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Trump's Arizona ballot audit ending with finger-pointing and threats of lawsuits: report
July 31, 2021
According to a report from the Associated Press, the ballots involved in the "audit" of presidential votes in Arizona's Maricopa County have been counted and things haven't gotten "any better' as the Donald Trump-inspired attempt to overturn the election results in the state draws to a close.
In the past week, one pro-audit Republican has changed their tune and pronounced the effort "botched" and organizers have seen their Twitter accounts providing blow-by-blow information on the proceedings shut down.
As AP's Jonathan Cooper explained, "In the last week alone, the only audit leader with substantial election experience was locked out of the building, went on the radio to say he was quitting, then reversed course hours later. The review's Twitter accounts were suspended for breaking the rules. A conservative Republican senator withdrew her support, calling the process "botched." And the lead auditor confirmed what was long suspected: that his work was almost entirely paid for by supporters of Donald Trump who were active in the former president's movement to spread false narratives of fraud."
"Not even a shred of being salvaged at this point," proclaimed Sen. Paul Boyer, the first GOP lawmaker to oppose the audit. "They've botched it at so many points along the way that it's irrecoverable."
Along with finger-pointing after spending months and millions of dollars looking for evidence of voter fraud, the report notes that the Justice Department has served warning to the promoters that they are still being watched.
"The U.S. Justice Department has weighed in, warning any state that is looking to conduct an Arizona-style review that they will need to follow federal law that requires officials to retain and preserve election records, including ballot and ballot materials, for 22 months," the report states. "Earlier, Justice Department officials had alerted Arizona officials of the federal requirement. At this point, the Justice Department has not taken any public action beyond the letter. A Justice Department spokesperson this week declined to comment further."
The report goes on to add, "On Wednesday night, [Cyber Ninjas head Doug ] Logan ended months of silence about who was paying him when he said a whopping $5.7 million had been contributed by political groups run by prominent Trump supporters including Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Patrick Byrne and correspondents from One America News Network."
You can read more here.
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Steve Schmidt goes scorched earth on 'titanic frauds' Elise Stefanik and Marco Rubio in brutal takedown
July 31, 2021
In a series of biting tweets on Saturday morning, longtime Republican campaign consultant Steve Schmidt relentlessly slammed Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as opportunistic "elected weasels" who are completely shameless as they grasp for power.
Stefanik, who leapfrogged senior Republicans to the become chair of the House Republican Conference after Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY0 was ousted and Rubio who is setting himself up for yet another presidential run have become tireless boosters of former president Donald Trump after being critical of him earlier in their careers.
As Schmidt explained, they are not fooling anyone with the sudden turnaround, describing them as 'titanic frauds."
He tweeted, "Each has spoken out against Trump in the past. They were precise in their worry and condemnation of his exquisite awfulness. Each knew exactly who Trump was. The one thing Trump deserves great credit for is his absolute consistency, steadfastness and commitment to the truth of sharing who he really is. They all knew what Trump was because they told us. Then they collaborated and discarded every principle they claimed to hold. We all know this is true. I know it. You know it. They know it and every journalist who ever interviews them knows it."
He added, "They are titanic frauds, elected weasels who share a talent for shamelessness, built on a foundation of cynicism and stone cold belief that their supporters are marks, a type of feeble prey that are either too stupid to notice the contradictions and hypocrisy of literally every spoken word or are too lazy and slug like to care about being abused by constant gaslighting."
You can see the tweetstorm below:
through the wretchedness of this dishonest moment and the nihilistic craziness of the overwhelming majority of elec… https://t.co/s1Y19uAYq1— Steve Schmidt (@Steve Schmidt) 1627737134.0
@marcorubio and @EliseStefanik. Each has spoken out against Trump in the past. They were precise in their worry an… https://t.co/7Mt1OAOAKH— Steve Schmidt (@Steve Schmidt) 1627737134.0
autocratic movement. For me that is the story. It is a continuum that is dynamic and continually unfolding. This pu… https://t.co/vOde2zw3ux— Steve Schmidt (@Steve Schmidt) 1627737135.0
It for power and self interest. She’s not an actress. She isn’t playing a part in a make believe story. She is an… https://t.co/kYnueXVBpi— Steve Schmidt (@Steve Schmidt) 1627737135.0
weird Washington DC courtesy extended in any given story, where whatever it is they are saying is covered through a… https://t.co/hlZg64s0M2— Steve Schmidt (@Steve Schmidt) 1627737136.0
On the cancer that has consumed their public character. American Puritanism turned the question of public characte… https://t.co/roikqS5Kv6— Steve Schmidt (@Steve Schmidt) 1627737137.0
of duty and a despicable act. It is also a plainly obvious one. Why do we have to pretend that the absurdities they… https://t.co/SF67p612BR— Steve Schmidt (@Steve Schmidt) 1627737138.0
Sometimes I worry about missing the autocratic forest for the trees.— Steve Schmidt (@Steve Schmidt) 1627737138.0
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The United States' COVID-19 cases are on the rise and it does not appear that the resurgence of soaring cases will wane anytime soon.
But how did the United Statez get to this point after months of low cases? Scientists and infectious disease experts point to the rapidly speading Delta variant of coronavirus. But The Daily Beast is highlighting how former President Donald Trump and his administration opened the door for the latest chaos.
Dr. Irwin Redlener — pediatrics professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine — weighed in with his perspective on the current COVID-19 chaos. He explained how Trump has topped the list of people who have undermined the work of scientists during the pandemic. Trump's perspective and dangerous rhetoric subsequently COVID misinformation and vaccine hesistancy.
"Donald Trump did a terrific job of undermining science, and undermining the credibility of statements from scientists," Redlener said during his interview with The Daily Beast. "So that now, there's inherent skepticism. Every misstep in terms of communications tends to exacerbate this terrible anti-science legacy left by the former president. So we have what Trump has done intentionally to undermine the credibility of science, coupled with the fact that we keep learning new data."
Redlener, also the founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Earth Institute, and author of the books, "Americans at Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared for Megadisasters" and "What We Can Do and The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for Twenty-First-Century America," went on to explain why it's dangerous for anyone to relay assumptions to the American public at this point.
"At this point, it is actually dangerous for anyone to be too definitive. Scientists, disease modelers—you're on thin ice," Redlener said. "We all need to learn a little humility in making projections or making definitive statements. That goes for the scientists. It's even more important that people in political leadership positions worry about being overly definitive when it comes to this COVID-19 pandemic and the policies that are coming out."
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