'No one's paying any attention': The week that Republicans ignored Trump's election lies

Losing candidates in Republican primaries this year aren't resorting to the former president's routine.

Donald Trump has been lying about voter fraud for so long that his impugning of yet another election seemed almost inevitable.

What was more revealing was that, for the first time, Republicans appeared not to be listening.

Mehmet Oz, the Trump-backed Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, did not prematurely declare victory last week, as Trump said he should. David McCormick, who is running narrowly behind Oz, has not claimed the election is unfair.

“No one’s paying any attention to it,” said Christopher Nicholas, a longtime Republican consultant based in Harrisburg.

Ever since the 2020 election, the Republican Party has been transfixed by Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 election was “rigged,” a falsehood large majorities of Republicans still believe. It’s an obsession that has animated primary campaigns across the country. And it will almost certainly resurface in the general election, when Republicans are running against Democrats, not one another.

Yet in Pennsylvania, Trump’s earliest effort to graft his 2020 complaints onto ballot counting in a midterm primary is falling flat. MAGA hard-liners who’ve lost primaries in other states in recent weeks have not contested the results. And when the primary calendar turns to Georgia on Tuesday, Trump’s election conspiracy crusade is likely to take another hit.

In that state, Gov. Brian Kemp is widely expected to finish first in his gubernatorial primary, despite being savaged by Trump for his resistance to Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

It’s an indication, early in the midterm primary calendar, that even in a party beholden to Trump, there is a limit to his reach.

“I think the shine has gone off a bit,” said Jason Shepherd, a former chair of the Republican Party in Georgia’s Cobb County, in the Atlanta suburbs.

Republicans, he said, “are realizing it’s great to have Trump’s endorsement,” but that the former president “is not going to be the end-all and be-all.”

In Pennsylvania, where votes are still being counted, the Oz and McCormick campaigns are preparing for a potentially fierce recount, including bringing on alumni of Trump’s 2020 campaign. It’s possible, once the result comes in, that the party will once again abandon pre-Trump norms.


Mehmet Oz, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, waves to supporters at a primary night election gathering in Newtown, Pennsylvania on Tuesday. | Seth Wenig/AP Photo

But one Republican who has advised Trump and is familiar with both the Oz and McCormick operations said “nobody wants to be viewed as a sore loser and make allegations they can’t sustain.”

“They’re both intelligent guys,” the person said. “They’re both sane guys, and neither of them wants to embarrass himself.”

Two years ago, Republicans did not have such reservations — with losing candidates up and down the ballot copying Trump’s fraud claims or refusing to concede. They may do so again in the fall.

But Trump never limited his complaints about rigged elections to match-ups with Democrats. He accused Sen. Ted Cruz of stealing the Iowa caucuses in 2016, calling for a do-over.

Yet losing candidates so far in this midterm have been reluctant to go there. In Nebraska, Charles Herbster, a Trump megadonor and friend of the former president who attended the Jan. 6 rally in Washington that preceded the riot at the Capitol, conceded after losing his gubernatorial run. So did Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, after her failed, Trump-backed bid to unseat Gov. Brad Little.

Even Rep. Madison Cawthorn conceded, the North Carolina Republican’s diatribe about “Dark MAGA” notwithstanding.

None of that is because Trump — or voter fraud — does not still resonate in the GOP. Trump helped pull his favored candidates to victory in key Senate races in Ohio and North Carolina. And in Pennsylvania last week, Doug Mastriano, the far-right election denier Trump endorsed, won the gubernatorial primary.

Even candidates Trump has not endorsed are wrapping themselves in any connection they can draw to him, and his rhetoric is still being parroted by prominent personalities on the right.

Last week, Cruz told The Washington Post that mail ballots in Pennsylvania create “serious opportunity for mischief.” And Fox News host Sean Hannity, an Oz ally, also parroted Trump, saying he does not “trust … the people that have the ballots.”

But for Republican candidates this cycle, the difference between 2022 and 2020, said John Thomas, a Republican strategist working on House campaigns across the country, is that “we’re just not seeing it where people hang on his every word.”

He advises his candidates to watch Tucker Carlson every night to “be in tune” with the electorate, not Trump on Truth Social, the platform on which Trump suggested the Pennsylvania election might be “rigged.”

“You want the glow and the halo effect of Donald Trump, but he’s not shaping policy at the moment,” Thomas said. “It matters who can get that nod and that halo effect from Trump, but outside of that, he kind of feels like an ex-president to me.”

Trump will likely have a mixed night Tuesday in the next big round of primaries. His preferred Senate candidate in Georgia, Herschel Walker, is favored to win. And Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is at risk of losing reelection after refusing to “find” votes for Trump in 2020.

But even in Georgia, which became an epicenter of Trump’s false election claims after he lost the state to Joe Biden in 2020, the tide may be shifting away from him. A recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll found Republican voters are more confident now in the integrity of their state’s elections than they were just several months ago.

And in a Fox News poll last week, just a quarter of Republican primary voters said it’s extremely important that a candidate identifies as a strong Trump supporter in order to earn their vote for governor. By contrast, nearly two-thirds said someone who “can win in November” is paramount, and 35 percent said it’s critical that a candidate “supports a Georgia abortion ban.”

In that race, Kemp is running so far ahead of Trump’s endorsed candidate, former Sen. David Perdue, who has made false claims about the 2020 election a centerpiece of his campaign, that he may avoid a runoff.


Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp speaks during a gubernatorial republican primary debate on May 1, 2022, in Atlanta. | Brynn Anderson, Pool, File/AP Photo

“We get it that people are still trying to exude a level of Trumpism as an attractive policy agenda,” said John Watson, a former chair of the Georgia Republican Party. “But my personal sense is that voters are saying, ‘Dude, chill.’”

He said, “I think there’s always going to be a constituency in the party, at least for the foreseeable future, that thinks that every damn election is rigged. But I think fundamentally, your average, serial primary voter is just smarter than that. I think they just believe it to be a Trump shtick at this point.”

A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. But for the former president, the imperative of keeping the routine up is obvious. He is deeply invested in his win-loss record in the midterms, and casting doubt on the Pennsylvania election will offer him a crutch in case Oz loses.

Among traditionalist Republicans, Trump’s intervention in Pennsylvania was widely viewed as a distraction from a favorable midterm election climate for the GOP, with concerns about the state of the economy and a deeply unpopular Democratic president to run against.

“There are pressing issues that need to be addressed, like inflation and the war in Ukraine, and we have a lot of overreach in the regulatory environment,” said Melissa Hart, a former congresswoman from Pennsylvania who dropped out of the state’s gubernatorial primary days before the election. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s time to move forward.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/22/republicans-ignored-trumps-election-lies-00034242

Trump's inner circle seems to have been a corrupt, meddling pit of vipers

The Justice Department just dropped a bombshell allegation against billionaire developer and former Republican National Committee finance chair Steve Wynn.


Steve Wynn shows off the plans for a casino in Everett during a press conference in Medford, Mass., on March 15, 2016. Jessica Rinaldi / Boston Globe via Getty Images file

By Casey Michel, author of "American Kleptocracy"
May 22, 2022, 5:32 AM EDT

Earlier last week, the Justice Department dropped a bombshell allegation against one of the key figures in former President Donald Trump’s circle. According to the Justice Department, billionaire developer Steve Wynn — a man who has known Trump for years and who served as the finance chair of the Republican National Committee during Trump’s first year in office — also worked as a foreign agent on behalf of the Chinese government. As such, the Justice Department is seeking to have Wynn register as a foreign agent.

According to a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department, Wynn used his perch to liaise with other foreign agents working on behalf of China to try to convince Trump to target an unnamed Chinese dissident, including by revoking the dissident’s visa and placing him on the U.S.’s no-fly list. Wynn’s primary contact in the operation was Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidy, who pleaded guilty in 2020 to working as an unregistered agent on behalf of China — and who at one time served under Wynn as the RNC’s deputy finance chair. (Wynn stepped down as RNC finance chair in 2018 following sexual misconduct claims.)

The lawsuit goes into granular detail, highlighting, for instance, multiple text messages between Broidy and Wynn’s wife it says were sent on her husband’s behalf. The fate of the unnamed dissident was a “matter of upmost importance” to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Broidy says in the texts. Wynn also spoke directly multiple times with then-vice minister Sun Lijun on the matter, with the now-former Chinese official asking directly for Wynn’s help. Broidy later texted that Sun was “extremely pleased and said that President Xi Jinping appreciates [Wynn’s] assistance.”

According to the lawsuit, Beijing had every reason to be happy with Wynn’s efforts. Throughout 2017, Wynn pushed Trump multiple times to place pressure on the unnamed dissident, including during “what appeared to be unscheduled meetings” with Trump. At one point, the Justice Department says Wynn called Trump from a yacht off the coast of Italy to discuss the matter. Wynn even roped in Trump’s chief of staff and senior national security council figures. As the Justice Department alleges, Wynn spent months trying to convince Trump — during which he never bothered to register any of his work with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), the primary U.S. method of disclosing work for foreign regimes.



For reasons that remain unclear, Wynn’s alleged illicit lobbying push eventually proved fruitless, and in late 2017 he asked his contact in the Chinese government to “stop contacting him.” But Wynn’s motivations certainly seem far less mysterious. As the Justice Department describes in the lawsuit, the government in the Chinese city of Macau, where Wynn operates multiple casinos, moved in 2016 to restrict the number of tables and machines available to Wynn, threatening his revenue stream. A few months later, Wynn allegedly began doing Beijing’s bidding — and began directly discussing the fate of his casinos on multiple calls with Sun.

Through his lawyers, Wynn has denied the allegations that he served as a secret foreign agent. However, the fact that the Justice Department has filed a formal lawsuit represents a significant step forward in the U.S.’s efforts to uncover illicit foreign lobbying campaigns. Even with the recent surge in attention on foreign lobbying in the U.S., the suit against Wynn is the first FARA-related civil lawsuit in more than three decades.

And it’s not hard to see why the Justice Department resorted to such a drastic measure. Since 2018, the department says it told Wynn multiple times that he had to register his lobbying efforts — and every time, the agency says, Wynn refused.

On the one hand, the allegations are shocking. After all, the U.S. government is formally accusing a longtime Trump compatriot, and the man charged with overseeing finances for the Republican National Committee, of secretly working on behalf of a global superpower that is often at odds with American interests. One would think such an allegation would spark a wholesale reckoning among Republican Party leadership.

But instead, these allegations have been mostly met with a collective shrug. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Wynn, after all, is hardly the only member of Trump’s orbit who is accused of having tried to bend the president to another country’s will. Alongside Broidy, Trump’s campaign chair (Paul Manafort) and deputy campaign chair (Rick Gates) were both convicted of illicitly lobbying for a foreign government. The same goes for Mike Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, who admitted to secretly working as a foreign agent for Turkey, in addition to taking tens of thousands of dollars from the Kremlin. And Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, remains under federal investigation for also allegedly working as a foreign agent, after being connected to lobbying efforts from Turkey to Venezuela to pro-Russian forces in Ukraine. (Giuliani has denied the allegations.)



Nor is this the only major news this week regarding illicit foreign lobbyists whispering in Trump’s ear. On Tuesday, federal prosecutors revealed more details about the alleged links between the United Arab Emirates and Tom Barrack, Trump’s major fundraiser and former foreign policy adviser. As the prosecutors in U.S. Eastern District Court have alleged, Barrack’s private equity firm received hundreds of millions of dollars from the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund in 2017 — all of it coming at the same time that Barrack was allegedly inserting pro-UAE language into Trump’s speeches, and while Barrack was passing internal White House discussions to his UAE handlers.

Between the charges against Wynn and the new allegations against Barrack, Trump’s administration appears even more open to foreign meddling than was previously thought. And there’s little reason to think we won’t learn more details, and more secret connections, in the near future.

But it’s also clear that with the new lawsuit, the Justice Department is willing to use more tools at its disposal to unearth these networks. It couldn’t come a moment too soon. With Trump eyeing a 2024 presidential run, foreign dictatorships around the world are searching out any opportunity they can find to potentially tilt American policy to their benefit — and to do so, as we saw time and again under Trump’s presidency, without the rest of us knowing.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opini...es-steve-wynn-may-foreign-agen-rcna29841

Trump shares CPAC Hungary platform with notorious racist and antisemite

Hungarian talkshow host who has called Jews ‘stinking excrement’ and Roma ‘animals’ addresses rightwing conference

A notorious Hungarian racist who has called Jews “stinking excrement”, referred to Roma as “animals” and used racial epithets to describe Black people, was a featured speaker at a major gathering of US Republicans in Budapest.

Zsolt Bayer took the stage at the second day of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Hungary, a convention that also featured speeches from Donald Trump, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

The last featured speaker of the conference was Jack Posobiec, a far-right US blogger who has used antisemitic symbols and promoted the fabricated “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory smearing prominent Democrats as pedophiles.

Bayer, a television talkshow host in Hungary, has been widely denounced for his racism. During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, he wrote on his blog: “Is this the future? Kissing the dirty boots of [censored] [racist epithet] and smiling at them? Being happy about this? Because otherwise they’ll kill you or beat you up?”

In 2011, he used the phrase “stinking excrement” to refer generically to Jews in England, and in 2013 wrote: “a significant part of the Roma are unfit for coexistence. They are not fit to live among people. These Roma are animals and they behave like animals.”

When he was awarded the Hungarian order of merit in 2016 by the country’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, the star speaker on the first day of CPAC Hungary on Thursday, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum protested, saying it “reflects the longstanding refusal of the leadership of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party to distance itself from Bayer, in spite of Bayer’s repeated pattern of racist, xenophobic, antisemitic, and anti-Roma incitement”.

At the CPAC event on Friday, he appeared on stage with a prominent rightwing Hungarian screenwriter talking about gender issues. Bayer focused on deriding Calvin Klein for political correctness, comparing a 2009 ad featuring a white supermodel, whom Bayer called “a very hot woman”, with a 2019 ad featuring the Black rapper Chika who he described as “not so hot”, adding: “it’s clear that this ad was born under the aegis of Black Lives Matter”.

Addressing the conference by video shortly before Bayer’s appearance, Trump poured compliments on Orbán, who was recently elected for a fourth term as prime minister.

“He is a great leader, a great gentleman, and he just had a very big election result. I was very honored to endorse him,” Trump said.

The US thinktank Freedom House has downgraded its assessment of Hungary to being a “partly free” society under Orbán and the Fidesz party, noting “constitutional and legal changes that have allowed it to consolidate control over the country’s independent institutions, including the judiciary”.

It also criticised the government for anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT+ policies and curbs on the independent media universities and NGOs.

Orbán, like many American Republicans, has embraced the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which involves promoting the belief that the white population is being deliberately reduced by leftist policies and diluted by immigration.

CPAC, which is organised by the American Conservative Union, did not respond to a request for comment on Bayer’s participation. Matt Schlapp, the CPAC chairman, complained on its website that: “Leftist media launched a coordinated smear campaign” on the event.

“Our mission is to increase freedom and opportunity across the globe, including for those living under socialist and Communist regimes,” Schlapp said.

“To hear the condescending whines from socialist boosters in the media like the Guardian, however, you would be led to believe that CPAC stood for something very different,” he added. “In the woke, warped logic of government-financed NPR [National Public Radio], somehow calls for liberty and national sovereignty are akin to racism and authoritarianism.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/21/trump-shares-cpac-hungary-platform-racist-antisemite

They don't even try to hide it anymore. Yet they cry when you call them bigots and racists.

Election deniers who say Trump won in 2020 are running to be top cop in 4 battleground states

At least 15 people who push false claims about the 2020 results are running for attorney general in 14 states, including four swing states, according to a group tracking the races.

May 22, 2022, 9:27 AM EDT
By Adam Edelman

In four crucial battleground states, Republican candidates who falsely contend that Donald Trump won the 2020 election are running for state attorney general.

If they win, they’d serve as their states' top law enforcement officers and would have the power to use their office to tilt the outcome of presidential elections. If Trump should run again in 2024, and the outcome is close in a handful of states, the actions attorneys general are able to take could also give Trump cover to claim falsely claim victory once again.

“To the extent that election results are challenged, or that there are attempts to undermine results, it will be the state attorneys general representing the state and the results in court that perhaps matters most to protecting the will of the voters,” said Joanna Lydgate, the CEO of States United Action, a nonpartisan group that tracks the races.

Along with the governor and, in most states, the secretary of state, the state attorney general is part of a trio of elected officials who oversee, administer, defend and certify elections and election results. Election deniers are also running in many states for secretary of state and governor.

State attorneys general have the ability to launch or defend against election lawsuits — such as ones seeking to include or challenge ballots — that can ultimately affect how and which votes are or are not counted. They also provide legal guidance to election officials on how to interpret state policies governing elections and maintain prosecutorial powers for election fraud, voter intimidation and other potential election crimes.

“It really matters that your attorney general is committed to defending the vote, no matter what the outcome is,” Lydgate said.

The power of state attorneys general was on display in 2020 in a federal lawsuit — one of at least 63 filed by Trump allies in various courts — brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, seeking to overturn the presidential election results in four swing states.

Sixteen state attorneys general supported it, while the attorneys general in the four purple states at the center of the suit — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the suit, which it did.

According to States United Action, at least 15 men and women who have denied the results of the 2020 election are running to be their states’ attorney general in 14 states — nearly half of the 30 where there are contests for attorney general in this year's midterms. That includes four in the pivotal battlegrounds of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, whose 2020 results were all decided by just a few thousand votes. In all four, there are also governor and secretary of state elections this year, with election deniers running in nearly every contest.

This is what the election denying attorney general candidates in those states have said:

Georgia

Conservative attorney John Gordon is challenging the incumbent attorney general, Chris Carr, in the GOP primary.

The election — along with closely watched primary contests for governor and secretary of state in the state — is on Tuesday.

Gordon, who Trump has endorsed, has built his long-shot campaign around false claims that Trump won the state in 2020. (Biden won Georgia by about 11,800 votes. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state).

Gordon, nevertheless, has vowed, if elected, to open a new investigation into election fraud in 2020 and has said he will “expose the fraud” and “will prosecute the people that are responsible for this.”

Gordon didn’t respond to questions from NBC News.

Carr, for his part, has repeatedly said there was no widespread voter fraud in the state, earning the wrath of Trump, who in his endorsement of Gordon slammed Carr for doing “absolutely nothing to stop the 2020 Presidential Election Fraud which, as facts have shown, and are showing, was rampant.”

Carr’s office didn’t respond to questions from NBC News.

State Sen. Jen Jordan, the leading Democrat in the race, slammed Gordon in an interview.

“When you have a handpicked candidate who has been chosen specifically because he’s sworn fealty to Donald Trump and has promised to do whatever he can, if and when Trump runs again, that the election results are going to go in his favor, everyone should be worried,” she said.

“At the end of the day, the attorney general’s office should not be about partisan politics, or one politician or party," Jordan said. "It’s about enforcing the law and, in this case, defending the popular vote.”


Wisconsin

Karen Mueller, one of the three Republicans running for the chance to go up against the incumbent attorney general, Josh Kaul, a Democrat, claims Joe Biden didn’t win the state in 2020. The other two attended a rally where a prominent right-wing militia that sought to overturn the election was present.

Mueller, an attorney who has vowed to investigate doctors who won’t prescribe the animal-deworming medication ivermectin to treat Covid-19 patients, was part of an unsuccessful lawsuit to overturn the 2020 presidential results in Wisconsin.

In a January memo written on behalf of the Amos Center for Justice and Liberty, a conservative legal organization she founded, Mueller alleged a broad conspiracy in Wisconsin that included “wide-spread election fraud” that was in part the product of measures taken by the Obama administration and with the help of grant money provided by Mark Zuckerberg.

Her campaign website lists “election violations and fraud” as a central tenet of her platform, demanding that “the 2020 presidential election results must be decertified to restore the integrity and transparency of Wisconsin’s future elections.”

Biden beat Trump in Wisconsin by 20,600 votes. There is no evidence of widespread election fraud in the state, and claims to the contrary have been repeatedly dismissed by courts and the state’s bipartisan election commission.

Mueller didn’t respond to questions from NBC News.

Kaul’s office repeatedly defended the results of the 2020 election in Wisconsin in that lawsuit, and others.

“A different attorney general who is not committed to protecting the will of the voters could have all sorts of negative effects on the future of democracy,” Kaul said in an interview. “We need an AG who defends the will of the voters, not who attempts to undermine them.”

While Adam Jarchow and Eric Toney, the two other Republican attorney general candidates, haven’t denied the results of the 2020 election, both spoke at a rally where a flag of the Three Percenters — a right-wing militia group connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection — was prominently featured. Members of the group have been charged with conspiracy in the attack on the Capitol.

Jarchow, a former state representative, didn’t respond to questions about the 2020 election. Toney, the Fond du Lac County district attorney, also didn’t respond to questions, though he told the Wisconsin Examiner in January that he does not support the group and didn’t know the flag was on display at the event.

Michigan

Attorney Matthew DePerno — who state Republicans have already endorsed as their nominee in the attorney general race to take on Democratic incumbent Dana Nessel — has repeatedly espoused debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election results in Michigan, winning him the endorsement of former President Donald Trump in his primary race.

DePerno filed a suit alleging sweeping voter fraud in the state, citing a 2020 election night error in Antrim County that showed Joe Biden winning the reliably red county. The problem was quickly fixed. A state trial court judge and a state appeals court judge both dismissed the suit.

DePerno has also argued that any Michigan resident should have the right to demand a vote audit of the state’s election results.

Biden won Michigan by more than 154,000 votes, a result upheld by multiple lawsuits and audits.

DePerno didn’t respond to questions from NBC News.

Nessel said in an interview that “it’s absolutely essential that you have both an attorney general and a secretary of state in these really essential swing states that believe in democracy and in following the law.”

“It’s not my job as the state’s top lawyer to pick winners in the presidential election," Nessel said.

“I don’t care if it’s a Democrat running, or Donald Trump. If he gets the most votes in the state of Michigan, he gets our electoral votes, whether I like it or not,” she added. “That’s the job, to make sure the will of the people is heard and that the election is properly certified.”


Arizona

Of the six Republicans running for the party’s attorney general nomination (incumbent Republican Mark Brnovich is running for Senate), at least two have claimed falsely that Trump won the 2020 election in the state.

“The media’s hypocrisy is on full display as they point fingers at those of us who are presenting evidence of a rigged 2020 election,” candidate Abraham Hamadeh, a former prosecutor, told NBC news in a statement.

Biden beat Trump in Arizona by about 10,500 votes, and none of the many lawsuits or audits over the results in the state uncovered any widespread fraud.

Nevertheless, in interviews and tweets, Hamadeh has repeatedly claimed Trump won Arizona.

Meanwhile, attorney Rodney Glassman told the Arizona Republic last week that Biden didn’t win the election in the state and that Trump “was cheated out of Arizona’s electoral votes.” Glassman didn’t respond to questions.

At a debate last week, two other GOP candidates in the race, attorneys Tiffany Shedd and Dawn Grove, joined Hamadeh and Glassman in saying they would not have certified the 2020 election results in the state if they'd been in a position to do so.

Shedd, Grove and the other two Republican candidates in the race — Andrew Gould and Lacy Cooper — didn’t respond to questions.

Kris Mayes, the only Democrat in the race, called it “unfortunate” that “we have so many Republican candidates who have said they will attempt to undermine the faith of our voters in our election system.”

Mayes vowed, if she wins, to “defend the result of elections here in Arizona, regardless of who wins.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/20...running-top-cop-4-battleground-rcna29705


You would have to be a complete idiot to not believe these people plan to steal the next election, possibly ending our Democracy.

I don’t even know where to begin with you folks on the left anymore. You are so manipulated you will literally believe anything these left wing media outlets tell you. I have not posted on this site in years and happened to stumble into this forum and I’m actually shocked at the flat out ignorance of some of these posts. Thats really all I have to say, don’t even feel like going into details with you peeps because it’s useless. I could smack you in the face with facts and you won’t believe it because CNN or MSNBC told you otherwise. It literally makes me nauseous that someone of your age(assuming you are an older gentleman) has not caught on to the left lies and manipulation after all these years.

I'm sure you are well intended, just misinformed. This forum may be too much for you, tbh.

Retweet! Cool. Well, re-DT.

Trump, Trump, Trump,Why don't you guys talk about something current Like Sleepy's Approve rating or Hunter's laptop orHillary starting the Russian lie?

I guess you can't read the dates on those articles. Doesn't get much more current than today, and while you are being deliberately obtuse, we all know he has the cult under his thumb and still calls the shots.

As far as the election goes, you’re going to tell me a man that literally campaigned from his basement accrued ~15 million more votes than the first African American president in history? GTFO

Watch 2000 Mules and you’ll see significant evidence of how the election was turned in Joes favor.

LMAO, I'm sorry, did you think Biden earned those votes? Let me mansplain something... The absolute HATE for Trump, his despicable administration, and his supporters drove that vote. Biden would have been elected if he was a moldy loaf of bread.

How about you stop talking about Trump and start talking about the disaster that is Joe Biden and the communi… I mean Democratic Party? Gas is 4.50 a gallon and inflation is at 11%, let’s talk about that.

How about you shut up and stop telling me what to post... Trumpians are so full of themselves.

Watch 2000 miles then we can talk

Nope. Why would I do that...

No need to insult moldy loaves of bread.

2000 Mules*

Only blue cheese would think that an insult.

Dinesh D'Souza is a crackpot. Q is that you?

So you can actually see some real evidence about what happened in the 2020 general election rather than turning a blind eye and believing everything the pathetic main stream media tells you.

Let me guess I bet you were right there from 2016-2018 believing “the Russians” got Trump elected hahaha pathetic

You talk about facts and then post the inflation rate is 11% !

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

It's a little over 8%.

Inflation in the UK and Europe is over 7%.

You post like you think Biden is responsible for all of it - he's not even responsible for most of it. You tell OCD he needs a different media source because he's being led astray by a false agenda -- and then you come along and talk this schtick. Maybe you need to reassess your own sources.

Why because that is what CNN told you? Sorry he wrote a movie based on actual evidence and facts something you are not used to.

I'd love you to tell me the facts about the 2020 election. Please enlighten us. Hopefully your facts are more factual than the inflation rate you just quoted.

Opps - I just googled 2000 Mules.

I guess because in a court of law you have to actually have real FACTS that can be challenged and proven to be false if they are not actually factually (like an inflation rate at 11%) .... and since nearly 200 court rulings verified there is no mass voter fraud - zero evidence to substantiate the claims ... it took a movie that isn't under the same constraints of a court room and where the movie can create it's own "facts" that aren't based in reality and don't need to be defended for you to get your facts? OMG

You know - I bet there are movies out there that tell you the holocaust wasn't real. I know there are movies out there telling you the twin towers collapsed because our government did it. You can say anything in a movie.

Cuckoo Democrats, what they have become and will always be...

Nice try Old man, but with every looney left post you make I will match it 4 fold with TRUTH.

You say a little over 8% like that’s ok… that fact is they changed the method in the 80s to downplay inflation. Its actually sitting around 11ish percent. I’m paying 4.50 per gallon of gas and 3.99 for a gallon of milk.

Even the geolocation maps in ‘2000 Mules’ are misleading

One appears to be a map of Moscow.

What filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza would like you to think is that he and his partners at the conservative activist group True the Vote have cracked the case of the 2020 election. D’Souza’s new film, “2000 Mules,” purports to show a grand conspiracy of collecting and submitting ballots in that election, enough to have made Joe Biden the president. But, as we’ve noted, not only does the film completely fail to provide any evidence of that being the case, even D’Souza admits that he didn’t have the evidence that would have been required to prove it.

The film has already been subjected to a battery of debunkings, from the implication that the cellphone geolocation data essential to D’Souza’s case helped solve a murder (it didn’t) to claims that individuals shown depositing more than one ballot necessarily depict criminal activity (they don’t).

Ultimately, viewers are asked to take a leap of faith: That the videos shown in the film are, in fact, of people who had been tracked by their cellphone use and that True the Vote and D’Souza have the data to prove it. But, it turns out, multiple visual presentations of that geolocation data depicted in the film clearly don’t show what D’Souza would have you believe.

A misdirected ‘mule’

The heart of the film centers on a conversation between D’Souza and Gregg Phillips, the person at True the Vote responsible for compiling and analyzing the geolocation data. This is data that your phone collects as you move and which is aggregated and sold to marketers. Phillips claims that, by analyzing a huge set of data from swing states, he and his team were able to identify people — pejoratively labeled “mules” — who traveled to multiple ballot drop boxes and to nonprofit organizations, suggesting a nefarious plot to cast suspect ballots.

Again, the movie does not prove this case at all, and we’re left to trust Phillips’s word for it. Not a great idea, mind you, given that Phillips in November 2016 announced that he had found 3 million illegally cast votes in that year’s election — a claim elevated by Donald Trump before it became obvious that Phillips had absolutely no evidence of the claim.

In “2000 Mules,” he sits at a table with D’Souza and explains his new claims of fraud. Below, for example, you see Phillips’s tablet as D’Souza asks him a question. (Phillips is off-screen to the left.)

Zooming into the tablet screen, you see that it is displaying a map. It appears to be the same map that is a focal point at another part of the film, showing what Phillips claims is a map of one “mule’s” movements.



“What you see here on this screen is a single person on a single day in Atlanta, Georgia,” Phillips explains. “They went to 28 drop boxes and five organizations in one day.”

“What are the orange dots?” D’Souza asks.

“Those are drop boxes,” Phillips replies.

“And what is the blue tracks?” D’Souza continues.

“That is a smoothed-out pattern of life,” Phillips says, “so that we could take the movement of the individual cellphone signals, marry them together into something that is visual. So that you can see movement on the individual.”

But an anonymous Twitter account called “Angry Fleas” noticed something: Those orange dots don’t appear to conform to actual drop-box locations.

We can pull the listed drop-box locations from Fulton and Gwinnett counties for the 2020 election, the area covering most of what Phillips’s map shows. It looks like this, with the outlined circles showing the drop boxes.



When we superimpose that map on the one shown in the movie, it becomes clear that Angry Fleas is correct. The orange dots are not drop-box locations.



If we zoom in, that becomes more clear. In some places, the orange dots are close to drop box sites. But often, they’re not. What are those three dots to the northeast of the red circle below, for example?



This is of critical importance, because the entire crux of the film depends on the accuracy of the cellphone data. If Phillips’s team was using incorrect drop-box locations, none of its conclusions are reliable.

In an email to The Post, Phillips said that “the movie graphics are not literal interpretations of our data.”

Even if the orange dots did align with the white circles, that of course doesn’t prove Phillips and D’Souza correct. True the Vote provided its data to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), which declined to investigate. In its response to True the Vote, the GBI noted that True the Vote identified drop box “visits” using a radius of 100 feet; if you came within 100 feet of a drop box, it counted. That’s a broad range.

But it also depends on knowing where drop boxes were located at the library or county building where they were placed. If you don’t, how can you know that your 100-foot radius includes it at all?

That level of criticism is not useful if the orange dots are, in fact, miles away from any actual drop box.

Dropping off ballots in Russia

Phillips and D’Souza could certainly argue that the map above is shown for cinematic effect. Fair enough, though the dialogue certainly implies that this is an actual person’s actual route. In some cases, though, the maps shown are more clearly for effect — though casual viewers might be forgiven for not knowing that.

Consider the still below, shown as a voice-over explains how True the Vote compiled its data. It shows a city with red dots indicated — purported cellphone geolocation pings. There’s an overlay showing a car pulled up next to a drop box with someone stepping out. The implication is clear: This is someone being tracked near a drop-box site.



If we zoom in on the map, though, something seems off. The drop-box site shown in the overlaid photo is one that elsewhere in the movie is described as being in Gwinnett County. But the accompanying map depicts a river running through the city, which doesn’t exist in Atlanta. So what’s this showing?



A group of Internet sleuths tracked it down. Simply flip the image …



... and it becomes clear. That’s not Atlanta; it’s a stock photo of a different capital.

Moscow.



There’s another point at which the same Moscow map is used, rotated 90 degrees. It, too, purports to show someone moving around an American city.

It is at least ironic that an effort to prove that the 2020 election was stolen uses a map of the capital of Russia to display its purportedly irrefutable digital fingerprints. But it’s not something we can simply laugh off. The central point of “2000 Mules” is that Phillips and True the Vote found that evidence. In the movie itself, the times at which that evidence is displayed undercuts instead of bolstering their argument.

Amy Gardner contributed to this report. It has been updated with Phillips’s statement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/even-geolocation-maps-2000-mules-are-misleading/

LMAO, Dinesh D’Souza is on the same level of Project Veritas and Charlie Kirk. You should put zero faith in the ineptitude they've shown time and again.

Yeah you “googled” 2000 Mules, of course the first 5 pages of links are all going to be negative articles because that’s what google does because google if alt left just like the other 99% of media. Actually watch it and it is very much based on facts.

Nope.

I say "a little over 8%" --- because that's what the inflation rate is. You were banging on about facts and how OCD didn't have facts, that you had all the facts ... then you said inflation is 11% ... while at the same time belittling another poster about 'facts'.

You are linking an article from the Washington post lmao. That’s exactly what they want you to do. Instead of actually watching the movie they want you to “google” it so google can direct to some left wing article “debunking” it. Man you guys are a Democrat dream.

Or maybe you should believe your own people:


Disputing Trump, Barr says no widespread election fraud

By MICHAEL BALSAMO
December 1, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Disputing President Donald Trump’s persistent, baseless claims, Attorney General William Barr declared Tuesday the U.S. Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.

Barr’s comments, in an interview with the The Associated Press, contradict the concerted effort by Trump, his boss, to subvert the results of last month’s voting and block President-elect Joe Biden from taking his place in the White House.

Barr told the AP that U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they’ve received, but “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

The comments, which drew immediate criticism from Trump attorneys, were especially notable coming from Barr, who has been one of the president’s most ardent allies. Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in voting could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavirus pandemic as Americans feared going to polls and instead chose to vote by mail.

More to Trump’s liking, Barr revealed in the AP interview that in October he had appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham as a special counsel, giving the prosecutor the authority to continue to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe after Biden takes over and making it difficult to fire him. Biden hasn’t said what he might do with the investigation, and his transition team didn’t comment Tuesday.

Trump has long railed against the investigation into whether his 2016 campaign was coordinating with Russia, but he and Republican allies had hoped the results would be delivered before the 2020 election and would help sway voters. So far, there has been only one criminal case, a guilty plea from a former FBI lawyer to a single false statement charge.

Under federal regulations, a special counsel can be fired only by the attorney general and for specific reasons such as misconduct, dereliction of duty or conflict of interest. An attorney general must document such reasons in writing.

Barr went to the White House Tuesday for a previously scheduled meeting that lasted about three hours.

Trump didn’t directly comment on the attorney general’s remarks on the election. But his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and his political campaign issued a scathing statement claiming that, “with all due respect to the Attorney General, there hasn’t been any semblance” of an investigation into the president’s complaints.

Other administration officials who have come out forcefully against Trump’s allegations of voter-fraud evidence have been fired. But it’s not clear whether Barr might suffer the same fate. He maintains a lofty position with Trump, and despite their differences the two see eye-to-eye on quite a lot.

Still, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer quipped: “I guess he’s the next one to be fired.”

Last month, Barr issued a directive to U.S. attorneys across the country allowing them to pursue any “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities before the 2020 presidential election was certified, despite no evidence at that time of widespread fraud.

That memorandum gave prosecutors the ability to go around longstanding Justice Department policy that normally would prohibit such overt actions before the election was certified. Soon after it was issued, the department’s top elections crime official announced he would step aside from that position because of the memo.

The Trump campaign team led by Giuliani has been alleging a widespread conspiracy by Democrats to dump millions of illegal votes into the system with no evidence. They have filed multiple lawsuits in battleground states alleging that partisan poll watchers didn’t have a clear enough view at polling sites in some locations and therefore something illegal must have happened. The claims have been repeatedly dismissed including by Republican judges who have ruled the suits lacked evidence.

But local Republicans in some battleground states have followed Trump in making unsupported claims, prompting grave concerns over potential damage to American democracy.

Trump himself continues to rail against the election in tweets and in interviews though his own administration has said the 2020 election was the most secure ever. He recently allowed his administration to begin the transition over to Biden, but he still refuses to admit he lost.

The issues they’ve have pointed to are typical in every election: Problems with signatures, secrecy envelopes and postal marks on mail-in ballots, as well as the potential for a small number of ballots miscast or lost.

But they’ve gone further. Attorney Sidney Powell has spun fictional tales of election systems flipping votes, German servers storing U.S. voting information and election software created in Venezuela “at the direction of Hugo Chavez,” – the late Venezuelan president who died in 2013. Powell has since been removed from the legal team after an interview she gave where she threatened to “blow up” Georgia with a “biblical” court filing.

Barr didn’t name Powell specifically but said: “There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results. And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that.”

In the campaign statement, Giuliani claimed there was “ample evidence of illegal voting in at least six states, which they have not examined.”

Full Coverage: Election 2020

“We have many witnesses swearing under oath they saw crimes being committed in connection with voter fraud. As far as we know, not a single one has been interviewed by the DOJ. The Justice Department also hasn’t audited any voting machines or used their subpoena powers to determine the truth,” he said.

However, Barr said earlier that people were confusing the use of the federal criminal justice system with allegations that should be made in civil lawsuits. He said a remedy for many complaints would be a top-down audit by state or local officials, not the U.S. Justice Department.

“There’s a growing tendency to use the criminal justice system as sort of a default fix-all,” he said, but first there must be a basis to believe there is a crime to investigate.

“Most claims of fraud are very particularized to a particular set of circumstances or actors or conduct. ... And those have been run down; they are being run down,” Barr said. “Some have been broad and potentially cover a few thousand votes. They have been followed up on.”

___

Associated Press Writers Lisa Mascaro and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

https://apnews.com/article/barr-no-widespread-election-fraud-b1f1488796c9a98c4b1a9061a6c7f49d


These lies have been debunked over and over, Y'ALL just don't like facts.

Yep - the type of facts that don't need to withstand a courtroom. When in the courtroom the evidence and facts provided to support the "stolen election" was ....NADA.

You keep your Hollywood facts. I like my courtroom facts better.

William Barr - the latest on the list of RINO.

Banging on about facts??? I literally said the word fact once in my original post.

Oh well go get me the gospel from Billy Bob's PEDO DEM BIDEN BAD EVERYTHING BLOG OFFICIAL NEWZ by RiCkY DiPsIt so wE-cAn-GeT-rEaL-nEwS... smh, stop talking to me, you are a lost soul down an endless rabbit hole full of lies and misinformation. I truly feel sorry for folks like you who think they are representing the truth.

William Barr is a joke why are you bringing him up.

Here we are in 2022 and the original poster is posting about Donald Trump because it’s and article he found on the internet. That’s because the internet doesn’t want you talking about the disaster that is Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

If we are going to talk about Trump how about we talk about…

The minute an outsider takes office we get cheap gas, cheap food, became energy independent, no wars and focused on our countries own problems.

Establishment hacks get back in and we have inflation, medical tyranny, WW3, and we need to take out a mortgage for gasoline.

I don't know you from Adam. But you are exactly the person you are claiming OCD to be. You tell OCD that any article or news piece that he references about Trump (who is the leader of the Republican party and who will be the candidate in the 2024 election) is because he has been brain washed and he is unable to think critically for himself. Yet all you post and have said is the exact same thing but from a fringe, Alt Right, bordering on the crazy Q-anon B.S.

The truth is in the middle. Biden is not perfect. Hell I don't know if he's "good" - and hell he's made a lot of mistakes. But then compared to the former POTUS #45 - Biden looks like a genius. And just so you know - OCD really really does not like Biden. Biden is a centrist (probably not what your sources tell ya but there you go) - OCD is much more progressive than Biden. You'd probably call him a communist - you'd be wrong - but that moniker seems to be what the Alt R seem to want to call someone with a progressive political persuasion. Oh well.

Anyone who tells the truth about Trump get's those kind of labels from the cancel culture alt-right.

Now you go ahead and explain to me how Biden looks like a genius compared to Trump. Then explain to me how Biden is a centrist.

I don’t need sources to tell me Biden is something other than a centrist because I know he is not just by observing his policy and looking at the things he has already done as president. This is also precisely how I know that YOU don’t think critically for yourself. If you did you would know Joe is nothing close to a centrist, the only way you could possibly believe this is because the media told you so.

Cancel culture alt-right??

Give me an example of someone on the right trying to cancel someone.

Cheap POTUS, cheap FLOTUS... lead with a cheap electric chain around the cults' SCROTUS...

This is dumb. We’re you trying to be funny?

LIZ CHENEY
ADAM Kinzinger
Everyone that trump fired
Everyone that doesn't vote with Trump in Congress
The rest of the human race for not wear that dumbass hat and not acting like they have the brain of a cave dwelling lemming.

Need more? Women who want to control their vaginas. Children who can't afford and don't have enough food. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Camp dumbasses for Trump ridicules, trolls, and threatens everything that doesn't fit the white supremacists' model. Seriously, stop talking to me. You and I are so far apart You could drive all of infinity between us and never feel a push. If I told you what I really think, instant ban for me. Som just stop addressing me in your ridiculous posts.

Not on the first twoo, those ARE FACTS. I was poking at your packed court of nincompoops who think they'll do whatever the hell they want and get away with it. Not a wordsmith nor a poet. Now fly away and bug somebody else.

Disney

Well as long as you KNOW... It's all good right. No need to back up what u claim.... U just know. 👍

Cancel culture and Trump / the Right is prolific. I think that post says about everything.

You’re getting it twisted my guy. None of those people or things you mentioned have been subjected to cancel culture. They all still have a voice and are heard everyday on CNN and MSNBC.

Only people that have to deal with cancel culture are people on the right, actually just anyone who has an opinion that differs from that of the Democratic Party.

Just like they claim to be the party for diversity… until diversity has a different opinion. Then they are nothing more than a “Uncle Tom” to them. Look at Ben Carson, Larry Elder, and Candice Owens just to name a couple African American who the media turned their back on and tried to cancel simply because they have a different opinion than the narrative of the main stream media.

The list is crazy long.

Delta, Harley Davidson.... The freaking NFL.... So many more.

No no no I’m waiting on you to tell me how Joe Biden is just a centrist, other than that’s what the media told you.

Nincompoops?? Lol but I’m sure you think Ketanji Brown Jackson is a great pick. At least the others can define the word woman.

Americans and ‘Cancel Culture’: Where Some See Calls for Accountability, Others See Censorship, Punishment

https://www.pewresearch.org/interne...bility-others-see-censorship-punishment/

Go read some facts. Everybody does it. It's just y'all cry about it loudest.

How is Joe Biden a centrist?? Can’t wait to hear this

j/c:

The amount of energy spent by both sides trying to convince others that the "other side" is terrible never ceases to amaze me. Pig-headed is the word that comes to mind for the lot of you.

She too black for you? Because I know damn well she's more qualified than Kavanaugh. But I couldn't care less about her personally. Biden can put whoever he wants in any position he wants. Like Trump with drinking Ronny Jackson or any number of completely unqualified and in over their heads sycophants. So long as they were yes men and would give him fake compliments to feed his narcissistic ego.

When they refuse, they got the Jeff Sessions treatment, aka canceled.

BUT I KNOW, Jeff is a RINO.

Shing you are wasting your time. This guy in intrenched in his hate and blindness.

I don’t need to read that article. I want you to tell me some democrats, whether it be political figures, media or just Twitter folks that have been censored. Because I know I and you can name countless conservatives that have been censored.

No she’s not to black, I’m not worried about race because I don’t play identity politics like the left. I could care less if she was green, my point is she is on the SCOTUS and she simply can’t define the word woman because she is in her words “not a biologist”.

This tells us all we need to know about this NooB.

Talk about things that are current? Okay, trump is currently holding rallies. Trump's PAC is continuing to raise funds and currently holding 110 million dollars. Trump is currently been on the campaign trail endorsing candidates running for office. Trump is currently the front runner for 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Trump is currently continuing to spread the stolen election lie that led us to what transpired on Jan. 6th and endorsing candidates who spread that same lie.

Is that current enough for you?

The mainstream media? So those 62 judges, some of then even appointed by Trump, who rejected every lawsuit brought in front of them over the election by Republicans are the mainstream media? Try again. they had no "real" evidence. Courts across the entire country said that.

Did the Russians get trump elected? I highly doubt that. But what they did do was interfere in both the 2016 and the 2020 election trying to help him get elected.

Still being duped by trumpian BS. This joke of what he calls a "documentary" makes him no different or better than being the Michael Moore of the right.

Fact-checking “2000 Mules,” the movie alleging ballot fraud

https://www.denverpost.com/2022/05/08/2000-mules-fact-check/

Dinesh D’Souza’s Vile Big Lie Documentary Is Too Stupid Even for Fox

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dinesh-dsouzas-vile-big-lie-documentary-is-too-stupid-even-for-fox

'A safe space for MAGA snowflakes': This far-right commentator’s Big Lie documentary is so bad even Fox News is ignoring it

https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/big-lie-2657353653/

Being so easily duped and brainwashed may not be something you want to put out there on a public message board.

Trump called for well over 20 boycotts on companies that spoke out against him or did things he didn't like. We can start there. He tried to cancel them all and scare other companies and corporations from speaking out or conducting business has he saw fit. DeSantis is following suit in his actions against Disney.

Show me the arrests, indictments, or convictions... until then, you do not have anything. nothing. non. nyet. nada. zilch.

Not sure what you are responding to here, WD. So, can't reply.

For all of the garbage that has come out about mass voter fraud. There is nothing but conspiracy theory speculation. No legal action. Put up or shut up... Nothing in AZ, Nothing in Wisconsin, Now Georgia.. It literally is wack-a-mole. Except there are no moles to be found.

Just a quick question:

Can elections be stolen?

Saying "Nothing in AZ" - after a completely illegitimate "audit" by the Cyber Ninjas who had an agenda and were completely unqualified to conduct the search while talking about Bamboo fibers and the like .... does not do the ridiculousness of the situation justice. There is more than one instance of election officials who illegally compromised election equipment and tried to carry out an "audit" or gave out passwords etc.... it's just nuts. And we still have some crazies that want to cling to this Lie initiated and orchestrated by Trump simply because the man is such a child he cant accept losing.

The only voter fraud I'm aware of has been a handful of republicans, many in leadership roles. They've made the news here and there. But not enough to change the outcome of 2020. My fear, is these new red state voting laws going forward. With republicans focused on winning the election oversight positions in any state they can... they tried to overturn election results on the 6th and failed... but with zero shame or remorse, they've redirected efforts to the long game and plan to have people in place to elect republican slates of electors regardless of who wins the oval in the actual election. Anybody who reads multiple news sources can see that as plain as the nose on their face. Rather it comes to fruition, time will tell.

They have also done everything they can to limit numbers of Dem voters actually voting. Going beyond gerrymandering, they remove polling stations, limit what people can do in hours long lines, try to end mail in voting (dumb as hell), and are trying to seize control of election oversight political positions across the nation. Imagine having your vote thrown out, not accepted, or overrode by somebody that doesn't think YOU matter. This is what they are doing, mark my words.

I wonder who he thinks will vote for him?

National Group Wants IRS Review of Controversial, Witch-Hunting TN Pastor

Locke: "You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation."

A religious freedom group wants the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to investigate a controversial, conspiracy theorist, witch-hunting Tennessee pastor for preaching politics at the pulpit.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State claimed in a Monday letter to the IRS that Greg Locke, pastor of Mt. Juliet’s Global Vision Bible Church, violated the Johnson Amendment, a law that prevents nonprofits from endorsing or opposing political parties or candidates.

“If you vote Democrat, I don’t even want you around this church,” Locke said in a sermon Sunday (posted online here). “You can get out. You can get out, you demon. You can get out, you baby-butchering, election thief.

“You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation. I don’t care how mad that makes you. You can get as pissed off as you want to. You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation.”

In the same sermon, Locke insulted President Joe Biden many times (“that sleepy old fool is going to bust hell wide open”), claimed “Obama is behind” all of America’s problems, doubted that the recent shooting in Buffalo, New York was racially motivated, repeated the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, promised another insurrection if “you keep on pushing our buttons,” and warned of demons and witchcraft. Locke also promised to be at the U.S. Supreme Court building Tuesday to “raise hell for the life of them babies.”

“Now, when our democracy is threatened by white Christian nationalism like never before, the IRS must investigate blatant Johnson Amendment violations like Locke’s remarks and enforce the federal law that protects the integrity of both our elections and our houses of worship by ensuring nonprofits don’t engage in partisan politics,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United. “Tax exemption is a privilege, not a constitutional right. The government has attached sensible strings to that privilege. This rule, which is broadly popular among religious and nonreligious Americans alike, ensures charitable donations meant for the common good are not spent on corrosive partisan politics.”

“Global Vision Bible Church” could not not be found in database searches of charities by the IRS, the Tennessee Department of State, or nonprofit navigator Guidestar. The domain suffix of the church’s website is “.com” instead of “.org,” perhaps signaling it is a for-profit company. However, no business called “Global Vision Bible Church” appeared in a search of the Tennessee State Department site.

Calls to the church and a media relations number requesting the church’s most-recent tax forms were not immediately answered.

A January news release from the church claimed that a “reverse offering” event at the church in December raised $66,000, which was dispersed ”among those who are carrying financial burdens and living on little.”

“Global Vision Bible Church has a habit of giving back,” reads the news release. “Despite inflated reports and rumors of Pastor Locke’s net worth, he lives a modest life, giving abundantly in moments like the December 19th service.”

Americans United said that in his Sunday sermon, Locke “clearly told congregants to vote a certain way,” a clear violation of the Johnson Amendment. But, they said, he did not spare Republicans either.

“You need to be delivered from voting Democrat,” Locke said. “I think in that list in mass deliverance I’m going to start putting ‘spirit of Democrat.’ Come out in Jesus’ name.

“By the way, that doesn’t mean that I’m a full-fledged Republican, either. They’re two heads of the same snake. My loyalty is not to a party, my loyalty is the Kingdom of God.”

https://www.memphisflyer.com/nation...of-controversial-witch-hunting-tn-pastor

I will take an attempt at answer this.

Anything is possible in a close election… see Bush v Gore in 2000. But it’s was one state (Florida) that made the difference. 579 votes if I recall correctly. Democrats lost in the Supreme Court when the recount was stopped. Curious decision at best.

The 2020 election was probably the second example, where Trump tried various strategies to get the election results overturned, parallel alternate electors were submitted (who are probably still at legal risk), in an effort to get the election results tossed into the House. But Trump was trying to fill an inside straight flush with only the end cards, and it failed. Ultimately, Mike Pence and administrative rules on the validity of real electors held.

Then there is the election of 1876, which appeared to have gone to Tilden, but went to Rutherford B. Hayes. That did go to the House.

Because states administer the elections you would have to multiple instances of States in dispute. Counting votes is pretty straightforward and accurate, arguing over what votes to count is more entertaining to those so inclined.

Wow, a high level GOPer on the inside tells it how it is, and he sounds a lot like me.

Refreshing to hear a normal conservative.

Was 2016 stolen?

Huh? No.

And yet people forget that Hillary claimed for all of Trump's term it was stolen and he was illegitimate. But Pepperidge farms remembers.


Cults of personality.

A different set of circumstances, if I recall, involving Anthony Wiener laptop, and James Comey’s public statement days before the election.

Category: Dirty tricks.

Same rules apply, you can claim anything you want, but you need proof… indictments, charges, and arrests.

Where was Hillary’s stop the steal rally and insurrection against the Capitol? I don’t recall that happening.

I'd be equally scathing of anyone who claimed Trump stole the election as I am of Trump and any idiot that thinks the 2020 election was stolen. I was surprised by the result - but as soon as the result was announced I stated I was hoping Trump would be a good POTUS and that as President he would be a different leader than how he ran his election campaign. Sadly he didn't change anything - possibly he was worse. But that's old news now. What Trump says today is still relevant - he's the favorite to be the GOP ticket in 2024. What happened in 2016 - not so much.

Actually, IIRC it was Trump that was complaining about fake votes or something due to him losing the popular vote.

The guy is such a child and so pathetic he simply can't accept and handle any perceived loss (real or imagined - he won the election, lost the popular vote) with grace or dignity. His first reaction to virtually anything is reptilian and to lash out and point fingers. That's still relevant today and a problem because he will be running 2024.

Yeah, so lets attack anyone who questions the elections, the fake addresses, the parking lot voters.

It's the adult thing to do.

... In a rematch...

vs. Killery

Actually it was the Clinton campaign and the democrats that tried to get electors to vote against the will of their state voters, tried to convince people the 25th amendment should be invoked, talked about impeachment before he even took office. And then the grand scam of all scams, lied thru their teeth for 3.5 years about Russian collusion. You know that legal principle “the fruit of the poisonous tree? Everything they said and tried to convince people with started out with big lies. So everything that followed was bogus. One of the great political deceptions of all time.


Now of course the dems were aided by the lame stream media, otherwise known as the Democratic Party communication team. The video on here somewhere of two lying reporters telling Chris Hayes lie after lie, and of course him sucking down every bit of it was a classic. How anyone gives any credibility to Hayes, maddow, tapper, blitzer and the rest of those clowns who spread lies for four years is beyond me.

Yep, he started before the results were in and then was shocked he won.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html

“No, it doesn’t kill me because he knows he’s an illegitimate president,” she said. “I believe he understands that the many varying tactics they used, from voter suppression and voter purging to hacking to the false stories — he knows that — there were just a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out like it did.”

Hillary thought the election was stolen and was continuing to push that narrative into the 2020 election. Suddenly this idea went poof when Trump lost, but the claim out of 2016 was that elections could, in fact, be stolen. BUt it is only alt-right <insert insults here> that think elections could be stolen.

If you are mad at Trump for claiming it, you need to be mad at Hillary (and the rest) for claiming it as well. But no one wants to believe their religion was wrong, only the other one.

He was a manchurian candidate. RUSSIA, helped get him elected. And I will go to my grave thinking he colluded. But the cult covered it up with lies. And it will probably turn out the same with the 6th, epons jailed while the elites walk. I do know if Trump doesn't at minimum get disqualified for office, I'll never worry about obeying laws I don't like again. If scum like that gets to walk, there is no justice in this country.

You really are drowning in the rhetoric.

It looks like RUSSIA! RUSSIA! RUSSIA! was a Hillary thing. THAT really is the Big Lie! That Trump was some stooge for RUSSIA! RUSSIA! RUSSIA!

You should be concerned that a candidate made up a lie, and then had government agencies investigate a rival to help sway an election. Once she lost the IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! started, but I am sure that wasn't about altering an election or stealing anything.

Step back, put down the emotional rhetoric for a while. Let go of your hate.

smh

Actually no - Russia interfered in our elections. They overwhelmingly interfered in favor of promoting Trump. That was the finding of all the US intelligence agencies. Did you forget about that? The issue that was investigated was whether Trump actively engaged and encouraged that interference. Don't confuse Trump not being found to have "colluded" (not even an actual crime) as Russia not having interfered and helped to get Trump elected.

You believe what you believe and I believe the truth. Trump is a traitor in my book, from day one. Nobody will ever convince me other wise no matter how much they poo poo me, or boo me, or talk down to me. No amount of whining will ever change that. Trump is a clear and present danger. Did you serve? I struggle with anyone who took the oath, wore the uniform, not seeing him as a complete traitorous POS. Just can't see how that's possible, unless he got in their heads.

Watched your Perdue quote ... saw this as a tweet on the link.



Wish everyone would stop taking lobbyist funds and corporate PAC donations. I am sure the 'Right' hate Katie Porter because she is smart, plain spoken, passionate and gets her points across brilliantly ... but you have to love this.

BINGO!

She would have made a better VP for Biden, imo. I like her and AOC both a lot. Katie got taken off her committees by Maxine and Nancy... I still never got how that was justified. Waters needs replaced, just for that, imo.

Troll on 40/k

Technically born in Wisonsin, and lived in Mississippi before moving to Georgia when she was 16 or so according to Wikipedia.

But a stretch nonetheless.

The entire old guard should go. And yes - Porter and no on Katie as VP. I think she probably does a lot more good where she is. Future POTUS ? I could see it.

I really like Katie Porter. She would make an excellent president.

Katie Porter is a Liz Warren protege. I like her, but her politics are a bit too far left for my liking.

One thing for sure, you don't want to be questioned by her... She has been brutal to most.

Let me ask you a question that swings both ways - politicians that lean more one way or the other, but you truly believe that they are telling you what they believe in, they don't duck the hard questions, they don't answer a question with an answer to a different question that was never mentioned and is unconnected .... would you support those types of politicians? I know I would - I'd vote for someone I believed in even if I didn't align with all their policies. Those folks are rare but they do exist.

I get it. I’ve already made up my mind, don’t confuse me with the facts. My mama always said “ignorance is bliss” and you have gotta be the most blissful guy on the face of the earth

The problem is that I have never seen hardly ever a candidate that aligns with my beliefs 100%. I highly doubt very man have. I just find her very pragmatic, honest and straight forward. I don't see her as Liz Warren at all. I can see a scenario where you would however.

She was a student of Liz when Liz taught at Harvard...

That is very cool - I didn't know that.

I wonder if there are any politicians that graduated from Trump University or have any connections to it?

Katie would probably fare better than most in the "reality show" theater that is today's politics.

She has a sharp wit, and quick mind, and has embarrassed a number of high profile executives.

That is probably why she is no longer on the House Financial Services committee. No one would sign up willing for the interrogation.

There are drawbacks to being so biting.

Again, pulling this back on topic, its the reason that we have to deal with Trumpians, his confrontational style plays well with some and not so much with others.

But Trump took it too a whole different level that will take a generation to overcome, and I do not know if the outcome will be good or bad.

Coming in here after a couple days and rereading You and OCD posts about me not providing facts and what not and then you guys so confident that Russia helped Trump get elected literally has me rolling on my floor laughing.

You give me one piece of evidence from the four years of investigations and I will not come back in this thread. By evidence I do not mean Pencil Neck Adam Schiff telling you over and over there is overwhelming evidence and never providing any.

Do you guys suffer from short term memory loss? How can you let them blame Russia for everything and not catch on at some point?

Let me guess you guys also believe Hunter Biden’s laptop was just Russia disinformation from a Russian spy and not a local man that owns a pawn shop in Delaware name Mac Isaac.

A bombed out of his mind Hunter Biden turned in his own laptop to Mac Isaac in Delaware and the media and the Democrats told you it was a Russian spy with Russian disinformation and you guys actually believed them.

😂😂😂 how many times can they use the same lie and you two keep believing them???? I am laughing at you guys

https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download


See ya around. Bye.

You site the Mueller Report?? That’s not good enough to get me out of here. Lmao 450 pages of nothing burger.

Defend the media and the Democrats calling HB laptop Russian disinformation by a Russian spy and Twitter and Facebook censoring anyone who talked about it online. You wanna talk election interference?? That is your election interference right in front of your face.

Defend it, do you still believe it was Russian disinformation and not a man from Delaware named Mac Isaac who owns a computer repair shop called The Mac Shop (accidentally called it a pawn shop in earlier post)??

So a government document that states YES Russia interfered in the election on Trump's behalf, to get him elected, is not enough? Hm... Well I won't find proof in a Q document, that's for sure. But I knew you wouldn't go no matter the facts.

[quote=PitDAWG]


This never stops amazing me, why exactly do you guys believe Russia would want Donald Trump elected. Putin invaded Ukraine during Bush, Obama and now Biden. Does whatever he wants when weak presidents are in office.

You said a lot here and I work to much to respond to all. Since you seem so brash I’ll ask you the same question I asked the other two guys. I’ll also quit posting in here if you can truly answer this question.

You say Russia did interfere in both the 2016 and 2020 election. Do you also believe the US media, democrats and big tech interfered in the 2020 election when they censored the Hunter Biden laptop story and banned people and news outlets for even mentioning it? Did you believe them when they told you it was just Russia disinformation? Did you believe Joe Biden during the debate when he said it was just russian disinformation? Do you still not believe it was actually a guy named Mac Isaac, the owner of a computer repair shop called The Mac Shop who received the laptop from a wasted Hunter Biden himself?

I want you to respond to those questions and I’ll leave for another five years. How many times will you let them blame russia before you realize it’s bs?

A government document written by a liberal hack.

Did the US media, Democrats and big tech interfere in the 2020 election to help Joe Biden get elected by calling the Hunter Biden laptop Russian disinformation? Answer this question

You are very misguided and clearly not interested in discussion.

Yeah, I'm done with him. He's just another troll.

Yeah I knew OCD, MGH, and Pit wouldn’t answer the question what a joke.

It’s simple, did the democrats, media, and big tech interfere in the general election to help Joe Biden get elected by claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was just Russian disinformation and that Hunter Biden himself didn’t turn it in to Mac Isaac from Delaware?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-loses-appeal-must-testify-152306826.html

Trump loses appeal, must testify in New York civil probe

MICHAEL R. SISAK
Thu, May 26, 2022, 11:23 AM·2 min read

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump must answer questions under oath in New York state’s civil investigation into his business practices, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.

A four-judge panel in the appellate division of the state’s trial court upheld Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron’s Feb. 17 ruling enforcing subpoenas for Trump and his two eldest children to give deposition testimony in Attorney General Letitia James' probe.

Trump had appealed, seeking to overturn the ruling. His lawyers argued that ordering the Trumps to testify violated their constitutional rights because their answers could be used in a parallel criminal investigation.

“The existence of a criminal investigation does not preclude civil discovery of related facts, at which a party may exercise the privilege against self-incrimination,” the four-judge panel wrote, citing the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Message seeking comment were left with lawyers for the Trumps and with James' office. The Trumps could still appeal the ruling to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.

James, a Democrat, has said her investigation has uncovered evidence Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, used “fraudulent or misleading” valuations of assets like golf courses and skyscrapers to get loans and tax benefits.

Thursday's ruling could mean a tough decision for Trump about whether to answer questions, or stay silent, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Anything Trump says in a civil deposition could be used against him in the criminal probe being overseen by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

At a hearing prior to Engoron’s Feb. 17 ruling, Trump’s lawyers argued that having him sit for a civil deposition is an improper attempt to get around a state law barring prosecutors from calling someone to testify before a criminal grand jury without giving them immunity.

A lawyer for the attorney general’s office told Engoron that it wasn’t unusual to have civil and criminal investigations proceeding at the same time, and Engoron rejected a request from lawyers for the Trumps to pause the civil probe until the criminal matter is over.

Last summer, spurred by evidence uncovered in James’ civil investigation, the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged the Trump Organization and its longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, with tax fraud, alleging he collected more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation. Weisselberg and the company have pleaded not guilty.

=================================================

So their argument is basically, we can't testify under oath because we've committed so many crimes that it might cause us to get convicted of another one?

Watching donny squirm as he tries to keep his lies straight under oath is going to be must see tv. I could never stand to listen to him public speaking. I could never stomach his vanity, stupidity, and the way he revels in his own cruelty towards others… but this, this will be so much fun.

Was Joe Biden lying at the debate when he said his sons laptop was just Russian disinformation?

I fully expect him to take the fifth amendment if he ever is questioned under oath.

Frankly the civil and criminal investigations are linked, and the civil deposition would be used in the criminal one.

Don’t confuse me for a Biden fan. I voted against donny.

I won't entertain your QAnon BS. Stop addressing me. Talk to whoever else you want, but I will not answer you, you seem brainwashed and it's futile.

Because Putin himself SAID he tried to get Trump elected. He said he had instructed his own officials into trying to help Trump get elected.



Now make up some BS that this didn't happen.

A bi-partisan senate panel came to the conclusion Russia interfered in 2016.

Senate panel backs assessment that Russia interfered in 2016

https://apnews.com/article/d094918c0421b872eac7dc4b16e613c7

Trump also agreed Russia interfered.

Trump says he accepts U.S. intelligence on Russian interference in 2016 election but denies collusion

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...8-8902-11e8-8aea-86e88ae760d8_story.html

If you're talking about collusion that was never proven. But at this point in time, after everything that's been established and proven, anyone still claiming Russia didn't interfere in our elections is doing so out of blissful ignorance.

The question of the day that none of you seem to even attempt to answer…

Did the democrats, media and big tech interfere in the election to get Joe elected by telling the country Hunter Bidens laptop was just Russian disinformation? When it was actually a man named Mac Isaac who received Hunters laptop at his own store in Delaware called The Mac Shop from Hunter himself?

Did the media and big tech interfere in our election to get Joe elected???

did they? you can't answer your own damn question, won't accept anyone else's, so now what? i've been trying to follow your convo's with other posters, and i'm really not sure whats going on here.

i'm not sure if you care about nepotism, or nepotism only when it comes to the Biden's, or anything else.

it's so freaking hilarious watching you call out big tech. big tech is an industry, filled with corporations that i'm sure you have voted and supported to deregulate and lower taxes, and for god knows how many years.

so even if the answer to your question is yes, then what? any attempt to regulate business will only be called communist by you and guys like you anyway. big tech is a BUSINESS. part of the FREE MARKET that guys like you want the government out of as much as possible.

so even in your own world narrative, for the sake of argument let's say you're correct:

if i were to grant you that big tech and the media, which are BUSINESSES, interfered with the 2020 election, what action do you want the government to take against the free market that you wouldn't turn around and label socialist/communist/marxism?

**let me repeat*

what action do you want the government to take against the free market that you wouldn't turn around and label socialist/communist/marxism?

_______

because that means heavy regulations and penalties on the free market. whole bunch of red tape.

the media and big tech. you fought to deregulate and lower their taxes for years. i don't understand why you're upset that they flexed the power that you willingly gave them.

They could have brought the Hunter’s laptop up to the podium and declared it’s candidacy against don and I’d have voted for the laptop. Media. No media.

No.

Big tech, American companies are allowed to support candidates... That's part of being American. Where the hell does he think all that GOPer money comes from? They damn sure aren't out in the hood or the streets knocking doors looking for small dollar donations like progressives. Smfh. He's another QAnon type dude. His crap doesn't even make sense to him, but here he is spraying GOPer-Le Pew all over DT. Can we hang garlic or put out some roach motels or something to keep this crap out? Oh, yeah, FrEe SpEeCh...

And why the heck is he comparing Russia to Americans... Does he think GOPer elections are Russian business and Americans can't have a say? lmao, you can't make this crap up. Also, for the last time, Hunter Biden isn't POTUS, didn't run for POTUS, and has ZERO to do with Biden getting elected. If anything Hunter hurt Biden, but America hated Trump so bad, it didn't matter. But if you want to set the bar that low and try to go after kids... If Big Donny and Little Donny aren't in jail in the run up to 2024, I bet we could snag Juniors laptop and find all kinds of crap. I know it's loaded with cocaine powder at a minimum. But his shady ass probably has pics of Jeffrey Epstein's girls on it. I'm sure Daddy took him there a time or two. Or maybe we go after Eric, you know his dumb ass keeps records of crimes on his stuff. Hell, tbh, I'd be good with forced seizure and FBI exploration of all electronic devices from whoever the final two party candidates are. GOPers can't stay out of trouble and not break laws. lmao, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel to disqualify them all.

A repub mantra-corporations are people too

You said if anyone provided evidence that Russia interfered in our elections to try and favor Trump you would leave. So much for that lie.

j/c

Since all of the right wingers seem so fixated on a simple Tweet from Obama that you would have to ignore its intent to do, and since Memphis made a point to claim that "anyone who watches the news" would have known about Biden signing the executive order about new policing policy, then anyone who watches the news would also know this. Something that seems really offensive. But not a peep out of their mouths over this........

As parents are burying their dead children who are victims of the latest mass shooting at a Texas elementary school, the NRA carries on with their convention as scheduled. Talk about appearing callus and uncaring. The NRA spent over 29 million dollars in contributions during the 2020 election to fight ANY sort of responsible gun legislation and now even refuse to reschedule their convention in respect for the dead.

Even very conservative musicians who were set to perform at their convention realize just how wrong this is......

Musicians cancel performances at upcoming NRA convention in wake of Uvalde shooting

At least four musicians who were set to sing in a concert at this weekend’s annual convention of the National Rifle Association have canceled their performances in the wake of the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

The annual meeting is set to begin on Friday and run through the weekend at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.

“In light of the recent events in Texas, I have decided it would be disrespectful and hurtful for me to perform for the NRA at their convention in Houston this week. I’m sure all the folks planning to attend this event are shocked and sickened by these events as well. After all, we are all Americans,” said Don McLean in a statement to CNN. “I share the sorrow for this terrible, cruel loss with the rest of the nation.”

McLean is best known for the 1970’s hits “American Pie” and “Vincent.”

Larry Gatlin, of the Gatlin Brothers fame has also canceled his plans to perform, telling CNN, in part, “I cannot, in good conscience, perform at the NRA convention in Houston this weekend.”

“While I agree with most of the positions held by the NRA, I have come to believe that, while background checks would not stop every madman with a gun, it is at the very least a step in the right direction toward trying to prevent the kind of tragedy we saw this week in Uvalde— in my beloved, weeping TEXAS,” Gatlin said in a statement. “I’m a 2nd Amendment guy, but the 2nd Amendment should not apply to everyone. It’s that simple.”

The annual meeting is only open to NRA members. The organization currently has over five million members, according to its website.

Larry Stewart, who contributed lead vocals in the band Restless Heart, has also opted to not appear.

“I want to honor the victims, families, the town and our friends in the great state of Texas the best I know how,” a statement said.

Singer Lee Greenwood, known for the Independence Day favorite, “God Bless the U.S.A.” also told CNN that he and his band will not play at the convention.

“As a father, I join the rest of America in being absolutely heartbroken by the horrific event that transpired this week in Texas,” Greenwood said in a statement. “After thoughtful consideration, we have decided to cancel the appearance out of respect for those mourning the loss of those innocent children and teachers in Uvalde.”

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on Tuesday. The investigation is ongoing.

CNN has reached out to other musicians slated to perform, including Danielle Peck, T. Graham Brown and Jacob Bryant.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/26/ente...o5h3YC5XDhpY8rVIgV877ByfFIDbQU9m-3J_qaJM

But yeah, let's act like a Tweet was so offensive.

#rightwingfauxrage

5 GOP candidates blocked from Michigan governor's primary over alleged false signatures

James Craig, who is leading polls in the Republican race to challenge Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is among those who have been disqualified. He plans to file an immediate appeal.

Five Republican candidates for governor in Michigan — including top-tier contenders James Craig and Perry Johnson — failed to qualify for the August primary Thursday after the Board of State Canvassers rejected their nominating petitions because of alleged rampant signature fraud.

The bipartisan panel, made up of two Democrats and two Republicans, deadlocked 2-2 along party lines in accepting recommendations by the state Elections Bureau to disqualify all five. A majority was required to keep a candidate on the ballot.

State officials charged with reviewing the nominating petitions this week declared thousands of signatures submitted by the candidates to be forgeries submitted by fraudulent petition circulators. Their findings, which the board considered Thursday, left the five candidates short of the 15,000 valid signatures required to qualify for the ballot.

Thursday's result is expected to be challenged in court. The state's director of elections said the issue needs to be decided by June 3 to leave time to prepare ballots.

The developments could trigger a colossal shakeup in the race for governor, which Republicans are heavily targeting in hope of unseating Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer. If the board's decision stands, an initial field of 10 GOP candidates would be cut in half, without two of its most viable candidates: Craig, a former Detroit police chief who has led in recent polls, and Johnson, a businessman who promotes himself as a "quality guru" and had planned to self-fund his campaign.

"We are disappointed in the Board of Canvassers decision, but we are not surprised the partisan Democrats on the committee ruled against Michigan voters," Craig said in a statement. "It is a travesty that partisans in a position to uphold democracy and the will of the people allowed politics to get in the way."

Craig added that he plans to file "an immediate appeal in the courts."

A representative for Johnson's campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The board vote Thursday also rejected petitions from Donna Brandenburg, Michael Brown and Michael Markey.

To get on the primary ballot for governor in Michigan, candidates needed to submit a minimum of 15,000 signatures from registered voters, including at least 100 voters in half of the state’s 14 congressional districts, by the April 19 deadline. Democrats challenged the petitions of several Republican candidates and alleged widespread forgery a week later.

State Elections Director Jonathan Brater said the state’s subsequent review of qualifying petitions filed by many candidates found an “unprecedented” level of fraud.

The Elections Bureau concluded that 36 petition circulators submitted 68,000 invalid signatures in nominating petitions this year, forging the signatures of registered and unregistered voters alike in bulk. The petition circulators, who were paid by the signature, were frequently hired by multiple Republican candidates.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/20...rnors-primary-false-signatures-rcna30673

Is this guy (shing14) the new name for 40?

40 Jr., lol

Actually me asking the question over and over I assumed everyone knew my answer to the question, which is absolutely they meddled in the election and intentionally lied and covered up certain stories to sway the election in Biden’s favor. I didn’t accept anyone else’s because no one else answered the question.

I would expect a slime ball like Putin to try and interfere and influence an election in one way or the other (although I don’t believe it) but for the media and big tech (Facebook/Twitter ) to sway our election by lying manipulating and hiding or covering up stories to get the outcome they want is down right pathetic.

I am a very big believer in free speech, even speech that disagrees with me. Big tech is by far our greatest threat to free speech, they are about as far left as one can get and for them to only block and censor one side of the argument is a massive problem and something needs to be done about it.

Twitter literally suspended the NY Post account for posting a true story about hunter Biden’s laptop.
You believe that is ok??

https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trumps-chant-uvalde-victims-012236495.html


Donald Trump's Stiff Chant Of Uvalde Victims' Names At NRA Rally Curdles Critics' Blood
Mary Papenfuss
Fri, May 27, 2022, 9:22 PM·2 min read

Former President Donald Trump’s mangled recitation of the names of the 21 Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting victims at the National Rifle Association’s convention on Friday made Twitter critics’ blood run cold.

The names of the 19 children and two teachers, broken up into hardly recognizable syllables in Trump’s stumbling pronunciation, were interspersed with the funereal sound of a gong.

Despite the tragedy, Trump hailed the NRA in his speech at its convention in Houston and ended his remarks with his trademark clenched fists and “cha-cha-cha” dance move.

He blamed the horrific bloodshed at yet another American school on “broken families” — and called efforts to curb gun violence “grotesque.”



If you go to the link you can see video of him reading which I don't think is that mangled. You can also see video of him doing that cha-cha-cha dance which I had no idea was his trademark. My apologies for not being able to figure out how to post a twitter

Nothing he hasn't done before. Like watching the special education class, through an open window, practice public speaking. Only those kids were much better at it.

smfh. Q brainiac.

The whole "peach tree dish" thing is hilarious!

In a hot, hard fought race for stupidest and most ridiculous (from all parties) - I think she might have the lead.

I heard she had a speech impediment, and people are just being mean to her about it.

The peach tree dish disagrees.

Thank you. That is exactly what I'm talking about. Biden can't speak, "he has a speech impediment. Don't make fun of him."

Trump, Bush, this lady - "whoa, look how dumb they are."

Don't forget the furor over "covfefe" .

The reason you're doing that is because you have no idea all of the things she actually said during that podcast. If you did, you would never say that.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Goes Completely Off The Rails With Her Latest Beef

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is warning supporters that the government is planning to monitor their eating habits and “zap” them until they eat fake meat grown in a “peach tree dish.”

The extremist lawmaker who once warned the world of “gazpacho police” now claims the feds are planning to track bowel movements, too.

“You have to accept the fact that the government totally wants to provide surveillance on every part of your life,” Greene said in a rant from her podcast clipped and posted online by Patriot Takes, a right-wing watchdog group.

“They want to know when you’re eating,” the conspiracy theorist added. “They want to know if you’re eating a cheeseburger, which is very bad because Bill Gates wants you to eat his fake meat that grows in a peach tree dish.”

And if you’re not eating “peach tree dish” meat, the government ― of which she is a part ― will find a way to “zap” you into compliance.

“You’ll probably get a little zap inside your body and that’s saying ‘No, no. Don’t eat a real cheeseburger, you need to eat the fake burger, the fake meat, from Bill Gates,’” Greene said.

Along with tracking the food going in, Greene believes they will be tracking the food as it comes back out, too.

“They probably also want to know when you go to the bathroom and if your bowel movements are on time or consistent,” she said. “I mean what else do these people want to know?”

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/marjorie-taylor-greene-goes-completely-045001687.html

Now you know. What will you try to make up next? You can't hide being totally crazy by calling it a speech impediment.

Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared to push a baseless conspiracy theory about the Texas shooter, suggesting he was into 'wearing eyeliner' and 'cross dressing'

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene pushed a baseless rumor on Sunday about the Texas elementary school massacre, positing without evidence that the gunman was into "cross-dressing."

Greene was speaking during a live Facebook broadcast, where she referenced the school shooting at the Robb Elementary School, during which 21 people, including 19 children, were killed.

"He clearly had a lot of mental issues going on, as was shown with him wearing eyeliner, cross-dressing, a lot of his language, being a loner," Greene said, adding that more information was still coming out about the school shooter.

She also questioned how the shooter got the money to buy the guns he used in the shooting despite coming from a low-income household.

"He must have really been saving up!" Greene said.

In her broadcast, Greene appeared to touch on two separate conspiracy theories swirling around the shooting. Greene seemed to be referencing the baseless rumor pushed by her colleague, Rep. Paul Gosar, that the shooter was a transgender individual.

Last week, Gosar began spreading a baseless, transphobic rumor via a now-deleted tweet that the shooter was a "transsexual leftist illegal alien" hours after the shooting. This is factually wrong on all counts and originated from 4Chan, an unmoderated fringe messaging board. 4Chan users posted images of trans women and falsely claimed they were the shooter, despite these women having nothing to do with what happened in Uvalde.

Greene also casually referenced a baseless conspiracy theory that the Texas massacre was a false flag operation. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and several QAnon influencers posited without any substantiation that the mass shooting was a staged event, with Jones speculating that it was "very suspicious timing, just days before the Houston NRA convention — and wondering how the shooter got "all that money" to purchase his guns.

Jones previously claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which took the lives of 20 children and six adults, was a hoax. After multiple families sued the right-wing radio host, he said in a deposition that "a form of psychosis" made him believe the Sandy Hook shooting wasn't real and admitted that he spread misinformation about it.

As for Greene, she took a pro-gun stance hours after the Uvalde shooting, asserting that the US doesn't need "more gun control" but should "return to God instead." At the time, she also speculated without evidence that "meds can be the problem."

Greene has run on a pro-gun platform. She has been known to hold gun raffles for fundraising campaigns and videotaped harassing a survivor of the 2018 Parkland school shooting in January 2021.

https://www.businessinsider.com/mar...VDUEjv_tyED6pX0ezkJlAwKWm_4oEh6iiJlQovBg

That's one helluva speech impediment.

Bruh... she's lapping the competition every other week, to'

Maybe we can all be a little forgiving on the Peach Tree Dish thing.. I mean, she's from Georgia right......


JUST KIDDING,,, she's a moron

Neither this "lady" or Trump has a speech impediment. They are just idiots!

It pains me to think you know enough to bring this up, but don't know the difference... That's just scary

It pains me to even read your drivel and 2 faced bias.

So, it's okay to make fun of her? It's okay to make fun of trump for being 'orange', 'fat', etc. Depends on what party you support I guess. Take what you give. We've spent 6 years of hearing about trump.

She mis spoke. That happens. And truthfully, when I listened to it, I had to go back and re-listen. And I thought "yup, she really said peach tree dish'. End of discussion - until it, and many other things were brought up.

Shall we start posting democrat gaffes ad nauseum?

She is genuinely, dumb as a rock.

holy crap these people are crazy!!

Right-Wing Organization Launches Chilling Map Marking Schools As 'Woke Hot Spots'

https://www.yahoo.com/news/wing-organization-launches-chilling-map-231533412.html

A far-right Missouri organization has launched a disturbing map alerting followers to “hot spots” of so-called “woke” activity in the state.

As of Monday, the 12 map locations all concerned educational institutions, and linked to articles, videos and tweets trashing things like critical race theory and diversity training. The information named at least 12 specific schools or school districts — particularly chilling in light of America’s mounting toll of school mass shootings.

The Liberty Alliance is “committed to fighting back against the woke agenda permeating all across Missouri,” reads a statement on the conservative group’s website next to a state map peppered with spots.

“The first step in fighting back is uncovering their crazy ideas — from Critical Race Theory to grooming toddlers with sexually explicit books,” the statement added. “That is why we have officially launched the Woke Heat Map — an interactive tool designed to expose the insane actions of the radical Left. This map will alert Missourians of craziness happening in their own communities.”

Critical race theory, an academic framework that looks at how polices and laws perpetuate systemic racism, has become a right-wing boogeyman. Educators say the term has been weaponized by the right to limit diversity initiatives and teachings about race and U.S. history.

Other than featuring articles, the map isn’t actually “interactive” in any way, as claimed. Instead, followers are encouraged to interact with the organization by filling out forms on the web page reporting “woke hot spots” for the map.

Attorney Ron Filipkowski discovered a video interview with Liberty Alliance executive director Spencer Bone crowing about the new initiative keeping track of any “crazy action taken by a crazy leftist.” While describing the hot spots on the map, Bone begins to refer to places where “gender extremism” was pushed, but corrected himself to say “woke extremism.”

_____________

and before people call BS, here it is:



This is freaking nuts. this is scary. this leads to terrorism. i dont know why young males are so angry, but good lord these right wingers specifically scare more than anybody from the hood could.

holy crap this is terrifying.

imma need conservatives to explain to me why young males like Spencer Bone are so angry.

like bro, i didn't name you spencer bone. nobody in the "woke" community did either.

Man, that's dangerous. At best.

Same reason Johnny cash was so mad when his daddy named him Sue? lol

Whatever makes you happy....But you are wrong again

I kinda doubt anyone wants to take a stab at this.... I'm not going to try to explain it.


Not my team.

I can't help but think of those sexual predator maps, except for the fact that they are issued by law enforcement.

This is not going to turn out well.

Michael Flynn’s Identity Was Not Improperly Revealed By Obama Officials, A Secret DOJ Report Has Found.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/articl...eport-finding-that-obama-officials-didnt

A Justice Department probe found that members of the Obama administration did not seek to reveal the identity of Michael Flynn “for political purposes or other inappropriate reasons,” a newly disclosed report reveals.

The document details the results of a monthslong investigation into the so-called unmasking of Flynn, who briefly served as national security adviser to then-president Donald Trump before he resigned in February 2017 in the wake of the revelation that he had lied about phone conversations he held with Russia’s ambassador to the US.




Republicans later accused officials in the Obama administration of using their positions to reveal anonymized names in classified documents, known in the intelligence community as unmasking, in order to target individuals in Trump’s orbit. In May 2020, Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, ordered an investigation into the practice of unmasking. That review, conducted by John Bash — at the time the US attorney for the Western District of Texas — was finished the following September without finding any evidence of wrongdoing.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crim...mp;cvid=c8d7d4842f39413d89669c47331f0d99