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Category: Politics
October 26, 2023
Analysis
Politics

READ: ‘Sidney Powell Didn’t Flip on Trump or MAGA’.

A close associate to lawyer Sidney Powell has insisted that the election fraud assailant has not, in fact, “flipped on Trump,” writing on Substack this week:

It is alarming (although not surprising) to see the misinformation in headlines, new articles, and on social media about Sidney Powell’s plea in Georgia last week. Even good Republicans and MAGA supporters seem confused and misinformed about the facts of her plea, many believing she has disavowed her position on the 2020 election and betrayed her supporters or that she has “flipped” on Trump.

– Molly McCann Sanders, October 2023.

Powell pleaded guilty to six lesser charges involving efforts to allegedly overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Many outlets immediately began to speculate that Powell was actively cooperating against co-defendant Trump, perhaps intentionally ignoring the nuances highlighted by McCann Sanders:

First, let’s be very clear that Sidney did not plead guilty to a conspiracy with Donald Trump to unlawfully overturn the 2020 election. The RICO charge was dropped as part of Sidney’s plea. To repeat for absolute clarity, Sidney did not plead guilty to a charge that she unlawfully tried to overturn the 2020 election or otherwise “admit” that the claims the 2020 election were stolen were unsubstantiated.

– Molly McCann Sanders, October 2023.

Slate declared the plea deal to be ‘…so, so bad for Donald Trump’, while the New York Times speculated the agreement with prosecutors could be a ‘threat’ to Trump, noting: “For the first time, prosecutors have the cooperation of someone who was closely involved in Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in office after his election defeat.” Elie Honig, a legal analyst at CNN, called the deal a “really big breakthrough for prosecutors” and added that “There’s no such thing as halfway cooperation.”

But Powell’s plea agreement doesn’t impact former President Trump in any meaningful way, according to McCann Sanders, who added: “Sidney’s plea agreement is for conduct unrelated to Donald Trump and only tenuously related to even Sidney herself. Simply put: Sidney agreed to take the rap for the disputed access to Fulton County machines.”

READ THE FULL PIECE HERE.

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A close associate to lawyer Sidney Powell has insisted that the election fraud assailant has not, in fact, "flipped on Trump," writing on Substack this week: show more

Editor’s Notes

Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.

RAHEEM J. KASSAM Editor-in-Chief
Molly is right, as The National Pulse also implied in our reporting as soon as the plea deal came out
for exclusive members-only insights
Molly is right, as The National Pulse also implied in our reporting as soon as the plea deal came out show more
for exclusive members-only insights
October 26, 2023
Jack Montgomery
Politics

Even The Anti-Trump ACLU Says DC Gag Order Violates First Amendment.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has, despite its longstanding opposition to Donald Trump, agreed a gag order imposed on him and his lawyers by Jan 6 judge Tanya Chutkan violates his First Amendment rights, by placing restrictions on his ability to speak that are “too broad and too vague.”

While usually more concerned with far-left activities such as suing small towns over Christmas decorations featuring Christian symbols in recent years, the ACLU has given a rare nod to its former goal of upholding free speech by filing an amicus brief in Washington, D.C. in defense of Trump’s rights. The brief argues the limits placed on the 45 President’s ability to comment on Chutkan, special prosecutor Jack Smith, and court staff abridge his right to speech, and the public’s right “to hear what he has to say.”

While feeling it necessary to allege without evidence that “[n]o modern-day President did more damage to civil liberties and civil rights than President Trump,” the leftist organization goes on to warn that “if we allow his free speech rights to be abridged… other unpopular voices – even ones we agree with – will also be silenced.”

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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has, despite its longstanding opposition to Donald Trump, agreed a gag order imposed on him and his lawyers by Jan 6 judge Tanya Chutkan violates his First Amendment rights, by placing restrictions on his ability to speak that are "too broad and too vague." show more
October 26, 2023
Jack Montgomery
Culture
News
Politics

1 in 4 Americans Now Say ‘Patriots May Have to Resort to Violence to Save the Country’.

There has been a major increase in the number of Americans who agree that “Because things haven gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country” – with a sharper rise among Democrats and Independents than Republicans.

While only 15 percent of Americans agreed political violence may be necessary in 2021, the figure has risen to 23 percent as of 2023.

This sentiment is highest among Republicans, having risen from 28 percent to 33 percent, but the rise has been more significant among Democrats, almost doubling from seven percent to 13 percent. Independents have also seen a sharper rise, from 13 percent to 22 percent.

Similar changes can be observed when examining Americans’ religious and ethnic backgrounds. The feeling that political violence may be necessary is greatest among white evangelicals and mainline Protestants, having risen from 24 and 18 percent to 31 and 25 percent, respectively – but there has been a more pronounced rise among black Protestants, from 12 percent to 24 percent.

Hispanic Catholics are actually slightly more likely to believe political violence is necessary than white Catholics, at 21 percent versus 20 percent (up from 17 and 16 percent in 2021.)

People who describe themselves are religiously unaffiliated or religious but non-Christian have also seen steep rises, from 12 percent to 23 percent and from nine percent to 23 percent.

People in these groups were not broken down by ethnicity or by particular religions such as Islam, however.

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There has been a major increase in the number of Americans who agree that "Because things haven gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country" – with a sharper rise among Democrats and Independents than Republicans. show more
October 25, 2023
Breaking
Politics

Rep. Bowman Pleads Guilty & Pays $1K Fine After Pulling Congress Fire Alarm.

Congressman Jamaal Bowman is facing a misdemeanour charge following an incident on September 30 at the Cannon House Office Building. Bowman, caught on security cameras, pulled a fire alarm as the House debated a short-term funding resolution to keep the government functioning amidst budget-related deliberations.

Bowman, who attributed pulling the fire alarm to the mistaken belief that it would open a nearby door, has reached a settlement pertaining to the charges. It involves a guilty plea, an apology, and the payment of the maximum allowable fine for the offence. With these conditions, the charges will be “dropped” in three months, according to statements made on Tuesday. “I am responsible for activating a fire alarm, I will be paying the fine issued, and look forward to these charges being ultimately dropped,” Bowman stated.

In the aftermath of the charged incident, the House pressed forward, voting on and approving a short-term funding resolution. Bowman, along with other Democrats, supported the bill. However, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy experienced a backlash from his Republican caucus, ultimately leading to his removal from speakership. After a three-week stalemate, Representative Mike Johnson was voted in as the new Speaker.

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Congressman Jamaal Bowman is facing a misdemeanour charge following an incident on September 30 at the Cannon House Office Building. Bowman, caught on security cameras, pulled a fire alarm as the House debated a short-term funding resolution to keep the government functioning amidst budget-related deliberations. show more
October 25, 2023
Jack Montgomery
Immigration
News
Politics

Up to 1,600 Migrants Arriving in Los Angeles Every Week.

Like New York City and Chicago before it, Los Angeles is beginning to be overrun by the Joe Biden-engineered migrant crisis, with Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) executive director Angelica Salas saying “we have between 1,000 and 1,600 people” arriving “every week”. The City of The Angels is “an immigrant city,” she added.

The Los Angeles City Council voted to make LA a “sanctuary city” for migrants as recently as June, and as with other Democrat-run “sanctuary cities” conservatives in Texas and other frontier states have begun taking them at their word by busing illegal aliens to their jurisdictions.

For now, bused migrants are still “a minority” of the arrivals LA is dealing with, according to Salas, with most still being “people who come through the California border and who walk here or get here on their own”.

While activists like Salas are for now still sympathetic to the migrants, working-class Californians are beginning to feel the negative effects of their presence, with hotel bosses accused of hiring them, possibly in violation of labor laws, to replace local workers striking for better pay and conditions.

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Like New York City and Chicago before it, Los Angeles is beginning to be overrun by the Joe Biden-engineered migrant crisis, with Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) executive director Angelica Salas saying "we have between 1,000 and 1,600 people" arriving "every week". The City of The Angels is "an immigrant city," she added. show more
October 25, 2023
Jake Welch
Politics

Dean Phillips is Running Against Joe Biden. Who Is He?

Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips (D-MI) is preparing to announce his intentions to become the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee before the end of the week, opposing an uncontested primary election in President Biden‘s favor.

Phillips, who represents Minnesota’s Third District, has been vocal about the need for someone to challenge Biden in the run-up to 2024 due to the President’s age and a sense that the American electorate “is begging for alternatives” to the octogenarian.

The Congressman, who entered the House of Representatives as a multimillionaire businessman after founding an ice cream company, recently stepped down as Democratic Policy and Communications Caucus (DPCC) co-chair and has reportedly begun reaching out to potential staffers about working in New Hampshire. He also called the Granite State’s Democratic Party Chair, Ray Buckley, to introduce himself.

“My convictions relative to the 2024 presidential race are incongruent with the majority of my caucus, and I felt it appropriate to step aside from elected leadership to avoid unnecessary distractions during a critical time for our country,” Phillips argued while stepping down from his co-chair position.

He will become the second challenger to President Biden after author Marianne Williamson.

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Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips (D-MI) is preparing to announce his intentions to become the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee before the end of the week, opposing an uncontested primary election in President Biden's favor. show more
desantis
October 25, 2023
Jack Montgomery
Politics

TIME’S UP: It’s Been 60 Days Since Ron DeSantis’s Team Said They Had 60 Days to Stop Trump.

It has been 60 days since Jeff Roe, the controversial leading man in Ron DeSantis’s ‘Never Back Down’ super PAC, told donors the Florida Governor had to start beating Trump within “the next 60 days”  while begging for $50 million. Far from overtaking the former president, he has now fallen significantly further behind.

Team Trump has been counting down Roe’s self-imposed deadline for weeks, and observed on Monday that DeSantis “trailed President Trump by 33 points with 21 percent support” when he first announced but “millions of dollars later” trails Trump by 47 points, falling to “an embarrassing 12 percent support.”

Far from attempting to pretend Roe’s deadline never existed, however, DeSantis’s “rapid response director” Christina Pushaw chose to highlight Trump campaign posts pointing out the Floridian’s failure, claiming it as evidence her team “broke them”.

Her boss, however, disagreed. DeSantis told reporters the deadline wasn’t a “very smart thing to do,” and tried to distance himself from his own PAC’s messaging.

“[Jeff Roe’s] not my adviser, and they do what they want to do. I think that that’s fine. I don’t think very many people think that that was a very smart thing to do with whatever was going on with that.”

– Ron DeSantis, October 2023.

While some DeSantis diehards joined in the bizarre defeat lap, others were unconvinced, with one social media noting the Tallahassee team “can’t even break 20 percent in the polls.”

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It has been 60 days since Jeff Roe, the controversial leading man in Ron DeSantis's 'Never Back Down' super PAC, told donors the Florida Governor had to start beating Trump within “the next 60 days”  while begging for $50 million. Far from overtaking the former president, he has now fallen significantly further behind. show more
October 25, 2023
William Upton
Breaking
News
Politics

WE HAVE A SPEAKER: Johnson Slides In 22 Days After Gaetz Ousted McCarthy.

Congressman Mike Johnson (R-LA) is officially the new Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Louisiana Republican emerged from relative obscurity to become the consensus candidate of House Republicans after three other nominees for Speaker failed to garner the 217 votes needed to attain the gavel. When asked what he thought about Speaker-designate Mike Johnson, former President Donald Trump said, “Everybody likes him… it looks like it’s gonna happen” – providing a key nod of support.

Johnson managed to head off a late revolt by supporters of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) who sought to restore the establishment Republican to his station after he was ousted by a ‘motion to vacate’ brought by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) over two weeks ago. Gaetz told Steve Bannon on War Room it was McCarthy and his allies who engineered the defeats of the three prior Republican nominees for Speaker, Reps. Steve Scalise (R-LA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Tom Emmer (R-MN). According to Gaetz, McCarthy believed that he could wear down House Republicans over time and retake his Speakership.

The leaked results of a Republican Conference vote late last night indicated that Johnson had secured 128 votes out of the 221 total Republicans the House. McCarthy, pushed by a write-in campaign, secured 43 votes. However, when the Conference then took up an open roll call vote on whether they’d support Johnson on the floor, the McCarthy insurgency ended and Johnson secured 196 of the 199 Republicans who were present. Three House Republicans voted ‘present’ but subsequently endorsed Johnson’s bid for Speaker.

Speaker Johnson, first elected to the House of Representatives in 2016 on the back of Donald Trump’s historic presidential victory, has a reputation as an astute constitutional lawyer who has frequently tangled with the Biden government in House Judiciary Committee meetings.

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Congressman Mike Johnson (R-LA) is officially the new Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Louisiana Republican emerged from relative obscurity to become the consensus candidate of House Republicans after three other nominees for Speaker failed to garner the 217 votes needed to attain the gavel. When asked what he thought about Speaker-designate Mike Johnson, former President Donald Trump said, "Everybody likes him… it looks like it’s gonna happen" – providing a key nod of support. show more
ron desantis
October 25, 2023
Jack Montgomery
Fact Check
Politics

FACT CHECK: DeSantis Claims Trump Said ‘Don’t Vote’ in 2024. He Did Not.

Ron DeSantis has falsely claimed Donald Trump told supporters not to vote in the 2024 election, disingenuously reframing comments by the 45th President on the even greater importance of ensuring the election is conducted fairly.

In a video posted this week, DeSantis alleged Trump “is wedded to the teleprompter; he can’t get off that teleprompter, [and] anytime he does he says things like ‘don’t vote’. He’s telling people not to vote, like, we have all the votes we need.”

The Florida Governor was referring to a nine-second clip from a lengthy speech by Trump at a rally in Derry, New Hampshire, shared by the Jeff Roe-led DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, in which the former president says “don’t worry about voting”.

But far from being an injunction not to vote at all, Trump’s remarks formed part of a wider message on the need for Republicans to turn out in force on election night to observe the conduct of the vote counts and ensure there is no fraud. DeSantis, who has taken money from Dominion Voting Systems lawyers, seems less keen on Trump’s messaging on election integrity.

“[A]long with our borders probably the most important thing of all, we will secure our elections, because if you don’t have borders and if you don’t have fair elections this country will not survive,” Trump says.

“Our goal will be one-day voting with paper ballots and voter ID, but until then, Republicans, you have to get out in November,” he said at the same event, before again stressing: “We have to get out in November. We can’t let them cheat; the only way they beat us is going to be if they cheat; they can’t beat us otherwise. They don’t have the votes, and we don’t want to see those votes get manipulated.”

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Ron DeSantis has falsely claimed Donald Trump told supporters not to vote in the 2024 election, disingenuously reframing comments by the 45th President on the even greater importance of ensuring the election is conducted fairly. show more

Editor’s Notes

Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.

RAHEEM J. KASSAM Editor-in-Chief
This latest misrepresentation is just the latest in a long line of Jeff Roe-inspired hatchet jobs against the former President, all of which have failed to help DeSantis
for exclusive members-only insights
This latest misrepresentation is just the latest in a long line of Jeff Roe-inspired hatchet jobs against the former President, all of which have failed to help DeSantis show more
for exclusive members-only insights
October 25, 2023
Jake Welch
Politics

REPORT: FBI, DOJ Sued After Spying on Congress Staffers With Direct Oversight.

Multiple former congressional staffers who had direct oversight responsibility for the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) unknowingly had their phone and email records seized by the DOJ in 2017.

The staffers revealed over the past few days they received notifications from Apple, Google, as well as other tech firms that their private correspondence was seized via grand jury subpoenas or search warrants.

Officials also admit the actions were linked to the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” Investigation into the bogus claims of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections. The revelations raise fears that those overseeing the legislative branch were actively monitored by those responsible for executive branch oversight.

Kash Patel, who was made aware of the DOJ’s seizures last year, recently filed a lawsuit against the DOJ and FBI on the grounds they violated his civil liberties. The action alleges the former FBI director, Chris Wray, participated in the approval of the grand jury subpoena.

“It is particularly troubling and a clear violation of Mr. Patel’s Fourth Amendment rights that the FBI and DOJ agents would seek Mr. Patel’s personal information due to his role in a legitimate oversight investigation,” the lawsuit argues.

“The Justice Department’s secret targeting of congressional investigators is a new low in the agency’s sordid history of abusing its authority to evade accountability,” argued Republican Senator for Iowa Charles Grassley, responding to the revelations.

“Ever since the botched Crossfire Hurricane investigation came to light, the FBI and Justice Department have gone to great lengths to cover up and distract from their own malfeasance,” Senator Grassley added.

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Multiple former congressional staffers who had direct oversight responsibility for the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) unknowingly had their phone and email records seized by the DOJ in 2017. show more