<Former President Donald Trump is backing Kari Lake’s unsupported conspiracy theories that her voters were disenfranchised by suggesting that the candidate herself was unable to cast a ballot.

In a post to Truth Social on Wednesday, the former president ranted about the voting process in Arizona, and called for a re-do of the election or for Lake, Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters, and Republican Attorney General candidate Abe Hamedeh to automatically be made the victors.

“What are they doing in Arizona about the large number of voting machines in Republican areas that just happened to be “BROKEN” on Election Day, with tens of thousands of voters, standing in line for hours, unable to vote,” Trump wrote. “They left the voting lines in complete exasperation, unable to return. When “mechanics” went in to fix the machines, they got worse. Kari Lake couldn’t even vote in her own district. Voter fraud – DO THE ELECTION OVER, or declare Kari, Blake, Abe the winners. Act Fast!!!”....>

<The former leader of the free world lashed out on Thursday at one of the prosecutors investigating alleged misconduct.

"The Manhattan D.A. Case should never have been brought," Trump posted to his Truth Social website.

He also attacked the Mazars Group, which used to handle the accounting for the Trump Organization.

"This case should be dismissed immediately, and the large, highly paid and 'prestigious' accounting firm that we relied on to do their job, but didn’t, should pay us a fortune in damages," Trump said.

As he often does, he labeled the investigation "a total witch hunt!"

Two minutes later, he returned to Truth Social to post the quote, "Give me freedom or give me death."

The quote is similar to the famous "give me liberty or give me death" quote founding father Patrick Henry said when speaking at the Second Virginia Convention in 1775.

Less than one hour later, Trump complained about judges and justices, claiming "it is almost impossible to get a fair decision on a case if you are a Republican. Sorry, but that's just the way it is!">

<A new report from the Arizona Republic sheds more light on the coalition of voters who sunk [sic] Trump-backed Kari Lake's hope of becoming Arizona's next governor.

Essentially, the newspaper found that a significant number of Republican voters in the state crossed over to back Democrat Katie Hobbs in this year's elections, and they also helped put nails in the coffins of fellow MAGA candidates Blake Masters and Mark Finchem.

Chuck Coughlin, president and CEO of political consulting firm HighGround, explained to the Arizona Republic that many Republican voters in the state wanted more moderate conservatives such as the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) instead of bomb-throwing right-wingers like Lake.

"There are practical Republicans," he said. "They want government to work... They’re not part of this conspiratorial environment and partisan behavior."

Fred Solop, a politics professor at Northern Arizona University, said that the results reflected the fact that Republicans nominated a slate of candidates who denied the results of an election in a state that President Joe Biden carried two years ago.

“When democracy was on the ballot, a significant number of Republicans were rejecting Republican candidates," he said.

Lake herself didn't help her cause when she trashed McCain publicly and told Republicans who had once voted for him that she no longer wanted their support.

"Everybody was down on the Hobbs campaign, how bad it was," said Coughlin. "The reality is the Lake campaign was worse. It actually told people not to vote for them.">

<As special master Jack Smith investigates Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago documents scandal, he is now in another scandal after dining with white nationalist leader Nick Fuentes and Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West.

"A Holocaust denier and unabashed racist, Mr. Fuentes openly uses hateful language on his podcast, in recent weeks calling for the military to be sent into Black neighborhoods and demanding that Jews leave the country," The New York Times reported. "During the dinner, according to a person briefed on what took place, Mr. Fuentes described himself as part of Mr. Trump’s base of supporters. Mr. Trump remarked that his advisers urge him to read speeches using a teleprompter and don’t like when he ad-libs remarks."

Trump was condemned by his own ambassador to Israel for dining with "human scum."

"Mr. Fuentes, who attended the bloody far-right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, is best known for running a white nationalist youth organization known as America First, whose adherents call themselves groypers or the Groyper Army. In the wake of Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020, Mr. Fuentes and the groypers were involved in a series of public events supporting the former president," The Times reported. "At a so-called 'Stop the Steal' rally in Washington in November 2020, Mr. Fuentes urged his followers to “storm every state capitol until Jan. 20, 2021, until President Trump is inaugurated for four more years.” The following month, at a similar event, Mr. Fuentes led a crowd in chanting 'Destroy the G.O.P.,' and urged people not to vote in the January 2021 Georgia Senate runoff elections."

The newspaper noted at least seven people with ties to his organization have been indicted for Jan. 6.

On Twitter, Times correspondent Maggie Haberman followed up with more.

"Trump lamenting to the Holocaust denier -- who got into Trump's club with the antisemitism-spouting celebrity with whom Trump welcomed a meeting, for which it's not clear any Trump staff was present -- that his staff wants him to stick to teleprompter speeches is a capsule," she wrote.

"Yes except at a certain point, it’s the same story over and over - no staff around, someone else’s fault - and the consistent data point is the man himself," Haberman added.>

<By Monday, Arizona counties are required by law to certify the results of the election, but protesters Friday morning demanded a halt of the certification process and rallied for a revote to occur in December.

Gathered across the street from the state Capitol, a peaceful group of around 200 people waved American flags and held signs regarding claims of a stolen election that disenfranchised voters.

"Where is our recourse with the Legislature?" outgoing Mesa Republican state Sen. Kelly Townsend asked a growing audience Friday morning. "We're talking about serious voter suppression."

On Wednesday, Townsend issued a subpoena to Maricopa County demanding information and answers about Election Day problems which she claims left voters disenfranchised.

A prominent Election Day problem promoted by GOP candidates and legislatures revolves around tabulation machine errors. It was claimed these machines produced ballots that were too light to be read by vote-counting machines, giving voters the option on Election Day to wait, place their ballot in a secure box that would be tabulated later, or go to another polling station.

It was reported that 70 of Maricopa County's 223 voting centers experienced issues, but Maricopa County election officials have discredited the issue and believe no voters were disenfranchised. The county and state officials have said they will carry out certification of the election on Dec. 5 even if some counties don't.

Townsend was not alone in her demands this week as Kari Lake and Abe Hamadeh who lost the races for governor and attorney general, respectively, filed lawsuits challenging the election results.

These officials believe Republicans voters were disenfranchised by these printer issues as Republicans are most likely to vote in person on Election Day and these machine errors occurred "in primarily Republican areas of town," Lake said on Election Day.

However, a Republic analysis found the problems were roughly evenly split between precincts going for Lake and those going for Hobbs with a slightly higher percentage in Lake's precincts.

On Friday morning, protesters overwhelmingly agreed with the sentiment that voters were disenfranchised, and many took the stage to share their own accounts of Election Day problems. Organizers asked attendees to fill out affidavits that can be used in court to support their cause.

"We are taking people's affidavits, their sworn testimony of their voting experience," said Deborah Boehm, an organizer with Affidavit Mommas on Friday. "A lot of people have had multiple problems with their voting experience."

These affidavits filled out at the event were being notarized and will be sent to Attorney General Mark Brnovich and far-right radio show host Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, who Boehm said they expect will work to help their efforts....>

Right back with the rest....

<....A mix of beliefs about disenfranchisement were heard at the event.

Although this protest was focused on the 2022 election results, a fair number of attendees wore Trump merchandise and waved Trump flags, supporting long-standing election-denying beliefs from the 2020 election. This crowd continued with the sentiment that the 2022 election was rigged and incited fears that tabulation errors were purposeful.

Other concerns were that tabulation errors caused frustrated people to abandon their ballots on Election Day or that certain ballots were not counted due to the chaos that occurred.

To rectify any concerns about Election Day problems, protesters demanded a do-over election that would occur with only in-person voting on Dec. 6 that would overturn the results of the Nov. 8 election.

"We want another election with only paper ballots all in one day and counted that day," Boehm said. "We don't want any machines involved in it at all."

Some of their other demands were that a special master would be assigned to oversee the new election, removing Katie Hobbs, Bill Gates, and Steven Richer from election oversight. Protesters wanted to halt certifications from the Nov. 8 election. All 15 counties are required to certify the canvass by the end of the day Monday. The statewide canvass is due on Dec. 5, requiring Gov. Doug Ducey, Brnovich and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs to sign off on the results.

With a plentitude of speakers, including Colorado right-wing podcaster Joe Oltmann and supporters from other states such as California and Wisconsin, the protest was a peaceful and nonviolent demonstration with no law enforcement present.

There was one impassioned incident shortly after 9 a.m. regarding a man who showed up with a Confederate flag.

When the man entered into the main congregated area, protesters asked him to leave, called him a white supremacist, and screamed out that he did not "support the movement" they were fighting for.

After racist comments from the flag-wielder and screams from protesters that the media would only portray the image of the Confederate flag, protesters allowed the man to stay in his own corner and told the crowd not to give him "any more attention."

The protest, which continued into Friday afternoon and supposedly will occur again on Saturday, gave people an opportunity to connect with one another and share their thoughts and concerns about the election in a public space.

Many speakers focused on the next steps of fixing a "corrupted" local government, besides calling for a new election.

"We've got to get organized and united," said Dan Schultz, a Republican Party precinct committeeman. "Uniting here publicly is one thing to do, but let's use it to unite locally."

<On Friday, legal expert Chris Geidner took to Twitter to tear apart House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for one of the first plans he has announced once the Republican majority is officially sworn into the chamber.

"On the very first day of the new Republican-led Congress, we will read every single word of the Constitution aloud from the floor of the House — something that hasn't been done in years," McCarthy had pledged. However, Geidner took issue with several aspects of this idea.

"1. It’s the House you’re leading, not Congress. 2. A public reading like this is performative," wrote Geidner. Furthermore, he continued, "3. Who will read the Three-Fifths Clause? 4. Who will read the 14th Amendment?"

Republicans gained fewer than ten seats in the House, after many experts had predicted a blowout wave election with potentially dozens of pickups for the GOP. Democrats maintained control of the Senate, carrying 50 seats with a 51st on the line in Georgia next month in a runoff election between Democratic Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock and Trump-backed former football star Herschel Walker.

McCarthy has been the presumptive choice for House Speaker. However, his easy ascendancy to the gavel is by no means assured, with several hardline Republicans in the Freedom Caucus coming out in refusal to back him, throwing his path to 218 votes into confusion.

Among the things McCarthy has promised his caucus, in addition to the Constitution reading, is restoring censured lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to her committee assignments, and to authorize partisan investigations supported by the far right, like whether January 6 rioters were treated correctly in D.C. jail.>

<When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched last month a new council for coordinating supplies for the Russian army, he seemed to recognize the scale of the economic problems facing the country, and his sense of urgency was palpable.

Western sanctions catch up with Russia’s wartime economy

“We have to be faster in deciding questions connected to supplying the special military operation and countering restrictions on the economy which, without any exaggeration, are truly unprecedented,” he said.

For months, Putin claimed that the “economic blitzkrieg” against Russia had failed, but Western sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine are digging ever deeper into Russia’s economy, exacerbating equipment shortages for its army and hampering its ability to launch any new ground offensive or build new missiles, economists and Russian business executives said.

Recent figures show the situation has worsened considerably since the summer when, buoyed by a steady stream of oil and gas revenue, the Russian economy seemed to stabilize. Figures released by the Finance Ministry last week show a key economic indicator — tax revenue from the non-oil and gas sector — fell 20 percent in October compared with a year earlier, while the Russian state statistics agency Rosstat reported that retail sales fell 10 percent year on year in September, and cargo turnover fell 7 percent.

“All objective indicators show there is a very strong drop in economic activity,” said Vladimir Milov, a former Russian deputy energy minister who is now a leading opposition politician in exile. “The spiral is escalating, and there is no way out of this now.”

The Western ban on technology imports is affecting most sectors of the economy, while the Kremlin’s forced mobilization of more than 300,000 Russian conscripts to serve in Ukraine, combined with the departure of at least as many abroad fleeing the draft, has dealt a further blow, economists said. In addition, Putin’s own restrictions on gas supplies to Europe, followed by the unexplained explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, has led to a sharp drop in gas production — down 20 percent in October compared with the previous year. Meanwhile, oil sales to Europe are plummeting ahead of the European Union embargo expected to be imposed Dec. 5.

The Kremlin has trumpeted a lower-than-expected decline in GDP, forecast by the International Monetary Fund at only 3.5 percent this year, as demonstrating that the Russian economy can weather the raft of draconian sanctions.

But economists and business executives said the headline GDP figures did not reflect the real state of the Russian economy because the Russian government effectively ended the ruble’s convertibility since the sanctions were imposed. “GDP stopped having any meaning because firstly we don’t know what the real ruble rate is, and secondly if you produce a tank and send it to the front where it is immediately blown up, then it is still considered as value added,” said Milov, who wrote a report explaining the situation for the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies published this month.

Deeper problems were also lurking in the Russian banking sector, where most accounting has been classified. The Russian Central Bank reported this week that a record $14.7 billion in hard currency was withdrawn from the Russian banking system in October, amid increasing anxiety over mobilization and the state of the economy.

Even so, a November report by the Central Bank warned that Russia’s GDP would face a sharper contraction of 7.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, after falling 4.1 percent and 4 percent compared with last year in the previous two quarters. Last week, as the Russian economy officially entered into recession, Central Bank Chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina told lawmakers that next year the situation could get darker still. “We really need to look at the situation very soberly and with our eyes open. Things may get worse, we understand that,” she said.

Angry families say Russian conscripts thrown to front line unprepared Putin’s announcement in September of a partial troop mobilization dealt an enormous blow to business sentiment. “For many Russian companies the reality of the war sank in,” said Janis Kluge, senior associate at the German Institute for Security and International Affairs. “It became clear that this is going to continue for a long time. Now expectations are much worse than they were over the summer.”....>

<....Putin’s creation of the coordination council, headed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, was a sign the Russian president is rattled by the increasing impact of sanctions, economists and analysts said. Putin “is concerned he needs to interfere to make sure supplies will be available,” said Sergei Guriev, provost at France’s Sciences Po. “He is concerned that sanctions have really hit the ability to produce goods.”

It also signals the Russian government is preparing a broader mobilization of the Russian economy to supply the army amid chronic shortages of basic goods such as food and uniforms. New laws will impose hefty fines on business executives who refuse to carry out orders for the Russian military, as well as potential prison sentences, clearing the way for entrepreneurs to be pressured into providing goods at knockdown prices. The creation of the council is “connected to big pressure on business and the need to enforce a tough diktat to make business do what it doesn’t want to do,” said Nikolai Petrov, senior research fellow for Russia and Eurasia at Chatham House in London.

One Moscow businessman with connections to the defense sector said a quiet mobilization of the Russian economy had already been long underway, with many entrepreneurs forced into producing supplies for the Russian army but fearing to speak out against orders at cut-price rates.

“This became necessary right from the very beginning when the war began,” the businessman said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “The main mass of business is silent. If you say you are making supplies or weapons for the Russian state then you could have problems abroad.”

As Putin escalates war, some in Russia’s business elite despair

Anecdotal evidence reported in the Russian press has pointed to enormous problems supplying Russia’s newly drafted conscripts with equipment. An in-depth October report in Russian daily Kommersant described huge shortages in ammunition and uniform supplies for conscripts, with manufacturers citing difficulties securing the necessary materials due to sanctions.

Other Russian business executives said Russia’s military debacle in Ukraine had exposed the huge inefficiencies and corruption in Russia’s military industrial complex. “There are huge questions over where all the trillions of rubles of the past decade have been spent,” said one former senior Russian banker with connections to the Russian state.

If the new economic council fails to better coordinate the production of supplies and weaponry, it could impinge on Russia’s ability to launch new offensives in Ukraine, Petrov said. “The main problem ahead of the Kremlin is the question of when the army will be ready to begin new military action in Ukraine, and the preparation of arms and ammunition and so on will determine these plans.”

The outlook appears likely to worsen when the E.U. embargo on Russian oil sales comes into force Dec. 5, economists said. Combined with a price cap expected to be imposed on all sales of Russian oil outside the E.U., the measure could cost the Russian budget at least $120 million in lost revenue per day, Milov said, and already the Russian budget is expected to rack up a deficit by the end of this year.>

Still cheerleading for your hero, <putin's biyatch>? Yer a brave one, letting <fredthebore> take on all your duties--he is such a coward, he will not even venture into the Rogovian miasma, save for the odd fly-by to deposit detritus, as is his wont, come to every page he infests.

<On Oct. 30, 1975, after then-President Gerald Ford declared that he would veto any bill calling for “a federal bailout of New York City,” the New York Daily News ran a story with the now-famous headline: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”

For years now, many conservatives and people of faith have felt that the entrenched Republican establishment and GOP “leadership” continually conveys the same message when it comes to the party following up on campaign promises made to those voting blocs.

Once reelected, and often because of conservative and faith-based voters, those establishment Republicans and their leadership would stab those constituencies in the back as they cozied up to corporate America, lobbying firms, Big Tech, the mainstream media, and any special interests who might fund their campaigns or hire them once they left Congress.

As the movie tagline tells us, “It’s a tale as old as time.” At least, political time.

After the predicted “red wave” failed to materialize on Nov. 8, it’s safe to believe that not only are a large number of these conservative and faith-based voters depressed, they’re also shocked that the Republican leadership — which failed so miserably — will remain in power once again.

There is no doubt that many of these voters hold Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel largely responsible for an inexplicable and humiliating loss.

With literally hundreds of millions of dollars spent, much of it donations from these constituencies, combined with an election perfectly teed up for the Republican establishment and leadership to win after two years of one White House/Democratic failure after the other, the GOP still managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.

Given every advantage because of rising violent crime, supply chain shortages, escalating gasoline and food prices, record inflation, a looming recession, an open border allowing millions of illegal migrants to cross into the United States, a faltering and sometimes confused president, and the potential for a nuclear weapons exchange with Russia, the Republicans still blew the Senate — and barely won the House.

As the post-mortem goes on, or pretends to go on, many conservative and faith-based voters can easily shout out the main reason for the GOP’s shameful loss: “You actually have to believe in something. You have to walk the walk, on the rule of law, sovereign and protected borders, smaller government, lower taxes, the need for fossil fuels and lower energy prices, anti-woke education, a strong and non-woke military, accountability, and faith.”

The wish list for conservative and faith-based voters has never been long, nor complicated; for decades, it has been consistently the same. And for decades, the Republican establishment and leadership has let these voters down. Worse than that, they have purposely gaslighted them and then cast them aside once they attained victory.

For years, these voters have believed it essential for the welfare of the nation that their core values be passed along to up-and-coming generations — in this case, Gen Z.

And yet, even in that relatively simple assignment, the Republican establishment and leadership has failed them. As the Democrats blanketed American college campuses, knocked on dormitory doors, sent Democratic candidates and organizations to meet with students, saturated TikTok and other social media platforms with their campaign mantras, taught “Mail-in Voting for Dummies” classes, and actually gave these college-age voters the respect they deserve, where were those leading the GOP? McConnell, McCarthy, McDaniel and others seemed to be missing in action.

As the Republican establishment and leadership tries to get to the bottom of their abysmal failure, they should take notice of the bright red warning light that’s blinking on the dashboard of their damaged “Victory Express.” The light signifies the percentage of conservative and faith-based voters who are sick and tired of being told to “Drop Dead” and simply sat out these midterm elections.

So, here’s a question for the Republican establishment and leadership to ponder: Because of your incompetent, duplicitous actions, how many conservatives and faith-based voters do you think will sit out the 2024 election? >

<<A guy got six months jail for making the signs of oral sex, with his tongue at a woman, when both cars were idling at a Stop sign. I guess she filmed the guy with a cell phone.>

<During an appearance on Saturday with MSNBC's Ali Velshi, former federal prosecutor Cynthia Alksne claimed she expected the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to come down hard on U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon over rulings that have protected Donald Trump from a Department of Justice investigation.

Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by the former president just before he lost the 2020 election, has been under scrutiny for a series of rulings that have baffled legal experts and stymied DOJ investigators looking into Trump whisking away stolen government documents to his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Before Thanksgiving, Trump's attorneys were put on the spot by the 11th Circuit judges who appeared more than skeptical of Cannon's pro-Trump rulings, and legal experts expect things to end badly for the former president's lawyers when their ruling comes down -- possibly next week.

Speaking with the MSNBC host, Alksne said she expected Cannon to be on the receiving end of a devastating rebuke.

"I think that it sounds like after reading the transcript of the appellate hearing in the 11th Circuit that they are going to get rid of the special master and they are going to slam this federal judge [Cannon] who put a wrinkle in the process that was totally unnecessary," she began.

"And that will speed up the process and allow the government to really dive into those documents because, remember, it is not only -- when you look at this case to a prosecutor -- it is not just does he have the documents, where they willfully maintained and did he not return them when he was asked to. You also have to have sort of a global outlook on it like, why did he do it?" she elaborated.

"In order to do the prosecution, you kind of want to know that," she added. "Is it an ego thing, as somebody leaked from the Justice Department or in anway [sic] did those documents make it into the stream of his financial considerations? Is that why he ended up with these deals in the middle east? Has Jared Kushner seen the documents? Who has touched them, who has seen them, who knows about them, who has used them?"

"The sooner we get rid of the special master process, or we complete it, the sooner we can get to that point and we can move forward with the prosecution," she added.>

<.... perfidious has been stalking, insulting ol' FTB for decades including numerous pages that I have nothing to do with such as this one. perfidious is infatuated with FTB and enjoys making besmirching remarks.>

'Decades'? Really? You have been a member since 2009 and only began posting on anything like a regular basis in spring 2015.

We all you are economical with the truth, but this is risible.

<....What description do you suppose perfidious is calling me today? A hoodlum, a pervert, a panty sniffer, orange hair criminal bear?....>

Another set of lies from a pathological liar.

<....perfidious routinely assassinates my image and character by his distorted fabrications of me. He's a vicious stalker, and he enjoys it. The website just turns a blind eye to it all, allowing perfidious to accost any soul he so desires....>

As you posted, make an error and expect to be corrected.

You have called me a socialist, stated that I have 'desires' for you and other vile, vicious content--but that is okay by your lights.

<Your infatuation is maniacal. Flirt with somebody else at your retirement home.>

Perfectly innocent, amirite?

Another 'topical' post from a game page follows:

<"deceitful and untrustworthy" doing the devil's work as usual.

<Republican officials in two counties in Arizona and Pennsylvania declined on Monday to certify their midterm election results, with some citing concerns about the integrity of the voting system that have become commonplace among conservatives.

Republicans on the election boards of Cochise County in Arizona and Luzerne County in Pennsylvania voted against motions to certify the election results there.

Though Cochise County residents voted for GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and GOP Senate nominee Blake Masters, both candidates ultimately lost their statewide races.

Luzerne County residents voted for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro and GOP Senate nominee Mehmet Oz, with Shapiro ultimately winning his bid and Oz falling short statewide.

Monday's vote in Cochise could risk the certification of more than 47,000 votes and exposes the county to lawsuits.

At Monday's meeting, Supervisor Tom Crosby proposed leaving the certification tabled until Friday, a motion that fellow Supervisor Peggy Judd seconded.

"This meeting agenda should have provided for interaction between subject matter experts on voter machines and representatives of the secretary of state's office," he said.

Ann English, the board's chair and a Democrat, disagreed, insisting there was "no reason for us to delay" and that "we have heard from every person more than once how they feel about the certification of machines."

"I feel that you both have the information necessary in order to make this decision that's nondiscretionary on our part to certify the election for Cochise County, no matter how you feel about what happened in Maricopa or Pima or Mohave or Apache. We're here to talk about Cochise County and our election," she said.

In a follow-up statement to ABC News, English said that she believes "it was unlawful for the Board to not certify the election as stated in the statutes."

"It is especially troubling to me when the other board members accept unsubstantiated ideas and unverified claims as facts instead of relying on the Arizona State Elections Office who told us the machines had been certified," she said. "Cochise County had an election without problems and our machine count and hand count matched 100%. We had no problems and all these claims are just grandstanding."

Arizona emerged as an epicenter of election misconduct claims in the midterm cycle, with Republican candidates seizing on printer issues in Maricopa County, which is home to Phoenix and about 60% of Arizona's population. Local officials have insisted that the issues did not prevent any voters' ballot from being counted, though Lake has continued to claim the issues cost her support.

Maricopa County officials unanimously voted on Monday to certify their county's results.

Neither Crosby nor Judd immediately responded to requests for comment regarding their votes....>

<....In Luzerne County, two Republican members of the elections board voted against certifying the midterm results, two Democrats voted to certify and one Democratic member abstained.

Luzerne County faced a paper ballot shortage on Election Day, but voting hours were extended to ensure that all ballots could be cast.

The Luzerne County manager announced plans to resign the day after the election.

"There have been enough irregularities and enough discrepancies and enough disenfranchisement of disenfranchised voters in this county that I don't understand how we could possibly proceed without seriously considering a re-vote," Board of Elections Vice Chair James Magna, a Republican, said, according to ABC affiliate WNEP.

"We went over everything meticulously as far as the reconciliations, that's any anomalies were pretty much explained. And it was due to the confusion at the polls because of the paper shortage," added Democratic member Audrey Serniak.

Daniel Schramm, the Democrat who abstained, said, "My feeling is I needed a little more information."

It is unclear how the county will proceed, though the state could get involved. The Pennsylvania Department of State told ABC News in a statement that it has contacted Luzerne County officials "to inquire about the board's decision and their intended next steps."

Schramm said later Monday that he will next vote to certify the results after he got answers to his specific questions, according to WNEP.

It is traditionally rare for a county to decline to certify elections, though speculation had bubbled prior to the midterms that local Republican officials could push to do so as the belief of widespread voter fraud and election malpractice grows within the GOP, spurred on by former President Donald Trump's baseless attacks on the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden.

The issues are not anticipated to stop any election victors from being seated, though the moves do open the counties up to litigation, with prominent attorney Marc Elias warning of upcoming lawsuits.

On Monday, his firm said in a statement that they had filed suit against the Cochise County Board of Supervisors.

Officials with the Arizona secretary of state's office did not respond to a request for comment.>

Waal, sumbitch; never knew I possessed such power.

What does one suppose <fredthenonentity> means by 'terminated'? Merely stripped of editing privileges, barred from CG altogether or having a date with his Lord High Executioner?

<....This is certainly not the first time they've worked this game together against me....>

<Former President Trump flailed and moaned after the November 2020 election — a tantrum of proportions so huge, a federal judge says, that he won’t get the legal immunity that typically protects presidents from lawsuits.

The ruling came from a familiar place: U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan for the District of Columbia, who held in a Monday opinion that Trump could face civil suit over his attempts to block the 2020 election.

Sullivan loomed large during the Trump years as he oversaw the prosecution, guilty plea, reverse guilty plea, and investigation into Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser.

Now the first of several civil rights lawsuits brought against Trump for his attempt to subvert the 2020 elections is before Sullivan.

In the Monday ruling, Sullivan held that the lawsuit, brought by the NAACP and a Michigan group that advocates for low-income people, could proceed — in part because Sullivan found Trump’s actions to be so outrageous that the immunity that’s generally offered to presidents for actions taken in office can be pierced.

“If Former President Trump disrupted the certification of the electoral vote count, as Plaintiffs allege here, such actions would not constitute executive action in defense of the Constitution,” wrote U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan for the District of Columbia in a Monday ruling. “For these reasons, the Court concludes that Former President Trump is not immune from monetary damages in this suit.”

Sullivan cited an ongoing prosecution of a January 6 rioter allegedly affiliated with the Proud Boys in his ruling, stating what may seem obvious but apparently needs clarification: That a president “cannot, within the confines of his constitutional authority, prevent the constitutionally mandated certification of the results of a Presidential Election or encourage others to do so on his behalf, nor can he direct an assault on the coequal Legislative branch of government.”

Sullivan’s ruling marks a significant point in civil litigation over the 2020 subversion attempt, allowing a former president to be held civilly accountable for actions taken in office.

It goes to a question that has plagued the cases since they were filed: Did Trump go so far in the run-up to January 6 and after that the normal protections that cover the President, and other government workers, no longer apply?

One other judge, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta for the District of Columbia, already ruled earlier this year that Trump had to face civil lawsuits over the insurrection attempt. Trump appealed that ruling, which is currently before the D.C. Circuit.

The suit before Sullivan accuses Trump of trying to disenfranchise voters by conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.

“Immunity does not protect acts that Former President Trump undertook outside the outer perimeter of his official duties,” Sullivan wrote in his Monday ruling.

He added, citing rulings in other civil rights cases brought against Trump for the election subversion efforts, that “there is no immunity defense for Former President Trump for ‘unofficial acts’ which ‘entirely concern his efforts to remain in office for a second term.'”

Sullivan added that part of the reason why the groups could proceed with their lawsuits is because Trump remains an active threat. Not only does he continue to lie about the 2020 and 2022 elections, Sullivan wrote, but he’s reveling in doing so.

“Plaintiffs extensively allege the efforts of Former President Trump and his allies as recently as March 2022 to get state officials to overturn the election results; to endorse and provide financial support to candidates for office who supported his false claims of election fraud; all while fundraising for the 2024 Presidential Election,” Sullivan wrote.>

<Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker is currently facing incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in a run-off following the nation’s most brutal election of the 2022 midterms.

While Warnock raises tons of money and Walker tries to improve his chances in the polls by distancing himself from Donald Trump, the Republican candidate is dogged by rumors and reports that he actually lives in Texas, not Georgia.

The former Georgia Bulldogs football star is facing a scandal involving a $1,500 tax credit he claimed on a $3 million home outside Dallas, Texas, intended only for primary residences. Georgia Democrats have called for the State Attorney’s office to investigate Walker’s residency and whether or not he lied to get on the ballot.

Meanwhile, CNN reported Tuesday that, according to a speech Walker gave in January, the candidate flat-out admitted that he considers Texas his home.

“I live in Texas,” Walker said in January in speaking to University of Georgia College Republicans. “I went down to the border off and on sometimes.”

Prior to that, Walker said that he decided he wanted to run for Georgia’s Senate seat while at home in Texas.

“Everyone asks me, why did I decide to run for a Senate seat? Because to be honest with you, this is never something I ever, ever, ever thought in my life I’d ever do,” said Walker. “And that’s the honest truth. As I was sitting in my home in Texas, I was sitting in my home in Texas, and I was seeing what was going on in this country. I was seeing what was going on in this country with how they were trying to divide people.”

CNN also noted that Walker did media appearances from his Texas home four times after announcing his candidacy for Georgia political office. They also reported that prior to his announcement that he would run for Senate in Georgia, all of his media appearances took place in Texas.

That certainly sounds like someone who considers themselves a Texas resident.>

<The former CEO of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX said Wednesday that he did not "knowingly" misuse customers' funds, and said he believes his millions of angry customers will eventually be made whole.

The comments from Sam Bankman-Fried came during an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin at a conference put on by The New York Times. Bankman-Fried has done a handful of media interviews since FTX collapsed in mid-November, but Wednesday's was his first video interview since it filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11.

“I didn’t ever want to commit fraud on anyone. I was shocked at what happened this month,” Bankman-Fried said.

FTX failed in the cryptocurrency version of a bank run, when customers tried to withdraw their assets all at once because of growing doubts about the financial strength of the company and its affiliated trading arm, Alameda Research. Since its collapse, FTX's new management has called the cryptocurrency exchange's management a “complete failure of corporate controls.”

Bankman-Fried said that he took responsibility for FTX's collapse and said he failed to grasp the amount of risk FTX and Alameda were taking on across both businesses. One of the accusations made against Bankman-Fried is that he arranged for Alameda to use customers' assets in FTX to place bets in the market. Bankman-Fried told Sorkin he did not “knowingly” co-mingle customers' assets with Alameda.

Exchanges like FTX are supposed to segregate customers' deposits from any bets they place in the markets. Other financial companies have gotten into legal hot water for misusing customers [sic] deposits, one example being MF Global roughly 10 years ago.

“Whatever happened, why it happened, I had a duty to our stakeholders, our customers, our investors, the regulators of the world, to do right by them,” Bankman Fried said.

Sorkin pushed Bankman-Fried on how and when investors will get their money back, to which Bankman-Fried said he largely believed the U.S. affiliate of FTX was entirely solvent and could start processing withdrawals at once. As for the rest of FTX, which was significantly larger than the U.S. division, he said the fate of customers' funds were largely out of his control at this point.

Bankman-Fried, who was once one of the richest people in the world on paper, now says he likely has less than $100,000 to his name after FTX's failure. He's getting by on one credit card while still in the Bahamas.>