October 2023 – Page 14 – The Tarbabys Blog

Do I need to worry about sleeping with my phone next to my bed?

Yahoo! Life

Do I need to worry about sleeping with my phone next to my bed?

Kaitlin Reilly – October 4, 2023

Photo illustration of a woman sleeping on a bed resembling an iPhone — Sleeping next to your phone can have an impact on your health. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images) ((Photo Illustration: Yahoo News; Photos: Getty Images))

We know that there can be impacts on your mental health if you scroll through your phone too much during the day. But could where you lay your phone to rest at night affect your health too?

There’s certainly chatter about how cellphones affect our health in general, especially when it comes to the potentially harmful effects of radiation. A July 2023 study published in the journal Cancersfound a positive if weak correlation between death from brain cancer and mobile phone usage. Shabbir Syed Abdul, co-author of the study, told VeryWell Health that “it is crucial to recognize that definitive conclusions cannot be made at this point.”

Should we be worried about radiation when sleeping by a phone?

Dr. Neha Narula, a clinical assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University, agrees that radiation isn’t something you should worry about when it comes to your phone, even if you are sleeping with your phone next to your bed — and head.

“At this time, there’s actually no evidence that supports that the radiation that is emitted from smartphones or tablets affects our health long-term,” Narula tells Yahoo Life, pointing out that the type of radiation emitted from cellphones and tablets is different from, say, the kind we see from X-rays, which we know can cause DNA damage.

“The radiation that comes off of cellphones is what we call ‘nonionizing,’” she says. “This type of radiation, which we see emitted from microwaves and smartphones and things like that, we have no concrete evidence at this time that shows that there are long-term effects or harmful effects on our health.” Of course, we have no concrete evidence that it is not harmful, either, as highlighted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer having classified it as a “possible human carcinogen.”

How using your phone affects sleep

While Narula says that there’s “not too much to be worried about in terms of radiation coming from a phone that’s next to you,” she adds that sleeping next to your phone can have a different kind of impact on your health. For one thing, you’re far more likely to use your phone close to bedtime if it’s right next to where you sleep, and “there has been so much evidence that shows people who do use their phones right before bed or in bed are more likely to have insufficient or poor quality sleep compared to those that kind of put their phones away an hour or two before bed.”

“Phones require a lot of manual control and an active mind to use them,” she says. “That provokes the sense of wakefulness and alertness, which is not ideal for when you are trying to wind down. Stimulation that comes from having a phone next to you, even if you use it for five minutes, you’re still in that active state of arousal, which can impact sleep.”

How light can can have an impact on sleep

Outside of the interaction with one’s phone, the light it emits can be a big problem. Light helps us maintain our circadian rhythm, which is our sleep-wake cycle. Humans, in general, have a 24-hour circadian rhythm, and the natural light coming from the sun helps stimulate feelings of alertness and arousal, which allows us to stay awake during the day. When evening comes, and the light goes down, so does our level of alertness. But smartphones, as well as TVs and tablets, emit light — and our brain can’t distinguish between it and the sun. That interferes with our melatonin production, which is the hormone that makes us feel tired.

“Melatonin levels are generally lower in people who use their phones during bedtime, which can impact our sleep quality, as well as our REM sleep, which is the stage of sleep that we dream — the state of sleep that helps us with emotions and processing memories,” Narula says. “A reduction in REM sleep can interfere with our alertness levels and increase stress in general, which can lead to physical and mental health issues.”

Not everyone needs to give up the phone by their bed

Dr. Rafael Pelayo, professor of sleep medicine at Stanford University and author of How to Sleep: The New Science-Based Solutions for Sleeping Through the Night, says that whether or not you should sleep with your phone next to your bed depends on your relationship with your phone. People with chronic insomnia, for example, may find that sleeping next to their phone increases hypervigilance during bedtime, meaning that they are all too aware of the things that will keep them awake — leading them to get less sleep overall. But the impact of having a phone near your bed can fluctuate with the circumstances of your life.

“If somebody were to tell you, ‘Hey, I may or may not call you at 3 a.m. to pick me up at the airport,’ you’re not going to sleep well that night because at any moment you may expect that phone call, even if it never comes. If the phone enhances that hyper-vigilance in you, then it’s going to disturb your sleep,” he says. “On the other hand, let’s say you live alone, and you worry somebody’s going to break in. Having a phone nearby may provide you a feeling of security. So it’s not the phone, per se, but what it represents to you.”

It’s true NJ, your commute stinks. Census data says it’s third-worst in U.S.

The Bergen Record

It’s true NJ, your commute stinks. Census data says it’s third-worst in U.S.

Manahil Ahmad – October 4, 2023

Recent data on travel times in the United States has found that New Jersey has the third-longest average time people spend getting to work.

The U.S Census shared these results, highlighting the tough daily journeys faced by people in the state of New Jersey due to crowded roads and public transportation.

The study looked at data from big cities all over the country. It showed that in New Jersey, people spend about 30.3 minutes on an average going to work each day. This is almost five minutes more than the national average, showing just how tough commuting is in the Garden State.

Being very close to major cities like New York City and Philadelphia makes things harder, as many folks cross state borders for work, making the traffic situation even worse.

NJ news Clifton councilwoman’s husband, resident scuffle during meeting

About 10% of New Jersey’s workforce commute to New York City alone. the data shows.

Only commuters in New York and Maryland had it worse in 2022, with an average travel time of 33.0 and 30.8 mins respectively.

Within New Jersey, a separate study claimed that Jersey City had the worst commute among cities in the state.

Treasury’s Yellen says US overdependent on China for critical supply chains

Reuters

Treasury’s Yellen says US overdependent on China for critical supply chains

Reuters – October 3, 2023

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Tuesday the United States has become overly dependent on China for critical supply chains, particularly in clean energy products and needs to broaden out sources of supply.

Yellen, speaking at a Fortune CEO event in Washington, repeated her longstanding view that the United States does not want to decouple economically from China.

She said that she has not been “a strong believer” in industrial policy, but that the United States had stood by for too long while other countries built up semiconductor industries with massive subsidies.

The U.S. would face national security concerns without a robust semiconductor sector of its own, she said, adding that last year’s Chips and Science Act will help reverse that trend.

“We’re fooling ourselves if we think that abandoning, for all practical purposes, semiconductor manufacturing, is a smart strategy for the United States,” Yellen said.

(Reporting by David Lawder and Kanishka Singh in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Deepa Babington)

Russian rouble briefly returns to ‘laughing stock’ level that prompted emergency interest rate hikes last time

Fortune

Russian rouble briefly returns to ‘laughing stock’ level that prompted emergency interest rate hikes last time

Prarthana Prakash – October 3, 2023

The Russian rouble hit the skids after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February. Initially, the government took a hands-off approach to deal with the rollercoaster ride of exchange rates. Instead, they boasted about the nation’s economic resilience in the face of sanctions and shrinking exports. But come August, they had to step in as the rouble nosedived to a 16-month low, worth less than a penny.

A déjà vu moment played out on a recent Tuesday, with the rouble teetering just below the 100-mark against the U.S. dollar—a critical benchmark for Russia’s currency. Although the rouble managed a modest comeback, this embarrassing stumble highlighted its shaky footing and raised concerns of further depreciation.

The rouble’s value has taken a beating this year, shedding almost 30% of its worth against the greenback since January.

A number of things may have influenced the drop in exchange rates—from foreign currency outflows and declining trade activity to Russia’s waning current account surplus.

But some factors may still be working to Russia’s advantage, such as its budget.

The falling value of the rouble means more of the Russian currency for every dollar earned through the trade of oil or other products. This, in turn, has given the Kremlin more money to pour into the military or social schemes, for instance, to help offset the impact of sanctions.

Despite the seeming upside of a weak ruble and the Kremlin’s swift actions to stem any negative effects from it, the Russian currency’s value is not out of the woods yet.

The August slump

When the rouble weakened to more than 100 to the U.S. dollar in August, the Bank of Russia called an “extraordinary meeting”, subsequently hiking interest rates by 350 basis points to 12%. The bank also said it would halt foreign currency purchases on the domestic market until the end of the year in an effort to stabilize its financial markets.

Russia’s state media and senior officials were also rattled by the rouble’s tumble into three-digit territory. Vladimir Solovyov, a popular TV person in Russia and President Vladimir Putin’s ally, said the country had become a laughing stock, pointing to how dire the situation had gotten.

Putin’s economic advisor, Maxim Oreshkin, told state-owned news outlet TASS that “loose monetary policy” was causing the drop in the rouble’s exchange rate and exacerbating inflation.

“A weak ruble complicates the structural restructuring of the economy and negatively affects the real incomes of the population. A strong ruble is in the interests of the Russian economy,” Oreshkin said according to the translation of an August op-ed in TASS.

In September, the central bank once against raised rates to 13% to tackle the falling rouble value and stubborn inflation, which was at 5.33% at the time. Further rate hikes are expected in the next central bank meeting later this month.

The rouble has wavered a lot since 2022—shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine it hit an all-time low of 120 roubles to the U.S. dollar, but by last June, the currency had recovered to nearly 50 roubles to the dollar when oil and gas prices soared.

“This level (100) is not a technical resistance, it’s an important psychological barrier,” said Russian investment group Alor Broker’s Alexei Antonov told Reuters. “For now, everything speaks in favour of the rouble continuing to get cheaper.”

The rouble’s current weakness could be temporary, but the Russian government faces pressures on its finances and more prolonged effects of a weaker currency. Plunging export volumes continue to weigh on the economy, as the current account surplus shrank 86% year-on-year to just $25.6 billion in January-August. Elevated consumer prices along with a depreciated rouble make it harder for the average Russian to afford basic goods.

As Moscow struggles to keep its currency strong while navigating other macroeconomic challenges, experts suggest that a drop in the rouble’s exchange rate is not quite an economic crisis, although it does ring alarm bells for the government.

“This is the closest we came to a real economic problem since the start of the war,” Janis Kluge, an expert in the Russian economy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs told the Associated Press in August following the rouble’s drop to a 16-month low. “In Russia, the exchange rate is always seen as the most important indicator of the health of the economy.”

No, America is not seeing an unprecedented surge in immigration. New Census data prove it.

USA Today – Opinion

No, America is not seeing an unprecedented surge in immigration. New Census data prove it.

David Bier – October 3, 2023

The Census Bureau this month published its most robust estimate of the U.S. immigrant population, and it casts doubt on a central Republican criticism of President Joe Biden: that immigration has spiraled out of his control on his watch.

In fact, the new data – analyzed by our team at the Cato Institute – indicate that the number of immigrants is still 2 million below the Census Bureau’s 2017 predictions. The hyperbolic rhetoric should take a backseat to the verifiable data.

Take Stephen Miller, former adviser to President Donald Trump. By July 2022, he had already announced that President Biden had “eradicated his own nation’s borders.”

Of course, this is a goofy conspiracy theory. Borders divide governmental jurisdictions, which it should go without saying haven’t changed, and they have nothing to do with the number of people who cross them. But the new Census data make this claim risible for another reason: The immigrant population had only risen marginally.

Immigrant share of U.S. population is just 13.9%

According to the American Community Survey (the Census Bureau’s annual mini-census), the immigrant share of the U.S. population rose just 0.3 percentage points between July 2021 and July 2022, reaching 13.9%.

If a shift of 0.3 percentage points can eradicate the United States as a country, the Trump administration must have left the United States in worse shape than anyone thought. Fortunately, it is the political rhetoric that is in worse shape, not the country.

New U.S. citizens recite the Pledge of Allegiance at a naturalization ceremony on July 4, 2023, at George Washington's Mount Vernon in Northern Virginia.

The immigrant population did grow by nearly a million from July 2021 to July 2022. But consider the context. In 2017, the Census predicted that by last year, the immigrant population would have grown by 3.6 million. In reality, it grew 1.7 million – less than half the number the models predicted.

Just because the immigrant population isn’t shrinking like Miller wants doesn’t mean that America has ceased to exist.

Fix immigration loophole: I grew up an American – legally. Our broken immigration system forced me to deport.

On a longer timescale, it is apparent that the past decade has seen unusually slow growth in immigration. In fact, the period from 2012 to 2022 saw slower growth in the immigrant share of the population than the 2000s, 1990s, 1980s and 1970s. You have to go all the way back to the 1960s, when the immigrant population actually shrank, to find a lower growth rate.

Nor is America unusual compared with its peer nations. The United States also ranks in the bottom third of wealthy countries for its immigrant population share. America’s actually becoming less competitive for immigrant workers.

How worker shortage hurts the United States

The new Census data are much more important than other estimates of immigration. The American Community Survey collects information on a massive portion of the U.S. population, which prevents significant sampling errors, and it accounts not just for the number of immigrants coming in but also the numbers who are deported, leave on their own or die.

The new data dismantle the narrative that the United States is seeing an unprecedented surge in immigration. Moreover, as we face the lowest population growth in U.S. history, a decline largely attributed to Americans having fewer children, the immigrant share of the population should naturally have a larger impact. But even in these conditions, the immigrant share is growing at the slowest rate we’ve seen in a generation.

Of course, the number of immigrants has increased over the past year, too, but the new Census numbers show that we have plenty of room to grow.

US semiconductor production ramps up. But without STEM workforce, we’ll lose the race.

Regardless, the broader concern isn’t just about countering inflated rhetoric but addressing the very real economic challenges the United States faces due to slowing population growth. We’re staring at a massive worker shortage, a precipitous drop in the worker-to-retiree ratio and a worrying exodus of skilled workers to nations like China.

The solution? We need people. We need workers across all skill levels to drive our economy, support our aging population and maintain our global competitive edge. Immigrants have historically played, and can continue to play, a crucial role in filling these gaps.

While it is natural to engage in debates about immigration policy and its implications, it is essential to root these discussions in fact rather than fiction. Instead of raising alarms over exaggerated claims of border erasure, our focus should be on crafting policies that align with our national interests, values and the reality reflected in the data.

After all, America thrives when it welcomes, integrates and capitalizes on the diverse skills and perspectives that immigrants bring to our shores.

David Bier is the associate director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute.

The unsung hero behind Donald Trump’s crushing fraud case: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Salon

The unsung hero behind Donald Trump’s crushing fraud case: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Amanda Marcotte – October 3, 2023

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Donald Trump Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images

The main hero of the Donald Trump fraud trial that kicked off Monday is, of course, Letitia James. New York’s attorney general has worked tirelessly for years on investigating Trump’s decades of criminal and corrupt behavior, resulting in a $250 million lawsuit accusing Trump and his two grown sons of running a fraudulent business. Her case is so airtight, in fact, that New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ruled Trump liable for fraud from the bench, rather than waste a jury’s time figuring out what was indisputable from the evidence. The ensuing trial — which drew Trump himself into the Manhattan courtroom this week — is entirely about how serious the penalities will be.

There are weeks, maybe months to go before we learn how much Trump will have to pay for defrauding investors, banks and insurance companies over several decades. So we’ll have to wait a bit for James to get her virtual ticker-tape parade for kicking the most hated man in New York real estate out of town. In the meantime, however, there’s another well-known New York City politician who is owed a debt of gratitude for bringing some accountability to Trump’s gold-painted front door: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

In our era of 24/7 media onslaught, four years can seem like like four lifetimes, so it’s easy to forget that when Ocasio-Cortez arrived in Congress in January 2019, there was a lot of curiosity and outright skepticism about her among the Beltway press. She’d gotten there in improbable fashion, winning a 2018 primary against Rep. Joe Crowley — a power broker in Queens who chaired the House Democratic caucus and was seen as a possible successor to Nancy Pelosi. Before that, Ocasio-Cortez had been working as a bartender in a Manhattan taco joint. So the media was watching eagerly to see whether she’d rise to the occasion or fall flat on her face.

Ocasio-Cortez’s first big test came in February 2019, when Trump’s former personal attorney and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, testified before the House Oversight Committee. Cohen was about to go to prison for a campaign finance crime committed at Trump’s behest, and told a genuinely moving story of crime and betrayal. But most of the Democrats on the committee whiffed this opportunity to ask questions of a guy who had been nestled within the Trump gang for years. Instead, they devoted their time to grandstanding for the cameras, rather than learning any new information about Trump’s illegal dealings.

Except, of course, for the young congresswoman from a working-class, multiracial district in Queens and the Bronx. Much to the surprise and delight of mainstream journalists, Ocasio-Cortez was all business. She showed up with a long list of questions about how much Cohen knew about Trump’s business dealings and whether the man currently in the White House had spent his previous career defrauding creditors and investors. Cohen’s answer: Trump was criming all the time. The transcript is worth re-reading and relishing:

Ocasio-Cortez: To your knowledge, did the president ever provide inflated assets to an insurance company?
Cohen: Yes.
Ocasio-Cortez: Who else knows that the president did this?
Cohen: Allen Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman and Matthew Calamari.
Ocasio-Cortez: And where would the committee find more information on this? Do you think we need to review his financial statements and his tax returns in order to compare them?
Cohen: Yes, and you would find it at the Trump Org.

That line of questioning, in which Cohen confirmed that Trump routinely manipulated numbers to evade taxes while defrauding banks and insurance companies, was the first step on the long road to Trump making a stink-face in court on Monday morning. New York state regulators started to sniff around Trump’s business. James had already been dealing with a smaller case involving Trump’s charitable foundation, but Cohen’s testimony opened the door to a much bigger investigation.

Three years later, James came out with the stunning — and largely irrefutable — accusations she’s presenting in court this week: Trump’s wealth is built on a sandcastle of lies. He doubles, triples or quadruples the valuations of his assets in order to get loans from creditors, and drastically undervalues them to evade taxes. With this shell game, the four-times-indicted ex-president lives like a rich man despite his proven inability to make much money from his business ventures. Everything Cohen said before that committee has pretty much proven true, and only AOC even thought to ask him about it.

The near-certainty that Trump’s allegedly enormous wealth is an illusion has already been documented in reporting on his tax documents showing that he is deep in debt — perhaps as much $1 billion — even though inherited nearly half a billion from his father and earned another $427 million from his reality-TV star turn on “The Apprentice.” All available evidence suggests Trump blew through that money and kept digging, creating a money pit so enormous that banks likely had given up hope of seeing any of it repaid. Yet Trump has kept up the illusion of immense wealth with his private jets and entourages, all paid for through dozens of opaque shell companies — and, as James’ evidence suggests, through massive fraud.

He might have gotten away with it, too, if not for that nosy congresswoman from the outer boroughs. I’m a little surprised that almost no one seems to remember the crucial role Ocasio-Cortez played in this. At the time of the hearing, after all, she got an avalanche of good coverage for her showing, especially from journalists who were sick of listening to politicians bloviate rather than perform their constitutional duties of legislative oversight. Her willingness to do her actual job, however, didn’t just make her look good by comparison. It got a very big ball rolling that could eventually demollish Trump’s “business” in New York.

One reason AOC’s role has been forgotten, I suspect, is that the Beltway press tends to think of “progressives” as entirely distinct from the people who really want to see Trump go to jail. Turn on MSNBC or CNN, after all, and the people talking on the Trump crime-and-punishment beat are often centrist Democrats and never-Trump Republicans, your Claire McCaskills and George Conways and the like. Progressive Democrats are usually called upon to talk about policy issues: health care, climate change, jobs programs and so on. So there’s this unspoken assumption that progressives don’t much care about corruption and accountability.

In fact, there’s substantial evidence that progressives may put an even higher value on opposing corruption than their more moderate colleagues. For instance, progressives like Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania were among the first to call for the resignation of Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., after his recent indictment on bribery and corruption charges. This isn’t just about political progressives also being people of conscience. I think they understand how intertwined corruption and authoritarian politics are, and understand you can’t fight one without fighting the other.

Authoritarians like Trump gain power by exploiting public cynicism. The more that voters believe that all politicians cheat the system, the more decent citizens will give up engaging meaningfully in politics at all. Eventually, the only people left in politics are the ones with no vision of a better world beyond a bitter desire to stick it to racial minorities, LGBTQ people and women. Getting people to believe in equal justice and functional government is a necessary prerequisite if folks like Fetterman and Ocasio-Cortez are to make any progress on the social and economic issues that matter most to them.

It makes sense that AOC opened the door for the massive lawsuit that may bring Donald Trump’s business empire crashing down. Maybe the main reason she’s not taking more credit for that is that in the here and now she’s busy trying to expose the corruption of House Republicans.

Arizona moves to end Saudi firm Fondomonte’s groundwater deals to grow, export alfalfa

AZ Central – The Arizona Republic

Arizona moves to end Saudi firm Fondomonte’s groundwater deals to grow, export alfalfa

Stacey Barchenger, Arizona Republic – October 2, 2023

Gov. Katie Hobbs’ administration on Monday announced two steps to stop a controversial Saudi Arabian company from using groundwater beneath state land in western Arizona to grow and export alfalfa.

Hobbs said in a statement that the Arizona State Land Department had canceled one of its leases to Fondomonte Arizona, and would not renew three others that are set to expire in February.

Those four account for all of Fondomonte’s leases in the Butler Valley near Bouse, though the company leases other state land elsewhere, according to the Governor’s Office.

The company farmed about 3,5000 acres of state land in Butler Valley to grow feed for dairy cows in Saudi Arabia and is allowed to pump groundwater for that purpose entirely unchecked and unpaid for.

The issue was brought to light last year by The Arizona Republic, which highlighted Fondomonte as an example of companies that get below-market-rate leases on Arizona’s vast stretches of state land. Fondomonte was unique in that its leases allowed it to draw water from a groundwater supply earmarked as a possible future source for Phoenix and other metro areas.

Fondomonte’s presence in western Arizona became a political lightning rod as policymakers grappled with a megadrought, a decreasing supply from the Colorado River and increasing demand for water in the form of a growing population.

“I’m not afraid to do what my predecessors refused to do — hold people accountable, maximize value for the state land trust, and protect Arizona’s water future,” Hobbs said in a statement. “It’s unacceptable that Fondomonte has continued to pump unchecked amounts of groundwater out of our state while in clear default on their lease.”

While leases of state land carry penalties for early termination, the Governor’s Office said the first Fondomonte lease was canceled because the company was in default on “numerous items,” including failing to properly store fuel and diesel exhaust fluid. Fondomonte was given notice of those issues in November 2016, and nearly seven years later, a mid-August inspection showed the company had not fixed those problems, according to Hobbs’ office.

Ground water is pumped into a canal to irrigate a field, February 25, 2022, at Fondomonte's Butler Valley Ranch near Bouse.

The other leases would not be renewed because of Fondomonte’s draw on “excessive amounts of water” in the Butler Valley, one of five water transportation basins that allow water to be moved around the state and that has been earmarked as a possible future water supply for Phoenix and other metro areas.

Fondomonte said through a spokesperson it was reviewing the notifications from Hobbs and the State Land Department but that it believed “the state is mistaken that the company is in breach of its lease.”

“Fondomonte will work with the Governor’s Office to highlight these factual errors,” spokesperson Barrett Marson said. “Fondomonte is adhering to all the conditions of the lease, and thus we have done everything required of us under these conditions.

“As for the other leases the state intends to not renew, this would set a dangerous precedent for all farmers on state land leases, including being extremely costly to the state and Arizona taxpayers. Fondomonte will explore all avenues to ensure there is no discrimination or unfair treatment.”

The original story: Arizona provides sweet deal to Saudi farm to pump water from Phoenix’s backup supply

Hobbs began criticizing the sweetheart deals to Fondomonte on the campaign trail last year during her run for governor. Her administration has this year revoked well permits for the company and paused renewals and applications to lease state-owned lands in groundwater transportation basins.

Arizona leases vast stretches of its publicly owned land to private companies, turning a profit that funds the State Land Trust and its various beneficiaries, the largest of which is K-12 education. In 2021, the state received $4.3 million for its about 160,000 acres of leased land for agriculture, according to the department.

The Republic’s reporting highlighted other shortcomings of those leases, including agricultural rental rates that haven’t changed in more than 15 years.

Republican La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin has been raising concerns for eight years about such leases and their toll on the state’s water supply.

“I’m just so glad we have leadership in this current administration that listened to La Paz County’s voice,” she told The Republic. “For the first time, I feel like there’s real hope in dealing with the water issues here.”

Irwin commended Hobbs, as well as Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes and U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., for their work on the state’s water issues.

Mayes has taken aim at well drilling permits given to Fondomonte and criticized the state Department of Water Resources, which she has said is not following groundwater management laws.

Gallego, who is running for U.S. Senate next year, introduced a bill in Congress that would levy a 300% tax on the sale and export of any water-intensive crop by a foreign company or government.

“For all of our leaders to come together to take a look at this issue and realize it’s wrong, it shouldn’t matter what side of the aisle you’re on,” Irwin said. “It demonstrates how government should work.”

Mayes, however, suggested the government’s response didn’t happen fast enough or reach to systemic issues with state land leases.

“This decision to protect Arizona’s precious groundwater resources and uphold the integrity of our state land trust is a good step in the right direction for the future of Arizona,” Mayes said in a statement. She said while the announcement was “commendable, it should have been taken by state government much earlier.”

“The failure to act sooner underscores the need for greater oversight and accountability in the management of our state’s most vital resource. … The decision by the prior administration to allow foreign corporations to stick straws in the ground and pump unlimited amounts of groundwater to export alfalfa is scandalous.”

Hobbs was sworn in as governor on Jan. 2, following former Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, who served two four-year terms in office.

“Crooked as a barrel of fish hooks”: Whistleblower accuses Sarah Huckabee Sanders of ethics scandal

Salon

“Crooked as a barrel of fish hooks”: Whistleblower accuses Sarah Huckabee Sanders of ethics scandal

Gabriella Ferrigine – October 2, 2023

Sarah Huckabee Sanders Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

The lawyer for an anonymous whistleblower has renewed his client’s claim that Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders altered and withheld public records in connection to her office’s spending habits. Attorney Tom Mars, in a letter sent to state Sen. Jimmy Hickey, provided client testimony and supporting documents for a request for a legislative audit. Hickey last month asked the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee to investigate the purchase of a $19,000 lectern by Sanders’ office. He also asked the committee to scrutinize the “retroactive shielding of several government records after Sanders signed additional Freedom of Information Act exemptions into law this month after a special legislative session,” according to The Arkansas Advocate. “I have seen a copy of the letter you sent to Sen. Wallace and Rep. Gazaway, Chairpersons of the Legislative Joint Audit Committee,” Mars wrote, “requesting an audit of the following matters: (1) the purchase of a podium or lectern from Beckett Events LLC for the use of the Governor’s Office; and (2) all matters, involving the Governor or the Governor’s Office, made confidential by Section 4(a) of Act 7 of the First Extraordinary Session of 2023.”

“Does item (2) in your request encompass any documents that were: (a) altered by the Governor’s Office before being produced in response to a request for copies of public records made pursuant to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) and (b) non-exempt documents that were knowingly withheld from production under the FOIA at the direction of the Governor’s office?” The letter adds that Mars’ client, a “witness with firsthand knowledge of these matters,” can “provide clear and convincing evidence of those occurrences to the Legislative Joint Audit Committee.”

Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison blasted Sanders and her father, Mike Huckabee — the former governor of Arkansas — over the alleged scandal. “Her daddy is Mike Huckabee,” Harrison wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “She lied every day to the press on behalf of Trump … who on this spinning blue ball called Earth is surprised that Sarah is as crooked as a barrel of fish hooks?!”

Ukraine confident of broad support as EU ministers convene in Kyiv

Reuters

Ukraine confident of broad support as EU ministers convene in Kyiv

Olena Harmash – October 2, 2023

KYIV (Reuters) -EU foreign ministers expressed support for Ukraine during a meeting in Kyiv on Monday, their first in a non-member country, after a pro-Russian candidate won an election in Slovakia and the U.S. Congress left Ukraine war aid out of its spending bill.

Kyiv brushed off concerns that support for its war effort was fading on both sides of the Atlantic, especially in the United States where Congress excluded aid to Ukraine from an emergency bill to prevent a government shutdown.

“We don’t feel that the U.S. support has been shattered … because the United States understands that what is at stake in Ukraine is much bigger than just Ukraine,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters as he greeted the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.

The omission of Ukraine from the U.S. spending bill sent pro-Kyiv officials scrambling to find the best way to secure approval for further assistance on top of the $113 billion in security, economic and humanitarian aid the U.S. has provided since Russia invaded in February 2022.

Leaders in the Senate, narrowly controlled by President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats, promised to take up legislation in the coming weeks on continued support. But in the Republican-led House of Representatives, Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he wanted more information from the Biden administration.

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre urged Congress to act quickly.

As for the election victory of pro-Russian Slovak former Prime Minister Robert Fico, Kuleba said a new leader would still have to form a coalition and it was “too early to judge” the impact on politics there.

Monday’s meeting in Kyiv was touted by Borrell as an historic first for the EU but it comes at an awkward time for the Western countries backing Kyiv.

With summer drawing to a close, Ukraine’s counteroffensive has failed to produce the victories that Kyiv’s allies had hoped to see before mud clogs the treads of donated tanks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, quoted by his website, said he was sure “Ukraine and the entire free world are capable of winning this confrontation. But our victory depends directly on our cooperation with you.”

Borrell told a news briefing with Kuleba the EU remained united in its support for Ukraine. He had proposed an EU spending package for Kyiv of up to 5 billion euros ($5.25 billion) for 2024 which he hoped to have agreed by then.

Kuleba said it would help Ukraine and the EU to have clarity on the judicial aspects of transferring Russian assets frozen in the West to help fund Ukraine’s reconstruction.

PREPARING FOR WINTER

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock sought help to prepare Ukraine for winter, including air defence and energy supplies, after Russia bombed energy installations last year.

“Last winter, we saw the brutal way in which the Russian president is waging this war,” Baerbock said. “We must prevent this together with everything we have, as far as possible.”

Moscow touted the congressional vote in the United States as a sign of increasing division in the West, although the Kremlin said it expected Washington to continue its support for Kyiv.

The omission of aid for Ukraine was “temporary”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

“But we have repeatedly said before that according to our forecasts fatigue from this conflict, fatigue from the completely absurd sponsorship of the Kyiv regime, will grow in various countries, including the United States,” he said.

Support for Kyiv has been mixed in the “Global South”, prompting Kuleba to make visits to different countries, particularly in Africa.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador criticised as “irrational” U.S. military aid to Ukraine and urged Washington to devote more resources to helping Latin American countries.

“…How much have they destined for the Ukraine war? 30 to 50 billion dollars for the war,” he told reporters. “Which is the most irrational thing you can have. And damaging.”

In Western countries, elections are looming, above all next year in the United States where former President Donald Trump is leading the Republican field in his bid to return to the White House. Several right-wing Trump supporters in Congress have called for a halt to Ukraine aid.

Although most Republican lawmakers still support Kyiv, House speaker McCarthy was forced to rely on Democrats to pass the measure to keep the government open and might need them again to support any bill to fund Ukraine. Right wingers have threatened to try to remove him.

Kuleba said Ukraine had “a very in-depth discussion with both parts of the Congress – Republicans and Democrats”, and expected aid to continue.

In Europe, pro-Russian former prime minister Fico won the most votes in the Slovak election and will get a chance to form a government. His campaign had called for “not a single round” of ammunition from Slovakia’s reserves to be sent to Ukraine.

“We are not changing that we are prepared to help Ukraine in a humanitarian way,” Fico told a news conference. “We are prepared to help with the reconstruction of the state but you know our opinion on arming Ukraine.”

Fico was given two weeks to form a government. To do so, he would have to establish a coalition with at least one other party that does not publicly share his position on Ukraine.

Slovakia, a NATO state bordering Ukraine, has taken in refugees. Its outgoing government, has provided a major supply of weapons, notably being among the first to send fighter jets.

($1 = 0.9530 euros)

(Additional reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten, Charlotte Van Campenhout, Jan Lopatka, Jason Hovet and Reuters bureaux; Writing by Peter Graff and Ron Popeski; Editing by Jon Boyle and Stephen Coates)

Republican blockade of Ukraine aid and Slovakia’s election play into Putin’s hands

CNN

Republican blockade of Ukraine aid and Slovakia’s election play into Putin’s hands

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN – October 2, 2023

Tom Brenner for The Washington Post/Getty Images

Republicans opposed to the US funding Ukraine’s lifeline against Russia scored their first major success when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy didn’t include a $6 billion request for aid in a stopgap bill that averted a government shutdown.

The result, which left President Joe Biden demanding swift action to fulfill Kyiv’s needs, made for a good weekend for Russian President Vladimir Putin. But it left Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with plenty more to worry about after shifts elsewhere in global politics played into Moscow’s push to outlast the West in Russia’s war in Ukraine. Biden suggested he had a “deal” with McCarthy on moving assistance for Ukraine in a separate measure, but the Republican speaker’s office declined to confirm any such agreement.

Drama in the US coincided with another development this weekend that will cause concern in Ukraine. In neighboring Slovakia, former pro-Russia Prime Minister Robert Fico’s populist party won parliamentary elections. Fico anchored his campaign on his anti-US rhetoric, vows to stop sending weapons to Ukraine and a pledge to thwart Kyiv’s NATO ambitions.

Blows to Ukraine in the US and Slovakia came on top of its spat over grain exports with Poland – one of Kyiv’s earliest and most staunch allies – which led Warsaw to warn it could stop arms shipments to its neighbor.

Each of these developments stresses a rising danger for Ukraine – that the arms and aid it needs to sustain its fight against Russia’s onslaught are increasingly getting dragged into the bitter politics of national elections in the West.

Any sign of weakening resolve for arming Ukraine among Western leaders and legislatures is an added incentive for Putin to try to extend the conflict into a war of attrition in the hope that Western publics will tire of the fight and that leaders like ex-President Donald Trump might win power next year and ditch Kyiv.

The headlines are alarming for Ukraine. And while the realities of international politics suggest that time is not yet running out for the remarkable pipeline of arms and aid that fueled its heroic resistance to Russia’s onslaught, the political ground could be shifting and augur serious long-term concerns for Kyiv.

A potential propaganda coup for Putin

In Slovakia, Fico’s SMER party won Saturday’s parliamentary elections in a swing of the political pendulum back toward the populism and nationalism that delivered Trump, Brexit and gains by far-right parties in France and Germany in recent years. In the glow of victory, Fico warned, “Slovakia and people in Slovakia have bigger problems than Ukraine,” and added he would push for peace talks.

Slovakia, a member of NATO, was previously a vocal ally of Ukraine, and a turn against its neighbor would hand Putin valuable propaganda openings. Yet on its own, Slovakia has no power to push negotiations to start. In any case, there’s no sign Ukraine is ready to talk as its offensive grinds on, or that Putin has any political or strategic motivations to do so either. And Fico has to worry about his own coalition-building before he starts deciding Ukraine policy.

And a Slovakian halt to arms shipments is unlikely to tilt the battlefield toward Russia. It did send Kyiv old Soviet MiG jets and other equipment for which it was compensated by the European Union. But its contributions are dwarfed by those of larger European powers and the United States.

A threat to block Ukraine’s entry into NATO sounds alarming. But the NATO summit this year showed that there is no prospect of Kyiv joining the Western alliance soon anyhow. And even before the Slovakian election, getting all alliance members to back its eventual membership was already a struggle. Turkey, for instance, is still blocking the accession of Sweden, a far less controversial new member of the self-defense club.

Slovakia might be home to many voters sympathetic to Moscow given its decades as part of the former Czechoslovakia in the Warsaw Pact under the iron grip of the Soviet Union. But as a NATO member, it is still dependent on the group – and, ultimately, the US – for its defense. And its economy is reliant on its European Union membership. This gives the West substantial leverage in Bratislava.

Geopolitical realities may also be decisive in Poland’s dispute with Ukraine. Many analysts believe temperatures will cool after a tense election later this month. Poland’s antipathy to Russia and desire to prevent it from winning a victory in Ukraine are borne out of decades of bitter political history unlikely to be diluted by shifting political winds. And its posture is also critical to its rising importance to the United States as one of Washington’s most important European allies.

The GOP tide against Ukraine gathers strength

Zelensky’s visit to Washington to shore up Ukraine aid last month looks prescient. But after a wild week, it’s clear that future tranches of US assistance will be far harder for the Biden administration to drive through Congress.

McCarthy, whose speakership is wobbling, pushed through a stopgap spending bill to keep the government open through mid-November, without $6 billion in Ukraine funding the Senate hoped to add to the package – which in itself represented only about a quarter of Biden’s latest Ukraine aid request. The move will not immediately imperil Ukraine on the battlefield, but a longer delay could have serious consequences. And politically, it could embolden Putin and fuel doubts about US staying power in the war among allied European leaders who are standing firm but also need to manage public opinion.

Some of Ukraine’s loudest supporters in Congress were deeply disappointed. “Putin is celebrating,” Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois told CNN. “I don’t see how the dynamics change in 45 days.” The co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus was the only House Democrat to vote against the stopgap measure.

House Republican rebels, some of whom are threatening to topple McCarthy after he used Democratic votes to temporarily keep the government open at current spending levels, are largely opposed to more aid for Ukraine. They include Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and pro-Trump Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who wrote on social media Saturday that “Joe Biden treats Ukraine as the 51st state” after previously warning that more funds for Kyiv would be “blood money.”

Ukraine refused to panic over the interruption to its latest injection of aid in a multi-billion-dollar initiative on which its war effort largely depends, at least in its current scale. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said his country is working with the US Congress on the issue.

“We do not feel that US support has been shattered, because the US understands that what is at stake in Ukraine is much bigger than just Ukraine. It’s about the stability and predictability of the world, and therefore I believe that we will be able to find the necessary solutions,” Kuleba said.

The danger for Zelensky is that such rhetoric solidifies into a sense among voters that American interests and Ukraine’s interests are opposite. At Republican campaign events, voters often voice antipathy to sending billions of dollars to Ukraine, and polls show rising public skepticism.

Still, for now, there is a bipartisan Washington majority in favor of Ukraine aid, although the chaos in the GOP raises questions about how it will be delivered. Biden on Sunday seemed to indicate he had a deal with McCarthy on moving the funds in a separate bill, although the speaker may be too weak to deliver on any promises. “I fully expect the speaker to keep his commitment to secure the passage and support needed to help Ukraine as they defend themselves against aggression and brutality,” the president said.

McCarthy suggested that a framework that also sends more money to secure the southern US border might open the way for Ukraine funds. “They’re not going to get some package if the border is not secure,” the speaker said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “I support being able to make sure Ukraine has the weapons that they need. But I firmly support the border first. So we’ve got to find a way that we can do this together.”

But if McCarthy is toppled and replaced by a more radical speaker, Ukraine could run out of luck.

Longer term, the US elections in November 2024 are critical. Trump, the Republican front-runner, has vowed to end the war in 24 hours if elected president, presumably on terms that would favor Putin, whom he has called a “genius” and before whom he has often genuflected.

And Ukraine’s would not be the only future on the line. A second Trump term could pose an existential threat to NATO and the entire post-World War II and Cold War concept of the West.