News and Politics - Slate Magazine
It Was Everyone’s Sport. Then MAGA Hijacked It. It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way.
For a sport that's closely connected with the current administration, it sure has a lot of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Left
Raw Story
MAGA influencer falsely accuses a Californian senior citizen of election fraud
Far Left
MAGA influencer Nick Shirley confronted an 86-year-old woman named Doris at her home, claiming California records showed she is 126-years-old with 51 votes cast. Shirley, a pro-Trump YouTuber, recorded himself confronting Doris and shared the video online. On Tuesday, Democratic strategist Tom Bonier exposed a fundamental flaw in Shirley's investigation: California's voter database VoteCal, built on the Microsoft SQL Server, generates a default birthdate of January 1, 1900 when date fields contain errors or are blank. This explains the 126-year-old discrepancy, he argues. Bonier wrote on X, "This dips--- discovered that SQL server at one point replaced blank date of birth fields with a default of 01/01/1900, so he harassed an 86 year old woman." The woman disputed Shirley's claims, stating she was in her mid-80s and refusing to review his documents. Despite Bonier's explanation exposing the database glitch, the baseless fraud claim spread among right-wing influencers, including Elon Musk, who amplified the false narrative.This isn't the first time Shirley's inaccurate reporting gains traction amongst MAGA circles. His unsubstantiated investigation into alleged fraud by Somalians in Minnesota was supported by the Trump administration, NPR reports.Watch the video below. Your browser does not support the video tag.
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Alternet.org
Trump broke his biggest election promise — and Republicans enabled the betrayal
Sometimes I provide you with information that I hope you’ll find helpful in making arguments with others. I don’t expect that what I share with you will change the minds of committed Trumpers, but the facts and the evidence may have some sway with Republicans and independents who are wavering about whom to support in the midterms. One of the main reasons Trump was elected was his pledge to keep the United States out of wars, especially the kind of “endless” wars America has fought in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan. Obviously, he broke that pledge. We’re now well into the fourth month of a war he said would be four or five weeks at most. In addition, the war he initiated in Iran was a war of choice — Iran did not attack the United States, and most specialists in foreign policy say Iran was not close to devising a nuclear weapon at that time. (It’s likely to be closer now, or at least more committed to making one.)Yet in a lengthy interview with Kristen Welker, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” which aired Sunday, Trump was once again trying to rewrite his own history, He claimed:“I didn’t guarantee no war. So when you say I promised, I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war. We’ve been doing this for three months.”In fact, Trump repeatedly and unequivocally promised during the 2024 election campaign that the U.S. would not have any wars during his second presidency. Herewith, some examples.In a June 2024 social media post, Trump described the election as “a choice between STRENGTH or WEAKNESS, COMPETENCE or INCOMPETENCE, peace and prosperity or war and no war.” In one of the highest-profile speeches of his campaign — his July 2024 address to the Republican National Convention — he said, “With our victory in November, the years of war, weakness, and chaos will be over. I don’t have wars.”He made the promise again and even more directly during an August 2024 rally in the swing state of Pennsylvania, saying: “Under Trump, we will have no more wars, no more disruptions, and we will have prosperity and peace for all.”Trump reprised the same pledge in an August 2024 interview with Adin Ross, an online personality. After saying there were no wars during his first administration, he promised, “And we won’t have wars again.” At another rally that month in the hotly contested state of North Carolina, Trump approvingly cited Viktor Orbán, then the prime minister of Hungary, as supposedly having said, “Make sure that Trump gets reelected president, and you’re not going to have any more wars.” Trump reiterated moments later, “No more wars. No more disruptions. We will have prosperity, and we will have peace.”Trump told versions of the Orbán story at numerous other events. For example, in the swing state of Wisconsin in October 2024, he said, “Viktor Orbán said, ‘If Trump comes back, you won’t have any wars. You won’t have any wars.’ And he’s about as tough as they get, and he said it loud and clear and he said why. But you won’t have any wars.”Finally, in his victory address in November 2024, Trump made a clear promise that he would not start a war — even when he no longer had to persuade voters to elect him. He said in that high-profile speech: “Four years, we had no wars, except we defeated ISIS. … They said, ‘He will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars.”In reality, of course, Trump has been one of the most bellicose presidents in modern American history. His failing war in Iran and his campaign pledge not to start any wars should be held against Republicans in the House and Senate. They’re partly responsible. They have repeatedly refused to stop his wars. They have repeatedly enabled his aggression. Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Left
Raw Story
MAGA host floats 'sabotage' conspiracy as Reflecting Pool is flooded with green algae
Conservative media host Grant Stinchfield is suggesting that left-wing saboteurs are behind the algae that turned the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool green, barely a week after President Donald Trump's multimillion-dollar overhaul of the landmark.In a video posted to X, Stinchfield stood beside the murky, green-tinted water and floated the idea that something sinister was at work."President Trump fixes the reflecting pool and a week later it's green again, loaded with algae," he wrote. "Sabotage… Vandalism? I believe it is."He pushed the theory further in a video, telling the camera the water had been "crystal clear blue" and gesturing at the surface. "Is it nefarious? I tend to think so," he said, claiming unnamed actors "want Trump to fail."Stinchfield tied it straight to politics. "The left can't stand Trump, American greatness and his quest to make DC beautiful again," he wrote. "What a shame!"He claimed, "They're pumping something into this. It is back to green!"The official explanation is far less cinematic. The Interior Department has said the green tint is residual algae left in supply lines that sat dormant for roughly eight weeks during construction — a routine byproduct of restarting the system, with crews already working to clear it.Algae has long plagued the shallow, sun-baked pool, which is prone to blooms in summer heat and stagnant water. The renovation, which included repainting the basin and adding new filtration meant to curb that very problem, wrapped only recently, with the pool refilled around early June.So a freshly refilled, sun-exposed pool in a Washington summer turned green, as it has many times before. Stinchfield's verdict, delivered to more than 100,000 viewers: an inside job.
Far Left
WorldNetDaily
Vance and the GOP’s golden political issue: Federal fraud
'The liability that being Border Czar for Kamala Harris is the asset that being Fraud Czar could be for the vice president
Far Right
Truthout
Dem Lawmakers Condemn Trump’s Attempts to Influence Upcoming Colombian Elections
Trump endorsed far-right candidate Abelardo De La Espriella, who has pledged to “disembowel the left.”
Far Left
New York Post
Dems’ dirty donation platform shows they don’t give a damn about clean elections
Specifically, the House Administration Committee shined a spotlight on the Dems’ major fund-raising platform, ActBlue, and its apparent efforts to end-run the federal laws that Dems insist are all about “clean campaigns.”
Right
Raw Story
Ex-staffer accuses MAGA lawmaker of ‘intentionally misleading’ voters for years
Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL), who’s been endorsed by President Donald Trump in his bid for U.S. Senate, was accused Saturday by an ex-senior staffer of "intentionally misleading” voters for years regarding his military service, The Daily Mail reported.Moore’s campaign told The Daily Mail that he had served in the U.S. military for “more than six years,” and his wife, Heather Moore, said recently that her husband had served eight years, according to a local Alabama media outlet, The Daily Mail reported.However, according to documents recently released by Moore’s campaign, Moore had only served in the National Guard for less than three years before being honorably discharged in mid-1991.Furthermore, The Daily Mail uncovered new details that put his military service claims further into question.“Multiple former staffers said that early in his congressional tenure, senior staff took a deliberate decision to avoid the word 'veteran' in all communications – because Moore did not meet the qualifications - substituting 'former service member' instead,” The Daily Mail’s report reads.“In a further eyebrow-raising revelation, The Daily Mail has learned that Moore was typically accompanied by veteran staffers onto military bases, as he lacked the active-duty or veteran ID card needed for independent access.”Nevertheless, Moore has continued to tout his military record amid his Senate campaign, including in a Facebook ad published in May in which he “claimed to be a veteran,” The Daily Mail reported.
Far Left
The Gateway Pundit
Obama-Appointed Federal Judge Accused of Having ‘Loud Sex’ in Her Chambers with Police Commander During Work, Stained Couch Cushion Taken for Forensic Testing
A federal judge appointed by Barack Obama is facing calls for impeachment after an investigation found she engaged in sexual activity with a high-ranking Atlanta police officer inside her courthouse chambers during business hours, loud enough for her law clerks to hear through the walls on multiple occasions. The post Obama-Appointed Federal Judge Accused of Having ‘Loud Sex’ in Her Chambers with Police Commander During Work, Stained Couch Cushion Taken for Forensic Testing appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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