Trump implied the snooze indicates Biden doesn’t truly believe global warming is a dire threat.
“Even Biden couldn’t stand hearing so much about the Global Warming Hoax, the 7th biggest Hoax in America, followed closely behind by the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2 and, of course, the ‘No Collusion’ finding of the Mueller Report,” Trump said in an email blast.
“Biden went to Europe saying Global Warming is his highest priority, and then promptly fell asleep, for all the world to see, at the Conference itself. Nobody that has true enthusiasm and belief in a subject will ever fall asleep!”
President Joe Biden appearing to fall asleep at the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland on November 1, 2021.
Biden closed his eyes for the better part of 30 seconds while seated in a large conference center in Glasgow before an aide approached and roused him.
Biden seemed to fall asleep while listening to Eddie Ndopu, a disability rights activist, who was warning that global warming threatened “our ability to grow food and even to survive.”
Trump nicknamed Biden “Sleepy Joe” during the 2020 presidential campaign and accused him of being mentally “shot.” Biden is the oldest-ever president and turns 79 this month.
It’s unclear if Trump was calling the theory of global warming a hoax or suggesting that Democrats were using it to achieve certain political ends.
Trump claimed that Biden seemingly sleeping proves that he lacks “true enthusiasm and belief” in the climate crisis.AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin
Trump cast doubt on concerns about global warming while he in office and routinely mocked proponents of environmental reforms, such as Green New Deal author Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
COP26, a two-week United Nations-led summit on climate change, could shape how — and whether — the world effectively slows climate change in the years ahead. Here’s what you need to know.
Two months to the day after allowing Texas to impose a near-total ban on abortions, the Supreme Court on Monday was openly skeptical of state law SB8 over concerns about its unprecedented enforcement mechanism and what it could mean for other state attempts to limit constitutional rights.
The Texas law, which bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, delegates enforcement to everyday citizens — rather than state officials — who can file civil lawsuits against anyone who “aids or abets” an unlawful procedure. Its state sponsors deliberately intended to circumvent federal court review, knowing that such a ban on its face violates constitutionally-protected abortion rights.
A majority of justices, during the more than three hours of oral arguments on Monday, signaled that Texas abortion providers have a strong case for asking federal courts to put SB8 on hold.
“There’s a loophole that’s been exploited here, or used here,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said, referring to a 1908 Supreme Court case — Ex parte Young — that established a precedent for people to sue state officials in federal court for alleged constitutional violations.
Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who both voted in September with the five-justice majority allowing SB8 to take effect, voiced particular discomfort with the idea that a state could outsource enforcement of a law to citizens in an attempt to circumvent precedent.
“So the question becomes, should we extend the principle of Ex parte Young to, in essence, close that loophole?” Kavanaugh said. He added that the “whole sweep” of the case suggested such an outcome.
“I think there is language in Ex parte Young that favors you,” Barrett told the abortion providers’ attorney Marc Hearron.
It was not clear how quickly the Supreme Court will hand down a decision in the case. Clinics across Texas have said they have discontinued most abortion care services while the legal battle plays out.
If the justices side with the Texas abortion providers, they could return the case to a federal district court for proceedings, or the court itself could issue an order blocking SB8 as litigation continues.
Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone insisted that state officials have nothing to do with SB8 enforcement and that state courts are the proper venues to litigate challenges to SB8 on a case by case, plaintiff by plaintiff, basis. Fourteen state suits are underway. Those individual cases could ultimately end up in federal court, Stone said.
Petitioners want “an injunction against SB8, the law, itself,” said Stone. “They can’t receive that because federal courts don’t issue injunctions against laws but against officials enforcing laws. No Texas executive official enforces SB8 either, and so no Texas executive official may be enjoined.”
Justice Elena Kagan took direct aim at Texas’ argument, warning that allowing the state’s scheme to stand would be an open invitation to other states to circumvent other disfavored constitutional rights.
“Essentially, we would be like, you know, we are open, you are open for business. There’s nothing the Supreme Court can do about it. Guns, same-sex marriage, religious rights, whatever you don’t like, go ahead,” she said.
Chief Justice John Roberts raised concerns about the inability of citizens to preemptively defend their constitutional rights because the Texas law doesn’t have a clear enforcer until an individual claim is made.
“It’s a question of anybody having the capacity or ability to go to the federal court because nobody is going to risk violating the statute because they’ll be subject to suit for [a significant financial sum]. That — that takes a lot of fortitude to undertake the prohibited conduct in that case. And under the system, it is only by undertaking the prohibited conduct that you can get into federal court,” Roberts said.
While many justices did appear open to federal curbs on SB8, there was no clear consensus on who their opinion should target or who a federal court could enjoin.
“What relief are you requesting?” Kagan asked Hearron.
“We are requesting an… injunction against the commencement or the docketing of lawsuits against the [state court] clerks across the State of Texas, as well as injunctive relief against the state executive officials for their residual authority to enforce SB8,” Hearron replied.
Several justices seemed disinclined to enjoin judges or clerks from simply doing their jobs, which are not inherently adversarial.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested that issuing an injunction against the attorney general of Texas could effectively cover all citizens who might bring lawsuits under SB8. They are “acting in concert” with the state, Sotomayor insisted.
“Why wouldn’t these private individuals be considered private attorneys generals?” Justice Clarence Thomas said. “One thing that seems rather implicit on the other side is that they are in effect, if not in designation by law, attorneys generals because they are enforcing a statewide policy.”
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said a federal court could target any “potential private plaintiffs” in Texas. “The state incentivizes their conduct,” she said. “No constitutional right is safe” if such a model is allowed to stand.
The implications for other constitutional rights and for Supreme Court precedents and authority were of particular concern to Kavanaugh, who could play a decisive role in disposition of SB8.
He cited free speech rights, freedom of religion, and Second Amendment rights, as potentially under threat, referring to an amicus brief filed by a conservative firearms group worried about a decision upholding SB8.
“The theory of the amicus brief is that it can be easily replicated in other states that disfavor other constitutional rights,” Kavanaugh said.
The justices seemed broadly disengaged with arguments by the Biden administration — in a separate challenge to SB8 argued Monday — that the federal government has sweeping ability to challenge a discriminatory state law in federal court.
“Has the U.S. government ever asserted ‘equity’?” wondered Justice Neil Gorsuch skeptically.
“Is there any instance in which the U.S. can do what it’s doing now?” questioned Thomas.
The court is expected to issue an expedited decision in the coming days or weeks.
Scott Nolan, 57, from Reston in Fairfax County, tells the BBC that his own support for Glenn Youngkin has little to do with the pullout, but what happened in the final days of the war was emblematic of a larger issue: the end of a contract with America.
Steve Forbes, Forbes Media editor in chief, and Steve Moore, Freedomworks VP, discuss Sen. Manchin’s comments against President Biden’s reconciliation bill on ‘Kudlow’
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., accused progressive Democrats of holding the bipartisan infrastructure bill “hostage” in a scathing statement on Monday, adding that he would not support the broad spending bill they favor without a thorough review of how its policies would impact the U.S. economy.
Manchin’s reluctance represents a major obstacle for Democratic leaders, who are pushing to pass both bills by as soon as this week. The West Virginia senator has yet to formally endorse the spending bill, which outlines $1.75 trillion in costs over a 10-year period.
“Simply put, I will not support a bill that is this consequential without thoroughly understanding the impact it will have on our national debt, our economy and the American people,” Manchin said. “Every elected representative needs to know what they are voting for and the impact it has, not only on their constituents, but the entire country.”
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a key holdout vote on President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik / AP Newsroom)
“I, for one, also won’t support a multitrillion-dollar bill without greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effects inflation and debt have on our economy and existing government programs,” he added.
Manchin’s remarks followed the House Progressive Caucus’ declaration last week that it would not vote to approve the bipartisan bill focused on physical infrastructure projects unless it is brought up at the same time as a finalized social spending bill. Progressives have also demanded that Manchin and fellow moderate holdout Sen. Kyrsten Sinema publicly endorse the bill.
A framework agreement for President Biden’s “Build Back Better Act” includes more than $500 billion in climate-related spending and changes to the tax code targeting the wealthiest Americans. But the agreement also cut or eliminated some programs favored by progressives after pushback from Manchin and others.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., speaks to reporters as she walks out of a House Democratic Progressive Caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (Associated Press)
Manchin expressed frustration with his progressive colleagues, accusing them of playing “political games” to hold back consideration of the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
“As I have said before, holding this bill hostage won’t work to get my support for the reconciliation bill,” Manchin said. “I’m open to supporting a final bill that helps move our country forward, but I am equally open to voting against a bill that hurts our country and the American people.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (AP Photo/Susan Walsh / AP Newsroom)
Shortly after Manchin’s remarks concluded, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki asserted the framework agreement addressed many of his concerns.
“Senator Manchin says he is prepared to support a Build Back Better plan that combats inflation, is fiscally responsible, and will create jobs,” Psaki said. “The plan the House is finalizing meets those tests—it is fully paid for, will reduce the deficit, and brings down costs for health care, child care, elder care, and housing. Experts agree: Seventeen Nobel Prize-winning economists have said it will reduce inflation. As a result, we remain confident that the plan will gain Senator Manchin’s support.”
Kyle Rittenhouse apparently struggled to stay alert as jury selection got underway Monday in his murder trial in Kenosha, Wis., for shooting two people to death and wounding a third during Black Lives Matter protests.
Rittenhouse, 18, let out a yawn in court as lawyers from both sides attempted to seat prospective jurors who haven’t made up their minds about the triple shooting.
He is facing seven charges, including homicide in the fatal shootings of Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as attempted homicide for wounding Gaige Grosskreutz, 27.
Judge Bruce Schroeder repeatedly stressed that jurors must come to a verdict solely on what they hear in the courtroom, cautioning, “This is not a political trial.”
“It was mentioned by both political campaigns and the presidential campaign last year, in some instances very, very imprudently,” he said.
The jurist told the prospective jurors that inaccurate information has been shared by people who “don’t know what you’re going to know.”
Kyle Rittenhouse yawns during the start of jury selection for his trial in Kenosha.ReutersRittenhouse is facing seven charges including homicide.Getty ImagesKyle Rittenhouse’s sister McKenzie Rittenhouse and mother, Wendy Rittenhouse ZUMA24.com
“Those of you who are selected for this jury, who are going to hear for yourselves the real evidence in this case.”
Several people in the jury pool, however, said that they had already made up their minds.
Among those dismissed was a man who said that he was there when “all of that happened” at the site of the protests as well as another man who said he had “been commenting consistently on news feeds and Facebook” about unrest in the city.
Rittenhouse opened fire as riots erupted in the city on Aug. 25, 2020, following the police shooting a few days earlier of Jacob Blake, a black man who was left paralyzed from the waist down.
Prosecutors are expected to argue that Rittenhouse traveled to Kenosha seeking out conflict.
Kyle Rittenhouse arrives for the start of jury selection for his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse.ReutersProsecutors are expected to argue that Rittenhouse was seeking out conflictAPKyle Rittenhouse shot two people to death at a BLM encounter. The defense says he feared for his life.Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The defense has argued that Rittenhouse, who claims that he traveled to the city to protect a business, feared for his life in each encounter.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Air Force One en route to Glasgow that China was one of the “significant outliers … who will not be represented at the leader level at COP26 and who we do believe has an obligation to step up to greater ambition as we go forward. And we’ll keep pressing on that.”
But he added: “There are other countries as well.”
As Beijing brushed aside U.S. overtures, Biden instead turned to Indonesian President Joko Widodo for his first bilateral meeting at the COP26 United Nations talks. Also in Widodo’s diary was U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Indonesia contributes nowhere near the 27 percent of global emissions China’s economy spews out. But it is still responsible for 2 percent of global greenhouse gases, and is one of the world’s leading coal exporters. Experts say stopping climate change will be impossible without addressing the greenhouse gases produced by large countries like it with growing economies.
With little engagement from China, the U.S., EU and U.K. are pivoting to press Indonesia, India, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil to score potential climate victories — and hoping to reach their goal of keeping global temperatures within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels. Above that mark, many disastrous climate changes get locked in, from rising sea levels to devastating storms and punishing droughts.
Biden and his climate envoy John Kerry have engaged in aggressive shuttle diplomacy with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose country is the planet’s third largest carbon dioxide emitter. The two governments have worked on deals to bring public and private sector finance to help India reach Modi’s goal of deploying 450 gigawatts of renewable power by 2030 — equivalent to the capacity of more than 400 nuclear reactors.
Modi announced a new target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2070. He also announced goals for India to hugely increase its clean energy capacity before 2030 and lower its emissions intensity, a measure of the amount of greenhouse gases released per unit of economic activity.
One U.K. official said India’s “meaty” near-term goals would boost the clean energy sector so much that it made the country’s 2070 goal look quite conservative.
The pressure on Modi hasn’t just come from the U.S. Its former British colonizers have sought to leverage their historical ties with Delhi to get Modi to make a major announcement at the event. Modi and Johnson met at the U.N. talks, where the British leader announced a U.K.-India “green guarantee,” which Downing Street said would unlock more than $1 billion in World Bank funding for clean energy and other green projects.
The U.K. official said the strategy of targeting large coal-using nations with incentives was obvious to get the “biggest bang for your buck.” Many of those economies are at a “pivotal moment” where the right investments can enable them to leapfrog traditional development pathways that have historically relied on coal. India is the world’s second largest coal consumer behind China.
The strategy also has the benefit of deepening ties with countries that have been drawn to China through its “Belt and Road” investment program, such as South Africa, which has received energy sector investments from Beijing.
The U.S. and several European countries have floated a clean energy finance deal to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government in an effort to drive decarbonization of Eskom, the troubled state-backed, coal-heavy utility. That partnership is starting to bear fruit.
On Tuesday, Biden, Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are expected to launch the “Just Energy Transition Partnership” alongside France and Germany to overhaul South Africa’s power sector. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called it “especially interesting,” adding that it could “show that it is possible to phase out coal. I think this can serve as a pilot project for many countries on the African continent.”
Kerry also praised in a tweet Brazil’s new pledge on Monday to end illegal deforestation in the Amazon by 2028, cut the country’s emissions in half by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050.
Critics contend Bolsonaro — who like former U.S. President Donald Trump has regularly derided climate science — cannot be trusted to keep those commitments, and that he’s already allowed destruction of wide swathes of the rainforest and is simply softening his position ahead of a tough re-election next year. But Kerry nonetheless pursued engagement with Bolsonaro’s government despite skepticism from environmental and indigenous groups.
Kerry even touted Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s recent moves on climate, visiting him in Mexico shortly before the G-20 meeting where many world leaders met before traveling to Glasgow. Kerry’s trip came as the Mexican president pursued constitutional changes granting Mexico’s state-backed power company more market share, a move opponents said would crush renewable power in the country.
Despite those fears, Kerry told reporters that Mexico had “committed to deploy all major renewables — geothermal, hydro, and wind and solar — which they weren’t even willing to talk about literally even a few months ago.”
Meanwhile, Johnson floated the idea that Indonesia may consider phasing out coal-fired power by 2040, comments that came on the heels of the G-20 calling to an end for the fuel source. Kerry told reporters that the U.S. has been engaging with Indonesia for months.
But for Indonesia, which is made up of thousands of islands that could be at risk from rising seas, climate change presents complex problems.
“It’s always been more than coal with Indonesia,” Jonathan Pershing, Kerry’s deputy at the State Department, told POLITICO. He noted that oil shipments to the archipelago nation for heating are on the rise and that widespread cutting of carbon-storing forests for palm oil production occurs under its watch.
Another U.K. official said its negotiators in Glasgow had redoubled their efforts to attract “regional influencers” in the wake of China’s withdrawal from the conference, with a particular focus on Southeast Asia. Countries were being “picked off sectorally” including Vietnam on coal and Thailand on deforestation.
Vietnam is also seen as a prize, given its location on China’s doorstep. Last Sunday, Johnson spoke with Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính, and then U.K. diplomats met with Chính again immediately before he departed for Glasgow. On Monday he committed to a net zero goal for 2050.
Manchin also expressed skepticism at the tactic Democrats are employing to cut the cost of the original $3.5 trillion plan down to less than $2 trillion, which was one of his demands. To make the math work, Democrats have shortened the duration of many of their most generous social programs.
Implicit in that is their expectation that once people have grown accustomed to receiving assistance from the federal government, such as with child care costs, they will so strongly object to the end of that assistance that Congress will be forced to extend the program indefinitely.
“As more of the real details of the basic framework [for the reconciliation bill] are released, what I see are shell games — budget gimmicks that make the real cost of the so-called $1.75 trillion bill estimated to be almost twice that amount … if you extended it permanently,” said Manchin.
Shortly after Manchin spoke, the White House pushed back against his claims about the bill and tried to put a positive spin on what was clearly an unfortunate turn in the negotiations.
“Senator Manchin says he is prepared to support a Build Back Better plan that combats inflation, is fiscally responsible, and will create jobs,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement. “The plan the House is finalizing meets those tests …. as a result, we remain confident that the plan will gain Senator Manchin’s support.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also responded to Manchin, but without mentioning his name.
“Build Back Better will grow the economy without increasing inflation, because it is fully paid for,” Pelosi said in a statement shortly after Manchin spoke.
Pelosi argued that the bill will lower the cost of major expenses like health care child care, making it “anti-inflationary in that sense as well.”
Pelosi’s statement closed by saying Democrats “look forward to passing” both the infrastructure and social spending bills. But it did not give any timeline for votes. This was a notable omission, and signaled that the Speaker likely does not intend to hold House votes on either of the two bills in the coming days.
But this ambiguity from Democratic leaders was not echoed in remarks from the leader of the House Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Ore.
Shortly after Manchin threw cold water on the idea of passing a social spending bill anytime soon, Jayapal said she and her caucus were ready to vote to approve one as soon as tomorrow or the next day, “pending some final negotiations on things we care very much about, immigration and prescription drug pricing.”
After weeks of refusing to rally behind the social spending bill, Jayapal seemed to signal Monday that progressives believe they have secured as many concessions from Senate Democrats as they are going to, and are ready to pass the two bills quickly and shift the focus, and the pressure, away from the House and back to the Senate.
Asked if she was in touch with Manchin, Jayapal told CNN she would leave it to Biden to have conversations directly with senators.
“The president came to the [House Democratic]caucus, and assured us that he would get 51 votes in the Senate for this deal that he has been negotiating with Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema,” she said.
“The president thinks he can get 51 votes for this bill. We’re going to trust him, we are going to do our work in the House, and let the Senate do its work,” she said.
“But we’re tired of continuing to wait for one or two people. We trust the president that he will get 51 votes for this, and we will pass both bills through the House as soon as we have these final negotiations wrapped up.”
Biden returns from Europe late Tuesday night, and the White House has expressed confidence that every Democrat in the Senate will back his agenda.
The court’s two most recent precedents on abortion, she said, allowed courts to consider “the law as a whole and its deterrent effect.”
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who had been in the majority in September, said he did not see how the Supreme Court could allow suits against clerks in state courts.
“A clerk performs a ministerial function,” he said. “Somebody shows up with a complaint, wants to file a complaint, and assuming the formal requirements are met, the clerk files the complaint. The clerk doesn’t have the authority to say, you can’t file this complaint because it’s a bad complaint.”
The four justices who dissented in September — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — did not seem to have changed their minds about the law. And Justices Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch asked questions that suggested they thought the federal courts had no role to play.
The law allows private citizens to file suits in state courts against doctors, staff members at clinics, counselors, people who help pay for the procedure and even drivers who take a patient to a clinic. Such plaintiffs, who do not need to live in Texas, have any connection to the abortion or show any injury from it, are entitled to at least $10,000 and their legal fees if they win.
Chief Justice Roberts asked a telling question.
“Assume that the bounty is not $10,000 but a million dollars,” Chief Justice Roberts said, adding, “Do you think in that case the chill on the conduct at issue here would be sufficient to allow federal court review prior to the end of the state court process?”
Understand the Texas Abortion Law
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The most restrictive in the country. The Texas abortion law, known as Senate Bill 8, amounts to a nearly complete ban on abortion in the state. It prohibits most abortions after about six weeks of preganancy and makes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape.
GLASGOW, Scotland — Addressing his fellow world leaders at the COP26 climate summit, President Biden apologized for former President Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord.
Why it matters: Biden is trying to rally more ambitious climate action at the crucial summit in Glasgow, and he elected to acknowledge the elephant in the room — that it’s no sure thing that the only country in the world to withdraw from Paris will be embraced as a moral leader on climate.
What he’s saying: “I guess I shouldn’t apologize, but I do apologize for the fact that the United States under the last administration pulled out of the Paris accord. That kind of put us behind the eight ball a bit,” Biden said.
Biden also suggested that Americans had been slow to acknowledge the threat from climate change.
“The American people, four or five years ago, weren’t at all sure about climate change, whether it was real. Well, they have, as they say in southern parts of my state, seen the lord. They’ve seen what’s happened back home, the incredible changes that are taking place, and they’re now finally — finally, finally, finally — realizing the sense of urgency that you all are.”
Context: Biden was seated alongside fellow presidents and prime ministers at a gathering on climate “ambition and solidarity” hosted by U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“When future historians look back on the 2020s, I think they’ll find that we let this final chance to stem the crisis slip through our fingers because we did too little or failed to act, or are they going to say that in the 2020s we stepped up and … to do what’s necessary?” Biden asked.
“The United States, if I have anything to do with it, will do our part,” he said.
The former senior Trump official discusses the key issues, such as educational reform, that define the Virginia race between Democratic gubernatorial candidate McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin
Online bettors have flipped on their predictions for the Virginiagubernatorial race, with Republicancandidate Glenn Youngkin surging in the days before the election, while Democratic former Gov. Terry McAuliffe fades.
The line for the Old Dominion gubernatorial race on online betting service PredictIt flipped in favor of Youngkin on Friday, days ahead of Election Day in the race considered to be the 2022 congressional election cycle bellwether.
McAuliffe lost his commanding lead in the betting pool swiftly, with Youngkin’s lead widening sizably by Monday.
Virginia Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin is surging in the polls heading into the election. (REUTERS/Joshua Roberts)
Maxim Lott, the founder of ElectionBettingOdds.com, told Fox News in a Monday email that, for most of the race, “bettors thought McAuliffe would win because Virginia has been a blue state in recent years.”
“Since 2004, only Democrats have won Virginia at the presidential, Senate, or gubernatorial levels,” said Lott, who periodically reports for Fox News. He noted that “one exception” was the election of former GOP Gov. Robert McDonnell in 2009. “However, with Election Day nearing, bettors now give Youngkin a slight edge.”
Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe has seen low attendance at campaign events.
“The shift in the betting odds over the last month moved along with voters, who changed their minds largest based on education policy,” Lott continued. “A Washington Post poll found that in September, voters who care most about education favored McAuliffe dramatically, by 33 points. Now those voters favor Youngkin.”
“Historically, betting odds are the best single predictor of election outcomes, because bettors are ‘putting money where their mouth is’ and so they have every incentive to make the right call,” he also wrote.
As of Monday, Youngkin bets are sitting at 55 cents while McAuliffe’s betting price is 49 cents.
Democratic candidate for governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe has seen his poll numbers plummet, and bettors are taking notice. (Reuters)
According to the data, McAuliffe’s betting price straddled the high 70s and low 80s over the past 90 days, with a sharp drop illustrating bettors’ declining confidence in McAuliffe to pull off a win.
Conversely, Youngkin’s betting prices were stuck in the mid-20s for the same time period, shooting up in popularity over the last few days of the election.
Polls, meanwhile, have similarly shown Youngkin’s numbers surging and McAuliffe’s numbers plummeting.
The latest Fox News poll shows McAuliffe receives 45% to Youngkin’s 53% in a survey of likely voters. Youngkin’s eight-point advantage is outside the poll’s margin of sampling error.
Houston Keene is a reporter for Fox News Digital. You can find him on Twitter at @HoustonKeene.
Canary CEO Dan Eberhart argues the Biden administration is playing to the far left and progressives with their ‘aspirational energy agenda’ while voters don’t want to pay for it.
Canary CEO Dan Eberhart argued on Monday that the Biden administration is creating an energy “conundrum.”
Speaking on “Cavuto: Coast to Coast” on Monday, Eberhart also argued that the administration and politicians in different states, including in California, are “chasing” carbon-free and electric vehicle headlines, while the “science and technology is not really there yet.”
“The fact of the matter is to get through 2021, to get through 2022, and probably to get through the rest of the next decade, we’re really going to be relying on natural gas, we’re going to be relying on oil and to a lesser degree we’re going to be relying on coal,” he said.
He added that he believes the Biden administration “is playing to the far left and the progressives” with his “aspirational energy agenda, but it’s something that voters don’t want to necessarily pay for.”
Before traveling to Europe for the G20 summit in Rome and to Scotland for the COP26 climate conference, President Biden was scrambling to reach a deal on his spending plan, which has a focus on tackling climate change, telling congressional Democrats that the next week of consideration would be of crucial importance, and hanging the success of his administration on the matter.
The president’s social spending package, once valued at $3.5 trillion, is now down to a leaner $1.75 trillion after progressives and moderates agreed to cut programs including universal community college and paid family leave. That bill only requires a simple majority to pass in the Senate because it would be done through a process known as budget reconciliation, but moderate Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have said they still will not support it.
Canary CEO Dan Eberhart argues that there is a fundamental ‘disconnect’ between ‘where we want to go with energy’ and ‘what the politicians are calling for and what the energy industry can actually produce in the short term.’
Eberhart argued that “Biden wants cheaper energy, but he also wants to appease, the progressive left that wants to tackle climate change more immediately.”
“At the end of the day the voters are not ready to pay for it,” he continued. “So I think that it’s really a conundrum that the administration is trying to have it both ways right now.”
Eberhart made the comments as the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference is underway in Glasgow, Scotland.
At the United Nations’ COP26 conference on Monday, Biden warned that climate is “an existential threat to human existence as we know it.”
He called for a “decade of transformative action” to “preserve” the planet, saying that “the science is clear.”
The president also committed to cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions “by well over a gigaton by 2030,” while “making more affordable for consumers to save on their own energy bills with tax credits for things like installing solar panels, weatherizing their homes, lowering energy prices will also deliver cleaner air and water for our children; electrifying fleets of school buses, increasing credits for electric vehicles and addressing legacy pollution.”
Biden said it would “incentivize clean energy manufacturing and building solar panels and wind turbines that are growing energy markets of the future,” arguing that they would “create good-paying union jobs for American workers.”
Biden and members of his administration have declared climate change a national security threat. Over the summer, Biden warned it would be the “greatest threat” to America’s national security in the coming years.
Eberhart argued that there is a fundamental “disconnect” between “aspirationally where we want to go with energy and what we’re trying to accomplish by being carbon neutral and what the politicians are calling for and what the energy industry can actually produce in the short term.”
“The two really don’t correlate and aren’t meeting,” he continued.
President Biden attends the COP26 opening session in Glasgow, United Kingdom.
The demand for electricity in the United States is surging, which has driven natural gas prices to record highs and Bloomberg reported that coal miners are “sold out” for 2022 after power producers have signed multi-year contracts for every ton they can get.
In August, the White House tried to blame OPEC and Russia for rising gas prices after the Biden administration hamstrung U.S. oil producers with policies that hampered domestic oil and gasoline production and asked for the international community to produce more oil.
President Biden revoked the permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline project on his first day in office in a series of orders aimed at combating climate change, which also included temporarily suspending the issuance of oil and gas permits on federal lands and waters.
The Supreme Court on Monday chose not to hear a legal challenge from religious groups against a New York rule requiring most employers in the state to fund abortion services through their workers’ health care plans.
The court ordered the case to be sent back to a New York state appeals court, which had upheld the regulation, and re-examined in light of another recent high-profile religious freedom case.
The lawsuit was brought by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany and other religious groups, which argued that the requirement that they fund employees’ “medically necessary abortions” violated the First Amendment.
The rule provides exemptions for certain religious organizations, but those with broad charitable aims would not qualify.
The Supreme Court on Monday directed the New York appellate court to give the case further consideration following a decision last year in which the justices unanimously sided with a Catholic foster service’s legal challenge against the city of Philadelphia over a rule prohibiting discrimination against same-sex couples looking to become foster parents.
In that case, the court found narrow grounds to rule that the organization Catholic Social Services (CSS) should not be denied an exemption to the non-discrimination rule.
“CSS seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs; it does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the decision. “The refusal of Philadelphia to contract with CSS for the provision of foster care services unless the agency agrees to certify same-sex couples as foster parents cannot survive strict scrutiny and violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.”
Paul Gigot interviews Bjorn Lomborg on what to expect.
President Biden on Monday warned that climate is “an existential threat to human existence as we know it,” at the United Nations’ COP26 conference, then apologized for former President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.
Speaking from Glasgow, Scotland, Biden called for a “decade of transformative action” to “preserve” the planet, saying that “the science is clear.”
“We only have a brief window left before us to raise our ambitions to meet the task that’s rapidly narrowing ourselves,” the president said.
“I believe there’s an incredible opportunity — not just for the United States — but for all of us. We are standing at an inflection point in history,” he continued. “We have the ability to invest in ourselves and build an equitable, clean energy future, and, in the process, create millions of good paying jobs and opportunities around the world; cleaner air for our children; bountiful oceans; healthier forests; and ecosystems for our planet.”
Biden warned that the climate crisis is “a challenge of our collective lifetimes.”
“The existential threat to human existence as we know it,” Biden said. “And every day we delay, the cost of inaction increases.”
He added: “Let this be a decade of transformative action that preserves our planet and raises the quality of life for people everywhere. We can do this. We just have to make a choice to do it.”
Biden said that his administration is “working overtime” to show that its climate commitment is “action, not words.”
Following the scheduled remarks, Biden said on behalf of the U.S. that he was sorry for Trump pulling out of the Paris accord, an Obama-era international agreement to take measures to get rising global temperatures under control. The former president announced the move in 2017, but it did not formally take effect until November 2020.
“I do apologize,” Biden said, according to The Associated Press, adding that the U.S. “will do our part” to lower emissions. Under the Biden administration, the U.S. formally rejoined the Paris climate agreement in February following Biden’s day-one executive order.
Trump’s reasons for leaving the Paris accord included a fear of American job losses and a concern that it would force the U.S. to spend a disproportionate amount of money compared to other countries.
During the speech, Biden plugged his “Build Back Better” economic agenda, saying it will make “historic investments in clean energy,” calling it the “most significant investment to deal with the climate crisis than any advanced nation has ever made.”
The president also committed to cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions “by well over a gigaton by 2030,” while “making more affordable for consumers to save on their own energy bills with tax credits for things like installing solar panels, weatherizing their homes, lowering energy prices will also deliver cleaner air and water for our children; electrifying fleets of school buses, increasing credits for electric vehicles and addressing legacy pollution.”
Biden said it would “incentivize clean energy manufacturing and building solar panels and wind turbines that are growing energy markets of the future,” saying they would “create good paying union jobs for American workers.”
The president, prior to traveling to Europe for the G20 summit in Rome and to Scotland for the COP26 climate conference, was scrambling to reach a deal, telling congressional Democrats that the next week of consideration would be of crucial importance, and hanging the success of his administration on the matter.
The president’s social spending package, once valued at $3.5 trillion, is now down to a leaner $1.75 trillion after progressives and moderates agreed to cut programs including universal community college and paid family leave. That bill only requires a simple majority to pass in the Senate because it would be done through a process known as budget reconciliation, but moderate Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have said they still will not support it.
Meanwhile, Biden and members of his administration have declared climate change a national security threat. Over the summer, Biden warned it would be the “greatest threat” to America’s national security in the coming years.
Biden last year announced former Secretary of State John Kerry would serve as the special presidential envoy for climate and would sit on the National Security Council – marking it the first administration with the NSC including an official dedicated to climate change.
Abortion rights supporters and opponents rally outside the Supreme Court on Monday, as the justices heard arguments about Texas’ controversial abortion law.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
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Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Abortion rights supporters and opponents rally outside the Supreme Court on Monday, as the justices heard arguments about Texas’ controversial abortion law.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
The Supreme Court appeared inclined Monday to allow abortion providers to challenge a controversial Texas law that in effect bans all abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, which is before most women know they are pregnant.
In more than three hours of oral arguments, the court heard two separate challenges from the U.S. Justice Department and abortion providers over the law. The court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical of the Biden administration’s challenge to the law.
The court was considering the following questions:
whether “the state can insulate from federal-court review a law that prohibits the exercise of a constitutional right by delegating to the general public the authority to enforce that prohibition through civil action”;
and can “the United States bring suit in federal court and obtain injunctive or declaratory relief against the State, state court judges, state court clerks, other state officials, or all private parties to prohibit S.B. 8 from being enforced.”
The justices appeared more open to the first question. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative, said the Texas law “exploited” a loophole in court precedent and asked if the court should “close that loophole.”
But on the second, the court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical. Kavanaugh called the Justice Department’s lawsuit “irregular and unusual.”
This is the second time that the novel Texas law has come before the court. In a midnight ruling two months ago, the court, by a 5-4 vote, allowed the law to go into effect, over the protests of the court’s three liberals and its conservative chief justice, John Roberts.
Indeed, those who wrote the law have boasted about how it is designed to avoid review in the federal courts.
Specifically, the Texas law, known as S.B. 8, bans abortions after 6 weeks, when many women don’t yet know they are pregnant. It contains no exceptions for rape or incest, and it has only a limited and ill-defined exception for a “medical emergency.” But most importantly, the law’s enforcement mechanism is to allow anyone who aids and abets an abortion to be sued by any private citizen for a minimum of $10,000. As a result, abortions in Texas have come to a virtual halt.
On Monday, the case was back before the Supreme Court, which has expedited briefing and arguments even more quickly than it expedited the case against then-President Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal in 1974.
And yet a majority of the court has let the Texas law remain in place even as it is being challenged as unconstitutional.
Republicans Jeff Van Drew and Warren Davidson break down the bill on ‘The Evening Edit’
Most American voters are skeptical about the impact of two spending packages that congressional Democrats are aiming to pass before the end of the year, despite fervent negotiations that have consumed Capitol Hill for months.
A new ABC News/ Ipsos poll released on Sunday shows that Americans are equally divided, 34% to 34%, about whether the bills will help or hurt the economy. Just 6% think the spending measures – worth close to $3 trillion when combined – will have no effect on the economy, while 25% are unsure of what the effect will be.
The dome of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, as President Biden urged Republican senators to “get out of the way” and let Democrats suspend the nation’s debt limit, hoping to keep the U.S. government from bumping dangerously close to a credit default, (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite / AP Newsroom)
But when it comes to their own personal finances, more Americans say they’re concerned about potential ramifications from the spending packages. The poll shows that a plurality of respondents, or about 32%, think the bills will hurt people like them if they become law, compared to 25% of respondents who think it would help them. Nearly two in 10 (18%) think the bills would make no difference, and 24% said they didn’t know.
Even Democrats are lukewarm about the impact of the spending bills: Only about half, or roughly 47%, said the measures would help people like them. A quarter of Democrats said the bills would have no discernable effect for people like them, and about two in 10 said they didn’t know how it would impact their lives.
Nearly two-thirds (64%) of Republicans said the bills would hurt people like them, and so do about three in 10 (29%) independents.
Americans are also unsure what exactly will be included in the two pieces of legislation, although a majority (55%) reported following news about the negotiations at least somewhat closely. About seven in 10 respondents said they know just some or little to nothing about what’s in both bills. Fewer than half (31%) said they know a great deal or good amount.
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris leave after Biden spoke about his administration’s social spending plans, from the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 28, 2021. (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Biden unveiled a new Build Back Better framework on Thursday before he departed for the G-20 leaders summit in Rome and a United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland. The proposal allocates $1.75 trillion ($1,750,000,000,000) in new spending for initiatives such as universal pre-kindergarten, a one-year expansion of the child tax credit, expanded Medicaid and clean energy tax credits, among other things. It notably excludes progressive priorities such as tuition-free community college, paid family leave and Medicare coverage of vision and dental.
The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, meanwhile, includes $550 billion in new funding for traditional projects like roads, bridges and transit.
But Democrats appear to be struggling to sell the proposals to the public.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, speaks with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, following a bill enrollment ceremony for the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on (Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
A separate Fox News poll conducted between Oct. 16 and Oct. 19 found similar results: When asked whether the $3.5 trillion in new spending that Democrats are proposing would help the economy, hurt the economy or make little difference, a majority (40%) said it would hurt the economy. That’s compared to 38% who believe the spending initiatives will help the economy and 19% who said it will make no difference.
Still, when it comes to the vaccination policy itself, Mitchell noted he did not want to interfere and allowed the reporting and COVID-19 testing requirements to stand. But the dispute between the city and FOP needs to be arbitrated, he said, and they will have to do so through the bargaining table, not the courts.
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