Politics & Stuff

[Vesper 30,085]

Election-Denying Organizations Ramping Up Efforts to Monitor Voting and Sow Disinformation about Election “Fraud”

https://globalextremism.org/post/election-denying-organizations/

Several election-denying groups that emerged in 2020, along with new ones, are ramping up their efforts again to fight supposed “fraud” in the November 2024 election. Despite a nearly unanimous consensus by experts that American elections are free and fair, and that fraud is miniscule and incredibly rare, election-denying organizations are creating voter dropbox monitoring groups, developing downloadable apps to report fraud, creating websites with features to report suspected “fraud,” and even offering “rewards” for finding evidence of voter fraud. 

With the U.S. presidential election only two weeks away, these longtime election-denying groups have found new ways to spread chaos about the voting process. They are again incentivizing their followers to monitor voters and voting processes, for no legitimate reason, and spreading disinformation about the reliability of America’s election process. These organizations, led by conspiracists and others who spread misinformation about the 2020 U.S. elections, are particularly active in swing states including Wisconsin and Michigan. 

Catherine Engelbrecht’s organization, True the Vote (TTV), has organized several initiatives for its followers to report on “election fraud” from a distance, monitor dropboxes, and create “election observers.” TTV is the organization that provided false data that served as the basis of the election denialist film “2000 Mules.” When TTV was subpoenaed to provide evidence of the illegal “ballot harvesting” claims made in the film, the group’s attorneys said that they did not have any names or documentary evidence to share with the court. Several months ago, TTV began an initiative called Voto Honesto (Honest Vote), led by Violet Sarria, in order to communicate their election denial claims to Spanish-speaking residents (see GPAHE’s previous reporting here). 

More recently, TTV has been attempting to organize a campaign they refer to as a “dropbox surveillance reality show” alongside local sheriffs. This scheme involves the installation of “AI-driven” cameras at drop boxes in order to remotely monitor people voting. While Engelbrecht claims to be working with “three influential sheriffs” in Wisconsin, she did not name them. Beyond the intrusive nature of recording everyday citizens while they vote and then sharing the footage with thousands of others to watch, this campaign incentivizes regular citizens to monitor dropboxes and report supposed “fraud” based on what they “believe” they witnessed at the dropbox, a recipe for potential disaster. This initiative has been focused on drop boxes in swing states such as Wisconsin and Michigan, where Engelbrecht and “2000 Mules” co-star Gregg Phillips have been spending time recently. Other states the TTV team have been touring include Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina. 

TTV has also released “election observer reference guides” and are calling on their supporters to serve as poll workers and election observers. This list of guidelines includes procedures for monitoring polling places and reporting on election workers when they perceive that they have made an infraction. These efforts are to be systematized using TTV’s “VoteAlert” app, an in-browser application where voters can report “suspicious” behavior and unconfirmed allegations of election mischief. The app is filled with unconfirmed allegations about voting irregularities.

 

VoteAlert Post: A user reports on a suspicious drop box location

In keeping up with their non-English-speaking outreach initiatives, TTV also provides pre-written letters in Spanish and other languages presumably for activists to give to people they perceive as non-citizens to discourage them from voting illegally. Beyond listing the potential consequences of voting illegally, the letters also imply that there are people who may be “misleading you” by talking about voting. They warn recipients not “to be deceived by people who are only looking to use you to further a political agenda.”

Another notorious election denier, Mike Lindell, also hasn’t given up on spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories about voting. The disgraced CEO of My Pillow was one of the loudest voices during the 2020 presidential election, pushing conspiracy theories about voter fraud and “rigged” Smartmatic and Dominion voting machines, the latter resulting in a multimillion dollar lawsuit charging him with defamation. Despite this, Lindell continued to tour the country in the years following the 2020 election for events such as his “Cyber Symposium,” where he continues to try to convince people of his wild claims.

For the 2024 election, he and his Lindell Legal Offense Fund have organized a multipronged campaign to sow doubt about the election results. Funded to the tune of more than three million dollars as of 2022, this organization is led by some of the premier activists within the U.S. election denial movement. According to the Fund’s most recent tax return, its secretary is Thomas Datwyler, Lindell’s attorney, who previously worked for disgraced former Congressman George Santos (R-NY), and was accused in a complaint filed with the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board of illegally coordinating a political campaign he was employed on with an independent expenditure political committee group called Rescue Minnesota. Attorney Kurt Olsen, who previously worked to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and who surfaced repeatedly in the Capitol Hill investigations into January 6, 2021, is the Lindell Legal Offense Fund’s current president. Finally, there is Paul Lavelle, the head of Operation Restored Warrior (ORW), a Christian organization for military veterans. 

According to “The Plan” announced by Lindell, they intend to organize “real time election monitoring” using Lindell’s personal social media platform “FrankSocial” and his website, “Cause of America,” as tools to “report election malfeasance” and spread news about the election. Lindell has described FrankSocial in the following way: “FrankSocial is an app that connects average Americans to one another as a tool to report election malfeasance while watching real time reports of election interference in their communities. Accounts are free and everyone can participate.” Unlike TTV’s VoteAlert, FrankSocial, which was recently rebranded as VOCL, is in the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. It does not appear that the app complies with the Apple Store’s developer policy on reporting criminal activity, which requires that “Apps for reporting alleged criminal activity must involve local law enforcement, and can only be offered in countries or regions where such involvement is active.” 

Lindell’s site, Cause of America, is used to train supporters on how to hand count votes, how to conduct poll watching, and about the basics of American elections. Notably, given Lindell’s attacks on voting machine companies, there is a video in the voting machine section of the site where an empty list of “election companies with a trustworthy track record” is shown with the sound of crickets playing in the background. They also plan to use “wireless monitoring devices” in order to indicate whether a voting machine is “connected to the internet.” Exactly how they would gain access to the machines is unclear. 

Then there is Lindell’s Election Crime Bureau. It is ostensibly to be used as an information hub that communicates with “experts” on cyber crime. But according to reporting from September, Lindell has allegedly been using it for phishing attacks on Georgia county election officials. Under the pretense of an election cybersecurity initiative, Lindell contacted election officials with surveys asking for their home address, cell phone numbers, and other personal details, as well as other information about how they monitor security threats. This has resulted in civil society groups sending letters to the U.S. Attorney General and Georgia Attorney General urging them to investigate the matter. Lindell also attempted similar methods in Massachusetts.

Now we have Kris Jurski’s group, The People’s Audit, formed sometime in  early 2022. Jurski is known for his election-related conspiracy theories and has ties to other conspiracist groups such as the John Birch Society, Mike Lindell, and election denialist David Clements. In September 2022, Jurski was appointed to the Statewide Committee for Voter Integrity of the Florida Republican Assembly, a position that he remains in today. According to the group’s website, Jurski started The People’s Audit after “discovering” during the 2020 election that “people who sold their homes and moved out of state were still voting from their Florida residences.” As such, the People’s Audit now has a tool on their website in order to see whether someone else voted from your house.

Finally, there is Peter Bernegger, the president of the Wisconsin-based group “Election Watch.” The group is active in Wisconsin and incentivizes private citizens to search for election fraud. Bernegger is a prominent figure on social media, where he regularly spreads election-related conspiracy theories. When he was invited in February 2022 by Republicans to testify to a Wisconsin state Assembly Elections Committee on voter fraud, Bernegger was unable to provide any evidence for his claims. As a result, the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission unanimously dismissed all the complaints he had filed of illegal voting and decided to charge him one dollar for every frivolous complaint he made, leading to a fine of more than $2,400. 

Since the 2020 election, however, Bernegger has made a name for himself by clogging up the election system with tons of requests for election-related records and at least 20 lawsuits against election clerks and offices in state court. His many adventures in court, however, eventually landed him a criminal charge of his own, for “simulating legal processes” by unlawfully modifying a subpoena in a lawsuit against the state’s top election office. Despite this, his efforts continue to be supported by his loyal fans on Twitter, who donate to him through a GiveSendGo petition.

This is not the first time that Bernegger has swamped the court system with legal claims. In 2009, he was found guilty of mail fraud and bank fraud in Mississippi for deceiving people into investing more than $790,000 in various fraudulent ventures, such as the development of a gelatin made from the carcasses of catfish to be used for pharmaceutical and cosmetic purposes. After his conviction, he turned to flooding the court system with claims of “procedural errors, insufficient evidence, judicial bias, ineffective counsel, violations of his constitutional rights,” according to ProPublica, in order to overturn the ruling. Like his attempts to overturn the election, this strategy largely failed, and only resulted in his $2.2 million financial restitution requirement being reduced to $1.7 million.

This election cycle, Bernegger has offered a “reward of $25,000” for information “leading to the arrests and convictions of people ballot harvesting on a mass scale in Milwaukee for the November 5th election.” As of 2020, Bernegger had paid little of his restitution fines, so how he intends to make good on this reward while he is still asking for money from his supporters for court fees remains unclear. Regardless, calls to reward private citizens for this information will likely increase the spread of misinformation about the election, and possibly further burden the election system in Wisconsin with unfounded complaints.

[Fulham Broadway 17,299]

Whats more dangerous drag queens or guns ? 🫠

 

[Vesper 30,085]

 

[Vesper 30,085]

“Cowardice”: Washington Post Blasted for Not Endorsing in 2024

The controversial move at the Jeff Bezos–owned paper follows the Los Angeles Times, owned by billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, also bucking tradition. “These decisions,” Margaret Sullivan tells VF, “are appalling.”

 

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/washington-post-blasted-not-endorsing-2024

 

The Washington Post Building at One Franklin Square Building on June 5, 2024 in Washington, DC.by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images.

The Washington Post, which adopted the tagline “Democracy Dies in Darkness” during Donald Trump’s presidency, has opted to not endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election, publisher and CEO of the newspaper William Lewis announced Friday in a note to readers.

Lewis, who joined the Post in January, wrote that the paper is “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” pointing to editorials from 1960 and 1972 as instances in which the paper explained its rationale for not doing so. Lewis argued that the Post “had it right before” 1976, when the editorial board endorsed Jimmy Carter for president. The Post has endorsed every cycle since then with the exception of 1988.

“We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable,” Lewis writes, adding, “We don’t see it that way.”

Others clearly did. “This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty,” Marty Baron, the Post’s former executive editor, said in a statement to Vanity Fair. “Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”

Tommy Vietor, a former Barack Obama staffer and Pod Save America cohost, wrote on X that the Post “endorsing [Kamala] Harris would move exactly zero voters her way, but still lol at this cowardly shit from the crew that brought us ‘democracy dies in darkness.’”

NBC’s Chuck Todd, while admitting to be “agnostic about the impact of newspaper endorsements,” wrote on X that “the unintended consequence of this decision…is exactly what makes this all so demoralizing to actual working journalists. When rich guys and publicly traded companies cower, it hurts all of us.”

The Post’s decision comes on the heels of the Los Angeles Times editorial board breaking with recent tradition in not endorsing a 2024 presidential candidate, a controversial move by its billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong. The Times’ editorials editor, Mariel Garza, resigned Wednesday in protest, with two editorial members, Robert Greene and Karin Klein, following Thursday.

While it’s arguable whether newspaper editorials—which are produced by the opinion side of the operation—actually sway voters, especially as Americans’ views seem locked in less than two weeks out from Election Day, it is striking to see two of the nation’s most prominent publications, each of which endorsed Hillary Clinton (2016) and Joe Biden (2020), sitting out the 2024 race.

“These decisions are appalling, a dereliction of duty, and a disturbing statement of the priorities of two newspapers that are owned by billionaires,” Margaret Sullivan, a former New York Times public editor and Post media columnist, who currently writes a politics and media column for The Guardian US, tells me.

Inside the Post, NPR’s David Folkenflik reported, editorial page editor David Shipley relayed the decision to staff in a “tense meeting” just before Lewis announced it publicly. While staffers were reportedly taken aback by the change, Shipley reportedly said that he “owns” the decision and that it was intended to allow the paper to remain “independent,” language that was also used by Lewis in his letter to readers.

Two Post board members, Charles Lane and Stephen W. Stromberg had already drafted a Harris endorsement when the process stalled, prior to Friday’s announcement, according to Columbia Journalism Review executive editor Sewell Chan. He added that the decision, which was approved by Shipley, has “angered” staffers.

Lewis’s tenure has been marked by controversy, with the Post, among the outlets, reporting on clashes over his plans for the paper and his ties to the British phone-hacking scandal. Lewis previously worked for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

[Vesper 30,085]

On the Washington Post and LA Times -- from The Guardian

Betsy Reed
Editor, Guardian US

Dear Guardian reader,

In the past 72 hours, two of America’s largest newspapers have declined to endorse a candidate for president in this election. The LA Times and the Washington Post both have a tradition of issuing editorial endorsements, but in this most consequential of contests for our country, they have chosen to sit on the sidelines of democracy and not alienate any candidate.

Something these two papers have in common?

They both have billionaire owners who could face retaliation in a Trump presidency.

It has never been clearer that media ownership matters to democracy. The Guardian is not billionaire-owned; nor do we have shareholders. We are supported by readers and owned by The Scott Trust, which guarantees our editorial independence in perpetuity. Nobody influences our journalism. We are fiercely independent and accountable only to you, our readers.

The stakes of this election could not be higher. Fearless journalism and an informed public are bedrocks of our democracy, and it is an abdication of our duty as journalists to sit out this election out of self-interest. A Guardian editorial strongly endorsed Kamala Harris for president earlier this week – and we are unafraid of any potential consequences.

Yours,

Betsy Reed
Editor, Guardian US

[cosmicway 1,333]

What's next for Putin ?
Will he try to create a new Warsaw pact ?
Certainly Ukraine is his as from 6/11, Hungary and Serbia also. In Moldavia his political friends are fighting it out.

He is going to turn his attention to the middle east and try to get Israel through his proxies, Iran.
Trump is likely to oppose him there, but there will inevitably be more power unleashed against Israel.
What about Europe though ?
How is the new Warsaw pact to be created ?

Greece might be good idea. If he spends some roubles to create some useful political party to defeat useless Mitsotakis.
In 2015 he dumped his Syriza friends and now Syriza is all but discredited (down to 6% !).

[Fernando 6,585]

Israel attack Iran....but I think that's about it, no one wants to get involved in an all out war ith Iran because it would bring Russia into the game. 

[cosmicway 1,333]

24 minutes ago, Fernando said:

Israel attack Iran....but I think that's about it, no one wants to get involved in an all out war ith Iran because it would bring Russia into the game. 

Iran plans to nuke Tel Aviv.

[Vesper 30,085]

classic flashback satire

The One Percent | American Voter

 

Edited October 26, 2024 by Vesper

[Fulham Broadway 17,299]

14 minutes ago, Vesper said:

classic flashback satire

The One Percent | American Voter

 

Reminds me of a bloke when i was at LAX airport. He bought three expensive meals, i thought his wife and kid would turn up, but all three were for him, and he just picked bits off the three meals, leaving most of it. 

[Vesper 30,085]

Zionist Billionaire Defends Trump's Hitler Fandom

 

[cosmicway 1,333]

Washington Post thinks the Magas are going to rule the United States for the next 125 years.
Something like what Slavia Prague does in the Czech liga.
The maga wave -under Trump now- is not a simple victory of the reps over the dems as there were many such rep victories in the past and the earth keeps rotating.
It's a victory over the dems and over the traditional reps. It's a big one.

I have discovered the reason.
The reason is sex.
Gone are the days when men were seeing an English woman, American woman, Italian, Swedish, African, Malaysian ... and they were impressed.
Our hormones have been depleted for one thing and also the internet-cellular revolution has made us act indifferently.
Gone are the days when the classics teacher at school says to the boys "May is here, you little rascals are getting ready for the nightingales of the north are n't you ?".
Mine did that and she was an ultra-conservative as they come.
What this means ?
Of course one wanted to have a "nightingale from the north" for you know what action.
But along with that inevitably comes some friendship, some companionship - you may even go as far as scramble eggs together,
With this gone and forgotten by the people at large, maga thoughts prevail.
Add a little gay inclination and the recipe is complete.

[Fulham Broadway 17,299]

3 hours ago, Vesper said:

Zionist Billionaire Defends Trump's Hitler Fandom

 

'Never Again' .....

Unless its a Zio Fascist Genocide

[NikkiCFC 8,286]

1 hour ago, cosmicway said:

I have discovered the reason.
The reason is sex.

You read too much Sigmund Freud. 

[cosmicway 1,333]

8 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

You read too much Sigmund Freud. 

The man knew what he was talking about.