November 5, 2022

Kari Lake-Linked Tech Firm Wreaking Campaign Finance Havoc

Superfeed Technologies, a company with Trumpworld ties that once retained Kari Lake as an adviser, appears to have provided unreported free services to GOP candidates.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kari-lake-linked-tech-firm-superfeed-wreaking-campaign-finance-havoc-in-arizona



Questions have been raised about a series of apps that are providing information on Arizona’s conservative candidates. In fact, thanks to the Trump campaign’s ex-chief operating officer and financial patron to Arizona gubernatorial aspirant Kari Lake, the Grand Canyon State has a whole slew of them. The app Superfeed Technologies developed for Lake appears to be the most popular of the four apps which the Phoenix-based firm has developed for GOP candidates in Arizona—seemingly free of charge.

More than a thousand Android users and an unknown number of iPhone holders to date have downloaded the tool, which provides regular updates from Lake’s social media feed, notifies users of campaign events, and connects them with donation and volunteer sign-up portals. One problem: Arizona campaign finance records show no record of Lake’s campaign—or any political committee—having paid Superfeed for this service, despite the company explicitly describing its work.

And that, according to election lawyer James Barton, would make the app’s operation a violation of state contribution rules. “In some states, corporations and unions can contribute directly to campaigns. That’s not the case in Arizona,” Barton told The Daily Beast. “They may have for-free promoted her, and if that’s the case, that’s illegal, because that would be an in-kind contribution from a company.”



In fact, the only flow of money reflected in public records has passed from the mobile app developer to the TV host-turned-politician. In personal financial reports Lake filed with the state earlier this year, she reported receiving compensation for work as a “communication advisor” to FeedMe, Inc. The forms do not specify the amount of the commission, except that it exceeded $1,000.

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November 4, 2022

North Carolina Republican wants "rape panels" to decide whether victims can get abortions

Bo Hines pushes "community-level review" of whether individual survivors can terminate their pregnancies

https://www.salon.com/2022/11/02/north-carolina-wants-rape-panels-to-decide-whether-victims-can-get-abortions/



A North Carolina Republican congressional candidate floated a proposal to create a community review process that would determine whether survivors of rape and incest can get abortions.

Bo Hines, the GOP candidate for North Carolina's 13th Congressional District, wants to outlaw all abortions unless the mother's life is at risk.

"He wants victims of rape and incest to be allowed to get an abortion on a case-by-case basis through a community-level review process outside the jurisdiction of the federal government," local news outlet WRAL reported.

The proposal was widely panned by critics. Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall described the proposed review boards as "rape panels." "Something from a nightmare," wrote civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill.

https://twitter.com/SIfill_/status/1587626013399388161
https://twitter.com/mirandayaver/status/1587594447797329925
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November 4, 2022

White nationalist Tucker Carlson hits Tiffany Cross recently and accuses her of fueling a "race war"

She get deluged with hate and criticism.

Now?

She's out at MSNBC. Contract not renewed.

Timing is terrible. Protect Joy Reid, a unicorn, a Black female anchor on cable news. And @SymoneDSanders! My bad for not mentioning her. Glad she has her show.

https://twitter.com/WajahatAli/status/1588588126746062848

Tucker Carlson's Fearmongering Features White Women In Bonkers Race-Bait

The Fox News host targeted MSNBC's Tiffany Cross to rile his right-wing audience.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tucker-carlson-white-women-msnbc-tiffany-cross_n_6351187ee4b04cf8f3802f97

Tucker Carlson twisted the observations of MSBNC’s Tiffany Cross about the Jan. 6 insurrection on Wednesday, accusing her of demonizing white women in general. (Watch the video below.)

Cross, who is Black, noted on a recent MSNBC show that white women played a prominent part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. She aired concerns about whether Americans realized that more white women were “enablers to this very dangerous domestic terrorist movement.”

At least 100 of the rioters arrested were women and they played a “front-facing role,” according to an NBC story in April that cited a George Washington University program on extremism report. The report mentioned women’s role in the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s. But modern social media has given women new opportunities to join right-wing extremism, the network wrote.

Cross’s remarks seem consistent with the facts. But to Carlson, who repeatedly has peddled the “great replacement” conspiracy theory that whites are intentionally being replaced by immigrants and people of color, Cross’ comments were just fuel for fearmongering.

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November 4, 2022

Kyrsten Sinema Is MIA for Fellow Dems in Arizona

Arizona has some of the toughest and most consequential races in the country. And Kyrsten Sinema is a Democrat popular among Republicans. Where is she?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kyrsten-sinema-is-mia-for-fellow-democrats-in-arizona



PHOENIX—When Barack Obama came to Phoenix on Wednesday in the final days of the 2022 election, seemingly every Arizona Democrat of note was in the room, from Sen. Mark Kelly and governor candidate Katie Hobbs to prominent party messengers like Rep. Ruben Gallego. There was just one glaring absence: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

For months, Democrats in Arizona have been clawing against a difficult political environment in hopes of reelecting Kelly, boosting Hobbs to the governorship over the MAGA champion Kari Lake, and helping Adrian Fontes defeat the far-right election denier Mark Finchem in the Secretary of State race.

The senior U.S. Senator from Arizona is not on the ballot herself until 2024. But while other Democratic senators in similar situations have played active roles boosting fellow Democrats in their home states, there’s been a Sinema-sized hole in the Democratic campaign effort in Arizona.

During the 2022 election season, Sinema has not campaigned publicly with her colleague Kelly, or with Hobbs, Fontes, or any other Democrat on the ballot in the state. It was not until two weeks before Election Day, with early voting underway, that Sinema even publicly confirmed she was supporting Hobbs.

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November 4, 2022

Breaking: Former Trump Adviser Acquitted on Charges of Acting as Emirati Agent

Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a Los Angeles businessman and friend of the former president, had been accused of working on behalf of the oil-rich nation without disclosing it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/nyregion/trump-thomas-barrack-acquitted.html

https://archive.ph/gLVgt



Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a close friend and adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, was acquitted Friday on charges that he had served as an agent for the United Arab Emirates and then lied to federal investigators about it.

Mr. Barrack’s acquittal on all counts, after a seven-week trial and two days of jury deliberation, deals a blow to the Justice Department, which has sought to root out foreign influence in U.S. politics. As the verdict was read, Mr. Barrack bowed his head and his family wept in the courtroom benches.

Mr. Barrack was one of several associates of Mr. Trump to come under legal and ethical scrutiny for their dealings with foreign interests. Several of the cases have fallen apart or ended in acquittal, suggesting that federal prosecutors have struggled to convince juries and judges that the creep of influence peddling, off-the-books lobbying and profiting from government connections may be illegal, or even dangerous.

Prosecutors accused Mr. Barrack, a Los Angeles-based private equity investor, of using his sway with Mr. Trump to advance the interests of the Emirates in the White House and in the media, serving as a secret back channel for communications and passing sensitive information to Emirati officials.

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November 4, 2022

Marjorie Taylor Greene Makes Alarming Promise About Ukraine If GOP Wins Congress

Fellow Republican Liz Cheney slammed the far-right lawmaker's pledge as being "exactly what Putin wants."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/marjorie-taylor-greene-ukraine_n_6364bd51e4b08f849aa9ba98

Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Thursday vowed to nix American funding for Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion if the GOP retakes Congress in next week’s midterm elections. “The only border they care about is Ukraine, not America’s southern border,” Greene said of Democrats at a rally in Iowa. “Under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine. Our country comes first. They don’t care about our border or our people.” Greene’s pledge was met with cheers from the audience.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1588287995047997440
Outgoing Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) slammed Greene’s comment as being “exactly” what Russian President Vladimir Putin wants. “If we’d had Republicans like this in the 1980s, we would have lost the Cold War,” Cheney wrote on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/1588323589513793537
The GOP is currently split over whether to continue financially assisting Ukraine against the invasion, which Putin launched in February. The U.S. has so far donated more than $67 billion to the Ukrainian cause.

But this week, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested U.S. pursestrings for the defense will be significantly tightened if his party wins control of the House and Senate. “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” McCarthy said. “They just won’t do it.”

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November 3, 2022

GOP Candidate Said Elites Drink Blood, Sell 'Baby Body Parts' After Abortion

“There’s a ton of money involved in freshly harvested organs. There’s so much evidence out there.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzkdp/kristina-karamo-qanon-blood-body-parts



Kristina Karamo, the Trump-backed GOP candidate for Michigan secretary of state, once expressed support in 2020 for one of QAnon’s most outlandish conspiracies: that elites drink the blood of children and ‘sell baby body parts’ after abortions.

VICE News obtained an audio recording of Karamo’s appearance on a QAnon podcast called Redpill News just weeks after the 2020 election, where she said that abortion is “child sacrifice” and boosted false claims that the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were “Antifa posing as Trump supporters.”

“If you go to the Satanic temple website, they have an entire five-minute video explaining why abortion is a religious ritual,” Karamo said in the interview, which also featured Rudy Giuliani associate Melissa Carone. “They literally say that it is a sacrifice, it is a religious ritual for them to have an abortion, it is sick. And as you mentioned, the baby body parts… they sell the organs. There’s a ton of money involved in freshly harvested organs. There’s so much evidence out there.”

This is one of QAnon’s most extreme beliefs, that members of the global elite traffic children in order to harvest a chemical from their blood that they use to live longer. Karamo became a minor star in the GOP after she claimed to have witnessed voter fraud during the 2020 election while acting as a poll challenger in Detroit. Her affidavit was used as part of a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that challenged the election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The lawsuit was thrown out by the Supreme Court in December 2020.

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November 3, 2022

Final results give Likud bloc 64 seats; ADL: Far right will hurt Israel globally

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/adl-says-including-far-right-in-next-government-will-hurt-country-globally/



The Anti-Defamation League expresses concern “over likely inclusion of extremists” in the next Israeli government.

The ADL offers congratulations to Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu but notes that the coalition “will likely include representatives from the Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionist parties, including their leaders Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich,” both of which “have a long history of engaging in racist, anti-Arab, homophobic and other hateful behavior.”

“We believe that including these far-right individuals and parties in an Israeli government would run counter to Israel’s founding principles, and impact its standing, even among its strongest supporters.”

The ADL says it “will not shirk from calling out expressions by, and policies of, the Israeli government and Israeli leaders that are hateful, racist, anti-Arab, homophobic and anti-democratic.”

November 3, 2022

Joe Rogan Admits He Lied About Schools Using Litter Boxes

https://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-rogan-admits-he-lied-about-schools-using-litter-boxes-for-furries-student



Joe Rogan has admitted he lied about a school letting “furry” children use litter boxes, walking back his claims from a month ago that have since been amplified by Republican Senate Don Bolduc.

In an October podcast, Rogan told guest Tulsi Gabbard that his friend’s wife taught at a school that “had to install a litter box in the girl’s room because there’s a student that’s a furry.”

Now, he’s saying “I don't think they actually did it,” attributing the whole situation to “one wacky mother” who the school ignored. Claims that furry students are using litter boxes have been debunked over and over, but the lie has persisted as a right-wing talking point.

Bolduc accused a school of using litter boxes in a campaign town hall, saying “I wish I was making it up.” Lucky for the New Hampshire Republican, he was. “I fed into that,” Rogan said in his podcast, admitting he had no facts to back up his claim.

Read it at Daily Mail

November 3, 2022

We're Watching White Anxiety Turn Into Violent Rage

Many white Americans believe in the myth of their own greatness. And it’s become a threat to us all.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/were-watching-white-anxiety-turn-into-violent-rage



During Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign I can remember very clearly an extended family member saying, “There is no way America elects a Black man to that office, but I’m proud he’s trying.” Then, once Obama won, the sentiments of “never” from one family member grew to a chorus of Black people holding their breath that he wouldn’t be assassinated and/or harmed following his history-making election.

While many during those first few years wanted to tout America’s new status as “post-racial,” Black and brown America knew the truth. While his election wins in both 2008 and 2012 were indeed historic, the whitelash that had been brewing since the advent of birtherism and the Tea Party would soon manifest itself in an upending of all that “post-racial” hope. That’s when Republicans nominated the anti-Obama—a man who ramped up racial anxieties rather than speaking to them with compassion and nuance—Donald J. Trump.



Trump is (and always has been) a caricature of white privilege and white resentment. A silver spoon heir to a multimillionaire, whose failures in business were repeatedly bailed out by Daddy, he somehow conned people into buying his image as the savior of poor white America. He rebuffed political norms and embraced the “good old days” of unapologetic racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and Islamophobia—all while embracing white nationalism and fetishizing the American flag.

While the Obama era made us believe in our better angels and our better selves—Trumpism had a substantial portion of white America believing that their rejection of equity and inclusivity is some perverse form of patriotism. While Obamaism was about multiculturalism and the abundance of this country’s offerings, Trumpism emphasized scarcity—the idea that America’s bounties are zero sum, and that white Americans needed to stake their claim to what is theirs alone, what they are owed, and who they should hate and fear encroaching on “their America.”

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