Mace teases decision on S.C. governor bid: ‘Couple of days'
In an interview on Fox News's 'Fox Report Weekend,' Mace hinted that she 'may be forced' to enter the race.
'I will be making a decision over the next couple of days about my future,' Mace said. 'I believe I may be forced to run for governor because I can't watch my beautiful red state of South Carolina go woke. It's gone woke over the last couple of years.'
The congresswoman was asked about local coverage of her Friday event in New Hampshire, which anchor Jon Scott said that the local paper reported, 'all but confirms a run for South Carolina governor.'
Mace would enter a crowded GOP primary race, with candidates including state Attorney General Alan Wilson, state Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who launched his campaign in recent days.
But Mace, in the Sunday interview, sought to present the election as a two-person race against Wilson.
'This is a two-man race, if I get in, between me and Alan Wilson, the South Carolina Attorney General, who likes to put pedophiles on trial and give them one day in jail serve,' she said.
'And so I don't believe that the South Carolina people will go for that,' she continued, 'but we'll be making a decision about my future over the next couple of days, and we're excited about it.'
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Chicago Tribune
a few seconds ago
- Chicago Tribune
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel plans to take over all of Gaza in bid to destroy Hamas
TEL AVIV, Israel — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that to destroy Hamas Israel intends to take full control of the Gaza Strip and eventually transfer its administration to friendly Arab forces, as the Security Cabinet discussed a widening of its 22-month offensive. Expanding military operations in Gaza would put the lives of countless Palestinians and the roughly 20 remaining Israeli hostages at risk while further isolating Israel internationally. Israel already controls around three quarters of the devastated territory. Families of hostages held in Gaza fear an escalation could doom their loved ones, and some protested outside the Security Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Former top Israeli security officials have also come out against the plan, warning of a quagmire with little added military benefit. An Israeli official had earlier said the Security Cabinet would discuss plans to conquer all or parts of Gaza not yet under Israeli control. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity pending a formal decision, said that whatever is approved would be implemented gradually to increase pressure on Hamas. Israel's air and ground war has killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, displaced most of the population, destroyed vast areas and caused severe and widespread hunger. Palestinians are braced for further misery. 'There is nothing left to occupy,' said Maysaa al-Heila, who is living in a displacement camp. 'There is no Gaza left.' At least 42 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes and shootings across southern Gaza on Thursday, according to local hospitals. Asked in an interview with Fox News ahead of the Security Cabinet meeting if Israel would 'take control of all of Gaza,' Netanyahu replied: 'We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza.' 'We don't want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter,' Netanyahu said in the interview. 'We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life.' The Security Cabinet, which would need to approve such a decision, began meeting Thursday evening, according to Israeli media, and it was expected to stretch into the night. Israel's military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, warned against occupying Gaza, saying it would endanger the hostages and put further strain on the military after nearly two years of war, according to Israeli media reports. Hamas-led fighters abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals but 50 remain inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive. Almost two dozen relatives of hostages set sail from southern Israel towards the maritime border with Gaza on Thursday, where they broadcast messages from loudspeakers. Yehuda Cohen, the father of Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli soldier held in Gaza, said from the boat that Netanyahu is prolonging the war to satisfy extremists in his governing coalition. Netanyahu's far-right allies want to escalate the war, relocate most of Gaza's population to other countries and reestablish Jewish settlements that were dismantled in 2005. 'Netanyahu is working only for himself,' Cohen said. Israel's military offensive has killed over 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals who keep and share detailed records. The United Nations and independent experts view the ministry's figures as the most reliable estimate of casualties. Israel has disputed them without offering a toll of its own. Of the 42 people killed on Thursday, at least 13 were seeking aid in an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where U.N. aid convoys are regularly overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds. Another two were killed on roads leading to nearby sites run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American contractor, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies. GHF said there were no violent incidents at or near its sites on Thursday. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. The military zone, known as the Morag Corridor, is off limits to independent media. Hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks while heading to GHF sites and in chaotic scenes around U.N. convoys, most of which are overwhelmed by looters and crowds of hungry people. The U.N. human rights office, witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have regularly opened fire toward the crowds going back to May, when Israel lifted a complete 2 1/2 month blockade. The military says it has only fired warning shots when crowds approach its forces. GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired into the air on some occasions to prevent deadly stampedes. Doctors Without Borders, a medical charity known by its French acronym MSF, published a blistering report denouncing the GHF distribution system. 'This is not aid. It is orchestrated killing, ' it said. MSF runs two health centers very close to GHF sites in southern Gaza and said it had treated 1,380 people injured near the sites between June 7 and July 20, including 28 people who were dead upon arrival. Of those, at least 147 had suffered gunshot wounds — including at least 41 children. MSF said hundreds more suffered physical assault injuries from chaotic scrambles for food at the sites, including head injuries, suffocation, and multiple patients with severely aggravated eyes after being sprayed at close range with pepper spray. It said the cases it saw were only a fraction of the overall casualties connected to GHF sites; a nearby Red Cross field hospital has independently reported receiving thousands of people wounded by gunshots as they sought aid. 'The level of mismanagement, chaos and violence at GHF distribution sites amounts to either reckless negligence or a deliberately designed death trap,' the report said. GHF said the 'accusations are both false and disgraceful' and accused MSF of 'amplifying a disinformation campaign' orchestrated by Hamas. The U.S. and Israel helped set up the GHF system as an alternative to the U.N.-run aid delivery system that has sustained Gaza for decades, accusing Hamas of siphoning off assistance. The U.N. denies any mass diversion by Hamas. It accuses GHF of forcing Palestinians to risk their lives to get food and say it advances Israel's plans for further mass displacement.
Atlantic
2 minutes ago
- Atlantic
A Political Game Could Redefine Voting in America
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Activists and organizers like to say that the world is run by those who show up, so the fact that what Texas's Democratic legislators need to do to further their agenda is not show up is inauspicious for them. Those lawmakers, most of whom are currently holed up in Illinois, are seeking to prevent Republicans from drawing new, gerrymandered districts that would help them expand Texas's GOP delegation in the U.S. House—and perhaps give the party a better shot at holding the House in the midterms, when the sitting president's party tends to suffer (even with presidents far more popular than Donald Trump is currently). Democrats hope to deprive the legislature of quorum, thus blocking the passage of any new map. Traditionally, states redistrict after the decennial Census, and those maps endure for a decade, unless courts order changes, as they sometimes do. Texas's current maps were drawn by Republicans, and in the most recent election, they produced 25 GOP seats and 13 Democratic ones. That's 66 percent of districts with 58 percent of the total House vote for Republicans—not bad. But under pressure from the White House, Texas Republicans are now trying to squeeze out a little more juice. The attempt to redistrict is an unusual, brazen, and questionable move, though not entirely without precedent. In 2003, Texas Republicans redrew maps so as to give themselves a majority of the state's House seats. Democrats, dubbed the 'Killer Ds,' fled the state to prevent a quorum. They were initially successful, but a later attempt to prevent a quorum failed when a member broke ranks, and a new map passed. Texas Democrats are hoping they can learn the lessons of that attempt and win this time. They have a strategy, they have support from governors out of state, and, as Politico notes, they have the chance to run out the clock on a new map before a December deadline. Still, if Democrats had any better options, they'd take them. Maintaining caucus discipline for the next four months will be no easy task. And that's assuming some of the more draconian ideas offered to break them fail. State Attorney General Ken Paxton wants to have the Democrats removed from office for their absence. (Experts say this is legally dubious, and the idea of Paxton enforcing rectitude and duty is grimly hilarious.) U.S. Senator John Cornyn, whose reelection hopes are teetering precariously in a GOP primary against Paxton, tried to one-up that by requesting that the FBI help locate the Democratic fugitives. (Never mind that they haven't obviously committed any crimes.) All things being equal, legislators skipping sessions to prevent a state government from accomplishing business isn't a good thing. Oregon Democrats were so sick of state GOP legislators doing so that they enacted a law blocking chronic absentees from running for reelection in the next term. Then again, opportunistic mid-decade redistricting isn't a good thing, either. Gerrymanders produce worse governance because they are less representative; they also feed polarization by making elected officials dependent less on the general electorate and more on primary voters. And what's happening in Texas has already spread further. As soon as Republicans began talking about a Texas redistricting effort, Democrats in states including California and New York threatened to redraw maps to retaliate and push out Republicans. Now the GOP is looking at other red states, including Indiana and Missouri, to gain more seats. This is a disheartening example of what I've called total politics, in which officials try to use every legal tool to gain any advantage, no matter the long-term consequences. In this worldview, what matters is what's possible, not what's wise. How successful these efforts outside Texas will be is not clear. Hoosier State Republicans appear unenthusiastic about redistricting, though the White House seems to believe it can twist their arm. Democrats, meanwhile, have challenges of their own. By some measures, the map over the past two elections has had a slight Democratic advantage. Moreover, as my colleague Russell Berman reports, Democrats have spent the past decade pushing good-government reforms such as independent redistricting commissions that are designed to make extreme gerrymandering more difficult. People such as former Attorney General Eric Holder, who has been the leader of Democratic advocacy for fairer districts, are now embracing the tactics they shunned and trying, somewhat painfully, to rationalize them. The explanations really come down to this: Democrats believe that they are losing an existential battle and must do whatever they can. But what they can do is limited. Gerrymanders that use race as a basis are unconstitutional, but gerrymanders that use partisanship are not—although, in the South, Democratic affiliation is often a good proxy for Black voters. Chief Justice John Roberts has written that partisan gerrymanders are unfair, but the Supreme Court ruled that it has no authority to do anything about them. Roberts recommended that states handle the issue on their own. This is where gerrymandering becomes a devilish, self-perpetuating problem. Voters who want to stop gerrymanders at the state level find their path blocked by … gerrymandering. Take North Carolina, which went from a 7–7 split in the U.S. House to a 10–4 GOP edge under a new map enacted ahead of last year's elections. State legislators have also gerrymandered their own maps, so that although Democrats won narrow majorities of all the votes cast for both the state House and state Senate, they hold only two-fifths of the seats in both chambers. For decades, the Voting Rights Act has provided a path by which Black voters are guaranteed representation, through the drawing of majority-minority districts that would be otherwise considered unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. (Texas has one of the highest proportions of Black voters among states.) Yet as the law professor Richard Hasen writes in Slate, the Supreme Court now appears to be considering throwing out majority-minority districts as unconstitutional. This week marks the 60th anniversary of the VRA, but after years of hollowing out by the Roberts Court, the VRA seems to be nearing irrelevance. The Trump administration has indicated that the Justice Department will move away from prosecuting racial discrimination in voting and toward pursuing bogus allegations of voter fraud, while the Court may soon eliminate the ability of individuals and outside groups to bring claims under the law. President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Texan who signed the VRA into law, once said, 'This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless.' If the shameless use of total politics to game districts is successful, it threatens to strip the meaning from that right. Today's News President Donald Trump's new tariff policy took effect at midnight, raising the overall average effective tariff rate to more than 18 percent, the highest since 1934. Trump posted on Truth Social yesterday that 'billions of dollars' will begin flowing into the U.S., largely from countries he says have 'taken advantage of the United States for many years.' Trump has directed the Commerce Department to change how the U.S. Census Bureau counts the population, aiming to exclude undocumented immigrants. A federal judge ordered a two-week pause on construction at Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz' detention center after a lawsuit raised concerns about its impact on the Everglades ecosystem. Evening Read My Brother and the Relationship That Could Have Been By Liz Krieger The day my brother died, the dogwoods were in bloom. I sat by my bedroom windowsill, painting my nails. Junior prom was just hours away. I was 16. My brother, Alex, was 18—just 22 months older than me. The car accident happened on a highway in upstate New York in the early morning. My brother was driving a group of his college classmates to an ultimate-frisbee tournament. Over time, my family has settled on the theory that he fell asleep at the wheel, though for a while my parents thought it was mechanical failure. They couldn't bear the alternative. The car flipped, and the roll bar above the driver's seat broke his neck. Everyone else walked away. This May marked 33 years after his death. Since it happened, I've been thinking in numbers: days, months, eventually years. It's a compulsion, really, this ongoing tally. My own private math. I have just turned 50, an age unimaginable to that 16-year-old girl, and I will have been without him for more than twice as long as I knew him. Here's a story problem: If I live to 80, what percentage of my life will I have spent as someone's sister? What percentage as no one's sister? More From The Atlantic Culture Break Explore. Last summer, Alan Taylor compiled photos of people keeping cool in the heat. Play our daily crossword.
Politico
2 minutes ago
- Politico
Cuomo takes page from Mamdani playbook
Cuomo has been undergoing a reset after losing to Mamdani in the June primary by nearly 13 points. Eschewing the aloofness with which he approached the campaign in the months leading up to his defeat, the former governor has instead been doing more interviews with the press and has twice held court at the Sheraton Hotel with the aid of a PowerPoint presentation. On Wednesday, he appeared to tacitly concede the popularity of Mamdani's platform, even as he sought to improve upon the specifics. Mamdani has pledged to make buses free for all New Yorkers, a plan that would cost around $900 million annually. On Wednesday, Cuomo proposed fully subsidizing subway and bus fares for New Yorkers earning up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level, which would apply to a family of four making up to $4,000 monthly. He pegged the annual cost at $140 million. In response to Mamdani's proposal for a city-run grocery store in each borough, Cuomo floated a new program to subsidize $100 worth of food purchases for households who make too much money to qualify for federal nutrition assistance. He pegged the cost of that initiative at $200 million a year. More broadly, Cuomo cast his proposals as more targeted to New Yorkers in need. 'I come back to it because it's constant throughout this discussion: Why is government supposed to be subsidizing the rich?' he asked, suggesting wealthy New Yorkers would take advantage of Mamdani's free buses and cheap groceries even though they are able to pay their own way. Cuomo also argued that strengthening the city's business community is the best way to ensure affordability for the populace and criticized Mamdani's plan to increase business taxes. 'What is the best answer to affordability?' he asked. 'It is business development. It is opportunity. It is jobs. It is economic growth. It is not anti-business socialism.' Mamdani's campaign pushed back against Cuomo's characterization and pointed to the former governor's fraught stewardship of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. 'Trusting Andrew Cuomo to address New York's affordability crisis is the equivalent of tasking an arsonist with putting out a fire — he created this crisis,' Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec said in a statement. 'Throughout his career, he systemically gutted our unions and social services, screwing over working people to please Republicans and billionaires. Donald Trump's chosen candidate for Mayor would only continue his lifelong assault on working people and do the bidding of the GOP billionaires funding his flailing campaign.'
