A recent appeals court ruling, unrelated to the current year ballot counting, may have an impact within the close Pennsylvania senate primary race between David McCormick and Mehmet Oz.  Currently Mehmet Oz is ahead by around 1,000 votes [NYT LINK]

The court ruled that mail-in ballots without a date on the envelope may be counted in the prior election.

“The three-judge panel’s judgment said the state election law’s requirement of a date next to the voter’s signature on the outside of return envelopes was “immaterial.” They said they found no reason to refuse counting the ballots that were set aside in the Nov. 2, 2021, election for common pleas judge in Lehigh County.”

This ruling happens as the current mail-in ballots in PA are being counted.  McCormick is slightly winning the mail-in ballot count, so his team quickly sent the ruling out to all Pennsylvania voting districts.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A federal court ruled Friday that mail-in ballots without a required date on the return envelope must be allowed in a 2021 Pennsylvania county judge race, a decision that could complicate the ongoing process of vote counting in the state’s neck-and-neck U.S. Senate Republican primary.

Elections officials, lawyers and candidates are scrambling to understand and respond to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which was issued late in the day without a written opinion laying out its rationale.

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The early voting in Georgia is breaking all state records.  According to the GA secretary of state office statement yesterday, “through Wednesday, May 19th, over 565,000 people have early voted in Georgia—a 189% increase from the same point in the early voting period in the 2018 primary election and a 153% increase in the same point in the early voting period in the 2020 primary election.  This represents a voting scale 3x the rate of the 2018 mid-term election.

Obviously, Georgia voters are enthusiastic to vote in this primary.  The GA SoS reports party votes as, “Republican: 353,161, Democrat: 258,200, Nonpartisan: 4,017” through May 18th.  Yes, republican voters are far outpacing democrat early voters, but that shouldn’t be too surprising given the top of the ticket on the Democrat ballot is an uncontested primary race to install Stacey Abrams as the 2022 Democrat governor candidate.

Despite being in an uncontested race, the team behind Stacey Abrams is working hard to drive out their voter base.  As the Washington Post noted, Abram’s group ‘The New Georgia Project’, is working diligently to help Georgia Democrats make the right ballot selections.  Additionally, another allied group called ‘Black Voters Matter’, is using the ‘Souls to the Polls‘ strategy to make sure black voters get the primary outcome that matters most to them.

Against all of this extra emphasis on early voting success in Georgia there is a weird dynamic on the Republican side of the equation.  According to most general reporting from the media, there is a lot of enthusiasm on the GOP ballot to keep Brian Kemp as governor; however, oddly enough, it seems like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is being positioned for defeat.  At least that’s the perspective of Politico and other similarly minded media.

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In a series of tweets today, Elon Musk, the Tesla/SpaceX CEO, world’s richest man and tech billionaire who recently announced he is voting republican, announced his intent to set up what he calls a “hardcore litigation department” filled with “hardcore streetfighters” because “there will be blood”:

This announcement is bookended by Elon Musk’s deal to purchase the Twitter social media platform, a resistant internal company ideological adversary, and a warning from the political left with Business Insider publishing an alleged sexual misconduct story.  Indeed, it does appear that Elon Musk is preparing for a war that will likely include the Fourth Branch of Government as an adversary.

Additionally, Elon Musk is drawing attention to the corruption in the 2016 election by spotlighting the trial of Hillary Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann.  Mr. Musk notes in his remarks that discovering the Trump-Russia collusion story was a hoax put together by the Clinton campaign, media and allies in government, “makes you wonder what else is fake.”

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Despite the request from prospective purchaser Elon Musk to verify the number of fraudulent accounts supported within the Twitter social media platform, company executives told employees the purchase is going forward regardless of Musk requested verification.

(Bloomberg) – Twitter Inc. executives told employees on Thursday that the $44 billion deal to sell the company to billionaire Elon Musk is moving forward as planned, and that it won’t renegotiate the agreed-upon price of $54.20 per share.

Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top lawyer and head of policy, also told workers at an all-hands meeting that there is “no such thing as a deal being on hold,” according to people who attended the meeting. She was pushing back on claims from Musk over the past week that he is pausing the deal while he learns more about the number of bots and spam accounts on the social-media service. (read more)

Immediately after the executive meeting with employees, and perhaps in a proactive effort to control any content changes to the platform, the executives then announced a new internal “crisis misinformation” team {LINK}.  Essentially new rules that will give Twitter censors new tools and justifications to block and control content.

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The second day of witness testimony in the trial of Michael Sussmann for lying to the FBI was completed on Wednesday.  For a good recap of the granular aspects Techno Fog has a play-by-play SUMMARY HERE.

For CTH readers I want to focus on a point that is visible in the defense argument and challenging, insofar as it has not yet been revealed, in the prosecution position.   The issue surrounds why Rodney Joffe gave the Alfa-bank fraudulent information to Michael Sussmann instead of just giving it to the FBI himself.  {A Question Margot Cleveland posits here}

In the cross examination of the first set of prosecution witnesses the defense lawyers keep contending that Sussmann did not lie about the fraudulently created origin of the Alfa-Bank material and there was no reason for him not to tell the FBI he was a courier for the Clinton campaign.  The defense is essentially that Sussmann and the FBI knew he was working for the Clinton campaign when he delivered the fraudulent material.  Sussmann wasn’t trying to hide anything, ergo he didn’t lie.

Sussmann’s defensive point is essentially true.  The DOJ, FBI and everyone associated with the information knew they were receiving opposition research from the Clinton campaign.  However, the FBI had to pretend they didn’t know in order to use it to start an investigation.

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New York Times narrative engineer Charlie Savage is tweeting from within a packed media center at the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse in Washington DC for the government case against Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann. [TWEET THREAD]  The mentions and notations, while skewed toward the self interest of media, give us a good insight into what is taking place in the courtroom.

First things first. All media reporting of this case will be done through the prism of their own cooperation in the perpetration of the fraud.  The MSM knew along with everyone else inside and outside of government, that their efforts to create the Trump-Russia conspiracy and collusion narrative were based on fraudulent pretext manufactured by the Clinton campaign.  They all knew it. They all acted collaboratively and they all engaged purposefully.

As noted by Charlie Savage, prosecutor Deborah Shaw, a member of the Durham team, delivered the opening remarks to frame the government position in the case.

The telling remarks came early: “Shaw addresses “the elephant in the room” – tells jury their feelings about Russia, Trump, Clinton can’t play a role in the case. This is about “our FBI” which should not be used as a tool by anyone, Republicans or Democrats.”  In essence, prosecutor Shaw is telling the jury the FBI were duped into the Trump-Russia conspiracy investigation by outsiders connected to the Clinton campaign.

That’s a critical baseline from the government we must understand and accept.  That baseline now indicates that none of the DOJ and FBI operatives involved in the fraudulent scheme will be held accountable by the Durham team.  “Our FBI should not be used as a tool by anyone,” yet they were, so sayeth the United States Government.

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Fox News Maria Bartiromo interviewed Devin Nunes and Kash Patel ahead of the trial for Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann which begins tomorrow.  The interview breaks down into two segments, the first segment outlines the discussion of Elon Musk purchasing Twitter. {Direct Rumble Link}  WATCH, Part I

The issue of ‘bots’ operating on the Twitter platform is an interesting aspect when you consider the cost of platform operation.

On one hand, extensive auto-generated ‘bots’ would be an issue of cost and data-processing, a net negative.  On the other hand, the use of bots would be a manipulative practice for the creation of false impressions to generate advertising revenue.

If the scale of data-processing was subsidized, an outcome of a network of data processing centers -clouds- linked to government resources, the bots would not be an issue for the operation.  Despite the false impressions generated, bots would, however, under this weird situation, be useful for the manipulation of the conversation.  At the root of Elon Musk’s line of inquiry is the need to discover if this suspicion is true.

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The Washington Post is reporting the shift from the White House to disparage their political opposition with the terms “MAGA”, “Ultra-MAGA” and President Trump as the “Great MAGA King,” came from a six-month poll study led by Anita Dunn, the latest senior advisor in the White House.

Keep in mind, a few days ago White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said the terminology “ultra-MAGA” was an “organic utterance” from Joe Biden.  Whoops.

WASHINGTON DC – […] Biden’s attempt to appropriate the “MAGA” brand as a political attack was hardly accidental. It arose from a six-month research project to find the best way to target Republicans, helmed by Biden adviser Anita Dunn and by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a liberal group.

The polling and focus group research by Hart Research and the Global Strategy Group found that “MAGA” was already viewed negatively by voters — more negatively than other phrases like “Trump Republicans.”

In battleground areas, more than twice as many voters said they would be less likely to vote for someone called a “MAGA Republican” than would be more likely. The research also found that the description tapped into the broad agreement among voters that the Republican Party had become more extreme and power-hungry in recent years. (read more)

On May 5th the White House announced Anita Dunn would return to the JoeBama administration as senior advisor.  Dunn’s specific expertise is using pressure, blackmail and political leverage to control information distribution by media organizations.  Apparently “ultra-MAGA” was Dunn’s first branding effort for the White House.

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Perhaps you’ve noticed. For the past two nights Fox News and a host of corporate allies have been doing a full-frontal attack against Pennsylvania Senate Candidate Kathy Barnette.

The club reaction appears to have been triggered by a GOP Trafalgar poll showing Kathy Barnette in a close second place (23.2%), surging ahead of David McCormick (21.6%) and right on the heels of Mehmet Oz (24.5%).  [Bartos 7.2%, Sands 6.5%]

In this outline I will explain the easily visible GOPe club moves without trying to support any particular candidate, that’s for Pennsylvania voters to decide.  However, once you understand the background play, it might help clarify what the Keystone state voters are witnessing.

BACKGROUND.  President Trump has endorsed Mehmet Oz.  However, many people in the MAGA base are stuggling with that endorsement because they just don’t like the guy and question the bonafides of his sudden, seemingly convenient, MAGA-mindedness.

Meanwhile, David McCormick is the GOPe candidate from the mold of the typically Wall Street Mitch McConnell tribe.

McCormick is the quintessential corporate republican, or what might be described as the ‘establishment’ party choice.  I would call McCormick the club candidate.

Kathy Barnette is the alternative favorite in the race for the MAGA base who just cannot bring themselves to support Oz.  Barnette is the outsider and carries a fierce independent streak that appeals to frustrated voters who have had enough of the nonsense.

As a result, the top three in the race break down into McCormick as the Club candidate, while Barnette and Oz are splitting the MAGA vote.  By my estimation the MAGA support looks like 60%(ish) Barnette and 40%(ish) Oz.  What is happening now in this race is very Karl Rove-ian.

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The entire premise of the J6 committee is a farce.  The overwhelming majority of Americans fully understand it is a political exercise between Democrats in congress and their hired Lawfare allies.  The goal is to label their political opposition as extremists, block and/or tarnish President Trump and manufacture a false premise to advance the Democrat 2022 election goals.

Despite this reality the effort continues in order to fuel their far-left base and media allies.

Today, the House committee triggered subpoenas against House republican members.  The subpoenas were sent to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (U-DC), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Rep Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Mo Brooks (R-Ala.). All five of the house members had previously rejected investigators’ requests for voluntarily testimony.

The subpoena authority is likely, hopefully, to be challenged in court.  The premise of a House committee issuing subpoena’s to the political opposition of the same House membership appears to violate the function of government on many levels.

WASHINGTON DC – […] The Republican leader indicated he might not comply with the subpoena.

“My view on the committee has not changed,” said McCarthy, who added he had not yet seen the subpoena. “They’re not conducting a legitimate investigation. It seems as though they just want to go after their political opponents.”

The select committee demanded testimony from the five lawmakers in the final week of May.

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