<Supreme Court watchers increasingly worry that the 2024 election between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris might be decided in a courtroom rather than at the ballot box.

This year has already seen an unprecedented level of litigation related to the election and the procedures by which the election will be administrated. Most experts, however, distinguish between cases likely to be resolved before the election and the deluge of cases they are expecting after the election.

The single case closest to being heard by the Supreme Court before the election arises out of Mississippi, according to Leah Tulin, the senior counsel at the Brennan Center’s democracy program. The case concerns the familiar election-year issue of whether to count mail-in ballots that are postmarked before Election Day but are received after Election Day.

Some 18 states have laws providing for the counting of ballots that would fall into this category, sometimes called “postmark” laws. Nevada is likely the most competitive presidential state with such a law this year, though New York and California could potentially decide control of the House and both states count ballots received after Election Day.

In the Mississippi case, the Republican National Committee and the state GOP sued to overturn the COVID-era postmark law, which would disqualify ballots received after Election Day, regardless of how they were dated. The case has drawn attention because it is the first challenge to a postmark law to be accepted by a court on its merits. However, the trial court ruled in favor of Mississippi, prompting Republicans to appeal the case to the Fifth Circuit.

“In general the Fifth Circuit has been on the cutting edge — and not in a good way — in terms of pressing a radical conservative vision of the law in a variety of areas,” Tulin said. “Anytime a case gets to the Fifth Circuit in terms of voting, advocates like us are concerned.”

A ruling by the court could see the case fast-tracked to the Supreme Court. However, at oral arguments, the attorneys for the Republicans indicated that they wanted the Fifth Circuit to send the case back down to the district court. According to Tulin, this unusual strategy could allow the GOP to use the decision to “sow chaos and doubt and confusion” around mail-in ballots both before and after the election.

“I don’t know if that’s what the strategy is but it at least looks like that could be part of the strategy,” Tulin said. “This is a broader theme we’re seeing in election litigation around the country.”

If Republicans prevail in the case, there would likely be at least tens of thousands of otherwise viable ballots rejected across the country. In 2020, more than 50,000 ballots that arrived after Election Day were rejected even without making deadlines tighter, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis.

While the Mississippi case is the one most likely to end up before the court ahead of the election, there are other cases percolating that have the potential to end up at the high court, or at least to influence the election. For instance, challenges to new rules written by Georgia’s State Election Board are likely to be ruled on ahead of the election, even if they aren't fully resolved.

In Pennsylvania, there are multiple cases concerning what to do with mail-in ballots that arrive on time but are undated or misdated. In North Carolina, Republicans are suing to disqualify absentee ballots that arrive in envelopes that aren’t properly sealed. In Nevada, Republicans are suing to purge voters from the rolls who registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles when they were not yet citizens.

In Michigan, three Black voters and the NAACP filed a suit against the Trump campaign alleging that it and the RNC’s attempt to overturn election results in 2020 were disenfranchisement and violated the Voting Rights Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act.

There will also likely be legal issues concerning how states handle voting in the wake of Hurricane Helene, Hurricane Milton and any other storms that disrupt voting procedures ahead of and during the election.

Sophia Lakin, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Voting Rights Project, told Salon that though many of the cases in lower courts are not yet poised to appear before the Supreme Court, some cases could be expedited.

“I think there is a possibility that any of these cases that are making their way through the state courts, of which there are quite a few, could find their way before the Supreme Court in the sense that someone could ask, the Supreme Court could weigh in,” Lakin said.....>

<....Lakin said that the ACLU is currently focused on two types of cases that could influence people’s ability to vote ahead of the election. The first type of case is efforts to conduct mass purges of the voter rolls, like in Nevada. The second is attempts to delay election certification, like in Georgia.

“It’s a warning shot to would-be election deniers that we’re watching,” Lakin said. “We’re trying to get ahead of it so it doesn’t happen on the backend.”

One issue, according to Lakin, is that the “rules of the game are unfortunately unclear” when it comes to what rules courts will and will not be willing to change ahead of Election Day.

Changes to election rules in the run-up to Election Day theoretically go against the Purcell Principle, a legal precedent that holds that courts should not change election laws in the period immediately ahead of an election in order to not cause issues or confusion about election administration.

“I think what we have been trying to accomplish is at least consistency and that is difficult where you are getting what often feels like inconsistent applications of this so-called Purcell Principle,” Lakin said. “That unexplainable application makes it very difficult to see what the court is looking at.”

Bill Yeomans, a former Justice Department prosecutor and counsel to the former Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., told Salon that the court has “been quite vigorous in applying that doctrine in racial gerrymandering cases, for example.”

“It will be very interesting to see if they also rely on the Purcell principle in regards to Trump trying to change the rules before the elections,” Yeomans said.

In Yeomans’ analysis, it’s not clear which, if any, election-specific cases make it before the Supreme Court ahead of the election. However, he noted that the Supreme Court has already actively shaped the contours of this year’s election in its rulings on abortion, presidential immunity and in ruling that only Congress can disqualify Trump under the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Yeomans said that he thinks that the court is “going to be asked to play an incredibly sensitive role in this election” and that “there will be efforts to get the court involved after the election.” He also indicated that he thinks at least two of the Supreme Court’s six conservative justices should recuse themselves from cases related to Trump’s potential re-election.

“I think at this point Justice Thomas and Justice Alito are both severely compromised. Both have refused to recuse from cases where they obviously should have,” Yeomans said. “Let’s not forget Ginny Thomas who was deeply involved in Trump’s post-election shenanigans.”

Ginny Thomas, Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, was involved in communications with Arizona state lawmakers pressuring them to “ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen.”

Martha-Ann Alito, Justice Samuel Alito’s wife flew an upside-down American flag, a longstanding symbol of distress, which was adopted by supporters of Trump in the wake of the 2020 election, according to the Washington Post.

Yeomans indicated that he thinks people are underestimating both the potential post-election litigation and civil unrest in the event of a close election as well as the threat post-election litigation could pose to the Supreme Court as an institution. “I really think this is an existential moment for the court and it’s really put itself in this position," he added.

“I think that people are underestimating how messy this could get. I think that Trump will pull out all the stops to become president again,” Yeomans said. “There will be Roger Stone tactics but there will be things that go well beyond those kinds of things. We’ve seen how Trump can mobilize an armed militia and how he can mobilize a mob.”....>

<....The senior vice president of the Campaign Legal Center, Paul Smith, told Salon, despite the myriad cases in the courts ahead of Election Day, he also suspects that “the really big cases, if they come, will probably come after the election.”

“If we have a very tight election in a determinative state, like in 2000, then all bets are off and there will be litigation all over the place,” Smith said. “If that situation arises it will be every bit as crazy as Bush v. Gore times if not worse.”

Smith pointed to certification delays and challenges as the most likely type of post-election litigation, though he expressed confidence that lower courts would be able to handle those cases.

Smith noted that Congress could also potentially attempt to disqualify Trump ahead of certifying the national results under the 14th Amendment. Smith also said that he could see litigation related to more perennial topics of dispute like ballot curing as a spark for a post-election legal blitz. While Smith said he used to think the court would take steps to avoid looking overtly political, he indicated that he’s not so sure in 2024.

“I would’ve said until this past term that people like John Roberts would have wanted to avoid having the Supreme Court looking political,” Smith said. “The case that gives me pause is the immunity case which suggests that they have a strong interest in protecting Mr. Trump from what they perceive as unfair prosecution.”

The founder of the Supreme Court Integrity Project, Nan Aron, also suggested that some of the conservative justices “might well seek to intervene in an election.”

“The justices are hellbent on cementing their legacies,” Aron said. “It might well be that the president could appoint new justices and hundreds of lower judges.”

In Aron’s opinion, the main deterrent from the Supreme Court intervening in the 2024 election would be the potential to “cause many to challenge the third branch of government.”

“It used to be that far-right lawyers and academics cared about the court,” Aron said. “It’s not just the Republican party but the nation as a whole is concerned about not just the ideological direction but ethical lapses.”>

<As Hurricane Milton slams Florida, scientists have joined officials battling the latest conspiracy theory in the deluge of disinformation: weather manipulation.

The conspiracy theory claims that recent hurricanes have been geo-engineered for special interests by the government. Like most conspiracy theories, this weather manipulation conspiracy is gleaned from a nugget of nuanced reality.

"The most durable conspiracy theories really do stem from a very small piece of truth that's usually at the center of a bunch of other lies and myths and hoaxes and things like that," according to Mike Rothschild, conspiracy theory expert and author of "Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories."

The latest disinformation swirling the hurricanes have pointed to Project STORMFURY, an effort whereby U.S. government attempted "human interference and hurricane modification" during the Cold War.

"Back in the 1950s and 60s, there were experiments to try to weaken weather systems, but the results were really inconclusive," Dr. Kristen Corbosiero, a meteorologist and professor University at Albany, told Scripps News. "And so, the experiments were not continued."

Rothschild said that while those experiments were real, "That does not mean that Hurricane Milton was caused by government-controlled lasers and is being steered toward Tampa."

"One thing being true does not mean that another thing is true," he added.

The weather control conspiracy theory evolved from wild accusations that began with Hurricane Helene. Shortly after Helene devastated regions in the Southeast, former President Donald Trump on Truth Social baselessly accused FEMA of "going out of their way to not help people in republican areas."

Trump repeated the baseless claim, saying people are "being treated very badly in the Republican areas."

Many posts on X further amplified the claim, saying that FEMA also wasn't providing relief to certain communities because they are not immigrants.

Building off the false claim, a conspiracy theory that the weather is being controlled and hurricanes are being steered toward Republican strongholds.

In a viral post on X, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who represents a district in North Georgia that was also hit by Hurricane Helene, appeared to imply the government, Democrats, or scientists created the storm.

"Yes they can control the weather," she wrote. "It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done."

The conspiracy theory post had reached over 40 million views a week after Helene hit.

The congresswoman doubled down in another viral tweet, saying, "Ask your government if the weather is manipulated or controlled."....>

<....Scientists denounced the conspiracy theories.

"Meteorologists do not control the weather," Corbosiero told Scripps News. "I think there's hope that we could develop something to maybe mitigate storms and mitigate disasters. But as of current, we do not have anything like."

"I can't believe I have to post this. NO, we are not 'making' these hurricanes. There is absolutely no possible way that cloud seeding, lasers, or anything else you've seen on the internet can impact these storms," Georgia meteorologist Ella Dorsey posted on Facebook. "We barely understand them enough to predict them, let alone CREATE them. To suggest so is complete misunderstanding of basic science."

Some posts online have accused President Joe Biden and Trump's presidential opponent Vice President Kamala Harris of sending Hurricane Milton to attack Trump supporters in Florida.

This weather weapon conspiracy theory picked up steam after Hurricane Helene hit key battleground state North Carolina.

"When you have a massive Category 5 hurricane like Milton or the destruction that was caused by Hurricane Helene, it's natural for people to think something else is going on here, particularly with the timing of the election," Rothschild said.

"We saw the same thing happening in 2012 when we had superstorm Sandy affecting New York. People immediately thought it was Obama trying to come up with some excuse to cancel the election," he added.

Within a day of Hurricane Sandy pummeling parts of the Northeast over a decade ago, Trump tweeted "Hurricane is good luck for Obama again- he will buy the election by handing out billions of dollars."

"I don't think it's a coincidence that some of the earliest lean conspiracy theories were coming, particularly from North Carolina, which is a state Trump needs to win," Rothschild said.

Both Republicans and Democrats have spoken out against conspiracy theories, calling them "outrageous," "irresponsible," "beyond ridiculous" and "just plain false." Politicizing Hurricane Milton, many have said, distracts from crucial information being shared by officials.

"There is a lot of misinformation out there coming from all kinds of directions about hurricanes. And I think really what needs to be what really should be the focus is protecting life and property," Corbosiero said. "There are people who have suffered from Helene and are going to really suffer for Milton. And so, I really wish as a meteorologist, that would be the focus.">

<The long and grim history of Trumpism has yielded plenty of cringe-inducing moments, from Rudy Giuliani’s bizarre 2020 press conference outside Four Seasons Total Landscaping to Donald Trump’s recent detour into debunked and disgraceful race science. It’s fair to wonder if the bar of human dignity could possibly fall any lower.

Over the weekend, tech bro billionaire and X CEO Elon Musk laid the question to rest with his recent trip to Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa. Trump has always demanded that high-profile converts to the MAGA movement show their loyalty by debasing themselves in public. But Musk seemed different; he seemed to welcome Trump’s invitation to humiliate himself.

It was a sad sight for Americans watching at home as they were introduced to the radicalized, conspiracy theory-obsessed Musk, whom X users have known for years. Now he’s unleashing his $264 billion fortune in a last-ditch effort to influence the 2024 presidential election.

Musk may be happy to play Trump’s clown on TV, but his latest schemes are nothing to laugh about. He drew headlines on Monday after announcing that his political action committee, The America PAC, would offer swing-state residents $47 payments for every voter they referred. Musk’s stated goal was to encourage those voters to sign a petition supporting the First Amendment and gun rights. In reality, it’s one of the largest paid efforts in history to collect personal information and voter data.

“Easy money,” Musk mused in a post on X. Maybe so, but voters should think twice before taking Musk up on his too-good-to-be-true offer.

Musk’s goal is to collect information from at least 1 million voters in states including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina — all states where Kamala Harris leads or very narrowly trails Trump. Information gathered by Musk’s PAC could then be used to target misinformation at persuadable voters, something Musk routinely engages in on his personal X account.

We don’t need to speculate on how Musk might abuse the mountain of data he wants to collect, either. Officials in Michigan and North Carolina are already investigating his PAC for an alleged false voter registration scheme. America PAC allegedly promised to register prospective voters in exchange for their personal information, but instead took the personal data and ran. Both of those states are also part of Musk’s latest pay-for-signatures effort.

Musk’s political puppeteering is fueled by his apocalyptic view of a world in which Harris wins the White House. “If [Trump] loses, I’m f***ed,” Musk told disgraced former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson this week. “How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be?”

Musk is a hero in his own imagination, and that fantasy justifies his repeated attempts to subvert our democracy with a wave of pro-Trump disinformation.

We also don’t need to speculate about Trump’s willingness to violate election law and coordinate with “independent” PACs. The Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan election watchdog, uncovered high-level documents that suggest Trump’s 2016 campaign illegally coordinated with another billionaire-funded group, the Make America Number 1 super PAC.

Ironically, that coordination also involved using a tech company to unethically harvest politically useful Facebook user data — Cambridge Analytica, founded by early Trump loyalists Steve Bannon and Robert Mercer. The faces may have changed over the last eight years, but the grift remains the same.

Those $47 cash “gifts” are just a trickle of the money America PAC has unleashed since July, when Musk pledged to spend up to $45 million per month to influence the election. That those efforts focus on paying off voters instead of educating or persuading them speaks volumes about how Musk and the MAGA movement think democracy works. Everything is for sale — even (and especially) your vote.

Musk and other mega-rich Trump supporters want to believe that other peoples’ principles can be bought for as little as $47. That’s because so many of them sold their own principles to the MAGA movement for far less — in Musk’s case, for nothing but a heavy round of public mockery. But regular Americans are motivated by real, deeply held values. That’s why these cynical electioneering schemes keep failing, and why Trump’s polling keeps falling.

Trump and his band of sycophants want Americans to believe that he has a bold vision for our national future. In reality, all they have to offer is a small cash payment in exchange for your silent obedience. As Trump and company are learning, most Americans think preserving our democracy is worth much more.>

<Shortly after the 2022 midterms, Sen. Mitt Romney was asked whether he could support Donald Trump’s comeback bid. “Absolutely not,” the Utah Republican said, adding that he’d oppose the former president in both the primaries and the general election.

“It’s not just because he loses,” Romney said. “It’s also [that] he’s simply not a person who ought to have the reins of the government of the United States.”

A year later, the Utahan went further. “I will not be voting for former President Trump. I must admit that I find sexual assault to be a line I will not cross in the people I select to be my president,” the senator said, pointing to the E. Jean Carroll case.

As the 2024 election cycle took shape, Romney made little effort to hide his contempt for his party’s presidential nominee, even marveling publicly at Trump’s willingness to lie.

With all of this in mind, is there any chance that the retiring lawmaker will endorse Trump’s opponent? Evidently not. As my MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim reported:

Sen. Mitt Romney once again declined to say whether he’s voting for Kamala Harris in the election, suggesting that his reticence now will enable him to have some influence over the direction of the Republican Party in a hypothetical post-Trump future.

“I’ve made it very clear that I don’t want Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States,” Romney said at an event this week. “I want to continue to have a voice in the Republican Party following this election. I think there’s a good chance that the Republican Party is going to need to be rebuilt or reoriented.”

The senator went on to say, “I believe I will have more influence in the party by virtue of saying it as I’ve said it.”

There are a couple of problems with this. For one thing, it’s difficult to justify Romney saying he wants Trump to lose while simultaneously balking at endorsing the one candidate standing between Trump and the White House. If the Utahan needs further clarification on this, I’d refer him to former Republican Liz Cheney’s recent comments.

For another, Romney might very well want to have “a voice” and “influence” in GOP politics going forward, but Trump clearly intends to prevent that from happening.

At his latest campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the former president not only referred to the senator as “stupid,” Trump added, “How about him? How do you like having him as a partner? Mitt Romney? Aren’t we glad we are getting him the hell out of here?”

The audience, predictably, cheered with approval.

There’s nothing wrong with a retiring politician looking for ways to maintain influence as he heads toward the exits, but if Romney is serious about making a real difference, he’d be better off extending support to Trump’s rival instead of looking for ways to steer a Trump-led GOP.>

<Mark, everybody can tell from your posts that everything is pretence.

You have no credibility.

You're always wrong about everything.

You carry on with a lot of bluster about making bets between anonymous users online, which is completely impractical, as if that is supposed to fool anybody into thinking you've ever made tuppence from the internet.

You're becoming more and more ridiculous, if that were even possible.

Next you'll be announcing a walk around the Mediterranean!>

<Supreme Court Justice John Roberts has been left "shaken" by the unexpected public reaction to his ruling in the Donald Trump presidential immunity case, a columnist wrote Friday.

Slate's judicial writer Dahlia Lithwick wrote that Roberts was left shocked that Americans didn't buy his attempt to persuade them that his ruling was not about Trump, but instead focused on the office of the presidency. The court ruled that a president was largely immune from criminal prosecution for official actions.

Lithwick referenced a report by CNN's Joan Biskupic. He “was shaken by the adverse public reaction to his decision affording [Donald] Trump substantial immunity from criminal prosecution," she wrote.

"His protestations that the case concerned the presidency, not Trump, held little currency.”

Lithwick also mentioned New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak's claim that Roberts had hoped his pro-Trump ruling would be written with such poetry that it would lower the bubbling anger from an anti-Trump public still furious over the elimination of Roe v. Wade.

Roberts "seemed confident that his arguments would soar above politics, persuade the public, and stand the test of time," the Times reported.

But that failed so remarkably that, “Unlike most of the justices, he made no public speeches over the summer," Lithwick wrote.

"Colleagues and friends who saw him said he looked especially weary, as if carrying greater weight on his shoulders.”

Lithwick pointed to legal reporter Linda Greenhouse, who asked on Slate's podcast how Roberts could "have been so clueless about where this opinion was going to leave a court that has already been really battered in public opinion ever since the run-up to Dobbs?… What this says to me is that he and other members of his majority live in a kind of bubble.”>

You made your bed; choke on it, biyatch!!!

<I swear to God that this is not about polls, although that Quinnipiac poll on Wednesday shook me up a little. And I understand that it’s hard to determine anything real with all the smoke and noise surrounding the campaign right now. And I also understand that a good fraction of my fellow citizens will believe anything they pick up while Doing Their Own Research on the Intertoobz. And I also understand that a larger fraction of my fellow citizens have surrendered to the Cult of the Vulgar Talking Yam. However, my brief two-week burst of optimism regarding the election has dissipated, and I don’t have a good idea why.

There just seems something, I dunno, flat about the Democratic campaign as we grind on through the last few weeks. It’s like watching reality getting the stuffing beaten out of it and having no real way of fighting back. The elite political media is utterly helpless in what should be its job, and it seems in many cases to be reveling in that status. (That NYT headline about the former president*’s “decades-long belief” in bad genes was one of the last straws thrown on the bones of a long-fallen camel.) I have this creeping feeling that reality is no longer enough.

I’ve covered enough campaigns to know that they all warp and twist reality to their own advantages. That’s how we got George W. Bush, rhinestone brush-clearer, and Richard Nixon, ace crimefighter, and the entire fantastical flight of fancy that was the public career of Ronald Reagan. (He can be seen as a predecessor to one of the newer characters in our national drama, J. Divan Vance, the suburb-raised Yalie venture-capitalist son of the Appalachian soil.) But there’s something different about this campaign. Reality has been abandoned at almost every level. A deranged convicted criminal is roaming the landscape, telling monstrous and easily debunked lies at every turn. Actual elected officials are talking about dark government forces controlling the weather. There is an organized campaign to destroy national unity in the face of two monstrous weather events in as many weeks. And large and influential media outlets flail impotently when they are not surrendering entirely.

The past eight years have destroyed much of the trust a cynic like myself had cultivated about the political world. I can only imagine what has happened to the psyches of the people who actually work in politics. How do you run a campaign in the dark forest of the unmoored political id? It must be exhausting, because it’s freaking exhausting trying to cover it, pointing out that, no, Joe Biden is not the maestro of the jet stream. That’s what I’m feeling these days—that for the first time, reality has a sell-by date, and that we all may be past it.

There are other reasons peculiar to me. I don’t think there’s any lasting political advantage to boosting how happy you are to have the support of the Cheneys and the exiled warlords of the previous administration*. I think there’s been a bit of complacency about the Democratic base, leaving something of a small opening for another eruption of the shingles of American politics, Dr. Jill Stein. But those are basic political arguments for another day. This is more of a general feeling that the country has passed through four of the stages of grief for the death of self-government and has come to a deadening form of acceptance. I feel like the Republicans, having created most of the situation, thrive in it. The Democrats seem to be frozen in another time, a simpler time, when political shenanigans were familiar exercises everybody could laugh about later. However, there was a story this week in The New York Times that came to me as a ray of hope, although I’m thoroughly ashamed to admit it.

Vice President Kamala Harris has raised $1 billion in less than three months as a presidential candidate, according to three people with knowledge of her fund-raising haul, a remarkable sum that has remade the race against former President Donald J. Trump.

The $1 billion haul, which encompasses money raised for her campaign and affiliated party committees, including the Democratic National Committee, is being spent on a wave of television and digital advertising and an expansive operation of offices and staff in the seven battleground states and beyond. The historic sum does not include money donated to allied super PACs.

If a billion dollars in campaign money isn’t enough to beat a campaign of utter b*******, if it isn’t reality enough to defeat the imaginary monsters going door-to-door for the other side, I will lose my remaining faith in the wisdom of the people entirely.>

<On Thursday, former President Barack Obama took aim at Donald Trump over his hurricane disinformation. During a speech in Pittsburgh, Obama called Trump “a guy who will just lie … to score political points.”

“The idea of intentionally trying to deceive people in their most desperate and vulnerable moments,” the former president continued. “My question is, when did that become OK? I’m not looking for applause right now. I want to ask Republicans out there, people who are conservative who didn’t vote for me — I have friends who disagree with me on every issue — when did that become OK?”

It is shocking to see just how far and wide the lies surrounding Hurricanes Helene and Milton have penetrated. But it becomes slightly less shocking when you consider how right-wing forces — and one politician in particular — have spent the better part of a decade eroding the trust relationships Americans share with their elected officials, civil servants, scientists and even with one another.

It’s exactly what we faced in Trump’s first term during the Covid-19 pandemic. He flailed wildly for an angle to the pandemic that would make him look better — that was always the north star, day in and day out. Trump downplayed the dangers of the disease and pushed quack lies about medical cures. He suggested scientists and public officials wanted to take your freedom and actively undermined confidence in life-saving vaccines. In the end, thousands of Americans died who didn’t have to, victims of lies pushed by Trump and many of his supporters.

And now that dynamic is here again, in the wake of Helene and Milton. Trump is pushing dangerous lies that he thinks will get him back into the Oval Office.

That’s making life hard for the Republicans who support Trump but also want to save their constituents’ lives.

Just look at the mental gymnastics being performed by Rep. Ana Paulina Luna, a far-right Republican whose district was slammed by both Helene and Milton. On Thursday, she tried to reassure residents the government was on their side.

“Just got off the phone with [President Joe] Biden,” she posted on X. “He is personally overseeing that FEMA does not create problems with the debris removal and is supportive of the 15 Billion in FEMA funds ONLY FOR Hurricane victims.”

But where would Luna’s constituents have gotten the idea that FEMA doesn’t have the needed resources and isn’t coming to help them? Maybe from a video she posted last week, full of false claims.

“North Carolina’s underwater, 1,000 people missing,” Luna said in the video. “While in Pinellas County we had 11 deaths and we have the majority of our residents that [sic] aren’t gonna be able to come back to their homes because they’re completely destroyed. You have Mayorkas, the Biden-Harris administration and radical leftists in Washington, mostly in the Democrat [sic] Party, [giving] illegals $1.1 billion in housing assistance.”

"And the administration says it’s OK, we’ll give you $750,” she continued. “Meanwhile, they send our tax dollars overseas to fund countries that don’t need it and they give it to illegal immigrants.”

All of that is a lie. FEMA is fully funded. They are not taking money from disaster relief to house migrants. And the $750 in aid is just an immediate start to the aid that storm victims will receive.

But that was Luna last week, spreading gross and racist lies about storm aid and now, this week, she’s trying to walk it back and reassure the people she represents in Congress that the government will help them.

The disinformation isn’t just an accident or a byproduct of Republican politics: It’s central to their entire political project. They want to cut people off from trusting relationships with public agencies, with media, with experts and create an alternate universe in which reality is whatever the great leader says it is.

It’s wildly dangerous. It claimed lives in the pandemic. And it’s risking lives in disaster areas today.>

<Attorney General Ken Paxton can’t use a state statute that he repeatedly relies on to scrutinize various companies and nonprofits — including an El Paso migrant shelter network and a nonprofit focused on increasing Latinos’ civic participation — after a federal magistrate judge on Friday ruled the tool unconstitutional, according to Bloomberg Law.

Judge Mark Lane of the Western District of Texas verbally granted a permanent injunction stopping Paxton using what’s called a “request to examine” to probe myriad practices. The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Spirit AeroSystems, Inc., a Boeing 737 jets manufacturer that received such a request from Paxton earlier this year requiring the company to produce a variety of documents.

Spirit challenged the constitutionality of Texas’ request to examine statute because it requires recipients to “immediately permit” the attorney general to inspect its records, without an opportunity for precompliance judicial review of the request — in violation of the right to freedom from unreasonable search or seizure that’s granted by the Fourth and 14th Amendments of the Constitution. Lane agreed.

“This call for me is easy,” Lane said at a hearing Friday, according to Bloomberg Law.

Lane asked Spirit’s lawyers to file a written order documenting the ruling. Lane’s office did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

Paxton’s office did not immediately respond Friday evening to an inquiry about whether it plans to appeal.

It is unclear how Friday’s ruling might affect cases in which Paxton’s office has used requests to examine that remain unresolved in state courts.

“The office of the Attorney General does not have arbitrary power under an administrative government regulation to demand unfettered access to search and seize property of any business in Texas,” said Kristin Etter, director of policy and legal service at Texas Immigration Law Council, an organization aimed at protecting the rights of Texas immigrants and refugees. “This is textbook 4th Amendment jurisprudence that protects us all from unreasonable searches and seizures.”

The consumer protection division of the Attorney General’s Office has increased its scrutiny of nonprofits whose missions are largely in opposition to Paxton’s politics, an investigation by The Texas Tribune and ProPublica found. Requests to examine are just one of several legal mechanisms he’s used to pursue those investigations.

A request to examine is a broad tool that is rooted in the authority the state’s constitution of 1876 gave the attorney general over private corporations, according to University of Texas at Austin School of Law adjunct professor Randy Erben, who spoke to ProPublica and the Tribune last spring.

“This is something that goes way, way back to the origins of our Constitution and the basic distrust of private corporations when they wrote that document following Reconstruction,” Erben said.

It’s part of the state’s business and organizations code, applicable to any entity that files incorporation documents within the state. That includes for-profit corporations, like Spirit AeroSystems, and nonprofits.

In late 2022, Paxton’s office sent three separate requests to examine to organizations that had received funding from the Texas Bar Foundation. U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Richmond, had alleged the foundation was donating to entities that encourage and fund illegal immigration.

The following spring, amid a legislative fight over gender-affirming treatment for minors, Paxton sent requests to two hospitals –– Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston — requesting a range of documents related to such care....>

<....The treatment was still technically legal when the office sent the letters in April and May, respectively, but state lawmakers passed a ban the same week Paxton launched his investigation of Texas Children’s Hospital. In anticipation of the law going into effect, the hospital told employees it would discontinue certain gender-affirming treatments.

In perhaps the most well-known case of its kind, Paxton’s office hand-delivered a request to examine El Paso-based Annunciation House, a nonprofit that’s served immigrants and refugees seeking shelter for decades. Paxton accused the migrant shelter network of violating state laws prohibiting human smuggling and operating a stash house.

Typically, these types of letters are mailed and organizations are given a period of days or weeks to respond. In this case, the attorney general initially wanted immediate access to Annunciation House’s documents, including all logs identifying immigrants who received services at Annunciation House going back more than two years. The attorney general later agreed to give the organization an additional day to respond.

Following a legal dispute, a state judge in July denied Paxton’s efforts to shut down Annunciation House.

However, Paxton appealed directly to the state’s all-Republican Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear arguments in the case early next year.

The office’s request for Spirit’s records was part of an investigation into a door plug that came off a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane in January, forcing an emergency landing. Spirit makes fuselages and installs door plugs like the one that came off the plane.

The attorney general’s investigative letter also demanded records “that Spirit relies on to substantiate its claim that a diverse workplace improves product quality,” enhances performance and spurs the company to make better decisions. In a news release earlier this year, Paxton’s office said his office was investigating whether those practices compromise the company’s manufacturing processes.

More recently, Paxton’s office sent requests to examine to Team Brownsville, a Rio Grande Valley-based nonprofit that provides humanitarian aid to migrants, and Jolt, a group focused on Latinos’ civic participation.

Daniel Hatoum, senior supervising attorney for the Beyond Borders team at TCRP praised Judge Lane’s ruling, echoing concerns about the statute’s broad wording and arguing Paxton’s office has weaponized the language to go after nonprofit organizations.

“We strongly agree this is an easy decision, that this statute is very likely unconstitutional,” Hatoum said.>

<A federal appeals court late Friday ordered a judge who found the state of Texas repeatedly in contempt for its failed foster care fixes be removed from the case, signaling a possible end to the 13-year legal battle.

The 3-0 decision from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans found that U.S. District Judge Janis Jack’s “highly antagonistic demeanor” during a three-day hearing late last year called into doubt at least “the appearance of fairness” for defendants in the case: Texas Health and Human Services and its sister agency, the Department of Family and Protective Services, which operates the foster care system.

“The district judge must be removed,” the panel ruled.

The opinion was authored by Judge Edith Jones and joined by Judge Cory Wilson and Judge Edith Clement. The three also reversed the $100,000 a day fine and contempt order Jack issued against Texas’ social services agency. The 5th Circuit had earlier blocked that fine days after it was imposed by Jack in April.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last year, the Texas attorney general’s office hired private attorneys to represent the state in the ongoing legal battle. That team included veteran appellate lawyer Allyson Ho, the wife of 5th Circuit Judge James Ho, who is one of 26 judges on the court.

Jack, a federal judge in Texas’ Southern District, has been the de facto foster care czar, overseeing the case challenging the care of foster care children in the state’s permanent custody since it was filed in 2011.

At issue is the care of roughly 9,000 children in the state’s permanent custody after being removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect. Since the case was filed, Jack has found the state in contempt three times for failing to fix conditions.

In April, Jack issued a bombshell ruling that found Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Cecile E. Young in contempt of her court orders to fix the way the state investigates complaints by children in its care. It was the third contempt ruling in the case and Jack also fined the state $100,000 per day until the state could show an attempt to address its routine neglect of investigations into allegations of abuse and neglect of children in the system. The 5th Circuit blocked that fine two days after Jack’s ruling and on Friday reversed it.

In Friday’s decision, the appeals court judge included caustic excerpts from transcripts of court hearings before Jack prior to coming to the conclusion that Jack be removed.

“The above excerpts show that the judge exhibits a sustained pattern, over the course of months and numerous hearings, of disrespect for the Defendants and their counsel, but no such attitude toward the Plaintiffs’ counsel,” the appellate court decision stated. “The judge’s demeanor exhibits a ‘high degree of antagonism,' calling into doubt at least ‘the appearance of fairness’ for the state Defendants.”

Since the case was filed on behalf of Texas foster care children, more than $200 million has been spent on improvements. Paul Yetter, the plaintiffs’ lawyer in the case, would not say if they planned to appeal the 5th Circuit’s decision.

“We are assessing our options,” Yetter said in a statement issued Friday night. “Frankly, this is a sad day for Texas children. For over a decade, Judge Jack pushed the state to fix its broken system. She deserves a medal for what she’s done. We will keep fighting to ensure these children are safe.”>

<The first thing to know about Community Notes on Elon Musk's tweets: there ought to be a lot more of them.

Community Notes, the Twitter/X fact-checks formerly known as Birdwatch, are often touted as one of the few good things to have survived the first chaotic year of Musk's ownership. These notes are user-generated, usually including links to high-quality sources. Like Reddit posts they live or die on upvotes ("helpful") and downvotes ("not helpful") — enough of the latter and they disappear. Anyone can sign up to contribute, if they don't have strikes against their account. Contributors are the only ones who get to see or vote on proposed notes before they're officially stamped on tweets.

Musk will often tout Community Notes as a sign that he cares about the quality of information on a service that is crawling with deliberate disinformation. He's smart to do so: one study has found that Community Notes increase trust in social media, and so could help bring X's fleeing users back. But he doesn't even need to put his thumb on the scale of the X algorithm to avoid them himself.

With nearly 200 million people following him, if even a small percentage of his adoring fans are signed up to rate proposed Community Notes, they can swarm the system, intercept and rate any proposed note on Musk's account as "not helpful" before he gets another badge of fact-checking shame. As in this instance, where retweeting a false story about a bomb at a Trump rally was a step too far even for his fans (the original tweet Musk quotes was deleted; the Note remains).

This helps Musk significantly. Because as any study of his tweets confirms, the bomb story isn't too much of an outlier: Musk is spreading misinformation constantly. The New York Times looked at one weeks' worth in September, and found one-third to be "false, misleading or missing vital context."

In July, the month Musk endorsed Trump, the Center for Countering Digital Hate identified 50 Musk tweets that had been debunked by independent fact-checkers. Not one of them got Community Noted, and they were viewed a total of 1.2 billion times.

As things stand on the unofficial Community Notes leaderboard, Musk is at #55, with 70 Community Notes so far. Several accounts that he frequently replies to and retweets are ranked in the top 10. The top account has more than 800 notes — but at a rate of 50 falsehoods a month, Musk would easily have outpaced them if oversight was equal.

So what can we learn from the 70 fact-checks that did actually get added to Musk's account? Here's your TL;DR.

Musk's early fibs weren't that big a deal.

A mere three of the 70 Community Notes on Musk tweets were before the date he brought that sink in to Twitter in October 2022. That doesn't tell us too much, since the Birdwatch service was soft-launched in January 2021 and only fully rolled out weeks before Musk arrived.

Still, we can see how minor the corrections were at first. In his first post with a Community Note, Musk claimed his Tesla Roadster was orbiting Mars; it's actually orbiting the sun somewhere out towards the asteroid belt (which is still quite a flex). The other two pre-Twitter Notes concern EV tax credits and Hyperloop tunnels, which he claims can't flood. Concerning, to use one of Musk's favorite words, but not a huge deal.

In Musk's first week at Twitter, he racked up four more Notes. But they're harmless, even helpful. A couple point out when Musk is joking, in case it isn't clear. He calls Community Notes "awesome"; a Note provides further information on how to join.

Then on Nov 4, 2022, Musk claimed advertisers are "trying to destroy free speech in America" by fleeing the service. Community Notes stepped in to point out that advertisers were concerned about Musk's lax approach to security and misinformation as he gutted those teams. And a new more adversarial kind of Musk note was born.

There are more Community Notes on his tech posts than his political posts. In 2023, Musk would receive 31 Notes. It's still his most fact-checked year. May 2023 — when Musk launched Ron DeSantis' campaign on X, and incorrectly claimed DeSantis had set "an all time record for fundraising" — is still his most fact-checked month.

But that doesn't mean he's getting fact-checked on his political statements. More Community Notes appear on his claims about the tech and media world, including a number of bizarre attacks on nonprofits (see notes on his tweets about the Wikimedia Foundation, the Internet Archive, and NPR)....>

<....Musk is more vulnerable in the replies.

Of the 70 Community Notes on Musk tweets, a clear majority — 40 — are on tweets where Musk is replying to someone. That makes sense. The X algorithm artificially boosts Musk's regular posts, making sure that he shows up in your "For You" tab even if you don't follow him. But the algorithm doesn't push his replies, so falsehoods there are more likely to receive upvotes from Community Note volunteers acting in good faith.

And what falsehoods they've been! In a reply to his mother, Musk disavowed knowledge of his father's emerald mine; Community Notes simply used his own words against him, digging up a quote acknowledging that his father co-owned the mine. In a reply to a former employee, Musk claims there's no proof that plastics in the environment harm us; turns out there is. "Why would we have your home address?" he asks a verified user concerned about X potentially doxxing him to the IDF; a Note points out that verification requires ID with an address.

And he can't let well enough alone. When one supportive account posts a screenshot proudly proving that X is fair because "even Elon Musk can be Community Noted," Musk replies that the Note in the screenshot "is incorrect and the community already voted it away." That earns him another Community Note: nope, it's still there.

Musk loves Community Notes, except when he doesn't.

On seven out of the 70 posts, Musk invited the fact-check himself. Invariably he tags @CommunityNotes on a tweet he wanted to quote, and clearly already believed. On the stark statement he's pushing, he'll add a fig leaf by asking "is this true" or "is this accurate?" Nearly every time, the note that results provides context that Musk has missed.

Yet Musk rarely responds to the fact-check he's invited. The one time he did, he dug in his heels. "Community Notes is failing here," Musk wrote in February after claiming that it was impossible to sign into a Windows PC without a Microsoft account. No, the Note on this reply stated, you can do it — it just requires a workaround that "the average Andy" might not know about.

The implication: A tech billionaire who's been logging into Windows machines for decades is not the average Andy.

Nor does this particular tech billionaire get Community Noted like the Average Andy would, at least so far. And it doesn't seem the service will do anything whatsoever to rein in "Dark MAGA" Musk during the last month before the U.S. elections.

Why? Because, like a good Community Note, we ought to note the limit of Community Notes — using clear language and high-quality sources.

Here's a thorough debunk of Musk's repeated claim that "illegal" immigrants are voting in U.S. elections; none of his posts on this subject have been noted. (Ironically, Musk himself may have been at one time an "illegal" immigrant — you'd think the writers of sassy notes would enjoy pointing this out.)

Here's a debunk of his "you have said the actual truth" reply to an antisemitic screed last year. A tweet so infamous, advertisers fled, and yet it was not noted.

Here's a debunk of his "voter fraud in Virginia" post from the last week, also not noted.

We could go on, but you get the point. If volunteers cannot overcome the Musk downvoters to append correctives on this kind of nonsense, there's very little he can say before election day that will be fact-checked.

Noted.>

<Who would have thought that after a generation of consensus over the role of government – a pax populi in which there appeared to be tacit agreement about the function of the state – we would see a return to genuine dispute about basic principles? Yet here we are, arguing in often aggressive terms about questions that were thought to be all but settled apart from matters of detail. There is a fight to the death now between those who insist that this heated debate is necessary and those who believe it is risible. Much of the deeply discontented electorate is in the first camp, while a great many professional politicians are in the second, thus putting themselves out of touch with their own supporters.

Suddenly, the terms Right and Left have come roaring back into Western politics again, having appeared to fade away in the post Cold War complacency of a new world order. This is the great illusion that sustains the stalwarts of the Centre Ground: the compact drawn up after the explosive 1980s which everybody who wished to be taken seriously had to accept was that capitalism had won the ideological battle but that it had to be tempered with democratic socialist interventions to make it palatable. All that remained for elected governments and plausible opposition parties to do was to tweak the mechanisms which could achieve the optimal balance between free markets and social “fairness”. This was all there was – and would ever be – to democratic politics, which is why it became so managerial and technocratic.

That era has come to an end. Maybe because the idea of democratic government as nothing more than an exercise in marginal manipulations and risk avoidance, in which the interests of one social group or economic lobby are weighed against another and mass dissatisfaction avoided, was too uninspiring to attract first rate people. Democracy is the embodiment of a great idea: if you are genuinely excited by it, why would you want to be nothing more than chief accountant and clerical operative to the nation?

Anyway, a new dawn is upon us. Political parties and their leading voices are now talking in the fundamentalist terms of Right-wing and Left-wing which had once been consigned to the outer fringes of political life, often to hinterlands which were outside the bounds of the electoral process. Today in Europe, parties of the Right have disrupted what had appeared to be a smugly satisfactory arrangement. Their alarming historical significance is unmistakable and quite alien to our own experience.

But it is the American phenomenon that risks causing serious confusion for British political observers because American discourse is generally assumed to be translatable into ours. So, if in the US, Donald Trump represents a resurgent Right which is consumed by the issue of migration then British politicians who express concern about immigration must be soulmates of Trump. But Trump’s campaign is making a nonsense of the vocabulary: his statements – or perhaps “utterances” would be the better word – are not actually political at all. They are so arbitrary and blatantly narcissistic that they are not even truly populist. At their worst, they are ramblings which are literally meaningless.....>

<....Sometimes they are outright lies, like his repeated claims that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had diverted hurricane relief funds from Florida residents to migrants in what he described as “the worst response to a storm or hurricane disaster in US history”. (Everything in Trump’s childlike language is “the worst” or “the greatest” or “the biggest” in history.) His latest outburst was inspired by the broadcast of an interview with Kamala Harris broadcast by the CBS current affairs programme, 60 Minutes in which one of her replies was edited to make it shorter. This is a familiar procedure with televised political interviews but Trump regarded it as deliberate falsification because it made her appear more concise.

His account of this on his own social media site (capital letters included): “A Giant Fake News Scam by CBS & 60 Minutes. Her REAL ANSWER WAS CRAZY, OR DUMB, so they actually REPLACED it with another answer…to make her look better. A FAKE NEWS SCAM which is totally illegal. TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE.” He later called this the “GREATEST FRAUD IN BROADCAST HISTORY” and went on to demand that all the national broadcasters should have their licences sold off because they are “just as bad – and maybe even WORSE.”

As I said, this is not politics – at least not as it is done in democracies. It is absurd to the point of technical insanity but it must be taken seriously because this is the man who may yet run the country which leads the West. But it must be made clear by everybody involved in the new British game of Right vs Left that this sort of thinking – if “thinking” is the right word – can never be any sort of model for our own quaintly sane electoral process. The new Reform warriors on the British scene might claim that Trump and his team are saying what has been made unsayable by conventional politicians and the mainstream media, and that this is a stance which it is legitimate to emulate. But British people (unlike Americans) have a particular – and well-founded – dislike of narcissism and grandiosity in politicians which they see as ludicrous.

However noisy and vicious Trump’s band of UK fans may become when it is said, this cannot be repeated often enough. It would be extremely dangerous for the respectable Right in this country (whether Tory or Reform) to think that there could be any possible rendition of this foaming egotism that would suit a British electorate. President Biden described Trump’s latest effusions as “un-American” which may or may not be true, but anyone who tried selling them here would discover that they were decidedly un-British.

The ideal Anglo-American political alliance of the Right was, of course, between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher who presided together over the end of the Soviet empire and the emerging settlement which saw freedom and capitalism as inextricably entwined. Are there any leaders out there who can recreate that moment of clarity?>

<Election Day is about 20 days away, and polls suggest that it will be close in several key states. Yet it did not have to be that way. Indeed, the Republicans missed an opportunity to decisively win the White House when Donald Trump won the right to be their nominee.

Trump has a loyal following. If they show up, it will ensure he wins no less than 219 electoral votes. However, his loyal followers alone are insufficient to put him in the White House. What is needed are independents and a sufficient number of moderate Republicans who want a change of direction.

The problem that many such voters have in this election is Trump’s style, even when they favor his policies over those offered by Kamala Harris and the Democrats.

Movements labeled “Democrats for Trump” are few and far between. Yet “Republicans for Harris” are ubiquitous. Many former Trump officials and staffers have stated that he is unfit to hold the office of president. Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has gone so far as to campaign with Harris in Wisconsin.

In a year when several states will be won at the margins, a few thousand moderate Republicans crossing the line may be enough to make a difference in the final Electoral College tally.

If the Republicans had put a less polarizing person at the head of their ticket, they would have been well situated to win back the White House, given Biden’s low approval rating and how unhappy people are with the direction of the country. That is one reason Trump was so upset when Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

The choice between Trump and Biden was more favorable for Trump. Though debates do not win elections, Biden’s debate performance exposed his weaknesses. If he had been forced to run a national campaign for president, the physical and mental effort would have been overwhelming for him, further exposing his limitations.

Biden’s exit left Trump to be the oldest politician standing, contrasting with the much younger Harris. While Trump looked vibrant when facing Biden, he looked far more dated against Harris.

This has made the White House more of a stretch for Republicans. Yet conceding is never good politics. Control of the House and Senate are still up for grabs, and the GOP is salivating to win both. But to achieve these objectives, Trump’s loyalists must show up to vote. With them, the House and Senate are well within striking distance.

This motivates Trump to keep making false claims and statements that keep his loyalists engaged. The most famous statement is that the 2020 election was fraud-laden and that it was stolen from him, something that has been refuted in multiple courts and even by people hired by Trump to uncover voter fraud....>

<....In fact, during the vice presidential debate between Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), Vance was directly asked about this issue. Though many claim that he avoided the question, he, in fact, did answer it, since there are really just two possible answers which can be delivered in a variety of ways.

One response is that the election was indeed stolen from Trump, something that Trump openly claims. Vance did not offer such a response. Another response is that the election was not stolen, and the results were in fact true. Vance again did not offer that response.

But if Vance actually believed that there was evidence that the election was stolen, he would have had no problem parroting Trump’s rhetoric. Vance, however, is 40 years old, whereas Trump is 78. Vance’s political career has a long runway before him, with runs for the White House likely in his future.

To repeat Trump’s disinformation would come back to bite him many years down the road. Lying was not an option for him, and he was savvy enough to know it.

Yet saying that the election was not stolen would have been problematic for Trump’s campaign with his loyalists, effectively weakening down-ballot races for Republican candidates, including House and Senate races, and even some state contests. Contradicting the top of the GOP ticket was simply not an option.

This means that Vance avoided answering the question. Yet by not answering, he avoided lying without hurting his ticket. It also means that he believes that the election was not stolen, something that investigations have consistently concluded.

This election was the Republicans’ for the taking. Though many economic indicators are favorable, the uptick in inflation during the Biden administration, no matter what the cause, gives many voters a reason to wish for change. Yet with Trump on the top of the GOP ticket, his style is creating headwinds for some to support him.

When the final count is completed, and history is made with Harris winning the White House, we will hear all the usual calls of a stolen election. Given that this is the expected response from Trump, the element of surprise has been neutralized.

Such an outcome could have been avoided with a more widely appealing choice on the top of the ticket for a broader swath of voters. Traditional Republicans know this and will need to keep this in mind when planning for 2028.>

<Republican House speaker Mike Johnson claimed - without evidence - that there will be "cheating" in the 2024 election, once again raising unfounded doubts about electoral integrity. In 2020, Johnson voted against the certification of President Joe Biden's win.

"I think there is going to be some cheating in this election," Johnson said in an interview Sunday on Face the Nation. "I think non-citizens are going to vote."

Johnson's claims parrot Donald Trump's repeated baseless allegations of election fraud that he has been spreading ahead of election day.

"You know that it is against the law for non-citizens to vote in federal elections," moderator Margaret Brennan responded. "That's established law."

"Of course it is," Johnson said. "But here's the problem, there's a number of states that are not requiring proof of citizenship when illegals are noncitizens register to vote. We know that's happening."

Johnson then spoke about how Virginia Gov. Glenn Younkin is "cleaning up" the state's voter rolls. The Justice Department has tried to intervene, arguing in a lawsuit against Virginia election officials filed Friday that the state is illegally striking names, a violation of federal election law. Under the National Voter Registration Act, states must implement a 90-day "quiet period" before an election to maintain voter rolls. Otherwise, voters will not have an opportunity to correct any errors.

"Congress adopted the National Voter Registration Act's quiet period restriction to prevent error-prone, eleventh hour efforts that all too often disenfranchise qualified voters," Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a statement.

Pushing back on Johnson's claims, Brennan said, "Respectfully, speaker, you both - in the course of this interview - said that you do believe that states have taken measures that will help the integrity of this election, and then you just also seem to undermine confidence in the integrity of the state elections."

Johnson responded with more conspiracy theories, namely that Democrats "opened the border wide" to get more voters. "A lot of people theorize that that was so that they could have non-citizens to vote," Johnson said, offering zero proof other than conjecture. "I wish it weren't true, but that's the concern that people have."

When Brennan pointed out that it's already illegal for non-citizens to vote, Johnson argued that passing the SAVE Act - legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote - would "make sure the law is followed." Democrats blocked the bill, with Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries calling the bill "a voter suppression bill" because it would disenfranchise citizens who don't have easy access to documentation proving their citizenship.

Asked whether there will be a repeat of Jan. 6 in 2025, Johnson said, "I don't think we'll see anything like that. I certainly pray and hope that's true."

Johnson later promised: "We're going to have the peaceful transition of power."

"Are you certain that at the nation's Capitol, the lawmakers who you work with, won't be challenging the outcome?" Brennan asked.

"We'll see what happens," Johnson said. "I can just tell you that we're going to follow the law."

Former Rep. Liz Cheney expressed concerns about Johnson embracing conspiracy theories. She said she does not trust him to certify the 2024 election if Vice President Kamala Harris is the victor.

"I do not have faith that Mike Johnson will fulfill his constitutional obligations," Cheney said on Meet the Press after Johnson's appearance on the show. "The claims of fraud Donald Trump was making [in 2020] … [Johnson] knew those to be false. He was told that, not only in discussions with me, but also by the House Republican counsel."

Johnson has put a caveat on whether he will certify a Harris win, stating Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press that he will only certify if the election is "free, fair and legal."

That's why, Cheney said, "I think it's very important that the Republicans not be in the majority in the House come January 2025.">

<JD Vance really doesn't like being fact-checked.

The vice presidential candidate fumed over a correction during a recent debate with Tim Walz, and he stewed once again during a visit to ABC's "This Week" that didn't allow him to spread lies.

Vance started off the interview with a favorite canard of the Donald Trump campaign in recent weeks: that the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton was delayed because affected areas reliably vote for Republicans. FEMA has outright rejected the idea that they are using voter maps to determine how quickly hard-hit areas receive aid, but that hasn't stopped the conspiracy from growing in right-wing circles, aided by boosts from both Trump and Vance.

"If these areas were a little more Democratic, maybe Kamala Harris would have focused on them more," Vance said of the response, declining to note that Harris is not currently the president of the United States.

"Senator Vance, I’m just going to say that local officials — local officials and FEMA officials say that is just flat wrong," host Martha Raddatz chimed in, before moving on to rumors spread by the Trump campaign about the town of Aurora, Colorado.

Trump threw a rally in that city earlier this week and focused on the idea that certain apartment buildings in the city had been taken over by Venezuelan gangs. When Raddatz said the stories were "grossly exaggerated" and cited the town's own mayor, Vance countered that the word "exaggerated" means "there's got to be some element of truth here."

Vance has previously admitted to making up or exaggerating stories on purpose to suit the narrative of his campaign, including a lie he promoted about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating local pets. That story led to a string of bomb threats and government closures in the town. Raddatz attempted to check Vance and keep him from sharing further falsehoods, which led Vance to rage that she was "focused on nitpicking everything.">

<Former President Donald Trump has lashed out at the newly released film "The Apprentice," which portrays his life and career in the 1970s and 1980s in New York City.

Trump took to Truth Social to express his disapproval of the movie. "A FAKE and CLASSLESS Movie written about me, called, The Apprentice (Do they even have the right to use that name without approval?), will hopefully 'bomb,'" Trump wrote. "It's a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job, put out right before the 2024 Presidential Election, to try and hurt the Greatest Political Movement in the History of our Country, "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

He went on to complain specifically about the depiction of his relationship with his first wife, the late Ivana Trump, the mother of his three eldest children.

"My former wife, Ivana, was a kind and wonderful person, and I had a great relationship with her until the day she died. The writer of this pile of garbage, Gabe Sherman, a lowlife and talentless hack, who has long been widely discredited, knew that, but chose to ignore it," he said.

Donald Trump delivers remarks at a campaign rally at the Santander Arena on October 9, 2024, in Reading, Pennsylvania. He has railed against a new film about his life, "The Apprentice." Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images "So sad that HUMAN SCUM, like the people involved in this hopefully unsuccessful enterprise, are allowed to say and do whatever they want in order to hurt a Political Movement, which is far bigger than any of us." Trump said.

The new movie, starring Sebastian Stan as Trump, was released on October 11. It was written by political journalist Sherman and directed by Ali Abbasi.

The film depicts the beginning and the decline of Trump's relationship with Ivana, including portraying a scene in which he allegedly raped her. Ivana alleged that Trump raped her in a 1990 court deposition during their divorce, but she later recanted the allegation in 2015.

While disavowing the allegation, Ivana explained that she once felt "violated" by Trump during sexual relations because "the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent."

"I referred to this as a 'rape,' but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense," she added.

In an emailed statement to Newsweek, Trump's campaign communications director Steven Cheung said: "The filmmakers now readily admit they fabricated scenes and created fake stories to fit some deranged narrative about President Trump that is completely untrue. This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked."

"This 'film' is pure malicious defamation, should never see the light of day, and doesn't even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire," he said

Sherman has said that all the scenes in the movie are based on records of real events.

Speaking about Ivana's alleged rape, Sherman noted that she made the allegations "under oath," per USA Today. "In fact, the scene she described in the divorce papers was actually far more graphic and brutal than the one we dramatized in the film."

Cheung told Variety in May that the campaign planned to file a lawsuit over the film.>

<Musk, who until his transformation was known as a centrist Democrat who had previously met with former President Obama on several occasions, has said his turn toward Trump is driven by concerns about what he views as threats to free speech and American democracy under potential Democratic leadership.

"This will be the last election" if Trump doesn't win, Musk warned in language that has turned increasingly fatalistic in recent weeks. On X, the platform he acquired in 2021, he has frequently posted dire warnings about what he sees as the effects of progressive policies and censorship.

His involvement in Trump's campaign extends beyond rhetoric. As the election enters its final phase, Musk is leveraging his influence as one of the most famous people in America to mobilize voters for perhaps the one man more famous than him, as well as other Republicans.

This effort has led him to make substantial financial contributions to political groups, including his own America PAC, where he has already invested $80 million to support Trump's campaign, with plans to expand the budget to between $140 million and $180 million.

Musk's role in the campaign is closely tied to his potential influence in a future Trump administration. Trump has indicated that, if re-elected, he would appoint Musk to lead a "government efficiency commission". That would be significant shift for the entrepreneur who once vowed not to donate to any political campaigns. Now, he has invested tens of millions of his own vast wealth into Trump's campaign and has openly theorized that he's "f---ed" if Trump loses.

Musk's endorsement of Trump has sparked speculation that his political alignment may be driven by the regulatory pressures his businesses have faced under the Biden administration.

Since Biden took office, scrutiny of Musk's various ventures has intensified, with investigations and actions from at least seven federal agencies along with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, ranging from allegations of discrimination to environmental compliance concerns.

For some, Musk's political pivot is seen as a strategic move to reshape the regulatory landscape should Trump win. Supporting Trump, who has pledged to reduce if not eliminate regulatory oversight, could offer Musk relief from the increased scrutiny his companies have faced under the current administration.

"How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be?" Musk asked Tucker Carlson this month, speculating on the outcome of a potential Trump loss.

Below is a summary of the key cases the Biden White House has initiated against Musk's companies:

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) vs. Tesla

Ongoing since 2021, NHTSA has conducted multiple investigations into crashes involving Tesla's self-driving Autopilot system. These investigations aim to determine whether the Autopilot features meet federal safety standards and how effectively they respond to various driving conditions. The agency's findings have raised concerns about the safety of Tesla's autonomous driving technology.

NHTSA has found that Autopilot has a "critical safety gap" and that it contributed to at least 467 collisions, 13 fatalities and many serious injuries between January 2018 and August 2023.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) vs. Tesla

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Tesla have had a number of interactions, including lawsuits, settlements and disagreements over social media posts.

In 2021, Biden's second year, the SEC opened an investigation into Tesla over a whistleblower complaint that the company failed to properly notify its shareholders and the public of fire risks associated with solar panel system defects over several years.

Also, the SEC has intended to seek sanctions against Musk after he failed to appear for court-ordered testimony for the regulator's probe into his $44 billion takeover of Twitter in 2022.

SEC vs. Musk

The SEC is investigating potential securities law violations by Musk in early 2022, focusing on his accumulation of Twitter stock. The inquiry aims to determine whether Musk or his associates engaged in securities fraud while he sold shares of Tesla and built up a stake in Twitter. This activity occurred prior to his eventual leveraged buyout of Twitter, now rebranded as X.

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) vs. Tesla

In a suit filed in March 2023, the NLRB accused Tesla of discouraging workers at a Buffalo, New York, assembly plant from union organizing by barring them from using phones and other devices. A NLRB official issued a complaint claiming Tesla's workplace rule banning personal technology use, recording, and storing or sharing content violated U.S. labor law....>

<....U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) vs. SpaceX

In December 2020, SpaceX launched a rocket without authorization, which appeared to be the first instance of the Musk's space exploration company drawing the ire of the FWS. The FAA allowed SpaceX to self-investigate the incident, but did not share the results with its counterparts in FWS.

U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York vs. Tesla

In June 2023, the Justice Department launched an investigation into possible financial misconduct at Tesla, focusing on whether the company improperly used resources to build a luxury glass structure, dubbed the "glass house," for Musk's personal use. The probe centers on the potential misuse of funds, lack of transparency in financial filings, and any governance issues or conflicts of interest that could impact shareholders.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) vs. Tesla

Announced in July 2023, the FTC's investigations into Tesla focus on the company's business practices, particularly in its solar panel operations and advertising claims. The commission is examining whether Tesla engaged in misleading advertising, deceptive practices in selling and installing solar panels, and inadequate handling of consumer complaints and refunds.

Department of Justice vs. SpaceX

The DOJ lawsuit against SpaceX, filed on August 24, 2023, alleges that the company discriminated against asylum seekers and refugees in its hiring practices. This case is part of a broader initiative by the DOJ to enforce anti-discrimination laws and ensure that all individuals, regardless of their immigration status, have equal employment opportunities.

SpaceX countersued the government on constitutional grounds, saying it had hired hundreds of non-citizens and noting that the company's rocket technology fell under military technology regulations. A judge sided with SpaceX, blocking the DOJ from pursuing the case.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) vs. SpaceX

Throughout 2023, the FAA has delayed approving SpaceX's Starship launches due to concerns about environmental compliance. These compliance issues are primarily related to the ecological impact of high-frequency launches on local ecosystems and wildlife habitats. The FAA requires SpaceX to conduct thorough environmental assessments and take necessary actions to mitigate any potential harm.

There have been other tense interactions between the administration and Musk's companies, as well. In 2022, the FCC denied Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet unit, nearly $900 million in federal subsidies for rural broadband connectivity.

The government argued the technology was "unreliable." (Starlink has gone on to become a critical tool for Ukraine on the battlefield, as well as in parts of Appalachia that were devastated by Hurricane Helene last month — the same rural areas that the FCC had earlier blocked Starlink from receiving federal money to service.)

In a remarkable rebuke of his own agency's decision, the FCC's commissioner, a Republican, said it "certainly fits the Biden Administration's pattern of regulatory harassment."

But perhaps the incident that best reflects the administration's friction with Musk came in August 2021, when the White House put together a summit on the future of electric vehicles.

Musk's Tesla, which at that point was producing about three-quarters of the EVs on U.S. roads, was conspicuously not invited.

"I'll let you draw your own conclusion," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked why Musk was left out.>