US Congress: Chaotic Republican party elects McCarthy chair person of the US Congress on 15th try.

  Representative Kevin McCarthy of California was voted House speaker on the 15th ballot just after midnight Friday. The final six holdouts in a  group of ultraconservative Republicans voted “present,” lowering the threshold for him to win.

A table that shows the current tally for the most recent vote for speaker of the House.

15th Speaker Vote Final Tally

R

	Total	Dem.	Rep.
McCarthy	216	0	216
Jeffries	212	212	0

Read more at; https;//www.reuters.com

USA - Florida; Governer de Santis picks fight with one of the major Florida economic contributors - Governor DeSantis targets Disney’s self-governing status in escalation over ‘Don’t Say Gay’ -

Note RU-Digest: "Ghandi seems to have hit the nail on the head when he said - "CHRISTIAN NATIONS SEEK WEALTH AND FIGHT MOST WARS. "I like your Christ, but not your Christianity."

Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republicans in Florida are escalating their battle with the Walt Disney Co. amid fallout over a bill that banned classroom teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade.

DeSantis announced on Tuesday that the GOP-controlled Legislature during this week’s special session will take up a bill that would dismantle the special district that has allowed Disney to operate its own local government in central Florida that is the home to Walt Disney World. Legislators are already scheduled to hold a three-and-a-half day special session where they will pass a new congressional map proposed by the governor that will help the GOP pick up seats in the upcoming election.

Read more at DeSantis targets Disney’s self-governing status in escalation over ‘Don’t Say Gay’ - POLITICO

USA:70 Percent of Adults Don't Want Donald Trump to Run in 2024: Poll

The poll, conducted by Marquette University Law School of 1,000 adults nationwide and released on Thursday, found that more than 70 percent of respondents don't want to see Trump mount another run for the White House.

The poll also took a look at potential 2024 presidential matchups. The former president also didn't fare much better in that area either, according to The Hill. In a look at a possible rematch of the 2020 election, the poll had President Joe Biden besting Trump by 10, 43-33. Nearly 70 percent of people who responded to the poll also have an unfavorable opinion of the former president.

Read more at: 70 Percent of Adults Don't Want Donald Trump to Run in 2024: Poll

USA: Republican predicts Trump won’t be party’s presidential nominee in 2024

Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican senator, predicted on Sunday morning that Donald Trump will not be the party’s nominee for president in 2024, pointing to the number of seats lost by Republicans in the House and Senate over the four years Trump was in office.

Cassidy was asked on CNN’s State of the Union show whether he would support Trump if the former president runs for another term in 2024, or if he would support him if he did run and won the Republican nomination to challenge Joe Biden. “That’s a theoretical that I don’t think will come to pass,” Cassidy said. He added: “I don’t mean to duck, but the truth is … I don’t think he’ll be our nominee.”

Read more at: Republican predicts Trump won’t be party’s presidential nominee in 2024 | US elections 2024 | The Guardian

US Presidential Elections: Georgia's most populous county stopped counting ballots at 10:30 p.m. - by Jeva Lange

It's bedtime in Georgia! In Fulton County — the state's most populous county, which includes Atlanta — officials said they would stop counting mail-in ballots at 10:30 p.m., with the plan of resuming in the morning, NBC News reports. Hey, that's fine, it's not like we're in the middle of an incredibly contentious election or anything!

The count in Fulton County had already been delayed earlier in the evening, after a pipe burst near a room where some of the ballots were being held. Because the region is home to a tenth of all Georgians, the further hold-up will affect when the whole state is able to report its final tally. Trump leads in the Peach State as of 11 p.m. ET with 63 percent reporting, although his margin is expected to narrow or potentially flip, since mail-in ballots are projected to skew blue, especially in Atlanta.

Read more at: Georgia's most populous county stopped counting ballots at 10:30 p.m.

USA: The Republican Threat to the Republic by Joseph E. Stiglitz

Whereas Nero famously fiddled while Rome burned, US President Donald Trump has famously hit the links at his money-losing golf courses while California burns – and as more than 200,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 – for which he himself has now tested positive. Like Nero, Trump will undoubtedly be remembered as an exceptionally cruel, inhumane, and possibly mad political figure.

Until recently, most people around the world had been exposed to this American tragedy in small doses, through short clips of Trump spouting lies and nonsense on the evening news or social media. But in late September, tens of millions of people endured a 90-minute spectacle, billed as a presidential “debate,” in which Trump demonstrated unequivocally that he is not presidential – and why so many people question his mental health.

To be sure, over the past four years, the world has watched this pathological liar set new records – logging some 20,000 falsehoods or misleading statements as of mid-July, by the Washington Post’s count. What kind of debate can there be when one of the two candidates has no credibility, and is not even there to debate?

When asked about the recent New York Times exposé showing that he had paid just $750 in US federal income tax in 2016 and 2017 – and nothing for many years before that – Trump hesitated and then claimed without evidence that he had paid “millions.” He was clearly offering whatever answer he thought would move things along to a more comfortable topic, and there is no good reason why anyone should believe him.

Even more disturbing was his refusal to denounce white supremacists and violent extremist groups like the Proud Boys, whom he instructed to “stand back and stand by.” Combined with his refusal to commit to a peaceful transition of power and persistent efforts to delegitimize the voting process, Trump’s behavior in the run-up to the election has increasingly posed a direct threat to American democracy.

Read more at:
\The Republican Threat to the Republic by Joseph E. Stiglitz - Project Syndicate

Cyber Security: How to wrestle your data from data brokers, Silicon Valley — and Cambridge Analytica - Jeremy B. Merrill

Cambridge Analytica thinks that I’m a “Very Unlikely Republican.” Another political data firm, ALC Digital, has concluded I’m a “Socially Conservative,” Republican, “Boomer Voter.” In fact, I’m a 27- year old millennial with no set Party alliance.

One thing is certain: My personal data, and likely yours, is in more hands than ever. Tech firms, data brokers and political consultants build profiles of what they know — or think they can reasonably guess — about your purchasing habits, personality, hobbies and even what political issues you care about.

Making statistically informed guesses about Americans’ political beliefs and pet issues is a common business these days, with dozens of firms selling data to candidates and issue groups about the purported leanings of individual American voters., Cambridge Analytica

Read more: How to wrestle your data from data brokers, Silicon Valley — and Cambridge Analytica | Salon.com

USA Healthcare Program: Republican ‘kamikaze’ healthcare plan on life support - by Edward Luce

This is the week Republicans have craved for more than seven years — their chance to repeal Obamacare. Some time in the next few days the US Senate will either scrap most of Barack Obama’s signature achievement — the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Or they will abandon the effort for failure to find the votes.

Either way, America is at a fraught crossroads in its never-ending healthcare saga. If the Senate bill passes, up to 22m Americans could lose their insurance. Many more will experience a sharp reduction in healthcare support. If the vote fails, Obamacare will survive but very much as a zombie law — a stay of execution, rather than a pardon. The battle will continue. Neither outcome would be for keeps.

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“Whatever happens, we are entering a period of deep uncertainty that will cause entirely avoidable damage to the US healthcare system,” says Douglas Elmendorf, dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard — and former head of the Congressional Budget Office. “This is a textbook example of how not to make legislation.”

Read more: Republican ‘kamikaze’ healthcare plan on life support

US Economy: Republican Kamikaze tactics could drive economy of fiscal cliff

With little evidence of progress in the "fiscal cliff" negotiations in Washington, President Obama toook his message on the road: The president will travel to a toy manufacturing facility in Hatfield, Pa., where he will make the case that Congress should immediately extend the Bush-era tax cuts on income under $250,000 per year.

Letting the US economy go over the fiscal cliff would push the United States, and probably other countries, into a new crisis that political leaders now say they are determined to avoid.

The fiscal cliff, a combination of mandated tax increases and spending cuts, will occur in January unless President Barack Obama and Democratic and Republican lawmakers forge a long-sought deal.

If they fail, federal government spending for the 2013 fiscal year, which began on October 1, will be slashed by $109 billion.

Tax increases would be broad-based. According to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research center, nearly 90 per cent of Americans would pay more taxes, boosting the country's tax revenues more than 20 per cent above what they would be without the cliff.

Middle-class households would be hit with an almost $2,000 tax increase on average.
Economists fear that the tax hikes, likely to curb consumer spending, combined with sharp cutbacks in federal spending, would drive the world's largest economy back into recession.

The US Federal Reserve has warned for months that it lacks the means to prevent the economy from falling back into a slump. Despite massive support from the central bank, the struggling economy has not yet fully recovered from the Great Recession that ended in June 2009.

According to the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the fiscal cliff would result in the economy shrinking 0.5 per cent in 2013, and the unemployment rate would rise to 9.1 per cent, compared with the 7.9 per cent jobless rate in October.

An economics professor at the University of Maryland, Peter Morici, sees that scenario as too optimistic. Morici said the fiscal cliff could trigger "cataclysmic consequences" for the economy.

EU-Digest

US Presidential Elections: Paul Ryan: Poster Boy of Today's Extreme GOP - by Waymon Hudson

The Republican Choice For Its Presidential Team

While many in the media are focusing on the budget and fiscal views of Mitt Romney's pick as vice president for the Republican ticket, Paul Ryan is much more than just "wonky budget guy." In fact, Ryan's extreme social conservatism, which he prefers to hide under his fiscal views, is a perfect example of the state of today's GOP, which has been taken over by far-right ideologues who distract with tax and deficit talk as they seek to march civil rights back to the Dark Ages.

Yes, the Paul Ryan budget is extremely newsworthy for its uneven tax breaks for the richest Americans while gutting social safety nets like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, but Ryan's record on social issues and civil rights, specifically LGBT issues and women's rights, should not be glossed over by the media or by voters as November approaches. Despite the odd praise coming from conservative gay groups like Log Cabin Republicans and GOProud, Paul Ryan's record on LGBT rights is abysmal and far out of step with mainstream Americans.

Like most of the current Republicans in office, Ryan claims to want small federal government and strict constitutional reading... except when it doesn't fit their narrow social agenda. Paul Ryan has voted twice, both in 2004 and 2006, for an amendment to the federal constitution banning marriage between same-sex couples, a position presidential hopeful Mitt Romney also holds. In fact, Ryan bragged about his vote to amend the constitution in 2004 in a press release, saying, "I had hoped that this amendment wouldn't be necessary, but increasingly it appears that laws such as the Defense of Marriage Act will not be sufficient to protect marriage from certain courts that distort state and federal constitutional law."

Read more: Waymon Hudson: Paul Ryan: Poster Boy of Today's Extreme GOP