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‘Right-wing misinformation’ newspaper gave a GOP presidential candidate up to $5M in salary

ALSO READ: Leaving MAGA: NY mom who fell for anti-vaxxers, QAnon and Trump describes painful escape

Long-shot Republican presidential candidate Larry Elder made between $1 million and $5 million from The Epoch Times, according to a new financial disclosure submitted three months past a federal deadline.

The Epoch Times — accused by the New York Times of being “a leading purveyor of right-wing misinformation” — spent heavily on Facebook ads for Donald Trump in 2020 and was later banned from the platform for violating political transparency rules. The Epoch Times is associated with the Chinese religious movement Falun Gong.

Elder’s filing, covering the past year and first reported by Raw Story on Monday, characterized his earnings from The Epoch Times as “salary.”

As Politico reporter Kimberly Leonard observed, Elder failed to report the exact amount of the money as required by federal regulators.

“Despite facing numerous challenges and setbacks, we have never lost hope in our mission to report the truth. Our commitment to journalistic integrity has not wavered, even in the face of adversity,” The Epoch Times states on its “about us” page.

Its stated vision: “To be recognized as the ‘paper of record,’ the world’s most trusted and admired media company, and the organization that will restore, by its example, the best practices and highest principles of journalism.”

Neither Elder nor The Epoch Times responded immediately to requests for comment.

ALSO READ: Trump earned $250,000 from gay Republican event: disclosure

Before he announced his run for president in April, Elder had a talk show on EpochTV that promoted far-right political views.

Raw Story reported in July that Elder, a tough-on-crime conservative, missed a May 20 deadline to file the financial disclosure. Elder then asked federal regulators for an extension, saying he didn’t know about the requirement.

The FEC granted an extension to Aug. 18.

Elder revealed multiple additional sources of income on the federal financial disclosure, including salaries each in the $100,001 to $1 million range from Relief Factor, a pain relief supplement, and Old Glory Bank, where he serves as a director alongside 2016 presidential candidate Ben Carson, who later became Trump’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Elder also reported salaries from a machining company, CNC Broach Tools, educational consultancy Yrefy and media companies Creators Syndicate, Breaking Battlegrounds and Salem Radio Network.

His consulting for Elder for America and Baric and Associates earned him up to $1.5 million collectively, according to the disclosure.

ALSO READ: Trump maintains trademarks with Russia, China and numerous other U.S. enemies and frenemies

Elder, who has been a vocal opponent of abortion rights, earned up to $370,000 additional income from honorariums, including from anti-abortion centers like the Crisis Pregnancy Clinic of Southern California and Avenues Pregnancy Clinics.

Elder is not slated to appear in the Republican Party’s first presidential candidate debate on Wednesday in Milwaukee, with the Republican National Committee ruling he didn’t meet pre-set fundraising and polling thresholds.

Elder has disputed the ruling, and on Tuesday, asked his supporters to contribute to a lawsuit against the RNC, accusing it of unfairly sidelining him.

“The RNC told us they would be fair in their qualification for the August debate happening tomorrow night,” an email solicitation said. “They lied. And to prove their lies, we’re going to take them on in court.”

Elder contends he met the RNC’s criteria for participation.


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Trump's new jobs nominee had a secret account that spread explicit images of Kamala Harris

"You can't run a race on your knees," wrote E.J. Antoni on a secret Twitter account that bashed former Vice President Kamala Harris with a sexually explicit image doctored from a campaign poster.

Antoni, a Heritage Foundation economist, has long been opposed to the non-partisan nature of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but President Donald Trump appointed him to run the department anyway, CNN's K-File reported on Friday.

His "digital trail reveals a pattern of incendiary rhetoric that veered frequently into conspiracy theories and misogyny," the report said.

In a different NBC News report, Antoni was confirmed as one of the "bystanders" present at the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol; however, he never went inside the building.

"Antoni also referred to Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, as 'Miss Piggy.' In February 2020, he retweeted a post titled 'Advice For Women: How To Land a Great Guy,' which instructed women to 'be in shape,' 'grow your hair long,' 'be sweet,' 'learn to cook,' and 'don’t be annoying,'" CNN reported.

That post also included the comment, “Angry feminists and simps will try to sabotage you in the comments. Don’t listen to them. Listen to me.”

Another post trashed the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), saying, “I like a senator who doesn’t die."

WIRED first uncovered the account last week, however, the posts it found dealt primarily with COVID-19 conspiracy theories and the 2020 election lies. Some referenced weapons that were used in Nazi Germany during World War II.

A right-wing podcaster and Antoni's cousin defended the posts on social media by claiming that their family had a grandfather who fought in WWII and that they were proud of his service.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers defended Antoni, ignoring the controversial statements and saying that he was nominated to "fix the issues at the BLS and restore trust in the jobs reports. Dr. Antoni has the experience and credentials needed to restore solution-oriented leadership at the BLS — solutions that will prioritize increasing survey response rates and modernizing data collection methods to improve the BLS’s accuracy."

The Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025" calls on the BLS to be merged with the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau to make the groups "a more manageable, focused, and efficient statistical agency."

Antoni, who has a Ph.D. in economics, co-wrote a report last year that claimed “the American economy has actually been in recession since 2022."

CNN noted that economists of both parties have criticized the claim.

To make it through confirmation, Antoni must be approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, on which Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Susan Collins (ME) serve.

Read the full report here.

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Trump insiders urged to 'use discretion' when laughing at JD Vance behind his back: report

Vice President JD Vance has a substantial number of detractors in Donald Trump's inner circle who believe he has inflated his own importance in the administration and have been delighted at how he has been portrayed on “South Park.”

According to a report from Salon’s Brian Karem, Trump’s veep was not the first choice by insiders for the president's running mate but wealthy benefactors urged the president to tap him over the more favored Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).

Since Vance has been on the job, the distaste for him has grown to the point where his detractors are being urged to be more discreet when trashing him behind his back.

Karem is reporting “South Park,” which has been brutally hammering the president weekly to the dismay of conservatives, is getting a thumbs-up from White House Vance critics for casting Vance as the diminutive and subservient Tattoo from “Fantasy Island."

On Friday, Karem wrote Trump had a bad Labor Day weekend, but added, “Interestingly, though, Trump’s weekend apparently included several conversations about Vice President JD Vance. The veep has tried to increase his visibility recently by going on vacation wherever he can still get a room and service, and he’s desperate to seem vital. His constant demand for gratitude has garnered international attention, but it isn’t covered much inside the U.S.”

As for those conversations, “.... some Trump insiders who don’t get along with Vance and his staff laugh at ‘South Park’ portraying the vice president as ‘Tattoo,’ the sidekick from ‘Fantasy Island.’ Some have even apparently imitated Hervé Villechaize shouting ‘Da plane, boss, da plane,’ as they refer to Vance, though I’m told 'discretion is advised' when and where such jokes are made,” Karem is reporting.

He then added that contempt for Vance’s self-regard has reached the point where he is being compared to former Ronald Reagan Secretary of State Alexander Haig who made major news after the former president was shot and he charged the lectern and blurted “I am in control here, in the White House,” when he was not next in line if the president died.

Karem added, “If this were a mob movie, all sorts of nefarious thoughts would come to mind. But in this case the speculation is limited to removal by the 25th Amendment — not likely — a sudden malady that will compromise the president or Vance just wanting to signal to MAGA supporters that he, at least, was not comatose. Some members of Trump’s staff believe the vice president ‘overstated things’ to make himself seem vital.”

You can read more here

'Just submitted to Sharia law!' MAGA lawmaker outraged over city's optional uniform patch

Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) launched into an Islamophobic tirade Friday after learning that the Dearborn Heights Police Department in Michigan was considering allowing its officers to wear an “optional patch” on their uniforms that includes writing in both English and Arabic.

“Dearborn Heights just submitted to Sharia law,” Fine wrote in a social media post on X Friday, referring to a body of religious law within Islam. “They told us they were trying to establish a caliphate. Are you listening now?”

Dearborn Heights is notable for having a sizable Arab population, having become the first city in the United States to reach an Arab majority. As such, city officials often cater to its growing Arab population with signs and communications in both English and Arabic.

The city’s police department appears to have followed suit, sharing an image of the optional patch in a now-deleted Facebook post. Following reporting on the online post from Fox News, the agency released a statement clarifying that the optional patch was merely a “design mock-up idea” that it was a part of “internal discussions,” and not “an official prototype.”

The news that the patch was not being rolled out at the agency apparently had not reached Fine, or Fox News for that matter, which as of 12: 33 p.m. EST had not updated their story to note the statement.

Fine’s reference to Arab Americans "trying to establish a caliphate” refers to a form of government led by an individual with the title of “caliph,” a person deemed as the political and religious successor to Muhammad, the founder of Islam who is considered a prophet within the Islamic faith.

Fine has a long history of making Islamophobic remarks, as well as genocidal remarks directed toward Arabs. In July, he urged Palestinians suffering under Israel’s ongoing aid blockade to “starve away,” and cheerfully thanked a social media user for posting a photo of a presumed dead Palestinian infant buried in rubble.

Fine’s genocidal rhetoric was so strong that he even drew the ire of his Republican colleague Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who called him a “bloated, braindead, blithering idiot who has no business being in Congress.”


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