, whose brief biographical narratives were written by the Harveys’ only child, Paul Harvey Aurandt, Jr.
He called his particular conservative cast “political fundamentalism.”
He broadcast News and Comment on mornings and mid-days on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays and also his famous The Rest of the Story segments. From 1951 to 2008, his programs reached as many as 24 million people per week. Paul Harvey News was carried on 1,200 radio stations, on 400 American Forces Network stations, and in 300 newspapers. (One of them was 610WTVN in Columbus, OH that I listened to growing up and into adulthood. In fact, his morning segment was the last thing I listened to before heading for work.)
His mix of current-events news, human-interest anecdotes, and common sense editorials reached some 24 million listeners via 1,600 radio stations daily.
Harvey’s mix of current-events news, human-interest anecdotes, and common sense editorials reached some 24 million listeners via 1,600 radio stations daily. His staccato pacing, bouncing intonation, and signature hooks (e.g., “Stand by…for news!” and “Paul Harvey…good day!”) helped make his voice one of the most recognizable in the history of radio. Harvey often opined on rising taxes, bloated government, and the decay of American values. He called his particular conservative cast “political fundamentalism.”
One of his most talked-about commentaries — which evolved over time, although it stayed true to the original opinions — was called “If I were the Devil.” It first appeared in 1964 as a newspaper article:
If I Were the Devil — If I were the Prince of Darkness, I would want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. I’d have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree.
So I should set about however necessary, to take over the United States. I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve, “Do as you please.”
To the young I would whisper “The Bible is a myth.” I would convince them that “man created God,” instead of the other way around. I would confide that “what is bad is good and what is good is square.”
In the ears of the young married I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be “extreme” in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct. And the old I would teach to pray — to say after me — “Our father which art in Washington.”
Then I’d get organized. I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull, uninteresting. I’d threaten TV with dirtier movies, and vice-versa.
I’d infiltrate unions and urge more loafing, less work. Idle hands usually work for me.
I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could, I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction, I’d tranquilize the rest with pills.
If I were the Devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects, but neglect to discipline emotions; let those run wild.
I’d designate an atheist to front for me before the highest courts and I’d get preachers to say, “She’s right.”
With flattery and promises of power I would get the courts to vote against God and in favor of pornography.
Thus I would evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, then from the Houses of Congress.
Then in his own churches I’d substitute psychology for religion and deify science.
If I were Satan I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg and the symbol of Christmas a bottle.
If I were the Devil I’d take from those who have and give to those who wanted until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. Then my police state would force everybody back to work.
Then I would separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines and objectors in slave-labor camps.
If I were Satan I’d just keep doing what I’m doing and the whole world go to hell as sure as the Devil.
Here is the version he broadcast (erroneously claiming to be from 1965, it is in fact from the version he wrote in 1996:
It’s eerie, in 2022, to realize just how accurate his observations were.
More of his observations include:
“If we cannot count on ourselves to do the right thing how can we count on anyone or anything else? Self-government won’t work without self-discipline.”
“The indignation of politicians is NOT a good measure of the gravity of any situation.”
We’ve drifted away from being fishers of men to being keepers of the aquarium.”
“Ever occur to you why some of us can be this much concerned with animals’ suffering? Because government is not. Why not? Animals don’t vote.”
“These things I wish for you-tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness. To me, it’s the only way to appreciate life.”
“If there is a ’50-50 chance’ that something can go wrong, then 9 times out of ten it will.”
“Like what you do. If you don’t like it, do something else.”
And. finally,
“Luck is a word used to describe the success of people you don’t like.”
In closing, here is one of his stories that started as another of his signature phrases: “And now you know — the rest of the story”
CNN announced Thursday that hosts Jake Tapper, left, and Alisyn Camerota, right, will be moving to primetime. (Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images; Kevin Mazur / Getty Images)
By Abby Liebingfor WESTERN JOURNAL September 23, 2022
As CNN continues to change its programming and shuffle its hosts, Jake Tapper and Alisyn Camerota have been promoted to primetime spots despite their current viewership falling behind other major networks.
Tapper, who works as CNN’s main Washington anchor, will move to the 9 p.m. slot throughout the election season, CNN announced Thursday.
That slot hasn’t had a set host since the network fired Chris Cuomo in December 2021, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
“The world has come to rely on Jake’s no-nonsense approach to covering the news, especially during high-stakes election cycles,” CNN’s new CEO and chairman, Chris Licht, said in a statement.
Tapper has been with CNN since 2013, hosting shows such as “State of the Union” and “The Lead.” Before that, he was ABC News’ senior White House correspondent, the Inquirer reported.
CNN said he will start his stint in the 9 p.m. slot on Oct. 10 and remain there until Nov. 11.
John Berman and Brianna Keilar will move from the morning to take over Tapper’s 4 p.m. slot.
Meanwhile, Camerota will be moving from her co-anchor spot on the afternoon “CNN Newsroom” to the 10 p.m. spot that was previously held by Don Lemon, CNN announced. She will share anchor duties with senior legal analyst Laura Coates.
“This move will showcase [Tapper’s] tough reporting, smart analysis and consequential interviews as our audiences navigate the myriad of issues at stake in the midterms,” Licht said. “By adding the insights, experience and strong voices of Alisyn and Laura, we will advance and expand on that coverage, creating something complimentary and compelling in primetime.”
However, neither Tapper nor Camerota has fared very well with viewers in their current time slots on the network, Mediaite reported.
Looking back at some of last week’s numbers, Fox News thrashed the CNN hosts.
Tapper had a mere 742,000 viewers for “The Lead” at 4 p.m. Friday, just over half the number — 1.37 million — that Fox News drew for “Your World with Neil Cavuto” in that period, Mediaite reported. MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace was first in the time slot with 1.51 million viewers.
“CNN Newsroom,” which Camerota co-hosts from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., was similarly pummeled by Fox News on Friday, with about half the viewership, according to Mediaite.
In their primetime slots, Tapper and Camerota will be up against Fox News heavyweights Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Greg Gutfeld, who routinely dominate from 9 to 11 p.m.
Licht continues to shuffle a lot of CNN anchors and shows since he started as CEO in April.
The announcement of Tapper and Camerota’s moves comes on the heels of the news that Don Lemon was losing his 10 p.m. spot and moving to a morning show, Wolf Blitzer was getting more time on air as he anchors 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., and “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter was fired.
Erin Burnett and Anderson Cooper are two of the only anchors who will remain on their regular shows during their regular hours (7 and 8 p.m., respectively), CNN said.
Do they really just throw "classified" documents on the floor like that?
Views: 40
Former President Donald Trump said during a Wednesday night appearance on the Fox News show “Hannity” that his will is missing and he thinks the Justice Department has it.
Last month, the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, and confiscated boxes of documents, claiming they should not have been in his possession and included classified material.
The former president denounced the unprecedented raid and said the FBI took a wide range of private papers along with other documents.
On Sunday, Trump made his first trip to Mar-a-Lago since the raid, and he spoke about that with host Sean Hannity in an interview at the Florida estate Wednesday night.
Hannity noted that Trump had lost about 500 pages of documents protected by attorney-client privilege.
“They took a lot. I think they took my will. I found out yesterday,” the former president said. “I said, ‘Where is it?’”
“Am I in it?” Hannity asked as Trump repeated, “I think they took my will.”
“That could cause a lot of problems,” he said, smiling at the Fox News host’s question.
“That could cause a lot of problems if that gets published for people who won’t be so happy, or maybe will be very happy,” Trump said.
The former president said the Justice Department “shopped” until it found someone who would sign the warrant to raid his property.
Trump, who was not at Mar-a-Lago for the raid, said he learned of it when a worker called him.
“I was in New Jersey. I got a call in the morning from somebody that’s here. … ‘Sir, the FBI just came in.’ I said, ‘What? The FBA? Who?’ And they go, ‘The FBI.’ And I said, ‘How many people?’ And he said, ‘Many, many people, sir. Many, many people.”
He said he was told the FBI wanted to do the raid “quietly, silently.”
The former president told Hannity that after he received questions from the media about the raid, he put out a statement announcing it.
“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump wrote in a statement on Aug. 8.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.”
During the “Hannity” interview, Trump said, “I declassified everything.”
That question was debated Tuesday in a hearing by special master Raymond Dearie, who wanted the former president’s attorneys to point to a specific instance or document proving Trump’s claim, according to The New York Times.
Dearie indicated that absent such proof, he would be inclined to agree with the Justice Department on the issue, meaning documents it says were classified will be treated as such.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the conduct of the FBI during the raid.
“Arrived in Florida last night and had a long and detailed chance to check out the scene of yet another government ‘crime,’ the FBI’s Raid and Break-In of my home, Mar-a-Lago. I guess they don’t think there is a Fourth Amendment anymore, and to them, there isn’t,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“In any event, after what they have done, the place will never be the same. It was ‘ransacked,’ and in far different condition than the way I left it. Many Agents — And they didn’t even take off their shoes in my bedroom. Nice!!!”
I am now closing a second OP in a week, both due to one person’s persistent inability to distinguish between the discussion of morality (or ethics, if you want to go with David Gerrold in When Harley was One) and a discussion of religion.
Despite being warned many times that the article was about morality, not religion — even though the original article was published in 2015 by a religious commentator, and I pointed this out in the OP — this person kept injecting religion-tainted comments into his responses, mostly in a negative sense.
Morality is not inextricably linked to a particular religion.
Morality — right and wrong — is not inextricably linked to a particular religion. Or to ANY religion, for that matter. And to continually link the two in a negative fashion is, at best, a disingenuous tactic. Had a fellow Mod not requested the poster be allowed to continue on the site so the Mod could try to talk sense to him, I would have banned him for his disruptive behavior long ago.
This person exhibits a lot of behaviors typical of leftist trolls, such as “circling back” to the same position over and over again and other, similar, logical fallacies. While people left of center are welcome here for well-mannered discourse, trolling is not.
I’ve noticed that potential “right-wing” trolls don’t last long on left-leaning websites. So it’s hard to compare their behavior. Why? Because left-leaning websites and their denizens tend to have rather unique definitions of inclusion, tolerance, diversity, and freedom of speech — something they are always virtue-signaling and claiming that the “right-wing” posters are against it.
And, in continually injecting religion (namely Judeo-Christianity) it was inevitable that someone else would feel the need to defend his/her faith against these perceived attacks.
Since this OP has been devolving into something neither MC as the original owner nor I as the current owner, wish to see. I am closing that thread for this reason.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced a sweeping package of what he called the country’s “most aggressive” climate measures to “accelerate the state’s transition” to non-conventional energy sources.
The package includes 40 bills that appear to provide new green rules on laws related to things ranging from large-scale industry to the family home and private and public transportation.
The Democratic governor’s office said in a statement the package of climate change-focused measures aims to cut pollution and target “big polluters.”
It comes as America’s most populous state has struggled to provide stable electricity for residents amid a heat wave, which saw the state asking residents to use less power and suggest the best times to use air conditioners or charge electric cars.
“This month has been a wake-up call for all of us that later is too late to act on climate change. California isn’t waiting any more,” Newsom said in a statement. “Together with the Legislature, California is taking the most aggressive action on climate our nation has ever seen.”
“We’re cleaning the air we breathe, holding the big polluters accountable, and ushering in a new era for clean energy,” he continued. “That’s climate action done the California Way—and we’re not only doubling down, we’re just getting started.”
In July, Newsom called for “bold actions” to combat climate change. He declared his climate-focused vision for California involves a push to achieve 90 percent “clean energy” by 2035, “carbon neutrality” by 2045, “setback measures” to target oil drilling, carbon capture programs, and to “advance nature-based solutions” to remove carbon from “natural and working lands.”
40 “Green” Bills
Newsom’s office said his sweeping package of measures will create four million new jobs over the next 20 years, cut air pollution by 60 percent, and reduce state oil consumption by 91 percent.
How this would be achieved was not explained in the governor’s news release.
The package of measures, the governor’s office said, will save the state $23 billion by avoiding damage from pollution. It further aims to cut fossil fuel use in buildings and transportation by 92 percent and refinery pollution by 94 percent.
The governor named a list of the 40 new green bills, which touch on things from the broad scope of the climate to more everyday matters such as community air quality, electricity supply, vehicle permits, and gas pricing.
Some of the bills, which were all named in the governor’s news release, include:
AB 1279: “The California Climate Crisis Act”
AB 1389: “Clean Transportation Program: project funding preferences”
AB 1749: “Community emissions reduction programs: toxic air contaminants and criteria air pollutants”
AB 1857: “Solid waste”
AB 1909: “Vehicles: bicycle omnibus bill”
AB 2075: “Energy: electric vehicle charging standards”
AB 2622: “Sales and use taxes: exemptions: California Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project: transit buses”
AB 2836: “Carl Moyer Memorial Air Quality Standards Attainment Program: vehicle registration fees: California tire fee”
SB 1063: “Energy: appliance standards and cost-effective measures”
SB 1205: “Water rights: appropriation”
SB 1230: “Zero-emission and near-zero-emission vehicle incentive programs: requirements”
SB 1322: “Energy: petroleum pricing”
SB 1382: “Air pollution: Clean Cars 4 All Program: Sales and Use Tax Law: zero emissions vehicle exemption”
How the package of new green laws and regulations might impact, for example, standards required for cars to be permitted on Californian roads; how and when homes can be cooled; the source of electricity allowed to be supplied to homes; the manufacturing of everyday appliances and products, etc., were not outlined in the governor’s news release.
This latest pronouncement comes on the heels of Newsom enacting regulation to phase out sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035.
Former President Donald Trump with Justice Samuel Alito. Alito briefly blocked a lower court order forcing the Biden administration to reinstate Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, giving the Supreme Court a few days to consider the case. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
By Michael Washburn for Epoch TimesSeptember 16, 2022
Democrats believe their best hope is to position themselves as the only alternative to Trump
In the coming midterms, Democrats believe their best hope is to position themselves as the only alternative to Trump and his brand of Republicanism, according to political strategists.
Democrat candidates and their supporters, they say, are hoping that the furor around former President Donald Trump’s alleged storing of sensitive documents in Mar-a-Lago, as well as his alleged role in the events of Jan. 6 will not abate even slightly between now and the November midterm elections, and will distract voters from the Democrats’ shortcomings, particularly with regard to the economy.
Even in battleground states where a variety of Republican candidates competed in this week’s primary elections, Democrats are acting as if their best bet is to paint all Republicans as nascent or actual extremists and to capitalize on some voters’ dissatisfaction with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the strategists argue.
President Joe Biden and his party have come in for severe criticism for their handling of the economy and for an inflation report credited with bringing about the stock market’s worst day of 2022 on Sept. 13, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down nearly 1,300 points. Some economists view the highest inflation in four decades as a function of the Biden administration’s expansionist monetary policy, which they argue has led to too much money chasing too few goods. For fiscal year 2022 as a whole, the federal budget deficit is projected to be $1 trillion.
These dismal figures may motivate GOP voters as much as, or more than the court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization will drive Democrat turnout, strategists predict.
In this context, Democrats are quick to seize on any potentially bad news for Trump as good news for their embattled party. Indeed, for some Democrats, the ongoing investigation of Trump’s alleged legal and financial violations may help cast the midterms as a referendum not only on the current president and his economic performance, but on Trump and those Republicans who, they claim, fit the same mold. Given the severity of Biden’s problems, Democrats will do their best to exploit charges and allegations against Trump to their fullest political advantage whether or not the attacks have merit, strategists say.
“Every day brings the risk of more bad news about Trump, which splashes mud on every Republican. The Dobbs ruling is known and GOP candidates either get on the right side of the issue or shift to the economy, which is a bigger deal for most voters,” Keith Naughton, a political consultant and the director of Germantown, Maryland-based Silent Majority Strategies, told The Epoch Times.
Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower in N.Y. on Aug. 9, 2022, the day after FBI agents raided his Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach home, in Fla. (David ‘Dee’ Delgado/Reuters)
A Double-Edged Sword?
Mark C. Smith, a professor of political science and Director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University in Ohio, acknowledges Trump’s continuing prominence within the GOP and his popularity with many Republican voters. This has helped make the coming elections, in large part, what some voters in either party would like it to be: a Trump-Biden rematch as much as a spate of House, Senate, and gubernatorial races.
“Unlike other losing presidential candidates, Trump has maintained a strong presence within his party. He is endorsing candidates, raising funds, and holding rallies. This changes the dynamic of the midterm,” Smith told The Epoch Times.
“Interestingly, the Democrats are happy if Trump continues to headline for Republicans. While popular within the GOP, Trump is toxic for independent voters, and he runs poorly with college-educated white voters, as well as suburban women. In light of his recent legal troubles, Democrats are fine with Trump’s expanded role,” Smith said.
But given the severity of the economic problems and other factors, Smith does not believe that the Democrats’ strategy of decrying Trump’s alleged extremism, and that of “Trump-y” candidates in local issues, will succeed.
“If we consider the political climate, this should be a huge election for Republicans. A relatively unpopular president and a struggling economy, in addition to foreign affairs instability, should put the GOP in a strong position,” said Smith.
While the electoral math of midterm contests varies, it is possible to identify a statistical mean when looking at long-term trends, Smith argued.
“On average, the party out of power picks up around 26 House seats, and five or six Senate seats. To the degree this election is normal, it will be good for Republicans and they will take both houses of Congress,” he said.
While turnout in midterm elections is often low compared to presidential elections, Lonny Leitner, vice president of the government affairs firm LS2 Group, which has offices in Iowa and Minnesota, believes that the Mar-a-Lago raid has backfired and that its findings will not dissuade GOP voters.
“I spent a few days out at the Minnesota State Fair, and I can count on one hand how many times someone brought up the fact that they were concerned about the FBI raid, which tells me it is yet another failed attempt by the Democrats to end Trump once and for all. When will they learn?” Leitner told The Epoch Times.
It was far more common for people he encountered at the fair to voice serious concerns over inflation, fuel prices, out-of-control crime, and the crisis at the border with Mexico, Leitner said.
People shop at a supermarket in Montebello, Calif., on Aug. 23, 2022. U.S. shoppers are facing increasingly high prices on everyday goods and services as inflation continues to surge with high prices for groceries, gasoline, and housing. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
The Case of New Hampshire
To understand the Democrats’ approach, it is useful to look at one state in particular that has been fiercely contested in recent election years, namely New Hampshire, believes Andrew Smith, Director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center and an expert on elections and electoral methodology.
Smith believes that New Hampshire is not as politically conservative as its reputation and famous license plate motto (“Live Free or Die”) might lead some people to believe.
“New Hampshire’s electorate is divided between Republicans and Democrats. Democrats generally have a little bit of an advantage in presidential elections, but it’s not that big an advantage in midterm elections with a Democrat president,” Smith told The Epoch Times.
“It’s also a state with higher levels of education and income than most states, and it’s a suburban state,” he said, noting a large proportion of its population lives in the suburbs surrounding Boston. “In that sense, it’s similar to other suburban areas of the northeast that lean Democrat. It’s not a Republican state, that’s a myth,” he added.
Generalizations
In the GOP primary elections held in New Hampshire on Sept. 13, Karoline Leavitt won the race for the first congressional district against a field of rivals including Matt Mowers, Gail Huff Brown, and Russell Prescott, with 34 percent of the vote compared to 25 percent, 17 percent, and 10 percent respectively. In the second congressional district race, Robert Burns scored a victory with 33 percent of the vote versus 29 percent for George Hansel, 25 percent for Lily Tang Williams, and smaller numbers for other competitors.
In the Senate primary, former military officer Donald Bolduc, who hopes to unseat Democrat Senator Maggie Hassan in November, barely edged out his GOP rival Chuck Morse, winning 37.1 percent of the vote to Morse’s 35.8 percent.
In the GOP gubernatorial primary, incumbent Chris Sununu easily trounced all his rivals, winning 78 percent of the vote.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu speaks during a ceremony in Manchester, N.H., on Sept. 2, 2020. (Scott Eisen/Getty Images for DraftKings)
The winning candidates come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have diverse views and ideologies. Leavitt is a former assistant press secretary in the Trump administration, Burns is an entrepreneur and former treasurer of a New Hampshire county, while Sununu has a reputation as a moderate Republican who helped secure funding for a cause championed by Democrats, namely state funding for full-day kindergarten.
While some in the media may wish to associate Bolduc with Trump, it is important to remember that he lost New Hampshire’s 2020 Senate primary to Trump-endorsed candidate Corky Messner, Smith said.
In spite of the eclecticism of these candidates and the impossibility of categorizing them all as strictly “Trump-y” figures, Smith argued, Democrats will treat the candidates in New Hampshire and other states as Republicans in the Trump mode in the hope of wooing the roughly 42 percent of voters in the state who register as independents. Smith said that the tactic put to use in New Hampshire is a microcosm of a broad political strategy.
“Democrats are going to use all these candidates’ connection with Trump—whether it’s there or not—as arguments to vote against them. But that’s true across the country. Democrats are running as if Trump is still in office,” he commented.
With the tricky position in which Democrats find themselves amid so much bad economic news, they place their hopes in controversies around a figure who remains powerful and influential within the GOP.
“All the Mar-a-Lago stuff, they’re praying that will go on until after the midterm elections, because they’re running at a moment when the president is not very popular, and that’s a difficult place to be, as we saw in 2010 and 2014,” Smith continued.
In the New Hampshire races in November 2010, Republican candidates won both the congressional districts contested in this week’s primaries, though they did not win the governorship, Smith noted. Looking at the 2010 midterm elections nationally, Republicans won a majority in the House of Representatives, which they held onto in 2014 in addition to winning majority control of the Senate.
President Joe Biden delivers a primetime speech at Independence National Historical Park Sept. 1, 2022 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Biden described “MAGA Republicans” as being extremists who posed a threat to democracy. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The ‘Extremism’ Charge
Since the spring, when predictions widely favored the GOP in the coming midterms, Democrats have found more opportunities to try to paint Trump and the GOP more broadly as extremist and will rely heavily on this political strategy all the way through the elections, believes David Bateman, a professor of government at Cornell University.***
***According to his own words and published books and articles, Bateman leaves hard left. (Pro-abortion,anti-conservative values, etc) –TPR
This strategy does not come at the expense of, but rather goes hand in hand with, a strong emphasis on the Dobbs ruling and other issues of concern to Democrat voters at the local level, he argued. To a certain extent, voters will decide in accordance with the narratives crafted by the party leadership as Democrat spokespeople try to link congressional and gubernatorial hopefuls to the 45th president.
“Elections are never about one thing, whether that is a referendum on presidential leadership, national economic or other issues, or the local performance and responsiveness of the incumbent. And voters make choices not only on the basis of their priorities, but on the basis of the choices and narratives presented to them by parties. Democrats probably want voters to make a choice on the basis of local issues—which tend to favor incumbents—and then on the extremism of the GOP, as showcased by Trump but as embodied locally by GOP candidates,” Bateman told The Epoch Times.
Though predictions about the likely outcome of the midterms have swung since the spring and do not monochromatically favor GOP candidates as much as before, Democrats still play to what they see as their strengths.
“I expect Democrats’ basic strategy remains the same: have their congressional candidates highlight how they have delivered locally for their districts as well as the extremism of their GOP rivals, while the larger party apparatus and the president emphasize GOP extremism nationally. The abortion decision has helped Democrats a lot, as has the continued attention to Trump,” Bateman said.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the DNC for comment.
High school officials in Tennessee said that a student and cross country runner suffered a heart attack following a race in Florida on Saturday, September 10.
Gabe Higginbottom, 17, a junior at Bartlett High School in Tennessee, participated in a cross-country race in Pensacola, Florida.
According to a Facebook post, Gabe didn’t bounce back following the race.
“Yesterday after the Pensacola race he didn’t bounce back,” according to a post published in the Bartlett High School Boys Cross Country Facebook group.
“After an hour he was taken by some of the dad’s and coach to the medical tent. His vitals were good. Out of an abundance of caution, the doctor on site said he should go to the hospital. At the hospital, his vitals were good until they weren’t. He was then airlifted with his mom to Gainesville Florida for further tests. Today he had surgery and it went well. Please pray for this family and our team,” the post concluded.
A healthy, athletic kid has a heart attack, doctors find blood clots. Hmm, I wonder if he got the Covid-19 experimental gene therapy clot shot.–TPR
The Bartlett City Schools also released a statement regarding the incident. According to the school, doctors found two blood clots after they performed a 3-hour surgery.
“On September 10th, after a race in Pensacola, FL, one of Bartlett High School’s Cross-Country runners suffered a heart attack. Gabe Higginbottom, 17, a junior at Bartlett High School was sent to Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola Hospital at the advice of the on-staff medical team. Sacred Heart performed a CAT scan which revealed further action needed to be taken.”
“Gabe was transported to the UF Shands Heart and Vascular Hospital in Gainesville, FL by helicopter that night. In Gainesville, they found his right artery was completely blocked. The doctors performed an angioplasty to insert a balloon to open up that artery. Later, they performed a 3-hour surgery inserting two stents and found two blood clots.”
“Cross Country coach, Kris Harman, and Gabe’s mother, Edrika, remain by Gabe’s side, as he is currently recovering at the UF Shands in Gainesville, FL. A Go Fund Me page has been set up by the Cross Country Booster Club. The money raised will be used to offset any medical bills. No amount is too small. Please pray for Gabe and his family as he begins the rehab process,” the post concluded.
Kris Harman, a team coach, told WREG something just wasn’t right with Gabe after competing.
“He started complaining about his chest hurting and kept complaining and we went to the trainer’s tent…everybody initially thinks it’s hot, it’s heat exhaustion so give him ice but he’s still complaining about his chest,” Harman told the outlet.
Harman told WREG that doctors found Gabe had a blocked artery and performed a procedure to fix it. “Now, they’re just trying to figure out what caused it,” Harman told the outlet.
Phil Clark, the athletic coordinator at Bartlett City Schools, told the Memphis Commercial Appeal that doctors said the heart attack wasn’t heat related and that they don’t know what caused it. “The doctor at the hospital he’s at, he told our track coach he had seen one (other) instance like this in his 11 years down there,” Clark said, the outlet reported.
He said Gabe is working toward recovery.
“They’re going to get him up and get him walking down the hallway this morning and they think everything is going to be fine,” Clark said Tuesday, Sept. 13, according to the Commercial Appeal. “He’s a strong, healthy young man, which surely helped in this situation.”
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