The Khashoggi Assassination Fallout: The Implications To Saudi Arabia And The Middle East11/19/2018 Saudi Arabia was caught torturing, murdering, and dismembering Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2, 2018. Failing to deflect blame and appease their Turkish accusers, after almost two weeks, the Saudis finally admitted that agents of the Kingdom were responsible for Khashoggi’s murder. Saudi leadership has, however, attempted to skirt responsibility by seeking the death penalty for five suspects connected to the Khashoggi case. The House of Saud under the leadership of King Salman is responding to building international backlash with a poorly orchestrated PR campaign solely designed to shield the Kingdom’s most powerful family members from culpability. World leaders like US President Donald Trump, who appears more than willing to sacrifice US moral standing to placate Saudi’s Turkish accusers, may buy into the Saudi narrative, but the world’s population already knows the truth. No matter how many loyal servants of the Kingdom are executed for the slaughter of Khashoggi, it will not change the fact that the world knows the Saudi monarch had someone assassinated in a terrifyingly brutal way.
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Donald Trump does not like CNN nor does he like CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta. The President has, in fact, quite a confrontational relationship with what he calls the fake news network as well as the journalist, who he considers a “terrible person.” Mr. Trump does not like to take questions from Mr. Acosta nor does he want any CNN corespondent present at his news briefings. For his part, Acosta does not appear to personally like the President while he certainly likes to continually ask the same questions about subjects guaranteed to anger the President. The bad blood between the two men boiled over when Trump refused to answer two loaded questions from the corespondent and Acosta refused to hand over a microphone to a White House press aide. When the aide grabbed the microphone, most likely expecting the correspondent to yield, Acosta brushed her hand away. Essentially accusing the reporter of assault, the White House used the incident as an pretext to revoke Acosta’s press pass. The incident quickly raised important First Amendment discussions that were quickly usurped by criticism of the President and the Press.
Congressional elections determine who represents the American People in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Because two main political parties dominate the US political system, Congressional elections also determine which political party controls which chambers of the Legislative Branch. Although the American People have the chance to register their approval or disapproval for the Congressional nominees vying to represent their districts, the most powerful Congressional jobs are given to those who can earn the most support from their peers. Following the 2016 Midterms, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell was reelected Majority Leader of the Senate and New York Senator Chuck Schumer was reelected Minority Leader. On the House side, Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy was elected Minority Leader while Republican Steve Scalise became Minority Whip. For House Democrats, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has complicated things.
Examining The Artificial Divide Of Political Ideology And Polarization In The 2018 Midterms11/12/2018 The Middle, or at least the moderate and centrist factions within the Democratic Party, had a noticeable impact on the post-2018 Midterm Elections dialogue. With Democrats recapturing the House of Representatives, yet failing to retake control of the Senate, moderates and centrists were able to push the notion that Democrats had a faulted victory. They, in turn, placed blame on the Party’s pivot to the Left. Although Democrats faced structural hurdles that gave Republicans strong advantages in 2018, thus they did achieve a decent victory, it is also true that Democrats did not attract enough support to overcome those structural advantages. Interpreting 2018 alongside the 2016 Presidential Election, during which Democratic Nominee Hillary Clinton failed to clinch the electoral vote in addition to the popular vote, it is clear that voters are not fully satisfied with their Democratic or Republican choices. There is no broad-base support of either. Zack Beauchamp of Vox has written a rather compelling analysis that refutes the idea that the Left is to blame. As he correctly concluded, election performance is much more complicated than ideology.
Elections are exciting times for those who enjoy politics. Throughout the proceeding campaign season, statistician get to collect and analyze mountains of data on who might vote and who might win. In turn, pundits and analyst get to argue about what, if anything, all of that data means. Presumably, pre-election data can help candidates run more effective campaigns, even if they have to obscure their true positions on the issues most important to their would-be voters. Pre-election data can also be compared to election results in order to build working models, thereby demonstrating what voters favor in a candidate and platform. Election Day is, of course, exciting, because the high stakes events give political enthusiasts the adrenalin rush that sports fans enjoy on game day. For political analysts, however, the post period election is probably the most interesting. It is, after all, the period when government can experience the most change. The 2018 Midterm Election were particularly interesting, because they delivered interesting result that shifted the power dynamics in Washington. Unfortunately, the consequences may be more chaos when better governance was desired by voters.
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