Gaza protesters plague Harris rallies: ‘Wish I Could Vote For U’
Throughout the election season, Vice President Kamala Harris’ rallies have been plagued by anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protesters, despite the vice president’s efforts not to upset this cohort of the electorate. Protesters gathered at Harris’ campaign stops in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin on Wednesday, often disrupting the vice president and forcing her to pause in the middle of speaking. “Kamala Harris, you have disrespected the Palestinian community!” yelled a protester who interrupted the vice president’s address from Raleigh, North Carolina, yesterday. Harris was referred to as a “war criminal” by disruptive protesters at her rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the same day and, in Madison, Wisconsin, protesters holding a sign that read “Killer Kamala” were forcibly removed from the venue. “Look, everybody has a right to be heard. But right now, I am speaking,” Harris said during interruptions at her rally in Harrisburg. The vice president’s response hearkened back to her reaction to anti-Israel agitators from Detroit, when she once again had to interject that she had the floor to speak – and not them. “We won’t vote for genocide!” protesters yelled at Harris in Detroit. PROTESTERS INTERRUPT KAMALA HARRIS’ MICHIGAN RALLY: ‘NO MORE GAZA WAR!’ Wednesday’s campaign events are just the latest example of anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protesters crashing Harris’ rallies, despite the vice president’s alleged effort to quell dissent from this portion of the electorate when she decided to choose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. The move was reportedly due to the latter’s Jewish heritage and record of being pro-Israel. HARRIS WAS ‘RELUCTANT’ TO CHOOSE SHAPIRO BECAUSE OF HIS ‘JEWISH HERITAGE,’ SPEAKER JOHNSON SAYS: REPORT Anti-Israel agitators were also present earlier in the week, showing up to rallies on Monday and Harris’ widely attended “closing argument” election speech in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday night. Protesters, organized by groups such as the left-wing nonprofit Code Pink, yelled things like “Stop Arming Israel!” and “Arms Embargo Now!” while also holding banners with slogans like “No Votes for Genocide.” Meanwhile, other banners at Harris rallies have read: “Terrified of Trump. Wish I Could Vote For U… But You Are Committing Genocide.” While Harris’ rallies have been marred by anti-Israel protesters ever since she took over the nomination from President Biden, the frequency of these protesters showing up at her rallies appears to be growing as Election Day nears. “Let me be clear, I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself,” Harris declared during her address at the Democrat National Convention in August. “At the same time, what has happened in Gaza in the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.” HARRIS APPEARS TO AGREE WITH PROTESTER ACCUSING ISRAEL OF GENOCIDE: ‘WHAT HE’S TALKING ABOUT, IT’S REAL’ This week, progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., attempted to persuade voters concerned about Harris’ stance toward Israel and Gaza, noting that he too does not fully agree with Harris or Biden when it comes to the war. “Some of you are saying, ‘How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she is supporting this terrible war?’ And that is a very fair question,” Sanders said in a video shared on social media Monday. “Let me give you my best answer – and that is that even on this issue, Donald Trump and his right wing friends are worse.” Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
Trump campaign blasts top Harris surrogate Mark Cuban for ‘insulting’ pro-Trump women
EXCLUSIVE: The Trump campaign is blasting Mark Cuban, a top surrogate for Kamala Harris, for “extremely insulting” comments against women who support former President Donald Trump, demanding the vice president “immediately condemn” his remarks. Cuban appeared on ABC’s “The View” Thursday morning when he made the comments. “Donald Trump, you never see him around strong, intelligent women. Ever,” Cuban said. “It’s just that simple. They’re intimidating to him. He doesn’t like to be challenged by them.” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed Cuban’s comments. “Joe Biden called Trump supporters garbage, and now Kamala’s top surrogate Mark Cuban insinuated female Trump supporters are ‘weak and dumb,’” Leavitt told Fox News Digital. “This is extremely insulting to the thousands of women who work for President Trump, and the tens of millions of women who are voting for him,” Leavitt said. “These women are mothers, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders, and they are, indeed, strong and intelligent, despite what Mark Cuban and Kamala Harris say.” Leavitt told Fox News Digital that the “joy at Kamala HQ has been replaced by division, vitriol, and a disturbing level of disrespect for the millions of Americans who are supporting President Trump after four years of destruction under Kamala Harris.” “Women want a president who will secure our border, remove violent criminals from our neighborhoods, and put more money in our pockets — and that’s exactly why we are supporting President Trump,” Leavitt said. “Kamala Harris must immediately condemn Mark Cuban’s disrespectful insult to women.” The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. The comment comes just days after President Biden apparently referred to Trump supporters as “garbage.” BIDEN CALLS TRUMP SUPPORTERS ‘GARBAGE’ DURING HARRIS CAMPAIGN EVENT AS VP PROMISES UNITY AT ELLIPSE RALLY Biden spoke during a Zoom call with Voto Latino, one of the largest Latino voter and civic outreach organizations in the U.S. on Tuesday. Biden was asked about a comment made Sunday during a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in which comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Biden replied, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.” The White House has since denied that Biden called Trump supporters “garbage” and claimed the comment was taken out of context. Trump, in Wisconsin on Wednesday, drove around in a “Make America Great Again” garbage truck, wearing a garbage worker’s high-visibility vest to address supporters at his Green Bay rally. “He called them garbage — and they mean it, even though, without question, my supporters are far higher quality than Crooked Joe and Lyin’ Kamala,” Trump told supporters Wednesday afternoon. But Trump said he had a response for the president and vice president. “My response to Joe and Kamala is very simple: You can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans,” Trump declared. “And you can’t be president if you hate the American people, and there’s a lot of hatred there.”
Trump says he wants to protect women, Harris says Trump wants to decide ‘what you do with your body’
When sharing a clip of former President Trump speaking about wanting to protect women, Vice President Kamala Harris claimed that Trump believes he should be able to make choices “about what you do with your body.” Trump made the remarks about protecting women after accusing Harris of allowing criminal illegal immigrants into the U.S. “Kamala has imported criminal migrants from prisons and jails, from insane asylums and mental institutions all over the world from Venezuela to the Congo, including savage criminals who assault, rape, and murder our women and girls. Anyone who would let monsters kidnap and kill our children does not belong anywhere near the Oval Office,” Trump said. HARRIS PLEDGES TO SIGN BILL ‘TO RESTORE REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM’ AS PRESIDENT IN WISCONSIN SPEECH The clip Harris shared did not include that section of Trump’s speech, but began as Trump went on to recall how people had advised him not to speak about wanting to protect women. He said they indicated that it was inappropriate. Trump said, “I’m gonna do it whether the women like it or not. I’m gonna protect them.” While the clip Harris shared ended there, during the actual speech Trump went on to say, “I’m gonna protect them from migrants coming in. I’m gonna protect them from foreign countries that wanna… hit us with missiles…” Harris responded to the clip, saying in a post on X, “Donald Trump thinks he should get to make decisions about what you do with your body. Whether you like it or not.” TRUMP MAKES PLAY FOR WOMEN’S VOTE, VOWS TO ENSURE ‘POWERFUL EXCEPTIONS’ FOR ABORTION Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, responded to Harris, writing, “Kamala euphemistically describes the act of dismembering and killing a full-term, unborn baby as ‘what you do with your body.’” “No matter how much you like it, killing a full-term baby isn’t ‘what you do with your body,’” Lee added in another post. “The fact that we can’t all agree on this basic point is deeply disturbing,” he continued. “To be clear, most of us can and do agree on this – overwhelmingly,” he added, claiming, “But Kamala doesn’t.” Virginia House of Delegates member Nick Freitas, a Republican, also blasted Harris, posting, “You think it’s a great idea to allow abortion up to the point of birth for any reason. How sick is that.” KAMALA HARRIS’ ‘RADICAL’ ABORTION STANCE WILL NOT WIN OVER MALE VOTERS: MARK THIESSEN While interviewing Harris, “CBS Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell repeatedly pressed the presidential candidate about what abortion restrictions she would support. “Let’s put back in place Roe v. Wade,” Harris said. “So you do support restrictions after viability?” O’Donnell asked. “I support Roe v. Wade being put back into law by Congress, and to restore the fundamental right of women to make decisions about their own body,” Harris replied. Trump has said that he would veto a federal abortion ban. “LIKE RONALD REAGAN BEFORE ME, I FULLY SUPPORT THE THREE EXCEPTIONS FOR RAPE, INCEST, AND THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER,” he declared on social media.
Family of Marine veteran murdered in Mexico backs Trump, Vance after silence from Biden-Harris admin
The family of a Marine veteran murdered in Mexico told Fox News Digital that they have not heard from President Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris nearly two weeks after their son’s killing. Nicholas Douglas Quets, a 31-year-old Marine veteran who worked for Pima County, Arizona, on water reclamation projects, was shot and killed along the Caborca-Altar Highway in northern Mexico on Oct. 19. Quets, whose father served 20 years in the U.S. Army and another 20 years in federal law enforcement, was born in Panama City, Panama, and grew up in Latin America. For the past several years, the family lived close to one another in Arizona, and, as an avid outdoorsman who loved the water, Quets was driving with friends down to Rocky Point for a beach trip. He was killed about 30 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border. “I am apolitical,” Quets’ father, retired Army Lt. Col. Warren Douglas Quets, told Fox News Digital. “But the facts of the matter are these: my American son, doing nothing other than going to the beach an hour from his home was executed by cowardly thugs. The news media decided to suppress it for four days, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, that would have been a great bet.” “This was the wrong Marine. This was the wrong family,” he said. “This story will not go away. It won’t go away next week after the U.S. elections. This story is going to push and push and push.” “No matter what happens next week, I am not letting this die,” the father said. “My goal for Nick is that Nick is the beginning of the end for the cartels in Mexico.” TRUMP, VANCE MEET WITH FAMILY OF MARINE VETERAN KILLED OFF MEXICAN HIGHWAY BY SUSPECTED CARTEL MEMBERS The Quets family said it was Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., who helped facilitate a meeting with Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, while he campaigned in Tucson. Days after their son’s killing, the Quets family then met with former President Donald Trump ahead of his rally in Tempe, and both running mates asked permission before mentioning Quets’ name. Vance said on stage, “I promise you the cavalry is coming, and when Donald Trump is president we’re going to kick the cartels a–es.” By contrast, the Quets family said they attempted to get a meeting with the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, when he was campaigning in Phoenix, but staffers told them the event was at capacity and turned them away. Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to headline an event in Phoenix on Thursday, which is Halloween, when Trump is also expected to be back in the state. Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and to the Harris campaign several times asking for comment on Quets’ killing but did not hear back. “In my family’s greatest hour of need for an entity, for a strong government and a strong, strong enterprise, that the United States government is, the only people in an elected capacity or a position seeking authority to run that institution came back to me and expressed concern and made commitments to me [on] how we’ll make it better … were Senator Vance and President Trump. That’s 100% fact,” Quets said. “I do believe in Donald Trump as a man of his word – not the TV character, not the billionaire – but a person who I looked at face to face and talked with,” Quets told Fox News Digital. “America got a little bit weaker. My family was destroyed, but America got a little bit weaker. Mexico got a little bit weaker. Those cartels got a little bit stronger. And the only way to reverse that is to go after these people.” Quets’ brother-in-law, retired Air Force Capt. Philip Sweet, told Fox News Digital that he currently works in federal law enforcement and is confident President Biden would have been briefed about Quets’ killing. “President Biden, he was in Arizona on Friday. We heard nothing. There was no outreach. There’s still been no outreach,” Sweet told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. “It’s not because we’re picking one side or the other … we’re an apolitical family. Before this, you wouldn’t have had either of us talk about our opinions. But what I can say is that our goal was to raise awareness for this.” “Within, you know, less than 100 hours from my brother-in-law’s murder, we had elected officials, Senator Vance, and we had President Trump take – each of them – take 15 minutes out of their extremely busy schedules to meet with us,” Sweet said. “It’s obvious to me and my family we have 100% confidence in President Trump and Senator Vance.… We know who cares about us, and that’s obvious to us. It’s President Trump and Senator Vance. I’m shocked on multiple levels that nobody from our current administration, neither of our U.S. senators, our governor, nobody has reached out.” Quets said he met Vance just four days after his son was killed. “He says, ‘You’re talking to me as JD Vance, Marine, and I want to know what it is, what happened,’” Quets recalled. “‘And I want to know what I can do to help you.’” “And I know how busy those men are in a two-week political fight of their lives,” Quets continued. “So I said everything … Vance looked at me, and he got emotional about it, and he said, ‘Tell me what I can do to help.’” FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS: ARIZONA IS TRUMP’S TO LOSE, BUT THIS ELECTION IS ANYONE’S TO WIN “And the next morning, we got called by the Trump campaign rally,” he recalled. “My daughter-in-law and my wife carried a picture of my son with them.” “Trump looked at the picture before he said anything,” Quets said. “He started to cry … had tears in his eyes. And he looks at everybody, looks at my wife, looks at my daughter-in-law,
Democrat platform ActBlue subpoenaed by House committee amid concerns foreign donors exploited security flaws
House Republicans issued a subpoena this week to the Democratic fundraising platform, ActBlue, as part of an ongoing effort to obtain more information about certain questionable transactions and the platform’s process for vetting its donors. In a letter to ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones, House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil, R-Wis., requested that the platform turn over more information about its process and policies for verifying donors before Nov. 6, the day after this year’s general election. He said the subpoena is a bid to “safeguard our nation’s elections” and “close loopholes in our campaign finance system,” including contributions from donors whose identities were not as stringently vetted. The request, sent just days ahead of the presidential election, comes as Republicans have expressed mounting concerns over ActBlue’s security policies and processes for vetting donors, which the platform has addressed in recent months with some policy changes. VIRGINIA APPEALS TO SCOTUS TO REVERSE JUDGE’S RULING PUTTING POTENTIAL NONCITIZENS BACK ON VOTER ROLLS Until recently, the platform did not require online donors to submit their credit card verification value (CVV) when donating online — prompting criticism from House Republicans, including Steil, who noted that the lack of verification could allow for “potentially fraudulent and illicit financial activity” by foreign donors. “We cannot allow foreign actors to influence our elections through campaign financing. The Committee’s investigation uncovered that foreign actors might be taking advantage of ActBlue’s inadequate security protocols,” Steil said in his letter. To date, there has been no evidence or records that such activity has taken place. Additionally, ActBlue, for its part, did begin requiring CVV numbers in August. The subpoena request comes on the heels of a New York Post report this week that the Treasury Department has identified “hundreds of records of transactions” made on the app that were flagged by banks as potentially suspicious. The department is currently reviewing those records. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., said this week that his office is “working closely with Treasury” to obtain the materials “expeditiously.” CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS IN THE 2024 ELECTION Steil and the rest of the House Administration Committee are also working to obtain more information from ActBlue about donations collected in previous months. On Wednesday, Steil sent a letter to the platform seeking information related to the platform’s donor verification policies and potential vulnerabilities. He also introduced legislation in September seeking to require political committees and donor platforms such as ActBlue to adopt more stringent vetting processes. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP The legislation would also prohibit the acceptance of contributions from prepaid gift cards, and adopt a bipartisan FEC recommendation to prohibit individuals from “knowingly aiding or abetting someone” who makes a contribution in the name of another person. The legislation passed the committee by voice vote, and has not yet been brought to the floor for a full vote. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Trump, Harris nearly tied in Michigan as Election Day nears, poll finds
A new poll has found that former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are essentially tied among voters in the battleground state of Michigan. The Washington Post poll of 1,004 registered voters reveals that Trump is leading Harris there 47 to 45%. Among that group, those who said they were likely to vote for Harris over Trump 47-46%. The poll was conducted between Oct. 24-28 and has a margin of error of 3.7%. Of those who responded, six out of every ten voters view the state of the economy negatively, according to The Washington Post. Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed listed the economy as an “extremely important issue,” followed by immigration at 47%, taxes at 44%, healthcare at 42%, abortion at 41% and U.S. policy on the war in Gaza at 29%. FOX NEWS POLL: HARRIS ERASES TRUMP’S LEAD ON THE ECONOMY IN MICHIGAN On those issues, Trump leads Harris 49-42% among registered voters who believe he would do a better job handling the economy, 51-38% on the issue of immigration, and 48-38% on the war in Gaza. DETROIT AUTOWORKERS ON KAMALA HARRIS STRUGGLING WITH BLUE-COLLAR WORKERS: ‘SHE HASN’T DONE ANYTHING FOR US’ Harris, meanwhile, leads Trump 49-36% among voters who believe she will do a better job handling abortion, and 46-40% on healthcare. The poll found that voters are split evenly over which candidate would better serve middle class workers. When asked about what to do with undocumented immigrants who currently are in the U.S., 48% said they should be offered a chance to apply for legal status, while 46% say they should be deported to the countries from which they came from.
DeSantis admin blocked in abortion ad fight until after Election Day, judge rules
A Florida judge extended a temporary restraining order until after the election that blocks the state government from threatening to take legal action against television stations over pro-abortion ads. Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group behind the Amendment 4 Right to Abortion Initiative to enshrine abortion in the state constitution, which is on the ballot on Election Day, filed a lawsuit earlier this month against Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and former health department counsel John Wilson, following threats from the Florida Department of Health to TV stations over abortion ads aired. In its letter, the health department stated the advertisements were “false” and “dangerous” and requested the ads be removed within 24 hours, or it would proceed with legal measures. DESANTIS CAMPAIGNS AGAINST HIGH-STAKES ABORTION MEASURE ON FLORIDA BALLOT: ‘BAIT AND SWITCH’ LEGISLATION District Judge Mark E. Walker initially granted the plaintiff’s request for a temporary restraining order. The order was set to expire on Tuesday, but Walker extended it until Nov. 12 – one week after the election. “…this Court concludes that Plaintiff continues to have standing for the same reasons articulated in the temporary restraining order and that good cause exists to extend the temporary restraining order, because this Court requires additional time to review the arguments for and against the motion for preliminary injunction and to draft an Order on the motion,” Walker wrote in the order. DESANTIS ADMIN BLOCKED FROM THREATENING TV STATIONS OVER PRO-ABORTION ADS Yes on 4 cheered the decision. “While this case isn’t over, this second ruling is once again a critical victory for every Floridian who believes in democracy and the sanctity of the First Amendment,” Lauren Brenzel, the group’s campaign director, said in a statement. “Once again, the court has affirmed what we’ve known all along: the government cannot silence the truth about Florida’s extreme abortion ban. It’s a deadly ban that puts women’s lives at risk. This ruling continues to remind us that Floridians will not back down in the face of government intimidation.” The order will expire on Nov. 12 or when the court enters an order on the plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction. Amendment 4’s language states, “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” LEGENDARY NFL COACH TONY DUNGY SPEAKS OUT AGAINST LEGALIZING ABORTION IN FLORIDA In its initial filing, Floridians Protecting Freedom argued that the state government’s legal threats were a violation of Floridians Protecting Freedom’s First Amendment right to run political advertisements in support of the proposed amendment. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called the measure a “bait and switch” during a press conference in Winter Garden, days after the initial order was issued. Former President Trump previously called Florida’s proposed amendment “radical” in an interview with Fox News, but said he also believes Florida’s six-week abortion restriction is too short. Fox News Digital’s Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.
Show us the money: How big money dominates the 2024 US election
The 2024 US presidential election is on track to be the costliest election in modern history. When Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race in June and backed Vice President Kamala Harris to face former President Donald Trump, it triggered a huge flow of cash to the Democrats. In the 24 hours after Harris announced her candidacy, $81m flooded her campaign fund. Harris’s campaign has been a major cash cow for the Democratic Party. She set a new record, pulling in $1bn in three months. She entered October with a huge cash advantage over Trump, having outraised the Republican Party candidate almost three-to-one, in September, pulling in $378m. Harris has also edged Trump in the battle for small donors. Despite a smaller war chest, Trump still has deep pockets, raising $160m in September. At a June event, Trump walked away with $50m after addressing donors for roughly 45 minutes. And thanks to his loyal base, when he was found guilty of falsifying business records in May, Trump used his conviction to raise $52.8m in about 24 hours, according to his campaign. Trump also leveraged an assassination attempt and his New York mugshot to extract millions from donors. Former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump has not raised as much money as his opponent in the presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris [File: Sam Wolfe/Reuters] What are the rules of funding? In the US, campaign finance is regulated by a series of laws, which aim to prevent corruption while promoting transparency. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) enforces these rules. Individuals, organisations, and companies can contribute to political campaigns, but there are limits on how much they can give directly to candidates. Individuals usually contribute the lion’s share of any given candidate’s campaign funds. Wealthier donors tend to give more. Legally, individuals can donate up to $3,300 per candidate, per election in the 2024 cycle. Both parties have federal- and state-level committees that also raise money. Candidates can also self-fund, as Trump has partially done in the past. Democrats have rallied behind Kamala Harris since she became the party’s nominee for president, after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race [File: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters] What’s a super PAC? There are ways to get around the contribution limits – political action committees (PACs) and super PACs, which play a monumental role in US elections. PACs pool contributions from members and donate them to campaigns, with limits of $5,000 per candidate per year. PACs often represent industries like oil or aerospace, or focus on issues like climate change or gun rights. Super PACs, created after a 2010 Supreme Court ruling, are funded by individuals, unions, and corporations. Unlike PACs, they can donate unlimited amounts to independent organisations linked to a candidate, but cannot give to, or coordinate directly with, campaigns. And that freedom allows the wealthy to pump as much money as they want to support their preferred candidate. So far, outside spending from these groups has totalled approximately $2.8bn since 2010, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group tracking money in politics. Much of that money funds advertising, mailings, canvassing, and online presence. Tesla and SpaceX CEO and significant monetary Trump donor Elon Musk walks to the stage to speak alongside Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, Saturday, October 5, 2024 [Alex Brandon/AP Photo] What’s the impact? The influence of money in politics raises concerns. Super PACs especially open the door for significant contributions, often raising questions about whether elections truly reflect the will of the people or that of elite donors. Elon Musk, the controversial tech billionaire — and the world’s richest person — who endorsed Trump, announced in July that he planned to donate about $45m monthly to the America PAC, a Trump-supporting super PAC that he set up. His fundraising efforts, focussed on voter registration and early voting in battleground states, have faced scrutiny. Meanwhile, Miriam Adelson, the conservative billionaire, donated $95m to another super PAC supporting Trump, CNN has reported. The rise of “dark money” — contributions not required to disclose donors — has also made transparency harder to achieve. OpenSecrets reported an “unprecedented surge” in dark money during the 2023 and 2024 cycles, which could surpass the $660m from unknown sources in 2020. In some cases, PACs and Super PACs are even a way of influencing another party from the one the donor supports. For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which specifically aims to fund candidates who back Israel and support the opponents of those who don’t, was found to be the biggest source of money from Republican-aligned donors to Democrats in the latter’s primaries earlier this year, according to an analysis by Politico. That money successfully helped to defeat Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, two pro-Palestinian progressives in the House of Representatives, during their primaries this year. Early voting has begun in the 2024 election, but millions are still being pumped in to support candidates and reach people who have not yet voted [Megan Varner/Getty Images/AFP] What’s being done? Campaign finance reform could help balance the scales, but efforts advocating for stricter donation limits, transparency, and public financing have not gained traction at the federal level. In 2022, President Biden called dark money a “serious” threat to democracy and urged Congress to pass a campaign finance bill requiring political groups to disclose big donors. Senate Republicans blocked the bill. There are state initiatives, however, helping balance the scales. New York City has a public matching system, where small-dollar donations are matched by public funds, amplifying the voices of more modest contributors over large donors. Other efforts, like the Honest Ads Act, had aimed to make political advertising more transparent, by providing more information on the people buying the advertisements. It was folded into the Freedom to Vote Act, but that has failed to pass the US Senate. Adblock test (Why?)
In Georgia, four years of US election fraud claims resonate among voters
As the rumours surrounding the dumpster and the false claims of thrown-out ballots spread, Ben Johnson, a local tech entrepreneur, tweeted at L Lin Wood, a lawyer who led efforts to challenge the 2020 results in Georgia and Michigan on behalf of Trump. Johnson claimed to have “the source video for ballots found in the dumpster in Spalding County”, as reported by the Daily Beast, citing since-deleted posts. Less than a year later, Johnson, whose posts also appear to support pro-QAnon conspiracy theories, became chair of the Spalding County election board. Most recently, in August, Gabriel Sterling, a top Republican election official in the state, posted on X that the “actual evidence points to no fraud” in Georgia’s 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections. Johnson shot back, “Gabe’s pic[ture] is beside the definition of #gaslighting on dictionary.com” But Dexter Wimbish, a local lawyer and one of two Democratic members on the election board, feels there is more behind Johnson’s appointment. Prior to 2020, the election board was divided evenly between Republicans and Democrats. The fifth and final member was chosen by coin toss. But after the election, Republican state legislators passed a law mandating that three top county judges instead choose the final board member. As those judges are conservative, Wimbish explained, the change all but guaranteed that Republicans would dominate the board. “I really believe that Spalding County is sort of a test site for the right in terms of coming up with local strategies to to interfere with the election process,” Wimbish said. He pointed to a recent decision by the board to require hand-counting audits of one local and one federal race, which he argued could lead to protracted litigation after election day, while stoking confusion. Concerns peaked when Georgia’s state board passed new election rules that allowed county officials to investigate and potentially not certify election results in some cases. A report by Pro-Publica identified Spalding, along with Troup and Ware, as counties in Georgia with election boards dominated by election sceptics that could have outsized influence in light of those rules. However, a Georgia judge has since declared the new rules “illegal, unconstitutional and void”, saying that local officials were mandated to certify the election results. The state’s Supreme Court has said it will not intervene before the election. Spalding County Democratic Committee vice chair Elbert Solomon speaks from his office in Griffin, Georgia [Joseph Stepansky/Al Jazeera] But in places like Spalding County, there may still be trouble, local observers warn. Wimbish, the Democrat member of the Spalding County election board, told Al Jazeera, “it’s clear that the majority of the board welcomes litigation because they think the litigation is going to bring about their their desired outcome…I still think there’s a strong possibility that we’re going to see some sort of election controversy in Spalding County with the upcoming election.” Elbert Solomon, the vice chair of the Spalding County Democratic Committee, has also been a vocal critic of the new board. “Here in Spalding, if they could come up with some reason not to certify the election, I believe they would,” Solomon told Al Jazeera from his office in Griffin. “They have the majority vote.” For his part, Johnson has maintained during public meetings that the board seeks to act in a non-partisan manner. He did not respond to a request for an interview from Al Jazeera. Adblock test (Why?)
Israeli soldiers in Gaza surprised to be identified by their online posts
NewsFeed Israeli soldiers in Gaza are seemingly surprised that they are being identified through their social media posts. Some are now worrying about possible consequences. Published On 31 Oct 202431 Oct 2024 Adblock test (Why?)