“Roger Stone, a longtime associate of Donald Trump, is auctioning off a copy of a 1990s magazine cover he says is signed by the former president as part of a larger fundraising campaign to pay for his legal defenses and medical bills,” Politico reports.
“If the bid exceeds $20,000 dollars, the bidder gets the physical version of the magazine along with ‘one of only one’ digital copy, which Stone marketed as an NFT, or a non-fungible token.”
“The political consultant who orchestrated Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin’s highly complicated, arm’s-length dance with former president Donald Trump recently made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to smooth over some hard feelings, forge an alliance and tout his company ahead of Trump’s potential 2024 campaign,” the Washington Post reports.
“Political consultant Jeff Roe, who clashed with Trump while working for presidential rival Ted Cruz in 2016, made the trip in recent weeks after the former president agreed to see him.”
“What bothers me about James Carville’s remarks is that he’s glib about the fight for racial equality or full equality for all our citizens. I understand what James is trying to say, but I think it’s just a false equation. But he did win some elections back in the ’90s.”
— Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), quoted by the New York Times, pushing back on Carville’s claim that “stupid wokeness” is to blame for Democratic losses in last week’s elections.
James Carville told PBS Newshour that he blamed his party’s recent losses and weak performance in state elections on “stupid wokeness.”
Said Carville: “What went wrong is just stupid wokeness. Don’t just look at Virginia and New Jersey. Look at Long Island, look at Buffalo, look at Minneapolis, even look at Seattle, Wash. I mean, this ‘defund the police’ lunacy, this take Abraham Lincoln’s name off of schools. I mean that — people see that.”
He added: “It’s just really — has a suppressive effect all across the country on Democrats. Some of these people need to go to a ‘woke’ detox center or something. They’re expressing a language that people just don’t use, and there’s backlash and a frustration at that.”
“A prominent Washington lobbyist close to Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, is warning Republican political consultants that they must choose between working for Rep. Liz Cheney or Mr. McCarthy, an ultimatum that marks the full rupture between the two House Republicans,” the New York Times reports.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was a frequent visitor to Jeffrey Epstein’s New York mansion, Rolling Stone reports.
“Although Epstein’s reputation was badly damaged after he spent 13 months in a Florida jail for soliciting sex from a teen, the conviction didn’t stop the flow of wealthy and famous people who flocked to his $77 million Upper East Side mansion. Behind the 15-foot oak front doors, Epstein played host to old friends like Wall Street billionaire Leon Black, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and new ones like Steve Bannon.”
Roger Stone was served with papers relating to a Capitol riot lawsuit while live on radio and answering a question about why Donald Trump should run in 2024.
“A prominent Minnesota GOP donor who is charged with multiple counts of sex trafficking is now being sued by an underage girl who says he used her for sex acts, then offered her money to keep her from talking about it,” ABC News reports.
“The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court alleges that Anton Lazzaro’s attorneys offered $1,000 in hush money to the girl and her parents to keep them quiet and asked them to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The girl’s father refused and instead went to law enforcement, said their attorney, Jeff Anderson.”
Veteran GOP operative Roger Stone told Infowars that he intends to file a $25 million lawsuit against ABC News over stories written about his actions on Jan. 6 near the Capitol building.
Republican strategist Tony Lazzaro was indicted for recruiting six minors to engage in sex for money over several months last year in the Twin Cities, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
Lazzaro was campaign manager for Lacy Johnson (R), who last fall ran unsuccessfully against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and was a delegate to the 2020 Republican convention.
Kate Coyne McCoy, a top Democratic strategist from Rhode Island, is under fire for tweeting “It’s wrong to hope he dies from COVID, right? Asking for a friend” — about Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), who was recently diagnosed with Covid-19, the Boston Globe reports.
McCoy has since pulled down the tweet and issued an apology.
Democratic consultant Joe Trippi announced in a USA Today op-ed that he’s joining the Lincoln Project to make sure Republicans don’t win control of Congress in 2022.
South Carolina GOP consultant Richard Quinn Sr. is accused of lying to a state grand jury over being paid by Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) for drafting press statements and other documents, the Columbia State reports.
The new 38-page indictment accuses Quinn of 12 different counts of perjury and two counts of obstruction of justice.
Federal Election Commission filings show that the leadership PAC controlled by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — Majority Committee PAC, or McPAC — paid one of GOP pollster Frank Luntz’s companies nearly $40,000 in late 2020, just before McCarthy began renting what he described as a “room” in the recently renovated apartment, the Washington Post reports.
Former President Trump is calling on his supporters to withhold financial support from Karl Rove, The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “Everyone is so tired of watching Karl Rove on Fox News. He has played the game for decades, but all he and his buddies want to do is take your money and run.”
He added: “He called me on the evening of November 3rd, Election Night, to congratulate me on my ‘great win.’ When it was revealed the election was rigged and stolen, he flew the coop.”
Jane Mayer: “An infamous Republican political operative’s unpublished memoir shows how the Party came to embrace lies, racial fearmongering, and winning at any cost.”
“More than a dozen onetime aides and advisers to former President Donald Trump have signed on to assist Republicans competing in statewide and federal contests across the country, in some cases setting up potential showdowns in the months to come as they work to cast their candidates as the most Trump-aligned figures in crowded races,” CNN reports.
“The Justice Department on Friday sued Roger Stone, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, accusing Stone and his wife of owing nearly $2 million in unpaid income taxes,” NBC News reports.
☑️ Life in the Middle: Marginalized Moderate Senators In the Era of Polarization is available on Amazon. It takes a deep dive into the power of moderates and why we see them behave so precariously.
☑️ SECRETS by Fred Ellis Brock, the 3rd novel in The Seven trilogy, now available on Amazon. A thriller out of today's headlines: murder, treason, and UFO conspiracies. Wyatt-MacKenzie, publisher.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.