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Wednesday, December 20, 2023

12/20 WAKE-UP CALL: Trump Barred From Colorado Ballot


Former President Donald Trump is disqualified from serving as U.S. president and cannot appear on the primary ballot in Colorado because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, the state's top court ruled Tuesday. The historic 4-3 ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court, likely to be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court, makes Trump the first presidential candidate deemed ineligible for the White House under a rarely used constitutional provision that bars officials who have engaged in "insurrection or rebellion" from holding office.

The ruling applies only to Colorado's March 5 Republican primary but it could affect Trump's status in the state for the Nov. 5 general election. Nonpartisan U.S. election forecasters view Colorado as safely Democratic, meaning that President Joe Biden will likely carry the state regardless of Trump's fate there.

Trump vowed to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Colorado court said it would delay the effect of its decision until at least Jan. 4, 2024, to allow for an appeal. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump violated the insurrectionist clause of the 14th Amendment for his role in January 6 in a 4-3 decision from Democratic-appointed justices. Jonathan Turley, a professor of law and Fox News legal analyst, believes the ruling endangers American democracy. 'Well, this court just handed partisans on both sides the ultimate tool to try to shortcut elections, and it's very, very dangerous,' he said.

CARLSON SAYS HALEY ON TRUMP TICKET WOULD BE 'POISON': Tucker Carlson says there is an instance where he would not vote for Donald Trump in 2024: if the ex-president chooses Nikki Haley as his running mate. The former Fox News host and conservative pundit said he would actively oppose Trump's reelection to office if he were running with his current presidential primary rival and called Haley a 'creature of the oligarchs.' 

Haley, who served as Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, has seen some recent poll boost in early primary states and has not ruled out running on the ticket with her former boss. Of a potential for a Trump-Haley ticket, Carlson said: 'I would not only not vote for that ticket, I would advocate against it as strongly as I could.' 'That's just poison,' Carlson added during an interview with conservative media personality Tim Pool.

➤HALEY RIPS MEDIA OVER TRUMP OBSESSION: Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley tore into ABC News anchor Jonathan Karl over the media’s continued “obsession” with former President Donald Trump. Haley, the former South Carolina governor who served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, got irritated with Karl after he asked her several questions about the GOP presidential front-runner during an interview on “This Week” on Sunday.

Haley finally had enough after Karl asked her about what he called Trump’s “running on retribution” as well as his plan to go about “annihilating his enemies and using the criminal justice to do so” if he wins the White House. “You guys are exhausting! You’re exhausting in your obsession with him!” Haley told Karl. Her comments were reported by Mediaite. “You guys are exhausting! You’re exhausting in your obsession with him!” Haley told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl. “The normal people care about the fact that they can’t afford things,” Haley told Karl. “They feel like their freedoms are being taken away. They think government is too big.” Haley said that the attention given to Trump is “exactly why we need a new generational leader” since “people don’t want to hear about every word a person says or every tweet.” She predicted that “life will be a whole lot different if the media would stop this obsession with Trump.”

➤BORDER CRISIS GETTING WORSE: America’s border crisis is worsening with a record 12,600 migrants encountered by Customs and Border Protection officers in 24 hours Monday, according to Fox News. Pictures showed a sea of thousands of newly arrived migrants huddled in neat lines as they awaited processing after illegally crossing into Eagle Pass, Texas. Many had walked across the Rio Grande river which serves as the border between the US and Mexico with plans to seek asylum. Numbers have reached the highest ever recorded since the end of Title 42 measures in May. August saw more than 304,000 migrants attempt to gain entry to the US, September increased to 341,000 and October logged 310,000. Border resources are stretched so thin, road and rail crossings have been closed so all available officers can be diverted to processing the arriving migrants. 

The Biden administration’s plan to control the flow was for migrants to wait in another country until they could get an appointment via the CBP One app, with up to 30,000 people per month allowed into the US to pursue asylum applications.

➤FED COURT RULES AGAINST HOMELAND SECURITY: A federal appeals court on Tuesday issued an injunction ordering the Department of Homeland Security to stop cutting holes in Texas’s razor wire border fence except in cases of a medical emergency. The ruling is a significant victory for Gov. Greg Abbott, who has overseen a major state effort to fill in border security gaps left by the more relaxed approach from President Biden. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the federal government’s attempt to claim immunity from a lawsuit and said on the merits Texas had easily made its case that the Border Patrol, in cutting the concertina wire, is trampling on the state’s property.

➤MEXICO'S PRESIDENT AND TEXAS GOV. CLASH AGAIN OVER IMMIGRATION: Mexican President AndrĂ©s Manuel LĂłpez Obrador strongly criticized Texas Governor Greg Abbott for signing a law allowing peace officers to arrest individuals suspected of entering the U.S. illegally. LĂłpez Obrador accused Abbott of seeking the Republican nomination for vice president and attempting to gain popularity through these measures. He cautioned Abbott that such actions could lead to a loss of sympathy, especially considering the significant Mexican and migrant population in Texas. LĂłpez Obrador also reminded Abbott of Texas's historical connection to Mexico. The new law classifies illegal entry as a state misdemeanor, empowering peace officers to inquire about citizenship and immigration status and, if deemed illegal, order the person out of the country. Abbott signed the law on Monday.

➤JUDGE ORDERS EPSTEIN LIST TO BE RELEASED: Come the first of the year, more than 150 people named in court documents related to Jeffrey Epstein are expected to have their identities revealed publicly. Those people range from victims to co-conspirators as well as "innocent associates," ABC News reports. Their names are included in the civil lawsuit against Epstein's former girlfriend and partner Ghislaine Maxwell alleging she helped Epstein to sexually abuse Virginia Giuffre; the lawsuit was settled in 2017 and a federal judge on Monday ordered documents associated with the case to be unsealed by January 1. She gave Jane and John Does named in the documents two weeks to appeal first, CNN reports.

➤BATTLES RAGE IN GAZA: Israeli troops and Hamas militants fought fierce gunbattles on the streets of Gaza's second-biggest city on Wednesday as the United Nations delayed a vote on a bid to boost aid deliveries to the Palestinian enclave facing a humanitarian disaster. Israel's campaign to eradicate Hamas militants behind an Oct. 7 massacre has left the coastal enclave in ruins, brought widespread hunger and homelessness, and killed nearly 20,000 Gazans, according to the Palestinian enclave's health ministry.


➤U-N DELAYS VOTE AGAIN: Under foreign pressure to avoid killing innocents, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war will not stop until Iran-backed Hamas releases the remaining 129 hostages it is holding in Gaza and the Islamist group is obliterated. A United Nations Security Council vote to set up aid deliveries was delayed by another day on Tuesday as talks continue to try and avoid a third U.S. veto of action over the two-month long Israel-Hamas war.

➤PERIL IN THE RED SEA: The U.S. plans to send warships to protect commercial traffic in the Red Sea, but attacks still worry shipping firms, oil companies and insurers. Houthi forces in Yemen, a militia group backed by Iran, continued to attack merchant vessels this week, which could snarl one of the world’s most crucial trade routes. 

The rising threat has prompted many of the biggest shipping companies to find alternative routes, such as going around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa. Fearing widespread disruption to trade flows that could reignite inflation by boosting prices for goods and energy, the U.S. said its navy would lead a force of almost a dozen countries to deter the Houthi strikes.

➤CAPTIVITY HAUNTS CHILD HOSTAGES: The trauma of captivity is haunting Israel’s freed child hostages. Hamas kidnapped 39 youngsters during its Oct. 7 attacks against Israel, all but two of whom were released during a weeklong truce that expired earlier this month. The children have spoken in whispers, suffered sleeplessness and in some cases regressed developmentally after their release from Gaza, doctors say; the ordeal was worse for children whom Hamas separated from their parents or held alone. These child abductions are part of a growing global trend among militant groups, according to the U.N.’s special representative for children and armed conflict, who said that Hamas’s actions stand out because they took kids hostage as human shields and as a “weapon of terror” against civilians in Israel, not for ransom or recruitment, which is more often the case.

➤E-V START-UPS FOCUS ON SURVIVAL:  Electric-vehicle startups were flying high just a few years ago. Now many are focused on survival. At least 18 EV and battery startups that went public in recent years were at risk of running out of cash by the end of 2024 as of their most recent filings, according to a WSJ analysis. The median stock among them is down more than 80% from its market debut and even further from its peak. The slide has wiped out tens of billions of dollars in market value in a couple of years. Nearly all of the Tesla wannabes went public through SPACs, which let startups make unchecked growth projections.

➤HOUSING CIRSIS RIPPLING THRU THE ECONOMY: The Fed’s interest-rate hikes slammed the market, but the pain didn’t stop at the front-door mat. Furniture and home-improvement stores are taking a hit, as people shell out less to decorate or remodel this year compared with 2022, according to the Commerce Department. Decreased spending on housing also means less need for real-estate managers and brokers as well as landscapers. In the commercial sector, hybrid workplace policies continue to depress occupancy rates in office buildings, and 2024 is likely to be worse. Two pieces of good news: Home construction activity rose last month after mostly trending lower since early 2022, and big investment firms are gaga for retail, snapping up grocery stores, pharmacies and other recession-resilient stores.

➤SHORTAGE OF AIR TRAFFIC CONTOLLERS IS POTENTIAL SAFETY RISK:  A shortage of U.S. air-traffic controllers is leading to delayed flights and adding potential safety risks. The FAA has about 1,000 fewer fully certified controllers than it did a decade ago and is on track to gain fewer than 200 more controllers over the next decade, according to an agency-commissioned report. The National Transportation Safety Board and controller union have expressed alarm about mandatory overtime, fatigue and distractions. The NTSB is examining staffing issues while it investigates serious near-collisions on the tarmac over the past year. The FAA said it slows down air traffic to maintain safety when there aren’t enough controllers, is pushing to train and hire new ones, and encourages more employee reporting.

➤OPEN ON SUNDAY: A new law could soon force the famously Christian Chick-Fil-A to open on Sundays. The bill, introduced in the New York State Assembly, would force restaurants on government-operated rest stops to open all week. It would only apply to about nine Chick-Fil-A franchises along highways in New York. "Allowing for retail space to go unused one seventh of the week or more is a disservice and unnecessary inconvenience to travelers who rely on these service areas," the bill states.

🏈EX-NFL STAR DERRICK WARD ARRESTED IN STRING OF LOS ANGELES ROBBERIES, PER REPORT: Former NFL running back Derrick Ward is currently in custody, having been arrested on charges of robbing multiple businesses in Southern California. Ward is accused of involvement in the robberies of at least five businesses, including gas stations, using force and fear to obtain money. He is not alleged to have used a firearm in any of the crimes. As of Tuesday, Ward remains in a Los Angeles jail, facing a felony charge with bail set at $250,000. The 43-year-old had an eight-season professional football career and winning a Super Bowl with the New York Giants in the 2007 season.

⚾SOURCE: ANDREW MCCUTCHEN, PIRATES REACH ONE-YEAR, $5M DEAL: Andrew McCutchen, with just one home run away from reaching 300 in his career, is set to return to the Pittsburgh Pirates on a one-year, $5 million deal. The 37-year-old outfielder will embark on his 16th season, having started his Major League Baseball journey with the Pirates in 2009. McCutchen expressed his desire to finish his career with the Pirates, a wish fulfilled with this contract. Last season, he hit .256 with 12 home runs, 43 RBIs, 55 runs, and 11 stolen bases in 112 games, primarily serving as a designated hitter.

🏈COLTS SUSPEND WR ISAIAH MCKENZIE, CB TONY BROWN FOR 3 GAMES: The Indianapolis Colts have suspended wide receiver Isaiah McKenzie and cornerback Tony Brown for three games, citing "conduct detrimental to the team." The team did not specify the nature of the behavior that led to the suspensions. It's noteworthy that team-imposed suspensions in the NFL are uncommon, as most suspensions are typically administered by the league for violations related to personal conduct, drug policies, or playing rules concerning player health and safety. The suspensions will keep both players out of action until the end of the regular season.


 



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