Donald Trump spoke for over 100 minutes during a long-winded speech at a “Rally to Protect Our Elections” in Phoenix.
Much of Trump’s speech was focused on repeating his debunked lies that he won the 2020 presidential election, when in reality he was defeated by Joe Biden.
But he also found time to bash much of America while praising the local extremists behind Arizona’s audit of the vote in Maricopa County and listing his many perceived grievances. Continue reading.
Voting rights advocates say they fear the efforts in three states will prove successful and spread to others where such initiatives are legally possible.
Republicans seeking to change state voting laws in the face of opposition from Democratic governors or unwilling legislatures are zeroing in on another path — enacting fresh restrictions via ballot initiatives.
In Michigan and Pennsylvania, key battlegrounds that President Joe Biden flipped back blue in 2020, as well as in Massachusetts, Republicans are at the beginning stages of a lengthy process to put proposed limits directly to the voters.
Voting rights advocates who connect the moves to the proliferation of restrictive voting laws advanced in states where the GOP enjoys total control say they fear those efforts will prove successful and spread to other states where such initiatives are legally possible. Continue reading.
More than six months after Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell battled the mob that stormed the Capitol, he remains hobbled, a hand scarred, a shoulder aching, recovering from surgery to an injured foot that swelled so large it no longer fit his shoe.
The 42-year-old Capitol Police officer and Army reservist is also seeing a therapist to help with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), first diagnosed after he served in the war in Iraq.
He said bouts of anxiety returned after his battle on American soil in the Jan. 6 riot. Continue reading.
The “big lie” that President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected is not going away. One reason is Americans who care about their democracy are not learning how votes for president in 2020 were counted and verified — neither from the big lie’s promoters nor from most of its fact-driven critics.
Most visibly, the absence of a clear and accurate explanation can be found among former President Donald Trump’s ardent supporters. As seen in a July 15 briefing in Arizona’s legislature, the contractors hired by the state Senate to assess the 2020 election’s results unleashed a new thicket of finger-pointing and innuendo that fans doubts about Maricopa County’s election administration and votes for Biden.
Critics of the big lie, who range from state officials (including Republicans) to voting rights advocates — and, of course, Democrats— have mostly emphasized that the Arizona Senate’s inquiry and copycat efforts in other states are bad faith exercises led by Trump supporters who lack election auditing experience. Continue reading.
Republicans once referred to Ken Bennett as the “director” of their widely-panned audit of votes in Maricopa County, but he has reportedly lost his privileges to even enter the building where the fiasco is taking place.
Bennett, who served as Arizona’s Secretary of State and president of the state Senate, was the one person associated with the recount with experience in elections. He was officially listed as the liaison to the state Senate, which paid $150,000 of the $9 million the audit is reportedly costing.
“Questions are mounting about who is in control of the long-running partisan review of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results — the Arizona Senate, which ordered it, or the outside firms that are running it,” The Arizona Republic reported Friday evening. “On Friday, Ken Bennett, the Senate liaison to the audit, was not allowed into the building at the state fairgrounds where the audit is taking place, a day after he shared data with outside critics from an ongoing ballot count.” Continue reading.
The phrase “all is fair in love and war” took on a new meaning Friday, when a Texas man was arrested after boasting to a match in a dating app about participating in the Jan. 6 riot “from the very beginning.”
Andrew Taake of Houston was charged with assaulting police and storming the Capitol building. His arrest follows a months-long investigation spurred by a tip and a FedEx delivery driver who confirmed his identity to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Taake made his initial court appearance Friday in the Southern District of Texas, according to a Department of Justice news release. His public defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Continue reading.
Right-wing news media and Republican politicians have often made the comparison. Now, in a narrow legal context, a judge will consider the argument.
The comparison has become a staple among right-wing figures in the news media and Republican politicians: The attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 was really no different than the unrest last year that accompanied months of racial justice protests. Any discussion of the first should — out of fairness, they have said — make reference to the second.
Now, for the first time, a federal court is poised to consider the merits of that argument, albeit in a narrow legal context.
The move comes in the case of Garret Miller, a Dallas man charged with storming the Capitol and facing off with officers inside. Last month, Mr. Miller, 34, raised what is known as a selective prosecution defense, claiming that he had been charged with violent crimes because of his conservative beliefs while dozens of leftist activists in Portland, Ore., had similar charges stemming from last year’s violence reduced or dismissed. Continue reading.
A recent op-ed piece published by The Washington Post highlights the problem of Snowflake Syndrome among voters who cast ballots for former President Donald Trump. The author, Greg Sargent, notes that the current Republican agenda centers on the following: restricting voting rights, sowing doubt about the COVID-19 vaccine, and downplaying the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The problem is that there is no justification or substantial evidence to support any of their arguments regarding these initiatives. In fact, all are connected to false narratives and misinformation that has been, in some way, influenced by Trump. For example, the nationwide push for voting rights restrictions is supposedly an incentive to increase voters’ confidence in the integrity of the United States’ voting systems. But Sargent pushed back against that argument describing it as “bad-faith nonsense.”
“Broadly speaking,” Sargent wrote, “this “confidence” storyline is bad-faith nonsense: It’s being widely abused to keep alive the myth of the stolen election and to justify an unprecedented wave of efforts to disenfranchise the opposition’s voters. It is not designed to build confidence in our elections, but to further undermine it, for illicit purposes.” Continue reading.
On Friday, the anti-GOP conservative group the Lincoln Project launched a new online ad mocking former President Donald Trump over NFL star Tom Brady’s refusal to associate with him.
“Tom Brady, great, great friend of mine,” said Trump in the opening of the clip. “Unbelievable winner.”
“Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough,” said the narrator, echoing a former quote from Trump himself. “You know, winners just like being around other winners. Not just to talk about how great winning is, because it is great. But to make fun of the losers. Locker room talk. Perfect example? Tom Brady.” The ad then cut to Brady making fun of Trump’s election loss at the White House with President Joe Biden. Continue reading.
Social media giant Twitter has announced a massive level of growth and increase in users.
According to CNBC, Twitter revenue increased 74% this quarter, and 28% in the previous quarter. CNBC calls it “the strongest growth since 2014.”
The company banned Donald Trump on January 8, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” it said in its announcement explaining its reasons for the permanent suspension two days after Trump incited the January 6 insurrection. Continue reading.
