As expected, the insufferable Lisa Murkowski has won reelection in Alaska despite losing the first-round republican vote.

As a result of neither Murkowski or Tshibaka winning 50% in the first round, the ranking system then adds the second choice of all voters.  Democrat voters chose Murkowski as their second choice providing her the win in the ranked choice voting system.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has won reelection, defeating Donald Trump-endorsed GOP rival Kelly Tshibaka.

Murkowski beat Tshibaka in the Nov. 8 ranked choice election. The results were announced Wednesday, when elections officials tabulated the ranked choice results after neither candidate won more than 50% of first-choice votes. Murkowski wound up with 54% of the vote after ranked choice voting, picking up a majority of the votes cast for Democrat Pat Chesbro after she was eliminated.

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Arizona Governor candidate Kari Lake appears with Steve Bannon to discuss the status of her campaign lawsuits against Maricopa County officials in advance of a rush to certify the election. {Direct Rumble Link} – WATCH:

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Comrades, Dear Leader wants to help you with correct thoughts this Thanksgiving.

The administration cares about you.  With magnanimous intent Dear Leader provides the correct guidance for your discussions.  Please follow the transcript as outlined for your family gathering this year.  All the best comrade citizens will be reciting it.  [Source]

Good citizenship begins at the family table by honoring Dear Leader’s accomplishments.

Dear Leader provides appropriate instructions for the way all good citizens should thank him.  It is no longer your burden to say, “this holiday we celebrate and are thankful for friends and family.”  Instead, Dear Leader is providing thoughtful guidance, so you do not have to worry about appropriate thinking.

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In an op-ed from the New York Post today, former Attorney General Bill Barr joins the not coincidentally timed call from Republican Club officer Paul Ryan to dump Donald Trump.  New York Post and Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch smiles gleefully, but the organized effort is transparent.

According to the diatribe from Bill Barr, things were much better for the leaders of the ‘acceptable Republican Party‘ when the unwashed masses of the unrepresented middle-class were compliant in their role as victims to the GOP.  Battered conservatives are so much easier to manage if they just listen to the high-minded pontifications of the professional political class, pull lever and get pellet.

The tone of Barr’s screed is condescending in the extreme, as if he is delivering his prose to the RNC corporate boardroom at cocktail hour.  With a backdrop buffet of crustless triangle cucumber sandwiches and a masked waitstaff hurrying to provide the gentle ladies with white wine spritzer refills, you can visualize the words “hear, hear” coming from atop the crystal glasses.

As customary amid these conversations, titles are left unattributed for the unapproved.  “Trump brought his wrecking-ball style to the task of governing the nation. He did not temper his disruptiveness and penchant for chaos,” says Barr, pausing intentionally to afford his eloquence time to settle amid the less intellectually capable.

“It took his senior staff and cabinet secretaries an ungodly amount of maneuvering to keep him on track,” Barr continued.  Murmured noises and well-toned grunts from the assembly communicated their seriousness in understanding and agreement.  Barr’s tenure was obviously a time of unimaginable horror.

Sympathy, shock and sadness afforded for Barr’s recounting of his survival.  Moments later, furrowed brows from the audience.

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In the background of the Republican dynamic, CTH has been reminding everyone about the nature of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Democrat National Committee (DNC) being private clubs, private corporations, unaffiliated with government.  Most casual voters do not understand what this key and important distinction means within U.S. elections.

There are two private corporations representing Republicans and Democrats; they are most commonly referred to as political parties. There is no basis for the existence of private political parties in the United States constitution.  Both parties function from a position as private interests outside the framework of government.

What we commonly refer to as ‘politicians’ are selected representatives to the government from each of the corporations.  What we commonly refer to as ‘primary elections’ are suggestions to each of the corporations from citizens expressing their preference for the representative.   The corporation can individually choose to accept or decline the suggestion from the voters, and the only thing that binds the corporation to follow the suggestion are the corporate rules.

The corporation of the RNC and DNC exist to serve their own interests.  Politics is the RNC and DNC business; however, the income stream -the financial aspects to the business- is what holds influence over the corporate priority.  Ideology is part of the equation, but control of the business and generating revenue is the main function of the corporation. Unfortunately, in the reality of the business model, election outcomes are downstream from those two priorities.

It is with this corporate baseline in mind that all ‘primary election’ political analysis should take place.  The economics of the thing is what Republican officers in the RNC emphasize.  Without money, the corporate mission doesn’t operate.  Without money the RNC members -essentially board members- do not function, hold meetings, assemble, or participate in the organization.  Therefore, from the standpoint of the corporation, the business of politics (inputs) drives the activity, not election results (outputs).

This facet to U.S. politics is rarely discussed because the corporations and the people who run them do not want this process emphasized.  However, if voters do not comprehend this dynamic, they can fall victim to the fallacy of false representative choice.

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In this brief interview segment {Direct Rumble Link} Steve Bannon and Natalia Mittlestadt discuss a GOP legal team compilation report {pdf Here} from Maricopa County, Arizona as identified by findings on election day.

…”The 11 attorneys visited 115 out of the 223 vote centers in Maricopa County on Election Day and found that 72 of them (or 62.61%) “had material problems with the tabulators not being able to tabulate ballots,” Sonnenklar reported, “causing voters to either deposit their ballots into box 3, spoil their ballots and re-vote, or get frustrated and leave the vote center without voting.” WATCH:

Article Found Here – Legal Brief Citation Here

The scale of the problems identified does raise the question about how could the county certify the results?

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When the republican Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives publicly supports a legislative change that would permit the republican Governor to run for the GOP nomination, it doesn’t happen without prior discussion.

FLORIDA –  Top Republicans in the Florida legislature said Tuesday that they’d be willing to change state election law so that Gov. Ron DeSantis could run for president without resigning from his current job. 

“I think that’s a great idea,” Florida House Speaker Paul Renner said in a press conference with reporters at the state capitol, when asked about potential changes to the state’s so-called “resign to run” election law in the forthcoming legislative session. “I think we’ll look at that.” 

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I keep saying the 2024 GOP nomination is going to be fun because this is an epic Wall Street -vs- Main Street battle that needs to be done.  The conniving republican political class are openly wearing their anti-working-class uniforms now. Despite their efforts to remain hidden, and thanks entirely to their hubris, they are glowing.

The primary contest in 2024 is going to be epic, because this time the MAGA scruffnecks will, for the first time in years, clearly see who the enemy within the republican ranks really are.  This makes them so much easier to defeat, and also explains why the professional managers behind Ron DeSantis are desperate to keep his alignment hidden.

Emerson College Polling has a granular poll out today [DATA HERE] & [Cross Tabs Here] that highlights some really interesting stuff.  First, amid GOP voters Liz Cheney at 4% is beating Ted Cruz (3%), Nikki Haley (3%) and Larry Hogan (1%) for the 2024 GOP nomination.   How funny is that?

I mean it’s funny as hell when you look at it from the position of Nikki Haley and the detached billionaires that are going to have to fund her.  We’re just not into you Nikki. LOL.

Also, I mean, c’mon, ya gotta laugh.  Imagine being one of the former 2016 members of Team Ted Cruz and seeing the insufferable Liz Cheney beating him in current 2022 polling…  Seriously, ROFLMAO.  Yer’ killing me.  I mean could the Cruz Crew pick a winner or what?  Too funny.

Even better are the ways Emerson uses the demographics of the poll to explain the political alignment and who the typical supporters are for President Donald Trump (55%) -vs- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (25%).  The Emerson polling data nails the demographics perfectly.

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If you read the article about the “Pegasus Project”, spyware created to infect cell phones that was marketed by Israeli intelligence through a company called NSO {Go Deep Here}, then you essentially know the background.  Pegasus is “no click” targeting spyware that can be deployed against cellular phones, simply by inputting the phone number and transmitting to it.

The Guardian previously reported, “Claudio Guarnieri, who runs Amnesty International’s Security Lab, said once a phone was infected with Pegasus, a client of NSO could in effect take control of a phone, enabling them to extract a person’s messages, calls, photos and emails, secretly activate cameras or microphones, and read the contents of encrypted messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal.”

Pegasus was deployed to target tens-of-thousands of cell phones by the people who Israel sold the spyware to.  The Guardian, and a group of allied leftists in media, were previously granted access to a leaked batch of 50,000 phone numbers that the Pegasus software was operating in.

In a recent update from the New York Times they stated, “[it] has been used by police and intelligence services to hack the phones of drug kingpins and terrorists, but gained notoriety when it was revealed that governments, like Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Hungary and India, had deployed it against political dissidents, journalists and human rights workers.

It was also recently revealed the U.S. FBI under Director Chris Wray purchased the Pegasus program for “FBI experiments” and “exploration” into how the spyware program could be used domestically.

The FBI was initially reluctant to reveal their ownership of the Pegasus program, however, within FOIA documents related to the potential for domestic surveillance and concerns about fourth amendment constitutional protections, the FBI admitted they retain the capability – but promised it has not been deployed.

(New York Times) – […] The Times revealed in January that the F.B.I. had purchased Pegasus in 2018 and, over the next two years, tested the spyware at a secret facility in New Jersey. Since the bureau first purchased the tool, it has paid approximately $5 million to NSO.

Since that story was published, F.B.I. officials, including Mr. Wray, have gone further than they did during the closed meeting with senators last December. They acknowledged that the bureau did consider deploying Pegasus, though they still emphasized that the F.B.I.’s main goal was to test and evaluate it to assess how adversaries might use it. (read more)

Now, stay with me…

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“The Committee’s purpose in requesting President Trump’s tax returns has nothing to do with funding or staffing issues at the IRS and everything to do with releasing the President’s tax information to the public,” Trump’s non-pretending attorneys wrote to the court in October.  However, today the Supreme Court maintains the pretense of a valid legislative purpose.

(Washington DC) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to block a request by the House Ways and Means Committee for former President Trump’s tax returns. There were no noted dissents.

The decision likely means that the returns will be released to the Committee immediately, ending a multi-year legal battle.

Trump filed an emergency application at the Supreme Court on Oct. 31 to block the release of his tax information at least until the court considered whether it wanted to hear full argument on the issue. Trump similarly lost his case in the lower courts, most recently with a panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals ruling unanimously that the Committee’s request for tax returns was constitutional.

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