Data and Research Manager , CD3 DFL

The Republican Party’s top lawyer called election fraud arguments by Trump’s lawyers a ‘joke’ that could mislead millions

The Republican Party’s top lawyer warned in November against continuing to push false claims that the presidential election was stolen, calling efforts by some of the former president’s lawyers a “joke” that could mislead millions of people, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post.

Justin Riemer, the Republican National Committee’s chief counsel, sought to discourage a Republican Party staffer from posting claims about ballot fraud on RNC accounts, the email shows, as attempts by Donald Trump and his associates to challenge results in a number of states, such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, intensified.

“What Rudy and Jenna are doing is a joke and they are getting laughed out of court,” Riemer, a longtime Republican lawyer, wrote to Liz Harrington, a former party spokeswoman, on Nov. 28, referring to Trump attorneys Rudolph W. Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. “They are misleading millions of people who have wishful thinking that the president is going to somehow win this thing.” Continue reading.

DFL Party Statement On Governor Walz’s Executive Action On Conversion Therapy

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Today, following Governor Walz’s executive action on conversion therapy, the practice of attempting to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity through bullying and intimidation, DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement:

“Conversion therapy is not backed by science and can cause life-long trauma for those forced to endure it. I applaud Governor Walz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan on this step today to stop this barbaric practice.

“Last year when the Governor and DFL leaders in the legislature tried to ban conversion therapy, Senate Republicans led by Senator Paul Gazelka blocked it. It is shameful that we have Republicans like Paul Gazelka and Scott Jensen who are not only on the wrong side of history on this issue, but who are actively contributing to a toxic environment that tells LGBTQ+ youth that they shouldn’t love and accept themselves for who they are. This is a great step for Minnesota and we must re-elect Governor Walz in order to move the state forward, not backward.”

‘Tremendously ill advised’: Legal expert shocked by Sidney Powell’s closing tantrum at sanctions hearing

Trump-backing attorney Sidney Powell on Monday refused to back down from pushing bogus conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, and said she would file all of her election-related lawsuits over again if given the opportunity.

At the close of a Michigan sanctions hearing that also featured fellow Trump-loving lawyer Lin Wood, Powell issued a defiant defense of her past false claims about the 2020 election, including allegations that Dominion Voting Systems conspired with dead Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez to rig American elections.

“It is the duty of lawyers of the highest tradition of the practice law to raise difficult and even unpopular issues,” Powell said. “The fact that there may have been adverse precedent against us does not change that fact. Were that true, there would not have been a decision called Brown v. Board of Education. We have practiced law with the highest standards. We would file the same complaints again.” Continue reading.

‘I Alone Can Fix It’ book excerpt: Inside Trump’s Election Day and the birth of the ‘big lie’

At the end of a tumultuous day, the defiant president refused to accept the signs that he was losing the White House contest to Joe Biden. “I won in a landslide and they’re taking it back,” Trump told advisers.

Part one of an excerpt from “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year.” Leonnig and Rucker will discuss this book during a Washington Post Live event on July 20.

Finally, Election Day had arrived. The morning of Nov. 3, 2020, President Trump was upbeat. The mood in the West Wing was good. Some aides talked giddily of a landslide. Several women who worked in the White House arrived wearing red sweaters in a show of optimism, while some Secret Service agents on the president’s detail sported red ties for the occasion. Trump’s voice was hoarse from his mad dash of rallies, but he thought his exhausting final sprint had sealed the deal. He considered Joe Biden to be a lot of things, but a winner most definitely was not one of them. “I can’t lose to this f—— guy,” Trump told aides.

Around noon, his detail whisked Trump across the Potomac River to visit his campaign headquarters in Arlington, where campaign manager Bill Stepien and the senior leadership briefed Trump in the conference room. Stepien outlined what to expect that night — when polls closed in each battleground state, how quickly votes should be tallied and which states would probably have the first projected winners. He explained that because of the huge number of mail-in ballots in many states, it might take long into the night for votes to be counted. Patience was in order.

Stepien explained to Trump that in many battleground states, the first votes to be recorded were expected to be in-person Election Day votes, which could lean Trump, while mail-in votes, which were likely to heavily favor Biden, would be added to the tally later as those ballots were processed. This meant that the early vote totals could well show Trump ahead by solid margins. Continue reading.

GOP Candidate Violently Disrupts Rep. Porter’s Town Hall

Nick Taurus, a Republican running for the seat in California’s 45th Congressional District currently held by Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, was reportedly involved in what the Los Angeles Times called a “scuffle” at a town hall Porter held on Sunday in Irvine, California.

According to the Times‘ reporting, Taurus and a group of his supporters interrupted Porter with chants and shouting as she spoke, leading to physical confrontations between his supporters and hers that were broken up by police.

On July 8, Taurus had posted a call on his Instagram account for his supporters to cause disruption at the event. “CONFRONT KATIE PORTER!” Taurus wrote, adding, “Her America Last policies are awful for the 45th district and we intend to voice our displeasure.” Continue reading.

Minnesota ends fiscal year with $2.7 billion more than projected

State economists said tax dollars came in at higher rates than projected across several categories, spurring the bigger than expected revenues.

ST. PAUL — Minnesota pulled in $2.7 billion more than was projected earlier this year as the state’s economy outperformed expectations, state economists reported Monday, July 12.

Minnesota Management and Budget officials said the state is on pace to take in $26.6 billion in net general funds in the budget cycle that ended June 30, an 11.2% bump from what they’d forecast in February. The boost in dollars flowing to the state stemmed from increased tax receipts across several categories.

The news of a bigger-than-expected surplus comes months after economists predicted and state legislators planned for a $1.3 billion shortfall spurred by COVID-19 and slowed economic activity. Several rounds of stimulus payments from the federal government and rebounding of the state’s economy helped stave that off. Continue reading.

Trump Organization removes indicted top finance officer Allen Weisselberg from leadership roles at dozens of subsidiaries

The Trump Organization has removed indicted chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg from his leadership roles at more than 40 subsidiary companies, according to corporate filings in the United States and Scotland.

The changes were made Thursday and Friday, a week after a grand jury in Manhattan indicted Weisselberg on 15 felony counts, including grand larceny and tax fraud. Weisselberg was accused by New York prosecutors of helping run a 15-year scheme to evade income taxes by concealing executives’ salaries — including more than $1.7 million of his own income — from tax authorities. Two Trump corporate entities were indicted alongside Weisselberg.

On Thursday, the Trump Organization removed Weisselberg as a director of the company that runs its golf course in Aberdeen, Scotland, according to British corporate records. Continue reading.

The Memo: Trump pours gas on tribalism with Jan. 6 rewrite

Former President Trump is persevering with his attempts to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

It is an effort that is being aided by his political and media allies.

It also threatens to inflame his supporters anew, ruin any chance of anything resembling a national consensus on the riot and pour new gas on the fires of political tribalism. Continue reading.

Newsmax host dangerously declares vaccines go ‘against nature’: Diseases are ‘supposed to’ wipe out people

Newsmax host Rob Schmitt on Monday dangerously declared he believes vaccines go “against nature” and diseases are “supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people, and that’s just kind of the way evolution goes.”

Admitting he’s “not a doctor,” as Media Matters reports, Schmitt mused on-air, “I’m not an anti-vaxxer. I’m not a pro-vaxxer. I’m somebody that’s looking at this thing and trying to figure it out.”

“I’ve always thought about vaccines, and I always think about just nature, and the way everything works. And I feel like a vaccination in a weird way is just generally kind of going against nature,” he claimed, ignoring the fact that all medicine in theory does too – if you define evolution in the most basic “survival of the fittest” terms. Continue reading.

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