Sam Bankman-Fried founded the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.

Tom Williams/Getty Images

• Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is being held at the Fox Hill prison in the Bahamas.
• The facility is known for harsh conditions, including being overcrowded and understaffed,
• An unnamed official at the prison told The Washington Post Bankman-Fried seemed like a “nice guy.”

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is being held at a prison in the Bahamas known for having harsh conditions but is in “good spirits,” an official at the facility told The Washington Post.

The disgraced cryptocurrency exchange founder is being held at the Fox Hill correctional facility in Nassau, where he is expected to remain until February after a judge on Tuesday denied him bail and ordered he remains in custody while awaiting extradition to the US.

Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday by authorities in the Bahamas after US officials charged him with multiple counts, including fraud and money laundering.

An unnamed official at the prison told The Post Bankman-Fried came off as “a little arrogant” and “awfully scared” after arriving at the facility, but that he seemed like a “nice guy.” The official also said Bankman-Fried still believes a judge may grant him bail, but if not he would be prepared for extradition and to “face the music” in the US.

Fox Hill prison is known to be overcrowded and understaffed, and inmates have said they lived among rat and maggot infestations and had to remove human waste with buckets, according to a 2021 human rights report compiled by the State Department.

Independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona has officially filed paperwork to run in 2024 as an independent. It happened Thursday as she filed a statement of candidacy form. However, even though she filed this, that does not automatically mean she will run. But what it DOES do is let her raise money. And as we all know, money and Sinema go hand in hand.

Sinema will face many obstacles if she does decide to run. For example, as an independent, her place on the ballot will not be assured. She would need to garner a certain amount of signatures to accomplish that. The exact amount she’d need is not yet known, but It is estimated that she’d need around 45,000. So Sinema would need to convince Arizona voters to sign the petition saying she should run.

And given that some signatures on these types of petitions are almost always challenged, she’d have to get more than the exact number it wins up being. But Sinema would also have to develop a core constituency. The question in that regard is — who might they be?

It won’t is republicans. Sinema voted to impeach Trump. Maga Republicans aren’t going to vote for her. It won’t be democrats. Her favorability rating is very low with democrats. But more than that, the absolute FURY directed at her isn’t going away. So I question whether she will run at all. And I think — and this is just opinion – that if Sinema realizes that she’d look foolish, then she will not run.

I say this because image (and money) is everything to her. She likes to be seen as having a bit of mystique. She does NOT seem to enjoy looking like a clown. So we’ll wait to see what Sinema decides to do. Maybe amid all her lousy decision-making, she’ll step up and make one very good one — and not run at all.

The post Kyrsten Sinema just went there appeared first on Palmer Report.

The mayor of the Texas border city of El Paso declared a state of emergency on Saturday, citing the hundreds of migrants sleeping on the streets in cold temperatures and the thousands being apprehended every day.

Mayor Oscar Leeser, a Democrat, said the emergency declaration would give city authorities the resources and ability to shelter migrants who have crossed the Mexican border.

“We wanted to make sure people are treated with dignity. We want to make everyone is safe,” Leeser told reporters.

The move comes as El Paso, a Democratic stronghold with a history of welcoming immigrants, has struggled in recent months to deal with tens of thousands of migrants crossing the border with Mexico. The city is bracing for a possible jump in migrant arrivals after a U.S. judge ordered COVID-era border restrictions known as Title 42 to end by Dec. 21.

A record number of migrants have been caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border under President Joe Biden, a Democrat who took office in January 2021, fueling attacks by Republican opponents who favor tougher policies.

U.S. border agents have encountered an average of more than 2,400 migrants per day in a 268-mile stretch of the border known as the El Paso Sector over the past week, according to figures published by the city, a 40% increase compared with October.

Even as government officials move migrants in El Paso to other U.S. cities, local shelters are beyond capacity and migrants have been sleeping on the streets as temperatures dip below freezing.

Mario D’Agostino, El Paso’s deputy city manager, said the emergency declaration will also provide the city with extra transportation options to bus migrants to other locations, and extra help from state law enforcement “to protect the migrants and the community at large.”

The city announced on Dec. 14 that it expected to receive $6 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide food, shelter and transportation.

As migrant arrivals increased in late August, the city launched a busing program that sent nearly 14,000 migrants to New York and Chicago, saying many Venezuelans were arriving without U.S. sponsors to fund their travel away from the border.

The city halted the program in October when the Biden administration began expelling Venezuelans back to Mexico under Title 42, but could restart it if Venezuelans again are allowed to cross into El Paso, D’Agostino said on Thursday.

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Jordanian security forces deploy their armoured vehicles in the southern city of Maan, some 220 kms south of the capital Amman, on December 16, 2022 hours after a senior police officer was shot dead in riots during a strike against rising fuel prices in the area.

KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP via Getty Images

• Jordan issued a “temporary ban” on TikTok after videos of protests and unrest were shared, per the Associated Press.
• A high-ranking police officer in the Jordan city of Maan was killed amid protests last week, per the AP.
• Truck drivers are striking and protesting high fuel prices across the country and region, the AP reported.

The Jordan government announced a “temporary ban” on TikTok, claiming the app failed to “deal with publications inciting violence and disorder,” according to the Associated Press. 

The announcement on Friday came after a high-ranking police officer was killed amid protests over high fuel prices in the city of Maan. The city’s deputy police director, Abdul Razzaq Abdel Hafez Al Dalabeh, was shot and killed on Thursday, per the Associated Press. 

“We will not tolerate violence against our security personnel, who work day and night to protect Jordan and Jordanians,” King Abdullah II of Jordan said in a statement, stating he would “deal firmly” with outlaws, according to the AP. 

Videos circulated on TikTok of protests across the country and strikes by truck drivers opposed to high fuel prices, prompting the country’s Public Security Directorate to suspend the app “after its misuse and failing to deal with publications inciting violence and disorder,” per the AP.

The government did not say how long the “temporary ban” on TikTok would last, according to the AP. Internet service in Maan and Karak – both cities where protests and strikes have broken out – was disrupted, according to the outlet. 

The truck drivers continued their strike on Friday, according to the AP, while the protests subsided. 

Jordan has a history of restricting internet access for its citizens, especially during periods of political upheaval, according to Freedom House, a nonprofit funded by the US government that studies global democracy and freedoms.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

• Rep. Dan Crenshaw critiqued some of the GOP candidates tapped to run for office in 2022.
• “We elected two 25-year-olds to be our nominees. That’s batshit crazy,” Crenshaw told Politico.
• GOP voters nominated Karoline Leavitt, 25, and Bo Hines, 27, in two key House districts. Both lost.

In the 2022 midterms, Gen Z and younger Millennial voters were eager to flex their political muscle, overwhelmingly pushing for issues that included college affordability, reproductive rights, and climate issues.

Several young Americans even decided to run for federal office themselves, including Democratic Rep.-elect Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a 25-year-old Floridian who last month became the first member of Gen Z elected to Congress.

However, in a recent Politico interview, GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas said that his party erred in nominating younger candidates in two of the most competitive House districts in the country.

“We lost races we easily should have won. We elected two 25-year-olds to be our nominees. That’s batshit crazy,” the 38-year-old congressman told the publication of two young Republicans who won primaries to serve as their party’s nominees.

He added: “I’m sure they’re nice people, but they have two years work experience at most. So in a general election, people are like, ‘No, we’re not electing that.'”

In New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional district, Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas defeated 25-year-old former Trump White House assistant press secretary Karoline Leavitt 54%-46%.

And in North Carolina’s 13th Congressional district, state Sen. Wiley Nickel edged out 27-year-old Republican Bo Hines by four points (52%-48%).

While Crenshaw pointed to the ages of the candidates in remarking on some of losses endured by the party in a year where they had anticipated more robust congressional gains, there is no clear evidence that the Leavitt or Hines were defeated in their respective contests because of their youthfulness.

With Congress largely populated by lawmakers in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, and with leaders like President Joe Biden and departing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California in their 80s, there has been a pent-up desire for many young Americans to take a seat at the table in crafting public policy — but they are often discouraged by a lack of money or lack of support from political parties.

This year, Insider has examined the phenomenon of an American gerontocracy in the “Red, White, and Gray” series, which included an article about young candidates who sought to run for office but ran into institutional barriers during their respective campaigns.

Republicans were able to flip the House this year, but their slim majority only raises the stakes for the 2024 presidential election — when Gen Z voters will continue to become a more influential part of the electorate.

Back when Donald Trump first left office, polling showed barely more than half of Republican 2024 primary voters wanted him to be their party’s nominee. This was devastatingly bad for him, given the name recognition and de facto incumbency advantage he had at the time over any other potential Republican 2024 candidates. Over the past two years, Trump’s only hope was if his numbers improved – but they never did. These days, polling says that less than half of Republican 2024 primary voters want Trump to be their nominee.

Now Trump has bad news when it comes to a different kind of number. His overall favorability rating has been consistently poor since he left office. One new poll from Quinnipiac has Trump’s favorability at just 31%. This is the part where the defeatists on our side begin angrily yelling about how it should be zero (they’re right, but that’s not how anything works). In reality, 31% is the lowest favorability number that Trump has ever had in this particular poll, going all the way back to 2015.

Other favorability polls are still a bit more charitable to Trump. FiveThirtyEight has his average in the mid to high thirties. But that’s still terrible for Trump, and his average is getting worse of late. In other words, Trump didn’t get a bump from announcing his 2024 faux-campaign, he actually got a dip from it. And in the one poll he’s completely bottoming out.

It seems absurd to even have to address this, but for those wondering, the latest Trump favorability polling was conducted before he promised a “major announcement” and then merely rolled out trading cards. We’re guessing this kind of nonsense will only drive his numbers even lower. And of course this is all before he gets indicted and hauled away, which we suspect will drive his numbers even lower than that. Look out below!

The post Donald Trump bottoms out appeared first on Palmer Report.

Rand Paul. There’s a name that’s guaranteed to bring on the eye-rolling. Paul, one of the worst Senators to ever “serve,” went on a bit of a diatribe recently. This all has to do with the agreement on a major spending bill. Paul appeared furious that Republicans — some — had agreed to work with Democrats.

The agreement was to fund the Government. This is yet another Democratic victory. And Paul seems furious about it. Speaking with Larry Kudlow on Fox Business, Paul appeared to lose it. “Not one of them up here gives a darn about the debt,” Pail exclaimed. The “them” he was referring to are the Democrats.

But then Paul went further. And he made a comment so ludicrous that I had to chuckle a bit. Paul, apparently being serious, whined that Democrats had “emasculated” Republicans. Emasculated. And you know something? Paul is correct.

Not that WE emasculated republicans. But Pail unknowingly picked the perfect word to describe what, in fact, Donald Trump has done to them. Thank you, Mr. Paul. I had been searching for the perfect word, the perfect description that could effectively sum up the republican party, and now, thanks to Rand Paul, I think I’ve found it.

Emasculated. Emasculated means “a man deprived of his male role or identity.” Perfect — absolutely perfect. The Republicans have been reduced to a bunch of simpering children. Nobody looks at them as strong leaders anymore, which the midterms certainly proved.

They have been emasculated. By Trump and by their own lack of courage. The definition continues: “merely a shadow of their former selves.” Sound about right? The GOP certainly was not emasculated by US. We want them to show leadership. We want them to speak out against injustice and against Donald Trump.

But because they’re emasculated, I guess they can’t. So, Mr. Paul, I say this to you: don’t worry about the Democrats “emasculating” you. Your party’s problems are way too serious for that. Look toward your own to see who did the emasculating. Look toward Donald trump. And look at the mirror right in front of you.

The post Rand Paul throws a tantrum after Democrats pass key legislation appeared first on Palmer Report.

The Minnesota Vikings pulled off the biggest comeback in National Football League history on Saturday when they rallied from a 33-0 halftime deficit to beat the visiting Indianapolis Colts 39-36 in overtime.

Minnesota, who trailed 36-7 with under five minutes to play in the third quarter, put the finishing touches on the comeback when Greg Joseph nailed a 40-yard field goal with three seconds left in the extra period.

With the win, the Vikings improved to 11-3 and secured the NFC Division title — their first since 2017 — with three games left to play in the 2022 regular season.

The previous record for the biggest comeback in NFL history was set by the Buffalo Bills in 1993 when they erased a 35-3 third quarter deficit to beat the Houston Oilers 41-38 in overtime of a wild card playoff game.

Indianapolis built a 17-0 first-quarter lead after a field goal, a blocked punt that JoJo Domann returned for a score and a one-yard Matt Ryan touchdown pass to Deon Jackson.

They padded their lead in the second quarter with another three field goals and a 17-yard interception return that Julian Blackmon returned for a touchdown.

But the Vikings cut into the deficit with a pair of third quarter touchdowns, the second of which came after Chase McLaughlin put the Colts ahead 36-7 when he kicked a 52-yard field goal.

Minnesota then added another three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, tying the game with about two minutes left when they converted a two-point conversion after Dalvin Cook took a screen pass from Kirk Cousins and ran it 64 yards for the score.

The victory also handed Indianapolis quarterback Ryan the dubious distinction of having been on the losing end of both the largest comeback in Super Bowl history and NFL history.

Ryan and his former team, the Atlanta Falcons, led the New England Patriots 28-3 in the third quarter of the Super Bowl in February 2017 before the Patriots pulled off a comeback for the ages and won 34-28.

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