Wisconsin legislators did not vote to recall the state's 2020 electoral votes, fact-checkers say
Fact-checkers from The Associated Press, Reuters and PolitiFact say that the Wisconsin State Assembly did not vote to recall the state's 2020 electoral votes for President Joe Biden, who was a candidate at the time. The Assembly also did not vote to advance a decertification of results after claims circulated on social media, according to Reuters. Committee chair and assembly majority leader, Jim Steineke, called the resolution "illegal" and "unconstitutional," saying that it would not be advanced, USA Today and CNN report.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A 20TH CENTURY SURVIVOR WITH GENUINE WISDOM...
'I see the memory of what happened being abused for political reasons': Holocaust survivor decries use of yellow star at COVID protests
'Incredulous, I had to watch at the age of 100 years how symbols of our exclusion by the Nazis, such as the so-called 'Judenstern,' are shamelessly used on the open street by the new enemies of democracy, to present themselves - whilst living in the middle of a democracy - as victims,' Margot Friedlaender said during a special plenary session to mark Holocaust Memorial Day at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.
NEWS FROM RHODE ISLAND THAT IS NOT FROM AN ANTI-INTELLECTUAL, FAR-RIGHT AGENDA. IN OTHER WORDS NOT FOX NEWS, OR WJAR-TV* WHICH IS OWNED BY TRUMP/PUTIN CHEERLEADERS SINCLAIR BROADCASTING.
Nurses’ union launches campaign targeting unvaccinated, unboosted Rhode Islanders.
TUCKER CARLSON- FUELED REPUBLICANS DROP TOUGH-ON-RUSSIA STANCE.
Republicans running in high-profile primary races aren't racing to defend Ukraine against a possible Russian invasion. They're settlingon a different line of attack: Blame Biden, not Putin.
What's happening: Leery of the base, they are avoiding — and in some cases, rejecting — the tough-on-Russia rhetoric that once defined the Republican Party. GOP operatives working in 2022 primary races tell Axios they worry they'll alienate the base if they push to commit American resources to Ukraine or deploy U.S. troops to eastern Europe.
Why it matters: Any assistance President Biden provides to Ukraine could grow instantly into an ideological war back home.
Biden has ruled out sending troops to Ukraine. But he is shipping U.S.-made weaponry to Kyiv, promising "unprecedented" sanctions if Putin invades, and preparing to deploy U.S. forces to reinforce NATO allies in eastern Europe.
The big picture: Republican hopefuls who vow not to assist in any potential conflict in Ukraine are reflecting — and fanning — anti-interventionist sentiments in the modern GOP.
Frustration with the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and former President Donald Trump's warmer posture toward Russia helped drive the shift.
Between the lines: There's a stark split in the GOP over how to handle Russia's threat to Ukraine. It's less useful to think "doves" versus "hawks" and more illuminating to view it as a divide between Republicans who are responsive to their base and incumbents who feel they can afford to maintain some distance from GOP primary voters.
Those without the buffer of time baked into a six-year term are increasingly either muffling their hawkish instincts or wondering aloud why America should care at all what Russia does to Ukraine.
GOP House members are notably less interventionist than GOP senators. GOP primary candidates are the least interventionist of all.
What they're saying: "This country has actual problemsthat our politicians should prioritize: election integrity, the border crisis, soaring inflation, violent crime, failing schools, and Big Tech, to name a few," Blake Masters, one of the top Republican contenders for the Senate in Arizona, said in a statement to Axios.
"The Ukrainian border isn't even in the top 20," Masters said. "You'd think we would have learned our lesson by now when it comes to policing the world and 'democracy building' thousands of miles away."
In Ohio's GOP Senate primary, candidates J.D. Vance and Bernie Moreno have both made the same argument: that Biden cares more about Ukraine's border than America's southern border.
Adam Laxalt, who's well-positioned to win the GOP primary for Nevada's Senate race, approvingly tweeted a Tucker Carlson clip in which the top-rated Fox News host ridicules Vice President Kamala Harris for pledging to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity.
The other side: Prominent Republicans in Washington, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), are still making statements that sound more at home in the pre-Trump GOP.
McConnell and other leading GOP senators, including Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, are pushing Biden to go farther and faster on all of those fronts.
But House Republicans are generally warier than the senators about pushing Biden to respond militarily to Putin.
Axios found nearlyadozenpublicstatementsfromHouseRepublicans criticizing the idea of sending troops to the region or wondering why Americans should care at all about a conflict that's thousands of miles away.
We could find no similar statements from Senate Republicans. Even libertarian Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said: "I think the most important thing is to let Russia know there will be consequences if they invade Ukraine..."
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has staked out a subtly different position from McConnell.
McCarthy (R-Calif.) has portrayed Biden's handling of Russia as weak and incompetent, but, unlike McConnell, he hasn't pushed Biden to send more troops to the region.
McCarthy has largely avoided talking about Ukraine and focused instead on relentlessly attacking Biden over high inflation and faulty supply chains.
That safe political space — criticize Biden as weak but don't get too specific about what being "strong" against Russia would look like — is being used by Republicans on the campaign trail who aren't willing to go "full Tucker" as one GOP operative put it.han GOP senators. GOP primary candidates are the least interventionist of all.
Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), the Trump-endorsed candidate in North Carolina's Senate race, has said Biden needs to "project American strength" on the Russia-Ukraine issue. But when Axios asked if that meant deploying additional U.S. troops to Eastern Europe, as Biden is contemplating, spokesman Curtis Kalin deflected.
"Rep. Budd's comments about projecting American strength stem from a series of actions by President Biden which do the opposite, including the conduct of the Afghanistan withdrawal, his decision to [waive] sanctions and allow the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and his recent comments predicting Russia will invade and downplaying a 'minor incursion'," Kalin told Axios in a statement.
Behind the scenes: Carlson has had a profound effect on how Republican candidates talk about the Russia-Ukraine issue, according to GOP operatives working on primary races.
GOP offices have been fielding numerous calls from voters echoing arguments they heard on Carlson's 8 p.m. ET show. Carlson has been telling his viewers there is no reason why the U.S. should help Ukraine fight Russia.
Even Democratic offices have been fielding these calls from Carlson's viewers. Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) tweeted that he got "calls from folks who say they watch Tucker Carlson and are upset that we're not siding with Russia in its threats to invade Ukraine, and who want me to support Russia's 'reasonable' positions."
Carlson has noticed the changes in how Republicans talk about Russia specifically and foreign intervention in general, but he thinks the party isn't changing fast enough.
"I just want to go on the record and say I could care less if they call me a pawn of Putin," Carlson told Axios. "It's too stupid. I don't speak Russian. I've never been to Russia. I'm not that interested in Russia. All I care about is the fortunes of the United States because I have four children who live here."
"I really hope that Republican primary voters are ruthless about this," Carlson told Axios, and vote out any Republican "who believes Ukraine's borders are more important than our borders."
The backstory: Two observable shifts have happened in the GOP electorate over the past 15 years. The first is a growing skepticism about foreign intervention in general — frustration and anger still fueled by the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The second is a more recent warming towards Russia — initiated by the party's most powerful figure, Donald Trump.
Trump's rhetoric about Putin was a far cry from 2012 when the GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney warned that Russia was America's "number one geopolitical foe." (Prominent Democrats mocked Romney at the time but in the age of Trump endorsed his view and apologized).
A 2018 Gallup poll quantified the Trump effect. The number of Republicans calling Russia a friend or ally rose sharply from 2014-18 — from 22% to 40%.
Recent polls from Momentive and YouGov (the lattercommissioned by the anti-interventionist Charles Koch Institute) show narrow majorities of Republicans are opposed to U.S. military intervention in Ukraine.
That contrasts with GOP voters' overwhelming support for the Bush administration's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and even how GOP voters viewed the prospect of President Obama intervening in Libya and Syria.
Dan Caldwell has been closely tracking these shifts in Republican voter sentiment over the past decade since he left the Marine Corps and joined the Koch network to advocate for a more restrained U.S. foreign policy.
Caldwell told Axios he'll never forget the Republican Party's presidential primary debate in South Carolina on Feb. 13, 2016. He sees that night as an "inflection point" in Republican foreign policy.
The moderator asked Trump whether he still believed, as he'd said in 2008, that George W. Bush deserved to be impeached over the Iraq War. Standing on a Republican debate stage — two podiums to the left of Jeb Bush and in South Carolina, a state known for its deep attachment to the military and its bases — Trump's response came off like a blend of Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul.
Trump delivered a thunderous condemnation of Bush for invading Iraq and even told the GOP debate audience that Bush had lied — that Bush "knew" Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.
Caldwell said he recalls all the politicians and pundits who at the time predicted Trump's Iraq War comments would cost him victory in a state with such strong allegiances to the U.S. military.
GOP primary voters didn't seem to mind. Trump crushed the field in South Carolina — paving his path to the nomination.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify GOP operatives' fears about sending U.S. troops to eastern Europe, not to Ukraine. Biden and most traditional Republicans do not support sending troops to Ukraine.
BREAKING DOWN THE MUELLER REPORT: FOR ANSWERS, LOOK IN THE RIGHT PLACES.
(Any words that are colored RED represent portions of the Transcript that were BLACKED OUT, AND COULD NOT BE READ.WORDS LIKE "INVESTIGATIVE TECHNIQUE" OR "HARM TO ON GOING MATTER", ARE NOT MY CREATION, BUT WERE PLACED OVER BLACKED OUT AREAS.)
As you go through the MUELLER REPORT, there is one very important detail that must be acknowledged: IT IS THE STORY OF TWO INVESTIGATIONS. Why do I say this? BECAUSE CONCLUSIONS DRAWN WERE NOT ARRIVED AT BY THE SAME PROCESS,WITH JUST ONE AGENCY, DEPARTMENT OR INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBLE FOR EVALUATING EACH EVENT, AND THE VALUE OF THE CORRESPONDING EVIDENCE.
WHAT DO I MEAN? CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING EXCERPTS, TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM THE TEXT. (IN ITALICS)
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016. As set forth in detail in this report, the Special Counsel's investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN. (HERE ARE SOME EXCERPTS FROM THE BODY OF THE TEXT.) Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation. A social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States. - The IRA was based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received funding from Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin and companies he controlled. Pri ozhin is widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.HARM TO ONGOING MATTER. - The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system, to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton. - The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed "information warfare."
The IRA' s operation also included the purchase of political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities, as well as the staging of political rallies inside the United States. To organize those rallies, IRA employees posed as U.S. grassroots entities and persons and made contact with Trump supporters and Trump Campaign officials in the United States. - Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released the stolen documents.
RUSSIAN HACKING OPERATIONS. (HERE ARE SOME EXCERPTS FROM THE BODY OF THE TEXT.) At the same time that the IRA operation began to focus ·on supporting candidate Trump in early 2016, the Russian government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign. The Russian intelligence service known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army (GRU) carried out these operations. In March 2016, the GRU began hacking the email accounts of Clinton Campaign. In March 2016, the GRU began hacking the email accounts of Clinton Campaign volunteers and employees....the GRU hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The GRU stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the compromised email accounts and networks. Around the time that the DNC announced in mid-June 2016 the Russian government's role in hacking its network, the GRU began disseminating stolen materials through the fictitious online personas "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0." The GRU later released additional materials through the organization WikiLeaks. The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign" or "Campaign") showed interest in WikiLeaks' s releases of documents and welcomed their Potential to damage candidate Clinton. Beginning in June 2016, HARM TO ONGOING MATTER forecast to senior Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton. WikiLeaks' s first release came in July 2016.
Now, the Investigation into the above 2 categories provided enough evidence to the committee that made them confident in drawing definite conclusions, and in some cases, filing Criminal Charges. I will cover these in more depth at a later time, but there is one more category to cover. What you read below may seem to be a part of the RUSSIAN HACKING OPERATION... ...BUT THERE IS ONE MAJOR DIFFERENCE. EXCERPTS FROM THE BODY OF THE TEXT.
In addition to targeting individuals involved in the Clinton Campaign, GRU officers also targeted individuals and entities involved in the administration of the elections. Victims included U.S. state and local entities, such as state boards of elections (SBOEs), secretaries of state, and county governments, as well as individuals who worked for those entities. 186 The GRU also targeted private technology firms responsible for manufacturing and administering election-related software and hardware, such as voter registration software and electronic polling stations.187 The GRU continued to target these victims through the elections in November 2016.While the investigation identified evidence that the GRU targeted these individuals and entities, the Office did not investigate further. The Office did not, for instance, obtain or examine servers or other relevant items belonging to these victims. The Office understands that the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the states have separately investigated that activity. By at least the summer of 2016, GRU officers sought access to state and local computer networks by exploiting known software vulnerabilities on websites of state and local governmental entities. GRU officers, for example, targeted state and local databases of registered voters using a technique known as "SQL injection," by which malicious code was sent to the state or local website in order to run commands (such as exfiltrating the database contents). 188 In one instance in approximately June 2016, the GRU compromised the computer network of the Illinois State Board of Elections by exploiting a vulnerability in the SBOE's website. The GRU then gained access to a database containing information on millions of registered Illinois voters, 189 and extracted data related to thousands of U.S. voters before the malicious activity was identified. GRU officers INVESTIGATIVE TECHNIQUE scanned state and local websites for vunerabilities. For example, over a two day period in july 2016, GRU OFFICERS INVESTIGATVE TECHNIQUE for vulnerabilities on websites of two dozen states. INVESTIGATIVE TECHNIQUE. Unit 74455 also sent spearphishing emails to public officials involved in election administration and personnel at companies involved in voting technology. In August 2016, GRU officers targeted employees of **** ,a voting technology company that developed software used by numerous U.S. counties to manage voter rolls, and installed malware on the company network. Similarly, in November 2016, the GRU sent spearphishing emails to over 120 email accounts used by Florida county officials responsible for administering the 2016 U.S. election. 191 The spearphishing emails contained an attached Word document coded with malicious software (commonly referred to as a Trojan) that permitted the GRU to access the infected computer.192 The FBI was separately responsible for this investigation. We understand the FBI believes that this operation enabled the GRU to gain access to the network of at least one Florida county government.The Office did not independently verify that belief and, as explained above, did not undertake the investigative steps that would have been necessary to do so.
The Hacking operations that included the following: - Individuals and entities involved in the administration of the elections. - U.S. state and local entities, such as state boards of elections (SBOEs), secretaries of state, and county governments, as well as individuals who worked for those entities. - Private technology firms responsible for manufacturing and administering election-related software and hardware, such as voter registration software and electronic polling stations. - Employees of **** ,a voting technology company that developed software used by numerous U.S. counties to manage voter rolls, and installed malware on the company network. - Florida county officials responsible for administering the 2016 U.S. election...
WERE NOT EVALUATED, IN TERMS OF THE QUALITY OF THE EVIDENCE, BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL COUNSEL. FROM THE TEXT: "While the investigation identified evidence that the GRU targeted these individuals and entities, the Office did not investigate further. The Office did not, for instance, obtain or examine servers or other relevant items belonging to these victims. The Office understands that the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the states have separately investigated that activity."
"The Office did not independently verify that belief and, as explained above, did not undertake the investigative steps that would have been necessary to do so."
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? WHILE THE OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL COUNSEL IDENTIFIED EVIDENCE THAT THE GRU"TARGETED THESE INDIVIDUALS AND ENTITIES", NO FURTHER INVESTIGATION WAS DONE.
WHY?
"The Office understands that the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the states have separately investigated that activity." "The Office did not independently verify that belief and, as explained above, did not undertake the investigative steps that would have been necessary to do so."
Well this answers the question: "Who is exonerated by the Mueller Report?" ANSWER: NO ONE. The Evaluation of the most important information regarding fraud in the 2016 election was not part of their responsibility. They couldn't exonerate anyone even if they wanted to.
