An assault on American voters is underway

[China]

On 12/1/2022 at 5:16 PM, China said:

 

Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch to face questioning as part of Dominion Voting’s $1.6 billion lawsuit

 

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch is slated to appear for a deposition on Monday as the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against the company and its cable networks moves forward.

 

Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox, which is seeking $1.6 billion in damages, has argued Fox News and Fox Business made false claims its voting machines rigged the results of the 2020 election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

 

Fox personalities including Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Jeanine Pirro were deposed earlier this year.

 

Murdoch will be the highest-ranking executive to be questioned so far. A Fox Corp. spokesman declined to comment on Thursday.

 

In June, a Delaware judge overseeing the case had reportedly ruled that Dominion’s lawsuit could be expanded beyond the cable TV networks to include their parent company, meaning Fox Corp.’s chair and Lachlan’s father, Rupert Murdoch, could also be deposed. Dominion has argued the parent company and its top brass played a role in Fox’s hosts in spreading misinformation about voter fraud.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Fox chief Rupert Murdoch to be deposed in $1.6 billion Dominion defamation case

 

Fox Corp (FOXA.O) Chairman Rupert Murdoch will be questioned under oath on Thursday and Friday in a defamation lawsuit over his network’s coverage of unfounded vote-rigging claims during the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

 

Election technology company Dominion Voting Systems says Fox News Network amplified false claims that its machines were used to rig the election against Republican Donald Trump and in favor of his Democratic rival Joe Biden, who won the election. Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages.

 

Murdoch, 91, is the most high-profile figure to face questioning in the case.

 

Fox has argued that it had a right to report on election-fraud allegations made by Trump and his lawyers, and that Dominion’s lawsuit would stifle press freedom. Fox referred Reuters to an earlier statement saying: “There is nothing more newsworthy than covering the president of the United States and his lawyers making allegations of voter fraud."

 

A judge rejected the network’s bid to toss the case in December 2021.

 

"From the highest levels down, Fox knowingly spread lies about Dominion," the election machine company said in a statement.

 

Murdoch is expected to be questioned in person in Los Angeles on Thursday and Friday by lawyers for Dominion, according to a filing in Delaware Superior Court. The session will be closed to the public. Murdoch’s deposition had previously been scheduled for Dec. 13 and Dec. 14, 2022.

 

Dominion has also sought communications from Murdoch, his son Lachlan Murdoch and other Fox News personnel, as it seeks to prove that the network either knew the statements it aired were false or recklessly disregarded their accuracy. That is the standard of “actual malice” that public figures must prove to prevail in defamation cases.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

A 23-Year-Old Mayor Tried Trump’s Stolen Election Playbook. Only It Worked.

 

A small Kansas town is reeling after a baby-faced 23-year-old manipulated procedural technicalities to reinstall himself as mayor in one night, seemingly taking a page from the playbook used by former President Donald Trump after he was voted out of office.

 

Only, this time, it worked.

 

“People have said this reminds them of Germany in 1935,” Jeffery Jones, whose bid for a council seat in Goddard, Kansas, collapsed last week as Hunter Larkin abruptly took control, told The Daily Beast. “Like, ‘Hey, we don’t like you anymore and we’re gonna vote you out and put our own person in.’”

 

The convoluted machinations by which Larkin maneuvered his way back into power were described as “essentially, a coup” and reminiscent of a totalitarian regime, according to one recently departed council member. And while Goddard, a Wichita suburb with a population of just under 5,400, isn’t necessarily going to influence policy shifts on a national scale, the strategy used by Larkin—a right-winger who last year promoted an appearance in Goddard by accused sex pest and conservative kingmaker Matt Schlapp—could serve as a stark warning of what’s possible elsewhere.

 

“I have to hand it to Larkin,” Wichita Eagle columnist Dion Lefle wrote. “I’ve covered cities for a long time and have seldom seen a political takeover that was this sleazy, and yet this well-orchestrated.”

 

Larkin’s improbable ascent to office can be traced back to August 2020, when the then-mayor of Goddard stepped down amid a fraud charge for counterfeiting tickets to the local zoo’s “Zoobilee” charity fundraiser. Then-21-year-old City Council President Hunter Larkin was appointed to the job.

 

 

In November 2021, Larkin, who by day works as an accounting manager for a fiberglass oil field pipe manufacturer owned by a wealthy local family that has helped fund his political aspirations, was busted for DUI. He later pleaded guilty, receiving a sentence of probation and staying on as mayor until May 2022, when he resigned in the wake of a news report calling his ethics into question. Larkin said he was leaving office to focus on a statehouse run, but kept a seat on the city council.

 

Vice-Mayor Larry Zimmerman was then appointed Goddard’s mayor, and has filled the position since—until last Tuesday night.

 

The agenda for that evening’s city council meeting didn’t appear particularly unique, at least on the surface; members would, among other things, consider a sign regulation amendment, discuss a road closure request for a Lions Club car show, and appoint a new city councilperson after a councilman named Michael Proctor relinquished his seat on Dec. 31.

 

Zimmerman nominated Jeffery Jones, who works as a hospice chaplain, for Proctor’s old job.

 

However, the vote ended in a tie. So Zimmerman instead nominated Aubrey Collins, a radio host and residential solar panel salesman who goes by “Cowboy Rip.” Collins’ candidacy was approved, and he was sworn in.

 

And, according to Jones, “That’s when everything kind of went haywire.”

 

As Collins was being seated, Larkin, who lost his bid for the Kansas legislature, immediately moved to amend the agenda and hold a non-public executive session to discuss “unelected personnel.” According to Lefler, the newspaper columnist, Larkin was eager to cast out City Administrator Brian Silcott, who has been critical of him in the past.

At this point, Jones left, thinking the meeting was over.

 

“Had I known what would happen next, I would have stayed,” he told The Daily Beast. “Because when they came back, that’s when Hunter asked for the election of a new mayor.”

 

When they returned, Larkin swiftly proposed removing Zimmerman as mayor, a motion which was approved by all except Zimmerman himself. Vice-Mayor Sarah Leland was then installed as mayor of Goddard—briefly. She immediately addressed the others, saying she felt she did not have “the capability to do these job duties… especially the current situation we are dealing with, so I would like to nominate Hunter, as I feel he can complete the steps that need taking.”

 

And with that, Larkin became mayor, switching seats with Leland, now his second-in-command. Larkin quickly moved to oust Silcott, who he considered a fly in the ointment, prompting now-ex-Mayor Zimmerman to quit his city council seat in protest.

 

“Before you get to that point, I’d like to tender my resignation from the city council, effective immediately,” he said, and walked out.

 

The council then filled Zimmerman’s empty council seat with resident Keaton Fish, a support staffer at a local special-ed school. As he took his position, Larkin introduced a motion to terminate Silcott’s employment. They then went to a second closed session to discuss Silcott’s firing, where the decision was consummated. (The next day, Assistant City Administrator Thatcher Moddie resigned.)

 

“The day and age where unelected bureaucrats ran this town is over,” Larkin later exulted. “This governing body is going to be more involved than ever before.”

 

This, Jones argued on Friday, is wholly disingenuous.

 

“Hunter said ‘we’re tired of being run by unelected bureaucrats,’ but I’m like, ‘Well, you’re kind of unelected.’ He was elected as a council member, no one voted him in as mayor [either time]. And right now, there’s a petition out for a recall.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[Larry]

@China , might wanna not quote the entire article. 🙂 

[China]

19 minutes ago, Larry said:

@China , might wanna not quote the entire article. 🙂 

 

It's not the entire article, not even close.

[China]

Arizona’s new attorney general to use election fraud unit to boost voting rights

 

A unit created under the former Republican attorney general of Arizona to investigate claims of election fraud will now focus on voting rights and ballot access under the newly elected Democratic attorney general.

 

The Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, told the Guardian that instead of prosecuting claims of voter fraud, she will “reprioritize the mission and resources” of the unit to focus on “protecting voting access and combating voter suppression”. Mayes won the attorney general’s race in November against election denier Abe Hamadah by just 280 votes, a race that went to a state-mandated recount.

 

“Under my predecessor’s administration, the election integrity unit searched widely for voter fraud and found scant evidence of it occurring in Arizona,” Mayes said in a statement. “That’s because instances of voter fraud are exceedingly rare.”

 

Mayes also plans for the unit to work on protecting election workers, who have faced threats of violence and intimidation. And she intends for the unit to defend Arizonans’ right to vote by mail, which has been attacked by Republican lawmakers and the state GOP in recent years despite being the most common way Arizonans of all political parties cast their ballots.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Republicans are blowing an opportunity to make democracy better

 

The Republican National Committee is working on an internal report that recognizes the electoral damage that lies about voter fraud have caused — but suggests doing nothing to call out those lies as a problem. Instead, the report’s proposed solution lies in an ever-increasing focus on “election integrity,” a term that is easier to sell than “voter suppression.”

 

The Washington Post, which was the first to report on the draft prepared by the RNC’s “National Election Integrity Team,” says the group’s recommendations are “based on unsubstantiated claims that Democrats have implemented election procedures that allow for rigged votes.” That includes the familiar refrain that the GOP’s push to tighten access to the ballot box is needed in the face of a “continuing onslaught of Democrat election manipulation.”

 

The draft report is an apparent update to the work of the RNC Committee on Election Integrity, which was first announced in February 2021. Six months later, the committee released a report asserting that “due to a lack of transparency during the 2020 elections, Americans are understandably skeptical about aspects of our voting process and will continue to be unless transparency improves.” The solution the committee offered was to take advantage of a lapsed court order that once barred the RNC from repeating past “ballot security” measures to launch a “year-round effort to recruit, train, and organize volunteers with whom the party can engage at every step of the election administration process” as part of an “Election Integrity Operations” initiative.

 

At no point in the committee’s earlier work or the reported pending update do the committee members acknowledge the source of Americans’ supposed skepticism: former President Donald Trump and his cadre of election deniers. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

2 hours ago, China said:

At no point in the committee’s earlier work or the reported pending update do the committee members acknowledge the source of Americans’ supposed skepticism: former President Donald Trump and his cadre of election deniers. 

.... and the entire Republican Party, at every level. 
 

Even after Jan 6, when a mob of people literally scaled the walls and stormed the US Capitol, live on national TV, for the stated purpose of preventing an election from taking effect...

 

When the GOP had an almost God-sent opportunity to pretend to be shocked, try to sell "Oh, not us!  We haven't been actively supporting every single crime he's been openly, boastfully, committing for his entire candidacy.  Don't blame us. Just Trump.", and try to pin everything on The Guy Who's Already Lost, Anyway....

 

I predicted that they would not throw Trump under the bus. Because The Big Lie was going to be the cover story for the voter suppression maneuvers which they were already planning to unanimously shove through.

 

And that's why it's important to keep remembering - The Big Lie is not a Trump problem. It's a Republican problem. 
 

-----
 

I keep remembering a political cartoon. Two elephants in the front seat of a truck. The passenger, reading a newspaper labeled "Wisconsin Results", says "Well, looks like Americans will crawl over broken glass to vote". 
 

The second frame show they're driving a dump truck labeled "broken glass". Driver says "What's Plan B?"

Edited February 2, 2023 by Larry

[Cooked Crack]

 

[JCB]

Yup, we’ve been having the talk about leaving NC. Absolutely don’t want to but the fascism is real.

[skinsmarydu]

11 hours ago, JCB said:

Yup, we’ve been having the talk about leaving NC. Absolutely don’t want to but the fascism is real.

GA is trying to turn things around,  y'all are welcome here! 

[LD0506]

[Larry]

Heck, that the notion that government should attempt to make things better for it's citizens, is not just impossible, but is evil.  It's "socialism".  

 

[LD0506]

1 minute ago, Larry said:

Heck, that the notion that government should attempt to make things better for it's citizens, is not just impossible, but is evil.  It's "socialism".  

 

 

And maybe the worst part is that your comment is a fairly succinct encapsulation of what they believe, what they have been programmed to believe.

 

The business of America is business.

I've heard that one far too many times.

[China]

In win for GOP, NC Supreme Court positioned to reverse major voting rights cases

 

In a rare move, the North Carolina Supreme Court decided Friday that two high-profile political lawsuits with major consequences for voters in the state need a do-over.

 

The cases have to do with voting districts and voter identification laws, and they're the first major orders by the state’s highest court since Republicans gained a majority on the bench.

 

Republican lawmakers lost the nationally watched redistricting case — Harper v. Hall — last year, when the court ruled that extreme partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional.

Writing for the majority Friday, however, Republican Justice Trey Allen said that the court is allowed to rehear cases when it’s possible “that the opinion may be erroneous.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[EmirOfShmo]

5 minutes ago, China said:

In win for GOP, NC Supreme Court positioned to reverse major voting rights cases

 

Writing for the majority Friday, however, Republican Justice Trey Allen said that the court is allowed to rehear cases when it’s possible “that the opinion may be erroneous.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

WTF does that mean? Uh, I don't like their decision & I think it may be erroneous. That's just cause to rehear a case? 

[Larry]

"The newly sworn in NC Supreme Court's first piece of legislation from the bench, is to disagree with the previous court's ruling that intentionally partisan election laws violate the principal of democracy."

 

"Not by ruling that it's not creating fraudulent elections. But by ruling that they're OK with that."

[China]

'Not an official report': Ronna McDaniel distances from leaked doc urging GOP to ramp up election denial

 

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel appeared to distance herself from the recently circulated GOP document calling on Republicans at the state level to ramp up election denial efforts for 2024, according to WISN 12 political director Matt Smith.

 

"That's not an official report. There's other things that need to be added to that, including all the legal pursuits that we had, all the lawsuits that we had," said McDaniel. She added that, "We're going to continue to engage in election integrity, poll watchers, poll workers and litigation when it's necessary."

 

The document in question was unearthed by The Washington Post last week, and appeared to outline a plan to increase and formalize the process for election challenges, creating "election integrity officers" all around the country — even as the document acknowledged that election fraud conspiracy theories hurt Republican voters' confidence in elections and may have contributed to their losses in key states in 2020 and 2022.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Gen Z's political power: new data gives insight into America's youngest voters

 

For 19-year-old Jenna Ruiz, voting for the first time was a thrill.

 

"My group of friends and I were really excited," Ruiz said, a sophomore at Miami Dade College who serves as student government president.

 

Ruiz and her friends are just a few of the millions of young Americans newly eligible to vote in the 2022 midterms.

 

Still, that excitement didn't smooth over some of the uncertainty Ruiz experienced when it came time to actually cast her ballot.

 

"I felt, I'm not going to lie, a little bit lost on some of the things that were on the ballot," Ruiz told NPR. She said she was mostly motivated to vote because she disagreed with the conservative social policies of Florida's current Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who ended up winning reelection.

 

"I do identify more towards the Democratic Party, but I still felt like I didn't really know everything that was on the ballot," Ruiz added. "I just was excited to vote."

 

Ruiz is part of Generation Z, which is still just getting its feet wet in politics, since the oldest members of the generation turn 26 this year. Along with millennials, Gen Zers turned out in historically high numbers for a midterm election, second only to the 2018 election.

 

And while Gen Zers voted decidedly with Democrats last year — and say they were most concerned about issues related to abortion — some still wish they were better informed before voting. That's all according to a new post-election report on Gen Z from the education advocacy organization Murmuration, the Walton Family Foundation and the public opinion firm SocialSphere.

 

The report, which contains a national survey conducted shortly after the election, was exclusively obtained by NPR. It also found that Gen Z primarily relies on social media for news instead of more traditional media platforms — raising questions for strategists and organizers alike over how to engage the country's youngest adults in politics.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

How the Supreme Court Turned a Community Leader into a Criminal

 

In 2016, the Arizona Legislature passed a ban on ballot collection that was aimed at decreasing electoral participation by minorities, especially among the state’s large Latino community. The new law made it a felony to collect and return another person’s completed mail-in ballot unless they were their relative, household member or caregiver.

 

In 2022, Guillermina Fuentes, a 66-year-old grandmother, member of the school board and former mayor of San Luis, Arizona, became the first person convicted under this new law, as revealed by Type Investigations. Her crime was helping four eligible voters return their lawfully cast ballots to election officials to be counted. As a result of that assistance, Fuentes — who had no criminal record — spent 30 days in jail in near solitary confinement. She was also placed on probation for two years during which time she cannot vote.

 

What happened to Fuentes was wrong, but it was not random.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[The Evil Genius]

They are not even pretending anymore. 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by The Evil Genius

[China]

Supreme Court Reconsiders Case to Reinstate Trump

 

Te U.S. Supreme Court is set to consider whether or not to hear a lawsuit that seeks to remove President Joe Biden from the White House and reinstate former President Donald Trump to office.

 

The Brunson v. Adams lawsuit claims that lawmakers violated their oaths of office by allegedly failing to investigate a foreign intervention in the 2020 presidential race which allegedly rigged the election against Trump.

 

The case is based on the claim that the defendants—who include Congress members, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former Vice President Mike Pence—voted to certify the 2020 presidential election after receiving a valid request from 154 members of Congress to investigate unfounded claims of electoral fraud in six states.

 

The Supreme Court declined to consider the lawsuit on January 9, but the plaintiff, Raland Brunson, filed an appeal on January 23. Now, the court has to reconsider whether or not to hear the case, according to an update on the SCOTUS' website that read that the lawsuit was "distributed for conference" on Friday.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[China]

Fraud hunters challenged 92,000 voter registrations in Georgia last year

 

Amateur voter fraud hunters challenged 92,000 Georgia voter registrations last year, using voter rolls, public records, door-to-door canvassing and hours of their own time to ferret out the ballot rigging that election workers, courts and state officials have been unable to find.

 

Data from the challenges was collected by voting rights advocacy group Fair Fight Action and shared exclusively with NBC News. The group is suing in federal court over a massive, coordinated challenge to the eligibility of 364,000 people to vote in the Senate runoff in 2021, arguing that such mass challenges are discriminatory and intimidating.

 

The tally represents challenges in 15 of Georgia's 159 counties — with seven of the top 10 most populous counties included — meaning the actual number in the state is likely higher.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[The Evil Genius]

 

[China]

MAGA hoaxer Jacob Wohl found to have violated the KKK Act by federal judge

 

Far-right activist Jacob Wohl and his associate Jack Burkman violated the Voting Rights Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act when they fired off robocalls to Black voters trying to trick them out of voting, ruled a federal judge on Wednesday.

 

"The Court recognizes that the free exchange of ideas on issues of public concern and the ability to engage in robust political discussion constitute the foundations of a democratic society,” wrote senior District Judge Victor Marrero.

 

"Wohl and Burkman have been tied to multiple political hoaxes targeting perceived rivals of former President Donald Trump, including then-Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Anthony Fauci, and ex-Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Prosecutors, regulators and common citizens claimed the duo crossed a line with 85,000 robocalls, sent out nationally to such locations as New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Pennsylvania," reported Adam Klasfeld. "Recorded by a woman identifying herself as 'Tamika Taylor,' the robocalls largely targeted diverse regions with the false message that 'if you vote by mail, your personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants, and [will] be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debt.'"

 

Click on the link for the full article