California
QAnon and red-baiting: California midterm races turn vitriolic
In Orange county, California, Republican congresswoman Michelle Metal is operating adverts utilizing doctored photos to depict her Democratic opponent Jay Chen as sympathetic to communist China. In Los Angeles, incumbent Democratic consultant Jimmy Gomez has despatched out flyers accusing his progressive challenger David Kim of “campaigning with QAnon help”.
In a number of congressional districts within the Golden state, shut races in latest weeks have change into vitriolic.
The strain is a mirrored image of the heated battle between Democrats and Republicans for management of the Home, a struggle by which California is vital: though the state total leans blue, as much as 10 congressional seats are up for grabs right here. However even in races with two Democrats, clashes over what it means to be progressive have change into rancorous.
“California is commonly thought-about a accomplished deal for Democrats, not a battleground,” stated Pei-Te Lien, a professor of political science on the College of California, Santa Barbara. “However whenever you have a look at the congressional elections right here, it’s contentious.”
Within the rural and industrial outskirts of LA, the race between incumbent Republican David Valadao and Democrat Rudy Salas has change into the second-most costly Home race within the nation. Additionally in southern California, Democratic consultant Katie Porter is operating neck-and-neck with Republican challenger Scott Baugh, who has run deceptive marketing campaign adverts saying Porter voted to rent hundreds of latest IRS brokers to go after common households and small companies.
In a rural district stretching throughout a lot of the state’s japanese border, Republican Kevin Kiley has falsely accused his Democratic opponent Kermit Jones of eager to “defund the police” – adopting a tactic that Republicans across the nation are utilizing amid heightened voter concern about crime.
However the races between Metal and Chen, and Gomez and Kim have stood out as particularly rancorous.
Metal, one of many first Korean American ladies elected to Congress, is operating in a newly fashioned district that binds collectively voters of Vietnamese, Chinese language, Korean and Indian descent to offer Asian Individuals an even bigger voice. However her marketing campaign has adopted what many Asian American teams have referred to as “red-baiting” messages, exploiting many immigrant voters’ mistrust of communism.
In Vietnamese and English language mailers, doctored photos present Chen holding the Communist Manifesto whereas educating a classroom full of kids. A TV advert options actors enjoying Chinese language Communist get together intelligence officers, saying Chen is “considered one of us, a socialist comrade who even supported Bernie Sanders for supreme chief”.
Chen, a Navy Veteran, has referred to as the portrayal absurd. “My grandmother fled from Communist China to Taiwan,” he stated. “By suggesting I’m a CCP socialist comrade, Michelle Metal is just not solely enjoying soiled politics by questioning my patriotism, she is enjoying into dangerous stereotypes, fueling anti-Asian hate.”
Lance Tover, a spokesperson for Metal, pointed to her document of condemning anti-Asian hate, together with her congressional testimony on rising hate crimes in opposition to the Asian American group.
Metal’s accusation hyperlinks Chen to communism over a 2010 vote he took as a neighborhood faculty board member to make use of a free Mandarin language program that finally didn’t get adopted. Within the years since, this system has drawn scrutiny for its hyperlink to the Chinese language authorities.
Lien, who makes a speciality of Asian American politics, stated that whereas Metal’s portrayal of Chen may work to persuade Vietnamese American voters who fled communism and got here to the US as refugees, the technique may backfire. “Finally Metal is harming the Asian American picture as a complete,” stated Lien, opening up herself and others to stereotypes about being perpetual foreigners. “Given her personal expertise as a Korean-born immigrant American lady, I used to be very disheartened to know that she would use this assault in opposition to one other Asian American.”
Metal has lobbed again her personal accusations of racism, saying Chen has mocked her accent when he stated folks wanted “an interpreter to determine precisely what she’s saying”. Chen has stated he was referring to her “convoluted” speaking factors, and wouldn’t suppose to mock accents on condition that he grew up in an immigrant family the place relations confronted discrimination due to how they spoke.
Though California’s Home races have usually been aggressive, and the corresponding marketing campaign messaging usually aggressive, assaults lately have stood out in that they’ve centered on ideology and id, Lien stated.
In a really completely different California race between Gomez and Kim, each progressive Democrats trying to win in a blue, largely Latino district – Gomez has despatched out mailers juxtaposing Kim with photos of the January 6 rioters and Donald Trump.
The accusation of operating with far-right QAnon help refers back to the 2020 race when Gomez and Kim final confronted off, and Kim had requested the shedding candidates within the major for his or her help. Amongst them, it turned out that Republican Joanne Wright ascribed to QAnon conspiracy theories.
Steve Barkan, a guide for Gomez, stated Kim “aligned himself with QAnon chief Joanne Wright” when he accepted her endorsement, “even after he knew of her right-wing extremist views and conspiracy theories”.
Kim stated he wasn’t conscious of Wright’s views on the time. Had he identified about Wright’s help for QAnon, he wouldn’t have accepted her endorsement, Kim stated. However accusing him of embracing the far-right over a two-year-old oversight is cynical, Kim stated. “That’s going tremendous low.”
Kim stated he hoped the campaigns may give attention to the true variations between him and Gomez, which boil right down to how every would deal with financial inequities and finally how they’d strategy governing.
In an more and more divided political local weather, Lien stated assaults based mostly on ideology have change into extra frequent, in California and nationwide. “There’s a Trump impact occurring,” Lien stated – referring to the previous president’s ushering in of a brand new hyper-partisan political period.
“Very, very tight races simply can flip unfavorable,” she stated, and it displays a nationwide polarization.
California
Caitlyn Jenner says she'd 'destroy' Kamala Harris in hypothetical race to be CA gov
SAN FRANCISCO – Caitlyn Jenner, the gold-medal Olympian-turned reality TV personality, is considering another run for Governor of California. This time, she says, if she were to go up against Vice President Kamala Harris, she would “destroy her.”
Jenner, who publicly came out as transgender nearly 10 years ago, made a foray into politics when she ran as a Republican during the recall election that attempted to unseat Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021. Jenner only received one percent of the vote and was not considered a serious candidate.
Jenner posted this week on social media that she’s having conversations with “many people” and hopes to have an announcement soon about whether she will run.
Caitlyn Jenner speaks at the 4th annual Womens March LA: Women Rising at Pershing Square on January 18, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images)
She has also posted in Trumpian-style all caps: “MAKE CA GREAT AGAIN!”
As for VP Harris, she has not indicated any future plans for when she leaves office. However, a recent poll suggests Harris would have a sizable advantage should she decide to run in 2026. At that point, Newsom cannot run again because of term limits.
If Jenner decides to run and wins, it would mark the nation and state’s first transgender governor.
California
Northern California 6-year-old, parents hailed as heroes for saving woman who crashed into canal
LIVE OAK — A six-year-old and her parents are being called heroes by a Northern California community for jumping into a canal to save a 75-year-old woman who drove off the road.
It happened on Larkin Road near Paseo Avenue in the Sutter County community of Live Oak on Monday.
“I just about lost her, but I didn’t,” said Terry Carpenter, husband of the woman who was rescued. “We got more chances.”
Terry said his wife of 33 years, Robin Carpenter, is the love of his life and soulmate. He is grateful he has been granted more time to spend with her after she survived her car crashing off a two-lane road and overturning into a canal.
“She’s doing really well,” Terry said. “No broken bones, praise the Lord.”
It is what some call a miracle that could have had a much different outcome without a family of good Samaritans.
“Her lips were purple,” said Ashley Martin, who helped rescue the woman. “There wasn’t a breath at all. I was scared.”
Martin and her husband, Cyle Johnson, are being hailed heroes by the Live Oak community for jumping into the canal, cutting Robin out of her seat belt and pulling her head above water until first responders arrived.
“She was literally submerged underwater,” Martin said. “She had a back brace on. Apparently, she just had back surgery. So, I grabbed her brace from down below and I flipped her upward just in a quick motion to get her out of that water.”
The couple said the real hero was their six-year-old daughter, Cayleigh Johnson.
“It was scary,” Cayleigh said. “So the car was going like this, and it just went boom, right into the ditch.”
Cayleigh was playing outside and screamed for her parents who were inside the house near the canal.
I spoke with Robin from her hospital bed over the phone who told us she is in a lot of pain but grateful.
“The thing I can remember is I started falling asleep and then I was going over the bump and I went into the ditch and that’s all I remember,” Robin said.
It was a split-second decision for a family who firefighters said helped save a stranger’s life.
“It’s pretty unique that someone would jump in and help somebody that they don’t even know,” said Battalion Chief for Sutter County Fire Richard Epperson.
Robin is hopeful that she will be released from the hospital on Wednesday in time to be home for Thanksgiving.
“She gets Thanksgiving and Christmas now with her family and grandkids,” Martin said.
Terry and Robin are looking forward to eventually meeting the family who helped save Robin’s life. The family expressed the same feelings about meeting the woman they helped when she is out of the hospital.
“I can’t wait for my baby to get home,” Terry said.
California
California may exclude Tesla from EV rebate program
California Gov. Gavin Newsom may exclude Tesla and other automakers from an electric vehicle (EV) rebate program if the incoming Trump administration scraps a federal tax credit for electric car purchases.
Newsom proposed creating a new version of the state’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Program, which was phased out in 2023 after funding more than 594,000 vehicles and saving more than 456 million gallons of fuel, the governor’s office said in a news release on Monday.
“Consumers continue to prove the skeptics wrong – zero-emission vehicles are here to stay,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re not turning back on a clean transportation future – we’re going to make it more affordable for people to drive vehicles that don’t pollute.”
The proposed rebates would be funded with money from the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which is funded by polluters under the state’s cap-and-trade program, the governor’s office said. Officials did not say how much the program would cost or save consumers.
NEBRASKA AG LAUNCHES ASSAULT AGAINST CALIFORNIA’S ELECTRIC VEHICLE PUSH
They would also include changes to promote innovation and competition in the zero-emission vehicles market – changes that could prevent automakers like Tesla from qualifying for the rebates.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who relocated Tesla’s corporate headquarters from California to Texas in 2021, responded to the possibility of having Tesla EVs left out of the program.
“Even though Tesla is the only company who manufactures their EVs in California! This is insane,” Musk wrote on X, which he also owns.
BENTLEY PUSHES BACK ALL-EV LINEUP TIMELINE TO 2035
Those buying or leasing Tesla vehicles accounted for about 42% of the state’s rebates, The Associated Press reported, citing data from the California Air Resources Board.
Newsom’s office told Fox Business Digital that the proposal is intended to foster market competition, and any potential market cap is subject to negotiation with the state Legislature.
Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
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TSLA | TESLA INC. | 338.59 | -13.97 | -3.96% |
“Under a potential market cap, and depending on what the cap is, there’s a possibility that Tesla and other automakers could be excluded,” the governor’s office said. “But that’s again subject to negotiations with the legislature.”
Newsom’s office noted that such market caps have been part of rebate programs since George W. Bush’s administration in 2005.
Federal tax credits for EVs are currently worth up to $7,500 for new zero-emission vehicles. President-elect Trump has previously vowed to end the credit.
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California has surpassed 2 million zero-emission vehicles sold, according to the governor’s office. The state, however, could face a $2 billion budget deficit next year, Reuters reported, citing a non-partisan legislative estimate released last week.
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