The current incumbent, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, has not said whether or not he will seek reelection and doesn’t plan to make an announcement until the end of the year. Should he run again, he faces an uphill battle, running in a presidential year in a state that Donald Trump won by 39 points in 2020.
The Club supported Mooney, a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, in his 2022 run against GOP Rep. David McKinley for the seat he currently holds. But the group’s president, David McIntosh, had expressed support for both Mooney and Morrisey and the Club held off on an endorsement while both considered a Senate bid.
“Rep. Mooney has proven in his time in Congress that he is a conservative champion who will fight for lower taxes, safer streets, school freedom, and parental rights for the people of West Virginia,” McIntosh said in a statement. “Mooney will be a great US Senator and we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he’s elected.”
The Club’s involvement could create a messy primary in a key state for Republicans, who are looking to reclaim the Senate majority.
Justice enjoys high approval ratings and massive personal wealth. He has met with NRSC Chair Steve Daines, who encouraged him to enter the race, according to a person familiar with the committee’s plans. The Mitch McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund also released a poll showing Justice as the only candidate who can beat Manchin.
McIntosh told reporters earlier this year that his group did not align with Justice, a former Democrat, but that it was interested in getting involved in the race.
“He would be in what we would call the moderate camp,” McIntosh said of Justice in February. “So we wouldn’t support him in the primary.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
New Delhi: Italian regulators have ordered Microsoft-owned OpenAI to immediately stop the processing of Italian users’ data to general AI models.
The Italian regulator Garante said it’s concerned that the ChatGPT maker is breaching the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and has opened a probe.
OpenAI will have to notify the Italian regulators within 20 days of the measures implemented to comply with the order, otherwise a fine of up to 20 million euros or 4 per cent of its total worldwide annual turnover may be imposed.
“There is no way ChatGPT can continue to process data in breach of privacy laws. The Italian SA has imposed an immediate temporary limitation on the processing of Italian users’ data by OpenAI, the US-based company developing and managing the platform. An inquiry into the facts of the case was initiated as well,” the regulator noted.
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, late last month admitted that some users’ payment information may have been exposed earlier this week when it took ChatGPT offline owing to a bug.
It’s worth noting that OpenAI does not have a legal entity established in the EU.
Any data protection authority can intervene under the GDPR if it sees risks to local users.
Finally, the Italian regulators emphasised that the lack of age verification mechanism exposes children to receiving responses that are absolutely inappropriate to their age and awareness, even though the service is allegedly addressed to users aged above 13 according to OpenAI’s terms of service.
OpenAI was yet to respond to the Italian regulator’s order.
Washington: After failing to prevent the city of Seattle from outlawing caste-based discrimination, right-wing Hindu Americans are girding up to stop the state of California from going down that route.
The Hindu Policy Research and Advocacy Collective USA (HinduPACT USA), an initiative of Vishwa Hindu Parishad America, has launched a campaign to collect signatures to a petition asking the California Senate “to Reject SB-403 to Protect Hindus from Discrimination”.
The Hindu American Foundation, an advocacy body, has opposed the bill in a letter to Democratic state Senator Aisha Wahab, said in a statement it looks forward to “educating” her on the acecomplex issue of caste”.
SB-403 is a legislation introduced by Wahab last week, which according to a press announcement, seeks to clarify California civil rights law to explicitly include protection against discrimination based on a person’s position in a caste.
Wahab is not exactly new to the issue of caste. “I’m familiar with the impact of caste discrimination from witnessing what friends and their families experienced when growing up in Fremont,” she said. “Prior to assuming office, people in my district shared with me their stories of caste discrimination, and I felt they deserved appropriate protections.”
Afghan-descent Wahab announced the bill last week at a press conference, accompanied by activists and long-time campaigners, who were also at the forefront of the effort led by City council member Kshama Sawant that made Seattle the first city in the US to outlaw caste-based discrimination. It has passed in the Seattle city council 6-1, defying a high-decibel campaign launched by right-wing Hindus Americans from around the country.
California could now become the first US state of ban caste-based discrimination if Senator Wahab’s legislation is enacted.
“This bill is about workers’ rights, women’s rights, and civil rights,” Wahab said, announcing the bill at the news conference. “To ensure organisations and companies do not entrench caste discrimination in their practices or policies our laws need to plainly state that discrimination based on caste is illegal.”
The first case of caste-based discrimination to catch make national headlines in the headlines came from California in 2020 when the states’ civil rights department sued Cisco, the networking gear and business software company, on a petition from an Indian-descent employee that the company’s human resources department did not take cognizance of his complaint of caste-based discrimination by two of his Indian-descent seniors.
In 2022, California State University, which is America’s largest public university system, banned caste-based discrimination after years of activism by Dalit students, including Nepalese-descent Prem Pariyar. Several other US universities are said to be planning the same.
Right-wing Hindu Americans oppose the ban arguing, first, that though caste-based discrimination is appalling, any law banning it here in the US puts a target on the backs of the entire South Asian community, specially Hindus, by portraying them all as purveyors of this practice.
Second, they have argued that discrimination based on caste is covered by existing laws that outlaw all kinds of bias and discrimination and there is no need for a new ban.
Their third, and final, argument is that caste bias in the US is rare and not as rampant as it has been made out to be. They have questioned data cited by supporters of the ban.
“We share the admirable goals of standing up for civil rights and eliminating all forms of prejudice and discrimination, including based on caste,” the Hindu American Foundation said in its letter to Senator Wahab the day after she announced the bill.
It added: “So the question is not whether we should deal with any allegations of caste discrimination, but how. As such, if and when incidents of caste discrimination occur, they should be brought to light, thoroughly investigated and rectified under existing law in its current form.”
Wahab has been expecting this pushback, as has happened in the past to all legislative initiatives regarding civil rights.
“My office has already begun to field opposition inquiries to this bill. What the opposition would have you believe is that this bill’s effort to provide clarity of language in state law and protection to caste- oppress Dalits in particular, or formerly known as the untouchables is in turn targeting a different group of oppressed people. That is not the case.”
New Delhi: Power Minister Atishi on Monday alleged that a conspiracy is being hatched to stop the free electricity scheme that Delhi government is providing to the people of the national capital.
“The scheme which has been a huge success is being obstructed by some officials in connivance with Lt. Governor V.K. Saxena. To investigate the matter further and to find out the truth behind the conspiracy, a special audit of the accounts of all the electricity companies of Delhi for the last 8 years will be conducted by the CAG auditor,” she said.
Atishi also noted that the officials have removed experts appointed by the government on the boards of power companies in a hurry, and this has raised questions about the nexus between the officials of LG and the power companies.
Addressing the media, she also questioned the removal of chartered accountants and power sector experts from the boards of power companies.
“Why is the file related to free electricity not being shown to the elected government of Delhi? Are the LG and the officials conniving with the power companies and hatching some big conspiracy?” Atishi asked.
Atishi said that a special audit of power companies will expose the conspiracies to stop the free electricity being given to the people of Delhi by the Arvind Kejriwal government. It will be clear from the special audit that the money given to the power companies for free electricity has not been misused, she added.
“The file related to the scheme which came out from the LG office 15 days ago, has yet to reach the Chief Minister, the Electricity Minister, or the cabinet. This delay is highly suspicious and suggests that a significant conspiracy is underway to obstruct the provision of free electricity to the people of Delhi.
“The deliberate hiding of such an essential file from the Chief Minister and the cabinet raises alarming questions. Why are some officials preventing the file from reaching the concerned authorities? Is there any attempt to prevent the continuation of the free electricity scheme in Delhi?” Atishi said.
Los Angeles : Actress-singer Selena Gomez has finally broken her silence about her alleged feud with supermodel Hailey Bieber.
On Friday, Gomez took to Instagram Story and shared a message after learning about the immense criticism Hailey has been receiving.
“Hailey Bieber reached out to me and let me know that she has been receiving death threats and such hateful negativity. This isn’t what I stand for. No one should have to experience hate or bullying. I’ve always advocated for kindness and really want all of this to stop,” Gomez urged her fans and followers.
Gomez also started following Hailey on Instagram in a show of support.
This isn’t the first time Gomez trying to get fans to stop scrutinizing Hailey, although this is her first time explicitly referring to Hailey by name.
On March 6, Selena thanked fans for their support on her TikTok and added, “Please, please be kinder and consider others mental health. My heart has been heavy, and I only want good for everyone. All my love.”
Reportedly, the feud between Hailey and Gomez started when the Rhode Skin founder appeared to bully the “Heart Wants What It Wants” singer online.
A few months ago, Hailey posted and then deleted a video where she, Kendall Jenner and Justine Skye mouthed the audio, “I’m not saying she deserved it, but God’s timing is always right.”TikTok users surmised that Hailey was referring to Gomez, who, at the time, had just responded to being fat-shamed.
The beef between the two celebrities dates back to 2018 when Hailey Bieber got engaged to Justin Bieber just months after he ended his relationship with Gomez, whom he dated on and off for eight years, for good.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association support gender-affirming care for adults and adolescents. But medical experts said gender-affirming care for children rarely, if ever, includes surgery. Instead, doctors are more likely to recommend counseling, social transitioning and hormone replacement therapy.
“The transgender medical bans also violate the guarantees of equal protection by banning essential medical treatments needed by the adolescent Plaintiffs because they are transgender,” the lawsuit states. The suit doesn’t not identify the plaintiffs out of safety concerns.
The two medical boards approved the new standards for gender dysphoria treatment in November at the request of Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who said over the summer that the risks associated with the surgeries and prescription treatment for kids is largely untested and that the risks outweigh medical benefits.
Florida Department of Health Spokesperson Nikki Whiting said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights, one of the groups suing the state, said the bans contradict guidelines supported by medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
“The policy unlawfully strips parents of the right to make informed decisions about their children’s medical treatment and violates the equal protection rights of transgender youth by denying them medically necessary, doctor-recommended healthcare to treat their gender dysphoria,” the group said in a press release.
The plaintiffs plan to file a motion seeking a preliminary injunction that would halt the case until it goes through trial.
The state’s bans on transgender treatments for children followed separate rulemaking by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration in August that banned the state’s Medicaid program from covering surgeries and hormone blockers.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“When you deceive the President’s donors and usurp his brand for your own profit, you drain him of the financial resources his campaign needs to defeat Joe Biden and Make America Great Again,” Wiles and LaCivita write in the letter.
The Trump campaign sent the letter to Tag Strategies, Red Spark Strategy, Prosper Group, IMGE, Go Big Media, Push Digital, Convergence Media, Coldspark, Axiom Strategies and Targeted Victory.
Several of the firms are working for prospective GOP rivals to Trump. Coldspark, for instance, is helping former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has announced her candidacy. Axiom is working with a super PAC aligned with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Targeted Victory is a vendor to South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. Both DeSantis and Scott are seen as likely contenders. The firms also represent a host of other down-ballot candidates within the Republican Party who would stand to benefit from securing a Trump endorsement.
None of the firms who received the Trump campaign letter commented for this story.
Trump has made similar moves before. In March 2021, his lawyers sent cease-and-desist letters to the Republican National Committee, NRCC and National Republican Senatorial Committee, demanding they stop using his name and likeness in fundraising emails and merchandise. The RNC denied the cease-and-desist demand.
Thursday’s letter is not a legal threat so much as a political one, forcing the party’s main digital consultants to weigh the value of Trump’s endorsement versus the use of his name to raise funds for their clients.
“Going forward, in determining which candidates he will support, the President and his team will consider whether the candidate is paying a digital fundraising vendor that routinely fundraises off of his name, image and likeness without his authorization,” Wiles and LaCivita write. “It is highly unlikely that President Trump will endorse, sign letters for, appear at events with or post on social media about candidates who use such vendors, or invite such vendors’ clients to join him on stage or otherwise recognize them at his rallies and other events.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
It is not irrational speculation. Americans have a history of sticking with flamboyant politicians with more than a passing relationship with the criminal justice system, from Marion Barry in Washington, D.C., to Edwin Edwards in Louisiana. Trump is a character from a similar mold, with an even tighter grip on his followers that verges at times on the quasi-mystical. At another point in his political life, perhaps Trump might have turned this case into rich fodder for a comeback.
Not now. For all his unusual strengths, Trump is defined these days more by his weaknesses — personal and political deficiencies that have grown with time and now figure to undermine any attempt to exploit the criminal case against him.
His base of support is too small, his political imagination too depleted and his instinct for self-absorption too overwhelming for him to marshal a broad, lasting backlash. His determination to look inward and backward has been a problem for his campaign even without the indictment. It will be a bigger one if and when he’s indicted.
Trump has been unusually resilient against scandal over the years thanks to the unbreakable loyalty of voters who see him as their champion in the arena. My colleagues David Siders and Adam Wren reported that Republicans expect Trump to get a short-term boost from the indictment because it will energize his core supporters. That is probably true.
But those supporters are a minority of the country, as Republicans have learned the hard way several times over. Stimulating Trump’s personal following was not enough to save the House for his party in 2018 or to defend the White House and the Senate in 2020, or to summon a red wave in 2022.
Trump needs to grow his support, not merely rev up people who already care deeply about his every utterance and obsession. It is not likely that many Americans who are not already part of Trump’s base will be inspired to join it because they feel he is being mistreated by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Personality-cult politics, on its own, has never really been a winning model for Trump. At his strongest moments, he has convinced voters that Trumpism is about far more than Trump — that it is not merely a jumble of racist and sexist outbursts and weird grudges against the likes of Rosie O’Donnell and Megyn Kelly, but a worldview that might transform America. Trump’s great success in 2016 was his ability to persuade tens of millions of Americans to see him as a stand-in for their own grievances and yearnings.
The most memorable moment in his convention speech that year was when he declared the United States was horrifically broken and “I alone can fix it.” His critics rightly saw it as a telling display of a narcissistic and authoritarian mindset.
But the bit in that speech that best conveyed Trump’s appeal was one taking aim at the Clinton catch phrase, “I’m With Her.” Trump’s rejoinder: “I choose to recite a different pledge. My pledge reads: ‘I’m With You.’”
Suddenly Clinton was the self-absorbed one and he was the tribune of plebs.
It is hard for a candidate to tell voters “I’m with you” when he is mainly consumed with narrow, personal complaints and crackpot conspiracy theories. Plenty of Americans can see themselves in an older white man scorned by liberals and the media for his crude manner and bigoted ideas. Fewer are likely to see themselves in a wealthy husband paying hush money to conceal his debauched sex life and whining about the unfairness of his circumstances in every public outing.
What is the great cause of Trump’s 2024 campaign, aside from Trump himself?
The politicians who best weather scandal are the ones who tell and show voters that they are doing the people’s business while opponents stew in lurid trivia.
Bill Clinton survived impeachment and finished his second term as a popular president by persuading voters that he was balancing budgets and keeping them safe while Newt Gingrich and Ken Starr pilfered his underwear drawer. More recently, Ralph Northam overcame a blackface scandal and completed his term as governor of Virginia by promising to devote himself to fighting racial inequality. (One civil rights leader in Richmond captured the appeal of this approach, telling the Christian Science Monitor of Northam’s critics: “People can continue to talk about yesterday. I want to talk about tomorrow.”)
Abroad, Benjamin Netanyahu endured as the leader of Israel’s political right while fighting corruption charges, and returned in December to serve as prime minister, by arguing to voters that he was his country’s only true steward of national security and the allegations against him were a left-wing plot — a distraction from things that really matter.
Trump does not have much to say about things that really matter.
Unlike the Trump of 2016, who shattered the policy orthodoxy of the GOP establishment and reshaped the party’s ideology in his own image, the Trump of today contributes nothing new to the Republican agenda.
He has fallen behind the times even compared to his current and former allies. In South Carolina, he ridiculed electric cars standing beside Gov. Henry McMaster, a 75-year-old loyalist who like other Republican governors has promoted his state as a hub for EV manufacturing. When the Supreme Court abolished the constitutional right to abortion, Trump largely declined to address the most significant consequence of his own judicial appointments. It was Mike Pence, his excommunicated vice president, who hailed the decision as a transcendent victory for the right to life and vowed to carry forward the battle against abortion.
On the war in Ukraine, Trump speaks for a faction of the GOP when he derides it as a waste of money that is not America’s problem to solve. He is alone among Republican candidates in threading that view with admiring commentary about Vladimir Putin. His hostile view of China — a subject on which he reshaped American political discourse — remains compromised by his tendency to talk about Xi Jinping like a golfing buddy.
None of this is to say that Trump cannot win the Republican nomination, or even the presidency. Elections are unpredictable. But it is past time to give up the idea that stoking the anger of Trump’s diehard fans is a victory unto itself.
If each scandal or blunder binds 99 percent of his base closer to him and unsettles 1 percent, that is still a losing formula for a politician whose base is an electoral minority. Trump cannot shed fractional support with every controversy but make it up on volume.
The question before Republicans is whether they need another lesson from the electorate in the perils of running on a version of Trumpism that is all about Trump. A campaign about Jan. 6 and Stormy Daniels is not one that is likely to end well for Republicans.
That is a mortal problem for Trump’s candidacy.
He alone can fix it.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Nagpur: Taking a tough stand on complaints against content on OTT platforms, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur on Sunday said vulgarity and abusive language was not acceptable in the name of creativity.
Addressing a press conference here, Thakur said the government had taken a serious view on complaints of vulgarity and abusive language in content on OTT platforms and will not hesitate to take tough action to stop this trend.
“These platforms were given freedom for creativity and not for obscenity and when one crosses the limit, then hurling abuses in the name of creativity cannot be accepted at all,” Thakur said.
“If there is a need to change the rules, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting will not hesitate. It will take tough action to stop vulgarity and abusive language,” the minister said.
In January, Thakur had batted for creative autonomy and said adequate safeguards were in place to monitor content on OTT platforms.
“Creativity should not be reined in, it should have autonomy. But it should not be too much that anything can be shown. We have kept adequate provisions and till date they are working fine,” Thakur had said on January 15 while participating in the 75th anniversary celebrations of ‘Panchajanya’ weekly, the RSS mouthpiece.
Abusing, rudeness in the name of creativity cannot be tolerated says Anurag Thakur. @MIB_India
The government is serious about the complaint of increasing obscene content on OTT. Strict action will be taken to stop obscenity and abuse.
On Sunday, Thakur said there was a three-stage mechanism to deal with content on OTT platforms.
“As per the current procedure, producers have to address complaints about the content first and then they go to their association. When a complaint reaches the government (I&B department), strict action is taken as per rules,” he said.
Hyderabad: Jr NTR, one of Telugu cinema’s most sought-after actors, recently attended the pre-release event for Vishwak Sen‘s latest film, Das Ka Dhamki, in Hyderabad. Fans were overjoyed to see their favorite actor attend the event and eager to learn more about his upcoming projects.
When some fans asked about his next project, NTR had a little fun and teased them, saying he hadn’t signed anything yet and asking how many times he had to repeat himself. The actor said, “I am not doing any movie. If you ask repeatedly, I ll stop doing movies.”
Despite their persistent questions, NTR continued to entertain his fans and quickly reassured them that he had no plans to stop making films anytime soon. The actor’s humorous conversation with his fans not only entertained them but also showed his genuine concern for his co-workers.
On the professional front, Jr NTR has NTR30 in his kitty which is being directed by Koratala Siva and it is scheduled to hit the screens on April 5, 2024.
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