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HALLOWELL Daniel Shagoury of Hallowell won the Democratic primary nomination for House District 55,according to unofficial results reported by municipal clerks on Tuesday night.

Results showed that Shagoury received 522 votes while his opponent, Patrick Wynne, also of Hallowell, received 406.

Shagoury will go on to face Republican Phillip Wiseman, of Hallowell, in the general election in November. The district represents Hallowell, Manchester and West Gardiner.

Shagoury spent 19 years working for the Maine Legislature, with the last seven at the House Democratic Office. During his campaign, he cited this experience as an advantage that would allow him to get to work right away. In addition to nearly two decades with the Maine Legislature, Shagoury also served on the former Maine School Administrative District 16 board of directors for nine years.

Shagoury said in an interview Tuesday night that while he might be returning to familiar territory, its going to be a new adventure.

Even though I am familiar with the grounds there, its going to be different to be one of the elected (officials) instead of just a staff person, he said. Its going to be neat.

Shagoury said he was thrilled with news of his victory, adding that he worked very hard amid his campaign, and that his opponent worked very hard as well.

I havent really absorbed all of it yet, he said. Im just humbled by all the support that people showed me.

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Democrat Daniel Shagoury wins party nomination for Hallowell-area House seat - Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel

LINCOLN The Democratic candidate for Nebraskas 1st Congressional District spent most of her life as a rock-ribbed Republican.

State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks grew up in a very conservative Republican household in Lincoln. She joined the GOP herself because of the partys traditional focus on the economy and fiscal responsibility.

She even co-chaired the Lancaster County Republican Party for a couple of years in the late 1980s.

But Pansing Brooks found herself increasingly out of place as social issues became more prominent in GOP politics. Newer party positions clashed with her post on the Planned Parenthood board, her support for abortion rights and her defense of a nephew who came out as gay in 1989.

She hung on for several years but ended up switching parties in 2008.

Today, at 63, she is a Democrat with a record of working across the aisle and a determination to find common ground. Friends say she leads with passion, honesty, hard work and kindness qualities that helped her get more than 60 bills passed during her eight years in the Nebraska Legislature.

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To me, its not about party, she said. Its about doing the right thing. I vote for people. I vote for concerns. I dont look at some sort of agenda from this party or that party.

But being a Democrat puts Pansing Brooks at a disadvantage in seeking to represent the Republican-leaning 1st District. Republicans account for 46% of registered voters in the district, with Democrats at 29% and nonpartisan voters at 23%, according to the Secretary of States Office.

The district encompasses all or part of 12 counties in eastern Nebraska, including Lancaster and Sarpy Counties. Lincoln is the largest city; the district also includes Bellevue, Offutt Air Force Base, La Vista, most of Papillion, Fremont, Columbus and Norfolk.

The seat became vacant March 31 when U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry stepped down after being convicted of three felonies, including two counts of lying to federal agents and one of concealing illegal campaign contributions.

Pansing Brooks will face off with Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, the Republican candidate, twice in the next six months.

The winner of a special election set for June 28 will fill out the remaining months of Fortenberrys term. Early voting is already underway in the race.

The two will meet again in the November general election, which will decide who represents the district for the next two years.

Pansing Brooks said she decided to get into the race after redistricting in 2021 narrowed the Republican dominance of the district and opened a potential path for victory. She believes she can reach people no matter their party registration.

People in Nebraska do not live in a partisan prism, she said. Most people have the same concerns. They care about their families, their health, their job, their ability to put food on the table. Thats what people care about, not the parties.

Sen. John McCollister of Omaha, a Republican who endorsed Pansing Brooks, said he has faith in her ability to connect with voters. He said she demonstrated that skill in the Legislature, forging common cause with Republican colleagues on specific issues despite other differences.

She is such a warm person, he said. Nobodys a stranger with Patty Pansing Brooks.

Former Sen. Kathy Campbell of Lincoln worked with Pansing Brooks in 2006, when the two led a $250 million school bond issue campaign. The bond issue passed with 63% support after Pansing Brooks helped lay the groundwork by bringing together a variety of community leaders, including local tax watchdogs.

That campaign, plus Pansing Brooks work on numerous other community efforts, has made her very well thought of in Lincoln, Campbell said.

Shes just very passionate about the causes she supports and extremely hardworking, she said. She has a very caring, compassionate attitude.

Pansing Brooks credits that attitude and her approach to politics and community involvement in large part to her family.

Her father, Tom Pansing, was a World War II veteran and attorney who served on the Lincoln City Council and was acting mayor. Her mother, Lu Pansing, was elected to the Lincoln school board. Both were heavily involved with the community, and dinner discussions often focused on national and local issues.

I grew up discussing issues, often heatedly, she said. It really led me to care so much about the country and about the Constitution and about the freedoms for which so many people have fought in the past.

Pansing Brooks fell into a dark place when her father died of lung cancer at age 55. She was 14. She said she struggled with doubts about whether she would live to graduate from high school, make it through college or marry. But she did all three and went on to get a law degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Eventually, she came to appreciate all the people in her life.

I think part of it is I dont know if Ill see the person the next day, having had my dad go at such an early age, she said. I really feel like we have to spend more time being kinder to one another and being willing to embrace one another and find the common ground.

Two years after getting her law degree, Pansing Brooks and her husband, Loel Brooks, started their own law firm. He focused on telecommunications, she did business and real estate law.

She also got involved in the community. Over the years, she has been active with a long list of organizations and efforts, including the PTOs at her childrens schools, the Lincoln Community Foundation, Bryan Medical Center and Lincoln-Lancaster Commission on the Status of Women. In many, she held leadership positions.

After the LPS bond issue, she co-chaired a $6 million fundraising drive to build Union Plaza, Lincolns first urban park, and a $9.6 million campaign to renovate Centennial Mall, which stretches between the State Capitol and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus.

Pansing Brooks said she and her husband really feel its necessary to give back because of the good fortune we have of living in this community and the work that others have done.

In 2014, she said running for the Legislature was an extension of that community involvement. She won election handily that year and was unopposed for reelection in 2018. She is term-limited out after this year.

Over the past eight years, she has worked on juvenile justice reform, expanding childrens rights to legal counsel, getting childrens court records sealed once they complete their sentences and keeping a closer eye on the use of solitary confinement for juveniles. Along with GOP colleagues, she worked to strengthen state laws on human trafficking, while extending protection to trafficking victims.

She created and led a task force that highlighted the problems at Whiteclay, a tiny village on the South Dakota border that sold more than 3.5 million cans of beer annually to residents of the dry Pine Ridge Reservation.

Other legislation created breast cancer awareness license plates, protected workers from retaliation for discussing wages, codified dyslexia as a learning disability and required schools to offer evidence-based reading support, and established Indigenous Peoples Day as a state holiday.

She fought unsuccessfully to protect Nebraskans from job discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, citing the effects that the lack of protection has had on people like her son, Taylor Brooks, who is gay.

In 2015, she ruffled a lot of rural feathers with comments about farm income and property taxes. She made the comments after learning of a federal report that showed Nebraska farms earned an average $112,966 per year between 2009 and 2013, after taxes and other expenses.

They just dont want to pay the taxes, it seems to me, Pansing Brooks said, while serving on a work group looking at property taxes and school funding.

Since then, she said, she has learned a lot more about agricultural issues and has changed her views. She said those changes have been reflected in her votes.

Nebraska has 49 state senators in the Legislature. Scroll through to find your state senator and others.

State Sen. Julie Slama

District: 1

From: Sterling

Party: Republican

State Sen. Robert Clements

District: 2

From: Elmwood

Party: Republican

State Sen. Carol Blood

District: 3

From: Bellevue

Party: Democratic

State Sen. Robert Hilkemann

District: 4

From: Omaha

Party: Republican

State Sen. Mike McDonnell

District: 5

From: Omaha

Party: Democratic

State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh

District: 6

From: Omaha

Party: Democratic

State Sen. Tony Vargas

District: 7

From: Omaha

Party: Democratic

State Sen. Megan Hunt

District: 8

From: Omaha

Party: Democratic

State Sen. John Cavanaugh

District: 9

From: Omaha

Party: Democratic

State Sen. Wendy DeBoer

District: 10

From: Bennington

Party: Democratic

State Sen. Terrell McKinney

District: 11

From: Omaha

Party: Democratic

State Sen. Steve Lathrop

District: 12

From: Omaha

Party: Democratic

State Sen. Justin Wayne

District: 13

From: Omaha

Party: Democratic

State Sen. John Arch

District: 14

From: La Vista

Party: Republican

State Sen. Lynne Walz

District: 15

From: Fremont

Party: Democratic

Continued here:
Democrat Pansing Brooks touts ability to work across the aisle after party switch - Omaha World-Herald

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We do not want to deliver another depressing show, and we won't. But if you're looking at the country and thinking, "How do we measure the health of the United States?" there arepretty obvious ways to do it. The average life expectancy is one, the marriage rate, the effectiveness of the U.S. military, housing costs, the value of the U.S. dollar, health of the financial markets, the safety of our streets, etc. By every single one of those very basic measures, the Biden administration has failed and done so dramatically.

Biden isn't simply incompetent, though obviously he is. Biden is the single most destructive force in the history of the United States. In just a year and a half, Biden and Ron Klain, his strange, shadowy chief of staff, have done more damage to this country than anybody could possibly have imagined. We read the numbers every night, but they don't capture it. You know, what captures it? This story.

This story comes from the reliably liberal financial news outlet CNBC. Here's the second sentence of the piece: "A rising number of former Californians are migrating out of the country altogether and are instead heading south of the border. Many are seeking a more relaxed and affordable lifestyle in Mexico."

Yes, in Mexico, not Switzerland. Mexico. So, things are so bad in Joe Biden's America that thousands of Americans are voluntarily moving to a Third World country in the middle of a brutal drug war. Yes, there are human heads littering the side of the road in Acapulco, but at least it's not Los Angeles.

HUNTER BIDEN BRAGGED JOE BIDEN WOULD 'TALK ABOUT ANYTHING THAT I WANT HIM TO' IN 2018: REPORT

Darrell Graham works in real estate in Mexico. He says of the people he sells to "at least half are coming down from California... Suddenly the cost of taxes, the crime rates, the politics, all the things that people are unhappy with in California make them want to come down to Mexico." Another analyst who studies the trend at the Migration Policy Institute says so many Americans are relocating to Mexico right now that locals are being priced out of their own neighborhoods.

So, it's mass migration in reverse. It's pretty amazing.

No matter how bad you thought this administration was going to be, you probably could not have imagined ever caravans of Biden refugees fleeing our country across the southern border, looking for a better life in Mexico. At this rate, the next stop will be Port au Prince. Say what you will about Haiti, it's better than Baltimore. Now, one upside of moving to Latin America is like-minded neighbors. Hispanics despise Joe Biden, too. Biden's approval rating among Hispanic voters in this country has fallen to 24%. That's his lowest among any demographic group.

Meanwhile, as of tonight, guess who's the preferred candidate for 2024 among self-described Latinos? That's right. The Taco Bowl Guy, Donald J. Trump. Let that sink in for a second. Donald Trump, supposedly the most anti-Hispanic racist this country has ever produced, that man, is far more popular among actual Hispanics than a cringing White liberal like Joe Biden. So, the guy who tried to build a border wall is loved. The guy who uses the word Latinx, not ironically, is hated. Remarkable.

It's alsoand this is not an overstatementpolitically, a disaster of generational magnitude for the Democratic Party. Latinos dislike Joe Biden intensely, and they dislike him for the same reason that everybody else does. Biden has made things worse, a lot worse. The median income in this country is $44,000 a year a year. Imagine trying to live on that right now. Do the math. You couldn't do it. Not in any recognizably American way. Inflation is too high. It's making you poorer. Well, today in Philadelphia, Joe Biden unveiled his plan to fix inflation. Now watch this tape and keep in mind as you do that, it is real. We've not edited it in any way. Here it is:

BERNIE SANDERS-BACKED CANDIDATE LOOKS TO UNSEAT MODERATE DEMOCRAT IN LATEST TEST FOR PROGRESSIVE WING OF PARTY

PRESIDENT BIDEN: We can do all this. I'm asking, all I'm asking is for the largest corporations and the wealthiest Americans to begin to pay their fair share in taxes. I'm deadly earnest. Anybody out there think the tax system is fair? Raise your hand.

This guy. The AFL-CIO. How many private sector labor union members support Joe Biden? 12%? 15%? It's not 50% And yet they host the guy. They're so corrupt.

But listen to the message. Higher taxes will make the things that you buy cheaper. That's what Biden just said. Inflation is up because taxes aren't high enough. Now, it's hardly a defense of corporate America, which we would never defend, to point out that as an economic analysis is completely insane. It's not true.

We've lost control of inflation because people like Joe Biden pushed a species of lunacy called modern monetary theory. They printed an endless torrent of fake money to enrich and empower themselves and by doing that, they crashed the U.S. dollar and made you much poorer. That's what happened. There's not much debate about that and they're not going to acknowledge it, of course. They can't even be bothered to pretend to care about baby formula shortages. Here's Joe Biden's publicist just yesterday.

BOXER JAKE PAUL BLASTS BIDEN FOR GAS PRICES, INFLATION, CLAIMS BIDEN VOTERS ARE THE AMERICAN PROBLEM

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Monday, June 13, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

REPORTER: So, I have two questions on baby formula. So first, what is the White House, what is the latest update the White House has received on the current formula situation across the country?

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. Let me see if I have anything new for you on that. So, I think it's been a couple of days since we have been asked that question. Okay. I don't have anything new. I know we made some announcements last week. I don't, I just don't have them in front of me.

Oh, mothers can't feed their babies. "Let me see what I have here." Somehow, the White House communications team forgot to load the baby formula talking points into the binder, leaving our historic LGBTQ+ immigrant, class ceiling shattering press secretary speechless. "I just don't have them in front of me." In other words, "What does that question have to a trans rights? Nothing? Okay, next."

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECY LAUGHS OFF QUESTION ABOUT BIDEN'S HEALTH: 'NOT A QUESTION WE SHOULD BE ASKING'

The one thing Karine Jean-Pierre can say with dead certainty is that Joe Biden is great. Joe Biden is energetic. He's fully in charge of his faculties. In fact, he's planning on running again in 2024, by which time all of suburban Chicago will have moved to Haiti in search of a higher standard of living.

She actually said that, "To be clear, as the president himself has said repeatedly, he plans to run in 2024." And we can just guess how you feel about that, but how do leaders of the Democratic Party feel about that? He's their guy, and yet they're horrified. Even Sandy Cortez, who can defend anything if she has to up and including another pointless neo con war in Ukraine, even she can't get behind another Joe Biden run. Watch.

AOC: We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, but I think if the president has a vision and that's something certainly we're all willing to entertain and examine when the time comes.

DANA BASH, CNN: That's not a yes.

AOC: I believe that the president has been doing a very good job so far and, you know, should he run again, I think that, I you know, I think it's, it's, we'll take a look at it.

BIDEN LOSES CONTROL OF INFLATION, AND THE TRUST OF AMERICAN PEOPLE

"Yeah. We'll cross that bridge, right? We'll take a look at it." So, what they're really saying and this is their latest talking point is, "We don't like Joe Biden and we never have." They've got nothing to do with Joe Biden, turns out. David Axelrod and Joe Scarborough, the other professional liars who foisted this senile mannequin on America, are now trying to run away from him.

The New York Times, which is their newsletter, ran a front-page story two days ago on Sunday about Joe Biden's mental decline. Really? That topic was completely off limits just a year ago. You couldn't say it. The New York Times quoted one DNC official who's advising Biden to announce now, right after the midterms, that he's not running again. As David Axelrod masterminding the Obama victories, put it himself, "The presidency is a monstrously taxing job and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue."

In other words, he's too freakin' old. Biden has got dementia. Who knew? Well, actually, they all knew, and they all knew all along, and they should not be allowed at this late date to evade their culpability for knowing and lying about it. They committed this crime. These people are cynical. They're ruthless. They're morally disfigured and if you need more proof of that, consider how they're treating poor Kamala Harris.

BIDEN LASHES OUT AT CRITICS AND DEFLECTS BLAME FOR SOARING INFLATION, TWITTER RESPONDS

They've abandoned Kamala Harris completely. It's shocking, really, given that just 18 months ago, these very same people were yelling at you about how lucky you were to have this historically Indian, Black female vice president, the very first in history. It was thrilling. They got emotional just thinking about it. Kamala Harris was that wonderful. Here's a recap.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY: Kamala Harris is being sworn in, the first woman vice president.

AMY KLOBUCHAR: And our first woman vice president.

STEVE SCHMIDT: We'll see our first woman vice president. It will be a historic day.

JOHN KING: Kamala Harris will be the first woman vice president of the United States.

BIDEN: We mark the swearing in of the first woman in American history elected to national office, Vice President Kamala Harris. Don't tell me things can't change.

BIDEN ADMIN MAY RELAX CHINA TARIFFS IN BID TO EASE INFLATION, COMMERCE SECRETARY SAYS

Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she departs after speaking at the Tribal Nations Summit in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

"Don't tell me things can't change!" Oh, they can change and they have. That was just the other night. We were getting goose bumps listening to it, but now they're ghosting Kamala Harris like a bad tinder date. They're pretending she doesn't exist. In effect, in doing that, the Democratic Party is embracing White supremacy. How? Well, Democratic Party leaders plan to deny Harris a job that she has earned as Democratic nominee and replace her in the next cycle with yet anotherwait for it nowWhite man.

Let's try Beto. How about Mayor Pete? Notice a theme here? Pale and male as they are forever telling us because it turns out diversity isn't actually our strength. Equity and inclusion are fine if you're hiring middle managers at a big company. You would never hire a middle-aged White guy at Citibank. That's probably illegal, same with the airlines and hospitals. We've got way too many White male pilots and heart surgeons and Supreme Court justices. The Biden administration tells us that constantly.

They seem to me that they use DOJ to enforce their rules. Yet somehow the most anti-White political party in the English-speaking world is suddenly pushing another White man for president. How does that work, Joe Biden and friends Ron Klain?

Well, it turns out the presidency is a different thing. Affirmative action is essential for vice presidents, obviously. That's how we got Kamala Harris in the first place, but not for presidents. Presidents have too much power, so the usual diversity standards don't apply. We've had 46 White male presidents in a row, and the Democratic Party wants you to have another.

THESE 27 DEMOCRATS VOTED AGAINST PROTECTIONS FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICES

Oh, not so fast, racists. Hold on a second. Now, the rest of official Washington may be completely on board with this coup against Kamala Harris, who, again earned the job. They may be willing to stand back and allow America's highest-ranking woman of color to be degraded and humiliated in the pages of The New York Times, but we're not. We believe Kamala Harris is a human being with hopes and dreams and aspirations.

She's a first in so many ways. She celebrated Kwanzaa before it was even invented and of course, now that Oprah is retired, Kamala Harris is America's main source of life affirming aphorisms that don't actually mean anything. Watch this montage, which we have lovingly collected. Ask yourself how anyone who stand in the way of this woman becoming president United States.

KAMALA HARRIS: You know, when we talk about our children, I know for this group, we all believe that when we talk about the children of the community, they are the children of the community.

KAMALA HARRIS: And so what we all experienced is on an electric school bus, on an electric bus, no exhaust, no diesel smell.

KAMALA HARRIS: It is time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day. Every day it is time for us to agree.

President Joe Biden, with Vice President Kamala Harris, arrives to speak before signing the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill into law during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, Nov. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

KAMALA HARRIS: This whole thing about the border. We've been to the border. We've been to the border.

LESTER HOLT, NBC NEWS: You haven't been to the border.

KAMALA HARRIS: And I haven't been to Europe. I mean, I don't think...

KAMALA HARRIS: And my pronouns are she, her and hers.

KAMALA HARRIS: She would look down at me and, "Kamala, what do you want? What do you want?" And I looked back up and I said, "fweedom."

KAMALA HARRIS: You're going to literally see the craters on the moon with your own eyes, with your own eyes. I'm telling you.

KAMALA HARRIS: We must together, work together to see where we are, where we are headed, but also see it as a moment, yes, to together.

KAMALA HARRIS: It is the perspectiveof a woman who grew up a Black child in America, who was also a prosecutor, who also has a mother who arrived here at the age of 19 from India, who also, you know, likes hip hop. Like, what do you want to know?

CNN POLITICAL ANALYST SAYS CHATTER AROUND BIDEN NOT RUNNING IN 2024 'WEAKENS HIS ABILITY TO GOVERN'

What do you know? She's unbelievable. You would deny that person a chance to serve? That is the person the Democratic insiders are tonight, ladies and gentlemen, trying to remove from the public stage and if no one else to say it, we will. It's wrong. Despite appearances, Kamala Harris is not a disposable consumer product. She's a pioneer. Do you what she went through trying to get a fair shake in the systemically racist country as the daughter of college professors? It wasn't easy. You know howhard she worked? At one point, she even dated Montel Williams. Few would go that far, but Kamala Harris did. No wonder she's sick and tired of being sick and tired. We get it. Watch as she did the work and unpacked her generational trauma live on television for you.

KAMALA HARRIS: You know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day and that little girl was me.

"Yeah, that little girl was me." Now, that little girl actually grew up in French-speaking Canada, not in the Jim Crow South, but whatever. Look what she's become. Now, simply because she's a moron and no one likes or even agrees on how to pronounce her first name, the Democratic Party is trying to throw Harris away, toss her out the window like a used Big Mac wrapper.

Now, Kamala Harris may be stained with secret sauce, but she deserves more than that. Yes, she does. Mediocrity is no excuse for firing someone. A low IQ, a terrible personality, a total inability to do the prescribed job those are not reasons to deny someone a job. The Biden administration has told us that repeatedly.

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By the way, democracy plays a role in this, too. You just saw the woman who Liz Cheney tells us a lot that 81 million votes in the last election. Now that's the most votes of any vice president in history. That's more votes than Liz Cheney's dad got. So, denying Kamala Harris the Democratic nomination in 2024 is nothing less than a form of insurrection.

It's an attack on democracy and on our sacred norms. It's disinformation, probably Russian in origin. Whatever it is, we cannot allow it and as long as this show is on the air, we won't. Tonight, we are endorsing Kamala Harris for the 2024 Democratic primaries. She deserves it and so do Democrats. They created her. They should be forced to live with her and anyone who disagrees with that is, by definition, a racist.

Tucker Carlson currently serves as the host of FOX News Channels (FNC) Tucker Carlson Tonight (weekdays 8PM/ET). He joined the network in 2009 as a contributor.

Original post:
Tucker Carlson: The Democrats should be forced to live with Kamala Harris - Fox News

The $332 million that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan provided to a progressive group to help run the 2020 elections was distributed on a highly partisan basis that favored Democrats, according to a new analysis by election data experts.

While these Zuckerbucks or Zuck bucks were touted as a resource meant to help all jurisdictions administer the election during the COVID crisis, tax records filed by the progressive Center for Tech and Civic Life show that the group awarded all larger grantson both an absolute and per capita basis to deeply Democratic urban areas, particularly in swing states, according to the new report. Its authors are William Doyle, research director at the right-leaning Caesar Rodney Election Research Institute, and Alex Oliver, chief data scientist at Evolving Strategies, a nonpartisan research group.

The report contrasts with a report Zuckerberg commissioned in December, which emphasized that more Republican jurisdictions, defined as municipalities that voted for Trump in 2020, applied for and received grants.

Doyle and Oliver say this conclusion is misleading because Republican jurisdictions were far more likely to receive grants of less than $50,000, which, they wrote, were likely not substantial enough to provide the funding, infrastructure, and personnel to materially change election practices in the recipient jurisdiction. These small grants comprised 27 percent of the centers awards.

In the counties where CTCL made its 50 largest grants in terms of per capita spending, the average partisan lean in favor of Democrat Joe Biden over Republican Donald Trump was 33 pointsmeaning the aid could be expected to stimulate more Democratic votes. Twenty-five of the top 50 grants per capita went to just five statesGeorgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, and Texas (the latter two where Democrats were optimistic about Bidens chances, the authors write). Seven of the top ten largest grants per capita went to counties in Georgia and Wisconsin, states that Biden narrowly won by 12,000 and 21,000 respectively. (Along with the report, Evolving Strategies has put together an online map and visualization app that tracks CTCLs top 100 grants on a per capita basis.)

The distribution of the CTCL programs grant amountsboth in absolute and per capita termsshows, unequivocally, a systematic bias in favor of Democratic jurisdictions, they write. The larger grants revealed a partisan pattern of funding [that] was especially apparent in swing states. Regardless of intention, CTCLs geographic allocation of larger grants is prima facie and de facto partisan.

Before 2020, the private funding of election administration was virtually unheard of. Against positive coverage of the development in liberal news media, conservative activists sounded the alarm about CTCLs efforts. Privatizing the management of elections undermines the integrity of our elections because private donors may dictate where and how hundreds of millions of dollars will be managed in these states, Phill Kline of the Thomas More Society told the Washington Post. Since 2020, 17 states have effectively banned the private funding of local election offices either through new laws or regulations. Two other states, Alabama and Missouri, are awaiting for the governors signature on similar bills.

The center and its defenders have argued that it is only logical that urban areas, which tend to support Democrats, would get more grant money, simply because they have more voters. But Doyle and Olivers analysis shows that those areas received more funding on a per capita basis. While the grant size for urban areas might naturally be larger overall, they said, areas with high concentrations of voters should result in economic efficiencies where substantial fixed cost of election administration is spread out over a relatively larger population, decreasing the per capita cost. If anything, they said, per capita costs of running an election should be higher in more rural Republican areas.

The report showed that Georgia alone received 10 of the top 50 grants per capita, totaling $41 millionmore than 10 percent of the $332 million CTCL spent across the country. Nine of those grants went to counties with an average partisan lean of 35 points in favor of Joe Biden.

The center awarded a total of $10.1 million in grants in Wisconsin, but $8.5 million of that went to the cities of Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee, and Racinecities where Bidens average margin of victory was over 37 points. All five cities ranked on CTCLs top 50 per capita grants. Similarly, Pennsylvania had four of the top 50 per capita grants, amounting to $16 million. Some $15 million of those grants went to Philadelphia and to Delaware and Chester counties in the Philadelphia metro area. The Philadelphia vote favored Biden by 64 points, and Delaware and Chester voted Biden by 27 and 17 points respectively. Biden won Pennsylvania by just 1.2 points, so the victory might have been sealed by the influx of cash from private sources to the Philadelphia region, the states biggest cache of votes, which also has a history of corruption and electoral fraud.

The CTCL did not respond to RealClearInvestigations request for comment. Its executive director, Tiana Epps-Johnson, told the Washington Post in February that the grants given out reflected where the requests for funding came from, not any bias on the part of her organization. But the center has offered no insight into its internal process for awarding grants.

An investigation by Broad and Liberty, a right-leaning publication dedicated to Pennsylvania politics, obtained emails showing that the office of Pennsylvanias Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf coordinated with left-wing nonprofits to implement a secretive process that selectively invited Democratic counties to apply for Zuck bucks grants.

The center did not just award money to counties and cities that applied for grantsin many cases it embedded progressive activists into key local election offices to shape how elections were run. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, emails to the mayors office from the center touted its network of current and former election administrations and election experts available to build up vote by mail processes and ensure forms, envelopes, and other materials are understood and completed correctly by voters. In a July 13, 2020 email to the center, Celestine Jeffreys, chief of staff for Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich, wrote, As far as Im concerned I am taking all of my cues from CTCL and work with those you recommend.

Eventually the center helped install an out-of-state operative named Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein in Green Bay and other Wisconsin election offices, who engaged in activities unusual for someone other than a public officialsuch as asking for direct access to the Milwaukee Election Commissions voter database and other sensitive data. Spitzer-Rubenstein became so active in running Green Bays election that City Clerk Kris Teske, unhappy with being replaced in her job, took leave a few weeks before the election and quit shortly thereafter.

I was verbally abused by the Mayor in front of everyone she reportedly wrote in one email. He had agenda when it came to the election and I nor the Clerks Office were included even though its the Clerks job to administer an election. He allowed staff who were not educated on election law to run the election, along with people who werent even City of Green Bay employees.

Though technically considered a nonpartisan organization, CTCLs leadership team has an extensive history of working with the Democratic Party and progressive causes. Epps-Johnson founded the organization with Whitney May and Donny Bridges. All three previously worked together at the New Organizing Institute, which the Washington Post described as the Democratic Partys Hogwarts for digital wizardry and the lefts think tank for campaign know-how.

A further Democratic-Zuckerberg intersection: Former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe is listed as head of policy and advocacy at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the power couples philanthropy. In his 2020 book, A Citizens Guide to Beating Donald Trump, Plouffe wrote that the 2020 election may come down to block-by-block street fights in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee.

This article was written by Mark Hemingway for RealClearInvestigations.

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Team Zuckerberg Masks the Heavily Pro-Democrat Tilt of 2020 Election 'Zuck Bucks,' Study Finds - The Epoch Times

Europes second-highest court, the General Court, has sided with Qualcomm after it appealed a 997 million (around $1,045 million) fine from European Union regulators over payments made to Apple to use Qualcomm chips, Reuters reports. The EU issued the fine in 2018, and said payments Qualcomm had made to Apple between 2011 and 2016 to exclusively use its chips were illegal under EU antitrust rules.

This meant that no rival could effectively challenge Qualcomm in this market, no matter how good their products were, said EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager in a statement accompanying the fine. Qualcomm was accused of shutting rival chipmaker Intel out of the market, by making it too expensive for Apple to switch suppliers.

But in todays ruling, the European General Court said that a number of procedural irregularities affected Qualcomms rights of defence and invalidate the Commissions analysis of the conduct alleged against Qualcomm, Reuters reports. The court also cast doubt on the EUs competition analysis, noting that Apple had had no technical alternative to Qualcomms LTE chipsets for the majority of its requirements during the period concerned and that the Commission failed to take account of all of the relevant factual circumstances.

EU regulators now have the option of appealing the decision to the EU Court of Justice (CJEU).

When the fine was issued, Vestager said that it should serve as a warning to other tech companies considering using similar practices. The decision represents a major blow to the EUs attempts to regulate the fast-moving and well-financed tech sector.

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Qualcomm successfully appeals $1B EU antitrust fine over Apple payments - The Verge