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More than 40% of Californians voted for Trump, state ‘not as liberal as Newsom’ thinks, says expert

More than 40% of Californians voted for Trump, state ‘not as liberal as Newsom’ thinks, says expert

More than 40% of Californians voted for President-elect Trump this year, making it the most votes for a GOP presidential candidate in the blue state since George W. Bush re-election in 2004.  Experts say Californians aren’t as far left “as Newsom thinks,” citing several state ballot measures that swung conservative, followed by the ousting of progressive Soros-backed Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon. Though Trump lost California to Vice President Kamala Harris, his electoral showing in the Golden State increased significantly; he got 31% of the vote in 2016 and 34% in 2020. Even with something of a conservative exodus driving many residents to red states like Florida and Texas, Trump increased his percentage of the state vote by six points. In absolute terms, Trump’s vote numbers from California come in third behind his showings in Texas and Florida. “Trump built a cross party, multi party coalition,” Susan Shelley, VP of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “He’s built a movement that crosses party lines, and it’s reaching people who have not benefited from the policies that have been put forward.”  PROPOSITION 36 OVERWHELMINGLY PASSES IN CALIFORNIA, REVERSING SOME SOROS-BACKED SOFT-ON-CRIME POLICIES Regarding California’s clean-energy mandates, Shelley said, “People have paid dearly for this, and that’s what crosses party lines.” “Everybody’s electricity bill is higher because of the climate policies,” Shelley said. “And Trump is promising to do more domestic energy production to bring down the cost of energy, and he has a track record now of having done this as president for four years.” “The legislature is much, much more liberal, much more much further to the left than the voters are. And you can see that in the results in the propositions,” Shelley, who is also a columnist, said.  Proposition 36, which would reverse some soft-on-crime policies authored by L.A. DA George Gascon and re-establish felony offenses for certain drug and theft crimes, was overwhelmingly passed by California voters.  Another tax-related measure, Proposition 5, also failed. Critics of the measure said it would likely have led to higher property taxes, because it would have lowered the threshold to local bond issues, which are backed by tax dollars. Gascon, L.A.  County’s district attorney since 2020, was also voted out. Independent candidate Nathan Hochman, a former assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush, will replace him. “I think he knows that California is shifting and needs help,” Shelley said. “And he has spoken many times about California’s election process, mailing out 22 million ballots. He has concerns about that. He’s spoken about voter ID laws. Whether he’ll do anything about that as President, I don’t know, but he certainly has indicated that he knows Californians are not as liberal as Gavin Newsom presents them to be.” DONALD TRUMP WINS 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION California was also ground zero for several culture wars in children’s education and transgender issues, such as sex change surgeries for incarcerated people on the taxpayer dollar.  Lance Christensen, a California Policy Center political expert, told Fox News Digital these issues also played a role in earning Trump more votes in the Golden State. “I think people got tired of the rope-a-dope stuff that Governor Newsom was doing over the last several years,” Christensen said. “And they saw him doing that because of an enabling power from the Biden-Harris administration. And when they realized that the insane progressive policies that were happening in California were being amplified in D.C., I don’t think they felt like there was a good backstop.” BLUE STATE GOVERNOR SUMMONS LEGISLATURE IN RESPONSE TO TRUMP WIN: ‘READY TO FIGHT’ In July, Newsom signed a new law banning school districts from notifying parents if their child uses different pronouns or identifies as a gender that is different from what’s on their school record.  The law created significant pushback from California parents who spent months protesting the new law at local school district meetings, and one school district went so far as to sue Newsom over the law. “A lot of the social and cultural issues, the ethnic studies, the gender stuff, the hyper-sexuality that was happening in a lot of our schools, and they just didn’t want that nationwide, especially with issues like Title Nine, where more and more women feel disenfranchised by the Biden administration,” Christensen said. “I think that you’re seeing a shift in the partisan landscape of California, and it won’t be dramatic, and it won’t necessarily be consistent across the board, but I think there’s a march towards some sort of sanity when it comes to politics that won’t necessarily be a red-blue divide,” he said. On Thursday, Newsom called a special emergency session for December with the state’s legislature in response to Trump’s victory and bolster the blue state’s legal response to any future attacks. “California is ready to fight,” Newsom said on X. “Whether it be our fundamental civil rights, reproductive freedom, or climate action – we refuse to turn back the clock and allow our values and laws to be attacked.” His action comes just a day after Newsom said he “will seek to work with the incoming president.”

Israel bombs northern Gaza house killing 13 children amid ongoing siege

Israel bombs northern Gaza house killing 13 children amid ongoing siege

An Israeli strike on a house in the Jabalia refugee camp sheltering displaced Palestinians has killed at least 32 people, including 13 children, as rights groups warn of an “extremely grave situation” in northern Gaza amid weeks of ongoing military siege. “We now have a confirmed report that everybody in that house was killed. The last few remains were removed from under the rubble in the past couple of hours,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said, adding that the strike took place at 6am. Mahmoud said the attack took place “all of a sudden and without any prior warning”. According to a witness, the house was full of women and children who had been displaced from different parts of northern Gaza and had ended up in this particular building. “This is not about disarming certain groups but it’s about a systematic destruction of an entire area and turning it into more of a wasteland,” the Al Jazeera correspondent said, referring to the widespread destruction of northern Gaza due to nonstop Israeli bombardment and a military siege imposed on October 6. In a separate attack in Gaza City, an Israeli air strike on a house in the Sabra neighbourhood killed Wael al-Khour, an official at the Welfare Ministry, and seven other members of his family, including his wife and children, medics and relatives said. The Ministry of Health in Gaza said more than 50 people were killed in total and 164 injured in three attacks across Gaza on Sunday. Israel has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since it launched its devastating war on Gaza in the wake of an October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that killed more than 1,100 people and about 250 others were taken captive. The UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Friday women and children comprise nearly 70 percent of the thousands of Palestinian deaths it had managed to verify. Military siege for weeks For the past 36 days, Israeli forces have laid siege in areas in northern Gaza, including Jabalia and Beit Lahiya, choking the entry of already scarce humanitarian supplies. Mahmoud Alsaqqa, OXFAM’s food security and livelihood lead in Gaza, said the “extremely grave situation” in the Strip is deteriorating further. This comes following a warning by the Committee of Global Experts that famine is imminent in northern Gaza and action is needed within days to avert a catastrophe. “Those residing in northern Gaza are left without any essentials for survival,” Alsaqqa told Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah, as no aid or food supplies have entered the north for more than a month except for a small amount of medical supplies. “The average number of trucks coming in now is below 50. We used to have 500 trucks per day [before October 7, 2023], so you can imagine the huge needs people have compared to what’s coming in,” he said. Along with stepping up the bombardment, the Israeli army has issued new waves of forced displacement orders for residents in the north, driving people to be displaced internally from the north. Still, many have refused to leave despite the catastrophic humanitarian conditions and the near-daily shelling. Many of them told Al Jazeera that they fear leaving the area because of the risk of being attacked by Israeli soldiers. The Israeli daily Haaretz accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the military of “conducting an ethnic cleansing operation in the northern Gaza Strip”. “The few Palestinians remaining in the area are being forcibly evacuated, homes and infrastructure have been destroyed, and wide roads in the area are being built and completing the separation of the communities in the northern Strip from the center of Gaza City,” it wrote in an editorial. As of November 4, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that about 100,000 people had been displaced over four weeks from the North Gaza governorate to Gaza City. Up to 95,000 people remained in North Gaza, OCHA said. The Israeli army says it wants to prevent the regrouping of Hamas fighters there. Yet, the depopulation of the northern part of the enclave and the widespread destruction have stoked fears of war crimes. On Thursday, the Israeli military sought to distance itself from comments made last week by an Israeli commander, who said Israel was closer to “the complete evacuation” of the north and that residents from there would not be allowed back once the fighting was over. Adblock test (Why?)

Qatar suspends Gaza mediation efforts

Qatar suspends Gaza mediation efforts

NewsFeed Qatar says it has suspended its mediation efforts between Israel and Hamas after a lack of progress in reaching a ceasefire deal for Gaza. Published On 10 Nov 202410 Nov 2024 Adblock test (Why?)

The EU Migration Pact

The EU Migration Pact

Irregular migration into the EU has become the political football of the 21st century. Irregular migration into Europe is a complex and urgent issue driven by conflicts, economic struggles and human rights abuses in migrants’ home countries. To help things run more smoothly, the EU introduced the Pact on Migration and Asylum. However, it’s faced some political pushback, highlighting the ongoing challenge of balancing member states’ compliance with domestic pressures. Adblock test (Why?)

Here are the top 5 Democrats who could lead the party after Kamala’s fall

Here are the top 5 Democrats who could lead the party after Kamala’s fall

Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to President-elect Donald Trump places the Democratic Party in an awkward position of having no clear leader in the months to come. Once President Biden and Harris leave office in January, Democrats will be without a figurehead, proving an opportunity for some of the party’s top personalities to fill the void. Here are the most likely candidates: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could play a major role in shepherding the Democratic Party through the next four years. He has led Democrats in the Senate for decades, and with Rep. Nancy Pelosi stepping back from leadership in Congress, he is the most senior Democrat left in the branch. He will now have to contend once again with a Republican majority in the Senate, however. SHUTDOWN STANDOFF LOOMS IN CONGRESS’ FINAL WEEKS BEFORE TRUMP’S RETURN TO WHITE HOUSE House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., presents a younger alternative to Schumer as Pelosi’s successor in the House of Representatives. Jeffries is sure to play a central role in Democrats’ efforts to hamper the Trump administration and congressional Republicans over the next four years. ALL EYES ON CALIFORNIA AS HOUSE MAJORITY STILL HINGES ON TIGHT RACES California Gov. Gavin Newsom is widely thought to have national ambitions, and the void left by Biden and Harris could be the opportunity he’s been looking for. Newsom loudly ruled himself out from contesting Biden’s re-election campaign early in the 2024 cycle, and he is already making plays to position himself as a standout leader against Trump. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro could also position himself as a Democratic leader. Spurned by Harris as a VP pick, he is now free from the political fallout from her loss that has also disqualified Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Shapiro enjoys an over-60% approval rating in Pennsylvania, arguably the most important state for winning the presidency. While “Mayor Pete” has played a relatively quiet role under the Biden administration as transportation secretary, the Biden-Harris departure could give him an opportunity to resume his meteoric rise within the Democratic Party. Buttigieg secured a position in the party’s top tier with his performance in the 2019 Democratic primary, but it remains unclear what role he will play after the Biden administration comes to a close.