Blood Money? These Are The Countries Pledging The Most Humanitarian Aid
The world is facing a number of significant humanitarian crises in 2023, with war, food insecurity and forced displacement, among others, causing great hardship around the globe.
As part of United Nations coordinated humanitarian aid plans, around $20 billion has been contributed by governments in 2023 so far.
Ukraine received the largest share of this funding (8.6 percent), followed by Somalia (8.3 percent) and Ethiopia (7.6 percent).
Food security was by far the sector receiving the most U.S. humanitarian aid (46.5 percent).
Despite the $20 billion in aid provided globally this year, that figure only represents 35 percent of what the UN assesses to be the required funding for the crises its aid plans have set out to cover.
Communist China is gaining a significant strategic advantage through its application of artificial intelligence (AI) to DNA editing technologies, according to one British lawmaker.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, could wield an unprecedented amount of power over the international community if its influence in AI and genomics is not slowed, said UK MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
“China now has a head start on applying AI to genomics, which poses a significant threat to our collective national security,” Sir Iain said during a Nov. 28 talk at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
“If China dominates AI and genomics, it will wield unprecedented influence over major industries including, of course, global healthcare.”
Sir Iain’s warning urged the need for heightened vigilance and strategic measures following news that the CCP is harvesting DNA from millions of people around the world through clandestine use of its healthcare products.
A failure to confront the threat, he suggested, could threaten global security in a way unseen since World War II.
“Nothing China does is left to chance,” Sir Iain said.
“The threat that we now face is on par to that which we faced during the Cold War and even that which we faced in the 1930s.”
China Harvesting DNA From Millions of Women and Fetuses Globally
Sir Iain highlighted ongoing investigations across five countries into the CCP’s use of prenatal tests to gather DNA from pregnant women and their fetuses.
The tests, Marketed as “NIFTY,” were designed by Chinese genomics giant BGI in consultation with the CCP’s military wing. The test claims to screen for Down syndrome and other genetic conditions, but the DNA data collected is stored on servers in mainland China, where the CCP can access it at any time.
“These tests allow China to access the genomic data of both mother and fetus from all over the world, and we have granted them the rights to use that data back in China,” Sir Iain said.
“How astonishingly short-sighted was that?”
BGI has also been implicated in other human rights abuses, including the forced harvesting of DNA from predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang Province. The United States has subsequently blacklisted some units of BGI.
‘New Axis’ Seeks to Expand Brutal Authoritarian Governments
Sir Iain said that the threat needs to be understood within the larger context of a “new axis of totalitarian states” including Iran, North Korea, and Russia, which is led by China.
The four powers, he said, present a “growing threat to the free world” and are increasingly coordinating with “brutal regional powers” like Burma and Syria to propagate their authoritarian vision for the future.
Given that communist China is rapidly becoming the global leader in both AI and genomics, he said, it was imperative that international leadership recognize this new axis poses an “existential risk to humanity.”
To that end, he tied the myriad conflicts being pursued by these powers together, saying that the axis as a whole would need to be confronted.
“The war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza against Hamas, and China’s overt threat to invade Taiwan are all of a piece,” Sir Iain said.
“They are linked inexorably through this axis. To ignore one of these threats is to multiply the danger in the others.”
Similarly, Sir Iain warned that a struggle like those fought in the Cold War and World War II was resurging, and would demand a firm response from the free nations of the world.
“When the Berlin Wall came down, the free world thought that democracy and freedom had won,” Sir Iain said.
In Utah, Davis County Sheriff’s Office Cpl. Timothy Robinson has been charged with misdemeanor abuse of a service animal for beating his K9 partner. Two other officers said that, during a training session, the dog urinated in a conference room. Robinson then struck the dog several times, pulled it out of the conference room by its leash, and dragged the dog down the stairs. Robinson has been placed on administrative leave.
Watch: German President Left Waiting In Hot Sun, Ignored On Arrival In Qatar
Russian President Vladimir Putin this week mocked Germany, saying it is getting pushed around by outside powers and increasingly lacks sovereignty. Putin said Wednesday according to an English translation in state media, “The Germans swallow all this because… they lack sovereignty. And some government leaders apparently lack sufficient professional skills to make adequate and professional decisions. Everyone knows who that is, they are being laughed at by the whole world.”
He spoke the words on the very same day that the below spectacle played out, ironically enough, where German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was snubbed at the airport after landing in Doha for an official state visit to Qatar…
He was there for official talks with Qatari leaders in relation to several German nationals being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. German media correspondents were on the trip with him, and reported that Qatari officials may have been intentionally snubbing him upon arrival.
Below is Deutsche Welle’s detailed description of what happened:
The sun shone. The red carpet had been rolled out. A military honor guard had assembled. Even Germany’s ambassador to Qatar, Lothar Freischlader, was on hand. The only problem, no Qatari official was in attendance to formally welcome German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to Doha.
Arriving slightly ahead of schedule, Steinmeier waited in the blazing sun at the door of the Bundeswehr’s Airbus A350 for almost half an hour before Sultan al-Muraichai, Qatar’s minister of state for foreign affairs, arrived to receive Germany’s head of state.
Even with the delayed diplomatic formalities following al-Muraichai’s arrival, Steinmeier departed the airport on time for his scheduled meeting with Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
While it’s possible there was a legitimate mix-up based on Steinmeier’s plane having arrived slightly early, the scene was highly unusual for a head of state.
Russian media has speculated that it may have been ‘payback’ for words issued by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in October. According to RT, she said at the time “We do not accept support for terror,” and argued that Arab states like Qatar “have a special responsibility to put an end to this terrorism.”
Qatar has long been seen as a supporter of Hamas, but it’s a relationship not quite as out in the open as Iran’s. At the same time, Qatar has been a diplomatic mediator with the West on the Gaza hostage crisis. Doha has long faced criticism in the West for its state support given to hardline Islamists, from Syria to Gaza.
A major charity in the UK has dismissed its entire board claiming that they are all too “white and privileged”.
The Daily Mail reports that The Tudor Trust, which has a net worth of £288million and gives away around £20 million a year, is ‘rethinking’ its future, pledging to be a “more diverse group” and to put “social justice and anti-racism” at the centre of its activity.
After offing the entire board based on their skin colour, remaining staff have been mandated to to undergo training in ‘racial justice’ and ‘white supremacy culture’, according to the report.
White staff were reportedly separated from black, Asian and other minority ethnic staff and given separate training on “the different characteristics of racism born of Britain’s colonial history, as well as the white supremacy culture that prevails”.
The charity, founded in 1955, conducted an internal “anti-racist review” overseen by interim director Raji Hunjan (pictured above) and issued a press release describing the move as “a journey towards a better understanding of the history of racism”.
The charity claims the move was inspired by Black Lives Matter protests.
A statement by the Tudor Trust noted “We recognise that we live in a society that is shaped by white privilege and racism. We also acknowledge that being a family Trust has given rise to a trustee board that is almost entirely white and privileged. While the profile of the staff of the trust is more diverse, we recognise that, throughout the organisation, most of us do not have experience of what it means to be discriminated against because of our colour.”
The Telegraph also reports that the charity has employed Cadence Partners, an “inclusive recruitment” consultancy agency, to help hire new staff. The company prides itself on “building talent pipelines” for “minority ethnic, disability, gender, LGBTQ+”, and refers to revolutionary Marxist Angela Davis as “a voice for social justice”.
One of Britain’s biggest charitable trusts is dismissing its entire board as part of a diversity drive after branding itself “white and privileged” https://t.co/cQjxkPEduB
Another organisation that has been consulted is the Power & Integrity project, which claims that “colonialism, patriarchy, and racism intersect and underpin unjust societal ‘norms’” which act to maintain “existing privilege”.
An advert seeking new trustees states candidates should have a “strong personal commitment to justice, diversity, equity and inclusion,” and have some “expertise in anti-racism, equity and inclusion”.
The ad for a new Chair Designate says applicants should have a “deep understanding of social and racial justice, and experience of applying this to systemic change”.
In the meantime, all grants going to good causes, previously around 250 grants a year, averaging £80,000 each, have been halted for the past year and a half.
Sterling work, you must agree.
Tudor Trust suspends grant applications while staff learn about ‘white supremacy’ https://t.co/EOmf9wtcmf
Hungary Rejects “Completely Premature” Proposal To Admit Ukraine Into EU
The government of Viktor Orban in Hungary has blasted a proposal to admit Ukraine into the European Union as “completely premature”. Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, on Thursday told a news conference in Budapest that it is too early to so much as begin formal talks on the matter, according to the AP.
“We are dealing with a completely premature proposal,” Gulyas emphasized, explaining that Hungary “cannot contribute to a common decision” on inviting Ukraine to join the bloc.
Despite Ukraine long ranking as among the most corrupt countries in the world, and as and among the top in Europe, the EU’s executive arm this month urged the opening of membership talks, so long as Kiev can show progress on fronts like rampant corruption, lobbying practices, and freedom of minority language issues.
Interestingly, PM Orban is even standing firm against approving an additional $54 billion in further long-term aid to Ukraine currently being proposed to be added to the EU’s budget. He’s of late grown more vocal in his vowing to block all European aid until Ukraine enacts significant changes.
Hungary has been especially concerned over oppression of ethnic Hungarians inside Ukraine – though the question of allowance of the Russian language has also remained dominant as the war presses on.
In late September, Orban gave a speech declaring Hungary will no longer support Ukraine in any way unless certain significant policies are changed both in Kiev and in the European Union.
He stressed in those prior words given before parliament that “Hungary is doing everything for peace” but that “unfortunately the Russian-Ukrainian war continues, tens of thousands of people are victims.” Thus, he continued, “Diplomats must take control back from the hands of the soldiers, otherwise it will be in vain for women to wait for their sons and fathers and husbands to come home.”
He has throughout the conflict stood against policies which escalate against Moscow, and has constantly warned against stumbling into a WW3 scenario involving direct NATO-Russia clash. He told Tucker Carlson in a recent interview that “the Third World War сould be knocking on our door so we have to be very careful.” This continues years of Budapest having been a consistent thorn in the side of the EU.
In one of Henry Kissinger’s final interviews before his death at 100 years old, the former statesman warned that Germany had made a “grave mistake” in allowing so many migrants into the country.
The former US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner’s death was announced on Wednesday.
“Dr. Henry Kissinger, a respected American scholar and statesman, died today at his home in Connecticut,” his consultancy Kissinger Associates said in a statement on Wednesday.
Kissinger was best known for normalizing American relations with China, but his legacy is hotly disputed thanks to his US policy of “Vietnamisation,” with many on the left seeing him as a war criminal.
For decades, Kissinger was a leading member of the Bilderberg Group, a shadowy secret society that pushed globalism and open borders.
However, just last month, in what may have been his final televised interview, Kissinger sounded a warning for the west.
“It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts,” he told Politico, referring to Germany.
The former Secretary of State noted that mass migration, “creates a pressure group inside each country that does that.”
In other words, Kissinger, a lifelong globalist, made an almost deathbed confession in which he acknowledged that diversity isn’t our greatest strength.
One wonders whether any of the current establishment leaders, particularly in the Netherlands where they just got trounced by populist Geert Wilders, will heed his warning.
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The Obama administration, just 17 days before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, revised the guidelines of Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333, “Procedures for the Availability or Dissemination of Raw Signals Intelligence Information by the National Security Agency.”
Although widely overlooked, the implications were broad and far-reaching.
Under the new procedure, agencies and individuals could request the National Security Agency (NSA) for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contain relevant information that’s useful to a particular mission.
No privacy protection of the raw data was undertaken. Under the new rules, sharing of information was significantly easier–and the information being shared was raw and unfiltered.
At the time I wondered about the timing of the order. But what I found particularly curious was that it was enacted so late. Allow me to explain.
On Dec. 15, 2016, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, signed off on Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333. The order was finalized when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed it on Jan. 3, 2017.
Why the pressing need to rush this order during the final days of his office? An order which allowed for significant expansion in the sharing of raw intelligence amongst agencies.
Was it to enable dissemination of information gathered by those in the Obama administration amongst intelligence agencies? But if so, why was the order not put into place earlier?
Why just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump officially took over the Oval Office?
Crucially, privacy protection of the underlying raw data from the NSA was specifically bypassed by the order. As The New York Times noted at the time, “the new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws.”
On its face, the rule was supposedly put in place in order to reduce the risk that “the N.S.A. will fail to recognize that a piece of information would be valuable to another agency,” but in reality, it dramatically expanded government officials’ access to the private information of American citizens.
As noted by the NY Times, historically, “the N.S.A. filtered information before sharing intercepted communications with another agency, like the C.I.A. or the intelligence branches of the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The N.S.A.’s analysts passed on only information they deemed pertinent, screening out the identities of innocent people and irrelevant personal information.”
However, with the Jan. 3, 2017, approval of Section 2.3, and the associated expansion of sharing globally intercepted communications, other intelligence agencies would be able to search “directly through raw repositories of communications intercepted by the N.S.A. and then apply such rules for ‘minimizing’ privacy intrusions.”
When Obama’s new NSA Data Sharing Order was signed, many wondered at the timing and questioned why there was a pressing need to rush an order that allowed for significant expansion in the sharing of raw intelligence among agencies during the final days of his administration.
But as I hinted at during the outset of our discussion, an equally valid question is, why was the order enacted so late? As it turns out, Section 2.3 was reported as being on “the verge” of finalization in late February 2016 as reported by the New York Times, which noted that “Robert S. Litt, the general counsel in the office of the Director of National Intelligence, said that the administration had developed and was fine-tuning what is now a 21-page draft set of procedures to permit the sharing.” It had been anticipated that the order would be finalized by early to mid-2016.
Instead, for reasons that lack official explanations to this day, Section 2.3 was delayed until January 2017. Interestingly, the finalized version signed into effect by President Obama contains a provision relating to “Political Process” that hadn’t been in place in earlier versions.
One of the items within this provision prohibited dissemination of information to the White House. Remember that this provision would not impact President Obama whose administration ended in two weeks. But it would most definitely impact the dissemination of information to the incoming Trump administration.
If this new provision had been implemented in early 2016 as originally scheduled, dissemination of any raw intelligence on or relating to the Trump campaign to officials within the Obama White House would likely have been made more difficult or quite possibly prohibited.
In other words, prior to the January 2017 signing of Section 2.3, it appears that greater latitude existed for officials in the Obama administration to gain access to information. But once the order was signed into effect, Section 2.3 granted greater latitude to interagency sharing of that information.
On July 27, 2017, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), then-chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats regarding the ongoing leaks of classified information and the need for new unmasking legislation to address the problem.
Mr. Nunes’s letter specifically pointed out officials within the Obama administration, stating that “We have found evidence that current and former government officials had easy access to U.S. person information and that it is possible that they used this information to achieve partisan political purposes, including the selective, anonymous leaking of such information.”
Mr. Nunes noted that “one official, whose position had no apparent intelligence-related function, made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama administration.”
Princeton Is ‘Best’ But USC Is America’s Most Expensive University
The latest ranking of America’s best universities is here, perfectly timed for the approaching admissions season.
“Best” is of course subjective, and U.S. News and World Report has compiled 19 metrics on which they evaluated more than 400 national universities. Some of them include:
Graduation rates & performance: A four-year rolling average of the proportion of each entering class earning a bachelor’s degree in six years or less. Performance is measured against predictions made by the publishers, and when beaten, the university gains a higher scoring.
Peer assessment: A two-year weighted average of ratings from top academics—presidents, provosts and deans of admissions—on academic quality of peer institutions with which they are familiar.
Financial resources: The average per student spend on instruction, research, student services and related educational expenditures in the 2021 fiscal year.
Debt: A school’s average accumulated federal loan debt among borrowers only.
Pell graduation rates & performance: the same calculation as stated above, but focused only on Pell Grant students, adjusted to give more credit to schools with larger Pell student proportions.
The website’s methodology section details how they sourced their data, the weights assigned to each metric, and their changes over the years.
And, as Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao and Niccolo Conte detail below, from the hundreds assessed come the nearly 50 best universities that offer a variety of undergraduate majors, post-graduate programs, emphasize research, or award professional practice doctorates.
Which are the Best Universities in America?
At the top of the list, Princeton University is the best university in the country, known for its physics, economics, and international relations departments. Notably, it’s a rare Ivy league university that does not have a law, medical, or business school.
Here’s the full ranking of America’s best universities, along with annual tuition requirements.
Rank
School Name
State
Tuition
1
Princeton University
New Jersey
$59,710
2
Massachusetts
Institute of
Technology
Massachusetts
$60,156
3
Harvard University
Massachusetts
$59,076
3
Stanford University
California
$62,484
5
Yale University
Connecticut
$64,700
6
University of
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
$66,104
7
California Institute
of Technology
California
$63,255
7
Duke University
North Carolina
$66,172
9
Brown University
Rhode Island
$68,230
9
Johns Hopkins
University
Maryland
$63,340
9
Northwestern University
Illinois
$65,997
12
Columbia University
New York
$65,524
12
Cornell University
New York
$66,014
12
University of Chicago
Illinois
$65,619
15
University of
California, Berkeley
California
$48,465 (out-state)
$15,891 (in-state)
15
University of
California, LA
California
$46,326 (out-state)
$13,752 (in-state)
17
Rice University
Texas
$58,128
18
Dartmouth College
New Hampshire
$65,511
18
Vanderbilt University
Tennessee
$63,946
20
University of Notre Dame
Indiana
$62,693
21
University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor
Michigan
$57,273 (out-state)
$17,786 (in-state)
22
Georgetown University
Washington, DC
$65,082
22
University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill
North Carolina
$39,338 (out-state)
$8,998 (in-state)
24
Carnegie Mellon University
Pennsylvania
$63,829
24
Emory University
Georgia
$60,774
24
University of Virginia
Virginia
$58,950 (out-state)
$22,323 (in-state)
24
Washington
University, St. Louis
Missouri
$62,982
28
University of
California, Davis
California
$46,043 (out-state)
$15,266 (in-state)
28
University of
California, San Diego
California
$48,630 (out-state)
$16,056 (in-state)
28
University of Florida
Florida
$28,658 (out-state)
$6,381 (in-state)
28
University of
Southern California
California
$68,237
32
University of
Texas, Austin
Texas
$41,070 (out-state)
$11,698 (in-state)
33
Georgia Institute
of Technology
Georgia
$32,876 (out-state)
$11,764 (in-state)
33
University of
California, Irvine
California
$47,759 (out-state)
$15,185 (in-state)
35
New York University
New York
$60,438
35
University of
California, Santa
Barbara
California
$45,658 (out-state)
$14,881 (in-state)
35
University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign
Illinois
$36,068 (out-state)
$17,572 (in-state)
35
University of
Wisconsin, Madison
Wisconsin
$40,603 (out-state)
$11,205 (in-state)
39
Boston College
Massachusetts
$67,680
40
Rutgers University,
New Brunswick
New Jersey
$36,001 (out-state)
$17,239 (in-state)
40
Tufts University
Massachusetts
$67,844
40
University of Washington
Washington
$41,997 (out-state)
$12,643 (in-state)
43
Boston University
Massachusetts
$65,168
43
The Ohio State University
Ohio
$36,722 (out-state)
$12,485 (in-state)
43
Purdue University,
Main Campus
Indiana
$28,794 (out-state)
$9,992 (in-state)
46
University of
Maryland, College
Park
Maryland
$40,306 (out-state)
$11,505 (in-state)
47
Lehigh University
Pennsylvania
$62,180
47
Texas A&M University
Texas
$40,607 (out-state)
$12,413 (in-state)
47
University of Georgia
Georgia
$30,220 (out-state)
$11,180 (in-state)
47
University of Rochester
New York
$64,384
47
Virginia Tech
Virginia
$36,090 (out-state)
$15,478 (in-state)
47
Wake Forest University
North Carolina
$64,758
53
Case Western
Reserve University
Ohio
$62,234
53
Florida State University
Florida
$21,683 (out-state)
$6,517 (in-state)
53
Northeastern University
Massachusetts
$63,141
53
University of
Minnesota, Twin
Cities
Minnesota
$36,402 (out-state)
$16,488 (in-state)
53
William & Mary
Virginia
$48,841 (out-state)
$25,041 (in-state)
MIT places second, and Harvard and Stanford tie for third. Yale rounds out the top five.
Private universities, including seven Ivy League colleges, dominate the top of the rankings. Meanwhile, the highest-ranked public schools are tied at 15th, both state schools in California.
For affordability, since the higher ranks are populated by private universities, there tends to be a broad correlation of better universities being more expensive. That said, the most expensive school in the top 50 ranks is actually the University of Southern California, tied at 28th, for $68,237/year.
As it happens, also tied at 28th, the University of Florida is the most affordable public school for in-state students ($6,381/year) and Florida State University tied at 53rd, is the most affordable for out-of-staters at $21,683/year.
However these costs are tuition-only, and don’t account for other necessary expenses: accommodation, food, and textbooks.
Best University versus Best “Fit”
Finding the best university for prospective students is more than just perusing a long ranking list.
Aside from the numerous schools present within each university—which can often be the best for specific majors—factors like location, proximity to family, campus culture, the non-academic pursuits (sports, extracurriculars, internships) are also taken into consideration.
In fact, research has found that just attaining a university degree improves future earnings potential and employability.
Furthermore, individual engagement at college (irrespective of the rank of the school in question) plays a far bigger role in learning and general well-being than simply attending a highly-ranked school.
However, for low income and minority students, attending a top-ranked school does improve future earnings considerably. For women, it also often results in delaying marriage and kids, which results in more work-hours and as a result, more pay.
Iowa Republicans will be the first in the nation to weigh in on the competitive Republican presidential race, as they continue their long-time Iowa Caucus tradition on Jan. 15 next year.
But Democrats—with a virtually noncompetitive race, a presidential call to ditch caucuses, and memories of the bungled 2020 caucus—are turning entirely to mail ballots for the 2024 caucuses in Iowa.
If 2020 was the year of election anomalies, the first irregularity was the Democratic Iowa Caucus which was rife with technical flaws, offered no results on election night, and left the Associated Press unable to ever declare a winner.
The Feb. 3, 2020, Democratic Iowa Caucus used a freshly developed smartphone app to communicate caucus results, but the app got glitchy, and a hotline to call in results was overwhelmed, preventing results from being available on caucus night. By the next day, just 62 percent of the Democratic results were counted. A week later, folks were losing patience.
“The Iowa Democratic Party deserved better than what happened on caucus night,” state party chair Troy Price said in his Feb. 12 resignation letter. With results still not determined, he stepped down eight days after the caucus. By the time Mr. Price resigned, New Hampshire already had results from its Feb. 11, 2020, primary.
The first three rounds of the 2024 primary season didn’t go well for then-candidate Joe Biden, who had terrible results in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. He didn’t see a win until March 1 in the South Carolina primary where he got 49 percent of the Democratic vote. The Iowa results were finally calculated two days before South Carolina’s primary, putting Mr. Biden in fourth place behind Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Right after South Carolina and before Super Tuesday, Mr. Buttigieg, Ms. Klobuchar and former candidate and Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke dropped out of the race and endorsed Mr. Biden. Mr. Sanders dropped out a month later and also endorsed Mr. Biden.
Traditional Caucus Called ‘Anti-Worker’
With the presumptive candidate chosen, the long-delayed result of the Democratic Iowa Caucus fell out of the national conversation. But it was not totally forgotten—nor was Mr. Biden’s poor performance in the early races.
Using the racial makeup of voters as one reason, two years later, President Joe Biden wrote a letter calling for the end of caucuses and a change to the Democratic nominating calendar.
“Our party should no longer allow caucuses as part of our nominating process,” he wrote in December 2022, saying caucuses take too long, require voters to choose their candidate in public, and because they are held at a set time, it is tough for hourly workers to attend.
Caucuses are “Inherently anti-participatory. It should be our party’s goal to rid the nominating process of restrictive, anti-worker caucuses,” he said.
And allowing Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada to go first makes the early votes too white, President Biden indicated. Too often, he said, candidates drop out or are marginalized by the press and pundits because of poor performances in small states early in the process before voters of color cast a vote.
“We must ensure that voters of color have a voice in choosing our nominee much earlier in the process and throughout the entire early window,” Mr. Biden said. “For decades, Black voters, in particular, have been the backbone of the Democratic Party but have been pushed to the back of the early primary process.”
Iowa is 89 percent white, with 7 percent of the population Hispanic, and 4 percent black, according to the U.S. Census.
New Hampshire is 92 percent white; 4 percent Hispanic; 2 percent black.
Nevada is 45 percent white; 30 percent Hispanic; 10 percent black; 9 percent Asian; and 5 percent two or more races.
South Carolina, where Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign turned around, is 63 percent white; 7 percent Hispanic; 26 percent black; 2 percent Asian; and 2 percent two or more races.
Mail-in Caucus
The Democratic and Republican styles of running caucuses in Iowa are different. In addition to choosing candidates, both parties conduct the business of the party, choosing local party leadership and delegates, and discussing the party’s platform.
Republicans gather, discuss, and then vote once. Those results are sent to Republican headquarters.
Traditionally, Democrats gather, discuss, and then go stand in a corner of the room designated for their candidate. After heads are counted, supporters of the candidate with the lowest number of votes choose a different corner. This is repeated until one candidate is clearly the winner. It involves time and lots of conversations.
But it will be different for Democrats in 2024 as the party tries to maintain its place as the first caucus in the nation and play by the new rules of the National Democratic Party, which in February honored President Biden’s request and reordered the presidential primary calendar. South Carolina will go first now, with a Feb. 24 primary.
In Iowa, Democrats will request a presidential preference card through the mail or email. Presidential preference cards will be mailed out starting Jan. 12. The last day to request a presidential preference card is Feb. 19.
Democrats will hold in-person precinct caucuses on Jan. 15, 2024, to conduct party business only. No presidential preference will be taken at the in-person precinct caucuses, according to information provided to The Epoch Times by the Iowa Democratic Party.
The results of the mail-in presidential preference will be released on Super Tuesday, March 5, meaning that while Iowa Democrats will start collecting ballots first, results will not be first in the nation.
Why First Matters
The Iowa caucuses have been the first in the nation since 1972.
Republicans, in 2024, have the more interesting, competitive race, and they will continue in their traditional style, holding the caucuses first. That is why many Republican candidates have spent time in Iowa.
“Obviously, [being first] is very important to us,” Kush Desai, spokesman for the Iowa Republican Party, told The Epoch Times.
“From the day of the 2020 caucus, our Republican chairman was fighting harder to defend how they handled their 2020 caucus—more than, I think, most Democrats were, because we should look to preserve the first-in-nation status … I think they are still kind of nursing the hope that this is just a temporary thing, and then Iowa will be put back [as] first on the Democratic calendar.”
Many residents of small, rural towns across the United States may never meet a political candidate passing through the region, but candidates spend more time in Iowa.
“Once the caucuses are done, we don’t see them anymore until the next election cycle,” Silver City, Iowa, Mayor Sharon McNutt told The Epoch Times.
“We’ve learned to expect it, but that’s why we fight for first-in-the-nation. Because if it wasn’t for first-in-the-nation, we wouldn’t even have that. I think that the Iowa voice is a rich voice for the Midwest. So, we speak for not only Iowa, but a lot of surrounding states that are rural.
