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LA city councilwoman previously backed by DSA running for mayor in primary challenge to former ally Bass

Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman entered the race for mayor Saturday, launching a last-minute challenge against incumbent Karen Bass just hours before the filing deadline.
The move by Raman, a progressive representing the city’s 4th District, signals the potential for a high-stakes June primary against a close political ally, though she has not yet qualified for the ballot.
To qualify, candidates must either pay a $300 filing fee and submit at least 500 valid signatures, or submit 1,000 valid signatures without a fee, according to the Los Angeles City Clerk’s office.
Nominating petitions are due by March 4.
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"I love this city so much and I think it needs a fighter. And I think I’ve demonstrated that I can be that fighter," Raman said at a press conference, according to NBCLA. "And I hope the residents of Los Angeles will see that and cast their votes for me."
"This is a city of extraordinary possibility, extraordinary," she added. "But possibility only matters if our leadership is accountable for delivering it, and I’m ready to lead this city with seriousness, with accountability, urgency and ambition that is equal to this moment."
A total of 40 candidates have filed declarations of intention to run for Los Angeles mayor, including TV personality Spencer Pratt and housing advocate Rae Chen Huang, according to a list from the city clerk’s office.
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Raman was previously endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America Los Angeles chapter during her 2020 campaign, but the group voted to censure her in 2024 over her acceptance of an endorsement from Democrats for Israel–Los Angeles and disagreements related to the war in Gaza.
NBCLA reported that Raman informed Bass of her intent to run against her before the announcement. 
"The last thing Los Angeles needs is a politician who opposed cleaning up homeless encampments and efforts to make our city safer," said Douglas Herman, Bass’ campaign advisor, in response to Raman’s campaign launch. "Mayor Bass will continue changing L.A. by building on her track record delivering L.A.‘s first sustained decrease in street homelessness, a 60 year-low in homicides, and the most aggressive agenda our city has ever seen to make our city more affordable."

Super Bowl Sunday: Here are some of the political, social commercials you can expect during the big game
Is this competence or optics?

One of the most anticipated parts of Super Bowl Sunday is not necessarily the game, it's the commercials throughout the big game.
Hundreds-of-millions in advertising revenue will hit the airwaves Sunday night, but not everyone is trying to get you to buy something. Viewers can expect to see anti-hate ads, ads that focus on Christianity, and ads supporting political candidates that want viewers to buy in to their political views.
A 30-second spot during this year's game costs around $8 to $10 million.
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A pro-Trump nonprofit, Invest America, bought time during the pre-game broadcast to promote the president's new tax-free "Trump Accounts," which were established in the GOP's One Big Beautiful Bill Act as tax-free savings accounts for American children, many of which will be seeded with $1,000 from the federal government. Children will be able to use the funds from these accounts for things like education expenses, or down payments on a new home.
The ad will feature children talking about the importance of investing.
"It’s gonna get a lot of attention. All your viewers, watch the Super Bowl right after the national anthem, we’re gonna have a big rollout," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last month on a local Midwest radio station. 
New England Patriots' owner Robert Kraft's nonprofit the Blue Square Alliance, which was formerly called the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, will have another advertisement this year against antisemitism. His group has been buying ad spots at the Super Bowl since at least 2022 to promote anti-Jewish hate messages. Last year, the group's ad featured appearances from celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Tom Brady. 
This year's advertisement will focus on antisemitism among younger people, particularly those in schools. The ad encourages supporters to post an image of a blank blue square, resembling a sticky note, to illustrate their support against Jewish hate.
A Republican candidate running to be Michigan's next governor, Perry Johnson, has been sponsoring ads running from several days before the game up until Sunday evening, according to the candidate's campaign. The advertisement, which will only be seen in select Michigan TV markets, urges folks to turn the channel during the Bad Bunny halftime show and tune into the halftime show being produced by the late-Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA (TPUSA). Bad Bunny's selection by the NFL has created a political stir, with critics calling him anti-American.  
ANTI-TRUMP PERFORMERS LITTER SUPER BOWL LX IN …

How Should Either Party Leverage Ending the Filibuster?
Are they actually going to vote on something real?

Discussions about the filibuster tend to flare up whenever a party wins unified control of the federal government and then runs into the reality of the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. At that point, attention usually turns to whether major legislative priorities are being blocked by minority opposition or by the rules of the chamber itself. That tension has become a recurring feature of modern Senate politics.
For some, the filibuster is the main reason governing majorities struggle to translate election results into legislation. For others, it is a guardrail that prevents rapid policy swings when power changes hands. That disagreement is familiar and well covered, and it is not really what I am trying to settle here.
For the sake of discussion, assume a majority does decide to get rid of the legislative filibuster. That would not be unprecedented, the Senate has already done this in narrower contexts, such as judicial nominations, and those changes stuck. Given that premise, the more interesting question to me is what a majority should actually use that moment on.
Instead of arguing whether abolishing the filibuster is good or bad, I want to tee up these general questions:
What legislation would be the best for both the Republicans or Democrats to pursue if they entertained nuking the filibuster, within the context of trying to retain the senate going into future elections?
Would nuking the fillibuster inherently benefit or hurt certain ideologies or governing strategies present within the senate?
To what extent should the risk of retaliation under a future majority influence how a party uses this power?

Savannah Guthrie tells mother’s possible kidnappers ‘we will pay’ for 84-year-old’s return
Notice what's missing.

Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie said on Saturday her family will pay the ransom for their missing 84-year-old mother, whom authorities believe was abducted last weekend.

“We received your message, and we understand,” Guthrie said in a brief video. “We beg you now to return our mother to us, so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”

The video plea came as the unresolved search for Nancy Guthrie entered its seventh day.

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There is strong evidence that shows the elderly woman was forcibly removed from her home in Tucson, Arizona. Blood that matched Nancy Guthrie’s was found on her front porch, according to Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos. The local sheriff’s office is coordinating with the FBI on the investigation.

No suspects have been identified yet, although President Donald Trump teased that more information about the case may be coming “reasonably soon” from federal authorities.

“We have some clues that I think are very strong,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday. “We have some things that may be coming out reasonably soon.”

After speaking with Savannah Guthrie last week, Trump deployed federal law enforcement resources to help with the investigation into her mother’s mysterious disappearance.

Investigators are particularly concerned about Nancy Guthrie’s health, as she needs daily medication in order to stay alive. She wears a pacemaker and has dealt with high blood pressure and heart problems in the past.

MICHAEL RUBIN: WILL TRUMP FALL FOR IRAN’S NUCLEAR NEGOTIATIONS BLUFF?

The alleged kidnappers are believed to have sent ransom letters with monetary demands to multiple local media outlets. At least one letter contained a Thursday deadline and a Monday deadline for the ransom if the first deadline wasn’t met. The FBI is handling this aspect of the investigation. The bureau previously announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of Nancy Guthrie or the arrest of those involved in her abduction.

Tucson ABC affiliate KGUN9 reported that the letter it received demanded a $6 million payment before this Monday at 5 p.m. If no ransom payment was made by the deadline, the alleged kidnappers threatened to take Nancy Guthrie’s life.

Turning Point USA’s ‘All-American Halftime Show’: Everything you need to know
This feels like a quiet policy shift.

Super Bowl Sunday is finally here, and Turning Point USA is doing something different to counterprogram the game’s halftime show.

The NFL received criticism from conservatives in September when musical talent Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, was selected to perform at the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show due to the rapper’s anti-ICE remarks. The c‹hoice prompted TPUSA to announce its own halftime show as counterprogramming.

Here’s all you need to know about TPUSA’s “All-American Halftime Show.”

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How can I watch the event?

The event will air on a variety of television broadcasting channels, including Real America’s Voice, Trinity Broadcasting Network, Charge!, The National News Desk, NTD Television, and One America News Network. The event will also be streamed on DailyWire+.

Who is performing for the show?

Kid Rock, an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump, will headline the show. Brantley Gilbert, Brice Lee, and Gabby Barrett are also performing.

Kid Rock comes onstage to speak and introduce Vice President JD Vance during a visit to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/John Amis)

The show’s musical lineup was unknown to the public until Monday, less than a week before kickoff.

JOE CONCHA: NFL INSULTS FANS BY HIRING ANTI-ICE BAD BUNNY FOR SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW

When does the show air?

TPUSA said on X that the show will air “around 8 p.m. ET.” This will roughly coincide with the time the NFL’s halftime show will air.

Why is this event being held?

Andrew Kolvet, the executive director of TPUSA’s the Charlie Kirk Show, recalled on Wednesday how the show’s namesake, also TPUSA’s co-founder, said he wanted to “win the culture” in January 2025. As such, TPUSA is “trying to serve a need” with the halftime show to give “real Americans” a musical performance they can enjoy.

Don't miss the All-American Halftime Show this Sunday, Feb 8th ~8PM ET.

There will be EPIC performances by Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett with great American music that will celebrate faith, family, and freedom.

Here's where you can watch live:
-…
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) February 4, 2026

Kolvet also said “bring on the hate-watchers” and encouraged people to “try and find something you’re not going to love” about the “epic” show.

Will Trump appear at TPUSA’s show?

Trump …

Bad Bunny created a cultural phenomenon. Can he spark a political one?
People are fed up—do they even notice?

The world is watching for Bad Bunny to make a political statement at the Super Bowl. Democrats are watching closely to figure out how to make their own.

Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, the Puerto Rican recording artist known globally by his stage name, has created a pop culture phenomenon that will converge at a historic halftime show performance at the Super Bowl on Sunday when the New England Patriots play the Seattle Seahawks. Though Bad Bunny already made his Super Bowl debut alongside Shakira and Jennifer Lopez back in 2020, this time the spotlight will be on him and his exclusively in-Spanish catalog. And while his invitation triggered a harsh backlash on the right from the president on down, it’s also marking a major inflection point for Hispanic Americans of all backgrounds.

Sunday may prove to be Bad Bunny’s biggest chance to move the dial.

There’s an opportunity here, Democrats told POLITICO, to turn Bad Bunny’s cultural phenomenon into a political one, right as the party is mounting its strongest resistance to Trump’s sweeping deportation agenda — and with months to go before the midterms to make amends with Latino voters who have left their tent.

Former Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), who is of Puerto Rican descent and whose tenure in the House was marked by his outspokenness for the Latino communities he represented, emphasized that Democrats need to seize this moment to win back Latino support.

Democrats “do too little to engage the Latino community, and then they wonder why all these Latinos voted for Trump? Because you didn't knock on their doors asking to vote for the Democrat. You failed to message us in so many ways,” he said. “They should embrace it.”

“It's such a huge watershed moment,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said. “I wouldn't be surprised if he used this as a very unifying moment, but also on very resonant and salient grounds to send a message to people.”

There’s already signs of what’s on the Latino rapper’s mind.

“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say, ‘ICE out,’” Bad Bunny said last Sunday as he accepted the Grammy for Best Música Urbana Album for his record-smashing “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” — just hours before taking home the night’s biggest prize, Album of the Year. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens — we are humans, and we are Americans.”

Bad Bunny isn’t new to political endeavors. But he has long focused primarily on island politics — he’s a big activist for Puerto Rican independence — and has only occasionally weighed in on mainland issues.

In 2024, shortly after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe infamously disparaged Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” during the pre-show for Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, Bad Bunny posted an endorsement of Kamala Harris to …

What is the “anti” argument against Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act?
Ask who never gets charged.

My understanding is this. The strict originalist side believes that only the state legislatures, without the state court and with some debate about the governor (though it appears even Thomas rejected the view diminishing gubernatorial power). This view lost by 6-3 in 2023 or 24 at the Supreme Court in Moore v Harper.
My question is, wouldn’t the arguments for the VRA be even stronger. The strict originalist interpretation is that the state legislature or Congress can pass redistricting laws, and the VRA is clearly the latter.

The single crushing problem American cattle ranchers wish Trump would fix instead
Who's accountable for the results?

President Donald Trump's beef import plan aims to cut prices, but cattle ranchers say it misses what’s crushing them most — the power of meat packers.
"Meat packers have created a system where they win no matter what—at the cost of everyone else," said Will Harris, a fourth-generation cattleman and owner of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia.
Harris, who plans to hand off the operation to his children, said his farm handles every step of production, from raising cattle to processing and selling beef, giving him a clear view of how prices are set.
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At the center of that pricing power sit the "Big Four" — Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef — anchoring the U.S. beef supply chain from pasture to plate.
Together, the packing titans process about 85% of the grain-fattened cattle that become steaks, roasts and other supermarket cuts.
"The U.S. beef market is so highly concentrated that a small number of dominant packers control processing, distribution and pricing. This allows them to pay ranchers less for cattle while charging consumers more at the store. When cheap imported beef enters the system, it allows packers to increase their margins," Harris told Fox News Digital.
It’s a concern echoed deep into cattle country.
Texas cattle rancher Cole Bolton said he sees the same problem in the Lone Star State.
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"What the real issue is, is the price differential between the big four packers and what they're paying us for the product," said Bolton, the owner of K&C Cattle Company.
Those margins, Bolton said, have been squeezed for decades. "Ranchers have dealt with such thin margins of profitability for the last 20 years."
While ranchers like Bolton and Harris say Trump’s temporary expansion of U.S. beef imports from Argentina may help ease prices in the short term, both warn it is no substitute for rebuilding domestic production.
"Imports should be a bridge, not a long-term replacement," Harris said. "We must rebuild the American cattle herd, protect American farmers and ensure transparency, so consumers understand where their beef comes from. Long-term affordability depends on a healthy, resilient domestic cattle industry—not permanent dependence on foreign beef."
Years of drought, high feed costs and an aging ranching population have thinned herds, leaving the U.S. cattle supply at its lowest level in more than 70 years.
"I think it's going to take a while to fix …

Iran threatens to attack US bases ‘spread all over’ region if Trump orders strikes
Be honest—this is ridiculous.

Iran is once again threatening to attack U.S. military bases across the Middle East if President Donald Trump orders a second round of strikes on the Islamic Republic in less than a year.

“In my view, this is very clear. If the U.S. attacks us, it is evident that we don’t have the ability and access to attack U.S. territory and therefore have to attack or retaliate to U.S. bases in the region,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera on Saturday. “And unfortunately, U.S. bases are spread all over the region.”

Iranian leaders, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have made repeated threats if Trump intervened militarily in Iranian affairs as the clerical regime cracked down on anti-government protesters.

MICHAEL RUBIN: WILL TRUMP FALL FOR IRAN’S NUCLEAR NEGOTIATIONS BLUFF?

The latest threat was made one day after the United States and Iran concluded their first two rounds of indirect nuclear talks in Oman. Additional talks are expected to take place in the coming days.

The renewed negotiations center on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, which the U.S. targeted in a bombing campaign last June. Tensions between the two nations have grown ever since then.

Araghchi said there is a “very, very deep distrust” amid the nuclear talks because the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear facilities during negotiations last summer.

“In my view, this is not easy. This distrust, of course, was created by the United States,” he added. “In the previous round of negotiations, it was not us who carried out a military attack in the middle of negotiations. In fact, the first bomb that was fired at us was fired at the negotiating table.”

The U.S. attack followed the Israeli military’s strikes on Iranian targets, which were meant to prevent the Islamic regime from further developing nuclear weapons. Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, short of the 90% threshold that is required for nuclear weapons, before the conflict.

While its nuclear capabilities had been set back, Iran stated during the latest negotiations that it does not intend to stop enriching uranium as the U.S. military surrounds the nation.

The USS Abraham Lincoln is one of many U.S. Navy ships that recently arrived in the Arabian Sea in a show of force against Iran. Trump’s Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner both boarded the aircraft carrier on Saturday after holding nuclear talks with Iranian officials.

Trump hopes to make a nuclear deal with Iran soon. …

Japan's governing party projected to win snap election majority
Be honest—this is ridiculous.

Starter Comment
Some excerpts from the article:
The country's first female prime minister is seeking a clear public mandate just four months after becoming Liberal Democrat Party (LDP) leader.
Her predicted success is in marked contrast to her two predecessors, under whom the party lost its parliamentary majority because of corruption scandals and rising costs.
But Takaichi's personal popularity appears to have helped the party, with approval ratings for her government mostly hovering above 70%.
The LDP and its current coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, could secure as many as 366 of the 465 seats [~79%] in the House of Representatives, according to a poll by broadcaster NHK.
Takaichi's enthusiasm, populist spending promises and nationalist rhetoric appear to have energised voters.
Takaichi has pushed to toughen the immigration system, review rules around foreign ownership of Japanese land, and tackle any non-payments of tax and health insurance by foreign nationals. But in a country where only 3% of the population are foreign nationals, critics have accused her of creating anxiety and division.
Relations with China - Japan's largest trading partner - have been strained as well, after Takaichi suggested last November that Japan could intervene militarily if China invaded Taiwan.
Takaichi has courted Donald Trump, who has publicly endorsed her - an unusual move by a US president - and they both seem to agree that Japan should spend more on defence.

Questions:
Do you believe that Takaichi can successfully reinvigorate Japan's ailing economy?

What are the geopolitical implications of Takaichi's nationalist rhetoric and more bellicose stance towards China?

In the context of President Trump's wavering defense commitments to historical allies, do you believe that Takaichi will be able to secure and strengthen military ties with the US.