North Carolina Republicans Cast Alarming Post-Hurricane Election Vote

North Carolina’s Republicans apparently don’t think that hurricane victims should have more time to mail in ballots or register to vote.

Democrats in the North Carolina House of Representatives filed a bill to extend the state’s voter registration deadline by five days to October 16, and to allow absentee ballots three more days to arrive in order to make sure victims of Hurricane Helene could do their civic duty. Every single House Republican voted no on the measure on Wednesday.

Democrats made a motion to suspend the rules on the bill in the state House, but Republicans voted unanimously against the motion, stopping the bill from a final vote. According to Democratic State Representative Julie von Haefen, only one Republican, Representative Destin Hall, debated the motion, accusing Democrats of playing “partisan games.”

The state election board did grant some leeway to 13 counties affected by the storm. Voters in those counties can request mail-in ballots in person until November 4, the day before Election Day, and they’ll be able to drop off their ballots at any county board of elections in the state, or any of the polling stations in their county. But those ballots must still be received by 7:30 p.m. E.T. on November 5.

About 16.6 percent of North Carolina’s registered voters live in areas affected by Hurricane Helene, totaling 1,275,054 people in 25 counties. Of that number, 292,836 people are registered Democrats, 480,097 Republicans, and 490,140 unaffiliated. The rest of the voters are registered with third parties like the Green Party, Justice for All, Libertarian, No Labels, and We The People.

The right has pushed a number of conspiracies on the hurricane, from claims that Democrats are withholding aid from Republican areas to a far more outrageous conspiracy that the federal government controls the weather. Some local Republicans have taken steps to debunk these lies, but it doesn’t help that Donald Trump is pushing them himself. If Republicans in North Carolina end up having difficulty voting as they recover from Hurricane Helene, they should probably blame their own elected officials.

Amid active devastation in the American South wrought by unprecedented hurricanes, Republicans are busy with one thing: attacking Vice President Kamala Harris for dismantling their weather-related conspiracies.

Speaking with Fox News on Wednesday, Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt seemingly torched Harris for actually responding to the disaster, going so far as to claim it was “really awkward” that the vice president would “insert herself” into phone calls to affected states about federal relief funds.

“Your reaction to what seems to be this preemptive attempt by Biden and Harris and the media to silence critics of any aspect of the government’s response by calling it all disinformation?” asked host Laura Ingraham.

“Yeah, this is a kind of a standard playbook now, Laura, for anything they don’t like to hear,” Schmitt said. “They label it misinformation or disinformation. They’ve tried to censor this stuff before during Covid because … it wasn’t the regime’s narrative, and here we go again.”

“There are real stories, there are people hurting who are not getting help,” the MAGA Republican continued. “In fact, you know, relief efforts by private citizens were being blocked.... The federal government’s response here, led by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, have completely failed the people of North Carolina.”

Republicans have launched a host of lies and disinformation throughout the 2024 hurricane season. So far, conservative leaders in heavily affected regions, including Florida and Georgia, have accused the Biden administration of diverting funds from FEMA to assist undocumented immigrants entering the country (a charge that FEMA has fervently rejected), claimed that working with the White House to expedite disaster relief “seemed political,” and conspiratorially suggested that the hurricanes are a government manipulation.

Some of those lies have had real-world consequences, convincing Americans in heavily affected regions that they shouldn’t apply for FEMA’s disaster relief based on the lie that the agency is out of money.

Speaking with CNN on Tuesday, former Republican communications strategist Douglas Heye lamented how Donald Trump’s own supporters were bearing the brunt of the misinformation.

“The area of North Carolina that was hit is overwhelmingly Republican,” Heye, a North Carolinian, told the network. “By spreading this misinformation, you’re hurting your own voters first. And we know Donald Trump takes his people sort of as a special case, he’s damaging them for his own political good. That’s malicious.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson sent his thoughts and prayers to hurricane victims, as Democratic lawmakers begged him to call Congress back into session to pass emergency funding to address Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

More than 60 House Democrats signed a letter Wednesday urging Johnson to assemble lawmakers to pass additional funding on top of last month’s stopgap bill, which provided the Federal Emergency Management Agency with $20 billion.

“The funds previously allocated were a necessary first step, allowing for an initial response to the immediate aftermath of these disasters,” read the letter. “However, as recovery efforts continue, it is abundantly clear that these funds will not suffice.”

While FEMA has said that it has enough money “for immediate response and recovery needs,” it’s not clear how long this funding will last, given the frequency and intensity of this season’s storms.

FEMA “must be equipped not only to respond to current disasters but also to adequately prepare for future events,” the letter said. “This requires substantial funding that ensures FEMA can maintain a state of readiness and provide immediate assistance when disasters strike.”

The letter was not signed by a single Republican.

Johnson doesn’t seem interested in calling Congress back into session any time soon. During a visit to North Carolina Wednesday, Johnson claimed that there was little Congress could do until the storms had passed.

“What happens next after a storm like this is that the states then do their individual assessments and calculations of the damages and then they submit that need to the federal government. Then Congress acts,” Johnson said. “So as soon as those calculations are prepared, Congress will act in a bipartisan fashion to supply what is needed to help these communities recover, the appropriate amount that the federal government should do.”

“But it will take some time, sadly and unfortunately, for those calculations to be made. In the meantime, again, literally billions of dollars are sitting in accounts at FEMA with the administration to address the immediate needs,” Johnson explained.

“When I last checked, as of Monday, only one percent of those funds had actually been distributed. There’s concern that the federal response was a little too slow, and that needs to be addressed.”

Later that evening, Johnson posted on X. “Our prayers are with the people of Florida tonight as they endure Hurricane Milton,” he wrote.

Kari Lake tried to run from her MAGA record during a Wednesday night Arizona Senate debate against Democrat Ruben Gallego. But she flailed spectacularly when asked one crucial question.

While discussing Lake’s climate change denial on Wednesday night, Gallego also called her out over her election denialism.

“She’s still in denial about climate change. We should not be surprised by this. She’s still in denial about the 2022 election. And now, I give you one minute. You have one minute. Will you finally tell the people of Arizona, did you win or lose that election?”

“Can we, can I talk about water really quickly?” replied Lake, dodging the question. “Because I thought we were gonna do water.”

Like Trump, Lake continues to claim she won the 2022 gubernatorial election—and two years later, is still attempting to overturn the election results.

Wednesday’s Senate debate was a disaster for Lake in other ways as well. She also tried to avoid harsh questioning about her stance on abortion. Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Lake wanted the state to implement an 1864 abortion ban and then complained when the ban wasn’t able to be enforced to her liking. During her Senate run, she has tried to flip-flop and hide from this fact, but Gallego reminded Arizonans of the truth.

“She was disappointed to find out the 1864 law, again the one that had no exceptions for rape or incest, was not going to get enforced, she said I hope the sheriffs will do their jobs,” said Gallego during the debate.

“That’s not true,” responded Lake under her breath.

“We have it on tape,” Gallego shot back. 

While backtracking on the issues, Lake bragged about her relationship with the former president several times on the debate stage to try and save her performance. “President Trump, my good friend, has called me ‘Border Kari,’” said Lake. “I love the nickname, and I’m going to go there to Washington, D.C., and help him build that border wall and secure the border.”

“You’ve been to Mar-a-Lago more than you have to the border,” said Gallego.

Lake and Gallego are competing for the seat currently occupied by Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who opted not to run for reelection. The latest polls show Gallego up seven points against Lake. The result of the election could determine if the Democrats can hold on to their majority in the Senate.

Donald Trump still hasn’t come to terms with his crowd size.

On Wednesday, the Republican presidential nominee’s appearance in Reading, Pennsylvania, featured a slew of plainly false, misleading claims, including that there were no terrorist attacks during his administration, and that school-aged children were receiving gender-affirming surgery without their parents’ consent.

But one mistruth that Trump couldn’t seem to let go of was the reality of how many people are actually turning out to his repetitive events.

“You know, we get up and we talk, we talk, and I noticed something, somebody was telling me the other day, we do a lot of these beautiful rallies and it’s so great. We never have an empty seat. Never have—Look at them, 100,000 people or more. Never have an empty,” Trump said.

But beyond the scope of the camera, there were empty seats—and a lot of them.

The arena reportedly had a capacity of 7,200 seats, according to The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, but even as Trump began to speak, a couple hundred of them remained empty behind the press risers.

And even in the middle of Trump’s speech, people began to leave, leaving chair gaps directly behind him while on camera.

Trump’s low turnout is significant for a candidate who has frequently attacked his political opponents for their inability to draw as many people as he’s historically attracted to his boisterous, sprawling campaign stops.

In 2016 and 2020, Trump relied on the visual logic of his loaded rallies—and, by extension, the relatively lackluster crowds attending his opponents’—as evidence of his titanic popularity among everyday Americans. But whether Trump is on a high or a low note with his supporters, he’s equally likely to stretch the numbers, even going so far in August as to claim that his January 6 crowd size was bigger than Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington (photographic evidence proves it wasn’t even close.)

It turns out, Elon Musk’s gracious offer of “free” Starlink high-speed internet services for those affected by Hurricane Helene isn’t free at all, and may be a ploy to trap new customers.

Last week, Starlink posted a link on X to a website explaining its offer to those seeking Hurricane Helene relief. “For those impacted by Hurricane Helene, or looking to support response and recovery efforts in affected areas, Starlink is now free for 30 days,” the post read.

Musk reshared the post, adding, “Starlink terminals will now work automatically without need for payment in the areas affected by Hurricane Helene.”

A closer look at the website, though, shows that the offer comes with a few caveats.

“Please note: A Starlink kit is required to access this free service. If you do not already have a Starlink kit, you will need to purchase one,” the site explains.

So how much exactly does a Starlink kit cost? New customers will still have to pay close to $400 for a Starlink kit, including shipping and tax, according to Gizmodo. Starlink has also warned of significant delays that may prevent orders from arriving for weeks, and encouraged those seeking its services to buy a kit from retailers such as Best Buy or Home Depot. There, the kit will cost more like $350 not including tax.

But that’s not all users will have to pay. “After 30 days, we will move you to a paid Residential subscription,” the SpaceX site reads. A paid residential subscription costs $120 per month, a significant upcharge from a typical internet service, which could cost around $40 per month.

So Musk’s offer isn’t much different from a typical free trial for his expensive internet service.

Earlier this week, Donald Trump patted himself on the back for getting Musk to provide Starlink services to the areas affected by Hurricane Helene, noting that he wasn’t actually sure “what the hell it is.”

Last week, SpaceX sent more than 10,000 Starlink terminals to North Carolina and other areas affected by Helene, according to The Hill. One Starlink terminal was planned to be deployed in each county.

In response to Hurricane Milton, Musk announced Wednesday that SpaceX and T-Mobile had accelerated the rollout of their direct-to-cell services, which will be “provided free of charge” to those “affected by hurricanes.”

Like Trump, Musk has been smearing federal hurricane relief efforts, claiming on X last week that FEMA employees were “actively blocking” Starlink terminals from being deployed.

A new poll shows that Kamala Harris has taken the lead among suburban and middle-class voters over Donald Trump.

Reuters/Ipsos polling shows 47 percent of suburban voters supporting Harris versus 41 percent supporting Trump, a nine-point improvement for Harris over President Biden, who was behind Trump by a 43 to 40 percent margin. Harris also now leads Trump by a 45 to 43 percent margin among middle-class voters (people earning between $50,000 and $100,000 per year), a reversal of Trump’s seven-point lead over Biden.

In 2020, Trump won middle-class voters by 52 percent to 47 percent, while Biden won in the suburbs by six points. Trump still leads Harris on who is better on the economy by 8 points, 46 percent to Harris’s 38 percent, according to Reuters. But gains in the suburbs are definitely a positive sign for the vice president, on top of other polls showing that she’s gaining support from working-class voters.

Overall, among registered voters, Reuters’s poll has Harris with a narrow 46 to 43 percent lead. Harris is also ahead of Trump in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, and she’s even making inroads among people who describe themselves as Republicans. The Reuters poll follows The New York Times/Siena College poll released earlier this week, which shows a similarly narrow 49 to 46 percent lead for Harris.

Harris has a long way to go to ensure victory, with the election less than a month away. The polls don’t count everyone who will be showing up to vote in November, especially people who didn’t vote in 2020. Despite the record turnout four years ago, one-third of eligible voters didn’t vote back then. Polls show that Harris could make significant inroads with them if she pushes harder for a cease-fire in Gaza and an arms embargo against Israel.

Donald Trump played a strange video at his rally Wednesday meant to criticize Kamala Harris’s plan to increase taxes for the middle class. But a closer look at the video finds that none of the clips included advocated for increasing taxes on the middle class.

“She’s the taxing queen. She’s going to raise your taxes, where you’re going to be at least paying at least three thousand dollars a year more. Take a look,” Trump said before referring to the screen behind him.

Behind him, Trump played a video that edited together different times Harris had announced her plan to “get rid of that tax bill” and “get rid of that tax cut,” referring to the corporate tax rate cuts Trump had installed during his time in office. In fact, two of the included clips are of Harris explicitly talking about corporate tax rates.

Originally, the Trump administration had claimed that the corporate tax rate cuts at the center of his 2017 tax bill would boost household income by a “very conservative” estimate of $4,000 per household, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

In reality, workers who earned below an average of $114,000 saw no change in their earnings as a result of the corporate tax rate cut, while wealthy business owners and top executives reaped the benefits. Harris plans to increase the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent.

The video also contained footage of Harris saying that estate taxes “are going to have to go up.” Harris has proposed a plan to lower housing costs that would be funded primarily through changes to the federal estate tax law and an increase to the corporate tax rate.

Harris has yet to publish a proposal for increasing the yield from estate taxes, whether it would mean upping the rate or lowering the exemptions. Currently, only 0.2 percent of U.S. adults are subject to the federal estate tax, according to IRS data.

The video also contained footage of Harris’s campaign co-chair, Chris Coons, defending her plan for a 25 percent tax on unrealized capital gains. It contains another clip of Bharat Ramamurti, President Joe Biden’s former National Economic Council deputy director, explaining that the plan would only affect those with a net worth of more than $100 million, or less than 1 percent of taxpayers—a fact that Trump’s video carefully elides.

The video also contained footage of Harris advocating for a carbon tax, which would penalize big polluters. While this could potentially increase energy costs for consumers, it is not a tax on the middle class.

Democrats won’t be able to prevent recently altered election rules designed to benefit Donald Trump, per a Wednesday ruling dismissing an effort by private citizens to force Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to open an investigation into the committee that crafted the regulations.

“It would seem to me, that for formal charges, there’s some investigation comes in before that,” Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “There needs to be some investigation ... then trigger the governor to do something in that respect, not just a letter from the citizens.”

Three Democrats, including state Senator Nabilah Islam Parkes, sued Kemp after he refused to act on their concerns regarding the Georgia State Election Board, which in August voted to make it easier for county election officials to delay or refuse certification of election results. Democrats argued that letters they had obtained constituted “formal charges” worthy of spurring an investigation.

“They’re going rogue, and there’s no accountability,” Islam Parkes told the Journal-Constitution. “They need to be held accountable because we need to have fair elections.”

Internal emails obtained by Rolling Stone and American Doom after the 3–2 election board vote along MAGA lines revealed that the board’s actions were fueled by a “wishlist” of documents from conservative county election officials.

“As an American and native Georgian, I’m outraged Governor Brian Kemp is allowing law-violating, last minute election rule changes,” wrote one of the co-plaintiffs, former Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections Chair Cathy Woolard, in an op-ed for Newsweek on Monday, decrying Kemp’s inaction as “foul play.”

Kemp’s attorneys argued that complaints by private citizens could not compel the governor to open an ethics investigation.

“That is an extraordinary position to take,” Deputy Attorney General Logan Winkles said. “The court can imagine the chaos that would cause.”

The plaintiffs told the Journal-Constitution that they intend to appeal the decision.

The new election certification rules set the stage for bedlam come November, especially considering that at least 70 election officials across 16 counties in key swing states, including Georgia, have been identified as pro-Trump election deniers.

Trump praised the MAGA members of Georgia’s board days before the August vote, describing Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares, and Janelle King as “pit bulls fighting for victory.”

According to the State Election Board’s website, the body is “entrusted with a variety of responsibilities and authority to protect all Georgians’ right to cast a ballot.”

Georgia has had the largest number of certification refusals since 2020 of anywhere in the country. The five-person board has been accused of other ethics violations, including one instance in which its Trump-friendly majority failed to give proper notice to their Democratic colleagues about a meeting that they used to advance changes to state election rules.

House Republicans are threatening to punish colleges and universities that allow pro-Palestine protests.

The Guardian reported Wednesday that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise met with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group, on October 1 and declared he plans to take action against higher education institutions by revoking their accreditation if Donald Trump wins in November, jeopardizing their federal funding.

“Your accreditation is on the line,” Scalise said. “You’re not playing games any more, or else you’re not a school any more.”

The publication obtained video of the meeting, which was also attended by Republican Representative Pat Fallon from Texas. It began as a discussion about antisemitism spreading in the U.S. after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 last year. But the topic quickly changed to squashing criticism of Israel’s war, which has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 16,000 children.

Fallon applauded AIPAC’s targeting of progressive critics of Israel, praising the organization for spending $23 million to intervene in congressional primaries.

“I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for firing Jamaal Bowman, and even more so, Miss Cori Bush. Great work,” Fallon said.

Scalise concurred and invoked an antisemitic trope, commending the organization for having “tentacles throughout the Republican and Democrat circles in 435 districts. You can see how people are voting—just put the pressure on those who are voting the wrong way.”

Scalise promised that a second Trump administration would use federal funding to target schools that don’t crush pro-Palestinian protests.

“We’re looking at federal money, the federal grants that go through the science committee, student loans. You have a lot of jurisdiction as president, with all of these different agencies that are involving billions of dollars, some cases a billion alone going to one school,” said Scalise. He singled out Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University as examples.

Scalise then criticized Jewish students who participate in the protests, saying they “just feel guilty that they’re alive. I don’t know how you’re brought up to where you feel, ‘I’m a Jewish student, and I’m on the side with terrorists who want to kill me.’”

Scalise, along with other politicians in both the GOP and the Democratic Party, are going against constitutional principles of free speech to demonize protesters who are opposed to Israel’s widespread killing and destruction of Gaza the past year. They see their job as supporting Israel’s actions with no limits, regardless of the humanitarian toll and the prospects of the U.S. being drawn into a wide and deadly war.