Meidas Touch Legal AF
-=-=-
RWW
- Brett Meiselas @ MeidasTouch Network: Fox News Caught Passing Off Rogers Campaign Backers as 'Bipartisan' Voter Panel
Four of Lara Trump's five Fox voter panelists appeared at Mike Rogers campaign events. One also serves as treasurer of a multimillion-dollar pro-Rogers super PAC.
-=-=
-=-=-=
---
Elizabeth Dwoskin exposes the tech billionaires pushing right-wing politics and Vance 2028 campaign.
12 25
Elizabeth Dwoskin joins Anthony Davis to discuss the role of tech billionaires in supporting right-wing politics, the creation of the Rockbridge Network, and the strategic planning behind Vance’s 2028 campaign. Plus the socio-economic implications of these alliances, including the impact on the working class with Trump’s economy routed in A.I. and automation - only on The Weekend Show.
---
---
AN BADASH 9 25
In a fiery declaration, President Donald Trump announced he is designating "antifa" a terrorist organization. Some experts say he lacks the authority to do so and will struggle to enforce such a move — while others warn it could give him sweeping license to target groups or individuals he disfavors.
“I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” Trump wrote on social media on Wednesday evening. “I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
As many have noted, antifa is not an organized group. It simply means “anti-fascist,” or “anti-fascism.”
But Trump has taken the step anyway. Here’s what some experts say.
READ MORE: ‘Depraved’: Vance Scorched for ‘Reprehensible’ Joke About Military’s Deadly Boat Strikes
BBC News reports that some legal experts have called into question Trump’s legal authority to declare antifa a terrorist organization.
“The existing rules do allow the government, specifically the State Department, to make a list of ‘foreign terrorist organizations’ which makes it a crime to give funds or other ‘material support’ to those groups.”
“But the key word here is ‘foreign,'” BBC notes, “and those experts we have spoken to pointed out that free speech rights under the US constitution’s first amendment would limit Trump’s ability to ban – or restrict funding for – domestic movements like antifa.”
Rumen Cholakov, an expert in US constitutional law at King’s College London, “told us that if the government were to use its powers against them in the US their actions would be ‘potentially susceptible to constitutional challenges’ in court for violating these rights.”
Professor David Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University, told BBC Verify, “Under the First Amendment, no one can be punished for joining a group or giving money to a group.”
Meanwhile, other experts have also weighed in.
READ MORE: ‘We’re Literally Sitting in the Building’: House Democrat Shreds GOP’s Spin on Violence
Attorney and MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski observed, “Since antifa is now designed as a terrorist organization it will be interesting to see how they determine who is a member and how they prove it is an organization.”
Politico senior legal affairs correspondent Kyle Cheney noted, “Trump says he’s designating ‘antifa’ a terrorist group and launching a probe into finding of antifa activities. The FBI has long said antifa doesn’t really have a centralized structure or leadership.”
U.S. Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY), an attorney, told CNN Wednesday night that “there is no antifa organization.”
He added, “the point” is that Trump is “using the Charlie Kirk murder as a pretext to go after people that he disagrees with. He, on the very night of Kirk’s murder, you will remember, accused the left of committing the murder — when the murderer had not even been caught or identified. This is all a pretext, and it’s a shame, I think … that Charlie Kirk actually stood for free speech. And instead, they’re using his memory to attack free speech.”
Political scholar Dr. Michael Mackey issued this warning: “‘Antifa’ is an artifact of Russian information warfare and the Kremlin-sponsored MAGA cult. No such entity exists in American civil society. Trump is owned by Putin.”
Intelligence and foreign policy analyst Malcolm Nance, a terrorism expert, said, “You cannot designate an idea as a terrorist group.There is no organization called ANTIFA. There is no leadership or funding path. There is no membership.”
“What he is doing is setting the stage to designate ANY American as a terrorist,” Nance alleged. “That’s Fascism.”
CBS News national security coordinating producer Jim LaPorta, an award-winning journalist, wrote: “It’s unclear how Pres. Trump could designate a group inside the U.S. as a domestic terrorist group. The U.S. does not have a federal crime of domestic terrorism. Additionally, it’s been understood that the Govt. would run into 1st and 4th Amendment issues.”
But those hurdles aside, experts are still issuing warnings.
Olga Lautman, a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), an expert on Russia, and creator and co-host of the Kremlin File podcast series, expressed concern.
“So Trump is designating antifa as a terrorist organization,” she wrote. “Problem is he thinks all Democrats are this so called antifa. He is following Russia’s playbook step by step to crush opposition. Hope everyone wakes up.”
On Substack, Lautman expanded her warning.
She pointed to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s remarks on Monday, after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Calling the “radical left” a “vast domestic terror movement,” Miller said: “With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.”
“It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name,” he vowed.
“Where have I heard this before?” Lautman said of Miller’s statement. “In Russia, where the Kremlin seizes upon every terrorist attack, bombing, protest, or act of violence (some of which they carry out in false flag operations) to justify new crackdowns, laws, and the systematic destruction of any semblance of independent opposition.”
Lautman continued her stark warning, writing, “what makes the current moment in America so perilous is how closely it now echoes this Soviet/Russian script, with the killing of Charlie Kirk already being transformed from an individual crime into the cornerstone of a supposed vast conspiracy of leftist violence — again, without evidence — a pretext for sweeping crackdowns that will not stop at violent actors but extend to protesters, grassroots organizers, and the infrastructure that sustains them.”
“Groups like Indivisible and MoveOn, platforms like ActBlue, that fund Democratic candidates,” she predicted, “will all be recast as pipelines of extremism, stripped of their democratic role.”
---
MeidasTouch is an American progressive media company. The network describes itself as doing 'pro-democracy' journalism.[4][5][6]
Previously, the MeidasTouch name was used by its founders for a liberal American political action committee formed in March 2020 with the purpose of stopping the reelection of Donald Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election.[7][8][9][10] The SuperPAC aligned with the Democratic Party in the 2020 United States presidential election, the 2020–21 United States Senate election in Georgia, and the 2020–21 United States Senate special election in Georgia.[11][12][13]
The PAC changed its name to Democracy Defense Action in 2023.[4] The MeidasTouch name continues to be used by the MeidasTouch Network, the news organization.[2]
History
The committee was founded in March 2020 by three brothers from Long Island while in quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[14][15] One of the founders, Ben Meiselas, is an attorney who represented former NFL player Colin Kaepernick.[16][17][18] Brett Meiselas is an Emmy-winning video editor who worked for The Ellen DeGeneres Show.[19] Jordan Meiselas is a marketing supervisor living in Brooklyn, New York.[19]
The group name and slogan come from their mother and father, combining their father's last name, Meiselas, and their mother's maiden name, Golden,[15] while alluding to the mythological Greek king Midas known for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold.
On July 21, 2023, MeidasTouch filed paperwork to rename itself to Democracy Defense Action,[20] and later that year, news reporting indicated the MeidasTouch name was being used for a news network called MeidasTouch Network.[21][22][2]
Notable projects
2020 U.S. presidential election
On April 22, 2020, the committee released their first video, titled "Are You Better Off?", an allusion to Ronald Reagan's famous line in the 1980 general election presidential debate,[23] which criticized Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States;[24] The committee shared the video in a Twitter reply to George Conway, which was then retweeted by him.[15]
On June 6, 2020, another video was released, called "Bye Ivanka"; it took parts out of her commencement speech and focused on her relation with China and criticized Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.[25] Her Wichita State University Tech speech was canceled due to student and teacher pressure.[26][27]
On June 17, 2020, another video was released, "Gop Cowards", which accused Republican senators of being cowards. Near the end of the video, followers are urged to vote 11 Republican legislators out.[28]
On June 23, the committee released a video called "Trump Kills US".[29] The video focuses on Trump's comment at his Tulsa rally which urged doctors to "slow the testing down".[30] MeidasTouch called it "Mass murder on a national scale".[31]
On July 8, a new video was released called "Creepy Trump". It compiled Kellyanne Conway's comments on Joe Biden and put it together with Trump statements.[32] The ad uses clips of Conway's comments and remarks Trump has presented about women, and was played on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.[33]
On July 14, another video was released called "#ByeDonJr". It takes Donald Trump Jr.'s comments on Fox News about Biden and applies them against Trump. The video also further criticizes the older Trump's handling of the pandemic.[34][35]
The group continued its activities after the November 3 elections. On November 27, it claimed credit for making #DiaperDon the top Twitter trending topic in the US, via a tweet that mocked (as summarized by The Independent) a "press briefing ... which saw [Donald Trump] furiously assail a reporter from behind a surprisingly small desk", and provoked Trump into calling for the immediate abolishing of Section 230 "for purposes of National Security".[36]
2020–2021 Georgia Senate elections
The SuperPAC targeted Republican candidates in the 2020–21 United States Senate election in Georgia and the 2020–21 United States Senate special election in Georgia with several televised attack ads, billboards, direct mailings and door-to-door canvassing efforts.[11][12][13]
Most notably, MeidasTouch aired an advertisement called "The Grinches of Georgia." CNN said of the ads, "Humor is the chosen route for Democrat-backed Meidas Touch. Their television ads show Perdue and Loeffler with green faces and Grinch-like features. A nursery rhyme narration includes the verse, "Their stockings were stuffed from the stocks that were sold, when they heard Covid was coming, before we were told."[37] The Hill credits MeidasTouch as framing the Republican candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue as "Looting Loeffler" and "Chicken Perdue," respectively. "The ad takes aim at the senators—dubbed 'Looting Loeffler and Chicken Perdue'—and highlights the controversies surrounding their stock purchases," The Hill said.[38] The "Grinches" ad campaign also included matching billboards and mailers.[39]
2024 U.S. presidential election
On July 22, 2024, shortly after JD Vance was named Donald Trump's running mate, MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski posted a clip from a 2021 Fox News interview in which Vance stated, "we are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too." The resurfaced remarks from Vance sparked viral outrage against the candidate across social media, with many celebrities weighing in, including Jennifer Aniston and Taylor Swift.[40][41][42] Swift, referencing Vance's comments, signed off her post endorsing Kamala Harris as a "childless cat lady."[43]
Reception
In April 2021, Seth Hettena of Rolling Stone magazine said their campaign fundraising was "nonsensical and a more effective tool for fundraising than for helping Democrats win elections" and that "MeidasTouch's grandiose self-promotion doesn't match reality".[44]
In February 2022, singer-songwriter India Arie shared a compilation of podcaster Joe Rogan saying the racial slur "nigger" on The Joe Rogan Experience on Instagram.[45] Rogan apologized, calling his past language "regretful and shameful" while also saying that the clips were "taken out of context" and he only quoted the slur to discuss its use by others.[46][47][48] The footage in question was first published by the political action committee PatriotTakes,[49] an affiliate of MeidasTouch.[50] This resulted in allegations of a defamation attempt by MeidasTouch, which the founders denied in an interview with Barstool Sports founder David Portnoy, instead attributing the source of the footage to Alex Jones, who was a recurring guest on Rogan's show.[51] Rogan described the video compilation as a "political hit job".[52][53]
MeidasTouch was described in the Columbia Journalism Review as being made for social media, unlike a lot of more traditional left-leaning media outlets, and does a better job than most of exploiting the perception that the mainstream media was too sympathetic to Trump.[4]
See also
- Courier Newsroom
- Democracy Docket
- Democratic backsliding in the United States
- More Perfect Union
- The Lever
---
vets doku
Against All Enemies – FULL MOVIE
Aug 5, 2024
448,671 views • Premiered Aug 5, 2024
Why would US military veterans take up arms against the country they swore an oath to protect? Through gripping personal perspectives from all sides of this ongoing crisis, Against All Enemies goes deep inside the violent extremist movement in America, alongside the Proud Boys, 3 Percenters, and with never-before-seen footage of the Oath Keepers. These groups, organized and led by highly trained military veterans, pose one of the greatest threats to the United States today. While most veterans are successful in their transition to civilian life, an increasingly radicalized element is drawn to the insurrectionist movement. We saw evidence of this during the January 6 Capitol riots, but the danger goes far beyond a single day. The film explores the historical roots of the insurrectionist cause, its conspiracy fueled draw for today's veterans, and the top-cover coming from powerful politicians and highly decorated former military officers. Against All Enemies is a warning about an existential threat to democracy and a beacon for those hoping to combat it.
---