Jim Banks

“Hamas’s global financial footprint and use of the regulated international financial system means that its facilitators likely have access to the US financial system,” thunders National Review’s Jim Geraghty.

by Jim McMahon, Ricky Williams, and Kyle TurleyWhen we played in the NFL, they told us when drug tests were. Everyday Americans don’t get that option. Despite what President Biden proclaims, individuals are still being locked up for a plant that others are making millions selling. Patients in the greatest country in the free world still don’t have access to or the necessary research for a potentially life saving medicine. While we may have enjoyed privileged access to information and resources during our careers, the vast majority of Americans remain in a system that restricts their rights and access to a plant that has proven benefits.We dedicated our careers to the love of the game and our fans, often at great physical and mental cost. Our experiences have led many of us to use cannabis for healing. Recognizing the need for safe, effective therapeutic options for everyone, we are committed to breaking the stigma around cannabis, advocating for fair legislation, and ensuring access to this vital plant for all who need it. According to Marijuana Policy Project, since legal cannabis sales began in Colorado and Washington state in 2014, the U.S. adult-use cannabis market has generated a combined total of more than $20 billion in tax revenue from legal sales for state budgets. This figure does not include medical cannabis tax revenue, application and licensing fees paid by cannabis businesses, additional income taxes generated by workers in the cannabis industry, or taxes paid to the federal government. It also excludes the hundreds of thousands of dollars in new revenue from adult-use cannabis taxes generated for local municipalities.Billions of dollars are transacted every year on cannabis, yet because it remains illegal at the federal level any revenue generated from its sales is like kryptonite to banks. Do you know ...Full story available on Benzinga.com

Spartanburg Democratic Party Chairwoman Kathryn Harvey is the first serious Democrat to run for South Carolina's 4th Congressional District in years. Running in a conservative district versus GOP incumbent William Timmons, she believes she can compete — even as history...

Suddenly, Kamala Harris’ favorite word is freedom. She and Tim Walz are crafting a campaign strategy to hijack the "freedom” mantle from Republicans, a brand that the GOP has claimed since the Reagan era.

The family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice says it has reached an agreement with a credit collection company to avert the foreclosure of their historic hotel as he runs for U.S. Senate. The Greenbrier resort hotel came under threat...

Here are some ideas for things that can make their lives a bit easier, depending on their needs and fields of study.

The family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice says it has reached an agreement with a credit collection company to avert the foreclosure of their historic hotel as he runs for U.S. Senate. The Greenbrier resort came under threat of...

MAGA loyalist Vivek Ramaswamy was swiftly fact-checked after claiming that Kamala Harris had slurred Republican voters as "weird."The failed GOP presidential candidate appeared Thursday morning on CNN to discuss the Democratic National Convention and urge fellow Republicans to remain focused on attacking Harris on the issues rather than insulting her personally, and he tried to claim that Democrats were more engaged in that sort of activity than the famously denigrating Donald Trump."We have not been going hard enough at her for that policy record," Ramaswamy said. "You look at the other side, their strategy has been to call about 70-plus million Americans 'weird.' I think that's a winning strategy for us, especially against the backdrop of Democrats, who have made this quite personal. I think that's a contrast from Democrats. Think about the Democratic convention, chanting 'lock him up,' chants of 'weird,' effectively calling 70-plus million Americans on the other side weird."ALSO READ: ‘Stop the Steal’ organizer hired by Trump campaign for Election 2024 endgameCNN's John Avlon had been pressing Ramaswamy to comment on Trump's personal attacks on Harris, but co-host Sarah Sidner jumped in at this point to correct their guest. "They're not calling the Americans that, they're not calling Americans weird," Sidner said, as Ramaswamy protested. "They're not calling the electorate weird. You know they're specifically talking about the vice president, Republican vice presidential nominee [J.D. Vance], and Donald Trump, not the electorate."The loquacious Ramaswamy was monetarily left speechless and could only agree to disagree."Well, I beg to differ on that characterization," he said. "You look at the way that many Republicans, even down-ballot Republicans, are treated in these races. My goal is not to play the victim card here, my goal is actually to highlight an opportunity that Republicans have to say that, at a moment when they're leveling personal insults at you, you know what? You have an opportunity, we have an opportunity, to attack even harder on the policy record."Watch below or click the link here.

Welcome to At the Races! Each week we bring you news and analysis from the CQ Roll Call campaign team. Know someone who’d like to get this newsletter? They can subscribe here. By Mary Ellen McIntire, Daniela Altimari and Niels Lesniewski Editor’s note: At the Races will not come out on Aug. 29. It will return [...]The post At the Races: Can ‘joy’ give Democrats the House gavel? appeared first on Roll Call.

Arizona Democrats are calling former President Donald Trump’s planned visit to the Arizona border Thursday nothing more than a photo op, after he blew up a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year. Trump is set to make a campaign stop in Cochise County, to visit the state’s border with Mexico.“He likes to make a trip (to the border), it seems, about once a year to get his picture taken by the fence,” U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly said during an Aug. 21 call with journalists.And Kelly said he believes that Americans see through Trump’s posturing.“They know that there’s only one person who is actually interested in finding some real solutions to solving the issues at our border, and that is Vice President (Kamala) Harris,” Kelly said.GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUBSCRIBEAhead of his visit to Arizona, Trump’s campaign blamed Harris for the border crisis, including “crime and chaos caused by illegal immigrants” and overdoses of the opioid fentanyl that has been trafficked into the country from Mexico.According to the United States Sentencing Commission, 86% of people sentenced for trafficking fentanyl from 2017 through 2021 were U.S. citizens.“President Donald J. Trump knows that the people of Arizona and the rest of the country cannot take another four years of a missing-in-action border Czar who refuses to act to secure our border and protect our country,” the Trump campaign wrote in an email. “President Trump will Make America Great Again by stopping the migrant invasion and carrying out the largest deportation operation in American history.”But Kelly and Bisbee Mayor Ken Budge, both Democrats, castigated Trump for running on a promise to secure the border after he told Republicans in the U.S. Senate not to vote for a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.Trump urged Senate Republicans not to support the proposed legislation because he wanted to campaign on the issue, and didn’t want to hand a win to President Joe Biden. Some progressive Democrats and members of the Hispanic Caucus also criticized the bill for providing too many concessions to Republicans.The bill was aimed at reducing border crossings, bolstering restrictions for asylum seekers and would have allowed the government to sanction and seize the assets of those involved in the fentanyl supply chain.Kelly characterized Trump’s ordering Republicans to kill the bill as “one of the most hypocritical things I’ve seen.”He added that, if Harris is elected president, she has promised to sign a bipartisan border security bill, which will include higher pay for border patrol agents as well as funding to hire more agents.Kelly accused Trump and Vance of wanting to campaign on the issue of border security, without a desire to actually address the issues.“When that border bill blew up, I just couldn’t stand it any longer,“ Budge said, acknowledging that the bill wasn’t perfect but that he believed it would have “produced results.”Budge said that it’s important to keep the flow of commerce open between border cities like Bisbee and sister cities in Mexico, and that the mass deportations that Trump has promised if he’s elected would make Latinos feel targeted and separate families.Both Kelly and Budge avoided directly answering a question from a reporter about whether Harris would visit the border. Trump has repeatedly criticized Harris for failing to make the trip.“Just to have your picture taken with a big, rusty wall behind you, I don’t think accomplishes anything,” Budge said.Instead, Harris is hearing — through surrogates — from the people and leaders of border cities, which Budge said was more important.In late July, mayors of some left-leaning Arizona border cities — Bisbee, Nogales, Somerton and San Luis — endorsed Harris.Those mayoral positions are nonpartisan, but Jorge Maldonado, the mayor of Nogales, spoke alongside Trump-backed Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Kari Lake during her “Mama Bear Border Tour” last November.After speakers last night at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago called out Trump for the part he played in blowing up the border security bill, he lashed out at Harris via social media.“Tomorrow, I will be going to the Southern Border to address the plague of Migrant Crime and Migrant Rape that so-called Border Czar, Comrade Kamala Harris, has unleashed on America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, a social media site that he founded. “This nightmare ends, and ends immediately, with our VICTORY in November!”The Trump campaign also sent out emails placing the blame on Harris for a “porous border” and for releasing “criminals and terrorists” into the country.It’s true that unauthorized border crossings spiked during Biden’s first three years as president, before seeing a steep drop this year. But those numbers were influenced by many factors, including the end of COVID-19 lockdowns and turmoil in multiple Latin American countries.In June, Biden issued an executive order that barred most immigrants who entered the country illegally from seeking asylum, a move that was criticized by Republicans as “too little, too late” and by progressives as a betrayal of Biden’s promises of humane action at the border.Unaccompanied children are exempt, along with victims of human trafficking, people with visas, people with medical emergencies or those who report serious threats to their lives.After his visit to the border today, Trump is hosting a campaign rally at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale on Friday, the same venue where Harris drew a crowd of approximately 15,000 supporters on Aug. 9.SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATEArizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: [email protected]. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and X.

The Trump campaign gave journalists a letter it published on X and sent to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz blasting him over claims of stolen valor.

The Trump campaign released a campaign policy website for Vice President Kamala Harris, as she has yet to release one despite rising to the top of the Democratic ticket weeks ago.

Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, courted Republican and Libertarian voters in Nebraska Saturday while speaking to supporters in Omaha.

Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., won the nomination to another term Tuesday, unlike colleague Jamaal Bowman, a fellow progressive who lost his primary in New York in June.

Democratic Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, left and Republican challenger Eric Hovde have been battling each other for months, making Tuesday’s primaries more of a formality.

If he wins in November, former President Trump would likely attempt to take a more hands-on role steering the Federal Reserve's policy moves than has been seen in decades.Why it matters: Trump could attempt to install Fed appointees who are personally loyal to him — and willing to take direction from the White House — in ways that would surely reverberate through the U.S. economy and markets.However, there are some limits — both political and economic — on his ability to follow through on those instincts.What they're saying: "The Federal Reserve is a very interesting thing and it's sort of gotten it wrong a lot," Trump said at a news conference Thursday."And you know that's very largely a — it's a gut feeling. I believe it's really a gut feeling. And I used to have it out with [Fed chair Jerome Powell]. I had it out with him a couple times very strongly. I fought him very hard," Trump said."I feel the president should have at least say in there, yeah. I feel that strongly. I think that, in my case, I made a lot of money. I was very successful. And I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve or the chairman."State of play: As we've previously reported, Trump would have few options to remake the Fed in his image in the first 16 months of a new term. There are no governor vacancies until January 2026, and Powell's term as chair extends until May 2026.But after that, Trump could look to appoint Fed leaders who have agreed to abandon modern norms around keeping the White House at arm's length.Since at least the 1990s, the conventional wisdom among presidents and their close advisers has been that jawboning the Fed is counterproductive.Between the lines: It's crystal clear that Trump wants more obedient central bankers. He would face two major constraints: the bond market and the Senate.If Trump successfully installs Fed leadership that will cut interest rates on his orders, it could cause bond markets to lose confidence in the central bank's credibility on inflation, paradoxically causing longer-term interest rates to rise.And there is strong support in the Senate for the principle of central bank independence. Even assuming a Republican majority, appointees seen as excessively deferential to the White House may have a hard time winning confirmation.Zoom out: The paradox of Trump's pursuit of a complaisant Fed chair is that he would need to find an appointee who listens to Trump on policy, but whom markets and the Senate view as firmly independent.If Trump wins and seeks to assert greater power over the Fed's decisions, it won't be without historical precedent. Several presidents did exactly that, though their approaches — and success levels — varied.Flashback: Richard Nixon's administration pressured Fed chair Arthur Burns to loosen the money supply in many subtle and not-so-subtle ways, hoping to rev up the economy before the 1972 election."I respect his independence," Nixon said at Burns' swearing-in ceremony in 1970, adding ominously, "however, I hope that independently he will conclude that my views are the ones that should be followed."Later, Nixon's dirty-tricks squad spread the accusation that Burns was seeking a large pay raise amid high inflation, meant to pressure Burns to acquiesce to the president's preferred monetary easing.Burns largely acquiesced to Nixon's desire for monetary stimulus heading into the 1972 election — a decision that many economic historians believe contributed to inflation becoming unmoored as the decade progressed (though there is some revisionist thought that this is unfair to Burns).Only somewhat more subtle was the Reagan administration. In 1984, Fed chair Paul Volcker was summoned to the White House."As I arrived, the president, sitting there with Chief of Staff Jim Baker, seemed a bit uncomfortable," Volcker wrote in his memoir. "He didn't say a word. Instead, Baker delivered a message: 'The president is ordering you not to raise interest rates before the election.'""I was stunned," Volcker wrote. "Not only was the president clearly overstepping his authority by giving an order to the Fed, but also it was disconcerting because I wasn't planning tighter monetary policy at the time.""What to say? What to do?," Volcker wrote. "I walked out without saying a word."Volcker added that he had already been planning to ease policy following the collapse of the Continental Illinois bank.

POCATELLO — The fifth annual Prepare to Roar athletics fundraising campaign begins Monday, with sights set on a fundraising record for a third consecutive year.

Then-Rep. Tim Walz speaks about deportation of veterans at a news conference on Nov. 16, 2017.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert made a rare appearance at the annual National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Friday.

Trump’s rhetoric this week indicates that divisive attacks on race may emerge as a core GOP argument.

BIFF has provided jobs, income for local businesses, and national and international recognition. It is a pillar of our community and the cultural experience here each year. If Boulder gets the Sundance Film Festival, it will most likely destroy BIFF in short order.

GOP megadonors like Paul Singer, Miriam Adelson, and Ken Griffin opened their checkbooks in the second quarter of 2024.

Senators will begin floor debate late next week on a bill or package of bills aimed at cutting property taxes in Nebraska.

Nebraska lawmakers could still deliver property tax relief by expanding an existing property tax credit program, if Gov. Jim Pillen's effort fails, a key committee was told Wednesday.

99 days before Election Day, a fundamentally new race is taking shape with new candidates, a new issue focus and a new outlook for both parties.

Public records in Nebraska show that nearly a third of Section 8 vouchers expire each year in Lincoln before people are able to secure housing.

Candidates for federal and state legislative posts will compete for their parties’ nominations in primaries in Tennessee

City planners want to change the process in existence for 30 years for bars, restaurants and off-sale businesses to sell alcohol, eliminating the need for a special permit.

City planners want to change the process in existence for 30 years for bars, restaurants and off-sale businesses to sell alcohol, eliminating the need for a special permit.

In a Q&A with the Journal Star, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen defended his controversial tax plan and the money he personally stands to save through historic property tax cuts.

Gov. Jim Pillen on Wednesday called the Nebraska Legislature back to Lincoln for an "extraordinary session" aimed at reducing property taxes in the state.

Sen. Tom Cotton introduced a bill to strip noncitizens of applicable visas if they're convicted of participating in violent or destructive protests.

In 2021, he referred to Democrats as "a bunch of childless cat ladies." He's also said parents should have more political say than people who don't have kids.

The city has started replacing lead pipes in 16 homes in the Woods Park neighborhood for free as part of a city-led initiative bolstered by a $32.6 million federal loan.

Gov. Jim Pillen's pledge to cut Nebraskans' property taxes in half would reduce his own tax bill by nearly $1 million, a Journal Star analysis of property records found.

From “brat summer” to “coconut tree,” a tidal wave of Kamala Harris memes are flooding social media timelines. Here’s a primer to get in the know.

The presidential campaign seemed destined to be a slog featuring two candidates, Biden and Trump, who voters didn't really want. That changed on Sunday, just 107 days before the election.

President Biden is passing the torch to Vice President Harris, which changes the narrative of the race against former President Donald Trump.

Donald Trump’s political team has been preparing to run against Vice President Kamala Harris for weeks, something they got one step closer to on Sunday after President Joe Biden said he is dropping out of the 2024 race.

Garner Industries plans to sell the land where the remains of its manufacturing plant sit after a tornado blew through the area and took the company’s operation with it.

Even before Joe Biden’s stunning withdrawal, Kamala Harris was widely viewed as the favorite to replace him on the ticket. But her nomination is hardly a sure thing.

Joe Biden can't just sign over his delegates to Kamala Harris after dropping out and endorsing her. Still, she has a big head start on the process.

Former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse announced Thursday he will step down as president of the University of Florida at the end of the month because of his wife's health issues.

The governor called for a "hard cap" on local governments' yearly spending increases and for the state to take over the majority of funding for Nebraska's public schools.