Diehard Trump supporter Kari Lake eyes Arizona Senate bid after failed campaign for governor
Failed Republican gubernatorial candidate and election denier Kari Lake is reportedly considering jumping into Arizona’s Senate race, Axios reported. The former news anchor and darling of the MAGA Republican right rose to prominence thanks to her promoting lies about the 2020 presidential election and calling for the decertification of election results. Last year she lost to Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs but has refused to concede and has taken her complaints to courts, which have summarily rejected her attempts to overturn the election. In May, Maricopa Superior Court Judge Peter A Thompson said Ms Lake failed to prove that Maricopa, where Phoenix is located, did not verify signatures on mail-in ballots. Since then, she’s become a fixture in right-wing media and at conservative gatherings such as the Conservative Political Action Conference, where she gave the Reagan Dinner speech. Earlier this week, she campaigned for Bernie Moreno, who is running for Ohio’s Senate seat, and praised fellow MAGA Republican Sen JD Vance, who won his race. “I'm really, really excited about [Mr Vance], I'm super excited that Bernie Moreno's going to be in the Senate. And if they're in the Senate, I just might have to join them,” she said. Former president Donald Trump’s campaign praised Ms Lake and the idea of her running for Arizona’s Senate seat. “When President Trump gets back in the White House he's going to need fighters like Kari Lake in Washington, DC to help enact his Agenda 47,” senior Trump adviser Caroline Wren told Axios. Arizona’s incumbent Sen Kyrsten Sinema has not indicated whether she will seek another term in the Senate. In 2018, she became the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Arizona in 30 years. But Ms Sinema left the Democratic Party to become an independent in December. Rep Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) announced he would run for Arizona’s Senate seat as a Democrat and outraised Ms Sinema in the last fundraising quarter. But despite her consistent opposition to many parts of his agenda, Ms Sinema joined President Joe Biden when he designated the greater Grand Canyon as a national monument on Tuesday. But a poll from Noble Predictive Insights showed that Ms Sinema would trail both Mr Gallego and Ms Lake in a hypothetical three-way matchup. Read More Biden to announce historic Grand Canyon monument designation during Arizona visit Senator who once worked at a Planned Parenthood warns that Republicans are planning a national abortion ban Sinema cites bill targeting leaders of failed banks after criticism of her Wall Street ties Trump ‘fake elector’ memo details 2020 election plan as Christie reacts to new insult Ron DeSantis removes Florida’s only Black woman state prosecutor from office Senator Dianne Feinstein briefly hospitalised after fall
2023-08-10 00:47
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to appear in Houston court hearing for his securities fraud trial
Embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is set to appear in a Houston courtroom to discuss his nearly decade-long delayed trial on securities fraud charges
2023-08-03 13:27
A losing battle to save the lungs of Athens as wildfires grip Greece
In Agia Paraskevi, one of the villages dotted around Mount Panitha, just 15 miles north of Greece's capital, Athens, we found a familiar sight: a woman standing in front of a burned house, its black, skeletal roof beams reaching imploringly into the smoldering sky as if begging for mercy. Tears streamed down her face as she contemplated what she lost. She cried softly in almost resigned despair. Greece is once again in the grip of wildfires, and this year they are worse than ever.
2023-08-27 12:58
Iraqi protesters storm Swedish embassy in Baghdad over Quran burning
Hundreds of protesters stormed the main gates of the Swedish embassy in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad early Thursday in response to police in Stockholm granting permission for a demonstration were organizers are reportedly planning another burning of the Muslim holy book, the Quran.
2023-07-20 09:52
Biden urges tougher gun restrictions, one year after Uvalde, Texas, school massacre
President Joe Biden has called for new gun-buying restrictions at a summit in Connecticut to mark the first anniversary of a gun safety law signed after the Uvalde, Texas, school massacre
2023-06-17 04:21
An anti-affirmative action group is suing the US Military Academy at West Point over race-based admissions policies
The US Military Academy at West Point is being sued for its race-based admissions policies by the same group that won a landmark case against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Supreme Court over affirmative action earlier this year, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
2023-09-20 10:59
In a first, a newborn star's spinning disk is seen in another galaxy
By Will Dunham WASHINGTON Our sun and other stars form when a dense clump of interstellar gas and
2023-11-30 00:23
Trump team handed over tapes of interviews to special counsel, sources say
Donald Trump's legal team turned over multiple recordings of the former president's interviews with members of the media and book authors to federal prosecutors during their investigation, according to sources familiar with the matter.
2023-06-23 05:28
'The suffering is over': Fans continue to mourn as photos of Matthew Perry's last public outing surface online
Matthew Perry was spotted leaving the West LA eatery Apple Pan with a friend a week before his death
2023-10-29 19:55
Culture wars, parenting and tiptoeing around Trump: Five takeaways from Ron DeSantis’s 2024 launch
Ron DeSantis is officially running for president, and on Tuesday landed in the early caucus state of Iowa to give voters a preview of what his campaign will look like. What that shaped up to be in Des Moines was largely what analysts had expected for months: a bid for higher office that leans into Republican culture war battles and as far away from direct confrontation with the incumbent de facto leader of the party, Donald Trump. Mr DeSantis spoke to an enthusiastic crowd that cheered enthusiastically at his vows to score major wins on those issues like LGBT+ rights and “critical race theory”, but less for his veiled shots at the former president, who was never mentioned by name for obvious fear of losing the audience. The governor instead heaped his criticism on Joe Biden and the administrative state which he hinted that Mr Trump had failed to rein in. He was joined by his wife, Casey, and a handful of state-level elected officials — a preview of the battle that is no doubt shaping up in the state where the governor will have his first (and potentially only) real chance to prove that he can credibly compete with the former president, who has turned his fire wholly on his top rival in recent weeks amid continued polling showing the governor falling further behind him. Here are five things you should remember about Tuesday night’s rally going forward into the 2024 primary season: 1. DeSantis was backed by powerful state officials In a clear coup for the DeSantis campaign, the Florida governor charged into his rally on Tuesday backed by both Iowa’s governor and lieutenant governor, Kim Reynolds and and Adam Gregg respectively. To be clear: in a pre-Trump political world, this would be a massive advantage for any candidate to have. Winning the endorsements of the two highest-level officials in state government, let alone at one’s launch rally, is a sign of political dominance that would make any candidate other than Donald Trump think twice about even competing in the state. But Mr Trump is no ordinary opponent, and his continued star power in the GOP far outstrips that of any GOP statewide official — even at home. The former president’s endorsement hasn’t proven to be ironclad, seeing key defeats to opponents of Mr Trump on various sides of the political spectrum in 2022, but it’s fair to say that Mr Trump remains a credible competitor, even perhaps the frontrunner, to win in Iowa regardless of Ms Reynolds and Mr Gregg’s endorsements. 2. The governor won’t touch Trump Mr DeSantis was more than eager to turn his sights on Joe Biden and the actions of his administration during the speech. Not so much for Mr Trump, who was not mentioned by name at all in the governor’s remarks. The desire of Mr DeSantis to avoid a confrontation with the former president might be more convincing, however, had he not indirectly referenced Mr Trump multiple times during his remarks — including at one moment when he asserted that four years in office was simply insufficient to rein in America’s bureaucracy. Even George Washington, the governor charged, would be unable to do so in that amount of time. Mr DeSantis’s tone notably changed when speaking to reporters after the event ended — “He used to say how great Florida was... Hell, his whole family moved to Florida under my governorship,” he noted of the former president. But that fire has yet to emerge in front of those who actually decide elections: voters. The governor therefore appears to be largely stuck in limbo; unwilling or unable to land a blow against Mr Trump when it counts, but more than cognisant of his need to do so. 3. Culture wars rise to the top The greatest targets for criticism on Tuesday were not Mr Biden or his team in the White House at all. Mr DeSantis reserved his harshest tone for so-called “woke” ideologies such as support for LGBT+ rights among public officials and private businesses. He vowed to purge any teachings he deemed remotely “inappropriate” for children from schools, and pledged to do the same to the military and other federal agencies if elected president. This is Mr DeSantis’s true strategy: master the issues that make GOP voters the angriest, and bet that it will propel him not just through a primary race against Donald Trump but to the White House against Joe Biden as well. The governor argued that keeping the attention on these issues and presenting a “positive” alternative to Mr Biden’s vision for America would be their ticket to a victory. 4. Pressure against Republicans on the debt ceiling After Donald Trump came out and said that Republicans in Congress should “do a default” unless they score significant concessions from Democrats in legislation to raise the debt ceiling this week, Mr DeSantis upped the ante further and declared on Tuesday that Republicans should oppose the idea entirely. He railed at the idea of raising America’s debt ceiling by $4 trillion and warned that the GOP’s existing cuts to spending secured in a Saturday-night deal between Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy were not enough — America would still be spiralling towards bankruptcy, he asserted. Expect that to raise the stakes for hardline conservatives in Washington this week as Mr McCarthy hopes to whip as many votes as possible in his caucus to support the bill aimed at averting a default on the US’s loans. 5. Leaning on parents in the battle for suburbia One last interesting theme that Mr DeSantis’s rally touched on multiple times was the idea of families and parents having sovereignty over their kids, their local schools, and other entities. It was hardly a surprising point for the Florida governor to tout, given his signing into law several bills affecting the teachings allowed in schools in the Sunshine State which have been decried by the NAACP and other organisations. But it also played into another larger dynamic that has been playing out across the country for several years. The governor’s repeated statements of support for parents and his efforts to draw support from conservative-aligned education activists are part of the greater GOP’s response to a trend that quickened sharply under Donald Trump’s presidency: the blue-ing of America’s suburbs, which have trended steadily Democratic in recent years while the party simultaneously lost its grip on blue collar voters in the Rust Belt and other areas. His strategy mirrors the one pursued by Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin in 2021, which led to Mr Youngkin beating out former Gov Terry McCaulife and becoming the first Republican to win a statewide election in that purple state since 2009. Read More DeSantis hits familiar targets of Fauci, Disney and ‘wokeism’ in first rally as 2024 candidate Ron DeSantis called out for ‘ignoring’ Hollywood beach shooting: ‘He doesn’t care’ LGBTQ people are fleeing Florida in ‘mass migration’ with some fundraising via GoFundMe Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement
2023-05-31 11:57
King Charles Kenya trip: Mau Mau uprising hangs over visit
The British Empire brutally suppressed an uprising in Kenya in the 1950s. Its victims cannot forget.
2023-10-31 09:57
Allusions to mobster movies and book burning at appeals court hearing on Biden social media contacts
Allusions to book burning and mobster movies arose during a federal court hearing in New Orleans as judges heard arguments on whether the Biden administration engages in unconstitutional censorship in communications with social media platforms
2023-08-11 05:22
You Might Like...
Travis King: US soldier in N Korea was jailed for fights in Seoul
ACC keeps Stanford, Cal in limbo as presidents choose not to vote on western expansion
For Battered Yen Bulls, Timing the Global Recession Is Now Key
Wagner troops training Belarus forces
Australia MP says male colleague used to breathe on her neck in parliament
Wall St dips, rally takes breather as Cisco and Walmart drag
Hawaii wildfires: Harrowing video of residents fleeing in car leaving woman on road splits Internet
Wall St futures tumble after Fitch downgrades top-tier US rating