Good morning, and welcome to The Epoch Times News Brief for Wednesday, October 30, 2024. I’m Bill Thomas, we have some very compelling stories to share with you right now, and here’s what’s going on just six days before the presidential election.
The owner of Amazon weighs in on a recent controversial decision regarding presidential endorsements, the host of a popular podcast makes a surprising announcement that deals with a very special guest, and the two leading presidential candidates make their final appeals to undecided voters.
Also, a federal court issues a critical ruling dealing with gun laws in Washington, and some alarming new numbers have just been released regarding U.S. home sales.
Bezos Elaborates on Major Editorial Decision
Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, is backing his newspaper’s recent decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in the upcoming election, saying that such endorsements create a perception of bias, have no impact on elections, and ultimately contribute to the public’s loss of faith in traditional media.He wrote an opinion piece explaining the decision, and it ran yesterday in the paper’s print edition. In the piece, he said that the change in his paper’s endorsement policy is a “principled decision” and “the right one.”
In the op-ed, Bezos repeated his publisher’s recent explanation that the newspaper was returning to its original editorial policy and would not endorse candidates in the future.
He also pointed out in his op-ed piece that public surveys often show people don’t trust the media, that a presidential endorsement could further damage credibility, and that what the media has been doing “is clearly not working.”
He went on to say that declining to endorse a presidential candidate may not move the media very far up the trust scale, but he called the decision “a meaningful step in the right direction.”
By the way, quite a few Post employees have protested the choice not to endorse a candidate, including one former executive editor who called the move an act of “cowardice” and three members of the paper’s current editorial board who stepped down as a result.
However, a number of other newspapers have also chosen not to endorse a candidate, including the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and more than 200 publications within the USA Today Network, including The Arizona Republic and the Detroit Free Press.
Joe Rogan Updates on Likelihood of Harris Interview
Joe Rogan said he’s leaving the door open for Vice President Kamala Harris to appear on his show, just days after he was visited by her opponent, former President Donald Trump.So you know, Rogan’s three-hour interview with Trump has already reached nearly 38 million views in three days, and it’s the most-watched podcast interview with either candidate during the current election cycle.
In a recent post on X, Rogan said that the Harris campaign team is placing certain conditions on the interview, including its length, and that he believes the best place to hold the interview would be in his studio in Austin, Texas.
Rogan also said that his sincere wish is to just “have a nice conversation” with Harris and “get to know her as a human being.”
It’s worth mentioning, however, that a campaign spokesperson for the vice president said last week on MSNBC that Harris would not appear on Rogan’s show due to her schedule during the week leading up to the election.
The popular podcaster’s interview with the Republican candidate for president touched on a wide range of topics, including whether Trump would eliminate federal income taxes, whether or not he would bring Robert F. Kennedy into his administration, and even whether or not he believes in extraterrestrials.
Meanwhile, Harris has recently appeared on several podcasts and shows herself, including the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, “The View” on ABC, and Howard Stern’s radio program.
Now this is interesting: In a separate post on X, Rogan said that there has been “an issue” with searching for the Trump episode on YouTube, and many users also report that it has been difficult to find the recent interview by using the platform’s internal search engine.
Trump and Harris Make Closing Remarks
This week, each candidate will make a number of very important stops in the critical swing states which will very likely determine who wins the presidential race.Both campaigns are ramping up their efforts to ensure a high voter turnout, and the candidates themselves are each emphasizing the fear of what could happen if the election goes the other way.
Yesterday, Harris delivered her closing arguments at the Ellipse in Washington, where she drew a sharp contrast between her and Trump’s visions for the presidency. Leading up to the event, she increased her criticisms of Trump, labeling him as “unhinged and unstable.”
By the way, the Harris campaign chose the Ellipse as a symbolic location: The venue was the site of a rally where then-President Trump spoke before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach.
Meanwhile, at a recent rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Trump called Harris “incompetent” and “unfit” for the nation’s highest office, and he suggested that her presidency would lead to World War III.
You should know that both Trump and Harris are virtually tied in the national polls, according to the most recent average compiled by RealClearPolitics.
However, poll averages taken in the battleground states are trending slightly in Trump’s favor, indicating that some of the early enthusiasm generated for Harris has diminished as the presidential race enters the home stretch.
One political analyst says the Harris campaign has lost some of its steam, because the Trump campaign has effectively criticized the current administration’s border policy, the vice president’s liberal stances, and her low job approval ratings.
The analyst says that the race is still too close to call, and that it all comes down to which candidate voters see as the less risky choice.
Top Court Rules on Gun Magazines
A federal appeals court denied a gun rights challenge to the District of Columbia’s ban on magazines with more than 10 rounds of ammunition.You should know that a man named Andrew Hanson had filed the appeal after a district judge last year turned down his request to block the law on constitutional grounds, and yesterday, a three-judge panel voted 2–1 to deny it.
In his appeal, Hanson pointed to a ruling spelled out by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, which recognizes the right to bear arms in public for self-defense.
After that high court ruling was issued back in 2022, Hanson and a few other people sued the District of Columbia, asking for a declaration from the federal district court that the magazine cap ran afoul of the Second Amendment. However, the court denied Hanson’s motion to stop the local law, and he appealed that decision.
By the way, the District enacted its own Firearms Registration Act after the Supreme Court struck down the city’s sweeping restrictions on gun ownership in a 2008 decision. In that decision, the nation’s highest court found that individuals have a right to possess firearms for lawful purposes, including self-defense at home.
However, the Firearms Registration Act made it a felony-level offense to have a magazine that could hold more than 10 rounds.
US Home Sales Poised for Worst Year Since 1995 as ‘Lock-in Effect’ Persists
Existing home sales in the U.S. real estate market are on track for their worst annual performance in nearly three decades.The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is reporting that the sales of existing homes dropped 1 percent last month, and the annual rate is down more than 3 percent from a year ago and is now at its lowest level since 2010.
Meanwhile, the inventory of unsold existing homes went up, and it’s now around 1.4 million homes.
However, one economist from the NAR says that even though home sales haven’t changed much over the past year, factors usually associated with higher home sales are developing. He points out that stocks have jumped, mortgage rates are lower, and prices are decelerating.
By the way, median existing home sale prices slowed down for the third consecutive month to just over $400,000, but they remain near record highs.
One financial expert told The Epoch Times that homeowners may be apprehensive about selling their houses because they were bought when the interest rates were historically low, making their monthly payments more affordable.
So you know, during the coronavirus pandemic, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to an all-time low below 3 percent, and a new study by realtor.com found that many homeowners feel tied to their properties by these so-called “golden handcuffs.”
The financial expert suggests that some potential home buyers may be waiting for lower interest rates before they enter the market. However, a different mortgage banker told The Epoch Times that falling interest rates could actually make affording a house even more difficult by driving up prices.
By the way, the U.S. Census Bureau says that new home sales were up 4 percent last month, and they’ve been rising throughout much of the past nine months.
Looking ahead, the NAR says that U.S. home prices next year are likely to rise by just under 3 percent. Additionally, one analyst for the financial services company Goldman Sachs says that it will take until the end of the decade before the U.S. housing market gets back to a healthy level of affordability.
And now, it looks like our time is just about up for today, so we’re gonna call it a wrap for the Wednesday edition of the Epoch Times News Brief.
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And finally, as we do each and every day on this program, we wrap everything up with a very notable quote and a timely one as well with Halloween rapidly approaching. It was candy man Willy Wonka who said:
“Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted—he lived happily ever after.”
For all of us here at the Epoch Times News Brief, I’m Bill Thomas.
The Epoch Times News Brief program is written each day by David Ross.
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