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2025-01-25
U.S. Postmaster General defends postal servicePLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, Jimmy Carter left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world. Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by “Mr. Earl,” prompted the submariner and his wife, Rosalynn, to return to the rural life of Plains, Georgia, they thought they’d escaped. The lieutenant never would be an admiral. Instead, he became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The life of James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, ended Sunday at the age of 100 where it began: Plains, the town of 600 that fueled his political rise, welcomed him after his fall and sustained him during 40 years of service that redefined what it means to be a former president. With the stubborn confidence of an engineer and an optimism rooted in his Baptist faith, Carter described his motivations in politics and beyond in the same way: an almost missionary zeal to solve problems and improve lives. Carter was raised amid racism, abject poverty and hard rural living — realities that shaped both his deliberate politics and emphasis on human rights. “He always felt a responsibility to help people,” said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of Carter's in Plains. “And when he couldn’t make change wherever he was, he decided he had to go higher.” Carter's path, a mix of happenstance and calculation , pitted moral imperatives against political pragmatism; and it defied typical labels of American politics, especially caricatures of one-term presidents as failures. “We shouldn’t judge presidents by how popular they are in their day. That's a very narrow way of assessing them," Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told the Associated Press. “We should judge them by how they changed the country and the world for the better. On that score, Jimmy Carter is not in the first rank of American presidents, but he stands up quite well.” Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at The Carter Center — advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 — and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity. Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency. “He doesn’t quite fit in today’s terms” of a left-right, red-blue scoreboard, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the former president multiple times during his own White House bid. At various points in his political career, Carter labeled himself “progressive” or “conservative” — sometimes both at once. His most ambitious health care bill failed — perhaps one of his biggest legislative disappointments — because it didn’t go far enough to suit liberals. Republicans, especially after his 1980 defeat, cast him as a left-wing cartoon. It would be easiest to classify Carter as a centrist, Buttigieg said, “but there’s also something radical about the depth of his commitment to looking after those who are left out of society and out of the economy.” Indeed, Carter’s legacy is stitched with complexities, contradictions and evolutions — personal and political. The self-styled peacemaker was a war-trained Naval Academy graduate who promised Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy that he’d “kick his ass.” But he campaigned with a call to treat everyone with “respect and compassion and with love.” Carter vowed to restore America’s virtue after the shame of Vietnam and Watergate, and his technocratic, good-government approach didn't suit Republicans who tagged government itself as the problem. It also sometimes put Carter at odds with fellow Democrats. The result still was a notable legislative record, with wins on the environment, education, and mental health care. He dramatically expanded federally protected lands, began deregulating air travel, railroads and trucking, and he put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. As a fiscal hawk, Carter added a relative pittance to the national debt, unlike successors from both parties. Carter nonetheless struggled to make his achievements resonate with the electorate he charmed in 1976. Quoting Bob Dylan and grinning enthusiastically, he had promised voters he would “never tell a lie.” Once in Washington, though, he led like a joyless engineer, insisting his ideas would become reality and he'd be rewarded politically if only he could convince enough people with facts and logic. This served him well at Camp David, where he brokered peace between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Epypt’s Anwar Sadat, an experience that later sparked the idea of The Carter Center in Atlanta. Carter's tenacity helped the center grow to a global force that monitored elections across five continents, enabled his freelance diplomacy and sent public health experts across the developing world. The center’s wins were personal for Carter, who hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite, and nearly did. As president, though, the approach fell short when he urged consumers beleaguered by energy costs to turn down their thermostats. Or when he tried to be the nation’s cheerleader, beseeching Americans to overcome a collective “crisis of confidence.” Republican Ronald Reagan exploited Carter's lecturing tone with a belittling quip in their lone 1980 debate. “There you go again,” the former Hollywood actor said in response to a wonky answer from the sitting president. “The Great Communicator” outpaced Carter in all but six states. Carter later suggested he “tried to do too much, too soon” and mused that he was incompatible with Washington culture: media figures, lobbyists and Georgetown social elites who looked down on the Georgians and their inner circle as “country come to town.” Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. Born Oct. 1, 1924 , Carter was raised in the mostly Black community of Archery, just outside Plains, by a progressive mother and white supremacist father. Their home had no running water or electricity but the future president still grew up with the relative advantages of a locally prominent, land-owning family in a system of Jim Crow segregation. He wrote of President Franklin Roosevelt’s towering presence and his family’s Democratic Party roots, but his father soured on FDR, and Jimmy Carter never campaigned or governed as a New Deal liberal. He offered himself as a small-town peanut farmer with an understated style, carrying his own luggage, bunking with supporters during his first presidential campaign and always using his nickname. And he began his political career in a whites-only Democratic Party. As private citizens, he and Rosalynn supported integration as early as the 1950s and believed it inevitable. Carter refused to join the White Citizens Council in Plains and spoke out in his Baptist church against denying Black people access to worship services. “This is not my house; this is not your house,” he said in a churchwide meeting, reminding fellow parishioners their sanctuary belonged to God. Yet as the appointed chairman of Sumter County schools he never pushed to desegregate, thinking it impractical after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision. And while presidential candidate Carter would hail the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson when Carter was a state senator, there is no record of Carter publicly supporting it at the time. Carter overcame a ballot-stuffing opponent to win his legislative seat, then lost the 1966 governor's race to an arch-segregationist. He won four years later by avoiding explicit mentions of race and campaigning to the right of his rival, who he mocked as “Cufflinks Carl” — the insult of an ascendant politician who never saw himself as part the establishment. Carter’s rural and small-town coalition in 1970 would match any victorious Republican electoral map in 2024. Once elected, though, Carter shocked his white conservative supporters — and landed on the cover of Time magazine — by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Before making the jump to Washington, Carter befriended the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom he’d never sought out as he eyed the governor’s office. Carter lamented his foot-dragging on school integration as a “mistake.” But he also met, conspicuously, with Alabama's segregationist Gov. George Wallace to accept his primary rival's endorsement ahead of the 1976 Democratic convention. “He very shrewdly took advantage of his own Southerness,” said Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and expert on Carter’s campaigns. A coalition of Black voters and white moderate Democrats ultimately made Carter the last Democratic presidential nominee to sweep the Deep South. Then, just as he did in Georgia, he used his power in office to appoint more non-whites than all his predecessors had, combined. He once acknowledged “the secret shame” of white Americans who didn’t fight segregation. But he also told Alter that doing more would have sacrificed his political viability – and thus everything he accomplished in office and after. King's daughter, Bernice King, described Carter as wisely “strategic” in winning higher offices to enact change. “He was a leader of conscience,” she said in an interview. Rosalynn Carter, who died on Nov. 19 at the age of 96, was identified by both husband and wife as the “more political” of the pair; she sat in on Cabinet meetings and urged him to postpone certain priorities, like pressing the Senate to relinquish control of the Panama Canal. “Let that go until the second term,” she would sometimes say. The president, recalled her former aide Kathy Cade, retorted that he was “going to do what’s right” even if “it might cut short the time I have.” Rosalynn held firm, Cade said: “She’d remind him you have to win to govern.” Carter also was the first president to appoint multiple women as Cabinet officers. Yet by his own telling, his career sprouted from chauvinism in the Carters' early marriage: He did not consult Rosalynn when deciding to move back to Plains in 1953 or before launching his state Senate bid a decade later. Many years later, he called it “inconceivable” that he didn’t confer with the woman he described as his “full partner,” at home, in government and at The Carter Center. “We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP in 2021. So deep was their trust that when Carter remained tethered to the White House in 1980 as 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, it was Rosalynn who campaigned on her husband’s behalf. “I just loved it,” she said, despite the bitterness of defeat. Fair or not, the label of a disastrous presidency had leading Democrats keep their distance, at least publicly, for many years, but Carter managed to remain relevant, writing books and weighing in on societal challenges. He lamented widening wealth gaps and the influence of money in politics. He voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later declared that America had devolved from fully functioning democracy to “oligarchy.” Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to “move to a very liberal program,” lest they help re-elect President Donald Trump. Carter scolded the Republican for his serial lies and threats to democracy, and chided the U.S. establishment for misunderstanding Trump’s populist appeal. He delighted in yearly convocations with Emory University freshmen, often asking them to guess how much he’d raised in his two general election campaigns. “Zero,” he’d gesture with a smile, explaining the public financing system candidates now avoid so they can raise billions. Carter still remained quite practical in partnering with wealthy corporations and foundations to advance Carter Center programs. Carter recognized that economic woes and the Iran crisis doomed his presidency, but offered no apologies for appointing Paul Volcker as the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate hikes would not curb inflation until Reagan's presidency. He was proud of getting all the hostages home without starting a shooting war, even though Tehran would not free them until Reagan's Inauguration Day. “Carter didn’t look at it” as a failure, Alter emphasized. “He said, ‘They came home safely.’ And that’s what he wanted.” Well into their 90s, the Carters greeted visitors at Plains’ Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday School and where he will have his last funeral before being buried on family property alongside Rosalynn . Carter, who made the congregation’s collection plates in his woodworking shop, still garnered headlines there, calling for women’s rights within religious institutions, many of which, he said, “subjugate” women in church and society. Carter was not one to dwell on regrets. “I am at peace with the accomplishments, regret the unrealized goals and utilize my former political position to enhance everything we do,” he wrote around his 90th birthday. The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as public pilgrimages to Plains became advantageous again. Carter sat with Buttigieg for the final time March 1, 2020, hours before the Indiana mayor ended his campaign and endorsed eventual winner Joe Biden. “He asked me how I thought the campaign was going,” Buttigieg said, recalling that Carter flashed his signature grin and nodded along as the young candidate, born a year after Carter left office, “put the best face” on the walloping he endured the day before in South Carolina. Never breaking his smile, the 95-year-old host fired back, “I think you ought to drop out.” “So matter of fact,” Buttigieg said with a laugh. “It was somehow encouraging.” Carter had lived enough, won plenty and lost enough to take the long view. “He talked a lot about coming from nowhere,” Buttigieg said, not just to attain the presidency but to leverage “all of the instruments you have in life” and “make the world more peaceful.” In his farewell address as president, Carter said as much to the country that had embraced and rejected him. “The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language,” he declared. “Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.” Carter pledged to remain engaged with and for them as he returned “home to the South where I was born and raised,” home to Plains, where that young lieutenant had indeed become “a fellow citizen of the world.” —- Bill Barrow, based in Atlanta, has covered national politics including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP since 2012.jili golden empire

Adam Kinzinger had the perfect response to Trump's strategy of attacks and lies(BPT) - Tech gifts are consistently some of the most popular presents to give and receive during the holidays. In fact, according to the annual Consumer Technology Holiday Purchase Patterns report , a record 233 million U.S. adults (89%) will buy tech products during the 2024 holiday season. But with so many devices out there, it can be hard to decide on the perfect option for the loved one on your list. A tablet like the new Fire HD 8 from Amazon offers the versatility of an all-in-one device, with access to streaming, gaming, video chatting, reading or writing all at your fingertips. Fire HD 8 also features a vibrant 8-inch HD display and lightweight, portable design, for high-quality entertainment on the go. Plus, Fire HD 8 comes with three new AI features that can help you get the most out of your tablet experience. Check them out below and learn how they can help you with daily tasks this holiday season and beyond. 1. Meet your personal writing assistant Do you struggle with writing a heartfelt message or finessing a tricky email? Fear not! Writing Assist is here to help. Writing Assist works as part of your Fire tablet's device keyboard and compatible apps, including email, Word documents and social media. In just a few taps, you can transform your writing from good to great. Try Writing Assist's pre-set styles to turn a simple email into a professionally written note. Or, you can ask Writing Assist for grammar suggestions to make your writing more concise, or elaborate on your ideas. You can even "emojify" your writing to add more fun and personality. 2. Learn more in less time Say goodbye to scrolling through pages of information. The new Webpage Summaries feature allows you to learn pertinent information as quickly as possible. Available on the Silk browser on Fire tablets, Webpage Summaries provides quick insights on web articles. In a matter of seconds, this feature will distill the key points in an article or on a webpage into a clear, concise summary of what you need to know. 3. Get creative with your device wallpaper With Wallpaper Creator, you can easily add a touch of creative flair and customization to your tablet's home screen. You can choose from one of the curated prompts to get started on creating a unique background. Or, if you're ready to let your imagination run wild, type a description of what you'd like to see. For example, you can ask for an image of a tiger swimming underwater or a watercolor-style image of a desert landscape in space. Wallpaper Creator will then turn your vision into a reality, delivering a high-resolution image that you can use as your tablet's wallpaper. Celebrate an AI-powered holiday season Writing Assist, Webpage Summaries, and Wallpaper Creator are now available on Amazon's new Fire HD 8 and other compatible Fire tablet devices, including the latest Fire HD 10 and Fire Max 11 tablets. To learn more, or to order a new Fire tablet this gift-giving season, visit Amazon.com .College professor and MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson warned that President-Elect Donald Trump’s new pick to lead the Justice Department should spark “fear” among the left because she could actually execute his agenda. Trump announced Thursday evening that he’s nominating former attorney general of Florida Pam Bondi as the next attorney general of the United States. The latest cabinet pick replaces former Florida representative Matt Gaetz, who withdrew as nominee for attorney general on Thursday after the “distraction” his nomination had caused due to a swirl of allegations about paying underage women for sex. Johnson told MSNBC host Ari Melber that this is bad news for those concerned about Trump. “Occasionally, attorneys general try to behave like they are not the personal lawyer of the President of the United States. That is completely out the window. Pam Bondi is exactly what I was saying in the last segment that we should all fear, because she’s competent,” he said. “We may not agree with her ideologically, but she actually knows how to do this job,” Johnson told Melber, adding, “So if anyone on the Democratic side or anyone who cared about liberty or justice was thinking ‘Well maybe Matt Gaetz will screw this up and that will give us time,’ no. Pam Bondi knows what she is doing.” He went on to tell the news host that her association with Florida’s government indicates she knows how to use state power to accomplish conservative agendas. Follow the latest on President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet selections: “She knows what she’s doing about immigration. Remember, Florida is one of those states that has been very aggressive about migrants and deportation and moving people to different states and everything else like that. Florida has enacted all sorts of rules and laws to curtail students and what they can do on campuses and finding legal justifications for manipulating education money,” Johnson said. He continued, “She is a dangerous and effective pick, and that’s frankly worse than what we would have got with Matt Gaetz, even with the deplorable moral background that he has.” As Johnson mentioned, he had warned about the concept of a more experienced pick in a previous segment, arguing it would be a far more frightening choice for those wary of Trump’s agenda. “It is, but I guess I’m from the perspective of, I never necessarily thought that Matt Gaetz was a sincere pick. Trump can call all he wants, but I suspect there were many, many people lined up to come after him who won’t be as offensive, who might actually be more effective,” he said. “So while it might be a loss in the battle, I don’t necessarily think it’s a victory in the war against what may be an AG that ushers in an authoritarian type of presidency that affects the fundamental rights of American citizens,” Johnson added.

Premier Reconditioning On Removing Moss From RooftopsClashes between Syrian Kurdish forces and Turkish-backed Syrian militias could be one of the biggest potential problems in Syria as the country grapples with life after dictator Bashar Assad. One of the biggest risks for Syria's peaceful transition lies in the country's northeast. While many Syrian Arabs around the country were celebrating the demise of the regime headed by Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and the end of a long-running civil war, Syrian Kurds in the northeast were facing an existential crisis. Clashes between Syrian fighters backed by Turkey and Syrian Kurdish forces were of great concern United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pederson said this week. The other immediate areas of concern are Israel's ongoing incursions into Syria and the protection of Syria's minorities. What is happening in the northeast? Fighting in the Syrian civil war had been frozen for years, and the opposition groups controlling their different areas in the north tended not to clash. But over the past few days, fighting erupted again. After the fall of the Assad regime , the so-called Syrian National Army (SNA), a group of fighters backed by Turkey, has tried to advance into areas controlled by Syrian Kurds. The Turkish government opposes the Kurdish presence on their border, seeing them as a threat. This is because of a long-running Kurdish struggle for independence in Turkey that has often turned violent. As the Turkish-backed militias have advanced, the Syrian Kurdish forces there, known as the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), have lost territory. Turkey has also used airstrikes and drones to support the SNA's advance. On Tuesday, the two parties said they negotiated a ceasefire agreement with help from the United States. This will involve the withdrawal of Syrian Kurdish forces from some of the areas they previously controlled. Another rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has taken control of the Arab-majority city of Deir al-Zour . The SDF withdrew from there following local unrest. The US-trained Syrian Free Army (SFA) has also taken some terrain here. The SDF has now said it is open to participating in a new political process in Syria. Why is it happening? The Kurdish people are often described as one of the biggest ethnic groups in the world without a country of their own. If they did have a country, it would lie in the Kurdish-majority areas where Iraq , Iran, Syria and Turkey meet. There is a Kurdish independence movement in each of those countries, whose members have lobbied and even fought for an independent state or Kurdish autonomy, with varying degrees of success. Kurdish independence movements in each of the countries have also been repressed by their respective governments — also with varying degrees of success. In Turkey, the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, turned to violence to try to achieve their aims. In Syria, near the start of the civil war, around 2012, the forces of now-deposed dictator Assad, withdrew from Kurdish-majority areas in northeastern and eastern Syria without much of a fight. The move was not without controversy . Syrian Arab revolutionaries said they didn't want the Kurds to be independent from Syria and that the country should remain united. There was also scurrilous talk about whether the Kurds had betrayed the original objectives of Syria's revolutionaries, to overthrow the regime, and that in a bid to pursue their own goal of Kurdish independence, the Kurds would maintain neutrality in the civil war. The Kurds never really fought against Assad's forces, and this alleged "betrayal" caused antipathy between Syrian Arabs and Syrian Kurds, layered on top of previous ethnic tensions and racism. During the 13-year civil war, the US got involved with Syria's Kurds, allying with them to combat the extremist group known as the "Islamic State" (IS) . The group came from Iraq and, taking advantage of the chaos of the civil war, set up a "Syrian capital" for its planned "caliphate" in Raqqa. US and Kurdish forces were the major players in the fight against the IS group in Syria. And while fighting against the IS group, Syrian Kurds also expanded the terrain under their control, including Arab-majority areas like Raqqa and Deir al-Zour. Locals have protested against the Kurdish leadership there, including this week when they insisted the Kurdish forces allow other rebel groups to enter. All these issues, past and present, remain at the root of the problems the Syrian Kurds are now dealing with. Now that the Assad regime has gone, they are being squeezed between Syrian Arab groups and Turkey, with the US as their only ally. In fact, one of the questions that most worries Syria's Kurds is how long the American alliance will last after President-elect Donald Trump reenters the White House. There are fears the incoming Trump administration will withdraw US soldiers from Syria altogether, abandoning the Kurds. Currently, there are still an estimated 900 US soldiers in the country. Syrian minorities wary of HTS's promises of inclusivity To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Why does it matter? An estimated 4.6 million people were previously living in the Kurdish-controlled Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, or AANES. The area is also often called Rojava by local Kurds and was also home to Kurds from Iraq, Turkey and Iran. Since fighting began this week, the UN estimates over 100,000 people in the area have fled the fighting, most of them Kurds. Several hundred people have been killed in the fighting. Apart from the humanitarian aspects of the situation, the territory the Kurds held included most of Syria's oil fields and was also a major wheat producer. In particular, control over Syria's oil fields will be important to the new government, as income from them will help the country's devastated economy . Experts also suggest the Turkish-backed SNA's race to grab as much territory as possible goes beyond Turkish aims to get the Kurds off the border. Territorial control is also about leverage and power as the next Syrian government is formed. Additionally, the SDF runs large prison camps in northeastern Syria, which house thousands of former IS extremists. Previously, SDF fighters have said that if they are attacked, they'll be forced to leave the prison camps unguarded. Edited by: Sean M. Sinico

PITTSBURGH — Michael Bunting and Kris Letang each scored a power-play goal and added two assists, as the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Calgary Flames 6-2 on Saturday night. Philip Tomasino also scored on the power play as Pittsburgh has goals with the man advantage in six of its last eight games. Rickard Rakell equaled a season-long three-game goal streak with his 10th of the season, while Anthony Beauvillier and Blake Lizotte also scored. Sidney Crosby extended a four-game point streak with an assist. Alex Nedeljkovic made 30 saves for his first win since Nov. 16 against San Jose. Jonathan Huberdeau and Nazem Kadri added a goal and assist each in the third period for Calgary, which has allowed multiple power-play goals in an NHL-high six games this season. The Flames have won just three of 13 road games this season. Dan Vladar stopped 37 shots for Calgary. Takeaways Flames: Calgary equaled a season-long four-game losing streak. The Flames won four straight and five of six prior to their current skid. Penguins: Pittsburgh won three straight games for the first time this season. It’s the Penguins’ first three-game win streak since a four-game run in April. Pittsburgh lost eight of 10 prior to its current streak. Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic (39) reaches to make a save during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the Calgary Flames Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024, in Pittsburgh. Credit: AP/Matt Freed Key moment Calgary’s Martin Pospisil hit a post in the first five minutes of the game, but Nedeljkovic allowed Pittsburgh to pull away from there. He made a highlight-reel glove save on Rasmus Andersson later in the period and on the same penalty kill in the second period, denied a net-mouth scramble and made a sharp pad save without his stick. Key stat The Penguins are 33-2-1 in their last 36 games with three or more power-play goals. They scored three power-play goals for the first time since Jan. 24, 2023, against Florida. Up next The Penguins host Florida, while the Flames hosts Columbus on Tuesday.After two tied runoff elections and two recounts, the on Monday evening selected three potential candidates to replace in the Montana House. The longtime state representative from Billings was in the Montana Senate. State Rep. Emma Kerr-Carpenter, D-Billings, speaks during a public forum at the MSU Billings College of Education on Dec. 15, 2022. Kelker, 81, , leaving an opening for her in the upper legislative chamber. The unanimously selected Kerr-Carpenter, 35, to serve the remainder of Kelker’s term, which ends on Jan. 4, 2027, from among three candidates nominated by the local Democrats. Billings Democrat Emma Kerr-Carpenter is sworn in by Judge Colette Davies on Dec. 3 to serve in the Montana Senate. Yellowstone County Commissioners Don Jones (left) John Ostlund (center) and Mark Morse (right) appointed Kerr-Carpenter, who represents District 46 in the Montana House, to replace state Sen. Kathy Kelker, who resigned on Nov. 13. Later this month, the commission is expected appoint a new representative to serve Kerr-Carpenter's two-year term in the House. Kerr-Carpenter, who has represented central Billings in the legislature since 2018, was re-elected on Nov. 5. Her appointment to the state Senate, leaves her position in open just ahead of the Jan. 6 start of the legislative session. By state law, when a vacancy occurs, the central committee from the outgoing lawmaker’s political party nominates three potential successors. The county commissioners then select one of them to appoint. The local Democrats’ top picks to replace Kerr-Carpenter are , and . Joy, 60, a special needs assistant for Billings Public Schools, is currently serving her on the council. When she was first elected to represent Midtown and the South Side in 2017, she was the only member of the in Montana. Billings City Councilwoman Denise Joy poses for a portrait at Moav Coffee House after becoming Montana's only elected member of the Democratic Socialists of America in November 2017. , who previously served on the council with Joy, spoke on her behalf. He said she couldn’t miss the council meeting to be present when the party selected nominees on Monday evening because she’s the only member with a perfect attendance record. Choriki praises Joy’s work for Billings neighborhoods “That’s especially interesting because she was there the night after her ,” Choriki said. “She’s been a tireless advocate for the working class and other minorities. ...And she has those years of experience of knowing what’s going on with the government and what the city needs from the state legislature.” Nicholson, 70, ran in the Nov. 5 election for a four-year term serving parts of Southwest and central Billings in . Although he lost by 608 votes, or , to longtime local leader Republican Mike Yakawich, he said, he learned a lot by listening to voters during his campaign. Retired psychiatrist Dr. Mark Nicholson leaves a flyer at a home on Prickett Lane in Billings while campaigning for Montana Senate District 24 on Sept. 27. “We really need to continue our traditional Democratic work of making the system work for people,” Nicholson said. “But we also have to convince them that we’re doing that.” Nicholson shares what he heard on the campaign trail of 2024 If appointed, Nicholson said, he’d start helping working people by focusing on expanding Medicaid, reducing property taxes, improving education and curbing crime. Ross, 39, also competed for a legislative seat on the Nov. 5 ballot. Republican Curtis Schomer, however, won the two-year term to serve parts of Southwest Billings in , by 641 votes, or . Ross said her education studying art and psychology at MSU coupled with her experience working in mental health care for Youth Dynamics and being a parent made her want to start fighting for underdogs. Billings artist and property manager Anne Ross ran for a two-year term representing Southwest Billings in in the Nov. 5 election. “I definitely saw how close we all are to homelessness, to instability in our finances and things like that. We’re all just one lost paycheck away from something that could spiral into something much deeper,” she said. “Realizing that gave me a lot more empathy for the people who are struggling to get by.” Ross talks about fighting for Montana’s underdogs Becky Riedl, chairwoman for the local Democrats, said she plans to submit the three nominees to the Yellowstone County Commission by 5 p.m. Wednesday. The commissioners will then have 15 days to appoint Kerr-Carpenter’s successor. Riedl said Kelker hasn't given a reason for her resignation. She did not respond to the Gazette's request for an interview. Get local news delivered to your inbox!Michigan, Ohio State fight broken up with police pepper spray


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