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

ALSO READ: The Ukraine 'peace plan' clearly points to Trump corruption. Where's the outrage?

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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'Make it bloody': Ex-GOP insider predicts Trump's next move to punish his closest allies

Donald Trump is planning a dramatic change of pace that also represents a return to his roots in an effort to punish his allies, according to a former GOP insider on Friday.

Ex-GOP strategist Rick Wilson, who recently said he might depose Trump in a lawsuit and force the president to explain his ties to the deceased child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, ahead of the weekend wrote up a piece in which he predicted Trump is about to go on a firing spree against his closest advisers.

In a piece called Firing Season, Wilson made a major prediction about Trump going back to his The Apprentice roots.

Wilson claimed that, despite from largely refraining from high-profile firings that he became known for on TV and in his first term, the president will be forced to return to those dramatic displays in part because of his failing health, physical and mental.

"The chaos, the fear, the power to snap his fingers and ruin a career on live television has been tempting him as his disastrous first year comes to a close. Firing Friday is calling his name," the ex-strategist wrote. "For Trump, The Apprentice never ended; it just moved into the Office of Personnel Management. People forget that Trump’s favorite drug is not money, not sex, not even attention. It is humiliation, particularly the humiliation of his closest allies and sycophants. He finds firing the perfect display of his power and cruelty. He likes to see them grovel. He likes to watch the light behind their eyes fade to black when they realize the deal they made with him is going to end the way it always ends."

Wilson continued:

"For Trump, in his physical decline, it replaces the power he once had to golf, carouse with Jeffrey Epstein, and give women the 3.8 seconds of pleasure only he could deliver."

He then added, "But this time, it’s different."

"This time, the stakes are higher, the failures are bigger, and the crashing of his polling numbers and MAGA’s power is well underway," he wrote in explaining Trump's purported motives. "He is surrounded by scandals large and small, with leaks now pouring out of his administration like water through a screen door, and for the first time in a long time, he is not having fun."

Wilson went on to paint a picture of Trump making the move to firing season.

"The laughs are forced, the applause a little softer, the chorus of 'Yes, sir' just slightly off key. He feels it. He knows they are talking about him when he leaves the room," the analyst claimed. "He knows they see the gaffes, the word salad, the confusion, the repetition. He knows the late-night 'Is he OK?' questions are not just coming from the hated media, but from the people who see him up close. And so he looks for the lever he always used before. Fire someone. Fire a lot of someones. Make it bloody. Make it loud. Make it hurt."

Read the full essay here.


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'It's just bush league': GOP senator hammers Pete Hegseth over 'snap' scandal statements

A Republican senator has warned self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to stop releasing "snap statements" on the boat bombing controversy.

Four people were killed in a US drug boat strike in the Caribbean, with Hegseth alleged to have ordered the killing of survivors after the first strike. Top Democrat and Republican representatives, according to The Guardian, ruled Hegseth had not ordered a military strike to kill surviving members of the boat, which is alleged to have been carrying drugs in the Caribbean.

Republican representatives are now saying it is up to Donald Trump to decide on Hegseth's future with the administration, though some believe he has reached the end of the line.

Speaking to The Hill, Senator Thom Tills has warned Hegseth to not "say anything" further on the boat strike as the controversy continues to swell over his alleged orders. Senator Tills said, "Pete Hegseth has done things that I completely agree with but he’s also done things that are confusing to me."

"You just got to own it. If you share classified information outside of classified channels with people who don’t have clearance. It’s pretty cut-and-tried. Just accept it. Just have the information and don’t undermine your credibility by making a snap statement that proves to be either false or inadequate."

"I believe that when there were reports that there was a so-called double-tap. There was some reporting that [Hegseth] said it was either fake news or not true. The next day, it proved to be true."

"It’s just bush league. Get the data. Don’t say anything until you’re absolutely certain. You’re the secretary of Defense for the United States of America. Precision is important."

Hegseth has been facing growing criticism from both Democrats and Republicans over the strikes, with an ever-evolving account of a "double tap strike". Trump has tried to distance himself from the situation by saying he "wouldn't have ordered the second strike."

Journalist Michael Wolff in an episode of Inside Trump's Head suggested Trump is trying to distance himself from the strike as he is a man who "lives in the moment."

Wolff said, "People make the mistake of thinking of Trump, as other presidents, that somehow he has his eye on the arc of history. Somehow, he sees how his agenda is playing out or not playing out I want to... try to correct that Trump is a man who lives in the moment. It is about his stimulation now and if that fails him, I think everything starts to fail him."

"And if we're suddenly in a political moment of which a more complicated, knotty, draggy political moment, the stimulation is going to go down, and, and I'm not sure that he knows what to do with that, except, you know, his head droops and...then lists to the side because he is fundamentally bored, not only just old," the author added.

Justice Kavanaugh singled out after video of US citizen being manhandled by DHS goes viral

A video of a screaming woman in Florida being hauled out of her car by officers representing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) while she protested she is an American citizen led to an attack on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Friday morning.

The video, captured by Miami Herald reporter David Goodhue, quickly led to a wave of outrage that only grew when it was reported the woman was released later and she was nabbed because she refused to lower her window for the Border Patrol officers.

After an interview with Goodhue on MS NOW, Kavanaugh’s name came up over a legal opinion he wrote where he maintained Americans should be willing to put up with inconvenience.

Specifically, he wrote, “Importantly, reasonable suspicion means only that immigration officers may briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status. If the person is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter. Only if the person is illegally in the United States may the stop lead to further immigration proceedings.”

Those words came back to haunt him on Friday morning.

With Goodhue pointing out that DHS agents were focusing their efforts of a stretch of road where people were just trying to get to their jobs, “Morning Joe” co-host Jonathan Lemire interjected, “We should also keep in mind what Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh said, where he's like, well, if a US citizen is detained, it would be a minor inconvenience. Well, let's be clear, even if that wasn't.“

“That was traumatic!“ co-host Mika Brzezinski interrupted.

“Even if she wasn't held all that long in terms of hours or days, unlike some have been, that was clearly traumatic. She was clearly very, very upset. That's clearly a very hard moment, contrary to what the Justice has sort of put forth,” Lemire added.

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