University of California System Bans Fully Online Undergraduate Degrees!

 

Laptop with broken screen

(ADDRicky/Getty)

Dear Commons Community,

The University of California system has never had any fully online undergraduate degree programs at any of its 10 campuses. But a loophole existed in which a student or department could have crafted—either inadvertently or intentionally—a fully online undergraduate degree through individually approved online courses. 

That loophole was closed this month when the University of California Academic Senate approved Senate Regulations 610 and 630, which instituted an undergraduate residency requirement. Students must now earn a minimum of six course credits per quarter (or semester) for three quarters (or two semesters) in courses where at least half of the instruction is in person on a UC campus, according to the Senate document. This corresponds with one out of the four undergraduate years, according to Melanie Cocco, associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at UC Irvine.  The UC Academic Senate exercises direct control over academic matters of central importance to the university, including determining academic policy and setting degree requirements, according to the UC websiteInside Education has an excellent review of this story that can be found here.

I was also glad to see my colleague, Jeff Seaman, quoted in the Inside Education article.  He has done as much research on faculty attitudes to online learning as anyone.

Tony

Former GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan Says He’ll Back ‘Anybody But Trump’ in 2024 Election!

Trump calls Paul Ryan a 'pathetic loser' after the former Republican House Speaker said many in the GOP didn't have guts to impeach him

Dear Commons Community,

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R) said he’ll support “anybody but” Donald Trump in the 2024 election, adding that he won’t attend the Republican National Convention next year if the former president is selected as the GOP nominee.

In an interview with WISN-TV broadcast Sunday, Ryan, whose time as speaker included the first two years of Trump’s presidency, said he doesn’t think the former president will secure the Republican nomination.

“The reason I don’t think he’ll be our nominee is ’cause we know we’re going to lose with him,” Ryan said, blaming Trump for repeated GOP defeats over the last years.

During the November midterm elections, Republicans failed to win control of the Senate and only narrowly secured the majority in the House after an underwhelming performance.

“This is a lesson we don’t need to repeat again and I think even dire Trump supporters know we’re better off with somebody else,” Ryan continued.

Ryan said he’s not sure he’ll endorse a candidate in the primaries.

“Right now, I’m just for a non-Trump candidate,” Ryan said. “Anybody but Trump right now, for me.”

Republicans have picked Milwaukee to host the Republican National Convention in July 2024. That’s also where the first GOP primary debate will be held in August.

But Ryan said his attendance at the convention will depend “on who the nominee is,” even though he’s a Wisconsin native.

“I’ll be here if it’s somebody not named Trump,” Ryan added.

This comes as the National Republican Committee is taking steps to ensure unity within the party. RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said she expects all candidates who participate in the primary debates will be required to pledge to support the eventual nominee.

“I think it’s kind of a no-brainer, right?,” McDaniel told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “If you’re going to be on the Republican National Committee debate stage asking voters to support you, you should say, ‘I’m going to support the voters and who they choose as the nominee.’”

The field of Republicans in 2024 is looking to be crowded. Earlier this month, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley became the first Republican to challenge Trump in the race. Trump announced his campaign following the midterm elections in November.

Other likely entrants include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Ryan was asked how he would run today’s House of Representatives if he were in Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s shoes.

McCarthy was officially elected speaker in January after a total of 15 rounds of voting. He only won after agreeing to major concessions to some of the extreme members of his party.

“One thing I’m not going to is Monday morning quarterback my successor,” Ryan said.

Ryan acknowledged that McCarthy has a very slim majority and tough issues coming up, including a potential standoff over the debt ceiling.

“After that is settled, I think what he will do, which is I think what he should do, is start preparing an agenda to take to the country — use the majority to cultivate policies that solve today’s problems,” Ryan said.

The Republican Party needs more of its leaders to come out and repudiate Donald Trump.

Tony

 

Rupert Murdoch admits Fox News hosts ‘endorsed’ false election fraud claims!

Murdoch Said Big 3 Fox News Hosts Could Declare Biden Winner: Filing

Rupert Murdoch

Dear Commons Community,

Rupert Murdoch conceded in a deposition that multiple Fox News hosts “endorsed” former President Donald Trump’s election fraud conspiracy.

The mogul was deposed by Dominion Voting Systems in its lawsuit against Fox and several Fox News hosts.

“Some of our commentators were endorsing it,” Murdoch said in the deposition, made public yesterday. “They endorsed.”

Dominion’s lawyers specifically asked about Fox News hosts Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro.  Murdoch believed all four endorsed Trump’s claims, even adding that Dobbs did so “a lot.”

Fox had originally argued in the case that its news broadcasts had only provided a platform for Trump backers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani to spout lies about rigged Dominion voting machines.

But in his deposition, Murdoch, 91, admitted the four Fox News hosts went beyond that. However, he argued the company itself did not take a position.

“Not Fox,” he said, “But maybe Lou Dobbs, maybe Maria, as commentators.”

When it came to keeping Powell and Giuliani off the air, Murdoch admitted he “could have. But I didn’t.”  As reported by NBC News and the New York Daily News.

Dominion filed the $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox and its network hosts in May 2021. The voting machine company argued that Fox News deliberately changed its tune because its ratings dropped after it called Arizona for President Biden.

The filing adds to a growing collection of documents and testimony, some of it from many other top Fox News and Fox Corp. executives, that detail how the cable channel reacted in the hours, days and weeks after the 2020 election — and how those reactions opened the door for baseless claims of election fraud to become a consistent talking point.

The testimony from executives highlights how Fox News’ calling Arizona for Joe Biden late on election night sparked a viewer backlash that resonated among the company’s executives and high-profile hosts, sparking concerns about what it would mean for its business.

Murdoch, asked why he continued to allow MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to make election fraud claims on Fox News, said it was a business decision. “It is not red or blue, it is green,” Murdoch said, according to the court documents.

Murdoch testified in an ongoing lawsuit against Fox News filed by the voting machine maker Dominion Voting Systems. The new documents were unsealed less than two weeks after an unsealed court filing exposed the communications of many Fox News executives, hosts and producers who saw claims about Dominion to be without merit. They included host Tucker Carlson’s saying Sidney Powell was “lying” about voter fraud docs, Rupert Murdoch’s calling statements by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani “crazy stuff” and “damaging” and Hannity’s saying he “did not believe it for one second.”

Murdoch also confirmed that he could have exerted some control over the network, most notably by telling Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott to stop putting Giuliani on the air.

“I could have,” Murdoch said in the court documents. “But I didn’t.”

Dominion first sued Fox News in March 2021, seeking $1.6 billion for what it alleged were lies that “deeply damaged Dominion’s once-thriving business.”

Fox News has defended its coverage and called the lawsuit “baseless.”

On Monday, the company said in a statement: “Dominion’s lawsuit has always been more about what will generate headlines than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny, as illustrated by them now being forced to slash their fanciful damages demand by more than half a billion dollars after their own expert debunked its implausible claims. Their summary judgment motion took an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting and their efforts to publicly smear FOX for covering and commenting on allegations by a sitting President of the United States should be recognized for what it is: a blatant violation of the First Amendment.”

Dominion noted in the court documents that it tried to get Fox News shows hosted by Dobbs, Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro to book its spokesperson, Michael Steel, to counter election fraud claims but that its efforts were unsuccessful. A search of the Fox News website shows Steel did appear on at least one Fox News program: “America’s News Headquarters.”

The documents also show other executives at Fox News growing increasingly concerned about the channel’s handling of election fraud claims in the days after the election.

“Hannity is getting awfully close to the line with his commentary and guests tonight,” Viet Dinh, Fox Corp.’s chief legal and policy officer, told Fox News and Fox Corp. executives on Nov. 5, 2020.

The filing also offered new insight into the relationship between Murdoch and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, asserting that Murdoch provided Kushner with “Fox confidential information” about Joe Biden’s ads, as well as debate strategy. However, Murdoch did not help him on election night.

When Fox News determined that Biden had won Arizona, Murdoch testified, Kushner called him to protest.

“My friend Jared Kushner called me saying, ‘This is terrible,’ and I could hear Trump’s voice in the background shouting,” Murdoch testified, according to the filing. “And I said, ‘Well, the numbers are the numbers.’”

Lawsuits like Dominion’s rarely succeed, as the First Amendment broadly protects publishers. Plaintiffs must also prove “actual malice,” a term that means statements were made with knowledge that they were false or were made with reckless disregard of whether they were false or not.

Jeff Kosseff, a law professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and former practicing First Amendment lawyer, said in an interview that Murdoch’s testimony suggests Dominion has “a really strong case.”

“I can’t recall the last time that I’ve seen so much evidence of actual malice just piled on top of each other,” Kosseff said.

“That’s not to say they definitely will win, but I’d much rather be in the plaintiff’s lawyers’ shoes,” he said.

The filing shows that as various Fox News shows, hosts and guests continued to push voter fraud claims, Murdoch fielded messages from other media executives, some from within Fox Corp., who tried to persuade him to change course.

Murdoch even spoke to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott on Jan. 5, 2021, the day before Trump supporters would storm the Capitol, about whether to push Hannity, Carlson and Laura Ingraham to say something to effect of “The election is over and Joe Biden won,” according to the filing.

According to the filing, Scott told Murdoch that “privately they [the hosts] are all there” but “we need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers.”

No statement was made.

Fox News is being outed for what it is!  A company that spouts lies and puts profits before truth!

Tony

Maureen Dowd: Georgia Gave Our Country the Ecstasy of a Good and Decent Jimmy Carter and the Agony of a Sinister and Despicable Marjorie Taylor Greene!

Opinion | From Carter to M.T.G.: What a Peach State Plummet - The New York  Times

Jimmy Carter and Maxine Taylor Greene

Dear Commons Community,

Maureen Dowd in her column yesterday entitled, “From Carter to M.T.G.: What a Peach State Plummet”, presents two political representatives (Jimmy Carter and Maxine Taylor Greene) from Georgia who could not be more different.  Here is an excerpt.

… The man [Carter] was a marvel.  The starchiness and righteousness were still there. He had not mellowed, thank God.  Carter’s decency and honesty shone. Unlike Clinton and Obama, he didn’t go Hollywood. Through the Carter Center, he worked tirelessly to eradicate diseases like Guinea worm and supervise elections in more than 100 countries.

He cared so passionately about peace that he even offered to go on a mission for a Republican president with very different values, Donald Trump, to talk to Kim Jong-un in North Korea…

…Marjorie Taylor Greene is following in the footsteps of racist old bigots like Lester Maddox and George Wallace.

Greene is the apotheosis of those who love hating so much, they no longer have any interest in collaborating for the good of the country and the world. Carter is the apotheosis of the mantra “We’re better than this.”

“Jimmy Carter represents all that is good and decent in public life,” said Jonathan Alter, the author of “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life.” “And Marjorie Taylor Greene represents “all that is sinister and despicable in public life.”

Dowd’s entire column is below.  She is so right!

Tony

——————————————————————————–

The New York Times

From Carter to M.T.G.: What a Peach State Plummet

Feb. 25, 2023

By Maureen Dowd

Opinion Columnist

When Jimmy Carter was president, I was a lowly clerk at The Washington Star. I saw him mostly through the eyes of Pat Oliphant, our brilliant, biting cartoonist. As Carter came to be seen as uncool and fumbling, Oliphant drew the president smaller and smaller in relation to his tormentors — including that killer rabbit.

It taught me an early lesson in the brutality of dwindling power.

Four decades later, I went one weekend to interview Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, in Plains, Ga., along with my friend Jerry Rafshoon, who was Carter’s media wizard.

I watched Carter teach Sunday school at the Baptist church his friends started in the 1970s, after his original church refused to integrate. Some in Plains, disdaining his views on integration, tried to boycott his peanut business, but most came back. “I had the best peanuts,” he told Rafshoon.

I sat with the former president as he celebrated his 93rd birthday with a concert; he asked the pianist to play “Imagine.” Wearing jeans and a belt with a big “JC” buckle, he showed me the four-poster walnut bed he slept in with Rosalynn, which he had carved himself.

The man was a marvel. The starchiness and righteousness were still there. He had not mellowed, thank God. He remained, to use the descriptor favored by one of his sons, intense. He still felt the sting of being dissed and held at a distance by his successors Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

As a postpresident, Carter’s decency and honesty shone. Unlike Clinton and Obama, he didn’t go Hollywood. Through the Carter Center, he worked tirelessly to eradicate diseases like Guinea worm and supervise elections in more than 100 countries.

He cared so passionately about peace that he even offered to go on a mission for a Republican president with very different values, Donald Trump, to talk to Kim Jong-un in North Korea.

Carter cared about building — furniture and relationships. The nasty new face of Georgia politics cares about dividing.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene followed up her furry catcalls to President Biden during the State of the Union by proposing secession.

“We need a national divorce,” she tweeted on Presidents’ Day. “We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”

Georgia is purplish now, with two Democratic senators, as well as a governor and secretary of state willing to stand up to the Trump election lies that Greene helps spread. So it’s not clear if some states would have to be — what’s that word again? — segregated into blue and red bastions.

Georgians could be proud of Carter, who worked prodigiously to bring peace to the Middle East. Now they have a congresswoman, a creepy confidante of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who talked gibberish about Jewish space lasers and called A.O.C. and the Squad the “Jihad Squad.” Greene said Black people “are held slaves to the Democratic Party” and labeled Black Lives Matter “the most powerful domestic terrorist organization within inside the United States.”

Carter, a brainiac, is a former nuclear engineer with a soaring I.Q. Greene, a maniac, ranted to Tucker Carlson on Thursday about “this war against Russia in Ukraine.”

When Carter became governor in 1971, many hoped we had begun to move past the kind of hatred and racial struggles that defined the South in the 1950s and ’60s. He placed Martin Luther King Jr.’s portrait in the State Capitol and said in his inaugural speech: “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.”

Time magazine hailed the New South on its cover, saying Carter had triumphed over the South’s “demagogic past” and Confederate ghosts. Now, thanks to the likes of Trump and Greene, we’re back in the toxic soup.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene is following in the footsteps of racist old bigots like Lester Maddox and George Wallace,” Rafshoon said.

Greene is the apotheosis of those who love hating so much, they no longer have any interest in collaborating for the good of the country and the world. Carter is the apotheosis of the mantra “We’re better than this.”

“Jimmy Carter represents all that is good and decent in public life,” said Jonathan Alter, the author of “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life.” “And Marjorie Taylor Greene represents all that is sinister and despicable in public life.”

Alter has been fielding calls from around the world from people writing stories about Carter since the 98-year-old started hospice a week ago. (Those who know Carter joke that he’s so competitive, he has no doubt asked his doctor the record for hospice care, so he can break it and add to his list of accomplishments.) He wanted to be at home with his wife of 76 years, Rosie, as he calls her. The two were introduced when Carter was a toddler by his mother, Miss Lillian, a nurse, a couple of days after she delivered Rosalynn, which sort of makes them sweethearts for 95 years.

“He’s en route to becoming an American Gandhi,” Alter said. “He went from obscurity and zero percent in the polls to lead an epic American life by offering a positive, inspirational message.” A message that is a rebuke, Alter said, “to what is twisted and wrong about MAGA America.”

So who do we want to be? Marjorie Taylor Greene or Jimmy Carter? Destroyers or builders?

 

Fox News Anchor Howard Kurtz Says Network Is Barring Him from Covering the Dominion Voting Lawsuit!

Fox News Media Anchor Howard Kurtz Says Network Won't Let Him Cover Fox- Dominion Lawsuit

Dear Commons Communjty,

Fox News anchor Howard Kurtz said the network has forbidden him from reporting on the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against the network over its 2020 election coverage.

“Some of you have been asking why I’m not covering the Dominion Voting Machines lawsuit against Fox involving the unproven claims of election fraud in 2020, and it’s absolutely a fair question,” Kurtz said yesterday on “Mediabuzz.”

“I believe I should be covering it. It’s a major media story, given my role here at Fox. But the company has decided that as part of the organization being sued, I can’t talk about it or write about it, at least for now. I strongly disagree with that decision, but as an employee, I have to abide by it. And if that changes, I’ll let you know.”

Fox News, whose hosts routinely rail against censorship, did not immediately return a request for comment on the matter.

Earlier this month, court filings revealed text messages that Dominion said were sent by senior Fox News executives and major hosts. The texts suggested that network talent and decision makers did not believe the false claims of election fraud that they were amplifying on air.

Tucker Carlson, for example, allegedly referred to the Trump campaign’s election grievances as “ludicrous” and “totally off the rails” in private text exchanges. Sean Hannity at one point referred to people promoting the lies as “lunatics.” And Raj Shah, senior vice president of Fox Corporation, apparently described the voter fraud claims as “mind blowingly nuts.”

The star hosts named in the filings have been silent on the allegations. In a statement shortly after the story broke, a Fox News spokesperson said: “Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context, and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law.”

Dominion is suing Fox for $1.6 billion, accusing the company of promoting damaging lies that Dominion helped rig the 2020 election against former President Donald Trump. The case is scheduled to go to trial in April.

I saw Howard Kurtz’s show yesterday and it was pathetic watching him discuss that Fox News was censoring him from covering the Dominion Voting Lawsuit.

Tony

Scientists find evidence of a new layer at the Earth’s inner core!

Photo:  Vadimsadoski/Adobe.com

Dear Commons Community,

A team at Australian National University (ANU) has found evidence of a new layer to the planet sitting within the inner core. This “innermost inner core” is an iron-nickel alloy ball that, as professor Hrvoje Tkalčić explains, is a “fossilized record” of Earth’s ancient history. Until now, science had only recognized four layers (crust, mantle, outer core and inner core).

The scientists found the ‘hidden’ core by studying seismic waves that traveled back and forth across the Earth’s entire diameter up to five times — previous studies only looked at single bounces. The earthquake waves probed places near the center at angles that suggested a different crystalline structure inside the innermost layer. Effectively, the alloy is skewing the travel times for the waves as they pass through.

The findings open up new ways to investigate the inner core, according to lead author Thanh-Son Phạm. ANU also believes the innermost inner core hints at a major event in Earth’s past that had a “significant” impact on the planet’s heart. As researchers explain to The Washington Post, it could also help explain the formation of the Earth’s magnetic field. The field plays a major role in supporting life as it shields the Earth from harmful radiation and keeps water from drifting into space.

Those insights may help with studies of other worlds. Mars is believed to be a barren planet because it lost its magnetic field roughly four billion years ago, leaving no protection against solar winds and dust storms that carried away the atmosphere and oceans. Exoplanet hunters, meanwhile, could use the knowledge to search for habitable worlds. The presence of an Earth-like core structure isn’t guaranteed to indicate survivability, but may play a role in narrowing down candidate planets.

Interesting stuff!

Tony

Video: More on Fox News, Dominion Voting, Sidney Powell, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo!

 

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has an extensive article and media presentation entitled “What Fox News Hosts Said Privately vs. Publicly About Voter Fraud.”  Providing  video clips (see above and below) and other documentation, the article reviews details that have been made public in the Dominion Voting lawsuit.  It mentions many of the Fox News reporters including Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Bret Baier.   Below is an excerpt focusing specifically on Donald Trump’s attorney, Sidney Powell, and Fox News hosts Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo.

It is absolutely insane that even a bias Fox News could give Powell any type of credence or air time.

Tony

————————————

The New York Times

Excerpt from

“What Fox News Hosts Said Privately vs. Publicly About Voter Fraud”

Tucker Carlson was far from alone in speaking about Sidney Powell in a different way in private than on the air.

Internally, anchors like Bret Baier appeared surprised to find Ms. Powell getting significant airtime on shows by Ms. Bartiromo and Mr. Dobbs, the court filings show. On Nov. 6, 2020, after someone forwarded Mr. Dobbs’s interview with Ms. Powell, Mr. Baier replied:

The private messages also showed that Ms. Powell was in direct communication with Ms. Bartiromo and Mr. Dobbs, and that she revealed one of the sources for her outrageous claims. The court filings showed that Ms. Powell forwarded an email about voter fraud to Ms. Bartiromo from the source, a woman who claimed, among other things, that “the Wind tells me I’m a ghost.”

If Ms. Bartiromo was deterred by the unusual email, it was not evident to Fox News viewers. Ms. Powell was interviewed on the show the next day.

Bartiromo: “We talked about the Dominion software. I know that there were voting irregularities. Tell me about that.”

Consternation over Ms. Powell grew behind the scenes at Fox News as her lawsuits were repeatedly dismissed by courts and her promises to produce concrete evidence of widespread voter fraud never materialized. Yet she was still getting airtime, and senior executives at the network appeared concerned.

Gary Schreier, a senior vice president of programming at Fox Business, said in a private message to Lauren Petterson, the president of Fox Business, that Ms. Bartiromo “has GOP conspiracy theorists in her ear and they use her for their message sometimes.”

Days later, Mr. Schreier received an email from Dominion Voting Systems containing links that refuted Ms. Powell’s voter fraud claims.

That night, Mr. Dobbs interviewed Ms. Powell about Dominion’s comments. But he also used the interview to reinforce her claims of fraud. Mr. Dobbs concluded that “this looks like the effort to carry out an endgame” against Mr. Trump. Ms. Bartiromo interviewed Ms. Powell again two days later.

Dobbs is quoted as saying: “This is the culmination of what has been over a four-year effort to overthrow this president.”

Bartiromo: “Attorney Sidney Powell is leading the charge against Dominion and she says she has enough evidence of fraud to launch a massive criminal investigation.”

Several Fox News hosts and producers were criticizing Ms. Powell, including John Fawcett, a producer on Mr. Dobbs’s show, who said he believed Ms. Powell was “doing LSD and cocaine and heroin and shrooms.” .

But those criticisms never made it to air. Instead, when Ms. Powell appeared again on Mr. Dobbs’s show days later, she was hailed as a “great American” and “one of the country’s leading appellate attorneys.”

Dobbs: “Our election is run by companies, the ownership of which we don’t know. Sidney Powell is among those trying to change all that.”

By late November, Mr. Fawcett became increasingly critical of Ms. Powell, according to the court filings. He concluded that she was not verifying her claims. On Nov. 27, 2020, he wrote that her lawsuits were “complete bs.”

Mr. Fawcett also told Mr. Dobbs that Mr. Trump’s legal team had disavowed her. Mr. Dobbs replied that he didn’t know what Ms. Powell was “thinking or doing, Or why!”

But over the next several days, Ms. Powell was invited back by Mr. Dobbs, who echoed her claims that “electoral fraud” was perpetrated by electronic voting machines, “prominently Dominion.”

Dobbs: “I think many Americans have given no thought to electoral fraud that would be perpetrated through electronic voting, that is these machines … prominently Dominion, at least in the suspicions of a lot of Americans.”

Dobbs: “We have, across almost every state, whether it’s Dominion … whatever the voting machine company is — no one knows their ownership, has no idea what’s going on in those servers.”

The next month, after Smartmatic, a competitor of Dominion Voting Systems, sent a letter to Fox News signaling that litigation was imminent, the network put together a video package of an election expert debunking the conspiracy theories that suggested the company’s technology allowed the presidential vote to be rigged. It aired on the programs hosted by Mr. Dobbs, Ms. Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro.

On Feb. 5, 2021, one day after Smartmatic filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox, Fox Business canceled “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” At the time, Fox said it regularly reviewed its lineup. “Plans have been in place to launch new formats as appropriate postelection, including on Fox Business,” the network said.

First Lady Jill Biden Indicates Husband Joe Will Run Again for President!

The AP Interview: Biden ready to run, US first lady says

Dear Commons Community,

U.S. first lady Jill Biden gave a clear indication yesterday that President Joe Biden will run for a second term, telling The Associated Press in an  interview that there’s “pretty much” nothing left to do but figure out the time and place for the announcement.

Although Biden has long said that it’s his intention to seek reelection, he has yet to make it official, and he’s struggled to dispel questions about whether he’s too old to continue serving as president. Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term.

“How many times does he have to say it for you to believe it?” the first lady said in Nairobi, the second and final stop of her five-day trip to Africa.

She added, “He says he’s not done. He’s not finished what he’s started. And that’s what’s important.”

The president himself was asked about his wife’s comments just hours later in an interview with ABC News, and laughed when told of her remarks, adding, “God love her. Look, I meant what I said, I’ve got other things to finish before I get into a full-blown campaign.”

Biden aides have said an announcement is likely to come in April, after the first fundraising quarter ends, which is around the time that President Barack Obama officially launched his reelection campaign.

The first lady has long been described as a key figure in Biden’s orbit as he plans his future.

“Because I’m his wife,” she laughed.

She brushed off the question about whether she has the deciding vote on whether the president runs for reelection.

“Of course he’ll listen to me, because we’re a married couple,” she said. But, she added later, “he makes up his own mind, believe me.”

The wide-ranging interview took place on the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Jill Biden recalled her trip into the country last May to meet the besieged country’s first lady, Olena Zelenska.

They visited a school that was being used to help migrants who fled the fighting. Some of the families, Jill Biden said, had hid underground for weeks before making their escape.

“We thought then, how long can this go on? And here we are, a year later,” she said. “And look at what the Ukrainian people have done. I mean, they are so strong and resilient, and they are fighting for their country.”

“We’re all hoping that this war is over soon, because we see, every day, the damage, the violence, the horror on our televisions,” the first lady added. “And we just can’t believe it.”

Jill Biden also spoke extensively for the first time about her skin cancer diagnosis, which led doctors to remove multiple basal cell lesions in January.

“I thought, oh, it’s just something on my eye, you know,” she said. “But then they said, no, we think it’s basal cell.”

Then doctors checked her chest, she said, and they said “that’s definitely basal cell.”

“So I’m lucky,” the first lady said. “Believe me, I am so lucky that they caught it, they removed it, and I’m healthy.”

Raising awareness about cancer screening has been a cornerstone of her advocacy efforts for years, even before her son, Beau, died from a brain tumor almost a decade ago. She often says the worst three words anyone can hear are “you have cancer.”

When it was her turn to hear a doctor say that, Jill Biden said, “it was a little harder than I thought.”

Now, she said, she’s “extra careful” about sunscreen, especially when she’s at the beach, which she described as “one of my favorite places in the world.”

Jill Biden is the only first lady to continue her career in addition to her ceremonial duties, teaching writing and English to community college students. At 71 years old, she said she’s not ready to think about retirement.

“I know that I will know when it’s enough,” she said. “But it’s not yet.”

She said she left detailed lesson plans for a substitute teacher while she was on her trip, and she’s been texting with students as she was traveling. She plans to be back in the classroom at 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, after arriving home from Africa around 3 a.m. Monday.

Education has been a flashpoint in American politics, especially with conservative activists and politicians trying to limit discussion of race and sexuality in classrooms.

“I don’t believe in banning books,” she said.

She added: “I think the teachers and the parents can work together and decide what the kids should be taught.”

This first lady is a class act!

Tony

Ex-Senator Jim Inhofe Retired Due to Long COVID – Says at Least 5 Other Congressmen Have It!

Former Senator Jim Inhofe

Dear Commons Community,

Former Senator Jim Inhofe revealed that he suffers from long-term effects of Covid-19, which played a part in his decision to retire from Congress, and at least five other members of Congress suffer from the same thing.  As reported by The New Republic.

The Oklahoma Republican announced last February he planned to retire after almost 40 years on Capitol Hill. During the same press conference, his chief of staff announced that Inhofe had contracted a “very mild” case of Covid-19. But clearly, the effects of the virus have been much longer-lasting. And he’s not the only one.

“Five or six others have (long Covid), but I’m the only one who admits it,” Inhofe told Tulsa World in a recent interview.

He did not say what symptoms of long Covid he suffers from, nor which other members of Congress are struggling with long Covid. But Democratic Senator Tim Kaine has been open about his mild long Covid symptoms.

Inhofe struck a highly contradictory tone during the start of the coronavirus pandemic. He warned people to take the virus seriously, telling Tulsa World in a March 2020 interview, “You know I’d be the first to say we’re overreacting because that’s kind of how I am, but we’re not. By people not believing, by not taking precautions, they’re making it more likely to spread.”

However, Inhofe also voted against several key Covid relief bills, including the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which required employers to give employees paid sick leave or expanded medical and family leave for Covid-related reasons. That bill had enormous bipartisan support, with 90 senators voting for it.

Inhofe also voted against the American Rescue Plan, which was aimed at providing economic relief due to the crisis caused by the pandemic. The bill included funding for the national vaccination program, the stimulus checks, and the expanded unemployment benefits.

In sum, he place party loyalty before his and his country’s health! 

Tony

Former Arizona AG Mark Brnovich suppressed report refuting election fraud in 2020!

Attorney General Mark Brnovich is embarrassing himself in Senate race

Mark Brnovich

Dear Commons Community,

Arizona’s former Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich suppressed findings by his investigators who concluded there was no basis for allegations that the 2020 election was marred by widespread fraud, according to documents released Wednesday by his successor, Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes.  As reported by the Associated Press.

Brnovich never released a March 2022 summary of investigative findings, which ruled out most of the fraud claims spread by allies and supporters of former President Donald Trump. Yet a month later, he released an “interim report” that claimed his investigation “revealed serious vulnerabilities that must be addressed and raises questions about the 2020 election in Arizona.”

He released his April report despite pushback from his investigators who said some of its claims were refuted by their probe. Brnovich was at the time in the midst of a Republican Party primary for U.S. Senate and facing fierce criticism from Trump, who claimed he wasn’t doing enough to prosecute election fraud.

Brnovich, whose primary bid was unsuccessful, also did not release a September memo that systematically refuted a bevy of election conspiracies that have taken root on the right, including allegations of dead or duplicate voters, pre-marked ballots flown in from Asia, election servers connected to the internet and even manipulation by satellites controlled by the Italian military.

“In each instance and in each matter, the aforementioned parties did not provide any evidence to support their allegations,” the September memo read. “The information that was provided was speculative in many instances and when investigated by our agents and support staff, was found to be inaccurate.”

The September memo, which was among the documents released Wednesday, describes an all-encompassing probe that became the top priority for the attorney general’s investigators, who spent more than 10,000 hours looking into 638 complaints. They opened 430 investigations and referred 22 cases for prosecution. President Joe Biden won Arizona by a little over 10,000 votes.

Mayes said the fraud claims were a waste.

“The ten thousand plus hours spent diligently investigating every conspiracy theory under the sun distracted this office from its core mission of protecting the people of Arizona from real crime and fraud,” Mayes said in a statement.

Brnovich’s “interim report” claimed that election officials worked too quickly in verifying voter signatures and pointed to a drop in the number of ballots with rejected signatures between 2016 and 2018 and again in 2020. He also claimed that Maricopa County was slow in responding to requests for information.

He made those claims even after investigators who reviewed a draft pushed back, publishing his report largely unchanged following their feedback.

The investigative staff concluded that the county recorder’s office “followed its policy/procedures as they relate to signature verification; we did not uncover any criminality or fraud having been committed in this area during the 2020 general election,” investigators wrote. They also said they found the county “was cooperative and responsive to our requests.”

Arizona became the epicenter of efforts by Trump allies to cast doubt on Biden’s victory. Republican leaders of the state Senate subpoenaed election records and equipment and hired a Florida firm led by a Trump supporter, Cyber Ninjas Inc., to conduct an unprecedented review of the election in Maricopa County.

The Cyber Ninjas review gave Biden more votes than the official count but claimed that their work raised serious questions about the conduct of the election in Maricopa County, home to metro Phoenix and the majority of Arizona’s voters. The investigation by the attorney general’s office found the allegations did not stand up to scrutiny.

“Our comprehensive review of CNI’s audit showed they did not provide any evidence to support their allegations of widespread fraud or ballot manipulation,” Brnovich’s investigators wrote.

Yesterday’s release is the latest confirmation that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election and that Biden won the presidency legitimately. Trump continues to repeat his lie that the election was stolen from him as he mounts his third bid for the White House, despite reviews and audits saying otherwise in the battleground states he contested and his own administration officials debunking his claims.

Officials in Maricopa County, where nearly all the officials overseeing elections are Republicans, say they endured death threats and verbal abuse due to the suggestions of malfeasance in the Cyber Ninjas review and Brnovich’s “interim report.”

“This was a gross misuse of his elected office and an appalling waste of taxpayer dollars, as well as a waste of the time and effort of professional investigators,” Clint Hickman, the Republican chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors said in a statement.

Brnovich’s investigators did conclude that Maricopa County officials did not uniformly follow state election procedures when filling out forms to document the pickup and transport of mail ballots. But they said the errors were procedural and that “investigators did not find anything that would (have) compromised the integrity of the ballots or the final ballot count.”

Investigators interviewed two Republican state lawmakers who publicly claimed they knew of fraud in the election, but wrote that neither Rep. Mark Finchem nor Sen. Sonny Borrelli repeated their claims to investigators — when they could have been subject to criminal charges for false reporting to law enforcement. The investigators said a third lawmaker, Republican state Sen. Wendy Rogers, declined to speak with them.

What sleaze!

Tony