Latest news with #swingstate
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Business
- Washington Post
In Pennsylvania, Trump touts jobs, hails ‘AI technological revolution'
President Donald Trump traveled to Pennsylvania Tuesday to claim credit for billions of dollars in investments that companies have planned, which he said would make the key swing state 'a leading hub' for energy and artificial intelligence. The visit was the latest effort by the White House to tout what the president and his aides call the 'Trump Effect.' Many of the deals for which the president has taken credit predate his presidency, however, or are part of companies' existing plans to partake in the AI gold rush.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Three Things That Just Aren't Worth It
By its very definition, 'waste' means using your time, money, and resources on things unlikely to return value. It's an opportunity cost. By inverse, skipping wasteful things spares you from those stupid headaches. You invite more happiness and efficiency into your life. In 2024, a friend announced on her Facebook feed, 'If you plan on voting for Biden, just unfriend me now!' Shortly thereafter, she appeared in a comment section, all-caps replying to people over election issues. Each comment got more corrosive and insulting. People were name-calling and going deep into bitter 37 reply threads. A week later, she made another post ranting, 'Facebook is so toxic. I have found out who my real friends are. Time to take a break from this place.' Yet she was the one who invited this toxicity into her feed. To be fair, we live in an important swing state (Florida). Tensions run extremely high during elections. I've seen friendships dissolve over elections that went well beyond clicking 'unfriend'. John Stuart Mill, the father of modern utilitarianism, once wrote, 'So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it.' More plainly, Mill saw that emotion entrenched people's beliefs. He inferred, 100 years early, that internet arguments are futile. Without underlying respect, two people can never hope to convince each other of anything. And in the veil of internet anonymity, respect is fleeting. Let's face it: Most internet users are only interested in being right. So don't bother reasoning with them. It's like arguing with a drunk person. The funny thing? When I've gone to writer meetups, the nastiest, most aggressive online writers who argue 24–7 with readers, are often the shyest in real life. They are meek. They stand in the corner during cocktail hour, smiling and not saying anything. And so I say to you — is it really worth going through your day, angry about what a stranger said to you online? Just as so many people are banefully toxic, many of you keep these exact people in your everyday life. You reason with them. You give them second chances. They cheat on you once again. They flake on dinner plans. You get begged into trusting them and being their friend/partner again. Only to get burned, over, and over, and over again. I never thought I'd be one of those people who got burned and then was talked back into being friends with that person again. I was just reading about a woman and her abusive partner. She described going back to him repeatedly after he apologized. I sat reading the story pleading to myself for her to stop doing it, even though this story took place in the past and that she was now free. On paper, these decisions are always so easy, especially from the outside. There's no emotion or shared history to cloud your judgement. The healthiest thing I ever did was face this hard reality: just because I love and care about a person, doesn't mean they should be in my life. My open-door policy and being too forgiving were ruining me. I was losing my spine. I was becoming a person I hated, letting other people completely walk all over me. Walking away is one of the hardest things I've ever done. It hurts and feels like having a death in the family. But if you don't cut toxic out, they'll just bring more havoc to your life. You'll be looking back 10 years from now wondering why it took you so long to figure things out. This chapter should have been closed in middle school. The number of unintended pregnancies continues to hover around 50% in the United States. Granted there are very real needs around education and access to contraception—there's also quite a bit of willful ignorance at work, as I've seen firsthand. People continue to wing it on birth control, or opt out entirely, using highly unreliable methods that just create an enormous problem they have to contend with (women especially). My friend told me a interesting story. He was 18, and still in high school. He was parked in front of a pharmacy during a storm. He needed to buy condoms but was so embarrassed and scared to do it, worrying about being judged. He kept sitting there, delaying and delaying, watching the rain hitting his windshield. He tried to pretend the rain was the reason he couldn't go into the store. Then, he had an epiphany, and realized, 'If I am not mature enough to buy condoms, I should not be having sex.' I thought it was a rare and candid moment that you rarely hear from a person. It's never my goal to call an unintended child a 'problem'. However, these surprise babies create a world of other problems for people who aren't ready to be a parent. They end up co-parenting with someone they can't stand — or hardly knew. They end up in a legal battle over visitation. I see friends, still dealing with drama co-parenting a kid they had more than 10 years ago. And then there's the cost of daycare, food, and the infinite list of unexpected problems you have to squash each day. Every tiny aspect of your life is forever changed because you didn't spend a few extra bucks on protection. After my divorce, I was absolutely stunned by the number of single parents I saw on dating apps. It felt like 1 in 3. Every other profile was a car selfie with a kid in the backseat. Sure, it might feel good to break rules and be naughty. Just mark my words — there's a haunting feeling that sinks in later. The affirming question I try to repeat to myself with risky decisions is, 'Will I be glad I made this decision, hours, days, or months from this moment?' I don't always get it right. But it was that exact question that helped me quit smoking. I knew I'd never look back and think, 'I wish I'd just smoked for a few more years.' Life is full of wasteful activities. Avoid them and you'll be ahead of the pack. Getting tied up in internet debates. Just move on. Trying to save dying friendships and relationships. Cut out toxic people. Treating birth control like a game you can wing it with.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Three Things That Just Aren't Worth It
By its very definition, 'waste' means using your time, money, and resources on things unlikely to return value. It's an opportunity cost. By inverse, skipping wasteful things spares you from those stupid headaches. You invite more happiness and efficiency into your life. In 2024, a friend announced on her Facebook feed, 'If you plan on voting for Biden, just unfriend me now!' Shortly thereafter, she appeared in a comment section, all-caps replying to people over election issues. Each comment got more corrosive and insulting. People were name-calling and going deep into bitter 37 reply threads. A week later, she made another post ranting, 'Facebook is so toxic. I have found out who my real friends are. Time to take a break from this place.' Yet she was the one who invited this toxicity into her feed. To be fair, we live in an important swing state (Florida). Tensions run extremely high during elections. I've seen friendships dissolve over elections that went well beyond clicking 'unfriend'. John Stuart Mill, the father of modern utilitarianism, once wrote, 'So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it.' More plainly, Mill saw that emotion entrenched people's beliefs. He inferred, 100 years early, that internet arguments are futile. Without underlying respect, two people can never hope to convince each other of anything. And in the veil of internet anonymity, respect is fleeting. Let's face it: Most internet users are only interested in being right. So don't bother reasoning with them. It's like arguing with a drunk person. The funny thing? When I've gone to writer meetups, the nastiest, most aggressive online writers who argue 24–7 with readers, are often the shyest in real life. They are meek. They stand in the corner during cocktail hour, smiling and not saying anything. And so I say to you — is it really worth going through your day, angry about what a stranger said to you online? Just as so many people are banefully toxic, many of you keep these exact people in your everyday life. You reason with them. You give them second chances. They cheat on you once again. They flake on dinner plans. You get begged into trusting them and being their friend/partner again. Only to get burned, over, and over, and over again. I never thought I'd be one of those people who got burned and then was talked back into being friends with that person again. I was just reading about a woman and her abusive partner. She described going back to him repeatedly after he apologized. I sat reading the story pleading to myself for her to stop doing it, even though this story took place in the past and that she was now free. On paper, these decisions are always so easy, especially from the outside. There's no emotion or shared history to cloud your judgement. The healthiest thing I ever did was face this hard reality: just because I love and care about a person, doesn't mean they should be in my life. My open-door policy and being too forgiving were ruining me. I was losing my spine. I was becoming a person I hated, letting other people completely walk all over me. Walking away is one of the hardest things I've ever done. It hurts and feels like having a death in the family. But if you don't cut toxic out, they'll just bring more havoc to your life. You'll be looking back 10 years from now wondering why it took you so long to figure things out. This chapter should have been closed in middle school. The number of unintended pregnancies continues to hover around 50% in the United States. Granted there are very real needs around education and access to contraception—there's also quite a bit of willful ignorance at work, as I've seen firsthand. People continue to wing it on birth control, or opt out entirely, using highly unreliable methods that just create an enormous problem they have to contend with (women especially). My friend told me a interesting story. He was 18, and still in high school. He was parked in front of a pharmacy during a storm. He needed to buy condoms but was so embarrassed and scared to do it, worrying about being judged. He kept sitting there, delaying and delaying, watching the rain hitting his windshield. He tried to pretend the rain was the reason he couldn't go into the store. Then, he had an epiphany, and realized, 'If I am not mature enough to buy condoms, I should not be having sex.' I thought it was a rare and candid moment that you rarely hear from a person. It's never my goal to call an unintended child a 'problem'. However, these surprise babies create a world of other problems for people who aren't ready to be a parent. They end up co-parenting with someone they can't stand — or hardly knew. They end up in a legal battle over visitation. I see friends, still dealing with drama co-parenting a kid they had more than 10 years ago. And then there's the cost of daycare, food, and the infinite list of unexpected problems you have to squash each day. Every tiny aspect of your life is forever changed because you didn't spend a few extra bucks on protection. After my divorce, I was absolutely stunned by the number of single parents I saw on dating apps. It felt like 1 in 3. Every other profile was a car selfie with a kid in the backseat. Sure, it might feel good to break rules and be naughty. Just mark my words — there's a haunting feeling that sinks in later. The affirming question I try to repeat to myself with risky decisions is, 'Will I be glad I made this decision, hours, days, or months from this moment?' I don't always get it right. But it was that exact question that helped me quit smoking. I knew I'd never look back and think, 'I wish I'd just smoked for a few more years.' Life is full of wasteful activities. Avoid them and you'll be ahead of the pack. Getting tied up in internet debates. Just move on. Trying to save dying friendships and relationships. Cut out toxic people. Treating birth control like a game you can wing it with.
Fox News
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Dems say their increasingly 'frustrated' base is mobilized in the fight against Trump's 'big, beautiful bill'
MANCHESTER, N.H. – The all-Democrat congressional delegation in swing state New Hampshire is teaming up to target President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" that he signed into law. "The big beautiful betrayal of the American people" is how longtime Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the dean of the delegation, described the sweeping Republican-crafted domestic policy package. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., charged that the tax cuts and spending measure, which passed the House and Senate last week by razor-thin margins along nearly party-line votes in the GOP-controlled chambers, was "immoral, irrational, and impractical." Rep. Chris Pappas, who's running in next year's midterm elections in the race to succeed the retiring Shaheen, argued that the bill is "a disaster for the American people." First-term Rep. Maggie Goodlander claimed that "this bill is going to jack up the cost of living for tens of thousands of people across this state." The new law is stuffed full of Trump's 2024 campaign trail promises and second-term priorities on tax cuts, immigration, defense, energy and the debt limit. It includes extending his signature 2017 tax cuts and eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay. The measure also provides billions for border security and codifies the president's controversial immigration crackdown. However, the $3.4 trillion legislative package is also projected to surge the national debt by $4 trillion over the next decade. Additionally, the legislation also restructures Medicaid – the nearly 60-year-old federal program that provides health coverage to roughly 71 million low-income Americans. The changes to Medicaid, as well as cuts to food stamps, another one of the nation's major safety net programs, were drafted in part as an offset to pay for extending Trump's tax cuts. The measure includes a slew of new rules and regulations, including work requirements for many of those seeking Medicaid coverage. For weeks, Democrats have been blasting Republicans over the Medicaid and social safety net cuts. "This is a big bill, and it's got a lot of really big provisions that are going to cause even more pain to people in our state who are already struggling with the high cost of living," Goodlander said in a Fox News Digital interview. She charged that "it includes the biggest cuts to health care in American history" in order "to pay for another big tax cut for people who don't need it." The delegation teamed up on Tuesday in New Hampshire's largest city at Waypoint, which notes that it's the state's longest-running home and community-based care charitable organization. Waypoint officials noted that roughly three-quarters of the people they service are on Medicaid. Hassan said voters in New Hampshire are "mobilized" against the measure. "The calls are coming in overwhelmingly against this bill to our offices," the senator said. "The outreach to our office has come from people from all political perspectives, people who self-identify as a Republican or a Trump voter or an independent or a Democrat." However, with Republicans in control of the White House, the House and the Senate, congressional Democrats have little power or leverage to fight Trump's second-term agenda. That is increasingly frustrating the Democrats' base. "I don't know if fighting dirty is the term, but certainly people are getting frustrated," a New Hampshire-based progressive activist told Fox News Digital. The activist, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, urged the state's all Democrat congressional delegation to "introduce a thousand floor amendments, throw sand in the gears, do something, be more outspoken." Another Granite State-based activist, who also asked for anonymity, said that many progressives feel they "are not being serviced by the current Democratic Party." "There is no hope for these people unless we see candidates emerge in primaries that represent universal free healthcare and the other slate of issues that people associate with Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaigns," the activist said. Republicans have blasted Democrats for voting against the measure, as they spotlight the tax cuts in the package. The New Hampshire Republican Party has targeted the delegation, and Pappas in particular, for their votes. "New Hampshire liberal Chris Pappas just voted for the largest tax hike in American history," the state party charged in a social media post. However, Pappas told Fox News last week that "I support targeted tax cuts for working people, for our small businesses and to make sure we are targeting that relief to the people that need it, not to billionaires, to the biggest corporations." A memo from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), released minutes after the final House passage of the bill last Thursday, argued that "every Democrat voted to hurt working families and to protect the status quo." The NRCC, which is the campaign arm of the House GOP, emphasized that "House Republicans will be relentless in making this vote the defining issue of 2026." That is fine with congressional Democrats, who aim to win back the House majority next year. Goodlander, who is up for a second two-year congressional term in next year's midterms, told Fox News "the bottom line is this bill is definitely going to be on the ballot in 2026, and it's going to be a central focus of the work I'm doing, because the crisis that we're up against is a cost crisis, and this bill is going to jack up costs across the board."
Bloomberg
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
This Arizona Primary Is the Real Bellwether for Democrats
In search of a way out of the political wilderness, many in the Democratic Party have been quick to look at the surprising victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York's mayoral primary and come up with lessons to learn. Be more authentic! Be more progressive! Be a millennial who actually knows how to use social media! Instead, Democrats would be better served by looking beyond deep-blue New York and toward more purplish places like Arizona — a strategically important and growing swing state dominated by the increasingly important voting bloc of Latinos. That's why it's worth watching the Democratic primary election to fill the seat of Representative Raul Grijalva, a popular progressive who died in March after serving 22 years in Congress.
