Hegseth meets with moderate Sen. Collins as he lobbies for key votes in the SenateMaybe the lesson this Christmas season is that even if turnabout is fair play, at some point, enough is enough. Start with the specious lawsuits brought against President-elect Donald Trump, to the great glee of many of his “Never Trump” and Democratic detractors. Some of them, especially Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s March 2023 indictment charging that Trump’s signing off on allegedly false business records in 2017 somehow swindled the electorate in 2016, had an immediate turnabout effect. Michael Barone Within a few weeks, what had looked like a close Republican primary race between Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) became a runaway romp for Trump. Bragg got a Manhattan jury to vote for conviction, but Trump has had the last laugh. But in the meantime, he has filed a couple of antic lawsuits of his own. And, contrary to many observers’ expectations, none has been dismissed. His targets are the political press. But just as flimsy prosecutions such as Bragg’s threatened to limit free speech by a political candidate, Trump’s — how should one put it? — creative lawsuits threaten to limit political speech all around. The first lawsuit is brought against the Des Moines Register’s well-known pollster Ann Selzer, whose Oct. 28-31 poll showed Trump trailing Vice President Kamala Harris by 47% to 44% in a state he had carried 53% to 45% in 2020. The result was all the more startling because Selzer had a record of accurately gauging late shifts of opinion in the state. The instant reaction of many analysts, professional and amateur, was to wonder whether the bottom was falling out of Trump’s campaign in Iowa and nationally. Turns out, it wasn’t. Other polls showed nothing like such a shift from 2020, and Trump carried Iowa 56% to 43%. Selzer’s postelection analysis, as former Washington Post poll analyst David Byler wrote, showed that if she had adjusted her raw results in ways most pollsters do in this post-landline-telephone era, she would have shown Trump ahead. Her methods, which had spotlighted last-minute shifts in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses, failed in a race in which opinion was more deeply rooted. Trump’s preposterous claim is that Selzer presented fake numbers to harm his campaign. I can’t imagine a jury would agree. More importantly, political campaigns are full of sound and fury, dubious claims and downright lies. Elections are adversary processes, with both sides having a say. Trump’s other creative lawsuit, as Ben Smith reports in Semafor, was brought in 2022 against the Pulitzer Prize Board for defamation, for issuing and refusing to rescind awards to journalists who wrote stories about what Trump calls, picturesquely but accurately, “the Russia, Russia, Russia” collusion hoax. Trump’s lawyers attack the board for issuing awards “particularly when many of the key assertions and premises of the Russia Collusion Hoax that permeated the Awarded Articles had been revealed by the Mueller Report and congressional investigations as false.” That, aside from the eccentric capitalization, is a fair comment. As Smith admits, much reporting on supposed Russia collusion, “with its breathless cable news and social media cheerleading, did not seriously bear out,” and “some of that reporting ... was powered by a delusion.” Smith also admits, at least via hyperlink, that he, as then-editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, first published the specious and always dubious Steele dossier. Trump has a legitimate grievance against the Democrats who concocted that document and peddled the Russia collusion canard in an effort to force him from office — an enterprise that weakened the credibility of their legitimate criticisms of him for not accepting the result of the 2020 election. It would be desirable for both Democrats and Republicans, and for the press, to return to the norm of recognizing as legitimate the results of elections, however distasteful. Enough turnabout. It would be desirable as well for Trump to drop his creative lawsuits, however gratifying it might be to submit his journalistic tormenters to the ordeal of depositions. As Eli Lake writes in the Free Press, he “should take the win and move on.” It would be desirable, thirdly, for the press to admit error, as Selzer and Smith, perhaps a little less forthrightly, have done. It is better to get into the habit of doing so voluntarily rather than risk lawsuits that may establish restrictions. The Russia collusion hoax did great harm to a duly elected president and, therefore, to the country, and it was always based on a dubious theory and on exceedingly thin, if not nonexistent, evidence. The press owe, not to Trump but to the public, a full accounting. Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. His new book, “Mental Maps of the Founders: How Geographic Imagination Guided America’s Revolutionary Leaders,” is now available. © 2024, Creators.companaloko ph slotgame 。

Germany one of India’s most important partners in Europe: ModiNone

Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson is eager to play again after spending the team's bye week thinking about a recent loss to the Eagles.WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin announced it completed critical tests of a lunar solar array prototype, demonstrating the technology’s potential for operating in the harsh environment of the moon’s south pole. The company developed one of three designs funded by NASA through approximately $20 million in contracts awarded in 2022 to Lockheed Martin, Blue Origin’s Honeybee Robotics and Astrobotic as part of the agency’s broader push to establish a sustainable presence on the moon. Under a program known as Lunar Vertical Solar Array Technology (LVSAT), the three companies developed vertical solar arrays designed to be deployable, relocatable and self-leveling — able to autonomously extend and retract to maximize sunlight exposure. Unlike traditional horizontal solar panels, these vertical arrays can extend up to 20 meters high, allowing them to capture sunlight above the terrain’s shadows, including craters and boulders that could obstruct horizontal systems. “If we are serious about sustainable lunar exploration, then we need to get serious about infrastructure,” said Christie Iacomini, program manager for LVSAT at Lockheed Martin. The company’s prototype was integrated at its facility in Waterton, Colorado. Iacomini said the array has completed deployment tests, regolith simulant evaluations, and extreme cold-soak trials at temperatures as low as -230°C, simulating lunar night conditions. Power is the linchpin for all other lunar infrastructure, from communications and transportation to habitat construction, said Rob Chambers, Lockheed Martin’s director for human and scientific space exploration strategy. At a news conference this month, Chambers said NASA “has done a great job in setting goals and objectives, but it’s up to industry to implement it,” Chambers said. “We need to start discussions about implementation.” The LVSAT arrays, he said, would be part of a lunar infrastructure strategy that Lockheed Martin has proposed , which includes leveraging lunar ice resources and exploring nuclear fission for continuous power generation during the 14-day lunar night when solar power is unavailable. For now, LVSAT’s future depends on NASA’s next steps. An agency spokesperson confirmed that all three designs in the program are close to completing testing , with final reports due in early 2025. NASA is not treating the LVSAT program as a competitive selection process. If the agency moves forward with a lunar technology demonstration, it would issue a new solicitation, potentially laying the groundwork for an operational deployment. NASA’s Artemis program aims to tap the commercial sector to establish a long-term presence on the moon as a stepping stone to Mars. Yet, analysts caution that commercial lunar activity remains aspirational, Sustainable lunar operations will require robust systems for power, communications, radiation shielding, navigation and regolith dust mitigation, all areas of the lunar economy that remain heavily dependent on government funding and objectives.NEW YORK (AP) — Richard Parsons, one of corporate America's most prominent Black executives who held top posts at Time Warner and Citigroup, died Thursday. He was 76. Parsons, who died at his Manhattan home, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2015 and cited “unanticipated complications” from the disease for cutting back on work a few years later. The financial services company Lazard, where Parsons was a longtime board member, confirmed his death. The NBA, where Parsons was interim CEO of the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014, was among organizations offering condolences. “Dick Parsons was a brilliant and transformational leader and a giant of the media industry who led with integrity and never shied away from a challenge,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said. Parsons’ friend Ronald Lauder told The New York Times that the cause of death was cancer. Parsons stepped down Dec. 3 from the boards of Lazard and Lauder's company, Estée Lauder, citing health reasons. He had been on Estée Lauder’s board for 25 years. Parsons, a Brooklyn native who started college at 16, was named chairman of Citigroup in 2009, one month after leaving Time Warner Inc., where he helped restore the company’s stature following its much-maligned acquisition by internet provider America Online Inc. He steered Citigroup back to profit after financial turmoil from the subprime mortgage crisis, which upended the economy in 2007 and 2008. Parsons was named to the board of CBS in September 2018 but resigned a month later because of illness. Parsons said in a statement at the time that he was already dealing with multiple myeloma when he joined the board, but “unanticipated complications have created additional new challenges.” He said his doctors advised him to cut back on his commitments to ensure recovery. “Dick’s storied career embodied the finest traditions of American business leadership,” Lazard said in a statement. The company, where Parsons was a board member from 2012 until this month, praised his “unmistakable intelligence and his irresistible warmth.” “Dick was more than an iconic leader in Lazard’s history — he was a testament to how wisdom, warmth, and unwavering judgment could shape not just companies, but people’s lives,” the company said. “His legacy lives on in the countless leaders he counseled, the institutions he renewed, and the doors he opened for others.” Parsons was known as a skilled negotiator, a diplomat and a crisis manager. Although he was with Time Warner through its difficulties with AOL, he earned respect for the company and rebuilt its relations with Wall Street. He streamlined Time Warner’s structure, pared debt and sold Warner Music Group and a book publishing division. He also fended off a challenge from activist investor Carl Icahn in 2006 to break up the company and helped Time Warner reach settlements with investors and regulators over questionable accounting practices at AOL. Parsons joined Time Warner as president in 1995 after serving as chairman and chief executive of Dime Bancorp Inc., one of the largest U.S. thrift institutions. In 2001, after AOL used its fortunes as the leading provider of Internet access in the U.S. to buy Time Warner for $106 billion in stock, Parsons became co-chief operating officer with AOL executive Robert Pittman. In that role, he was in charge of the company’s content businesses, including movie studios and recorded music. He became CEO in 2002 with the retirement of Gerald Levin, one of the key architects of that merger. Parsons was named Time Warner chairman the following year, replacing AOL founder Steve Case, who had also championed the combination. The newly formed company’s Internet division quickly became a drag on Time Warner. The promised synergies between traditional and new media never materialized. AOL began seeing a reduction in subscribers in 2002 as Americans replaced dial-up connections with broadband from cable TV and phone companies. Parsons stepped down as CEO in 2007 and as chairman in 2008. A year later AOL split from Time Warner and began trading as a separate company, following years of struggles to reinvent itself as a business focused on advertising and content. Time Warner is now owned by AT&T Inc. A board member of Citigroup and its predecessor, Citibank, since 1996, Parsons was named chairman in 2009 at a time of turmoil for the financial institution. Citigroup had suffered five straight quarters of losses and received $45 billion in government aid. Its board had been criticized for allowing the bank to invest so heavily in the risky housing market. Citigroup returned to profit under Parsons, starting in 2010, and would not have a quarterly loss again until the fourth quarter of 2017. Parsons retired from that job in 2012. In 2014 he stepped in as interim CEO of the Clippers until Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took over later that year. Parsons, a Republican, previously worked as a lawyer for Nelson Rockefeller, a former Republican governor of New York, and in Gerald Ford’s White House. Those early stints gave him grounding in politics and negotiations. He also was an economic adviser on President Barack Obama’s transition team. Parsons, who loved jazz and co-owned a Harlem jazz club, also served as Chairman of the Apollo Theater and the Jazz Foundation of America. And he held positions on the boards of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the American Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Parsons played basketball at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and received his law degree from Albany Law School in 1971. He is survived by his wife, Laura, and their family. This obituary was primarily written by the late Associated Press reporter Anick Jesdanun, who died in 2020 . Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Get the latest local business news delivered FREE to your inbox weekly.

Hegseth meets with moderate Sen. Collins as he lobbies for key votes in the SenateCHANGES NECESSARY?