David Hogg is living high on the hog thanks to the many donors cutting checks to his PAC, FEC records show.
The post Exclusive β Hogg Wild: Filings Show Left-Wing Gen-Z PAC Blew More than $1M on Travel Expenses, Consultants, Spent Little on Candidates appeared first on Breitbart.
Enthusiasm for OrbΓ‘n challenger apparent in foreign media, but govt camp accuses sudden emergence of being underwritten by foreign money.
The post Western Legacy Media Gleeful at Prospect of Potential Challenger to Hungaryβs OrbΓ‘n After Budapest Rally appeared first on Breitbart.
Exit polls in South Koreaβs midterm elections on Wednesday predicted a landslide win for the left-wing Democratic Party (DP) and its βsister party,β the Democratic United Party (DUP).
The post South Korea: Exit Polls Predict Landslide Leftist Win in Midterm Elections appeared first on Breitbart.
Multiple senior members of conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol's administration and the head of his People Power Party (PPP) tendered their resignations on Thursday after vote counts confirmed that the left-wing Democratic Party decisively took over the National Assembly in Wednesday's midterm election.
The post Resignations Rock South Koreaβs Conservatives After Landslide Midterm Loss appeared first on Breitbart.
Progressives are using legal loopholes and the power of the federal government to maximize Democrat votes in the 2024 election at taxpayersβ expense, RealClearInvestigations has found.
The methods include voter registration and mobilization campaigns by ostensibly nonpartisan charities that target Democrats using demographic data as proxies, and the Biden administrationβs unprecedentedΒ demandΒ that every federal agency βconsider ways to expand citizensβ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process.β
A dizzying array of overwhelmingly βdemocracy-focusedβ entities with ties to the Democratic Party operating as charities and funded with hundreds of millions of dollars from major liberal βdark moneyβ vehicles are engaged in a sprawling campaign to register the voters, deliver them the ballots, and figuratively and sometimes literally harvest the votes necessary to defeat Donald Trump.
These efforts, now buttressed by the federal government, amplify and extend what Time magazineΒ describedΒ as a βwell-funded cabal of powerful people ranging across industries and ideologies,β who had worked behind the scenes in 2020 βto influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of informationβ to defeat Trump and other Republicans. The βshadow campaigners,β Time declared, βwere not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.β
Heading into 2024, βthere is not a βshadowβ campaign,β said Mike Howell, executive director of The Heritage Foundationβs Oversight Project. βThere is an overt assault on President Trump and those who wish to vote for him occurring at every level of government and with the support of all major institutions.β (The Daily Signal is the news organization of The Heritage Foundation.)
By contrast, Republican Party stalwarts lament that no comparable effort exists on their side. The GOPβs turnout and messaging efforts seek to thread a difficult needle by encouraging early and absentee voting and ballot-harvestingβpandemic-era measures that Trump and supporters blame for his 2020 electoral defeatβwhile the party simultaneously fights the mainly blue-state laws that made the practices possible. The partyβs position is further complicated by its standard-bearerβs warnings of a rigged election bigger than in 2020, which someΒ speculateΒ could turn off moderate swing voters.
TheΒ IRSΒ permitsΒ tax-exempt nonprofit groups to engage in voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives so long as they do not βrefer to any candidate or political partyβ nor conduct their activities βin a biased manner that favors (or opposes) one or more candidates prohibited.β
These entities have become magnets for funds not only from wealthy donors, who can contribute without traditional campaign finance limitsβand get a tax break to bootβbut also abundantly endowed private foundations that are prohibited from engaging in partisan activities.
In recent years, dozens of progressive-oriented 501(c)(3)s, now pulling in upward of $500 million annually, have engaged in purportedly neutral efforts to impact elections, according toΒ Hayden Ludwig, director of policy research at the election integrity-focused advocacy group Restoration of America.
In practice, critics like Ludwig argue, left-leaning charities flout the law by registering and mobilizing demographics that tend to vote disproportionately Democratic behind a veil of nonpartisan democracy promotion.
During the 2020 election, for example, the Voter Participation Center solicited millions of ballot applications in swing statesβmany of them prefilled for respondents. This nonprofit, like its peers, is clear that it isnβt targeting just any voters, but whatΒ itΒ and progressiveΒ activistsΒ have dubbed a βNew American Majorityβ of βyoung people, people of color and unmarried women.β
Tom Lopach, a longtime Democratic Party operative and the centerβs president and CEO, told RealClearInvestigations in a statement: βWe do the work that state election officials typically do not doβseeking out underrepresented voting-eligible Americans β¦ This is difficult but necessary work that brings democracy to eligible Americansβ doorsteps.β
In 2020, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan showed how supposedly neutral efforts can have a partisan impact when they funneled some $400 million through twoΒ progressiveβledΒ but purportedly nonpartisan nonprofits intoΒ election officesΒ across the country.
That moneyΒ disproportionately wentΒ to jurisdictions that Joe Biden won in the pivotal battleground states that delivered his victory, often flowing to left-leaning nonprofits to whom election offices outsourced the administration ofΒ sometimes critical functions.
In April 2022, a primary conduit of these so-called Zuckerbucks, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, announced the launch of a successor to the 2020 effortβthe U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, a five-year $80 million program βto envision, support, and celebrate excellence in U.S. election administration.β
βThe left has assembled an impressive βelection-industrialβ complex of nonprofit organizations that is constantly working towards goals like βpromoting participationβ targeting βunderrepresented minorities,ββ said Jason Snead, executive director of the conservative Honest Elections Project. Such terms, Snead says, βare code for identifying and mobilizing liberal voters.β
Election experts view such activities as potentially decisive.Β
ββNonpartisanβ and βcharitableβ voter registration and get-out-the-vote groupsβ are the Democratic Partyβs βelectioneering super-weapon[s],β said Parker Thayer, an analyst with theΒ conservative-orientedΒ Capital Research Center in Washington, D.C.
Of these, Thayer sees the Everybody Votes Campaign as ofΒ paramount importance.
Born of a plan βcommissioned by [Hillary] Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, funded by the Democratic Partyβs biggest donors, and coordinated with cut-throat Democratic consultants,β Thayer writes in an extensiveΒ analysisΒ of the groupβs efforts, βthe Everybody Votes campaign [has] used the guise of civic-minded charity to selectively register millions of βnon-whiteβ swing-state voters in the hopes of getting out the Democratic vote.β
It does so by funding and training over 50 community groups to register voters toΒ closeΒ βthe voter registration gap in communities of color,β which it attributes to βmodern forms of Jim Crow laws,β such as voter ID requirements, the groupβs executive director, Nellie Sires, said in a January 2024Β interview.
From 2016-2021, the Everybody Votes Campaign, doing business as three entities, collected overΒ $190 millionΒ from major Democratic Party donors, unions, and environmental activists. Some of theΒ largest donorsΒ include the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund; the New Venture and Hopewell funds, managed by for-profit consulting firm Arabella Advisors; and the George Soros-funded Foundation to Promote Open Societyβall 501(c)(3) public charities or private foundationsΒ forbiddenΒ from supporting βvoter education or registration activities with evidence of bias.β
The Everybody Votes Campaign distributed the funds to a slew ofΒ left-leaning state-based voter registration organizationsΒ largely in eight pivotal states from 2016 to 2019βArizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, and Nevadaβand then to Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin in 2021.
According to ThayerβsΒ analysis, the Everybody Votes Campaignβs voter registration push βwould have provided Democrats more votes than the total margins of victory in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania,β securing Bidenβs victory in the 2020 election.
One notable backer of the Everybody Votes Campaign is Mind the Gap, a βMoneyball-styleβ Silicon Valley Democratic super PAC founded by Stanford law professor Barbara Fried, andΒ connectedΒ to the political activities of her convicted crypto-fraudster son, Sam Bankman-Fried.
The analytics-focusedΒ outfitΒ prepared a confidential strategy memoΒ leakedΒ in advance of the 2020 election, noting that β501(c)(3) voter registration focused on underrepresented groups in the electorateβ would be the βsingle most effective tactic for ensuring Democratic victoriesβββ4 to 10 times more cost-effectiveβ on after-tax basis at βgarnering additional Democratic votesβ relative to alternatives like βbroadcast media and digital buys.β
Mind the Gap recommended that donors contribute to three organizations: the Voter Participation Center and its sister organization, the Center for Voter Information for mail-based registration efforts, and Everybody Votes for site-based registration efforts.
The largest grant recipient, receiving $24 million during the 2016-2021 period, wasΒ State Voices, which describes itself as a βnonpartisan network of 25 state-based coalitions β¦ that collectively partner with over 1,200 organizationsβ consisting of βadvocates, organizers, and activists β¦ work[ing] together to fight for a healthy democracy and political power for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI), and all people of color (BIPOC).β
Another top recipient, raking in over $10 million, was the Voter Participation Center.
According to the Capital Research Center, the Everybody Votes Campaign wouldΒ collectΒ and spend over $50 million in connection with the 2022 midterm electionsβthe most recent period for which financials are available. All told, since its founding in 2015,Β the campaign says,Β its network has registered 5.1 million voters, of whom 76% are people of color; 56% are women; and 47% are under the age of 35.
Last November, the news outlet PuckΒ reportedΒ on a secret memo circulated by Mind the Gap regarding its plans for 2024. βOur strategy early in the 2024 presidential race will be to massively scale high-performing voter registration and mobilization programs,β the memo read. The PAC again specifically directed donors to the Everybody Votes Campaign, which did not respond to requests for comment.
Lopach, who has worked in Democratic Party politics his entire career, bristled at RealClearInvestigationsβ questions regarding criticsβ claims of a partisan bent to its work. βThe presumptions baked into the questions β¦ emailed to us are inaccurate and reveal the reporterβs own biases,β he responded, while emphasizing the organizationβs targeting of βunderrepresented voting-eligible Americans.β
Thayer has dubbed Everybody Votes the βlargest and most corrupt βcharitableβ voter registration drive in American history.β
Of such organizationsβ claims of nonpartisanship, Howell told RealClearInvestigations: βIf they were truly interested in an informed participatory constitutional Republic, they would have an even-handed approach to registering voters.β
βCall me when they show up to a NASCAR race, Daughters of the American Revolution event, or a gun show,β Howell added. βThen we can pretend for a minute that these are beyond just facial efforts to appear somewhat neutral.β
But NASCAR races have not been hubs for GOP-led voter registration efforts either. Restoration of Americaβs Ludwig estimates that the Right may spend as little as 1% of what the Left spends on voter registration efforts.
A recentΒ memoΒ from the Sentinel Action Fund, a super PAC that aims to elect conservatives, noted that in the 2022 election cycle, while $8.9 billion was spent on federal elections, there were zero large independent expenditure organizations on the Right focused on get-out-the-vote efforts or βballot chasing.β
Republican PartyΒ vehiclesΒ and conservative outfits like grassroots-orientedΒ Turning Point Action, a 501(c)(4), are engaged in such efforts in the 2024 cycle, but the scale and sophistication of their political counterpartsβ efforts would appear unrivaled at this point.
Election experts attribute this gap to several factors beyond the GOPβs focus on other tactics to win elections, or ineffectiveness. They note that Democratic voters tend to be more concentrated in urban areas and college campuses, making it easier to run efficient registration drives. As regards early and absentee voting and ballot harvesting, it is not clear if these efforts will substantially grow the pool of Republican voters versus merely enabling the party to βbankβ votes earlier.
With respect to the use of 501(c)(3)s to conduct such activities, Ludwig said some conservatives may still be fearful of running afoul of the IRSβthrough exploiting tax laws to pursue efforts perceived to be partisan effectively on the taxpayersβ dimeβin the wake of itsΒ targetingΒ of tea party groups for extreme scrutiny during the Obama years.
Since the 2020 election, Democrats have opened a second apparent electioneering front that Republicans could not match even if they wanted to: The rise of so-called Bidenbucks, which uses the βunlimited funding, resources, and reachβ of the federal government and agency offices located nationwide to turn out favored voters, according to Stewart Whitson, legal director of the conservative Foundation for Government Accountability.
In March 2021, President Joe Biden introducedΒ Executive Order 14019. The directive on βpromoting access to votingβ orders every federal agency, more than 600 in all, to register and mobilize votersβparticularly βpeople of colorβ and others the White House says face βchallenges to exercise their fundamental right to vote.β It further directs the agencies to collaborate with ostensibly nonpartisan nonprofits in pursuit of its goals.
As RealClearInvestigations hasΒ previously reported, Executive Order 14019 appears to have been designed by left-leaning think tank Demos and implemented in consultation and sometimes coordination with a slew of progressive, labor, and identity-focused groups with the goal of generating up to 3.5 million new or updated voter registrations annually.
The ACLU and Demos haveΒ reportedlyΒ helped execute the order. RealClearInvestigations additionally found that at least two recipients of grants under the Everybody Votes Campaign, the NAACP and UnidosUSβformerly the National Council of Razaβwere also listed on anΒ emailΒ as participants in a July 2021 listening session on the executive order convened by the White House and agency officials.
Whitson, whose organization unearthed that email in its fight to expose details about the order, emphasized that β[U]nlike 2020 wherein the shadow campaign was conducted by private citizens seeking to influence government election operations from the outside, the threat we face in 2024 is being launched fromΒ withinΒ the government itself.β
Facing both congressional scrutiny and litigation, the administration has closely guarded the strategic plans agencies were to develop to carry out the order, how they are implementing them, to what end, and with whom.
Perfunctory press releases, reports from groups supportive of the order, and documents slowly ferreted out via Freedom of Information Act requests and litigation, however, demonstrate that relevant agencies have sought to drive voter registration via public housing authorities, child nutrition programs, and voluntary tax preparation clinics.
In August 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issuedΒ updated guidanceΒ calling for the agency to register voters at naturalization ceremonies.
More recently, the Department of Education did theΒ same, blessing the use of federal work-study funds to pay students for βsupporting broad-based get-out-the-vote activities, voter registration,β and other activities. Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, recently told The Epoch Times that the department had previouslyΒ threatenedΒ schools βthat you better be registering students or you could lose your federal funds.β
When asked by RealClearInvestigations to respond to Walterβs claim, the Department of Education would not. Over two dozen Pennsylvania state legislatorsΒ challengedΒ the order via a lawsuit in January. Citing alleged unlawful attempts by several agencies to register Keystone State voters, the lawmakers asserted:
By engaging in a targeted voter registration effort of this magnitude, focused specifically on these agencies and the groups of potential voters they interact with, leveraging the resources and reach of the federal government, this effort appears to be a taxpayer-funded get-out-the-vote effort designed to benefit the current Presidentβs political party.
Echoing this view, Whitsonβs Foundation for Government Accountability submitted anΒ amicus briefΒ noting that βall of the federal agencies FGA has identified as taking active steps to carry out EO 14019 have one thing in common: They provide government welfare benefits and other services to groups of voters the vast majority of which have historically voted Democrat.β
The plaintiffs alleged the executive order violated both Pennsylvania law limiting voter registration efforts to non-federal actors and constitutional provisions reserving election laws to the states.
On March 26, a district court dismissed the case, claiming the plaintiffs lacked standing. Whitson told RealClearInvestigations that others would likely lodge similar lawsuits, building on the Pennsylvania legislatorsβ case in the wake of the dismissal. Days later, The FederalistΒ reportedΒ that the plaintiffs intended to appeal their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A White House spokesperson did not reply to RealClearInvestigationsβ inquiries regarding the executive order.
Republicans have had more success opposing the use of Zuckerbucks and other private monies used to finance public elections. More thanΒ two dozen statesΒ would move toΒ ban or restrictΒ such grants in response to the activities observed during the 2020 election.
Most recently, Wisconsin, where some of the mostΒ controversialΒ Zuckerbucks-relatedΒ effortsΒ took place, was added to that list when, on April 2, voters approved a constitutional amendment barring the private funding of elections.
Despite this crackdown and the feds seemingly stepping into the breach, efforts to privately finance election administration persist. The U.S. Alliance for Election ExcellenceΒ bills itselfΒ as an initiative to bolster βwoefully unsupportedβ election offices to βrevitalize American democracy.β
The organizationΒ saysΒ it services jurisdictionsβ11 listed on its website, ranging across states from Arizona to California and Wisconsinβwith βtraining, mentorship, and resources.β Alliance officials did not respond to RealClearInvestigationsβ inquiry about whether it would be terminating the relationship with the city of Madison, Wisconsin, in light of the passage of the recent ballot measure that would seem to have barred it. Nor did it respond to RealClearInvestigationβ other inquiries in connection with this article.
Most of these partnerships were initiated with jurisdictions in states that have not banned Zuckerbucks, though it has sought toΒ circumventΒ such prohibitions in Georgia and Utah. The stated goal of the Alliance for Election Excellence is to support voters via measures like assisting participating centers in βredesigningβ forms to make them more intuitive and purchasing infrastructure βto improve election security and accessibility.β
Alliance launch partners include entities such as:
Critics argue this seemingly more modest effort is, in reality, an ambitious Zuckerbucks rebrand.
Sneadβs Honest Elections Project published aΒ reportΒ in April 2023, based in part on documents received from FOIA requests, indicating βthat the Alliance is a reinvention of CTCLβs scheme to use private funding to strongarm election policy nationwide.β
Among other takeaways, it found that:
The report shows that many of the allianceβs launch partners, starting with the Center for Tech and Civic Life and the Center for Civic Design, are funded by major Democrat-tied, so-called dark money groups such as the Democracy Fund and Arabella Advisorsβ New Venture Fund and Hopewell Fund.
The Democracy Fund is led by Democrat tech billionaire Pierre Omidyar, which has granted some $275 million to like-minded organizations from publications like Mother Jones and ProPublica to the Voter Registration Project since its founding.
The District of Columbia recentlyΒ closed a criminal investigationΒ intoΒ Arabella, whose fund networkΒ reportedlyΒ spent nearly $1.2 billion in 2020 alone, after probing it over allegations itsΒ fundsΒ were pursuing political ends in violation of their tax-exempt statuses. The Center for Secure and Modern Elections, the Honest Elections Project says, pushes βleft-wing priorities like automatic voter registrationβ and is run by the New Venture Fund. The Elections Groupβs CEO and co-founder, Jennifer Morrell, previously served as a consultant at the Democracy Fund.
The Capital Research Centerβs Walter uses a football analogy to explain why he sees these efforts as untoward. He told RealClearInvestigations:
Election offices are the refs in elections; the parties are teams trying to score. Youβd be puzzled if you heard Super Bowl refs say theyβre trying to boost points scored. Youβd be outraged if you learned those refs had received money and training from people who previously worked for one teamβs offensive coaching staff. Thatβs what left-wing political operatives, using left-wing money, are doing, and itβs clearly unfair.
Democrat-aligned groups continue to engage in litigation, like that brought by chief election lawyer Marc Elias, aimed at loosening election laws to their benefit. Snead told RealClearInvestigations, βThere are more than 70 active lawsuits right now targeting voter ID laws, anti-ballot harvesting laws, signature verification, drop box regulations, and more.β
After securing victory in a lawsuit requiring signature verification for mail voting in Pennsylvania, the Republican National Committee touted its engagement as well in 81 election integrity cases this cycle. Swing-state Wisconsin is another major battleground for such efforts.
There, Eliasβ legal team has challenged witness signature requirements and bans on election clerks filling address information on mail-in ballots. It and others are alsoΒ workingΒ to overturn a state Supreme Court decision finding drop boxes illegal. The Badger Stateβs now liberal-majority Supreme Court announced in March it would take up the case.
Cutting against these efforts are not only the stateβs citizen-approved Zuckerbucks ban, but another Badger-passed April 2Β ballot measureΒ amending the stateβs constitution to prohibit those other than βan election official designated by lawβ from carrying out election-related tasks.
Watchdogs like Howell are concerned that left-leaning electioneers and lawfare forces collectively are pursuing an βelection βdis-integrityβ strategy β¦ to greatly expand the universe of ballots while limiting any ability to ensure that they are fairly cast and counted.β
βItβs a basic recipe for fraud.β
EliasΒ saysΒ those seeking to combat such efforts are engaged in βvoter suppression and election subversion.β
Democrats also have the federal government working on their side on the litigation frontβand in ways extending beyond the veritable lawfare barrage the Biden Justice Department has leveled at Trump.
Speaking in Selma, Alabama, on the 59thΒ anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the 1965 police assault on civil rights marchers, Attorney General Merrick GarlandΒ declaredΒ that βthe right to vote is still under attack.β
Garland vowed the Department of Justice was punching back, including βchallenging efforts by states and jurisdictions to implement discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary restrictions on access to the ballot, including those related to mail-in voting, the use of drop boxes, and voter ID requirements.β
The post How Taxpayers Will Heavily Subsidize Democrat Boots on the Ground This Election appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Sen. Tim Scott told Breitbart News the trial Democrats are dragging Donald Trump through is only driving black voters away from Democrats.
The post Exclusive β Tim Scott: βPrejudicedβ Trump Trial an βInjusticeβ Driving Black Voters to GOP, They Want βFair Justice Systemβ appeared first on Breitbart.
Republican National Committee (RNC) Co-Chair Lara Trump praised her brother-in-law Barron Trump, describing him as "incredibly smart."
The post Exclusive β Lara Trump: Barron Trump βIncredibly Smart,β Nobody Safe When He Bursts onto the Scene appeared first on Breitbart.
Republicans are "really cutting into" the Democrats' voter registration numbers in key swing states, RNC Co-Chair Lara Trump said.
The post Exclusive β Lara Trump: Republicans βReally Cutting intoβ Democrat Voter Registration appeared first on Breitbart.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told Breitbart News exclusively that she is prepared to force House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) out of his position with a vote to vacate the chair if the Speaker does not willingly resign the position.Β
The post Exclusive β MTG on Mike Johnson Speakership: βItβs Over β Heβs Just the Only One Who Hasnβt Acknowledged Itβ appeared first on Breitbart.
A French MEP, who was blocked from entering a conservative conference in Brussels, told Breitbart News that it is becoming "scary" in Europe.
The post Exclusive: French MEP Blocked by Police From Brussels Conference Says Europe Feels βLike Communist Chinaβ appeared first on Breitbart.
Voting begins on Friday in Indiaβs massive election for the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the national Parliament.
The post India Prepares to Begin Worldβs Largest Democratic Election appeared first on Breitbart.