In the previous installments of this investigation into how the Harris-Walz presidential campaign is dishonestly manipulating online platforms, I noted the existence of a Discord server where campaign employees coordinate with a volunteer army to flood social media sites with campaign propaganda. The volunteers also vote en masse on social media to artificially boost Harris-Walz content or downvote content that is harmful to their campaign. Not only is this deceptive and misleading to voters, it’s a clear violation of these websites’ Terms of Service.
In part one and part two of the investigation, I noted this strategy had been successful at manipulating both Reddit and X. Over the past month, one out of every eight of the top stories in the eight-million-member Politics subreddit was planted by the campaign. On X, the campaign appears to have successfully voted down Community Notes accurately calling out the Harris campaign for tweeting out brazen lies.
But one activity I found on the Discord server was particularly concerning. After years of Democrats erroneously insisting that Donald Trump had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election and otherwise warning of foreign election manipulation, the Harris-Walz campaign is actively recruiting foreigners to work on the campaign and is even encouraging them to donate to American political causes.
There appears to be no vetting and given that the Harris-Walz campaign’s Discord community overtly engaged in disinformation campaigns, it was ripe for infiltration and abuse by foreign intelligence and other bad actors attempting to influence the election — although I saw no concrete proof of that.
However, my research found multiple foreign nationals actively volunteering for the Harris-Walz campaign. This activity, while permitted by the FEC, raises questions about whether foreigners should be allowed to volunteer for official U.S. political campaigns. Their comments ranged from showing excitement at how they could volunteer to “save democracy” …
… to Canadians sharing their plans to make road trips to Michigan, where they aim to go door-to-door canvassing …
…and asking how they, as foreigners, could donate money to “help fund the Harris-Walz campaign” using a legal donation loophole …
… which was praised by the server’s moderators, who went on to distribute the link to other channels (chats) in the Discord server.
The server’s moderators embraced the foreigners with open arms. Moderators are powerful users in Discord communities — they have the power to delete messages, ban users, and make announcements that reach the entire server’s user base (35,000 individual people at the time of writing). They were overjoyed to see non-American support, and eager to help foreigners learn how they could make a meaningful impact in the upcoming presidential election.
On Oct. 20, 2024, the campaign pinged the abroad group, desperately urging foreigners to spam call Wisconsin voters. Their goal was to reach 5 million telemarketing calls on Kamala’s birthday.
When one foreign user expressed concern about “meddling in US elections,” a moderator quickly assured him this was perfectly legal, and urged him to phone bank for Kamala.
While the Federal Election Commission does prohibit foreign nationals from making monetary donations and contributions to U.S. campaigns directly, it does explicitly allow foreign nationals to volunteer for campaigns as long as they are uncompensated. Unfortunately, the FEC does not account for donation loopholes, which are currently being propagated throughout the Harris-Walz Discord server.
The Harris-Walz staff are clearly teaching foreigners how to skirt FEC regulations. This may not be illegal, but it is enticing foreign nationals to influence American elections — something that Democrats have spent years warning is a serious threat to democracy.
Whether this directly violates election laws is also beside the point for many Americans, who believe foreign nationals should not be allowed to volunteer for U.S. presidential campaigns. American elections should be for Americans, and the Harris-Walz campaign is actively inviting foreign influences into their campaign.
The author runs the popular Twitter account @reddit_lies.
Things could, and did, get worse for America after Jan. 6. I served in the Trump administration, but I withdrew my support from the president after that dark day. Four years later, I’m back. And here’s why.The Biden-Harris administration weakened our power, our pocketbooks and our values. After living under this reality for nearly four years, there is no choice: We need former President Donald J. Trump back in the White House.
I’ve explained my change of heart across the national media from MSNBC to CNN to NPR. Yet instead of considering the content of my argument, most journalists have gone apoplectic about my decision that supporting Republican policies is more important than punishing a former president they loathe. If Vice President Kamala Harris can “change her mind” to soften border enforcement, why can’t someone on the other side of the aisle change his perspective?
I can’t excuse Jan. 6 or the former president’s lackluster response to that dark day. But our system stood, the riot quelled, and the transfer of power completed.
Skeptics wonder if there’s some sort of insidious reason behind my stance today.
They ask: Has he offered me a job? No. Did he blackmail me? No. Do you think he won the 2020 election? No (sadly). Have you lost your moral compass? No. In fact, my moral compass heads due north toward what’s best for our country.
As the twentieth U.S. ambassador to the European Union, I know and worked closely with Trump. He’s a showman who likes to shock. That’s obvious. What might be less obvious is that he’s also a swift and thoughtful decision maker. He doesn’t hem and haw or, like his opponent, need a script to stay on message. And unlike the other side, Trump cares about fostering our country’s meritocracy, not mediocrity. He believes competition, not socialism, is best for our society.
Harris represents a party at odds with this perspective. Indeed, Democrats are staging a strategic assault on our two-party democratic system and pushing policies that will further erode American prestige, pocketbooks and families. Harris has vowed to pack the Supreme Court, eliminate the filibuster, dramatically loosen voter regulations and empower unelected government employees to decide which cars we drive, and on which stoves we cook. She wants to police what our children study and how we speak. She says she wouldn’t do anything different from President Joe Biden. That’s troubling at best.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Throwback Brewery in North Hampton, New Hampshire, on Sept. 4. (Kylie Cooper for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
It means Harris agrees it was smart to withdraw U.S. military forces before civilians from Afghanistan. I guess she’s too young to recall Saigon or wasn’t moved when desperate innocents fell to their deaths from a U.S. aircraft escaping Kabul. It means she believes Biden was right to say that Washington wouldn’t react if Moscow made only a “minor incursion” into Ukraine. Talk about giving green lights to dictators.
While Trump flatters bad guys in public as a counterintuitive and strategic tactic, no world leader doubts his resolve for America. We need that sort of leadership on the international stage because, thanks to the disastrous Biden-Harris foreign policy, allies and adversaries alike doubt America’s convictions and are confused about our positions. This would be problematic in any era, but especially worrisome in the shadows of a rising China and expansionist Russia.
Former President Trump waves goodbye after a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
At home, Harris turns a blind eye to foreign influence that’s radicalizing our students to hate America. She never discusses the similarities to radicalized Iranian students who installed a fundamentalist government in Tehran that chants “death to America” and sponsors 13 terrorist groups, including Hamas.
Harris says she “understands the emotions” driving college students who wear keffiyeh and call for the destruction of Jews. Would Harris be so sanguine if Blacks were targeted the way Jews were targeted? While I doubt Harris is truly antisemitic or wants to see the destruction of the State of Israel, her actions don’t live up to that of a strong supporter of Israel or an ally. Her ambition for votes (especially among Arab Americans in Michigan) has moved her dangerously close to Hamas’ agenda.
Harris’ economic stance is equally appalling. She cares more about distributing handouts to illegal immigrants than supporting people like my parents, Holocaust survivors who legally immigrated to the U.S. and opened a dry cleaner where they worked for decades.
She thinks race should be a qualification for jobs and advantages. Moreover, Harris is part of the administration that used COVID-19 as an excuse to needlessly pump an extra $2 trillion into the economy, thereby ensuring inflation and, in essence, buying votes.
Despite the White House’s denials, anyone who grocery shops know the cost of living has skyrocketed. Not only among poor people, but among everyone. One friend, a college-educated divorced mother with an enviable white-collar job, forgoes meat herself to buy protein-rich steak for her teenage son. This isn’t the America our families need or want.
Of course, the Democratic Party decries the importance of family. Harris reflects this demise. She supports old-fashioned entitlement programs and tax codes that encourage men to abandon their families. She opposes religious groups that wish to align business practices with their morals. She encourages immature young people to explore gender-affirming treatments that can’t be reversed in adulthood.
She routinely supports teachers’ unions that drive anti-student, pro-employee political agendas. In a Harris world, teachers that can’t dispense aspirin without parental consent are punished for telling parents their child is changing sex.
Taken collectively, the Harris agenda and her alignment with the Democratic base is an order of magnitude more frightening than Trump’s agenda or behavior. This is not a conspiracy theory or fearmongering.
That’s why, even with all of Trump’s idiosyncrasies and inflammatory style, he is the best option for America. His policies are right. The team will be great. And given the choice, there is no other choice.
Democrats are already starting to play the blame game with less than one week left before the presidential election, reports The Hill. Some have looked to fault President Joe Biden for not stepping down sooner while others say Vice President Kamala Harris has been off message on the economy.
“People are nervous, and they’re trying to cover their a** and get a little ahead of Election Day,” one Democratic told the news outlet. “It’s based on anxiety, stakes, and the unique nature of this cycle.’
“We didn’t have a traditional process for this election. We didn’t have a primary. People just had to fall in line,” the strategist added, saying “it’s not surprising to me” that some of the blame game is happening.
If Harris loses, “there will be a mad dash to assign blame,” the person said.
Another aide told the Hill Harris’ decision to pick Tim Walz as her running mate would also be picked apart should she lose to GOP nominee Donald Trump.
“[Harris] is going to look real silly for not picking [Josh] Shapiro,” one former aide in the Obama White House said.
“I’m not sure Walz got her anything. A lot of people I’m talking to say he seems like a great guy,” a Democrat donor told The Hill.
“Would I want to have a beer with him? Absolutely. But let’s face it, he wasn’t a great choice.”
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
Below is my column on Fox.com on the expanding boycott of the Washington Post by Democratic politicians, pundits, and members of the press. The reason? Because owner Jeff Bezos wants to stay politically neutral and leave the matter to the public. In an age of advocacy journalism, the return to neutrality is intolerable. The reaction is itself revealing. In a heated meeting this week at the Post, writers were apoplectic with attacks on Bezos and alarm over the very notion of remaining neutral in an election. One declared to the group: “One thing that can’t happen in this country is for Trump to get another four years.” The immediate and reflexive call of the left for boycotts and canceling campaigns is all too familiar to many of us. The question is whether the targeting of Bezos could backfire in creating a major ally for the restoration of American journalism.
Here is the slightly altered column:
It is not every day that you go from being Obi-Wan Kenobi to Sheev Palpatine in twenty-four hours. However, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos now has the distinction of having Luke (Mark Hamill) lead a boycott of his “democracy dies in darkness” newspaper as the daily of the Darkside.
Then something fascinating happened. Bezos stood his ground.
The left has made an art form of flash-mob politics, crushing opposition with the threat of economic or professional ruin. Most cave to the pressure, including business leaders like Meta’s Mark Zuckerburg. That record came to a screeching halt when the unstoppable force of the left met the immovable object of Elon Musk. The left continues to oppose his government contracts and pressure his advertisers over his refusal to restore the prior censorship system at X, formerly Twitter.
Now, the left may be creating another defiant billionaire. This week, Bezos penned an op-ed that doubled down on his decision not to endorse a presidential candidate now or in the future. Some of us have argued for newpapers to stop all political endorsements for decades. The encouraging aspect of Bezos’s column was that he not only recognized the corrosive effect of endorsements on maintaining neutrality as a media organization, but he also recognized that the Post is facing plummeting revenues and readership due to its perceived bias and activism.
I used to write regularly for the Post, and I wrote in my new book about the decline of the newspaper as part of the “advocacy journalism” movement. As Bezos wrote, “Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.”
Bezos previously brought in a publisher to save the Post from itself. Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis promptly delivered a truth bomb in the middle of the newsroom by telling the staff, “Let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right? I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
The response was that the entire staff seemed to go into vapors, and many called for Lewis to be canned. Bezos stood with Lewis.
Now, resignations and recriminations are coming from reporters and columnists alike. In a public statement, Post columnists blasted the decision and said that while maybe endorsements should be ended, not now because everyone has to oppose Trump to save democracy and journalism. The statement produced some chuckles, given the signatories, including Phillip Bump and Jen Rubin, who have been repeatedly accused of pushing false stories and reckless rhetoric. (Rubin later denounced Bezos for his “Bulls**t explanation” and said that he was merely “bending a knee” to Trump.).
Bezos could do for the media what Musk did for free speech. He could create a bulwark against advocacy journalism in one of the premier newspapers in the world. Students in “J Schools” today are being told to abandon neutrality and objectivity since, as former New York Times writer (and now Howard University journalism professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones has explained, “all journalism is activism.”
After a series of interviews with over 75 media leaders, Leonard Downie Jr., former Washington Post executive editor, and Andrew Heyward, former CBS News president, reaffirmed this shift. As Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, stated: “Objectivity has got to go.”
Few can stand up to this movement other than a Bezos or a Musk. However, the left has long created their own monsters by demanding absolute fealty or unleashing absolute cancel campaigns. Simply because Bezos wants his newspaper to restore neutrality, the left is calling for a boycott of not just the Post but all of his companies. That is precisely what they did with Musk.
A Bezos/Musk alliance would be truly a thing to behold. They could give the push for the restoration of free speech and the free press a real chance to create a beachhead to regain the ground that we have lost in the last two decades. The left will accept nothing short of total capitulation and Bezos does not appear willing to pay that price. Instead, he could not just save the Post but American journalism from itself.
If so, all I can say is: Welcome to the fight, Mr. Bezos.
Recently, I spoke at an event about my book, “The Indispensable Right,” at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Appearing on the panel with me was a New York University professor and one of the Facebook board members directing “content moderation.” We had a sharp disagreement over the record of Meta/Facebook on censorship, which I described as partisan and anti-free speech. Now, Congress has released the internal communications at Facebook, showing an express effort to appease Biden officials by censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story before the election.
In a new report released by the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government, Facebook executives are shown following the lead of the FBI, which gave them prior warnings to prepare to spike such stories before the election. The FBI knew that the laptop was authentic. They had possession of the laptop, and American intelligence concluded that it was not Russian disinformation.
One Microsoft employee wrote, “FBI tipped us all off last week that this Burisma story was likely to emerge,”
However, these communications also show a knowing effort to appease Biden and Harris and effectively assist them in their election efforts. Facebook’s then-Vice President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg reportedly wrote to Vice President of Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan, “[o]bviously, our calls on this could colour the way an incoming Biden administration views us more than almost anything else.”
One of the most interesting communications came from a Facebook employee who recognized that they would be accused of seeking to influence the election: “When we get hauled up to [Capitol] [H]ill to testify on why we influenced the 2020 elections, we can say we have been meeting for YEARS with USG [the U.S. government] to plan for it.”
The Facebook files go beyond influencing the election. At one point, Nick Clegg, the company’s president of global affairs, asked, “Can someone quickly remind me why we were removing—rather than demoting/labeling—claims that Covid is man made.” The Vice President in charge of content policy responded, “We were under pressure from the administration and others to do more. We shouldn’t have done it.”
Notably, Democrats opposed every effort to seek this information, and Facebook only recently relented in turning over its files years after Elon Musk ordered the release of the “Twitter files.” I raised this issue during the NCC event to counter the glowing self-appraisal of Meta over its record. Despite its claims of transparency, it refused calls from many of us for years to release these files. When finally forced by the House to do so, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a perfunctory apology and moved on. As shown at the NCC event, it is now spinning its record as a defense of free speech.
A.F. Branco’s Cartoon – The Legend of the Headless President, has seeded its place in American history. Biden is now labeling Trump supporters as garbage. That’s right up there with Hillary’s Deplorable comment.
“This Truck is in Honor of Kamala and Joe Biden” – EPIC! Trump Trolls Democrats After Getting Picked Up in MAGA Garbage Truck (VIDEO)
By Cristina Laila – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 30, 2024
A big beautiful MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN garbage truck awaited Trump after he landed in Green Bay, Wisconsin on Wednesday. President Trump expertly trolled Democrats and their media stenographers after getting picked up by a MAGA garbage truck. “How do you like my garbage truck? This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden!” Trump said from inside the garbage truck. The Democrat-media complex went crazy after a comedian made a joke about Puerto Rico being a floating pile of garbage.
A.F Branco Cartoon – The choice in this election is clear: Sleight-of-hand leftist Tricks or the abrasive truth in the form of say-it-like-it-is tweets. Trick Or Treat.
Kamala Calls for Unity Then Calls Trump A Tyrant | Drew Hernandez
By Drew Hernandez – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 30, 2024
Kamala Harris held her big girl grand finale final argument speech at the Ellipse in Washington DC. The speech was short and started off with Kamala Harris being drowned out by a siren in the background either from a protester’s bullhorn or traffic. It’s possible it was a protester because there were many anti-Kamala pro-Gaza protesters that showed up in order to protest Harris.
Her speech was all over the place, from calling Trump a petty tyrant and describing Trump as a new form of the old nazi tyrannical regime to calling for Americans to stop pointing fingers at each other to admitting prices are too high under her failed leadership to shockingly now claiming she’s willing to deport illegal aliens yet give illegal aliens a pathway to citizenship if she becomes President. READ MORE
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Pro-life advocate Bevelyn Williams turned herself into a federal prison in Alabama earlier this month. Williams was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act during a June 2020 protest outside a New York City Planned Parenthood facility. Williams is a Christian wife, a devoted mother, and a woman who has experienced the pain of abortion. She should be pardoned and reunited with her family, and the FACE Act must be repealed.
In 2019, Williams watched in horror as then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law the Reproductive Health Act. That decision to legalize abortion up to birth was disturbing to her, even as someone who’d had multiple abortions. During her sentencing hearing, she made a statement before the judge. In it, she said:
After I got my first abortion, it took a toll on me. … The next thing I know, I am waiting in the room and it’s time. I go to sleep, I wake up, it’s done. But it wasn’t done. You can’t just pull something out, you can’t cut something out of you without the emotional consequences that people have to face every day. And for me, that led me down a very, very dark road of depression.
That emotional turmoil continued as Williams had two more abortions. Yet amid a chaotic life, Williams gave her heart to Christ. Her empathy for those considering abortion led her into pro-life activism. Williams never imagined she’d stand in front of an abortion facility in protest. Once her life was surrendered to Christ, she began to feel deeply for other black women considering abortion. Knowing the pain that comes with abortion, she wanted to reach these women to share her story and to help them choose life.
Now, Bevelyn Williams is facing the second longest sentencing in a series of recent FACE Act-related convictions. Lauren Handy was unjustly convicted in a FACE Act trial in Washington, D.C., in August of 2023 and was sentenced to 57 months, the only defendant to have received a longer sentence than Williams.
Williams, a married mother of a young daughter, was blindsided by the length of the sentence. When her legal team requested, she remain at home with her family during the appeal process, the judge refused, saying, in Williams’ words, that she was a danger to the “streets” and “society.” In her statement before the judge Williams said, “I am loud. I am passionate. But am I violent? No.”
During Williams’ sentencing hearing, prosecuting attorneys referred to Handy’s case, saying that both involved alleged injuries to abortion facility employees. In Willams’ case, at the New York City Planned Parenthood protest, a staffer’s hand was allegedly caught in a door — which government prosecutors presented as Williams doing intentionally. Williams’ attorney disagreed; in his opinion, it was relatively minor.
Bevelyn told the judge, “I didn’t go there with intentions to hurt that woman or anybody else. … I wanted to preach the gospel, and I wanted to use the message that God gave me because I lived it. I’m not judging those girls who go in there ready to get an abortion. I know exactly what it’s like.”
Willams was charged with violating the FACE Act in June 2020 in connection with her interference with individuals seeking to obtain an abortion. The official designation of the offense given to her was “unlawful assembly.”
A three-plus-year sentence for unlawful assembly is egregious. The Biden-Harris administration continues to inflict unjust prosecution against pro-lifers by invoking the FACE Act. The FACE Act was supposedly created to protect pregnancy centers and churches, along with abortion facilities. Yet the FACE Act has been weaponized and used to make an example out of pro-life activists. As Republican lawmakers Mike Lee and Chip Roy wrote earlier this year, “Since its passage, the FACE Act has been used approximately 130 times against pro-lifers — but has only been leveled in defense of churches and pregnancy centers five times, even though churches and pro-life centers are 22 times more likely to be attacked than abortion clinics.”
Kamala Harris, specifically, has leveraged the legal system to jail Americans who engage in efforts to protect preborn children for the majority of her political career. As California’s attorney general, she went after pregnancy resource centers and pro-life journalists, describing peaceful attempts such as Williams’ protest as “outrageous and immoral.”
In her own words, Bevelyn shared her thoughts on Facebook saying, “My family and I remain hopeful and are trusting God through this challenging time. The Bible is clear that persecution will happen, but ministry continues, even in prison. Our job as Christians is to be a light, especially in dark places.”
Pray for our ally in this mission for life, as she sacrificially suffers imprisonment for this cause. We must push back on this persecution and repeal the FACE Act, as Lee and Roy are leading the effort to do in Congress. Not only do our human rights depend on it, but the rights of the innocent babies in the womb as well.
Christina Bennett is a pro-life missionary and activist whose powerful personal story — she was moments away from being aborted — ignited her passion for advocating for life. Currently serving as a Live Action news correspondent, Christina is also a sought-after pro-life speaker, all while living in Connecticut with her husband and son.
In part one of this investigation into how Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is deceptively manipulating online platforms, it was revealed that the campaign is operating a Discord server that directs hordes of volunteers to use their social media accounts to deceptively push election propaganda. The goal is to artificially manufacture consensus by making pro-Kamala Harris messages on social media appear more popular than they are, and it is often done in violation of the Terms of Service of the social media platforms. In more extreme cases, they are encouraging people to skirt election laws and using these “astroturfing” campaigns to spread disinformation they think will help win the upcoming election.
Yesterday’s report documented how the Harris-Walz campaign has seen great success in manipulating Reddit’s algorithm, but that isn’t the only social media site they’re manipulating. The campaign has also been targeting Elon Musk’s X, perhaps the most influential site for political news. One particular goal, according to a user of the Harris-Walz campaign Discord server, is to get campaign volunteers to swarm the site and “block [community notes] we don’t like.”
Prior to Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the site’s management was known for capriciously removing information and regularly banning users in a way that employed a double standard that heavily disfavored conservative opinion. Musk, a major free speech advocate, sought to institute a more neutral way to deal with misleading tweets, and the “Community Notes” system was born.
Select users who signed up for the program could propose notes to be added to tweets showing that the information was wrong, misleading, or required important context. Other users can then read the proposed notes and vote on whether they are accurate or needed, and if the proposed notes get enough favorable votes, they get appended to the post permanently.
Despite this, virtually none of the false and misleading tweets from Kamala Harris’ campaign have Community Notes appended to them. One likely explanation for this discrepancy is that the Harris campaign is directing volunteers on its Discord server to vote down Community Notes even when those notes accurately say the campaign is being deceptive.
In the “twitter-community-notes” channel found on the Harris-Walz Discord, paid Democrat staffers are also writing dubious Community Notes on X to undermine GOP and Trump messaging. They then encourage volunteers to rate them positively.
Unsurprisingly, these notes are often filled with half-truths, misleading information, or lies, such as explaining how Joe Biden’s son’s brain tumor must have been due to his service in Iraq.
The Harris-Walz server even has a “Twitter (X) Community Notes Training” module, which describes how users can quickly bump up their Community Notes “Rating Impact,” which allows them to write their own Community Notes with a high enough status. They also describe “problems” with Community Notes, such as Joe Biden being tagged in “inaccurate Community Notes,” and how users can rate them negatively.
Since X’s Community Notes upvoting system is designed to mitigate political bias far better than Reddit’s, the Harris-Walz campaign’s attempt to manipulate Community Notes on X hasn’t been as successful.
One Harris-Walz Discord user lengthily expressed his frustrations at the bias mitigation system used by Community Notes (CNs), which was implemented to prevent user manipulation:
While their attempts to abuse Community Notes on X were largely ineffective, it is still a gross violation of X’s Terms of Service, which prohibits artificially amplifying information.
Other Astroturfing Operations
The Harris-Walz Discord server provides access to an app called “Reach” which gives its users access to a database of “entertaining” Harris-Walz campaign content.
X has also introduced “Radar,” a feature that lets users see post volumes on specific topics. Using messaging guidance from three Reach posts, I found evidence of hundreds of astroturfing profiles for the Harris campaign on X. The same search was done on Google with one of the images, suggesting broader reach. While the Google data is larger, it is also likely incomplete while the X data is complete. The scale of this operation continues to grow.
Users can connect their own personal social media accounts to the Reach app, so they can easily repost memes, videos, and other content that promotes the ideals of the Harris-Walz campaign.
While topics relating to current events routinely trend on Reddit and X, other platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram, gear themselves towards entertaining content. To target these platforms, the campaign is also using Reach. Unfortunately for them, the content they provide pretty much resembles your liberal aunt’s Facebook timeline.
To people who have spent years online learning the nuances of meme culture, this is fundamentally repulsive. It embodies the inauthentic nature of the modern internet, which has seemingly replaced the “old net” in the last two decades.
Not only do they love flamboyant actors masquerading as American “men,” they also enjoyed actively promoting it during a football game, boosting their post with unrelated hashtags that happened to be trending at the time. This is yet another shady tactic used to bump up social media posts inauthentically, shamelessly employed by official Harris-Walz volunteers.
But at this late stage in the campaign, it would appear spreading inauthentic content and deceptive messages is all the Harris campaign can do.
The author runs the popular Twitter account @reddit_lies.
Georgia’s top elections official is accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of lying about the state’s voter security laws. Without naming Harris, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger took aim at her comments during a campaign speech in Michigan earlier this week.
“Frustratingly, recently, a candidate repeated that lie that we will lock up people that give water to voters waiting in line to vote,” Raffensperger said. “That’s a lie, because we don’t have any lines in Georgia. It’s just cheap politics.”
He also took aim at Democrats’ overall criticism of Georgia’s voter security laws, “We have worked tirelessly to prepare for this election by adding early voting days and investing in infrastructure, creating more security and more voter convenience…only to be rewarded with the lies about ‘Jim Crow 2.0.“
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger pushed back on Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats’ criticism of state voter laws. (Getty Images)
Harris has not referred to the Georgia laws as “Jim Crow 2.0,” but she has criticized the state’s limits on handing out food and water in voter lines.
Harris said in Ann Arbor on Monday night, “I was just in Georgia. You know they passed a law that makes it illegal to give people food and water for standing in line to vote?”
“The hypocrisy abounds. Whatever happened to ‘love thy neighbor,’ right?” she added as the supportive crowd jeered.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for a response to Raffensperger.
The remark also got pushback from Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who mocked Harris’ short-lived 2020 presidential bid.
“Sounds like Kamala Harris just can’t handle the truth,” Kemp wrote on X on Tuesday. “We made it easier to vote and harder to cheat in Georgia. As a result, more than 3 million Georgians have already voted — that’s 3 million more votes than the Vice President got in the 2024 primaries.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also criticized Harris’ comments. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Georgia officials moved to implement several new voting laws after the 2020 race put the Peach State under a microscope. Among them was limiting the number of ballot drop boxes – which were not used in Georgia before 2020 – and restricting political groups from giving food and water to voters waiting in line on Election Day within a certain distance from their polling place. Georgia also installed new ID requirements for absentee ballots.
Democratic organizations and civil rights groups accused Republican officials of restricting voter access with the measures.
But Raffensperger and other Republicans have pushed back on those attacks, particularly in the wake of record-setting voter turnout in Georgia since early voting got underway on Oct. 15. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 45% of active Georgia voters have cast pre-Election Day ballots. Meanwhile, Raffensperger cautioned both candidates to accept a loss “gracefully,” comparing it to his grandson losing his recent baseball playoff game.
More than 45% of active voters in Georgia have cast ballots early. (Megan Varner/ Washington Post)
“As soon as they came up short, and they lost, I know that they were disappointed. But what they did, because both teams were good sportsmen, they lined up, and they did that passing of shaking each other’s hand and said, ‘Congratulations, good game,’” he said.
“As a grandparent, I’m proud to see that. But just as an American, I think that’s wonderful, because I think that’s what America is – is gracefully accepting your wins, but also gracefully accepting your losses.”
He vowed, “I will hold both parties accountable to you, the voters of Georgia.”
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on Monday said former President Donald Trump had promised him “control” over key public health and agriculture agencies if Trump wins the election next week. During a virtual event, Kennedy said, “the key that President Trump has promised me is control of the public health agencies, which are [Health and Human Services] and its sub-agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH, and a few others … and then also the [Department of Agriculture],”Politico reports.
Kennedy didn’t specify a particular role, such as HHS Secretary, which would likely require Senate confirmation, an outcome that could be challenging due to Kennedy’s outspoken vaccine skepticism. However, it’s possible he could influence health policy in an advisory role if an official appointment isn’t viable.
The Trump campaign has not denied Kennedy’s claims, but they call discussions about appointments “premature.” Trump’s national press secretary added that Trump wants to collaborate with “passionate voices” like Kennedy to improve food safety and fight chronic illnesses affecting children.
Trump himself suggested at his Madison Square Garden rally Sunday that he’d let Kennedy “go wild” on reforming food and medicine policies if re-elected.
Kennedy, who suspended his own presidential campaign in August and endorsed Trump, serves on the former president’s transition team.
He has been campaigning for him in crucial swing states since dropping out of the race. Kennedy is founder of Children’s Health Defense, a non-profit organization aimed at “ending childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure,” according to its website.
Christina Lewis is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.
As Americans prepare to head to the polls on Nov. 5, some voters are putting their money where their mouth is by placing bets on the election’s outcome. With less than a week left before the election, Polymarket, a betting platform and the world’s largest prediction market, gives former President Donald Trump a two-thirds chance (66.3%) of winning back the presidency. Vice President Kamala Harris has a one-in-three chance (33.8%).
Behind the overall odds of becoming president are Polymarket’s odds for Trump and Harris in the major swing states. Trump, according to Polymarket, is the favorite to win five of the six tracked swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Michigan is currently a dead heat, while Polymarket does not include North Carolina among the swing states on its webpage.
Polymarket users are placing their bets on Trump in the state of Nevada, home to the gambling mecca of Las Vegas. Currently, the betting platform has Trump with a 66% chance of winning the Silver State, while Harris has a 34% chance.
The polls, however, show the race much closer. Real Clear Polling averages show Trump winning by only 0.7 of a percentage point. Why, then, do the betting markets seem fairly confident of a Trump victory there?
For one thing, Nevada is home to one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, at 5.6%. The state’s economy is still reeling from the havoc caused by the COVID-19 lockdowns. Trump is planning to address the housing crisis and inflation when he visits the state for a rally in Henderson on Thursday afternoon.
In Arizona, Trump is seen as having a 74% chance of winning, whereas Harris has just a 26% chance. However, Real Clear Polling averages show Trump winning by 1.3 percentage points. Trump won the state in 2016 by 3.6 points, but lost to Joe Biden in 2020 by 0.3%.
Polymarket shows Trump with a 73% chance of winning Georgia, Harris with a 27% chance.
Shelby Arnette moved to Georgia four years ago and has noticed that she and her husband are receiving different political messaging that seems to be targeted at their respective genders.
“I have seen different signs and things specifically advertising toward women to vote Democrat to have reproductive rights,” Arnette said.
There’s a smaller margin between Trump and Harris in Wisconsin, according to Polymarket, with a 55% chance of a Trump victory there and a 45% chance of Harris winning the state. In 2016, Trump won the state by 0.7% but lost to Biden by 0.7% in 2020.
Polymarket shows a dead heat in Michigan, 50% to 50%. The state is still up for grabs, as Democrats are targeting women on the issue of abortion, while Trump is banking on support from the state’s autoworkers.
Trump invited a group of Arab and Muslim leaders to speak at his rally in Novi, Michigan, on Saturday.
“We as Muslims stand with President Trump because he promises peace, not war,” one speaker at the rally said. “We are supporting Donald Trump because he promised to end war in the Middle East and Ukraine. The bloodshed has to stop all over the world, and I think this man can make it happen.”
As all eyes turn to Pennsylvania, seen by many as the most important of the swing states, Polymarket shows Trump with a 62% chance of winning the state, with Harris trailing at a distant 38%. But again, Real Clear Polling averages put Trump in the lead by a much smaller margin—0.4 of a percentage point.
Pennsylvania resident Ruth Howard moved to the Keystone State from Oregon a few years ago. She said that she thinks Pennsylvania will play a pivotal role in the presidential election.
“I knew it was important to vote in [Oregon], but then coming to Pennsylvania, I feel like there’s a little more opportunity that my vote will make a difference, that it could help swing the state or politics in particular,” Howard said.
“Something wicked this way comes.” Those words from William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” capture the approach of Halloween. Traced to the Celtic festival of Samhain to mark the end of the harvest, pagans would often summon the dead. Halloween today more often summons contingency lawyers by the gross. If there is a holy holiday for personal injury lawyers it is Halloween with its mix of slip-and-falls, food liability, and costume defects. After all, what can go wrong with a holiday celebrated at night with millions in ill-fitting costumes handing out tons of foodstuffs to strangers? This year, it is already producing its share of spooky torts.
In Queens, a haunted house was shut down after various people filed lawsuits over being injured. “A Haunting in Hollis” was called “a death trap” by the Fire Department, but not the fun kind. The converted two-family home was accused of such attractions as the ankle shatterer. Solainne Mancero-Tannis of Jamaica, Queens, says she was at the house with her family when she went down “Satan’s Slope.” The slide in a pitch-black space allegedly hurled her into a concrete wall at the bottom, shattering her ankles. The FDNY has since allowed the house to re-open with improvements.
Sometimes, Haunted Houses are a bit too haunted, even for the trained eye. Take the case of Sgt. Eric Janik, 37, who went to a haunted house called the House of Screams when he was confronted by a character dressed as Leatherface with a chainsaw. Janik pulled out his service weapon and pointed it at the man, who dropped character and fled the house.
This year, an employee, Anora Jenkins, was working at a haunted attraction in Tennessee when she jumped up to scare a group, and a frightened man slugged her, sending her to the hospital. AMS Haunted Attractions said that spooked customers assaulted several of its actors.
Some haunted homes can be a tad too improvisational. In Dickson v. Hustonville Haunted House and Greg Walker, Glenda Dickson, 51, broke four vertebrae in her back when she fell out of the second-story window left open at the Hustonville Haunted House. She was in a room called “The Crying Lady in the Bed” when one of the actors came up behind the group and started screaming. Dickson jumped back through an open window covered with only a sheet.
Halloween can bring out the best and worst of people, even neighbors.
A few years ago in Florida, a woman filed a defamation and emotional distress lawsuit after her neighbor set up decorations that included a fake tombstone that read, “At 48 she had no mate no date/ It’s no debate she looks 88.”
This year, another woman in Ohio took a more direct approach in Toledo. On Oct. 7, the woman went on a rampage in the front yard of the home of the Zeller family with their extensive Halloween decorations. Over half an hour, she caused roughly $1,000 in damages, including destroying cherished family items. Police arrested 48-year-old Christina Horvath, who is also accused of stealing some items. Yet, the Zellers are not literally giving up the ghost. They put up a sign reading “She Came in Like a Wreckin’ Ball” next to a skeleton riding a wrecking ball.
Each year, costumes produce a slew of jump scare lawsuits from demon eye contact lenses that can actually blind you to this year’s witch hats that can turn into flaming headwear. In New York a few years ago, Sherri Perper, 56, of Queens, New York, filed a personal injury lawsuit due to defective shoes allegedly acquired from Forum Novelties. The shoes were over-sized clown shoes that she said made her trip and fall because they were . . . well … oversized.
I admit that my house is one of those over-the-top Halloween houses. As a torts professor, I try to walk the line between a fun attraction and an attractive nuisance. Indeed, I have contemplated the ultimate jump scare of meeting children with a notary, and a waiver form covering everything from slips to nut allergies. There are simply some scenes that are too scary for the young and old alike.
So welcome to the most hallowed holiday for lawyers. Have fun but it is strictly BYOC, bring your own counsel.
Top Stories • Donald Trump Tells 1,500 Christian Pastors and Leaders, “I’m Behind You All the Way” • The Only Plan Kamala Harris Has for America is More Abortions • Early Voting Numbers Look Really Strong for Trump in Key Battleground State • Kamala Harris: Women Need the “Freedom” to Kill Their Babies in Abortions
More Pro-Life News • Nevada Candidate Sam Brown Could Flip Seat, Giving Senate to Republicans • Arizona and Nevada Early Voting Numbers are Good for Trump, Bad for Harris • Pro-Life Advocates Pray at Abortion Biz Where Kamala Harris Celebrated Abortions • Satanic Temple Opens Second Abortion Business to Kill More Babies • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
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A.F. Branco Cartoon – After years of Democrat lawfare, phony impeachments, attempted assassinations, and media-biased lies against Trump, he is still full of energy and continues to surge in the polls.
“I Came Out of Jail Mentally and Physically Sharper” Steve Bannon Tells The Gateway Pundit. HE’S BACK AND READY TO FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!!!
By Cara Castronuova – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 29, 2024
“I Came Out of Jail Mentally and Physically Sharper,” Steve Bannon told The Gateway Pundit. Bannon was just released from prison after he defied the fraudulent Unselect Committee’s subpoena. Steve Bannon: Thank God you’re here covering this. Cara: My question is, Kamala Harris and the Democrats are saying that Trump is going to use lawfare and political persecution if he gets in office. What’ s your response to that? Steve Bannon: I just got out of federal prison with their political persecution as a political prisoner and their lawfare. So I think watch their actions, not their words. They have weaponized the Justice Department. They have people in prison that were praying in front of abortion centers. They have Peter Navarro in prison. Myself [was] in prison. They’ve indicted President Trump. They’ve indicted the elderly people tied to the 2020 election in Michigan, in Arizona, in Georgia. They have weaponized the justice system and they’ve weaponized the Justice Department. So I think that they are well ahead of this and President Trump will stop that when he’s elected. READ MORE
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
For years, many have speculated that Democrat political candidates may be filling social media with fake posts to deceive the public and make their campaigns and causes seem more popular than they are. These claims have often been dismissed, citing that Democrat voters are already more likely to be on the internet compared to their not-as-tech-savvy Republican counterparts. This would suggest that the constant flood of left-leaning content on websites such as Reddit was merely a reflection of the userbase. However, many people simply couldn’t shake the feeling that something was just off, especially in the run up to major elections. Despite my fervent belief that something was amiss, I never had any direct proof that Democrats were actively manipulating social media.
That all changed two weeks ago, when X user @jessiprincey replied to one of my posts with a screenshot from a Discord server, seemingly related to the Harris-Walz campaign:
I immediately messaged Jess, and soon received a link to the Discord server where this operation was taking place. What I’d find there went far beyond algorithmic manipulation. I discovered massive “astroturfing” campaigns operating across multiple platforms. “Astroturfing” is a political and marketing term that describes creating swarms of coordinated and/or paid messages and posts to deceptively create the illusion of support from ordinary people. Essentially, “astroturfing” is the opposite of grassroots support.
In this case, there is a team of volunteers who spam social media with posts that specifically promote Kamala. They then have other users pretend to be random individuals who just happened across the post and decided to comment. It’s no different than a shady company paying a team to write a bunch of fake Amazon reviews about their product to make it appear to be a better and more popular product than it is.
On Amazon, that might result in a product getting more sales. In a U.S. election, it could mean that the falsely advertised candidate receives more votes. This behavior is not only incredibly dishonest, but in many cases, it directly violates the Terms of Service they’ve agreed to by operating on certain social media platforms.
In part one of a three-part series, we’re going to look at how the Harris-Walz campaign has manipulated the popular website Reddit, one of the top social media sites with 500 million users, to publish campaign propaganda.
Astroturfing on Reddit
Reddit is broken into thousands of message boards on discrete topics, known as “subreddits.” The Politics subreddit and several others are being actively targeted by the Harris-Walz campaign, with notable success. Since the Reddit astroturfing operation started, it has rapidly developed an organizational structure — complete with roles for team members, spreadsheets for tracking their analytics, and “Key Messaging” to stick to when making a social media post.
I found that 126 of the top 1,000 posts in the past month on r/Politics were posted by official Harris-Walz campaign volunteers. Owning one out of every eight of all top posts in r/Politics is not an easy feat, and it doesn’t just happen. Here’s how they achieved it.
Every weekday morning, Harris for President staffers like Gabrielle Lynn post the “Daily Messaging Guidance” to the server’s Reddit channel. It usually consists of articles and data that the Harris-Walz campaign wants to boost, as well as “key messaging” that their Reddit volunteers should stick to.
On Gabrielle Lynn’s profile, you’ll find a Staff icon (the blue D), which indicates that she is a paid Democrat staffer. In this case, Gabrielle is a Harris for President staffer.
The links compiled by official Harris-Walz staffers, along with other articles submitted by volunteers, are added to a Google Spreadsheet called “Reddit Organizing.”
Kamala’s “Lead Posters” (people who have demonstrated a “cultural” knowledge of Reddit) then choose which links will resonate best with different Reddit communities. For instance, a link about “how Project 2025 impacts reproductive health” will be directed towards communities with young women as their primary user base, whereas news about Kamala’s Fox News interview “winning over swing state voters” gets directed to Reddit’s Democrat communities, and possibly to people living in swing states.
Harris-Walz campaign volunteers have created a database of more than 100 subreddits — each containing detailed information on what kind of content they permit, what topics perform the best, and any specific notes about each community, such as how much “karma” or cumulative upvotes one needs to post in each subreddit.
After their links have been collected and categorized, volunteer “Posters” will take a handful of the links provided and post them to their assigned subreddits. Kamala’s posters, however, don’t simply spam links haphazardly. They use a calculated, sequential post timing metric to avoid Reddit’s built-in spam filters. Harris-Walz campaign volunteers often discuss their ban-avoidance tactics in their Discord server, while continuing to spam Reddit with their collected links.
Once the users make their Reddit posts, they return to the spreadsheet and update it with a link to their brand-new post.
And why do they collect their post links?
They collect their Reddit links so Kamala’s volunteers can flood the post with likes and comments, thus making them appear more active. This, in turn, triggers the algorithm to make the post appear in more user timelines. Reddit’s post activity algorithm is extremely simple, and can easily be abused, which is known on Reddit as “brigading.”
How Effective is This?
While the Harris-Walz Discord server was created many months ago, the spreadsheet to track their vote manipulation on Reddit was only implemented on Oct. 4.
Over the course of 15 days, this group of volunteers, directed by official Harris-Walz campaign staff, was able to make 2,551 posts to Reddit. So far, they have received more than 5.7 million upvotes and 418,000 comments on those posts, according to their own data:
Currently, they’re posting approximately 120 unique links to Reddit per day.
However, Kamala’s volunteer data wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to know just how effective this campaign has been. So, I exported their spreadsheet and got to work.
Using their oh-so cleverly named “Please Upvote These!” spreadsheet, I filtered the information to find posts exclusively made by official Harris-Walz campaign volunteers. I found 1,728 posts created by 67 unique Harris-Walz campaign volunteers since Oct. 4, many of which received a LOT of traction in a very short time span.
I tagged each of their usernames with a “Kamala Harris Volunteer” label using a browser extension called Reddit Enhancement Suite, and went to their targeted subreddits to determine exactly how successful they’d been.
I found their primary target to be r/Politics, the largest community on Reddit for discussing U.S. politics with more than 8 million members. I sorted the top 1,000 posts of the past month, and what I discovered shocked me.
Of the top 1,000 posts on r/Politics, 126 were written by a user bearing the mark “Kamala Harris Volunteer.”
This means 12.5 percent of the most upvoted content on r/Politics came directly from volunteers of the Harris-Walz campaign.
Remember, this operation has only picked up steam in the last two weeks. On Oct. 17, eight of the 30 hottest posts on r/Politics were created by Harris-Walz campaign volunteers. That’s over 25 percent.
On Oct. 20, 13 of the 100 newest posts were created by Harris-Walz campaign volunteers.
Beyond r/Politics, they also target swing state subreddits, which tend to be a lot smaller in number and far less strictly moderated. They created a collection of swing state subreddits, including communities dedicated to their towns and cities, which streamlines the process of targeting them with Harris-Walz supplied messaging.
Because these communities are small, it’s a lot easier to get their posts to rank. In the week between Oct. 13 and the 20, 10 percent (39 of 400 posts) of top posts in their swing state collection were created by Harris-Walz volunteers, many of whom aren’t even from a swing state.
It’s safe to say that the Harris-Walz astroturfing operation has fundamentally compromised the authenticity of political discussions on Reddit. Kamala is actively ruining the internet by making her campaign look far more popular than it is in reality.
The actions, while seemingly not illegal, directly violate Reddit’s Terms of Service. The volunteers of the Harris-Walz campaign are using multiple accounts to manipulate votes …
and solicit votes from others …
in a group formed to coordinate voting:
These are all direct violations of Reddit’s content policy, which explicitly forbids the types of vote manipulation that is encouraged on the Harris-Walz volunteer Discord server.
Why is This So Effective?
For those unfamiliar with Reddit, the site tends to be very left-leaning, largely due to the biases of activist Reddit moderators. Here’s a recent example:
The following post was made by a Democrat redditor to r/Texas. The call for Democrats specifically to get out and vote was met with heaps of praise and showered with upvotes.
However, when the same text was posted but with “Democrat” and “Kamala” replaced with “Republican” and “Trump,” the post was deleted and the user banned from r/Texas.
It’s unknown if Reddit is aware of the policy violations being performed by the Harris-Walz campaign. While it’s possible that their accounts will be banned when their actions come to light, it is also entirely possible that Reddit is giving the Harris-Walz campaign free rein to violate the rules. In 2018, Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman plainly stated in an interview with The New Yorker:
I’m confident that Reddit could sway elections. We wouldn’t do it, of course. And I don’t know how many times we could get away with it. But, if we really wanted to, I’m sure Reddit could have swayed at least this election, this once.
The author runs the popular Twitter account @reddit_lies.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Monday told voters in Pennsylvania that the “little secret” former President Trump mentioned at his Madison Square Garden rally is a get-out-the-vote strategy, not something “diabolical.”
Democrats have been in panic since Trump teased Sunday that his “little secret” with Johnson would help Republicans keep the House of Representatives come Election Day. A New York Times article suggested that in the worst-case scenario, Democrats feared Johnson would work with Trump to steal the election and stop the certification of results on Jan. 6. 2025, should Vice President Harris win.
“It’s nothing scandalous, but we’re having a ball with this. The media, their heads are exploding. ‘What is the secret?’” Johnson said Monday at an event for GOP congressional candidate Ryan Mackenzie, according to The Hill.
“It’s a thing we have about — it’s a get-out-the-vote. It’s one of our tactics on get-out-the-vote,” Johnson said in response to a voter’s question about Trump’s comment.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, speaks during a campaign event with former President Donald Trump, not pictured, at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (Getty Images)
“But they are convinced,” the speaker added, jokingly rubbing his hands together like he had an evil plan.
On Sunday, Trump said his “little secret” with Johnson would help Republicans win congressional elections, but he otherwise kept tight-lipped about it.
“I think with our little secret we’re going to do really well with the House, right?” Trump said, directing his remarks at Johnson. “Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a little secret — we will tell you what it is when the race is over.”
His comments, delivered with a chuckle, set off a reported wave of fear and panic among Democrats who speculated that Trump could have been referring to attempts to steal the election.
Trump waves goodbye after a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, 2024 in New York City. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., told the Times he took Trump to mean he had a “backup plan” in case Republicans lose the election.
“There’s a lot of ability for a bad actor to mess with the Electoral College if he’s the speaker of the House,” he said. “If I’m wrong, they should say so. Trump has a lot of secrets: His medical records are secret, his taxes are secret, his phone calls with Vladimir Putin are secret. Clearly he hides a lot from the American people. Now he’s openly stated that he’s hiding something from the electorate.”
In comments to The Hill, Johnson called the rampant speculation that he and Trump were planning to break the law after the election “absolute, utter nonsense.”
Johnson said that Trump was joking about a GOP get out the vote strategy when he discussed their “little secret” at a rally at Madison Square Garden. (Getty Images)
“I’m a lifelong constitutional law attorney. We’re going to respect the law. We’re going to follow the constitution to a T,” Johnson told the outlet. “I’ve proven that over and over and over. So all this conjecture is actually hilarious to us, that people are apoplectic about this. It’s a — it’s one of our get out the vote strategies. That’s what we’re talking about. And it’s almost a tongue-in-cheek thing.”
Reached for comment, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital, “President Trump has done countless telerallies reaching millions of Americans across the country in key regions that also helps bolster Republicans in congressional races.”
In Pennsylvania, Johnson said Trump refers to this get-out-the-vote effort as their “secret.”
“It’s not diabolical,” he said, per The Hill. “It’s actually very good. It’s going to help us with the turnout. All this is blowing their minds. They just can’t — They cannot fathom that Trump and Vance have the support that they do around the country like they do from — from new demographics of people.”
Chris Pandolfo is a breaking news reporter for Fox News Digital. Send tips to chris.pandolfo@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @ChrisCPandolfo.
The Republican National Committee has filed an emergency stay application with the U.S. Supreme Court after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court voted to allow provisional ballots for those who had improperly cast mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.
Last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that voters in the state who had improperly cast their mail ballots, such as not using a secure envelope, would be permitted to cast a provisional ballot on Election Day. But state law does not allow for such provisional ballots.
The RNC’s filing noted that Pennsylvania law does not permit provisional ballots under such circumstances and has accused the state’s highest court of seeking to rewrite state law to fit their members’ political preference.
“When the legislature says that certain ballots can never be counted, a state court cannot blue-pencil that clear command into always. And here, the General Assembly could not have been clearer,” the RNC’s attorneys wrote.
RNC Chair Michael Whatley said in a statement: “Pennsylvania law has critically important safeguards to ensure every legal vote is counted properly. We have filed an emergency application in the Supreme Court to preserve those safeguards. Pennsylvanians’ mail ballots must be protected for our country’s most important election.”
Judge Samuel Alito, who handles emergency appeals arising from Pennsylvania, ordered the parties to respond to the RNC’s application by Wednesday. The RNC is seeking a ruling by Friday in advance of next week’s election. As noted in The Hill, the case is one of four election-related emergency motions at the Supreme Court currently pending.
Below is my column in the New York Post on the prestigious award given to Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya last week and what it has to say about those who censored, blacklisted, and vilified him for the last four years. In celebrating his fight for “intellectual freedom,” the National Academy effectively condemned those who joined the mob against him as well as the many professors who stayed silent as he and others were targeted.
Here is the column:
Few in the media seemed eager to attend a ceremony last week in Washington, D.C., where the prestigious American Academy of Sciences and Letters was awarding its top intellectual freedom award. The problem may have been the recipient: Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
Bhattacharya has spent years being vilified by the media over his dissenting views on the pandemic. As one of the signatories of the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, he was canceled, censored, and even received death threats.
That open letter called on government officials and public health authorities to rethink the mandatory lockdowns and other extreme measures in light of past pandemics.
All the signatories became targets of an orthodoxy enforced by an alliance of political, corporate, media, and academic groups. Most were blocked on social media despite being accomplished scientists with expertise in this area.
It did not matter those positions once denounced as “conspiracy theories” have been recognized or embraced by many. Some argued that there was no need to shut down schools, which has led to a crisis in mental illness among the young and the loss of critical years of education. Other nations heeded such advice with more limited shutdowns (including keeping schools open) and did not experience our losses.
Federal agencies now support the lab theory as the most likely based on the scientific evidence.
Likewise, many questioned the efficacy of those blue surgical masks and supported natural immunity to the virus — both positions were later recognized by the government.
Others questioned the six-foot rule used to shut down many businesses as unsupported by science. In congressional testimony, Dr. Anthony Fauci recently admitted that the 6-foot rule “sort of just appeared” and “wasn’t based on data.” Yet not only did the rule result in heavily enforced rules (and meltdowns) in public areas, but the media also further ostracized dissenting critics.
Again, Fauci and other scientists did little to stand up for these scientists or call for free speech to be protected. As I discuss in my new book, “The Indispensable Right,” the result is that we never really had a national debate on many of these issues and the result of massive social and economic costs.
I spoke at the University of Chicago with Bhattacharya and other dissenting scientists in the front row a couple of years ago. After the event, I asked them how many had been welcomed back to their faculties or associations since the recognition of some of their positions. They all said that they were still treated as pariahs for challenging the groupthink culture.
Now the scientific community is recognizing the courage shown by Bhattacharya and others with its annual Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom.
So, what about all of those in government, academia, and the media who spent years hounding these scientists?
Biden Administration officials and Democratic members targeted Bhattacharya and demanded his censorship. For example, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) attacked Bhattacharya and others who challenged the official narrative during the pandemic. Krishnamoorthi expressed outrage that the scientists were even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”
Journalists and columnists also supported the censorship and blacklisting of these scientists. In the Los Angeles Times, columnist Michael Hiltzik decried how “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford allowed these scientists to speak at a scientific forum. He was outraged that, while “Bhattacharya’s name doesn’t appear in the event announcement,” he was an event organizer. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.”
Then there are those lionized censors at Twitter who shadow-banned Bhattacharya. As former CEO Parag Agrawal generally explained, the “focus [was] less on thinking about free speech … [but[ who can be heard.”
None of this means that Bhattacharya or others were right in all of their views. Instead, many of the most influential voices in the media, government, and academia worked to prevent this discussion from occurring when it was most needed.
There is still a debate over Bhattacharya’s “herd immunity” theories, but there is little debate over the herd mentality used to cancel him.
The Academy was right to honor Bhattacharya. It is equally right to condemn all those who sought to silence a scientist who is now being praised for resisting their campaign to silence him and others.
Top Stories • Kamala Harris’ Obsession With Abortion is Part of Her Population Control Agenda • Kamala Harris is So Bad Multiple Liberal Newspapers Refuse to Endorse Her • Christians Must Vote Pro-Life, “Can’t be Silent” About Abortions Killing Babies • Army Forced to Confirm Pro-Life Organizations are Not Terrorist Groups
More Pro-Life News • As Kamala Harris and Democrats Push Abortion, Men are Becoming More Pro-Life • Pray as if This Election Depends on God, Vote as if This Election Depends on You • Black Democrat Delegate Rejects Democrats, Will Join GOP and Vote for Trump • This Little Baby Saved a Baby From Abortion • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
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A.F. Branco Cartoon – Mainstream leftist media, along with the Democrats (The Party of the KKK), are trying their best to falsely paint Trump and MAGA as Nazis. Maybe it’s time to remind them of the true horrific past of the Democrat party with this scary costume.
Disgusting Creep Tim Walz Follows Hillary’s Lead and Compares Trump Supporters in Madison Square Garden to Nazis
By Jim Hoft – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 27, 2024
Tim Walz joined Hillary Clinton and compared Trump supporters at Madison Square Garden today to see Trump to 1930s Nazis. Tim Walz: Donald Trump has descended into madness over the last few weeks. I think some of you don’t miss on this. Go do your Google on this. Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden. There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden. Don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there. What a nasty dog. They have nothing left in their arsenal, so they’re hurling the Nazi slur. Sick stuff. (READ MORE)
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Audrey McNeal, a former delegate for the Democratic National Convention (DNC), has announced in a video released on Friday that she is officially joining the Republican Party. McNeal, who was previously a DNC delegate for both the 2020 and 2024 elections, declared that she will now be voting for the Trump-Vance ticket in the upcoming election.
In the video, McNeal, 22, explains that she was elected as a DNC delegate at the age of 18 and was excited to attend the convention to seek answers on important issues such as free speech, the border, and the economy. However, she soon became disillusioned after attending the DNC.
“After reflecting on my time at the DNC, I realized it was no longer the party of free speech and civil liberties that it used to be,” McNeal said. She added that the decision to install Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee without the democratic process, despite calls from prominent Democrats like former President Barack Obama for an open primary, was a clear example of this.
“For the rulers of the Democratic Party elite to install Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee via stripping the vote of 14 million Americans, including their own delegates such as myself, well that was a decision in a transaction that was concealed,” McNeal stated.
McNeal then announced that she has officially joined the Republican Party as a constitutional conservative. She expressed her excitement to be a part of the party and joins other young delegates who share her values.
Before her defection from the Democratic Party, McNeal had previously told GPB in August about the empowering experience of being among other young delegates at the DNC. She spoke about the support that she and her peers provided to each other in terms of campaigning and attending events together.
#ICYMI This year, 15 of Georgia’s 123 DNC delegates are under 35.
Audrey McNeal is one of those delegates. She lives in Fulton County and said it's "empowering" to be around other young delegates at the DNC. https://t.co/fG9YYgBOFh (From @gpbnews)
However, since joining the Republican Party, McNeal has made a new X account and has been vocal in her support for Trump. Her first post on Saturday quote-tweeted a clip teasing Trump’s podcast interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
McNeal also shared a quote from US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, stating, “‘It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.’” This quote clearly shows her belief in the importance of free speech, a belief that she believes is not upheld by the Democratic Party.
“It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears” – Louis Brandeis, US Supreme Court Justice https://t.co/R7Xx8XybGe
Her actions and statements speak for themselves, as she has made the decision to switch parties and pledge her support for Trump. McNeal’s story is just one example of Gen Z members rejecting the Democratic Party and joining the Republican Party, further strengthening Trump’s base of support.
It was such a fun time last week watching the perpetual drama queens that make up our national news media boil with rage over two newspapers declining to issue meaningless campaign endorsements. But it also revealed something unsettling about the unhealthy degree of emotional investment they have in this race.
Will the media accept the outcome of the election if Donald Trump wins? It’s far from a foregone conclusion that they will. There’s a strong argument they didn’t the last time Trump won. Why should anyone expect them to accept it this time around?
It’s a question these homely nerds are inclined to ask every elected Republican in the shallowest way possible — some variation of, “Will you accept the outcome of this election no matter what?” (I think every restaurant server from now on should ask Jake Tapper the moment he’s seated, “Will you accept the way your food comes out no matter what? It’s a yes or no question.”)
After the appalling behavior they displayed last week, now is a very crucial time to ask them the same thing. If they were this hysterical over management at The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times deciding, there would be no endorsement of Kamala Harris this campaign cycle — the type of endorsement that hasn’t mattered for decades — how can they be expected to acknowledge a Trump victory? And if they won’t, what will it mean to the people who are still influenced by them? They will have essentially been told their elections and their government are invalid. These are the things civil wars are made of.
As silly as the media have made themselves look, they’re dead serious. That a major news publication wouldn’t throw its weight behind the non-Trump candidate means nothing to normal people, but reporters in Washington and New York aren’t normal people. Look how they talk. They say things like “Democracy dies in darkness,” and we laugh because it’s corny. But they believe in earnest it’s a sacred oath binding their entire life’s meaning to a cause: maintaining the Washington and corporate power structure to their financial benefit. To hell with everyone else.
If in 2016 the news media eagerly went along with an absurd hoax that Trump won that election in large part because he conspired with the Russian government, what won’t they say when he wins again? They just spent the past three months telling voters that up is down, black is white, and Kamala is popular. They moved on from the attempt on his life like it was a standard news cycle that had run its course.
How could we expect them to concede defeat after everything they’ve done? And yes, a Kamala defeat will be theirs, too. Her campaign is theirs.
It’s a question they’re not ready to answer because, for them, it’s unthinkable.
The pink pussycat hats. A Women’s March that drew a half-million demonstrators to the nation’s capital. Millions of other demonstrators nationwide. It was all part of the Democrats’ reaction to Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. But this time could be different should the Republican former president prevail Nov. 5 over Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Trump is no longer an unknown entity and with polls so close, he has as good a chance of winning as losing, so the shock to the system of millions of Democrats will not be as intense.
More than a dozen influential progressives told the Journal they are dreading the prospect of Trump returning to power and are dismayed that half the country might see a different reality than they see. Jim Hannon, a psychotherapist and liberal organizer in Massachusetts, counseled calm in an open letter last week, noting the strength of Harris’ campaign while urging a broader perspective.
“Trump could win. So, panic then? No,” he wrote. “A Trump presidency would be awful but not the end of history.”
On a recent evening, the Journal reported, more than 200 joined a Zoom meeting titled Mass Training for Women’s Safety Teams hosted by a Women’s March veteran who noted its timing amid “escalating political violence.” Others are channeling their nerves into action by planning to attend Women’s Marches scheduled in Washington, D.C., and beyond on Saturday. In Boston, they are joining parties where volunteers fill boxes with abortion kits to mail to women in red states with strict abortion limits.
“We feel like we’re doing something,” Erin Gately, a 47-year-old physician assistant told the Journal. After Trump won in 2016, she took to the streets to protest but said this time she would focus on tangible actions such as protecting abortion rights.
Danielle Deiseroth, 28, executive director of Data for Progress, a liberal research group, told the Journal she has been talking with leaders of other progressive nonprofits about how to push back if Trump is elected. She said she anticipates progressives will look to Democrat governors as political torchbearers and Democrat attorneys general to contest Trump initiatives.
Laurie Woodward García, a South Florida activist, founded People Power United during Trump’s presidency to champion progressive causes, and, in her words, “stand up to fascism,” the Journal reported. Her bimonthly online seminars, some scheduled for after the election, explore the consequences if Trump were to enact Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda created by the Heritage Foundation from which he has distanced himself. Each session has drawn about 500 viewers.
“We’ve got to be optimistic and fight like hell,” she said.
That might be complicated by the uncertain trajectory of the Democratic Party, which would be at a generational crossroads with Barack Obama, the Clintons and President Biden all off the stage and no clear heir apparent should Harris lose.
“We’ll be in rebuilding mode,” South Carolina state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of Orangeburg, S.C., told the Journal.
This month, there is a new case on the docket after the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos. The First Circuit reversed a trial court that dismissed the case, alleging that the American firearms industry is legally responsible for violence in Mexico. I believe the First Circuit is dead wrong and will be reversed. However, as a torts professor, there is a question of whether the tort element of proximate cause could be materially changed in the case. Torts professors are already lining up to argue that there is a proximate cause under existing doctrines to hold the firearms industry liable. I respectfully disagree.
In the petition, Smith and Wesson and other gun manufacturers challenge the claim, including the argument that their sale of lawful firearms in the United States is the proximate or legal cause for the carnage in Mexico. They note that Mexico has long been riddled with violence and corruption connected to the extensive drug industry in that country.
In my view, the trial court dismissed the case correctly under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). That was passed to bar suits against firearms companies based on criminals using these products for criminal or intentionally tortious acts.
However, the First Circuit reversed on the ground that Mexico has made a legally cognizable case that gun manufacturers aided and abetted firearms trafficking that has harmed the Mexican government. The First Circuit is an outlier in this case and ignores both the purpose of the law and basic tort principles of proximate causation.
The Court has accepted the review on two questions:
1. Whether the production and sale of firearms in the United States is the “proximate cause” of alleged injuries to the Mexican government stemming from violence committed by drug cartels in Mexico.
2. Whether the production and sale of firearms in the United States amounts to “aiding and abetting” illegal firearms trafficking because firearms companies allegedly know that some of their products are unlawfully trafficked.
PLCAA was enacted to require dismissal at the inception of lawsuits like this, and other courts have recognized that. The First Circuit’s decision creates a circuit split.
Mexico’s complaint is wildly off base both factually and legally. It suggests that these companies are effectively funneling guns to criminal gangs in Mexico by producing products that they have used in criminal conduct.
The First Circuit adopted an analogy that destroyed the credibility of its decision:
Imagine that a U.S. company sent a mercenary unit of combat troops to attack people in Mexico City. Such an attack would directly cause Mexico itself the expense of paying soldiers to defend the city. Proximate cause would be quite clear. So, too, here, where the defendants are alleged to have armed the attackers for their continuing assaults.
Is that the best these federal judges could come up with? There is a vast difference between the United States sending a combat unit across the border and manufacturers who supply distributors who serve dealers who sell lawful products to consumers. That sounds more like The Merchandisers than The Expendables.
PLCAA specifically bars any “qualified civil liability action” against gun manufacturers and licensees. Any action filed against a federal firearms licensee for damages or other relief resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of a firearm is expressly addressed in the statute under § 7902 of PLCAA: “A qualified civil liability action … shall be immediately dismissed by the court in which the action was brought or is currently pending.”
Mexico and gun control advocates are focusing on an exception for any manufacturer or seller of a firearm that “knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product [firearm], and the violation was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought….”
The First Circuit found that, if proven, a case can be made that Smith & Wesson engaged in “affirmative and deliberate efforts to create and maintain an illegal market for [its] weapons in Mexico” and that, as such, it was “aiding and abetting downstream dealers in violating state and federal laws governing the transfer of firearms.” The level of speculation and conjecture in such a claim is manifestly obvious. Mexico failed to offer anything beyond conclusory claims as to “downstream” users to allege this nexus.
The exception is clearly directed at violations of gun statutes, such as falsifying records or conspiracy to sell to a specific prohibited person. Even then, it must be shown to be the proximate cause of the injury. Mexico does not maintain such a specific showing but treats sales generally as aiding and abetting the violence in that country.
Under standard tort doctrine, criminal or intentionally tortious acts by third parties generally cut off legal causation. However, there is an exception where such conduct is foreseeable. Here is the language from Second Restatement of Torts 448:
“The act of a third person in committing an intentional tort or crime is a superseding cause of harm to another resulting therefrom, although the actor’s negligent conduct created a situation which afforded an opportunity to the third person to commit such a tort or crime, unless the actor at the time of his negligent conduct realized or should have realized the likelihood that such a situation might be created, and that a third person might avail himself of the opportunity to commit such a tort or crime.”
The Third Restatement contains the same approach while, again, recognizing that “If the third party’s misconduct is among the risks making the defendant’s conduct negligent, then ordinarily plaintiff’s harm will be within the defendant’s scope of liability.” Restatement (Third) of Torts: Physical & Emotional Harm (2010)§ 19 cmt. c (“If the third party’s misconduct is among the risks making the defendant’s conduct negligent, then ordinarily plaintiff’s harm will be within the defendant’s scope of liability.”).
However, these exceptions have not been extended to the extent envisioned by Mexico or the First Circuit. For example, in the famous case of Brower v. New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, 91 N.J.L. 190 (1918), a train negligently struck a wagon carrying cider and knocked the driver senseless. The railroad personnel left his goods unprotected and they were stolen. The court ruled:
“The negligence which caused the collision resulted immediately in such a condition of the driver of the wagon that he was no longer able to protect his employer’s property; the natural and probable result of his enforced abandonment of it in the street of a large city was its disappearance; and the wrongdoer cannot escape making reparation for the loss caused by depriving the plaintiff of the protection which the presence of the driver in his right senses would have afforded.”
Simply selling a lawful product falls significantly short of this type of nexus. It would be akin to holding train manufacturers liable for the negligent operation of the train engineer in Brower in aiding and abetting such conduct by third persons.
It is hard to see how the Court could find that these companies were “the” proximate cause of the harm without creating a federal standard for proximate cause that would extend foreseeability beyond any recognition. There are powerful superseding intervening forces in play in Mexico. To embrace this theory that the manufacturers knowingly and foreseeably increased the risk of violence in Mexico would allow torts to effectively gut the industry and existing federal law.
Previously, gun control advocates tried to use product liability and nuisance laws to curtail gun sales. Those cases failed as over-extending tort doctrine to achieve indirectly the courts what could not be achieved directly in the legislatures. Conversely, Congress passed PLCAA to prevent such circumvention of the legislative process.
There are good-faith arguments to be made that the exception for criminal conduct can be maintained where there is sufficient foreseeability and that the First Circuit was merely allowing Mexico to prove its case. However, the complaint is manifestly insufficient for such a claim.
There is no specific evidence that would establish the required showing of knowledge or foreseeability by manufacturers in working with Mexican drug gangs. Mexico has been rife with drug cartels and corruption for decades. Much of this violence has occurred with the cooperation and collusion of Mexican officials, including law enforcement officials.
In my view, the First Circuit should and will be reversed.
Below is my column in The Hill on the recent poll of university professors in this election. It speaks volumes about the composition of higher education today. Here is the column: The 2024 presidential election is shaping up to be the single most divisive election in our history. The public is split right down the middle with almost every group splintering between former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. There is, however, one group that seems almost unanimous: professors.
A new survey of more than 1,000 professors shows that seventy-eight percent will vote for Harris and only eight percent will vote for Trump. Other than a poll of the Democratic National Committee, there are few groups that are more reliably Democratic or liberal.
For anyone in higher education, the result is hardly surprising. The poll tracks what we already know about the gradual purging of departments around the country of conservative, libertarian, and dissenting professors. Indeed, the lack of political and intellectual diversity may be turning some donors and even applicants from higher education. With failing revenue and applications, universities are starting to re-embrace commitments to neutrality on political issues.
Some, however, are doubling down on advocacy and orthodoxy.
In an op-ed this week, Wesleyan University President Michael Roth called on universities to reject “institutional neutrality” and officially support Kamala Harris. Calling neutrality “a retreat,” Roth compared Trump’s election to the rise of the Nazis and insisted that schools should “give up the popular pastime of criticizing the woke and call out instead the overt racism.”
He added, without a hint of self-awareness or irony, that “we should not be silenced because of fears of appearing partisan.”
That ideological echo chamber is hardly an enticement for many who are facing rising high tuition costs with relatively little hope of being taught by faculty with opposing views.
There are obviously many reasons why faculty may reject Trump specifically, but this poll also tracks more generally the self-identification and contributions of faculty.
A Georgetown study recently found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools — almost identical to the percentage of Trump voters found in the new poll.
Notably, Roth acknowledged that the current lack of intellectual diversity in higher education had become so extreme that there might be a need for “an affirmative action program for conservatives.” However, he and others continue to saw feverishly on the branch upon which we all sit in higher education in calling for even greater political advocacy.
There is little evidence that faculty members have any interest in changing this culture or creating greater diversity at schools. In places like North Carolina State University a study found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 20 to 1.
Recently, I had a debate at Harvard Law School with Professor Randall Kennedy on whether Harvard protects free speech and intellectual diversity. This year, Harvard found itself in a familiar spot on the annual ranking of Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE): dead last among 251 universities and colleges. Harvard has long dismissed calls for greater free speech protections or intellectual diversity. It shows. The Harvard Crimson has documented how the school’s departments have virtually eliminated Republicans. In one study of multiple departments last year, they found that more than 75 percent of the faculty self-identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.”
Only 5 percent identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.”
Consider that, according to Gallup, the U.S. population is roughly equally divided among conservatives (36%), moderates (35%), and liberals (26%). So, Harvard has three times the number of liberals as the nation at large and less than three percent identify as “conservative’ rather than 35% nationally.
Among law school faculty who have donated more than $200 to a political party, a breathtaking 91 percent of the Harvard faculty gave to democrats. The student body shows the same bias of selection. Harvard Crimson previously found that only 7 percent of incoming students identified as conservative. For the vast majority of liberal faculty and students, Harvard amplifies rather than stifles their viewpoints.
This does not happen randomly. Indeed, if a business reduced the number of women or minorities to less than 5 percent, a court would likely find de facto discrimination. Yet, Kennedy rejected the notion that the elite school should strive to “look more like America.”
It is not just that schools like Harvard “do not look like America,” it does not even look like liberal Massachusetts, which is almost 30 percent Republican. Our students are being educated by faculty taken from the same liberal elite of just 26 percent of our nation.
Some sites like Above the Law have supported the exclusion of conservative faculty. Senior Editor Joe Patrice defended “predominantly liberal faculties” by arguing that hiring a conservative law professor is akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism to teach at a university.
The result is that law students at schools like Harvard have relatively few faculty to reflect the views of half of the judiciary and the majority of the Supreme Court. Likewise, having a faculty that ranges from the left to the far left further marginalizes the small number of conservative students. The impact of this academic echo chamber is evident in surveys showing that 28 percent of Harvard students engaged in self-censorship — a figure doubling since just 2021.
Given my respect for Professor Kennedy, I was surprised that he dismissed the sharp rise in students saying that they did not feel comfortable speaking in classes. Referring to them as “conservative snowflakes,” he insisted that they simply had to have the courage of their convictions. This ignores that they depend upon professors for recommendations and their challenging the orthodoxy at the school can threaten their standing.
Moreover, Kennedy defended cancel campaigns or “disinvitations” of speakers as a form of free speech. As students see faculty supporting the cancelling of conservative or libertarian or dissenting speakers, it is hardly an invitation to speak freely yourself in class.
There was a hopeful aspect, however, to the debate. Before the debate the large audience voted heavily in favor of Harvard’s position. However, after the debate, they overwhelming voted against Harvard’s position on free speech. It is an example of how exposure to opposing views can change the bias or assumptions in higher education.
There is little likelihood that Harvard or higher education will change. It is like the old joke about how many psychiatrists it takes to change a light bulb. The answer is just one, but the bulb really has to want to change.
Academics like Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school, have denounced conservative justices as mere “partisan hacks.” Other faculty have joined in claims that Trump and his supporters are “fascists” out to destroy democracy. It is only likely to get worse after the election.
The political polling of professors reflects the near complete cleansing of colleges of conservative faculty. The question is whether donors or applicants will continue to support an echo chamber that has become ideologically deafening.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Gov Walz and the Minnesota Democrats are in a war with police and the people of Minnesota, well documented in the new Alphnews.com movie titled “Minnesota v. We The People”.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Top Stories • New Polling Data Shows Donald Trump Could Win Popular Vote • Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Releases New Video Encouraging People to Vote for Trump • Kamala Harris is Obsessed With Abortion, All She Cares About is Killing Babies • “Catholics for Harris” Claims It’s Okay to Vote for a Pro-Abortion Extremist
More Pro-Life News • Man Wakes Up as His Organs Were About to be Harvested • Abortionist Becomes a Christian and Stops Killing Babies • Democrats Push Abortion Hard to Desperately Save Kamala Harris’ Failing Campaign • Biden-Harris Want to Use Obamacare to Make Americans Fund Birth Control • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
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The Pravda press has asked former President Donald Trump over and over again whether he’ll accept the results of the election if his Democrat opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, wins. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, has heard the question ad nauseam as well.
CBS News political correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns peppered the former president with the question in late August, as the Democratic National Committee was installing Harris as the party’s nominee following President Joe Biden’s forced exit from his reelection campaign.
“Will you accept the results of this election?” the reporter asked.
“Absolutely. I assume it’s going to be a fair election. If it’s going to be a fair and free election the answer is absolutely I will,” Trump said.
Burns pressed with this ridiculous question. “What does fair mean to you?”
“It means the votes are counted. It means that votes are fair,” Trump said. “It means they don’t cheat on the election, they don’t drop ballots, install new rules and regulations that they don’t have the power to do.”
In other words, if leftist activists and Trump-hating elections officials don’t rig this election like they did the last one.
“They don’t use 51 intelligence agents to give phony reports, which had an effect on the election. They don’t do many of the things that they did in the last election,” he added, referring to the former intelligence officials who signed a letter insisting the Hunter Biden laptop story reported by the New York Post days before the 2020 presidential election was “Russian disinformation.” It was not. It was very real. And the Deep State, assisted by a complicit corporate media, silenced a story that many Americans say could have changed the results of the election.
Do Tell
But the Pravda press has been generally loath to ask Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the same question. The Federalist is asking. We sent email requests to both the Harris campaign and the vice president’s office asking if she will accept the results of the election if she loses next month to Trump. As of publication, crickets.
The Federalist also asked the National Security Leaders for America whether their members will accept the results of the election if the former president wins. NSL4A made headlines and garnered lots of airtime last month when its 700-plus former government, military and national security leaders signed an open letter endorsing Harris. Former CIA Director John Brennan is one of the endorsers. He’s also one of the 51 signers of the letter falsely claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.
Again, no response.
A good question voters should be asking is, why aren’t the accomplice media asking whether Harris, the Democrats, the intelligence community and other swamp creatures will be patriotic enough to accept the results of the election if Trump wins?
They Do Not Accept
They’ve been far too busy publishing all kinds of stories asking all kinds of conservatives whether they’ll accept the results of the election if their guy loses — Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.), even Republican voters at large via variouspolls. They’re the same “journalists” who like to gloss over the fact that leading Democrats refused to accept the election results of 2016, when Trump surprised the world and beat bitter shrew Hillary Clinton, Obama’s former secretary of state and the Pravda press’ presidential chosen one.
“I do not see this president-elect as a legitimate president,” the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., told NBC News as Trump was taking office amid Democrats’ cries of “Russian interference.”
“I think there was a conspiracy on the part of the Russians and others that helped him get elected. That’s not right. That’s not fair. That’s not the open democratic process,” he added.
Sour Grapes Hillary said the same and has kept on saying since.
“I believe [Trump] 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,” she complained in a 2019 CBS News interview.
During the vice presidential debate between Vance and Walz, moderator Norah O’Donnell demanded Vance answer whether he would “seek to challenge this year’s election results.” She didn’t press Walz on whether he would accept the results of a Trump-Vance win.
Walz was given a moment to deliver a “can’t we all get along” speech, insisting that questioning the results of elections must end.
“When this is over, we need to shake hands, this election, and the winner needs to be the winner,” the leftist said. “This has got to stop. It’s tearing our country apart.”
Vance rightly reminded Walz about the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party.
“…[W]e have to remember that for years in this country Democrats protested the results of elections. Hillary Clinton in 2016 said that Donald Trump had the election stolen by Vladimir Putin because the Russians bought like $500,000 of Facebook ads,” Vance said. “This has been going on for a long time. And if we want to say we need to respect the results of the election, I’m on board. But if we want to say, as Tim Walz is saying, that this is just a problem that Republicans have had, I don’t buy that.”
Voters shouldn’t buy it, either. That’s why it’s important to know where the Democrat Party presidential nominee stands less than two weeks before Election Day. So, The Federalist is asking.
Vice President Harris, will you accept the results of the election if you lose?
An official with National Security Leaders for America has provided a comment following the publication of this story. The official, who asked to be identified as an NSL4A “spokesperson” said the following:
“Unlike Mr. Trump, who led a violent insurrection to try to overturn an election he lost, our members–who fought for this nation’s democratic and pluralistic ideals–will respect America’s democratic decision. We hope Mr. Trump, whose own Chief of Staff said Mr.Trump wants to be a dictator, will do the same.”
As has been well documented, Trump’s former chief of staff’s incendiary comments have been debunked by multiple sources, and the assertion that Trump “led a violent insurrection” is widely disputed.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
Texas business leader “Joe from Texas” Penland Sr., who has been asking candidates to sign onto the “Contract from the American People,” a 10-point initiative to fight the spiraling national debt, told Newsmax that he’s endorsing former President Donald Trump, saying his platform to revive the economy closely matches what Americans are demanding.
“If you look at Donald Trump’s platform, what he has, about eight of these 10 [on the contract] are on his 15-point script that he has,” Penland told Newsmax’s National Report Friday.
Still, Penland said he and others working with the initiative didn’t support Trump from day one because two years ago, they didn’t know who would be in the election.
“We held off until we talked to thousands of people to see what they really want,” said Penland, explaining that the contract contains demands that make sense to the American people, and politicians are being asked to sign on and take the pledge to better the country.
Penland told Newsmax that the economy has gotten worse for the “last several presidents.”
He added that when the election started, he got requests for money for campaigns and decided to “take the money that they want” and launch an investigation into what is going on with debt and other problems.
“We hired some people and we put a team together and we started researching, and as you researched it, it got a lot worse than what you hear on the news or reading the paper,” said Penland.
And while on tour around the country, Penland said the group learned that “people are really further into this than what the politicians give us credit.”
“They think that the American people are completely in the dark, that we don’t know what we’re doing,” he said. “Look at all the businesses that this country has. You know, we are the empire of the world as far as business and people all want to come to this country. They all want to start their business here.”
But the United States is “subbing that market out,” he said.
Penland is the founder and chairman of Quality Mat Company, one of the oldest and largest producers of rig, oilfield, and crane mats in the world, and has served on several bank boards over a quarter of a century, and he said he thought it was important to “unmask the American financial situation.”
“This contract is not from me and is not from Dave Walker, who’s the former comptroller general of the United States who helped author it,” he said. “This is from the American people. This is what the American people want. And the politicians need to listen to that.”
The national debt is now at almost $36 trillion, and Penland pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office has projected that the United States will go $2 trillion more in the hole per year for the next 10 years.
“That would be $56 trillion,” he said. “We’ll pay $2 trillion a year in interest. That money should be helping children go to school, should be helping elderly people, should be taking care of our streets and our border.‘
“It took us over 220 years to get to $1 trillion in debt, and now we go $2 trillion every year in debt for the next 10 years,” he said. “I think it’s unacceptable. And I take offense to it.”
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Chinese hackers who tapped into Verizon’s system were targeting phones used by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The newspaper said investigators were working to determine what communications, if any, were taken.
The Trump campaign was made aware this week that Trump and Vance were among a number of people inside and outside of government whose phone numbers were targeted through the infiltration of Verizon phone systems, it added. The campaign did not confirm that Trump’s and Vance’s phones were targeted. Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director, said the former president’s Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris has emboldened China and Iran to attack U.S. infrastructure to prevent Trump from returning to office.
The Harris campaign could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Trump campaign was hacked earlier this year. The U.S. Justice Department charged three members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps with the hack, accusing them of trying to disrupt the Nov. 5 election.
The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said on Friday they were investigating unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by people associated with China. The joint statement by the agencies did not name the targets of the incident.
Verizon said it was aware of a sophisticated attempt to reportedly target U.S. telecoms and gather intelligence.
The largest U.S. telecom company added it was working with law enforcement.
Kamala Harris speaks during a July 13 campaign event at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. (Drew Hallowell/Getty Images)
As Vice President Kamala Harris slips in the polls, the Democratic National Committee/Harris campaign/mainstream media fusion talking points become even more absurd. Claiming that JD Vance and Donald Trump were “weird” did not work—especially given the genuinely odd behavior of vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz and would-be first gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Nor was the next Harris meme convincing: that the frenetic and nonstop Trump was somehow “exhausted,” “senile,” and “confused.” Voters know the workdays of the younger Harris are usually far shorter—or sometimes not workdays at all.
But Harris also falsely claimed the physically and mentally challenged President Joe Biden was, in her words, “absolutely authoritative” and “very bold and vibrant.”
Now Harris asserts that Trump is a “fascist,” a “dictator,” and “unfit” for office. But this new talking point will also not stop the Harris campaign’s hemorrhaging—and for a variety of reasons.
First, voters see the election as a conflict of two absolutely antithetical visions.
On the one hand is the prior, concrete Trump 2017-20 record: border security, no major wars abroad, calm in the Middle East, a deterred Russia, Iran, and China, low inflation, low interest rates, lower crime, lower taxes, strong deterrent military—and opposition to mandatory electric vehicle mandates, biological males competing in women’s sports, and the woke/DEI agenda.
On the other hand, is the Biden-Harris 2021-2024 record: the unchecked entry of 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens and a destroyed border. People still struggle under Biden-Harris’ earlier hyperinflation and high interest rates. The horrific regional wars in Ukraine and the Middle East continue. Biden-Harris embraces the unpopular woke/DEI agenda.
Harris herself knows that the Biden-Harris years were a failure. That is why she has shed almost all of the administration’s hard left-wing agendas—policies she has embraced for much of her adult life.
So suddenly, in the last 90 or so days, Harris has completely flipped and flopped.
Now she is for more funding of, not defunding, the police. She pivots for a secure border, not 20 million illegal aliens pouring across it. Harris brags about fossil fuel energy, not banning fracking; she’s for increasing, not cutting, defense.
In fact, several endangered incumbent Democratic senators in swing states are claiming more allegiance to Trump’s issues than identifying with Harris and her unpopular record as vice president.
Voters likely conclude that if Trump doubles down on his record, while even Harris and many senators temporarily piggyback on it, then it must be more effective and popular than Harris’ own.
Second, Harris now claims Trump is a fascist and insurrectionist.
But mouthing “Jan. 6” ad nauseam no longer persuades voters that Trump is a danger to anyone. They recall that Harris bragged of the far more violent demonstrations of 2020—five killed, $2 billion in damage, 1,500 law enforcement officers injured, 14,000 arrested—and said that the unrest would not and “should not” stop, while drumming up support to bail out jailed violent protesters.
Nor does the slur that Trump is a fascist resonate. The Obama-Biden and Biden-Harris administrations weaponized the CIA and FBI to interfere in the 2016 and 2020 elections by peddling the fake “Steele dossier” and suppressing all the embarrassing news about Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop.
Trump certainly didn’t coordinate, as Biden did, with local, state, and federal prosecutors to wage lawfare prosecutions to destroy his political opponents. He didn’t use the FBI to partner with social media to suppress the news.
Neither Trump nor his supporters tried to remove Biden from state ballots.
The House’s Republican majority didn’t impeach Biden twice despite the Biden family’s corruption and Joe Biden’s unlawful, decadeslong removal of classified papers to several insecure private residences.
Trump and the Republicans never coercively removed the party’s primary-winning nominee. They didn’t nullify the will of 14 million primary voters. And in backroom fashion, they didn’t anoint a candidate who had never entered a single primary in her life.
Nor did Trump support packing the Supreme Court. He doesn’t seek unconstitutional means of destroying the Electoral College. He isn’t demanding an end to the Senate filibuster or the creation of two new states to obtain four partisan Senate seats.
Third, as for Trump being “unfit” and lacking “decorum?” It depends on what the Biden-Harris standards were.
Having a trans activist reveal his breasts on camera at a White House “pride party?”
Biden’s reportedly calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a f***ing idiot” and “son of a b**ch?” Bragging about locking Trump up, while waging lawfare against him?
Unleashing son Hunter Biden with impunity to shake down foreign governments?
The Nov. 5 election will not be decided on these empty talking points or fake, media-generated narratives.
Instead, only two criteria matter: Which candidate’s past record and current agenda best appeal to voters? And which candidate seems the most authentic and genuine?
This week, I wrote about polls that show the public is not buying the apocalyptic predictions of the imminent death of democracy unless Kamala Harris is elected president. Now, a new poll shatters another main talking point of pundits and the press. Democratic candidates, including Vice President Harris, have denounced voter identification laws as “Jim Crow 2.0” attacks on voters. A majority of voters have long supported these laws. According to a new Gallup poll, that majority is now a supermajority.
Despite unrelenting attacks on these laws in the media, eight in ten Americans now support both laws:
With less than two weeks to go in the presidential campaign and voting already underway in many states, 76% of U.S. adults favor the concept of early voting. Two other election law policies are supported by even more Americans — requiring photo identification to vote (84%) and providing proof of citizenship when registering to vote for the first time (83%). …
Majorities of Americans favor a range of election law policies that expand voters’ access to the ballot box, including early voting, automatic voter registration, and sending absentee ballot applications to all eligible voters. They also broadly support measures to limit fraud and ensure election integrity, including requiring photo identification to vote and providing proof of citizenship when first registering to vote.
There are few major political issues today that could show this type of overwhelming support, including from Democrats. Yet, both the Democratic politicians and pundits continue to denounce these laws. Indeed, the campaign against Georgia resulted in their losing the All-Star Game and its economic benefits. Yet, under these laws, Georgia is setting records in the turnout of voters.
In the meantime, the Biden Administration is continuing to oppose and legally challenge efforts of states like Virginia to remove alleged non-citizens from their voting rolls.
In my book, “The Indispensable Right, I explore how vandalism and aggressive campus protests should not be treated as free speech but as proscribed conduct. College Fix has another example of this distinction today when a person trashed a Turning Point table on the campus of UC Berkeley.
The posting shows a possible student pouring tomato juice over the group’s fliers and posters. The display promoted an event with Chloe Cole and Harrison Tinsley, who are critics of gender transitioning. The activist responds to objections from the volunteers by saying “Are you worried I’m going to stain your f**king signs as you lie to people, aw so sorry. I f**king tried to talk to you a**holes. Enjoy getting this stain out.”
Likewise, anti-Israeli protesters at the University of Minnesota occupied and reportedly trashed a university building. None of these acts are protected as free speech. They are conduct that violate either university rules or criminal law or both. Much like shouting down speakers, these are actions that silence others or damage property. Trashing displays or silencing others is the antithesis of free speech. Yet, universities often fail to take meaningful action against such actors.
At Hunter College in New York, Professor Shellyne Rodríguez was shown trashing a pro-life display of students. She was captured on a videotape telling the students that “you’re not educating s–t […] This is f–king propaganda. What are you going to do, like, anti-trans next? This is bulls–t. This is violent. You’re triggering my students.”
Unlike the professor, the students remained calm and respectful. One even said “sorry” to the accusation that being pro-life was triggering for her students. Rodríguez continued to rave, stating, “No you’re not — because you can’t even have a f–king baby. So, you don’t even know what that is. Get this s–t the f–k out of here.” In an Instagram post, she is then shown trashing the table.
What is most striking about this video is the license that the activist claims in trashing the display in stating “I f**king tried to talk to you a**holes.” The notion is that, if you tell people with opposing views that they are wrong, you are then justified to take violent action. It is the license of rage and this video shows how many today do not like to admit that they like the rage. It is addictive. It gives you this sense of license to say and do things that you would not ordinarily say or do.
This activist has every right to protest this event at Berkeley. However, trashing a display is a criminal act that should be punished by the university if this is a student. It should also be pursued by police to deter such conduct in the future. Free speech is enhanced, not curtailed, when such conduct is barred on our campuses.
Top Stories • JD Vance Says Kamala Harris is Part of the Most Anti-Christian Administration in American History • Kamala Harris Will Force Christians to Fund Abortions • 10 States Have Ballot Measures for Abortions Up to Birth. Please Vote No • Kamala Harris Apparently Wants to Force Christian Doctors to Kill Babies in Abortions
More Pro-Life News • Big Abortion is Spending Millions Trying to Elect Kamala Harris • Kamala Harris Said Jesus Doesn’t Belong at Her Rallies. What Else Do You Need to Know? • 16,000 More Babies Were Born in Texas Thanks to Its Abortion Ban • New Hidden Camera Video Shows Abortionist Advising the Best Way to Kill an 8-Month Baby in Abortion • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
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They’ve attacked him. They’ve impeached him. They’ve arrested him. They’ve desperately tried to imprison him. They unconstitutionally denied him access to the ballot. They’ve tried to kill him. Democrats have failed at every turn to get rid of Donald Trump. Now the self-proclaimed defenders of democracy and their corporate media allies are turning to the last vestige of hope for the desperate in an extremely tight presidential race: Lies. And name-calling.
‘Do You Think Donald Trump Is a Fascist?’
Democrat presidential hopeful Kamala Harris opened Wednesday night’s CNN town hall with a long tirade in which she warned ostensibly undecided voters that Trump would be a dictator if given another term in the Oval Office.
“Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?” host Anderson Cooper asked the vice president in the opening moments of the latest long-form, packaged-as-news political ad for the Harris-Walz campaign.
“Yes, I do. Yes, I do,” Harris answered as if reciting an unholy wedding vow.
Of course she does. The “Trump is Hitler” narrative is Harris’ — and the left’s — closing argument in a Reader’s Digest presidential campaign for the Democrats. It must be noted that Harris’ abridged quest began with the Democrats’ bloodless coup that removed the demented Democrat president of the United States from his run for a second term.
In an act of corporate media collusion so transparent it burns the eyes, the shameless Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief at The Atlantic, published the hit piece earlier this week that Harris and her team are using in one last-ditch effort to paint the former president as “unfit” to be president again. The smear job, citing bitter former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly, claims, among other outlandish charges, that while in office Trump suggested Hitler “did some good things.” The story, mostly employing anonymous sources, was quickly debunked on the record by multiple people who were in the room with Trump.
As my Federalist colleague John Daniel Davidson wrote, the story “would never have passed muster in a newsroom 20 years ago.” And former Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi aptly noted on X, “The Hunter Biden laptop story couldn’t be repeated by any major outlet because it hadn’t been independently verified. The Atlantic pieces can be repeated by everyone. Weird how that works.”
The Hunter Biden laptop story couldn't be repeated by any major outlet because it hadn't been independently verified. The Atlantic pieces can be repeated by everyone. Weird how that works.
Of course, it’s not weird at all. Painting the former president as the devil has long been the playbook. Lies and empty accusations are just fine, if they’re in pursuit of what the left thinks is right. And what is right to the Democrats is holding on to power by any means necessary.
Just ask the late spawn of Satan, Harry Reid. The nasty, formerly breathing Democrat senator infamously lied about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney not paying his taxes. Reid lied from the Senate floor. When called out on his lie, Reid sneered, “Romney didn’t win, did he?”
‘She May Lose’
That’s the left. It’s what they do. And, yes, sometimes the lies work. But there is political peril for Harris. Voters have heard it all from Democrats, particularly the patently false stuff about Trump and his relationship with the military and service members.
As pollster and political strategist Frank Luntz told CNN’s Kasie Hunt hours before her network’s town hall, Harris runs a real risk of alienating the relatively few undecideds in the race. Luntz said Harris did well in the opening days of her Joe Biden replacement campaign focusing on “why she should be elected.” Remember all those “good vibes” and joy and crap?
“She’s had the best 60 days of any presidential candidate in modern history. And then the moment that she turned anti-Trump and focused on him and said, ‘Don’t vote for me, vote against him,’ that’s when everything froze,” the strategist said.
The polls show as much. Trump in recent weeks has devoured any gap as Harris could no longer hide and had to answer at least some actual questions about her record and her agenda. In Harris parlance, he is unburdened by what has been.
Trump is defined, Luntz said.
“He’s not gaining, he’s not losing. He’s who he is and his vote is where it is,” the pollster said.
“[Harris] is less well defined and if she continues just to define this race as ‘vote against Trump,’ she’s going to stay where she is now, and she may lose.”
But desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess. Democrats haven’t been able to stop Trump to date. So, they’re hoping to deal him a death blow with lies.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
The latest battleground state polls have the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris remaining a dead heat as Election Day approaches, with single-digit margins or ties being reported. The seven battlegrounds of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will likely determine who will become president, political analysts say.
Current polling for each state shows:
Arizona: The race between Trump and Harris remains tight. A Marist Poll released Thursday shows Trump with a 1-point lead (50%-49%) over Harris. Recent polls from Morning Consult/Bloomberg and Atlas have the two in a tie at 49% each.
Georgia: The numbers are still too close to call. The Marist Poll on Thursday shows Trump and Harris in a tie with 49% each. The recent Morning Consult/Bloomberg poll shows Trump up by 2 points (50%-48%).
Michigan: No new polls for Thursday. A RealClear Politics average gives the battleground state’s nod to Trump (47.9%-47.7%).
I have previously written about the European Union’s (EU) effort to use its infamous Digital Services Act (DSA) to force companies like X to censor Americans, including on postings related to our presidential election. This is a direct assault on our free speech values, and yet the Biden-Harris Administration has not raised a peep of objection. Now, the EU is threatening to set these confiscatory fines with reference to revenue from companies other than X, including Space X.
The EU has warned Musk that it is allowed to hit online platforms with fines of as much as 6% of their yearly global revenue for refusing to censor content, including “disinformation.” The inclusion of companies like Space X is ridiculous but perfectly consistent with the effort of the EU to use the DSA to regulate speech in the United States and around the world.
The EU is arguing that as a “provider” Musk’s entire business portfolio can be included in the fine calculation. It is ridiculous and chilling. Musk’s other companies have nothing to do with the platform policies of X. It is simply an unhinged coercive measure designed to break Musk.
X has objected:
“X Holdings Corp. submits that the combined market value of the Musk Group does not accurately reflect X’s monetization potential in the Union or its financial capacity, In particular, it argues that X and SpaceX provide entirely different services to entirely different users, so that there is no gateway effect, and that the undertakings controlled by Mr. Elon Musk ‘do not form one financial front, as the DMA presumes.’”
However, the abusive calculation is precisely the point. The EU censors are making an example of Musk. If they break us, no company or executive could hope to defy them. They are being cheered on in this effort by an anti-free speech movement that includes America politicians and pundits.
One of the lowest moments came after Elon Musk bought Twitter on a pledge to restore free speech protections, Clinton called upon European officials to force Elon Musk to censor American citizens under the DSA. This is a former democratic presidential nominee calling upon Europeans to force the censorship of Americans. She was joined recently by another former democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, who called for government crackdowns on free speech.
In my new book on free speech and various columns, I write about the DSA as one of the greatest assaults on free speech in history. As I wrote in the book:
“Under the DSA, users are ’empowered to report illegal content online and online platforms will have to act quickly.’ This includes speech that is viewed not only as ‘disinformation’ but also ‘incitement.’ European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager has been one of the most prominent voices seeking international censorship. At the passage of the DSA, Vestager was ecstatic in declaring that it is ‘not a slogan anymore, that what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.’”
The pressure on Musk’s other companies has also been ramping up in the United States. Recently, the California Coastal Commission rejected a request from the Air Force for additional launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base. It is not because the military agency did not need the launches. It was not because the nation and the community would not benefit from them. Rather, it was reportedly because, according to one commissioner, Musk has “aggressively injected himself into the presidential race.” It is all part of Musk mania and the need for the anti-free speech movement to break the only executive who has defied the pressure from this alliance of media, academic, corporate, and government officials.
As I have discussed previously, there is a crushing irony in all of this. The left has made “foreign interference” with elections a mantra of claiming to be defending democracy. Yet, it applauds EU censors threatening companies that carry an interview with a targeted American politician. It also supports importing such censorship and blacklisting systems to the United States. When you agree with the censorship, it is not viewed as interference, but an intervention.
Anti-free speech advocates like Clinton are now going old school. After trying to convince Americans to embrace censorship and blacklisting, they are now praising governments like Brazil and the EU for directly imposed speech regulations on American citizens.
The question is where is the Biden-Harris Administration and Congress. You have a foreign government forcing the censorship of speech of American citizens. We routinely impose reciprocal trade barriers on countries for interfering with our markets. Yet, when a government seeks to curtail political speech in the United States, our leaders are silent.
Below is my column in the New York Post on the growing hysteria among press and pundits proclaiming the imminent end of democracy if Kamala Harris is not elected. The predictions of mass roundups, disappearances, and tyranny ignore a constitutional system that has survived for over two centuries as the oldest and most stable democracy in the world. More importantly, the public appears to agree that democracy is under threat but appear to hold a very different notion of where that threat is coming from.
Here is the column:
“Democracy dies in darkness” is the Washington Post’s slogan, but can it handle the light?
The Post has been doggedly portraying the election between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris as a choice between tyranny (Trump) and democracy (Harris). Yet when it commissioned a poll on threats to democracy shortly before the election, it did not quite work out.
Voters in swing states believe that Trump is more likely to protect democracy than Kamala Harris, who is running on a “save democracy” platform. The poll sampled 5,016 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. When asked whether Trump or Harris “would do a better job” of “defending against threats to democracy,” 43% picked Trump while 40% picked Harris.
Notably, this was the same result when President Biden was the nominee. While over half said that threats to democracy were important to them, the voters trusted Trump (44%) more than Biden (33%) in protecting democracy.
Even with the slight improvement for Harris, the result was crushing for not just many in the Harris campaign but the press and pundits who have been unrelenting in announcing the end of democracy if Harris is not elected.
I have long criticized the apocalyptic, democracy-ending predictions of Biden, Harris and others as ignoring the safeguards in our system against authoritarian power. Nevertheless, Harris supporters have ratcheted up the rhetoric to a level of pure hysteria. Recently, Michael Cohen, a convicted felon and Trump’s disbarred former lawyer, told MSNBC that if Trump wins the election, he will “get rid of the judiciary and get rid of the Congress.”
Recently, MSNBC host Al Sharpton and regular Donny Deutsch warned viewers that they will likely be added to an enemies “list” for some type of roundup after a Trump election. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow also joined in the theme of a final stand before the gulag: “For that matter, what convinces you that these massive camps he’s planning are only for migrants? So, yes, I’m worried about me — but only as much as I’m worried about all of us.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was quick to add her own name to a list that seems to be constantly updated by the media. She told podcast host Kara Swisher, “I mean, it sounds nuts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy threw me in jail.”
On ABC’s “The View,” the hosts are becoming indistinguishable from tinfoil-hatted subway prophets. Whoopi Goldberg even explained how Trump is already committed to being a dictator who will “put you people away … take all the journalists … take all the gay folks … move you all around and disappear you.”
Of course, assuming that Cohen is wrong that there will be no courts after a Trump victory, this would require federal judges to sign off on the rounding up of MSNBC personalities, all gay people, all reporters, and, of course, Whoopi Goldberg. All that is required is for over two centuries of constitutional order to fail suddenly, and for virtually every constitutional actor in our system to suddenly embrace tyranny.
Those pushing this hysteria often curiously cite the January 6 riot as proof that the end is near. Yet that horrible day was the vindication, not the expiration, of our constitutional system. The system worked. The riot was put down. Congress, including Republicans, reassembled and certified Biden as the next president. In the courts, many Trump-appointed judges ruled against challenges to the election. Our system was put through a Cat 5 stress test and did not even sway for a moment. Nevertheless, the same voices are being heard on the same media outlets with doomsday scenarios.
Former Acting US Solicitor General Neal Katyal told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” ominously, “We are looking at a very possible constitutional crisis and one that’s going to make January 6, 2021, look like a dress rehearsal. And this year, the rogues have had four years to go pro and perfect the big lie.”
In other words: Be afraid, very afraid.
Then, in a New York Times column, Katyal lays out scenarios premised on a complete breakdown of the oldest and most stable democratic system in history. It is like telling passengers on an ocean liner that we will all drown and then whispering that this is “assuming the crew intentionally scuttles the ship, all bulkheads and sealed departments fail, and every lifeboat and life preserver is discarded.”
But then we are all going to die.The only way to avoid that watery grave (with the death of democracy itself)? Vote Democratic.
There is, however, some good news in all of this: Despite years of alarmist predictions from Biden, Harris, the press, and pundits, the public is not buying it. It is not because they particularly like Trump. Many of his supporters seem poised to vote for him despite viewing him as polarizing and, at times, obnoxious.
No, it is because the American voter has a certain innate resistance to being played as a chump. Many of the same figures claiming that democracy is at stake supported ballot cleansing to remove Trump and others from the ballots. They supported the weaponization of the legal process in New York against Trump. Likewise, as Harris insists that she is the only hope for fundamental rights, many cannot fail to notice that she is supporting an unprecedented system of censorship that one court called “Orwellian.”
None of this means that the choice between Trump and Harris is easy. However, Harris’ claim to be the only hope for democracy is proving as tin eared as running on pure “joy.”
Voters are clearly demanding more than a political pitch of abject fear mixed with illusive joy.
Top Stories • Kamala Harris Admits She Wants to Force Christians to Fund Abortions • Pro-Life Groups Slam Pro-Abortion Extremist Kamala Harris: “Why Would Any Christian Vote for Her?” • Yes, Dobbs and State Abortion Bans are Saving Babies From Abortions • Donald Trump: Christians Can’t Vote for Kamala Harris Because She Hates Christians
More Pro-Life News • Donald Trump Now Given a 66% Chance of Winning the Election • Tim Walz Welcomed Chinese Communist Party Officials Into His Classroom, Investigation Finds • Cardinal Raymond Burke Urges Catholics to Vote Pro-Life • Welsh Parliament Rejects Measure to Legalize Assisted Suicide • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.
Comments or questions? Email us at news@lifenews.com. Copyright 2003-2024 LifeNews.com. All rights reserved. For information on advertising or reprinting news from LifeNews.com, email us.
A.F. Branco Cartoon — Harris-Biden’s last four years in office have been a total wreck on the American people, and now that she’s running for another four years, she says that she’ll fix it, but according to the latest polls, fewer voters believe her.
GOING VIRAL: Anderson Cooper Drops Bomb on Kamala Harris: You’ve Been in the White House For 4 Years. Why Haven’t You Done Any of This Already?
Cristina Laila – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 23, 2024
Kamala Harris participated in a CNN town hall for undecided voters on Wednesday night. She completely bombed. Kamala Harris did so bad that even CNN admitted she ‘didn’t close the deal’ with voters. CNN moderator Anderson Cooper pointed out to Harris that there are voters out there who say that day one for her started almost four years ago. Kamala Harris keeps promising to secure the border and bring down the price of groceries. (READ MORE)
A.F. Branco Cartoon — Desperation has consumed the Harris campaign, which has brought out the “Trump is Hitler” card just 12 days before the election. Kamala echoed a debunked comment by Trump’s ex-disgruntled Chief of Staff John Kelly. October surprise?
President Trump Slams ‘Comrade’ Kamala and ‘Low Life’ John Kelly’s Disgusting ‘Hitler’ Allegations as Desperate Election Ploy Just 2 Weeks Before Voting
By Jim Hoft – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 24, 2024
With just 12 days left before Election Day, the Democrats and their allies are pulling out all the stops, launching baseless attacks to smear President Trump. On Wednesday, Kamala Harris pushed a tired, debunked hoax published by The Atlantic, being owned by a Kamala’s personal friend Laurene Powell Jobs. Harris seized upon a claim from Trump’s former Chief of Staff, John Kelly, who conveniently “remembered” just in time for the election that Trump allegedly praised Adolf Hitler—an absurd and false claim. This latest smear came as part of a coordinated effort by Harris and the Democrats, desperate to shift the narrative away from their failing policies and lackluster campaign.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – It’s been a lousy week for Kamala and a great week for Trump as he surges ahead in the polls. The mainstream media and the Democrats ridiculed Trump for showing up for a campaign stop at McDonald’s, but it turned out to be an ingenious move politically. No worries, Kamala, I hear McDonald’s is hiring.
War Room Guest Host Dave Bossie Discusses President Trump Dominating the Polls with Rasmussen Pollster Mark Mitchell (VIDEO)
By David Greyson – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 22, 2024
** Please keep our friend and political prisoner Steve Bannon – the founder of The War Room – in your thoughts and prayers during this time. War Room guest host Dave Bossie discussed President Trump dominating in the polls with Rasmussen pollster Mark Mitchell on Tuesday. Mitchell said that President Trump is doing better in the polls now than in 2016. “Instead of taking a bottom-up approach, I would take a top-down approach because Donald Trump is polling better than he did in 2016,” Mitchell said. (READ MORE)
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
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More Pro-Life News • No Dobbs Did Not Increase the Infant Mortality Rate • Doctors Confirm Abortion Bans Do Not Stop Care For Women Facing Miscarriage or Ectopic Pregnancy • Kamala Harris Wants to Spend Billions Making Americans Fund Free Birth Control • Catholic Archbishop Will Lead Prayer Campaign Around Planned Parenthood Abortion Biz • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.
Comments or questions? Email us at news@lifenews.com. Copyright 2003-2024 LifeNews.com. All rights reserved. For information on advertising or reprinting news from LifeNews.com, email us.
Trump’s pick for Vice President, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, arrives on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wis. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Two Christian college students who were mocked by Vice President Kamala Harris at a recent campaign rally have a warning for Christians: get ready for more of the same.
Grant Beth and Luke Polaske attended the Harris-Walz rally at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse last week when they shouted phrases like “Christ is King!” as Harris spoke about abortion rights.
In an interview Sunday with “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Beth said the pair’s shouted phrases drew the ire of those around them.
“I was pushed by an elderly woman. We were heckled at, we were cursed at, we were mocked,” Beth said. “In reflection of the event, Jesus was mocked. His disciples were mocked, and that’s OK.
“We did God’s work, and we were there for the right reasons.”
Grant Beth and Luke Polaske attended the Harris-Walz rally at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse last week when they shouted phrases like “Christ is King!” as Harris spoke about abortion rights. | Screenshot/YouTube/Fox News
Polaske, who said he and Beth were approximately 20 to 30 yards away from Harris, said he can confirm the vice president addressed them specifically.
“There’s a lot of controversy that says she wasn’t talking to us or [that] we left. We didn’t get kicked out. Well, I can speak on Grant and I’s behalf,” he said.
“On video, Grant’s getting pushed and shoved, and there’s about five seconds before she tells us to go to a small rally down the street. You can see on the video, she waves. She was actually waving to me,” Polaske added.
At that point, he said he removed his cross necklace, held it up in the air, and “pointed at” Harris.
“She looked [me] directly in the eye, kind of gave me an evil smirk,” he said.
Harris paused her speech to address the students, quipping, “You guys are at the wrong rally,” which drew loud applause from the audience. The moment quickly went viral on social media.
While Harris focused on the economy and her vision for the 2024 campaign, she also criticized former President Donald Trump for his role in overturning Roe v. Wade. “When Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide, as president, I will proudly sign it into law,” she pledged.
Beth warned that a Harris presidency could lead to tensions with the Christian community.
“You’re going to get the Kamala Harris that alienates over 50 percent of the U.S. population that is Christian,” he argued, referencing her decision to skip the Al Smith Memorial Dinner, a long-standing charity event attended by presidential candidates.
Polaske made similar predictions in a social media post Sunday in which he warned about the “spiritual warfare” involved in the 2024 election.
He wrote: “Christianity is the most hated and persecuted religion in the world. I have seen this firsthand when my faith was mocked and insulted by the Vice President of the United States. I hope as Christians we do not compromise our morals to vote for a woman who does not care about our faith.‘
“We are in the midst of a spiritual warfare this election cycle. With that being said, let’s not forget what we are taught to do as Christians.”
After quoting Christ’s command for His followers to love their neighbor, Polaske added, “He tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. In Jesus’ name, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Because in the end, WE WIN.”
U.S. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, appeared to reference the exchange during his own rally in Wisconsin Sunday afternoon while speaking about his Catholic faith. During his speech, an attendee shouted “Jesus is King,” to which Vance responded, “That’s right. Jesus is King.” He described Harris’ rhetoric as “anti-Christian” and suggested it reflects a broader issue in modern politics.
After sharing about his return to faith as a Catholic and being baptized in 2019, Vance referenced what he described as VP Harris’ “anti-Christian rhetoric.”
“I say this as a Christian, as a person who was baptized for the first time just a few years ago. There is something really bizarre with Kamala Harris’ anti-Christian rhetoric and anti-Christian approach to public policy,” he said.
The Democratic Party is losing its edge over the GOP in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, with Democrats changing their party affiliation at more than twice the rate of Republicans, according to state data released after voter registration ended Monday evening. A total of 9,088,583 registered voters were tallied across the state when the sign-up period ended at midnight on Monday. Registered Democrats maintained a lead over registered Republicans, at 3,971,607 registered Democrats to the GOP’s 3,673,783.
Though the Democratic Party accounts for nearly 44% of registered voters compared to the GOP’s 40%, it has seen its advantage over Republicans dwindle this year.
In 2020, there were 9,090,962 registered voters across the parties in Pennsylvania, only slightly more than the 9,088,583 voters registered this cycle.
President Biden won the state in 2020 by 1.17 percentage points. That year, Democrats had a larger margin of registered voters compared to their Republican counterparts, at 4.2 million to 3.5 million. The data show that Democrats had a registration advantage over Republicans by 685,818 voters during an election Biden won by 80,555 votes.
The GOP has whittled down that lead this year to a 297,824 margin. When comparing registered voters this election year to 2020, Democrats face a net loss of 257,281 voters, while Republicans have a net gain of 428,537 registered voters.
More than double the number of previously registered Democrats changed their party affiliation this cycle compared to the number of registered Republicans who left the party: 54,668 registered Democrats changed their party affiliation compared to 25,634 Republicans, Pennsylvania Department of State data shows.
The data is broken down by county, with Philadelphia notably reporting 18,928 Democrats changed their party affiliation compared to just 3,401 Republicans doing the same. Bucks County, which sits outside of the City of Brotherly Love, reported 2,089 Democrats changed their party affiliation compared to 1,624 Republicans. In Allegheny County, home to the state’s second-largest city of Pittsburgh, 6,564 Democrats changed their party affiliation while 2,202 Republicans did the same.
A voter fills out a mail-in ballot at the Board of Elections office in the Allegheny County Office Building on Nov. 3, 2022, in Pittsburgh. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
The registered voter data comes after reports surfaced that concerns were mounting within the Democratic Party that the Harris campaign is failing to effectively connect with voters in Pennsylvania.
Poor campaign management and staffers lacking relationships with Democratic political leaders in the Keystone State are allegedly rocking the campaign, Politico reported last week. The outlet reported that Democrats are worried that the campaign’s state manager lacks an understanding of Philadelphia, the state’s largest city, while campaign staffers have allegedly not invited local Democratic politicians to events in the state, and have not effectively deployed surrogates.
Politico reported that it spoke with 20 Democratic politicians, allies and party leaders for the story, who reported they are restless over Harris’ campaigning efforts.
“Our campaign is running the largest and most sophisticated operation in Pennsylvania history,” Harris’ national campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez said in comment to Fox News Digital when asked about the report last week. “While Trump’s team still refuses to tell reporters how few staff they have in the state, we have 50 coordinated offices and nearly 400 staff on the ground.”
“While the Trump campaign closed its ‘minority outreach offices,’ we invested in targeted advertising to Black and Latino voters starting in August of 2023 and have now spent more than any previous presidential campaign on outreach to these communities. The Vice President is also campaigning aggressively in Pennsylvania – spending 1 out of 3 days in the state in September.”
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at Divine Faith Ministries International on Oct. 20, 2024, in Jonesboro, Georgia. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
Vulnerable incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey made national headlines last week when he distanced himself from Democratic Party leaders and launched a campaign ad detailing how he “bucked Biden” and “sided” with former President Trump.
The ad features a married couple – Republican Marygrace and her Democrat husband Joe – praising Casey as an “independent,” citing his support for Trump’s trade policies and efforts to “protect fracking” from the Biden administration.
“Our marriage – pure bliss! But on politics, we just don’t agree. Except for Bob Casey. He’s independent,” Marygrace says, with her husband chiming in, “That’s right!”
“Casey’s leading the effort to stop corporate greedflation and price-gouging,” Marygrace continues. “Casey bucked Biden to protect fracking and he sided with Trump to end NAFTA and put tariffs on China to stop them from cheating. So, in this house, we agree, it’s Bob Casey who’s doing right by Pennsylvania.”
Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger Dave McCormick (Mark Makela/Getty Images)
Casey has served in the Senate since 2007, ultimately becoming a stalwart within the Democratic Party, voting on legislation Biden supported, for example, 98.5% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight data. He is now facing his toughest re-election effort yet, as he squares up against Republican challenger Dave McCormick.
The Fox News Power Rankings score the presidential contest in Pennsylvania as a toss-up, with the Senate race a lean Democrat designation. The Cook Political Report, this week, however, shifted the Senate contest from a leans Democrat race to a toss-up race, underscoring Casey’s difficult re-election battle.
Pennsylvania is touted as the state that will likely determine the outcome of the general election on Nov. 5. A Fox News survey of Pennsylvania voters published late last month found Harris narrowly ahead of Trump by 2 points (50-48%) among registered voters, while the race is tied at 49% each among likely voters.
Fox News Digital’s Chris Pandolofo and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
Erstwhile Republican primary opponents as well as longtime allies and lawmakers are in talks for key roles in a second Trump administration, including Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., getting strong consideration for secretary of state, the New York Post reported Tuesday.
While Trump makes the rounds in battleground states to defeat Democrat nominee Kamala Harris, his transition team is in advanced talks with a host of Republican heavy hitters to fill out a would-be Cabinet and administration positions, according to the Post.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told the Post last week that as many as 10 House lawmakers “are probably real contenders to be acting or serving at the Cabinet level or [as] deputy secretary.”
Johnson didn’t name names, but the Post reported Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., is being considered for defense secretary and/or state, along with Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn. House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., could get consideration for CIA director or ambassador to the United Nations, according to the report.
Outgoing North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who challenged Trump in the 2024 GOP primary, is being eyed for energy secretary, according to the report. Burgum was considered a finalist to be Trump’s running mate.
Rubio, too, was a finalist for vice president until Trump selected Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio. Rubio has been a loyal supporter of Trump since being vanquished by Trump in the 2016 Republican primary.
“Sen. Rubio is respected and known for his expertise in matters of foreign affairs and he has been a strong and loyal supporter of President Trump,” a campaign source told the Post.
Allies from Trump’s first administration are also expected to land top spots, including former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, the Post reported. Likewise, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would also likely have a prominent role in a second term.
Grenell, O’Brien and sitting Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., are seen as contenders for national security roles under Trump, according to the Post.
Biotech mogul and GOP primary opponent Vivek Ramaswamy would also be in line for an administration role, perhaps Homeland Security, but he has eyes on replacing Vance in the Senate or running for governor of Ohio in 2026, according to the Post.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris join hands while viewing fireworks July 4 from a White House balcony with first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
President Joe Biden will leave office on Jan. 20, 2025.
Although the Biden-Harris administration has been riddled with flawed and failed policies, perhaps the most lasting damage will be from its reckless approach to the federal budget.
When Biden and Harris took office on Jan. 20, 2021, the gross national debt was $27.8 trillion. It’s now $35.8 trillion. Such enormous numbers are nearly impossible to comprehend. However, if one were to spread out the debt evenly, every U.S. household would have roughly $273,000 of red ink. Of that, just over $61,000 per household came during less than four years of the Biden-Harris administration.
Although the administration’s defenders argue that this was an inherited mess, the reality is that Biden and Harris made a bad situation much worse.
Although government spending related to COVID-19 drove up budget deficits in 2020 and 2021, the Biden-Harris administration and its allies in Congress saw the pandemic as an opportunity to blow out spending and tax subsidies for unrelated issues.
This opportunity included:
A $1.9 trillion stimulus package containing a multitude of handouts for left-wing political groups.
Several rounds of student loan write-offs costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, despite most of the schemes being struck down in court as illegal power grabs.
Democrats’ misleadingly named Inflation Reduction Act, which set up a gigantic corporate welfare system on behalf of “green” energy producers.
Through poor legislative choices and deliberate administrative decisions, Biden and Harris have increased 10-year deficits by $7 trillion relative to when they took office.
Needlessly increasing the government’s deficit spending even after the economy recovered from the damage caused by COVID-19 lockdowns was a major factor behind the wave of inflation that began in 2021. Even today, inflation rates remain elevated relative to the pre-pandemic trend as tens of millions of families struggle to deal with high prices.
Once it became clear that inflation was not a short-term problem, the Federal Reserve took the step of raising interest rates to regulate the money supply. This increased the cost of borrowing for households, businesses, and even Uncle Sam.
Although federal interest payments also increased from 2014 to 2020, primarily due to rising debt, higher interest rates caused these payments to explode under the Biden-Harris administration. In fact, interest on the national debt cost almost three times as much in fiscal year 2024 as in fiscal year 2020.
Although it’s possible that the Federal Reserve’s recent move to lower interest rates might provide some relief on this front, the federal government is still in the process of rolling over old low-interest debt at today’s relatively higher level. This makes it likely that Washington will need over $1 trillion to finance the national debt in fiscal 2025. Coupled with chronic deficits that grow the total debt every year, interest payments possibly could grow with no end in sight.
From an economic perspective, that represents $1 trillion of dead weight, which will drag down growth and reduce the amount of job-creating private investment. This could lead the U.S. down the same path as Japan, which went from an economic powerhouse in the 1980s to a near afterthought today, in part because of overloading on government debt.
Fortunately, it’s not too late for America to change course. We have hundreds of ways to cut wasteful spending and corrupt handouts across the federal government. From defunding the academic Left, to curbing pork barrel earmarks, to reforming Medicare’s payment system, a variety of fixes not only would improve budgetary health but remove harmful favoritism.
It seems unlikely that the swamp is going to willingly drain itself. That means the first step will be for American citizens to hold their leaders accountable and demand a return to fiscal sanity in the wake of the Biden-Harris administration.
Call it the Mark of Kaine. The heated dispute between the Biden Administration and the State of Virginia just took a curious turn after Virginia lawyers released support for the effort to remove alleged noncitizens from the voting rolls ahead of the presidential election. The main witness against the Biden Administration may prove to be Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) who is on the ballot this election.
The Biden Administration sued to stop the removal of 6,303 alleged noncitizens from Virginia’s voter rolls before the election, which is expected to be close in the state. It relies on the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), or the “Motor Voter Law,” which bars “systemic” removal of voters from the rolls less than 90 days before an election.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin ordered compliance with existing laws, citing Virginia code 24.2-439, requiring the removal of noncitizens whose names were added under false pretenses. It also cited Virginia Code 24.2-1019, requiring registrars to immediately notify their county or city prosecutor of such situations.
The NVRA has exceptions for removals within what the Justice Department calls the “quiet” period before an election, including the removal of individuals who are “ineligible to vote because of a criminal conviction or mental incapacity, or for “correction of registration records pursuant to this chapter.” However, the state argues as a threshold matter that these are not systemic removals. The state argues that these are individual actions triggered automatically by citizens identifying themselves as noncitizens but then joining the voting rolls. It is a crime for a noncitizen to vote in the election.
The state notes that the voter is notified of the problem and allowed to correct any errors to remain on the rolls. If they do not correct the problem, they are removed from the rolls. However, they can still vote on election day with a “provisional” ballot to challenge any removal.
Virginia is not targeting any group and does not know how these voters might vote. It is responding to a notice coming from the Department of Motor Vehicle of a possible ineligibility and potential criminal act if the person actually votes, which is admittedly rare for noncitizens.
While the Justice Department insists that some of these individuals are actually citizens, the system allows for those citizens to remain on the rolls by simply correcting the DMV record.
I understand concerns over changes close to the election, but there seemed to be a host of options for the Justice Department short of this lawsuit, including working with the state to be sure that this relatively small number of voters are given ample opportunity to correct their records.
This weekend, Virginia added a new wrinkle in the litigation. The Virginia law has been on the books since 2006. The bipartisan legislation was signed into law by then Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. It has been used without any objection for all those years. However, it now appears that Kaine’s administration specifically asked the Justice Department to determine if the law was compliant with federal laws, including an express inquiry about the NVRA. On December 16, 2006, the Justice Department completed its review and found no objections to the Virginia law though it added that it reserves the right to object in the future to any such laws.
Gov. Youngkin further told Fox News that past governors continued to use the law within the 90 days period without a peep of objection from the Justice Department. These facts distinguish the Virginia case from the Alabama case where a court enjoined removal of names of suspected non-citizens.
Now, Kaine is on the ballot and there is a close election for the presidency. The Biden Administration is suddenly claiming to be “shocked, shocked” that there are alleged noncitizens being removed from the ballot.
In July, in an interview with WJLA-TV , Kaine insisted that “voting should be reserved for U.S. citizens.” When pressed recently, his campaign issued a non-statement statement that, again, insisted that “it is illegal for noncitizens to vote” while adding that “just as we want to block noncitizens from voting, we need to keep eligible voters from being purged from voting rolls, particularly just weeks from an election.”
Youngkin agrees that the state must “block noncitizens from voting” and is using the very law Kaine signed (and the Justice Department approved) for that purpose.
In the end, these votes are unlikely that to change any electoral outcomes. However, there is a broader fight building over a variety of election integrity efforts. States have complained that the Biden Administration has harassed and sued them at every turn as they sought to require voter identification or other laws.
Florida is now suing the Biden administration for allegedly obstructing the verification of immigration records so the state can remove any non-citizens. The state alleges that the Biden Administration has simply refused to supply required verification information.
These are just a few of the over 165 election-related lawsuits filed in the days before the election by the federal and states authorities and various public interest groups.
Some local officials are sparring with state officials. Fourteen states do not require voter identification. Despite the opposition from the Administration and many Democratic leaders, Gallop and other polling show Americans overwhelmingly support voter identification laws. In California, the state actually made it illegal for local election officials to ask for identification from voters.
The key about the lawsuits filed close to the election is the first round is often the last round. Whoever wins these fights for injunctive relief is likely to remain the prevailing party in the final days before the election.
There is now a virtual army of lawyers deployed by both parties to secure or to protect the expected small margin of victory in the election. Indeed, lawsuits like the Virginia action constitute a type of “harassing fire” to push back on states on identification and eligibility efforts.
The Biden Administration’s move against Virginia shows how one person’s voter integrity is another’s voter suppression. Indeed, the man who signed this state law is now supporting the Administration seeking to limit its use.
Yet, the mark of Kaine on this law is an indelible reminder of how even long-standing practices are now being challenged in this hair-triggered environment. For voters, they will have to be careful when picking their line at their polling place. The longest line is likely the lawyers waiting to get inside.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Democrats, the party of child genital mutilation and late-term abortion, are outraged at Trump for his comments alluding to Arnold Palmer’s private parts.
HILARIOUS: Jake Tapper Asks Mike Johnson “Why is [Trump] Talking About Arnold Palmer’s Penis?” – Johnson Responds, “You Seem to Like That Line A Lot” and Leaves Tapper Embarrassed
By Jordan Conradson – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 20, 2024
In a hilarious exchange, White Dude for Harris and CNN correspondent Jake Tapper was embarrassed by House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday when he asked, “Why is [Trump] talking about Arnold Palmer’s penis?” Johnson joined CNN’s State of The Union on Sunday morning, where he was asked about Trump’s humorous locker room talk at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Saturday evening. In response, Johnson said, “Jake, you seem to like that line a lot,” which flustered the far-left host. Tapper’s question comes after President Trump’s rally at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where he cracked a joke about his late friend Arnold Palmer, whom he called “all man.” (READ MORE)
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Top Stories • Here’s Exactly How Tim Walz Denied Medical Care to Babies Who Survive Abortions • Kamala Harris Mocked Christians While J.D. Vance Confirmed “Jesus is King” • Donald Trump Now Leads in All 7 Battleground States • Kamala Harris Can’t Admit the Truth: She Wants Abortions Up to Birth
More Pro-Life News • JD Vance is Winning Over Catholic Voters in Crucial Battleground State • Radical Pro-Abortion Feminist Chelsea Handler Calls Herself a “Threat” to Men • Doctors Files Lawsuit Against Biden and Harris Challenging Their Pro-Abortion Regulations • Organ Donor Wakes Up After Doctors Declared Him “Brain Dead” • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
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American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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