WTAF: Wealthy Man’s In-Flight “Gift Offer" Turns DISGUSTING

Maricopa County, Arizona, election officials asked voters to be patient with them, saying on Tuesday that it could take nearly two weeks to “complete tabulation of all the ballots that come in.” As of this week, around 400,000 voters in Maricopa County have voted early of the estimated 2.1 million people in the county expected to cast a ballot in the 2024 election, 12 News reported. The county’s election officials said that the length of this year’s ballot, combined with what’s expected to be a large turnout, will slow down the count. In Maricopa County, ballots are two pages long with an average of 79 contests per ballot. “We do expect that it will take between 10 and 13 days to complete tabulation of all of the ballots that come in, but we ask for the community’s patience,” Deputy Elections Director Jennifer Liewer said. “We want to make sure that this is a secure process, but we also want to make sure that it is an accurate process.” Social media users, including X owner Elon Musk, blasted the county on Wednesday. Musk wrote in response to the 12 News report, “Our system is broken.” Our system is broken https://t.co/WslAIex593 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 23, 2024 Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates shot back at Musk, writing, “Our system isn’t broken. @maricopacounty is counting ballots faster than ever and on pace with every other state. Arizona law requires processes that dictate the timing by which we count the ballots. More importantly: I’ll take accuracy and security over speed every time.” Maricopa County, which is the largest county in the battleground state, was at the center of controversy in the aftermath of the 2020 and 2022 elections. In 2020, Republicans raised voter integrity concerns in Maricopa County, and two years later, tabulators in around 70 of the county’s 223 voting centers had issues reading ballots. President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump by just over 2 percentage points in 2020 in Maricopa County after Trump won the county by around 3 percentage points over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Republicans sued in 2020 in an attempt to force Maricopa County to reinspect ballots by hand, but that challenge was dismissed by a Maricopa County Superior Court Judge, the Arizona Republic reported. Assistant Maricopa County Manager Zach Schira said that voting early in the 2024 election, either in person or by mail, would help officials “report more results on election night.” “If I have one message for voters here today, it is this: that the longer ballots and higher interest in this 2024 general election will create longer lines on Election Day, and that’s okay,” Schira said. “But if you want to save time and you want to avoid those lines vote early, either in person or by mail, that’ll save you time, and it’ll help us report more results on election night.” MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28 Maricopa County Elections Director Scott Jarrett said that officials expect voter turnout to “start approaching very close to those 2020 numbers.” “We are seeing a little bit of a lag of where we were in 2020 but the last few days we’ve actually seen an uptick in turnout,” he added. In Michigan, another battleground state, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said earlier this week that election results likely won’t be known until the “end of the day on Wednesday.” “With that said, we will always prioritize accuracy and security over efficiency,” Benson added. “Understanding how much people will want those results, we’re still going to make sure the process is secure and accurate before we put anything out to the public.”

Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro on Wednesday relayed a personal story about crime in Los Angeles to underscore the reality that such issues are actually what Americans care about, not the latest opposition research dump on former President Donald Trump. Shapiro, who recently spoke at UCLA, said he went out to dinner this week in a nice part of Los Angeles with his wife and another couple. When they left to head home, at around 10:30 p.m., his friends were robbed by three young black males who are still at large. “You want to know why nobody cares about the Left-wing media’s latest oppo dump?” Shapiro explained, both on X and his Wednesday podcast. “The answer is obvious: people care about the quality of their lives. And life is getting worse under Democratic governance.” “Here’s just a quick story,” he continued. “We’re in LA this week. So we decided to go out with some friends, a husband and wife. Nice area of the city, well lit, not too late at night. We finish dinner at around 10:30 and head back to our car. Since my wife and I have 24/7 security, we’re safe. Not so for our friends.” When they got to their car, Shapiro said, “a Hyundai without plates speeds up and stops. Three young black guys jump out of the car (suspect description relevant because they’re still at large!) and rush up to my friend, yank him out of his car, and grab his watch, phone and wallet. They then sprint around the car and grab his wife, start trying to pull off her jewelry. She screams and kicks, and presumably losing time, they take off in top gear down the street.” MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28 The three suspects have still not been identified by LAPD, Shapiro explained, adding that it took about 15 minutes for police to even arrive on the scene. But that is “not their fault,” he said, but due to Left-wing policies and activism. “LA is wildly understaffed, and the LAPD has been treated horribly by the city government, such that officers have been targeted for simply doing their jobs,” Shapiro said. “I know and am friends with many of them.” “My friend and his wife weren’t armed up, either, because it’s nearly impossible to carry a gun in LA legally, and also because if you shoot a criminal in LA, there’s a solid shot YOU end up in jail,” he said. Shapiro said these two friends have been assaulted more than once on the streets of LA, and there have been no arrests and no prosecutions of the suspects. In one instance, the wife was physically assaulted by a homeless man and the husband had a knife drawn on him. “This is why people increasingly don’t give a s*** about the media’s latest horror story about Trump Saying Bad Things™,” Shapiro mocked. Left-wing outlet The Atlantic recently circulated a story about Trump allegedly disparaging a slain soldier. The soldier’s own family, though, say they support Trump and have criticized The Atlantic for politicizing their family member’s death. “The same people who maintain that street crime is no big deal, or a reflection of institutional racism, or that inflation is hunky dory, or that the biggest issue in American life is whether or not Billy has the right to be called Susan…these are not serious people,” Shapiro said. “But people’s lives are serious business. And bad governance means worse lives for people,” he closed. You want to know why nobody cares about the Left-wing media’s latest oppo dump? The answer is obvious: people care about the quality of their lives. And life is getting worse under Democratic governance. Here’s just a quick story. We’re in LA this week. So we decided to go out… — Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) October 23, 2024 Related: The Atlantic Accuses Trump Of Disparaging Slain Soldier. The Soldier’s Family Responds.

Today’s Democrats, led by Kamala Harris, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, are not just tiptoeing around the edges of censorship; they’re creating an Orwellian nightmare where the state is being called upon to regulate speech and to determine what is fit to be heard in the public square. The Media Research Center took a stroll down memory lane to measure the seismic shift in attitudes toward the First Amendment for Harris and the other Democratic nominees of the 21st century, including Biden, Hillary Clinton, Obama, John Kerry and Al Gore. According to the MRC study, each of these six candidates previously stood for free speech rights. Now, they claim that constitutionally protected speech is a threat to democracy. Their tortuous logic is inexplicable, but their previous quotes have not yet been whitewashed by the Left’s ever-faithful tech behemoth, Google. In 2006, Gore scolded the Bush administration for allegedly trying to “silence dissenting views” by censoring information “inconsistent with its stated ideological goals.” Fast forward to 2023, and Gore suggests social media algorithms should be “banned,” calling them the “digital equivalent of AR-15s.” In 2011, Clinton vowed to protect free speech “with the force of law.” But just last month, she said that Americans should be “criminally charged” for spreading what she dubbed “propaganda.” She later warned, “[i]f they don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control.” In 2015, Obama affirmed that government propaganda “runs contrary to everything we believe.” Yet, in 2022, Obama called on Americans to “pick a side” regarding whether social media companies should be forced to censor Americans. In 2015, Kerry rebuked censorship, affirming that “freedom must win out over censorship.” A year earlier, he condemned the very acts committed by his own party today: “Imagine if I couldn’t talk to you today simply because my government had shut down or censored the internet.” But now Kerry unashamedly attacks the First Amendment “as a major block.” In 2017, Biden passionately defended free speech rights for all: “[W]e hurt ourselves badly when we don’t allow the speech to take place. … The First Amendment is one of the defining features of who we are in the Bill of Rights. And to shut it down in the name of what is appropriate is simply wrong.” In that same year, Harris similarly tweeted, “The free and open internet is a cornerstone of our society and must be protected at all costs.” But like their predecessors, Biden and Harris have flip-flopped, deciding instead that the best way to combat ideas they dislike is not through debate, but through deletion. In the guise of combatting mis- and dis-information, they created the largest censorship regime in U.S. history, spanning 10 federal departments and six additional regulatory agencies. For example, the State and Homeland Security Departments have partnered repeatedly to censor conservatives in the media. The Pentagon has also used our tax dollars to bludgeon advertisers, cajoling them not to work with conservative media outlets. Independent agencies are at it, too. The Federal Communications Commission is punishing free-speech advocate Elon Musk while rewarding anti-free speech zealot George Soros. And the National Science Foundation is competing with the Energy Department to be the wizard behind the censorship curtain. This isn’t about mis-information; it’s about power. Democratic leaders have traded the mantle of freedom for the chains of control, embracing the tech titans as partners and enforcers of their narrative. Once heralded as the new public square, social media platforms have become a digital dungeon where speech is policed not by law, but by algorithm. MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28 While elites in the Democratic Party play the role of speech censors, conservatives have joined with traditional Democrats in a coalition to protect speech rights. This coalition is led mostly by former Democrats, including Donald Trump, Elon Musk and two former presidential candidates, Robert F. Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard. Trump’s running mate JD Vance articulated the correct perspective on speech in the vice presidential debate: “I believe we actually do have a threat to democracy in this country, but unfortunately, it’s not the threat to democracy that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz want to talk about: It is the threat of censorship.” Vance is sounding a wake-up call that resonates like the siren many of us heard as school children during nuclear-war fallout drills. We’re not just at risk of losing an argument; we’re at risk of losing America. The next president of the United States will take the oath of office, swearing to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” The media must do their job and ask each of the candidates whether they can take this oath, without snickering and crossing fingers. * * * L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Dan Schneider is the vice president of Media Research Center’s Free Speech America. The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire. 

A North Carolina Republican is attacking his Democratic opponent using a Daily Wire story that exposed Rep. Jeff Jackson hugging a convicted sex offender after receiving an LGBTQ award in 2022. The ad is the latest development in Dan Bishop and Jackson’s contentious and high-profile race to be the state’s next attorney general. Bishop’s team is releasing the ad as part of a seven-figure statewide media buy in all major markets, The Daily Wire has learned. “Child molester Chad Turner became one of Charlotte’s most notorious sex offenders,” the ad’s narrator says over a video of Jackson hugging Turner, first reported by The Daily Wire this month. “A few years later, Jeff Jackson accepted an award from him, and embraced Chad Turner.” NEW: Dan Bishop’s team is launching this ad statewide today, based on our @realDailyWire report showing Jeff Jackson hugging a convicted sex offender in 2022 after receiving an LGBTQ award. Ad depicts women reacting to the hug between Jackson and “child molester Chad Turner.” pic.twitter.com/M8aryfNqLh — Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) October 23, 2024 The ad then shows women watching the video of Jackson, reacting with comments such as, “This is wrong,” “everyone knew about this guy,” and “how could a mom of any child trust Jeff Jackson?” “When it deals with children, there are no words,” says one of the women featured in the advertisement. “I voted for Democrats before,” says a final woman. “I can’t vote for Jeff Jackson.” “We frankly don’t know why Jeff Jackson embraced and accepted an award from a notorious sex offender,” a Bishop campaign spokesman told The Daily Wire. “It defies belief that Jackson somehow didn’t know – Chad Turner’s past has been a point of media and political controversy for nearly a decade.” “Jeff Jackson likes to say in campaign ads he’s a ‘normal person.’ Sure, he seems pretty normal – aside from accepting awards from sex offenders at glitzy galas,” he added. The Daily Wire published footage on Oct. 10 showing the December 13, 2022, Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce event where Jackson praised the work of LGBTQ activists on stage before embracing Turner, a registered sex offender and CEO of the Charlotte LGBT Chamber of Commerce. Turner, who has not responded to requests for comment from The Daily Wire, was charged with three cases of lewd acts on minors under the age of 16. He accused the boys of lying, but authorities sentenced him to 10 years in prison after convicting him in July 2000 of fondling a 15-year-old boy. He only served two years of this sentence, according to the Daily Mail, but remains a registered sex offender under the North Carolina Sex Offender and Public Protection Registry. A Jackson spokesman previously told The Daily Wire that the congressman “did not know about an individual’s status,” and was simply given an award by a “local chamber of commerce for supporting economic development.” Jackson’s office did not say whether the congressman would return the award, or continue to work with the organization. But Tami Fitzgerald, the executive director of the North Carolina Values Coalition, argued earlier this month that Jackson would certainly have known who Turner was, saying that his background was “common knowledge” in North Carolina political circles. “This was common knowledge at the legislature, where Jackson served and carried water for Turner’s issues,” Fitzgerald told The Daily Wire. “It was also common knowledge and received widespread media attention in Jackson and Turner’s hometown of Charlotte. It is inconceivable that Jeff Jackson did not know.”