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Clash of Republicans: Winners And Losers Emerged In Rowdy First 2024 Presidential Debate
(CTN NEWS) – The inaugural Republican presidential debate unfolded as a spirited event, with all eight candidates energetically diving into intense exchanges.
While there were concerns that the absence of Donald Trump, renowned for his captivating presence, might render the event dull, those worries were swiftly dispelled.
Although the former president had undeniably been the star of the show during the primary debates in 2016, the current gathering of eight contenders in Wisconsin showcased their capacity to generate excitement independently.
Among the candidates, a few managed to distinguish themselves from the rest of the field, while others appeared to struggle to gain traction. With that in mind, let’s delve into the outcomes for the winners and losers of the evening.
Presidential Debate – Winners
Vivek Ramaswamy: A Non-Politician Who Commanded the Republican Debate
Without ever pursuing public office and abstaining from presidential voting between 2004 and 2020, Vivek Ramaswamy indisputably held sway over the recent Republican debate.
Armed with a warm smile and sharp wit, he often appeared to be the lone candidate on stage relishing the moment. Perhaps it’s because this political newcomer has surpassed expectations, finding himself in a position of strength while taking center stage.
Skillfully parrying attacks from fellow contenders, Ramaswamy hinted that Mr. Christie’s actions resembled an audition for a left-leaning news network, while suggesting Ms. Haley’s stances on Ukraine were geared toward securing roles with defense contractors.
Amid a discussion on climate change, he boldly proclaimed, “I stand alone as the candidate not bound by financial interests,” a statement that elicited astonished responses from his opponents.
Time and again, Ramaswamy positioned himself as an outsider against a backdrop of political insiders.
Many of his viewpoints, such as advocating for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia, employing military force to safeguard the US-Mexico border, and imposing bans on US companies doing business with China, lie far beyond the Republican Party’s conventional political spectrum.
Yet, as demonstrated by Mr. Trump in 2016, even audacious and seemingly impractical policy ideas can effectively capture attention.
While Ramaswamy may lack the political momentum to challenge Trump for the nomination, and he may not even harbor such ambitions, his performance in the evening’s debate solidifies his role as a significant factor in the forthcoming months of the race.
Mike Pence: A Seasoned Statesman Demonstrating Resilience
A seasoned political figure with a diverse resume encompassing roles as a congressman, governor, and vice-president, Mike Pence is proving he’s not out of the fight just yet.
Despite his presidential bid encountering hurdles – drawing criticism from Trump loyalists and skepticism from Trump’s detractors – his adeptness on the debate stage shone through on Wednesday night.
He launched into the offensive early, taking aim at Ramaswamy’s lack of experience, asserting, “This moment calls for proven expertise, not on-the-job training.”
Pence delivered a fervent argument rooted in religious convictions, advocating for nationwide restrictions on abortion.
Although this stance might not resonate favorably in the upcoming general election, it could resonate with evangelical Republicans, who wield influence in pivotal states like Iowa and South Carolina, exerting substantial influence on the party’s nominee selection process.
As the debate shifted towards discussions about Trump, Pence had the final say. He emphasized prioritizing the Constitution on January 6, 2021, by refusing to acquiesce to Trump’s demand to overturn the election results. Even several of his rivals voiced support for his position.
The core challenges facing Pence’s campaign persist, yet for at least one night, he showcased the qualities that once positioned him as a viable presidential contender in the eyes of many conservative Republicans.
Nikki Haley: Defying Expectations Once Again
The former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has consistently confounded those who underestimate her.
Throughout her political journey, she has maintained an unbroken record of electoral victories, triumphing even when challenging more established Republican contenders for the South Carolina governorship.
During Wednesday night’s debate, she set herself apart by launching pointed critiques early on, targeting both Mr. Trump and the broader Republican Party.
“Republicans share responsibility for this as well,” she asserted, addressing the substantial US budget deficit. “It’s time to halt the spending, cease the borrowing.”
When the discussion veered toward the former president, she didn’t shy away from expressing her views.
Haley labeled Mr. Trump as the “most unfavorably viewed politician in America,” and forewarned that the Republican Party would bear the consequences of this perception in the general election.
Haley’s determination was on full display as she engaged in exchanges. She engaged in a spirited back-and-forth with Ramaswamy over continuing US aid to Ukraine, a stance she staunchly supports.
Furthermore, she clashed with Pence regarding abortion, characterizing his call for a nationwide abortion ban as unrealistic and potentially detrimental in a political context.
Even if she doesn’t surge ahead in the current race, her performance in the debate could potentially position the 51-year-old for future presidential bids, especially in election years not overshadowed by the prominence of a former president.
Presidential Debate – In The Middle Tier
Tim Scott and Chris Christie: Following Predictable Paths
Chris Christie adhered closely to expectations, employing his characteristic approach. He took jabs at Mr. Trump, delivered biting remarks aimed at Ramaswamy, and maintained an overall spirited and confrontational demeanor.
Interestingly, Christie’s reception was notably frosty, with resounding boos greeting him during his introduction, his critiques of Trump, and his forceful criticisms of Ramaswamy.
Among his well-crafted lines was a comparison of the political novice to “ChatGPT,” a twist that failed to resonate positively with the audience.
On the other hand, Tim Scott adopted a genial stance, frequently steering clear of engaging in the most intense confrontations during the heated debate exchanges.
While this might not necessarily help him amass a significant voter base, it could enhance his standing if he harbors aspirations of being considered as Mr. Trump’s potential vice-presidential candidate.
Presidential Debate – Losers
Ron DeSantis: A Diminished Presence on the Republican Stage
At the outset of the year, the Republican nomination race appeared destined for a two-man showdown between Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump. Yet, over the course of time, the Florida governor’s standing in the polls has waned.
If the remaining contenders within the Republican field have not yet caught up to him, this debate may very well tip the scales against him.
While not an outright lackluster performance – he did have his moments, particularly when highlighting his military service and advocating for more assertive government strategies to combat the opioid crisis – DeSantis found himself largely relegated to the sidelines during pivotal moments.
Mr. Ramaswamy outmaneuvered him, and on issues such as abortion and US aid to Ukraine, he was overshadowed by candidates like Mr. Pence and Ms. Haley. His footing grew precarious when the conversation shifted to Mr. Trump and his recent legal challenges.
This was not the kind of showing necessary to bridge the gap with Mr. Trump. The man once touted as the Republican Party’s future emerged as inconspicuous in this debate.
Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum: Struggling to Make an Impact
Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson secured a last-minute spot at the Milwaukee debate. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum secured his place with a distinctive approach – providing $20 gift cards to individuals who donated $1 to his campaign.
Both candidates faced an urgent need to prove their worth on the stage, but they were largely relegated to afterthoughts.
Mr. Hutchinson’s criticisms of Mr. Trump paled in comparison to the sharper attacks launched by Mr. Christie. Meanwhile, Mr. Burgum’s unassuming small-state conservatism failed to significantly stand out.
The upcoming primary debate in California will feature more stringent qualification criteria, and neither candidate managed to garner sufficient support on Wednesday night to ensure their return to the debate platform.
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Trudeau’s Gun Grab Could Cost Taxpayers a Whopping $7 Billion
A recent report indicates that since Trudeau’s announcement of his gun buyback program four years ago, almost none of the banned firearms have been surrendered.
The federal government plans to purchase 2,063 firearm models from retailers following the enactment of Bill C-21, which amends various Acts and introduces certain consequential changes related to firearms. It was granted royal assent on December 15 of last year.
This ban immediately criminalized the actions of federally-licensed firearms owners regarding the purchase, sale, transportation, importation, exportation, or use of hundreds of thousands of rifles and shotguns that were previously legal.
The gun ban focused on what it termed ‘assault-style weapons,’ which are, in reality, traditional semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that have enjoyed popularity among hunters and sport shooters for over a century.
In May 2020, the federal government enacted an Order-in-Council that prohibited 1,500 types of “assault-style” firearms and outlined specific components of the newly banned firearms. Property owners must adhere to the law by October 2023.
Trudeau’s Buyback Hasn’t Happened
“In the announcement regarding the ban, the prime minister stated that the government would seize the prohibited firearms, assuring that their lawful owners would be ‘grandfathered’ or compensated fairly.” “That hasn’t happened,” criminologist Gary Mauser told Rebel News.
Mauser projected expenses ranging from $2.6 billion to $6.7 billion. The figure reflects the compensation costs amounting to $756 million, as outlined by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).
“The projected expenses for gathering the illegal firearms are estimated to range from $1.6 billion to $7 billion.” “This range estimate increases to between $2.647 billion and $7 billion when compensation costs to owners are factored in,” Mauser stated.
Figures requested by Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs concerning firearms prohibited due to the May 1, 2020 Order In Council reveal that $72 million has been allocated to the firearm “buyback” program, yet not a single firearm has been confiscated to date.
In a recent revelation, Public Safety Canada disclosed that the federal government allocated a staggering $41,094,556, as prompted by an order paper question from Conservative Senator Don Plett last September, yet yielded no tangible outcomes.
An internal memo from late 2019 revealed that the Liberals projected their politically motivated harassment would incur a cost of $1.8 billion.
Enforcement efforts Questioned
By December 2023, estimates from TheGunBlog.ca indicate that the Liberals and RCMP had incurred or were responsible for approximately $30 million in personnel expenses related to the enforcement efforts. The union representing the police service previously stated that the effort to confiscate firearms is a “misdirected effort” aimed at ensuring public safety.
“This action diverts crucial personnel, resources, and funding from tackling the more pressing and escalating issue of criminal use of illegal firearms,” stated the National Police Federation (NPF).
The Canadian Sporting Arms & Ammunition Association (CSAAA), representing firearms retailers, has stated it will have “zero involvement” in the confiscation of these firearms. Even Canada Post held back from providing assistance due to safety concerns.
The consultant previously assessed that retailers are sitting on almost $1 billion worth of inventory that cannot be sold or returned to suppliers because of the Order-In-Council.
“Despite the ongoing confusion surrounding the ban, after four years, we ought to be able to address one crucial question.” Has the prohibition enhanced safety for Canadians? Mauser asks.
Illegally Obtained Firearms are the Problem
Statistics Canada reports a 10% increase in firearm-related violent crime between 2020 and 2022, rising from 12,614 incidents to 13,937 incidents. In that timeframe, the incidence of firearm-related violent crime increased from 33.7 incidents per 100,000 population in 2021 to 36.7 incidents the subsequent year.
“This marks the highest rate documented since the collection of comparable data began in 2009,” the criminologist explains.
Supplementary DataData indicates that firearm homicides have risen since 2020. “The issue lies not with lawfully-held firearms,” Mauser stated.
Firearms that have been banned under the Order-in-Council continue to be securely stored in the safes of their lawful owners. The individuals underwent a thorough vetting process by the RCMP and are subject to nightly monitoring to ensure there are no infractions that could pose a risk to public safety.
“The firearms involved in homicides were seldom legally owned weapons wielded by their rightful owners,” Mauser continues. The number of offenses linked to organized crime has surged from 4,810 in 2016 to a staggering 13,056 in 2020.
“If those in power … aim to diminish crime and enhance public safety, they ought to implement strategies that effectively focus on offenders and utilize our limited tax resources judiciously to reach these objectives,” he stated.
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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue
Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.
(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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