A Marc Elias-backed media organization is asking Arizona regulators to ensure that it is not subject to campaign finance disclosures despite the site’s leftwing tilt, ties to the Democratic party, and promotion of candidates through social media advertisements.
This reporting comes as Trump holds a steady lead over Biden in the state, and Democrats are expected to pull more dirty tricks in another election.
Per Semafor:
Star Spangled Media operates a series of left-leaning websites including the Morning Mirror, a difficult-to-find, barebones blog that for the last few months has periodically published a few unbylined stories about seemingly random topics. Its “About Us” page simply reads: “Welcome to the Morning Mirror—where reliability meets fresh insight. Stay informed with us as we deliver on the matters that impact your life.”
Over the last few weeks, Star Spangled Media has started spending a modest amount to boost Morning Mirror stories on Facebook that tout the pro-abortion rights records of local Democratic candidates running for Michigan House seats.
The site is low on content, but it has the backing of the law firm led by Marc Elias, perhaps the Democratic Party’s best known elections litigator and a central player in 2024’s politics. And Elias’ law firm is moving to ensure the odd blog is treated as a journalistic operation, not a political one.
In a letter to the state’s campaign finance regulator, the Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission, in late May, Jonathan S. Berkon, an attorney at the Elias Group, asked the state finance regulator to opine on whether the state’s campaign finance law applies to Star Spangled Media. The company’s activities, argued Berkon, do not constitute campaign media spending, and it shouldn’t have to report extensive financial info to state or federal campaign finance regulators.
Similar to this website, Arizona is also home to far-left nonprofit propaganda rag Arizona Mirror, which is funded by the Obama and Soros-tied Hopewell Fund.
While Star Spangled Media and its Morning Mirror are for-profit companies, the parent company does take money in the form of grants “from nonprofit organizations that are interested in funding the type of news coverage that Star Spangled Media undertakes and building an audience for the news coverage via targeted advertising,” Elias attorney Jonathan S. Berkon admits in his letter to the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission.
According to Berkon, these nonprofit grants are “treated like any other revenue derived from a commercial transaction.”
Hellbound and Down 