Politics

Voters cast ballots until 9pm in elections that could set country on different course after Mark Rutte’s four consecutive governments

As conservative states wage total culture war, college-educated workers—physicians, teachers, professors, and more—are packing their bags.

So, Pakistan and Israel did emerge from what can be described as ‘religious nationalism’, but this nationalism was an extension of the inherently secular idea of nationalism.

insightful article, comparing the ideological foundations of both israel and pakistan

Papua New Guinea is experiencing an exponential surge in HIV infections, a health advocate in the country says.

A key problem for Papua New Guinea police in getting on top of illegal gun imports is finding the evidence linking to the sponsors of the trade.

The province’s police commander said clashes resulted in one death and three injuries.

A Colorado judge has ordered the state’s top elections official to place former President Donald Trump on the 2024 primary ballot, rejecting a lawsuit from a group of voters who argued the Republican frontrunner is constitutionally ineligible to hold office under a Civil War-era insurrection clause.

Incoming Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is now being openly mocked and ridiculed by political commentators for his failure to achieve a coalition government. There are certainly signs that Luxon hasn’t managed the process well, and raising questions about competency at this early stage is a poor start to government.

The most savage criticism of Luxon is coming from the political right. Today rightwing political commentator and former National Beehive staffer Matthew Hooton has a scathing column in the Herald giving his account, obviously based on insider leaks, of how the negotiations have unfolded. Hooton paints a picture of National’s negotiations as a failure, caused by Luxon’s arrogance and hubris.

Hooton records Luxon’s criticisms immediately after the election of how previous prime ministers have conducted coalition negotiations and his claims that “I’ve done a lot of mergers and acquisitions”. With the exception of the Air New Zealand-Virgin alliance that broke up when he was chief executive, there is little evidence of any other mergers Luxon worked on in his business career.

Despite boasting of his business experience and relationship-building skills, Hooton says the National leader has astounded those involved in the negotiations by his cackhandedness.

After apparently not achieving much of the promised progress in the three-week period before final results came in, Hooton reports that the presumptive PM then entered talks without bothering to take his coalition partners seriously. Hooton reports, “Act, NZ First and National insiders say Luxon is a talker rather than a listener. He never asked how Act or NZ First thought negotiations should proceed, or what they wanted from them.”

Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan has also criticised Luxon’s management of the negotiations, pointing out on Monday that only the 1996 MMP coalition negotiations have taken longer: “That’s embarrassing for Chris Luxon. Because he’s the guy who’s talked up his negotiating skills, given he’s done a lot of mergers and acquisitions. And he’s the guy who set the deadline of wrapping this up in time for him to go to Apec.”

Why is this important? First impressions matter, and du Plessis-Allan suggests that Luxon and National’s reputation is suffering: “The start of a Government is a really important period. It sets up voters’ expectations for the first term, that’s why governments often write up 100-day plans. Because they want to create a sense of urgency and give the impression they’re changing things fast. Literally the opposite of that is happening right now. There is no sense of urgency, nothing’s changing fast, there’s no momentum.”

A career military officer who went from fighting in Iraq to serving in the White House as a national security adviser, Vindman acknowledged that he is a newcomer to Virginia politics.

Kenya's parliament has approved a controversial plan by the government to deploy about 1,000 police officers to Haiti to help stop gang violence.

This is despite a court order barring any deployment, pending the outcome of a legal challenge into the plan.

Opposition lawmakers condemned the vote, but the ruling party used its majority to back the government following a fiery debate.

Haiti had appealed for international help to tackle growing lawlessness.

Kenya's offer won the UN Security Council's approval last month, but the plan has been opposed by the main opposition party.

About 300 gangs are active across Haiti and 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, is under gang control.

These groups have taken increasing control of the city since the assassination of the country's president in 2021 threw Haiti into a political crisis.

At Thursday's vote in Kenya's parliament, lawmakers supporting the motion said the country was part of the global community and could not ignore the appeals for help from other countries.

They also argued that the East African nation has a history of peacekeeping missions such as in Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone.

Parliament approved the plan in a voice vote moments before the High Court was due to begin hearing the case on the planned deployment.

A small opposition party, Thirdway Alliance, has led the legal challenge, saying the plan was unconstitutional because only the military could be deployed abroad.

The government has rejected the argument, and is defending the case.

The court later reiterated that the deployment could not take place until it gave its ruling in January.

Thirdway Alliance's legal representative, Charles Midega, told the BBC that it was a "brazen" act by parliament to discuss the deployment despite the court order.

In parliament, opposition lawmakers argued that a vote could not be held on a matter before the courts.

But governing party lawmakers said there were no rules barring parliament from debating the issue, for as long as it did go into the substance of the case.

House investigators found “substantial evidence” that controversial Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) knowingly violated ethics guidelines, House rules and criminal laws, according to a report released by the House Ethics Committee on Thursday.

After the report was released, Santos — who has for months faced demands to resign from a number of his House colleagues — announced that he would not seek reelection next year.

The 56-page report details a sweeping array of alleged misconduct. According to investigators, Santos allegedly stole money from his campaign, deceived donors, reported fictitious loans and engaged in fraudulent business dealings. The congressman, the report alleges, spent hefty sums on personal enrichment, including visits to spas and casinos, shopping trips to high-end stores, and payments to a subscription site that contains adult content.

Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20231117010823/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/16/george-santos-ethics-charges/

Aaron Ford had said he wouldn’t look into criminal charges, but things have changed.

Gov. Ron DeSantis won a decisive reelection in 2022, in a year when Republicans elsewhere didn't fare as well. But now that he's running for president, some in Florida wish he'd do his job at home.

Standing in front of a massive state flag on Saturday, Claver Kamau-Imani outlined his utopian vision of a Nation of Texas that he believes is just on the horizon.

No taxes or Faucis, no speed zones or toll roads. No liberals, no gun laws. No windmills, no poor people. A separate currency, stock market and gold depository. “Complete control of our own immigration policy.” World-class college football, a farewell to regulators. And unthinkable, unimaginable wealth.

“We are going to be so rich,” he chanted. “We’re gonna be rich. We are gonna be rich. We. Are. Going. To Be. Rich! … As soon as we declare independence, we're going to be wealthy. I personally believe that our personal GDP will double in five to seven years.”

“The independence of Texas is good for humanity as a whole,” he added to cheers.

Kamau-Imani, a Houston-based preacher, was among 100 or so people who spent the weekend at the Waco Convention Center for the first conference of the Texas Nationalist Movement, which since 2005 has advocated for the Lone Star State to break away from the United States — a “TEXIT,” as they call it.

Supporters of the movement said they are more energized and optimistic than ever about the prospect of an independent Texas, and pointed to appearances or support from current and former lawmakers — including state Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, who spoke at the event — as evidence that their movement is far from fringe. The get-together also came as TEXIT supporters celebrated what they believe is crucial momentum: Days before the meeting, the Texas Nationalist Movement announced that it was more than halfway to the roughly 100,000 signatures needed to put a non-binding secession referendum on the Texas Republican primary ballot.

The bill now heads to the Senate, which is expected to pass it before Friday's deadline. It would keep the government funded through early next year while Congress debates spending.

Ohio Republicans are claiming a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights, which was approved by voters in Tuesday’s election, doesn’t actually do that — and they’re promising to take steps to prevent the legal protection of reproductive freedom in the state.

“To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative,” Ohio House Republicans wrote in a statement released Thursday. “The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make to existing laws based on public hearings and input from legal experts on both sides.”

Ohio banned abortion in the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, but legal challenges to state’s abortion laws left residents’ reproductive rights in limbo until Tuesday’s ballot measure. The strategy Republicans are now proposing would essentially strip Ohio’s courts of the authority to repeal existing abortion restrictions before the new amendment goes into effect on December 7.

“No amendment can overturn the God-given rights with which we were born,” state Rep. Beth Lear (R-Galena) added in the Republican’s statement. Another representative, Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester), claimed the referendum had only passed due to “foreign election interference.”

Rep. Bill Dean (R-Xenia) said the amendment “doesn’t repeal a single Ohio law,” and that its language is “dangerously vague and unconstrained, and can be weaponized to attack parental rights or defend rapists, pedophiles, and human traffickers.”

Days after a raid at Mr. Adams’s chief fund-raiser’s home, federal agents took the mayor’s phones and iPad, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

No paywall link:
https://cozy-reader.vercel.app/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2023%2F11%2F10%2Fnyregion%2Fadams-fbi-investigation-phones.html%3Fsmid%3Dnytcore-ios-share%26referringSource%3DarticleShare

By invoking the defense, the defendant waives attorney-client privilege and must therefore disclose to the government (1) all “communications or evidence” the defendant intends to rely on to establish the defense, and (2) any “otherwiseprivileged communications” the defendant does “not intend to use at trial, but that are relevant to proving or undermining” it. United States v. Crowder, 325 F. Supp. 3d 131, 138 (D.D.C. 2018) (emphasis in original) (citation omitted); see United States v. White, 887 F.2d 267, 270 (D.C. Cir. 1989).

The Justice Department filed a statement of interest today in two consolidated lawsuits seeking to protect the right to interstate travel, including the right to travel to another state to obtain an abortion that is legal in the destination state. The statement of interest explains that the Constitution protects the right to travel across state lines and engage in conduct that is lawful where it is performed and that states cannot prevent third parties from assisting others in exercising that right. The statement argues that the Alabama Attorney General’s threatened prosecutions of individuals for providing assistance to people seeking lawful out-of-state abortions are therefore unconstitutional. The cases are Yellowhammer Fund v. Marshall and West Alabama Women’s Center, et al., v. Marshall.

It's always something with this freakin' guy.

The inaction on regulating contaminants — including those that likely cause cancer, reproductive or developmental issues — found in the water of millions of Americans illustrates shortcomings in the U.S. response to environmental threats, say experts.

The former president’s allies are developing a plan that would immediately deploy the military to the streets against potential demonstrators.

President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states one year before the 2024 election, suffering from enormous doubts about his age and deep dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and a host of other issues, new polls by The New York Times and Siena College have found.

The results show Mr. Biden losing to Mr. Trump, his likeliest Republican rival, by margins of three to 10 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden is ahead only in Wisconsin, by two percentage points, the poll found.

Across the six battlegrounds — all of which Mr. Biden carried in 2020 — the president trails by an average of 48 to 44 percent.

Discontent pulsates throughout the Times/Siena poll, with a majority of voters saying Mr. Biden’s policies have personally hurt them. The survey also reveals the extent to which the multiracial and multigenerational coalition that elected Mr. Biden is fraying. Demographic groups that backed Mr. Biden by landslide margins in 2020 are now far more closely contested, as two-thirds of the electorate sees the country moving in the wrong direction.

Voters under 30 favor Mr. Biden by only a single percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters is down to single digits and his advantage in urban areas is half of Mr. Trump’s edge in rural regions. And while women still favored Mr. Biden, men preferred Mr. Trump by twice as large a margin, reversing the gender advantage that had fueled so many Democratic gains in recent years.

James Biden Wrote Brother Joe $40,000 Check Immediately after Receiving Chinese Cash, Bank Records Show

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/james-biden-wrote-brother-joe-40000-check-immediately-after-receiving-chinese-cash-bank-records-show/

Fresh revelations contradict Joe Biden’s sweeping denials on Hunter

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/05/hunter-joe-biden-business-testimony-00125056

#politics