Vladimir Putin and Assad

Refuting Trump Prediction, Putin Grants Russian Asylum To Assad

Russian state-owned news agency TASS, citing a source in the Kremlin, confirmed overthrown Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family are in Moscow “after being granted asylum in Russia,” CNN’s Jim Scuitto reports.

Syrian rebel forces on Sunday advanced into Damascus “unopposed … overthrowing” Assad “and ending nearly six decades of his family's iron-fisted rule,” Reuters reports. "In one of the most consequential turning points in the Middle East for generations, the fall of Assad's government wiped out a bastion from which Iran and Russia exercised influence across the Arab world. Moscow gave him and his family asylum."

Russia’s decision to grant Assad asylum comes as Trump, early Sunday morning,” claimed Putin “ was not interested in protecting [Assad] any longer.”

“Assad is gone. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer. There was no reason for Russia to be there in the first place. They lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine, where close to 600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead, in a war that should never have started, and could go on forever. Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success. Likewise, Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness. They have ridiculously lost 400,000 soldiers, and many more civilians. There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin. Too many lives are being so needlessly wasted, too many families destroyed, and if it keeps going, it can turn into something much bigger, and far worse. I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act. China can help. The World is waiting!”

As New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush noted in a tweet, Trump’s take on the Syrian geopolitical crisis “is kinda wow.”

After his slated successor tweeted his analysis in the early Sunday morning hours, President Joe Biden on Sunday heralded his administration’s role in weakening Assad's regime.

“For years the main backers of Assad have been Iran, Hezbollah and Russia,” Biden said. “But over the last week their support collapsed, all three of them, because all three of them are far weaker today than they were than when I took office.”

You can watch that video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Jack Smith

Smith Drops Trump Election Charges Despite 'Merits Of The Prosecution'

Special counsel Jack Smith on Monday filed a motion to dismiss federal charges against Donald Trump related to his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, CBS News reports.

Smith, CBS reports, “asked a federal district court in Washington on Monday to dismiss the case against” the president-elect.

“In newly filed court documents, federal prosecutors working in Smith's office told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that they are seeking to close Trump's case because Justice Department policy forbids the prosecution of a sitting president,” CBS News reports.

CNN’s Kaitlin Collins likewise posted about the move.

“News — Jack Smith says he is dropping his election subversion case against President-elect Trump,” Collins wrote on X.

In his filing, Smith wrote the Department of Justice was confronted with an “unprecedented situation” as a result of the November 5, 2024 presidential election — and consulted with the Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) for guidance.

"After careful consideration, the Department has determined that OLC’s prior opinions concerning the Constitution’s prohibition on federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting President apply to this situation and that as a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated,” Smith wrote in his filing.

“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” he added.

Read the full filing here.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Top Tech Reporter Explains Why Musk Is Unfit For Government Position

Top Tech Reporter Explains Why Musk Is Unfit For Government Position

Tech reporter Kara Swisher on Wednesday refuted CNN conservative strategist Scott Jennings’ effusive praise of billionaire Elon Musk, arguing you “can separate” the billionaire X owner’s “heinous behavior” from his entrepreneurship — “if you have half a brain.”

Musk on Tuesday watched election returns with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago as the country overwhelmingly elected the former president to another four years in the White House. As the Washington Post reported Wednesday, Musk has future political ambitions, and has “repeatedly discussed with Trump the idea of joining a new commission to slash federal spending by as much as $2 trillion" when the he takes office next year.

Jennings on Wednesday implored his fellow panelists to “be nice” to Musk, arguing voters “want unconventional” — and Musk will bring just that to the Trump Administration.

Swisher, who’s interviewed Musk over 30 times, had less praise for the billionaire.


“I'm looking at a lot of things,” Swisher said. “The instability and the decisions that he makes are sometimes haphazard and strange, often.”

The tech reporter said Musk “is allowed to blow up rockets because he can do it and take those risks and the shareholders go along with him,” but argued “it’s a different thing when it comes to the federal government.”

“People's lives depend on it,” Swisher said. “I know you think its funny and I don't think that it's funny at all.”

The reporter went on to argue that if Trump and Musk treat the federal government like a startup, “the least among us suffer — and that’s just the way it is.”

“[Musk] has a history of doing that, lack of safety at certain of his facilities, and he has a history of firing people,” Swisher said. “And a history of not paying people. And he has a history of being haphazard and firing someone who talks back against him. And for someone who is for free speech, he clamps down on speech a lot it when he doesn't like it. So if you want that too, that's great and hah, hah if you want to do it that way.”

Swisher suggested Musk could merge X with Trump’s social media company Truth Social.

“That could be interesting and incredibly corrupt and he'll use it as a propaganda organ which is precisely why he bought it,” she said. “This was a great investment by Elon Musk in Donald J. Trump.”

Jennings argued that Musk “wasn’t elected” and merely “supports Donald Trump, and now he's going to have influence because his side won.”


“Honestly, I hear all of this carping about Elon Musk and it sounds like sour grapes from the side of the ball that shunned this guy and now they're paying for it,” he said, later arguing “you can't begrudge this man, his opportunity to participate in the political system in the way that he sees fit.”

“Nobody begrudges his ability to speak,” Swisher shot back. “What they begrudge is the flood of misinformation and all kinds of things that happen on that platform — which is uncontrolled and it's not about free speech, because he decides when and where to do it.”

Swisher noted Trump and Elon “may not be able to coexist in the same place” as they’re both “very petulant” and like attention.

"He and Trump will clash at some point, much in the same way that he clashed with the Biden Administration,” Swisher predicted.

The tech reporter added that while Trump gets credit for his space exploration and electric cars, “what he doesn't get credit for [is] his heinous behavior and bringing people down — and that troubles me.”

“And you can separate it from the entrepreneurship if you have half a brain,” the reporter added.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Melania Absent As Trump And Far-Right Agitator Laura Loomer 'Cozy Up'

Melania Absent As Trump And Far-Right Agitator Laura Loomer 'Cozy Up'

Miami New Times reporter Naomi Feinstein mapped out the last known whereabouts of Melania Trump after photos and videos surfaced of Donald Trump embracing far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer — with the former first lady nowhere to be found.

In an article entitled, “Laura Loomer and Trump Sitting in a Tree, K I S S I N G,” Feinstein noted “the former first lady has been largely absent” as her husband hits the campaign trail for the third time as the Republican candidate for president.

“When Trump and his entourage arrived in Philadelphia for the presidential debate, Melania was nowhere to be seen,” Feinstein reported, noting Loomer, “Florida's own far-right provocateur and one-time Republican congressional candidate,” was by the former president’s side instead.

“[Loomer] was later seen backstage at the September 10 debate, in the spin room with Trump immediately after, and then by his side in New York City and Pennsylvania for September 11 remembrance ceremonies,” Feinstein added.


The Miami-based reporter, quoting Internet personality Mike Sington, noted Trump has been seen “hanging out with” Loomer. The "Internet personality" also included a video “with their hands all over each other at Mar-a-Lago.”

"Loomer has been traveling with Trump all week for reasons that remain unclear,” journalist Aaron Rupar wrote in a separate tweet.

Feinstein and other journalists are hardly the only members of the media taking note of the connection between Trump and Loomer. The Drudge Report on Friday featured a photo of the pair with the headline “ Loomer MAGA Love.

“Has [Trump] found his soulmate?” The Drudge Report asked.

Still, it’s not a match made in heaven for everyone in Trump’s corner. Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Thursday called out Loomer over an “extremely racist” tweet that claimed if Vice President Kamala Harris wins in 2024, “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.”

“This does not represent President Trump,” Greene wrote on X.

But that misrepresentation doesn’t appear to bother Trump, who on Friday defended his connection to Loomer, calling her “a supporter of mine.”

“I don’t control Laura,” Trump said at a news conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. “Laura has to say what she wants. She’s a free spirit.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Sarah Longwell

Former Trump Voters Still Won't Back Him After Biden Debate

Two-time Donald Trump voters who’ve since soured on the former president still don’t plan to back him after his debate with President Joe Biden, according to a focus group spearheaded by conservative strategist Sarah Longwell.

Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and prominent “Never Trumper,” joined CNN on Friday to discuss the fallout from Biden’s much-maligned performance at the first presidential debate held on Thursday.

Longwell said she hosted a focus group Friday morning with “two-time Trump voters who are out on Trump — people who did not want to vote for him again.”

Noting “some of them had been leaning Biden prior to last night's debate,” Longwell said, “this morning, they told us that they just didn't think they could get there on Biden.”

“I will say, though, they were very clear about Trump still,” the Republican strategist said. “One of the things you heard from all the voters in the focus group is that Trump is a liar. Trump is a bad person. They don't want to vote for Trump. There was nothing about last night in Trump's performance that brought these voters who don't like Trump back to him.”

“The problem is that those voters needed to be persuaded to vote for Joe Biden, not just against Trump, and that didn't happen last night. That's what we heard,” she added.

CNN then played audio of the “double haters” who voted twice for Trump but are now undecided.

"It's like watching a train wreck,” Melanie from Kansas told the focus group. “I don't like either of the candidates. It's like, which one's worse? Biden’s cognitive stuff is just — it's evident. And then Trump is just a horrible human.”

Karen from Massachusetts agreed.

"It is shameful that that's country has these two candidates to pick from: You have a felon, and a gentleman who has certainly done his best, in his mind, for his country — but it's time for him to step away.”

Explaining the responses from her focus group, Longwell said “the double haters … have always sounded like this."

“The thing is, they don't hate Joe Biden, actually,” Longwell noted. “They just think he's too old. They do hate Donald Trump. They think he's a bad person of bad character. And so Joe Biden had to show up last night and convince those people that he could do the job.”

“Because that didn't happen last night, you just heard a lot of people talking about being embarrassed, feeling like, ‘Is this the only thing we could, the best we can do in this country?’” Longwell added.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Ex-Treasury Chief Summers Warns Of 'Worldwide Economic Warfare' If Trump Wins

Ex-Treasury Chief Summers Warns Of 'Worldwide Economic Warfare' If Trump Wins

Lawrence Summers, who served as the 71st Secretary of the Treasury under former President Bill Clinton, warned of “worldwide economic warfare” if Donald Trump implements his policy proposalspolicy proposals, Bloomberg reports.

Summers spoke with Bloomberg Television’s Wall Street Week with David Westin on Friday, describing Trump’s policy ideas as “a prescription for the mother of all stagflations.

According to Bloomberg, Summers’ comments came on the heels of Trump, in a meeting with Republicans on Capitol Hill Thursday, floating “using tariff hikes as a way to pay for some income tax cuts.”

Trump in that meeting “also proposed a minimum 10 percent universal import levy and a punitive rate for China,” Bloomberg reports.

Speaking to Westin on Friday, Summers warned there’s never “been a more inflationary presidential economic policy platform in my lifetime,” comparing the proposal to “George McGovern in 1972.”

Though Summers conceded Trump could be following the time-honored tradition of presidential candidates “not [being] serious about the things they say,” the former Treasury secretary described Trump’s public policy platform as an “irresponsible set of proposals.” Between the former president's economic platform and anti-immigration rhetoric, Summers warned of “more wage inflation pressures” if Trump wins the 2024 election. Such pressures, according to Summers, could force another rate hike by the Federal Reserve.

“This could easily be a prescription for a 10 percent mortgage rate,” Summers said. “… This is really dangerous stuff.”

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt hit back at Summers’ assessment, claiming the former president’s “first-term pro-growth economic policies created record-low mortgage, interest and unemployment rates and made inflation virtually non-existent.”

“Americans can expect President Trump’s second-term economic agenda will have the same impact and end Joe Biden’s inflation crisis that continues to rob working families of thousands of dollars every month,” Leavitt said.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Andrew Ross Sorkin

Top Business Executives Spooked By Trump's Bizarre Behavior In Meeting

New York Times financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin on Friday delivered a “brutal” report on Donald Trump’s meeting with top U.S. chief executive officers (CEOs), telling CNBC that those who met with the former president found him “meandering,” and walked away from the event “less predisposed” to voting for him over President Joe Biden.

Trump on Thursday met with about 100 corporate leaders, including Apple’s Tim Cook, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and Citigroup’s Jane Fraser, at a Business Roundtable event in Washington D.C., Financial Times reports.

According to Financial Times, at least one attendee said Trump “came across as solid, almost business-like, and not something else like we sometimes see.”

But Sorkin’s sources in the room told a different story, according to a CNBC report labeled by Biden spokesperson James Singer as “brutal.”

“I will say, I was surprised,” Sorkin said of his sources' reactions to the event.

The New York Times columnist continued:

I spoke to enough CEOs who I would say walked into the meeting being Trump supporter-ish — or thinking that they might be leaning that direction — who said that he was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought, was all over the map. Which may not be surprising, but was interesting to me because these were people who I think might have been actually predisposed to him, actually walked out of the room less predisposed to him — actually predisposed to thinking, "this is not necessary."

“As one person said, 'This might not be any different or better than a Biden thought, if you’re thinking that way,'” Sorkin added.

In the meeting, Trump, Financial Times reports, “discussed his right-wing economic agenda and bashed President Joe Biden’s handling of global events, from the U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’s attack on Israel.”

According to the report, he also “told his audience he would consider lowering the 21 per cent corporate tax rate even further, after cutting it from 35 per cent in 2017.”

Watch Sorkin's report below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Trump Complains As His 'Few Dozen' Supporters Rally In New York

Trump Complains As His 'Few Dozen' Supporters Rally In New York

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday detailed Donald Trump’s frustration with courthouse security as “a few dozen” supporters “are kept cornered off a bit of a distance” from the former president’s Manhattan “hush money” trial.

Opening statements in the Manhattan district attorney’s 34 felony count case against Trump began Monday morning as prosecutors alleged the former president lied “over and over and over” in an “illegal” conspiracy to hide hush money payments to adult film star Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, the New York Times reports.

According to Collins, Trump is growing increasingly frustrated as he views “this all through the lens of the campaign trail.”

“I think big picture, when you look at what Trump has been saying, his mindset going into this, he’s complaining about the gag order incessantly,” Collins told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. "I’m told privately the idea that he can't directly attack the judges family, the prosecutors in this case — he can go after [Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg— but not other members of the team … it has been a big thing of his.”

“The other thing: there's a lot of security outside the courthouse,” Collins noted. “Understandably, we saw what happened last week. It is a former president who is going on trial.”


Collins appeared to be referencing the death of Max Azzarello, who succumbed to his injuries on Saturday after setting himself on fire across the street from the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse on Friday.

Collins continued, “Trump has been complaining that his supporters — when there's only a few dozen, it's not a huge group because we've been live outside the courthouse for several weeks now — that they can't come closer to the courthouse.”


“Because he is viewing this all through the lens of the campaign trail and what that means going into it and the fact that they are kept cordoned off a bit of a distance so people can get in and out of the courthouse has been driving him crazy,” Collins concluded.

Watch the video below, via CNN, or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Florida GOP Ousts Christian Ziegler As Party Chairman After Rape Allegations

Florida GOP Ousts Christian Ziegler As Party Chairman After Rape Allegations

Florida’s Republican Party on Monday voted in an emergency meeting to remove its state chairman Christian Ziegler from his position following allegations of sexual assault, NBC News reports.

No one voted for Christian Ziegler,” Republican State Senator Blaise Ingoglia told CNN.

Ziegler is currently under investigation by the Sarasota Police Department after a woman last year accused the former chairman of rape.



Politico reports:

Ziegler has maintained that the sexual encounter he had with the woman who leveled the rape accusations against him was consensual. He and his wife, Moms for Liberty cofounder and Sarasota County school board member Bridget Ziegler, also acknowledged to police that they had been in a three-way sexual encounter a year earlier with the alleged victim, per a search warrant affidavit.

Charges have not been filed in the case. NBC News reports “Ziegler was not in attendance for the vote.”

An anonymous source told NBC News the party was forced to oust Ziegler after he “did not do the right thing and resign.”

“I believe it was almost unanimous vote to remove Christian Ziegler, which I believe is the absolute right thing to do,” the source said. “And I want to reiterate that we are spending a lot of time and energy on this, on this meeting instead of focusing on the things we need to focus on, and that’s simply because Christian Ziegler did not do the right thing and resign.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Ronna McDaniel

Rove: RNC Chair 'In Trouble' Over 'Highly Inappropriate' Call With Trump

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel “is in trouble” after she was recorded on a phone call with former president Donald Trump pressuring two Michigan electors to change their votes certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to GOP strategist Karl Rove.

Speaking with Fox News’ John Roberts, Rove was asked about recent reporting from the Detroit News about “a recorded phone conversation between former President Donald Trump, the RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and two Wayne County Board of Election officials.”

Roberts notes the Detroit News reporters described a conversation “about certifying the 2020 presidential election,” in which Trump is quoted “as saying ‘We’ve got to fight for our country. We can’t let these people take our country away from us.'"

In the recording, McDaniel tells the election workers, “If you can go home tonight do not sign it, we will get you attorneys.”

“We will take care of that,” Trump adds, according to the Detroit News.

The election workers subsequently “tried to rescind their votes,” Roberts notes.

“I think the former president’s got a problem with this,” Rove said. “They had voted to certify the election, he attempted to force them to change their decision, which they tried to do. I think this is what we would call ‘election interference.’”

Rove noted that same behavior got Trump “into trouble in Georgia.”

“This is a problem, the former president should not have been doing this,” Rove said.

“This is not a good move if accurate and if this tape is true,” he added. “The former president’s created another problem for himself.”

Asked if it creates “a problem for Ronna McDaniel,” Rove said the RNC chair could be in hot water because of the leaked phone call.

“I think it is, I think the chairman is in trouble here,” Rove said, calling the conversation “highly inappropriate.”

Watch the videos below or a this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Far-Right Outfit Castigates Candace Owens -- The Monster It Created

Far-Right Outfit Castigates Candace Owens -- The Monster It Created

The David Horowitz Freedom Center on Monday released a statement slamming Candace Owens, the far-right provocateur who credits the conference with boosting her national profile.

In an op-ed published by Front Page Magazine, the David Horowitz Freedom Center says “goodbye” to Owens, noting that six years ago, the organization invited her to its annual Restoration Weekend where she in turn met Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk “and became a national figure.”

“The David Horowitz Freedom Center went on promoting Candace, honored her with an Annie Taylor Award for Courage in 2018, and hosted her at multiple events,” the center writes. “That’s why we are so disappointed in what she has become.”
In its statement, the center slammed Owens’ promotion of “anti-Israel voices like Andrew Tate” and her “moral equivalence” about neo-Nazis.

“Candace Owens has become obsessed with her own fame, stirring up drama to compensate for a lack of real achievement,” the statement reads. “Her comments about Israel and her promotion of people like Andrew Tate are part of a pattern. Candace tackles a subject she knows nothing about, never bothers to learn anything about it, and then rides the backlash by playing the victim to generate more fame and money.”


“What a tragic misuse of talents,” it adds.

Per the statement:

In 2018, Candace tweeted that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was clueless. She’s “programmed to hate Israel and she has no idea why.” Now she has become AOC. Candace hates Israel for the same reason that AOC does. Fame. She proved that she knows as little about Israel as AOC does when she falsely claimed that the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem is the only place that Muslims are allowed to live, thus “proving” the Hamas canard that Israel practices apartheid. It does not.

But this is not just about Israel. It’s about the survival of western civilization which the Islamic jihadis have been working to destroy. And it’s about the sad caricature that Candace has become, and the end of the promise we saw in her.

“The David Horowitz Freedom Center wishes to express its deep disappointment with Candace’s ignorant, hateful and morally obtuse remarks about Israel and the Jews,” the center adds. “But, of course, it’s not just about the Jews. The Jews are the canaries in the mine. The West is next and America above all.”

Read the full statement at Front Page Magazine.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Trump Flack: He's 'Confused' By His Lawyers' Guilty Pleas In Georgia (VIDEO)

Trump Flack: He's 'Confused' By His Lawyers' Guilty Pleas In Georgia (VIDEO)

Former President Donald Trump is “a little confused” by several of his former associates accepting plea deals in the Georgia election interference case, according to Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington.

Harrington spoke on The Absolute Truth program on [Mike] Lindell TV Sunday after four of Trump’s associates — bail bondsman Scott Hall and attorneys Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, and Kenneth Chesebro — pleaded guilty in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ RICO case against the president and 18 co-conspirators.

As part of their plea deals, the four defendants have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and write a letter of apology to the state of Georgia.

“I think [Trump’s] a little confused, because look, if you’re a lawyer, you know that there’s no crimes here. According to the law, there’s literally nothing to plead guilty to, because there’s no laws that were broken,” Harrington said on The Absolute Truth. “And speaking out against a fraudulent election and telling people to watch hearings and petition their elected officials about fraud that was happening, on camera — so it’s just surprising.”

Bail bondsman Hall was the first Trump co-defendant to plead guilty to five misdemeanor charges of “conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of an election.” Hall “originally faced seven felony charges … based on allegations he helped breach election equipment in rural Coffee County, Georgia, in a failed effort to prove Trump’s false claims of voter fraud," as Al Jazeera reports.

On Friday, Oct. 20, Chesebro pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of conspiracy, the New York Timesreported. That same day, Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts “to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties,” according to CNN.

Ellis on Tuesday pleaded guilty to “one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.”

For Trump, according to Harrington, these plea deals are outside the scope of the law.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Kyrsten Sinema

Sinema Floats Third-Party Reelection Bid To Win GOP Votes

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), who left the Democratic Party last December, has yet to announce if she’ll run for re-election next year. But, according to a document obtained by NBC News, if she does run, she sees her “path to victory” through “a third of the state’s Republican voters” and “anywhere from 15 to 20 percent of the state’s Democrats.”

NBC News published the “two-page prospectus” on Monday, which purports to explain how “Kyrsten Will Win Arizona” in 2024.

“She receives significant crossover support from Republicans and current polling shows her favorability as high as 34 percent with Republican voters,” the document declares, noting Sinema — if she runs — will focus on courting “a significant number of the state’s independent voters and soft Republicans turned off by their party’s rightward swing.”

NBC News reports:

Under the banner “Kyrsten’s Path to Victory,” the document says Sinema can win by attracting 10% to 20% of Democrats, 60% to 70% of independents and 25% to 35% of Republicans.

Indeed, while Sinema’s campaign notes she’ll need “a majority of” independent voters and “at least a third” of Republican voters, she only plans to go after an untold “percentage of Democratic voters” to win, according to the document.

“Notably, the document suggests Sinema will attract more votes from Arizona Republicans than Democrats, despite having been a Democrat for a decade in Congress and continuing to get her committee assignments through the Democratic Senate majority,” NBC News reports.

Read the full prospectus here.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Rupert Murdoch

Doddering Murdoch Was In Denial Over Dominion Lawsuit

This week New York Magazine published a sprawling account of the lead-up to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s ouster from the network, detailing Rupert Murdoch’s state of “denial” surrounding the $787.5 million dollar settlement his company was forced to pay to Dominion Voting Systems.

Murdoch on Thursday announced he was stepping down as chairman of Fox and News Corp.

Dominion Voting Systems successfully sued Fox News for defamation after the network accused the company of rigging voting machines to steal votes from former President Donald Trump during the 2020 presidential election. In April 2023, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million and acknowledged, in a statement, “the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false."

The suit, Wolff notes “was far and away the largest defamation award ever made, outside of Alex Jones.”


In an excerpt from his new book, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty, Wolff reports that after a Delaware Superior Court judge in June 2022 "ruled that the suit could also extend to Fox News’ parent company, Fox Corp,” a visitor to the billionaire’s Montana Ranch found Murdoch “absolutely unwilling to consider any view in which Fox could be at fault.

Wolff writes:

Murdoch, the visitor discovered, was stuck in a place far from the real world. The Dominion suit had somehow become an attack on him and on his long career. He seemed angrily trapped in the company’s desperate and preposterous logic: that it was just airing the newsworthy opinions of important political figures.

“Why don’t you just settle?” asked the visitor. This provoked a Murdoch rant, lots of it hard to follow but leaving the visitor with the sense that Murdoch had found himself alone, up against all those who wanted him to settle, and that he, if no one else, was going to stand up for free speech. And at any rate, it wasn’t Fox’s fault. It was Donald Trump’s fault. He wasn’t going to pay for what Donald Trump did. Sue Donald Trump. The visitor came away wondering how this famously cold and analytic business mind had become such a hot mess.

According to Wolff, while Rupert Murdoch remained static in his denial leading up to the settlement, CEO Lachlan Murdorch — who was named chairman and CEO of Fox News in 2019 — “began telling people that Fox was going to focus on Dominion and get it resolved.”

“But Rupert Murdoch wasn’t having it — he seemed to double down on a desire to punish Trump rather than resolve Dominion. Dominion wasn’t the problem — Trump was,” Wolff writes.

As Wolff reports, Murdoch’s refusal to settle with Dominion bucked the two main rules “of libel law for a media company” — 1) “never to go before a jury,” and 2) “avoid discovery.”

“On Monday, April 17, the day the jury was supposed to be seated and opening statements begun — before a day’s delay was declared — Murdoch told Carlson Dominion was holding to a demand of a billion dollars in damages,” Wolff reports. “For Murdoch, this was a nonstarter: He would not endure the humiliation and defeat of paying a ten-figure settlement in the case. It would be not only a record-shattering sum but also tremendous fodder for his enemies (like the Times) when it came to writing headlines.”

But the company did settle, announcing the following day that it was “pleased to have reached a settlement of our dispute with Dominion Voting Systems.”

“We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues,” Fox News said in a statement.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Fani Willis

Seeking October Trial, Fani Willis Calls Trump Co-Defendant's Bluff

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Thursday "effectively call[ed]" former Donald Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro’s bluff, according to Atlantic Journal-Constitution reporter Tamar Hallerman.

Chesebro is one of 19 people charged earlier this month in a sprawling 41-count indictment accusing Trump and his associates of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Prosecutors say Chesebro wrote internal campaign memorandums that purported to offer a legal framework for appointing fraudulent electors to overturn the will of Georgia voters and give Trump the state’s 16 Electoral college votes. Chesebro “is charged with racketeering and other offenses, such as conspiring to commit impersonating a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to commit false statements and writings,” the Atlantic Journal-Constitution reports.

Chesebro on Wednesday filed an “aggressive” motion demanding a speedy trial in the case. Reporters Hallerman and Bill Rankin described the motion as “the legal equivalent of throwing a bomb into the case,” adding the move “could force Willis to try Chesebro by the end of December and scuttle her plans to prosecute all 19 defendants together.”

But, as Hailerman and Rankin report, Willis on Thursday called for the trial “to commence for all 19 defendants on Oct. 23.

“Willis is effectively calling Chesebro's bluff with this new filing — telegraphing to him and the 18th others that the state is indeed ready,” Hallerman wrote in a tweet. “Will be up to Judge McAfee to weigh in now. There's also the question of what happens to the pending fed removal motions….”

McAfee indeed weighed in “a few hours later setting the trial date Willis wanted but ruling it would apply only to Chesebro,” the reporters note.

“Due to the defendant’s timely demand for speedy trial ... scheduling will occur on an expedited timeline,” McAfee wrote in his decision. “At this time, these deadlines do not apply to any co-defendant.”

As the reporters note, multiple legal issues interact Chesebro’s with speedy trial request. For one, three defendants, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, have asked to transfer their cases out of Fulton County Superior Court to U.S. District Court in Atlanta, and a number of legal experts say if one defendant is removed the other 18 would follow.”

According to the reporters, there’s no precedent for “how Georgia’s speedy trial rule and the federal removal statute interact.”
“There’s no case law,” Atlanta attorney Andrew Fleischman told Hailerman and Rankin.

The reporters add: “Under Georgia law, the speedy trial demand filed by Chesebro applies to all 19 defendants."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Mark Meadows

Atlanta Court Sets $100K Bail For Mark Meadows And Releases His Mugshot

One-time White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Thursday surrendered to the Fulton County Jail on charges related to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the presidential election, the Daily Beast reports.

A mugshot and booking records released Thursday showed Meadows “was booked on two charges — violation of the RICO Act and solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer,” the Beast adds. Bond for the former House Oversight Committee chairman was set at $100,000 and he is “forbidden from speaking with co-defendants about the facts of the case, and from intimidating witnesses and co-defendants, or ‘otherwise obstruct[ing] the administration of justice,’” reporter Josh Fiallo notes.

Meadows is one of 19 co-defendants who are accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis announced the charges on Aug. 14.

The first of Trump’s co-defendants turned themselves in on Tuesday, and a steady stream of allies have trickled into the jail in the days since. Trump is expected to turn himself in at 7:30 PM tonight, according to a Truth Social post from the former president.

Meadows and former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark on Tuesday made emergency requests to avoid arrest as they seek to move the charges to federal court. Those requests were denied by U.S. District Judge Steve Jones after Willis successfully argued the pleas were “improper” and “baseless.”

See the full mugshot below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Anthony Sabatini

Florida MAGA Congressional Candidate 'Wildly Plagiarized' Honors Thesis

Right-wing Florida congressional candidate Anthony Sabatini “ wildly plagiarized” portions of his honors thesis at the University of Florida, the Daily Beast reports.

Per the report:

… Sabatini’s honors thesis — a 2012 treatise on the political legacy of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, titled “A Profound Logic of The Blood” — is wildly plagiarized.

The Daily Beast’s review of the paper found that Sabatini lifted an astonishing amount of content verbatim from other sources. Worse, Sabatini — who double-majored in history and philosophy before being admitted to law school, also at the University of Florida — frequently pulls his passages from Wikipedia, and presents them without the required quotation marks or any clear attribution whatsoever.

In some instances, Sabatini injected slightly different words here and there — ripples in the streams of the thoughts, ideas, and words of other people, which he arrogated as his own. And in places where Sabatini does reference a secondary source, those references themselves frequently appear to be incorrect and, often, according to a plagiarism expert, entirely made up.

That plagiarism expert, Stanford University professor Mark Algee-Hewitt, called the thesis “a fascinating text from a plagiarism standpoint.”

“Many of the references to his secondary sources seem largely fabricated, right down to the page numbers,” he said.

According to the Daily Beast, the review of Sabatini’s thesis revealed even “ the very first sentence” of his paper “is plagiarized.”

The congressional hopeful also appeared to lift passages directly from Wikipedia, comprising what the Beast describes as “a stretch of totally uncited writing so long that it’s almost courageous.

Sabatini is currently running an “America First” campaign for Congress, challenging current Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) in Florida’s 11th Congressional District.

Florida Politics reports Sabatini “ has run on a far-right platform, associating himself with figures like former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.”

“We are going to use this momentum to win and take our fight to abolish the FBI, build the wall, and gut the Department of Justice like a fish to Congress,” Sabatini said in a statement, Florida Politics reports.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.