Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) filed a complaint on Thursday with the Federal Election Commission, saying that his Democrat opponent Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) illegally coordinated with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) to produce campaign ads against him that exceeded the limits allowed under federal election law.
Cruz claimed that four particular campaign ads constituted potentially millions of dollars in excessive in-kind contributions from DSCC to Allred.
“Colin Allred’s campaign is illegally coordinating with Chuck Schumer and the DSCC. We are calling on the FEC to immediately investigate and put a stop to this flagrant violation of federal law,” a spokesman for Cruz told the Daily Caller.
Allred is actually giving Cruz a run for his money in a very tight race where this sort of illegal activity could actually have an impact on the outcome.
According to Cruz, Allred and the DSCC are not following rules for "hybrid ads," which are supposed to spend half of their time plugging for or attacking "generically referenced" candidates. One of the ads in question talks about abortion but not generic candidates.
The other three ads attack Cruz and other Republicans in Texas but are still not generic enough, Cruz said.
It's going to be a hard one to win since the FEC has failed to penalize similar ads previously, including some from Republicans.
The panel deadlocked on a case brought by Democrats, which focused on ads about "extremists" and former President Donald Trump.
Because of the deadlock, the ads were allowed to continue and there was no consequence for Republicans.
This seems to indicate that the same would happen to Cruz.
“The DSCC is running the same kind of advertisements that the NRSC, the Republican National Committee and Republican members of the FEC all argued are legal - and that are being run by Republican Senate campaigns across the country. Ted Cruz is doing whatever he can to try and distract Texans from his support for a ban on all abortions and his self-serving politics,” Amanda Sherman Baity, a spokesperson for the DSCC, said in a statement.
In this case, it would be surprising if Cruz got a favorable ruling.
Party groups like to use hybrid ads because they can get them for lower rates through a candidate than through the group alone.
Both Democrats and Republicans in the Texas Senate race have spent roughly the allowed $2.8 million on the hybrid ads.
A former congressman who opposed Trump and Missouri's Democratic Senate nominee, Lucas Kunce, held a campaign rally on Tuesday.
During the event, they opened fire on private property, something that one would assume wouldn't be difficult for a competent adult, but ended up injuring a reporter.
Ryan Gamboa, a reporter, was hurt when something that seemed like a bullet fragment or a deflected round struck his arm. The perpetrators were firing a high-powered rifle at steel targets a few yards away.
On Wednesday, several days following his campaign event, Kunce informed the local sheriff about the incident, according to his announcement.
The Daily Wire was looking into whether the Democrat may have broken the law by not reporting the gunshot incident, so he apparently called the Clinton County Sheriff thereafter.
The event is still "under investigation," according to the sheriff's department, so they cannot divulge any other details at this time.
The internet lit up with stories surrounding the shooting that took place in a campaign where the Democrat is attempting to take over from a Second Amendment-loving Republican who is overall well-liked.
Remember: Guns don’t shoot people. Lucas Kunce shoots people
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) October 24, 2024
Federalist CEO Sean Davis, also weighed in on the disastrous campaign event, saying, "I've heard of campaigns going out with a bang, [but] this is ridiculous."
Hawley spoke out in numerous tweets following the shooting, seeming to take full advantage of his opponent's blunder, offering questions, criticism, and even protection.
"Lucas Kunce sets up a fake range to get a fake photo-op … and shoots a guy. It’s nuts. But it’s Kunce," Hawley said in one tweet.
He questioned his opponent's legal status in another, saying "Serious question. Missouri law requires any person who causes injury with a firearm to file a report with law enforcement immediately. Did Lucas Kunce do that? Failure to do so is a crime."
Hawley marveled at the response from the political hopeful, saying "Kunce shoots a guy and says 'it’s a great day at the range,'" and in yet another tweet on the event offered a possible solution for reporters: "I will provide safety gear for all reporters covering Lucas Kunce. Free of charge. Enjoy!"
During a recent appearance Tuesday on MSNBC’s “The Beat,” Geraldo Rivera put his Trump Derangement Syndrom on full display, pushing back against support for the former president.
Rivera, who seemed upset at the idea of a second term for former President Donald Trump said, “Woe is us if we are so self-interested, so selfish” that we elected former President Donald Trump, as Breitbart News reported.
Rivera said, “He has in many ways coopted. It’s become in terms of ruthless pragmatism …
"That’s all I can attribute it to. There is the loyalty toward Trump but also to the party and also to the power that comes with being the party in power.
The television personality said in the Tuesday interview that he wishes he “had bailed on the Trump train a lot sooner.”
“In retrospect, I wish I had bailed on the Trump train a lot sooner before he threatened the Constitution of the United States with its utter destruction."
Rivera, who was once known to support Trump, announced earlier this month that he will be voting for Vice President Harris instead of Trump in the 2024 election, describing Trump as "a sore loser who cannot be trusted to honor the Constitution" in a post on social media platform X.
“That is why I am voting for Kamala Harris to be our 47th President,” Rivera said in the post.
Sore Loser
With three weeks to go until Election Day, Donald J. Trump stands a reasonable chance of becoming the 47th President of the United States. Despite assassination attempts, impeachments, special counsels, felony convictions and hundreds of millions in civil penalties,…— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) October 14, 2024
While Rivera had almost exclusively negative thoughts about the former president, he did admit that he understands the "practical aspect" of supporting Trump
"I understand that there is that practical aspect at work. But what I urge people to recognize is that this is a man who would do or say anything. It’s very, very dangerous.”
He continued, “It is absolutely imperative that people whose names sound like mine understand that this guy says that we are poisoning the blood of the country.
The course of the interview left the listener with the impression that the longtime commentator with a roughly $20 million net worth hoped the American middle class would look beyond the economy, their pocketbooks, and the border crisis to see the vulgarity of what he considered a person of disinterest.
"He says that it is in our genes that we commit murder. This is a guy who promises mass deportation of our friends and relatives should he regain the White House.”
Rivera added that he believes there is a "broader phenomenon at work here," going on to explain that "I think it really is a case of self-interest. Yes, he, you know, defied the Constitution, but you know what, his tax policies would benefit me.
He concluded, “You know, there is a sense of other that he has cultivated. And you know, I think that we always say it’s the most important election of your lifetime, in this case, I really believe it.
"I believe that should Donald Trump regain the White House, anything goes. And woe is us if we are so self-interested, so selfish that we would not only hold our nose but suspend our principles to support him again.”
Democrat strategist James Carville said Monday that he and MSNBC "The Beat" host Ari Melber will be arrested if Republican nominee former President Donald Trump is elected in November.
Carville said,
Trump goes out, and he says I’m going to use the military to arrest my political enemies, and then Mike Johnson’s and Lindsey Graham, and the Wall Street Journal editorial pages say oh no, that’s not what he meant and then he comes back and says yeah, that’s exactly what I meant. You know what’ll happen? You pointed it out; if he wins, he will say, I told people I was going to do this. I have the legitimacy of an election behind me, and he will have a point.
He is referring to comments by Trump that the U.S. has an "enemy within" that might become violent on Election Day, and that any problems could be easily solved with law enforcement or military involvement.
These comments may have been misconstrued to mean something different than he intended, however.
When asked if he would use those systems against his political opponents, he did not say he would, but said that's what his political opponents are doing to him.
He then affirmed that he thought Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff (both D-CA) were part of the enemy within, but did not specifically say he could take any action against them.
But of course, Carville and Melber will conveniently ignore those nuances and pretend he's saying he plans to arrest his political opponents and jail them for opposing him.
Carville went on,
People say what’s at stake in this election, okay, the Constitution is at stake, the whole idea of I don’t know if you call a constitutional republic, whatever highbrow people call it, I get it, we live under a set of laws is literally at risk, and he is telling you that. People want to know about weakness among males of color. They are going to arrest all of you. You don’t think you have a stake in this election. Guess what? You are not going to do very well. I’m not going to do well. You are not going to do well.
"That will happen. It’s not far-fetched," he concluded.
This rhetoric by Carville is "threat to democracy" on steroids. Now Trump is not only a threat to democracy, but a threat to the personal liberty of his opponents, according to Democrats.
Never mind that he had four years to go after his former opponent Hillary Clinton, but didn't do so.
He even talked about it, formulated the "lock her up" slogan, but when it came down to it, he didn't.
What is Trump actually suggesting? That if people get violent on Election Day, they should be arrested and subdued by police and the military (if needed). Who doesn't agree with that?
But if Carville and his ilk can convince enough voters Trump is going to arrest them for being Democrats, they might get a few votes out of it. And that's really all the motivation they need.
Republican nominee former President Donald Trump repeated on Sunday to Fox News's Howard Kurtz his contention that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff (both D-CA) are "the enemy within" and may have confirmed that he could potentially use law enforcement or the military against them if elected.
“I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics,” Trump said on October 13 to Maria Bartiromo, also on Fox News.
“I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen,” he added, referring to the possibility of Election Day violence.
Kurtz tried to clarify Trump's comments during an interview Sunday on "Mediabuzz."
“Are you prepared to say now that you will not use law enforcement to punish or prosecute your political opponents?” Kurtz asked the former president on Sunday on "Mediabuzz."
“Excuse me, that’s what they’re using on me,” Trump replied before alluding to the classified documents case in Florida.
“They have weaponized the government against me,” Trump said, adding, “I don’t want to do that, because that’s a bad thing for the country. I don’t want to do that. I don’t know who said — I haven’t said that I would, but they have done it.”
“These are bad people. We have a lot of bad people. But when you look at ‘Shifty Schiff’ and some of the others, yeah, they are, to me, the enemy from within,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News’ “MediaBuzz” that aired Sunday.
“He’s a political opponent of yours, but is he an enemy?” Kurtz asked.
“Of course he’s an enemy, he’s an enemy,” Trump said, adding that he tried to put Donald Trump Jr. in jail over the Russian collusion narrative, which turned out to be false.
“I think Nancy Pelosi is an enemy from within,” he went on. “She lied. She was supposed to protect the Capitol.”
Trump also said he offered Pelosi 10,000 National Guard troops, which she refused.
Some of Trump's Republican allies have defended his comments. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said Trump was using hyperbole to "rev up his base" and that he didn't actually go after political opponents with law enforcement or the military when he was president.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Trump was talking about going after violent gangs on Election Day, not his political opponents. “Trump is talking about restoring law and order,” Johnson said. “That resonates with the American people.”
Judge Tanya Chutkan has unsealed significant portions of an evidence dump brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith against former President Donald Trump.
Smith's presentation of this evidence dump to Judge Chutkan is seen as his last act in the indictment against Trump. As the case has ground to a halt and Trump is likely to win the election, there is little chance Smith's indictment will go to trial.
The nearly 1,900 pages of documents collected by Smith’s team were filed under seal to help Judge Chutkan decide what allegations can proceed to trial following the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision that conferred broad immunity on former presidents for official acts.
This filing also served as political ammunition for Democrats who are desperate to talk about Trump's indictment in light of Vice President Kamala Harris's faltering presidential campaign.
The evidence that Smith presented against Trump has been either largely inconsequential or was already available to the public.
Some of the evidence in Smith's filing was comprised of screenshots of Trump's social media posts about the 2020 election.
Smith had also filed a transcript of the video statement Trump made on Jan. 6, 2021, telling protestors at the Capitol on Jan. 6th to go home, but added: “We love you” and “You’re very special.”
This evidence actually further exonerates Trump as it in no way indicates that Trump was encouraging or inciting an insurrection but rather was encouraging peaceful protest.
Aside from the redacted grand jury transcripts which will remain redacted due to secrecy rules, much of Smith's evidence is the same stuff that Democrats have been talking about for the past four years which indicates just how weak Smith's case really is.
Many people were expecting bombshell revelations that could significantly affect Trump's presidential campaign, or an "October Surprise" of sorts.
However, Smith's filing was anything but that and appears to be a last-gasp effort to hit Trump after a years-long investigation that Democrats would kill any chance of Trump making a political return after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump's campaign is on a roll and his momentum has only continued to grow as Kamala Harris falters. After Harris replaced Biden on the Democrat presidential ticket, she received a surge of support but that has since faded.
A concerted media campaign designed to boost Harris could only carry her so far and Harris has wasted that momentum with disastrous public appearances.
Harris is having to campaign on the policies of her predecessor, President Joe Biden, while simultaneously trying to distance herself from those policies. This has created a chaotic and fractured campaign that is completely ineffectual.
Democrats were counting on Jack Smith to put together a criminal case that would sink Trump's campaign because without it he is likely to steamroll Harris in November.
Federal Judge Xavier Rodriguez has struck down a key election integrity bill just weeks ahead of the presidential election in November.
Judge Rodriguez issued an order on Friday enjoining state and county officials from investigating or prosecuting alleged violations of “voter assistance” as directed by Texas Senate Bill 1.
Senate Bill 1 is a comprehensive election integrity measure passed by the Texas Legislature in 2021 in response to questions of election fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
Judge Rodriguez claimed that Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act supersedes Senate Bill 1's requirements and as such officials are prevented from investigating "voter assistance" incidents.
Attorneys representing the state argued that Senate Bill 1's provisions are intended to deter political operatives from forcing unwanted assistance onto voters and already contained language protecting non-partisan voter assistance groups that assist disabled voters.
Judge Rodriguez's decision leaves the door open for bad actors to commit election fraud and this decision comes just weeks before a pivotal election.
This isn't the first time Judge Rodgriguez undermined election integrity measures. Earlier this month he issued an order halting enforcement of Texas's paid vote harvesting ban, which was also part of Senate Bill 1.
He seems to be determined to knock down Texas Republican's efforts to secure the election against voter fraud and other shenanigans that could damage Americans' trust in the election.
Any possibility that Judge Rodriguez was anything but a partisan actor was eliminated when he prevented Texas election officials from rejecting mail-in ballots with wrong or missing identification numbers.
There is no legal basis or argument justifying the decision to force officials to accept mail-in ballots that have been tampered with or inaccurate.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed that order to the U.S. Fifth Circuit and won a temporary administrative stay but this fight is ongoing and the question is which side will win by November's election.
If Judge Rodgriguez's decision is overturned by a higher court it won't matter if his order prevents election-day investigations that could prevent fraud or other unethical behavior.
These decisions in individual states by activist judges could swing the outcome of the election. While Texas isn't in play as a swing state, a decision like this in Pennsylvania could have massive consequences for the outcome of the election.
The RNC should pay close attention to these decisions that could have big impacts on what will no doubt be a tight election.
Sherry Coben, best known for creating the award-winning 1980s sitcom "Kate & Allie," died Wednesday of cancer at the age of 71 in Milford, New Jersey.
She grew up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and attended Swarthmore College and Cornell University.
Coben started out as a set designer and animator in Philadelphia before moving to New York City and becoming a writer on the children's television show "Hot Hero Sandwich," for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award.
She moved on to writing for the soap opera Ryan's Hope as the 1980s began, but transitioned to "Kate & Allie" in 1984.
The sitcom ran for the rest of the 1980s and was a top hit for CBS.
It featured Jane Curtin and Susan St. James as divorced mothers raising their children together, and it won several Emmys during its six-season, 122-episode run.
It was rare at the time to have a television show that focused mainly or solely on women's lives. According to Cohen, it's still rare.
In 2017, Cohen said about the show,
Three decades have passed, and it’s still rare for network execs to see there’s a huge audience hungry for shows about women expressly for women. You can count on two hands the number of female-driven shows since. I’d hoped to set more of a trend.
According to Deadline, Cohen also mentored other writers and artists. Her husband, Patrick McMahon is also a film producer of mostly reality shows, and the couple has two daughters.
Cohen worked on other projects, too.
She wrote a screenplay in 1985, “Love, Long Distance,” about a couple navigating a commuter marriage.
This work was based on her own marriage to McMahon. It was made into a TV movie in 1985.
She also created and wrote the web series, “Little Women, Big Cars.”
Her contribution to the entertainment world will not soon be forgotten.
During the nearly thirty-minute conversation that took place on Fox News' "Special Report," Baier asked Harris if there was anything that she would do differently from Biden if she were elected. This was in response to her statement in a previous interview that nothing "comes to mind."
Vice President Kamala Harris was confronted with questions about her knowledge of President Biden's mental decline: "You told many interviewers that Joe Biden was on his game, that ran around circles on his staff. When did you first notice that President Biden's mental faculties appeared diminished?" Baier asked.
Harris continued to praise Biden's capabilities in office following a brief pause to the previous question, saying "Joe Biden, I have watched from the Oval Office to the Situation Room, and he has the judgment and the experience to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people," Harris said.
When pressed further, she said, "Bret, Joe Biden is not on the ballot… and Donald Trump is," Harris responded.
Harris responded by telling Baier that she has not spent the majority of her career in Washington, DC, and that she would seek ideas from Republicans and business leaders.
Later, Baier questioned Harris if she had detected a loss in Biden's mental acuity. In response, Harris praised Biden's record but added, "Joe Biden is not on the ballot... and Donald Trump is."
This was a repeating theme throughout the discussion, as Harris frequently attempted to focus the debate toward Trump.
At the beginning of the interview, Harris and Baier engaged in a contentious discussion about immigration, which is a difficult issue for Harris.
Harris, for the most part, avoided criticizing policies that were implemented during the Biden administration and instead attempted to steer the conversation toward former President Donald Trump and his efforts to kill a bipartisan border budget bill.
According to Harris's statement to Baier, she is against decriminalizing border crossings. This contradicts her 2019 statement on "The View" where she stated that she was "in favor of saying that we're not going to treat people who are undocumented [and] cross the borders as criminals."
Harris reiterated an accusation she has leveled on Trump previously, claiming that the ex-president had utilized the law to further his political career and that he had a preference for “run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”
Additionally, Harris reaffirmed her remarks from earlier in the week, in which she criticized Trump as "unfit to serve," referred to him as "increasingly unstable," and sidestepped Baier's query regarding her presidential aspirations.
During the interview, Baier and Harris had heated exchanges, with Harris claiming she was "in the middle of responding to" an argument Baier had made before she realized she had talked over him.
During her appearance on Fox News, Harris addressed criticism from Republicans who felt the vice president should have agreed to more interviews before the election and taken them with more supportive outlets, such as "The Howard Stern Show," "The View," and "The Breakfast Club."
A recent appearance by Harris on "60 Minutes" is particularly noteworthy, partially because of how heavially edited in Harris' favor the final product was. Her first official interview with the conservative news organization was on Wednesday.
According to Ian Sams, Harris's spokesman, the interview would be beneficial for the vice president because to Fox News's high ratings (consistently surpassing CNN and MSNBC) and the proportion of viewers who are still unsure about their vote.
The interview was also presented by Sams as a chance for Harris to address the audience that he claimed gets "fed a bunch of crap" by Fox News' opinion hosts, who are known to criticize Harris on a regular basis.
The hypocrisy of former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney has been exposed by damaging texts showing that she secretly spoke with a witness on January 6th, without informing her attorney.
The texts demonstrating Cheney's communication with Cassidy Hutchinson via Signal were obtained by a congressional committee, as Breitbart News reported.
Hutchinson communicated with the ex-representative both directly and via her political strategist, Alyssa Farrah Griffin.
During Hutchinson's brief fame, Cheney allegedly assisted her in hiring new attorneys who would have been more receptive to the viewpoint of the House January 6th Select Committee.
According to the New York Post, Cheney (R-WY) contacted former Donald Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson through ex-Trump strategic communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin and later directly to compel further testimony and have Hutchinson appear for a primetime televised hearing about the 45th president's role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
“Though she worked behind the scenes to obtain Hutchinson's juiciest allegations in 2022, some of which were later found to be false, Cheney never mentioned the backchannel talks with Hutchinson or Griffin in her book ‘Oath and Honor’ about the riot,” the media outlet said.
The actions and communications of Cheney are being characterized as ethical violations. In an ironic turn of events, Cheney requested criminal referrals for "anybody who attempted to influence witness testimony" during the January 6th committee meeting.
In the past, she also accused former President Trump of attempting to contact a J6 witness and reported the incident to the Department of Justice. Once more, projection appears to be at play, as Cheney appears to have performed the actions she falsely alleged Trump did.
Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), who is the chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, is furious about the texts' discovery and claims that Cheney "apparently defied her ethical responsibilities" as vice chair of the Jan. 6 select committee, which he described as acting more like an inquisition panel than a body seeking truth.
“Hutchinson began texting with Griffin in April 2022, two months before the made-for-TV hearings aired, claiming she had additional evidence that might be relevant to the select committee’s investigation. The two met at Griffin’s Georgetown home and reportedly discussed that Trump had ‘agreed’ with the Capitol mob’s chants of ‘Hang Mike Pence’ during the melee that temporarily halted the certification of the 2020 electoral count,” the Post wrote.
Griffin wrote on Signal on April 28, 2022, that Cheney's coordination of further testimony for May 17, 2022, without her then-lawyer Stefan Passantino was unethical.
“Her one concern was so long ad [sic] you have counsel, she can’t really ethically talk to you without him,” Griffin told Hutchinson at the time. Hutchinson would go on to testify for a third sitting the following month, providing “unverified” stories.
“Hutchinson sent Signal messages directly to Cheney requesting ‘a private conversation’ on June 6, 2022, three days before the first televised committee hearing. Around the same time, Hutchinson rejected Passantino as her counsel, and lawyers from Alston and Bird, Jody Hunt, and Bill Jordan, began representing the former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows pro bono,” the Post recounted.
The media site reported that Loudermilk's panel noted a "dramatic change in testimony and eventual claims against President Trump using second- and third-hand accounts."
Hutchinson testified three more times before the Jan. 6 committee, saying spectacularly that the 45th president had rushed for the wheel of his Secret Service limousine, called ‘the Beast,’ to join his Capitol mob disputing the 2020 election count.