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The centrist No Labels has been attacked by Democrats who fear the group will play spoiler in 2024 and end up electing Donald Trump. Yang stressed that he is an anyone-but-Trump guy, and that I would not run for president, if I thought that my running would be counterproductive, or if it would increase the chances of someone like Donald Trump becoming president again.

During the 45-minute meeting, Yang railed against the prospect that the 2024 presidential election is shaping up to be a rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden.

He called the increasingly likely scenario terribly unrepresentative and borderline ridiculous and pointing to the advanced ages of both frontrunners.

I mean, youre talking about two guys whose combined age is 160, Yang said (the two men will be a combined 159 years old on Election Day 2024). In a country of 330 million people, you would choose these two gentlemen at this stage? I mean, it makes zero sense.

While openly against Trump, Yang also was bearish on Bidens chances. He laid out a detailed scenario in which third-party candidates could hurt the presidents campaign. He expects Cornel West, who is running on a Green Party ticket to attract two to three percent of voters in 2024 a larger vote share than Jill Stein attracted in 2016. He anticipates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will likely jump to the Libertarian Party ticket out of frustration of not getting a fair shake from the Democrats in the primary. Yang also predicted Kennedy could pull a similar number of voters as West, and pointed out that presidential elections are decided by a few hundred thousand votes across a handful of swing states.

When asked who he personally would vote for if he lived in one of those states, he refused to give a direct answer.

I mean, the fields still coming together, Yang said.

Yang, who left the Democratic Party nearly two years ago to launch his third party outfit, was in town to promote his political novel The Last Election. The Forward Party is pushing ranked-choice voting and doing away with partisan primaries.

The group, Yang said, was focusing its attention on local contests and races, hoping to affect national politics from the bottom up.

No Labels, by contrast, has put its focus on the presidential bid, attempting to gain ballot access in enough states to win the presidency with a unity ticket campaign. Among the names being discussed as part of such a ticket include current Gov. Chris Sununu (R-N.H.), former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Md.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.).

No Labels did respond to a request for comment.

Yang said Biden would benefit politically if he agreed to doing debates with his Democratic opponents, including Kennedy.

For his part, Yang said he was still planning to appear with one of those opponents, Marianne Williamson, but that the scheduling had not yet lined up.

He acknowledged that third parties rarely get national attention and said there is simply no money in down-ballot elections, which is part of the reason he had launched the Forward Party.

Theres no upside, he adds. So thats why everyone gets attracted to the presidential.

But when asked about whether a third-party presidential bid has a realistic shot, a dose of reality appeared to set in.

The question presumes that the goal of any third party is to win a presidential election, Yang explained, which is probably one of the mistakes [and] problems of the past.

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Andrew Yang says he's had 'conversations' with No Labels - POLITICO

At last months BRICS Summit in South Africa, Argentina was among six new countries invited to join the organization, which currently consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. At the same time, as often happens at BRICS summits, there were debates about the potential for so-called de-dollarization of the global economy, meaning the promotion of alternative currencies to the U.S. dollarpossibly including a BRICS-led currencyfor settling international trade transactions. In addition to advancing BRICS much-touted desire to replace the U.S.-led global order with a multipolar one, de-dollarization would allow Russiaand Iran, which was also invited to join the groupto more easily evade U.S. economic sanctions.

The government of Argentine President Alberto Fernandez is definitely on board with the de-dollarization agenda. Fernandez has expanded Argentinas currency swaps in yuan with China and advocated for local currency usage in trade with Brazil, in part to mitigate his governments exchange and monetary policies, which has drained Argentina of its foreign currency reserves, including dollars. de-dollarization and a shift away from the U.S.-led economic order appear to be a key part of the foreign policy agenda of both the Fernandez government and his ruling Peronist coalition.

However, days prior to the BRICS Summit, Javier Milei, a libertarian economist and proponent of dollarizing Argentinas economy, finished first in the countrys open presidential primary, making him the frontrunner for Octobers presidential election. The second-place finisher, opposition candidate Patricia Bullrich, has not advocated for full dollarization, but she hopes to remove the currency controls put in place by the Peronists to allow a greater flow of dollars into and out of the country. As the Peronist candidate, Economy Minister Sergio Massa, has little chance of winning in October, either Milei or Bullrich is likely to be Argentinas president next year. Both have also already expressed their opposition to joining BRICS.

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Argentina Shows Limits of BRICS Dream of Replacing US Dollar ... - World Politics Review

A Republican Party leader in St. Joseph, Mo., threatened to bar elected leaders from running for office as Republicans if they voted to reappoint a gay pastor as a library board member.

The Kansas City NPR affiliate KCUR reports that Buchanan County Republican Central Committee chair Steven Greiert emailed St. Josephs mayor and council regarding Brian Kirks library board seat renewal on August 4.

According to Greiert, if city council members vote to advance his reappointment, the Republican Party would not accept filing fees from them in the future if they run for other Republican positions.

Kirks renomination has been controversial since conservative Grace Calvary Chapel members started criticizing him this summer for supporting LGBTQ+ rights. Senior pastor Josh Blevins had led the charge against the gay pastor. Kirk is the pastor of First Christian Church and a volunteer on the librarys board.

As part of Greierts proposal to Mayor John Josendale, he suggested he dismiss people who affirm LGBTQ+ rights and replace them with all new people, who would equally represent both sides of the issue on transgenderism and drag-queen shows and literature in the library.

Although elected positions locally are nonpartisan, Greiert claimed the mayor and city council members ran on conservative values and with the support of Republicans, which they courted.

You and the other City Council members can always run as Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, or pedestrians or anything else without our approval, Greiert announced. But you will need our endorsement before you can run as Republicans for anything anywhere.

If you choose to renew the appointment of Pastor Kirk and the continuation of the left-leaning majority that has existed on that Board for a long time, then we will know whom to hold accountable and whom we can no longer trust to lead the city, he threatened.

The hostility toward the LGBTQ+ community among conservatives in the area is clear from the documents KCUR acquired.

Greiert sent an email on June 20 urging city council member Andy Trout not to approve Kirk to the library board.

This transgender and homosexual propaganda is pure evil, Greiert claimed. It is designed to destroy the family, to undercut traditional American values and our way of life, and ultimately institute governmental control that will undermine our city, county, state, and nation.

Trout replied affirmatively.

I absolutely agree! Good news is that John pulled the nomination! he responded.

Kirk has maintained that he is the victim of discrimination based on homophobia. He's found some solace in the support for him.

Though it's a small community, it's a rather libertarian community where we respect differences, Kirk said. We sort of have a live and let live philosophy here. And although that's been tested over the last several months, I think it still holds true that we are a community that tries to be as welcoming as we can be.

A number of community members are urging the city to extend nondiscrimination protections to all city board and commission volunteers. As far as the mayor was concerned, Kirks non-renomination to the library board was not discriminatory.

Brian had done a good job on the library board when he was there. But again, when you look at boards, Josendale told the station, a lot of people are looking to see how things can be done differently.

Kirks told KCUR earlier in the summer that he was told by Josendale that he wouldn't be reappointed to the board. Library director Mary Beth Revels was also at the meeting and corroborated the conversation and Kirk's version of events. Josendale allegedly said too many people had emailed about the renomination.

He said, its just causing conflict in the city. And for my protection and my church's protection, he was gonna go ahead and take me off the board, Kirk told the outlet. He then proceeded to talk about, people are concerned about woke ideology spreading and too many Pride flags in our downtown.

Revels said, The mayor at that point was just like, Im sorry. I respect you. I think you've done a great job. I just don't want this controversy. And I think that the best way to not hurt you, not hurt the library, not hurt the city, is to just stop right here.

In an email to KCUR, Josendale said those accounts of the conversation were not true. However, the mayor wouldn't answer questions from the outlet about what parts were not true. The mayor ended up listing Kirk for renomination, but Kirk only received two recommendations out of nine.

Kirk was not renominated for the board.

Pictured above is Josh Blevins (L) and Brian Kirk.

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Missouri Local GOP Chair Tried to Block Gay Pastors Library Board Reappointment - Yahoo News

DONALD SEARS

A self-styled libertarian who had migrated from Vermont to Florida to escape high taxes and government overreach looked out from his beachfront home at the ominous clouds in the distance. The retiree Googled the National Weather Service to see what its satellites showed. He knew the government also flew planes into hurricanes to determine their strength and direction. And yes, he was in a storms path.

He then worried about his government insurance, the one he had to buy, because no private insurer would insure him. He calmed himself with the thought that the government agency FEMA would make up for any insurance shortfalls.

Then he began worrying about getting help if he got into trouble. But surely the National Guard or the Coast Guard would send someone to his aid.

And what about after the storm? Would the Post Office be able to deliver his Medicare medication? Luckily for him the government had already arranged for his Social Security check to be direct deposit.

Well, the storm came and went. It did exactly as the National Weather Service predicted. Stubbornly hed weathered the storm at home. When the storm was over, the Coast Guard checked on him and the National Guard delivered provisions. His Medicare medication came through the Post Office almost on time and his government insurance and FEMA partnered in his recovery.

His one and only complaint was that Biden waited a whole week before visiting to see how he and his neighbors had made out.

Donald Sears (No relation to Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears) is a resident of Frederick County

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Open Forum: Something to complain about | Winchester Star ... - The Winchester Star

Binances BNB Chain has made significant strides over the years. The networks worthwhile capabilities managed to attract a number of DeFi, GameFi, and SocialFi projects on the BNB Chain. Despite being in the midst of the bear market, the network has been able to put on a good show. At the beginning of Q2, around 276.2 million people had interacted with the BNB Chain. However, now the number is up by around 40%, to 385.7 million. In the same period, the number of unique Ethereum addresses has only grown by 7.2%. At press time, it flashed a value of 243.1 million, significantly lower than BNB Chain.

Even though the number of users has risen, transactional activity has taken a hit. The number of transactions surpassed the 5 million threshold a couple of times in 2023. However, in light of their latest downtrend, this metric has been hovering around the brink of 3 million as of late.

On the absolute front, Ethereum has been settling relatively fewer transactions, however, it has not lost ground amid the current turbulent environment. Its number has been relatively stable around the 1 million threshold.

Also Read: 1750 Wallets Tied to Grayscale Bitcoin Trust Hold ~1000 BTC Each

Crypto-wise, ETH has a much wider trader-investor appeal. According to social stats from LunarCrush, Ethereum has been mentioned 635,930 times over the past week on social platforms. Binance Coin, on the other hand, only managed to attain 52,780 mentions. Even on the dominance and engagement fronts, Ethereum was miles ahead of Binance Coin.

Also Read: Ripple Co-founder: Gensler Likes Lack of Clarity

On the price front, both assets recently lost a critical support level. As a result, their movements have been restrictive of late. Both BNB and ETH have registered moves of less than 1% over the past day.

The drop in the number of transactions has rubbed off negatively on the price of BNB. Since the beginning of Q2, this asset has lost 32% of its value. Ethereum, on the other hand, has been successful in capping its losses at 10.5% in the same timeframe.

Also Read: XRP Volume Rises to $720 Million: Surpasses Dogecoin, Solana

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Binance Coin Hovers Above $200: BNB Smart Chain Users Rise 40% - Watcher Guru