Surprise! MAGA Candidate Convicted of Election Fraud

For all their browbeating about election fraud, it turns out that Donald Trump’s MAGA acolytes aren’t following election laws.

Gaea Powell, a Moms for Liberty activist and loyal Trump supporter who ran for the clerk-recorder position in San Luis Obispo County, California, earlier this year, is facing up to eight years in prison after she was found guilty on nine counts of election fraud last week. That included lying about her place of residence, unlawfully registering to vote, and fraudulently voting, according to SFGate.

The charges stemmed from Powell’s previous bids for high office, when she ran for mayor of Arroyo Grande in 2022 and 2024. At the time, Powell campaigned on some of Trump’s own election conspiracy talking points, honing in on the “integrity of local elections.”

Yet at the same time, Powell had lied to local officials about her true place of residence. In campaign filings—and under penalty of perjury—she swore that she lived inside the Arroyo Grande city limits, as required of local mayoral candidates. She did not.

Powell also failed to follow local laws regarding campaign earnings above $2,000. On June 30, 2022, Powell pledged that she did not intend to raise or spend more than that sum. Then she took an “active role” in raising and spending more than that on campaign mailers, without notifying local officials, according to a press release by the district attorney’s office.

Despite the jury verdict (and just like the president), Powell has refused to acknowledge the evidence or admit wrongdoing.

“I respect the jury’s role. But I am deeply disappointed by today’s verdict,” Powell said in a statement obtained by the San Luis Obispo Tribune. “I have maintained from the beginning, and I maintain today, that I did not knowingly deceive anyone and did not act with fraudulent intent.”

She still intends to appeal the verdict.

“I may have lost this battle. But this is not the end of the legal fight,” Powell continued. “I intend to pursue every appropriate post-trial remedy and to appeal this case. And just as importantly, another chapter is only beginning.”

A Republican candidate for statewide office in Texas regularly called for public executions in social media posts that he has since deleted.

Bo French, who is running to head the Texas Railroad Commission, posted about publicly executing political opponents including President Obama, CNN reports. The posts span six years, with the most recent post in February 2025, in which French mentioned hangings, gallows, and other forms of public executions.

Those posts were either deleted by French or removed for violating X’s rules, though it remains unclear. French also made similar posts on an account he used in unsuccessful campaigns for the Texas statehouse in 2016 and 2018, before the account was suspended.

In 2020, while President Trump was under investigation for his campaign’s ties to the Russian government, French called for the death penalty for “Obama conspirators,” including then House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff.

“It’s time we drop the hammer on these treasonous bastards and punish them with the full measure of justice. #HangEmHigh,” French posted.

He also called for Obama’s death using the same hashtag.

“The penalty for treason used to be death. Even for a former president. #HangEmHigh,” French wrote.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and the state’s Republican Party have thus far refused to disavow French.

The Texas Railroad Commission has the important role of regulating the state’s oil and gas industry, and French ended up winning the Republican nomination in May over incumbent Republican commissioner Jim Wright, who had the endorsements of Republican Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and House Speaker Dustin Burrows.

French’s penchant for capital punishment is only one of his many abhorrent stances. He has openly espoused anti-Muslim views, asking his social media followers who the “bigger threat” to America is, Muslims or Jews, before clarifying that he believed Islam “is the bigger threat.” He wants to “end DEI” and “kick radical Islam out of Texas Energy.” He’s called for deporting 100 million people from the U.S.

“I’m going to say something that’s going to make some people uncomfortable: The problem is, we call it Sharia [law], but the problem is actually Islam,” French said at a panel discussion titled “Don’t Sharia My Texas” at the the Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas, in March. “If they can infiltrate Texas and conquer Texas, then what’s going to happen? They’re going to be able to control the United States.”

Earlier this month, French drew a backlash for a racist post about the student section at a University of Texas football game, saying the racially diverse student fanbase was a “problem” that “is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”

That post led Republican strategist and former adviser to President George W. Bush, Karl Rove, to say he would vote for French’s Democratic opponent, Jon Rosenthal, and for Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn to call him “an embarrassment to the Republican Party” who is “going to drag the whole ticket down because of his racist comments.”

These latest revelations won’t help French, and certainly won’t help Texas Republicans in a year where the party is polling historically low.

FBI co–deputy director and former Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey—who helped lead the draconian raid on a Georgia election center in January—has resigned from his post.

“I want to thank President Trump, @AGToddBlanche, and @FBIDirectorKash for the opportunity to serve in the FBI. Under President Trump’s leadership, we have delivered historic results in our mission to Make America Safe Again. With great pride in what we have accomplished, I am announcing that I am stepping down to return to my family in Missouri,” Bailey wrote Monday on X. “I am confident Director Patel will continue to reform the FBI, combat violent crime, defend the homeland, ensure strong organizational accountability, and restore public trust in this institution of excellence.”

Bailey served alongside Dan Bongino, the former talk radio host and conspiracy theorist who himself dramatically resigned from the FBI late last year. Bailey joined the FBI last September, not making it more than one full year of working with Director Kash Patel.

While Bailey cited family duties as the impetus for his departure, The New York Times reported that he and Patel reportedly had an acrimonious relationship, going months without communicating—a report that would not appear out of place given the various internal conflicts and departures within both the FBI and DOJ, as well as Patel’s own controversies.

“The senior @FBI position of ‘co-Deputy Director’—which had never existed before and was created out of thin air because of @dbongino’s inability to handle the role—has now been vacated,” investigative journalist Steve Baker wrote. “Many of us thought that Bailey had been brought in to eventually take Patel’s place as Director of the Bureau.”

“Rats fleeing a sinking ship,” the Missouri Senate Democrats wrote.

This story has been updated.

America has the “best poverty numbers,” according to our billionaire president.

“We have the best, I guess you could say poverty, they talk poverty. We have the best poverty numbers ever in the history of our country,” Donald Trump told reporters outside the White House Sunday.

Trump was attempting to refer to U.S. economic growth statistics, correcting himself that the U.S. has “less poverty” now than it did before.

A report published earlier this month by the U.S. Census Bureau supports that claim, revealing that poverty had dropped to a historic low in 2025 when just 10.2 percent of the population reported income below the federal poverty line. (That statistic is measured by comparing pretax income to household size. Last year, that threshold was $32,649 for a family of four.)

But that doesn’t mean that Americans aren’t struggling to afford food, housing, gas, health care, childcare, or other basic needs. Affordability is an entirely different metric.

For example, the median household income across New York City in 2025 was $86,900. However, a SmartAsset study found that single New Yorkers needed to make at least $158,954 that year to afford the basics (such as housing, groceries, utilities, and transportation) and cover the costs of a couple of hobbies.

Even in a region such as Texas, where the cost of living is 6 percent less than the national average, the cost of living outpaced incomes. In 2024, the median household income in the Lone Star State was $78,476. But single Texans needed to make at least $90,771 in order to live comfortably, per the SmartAsset study.

That enormous discrepancy is a part of the reason why the economy and the cost of living are ranked as the top two issues for Americans ahead of the midterm election, according to a Pew Research poll published in July.

Meanwhile, billionaires are making money hand over fist, concentrating and hoarding their assets while shrinking the economic pie for the workers who build their products. A Guardian assessment of global wealth in 2025 found that the richest 10 percent of the world’s population own 75 percent of all personal wealth, while just 0.001 percent of the world’s population—less than 60,000 people—control three times as much as the bottom half of humanity.

Trump himself would fit squarely within that demographic, as the 586th wealthiest person in the world (as of the time of publishing). The policies he’s crafted throughout his presidency have only stressed the wealth gap and abetted the ultra-elite, lining their pockets with millions of dollars while the rest of America’s pocketbooks grew by an average of just $1,200, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress published earlier this month.

“The gains of the past year and a half have been overwhelmingly concentrated among the wealthiest Americans, while millions of families are still struggling with high levels of debt,” said CAP’s chief economist, Cristina Tello-Trillo, in a statement at the time. “Stock market benefits are not being shared equally, and the tax code has been flipped upside down to provide giveaways to wealthy business owners. The wealth gap is growing, making it harder for families in the middle and at the bottom to build lasting financial security.”

The Trump administration has moved to cripple Title IX protections against sexual assault and harassment on the same day New York prosecutors reopened the investigation into heinous allegations of a fraternity gang rape at Cornell University. 

On Monday, the Education Department rescinded a 2024 Title IX rule enacted by former President Joe Biden that required schools to move proactively on sexual assault harassment cases, calling on them to strengthen and specify their protections for campus survivors. It also extended protections for LGBTQ students as well as those who were pregnant or a parent. Now that has all been scrapped because the department doesn’t think the requirements are “enforceable nationwide.” 

The timing couldn’t be worse. On Monday, New York state prosecutors reopened an investigation into the alleged 2024 gang rape. The victim filed a lawsuit last week against members of the Chi Phi fraternity for allegedly raping her—and against Cornell University for failing to adequately protect her and discipline the fraternity members. The victim, Jane Doe, said that after leaving a bar she “stumbled alone” to Chi Phi’s  fraternity house around 11 p.m., became intoxicated, and was pressured by the members to snort what fraternity brothers told her was ketamine. She also smoked marijuana and drank more liquor. She was propositioned for a threesome by two of the brothers, even as the lawsuit alleges she was “incapable of consenting.” 

After that encounter, at about 1:42 a.m., one of the defendants texted a Chi Phi Snapchat groupchat telling his brothers that there was “free pussy” at the fraternity house. Jane Doe says she was then raped for hours by seven fraternity brothers. Aside from alleged forced oral and vaginal intercourse, they also allegedly snorted ketamine off of Jane Doe’s body. She said she was completely incapacitated at this point, with the alleged assault lasting until nearly 6 a.m. the next morning. 

Doe filed a report in November 2024. Cornell University conducted an internal investigation, barred the fraternity but only suspended the defendants, giving them the option to write essays to lessen their punishment rather than expelling them. None were arrested, and Doe dropped out of Cornell shortly afterward. Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, and Scott Kretzschmar are the Chi Phi members named in the lawsuit. 

“The Cornell University case is a devastating example of why robust federal Title IX enforcement matters,” said Shiwali Patel of the National Women’s Law Center. “Sexual harassment and assault continue to be pervasive in schools and, to the fullest extent possible, we should be working to enforce the laws that protect student survivors of sexual violence. Yet Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the Trump administration have decided to ignore what survivors need, instead weaponizing Title IX to attack trans students.” 

“While the administration is unlawfully eroding protections for trans students under the guise of ‘protecting women and girls,’ they are systematically weakening the very laws that keep students safe and schools accountable,” she added.

New York prosecutors are now reconsidering criminal charges against the defendants.