sabra
sabra's JournalIn final years at Liberty, Falwell spent millions on pro-Trump causes
Source: Politico
After shocking many in the evangelical movement by endorsing Donald Trump over other Republicans for the 2016 presidential nomination, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. pumped millions of the nonprofit religious institution’s funds into Republican causes and efforts to promote the Trump administration, blurring the lines between education and politics.
The culmination of his efforts was the creation of a university-funded campus “think tank” — which has produced no peer-reviewed academic work and bears little relation to study centers at other universities — that ran pro-Trump ads, hired Trump allies including former adviser Sebastian Gorka and current Trump attorney Jenna Ellis to serve as fellows and, in recent weeks, has aggressively promoted Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud.
The think tank — called the Falkirk Center, a portmanteau of Falwell’s name and that of GOP activist Charlie Kirk, who co-founded it — purchased campaign-season ads on Facebook, at least $50,000's worth of which were designated by the network as political ads, that promoted Trump and other Republican candidates by name.
“Pray For Our President,” declared one, featuring a photo of Trump with his hands clasped in prayer.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/14/jerry-falwell-trump-liberty-university-444661
Michigan House punishes GOP Rep. Gary Eisen for hinting at Electoral College disruption
Source: Detroit Free Press
Michigan Republican legislative leaders pulled a GOP lawmaker from his committee assignments Monday after the lawmaker hinted he was part of a group that sought to disrupt or otherwise undermine the Electoral College vote slated to happen at the Capitol this afternoon.
Rep. Gary Eisen, R-St. Clair Township, made the comments Monday morning during an interview with Port Huron-area radio station WPHM. He was asked about the Electoral College, set to meet Monday in the state Senate chamber to cast the state's 16 electoral votes for President-elect Joe Biden.
Eisen made the comments in the context of he and others in Lansing having some sort of event, either at the Capitol or somewhere else. He said he could not rule out the possibility of violence.
Eisen also made reference to a threat he said was received regarding safety at the Capitol. He questioned the veracity of threat, however, calling it "convenient" and implying it would impede efforts for Trump supporters to contest the Electoral College proceedings.
Read more: https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/14/gary-eisen-michigan-electoral-college-radio-interview/6537175002/
EXCLUSIVE: Tennessee wastes millions on no-bid COVID contract with politically connected company
Source: News channel 5
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee's team wasted millions of dollars on COVID-19 testing promised by a politically connected company - and taxpayers got nothing for their money, an exclusive NewsChannel 5 investigation has discovered.
Over the objections of career state employees, Tennessee Health Commission Lisa Piercey steered a $26.5 million, no-bid contract to a Utah company with no health care experience -- after a Republican political consultant pitched a contract to the governor's office.
In the end, just as the career state employees had warned, the deal collapsed -- and the Lee administration paid the company almost $6 million to get out of the contract.
"This is frankly worse than our worst fears," said state Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Nashville Democrat who had expressed concerns in the early days of the coronavirus crisis about potentially unaccountable spending as state government responded
Read more: https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/exclusive-tennessee-wastes-millions-on-no-bid-covid-19-contract-with-politically-connected-company
White House staff members will be among the first to be vaccinated.
Source: NYT
White House staff members who work in close quarters with President Trump have been told they are scheduled to receive injections of the coronavirus vaccine soon, at a time when the first doses of the vaccine are being distributed only to high-risk health care workers, according to two sources familiar with the distribution plans.
The goal of distributing the vaccine inside the West Wing is to prevent additional government officials from falling ill in the final weeks of the Trump administration. The hope is to eventually distribute the vaccine to everyone who works in the White House, but will begin with some of the most senior people who work around the president, one of the people said.
It is not clear how many doses are being allocated to the White House, or how many are needed. While many Trump officials said they were eager to receive the vaccine and would take it if it were offered, others said they were concerned it would send the wrong message by making it look like Trump staff members were hopping the line in order to protect a president who already had the virus and has bragged that he is now “immune.”
The first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine left a facility in Michigan early Sunday, with UPS and FedEx teaming up to ship them to all 50 states for distribution. A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/13/world/white-house-staff-members-will-be-among-the-first-to-be-vaccinated.html
California Rep. Devin Nunes says he's tested positive for COVID-19
Source: Business Insider
Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California told the local radio station KMJNOW on Friday that he had tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Nunes is one of more than 40 members of Congress who have contracted the virus, which the World Health Organization declared a pandemic in March. Overall, since the start of the pandemic, 11 senators and 34 House members have tested positive for the virus or for antibodies, according to CNN.
The US currently has the highest number of cases of any country in the world, with more than 15 million confirmed cases and over 293,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Nunes' announcement of a positive diagnosis comes after the lawmaker spent months downplaying the severity of the pandemic and once suggested officials should "stop looking at the death counters" and "talk about how we can keep as many people employed as possible."
Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/republican-rep-devin-nunes-tests-positive-for-covid-19-2020-12
Michigan Supreme Court denies Trump case over election challengers
Source: Detroit News
Lansing — The Michigan Supreme Court declined Friday to consider an appeal from President Donald Trump's campaign over the access provided to election challengers at TCF Center, where Detroit's absentee ballots were countered.
"The application for leave to appeal the Dec. 4, 2020, order of the Court of Appeals is considered, and it is denied, because we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court," the Michigan Supreme Court ordered in what appeared to be a unanimous decision.
The Republican president's campaign had asked Michigan's high court to find Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson violated the state Constitution and election law because challengers' observations of the absentee ballot counting and ballot drop boxes were allegedly inhibited by local clerks and, by extension, Benson.
Officials at the TCF Center in Detroit have repeatedly said challengers were given adequate access to the counting process.
Read more: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/11/michigan-supreme-court-denies-trump-case-over-election-challengers/6511829002/
Texas, accused of 'seditious abuse' of courts in trying to overturn Biden's election...
Source: Dallas News
Texas, accused of ‘seditious abuse’ of courts in trying to overturn Biden’s election, hits back at Supreme Court
WASHINGTON — In response to scathing rebuttals from four states whose elections he’s trying to overturn, Texas Attorney Ken Paxton urged the U.S. Supreme Court to realize that Texas has nowhere else to turn to remedy cheating that led to President Donald Trump’s defeat.
“Texas does not ask this Court to reelect President Trump, and Texas does not seek to disenfranchise the majority of Defendant States’ voters,” Texas argued in its filing. Rather, it says, “Texas asks this Court to recognize the obvious fact that Defendant States’ maladministration of the 2020 election makes it impossible to know which candidate garnered the majority of lawful votes.”
...
The four states whose elections Texas is trying to overturn filed scathing rebuttals at the Supreme Court.
“Texas’s effort to get this Court to pick the next President has no basis in law or fact. The Court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated,” Pennsylvania argued in its motion, deriding Texas’ “bogus claims” of cheating, fraud and ballot manipulation.
Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2020/12/11/texas-accused-of-seditious-abuse-of-courts-in-trying-to-overturn-bidens-election-hits-back-at-supreme-court/
(Axios) Scoop: Fallout between Trump and top GOP senator made Morocco-Israel deal possible
Source: Axios
A fallout between President Trump and Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, led to the breakthrough that resulted in the Morocco-Israel normalization deal, sources briefed on the matter told me.
Why it matters: Inhofe is Washington's most avid supporter of the Polisario Front — a Sahrawi rebel national liberation movement aiming to end Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara. He has travelled many times to Algeria for meetings with Polisario leaders.
...
Kushner, Berkowitz and Bourita effectively reached a deal a little more than a year ago, but Inhofe joined with then-national security adviser John Bolton to vehemently oppose it. Trump, who was close to Inhofe and needed his political support, agreed not to move forward with the deal.
Driving the news: Relations between Trump and Inhofe soured about a week ago over the National Defense Authorization Act, a key military funding bill that Congress has passed every year since 1961, sources who were involved in the matter told me.
Read more: https://www.axios.com/trump-morocco-israel-inhofe-cc6e66a4-cd1b-4c08-9126-0c3e608b38fb.html
Trump seeks to halt rape accuser's lawsuit amid DOJ appeal
Source: The Hill
President Trump's lawyers asked a court Thursday to pause a lawsuit from a woman who accused him of rape while they appeal a judge's order prohibiting the Department of Justice from representing the president in the case.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, ruled in October that the allegations against Trump in the defamation suit have nothing to do with the president's official conduct and that the case could proceed against him in his personal capacity.
E. Jean Carroll, a former magazine columnist, published her account last year of Trump sexually assaulting her in a New York City department store in the 1990s. After Trump publicly denied the allegation and accused her of being a liar, she filed a defamation suit against him.
In a court filing submitted late Thursday, Trump's lawyers argued that the proceedings at the district court should be put on hold while they ask an appeals court to decide whether the Justice Department can represent the president. Both Trump's personal lawyers and the DOJ have appealed Kaplan's order.
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/529805-trump-seeks-to-halt-rape-accusers-lawsuit-amid-doj-appeal
Barr Worked to Keep Hunter Biden Probes From Public View During Election
Source: WSJ
Attorney General William Barr has known about a disparate set of investigations involving Hunter Biden’s business and financial dealings since at least this spring, a person familiar with the matter said, and worked to avoid their public disclosure during the heated election campaign.
Republicans and President Trump have pressed Mr. Barr for months to pursue Mr. Biden, especially as his father, Joe Biden, gained momentum in his ultimately successful bid for president. Mr. Barr has staved off pressure from Republicans in Congress for information into the investigations, the person said, without elaborating on his actions.
One investigation became public this week after federal investigators served a subpoena on Hunter Biden. The subpoena sought detailed financial information in connection with a criminal tax investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware, according to people familiar with the matter.
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/barr-worked-to-keep-hunter-biden-probes-from-public-view-during-election-11607653188?reflink=desktopwebshare_twitter
Profile Information
Member since: Tue Nov 9, 2004, 04:15 PMNumber of posts: 30,406