Democratic candidates in several of this fall's most competitive House and Senate races are keeping Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and former Vice President Kamala Harris off their campaign trails - even though both women rank among the party's leading prospects for the 2028 presidential nomination.
The Democratic bench for 2028 includes Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Ocasio-Cortez, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly. Two of those six are women of color, from the demographic the party has spent a decade calling its moral center and its electoral future. Both now sit on the do-not-call list in the districts that will decide control of Congress in this year's midterm elections.
According to an Axios report, Democrats in several key battlegrounds are keeping Ocasio-Cortez at arm's length. Party officials say candidates in other close races have told her team outright to stay away. That is an electability problem for a politician whose whole pitch to primary voters is that bold progressivism, including Medicare for All, wins more votes than cautious centrism does.
Candidates in tight races reject that theory today even though they embraced it only months ago in their primaries. Sam Forstag, a progressive House candidate in Montana, rallied with Ocasio-Cortez in May on his way to the Democratic nomination. He has since scrubbed her endorsement from his campaign website.
"The polling is atrocious for her," a senior Democratic strategist working in a key swing district told Axios. "She's a lightning rod."
Her own team offered no evidence to the contrary. When Axios asked whether she had campaigned in person for any of the party's top House or Senate candidates this cycle, her office could not point to a single one.
Her travel log shows where she is welcome, and it's clearly not in races that matter. Ocasio-Cortez made stops in Buffalo and Ithaca this week but skipped New York's competitive 17th District in the lower Hudson Valley. She also stumped for Florida Senate nominee Angie Nixon, a fellow member of the Democratic Socialists of America, in a state that has drifted so far red that no serious Democrat expects Nixon to flip the seat. Buttigieg, Kelly and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, by contrast, have all drawn invitations from Democrats in competitive districts and states over the past month.
Kamala Harris is also getting snubbed despite polling the best of any 2028 contender. Last month, The Hill reported that Democrats in the most competitive midterm contests were shutting her out in public. Iowa supplied the most brutal data point. At the Iowa State Fair in August, a reporter asked gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand whether he wanted Harris to campaign for him.
"No thanks," Sand said. "Let's move on. We need some new leadership."
Josh Turek, the party's Senate nominee in Iowa, got the same question and answered with a smiling "No." In Alaska, Senate candidate Mary Peltola distanced herself from Harris after Harris's political operation sent out a fundraising appeal on Peltola's behalf without telling her first.
This pattern runs counter to every assumption baked into those primary polls. Harris is a former vice president, the first woman to hold the office, the party's 2024 nominee and one of its most recognizable faces.
For a party that spent a decade insisting diversity was its destiny, this dynamic carries a certain irony. Democrats built their brand on elevating women of color, and the two women of color on their 2028 bench are getting the cold shoulder.
Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 18:15Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times,
Beijing is "weaponizing" its dominance of rare earths, and Chinese authorities have escalated restrictions on efforts to diversify supply chains away from China, U.S. Ambassador David Perdue said on Sept. 29.
A view of the MP Materials rare-earth open-pit mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., on Jan. 30, 2020. Steve Marcus/Reuters"This is a single-source dominant position that China is weaponizing against the world right now," Perdue said in a post on X.
"We have told them this is unacceptable," he said. "We are not going to live in a world where we have to go to China and kowtow to do business the way we want."
In another post the same day, Perdue described the changes as an escalation from controls on exports from China to restrictions with consequences for people and businesses seeking alternatives.
"Back in April of last year, China put the export regime process in place for rare-earth elements and magnets," he said. "Then, on Oct. 9, they weaponized that by expanding that to the entire world."
"Now, they've weaponized it even further by escalating to the point where they make any diversification effort away from China a criminal offense, where they can arrest people, prosecute criminally, seize assets, exit ban, and so forth."
Beijing has expanded its enforcement of strategic-mineral controls in recent months.
In June, China's Commerce Ministry established a system encouraging organizations and individuals to report suspected violations involving strategic minerals. The conduct subject to reporting includes routing controlled materials through third countries and illegally transferring controlled technology overseas through investment, research and development, consulting or other means.
People who make verified reports may receive rewards, according to the ministry. Companies that discover that they have violated, or may have violated, the rules are instructed to report themselves, with voluntary disclosure considered as a possible basis for a lighter penalty. The system took effect July 1.
Rare-earth technology is also subject to controls covering more than shipments of minerals.
Rules Beijing announced last October covered technology used in rare-earth mining, refining, metal production, magnet manufacturing and recycling. They defined exports to include transferring or providing controlled technology to foreign organizations or individuals through investment, joint research, employment, hiring, and consulting.
The rules also barred Chinese citizens and organizations, without government permission, from providing substantial assistance to overseas rare-earth mining, refining and magnet-making operations.
China suspended implementation of those controls in November 2025 following U.S. - China trade talks, with the suspension formally scheduled to run through Nov. 10, 2026. The two countries agreed this month to extend their broader trade truce by two months, through Jan. 10, 2027, but Beijing has not announced a corresponding extension of these specific controls.
China added another enforcement tool this month.
Regulations that took effect Sept. 15 allow Chinese authorities to stop Chinese citizens from leaving the country for violations of export-control or technology import-export rules that authorities determine may endanger China's industrial or technological security.
The restrictions have also reached two companies at the center of U.S. efforts to build rare-earth supplies outside China.
On June 22, China's Commerce Ministry placed MP Materials and USA Rare Earth on an export-control list along with eight other U.S. companies. MP Materials operates the Mountain Pass rare-earth mine in California, while USA Rare Earth is developing a U.S. mine-to-magnet supply chain.
The Chinese order prohibits exporters from supplying the listed companies with dual use items and prohibits organizations and individuals in other countries from transferring Chinese-origin dual use items to them. Special exceptions require an application to the Commerce Ministry.
Beijing said the action was taken in response to the U.S. government adding Chinese companies to its list of "Chinese military companies."
Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 17:50A huge explosion has rocked a Damascus suburb area on Wednesday evening (local), in what could be the second act of suspected sabotage against natural gas infrastructure in just a few days.
"A gas pipeline exploded Wednesday near the Tishreen power station in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta area in the Damascus countryside," Alikhbariah TV reported.
According to more per regional sources, "It said the loud blast heard in Eastern Ghouta was caused by the pipeline explosion near the power station."
Unconfirmed images are already widely circulating...
🚨BREAKING: A Massive Explosion Near Damascus Intl Airport
According to sources inside Syria, a gas pipeline explosion occurred at the Tishreen power plant in the Haran al-Awamid area.
This would be the second pipeline explosion in only days. pic.twitter.com/MWm5GcWgif
Syria had reported at least two acts of major sabotage against its gas infrastructure in the prior six weeks.
One of these events happened Monday, and saw a fire rage out of control for many hours at a gas pipeline between al-Shola and Deir Ezzor following a mystery explosion.
For several years stretching through much of the last decade, Syrian cities - including the capital - have suffered intermittent and long power outages. It was especially during the tail-end of the proxy war to oust Assad that lack of fuel and electricity became a prolonged crisis.
Damascus residents, for example, often had a mere one hour of electricity in their homes per day - if at all. Entire remote villages and towns simply proceeded with daily life amid a total and persistent blackout.
This was to a large degree the result of a US-led sanctions war which in effect strangled the population. US troops had even for years directly occupied Syria's eastern oil and gas fields, which had been crucial for meeting domestic energy needs.
3 thermal power plants near Damascus were forced offline following an explosion in their supply pipeline. That’s the second Syrian gas pipeline blast in two days, following several weapons depot explosions across the country and nationwide energy protests pic.twitter.com/gU2MuFLco5
— Hadi (@HadiNasrallah) September 30, 2026But now after Jolani and his HTS jihadists seized power, and with Washington sanctions declared removed, the country is trying to restore and rebuild services.
While no group has yet claimed responsibility for sabotaging facilities in the east, it illustrates how the country is still in a deeply unstable situation.
Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 17:25