RNC 2

new tag 6/14 not implemented

merri ok

KIRK SHIVVED RONNA?

Sort of Includes NRCC NRSC (see also) etc, see also Republican State Leadership Committee in gerrymandering

see ronna

see lara trump

SEE GOP STEAL ELECTION INTEGRITY BS POLL WATCHERS

see voter suppress dirty tricks purge voter roll

bak 120

see rumble

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RECaLL 2020 NO PLATFORM JUST THAT TRUMP WANTS?

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// SUSAN COLLIN DUCKS HIM

AN 8 26

The Republican Party is supposed to be hosting its first-ever midterm convention next month, but according to Puck News, party members are now fuming as President Donald Trump turns the event into his latest messy "grift."

Ahead of what are expected to be a bruising set of midterm elections, the GOP is poised to put on an unprecedented convention, the sort usually reserved for crowning a top-of-the-ticket nominee during presidential election years. While Trump himself touted the event as having “lots of Great Entertainment” and “a RALLY like none other," strategists within the party told Puck that his influence has turned it into a "s——" show that "few lawmakers want to go" to.

As ever, Trump's money-grubbing tendencies appear to be driving frustrations the most.

"For starters, the National Republican Campaign Committee is asking House members to cough up $25,000 for themselves and a guest to attend the two-day convention in Dallas, according to three people who have reviewed the invitation," the Tuesday report detailed. "And that’s the cheap rate, with the highest tier asking for $100,000 from lawmakers."

The outlet continued: "The R.N.C., which is hosting the convention, is also taking sponsorship money from corporate donors, which is being funneled into a nonprofit that doesn’t have to disclose its donors. But with no party business being conducted (as would be typical at a presidential nominating convention) and poor planning (invitations were sent in the last several weeks, way after lawmakers had already committed to other events), campaign strategists are seething that it’s little more than a fundraiser for an unnecessary Trump production, at a time when some swing-district lawmakers aren’t exactly clamoring to be associated with the president."

“It’s yet another opportunity to shake down corporate America,” one Republican campaign strategist vented to Puck. “Nobody understands why we’re doing a midterm convention. It’s just another show that Trump is going to put on to remind the voters that he is sitting there, and maybe they don’t want to be reminded of that.”

The report further noted that the potential optics of the event are also stirring up concerns, given its unfortunate timing.

"Then there are the optics. The convention will take place just two days before the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks," Puck added. "Imperfect timing, perhaps, for lawmakers to be photographed carousing in elephant hats with the party’s wealthy elite."

Following the announcement of the convention, Politics USA founder Jasone Easley argued that the convention was a political gift for Democrats heading into the midterms, as Trump sought to "rub his stink of failure all over" the GOP at a time when voters are increasingly sick of him.

"Trump is going to hold a convention so that he can be the center of attention,” Easley said. “Trump is apparently also going to try to play concert promoter again after the Great American State Fair debacle, so prepare yourself for multiple performances of Proud To Be An American by Lee Greenwood. … Just in case you were curious, Trump is dedicating two nights to sinking Republican chances in the midterm election”

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bannon mma 7 26

June 30, 2026, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

STEVE BANNON (HOST): SAVE America Act — a lot of people are saying, hey, do we have time to implement it? Are we going to have lawsuits? But President Trump is driving forward. We're a huge proponent of that.

We also know that Bill Pulte is at DNI, and that John Solomon of Real America's Voice is leading a task force on declassification. And yesterday, Pulte hired, from the RNC, as his chief of staff, one of the top election fraud people in all of the RNC to be his chief of staff. So he's telling you where he's — signaling where he's going on this.

My understanding — I don't have any access to this classified information — but my understanding is that there is going to be real revelations about the stealing of the 2020 election.-

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[### Pulte picks RNC's former election integrity director for his ...

Democracy Docket

https://www.democracydocket.com › News](https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/pulte-picks-rncs-former-election-integrity-director-for-his-national-intelligence-agencys-chief-of-staff/)

4 days ago — Acting national intelligence director Bill Pulte picked Christina Norton, known for running the GOP's 2024 poll watcher program, as his ...

Acting national intelligence director Bill Pulte has picked Christina Norton, a GOP lawyer known for running the GOP’s controversial 2024 poll watcher operation, as his chief of staff, reports The New York Times. Norton also was Pulte’s chief of staff at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which he still leads.

When the Republican National Committee (RNC) called for an army of 100,000 poll watchers in 2024 – in alignment with the Trump campaign’s prejudicial declarations of voter fraud – Norton was tapped to serve as its election integrity director. In that role, she oversaw the planning for the RNC’s massive poll watcher program, which drew on a slew of election conspiracists and deniers of the 2020 election results to train volunteers.

Pulte’s hiring of Norton fuels voting rights advocates’ concerns that he’ll be using the national intelligence office to fulfill President Donald Trump’s agenda to subvert this year’s midterms, by amplifying and prioritizing wild goose chases for voter fraud.

One clear example of how Norton approached her role as the RNC’s chief poll watcher and voter fraud investigator can be found in an April 2024 meeting among rightwing activists she attended, where she laid out plans for monitoring voters in that year’s elections.

The RNC’s poll watcher activities had previously been curtailed from 1982 to 2018 due to its intimidation tactics against Black and Latino voters in the early 80s. Under a consent decree, the RNC was only able to carry out “ballot security” programs under court approval and supervision during that time period. But when the decree was lifted, the RNC went all out in revamping its poll watcher missions in 2020 and 2024, much of it in cahoots with the Trump campaign.

For Norton in 2024, that meant working with scores of grassroots far-right and MAGA activists, many of whom were still peddling the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Some of those activists were at the April 2024 meeting with Norton, and continued these “stolen election” narratives as incentivization for that year’s poll watching strategies.

Among the speakers at that meeting:

Steve Stern and Raj Doraisamy, the meeting’s organizers, both rightwing activists who have close ties to the “Pillow Guy” Mike Lindell, who’s since had to shell out millions of dollars from lawsuits for falsely claiming that voting machines were hacked and fraudulent votes were cast in the 2020 election.

Seth Keshel, a retired U.S. Army intelligence officer who claimed that he counted 150,000 fraudulent votes in the 2020 election from North Carolina, and made similar allegations of “big-time” fraud in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Arizona.

Linda Szynkowicz, founder of the conspiratorial FightVoterFraud.org site, who’s claimed without evidence that she’s spotted thousands of felony-grade election crimes.

Jay Valentine, an amateur cybersecurity activist who worked with Trump’s former lawyer Sidney Powell to overturn 2020’s election results.

Marly Hornik, founder of New York Citizens Audit, whose claim to fame was saying he discovered millions of fraudulent voter registrations in New York, but was ultimately served a cease and desist letter from the attorney general for confronting “voters across the state at their homes” after falsely claiming to represent the Board of Elections.

As the Nebraska Examiner reported, Norton neither disputed nor objected to the claims made at the meeting.

“If reports are true that Bill Pulte, whose installation as acting D.N.I. already raises serious legal questions, is bringing a former senior R.N.C. official who cavorted with election deniers and conspiracy theories into O.D.N.I. as his chief of staff, Americans have every reason to fear that this administration is once again eroding the wall between our intelligence agencies and domestic elections,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intel Committee, in a statement to the Times.

Perhaps the most notorious recruit to the RNC’s 2024 poll watching apparatus was Jack Posobiec, the person responsible for the “Pizzagate” conspiracy that Democrats were behind a diabolical pedophilia ring run out of a D.C. pizza shop.

The RNC invited Posobiec to train a group of poll watcher volunteers in Michigan in September 2024. There, he shared voter fraud myths and told the trainees, “it doesn’t matter who votes. It matters who counts the votes.”

It was an escalation of a similar statement that Trump made in 2024 when he announced his own campaign’s robust poll watcher operation: “Having the right people to count the ballots is just as important as turning out voters on Election Day.”

[### Bill Pulte Picks G.O.P. Election Operative for Spy Agency Job

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › U.S. › Politics](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/us/politics/pulte-spy-agency-christina-norton.html)

5 days ago — Christina Norton is the new chief of staff at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, former officials said.

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an 5 26

President Donald Trump and the Republican Party are planning on sending troops to polling places during the 2026 midterm elections, according to a recent report by The New Republic.

“The Republican National Committee announced Tuesday that it has deployed poll watchers and election observers in at least 17 states for the midterm elections,” The New Republic’s Hafiz Rashid reported on Tuesday. “In a post on X, RNC Chairman Joe Gruters posted an audio clip where he said, ‘We’ve already deployed field staff and we’ve hired state directors and election integrity directors.’”

Although Gruters did not specify which states he was targeting, he made it clear that this is part of the GOP’s plan to retain control of Congress during the 2026 midterm elections.

“We focus on the big picture,” Gruters said. “We focus on winning. We have a plan. We’re executing the plan.”

As Rsahid reported, Trump himself has said he is considering sending the National Guard and ICE to voting locations in November.

“It’s a disturbing thing for Trump to say, just two days after he called for an ‘Election Integrity Army,’” Rashid wrote. “In a Truth Social post, Trump claimed that Republicans had one in 2024 ‘in every single State to preserve the sanctity of each legal vote’ and attacked Democrats for forming their own elections task force led by former Attorney General Eric Holder.” In light of Trump’s rhetoric and the RNC’s actions, Rashid argued that “it appears that the RNC has heard Trump loud and clear, and is taking action. It’s on top of everything else the Republican Party is doing to meddle in the midterms and beyond, from mid-decade redistricting that disenfranchises Democrats and Black Americans to spreading election-denial conspiracies from 2020. It has even installed election denialists in local governments and election boards across the country.”

He concluded, “Deploying ICE agents or National Guard troops at the polls seems to be a ploy to frighten people of color from voting, and is unprecedented. It appears that the midterms are shaping up to be a tense battle in more ways than one.”

As conservative columnist George F. Will wrote in The Washington Post earlier this year, Trump has had multiple chances to litigate the 2020 presidential election, and has had all of his core claims thoroughly debunked.

“Someone should read to him ‘Lost, Not Stolen,’ a 2022 report by eight conservatives (two former Republican senators, three former federal appellate judges, a former Republican solicitor general, and two Republican election law specialists),” Will explained. “They examined all 187 counts in the 64 court challenges filed in multiple states by Trump and his supporters. Twenty cases were dismissed before hearings on their merits, 14 were voluntarily dismissed by Trump and his supporters before hearings. Of the 30 that reached hearings on the merits, Trump’s side prevailed in only one, Pennsylvania, involving far too few votes to change the state’s result.”

Will added, “Trump’s batting average? .016. In Arizona, the most exhaustively scrutinized state, a private firm selected by Trump’s advocates confirmed Trump’s loss, finding 99 additional Biden votes and 261 fewer Trump votes.” Therefore he wrote of Trump, “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

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AN 12 25

Bulwark editors Sam Stein and Andrew Egger took on the epic collapse of the RNC social media team after humiliating remarks from RNC Chair Joe Gruters threatened to diminish donations and curb GOP voter turnout.

Gruters said out loud this week that the Republican Party is likely headed to “almost certain defeat” in the upcoming mid-terms, which sent the RNC’s digital team into an obscenity-laced panic with accounts insulting and name-calling critics about the claims.

The reason this sort of matters is because it can deflate your donors,” Stein told Egger. “It can deflate members of your own party.”

Stein then cited Obama White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs telling Sunday show, “Meet the Press,” that “no doubt there are enough seats in play that could cause Republicans to gain control.”

“It caused a multi-day crisis for Democrats,” said Stein. “Nancy Pelosi was p------. … Members were hot, hot, hot about it. He had to backtrack it. It was just bad. Again, this is not a normal utterance from a committee chairman.”

“But the funnier part of the story,” said Stein, “is how the RNC's digital team has handled it, which is not well.”

“You're a lying piece of s——,” RNC Research told Democrat influencer Harry Sisson. “Here's the full quote: ‘I LIKE OUR CHANCES IN THE MIDTERMS but let me put in perspective only three times in the last hundred years has the incumbent party been successful winning a midterm. We're facing almost certain defeat. The only person who can bring the nose up and help us win is the President of the United States Donald J. Trump.’ F—— loser.”

The same account then attacked the Democratic Party X account, beginning with: “Here’s the full quote you, (sic) scumbags … ”, and they responded to Stein’s own post about Gruters’ statement, starting with “Hey, Jack--- …,” before citing Gruter’s full quote, which Stein says was not a denial.

Then they went after CNN political reporter Aaron Blake, saying “This is fake news — here’s the full quote, scumbag.”

“They really like ‘scumbag,’” Stein added. “Oh, Bill Kristol. They went after Kristol. This is a good one: ‘How much does Harvard charge these days to learn how to report b——? Is Bill being paid by Harvard still? He's a graduate.’”

“I liked what Town Hall did,” said Stein, referring to another Trump subsidiary on X that went into defense mode after Gruters’ admission. “They accused you (Egger) of misstating or misgiving no context to chairman Joe Grutter's quotes, but then they mangled the quote.”

“Yeah, they themselves actually then did mangle the quote,” said Egger.

See the Bulwark podcast at this link.

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seems wacko? who rUns now?

an 11 25

11/26/2025

When six Democratic senators with military and intelligence community experience posted a video last week calling on people now serving to refuse to carry out illegal orders, President Trump and many of his supporters lost it – even though the video was simply reminding servicemembers of their obligation under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The White House has walked back Trump’s initial outbursts calling for execution of the senators, but he said Sunday he still wants to see “the traitors that told the military to disobey my orders” in jail. He reposted a Truth social post calling the senators “traitorous sons of bitches” and “pompous traitorous communists” who “should be impeached and prosecuted.”

The senators have reported receiving death threats, and Trump allies are fanning MAGA outrage with false characterizations of the senators’ video.

Many MAGA attacks ignored the essential point of the senators’ video, which was to urge servicemembers not to obey illegal orders.

Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who has overseen official brutality against immigrants and their defenders, falsely claimed, “Democrat lawmakers are now openly calling for insurrection” and told Fox News viewers that it was “a general call for rebellion.”

Last week Libs of TikTok posteda claim that “Elected Democrats just released a video encouraging members of the military to commit treason and DEFY orders from Trump and Hegseth.”

On Sunday, the Republican National Committee sent an email claiming “Democrats want to stage a military coup” and falsely claiming that the video “called for an all-out coup against President Trump and Pete Hegseth” by “directly asking troops to disobey their orders.”

The RNC called the senators “disgusting socialists” and claimed they were “urging INSUBORDINATION.”

On Monday, the Washington Examiner’s Elizabeth Stauffer wrote that “Democrats are openly calling for a military mutiny.” She said the senators’ video had “all the hallmarks of a psychological operation lifted straight from the CIA’s playbook.”

Political dirty trickster Roger Stone claimed Monday that the video “is a call to arms for a revolt” and complained that “congressional seditionists” were emboldened by the fact that the Justice Department has not moved quickly enough to prosecute former “Deep State” officials.

Gary Bauer—yes, he’s still at it—used his daily newsletter to attack the senators for “stoking division and fueling mistrust in our government, which is the goal of our enemies”—and, let’s be honest, is the hallmark of Trump and the MAGA movement.

The Pentagon announced that Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy Captain, would be investigated and could be recalled to active duty to face a court martial over what Hegseth claimed was a “seditious” video.

Kelly and the other senators made it clear that they were not cowed by Trump’s bluster, and many of their congressional colleagues came to their defense. Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado called it “a decisive moment.” Crow wrote on X, “Trump is trying to incite violence, intimidate, and punish those who speak up to hold him accountable. But the only thing we fear is not rising to this moment and defending the country we love.”

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger said in a videothat military officers are told on “day one” of their training that they are obligated to not follow unlawful or illegal orders. Kinzinger called the Defense Department’s threat “chilling” and said it was designed to strike the fear of God into former officers who are publicly critical of Trump.

A rare critical voice from a sitting Republican came from Rep. Don Bacon who wrote that he thought the senators’ video was a bad idea, but that talk of sedition and threats of court martial were “crazy.”

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an 11 24 gotv fail

Many political strategists, over the years, have argued that as important as messaging is to a political campaign, the things that matters the most in the end is turnout.

With Election Day 2024 only a day away and countless national and battleground state polls showing a very close race, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump are both trying to fire up their parties. But according to the Washington Monthly's Bill Scher, Harris will have the advantage if the race ultimately comes down to turnout.

"Every national and battleground state poll shows a statistical dead heat, with neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump holding a lead outside the margin of error," Scher explains in an article published on November 4. "Many factors could determine the outcome of a race this close. One of those factors is the relative strength of the competing campaigns' get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operations…. In a contest where one or more states may be decided by less than a percentage point, the rational strategic decision is to invest money and talent in an effective turnout operation."

Scher adds, "All available evidence indicates that Harris did that and Trump did not."

On June 20, the Washington Monthly published an article by Scher headlined, "Donald Trump's Get-Out-The-Vote Plan is Bonkers." Scher detailed the GOP's get-out-the-vote efforts, which were greatly influenced by far-right Turning Point USA and its leader Charlie Kirk.

"The plan was premised on eschewing swing voters in densely populated suburbs and cities in favor of chasing ultra-conservative 'MAGA' types who mainly live in rural areas and don't reliably vote," Scher explains. "Then-Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel gave Turning Point the cold shoulder, and some Republicans warned the plan smelled like a grift. Turning Point's Charlie Kirk fought back and publicly pressed Trump to shiv McDaniel. Trump obliged, and McDaniel quit under pressure in February 2024."

Kirk's get-out-the-vote plan, Scher emphasizes, has not served Trump well.

"Doing things the old-fashioned RNC way — with door-knocking efficiently concentrated in more densely populated areas where more swing voters live — meant behaving like a responsible adult," Scher argues. "Following Kirk's strategy of digging up stray MAGA voters in far-flung places allowed Trump to indulge in his darkest impulses."

Scher adds, "We can't say yet who will win. But, almost surely, if Trump wins, it will be despite his GOTV team, not because of it."

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an 8 24

editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect that the cancellation of 400,000 Pennsylvania voter registrations was due to normal list maintenance, not challenges from outside groups.*

A collection of GOP-aligned organizations are already hard at work planning to make it harder for predominantly Democratic constituencies to cast their ballots this November.

According to a Wednesday report in tech publication Wired, groups like True The Vote, the Election Integrity Network, Check My Vote and the Nevada-based Pig Pen Project are planning to blitz urban voting precincts in some of the more competitive battleground states this November like Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. This initiative is likely to create headaches for voters who may show up to their polling place this fall only to find that their registration was removed due to challenges from one or more of these groups.

“These groups and the broader election denial movement have been building these structures, building these projects, over the course of many, many months and years, in preparation for this moment,” Brendan Fischer, who is the deputy executive director at Documented, told Wired. “And the pieces are finally falling into place, where they can begin to file these mass challenges for voter eligibility.”

"Staffing poll observers, both during early voting and on election day, in addition to mass voter challenges, in addition to conducting citizen research about election conspiracy theories, these are all priorities for them," he added.

Republican National Committee (RNC) co-chair Lara Trump — who is former President Donald Trump's daughter-in-law — has previously hinted at a well-funded infrastructure put in place to both challenge voter eligibility and to challenge election results themselves. During a Fox Business interview in May, Lara Trump told host Maria Bartiromo that the RNC is ready to engage in a campaign of mass disruption in the weeks following the November election.

"We plan on having attorneys in all of these major polling locations across the country," she said. "We can't wait to litigate something weeks after it has happened. We need to strike at a moment's notice. We want people there on the ready to hit things and hit the ground running when they happen so that we are never seeing 2020 happen ever again."

Pennsylvania Secretary of State press secretary Matt Heckel told Wired that election officials are already constantly working to keep voter lists accurate and up to date, saying that 400,000 registrations were removed in 2023 due to regular list maintenance. He warned that a wave of superfluous challenges from outside groups would only add to what is already a considerable workload.

"Challenges which seek to remove voters on the basis of unverified information or a timeline inconsistent with federal law will lead to disenfranchisement, unnecessary litigation, and a harassing diversion of already-stretched county resources," Heckel told Wired.

After losing the 2020 election, former President Trump filed more than 60 legal challenges to election results in various states. He lost all but one of those challenges, and the sole victory involved a negligible number of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania that were rejected on a technicality. Those ballots did not have an impact on the final tally.

{Click here to read Wired's report in full (subscription required).

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Tony Perkins Calls GOP Platform Process ‘Despicable,’ Slams Chair Marsha Blackburn’s ‘Unbelievable’ and ‘Shocking’ Behavior

July 12, 2024 RWW

Right Wing Watch reported this week that members of the Republican Platform Committee were subjected to heavy-handed authoritarian tactics by the Trump RNC, which refused to allow any questioning of the candidate’s wishes. Rather than drafting and debating the platform in public, Trump’s team closed the doors, shut down debate, took away delegates’ phones, and intimidated them into rubber stamping the language wanted by the Trump campaign. Not surprisingly, that hasn’t gone over too well with some platform committee members.

On Thursday, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins used his Washington Watch show to slam the “despicable” and “disgusting” process and criticize the “heavy-handed” platform committee chairperson, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who apparently acted as the Trump team’s enforcer. She was “unbelievable,” said Perkins:

I mean, it was shocking. They allowed for no amendments or discussion before forcing a scripted vote. Now, this process done in secrecy behind closed doors, quite frankly, is unbecoming of a party that champions free speech and due process.

Ironically, the document itself calls for vigorous defense of free speech and the end of government censorship. Well, deprived of the opportunity to actually discuss this so called draft document and strengthen the weak platform that lacked the party’s historical stand for the unborn, there was a group of us delegates that have submitted a minority report to supplement the platform…

The delegates had a gag, basically a gag rule put on them, their phones taken. Media was not allowed in. So most people don’t know what happened in the room. But fortunately, I have a microphone, and I can tell you. It was despicable. It was disgusting. It was not befitting of a party that claims to be a defender of law and order, due process, and the freedom of speech—and certainly not a party that claims to protect the unborn.

A July 11 action alert from FRC criticized the “highly choreographed” and “unprecedented, tightly scripted process that allowed for no amendments or substantive debate before the vote.”

Perkins and his FRC colleagues aren’t the only ones angry about the process. “They rolled us,” outraged platform committee member Gail Ruzicka told Milwaukee’s WISN12News.

The language rammed through the platform committee is purposefully vague on issues like abortion and marriage. That way, the Trump campaign can send two different messages. Religious-right leaders loyal to the campaign can put the strongest anti-abortion spin on the language, while the campaign encourages headlines about a new “moderate” position to appeal to the majority of voters who don’t share the religious right’s anti-choice and anti-equality obsessions.

Still, the abandonment of more explicit language calling for constitutional bans on abortion and laws defining marriage as one man and one woman is rankling some religious-right leaders.

Perkins called the platform “woefully inadequate in communicating a definitive position on the protection of human life.” He complained that the last GOP platform recognized God 15 times, while the Trump version has just two “passing references” to God. And he noted that the platform contains no reference at all to the Second Amendment—“none, zero.”

Religious right activist Michael Brown complained this week that the platform language was so “watered down” that the GOP can no longer be viewed as “the party of life.” Brown warned that “allowing the platform to be weakened in the name of electoral pragmatism might signal a whole new wave of GOP candidates who are less committed to the pro-life cause but who are allegedly better than the Democrats.” He added, “It might also embolden current GOP congressmen to soften their own stances in the name of electability, thereby continuing to erode the GOP’s stance for life. In the end, there might be little to distinguish the two parties when it comes to abortion.” Brown continued:

My counsel would be that we do not take this new platform lying down, but do our best to work for a change until the last minute possible. If, in the end, we cannot bring change about, then we still work with the GOP for the moment while making it clear behind the scenes that the next GOP candidate will have to embrace our pro-life position — otherwise, they will not make it through the primaries.

Among other religious-right figures unhappy about the platform include former VP Mike Pence, Jason Rapert of the Christian nationalist National Association of Christian Lawmakers, and former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, who went dramatically for a maximalist position, posting, “You cannot be a faithful Christian and a faithful Republican after today.” Brent Leatherwood, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission called it “political malpractice.” Ryan Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, called the platform changes an example of “cowardice.”

Anderson and his mentor Robert George—who has urged the Supreme Court to require all states to treat abortion as homicide—were among a group of anti-abortion activists who released a letter to GOP delegates Friday urging them to “vote down any platform that weakens the party’s pro-life stance.”

At the right-wing Christian outlet The Stream, John Zmirak slammed MAGA politicians and anti-abortion activists who have gone along with Trump:

It’s sickening to see previously pro-life politicians like Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance sell their souls for pennies on the dollar, then watch pro-life groups pretend the miserable half of a moldy loaf tossed to them by the Trump campaign is a wedding cake. It’s both morally repulsive and deeply humiliating.

As Right Wing Watch noted earlier this week, Trump’s team clearly calculated that religious-right activists have nowhere else to go. At The Stream, Zmirak demonstrated the thinking that Trump’s team is counting on. “We must yell our heads off now, try to bluff Trump and his lowbrow cronies into thinking we might sit the election out,” Zmirak wrote, but in the end religious-right voters would have to “quietly go ahead and vote in our own self-defense.”

Other religious-right activists who have worked hard to cement the relationship between conservative evangelicals and the Republican Party warn that even if very few of their constituents would ever vote for a Democratic candidate or sit the election out, many who feel betrayed may feel less motivated to make phone calls and knock on doors to turn out voters.

And maybe some of them, perhaps those who learn how Trump’s team treated his close allies on the platform committee, may be more open to warnings about Trump’s dictatorial tendencies, the authoritarian agenda of Project 2025, and the consequences of giving Trump power after the right-wing Supreme Court ruled that he is virtually immune from accountability for any crimes he commits as president.

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Just when you think the Arizona Republican Party couldn't ...

The Arizona Republic

https://www.azcentral.com › laurieroberts › 2024/04/28

jake hoffman arizona gop from www.azcentral.com

Apr 28, 2024 — Opinion: The Arizona GOP elected indicted Sen. Jake Hoffman and expelled Rep. Liz Harris to the RNC. Could this party get any more nutty?

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mma

Project 2025 organizer Heritage Foundation gave $1 million for Trump’s convention

Written by Eric Hananoki

Published 10/18/24

The Heritage Foundation, the architect of Project 2025, gave $1 million to the 2024 Republican National Convention, according to a recently filed document. Because of a firestorm of criticism, Trump and Republicans have attempted to distance themselves from the embattled group.

Project 2025 is an extreme right-wing initiative that intends to provide policy and personnel to the next conservative administration. Its proposals include attacks on reproductive rights, education, and LGBTQ rights.

On September 16, the host committee that helped organize the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — whose official name is 170 Freedom Milwaukee 2024 Host Committee Inc. — filed its post convention report listing donors with the Federal Elections Commission.

One of them is the Heritage Foundation, which donated $1 million for the convention in February.

[no doc]

The nonprofit Energy and Policy Institute noted Heritage’s donation in an article last month.

Project 2025 contributor Tom Homan, a Heritage visiting fellow, and Peter Navarro, who authored a chapter of Project 2025’s guiding document, spoke at the convention. Heritage itself sponsored the convention and hosted a “policy fest” near the convention venue. Russ Vought, another chapter author, was the policy director of the RNC’s 2024 Committee on the Platform. And Heritage branding was also displayed at the Milwaukee airport.

Aside from the convention, Trump and his campaign have numerous connections to Project 2025.

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an db 5 24

the cash-strapped Republican National Committee (RNC) continues to trail its Democratic counterpart in campaign fundraising. But a new rule recently passed by GOP-friendly officials on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) may end up being a critical lifeline for Republicans this election cycle.

According to the Daily Beast, three Republican members of the FEC appointed during former President Donald Trump's administration recently passed an obscure ruling that effectively approved the expenditure of RNC funds on the ex-president's legal bills. The Beast's Roger Sollenberger and Mini Racker wrote that the rule allows for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) — the GOP's campaign arm for U.S. Senate races — to divert funds from its legal/recount account toward any overt campaign ad buy, provided that money raised from those ads eventually went back into the legal account.

"This means the RNC can run Trump ads that raise money for the legal proceedings account and then use those funds to pay Trump’s personal legal fees," campaign finance attorney Brett Kappel told the Beast.

"The Republican Party will no doubt be pleased by the holding of the three Republicans that Donald Trump appointed to the FEC," he said.

That ruling was prompted by a lawsuit filed by campaign finance watchdog groups End Citizens United and the Campaign Legal Center, which argued that millions of dollars in ad buys the NRSC made from its legal proceedings account during the 2022 midterm elections were illegal. Campaign finance expert Brendan Fischer told the Beast that the Republican members of the FEC effectively "opened a huge loophole" for Trump by allowing separate committee accounts typically funded by "mega donors writing six-figure checks" to be used on ads.

“These segregated accounts were created with much higher contribution limits and the understanding that they’d only be used for very narrow purposes,” Fischer said. “The party committees aren’t really chasing small-dollar donors with these ads. They are spending big money on campaign ads pretending to solicit small dollar donations.”

While the ruling is beneficial for the former president's reelection campaign, it also means that the GOP's down-ballot candidates and state party organizations will end up with less money. Former senior Republican strategist Stuart Stevens told Sollenberger and Racker that the FEC's decision could hurt the GOP's efforts to keep the House of Representatives and take back the Senate.

"They’re gonna lose race after race after race because Trump is sucking up all the money," Stevens told the Beast. "There’s not one honest state party chairman who isn’t furious about this. There’s not one executive director of a state party that doesn’t believe that they’re being cheated, but they’re all just going to be quiet about it."

This ruling is welcome news for the RNC, whose "Trump 47 Victory" joint fundraising committee with the former president's reelection campaign is badly trailing the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and President Joe Biden's own joint fundraising operations. The Beast reported that Trump 47 Victory brought in $90 million from major donors in the first quarter of 2024, with just $26.5 million in cash on hand.

Meanwhile, the "Biden Victory" joint fundraising committee raised roughly $130 million, and has $60.5 million in cash on hand. While the RNC transferred just $1.5 million of Trump 47 Victory funds to its election account, the DNC got $27 million of Democrats' joint fundraising money, with $13.8 million going to state party organizations to help down-ballot Democratic candidates running for federal office.

Click here to read the Beast's report in full (subscription required).

===

RSS key Project 2025 figure Russ Vought was appointed to the RNC's platform committee. Mainstream coverage of the move was minimal.](

https://www.mediamatters.org/project-2025/key-project-2025-figure-russ-vought-was-appointed-rncs-platform-committee-mainstream)

05/21/24

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Report: A “leaner” RNC is looking to partner with outside groups, including extremist hub Turning Point USA

05/10/24

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rww * Benen @ The Maddow Blog: RNC troubles continue as party parts ways with its chief counsel

Two months ago, the RNC hired two lawyers to oversee the party’s election-year legal efforts. One has been indicted, and the other has been pushed out.

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Lara Trump says Republicans plan to 'strike' at 'major polling locations' and 'hit things' - Alternet.org

hit things polls

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biden hires precinct workers, gop gather lawyers, poll watchers

const sheriffs say will grab machines

'They will have thugs?': Lara Trump’s claim RNC will 'physically handle the ballots' stuns - Alternet.org

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===

Lara Trump’s RNC blasts 2020 election fraud lies via voter robocall campaign: report - Alternet.org

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trump had olig fundraiser, but pod save party/camp money much better than superpac b/c of ad rates; tho campaign has pro as head 1st time

very small staff in battle states vs Biden

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alternet-3 24 no lnx

Why the RNC’s latest 'B-level' hire is 'good news for Democrats': analysis

Scott Presler at the 2023 Turning Point Action Conference in Palm Beach, Florida (Gage Skidmore)

Alex Henderson

March 19, 2024

On Thursday, March 14, Lara Trump — the Republican National Committee's new co-chair and Donald Trump's daughter-in-law — announced that the RNC was hiring MAGA Republican Scott Presler to lead its voter turnout efforts.

Presler, a far-right conspiracy theorist known for promoting QAnon posts on social media, has aggressively promoted Donald Trump's false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. And Presler has praised the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building as the "largest civil rights protest in American history."

In a ReidOut Blog opinion column published on March 18, MSNBC's Ja'han Jones argues that Lara Trump's decision to hire Presler is "good news for Democrats" because "it's a sign that the RNC is increasingly staffing up with a team of B-level or worse staffers who are more focused on spouting conspiracy theories and getting internet clout than actually doing the grueling, substantive work of winning an election."

READ MORE:'Not playing games': Lara Trump warns Republicans to support father-in-law’s campaign — or else

"Presler is known more for political stunts than substantive election victories," Jones observes. "He's made a habit of visiting various states to assist with highly public campaigns that, in many cases, don't end up going in Republicans' favor. Ahead of a crucial election in February that could have flipped Pennsylvania's state house to Republicans, he visited and attempted to mobilize voters for a candidate who ultimately went on to lose."

Jones adds, "Philly GOPers were pretty demoralized after that loss. And in a similarly high-stakes campaign last year, Presler threw his support behind failed Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Daniel Kelly. He's also a staunch backer of Arizona gubernatorial election-loser Kari Lake."

Since taking over the RNC, Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-Chair Lara Trump have made a concerted effort to give the RNC a top-to-bottom MAGA makeover. Countless RNC staffers are being fired, and Lara Trump has stressed that the RNC's #1 priority in 2024 is helping her uncle defeat President Joe Biden in November.

But some traditional conservatives have been highly critical of the RNC's new direction, including former RNC Chairman and ex-Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. A Never Trumper and MSNBC host who is rooting for Biden, Steele has warned fellow conservatives that the RNC's heavy emphasis on Trump's presidential campaign will cause GOP candidates in down-ballot races to suffer in November.

READ MORE: 'No point donating now': Lifelong Republicans revolt after Lara Trump elected RNC co-chair

Jones stresses that if the RNC's new leadership continues to hire conspiracy theorists like Presler, Democrats will be the ones who ultimately benefit.

"Presler being given a high-profile position in the RNC would be the latest sign that Turning Point USA and its affiliates are in total control of the Trump-branded Republican Party," Jones writes. "And while that may serve each of them quite well personally, evidence suggests it's bound to hurt the GOP's electoral chances come November."

READ MORE: Lara Trump: GOP voters will 'absolutely' pony up to pay ex-president’s legal bills

Ja'han Jones' full MSNBC column is available at this link.

From Your Site Articles

    :{:{:{RNC chair’s departure turns committee 'into a pro-Trump machine' for 'his massive legal bills' ›:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}::(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}::(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:
    :{:{:{'Absolute bloodbath': Mass firings underway as RNC gets total MAGA makeover ›:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}::(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}::(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:
    :{:{:{'Wrong answer': Ex-RNC chair schools Lara Trump on 'number one responsibility' of GOP organization ›:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}::(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}::(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

Constellation of Anti-Voting Groups Threaten Democracy

By Marc Elias

:{:{}:

August 18, 2022

https://www.democracydocket.com/news/a-constellation-of-anti-voting-groups-threaten-democracy/

republican leaders of the anti-voting movement recently held a “gourmet dinner” at an “undisclosed location” to discuss my voting rights litigation. The event was billed as the inaugural leadership dinner for a group called the Honest Elections Project. I was not invited to attend.

There is a constellation of well-funded, right-wing groups that use the legal and political system to make voting more difficult and free and fair elections less likely. They range from mere vote suppressors to full-on election deniers. Most oppose expanding voting rights and support strict voting laws. Many seek to gut the Voting Rights Act entirely; others want it interpreted so narrowly as to be ineffective. None of these organizations supported Congress’ efforts to enact new pro-voter legislation.

These right-wing groups work closely with the RNC and with state legislatures to advance anti-voting legislation.

:{:{}:

The American Constitutional Rights Union, Foundation for Government Accountability, Judicial Watch, Lawyers Democracy Fund, Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) and Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections are just a few of the groups fighting against voting rights in court. America First Legal Foundation, Election Integrity Network, Heritage Foundation and True the Vote also support anti-democracy legal efforts. The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council advances model anti-voting legislation for state legislatures.

We recently got a preview of how these groups will operationalize their legal efforts in court in the future. Earlier this year, a Florida federal judge struck down most of the state’s “Big Lie” voter suppression law. In doing so, the court found that Florida Republicans had intentionally discriminated against Black voters and had violated the constitutional rights of Floridians seeking to participate in the democratic process. On appeal, six national anti-voting groups filed separate “friend of the court” briefs opposing the lower court’s decision — in addition to the briefs by the state defendants and the Republican Party.

For many years, the Republican National Committee (RNC) was legally barred from participating in election monitoring or voter suppression effortsas a consequence of the GOP’s ugly history of targeting minority voters in the 1980s. When that bar was lifted in 2017, the RNC picked up where it had left off and ran so-called “election integrity” programs with state parties.

These anti-voting legal groups offer a path for Republicans to wield majority political power without majority support.

Now, in the post-Trump era, the RNC directly partners with voter suppression groups and efforts that two years ago would have been unthinkable. The party’s dismal court results following the 2020 election coupled with MAGA supporters’ distrust of the party establishment has left the GOP operating in the penumbra of the current stars of the election denier and voter suppression movement.

It’s not just what these groups do, but who runs them.

:{:{}:

On PILF’s board of directors, for example, are Cleta Mitchell and John Eastman,both of whom served as lawyers for former President Donald Trump. Mitchell participated in the infamous telephone call during which Trump demanded that the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) find 11,000 votes and declare Trump the winner. Eastman, who has been in the news recently for having a search warrant executed against him, helped craft the January 2021 insurrection plan.

The Honest Elections Project — the host of the secret dinner — was formed in February 2020 and is connected to Federalist Society founder Leonard Leo.

The newest of these groups, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, was co-founded by former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr (R) and Karl Rove, who served as former senior advisor and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush. Casino billionaire Steve Wynn provides the organization’s financial backing as its finance chair.

This group is notably more competent and well-resourced than the legal buffoonery who led Trump’s post-election antics. Though I am no fan of Barr, he is unlikely to hire lawyers who claim Hugo Chávez rigged elections from the grave or threaten to release the mythological Kraken. With Rove on its board as well, Barr is almost certainly not going to hold press conferences in a landscaping parking lot.

Notably, the infrastructure on the right is eclipsing the organizations on the left.

:{:{}:

Historically, most organizations and resources dedicated to protecting the right to vote were connected to the left. Today there are still many important civil rights and voting rights organizations that bring litigation to protect the right to vote. Their work is invaluable. But most of those groups have broader portfolios that extend beyond voting rights and have insufficient resources to meet their growing needs.

What is notable about the right wing’s approach is the scope and interconnected nature of their legal efforts to undermine voting rights and free and fair elections.

Right-wing legal groups work in tandem with Republican legislatures dominated by election deniers. These organizations can help generate the most effective voter suppression policies that Republicans turn into laws. When those laws are challenged in court, the conservative legal groups then help defend them.

This brings me back to the “gourmet dinner” at an “undisclosed location” that I was not invited to attend. The right wing holds these events and funds these groups because they know that they cannot win fair elections. These anti-voting legal groups offer a path for Republicans to wield majority political power without majority support. They know that they lost in 2020. They are embarrassed that Trump was routed in post-election litigation. Some are upset that his coup failed on Jan. 6.

They set up new groups, hold secret dinners and create new voter suppression laws hoping that we will give up. I’m not sure what gave them that impression. After Trump was defeated in 2020, his team fought dozens of times in court — and lost. We didn’t give up then, and we certainly aren’t giving up now.

NEXT UP

Conservatives Have Been Packing the Courts for Years

We deserve a forward-thinking judiciary filled with movement lawyers who want to see progress for our nation.

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6 22

with President Joe Biden continuing to suffer from weak approval ratings and voters expressing considerable frustration over inflation, Democratic strategists fear that the 2022 midterms could bring a major red wave like the red waves of 1994 and 2010. To make matters worse, Republicans have been ramping up their voter suppression campaign. And according to reporting from journalist Heidi Przybyla in Politico, part of the GOP game plan is looking for ways to challenge votes in Democratic-leaning areas.

Politico, Przybyla reports, has obtained “video recordings” of “Republican Party operatives meeting with grassroots activists” that “provide an inside look at a multi-pronged strategy to target and potentially overturn votes in Democratic precincts.” The plan, according to Przybyla, is to “install trained recruits as regular poll workers and put them in direct contact with party attorneys.”

Przybyla writes, “The plan, as outlined by a Republican National Committee staffer in Michigan, includes utilizing rules designed to provide political balance among poll workers to install party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places, developing a website to connect those workers to local lawyers and establishing a network of party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts.”

The RNC staffer in Michigan that Przybyla is referring to is Matthew Seifried. In a recording of a training session held on October 5, 2021, Seifried told his colleagues, “Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than (as) a poll challenger…. It’s going to be an army. We’re going to have more lawyers than we’ve ever recruited, because let’s be honest, that’s where it’s going to be fought, right?”

Seifried, according to Przybyla, “also said the RNC will hold ‘workshops’ and equip poll workers with a hotline and website developed by Zendesk, a software support company used by online retailers, which will allow them to live-chat with party attorneys on Election Day.”

Przybyla notes that “election watchdog groups and legal experts say many of these recruits are answering the RNC’s call because they falsely believe fraud was committed in the 2020 election.”

Nick Penniman, founder and CEO of the election watchdog group Issue One, told Politico, “This is completely unprecedented in the history of American elections that a political party would be working at this granular level to put a network together. It looks like now, the Trump forces are going directly after the legal system itself — and that should concern everyone.”

Penniman believes that the RNC strategy is to “create massive failure of certification” in Democratic precincts.

“The real hope is that you can throw the choosing of electors to state legislatures,” Penniman told Politico.

Law professor Rick Hasen, an expert on election law who also teaches political science professor at the University of California, Irvine, is quite critical of the RNC plan to install poll workers in heavily Democratic precincts.

Hasen told Politico, “You shouldn’t have poll workers who are reporting to political organizations what they see. It creates the potential for mucking things up at polling places and potentially leading to delays or disenfranchisement of voters.”

That is especially true, Hasen added, “if (the poll workers) come in with the attitude that something is crooked with how elections are run.”

===

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an 4 22 nl lnx twt

'You have nothing to offer': the GOP's Orwellian debate pledge whips up a frenzy on social media

Brandon Gage April 14, 2022

The Republican National Committee announced on Thursday that it is withdrawing from the Commission on Presidential Debates and that presidential candidates must pledge to only participate in debates that are sanctioned by the party.

“Debates are an important part of the democratic process, and the RNC is committed to free and fair debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates is biased and has refused to enact simple and common-sense reforms to help ensure fair debates, including hosting debates before voting begins and selecting moderators who have never worked for candidates on the debate stage," RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said in a press release.

"Today, the RNC voted to withdraw from the biased CPD, and we are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people," McDaniel added.

"The GOP is not walking away from debates. We are walking away from the Commission on Presidential Debates," the party tweeted later in the day. "It is biased and does not serve the interest of the American people."

According to The Wall Street Journal, "the RNC plans to form a working group to sanction debates based on input from presidential campaigns and criteria that may include timing, frequency, format, media outlet, candidate qualifications and the 'best interest of the Republican Party.'"

At face value, the RNC's move is a capitulation to former President Donald Trump's complaints that the debates he participated in with other GOP primary contenders in 2016 – as well as those with Democratic presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden – were unfair and rigged against him.

The bulk of Trump's ire was rooted in the moderators calling him out for outrageously false and provocative statements, such as when he directed the white nationalist Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by" during his one-on-one with now-President Biden in 2020.

The RNC's decision thusly adds credence to the possibility of Trump running for president again in 2024. If he does, the GOP is clearly attempting to manipulate its primary processes to favor Trump.

It also puts out an undeniable Orwellian vibe, which the Twitterverse noted in response to the Republican Party's edict

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/david-bossies-resolution-blows-up-in-rncs-face-will-he-be-new-face-of-gop/

Longtime right-wing Republican activist David Bossie reportedly pushed the recent Republican National Committee resolution that accused the House committee investigating Jan. 6 of persecuting “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” The resolution, which also censured Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the two Republican members of the committee, has drawn widespread criticism and stirred conflict within GOP circles.

Bossie, a longtime right-wing propagandist and collaborator with former Trump aide Steve Bannon, had reportedly been working with Wyoming GOP Chair William “Frank” Earthorne to get the RNC to kick Cheney and Kinzinger out of the party completely. The censure language in the resolution that ultimately passed was a compromise reached behind closed doors.

The RNC is also planning to fund a primary challenge against Cheney, with Bossie calling it a “one-two punch” against her.

Bossie was elected to the Republican National Committee representing Maryland in 2016, the same year he served as deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump. There was a bit of a falling out between the two in 2019 over a Bossie fundraising scheme, but in 2020, after refusing to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 presidential campaign, Trump turned to Bossie to help lead the campaign’s efforts to challenge the outcome of the election. Bossie is reportedly leading RNC efforts to assert greater control over any 2024 presidential debates.

Bossie, listed as president and board chair of the group Citizens United, has written several books and produced multiple films attacking Democratic candidates. It was Citizens United’s effort to run an anti-Hillary Clinton film during the 2008 campaign that led to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling that weakened campaign finance laws and ushered a flood of dark money into U.S. elections.

During the 2016 Republican convention, Bossie and Bannon helped launch what Bannon called a “Christian war film” seemingly designed to incite fear and anger among the GOP’s conservative Christian base.

Vanity Fair reported last week that sources told the magazine that Bossie is making a bid to take over the RNC from current chair Ronna McDaniel, though Bossie denied that ambition. According to Vanity Fair, a “veteran Republican operative close to the RNC” downplayed Bossie’s chances, saying, “The reason Ronna got reelected was the members were really worried that some Trump grifter, like Bossie, was going to take over.”

In 2018, Bossie was briefly suspended from Fox News after telling a Black fellow panelist, “You’re out of your cotton-picking mind.”

Tags: David Bossie Ronna McDaniel Capitol Insurrection Election 2020 Election 2022 Election 2024 House select committee on Jan. 6 Citizens United republican national committee Republican Party

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ENFORCER: how does he have infl on RNC?

an 2 22https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/liz-cheney-censure/

an RNC committee Thursday evening unanimously passed a resolution to censure GOP Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. The resolution will be voted on by the full RNC, all 168 Republican National Committee members, Friday.

That resolution – submitted by Trump "dirty trickster" and GOP "shady partisan hit man" David Bossie – makes false claims about President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats,

"The Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress have embarked on a systematic effort to replace liberty with socialism; eliminate border security in favor of lawless open borders; create record inflation designed to steal the American dream from our children and grandchildren;neuter our national defense and a peace through strength foreign policy; replace President Trump's 'Operation Warp Speed' with incompetence and illegal mandates;and destroy America's economy with the Green New Deal."

The resolution also promotes the lie that participants in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol were merely "ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse."

It calls for the RNC to "immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party for their behavior which has been destructive to the institution of the House of Representatives, the Republican Party and is inconsistent with the position of the Conference."

Read:...

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AHA ? : did talk radio supplant local news? radio and podcast blend, and often has video now; snn radio amplifies fake paper website [trump picks up boost/escalate, feedback back into eyeballs/ratings [then RNC/GOP $]

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/trump-election-claims/

Since the 2020 presidential election, conservative news outlets have been popping up in droves to continue circulating former President Donald Trump's big lie about the election.

So how are outlets continuing to do this? According to NPR, it is more of a trick of the eye. The publication https://www.npr.org/2021/07/02/1011916687/how-pro-trump-local-news-sites-keep-pushing-2020-election-misinformation.

While the publication appears to be just a local news outlet, NPR reports that it is actually flagship of a news syndicate, known as The Star News Network, which consists of several pro-Trump sites. Like The Georgia Star News, the network has created similar sites for states like Arizona, Ohio, and Florida.

Per NPR:

"Its part of the Star News Network - an expanding network of pro-Trump sites seeking to influence local politics with conservative opinion by mimicking the look and feel of local newspaper sites. The group operates eight state-focused news sites, including in key Electoral College states such as Michigan, Arizona, Ohio and Florida."

By focusing on states where Trump is still heavily favored among voters, the network can continue to circulate misinformation since the audience is still focused on what transpired during and after the election.

During a rally in Ohio Las weekend, Trump also added more fuel to the fire with more dangerous claims of voter fraud.

"The biggest tragedy of all is millions of Americans have lost confidence in their vote," Trump said." We can't let that happen. And that's why I say you have to know what took place in 2020 before you can vote in 2022 or 2024."

To name mafter worse, conservative publisher John Fredericks defended defended sites and the information they share.

"We work very hard to fund our operation through legitimate advertising of all kinds, people that want to reach our expanding audience," he said. "And if somebody needs to reach informed, motivated readers that want the truth, advertising is a great opportunity for them, is a great [return on investment] potential."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

evidence suggests the Republican National Committee poured more than $400,000 into Sean Hannity’s latest book

Roger Sollenberger / Salon September 23, 2020

The Republican National Committee spent hundreds of thousands of dollars last month on books by Donald Trump Jr. and Fox News personality Sean Hannity, federal records show. The RNC’s August…

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ronna confronted that NC runoff lost in adv/

riggleman

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump-republicans-2649073595/

recall gingrich took out Wright tho had (had?) done worse?

an 1020 rnc bought 1m$ books hannity

part of pension plan?

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300K don jr book

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an 920

evidence suggests the Republican National Committee poured more than $400,000 into Sean Hannity’s latest book

Roger Sollenberger / Salon September 23, 2020

The Republican National Committee spent hundreds of thousands of dollars last month on books by Donald Trump Jr. and Fox News personality Sean Hannity, federal records show. The RNC’s August…

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/why-the-alternative-universe-of-trump-loyalists-wont-be-broken-by-the-bolton-bombshell/

no lnx

Why the ‘alternative universe’ of Trump loyalists won’t be broken by the Bolton bombshell

Written by Alex Henderson January 28, 2020

When President Richard Nixon announced his resignation on August 8, 1974, he was being inundated with Watergate headlines and realized that many right-wing Republicans in the U.S. Senate would join Democrats in voting to remove him from office; Nixon, in other words, quit because he knew he would inevitably be fired.

But President Donald Trump, in contrast to Nixon, has been able to count on fiercely loyal Republicans no matter how scandal-ridden he becomes. Republicans, during Trump’s impeachment, have adamantly rallied around the president — and journalist Susan B. Glasser, in a January 28 article for The New Yorker, argued that even John Bolton’s bombshell allegations aren’t swaying diehard Trumpistas.

Bolton, former national security adviser in the Trump Administration, alleges in his book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” that Trump tied military aid to Ukraine to an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, according to multiple reports. Trump and his cult-like defenders have maintained there was no such “quid pro quo” — that investigating the Bidens was never a condition of military aid. But in a leaked manuscript of Bolton’s book, the New York Times reported over the weekend, Bolton alleges Trump and his allies made it clear to the Ukrainian government that there would be no military aid without an investigation of the Bidens.

Trump loyalists, Glasser notes, have been quick to defame Bolton.

“The attack on Bolton was swift and predictable: Bolton was a disgruntled former employee, a neocon, a money-grubber with a two-million-dollar book to sell,” Glasser explains. “The president himself led the mob, beginning to tweet and retweet anti-Bolton statements.”

The Republican National Committee (RNC), Glasser observes, has been “sending out official talking points attacking Bolton.” And many Senate Republicans, she writes, are still opposed to featuring Bolton or any other witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial — no matter how damning Bolton’s allegations are.

“At any other moment in Washington in my lifetime, I would have predicted with absolute confidence that the Bolton revelation would force Republican senators to switch their position and support witnesses — and not just a few, but almost all of them,” Glasser asserts. “But this is now, and the unthinkable and inconceivable have become increasingly routine. Here it was: the proverbial smoking gun, right in the middle of the trial — crucial evidence that Trump, his advisers, his lawyers and his enablers on Capitol Hill knew about and were trying to suppress.”

Glasser concludes her New Yorker piece on a somber note, lamenting the fact that no matter what Bolton has to say about Ukraine, Trump’s loyalists and sycophants aren’t budging an inch.

“Monday proved once again that this alternative universe has become the new normal in Trump’s GOP,” Glasser writes. “It is not the exception but the rule. The post-Bolton-bombshell Republican Party will be largely the same as the pre-Bolton-bombshell Republican Party.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/here-are-5-huge-lies-republicans-are-telling-about-the-new-report-on-the-russia-probe

no lnx

Here are 5 huge lies Republicans are telling about the new report on the Russia probe

Written by Cody Fenwick December 10, 2019

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s new report on the origins of Crossfire Hurricane, commonly called the Russia investigation, blew up many of the right wing’s favorite talking points and conspiracy theories about the FBI. At the same time, it exposed real failures of procedures meant to protect American citizens against undue surveillance and exposed the need for serious law enforcement reforms.

But most Republicans seem unfazed that the report undercuts President Donald Trump’s repeated accusations of “treason” and a “witch hunt,” and they show no genuine interest in pushing policy to generally make law enforcement more responsible. Instead, they’re trying to pin the blame on the Obama administration and bias against Trump, even though these claims actually distract from the genuine problems uncovered.

So instead of grappling with the complicated facts of the report, Republicans are just lying about what it says. Here are five huge lies you should be on the look out for, and why they’re false:

Aaron Rupar

@atrupar

Trump on the IG report: "It is incredible. Far worse than I ever would've thought possible. It's an embarrassment to our country, it's dishonest. It's everything that a lot of people thought it would be, except far worse."

Embedded video

This is absolutely not true. Trump has accused the FBI of “treason” for its investigation of members of his campaign, an accusation that was always ludicrous. Obviously, the report didn’t find anything “far worse” than treason — the worst finding seems to be that an FBI lawyer falsified a piece of evidence in an application for surveillance, making Carter Page’s activities look more suspicious than they otherwise would. This is quite bad, if true, but it’s far milder than much of what the FBI’s critics have claimed.

And in contrast to what Trump has been saying for more years now, the report said: “We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open” investigations of Trump associates.

Ronna McDaniel

@GOPChairwoman

The mainstream media cannot dispute this fact:

Comey’s FBI repeatedly misled the FISA court and omitted key facts about the phony Steele Dossier, which launched the 2-year, $35M Russia investigation.

This should have never happened!

In fact, the media can dispute this fact, because it’s not true. The work of Christopher Steele did not “launch” Crossfire Hurricane, as Horowitz made perfectly clear. It explained that the officials working on the investigation “did not become aware of Steele’s election reporting until weeks [after the investigation began] and we therefore determined that Steele’s reports played no role in the Crossfire Hurricane opening.”

Senator John Cornyn

@JohnCornyn

It confirms that the Obama Justice Department spied on an American citizen by misleading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court into issuing 4 separate warrants. https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1204151940202020864 …...

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/gop-demanded-500k-donation-from-trump-bahamas-ambassador-during-his-senate-confirmation-hearings/

no lnx

GOP demanded $500K donation from Trump Bahamas ambassador during his Senate confirmation hearings

Written by Brad Reed / Raw Story November 18, 2019

Newly uncovered emails reveal that the Republican National Committee demanded that President Donald Trump’s nominee for the U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas donate $500,000 ahead of his Senate confirmation hearings.

CBS News reports that RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel asked billionaire Doug Manchester for more cash at a time when his confirmation as Bahamas ambassador had seemingly stalled.

“Would you consider putting together $500,000 worth of contributions from your family to ensure we hit our ambitious fundraising goal?” she asked him in an email.

Manchester replied and told McDaniel that he’s “not supposed to” be donating to the RNC at the same time he’s up for an ambassadorship. All the same, he said his wife would send along a check for $100,000.

He then asked McDaniel to put pressure on the Senate GOP to move his confirmation hearing along.

CBS News investigative reporter Jim Axelrod confronted Manchester about the emails and told him that “you know what this looks like.”

Manchester responded defensively and insisted that his wife’s contribution had nothing to do with getting confirmed by the Senate.

“Well — it looks like it to you,” he said. “But it’s not the facts. My wife gave out of separate funds and she in fact loves Donald Trump.”

The RNC said it was inappropriate for Manchester to link the donation to his ambassadorship nomination and added that it has since returned the money donated by the family this year.

---

no lnx

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/29/payday-lenders-discussed-raising-money-trumps-campaign-fend-off-regulation-audio-reveals/

Democracy Dies in Darkness

Business

Payday lenders discussed raising money for Trump’s campaign to fend off regulation, audio reveals

To ensure Democrats don’t block weaker industry rules, payday lenders said they needed access to Trump.

Renae Merle

October 29, 2019 at 9:41 AM EDT

Billing himself as one of President Trump’s top fundraisers, Michael Hodges told fellow payday lenders recently that industry contributions to the president’s reelection campaign could be leveraged to gain access to the Trump administration.

“Every dollar amount, no matter how small or large it is” is important, Hodges, founder of Advance Financial, one of the country’s largest payday lenders, said during a 48-minute webcast, obtained by The Washington Post.

“For example, I’ve gone to Ronna McDaniel and said, ‘Ronna, I need help on something,’ ” Hodges said, referring to the chair of the Republican National Committee. “She’s been able to call over to the White House and say, ‘Hey, we have one of our large givers. They need an audience. … They need to be heard and you need to listen to them.’ So that’s why it’s important.”

The Sept. 24 webinar sponsored by Borrow Smart Compliance, an industry consultant, gives surprisingly frank insight into the payday lending industry’s strategy to push for weaker government regulations by forging a tight relationship with the Trump administration and the president’s campaign. The payday lending industry, made up of businesses that make short-term loans to consumers at high interest rates, is awaiting new rules that could weaken Obama administration requirements. Those rules include a requirement that the companies must ensure consumers can afford to repay the money they borrow.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the chair of the Financial Services Committee, is an industry “hater,” and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) would pose a big threat if elected president, Hodges and three other industry insiders said during the talk. They called Trump their “ultimate backstop” against attempts to defeat legislation the industry wants.

“When Trump was elected, the needle moved in our favor — finally,” Max Wood of Borrow Smart Compliance said during the webinar.

How Trump appointees curbed a consumer protection agency loathed by the GOP]

“If you need something and we may need something … then it would be good to be able to pick up the phone and call someone that could get the president’s attention,” Wood said during the webinar. Contributing to Trump’s campaign will help keep the president in office, he said, and “it will give [Hodges] access in the event that we need to have access to the president.”

In an interview, Wood acknowledged posting the YouTube video but then referred questions about fundraising to others who took part. The video, which had about 40 views as of Friday afternoon, was removed shortly after The Post asked Wood about it.

The major focus of the call appeared to be fundraising, which the industry insiders said would be critical to maintaining access to the Trump administration. Hodges encouraged others to donate to Trump’s campaign and referred to his efforts to bolster his standing with the administration.

“If I can show the campaign that Tina and I have brought in net new givers to the campaign, meaning whether it’s $100, $50, $25, $15,000 or $50,000 if they didn’t give last time, that is a boost to us as fundraisers,” Hodges said, referring to his wife.

Hodges said on the webinar that he has made more than $1 million in campaign contributions to help Trump since 2016. In an interview, Hodges said he is an “enthusiastic” supporter of the president but had never used his status to ask the administration for help.

Trump is systematically backing off of consumer protections, to the delight of corporations]

“When I am talking about access, I am not talking about the administration. I haven’t lobbied the administration,” he said in an interview. He said his support of the president is not connected to pushing any specific industry agenda. “I have not gone over to the White House because of Ronna McDaniel. … That just has not happened.”

But during the webinar, Hodges said it would give him a “boost” if he could show that he had brought in donors who had never given before, even if their contributions were small.

“That is important to the campaign, which means it’s important to the president, which means it’s important if you ever had to call on anyone for anything in the administration,” he said during the call. “That’s how those things work.”

The White House declined to comment for this report. Trump’s reelection committee did not return a call for comment.

In a statement, Mike Reed, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said: “Part of the RNC’s job is sharing what we hear from supporters across the country with party leaders. We often will connect our supporters with other Republican officials when they have a message they would like to pass along. Democrat policies would destroy millions of jobs, and that is not something our supporters and our organization will ever be shy about communicating.”

Elisha Brown of Speedee Cash, a payday lender based in Florida, and Ed D’Alessio, executive director of the Financial Service Centers of America, who also participated in the webinar, did not return repeated calls and emails seeking comment.

It’s unclear how many other people participated in the webinar.

The YouTube video was discovered by two advocacy groups, Allied Progress and Americans for Financial Reform.

“We have here a striking example of how money in American politics leads to the abuse of consumers in the financial services marketplace,” said Linda Jun, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform.

Derek Martin, director of Allied Progress, said: “This presentation reflects the worst of Washington, D.C. — wealthy executives buying off politicians so they can keep their predatory business model intact.”

Consumer advocates and the Obama administration have argued that new rules on the industry were necessary to end the “debt trap” in which, once taking out one payday loan, consumers are forced to take out another and another to keep up.

But payday lenders have said the rules were too complicated and would drive many of them out of business. The industry launched an aggressive counterattack, suing to block the rules, recruiting black pastors to speak out in their defense and commissioning academic research that bolstered their talking points. The Community Financial Services Association of America has held its annual meeting at the Trump National Doral Miami golf club for the past two years.

The debate about payday loans is unfolding in the pews of black churches

The industry’s outlook began to change under the Trump administration. In late 2017, the president appointed Mick Mulvaney, now acting White House chief of staff, to temporarily run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. As a South Carolina congressman, Mulvaney had called the bureau a “joke” and co-sponsored legislation to close its doors. While CFPB’s acting director, Mulvaney took several steps that helped dial back pressure on payday lenders, including calling for a review of wide-ranging rules finalized by the previous administration and dropping several lawsuits against payday lenders.

Now the CFPB, run by Kathy Kraninger, is considering whether to rescind the Obama administration’s rule requiring that payday lenders verify consumers can afford their loans, a potential major victory for the industry. Kraninger previously worked for Mulvaney at the Office of Management and Budget.

But the industry has grown concerned that House Democrats, led by Waters, could block efforts to roll back those regulations using the Congressional Review Act, known as the CRA. That law allows legislators to block new regulations before they go into effect and was used repeatedly by Republicans in the past few years to roll back Obama-era rules.

“I think if we were to say that she’s a hater of the industry, that would be an understatement,” D’Alessio, of the Financial Service Centers of America, said of Waters during the webinar.

The industry would be unlikely to be able to stop efforts in the Democrat-controlled House to scuttle the weaker rules that payday lenders hope the CFPB will adopt, D’Alessio said during the webinar. Finding enough Republicans to block such an attempt in the Senate, where some lawmakers are facing tough reelection campaigns, could also be difficult, he said.

“That puts us in a position where the ultimate backstop is the White House. And there we will be relying upon President Trump,” D’Alessio said.

During the webinar and in an interview, Hodges pitched himself as a family business owner who could help spread the industry’s message. Tennessee-based Advance Financial started with just a few storefronts but now has more than 100 in the state.

Supreme Court will decide constitutionality of consumer watchdog bureau

The company has grown significantly since Trump was elected, doubling its workforce to 1,300, increasing contributions to employees’ retirement accounts and distributing bonuses after the 2017 tax cut, Hodges said.

“Any chance I have to talk about the about the jobs he has helped me create, I” do, Hodges said in an interview. “There has been this economic resurgence.”

He has emerged as a top Trump fundraiser. During the 2016 election cycle, the company’s owners and employees spent $270,385 on campaigns, compared with $1,000 during the 2014 campaign cycle, according to Open Secrets. That jumped to $965,450 in 2018 and $672,956 so far for the 2020 cycle. Almost all of that money went to Republicans.

“It’s hard for me to say this number, because if you told me this five years ago, I would have thought you were crazy. But we’ve donated about $1.25 million to his campaign so far,” Hodges said.

“So Tina and I have become, I would say, one of the larger donors to the campaign over the last couple of years.”

So far this year, Hodges said, he has raised another $200,000. During the call, he encouraged other industry officials to contribute to or attend an Oct. 7 fundraiser featuring Vice President Pence in Tennessee. The tickets ranged from $1,000 to $100,000, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by the Nashville Post.

During the webinar, Hodges explained why such fundraisers were important. When money comes in that way “that raises the clout of that fundraiser so that when you go and speak to the administration through the campaign, they will listen.”

Hodges said in an interview that he is aiming to raise “as much money as possible” for Trump’s reelection campaign, potentially $1 million.

“The last administration and candidate [Hillary] Clinton … was working hard to end an industry that provides a lot of jobs for folks,” Hodges said in an interview. “Trump was running on pro-growth, pro-business [campaign]. … as an entrepreneur it was an easy choice.”

After the webinar, Michael Brown, a payday industry consultant, touted the group’s message on his website in a post that has since been removed. “If Warren wins you can bet on day 1 of her Presidency she will be focused on her baby, the CFPB. That is a doomsday scenario for the payday industry,” he said, echoing a talking point from the webinar. Warren conceived of the CFPB in the wake of the global financial crisis and has touted its success repeatedly during her presidential campaign.

“It is important for our industry to support the Trump Campaign financially and with votes.”

Toluse Olorunnipa and Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.

---

Ilhan Omar 9/11: Republicans are distorting her September 11 ... - Vox

https://www.vox.com/2019/4/11/.../ilhan-omar-911-islamophobia-republicans

21 hours ago - Republicans are taking Ilhan Omar's comments on 9/11 out of context to smear her. It's Islamophobia, plain and simple. ... Here's Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniellabeling her both “anti-Semitic” and ...

Fox News, Crenshaw, RNC Attack Ilhan Omar for 9/11 Comments

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-crenshaw-rnc-attack-ilhan-omar-for-911-co...

2 days ago - Ilhan Omar Calls Out Fox News and GOP for 'Dangerous Incitement' Over ... On Tuesday, the chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel ... Last month, Fox host Jeanine Pirro went on an Islamophobic rant, ...

Instagram Stands By Laura Loomer Calling Ilhan Omar's Islamic Faith ...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ilhan-omar-death-threats-surge-online-after-911-comm...

20 hours ago - ... Chair Ronna McDaniel shared the clip, with McDaniel calling Omar “anti-American. ... “Ilhan Omar isn't just anti-Semitic–she's anti-American,” McDaniel wrote of ... An RNC official said the party condemned threats of violence, but still ... Calling Islam a “cancer,” Loomer told followers that “Muslims should ...

spox

Republican National Committee spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany had a furious meltdown on Saturday afternoon while trying to use the death a police officer to push for Donald Trump’s wall — only to have a former Republican point out the thousands of Americans who die due to gun violence.

Appearing on MSNBC with host Alex Witt, McEnany frantically pointed to the death of Newman Police Department Cpl. Ronil Singh, who was shot to death by an undocumented immigrant the day after Christmas, as evidence for the need for a multi-billion dollar wall at the border.

Asserting that Trump is concerned about the border, McEnany stated, “It’s being concerned about the citizens of our country, all of them. When you have Officer Ron Singh, who lost his life to an individual with known gang ties who should not have been in this country — we have to care about those victims.”

Jumping into the fray, ex-Republican Kurt Bardella — who worked for former GOP Rep. Darryl Issa (CA) — brought up a major factor that led to his departure from the party.

“What about all the people who have been shot and murdered by white Americans in this country?” he asked. “Where is the concern for Homeland Security and for law enforcement when people are getting killed by guns every day? I don’t see Republicans doing anything about that.”

“You’re deflecting!” McEnany shouted over him as he continued to call her out.

“You’re proving my point, you don’t want to talk about the Americans who lost their lives,” the RNC spokesperson ranted during the crosstalk.

“Every time a crime is committed Republicans cannot wait to talk about it,” Bardella shot back as host Witt looked on. “But when a crime is committed by a white guy with a gun, it’s crickets from Republicans.”

===

Big Peter Thiel donation shows he’s still with Trump

Billionaire entrepreneur was top donor to the Trump Victory Committee

By Levi Sumagaysay

lsumagaysay@bayareanewsgroup.com

Tech billionaire investor Peter Thiel has again put his money where his mouth is: He’s still with Trump.

With $250,000, Thiel was the biggest donor to the Trump Victory Committee in the most recent quarter, a new Federal Election Commission filing shows.

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The donation, dated July 10, appears to be the first donation by Thiel to the organization since the 2016 presidential campaign, when he forked over more than $1 million. He also donated $101,700 to the Republican National Committee July 10, according to a previously released FEC filing.

Thiel, of PayPal Mafia fame and one of Silicon Valley’s most high-profile supporters of President Donald Trump, was joined in this round of donations by United States Steel, which gave $100,000, and Trump attorney Mark Kasowitz, who gave $50,000, and a plethora of retired individuals from around the nation.

Overall, the Trump campaign raked in in $18.1 million last quarter through his campaign committee and two joint committees with the Republican National Committee. He has raised about $106 million since he came into office, according to the Washington Post.

It is unclear what kind of role, if any, Thiel plays in the Trump administration. He played a role during the presidential transition, but there have been reports that he later became critical of the president. Earlier this year, he said during a newspaper interview that “It’s been a crazier two years than I would have thought… There are all these ways that things have fallen short.” But he said he had no regrets about supporting Trump, because “It’s still better than Hillary Clinton or the Republican zombies.” Over the summer, Thiel compared Silicon Valley — which conservatives decry as too liberal — to North Korea, calling it a “oneparty state.” In the July-September quarter, the Victory campaign transferred money to the Republican National Committee, plus spent money on travel expenses, marketing and about $120,000 on the digital consulting services of Parscale Strategy.

Brad Parscale was the digital media director for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign who famously said on “60 Minutes” that Facebook “embeds” — employees who help campaigns use the company’s ad-targeting tools more effectively — helped propel Trump to victory. Parscale is now leading Trump’s 2020 campaign.

A spokesman for Thiel — who was Facebook’s first outside investor and remains a board director of the social media giant — didnot return a request for comment.

===

interesting, recycled/applied to social media:

Trump has faced derision for his rant on Tuesday about Google search results being "rigged" against conservatives — likely motivated by a Fox Business interview between Lou Dobbs and the right-wing YouTube celebrities Diamond and Silk.

But Trump is eager to prove he is right about a grand Google conspiracy to silence right-wing content. As proof, he shared a video on Wednesday noting a key example of anti-GOP censorship: his own State of the Union address.

"For years, Google promoted president Obama’s State of the Union on its homepage," says the video. "When President Trump took office, Google stopped."

[twit] There's just one problem: it isn't true.

As Buzzfeed News reports, screenshots of Google's search page taken on January 30, 2018 clearly show a link labeled "Live! Watch President Trump's State Of The Union Address On YouTube." One of the screenshots was even posted by a Trump supporter to the pro-Trump Reddit board /r/The_Donald, captioned "Google homepage linking to the GEOTUS [God-Emperor Of The United States] address."

It is true that Google did not provide a link to Trump's first address to Congress in 2017. However, as a Google spokesperson told BuzzFeed, “We have historically not promoted the first address to Congress by a new President, which is technically not a State of the Union address. As a result, we didn’t include a promotion on google.com for this address in either 2009 or 2017."

The fact that the video was easily debunked as a hoax did not stop it spreading in right-wing circles. It was swiftly picked up by Gateway Pundit, InfoWars, the Russian propaganda network RT, and was also shared by Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.

Trump has frequently complained that the size of his audience for major events is being suppressed or even just covered up. Immediately upon taking office, he accused mainstream news outlets of lying about the size of his inauguration crowds.

More broadly, Republicans have been waging a crusade for years against what they claim is "liberal bias" in mainstream media, which has increasingly spread to accusations against big tech platforms as well. There is little basis for these claims, but persecution narratives have staying power — regardless of evidence especially when the President of the United States lends them legitimacy.

---

Trump-Backing RNC Spokeswoman Hilariously Mocked for Ridiculously Inane Political Commentary

5. The Republican National Committee tweets: “Today we remember Rosa Parks’ bold stand and her role in ending racism.”

This one was fun for a couple reasons. First, it was the most high-profile example yet of the GOP’s asinine “post-racial” meme, a defense used to dismiss or deny that any criticisms of the president or his agenda are influenced by racial thinking. Second, it led Twitter user@FeministaJones to come up with the wildly popular #racismendedwhen hashtag. When your best attempt to show you’re racially sensitive results in widespread mockery, it’s fair to guess that the whole outreach thing isn’t going so well.

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Next Citizens United? McCutcheon Supreme Court Case Targets Campaign Contribution Limits

Posted: 07/31/2013 7:25 am EDT | Updated: 07/31/2013 1:10 pm EDT

WASHINGTON -- The next big campaign finance case to go before the Supreme Court began in February 2012 in the grand ballroom at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel during the "Ronald Reagan Banquet" at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Alabama electrical engineer and budding political donor Shaun McCutcheon broached a problem in conversation with conservative election lawyer Dan Backer, who one day earlier had led a CPAC panel on rolling back campaign finance laws in which he predicted that campaign contribution limits would soon rise.

McCutcheon had recently learned there were overall federal campaign contribution limits on what a single donor could give during a two-year election cycle. He voiced his annoyance to Backer and wondered if he could just ignore the aggregate limits -- something that a few dozen donors wound up doing, whether deliberately or inadvertently, in the 2012 election.

"He could tell I didn't like 'em, so he said we could challenge and it would go all the way to the Supreme Court," McCutcheon recalled in an interview with The Huffington Post. "I didn't really believe him."

A little more than a year later, McCutcheon, now joined by the Republican National Committee, is bringing the biggest campaign finance case before the Supreme Court since the controversial 2010 Citizens United decision. If the justices rule in their next term to toss the overall limits, it would mark the first time the Supreme Court had found a federal contribution limit unconstitutional and would open the door for even more money to flood the political system.

It would also be a major victory for counter-reformers, who have racked up a string of wins rolling back campaign finance regulation ever since Justice Samuel Alito replaced the more campaign regs-friendly Sandra Day O'Connor. And it would be a major blow to the campaign finance regime crafted in the 1970s following a string of corruption scandals culminating in the abuses revealed in the Watergate investigation.

For the 2013-2014 election cycle, Federal Election Commission rules state that a donor can give no more than $123,200 to all political committees with two sub-limits of $48,600 to candidates and $74,600 to political parties and political action committees. Without these overall caps, a single donor supporting one political party could theoretically give more than $5 million in individually limited contributions to every House candidate, every Senate candidate, every state party committee, every national party committee and every leadership PAC.

The case of McCutcheon v. FEC is being managed by a team of attorneys who have made careers out of working a long game to roll back campaign finance laws, including lead counsel Jim Bopp, the first lawyer on the Citizens United case, and Backer and Stephen Hoersting. The challengers argue that the aggregate limits are an unconstitutional burden on free speech and do not serve the purpose of reducing quid pro quo corruption or the appearance thereof.

"This is a case about how to spend your money how you choose, and it's a very important First Amendment case about freedom of speech," McCutcheon said. "We should be able to support as many candidates as we want. There's no reason to limit the number of candidates or committees."

Supporters of stronger campaign finance oversight disagree strongly. They say that campaign contribution limits being up for debate is a sign of how successful the counter-reformers have already been and how unfriendly the current Supreme Court is to campaign finance regulation.

"The fact that they are setting their sights on even this most basic feature of campaign regulation just shows how far the conversation has shifted on campaign finance," said Brenda Wright, vice president for legal strategies at Demos and the lead author of an amicus brief opposing McCutcheon. "And it's really important for the court not to take that next step. The court really needs to put a stop to the damage that's been done to our campaign finance regulations."

In a string of amici briefs filed with the Supreme Court on July 25, campaign reform advocates argue that the elimination of the aggregate limits would open the door for candidates to solicit checks of over $1 million through joint fundraising committees and undermine the individual contribution limits by allowing donations to be shifted among an unlimited number of candidates and PACs.

"This is a not very thinly disguised first step to try to get an absolute anything-goes, no-limits regime on campaign contributions," said Charles Fried, a former solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan and the author of an amicus brief submitted by Americans for Campaign Reform.

McCutcheon, however, denies that he wants to change the direct contribution limits, stating, "This is not about base limits. This is about aggregate limits."

Yet a ruling undoing overall contribution limits could, in fact, undermine the legal standing of individual contribution limits in future court challenges. University of California-Irvine election law professor Rick Hasen explained on his Election Law Blog, "It is possible in this case, for example, that the conservative five Justices ... set out a general standard for reviewing contribution limits which makes them harder to sustain against constitutional challenge."

Further, in the most radical and unlikely possibility, the court could decide that the case requires a ruling on the underlying question of the constitutionality of all contribution limits -- much as it did with independent spending in the Citizens United ruling -- and then find all such limits to be unconstitutional.

In the past, the Supreme Court has supported the overall limits as an extension of the direct contribution limits. The court in the landmark 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision found that the overall limits "prevent evasion of the [direct] contribution limitation by a person who might otherwise contribute massive amounts of money to a particular candidate through the use of unearmarked contributions to political committees likely to contribute to that candidate, or huge contributions to the candidate's political party."

The court has also found the acceptance or solicitation of "huge contributions" by lawmakers to be a legitimate concern, creating the appearance of corruption, if not leading to actual corruption, as in the Nixon White House.

In their brief before the court, however, McCutcheon and the RNC argue that the system of contribution caps supported in Buckley and subsequent decisions has been made irrelevant by the Citizens United ruling, which opened the door to unlimited independent spending by corporations, unions and, through a lower court ruling, individuals.

The unlimited spending allowed by Citizens United does raise the question of whether overall limits -- or even individual contribution limits -- matter when a donor can simply give unlimited amounts to support or oppose a candidate through a super PAC or a non-disclosing nonprofit. This reasoning has been echoed in a handful of state capitals where lawmakers have passed legislation since the 2010 decision to raise contribution limits in order to help candidates remain competitive with the rising tide of independent spending.

After pondering and rejecting this argument, D.C. Circuit Judge Janice Rogers Brown, writing for a three-judge panel in the lower court,predicted where the arguments made by McCutcheon and the RNC would be decided. "Plaintiffs raise the troubling possibility that Citizens United undermined the entire contribution limits scheme, but whether that case will ultimately spur a new evaluation of Buckley is a question for the Supreme Court, not us," she wrote.

The Supreme Court may ultimately decide to strike down or uphold the overall limits, but there is also a middle path. The court could find the overall limits to be generally constitutional, but their level to be unconstitutionally low. This would require Congress to set new caps that meet with whatever requirements the court decides are appropriate.

Oral arguments in McCutcheon v. FEC are scheduled for Oct. 8, with a ruling likely to arrive just in time for a potential new explosion of money in the 2014 midterms.

---

Republican National Committee has adopted oppositions to Agenda 21 as a core part of its platform and has asked that Mitt Romney include it as a part of his convention platform when the GOP convention gathers later this month....

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/15/523931/republican-party-officially-embraces-garbage-agenda-21-conspiracy-theories-as-its-national-platform/

big data:

Steve Adler, a Rhode Island programmer who helped start one of the companies that became NGP VAN, has switched sides and developed a parallel system for Republicans called rVotes.

Adler’s company has had meetings or calls to present its system to some of the most influential Republican data consultants — from the Romney campaign’s digital gurus Zac Moffatt and Michael Beach (who got a demonstration in the spring of 2011) to the RNC (first back in 2009 and again in March, when he pitched to chief of staff Mike Shields and top adviser Jeff Larson) to Rove (who talked with an rVotes supporter after the election).

Despite the meetings, Adler says there’s a reluctance among GOP bigwigs to award data contracts to anyone who’s not part of the insider Beltway consultant class. “They just don’t know what they’re doing,” Adler charged, adding “They’re not qualified.”

As for his efforts to get traction for rVotes among Washington’s GOP elite, he said, “It’s like trying to sell beauty products to ugly people, but they’re blind, so they don’t know that they’re ugly.”

His company failed to land any big federal or state GOP contracts last year, with federal records showing rVotes earned only $18,000 in 2012 mostly from longshot or tea party congressional candidates such as Will Cardon of Arizona, Barry Hinckley of Rhode Island and Jamie Radtke of Virginia.

Moreover, Adler says there’s little incentive for consultants to let anyone else try their hand, since “even though they’ve failed, they succeeded, because they still made money off of ORCA and Data Trust.”

To wit, the companies that handled the bulk of the data business for Romney’s campaign and the RNC — Targeted Victory, FLS Connect and Target Point Consulting — since the beginning of 2011 have received $190 million from Romney, the RNC and other federal Republican candidates, committees and groups,FEC records show.

The huge windfalls drew harsh criticism from Republicans, who — noting the firm’s close ties to the folks picking vendors (Targeted Victory was created by Moffatt and Beach, while Target Point was founded by Alex Gage, whose wife Katie Gage was Romney’s deputy campaign manager, and FLS Connect was founded partly by Larson and counted Romney political director Rich Beeson among its partners) — called it everything from “racketeering” to the “incestuous bleeding of the Republican Party.”

RNC chairman Reince Priebus defended Larson, who served as RNC chief of staff during the 2012 election, pointing out that he stepped down from FLS Connect. But the decision to open the data file to outside firms was seen in some quarters as a response to the argument that the party didn’t welcome outsiders.

The idea, as expressed in the autopsy, was that the RNC should be “supporting competition in the marketplace to ensure that the best ideas rise to the top.” But even that announcement was greeted skeptically, with grass-roots critics pointing out that the RNC only recently created GOP Data Center, which it pays FLS Connect to maintain and encourages state parties to adopt.

“Volunteers have been very frustrated” with GOP Data Center, said Steven Kuivenhoven, a Michigan GOP official during the 2012 cycle who encouraged activists to use alternative voter outreach interfaces last year. He has emerged as an rVotes evangelist, supporting a proposal Adler submitted this month to the state party, and he expressed concern about state parties relying primarily on GOP Data Center, which Michigan’s GOP this year agreed to use.

---

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/10/18171843-massachusetts-gomez-already-struggling-badly?lite

ust a week after winning his party's Senate special election primary in Massachusetts, Republican Gabriel Gomez finds himself in the middle of two fairly serious controversies. As of yesterday, the novice candidate is handling both poorly.

The first issue is Gomez's involvement in a head-shaking tax scam -- he claimed a $281,500 tax deduction by claiming not to change the facade of his house, despite the fact that he was already forbidden under local bylaws from changing the facade of his house. The Senate candidate, in other words, accepted a very generous reward for failing to do something he couldn't do anyway.

Asked for an explanation, Gomez said it's "disgraceful" and "dishonorable" for his opponent, Rep. Ed Markey (D), to bring this up. Apropos of nothing, Gomez added that the veteran congressman is a "hack."

Of course, that didn't answer the question about his apparent tax scam. Neither did this.

Republican US Senate nominee Gabriel E. Gomez, facing questions about a $281,500 historic tax deduction on his Cohasset home, rejected calls Thursday from the media and Democrats to release tax returns and other details about the deal.

"I have nothing to hide,'' said Gomez on a campaign stop in Lawrence, when asked by a Globe reporter why he would not make public the details about how the federal tax deduction was calculated for the easement to limit changes on the home that the candidate and his wife bought for $2.1 million in November 2004.

Here's a tip for politicians everywhere: don't say you have nothing to hide while you're hiding things without explanation.

Complicating matters, while this story was raising questions about Gomez's integrity, another story was putting the Republican's credibility in doubt.

Gomez is a rookie when it comes to seeking public office -- his only previous experience was running for a local office in his small hometown, and he came in third out of three candidates -- but he's not entirely new to politics. In fact, just last year, he worked with a right-wing super PAC called the "Special Operations Opsec Education Fund," which seemed to exist only to attack President Obama over the mission that killed Osama bin Laden.

This week, Gomez sought to distance himself from the smear operation, saying he didn't work for the group he used to work for.

At a campaign event in Boston on Tuesday, Gomez addressed his involvement with the group.

"As far as OPSEC, I did two interviews for OPSEC. I was never associated with OPSEC. I never donated to OPSEC. I wasn't part of OPSEC," he said. [...]

"I was never connected with them in the first place. I just went on there because we overlapped on that issue about the president taking too much credit and, more importantly, they leaked information that was bad for the unit down there and it put their lives at risk," he said.

As Joan McCarter joked, "No, he was never associated with them. He was just the person they put on national TV as their spokesperson."

Gomez was "never connected" with the right-wing group? As a rule, political operations do not send a spokesperson to speak on their behalf on national television unless the spokesperson is, you know, connected to the group.

To answer your next question, I'm not familiar enough with Massachusetts election law to know what would happen if Gomez exits the race, but neither he nor the state Republican Party have much time to deal with these problems -- the Senate special election is on June 25.

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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus wants Massachusetts Democratic Senate nominee Ed Markey to take down a YouTube video criticizing GOP nominee Gabriel Gomez for attempting to swiftboat President Obama during the 2012 election.

Priebus is pretending that Markey's video smears Gomez by showing an image of him side-by-side with Osama bin Laden, but the real story is that Markey's video showed an image of Gomez appearing on MSNBC alongside a clip from an anti-Obama swiftboating video that Gomez was defending. The video, produced by a right-wing Super PAC called OpSec in support of Mitt Romney during the 2012 president campaign, accused President Obama of leaking classified information to take more credit than he deserved for the killing of bin Laden.

As it turns out, the video Gomez was defending included images of both bin Laden and President Obama. So it's true that there was a fleeting split screen image of Gomez and bin Laden, but as you can see above, there was also an image Gomez and President Obama. It makes as much sense for Priebus to claim that Markey was trying to link Gomez with bin Laden as it would for him to claim that Markey was trying to suggest President Obama supports Gomez—or vice versa.

Despite all that, Priebus would have you believe that Markey's campaign what Saxby Chambliss did to Max Cleland or what the swiftboaters did to John Kerry. But the truth is the exact opposite: Markey's video reveals Gomez's past as a spokesman for swiftboaters. It's baffling that Priebus would follow the National Republican Senatorial Committee's lead by calling attention to a video revealing Gomez to be a typical Republican hack, but the fact that he would try to distort it is not surprising at all.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/07/1207436/-Reince-Priebus-demands-Ed-Markey-remove-video-of-Gabriel-Gomez-swiftboating-Obama-on-bin-Laden-raid

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trms:

But to help "broaden the GOP's appeal with voters," the Republican National Committee has turned to a rather motley crew to offer the party guidance. As we discussedyesterday, one of the invited guests at the spring meeting is former Vice President Dick Cheney, but he won't be alone.

In addition to Cheney, Priebus told national committee members that influential conservative opinion makers Hugh Hewitt, David Horowitz and Larry Solov will also address the RNC's spring meeting.

Oh, for crying out loud.

Look, I don't blame the RNC for wanting to "reach out to new voters, specifically Asian Americans, blacks, Hispanics and young people." I also don't blame the RNC for seeking guidance from others, since folks inside the Republican National Committee clearly don't know how to broaden the party's appeal on their own.

But even if we put Cheney and his record of spectacular failures aside, if the RNC expects to receive worthwhile guidance from David Horowitz and Hugh Hewitt, I have some bad news for Reince Priebus and Co.

Horowitz, for example, is one of the nation's most abrasive anti-Muslim activists, a notorious conspiracy theorist who's dabbled in some ugly racial politics, and someone who believes political correctness will lead to a "totalitarian future." He's also written books with titles like "Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes" and "The Race Card: White Guilt, Black Resentment, and the Assault on Truth and Justice."

And who better to help broaden the RNC's appeal than the guy who wrote "Hating Whitey"?

Hewitt, meanwhile, is a well-known far-right radio host and blogger who spent parts of 2012 telling Republican voters that there was a media conspiracy to skew polling results. A compilation of Hewitt's greatest hits is challenging, but note that 20 years ago, when he helped oversee the creation of the Nixon Library, he wanted to screen researchers who could make use of the facility, restricting those he deemed insufficiently conservative.

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apple, walmart etc use: Teradata is just one of the major data outfits with which leading Republican strategists are talking in their declared effort to match Barack Obama's big data campaign tactics, according to one person with knowledge of the strategy discussions.

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2012: he Republican National Committee, for instance, laid out $333.9 million for the presidential contest, far more than the Democratic National Committee's $197.8 million. Outside spending by super PACs and politically active nonprofits on the presidential race also came out heavily in favor of Republicans. Conservative outside groups spent $454.5 million to get a Republican elected president, while liberal outside groups spent a relatively paltry $124.5 million.

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Fox News cribbed research and graphics directly from a National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) press release without disclosing their origin in order to attack President Obama's purported "sequester priorities."

In a Fox & Friends Saturday interview with NRCC chairman Greg Walden, co-host Tucker Carlson claimed that he was "going through a list here" of supposedly wasteful federal spending projects and crucial programs that are impacted by the mandatory spending cuts required by sequestration, but did not explain where that list originated. Every case of both worthwhile and allegedly worthless spending they discussed had previously been highlighted in a February 28 NRCC press release.

Later in the��segment, Carlson asked Walden, "wouldn't it make sense for Republicans to come up with a list, push that list over to the White House, and publicize that list of pointless programs like this that ought to be cut?" Walden replied, "Absolutely."

Throughout this segment and a second segment Fox aired on-screen graphics that mimicked images included in the NRCC release in order to criticized what they termed Obama's "sequestration priorities." Here are those images, with the Fox versions on the left and NRCC versions on the right:

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huffpo

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to campaign finance laws limiting how much an individual can give to political campaigns.

The justices on Tuesday decided to hear an appeal from Shaun McCutcheon of Alabama and the Republican National Committee. They are arguing that it's unconstitutional to stop a donor from giving more than $46,200 to political candidates and $70,800 to political committees and PACs.

McCutcheon says he accepts that he can only give $2,500 to a single candidate but says he should be able to give that amount to as many GOP candidates as he wants.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the limits, but the high court decided to review that decision.

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Mitt Antagonists

Posted: 05/24/2012 10:25 am

Which environmental policies reflect the real Mitt Romney? Those he displayed as Massachusetts governor, or the ones that the Republican Party is asking him to embrace as a presidential candidate?

How Romney responds to the Republican National Committee's (RNC) request to denounce a United Nations non-binding environmental protection action plan should go a long way towards telling us which direction he is ultimately headed. The U.N. plan, which also calls for the eradication of poverty, was denigrated by the RNC in a resolution issued at its annual winter meeting in January. RNC officials dismissed the action plan as a thinly veiled attempt to usurp our sovereignty and absorb us into a U.N.-orchestrated world government. The RNC is the central policy arm of the Republican Party and clearly has little use for the U.N. One wonders whether Romney shares that dim view. If so, he certainly did not exhibit that sentiment as governor. Would he now be willing to consider reducing our financial contribution or even severing ties to the U.N., courses of action that would be cheered in some Republican quarters?

In its resolution, the RNC demonized U.N.-recommended "sustainable development" and "smart growth" land use planning as "extreme environmentalism" and "social engineering" threatening America's core value of private property ownership.

One of the cornerstone's of Romney's administration while Governor of Massachusetts was a sustainable development program rooted in the concept of smart growth. The state encouraged clustered high density multi-family housing where development already existed and public transit was nearby. In 2003, the Governor told Commonwealth Magazine "I very much believe in the concept known as smart growth or sustainable development... We don't want to deplete green space, air, water, in the rush to grow."

The RNC also singled out the U.N. plan's advocacy of "green" and "alternative energy" projects as a blatant example of anti-capitalist social engineering.

Romney, on the other hand, had no political reservations about green technology when presiding over Massachusetts. He established a 15 million dollar Green Energy Fund and authorized state subsidies for solar energy expansion.

In its resolution distributed to all Republican candidates from the presidential nominee on down (with full expectation of concurrence), the RNC issued a blanket indictment of the U.N. Action Plan, calling its principles "destructive and insidious". Just how bad were they? Among those U.N. "menacing" principles was the concept that environmental protection should be integral to economic development. Another principle was that a solid framework of environmental regulation needed to be in place. A third urged that environmental impact statements be prepared prior to approval of projects in ecologically sensitive areas.

It is very unlikely that Romney as Massachusetts Governor would have had a problem with any of the aforementioned principles. After all, while in the State House, he implemented stringent anti-air pollution standards and strengthened environmental enforcement by 54 percent.

So the question boils down to whether Romney, the presidential candidate, has undergone a transformation from Romney, the governor, and will acquiesce to the RNC'S conspiratorial vision of internationally-endorsed environmental protection?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/edward-flattau/mitt-romney-environmental-policy_b_1541101.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

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contributors

http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/contrib.php?cmte=RPC&cycle=2010

http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/indus.php?cycle=2010&cmte=RPC

payout to co's

http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/expend.php?cycle=2010&cmte=RPC

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grist:

Romney, once an anti-sprawl crusader, created model for Obama ‘smart growth’ program

By Lisa Hymas

Everyone knows that “Obamacare” was modeled on Mitt Romney��s Massachusetts health-care law. But did you know that a key Obama “smart growth�� initiative — the Partnership for Sustainable Communities — was also created in the mold of a Romney program?

Tea Partiers rallied to quash funding for this Obama partnership last fall. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), conservative darling, criticized the idea for the partnership when it first arose and accused the Obama administration of trying to impose “an urban-utopian fantasy through an unprecedented intrusion of the Federal Government into the shaping of local communities.” The Republican National Committee recently warned that smart growth is part of a U.N. conspiracy (green helicopters, anyone?).

This is yet another issue on which the party’s presumptive presidential nominee looks to be seriously out of sync with the GOP base.

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agenda 21

��

The Republican National Committee — the group that shapes the national GOP political platform, devises campaign strategies, promotes candidates, and bashes all things Obama — passed a resolution in January warning Americans of a sinister plot hidden in a United Nations report called Agenda 21. Short of suggesting that we all wear tinfoil hats and keep an eye out for contrails, the RNC would have been hard-pressed to put itself further on the wacko fringe.

Here’s the windup to the resolution, unearthed by the New York Times on Feb. 3:

WHEREAS, the United Nations Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of extreme environmentalism, social engineering, and global political control … and,

WHEREAS, the United Nations Agenda 21 is being covertly pushed into local communities throughout the United States of America through the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) through local “sustainable development” policies such as Smart Growth, Wildlands Project, Resilient Cities, Regional Visioning Projects, and other “Green�� or “Alternative” projects; and,

WHEREAS, this United Nations Agenda 21 plan of radical so-called “sustainable development” views the American way of life of private property ownership, single family homes, private car ownership and individual travel choices, and privately owned farms; all as destructive to the environment …

What’s that? The America way of life is destructive to the environment? Banish the thought.

After a few more whereases, the committee gets down to the business of “exposing … the dangerous intent of the plan,” resolving to send a copy of this gem (you can download the whole thing from the RNC website) to every Republican candidate and elected official in the country, and pushing for the resolution to be adopted into the official Republican Party Platform at the national convention in Tampa, Fla., in August...

http://grist.org/politics/paranoia-strikes-deep-gop-exposes-dangerous-u-n-sustainability-plot/

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��

related: TP

This kind of unglamorous, labor-intensive work is happening around the country. The demand for planning funds far outstrips the supply - this year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development received $500 million in funding applications for a $100 million pool of grants. But this year’s batch of grants will be the last. Tea Party activists have been assailing Sustainable Communities as a tool for making municipalities subservient to Washington bureaucrats; alternately, they’ve denounced it as the soft launch of a socialist-inspired UN takeover of America’s government.

In response House Republicans cut all Sustainable Communities grants from a recently enacted mini-omnibus budget. The House actually wanted to go even further, prohibiting any HUD funds from being deployed in support of what it called “ill-defined rubrics, such as ‘sustainability,’ ‘livability,’ ‘inclusivity,’ and equity.’ ’’ And it cut a $100 million placeholder for Obama’s doomed $38 billion high-speed rail initiative for good measure. Never mind that the cuts will wind up costing more than they save: These days, craven power plays are good politics....

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2011/11/29/frugal-answer-zoning-pitfalls-needlessly-slashed/I9OVLx1ORogUj2NPCnNfFN/story.html