Dark Money, Assailed by Dems, Aided Biden: Analysis

Though Dems have long criticized anonymous money in politics, this latest election cycle saw a wave of it flow into and fill up Democratic Party coffers.

According to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics for CNN, more than $320 million in "dark money" boosted Democrats in races for the White House and congressional seats, more than double what Republicans saw.

At the top of the list, the analysis showed, was Joe Biden. He took in nearly $132 million in such anonymous funding for his bid to unseat President Donald Trump. Trump, who is appealing vote counts showing a Biden win, received just $22 million in dark money.

Biden's aides declined comment on the record, CNN said, but pointed to his letting reporters listen in on fundraising events as evidence of his support for transparency.

They also note that the former vice president, a supporter of  public financing for federal candidates, has proposed sweeping changes to address the role of money in politics and curb the outsize influence of dark money while backing more small-donor, grassroots funding for candidates.

The analysis defined dark money as donations and other spending by nonprofits that don't disclose sources, and money from limited liability corporations functioning as shell corporations.

With such funding, the mysterious sourcing of cash obscures the agenda of the donors. Dems have railed against it for years. 

"This is a rotten system, but as long as it exists, both parties are going to use it," said Fred Wertheimer, who runs a watchdog group, Democracy 21, and according to the cable news network is part of a coalition of more than 170 groups urging the incoming president to tackle issues that include campaign finance transparency. "The test for us is: What are you prepared to do about the system?" Wertheimer was quoted as saying.

The analysis looked at dark money giving to super PACs, and any money nonprofits spend directly on an election or defeat of a specific person seeking office. One Nation, a nonprofit with anonymous funding associated with Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, is the largest nameless donor in federal races so far, giving more than $60 million to an aligned super PAC working to help the GOP keep its Senate hold.

On the flip side, three liberal groups, led by a group known as the Sixteen Thirty Fund, account for a third of the dark money donations aiding Dems. In all, the analysis pointed to $52 million flowing from the Sixteen Thirty Fund to other groups active in the 2020 elections.

One small sum, about $300,000, went to The Lincoln Project, which has generated ads, postings and more sharply critical of Trump.

For all the qualms over dark money, the system remains in place, indeed, even as candidates, parties and other groups ramp up their spending on all-important Senate runoff elections in Georgia. The Jan. 5 votes will ultimately determine who controls the Senate chamber.

 

Affidavit in Sidney Powell's Suit Claims Evidence Ties Vote Machines to Iran, China

An analysis by a onetime military intelligence analyst whose name was redacted in an affidavit with lawyer attorney Sidney Powell’s lawsuit against Michigan officials insists there's “unambiguous evidence” that Dominion Voter Systems servers were accessible to and were “compromised by rogue actors, such as Iran and China.”

According to reporting by The Epoch Times, Powell’s complaint, filed Wednesday against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, and the Board of State Canvassers, cites the affidavit as representing a former electronic intelligence analyst and supporting claims that “the Dominion software was accessed by agents acting on behalf of China and Iran in order to monitor and manipulate elections, including the most recent US general election in 2020.”

Epoch said that a separate complaint in Georgia expands on the assertion, claiming that “by using servers and employees connected with rogue actors and hostile foreign influences combined with numerous easily discoverable leaked credentials, Dominion neglectfully allowed foreign adversaries to access data and intentionally provided access to their infrastructure in order to monitor and manipulate elections, including the most recent one in 2020.”

The analyst, who allegedly claimed to have “extensive experience as a white hat hacker used by some of the top election specialists in the world,” said that they scanned Dominion network nodes and found a number of interrelationships with foreign entities, including access to Dominion’s server by a network from Hunan, China. Another review is said to have confirmed links to an Iranian IP address.

The analyst said the findings represent a “complete failure” on the part of Dominion to provide “basic cyber security.”

For its part, the voting machine company didn't respond to Epoch Times inquiries, but earlier in the week issued a strong denial that it is under any outside entity's influence.

As The Epoch Times reported, Dominion said there were “unfounded allegations being made against the company and its voting systems” in recent days.

What's more, the firm said, “Dominion voting systems are designed and certified by the U.S. government to be closed and do not rely on network connectivity. Dominion’s tabulators also do not have exposed USB or other memory ports.” The latter comments appear to be in reference to recent claims of mysterious parties showing up and inserting thumb drives into Dominion machines during the vote earlier this month.

President Donald Trump and his legal surrogates are challenging the results of the Nov. 3 election, which seem to propel Joe Biden to the White House. The Trump campaign has alleged widespread and systemic voter fraud in multiple battleground states.

 

Giuliani: Team Trump Looking Past Election Suits to State Houses​

Rudy Giuliani says he and his associates contesting election results on behalf of President Donald Trump will be lobbying state legislatures in key states to assert their authority in determining the electors for the Electoral College in addition to their legal challenges because they ''don’t have a lot of time.''

Appearing on Newsmax TV’s ''Greg Kelly Reports'' on Thursday, Giuliani said the Trump campaign is taking a two-prong approach.

''We’re doing both, with equal speed and enthusiasm and taking advantage of which one gives us the hearing the quickest. And which one will work fastest for us,'' said Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City. ''Because we don’t have a lot of time. We’ve got a lot of evidence; we don’t have a lot of time. And we’re facing a major censorship, so it’s very hard to get this information out to the public.

''The public has only a small idea of the kind of evidence we have.''

Giuliani’s comments come on the day that a federal appeals court refused to hear the Trump campaign’s appeal of a lawsuit challenging the results of the presidential election in Pennsylvania rejected by Barack Obama-appointed district court Judge Matthew Brann.

The former mayor disputed the contention saying he had affidavits from election observers that were denied access to witness ballots being counted, of absentee ballots being ''cured'' — that is, information such as a voter signature or missing secrecy envelope was allowed to be corrected, among other irregularities.

''The situation in Michigan was worse than the situation in Pennsylvania,'' Giuliani said. ''The situation in Wisconsin was outrageous. I mean they have all these absentee ballots without applications. In Nevada, they used a machine that basically didn’t work and let every signature go through, even though it’s illegal to use a machine. I mean they cheated in all the places that were critical to them. And you know they did, because Trump was way ahead on the night of the election. It’s impossible that (Joe) Biden would have come back in every single one of those places. Impossible.''

Giuliani’s strategy appears to already have some traction in Pennsylvania, where state Sen. Doug Mastriano said half of the leadership in both houses of the General Assembly, both controlled by Republicans, support the efforts to reclaim their authority to appoint electors to the Electoral College.

''I’ve spent two hours online trying to coordinate this with my colleagues. And there’s a lot of good people working this here,'' Mastriano said Friday on ''War Room,'' former White House strategist Steve Bannon’s video podcast.

''Saying, that the resolution saying we’re going to take our power back. We’re going to seat the electors. Now obviously we’re going to need the support of the leadership of the House and Senate. We’re getting there on that.''

 

twitter censorship cartoons

 

Twitter bans Pa. State Sen. Doug Mastriano after hearing on voter fraud

Supporters of President Donald Trump gather outside the Wyndham Hotel, where Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for the president, is speaking at a hearing of the Pennsylvania State Senate Majority Policy Committee, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020, in Gettysburg, Pa. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 8:57 AM PT – Thursday, November 26, 2020

Big Tech has continued to show bias towards Republicans and GOP lawmakers with social media platform Twitter recently banning Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastriano after he organized a Senate hearing on election integrity.

COL Mastriano is easily one of the most highly-decorated and well-credentialed members of any state legislature

Today, Twitter suspended him for no reason whatsoever after he led a committee hearing that featured the President of the United State @DougMastriano pic.twitter.com/VLjYf8GAZI

— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) November 26, 2020

The ban came Wednesday after the Senate Majority Policy Committee convened with the goal of uncovering exactly what happened in the Keystone State.

“I mean, I don’t even know how this happened in America,” stated Mastriano. “We can send, 50 years ago, men to the moon, but we can’t have a safe secure election in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania? What’s going on here?”

The hearing included testimony from multiple witnesses who gave evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 elections with President Trump even delivering remarks via phone.

“Very sad to say it, this election was rigged and we can’t let that happen,” said the President. “We can’t let it happen for our country and this election has to be turned around, because we won Pennsylvania by a lot and we won all of these swing states by a lot.”

The President’s campaign has repeatedly fought to point out voting irregularities in the Keystone State. It has filed 16 suits that cited various instances of fraud, denial of access to Republican poll watchers, mail-in ballot issues and violation of equal protection clauses.

Mastriano slammed the hypocrisy of the left, stating Democrats were more concerned with upholding democracy on the other side of the world than they were in their own states.

“We move heaven and earth with American dollars to secure elections in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere,” he noted. “We can’t do it in our own state? It’s by design.”

Twitter has yet to comment on the ban.

RELATED: Pa. State Senate holds hearing on election fraud

 

Gingrich: Democrats Caught Stealing Election

Election officials in Democratic strongholds of Pennsylvania ''exceeded their authority in order to give voters preferential treatment,'' but their work was sloppy and lazy and the courts ''need to stop them from destroying more evidence,'' former House Speaker Newt Gingrich writes in a column for The Epoch Times.

Gingrich, citing a Nov. 21 lawsuit filed in district court, said officials in certain counties used ''a variety of illegal practices that were used to inflate the number of votes received by Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, including disparate treatment of voters based on where they live and outright manipulation of Pennsylvania’s voter registration system by partisan activities.''

''Specifically, election workers illegally 'pre-canvassed' mail-in ballots to determine whether they were missing a secrecy envelope or failed to include necessary information,'' writes Gingrich. ''When ballots were found to be flawed, voters were given an opportunity to correct, or 'cure,' their ballots to make sure they counted. In at least some cases, Democrat Party officials were even given lists of voters to contact about curing their ballots.''

Gingrich said Democrat Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, specifically, issued guidance authorizing the illegal practices ''despite lacking the statutory authority to do so.''

Several news outlets have called the race for Biden. Newsmax will not announce a winner until enough states certify votes for a candidate to get to 270 Electoral College votes.

 

Federalist: 5 Ways Biden Unusually Outperformed Norms

Journalists are strangely lacking curiosity about some mysterious ways Democrat Joe Biden pulled off some "electoral jujitsu" in this presidential election, according to The Federalist's J.B. Shurk.

"Surely the journalist class should be intrigued by the historic implausibility of Joe Biden's victory," according to Shurk's outline of five improbabilities, breaking down this "unique political voodoo."

"That they are not is curious, to say the least."

Biden "pulled so many rabbits out of his hat" to potentially become the oldest elected president in American history, should Trump fail in his legal challenges to the election tallies of several key state. Most notable are these:

1. 80M Votes

Trump gained 10 million more votes in 2020 than he saw in his 2016 election victory, but that pales in comparison to Biden's record gains in defeating the first "incumbent president in nearly a century and a half" who has gained votes in a reelection campaign.

"Candidate Joe Biden was so effective at animating voters in 2020 that he received a record number of votes, more than 15 million more than Barack Obama received in his reelection of 2012," Shurk wrote.

"Proving how sharp his political instincts are, the former VP managed to gather a record number of votes while consistently trailing President Trump in measures of voter enthusiasm. Biden was so savvy that he motivated voters unenthusiastic about his campaign to vote for him in record numbers."

2. Overcoming Bellwether County Losses

"Amazingly, he managed to secure victory while also losing in almost every bellwether county across the country," Shurk wrote. "No presidential candidate has been capable of such electoral jujitsu until now."

Biden might be the first U.S. president in 60 years to lose the bellwether states of Ohio and Florida. Remarkably, Shurk noted, "despite national polling giving Biden a lead in both states, he lost Ohio by eight points and Florida by more than three."

"Even more unbelievably, Biden is on his way to winning the White House after having lost almost every historic bellwether county across the country," Shurk wrote. "The Wall Street Journal and The Epoch Times independently analyzed the results of 19 counties around the United States that have nearly perfect presidential voting records over the last 40 years. President Trump won every single bellwether county, except Clallam County in Washington.

"Whereas the former VP picked up Clallam by about three points, President Trump's margin of victory in the other 18 counties averaged over 16 points. In a larger list of 58 bellwether counties that have correctly picked the president since 2000, Trump won 51 of them by an average of 15 points, while the other seven went to Biden by around four points. Bellwether counties overwhelmingly chose President Trump, but Biden found a path to victory anyway."

3. Biden Topped Hillary Clinton in Just a Few Cities

Polling guru Richard Baris of Big Data Poll marveled at how "Biden underperformed Hillary Clinton in every major metro area around the country, save for Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta and Philadelphia."

Coincidentally, those are major cities in key battleground states the Trump campaign has questioned and sought to contest with legal challenges of voter fraud: Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. The electoral college votes in those states are ultimately deciding this election.

Even The Washington Post featured an election analyst Robert Barnes who marveled:  "Big cities in swing states run by Democrats . . . the vote even exceeded the number of registered voters," Shurk wrote.

4. Republicans Gained Around the Country, but Biden Soared

It was a "Biden miracle," Shurk noted, that Trump might lose reelection despite his GOP gaining House seats.

There were 27 House tossups, pollster noted, but Republican not only won them, they appear to have swept them all, a shocked Shurk projected.

"Democrats failed to flip a single state house chamber, while Republicans flipped both the House and Senate in New Hampshire and expanded their dominance of state legislatures across the country," he added.

"Amazingly, Biden beat the guy who lifted all other Republicans to victory. Now that's historic!"

5. Trump's Primary Performance Was Legendary

Trump was just one of five incumbents since 1912 to win over 90% of the primary vote, and he set a record for an incumbent with 18 million votes. That is more than double the next most primary votes for an incumbent in history.

"No incumbent who has received 75% of the total primary vote has lost reelection," according to Shurk, but Trump won 94% of the primary vote for the fourth-best all-time.

"For Biden to prevail in the general election, despite Trump's historic support in the primaries, turns a century's worth of prior election data on its head," Shurk concluded.

"Joe Biden achieved the impossible. It's interesting that many more journalists aren't pointing that out."

 

A super-majority -- 68% of Republicans and GOP primary voting independents -- would love to see President Donald Trump run again in 2024 if he ultimately fails to prevail against Joe Biden in this year’s election, according to a new Newsmax/McLaughlin Associates poll.

The president continues to hold a strong job approval rating, with 48%.

And to a majority of Americans, 52%, major media outlets in the U.S. have been biased and unfair in their coverage of Trump, who is in the midst of a fierce legal battle on several fronts to challenge the results of the recent presidential election.

Here are more highlights from the Newsmax/McLaughlin poll:

• In all, 53% of Republican primary voters say they would favor Trump in a field of 13 potential challengers, including Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Pence finished second with 9%. None of the other potential candidates finished with more than 4%. “In a crowded field of 14 possible candidates for the 2024 Republican primary, no one comes close to President Trump,” pollster John McLaughlin said.

• If Trump does not run again in 2024, Pence and Donald Trump Jr. then appear tied for the lead with 20% each.

Don Jr., the president’s eldest son and the most politically active of Trump’s children, has apparently enjoyed the talk of a 2024 bid.

In October, he tweeted a picture of himself standing in front of a “Don Jr. 2024” sign, saying that “this will make lib heads explode.”

The poll, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates between Nov. 21 and 23, surveyed 1,000 likely general election voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.