RNC delegates to include multiple participants of 2020 fake elector scheme
Plus, Jennifer Schulze on how the mainstream press ignores Trump's eradicate campaign while focusing on Biden's age.
At the upcoming Republican National Convention, multiple delegate seats from crucial swing states, such as Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, will be filled by individuals involved in the fake elector plot of 2020.
In Arizona for example, state Sens. Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern will appear at the convention in Milwaukee, along with Nancy Cottle. All three were a part of the 17 individuals charged by the state’s attorney general in the elector scheme. Hoffman, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges, was recently elected to serve on the Republican National Committee. And Kern received the most votes out of any at-large delegate in the state.
“That kinda tells you something,” Kern told the Arizona Mirror. “People know who I am, they know I’m a fighter. I’m a member of the Arizona Freedom Caucus … But they know the indictment is nothing but a sham.”
Hoffman was also dismissive of the legal case being brought against him.
“Let me be unequivocal, I am innocent of any crime, I will vigorously defend myself, and I look forward to the day when I am vindicated of this naked political persecution by the judicial process,” he said in a statement to CNN
Meanwhile, five individuals charged with similar crimes in Nevada will also appear as delegates: GOP chairman Michael McDonald and vice chairman Jim Hindle, Republican Party National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid, Clark County Republican chairman Jesse Law and Eileen Rice.
And in Michigan, former Michigan GOP chairwoman Meshawn Maddock and Matthew DePerno, a one-time candidate for Michigan attorney general who is now running for a seat on the state’s Supreme Court, will appear as delegates. Both were charged with attempting to tamper with voting machines; neither has pleaded guilty.
Notably, the Republican Party of Wisconsin will not have any fake electors present at the convention after the state party agreed not to be involved in any electoral process that involved former President Donald Trump.
“The Elector Defendants agree to refrain from participating in any way in the execution or transmission of electoral votes in 2024 or in any United States presidential election in which Donald J. Trump is on the ballot,” the settlement agreement, signed last December, read.
During a recent interaction with reporters, Bernie Moreno, the GOP nominee for Ohio’s Senate seat, maintained that he would back a national abortion ban — a position not even the party’s lead, Donald Trump, holds.
“You said earlier this week that you support some restrictions on abortion after 15 weeks. Do you think that that contradicts what the party’s new platform, new position on this overall?” a journalist asked Moreno on Thursday.
“...My position is crystal clear, has not changed on abortion,” Moreno replied.
In the past, the candidate has said that he is “100% pro-life with no exceptions.”
OPINION: Biden is big news, but that’s not an excuse for misleading Trump coverage
By Jennifer Schulze
Another week of unbalanced and hysterical news coverage continues the media’s epic streak of failing to do its duty in our democracy.
There was scant coverage of Donald Trump, and what there was once again substituted stenography for reporting. There was house-on-fire coverage of Joe Biden, though it took the form of watching to see if he is older this week than he was last week and asking every Democrat in sight what they would do about it.
It is newsworthy that a presidential candidate stayed off the campaign trail and on the golf course for 10 days. Also worth reporting, how Trump continued to use social media to busily spew threatening attacks. And it should have been headline news when the GOP, at Trump’s request, unveiled a cruel party platform built on Project 2025’s Christian Nationalism wish list.
When Trump finally reappeared on a soggy Florida night just a short hop away from his country club home, he went on yet another unhinged rant where he focused on the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter, promised pardons for Jan. 6 insurrectionists and added a new fixation about bacon. CNN fact-checked one claim about vacation homes while The Guardian tackled several more odd topics. But the rambling speech this past Tuesday was largely ignored.
What did get some coverage was Trump saying he disavows the controversial and dangerous Project 2025 and again with stories about the RNC platform’s abortion plank. The New York Times wrote: “Following Trump’s Lead, Republicans Adopt Platform That Softens Stance on Abortion.” But a closer look shows that’s just a lie. The GOP platform calls for using the 14th Amendment to establish fetal personhood. You can’t credibly claim to walk away from a national abortion ban while walking into fetal personhood. The RNC also contemplates a new use of the 14th Amendment to end abortion and IVF.
As Susan Rinkunas wrote for Slate: “That sounds as if it’s about states’ rights but actually leaves the door wide open for a national ban.” She adds that the misleading press coverage will “help Trump spread the lie that he opposes federal restrictions.”
Reporters, by now, should know better than to repeat Donald Trump’s statements without the context that reveals them for the lies they (usually) are.
Trump pretending to be a moderate on abortion is a political strategy. So is the distancing from Project 2025. His rambling, incoherent rallies are actual events with video evidence of him promising revenge and retribution against fellow citizens. All of this Trump news requires accurate, sustained news coverage with the same volume, tone, placement and number (but minus the hysteria) that’s been given to Joe Biden’s debate fallout.
I’ve written before and often about the failures of the Trump media coverage. This is the first time, however, that there’s ever been a Trump news blackout. At this perilous moment, the most dangerous man in America is getting a free pass because the news media is too busy with the Biden feeding frenzy. As I and many others have said repeatedly since the June 27 presidential debate, there are legitimate questions to be asked about the president. But we passed that point about 684,892 news stories ago and are now witnessing a full-on media crusade.
The New York Times is leading the pack, as I discovered when I counted the number of stories on Biden vs. Trump from the end of the debate until early July 5. There were 192 Biden stories in seven days in one newspaper. Meanwhile, during that same time, the Times had 92 Trump pieces, but few were stories about him and his campaign. Half of them covered the SCOTUS immunity ruling. There was one Trump-specific fact-check. No stories at all on his mental capacity, even though he held yet another unhinged rally during the time frame.
Look, I’m from Chicago. We’ve been doing crusading journalism since Upton Sinclair revealed the disgusting and dangerous conditions in the Union Stockyards and slaughterhouses in 1906. That resulted in the first-ever national food safety rules. But this current Biden feeding frenzy is altogether something else. It is full of hysteria with traditional journalism values too often being ignored as reporters strive for clicks and TV hits. Frankly, I find the coverage deeply disappointing and mostly uninformative. Just watch this one full minute of the press corps hollering at Joe Biden during a photo op to see my point.
I agree with Boston Globe columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr, who says, “My profession has lost its way.” She goes on to add:
“Do voters have the right to know if Biden is fit to serve? You bet. But while Biden’s fitness is newsworthy, by extension, so were the multiple campaign events, media appearances, and presidential duties, like hosting NATO leaders, that Biden did for the two weeks Trump hibernated. But Biden doing the job he seeks to keep, while also talking to voters directly and through the press, received short shrift when it came to coverage.
I wish, for the sake of democracy and the free press that cannot exist without it, my journalistic colleagues would show Biden in action rather than repeatedly asking if he will take a mental acuity test. I wish they would give broader coverage of Trump’s promise to strip away the rights of women, immigrants, queer Americans, and anyone not among his core MAGA faithful.
I wish they would resist the urge to lead with what bleeds, thus becoming transfixed by the blood in Democrats’ water. At the very least, I wish they’d be more honest about the source of that carnage: chum being shoveled in by some insurgent Democrats, never-Trump conservatives, and the pundits who back them.”
We now know that the more people know about the candidates, the more likely they are to vote for Joe Biden. Voters may be excused this week for not knowing enough about the details of Trump’s Project 2025 and the U.S. leadership at NATO, but only because the media buried those stories.
Like I said, another week of unbalanced and hysterical news coverage continues the media’s epic streak of failing to do its duty in our democracy. I hope it’s not too late for a much-needed course correction, but I fear it may be.