dChan
Anonymous ID: e3315c Feb. 7, 2024, 12:58 p.m. No.20374106   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4307 >>4434 >>4527 >>4584 >>4686 >>4718

Good news, and some bad…

 

Senate Defeats Border Deal, but Ukraine, Israel Aid May Resurface

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/bill-border/2024/02/07/id/1152696/

 

Republicans in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday defeated a bipartisan effort to bolster border security that had taken months to negotiate, but said they could still approve aid for Ukraine and Israel that had been tied up in the deal.

 

By a vote of 49-50, the Senate failed to approve a $118 billion bipartisan package that would tighten immigration laws, help Ukraine fight a Russian invasion and bolster Israel in its war with Hamas.

 

The measure needed 60 votes to advance, in the chamber, which Democrats control by a 51-49 margin.

 

For months, Republicans have insisted that any additional aid to the two U.S. allies must also address the high numbers of migrants arriving at the U.S-Mexico border – a top voter concern.

 

But many Republicans promptly rejected the package when it was released on Sunday, even though it contained many of their priorities. Former President Donald Trump has pressed them to reject any compromise as he campaigns to defeat Democratic President Joe Biden in the November election. The Biden campaign has claimed Trump is pressing congressional allies for rejection so he can slam Biden on the border during the general election, but lawmakers aligned with the former president have denied being told how to vote, instead criticizing the particulars of the legislation.

 

"Some have been very clear with me they have political differences with the bill," said Republican Senator James Lankford, one of the negotiators.

 

"They say it's the wrong time to solve the problem, let the presidential election solve the problem."

 

Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema, another one of the deal's authors, said she was baffled by the sudden shift in fortune.

 

"Three weeks ago, everyone wanted to solve the border crisis," she said. "Yesterday, nobody did."

 

Still, the defeat of the bill left open the possibility that Congress could yet provide much-needed aid to U.S. allies. The Senate was expected later in the day to vote on a $96 billion package that strips out the immigration provisions but leaves the foreign aid intact.

 

An aide to Republican Senator Roger Wicker predicted that a foreign-aid package would get well over 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber – a rare show of cross-party support.

 

Even if it passes, that aid faces uncertain prospects in the House of Representatives, as Republicans who control that chamber have balked at further support for Ukraine.

 

"We'll see what the Senate does. We're allowing the process to play out," House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters.

 

Johnson had said the border package would be "dead on arrival" in his chamber.

 

Concerns over immigration have become a top issue in this year's election campaign, and Biden has blamed Trump for the deal's collapse.

 

Johnson, meanwhile, said on Wednesday he will hold another vote to impeach Biden's top border official, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, after a first attempt failed in a 214-216 vote on Tuesday.

 

"It was a mess what happened here, but we're cleaning it up," he told reporters on Wednesday.

Anonymous ID: e3315c Feb. 7, 2024, 1:22 p.m. No.20374195   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4307 >>4434 >>4527 >>4584 >>4686 >>4718

Even in her home state she's losing.

S.C. Poll: Trump Up 37, Super Tuesday to 'Only Get Worse'

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/donald-trump-nikki-haley-south-carolina/2024/02/07/id/1152679/

 

As if former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley losing to "None of These Candidates" unopposed in Nevada's Republican primary was not enough, former President Donald Trump leads in her home state by 37 points, and it will "only get worse" for Haley on Super Tuesday, according to the latest Morning Consult poll released Wednesday.

 

Trump leads Haley 68% to 31% in her home state, which is next up on the GOP primary calendar later this month.

 

"Unfortunately for Haley, our data suggests things will only get worse as she heads toward Super Tuesday on March 5, when conservatives in many states across the country look primed to head to the polls and deliver a resounding victory for Trump," according to Morning Consult pollster Cameron Easley.

 

"Of the Super Tuesday states we're tracking, Haley looks best positioned to garner support in Massachusetts and North Carolina, at 28% and 23%. But it appears inconceivable that she would score a victory even there: Trump leads her by 41 points in the Bay State among potential GOP primary voters, and by an even larger 54-point margin in the Tar Heel State."

 

Trump is expected to dominate Thursday's caucus in Nevada, which will award all of the state primary's delegates.

 

Haley's campaign is determined to remain in the race, but the data is unkind even if the money is still coming in — most of which is from Democrat and anti-Trump forces, according to Trump and his campaign officials.

 

"Haley is vowing to continue her campaign against front-runner Donald Trump at least through the Super Tuesday contests in early March, but state-level Morning Consult surveys suggest that's a fool's errand," according to Morning Consult's Easley.

 

"The wealthy Republican donors who continue to bankroll Haley's campaign appear to be just as well off setting their cash on fire. The only thing left to do in this race is count the votes, which are sure to show Trump with a lot compared to Haley's relatively few."

 

Haley lost by nearly 33 points (63.2%-30.5%) to "None of These Candidates," which is ostensibly the Trump vote in Nevada after he declined to register for a contest that does not award delegates as Thursday's caucus will.

 

The poor polling does not trump fundraising, however, as former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., repeatedly notes on Newsmax. Still, the path to catching the GOP front-runner is not there in the data.

 

"It's a familiar refrain in states located further down the calendar for the Republican nomination race," Easley said. "From Arizona to Wisconsin — with Florida, Georgia, and Ohio in between — at least three-quarters of potential Republican primary voters in each state say they plan to vote for Trump in their state's nominating contest."

 

The Morning Consult polls among likely voters in 23 upcoming GOP primary states was conducted among likely voters Jan. 23 to Feb. 4. The margins of error are roughly 5 percentage points, but none of the races is close to contested, according to the poll analysis.

Anonymous ID: e3315c Feb. 7, 2024, 1:44 p.m. No.20374308   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4434 >>4527 >>4577 >>4584 >>4686 >>4718

Get ready for fake labels and real AI not being labled.

Meta to Label AI Images Before 2024 Presidential Election

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/meta-ai-artificial-intelligence/2024/02/07/id/1152664/

 

Meta says it will begin flagging AI-generated images on several company platforms ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

 

Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, announced Tuesday that images generated by AI tools and published on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads will be labeled as such in all languages the platforms support.

 

"As the difference between human and synthetic content gets blurred, people want to know where the boundary lies," Clegg wrote in a blog post. "People are often coming across AI-generated content for the first time and our users have told us they appreciate transparency around this new technology.

 

"So it's important that we help people know when photorealistic content they're seeing has been created using AI. We do that by applying 'Imagined with AI' labels to photorealistic images created using our Meta AI feature, but we want to be able to do this with content created with other companies' tools too."

 

The company said it is currently developing this capability and will start applying the labels "in the coming months."

 

"We're taking this approach through the next year, during which a number of important elections are taking place around the world," the blog post continued. "During this time, we expect to learn much more about how people are creating and sharing AI content, what sort of transparency people find most valuable, and how these technologies evolve."

 

When people create photorealistic images using the company's own AI image generator, Meta AI, Clegg said "we do several things to make sure people know AI is involved," including using visible markers on the image and "invisible watermarks and metadata embedded within image files."

 

Meta said Tuesday it will expand the labeling of AI-generated images to those created on other companies' platforms.

 

Though Clegg's blog post focused on images, he added the social media giant is "working with industry partners on common technical standards for identifying AI content, including video and audio."

 

The company's invisible markers for Meta AI images are aligned with the Partnership on AI's best practices, Clegg said.

 

Because companies have not started including signals in AI tools that generate audio and video content, Meta said it is not yet able to detect them and label the content as AI-generated.

 

Meta will therefore require users to "disclose when they share AI-generated video or audio," Clegg said.

 

"We'll require people to use this disclosure and label tool when they post organic content with a photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so," he said.

 

The social media giant is also working to "develop classifiers that can help … automatically detect AI-generated content, even if the content lacks invisible markers" and "looking for ways to make it more difficult to remove or alter invisible watermarks."