Arizona Judge Peter Thompson has ruled that Mrs. Kari Lake must pay witness costs associated with her civil election lawsuit against Maricopa County officials.  However, the judge denied hundreds-of-thousands in defense lawyer fees for Marc Elias and did not issue financial sanctions against Lake.

PHOENIX — A judge has ordered Kari Lake, the Republican who lost the Arizona governor’s race, to pay $33,000 in fees for witnesses who helped defend election officials against Lake’s failed challenge of her defeat to Democrat Katie Hobbs, but rejected a request for hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees for the attorneys who defended the officials.

In an order Tuesday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson declined to impose sanctions against Lake and her lawyers, saying Lake’s failure to prove her case doesn’t “equate to a finding that her claims were, or were not, groundless and presented in bad faith.”

Thompson, who was appointed by former Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, pointed to a statistical analysis by a pollster who had testified on behalf of Lake. The witness, who conducts public-opinion polls and is not an election worker, claimed technical problems at polling places on Election Day had disenfranchised enough voters that it would have changed the outcome of the race in Lake’s favor. (read more)

Mrs Lake appeared on the Steve Bannon Warroom podcast earlier today to talk about her intent to file an appeal to the decision. {Direct Rumble Link}

(more…)

Eight of the ten claims made by Arizona gubernatorial Kari Lake were dismissed by the state judge.  The claims dismissed were for violations of freedom of speech, invalid signatures on mail-in ballots, equal protection, due process, secrecy clause, incorrect certification, inadequate remedy, and constitutional rights claims.

However, two claims were approved for trial, fraudulent tabulator configurations and violations pertaining to chain of custody for ballots.  Mrs. Lake faces a steep hill to climb as the election results were certified as accurate and correct by county and state officials.  Lake will have to prove any tabulation errors or ballot custody issues were the result of intentional wrongdoing by Maricopa County officials.

ARIZONA – Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is heading to trial after a judge allowed two out of 10 of her election lawsuit claims to move forward Monday.

Lake had brought forward a civil complaint earlier this month to overturn her 2022 midterm election loss against Democrat Katie Hobbs. Judge Peter Thompson decided that two claims, one regarding her allegations about illegal tabulator configurations and the other about violations pertaining to ballot chain of custody, can move forward.

“Our Election Case is going to trial. Katie Hobbs attempt to have our case thrown out FAILED. She will have to take the stand & testify. Buckle up, America. This is far from over,” Lake beamed on Twitter.

(more…)

Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake appeared on Fox News with Tucker Carlson to explain some of the details surrounding her election day lawsuit {Direct Rumble Link Here}. 

As Mrs. Lake notes there were widespread issues throughout the state and multiple irregularities in Maricopa, County specifically.   Approximately 60% of the voting equipment was not working on election day and Mrs. Lake believes an intentional effort to create crisis was behind the lack of preparation.  WATCH:

.

I do not recall when a post-election lawsuit has ever succeeded in overturning a certified election result.   If Mrs. Lake is successful in her legal battle, I’m afraid the victory would be pyrrhic. The court may agree the lawsuit provides evidence that the 2022 election was demonstrably fraudulent, yet the certified results still stand.

(more…)

… Both were targets of the U.S. government’s use of Twitter and social media to manipulate election outcomes.

While current conservative headlines are filled with discussion surrounding revelations of Twitter being used by U.S. government officials to control and manipulate public opinion, it is worthwhile reminding everyone how this process was first triggered – and then look at how the intelligence community applied the lessons to the USA in 2020.

The Obama administration first created the public-private partnership with Twitter and Facebook to support the “Arab Spring” uprising.   As a consequence, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was the first elected official to be taken out by former President Obama’s deployment of Twitter as a community activist tool for revolution in 2011. In direct and consequential ways, Egypt was the BETA test for a process that surface a decade later in the United States during the 2020 election.

Using and influencing social media was a tool created by the Obama state department, as noted years ago in Mic.Com:

[…] In countries like Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen, rising action plans such as protests made up of thousands, have been organized through social media such Facebook and Twitter. “We use Facebook to schedule the protests” an Arab Spring activist from Egypt announced “and [we use] Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.” The role that technology has taken in allowing the distribution of public information such as the kinds stated by the aforementioned activist, had been essential in establishing the democratic movement that has helped guide abused civilians to overthrow their oppressor. (link)

(NationalPulse) The most popular Twitter hashtags in the Arab region in the first three months of this year were “Egypt”, “Jan25”, “Libya”, “Bahrain” and “protest”.

Nearly 9 in 10 Egyptians and Tunisians surveyed in March said they were using Facebook to organise protests or spread awareness about them. All but one of the protests called for on Facebook ended up coming to life on the streets.

These and other findings from the newly released second edition of the Arab Social Media Report by the Dubai School of Government give empirical heft to the conventional wisdom that Facebook and Twitter abetted if not enabled the historic region-wide uprisings of early 2011. (link)

Fast forward to 2020, and those same elements deployed against the Egyptian government were deployed in the United States in a coordinated public-private partnership with Twitter, Facebook and social media.

The U.S. government control over these social media platforms is ultimately what lies at the heart of the latest Twitter Files release.

(more…)

On the first of three days of ballot counting, Georgia Republican Senate candidate Hershel Walker is in a runoff with Georgia Democrat Senate candidate Raphael Warnock.

Most of Hershel Walker’s votes will be counted today, however votes for Raphael Warnock will come in over the next several days.   If the race is close tonight, the inbound mail ballots sitting in parked vans, cars and busses around Atlanta will deliver the Warnock outcome on Wednesday or Thursday.

[Politico] – Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker are locked in a tight race in Georgia’s Senate runoff, with blue-leaning early voters breaking hard for Warnock but the red-leaning Election Day vote swinging toward Walker as those ballots were tallied later Tuesday night. {Politico Results Here}

[New York Times Results Here]  Atlanta will likely deliver.

(more…)

John Fredericks appears with Steve Bannon to discuss the current state of the Georgia Senate runoff.  Fredericks is on the ground in Georgia trying to help early ballot collection on behalf of Hershel Walker and gives a brutally honest assessment. {Direct Rumble Link}

According to Fredericks, the DNC wanted to start early voting last week and the RNC wanted to fight them in court.  The DNC started collecting ballots last week on Wednesday and Saturday in key Democrat areas while the RNC led by Ronna McDaniel and her legal team including Harmeet Dhillon had no plan other than the lawsuit.

The court ruled in favor of the DNC, Ronna McDaniel and Harmeet Dhillon lost.  However, worse still the DNC wasn’t waiting on the court decision and were already assisting with early ballot collection and entry, while the RNC was doing nothing – except waiting on the court.  That gave the DNC a 200,000-ballot immediate lead.   The RNC is now traveling throughout republican areas in Georgia promoting early voting and trying to catch up.  WATCH:

John Fredericks is strongly opposed to RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel remaining in her position.

If you live in Georgia, I would love to hear your ground report on what is going on?

(more…)

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?

(more…)

The current RNC Chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, intends on submitting her name for another two-year term as the head of the Republican National Committee.  However, given her inability to manage modern electioneering, in my opinion, she needs to be removed.

Former Congressman Lee Zeldin is considering putting his name in the hat for consideration at the January/February RNC winter meeting (unknown venue).  Given the nature of the landscape, and without insight into any other potential candidates to head the RNC, Lee Zeldin needs to be supported.

During an interview with Fox News Laura Ingraham, Lee Zeldin said he was seriously considering making himself available for the position.  WATCH:

I have a very good hunch what plans are going to come out of the RNC winter meeting for the 2023 and 2024 landscape.  The RNC 2024 campaign rules, state primaries, delegate decisions and much more are going to come from that meeting.   I can guarantee you the professional political class within the RNC, and particularly the corporate donors to the Republican Party, is/are going to want Ronna McDaniel to remain.

Setting aside Donald Trump’s former support for her, Ronna McDaniel will not be a good thing for 2024.

RNC Chairwoman McDaniel lives in Michigan, the same state where DNC midterm ballot collection led to significant defeats for Republican candidates.  Are we to believe that McDaniel didn’t see what was happening in her own backyard, and didn’t have a plan for it?

If McDaniel was surprised by the ballot collection outcome in Michigan (or Pennsylvania) she should be removed for incompetence.  If McDaniel was not surprised by the outcome in Michigan (or Pennsylvania), she should be removed for incompetence.

The bottom line is the RNC needs a new electioneering focus and strategic ballot collection approach.  You do not structurally create a new system by retaining those with a vested interest in maintaining the flawed system.

(more…)

I have written and deleted a thousand words, repeatedly, in an effort to encapsulate what this moment means to me, and perhaps to others.  However, when you boil the essence of the thing down to its important part, you are left with a question: Which American politician loves this country more than Donald John Trump?

The honest answer is ‘no one’.

There’s not a force of man or nature as strong in its devotion to a mission, as Donald Trump is to this nation.  That’s the core, the heart, the genuine essence of the thing, that separates President Trump from all others.  Within that love of country, is a strength of determination that is almost uncanny to witness; and from that love of country an authenticity emanates that is impossible to duplicate.

Donald J Trump is, quite simply, unapologetically American – and tens of millions just love him for it.

Tonight, with his family by his side, President Donald Trump announced his intention to seek the GOP nomination in 2024 and run for President of the United States.

.

Yes, I don’t give a flying flip what any detractor of this nation might try to say, Donald Trump is exactly what we need.

Many people are exhausted from the battle to save this republic.  Many people are frustrated and despondent from the scale of the effort it takes to push back against the metastatic corruption that has infected our entire body politic.  Even more people are sick and tired of having to constantly look behind the duplicitous motives and conniving schemes of the professional political class who falsely claim to represent our interests.  For all of those people Trump kneels and says, ‘get on my back and rest for a moment’.

We don’t have to question his intentions; we do not have to doubt his motives; we do not have to worry about his goal with the America-First agenda.  We know when Trump succeeds, our lives and the lives of our family improves.  Period.

Now, contrast that feeling of deep assurance and Main Street economic stability against the reality of a current, conniving, self-interested Wall Street political class as the reference, and ask yourself what is that feeling of assurance worth?  It’s priceless.

You see, back in 2015 when Donald Trump first announced his intention to run for the presidency the following year, the assembly on these pages had spent years fighting against the corrupt republican political establishment while most just strolled by oblivious to it.  We assembled as The Last Refuge, and we immediately spotted the possibility Donald J Trump represented.

(more…)

I’m going to skip noting that Elon Musk Twitter is essentially unchanged, regarding the relationship between Twitter, the Dept of Homeland Security and the disinformation police, as many keep saying Musk Twitter has not had time to reformat.

That said, five days after our post-election review of the difference between ballots and votes, and within minutes of the controversial Arizona governor contest being announced by DHS media outlets, suddenly any discussion about “Ballots -vs- Votes” is considered a risk to democracy. [LINK}

The need for control is a reaction to fear.

Twitter specifically, and Big Tech writ large, has now placed a warning on the CTH article where we draw attention to the general difference between ballots and votes. The timing of the intervention, as related to the content discussed, is transparent. Sunlight is a great disinfectant and must be controlled at all costs.

In one sense this effort to block discussion is irrelevant, the discussion is now taking place; attentions are being paid; the horse is out of the barn; millions are now expanding the discussion and applying Occam’s Razor to the simple reality. This is why information providers and independent researchers must work with urgency and diligence to control their own platforms.

CTH is never going to stop discussing the uncomfortable stuff because Truth Has No Agenda, regardless of our personal feelings or opinions on the matter.

Yes, in this discussion there is a clear difference between two electioneering priorities, one focused on ballot assembly and the other focused on winning votes.  However, in the broader sense this censorship effort to control discussion of these distinctions shows just how far and fast we are collapsing into a totalitarian and Orwellian nightmare.

(more…)