The News Caravan

Tag: arent

  • Ashok Gehlot asks BJP: Aren’t we Hindus?

    Ashok Gehlot asks BJP: Aren’t we Hindus?

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    Jaipur: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Friday accused the BJP of linking the voting preference of people with Hinduism and asked whether those who don’t vote for the party are not Hindus.

    “You (BJP) come up with one issue or the other to provoke people in the name of religion, caste. All are Hindus. Aren’t we Hindus? Where is it written that the one who votes for the BJP is a Hindu?” Gehlot asked.

    Speaking at the inauguration of Haldighati Youth Festival at Nathdwara in Rajsamand district, Gehlot appealed to the youth to decide whether they want development or just issues that provoke people.

    MS Education Academy

    “In a democracy, some vote for the BJP, some don’t. Some vote for the Congress, some don’t,” he said.

    “Where did they get this definition that those who do not vote (for the BJP) are not Hindus? It is not in the interest of the country,” Gehlot said.

    Alleging that a BJP government will stop the schemes run by the current government in Rajasthan, Gehlot said, “I would like to tell the youth, you decide whether you want development, whether you want a vision or (not).”

    He also told the youth that “knowledge is power”.

    He said Rajasthan today ranks first in the country in the IT sector.

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    #Ashok #Gehlot #asks #BJP #Arent #Hindus

    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • The White House is welcoming the latest inflation numbers. Others aren’t so sure.

    The White House is welcoming the latest inflation numbers. Others aren’t so sure.

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    Beneath the headline number there’s trouble. So-called core inflation — which strips out volatile energy and food prices — actually rose in March on an annual basis. That will probably do nothing to deter Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in his war on inflation.

    A sharp drop in bank lending after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank may do some of the Fed’s work for it by squeezing borrowers. But that — and the Fed’s continued inflation fight — could also tip a precariously balanced economy toward a slump.

    Here’s how the latest inflation numbers are likely to go over with Biden and other key players:

    Biden: The drop in the headline CPI figure to the lowest rate in nearly two years could boost the president since spiking inflation and the possibility of a Fed-induced recession are among the biggest existential threats to his winning a second term.

    Biden’s strongest political selling points are a remarkably resilient job market and rising wages, especially among lower-income earners. Anything that undermines these pillars — including inflation turning higher again and wiping out wage gains — gives the White House nightmares.

    The latest inflation numbers, while mixed, were certainly no nightmare for the administration.

    “We think this is good news to the extent that headline inflation fell and is now at 5 percent, down from 9.1 percent last summer,” White House economic adviser Heather Boushey said in a Yahoo! News interview. “So things are moving in the right direction.”

    She added: “We are interpreting this as movement in the right direction especially when combined with last Friday’s labor market data.”

    That report showed the economy created 236,000 jobs in March, defying yet again widespread expectations of a sharp slowdown as Fed rate hikes pump the brakes on growth in many sectors (think housing and manufacturing).

    Powell: What may look good for Biden won’t go over as well with the Fed chair.

    The central bank chief likely smiled when he saw the headline figure dropping to 5 percent, but probably not when he got into the details.

    Core prices — which the Fed believes give a truer picture of where inflation is at — actually jumped 5.6 percent in March on an annual basis, up from 5.5 percent in February and the first yearly increase since September. So this thing’s not over yet.

    And while the Fed’s rate-hike campaign is curbing the price spikes, inflation remains well above the central bank’s target of 2 percent annually. (Imagine that up until two years ago, the Fed’s biggest concern was that inflation was too low.)

    Powell has repeatedly said in press conferences and speeches that while bringing down overall inflation is good, he and his colleagues need to see core inflation dropping as well before they can be confident their job is done.

    Still, central bank officials are now debating whether to pause the rate increases at their next meeting in May amid some signs of softening in the economy and continued fallout from the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank last month. (The CPI numbers don’t take into account the impact of those failures).

    Wall Street is looking for one more quarter-point hike and then a pause — followed by potential cuts later this year or early next. (Powell has dismissed the possibility of rate cuts this year).

    Ronna McDaniel, Republican National Committee chair: Republicans pounced on the report to hammer Biden on inflation despite the drop in the overall figure.

    “Inflation is up, wages are down, and Americans are struggling to stay afloat in Biden’s failed economy,” McDaniel said in a statement.

    “Democrats have neither answers nor solutions — their policies only worsen the economic burden on families, yet Biden wants taxpayers to foot the bill for his $6.9 trillion tax-and-spending spree that will send inflation soaring even higher.

    Biden’s poll numbers generally and on the economy in particular remain deeply underwater — but tend to rise and fall with inflation. He’ll need much faster progress to get the numbers moving higher.

    JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon — Dimon, CEO of the biggest bank in America, will certainly appreciate the dip in the headline number. But he and other financial industry titans have larger concerns, including a decline in bank lending that is likely to accelerate after all the rate hikes and bank failures.

    A recent report showed bank lending plunged by more than $100 billion in the last two weeks of March — the largest such decline on record.

    Banks are tightening up standards for lending — and consumers and businesses are struggling with higher rates — which can lead to a sharp recession if a real credit crunch occurs and money stops flowing freely into the U.S. economy.

    Bank CEOs like Dimon worry that the Fed remains behind in its inflation fight and may have significantly more work to do to rein in prices.

    “I have all the respect for Powell,” Dimon said in a recent CNBC interview. “But the fact is we lost a little bit of control of inflation.”

    He and other executives aren’t yet calling for an imminent recession. But they are getting prepared for one.

    “Out in front of us, there’s some scary stuff. You and I know there’s always uncertainty,” Dimon said.

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    #White #House #welcoming #latest #inflation #numbers #arent
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • “Well, we’re friends.” “She’s been a very effective legislator.” Senate Democrats aren’t hitting back at Kyrsten Sinema after POLITICO reported she privately bashed caucus members. 

    “Well, we’re friends.” “She’s been a very effective legislator.” Senate Democrats aren’t hitting back at Kyrsten Sinema after POLITICO reported she privately bashed caucus members. 

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    state of the union 44513
    “Whatever she does, I’m supporting her,” Joe Manchin said.

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    #friends #Shes #effective #legislator #Senate #Democrats #arent #hitting #Kyrsten #Sinema #POLITICO #reported #privately #bashed #caucus #members
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • “Well, we’re friends.” “She’s been a very effective legislator.” Senate Democrats aren’t hitting back at Kyrsten Sinema after POLITICO reported she privately bashed caucus members. 

    “Well, we’re friends.” “She’s been a very effective legislator.” Senate Democrats aren’t hitting back at Kyrsten Sinema after POLITICO reported she privately bashed caucus members. 

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    state of the union 44513
    “Whatever she does, I’m supporting her,” Joe Manchin said.

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    #friends #Shes #effective #legislator #Senate #Democrats #arent #hitting #Kyrsten #Sinema #POLITICO #reported #privately #bashed #caucus #members
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • J-K polls delayed as BJP aren’t ready to face voters: Omar

    J-K polls delayed as BJP aren’t ready to face voters: Omar

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    Jammu: National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Monday attacked the BJP, alleging that the “delay” in assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir is because they are not brave enough to face voters as they have failed to mitigate people’s problems.

    The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, without naming the ruling party at the Centre, said they have also not been able to keep their promise of bringing large-scale investments and create job opportunities in the Union Territory.

    “They are not ready to face the people and are escaping from (assembly) elections on one pretext or the other. They used the pretext of delimitation of constituencies and revision of electoral rolls which stands completed long back. They talked about weather not being conducive but have no justification to further delay the polls,” he said in a veiled attack on the BJP.

    The National Conference (NC) vice president was addressing a public meeting at Bajalta in Nagrota constituency – his first in the city after the abrogation of Article 370, which granted special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, and its bifurcation into two union territories in 2019.

    Wearing a white turban, Abdullah said the weather is getting pleasant, they have only two reasons for delaying the polls further, one could be the worsening security situation which they claim has improved and the second being that they are afraid to face the voters.

    “If they had been brave, they would have gone for the elections. After today’s public rally, some people (among the BJP) who were supportive of early elections will also feel jittery,” he said in an apparent reference to former legislator Devender Singh Rana who resigned from the post of NC provincial president and joined the BJP in October 2021.

    Abdullah said the public meeting has proved beyond any doubt that the NC is alive both in the Kashmir and the Jammu province.

    “People come and go but those who have love for the organisation and are not linked to any particular individual will stay back because they are with the party’s principles, flag and agenda,” he said.

    The NC will show its real strength during the assembly elections, Abdullah asserted.

    “They will try to polarise the situation as they are doing elsewhere in the country. We have to frustrate their attempts by standing united,” he said.

    The former chief minister said for the first time he is witnessing a government which “feels happiness in inflicting difficulties on the people. It will be better to get rid of this government as soon as possible”.

    “They are only engaged in propaganda, drama and showoff Sometime back, we heard of an outside company making an investment in Srinagar but it proved much ado about nothing,” the NC leader said referring to the Emaar group of United Arab Emirates laying the foundation of a mega mall project worth Rs 500 crore on Sunday.

    He said his party was accused of being an obstacle in the path of development and job creation, and asked what happened over the past three years. “There is no new project, and recruitment for government jobs was cancelled owing to scams,” Abdullah said.

    Those who celebrated the abrogation of Article 370 in Ladakh and Jammu are equally sad, he claimed.
    “We were angry from day one but there were some people who celebrated it with a hope of ‘New J&K’. The people in Jammu suffered economically because of the stopping of the darbar move and anti-encroachment drive, while Leh people are openly expressing that they were happy to be part of J&K,” the NC leader said.

    The erstwhile state was divided into Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh with Lt Governor-led administrations.

    Abdullah also took a dig at the administration over an alleged imposter, Kiran Patel, who was arrested in Srinagar early this month and said “the deserving are not getting their rights but the frauds are getting benefited”.

    “Instead of finding the reality of Patel before treating him as a VIP, they bowed before him. My colleagues who faced (terror) attacks were not given an escort, he (Patel) was given adequate security, five star accommodation and taken to LoC with many officers lined up to seek recommendations for transfer and promotions,” he said.

    He said nobody can deny the differences between Kashmir and Jammu as far as weather and culture is concerned but what “we witness today is that both the regions are having common sufferings, people are annoyed and gripped by despondency”.

    Referring to anti-encroachment drives in the Union Territory, Abdullah said he was surprised to see the pictures when they took out a bulldozer rally in Kashmir to frighten the public. “When people protested and the situation became tense, the bulldozer drive was stopped at the behest of Delhi,” he claimed.

    He also talked about the imposition of property tax and said “they are saying only a handful of income will be generated but if that is the case, then what is the need for imposing the tax to harass the public”.



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    #polls #delayed #BJP #arent #ready #face #voters #Omar

    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • Doug Mastriano and his super fans aren’t yet willing to let go

    Doug Mastriano and his super fans aren’t yet willing to let go

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    election 2022 pennsylvania governor 13996

    “Doug Mastriano won that election. It was a false election, and I think the people know that it was a false election,” she said as she walked through the parking lot in search of her car following the rally’s conclusion, the harsh mid-March wind hitting her face. “People in Pennsylvania know.”

    In a midterm cycle that was disappointing for the GOP across the country, Pennsylvania Republicans were among the biggest losers. Along with Mastriano’s flogging, GOP candidates fell short in the Senate contest and the majority of state House races.

    Establishment Republicans have found a silver lining amid the grimness: Perhaps there will be a reckoning. Even diehard supporters of former President Donald Trump, they’ve reasoned, are finally sick of losing.

    The Senate GOP’s campaign arm has a new chair, Montana Sen. Steve Daines, who has vowed to wade into primaries in order to nominate candidates who can win general elections. And in Pennsylvania, he is courting Dave McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO who narrowly lost the Senate primary in 2022, to run against Democratic Sen. Bob Casey. McCormick is taking steps to prepare for a possible campaign, including releasing a book Tuesday, launching a new political action committee and attending GOP events in the state recently. In a sign that he’s not joking around about intervening, Daines last week attacked Mastriano as unelectable after news came out that he was considering a Senate run.

    But while the moves have given hope to party officials and donors, the testimony of voters like Crowe show just how far the GOP still must go. In this corner of the political world in Pennsylvania, it’s the establishment — not the MAGAverse — that needs course-correction.

    “The Senate reelection campaign in D.C. is like, ‘We don’t want Mastriano to run.’ Well, you don’t have a say in that there, fella,” Mastriano told the crowd at his rally over the weekend. “They can’t win any state races without the Walk as Free People movement, right? They can’t win without us. So they better be ginger.”

    Mastriano’s rally was part-revival, part-reunion for his fans. Held in a small town in south-central Pennsylvania, it was also a demonstration of what McCormick and his mainstream allies in the party could be up against if he enters the Senate race.

    A few hundred people attended the event, where Mastriano promoted a slate of Republicans running for local office this year. In addition to the candidates, speakers included Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.), Trump lawyer Christina Bobb and conservative media personality Wendy Bell. The main message was that MAGA-ism isn’t dead. The language spoken, however, was conspiracy theories.

    • On the reliability of the 2020 election: “Where are these numbers coming from? Nothing matched. It didn’t work,” said Bobb.
    • On Sen. John Fetterman’s recovery from clinical depression at an in-patient facility: “Do we even know if Fetterman is even alive right now?” asked Lori Phillips, a volunteer for Mastriano who attended the rally.
    • On Covid-19: “China should be held for war crimes, and maybe if our government — if [Anthony] Fauci and all those guys — were involved in it just as much, maybe they should be held for war crimes,” said retiree Larry Haugh, another rally-goer.

    In an interview Monday, McCormick said Mastriano would not factor into his decision about whether to run again for the Senate.
    “It’s a personal choice,” he said. “It will be based on whether I believe I can win and really contribute as a senator from Pennsylvania. And how other people think about it and what they do is not going to be a primary consideration.”

    As he weighs the viability of a Senate run, McCormick also said the GOP must work to increase voter registration and encourage Republicans to vote by mail. In what appeared to be a subtle knock on Mastriano, he added, “I think it’s important we pick candidates who can win the primary and the general, whether it’s for the Senate or for governor or for other races around the country.”

    Democrats, who last year elevated Trump-aligned candidates in several GOP primaries in hopes of facing the least formidable opponents possible, are already wading into the nascent Pennsylvania contest. The day before McCormick’s book, “Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America,” was released, the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm put out a document highlighting past attacks against McCormick from fellow Republicans. The same day, a liberal polling firm released a survey showing Mastriano leading McCormick in a hypothetical primary.

    In recent weeks, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee officials have had conversations with former campaign consultants for now-Gov. Josh Shapiro, who beat Mastriano last fall. According to a person familiar with the talks, they centered on Mastriano’s strengths in a GOP primary.

    At Mastriano’s rally, a number of attendants were skeptical of McCormick.

    “He was a RINO in my opinion,” said nurse Joy Whitesel. “He just seemed too rehearsed for me.”

    “I hadn’t even heard of him until he announced he was running for office,” said health care worker Rebecca Evans.

    But it wasn’t just McCormick who elicited apprehension, but also the political remedies he and other traditional Republicans were pushing in the wake of the 2022 letdown. Though multiple Republican leaders, including Mastriano, have argued that the party needs to embrace mail-in voting, several of the rally-goers were reluctant about going in that direction.

    “I don’t agree with mail-in voting because it’s so easy to become fraudulent,” said Whitesel, adding that she wants Mastriano to run for the Senate and isn’t concerned about his electability “because his loss was only by mail-in votes — he won the in-person votes — and he got zero support from the RINOs.”

    For McCormick, this all raises tricky questions: mainly, is there an actual path forward to winning his party’s nod, especially with Trump running for the presidency. During last year’s election, McCormick unsuccessfully sought the former president’s endorsement and hired several of his ex-aides. For the time being, he seems to be taking a different tack. Though McCormick applauded Trump’s approach to China and the economy in his book, he also recounted a private conversation in which Trump told him, “You know you can’t win unless you say the election was stolen.”

    McCormick said he “made it clear to him that I couldn’t do that. Three days later, Trump endorsed Mehmet Oz” for the Senate.

    Asked whether he supports Trump in the presidential primary, McCormick said there are “great people” who are going to run, but that he has not made a decision yet to back any candidate.

    “I want to see how the primary goes,” he said. “I also am a strong proponent of hopefully a vision for the future that’s positive — more looking forward than backwards.”

    Whether looking forward — not backward — is what GOP primary voters want is less clear.



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    #Doug #Mastriano #super #fans #arent
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Trump’s White House accomplishments aren’t so easy to sell on the campaign trail

    Trump’s White House accomplishments aren’t so easy to sell on the campaign trail

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    Elsewhere, Trump has praised the anti-abortion movement and his role in picking conservative justices, but has also criticized some leaders in that movement for not doing enough in the 2022 midterm election. He has also said the issue was “poorly handled” by Republicans, pointing to members and candidates who advocated for no exceptions to bans on abortion.

    Trump’s team believes that he can thread the needle between touting the work he did in facilitating the end of Roe while staying on the popular side of public opinion about abortion restrictions.

    “Especially in the primary, it’s a very strong talking point for the president. He’s got a good record, and he’s on good ground going into the primary and general election,” said John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who advises Trump. “His position since he ran for office and since he was in office has been consistent.”

    But navigating those twin achievements from his time in office could become tricky to handle over the course of a potential primary and general election run. Trump has begun taking steps to try and maneuver that political landscape.

    At the Council for National Policy summit last weekend at Trump Doral in Miami, he called in to praise the group’s work promoting conservative policies and touted his anti-abortion legacy, according to a recording of the call shared with POLITICO. The call came amid reports that evangelicals and pro-life leaders have been keeping their options open going into the 2024 Republican primary.

    “We appointed 300 judges. We appointed, as you know, the three Supreme Court judges that made your whole right to life, and everybody was trying to get this for many, many years, for many, many decades, and we were able to get that done. And we’re very proud of it, and it was a tremendous tribute to many of the people in the room that worked so hard with us,” Trump said in the roughly five-minute call. “But it was the whole pro-life movement. They say I’m the most pro-life president in American history.”

    Steve Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, called the former president’s record “unmatched” when it came to “nominating pro-life federal judges and Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe v. Wade.” Of his boss, he added, “there has been no bigger advocate for the [anti-abortion] movement.”

    Trump is not the only Republican grappling with the issues of vaccines and abortion.

    His only official challenger in the race, Nikki Haley, ignored the latter issue in her launch speech but was confronted on it after in interviews. Haley, who has said she is “pro-life” because of her experiences as a mother and as governor of South Carolina, signed a law banning abortions past 20 weeks, said she would not support a “full-out federal ban” on abortion, but wouldn’t articulate exactly what she would stand behind now, only saying that there should be “consensus” on when exactly abortion should be banned.

    The issue confronting both Haley and Trump is that any abortion policy stance that plays well in a primary may present problems in a general election. While only 35 percent of Republicans said they disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision is overall unpopular among Americans, with a majority — 56 percent — saying they did not support the decision, according to a recent Ipsos poll.

    Trump could be rewarded by GOP voters for putting conservatives on the Supreme Court. But Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host who does not plan to endorse any candidate in the GOP primaries, said the former president had an altogether different “vulnerability” on the topic: “that it is no longer an issue.”

    “The conservative voters don’t need Donald Trump now to put conservatives on the court, he did it. If anything, he’s kind of hurt himself among social conservatives after Dobbs, by coming out and saying maybe it wasn’t a good idea,” Erickson said.

    The more complicated issue, Trump allies say, will be how he navigates his role in the Covid-19 pandemic. Privately, Trump has expressed pride in the historic efforts to produce a vaccine. But he is also quite aware that the far-right has made vaccinations and especially mandates a toxic issue. He was personally booed for telling a crowd he had gotten a booster shot.

    Cheung called Operation Warp Speed a “once-in-a-lifetime initiative that gave people the option of utilizing therapeutics if they wished to do so.” But he also stressed that Trump “fought against any attempt to federalize the pandemic response by protecting every state’s right to ultimately decide what is best for their people because of the unique challenges each state faced.”

    Since launching his campaign, Trump has attacked another likely 2024 political foe, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for trying to “rewrite history” on his coronavirus response. Trump’s campaign has built up an arsenal of video clips showing DeSantis as supportive of the Covid vaccine even as he has become favored by the anti-vaccine right. The video moments include DeSantis personally greeting a FedEx truck with the first batch of Pfizer vaccines arriving in Florida.

    And one person close to the campaign suggested trying to turn former Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner into the faces of Operation Warp Speed, noting that they had leadership roles in the vaccine’s development. But it’s unclear just how effective those lines of attack would be as time passes since the pandemic.

    “There may be a small faction in the Republican Party that this applies to, but I don’t see how many Republicans are going to hold it against anyone for promoting the vaccine back in 2020, whether it was Trump, DeSantis or anyone,” said Matt Wolking, a former Trump campaign official and Republican strategist. “The true hardcore anti-vaccine [crowd is] found on the right and the left and it’s been that way for decades. So I think most Republicans are going to continue to advocate for personal choice and not mandates.”

    But distrust of the Covid-19 vaccine — not just the mandates — has been a central theme of far-right broadcasts, including Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, which regularly features skeptics on the show. Bannon, a former Trump strategist, has called vaccines and vaccine mandates a “major issue” for Republican voters and Trump’s base. He has warned against Trump leaning into his role promoting the development of the vaccine.

    Still, McLaughlin said he doesn’t see any risk to how Trump handles the vaccine. Some conservative voters may recoil at it. But, he said, the more significant dynamic was that the issue itself was no longer as animating as it once was.

    “I think people have moved on,” McLaughlin said. “I think there are more pressing issues that people are looking at. When you talk to the average person, they’re struggling to buy food or buy gas.”

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    #Trumps #White #House #accomplishments #arent #easy #sell #campaign #trail
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Objects shot down aren’t from China, likely ‘benign,’ Kirby says

    Objects shot down aren’t from China, likely ‘benign,’ Kirby says

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    American forces decided to target the objects because of concerns about potential surveillance, Kirby said on MSNBC later on Tuesday, so they “acted out of an abundance of caution.” No other objects are being tracked, he said.

    It’s still unclear what the objects were, and administration officials have provided few details. Senators received another classified briefing from the administration on the incursions on Tuesday, but they haven’t shed much light.

    As for the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down on Feb. 4, officials expect to learn more about its payload in the coming days as crews continue to retrieve materials, Kirby said. On Monday, U.S. Northern Command said it had recovered critical electronics including key sensors presumably used for intelligence gathering.

    When the balloon was shot down over the Atlantic, some materials floated while the payload, which carries critical information about the airship, sank to the “ocean bottom,” FBI officials told reporters last week. Crews have since successfully recovered parts of the balloon.

    But two of the objects shot down over the weekend were downed over the Yukon and Lake Huron, locations that may make recovery impossible, officials said.

    “We are working very hard to locate them, but there is no guarantee that we will,” said Sean McGillis, Royal Canadian Mounted Police acting deputy commissioner. “The terrain in Yukon is rather treacherous right now… the same could be said about what’s taking place in Lake Huron.”

    Joseph Gedeon, Kelly Garrity and Paul McLeary contributed to this report.

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    #Objects #shot #arent #China #benign #Kirby
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )