Tag: democrats

From Burger King to the Governor’s Office – The Curious Rise of Katie Hobbs

SECTION 1 — THE COLD OPEN

Katie Hobbs says she wants the “Pay-to-Play” investigation over.

There is only one complication: according to Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, the Governor still has not agreed to sit down and answer investigators’ questions.

The inquiry concerns a politically connected foster-care provider, substantial campaign-related contributions, and a state decision that sharply increased the amount paid to that company only, for housing foster children. Hobbs insists she did not influence the agency’s decision. Mayes says her investigators still have questions.

And Mayes — herself a Democrat — was not subtle:

“You cannot blow off the Attorney General’s Office. Full stop. No one can.”

Hobbs says she looks forward to the investigation’s conclusion. Mayes says the investigation will move forward — with or without the Governor’s cooperation.1

An elected official wanting an inquiry finished while declining to promise an interview may not prove wrongdoing.  But it does produce one irresistible question:

How did a political career that began behind a Burger King counter arrive at a moment when Arizona’s own Attorney General publicly warned the Governor that no one is above answering questions?

To understand that, we must follow the ladder — from its first rung to the Governor’s Office — and examine what climbed alongside Katie Hobbs ascent.

SECTION 2 — WE ARE GETTING AHEAD OF OURSELVES

Before the campaign contributions, state contracts, investigators, and uncomfortable questions, there was a Burger King counter in Tempe.².

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Katie Hobbs also worked at Pizza Hut while pursuing her education — a familiar American story of long hours, modest pay, and determination.² It is relatable, memorable, and politically nearly perfect.

The message writes itself: Hobbs understood working families because she had struggled, she knew low-wage workers because she had been one, and she understood vulnerable people because she later chose social work as her profession.³

None of that should be mocked. Honest work is honest work, whether performed behind a desk, inside a shelter, or beside a deep fryer.

But a working-class beginning does not explain a political ascent.

This is not a campaign biography. It is a documented examination of how Katie Hobbs rose, how she exercised power, and what the public record reveals along the way.

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Counterterrorism Expert Tells Senate Hearing Michigan Dem Senate Nominee Abdul El-Sayed Has Deep Ties to Muslim Brotherhood Network and Terror-Linked Groups Through Father-in-Law and Emgage

A top counterterrorism expert delivered a bombshell warning Wednesday during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the Muslim Brotherhood’s network operating “hidden in plain sight” in America: Michigan Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s candidacy raises serious national security concerns because of his family and organizational connections to Brotherhood-linked groups and figures with terror ties.

Kyle Shideler, Senior Analyst for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, testified under questioning that El-Sayed’s rise should alarm Americans.

Just one day after El-Sayed narrowly clinched the Democrat primary over establishment favorite Rep. Haley Stevens, Shideler laid out the web of associations.

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Dog-Abusing, Trump-Hating Rep. Shri Thanedar LOSES His Primary to Radical Socialist as Democrat Establishment Gets Humiliated in Michigan

Democratic Socialists/Communists have scored another massive win in Michigan, and this one is actually quite satisfying.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, Islamo-Marxist Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated the faux moderate Democrat Haley Stevens in the Michigan Democratic Primary for Senator. Stevens was backed by Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Senator Chuck Schumer.

El-Sayed will now face former Rep. Mike Rogers, who ran unopposed in the GOP primary, in the November general election.

Polling showed that El-Sayed would cruise to a massive landslide win, but he will only end up winning by less than one percentage point.

Now, another establishment Democrat, Rep. Shri Thanedar, has just lost his primary to Donavan McKinney, a 34-year-old Democratic socialist state rep.

Like El-Sayed, McKinney was backed by several big-name socialists across America, including Bernie Sanders.

From NBC:

Rep. Shri Thanedar has lost his Democratic primary in Michigan to state Rep. Donavan McKinney, NBC News projects, in a victory for the party’s progressive wing.

The 34-year-old McKinney won the backing of a number of prominent progressives across the state and country and secured the latest victory for the faction mounting an intraparty insurgency against the Democratic establishment.

McKinney, a 34-year-old state lawmaker and democratic socialist, is running on a progressive platform including “Medicare for All” and putting new restrictions on military aid to Israel, while pushing massive investments in sectors like clean energy and housing.

Despite McKinney’s obviously dangerous politics, this is a victory all should celebrate.

First, Thanedar’s own policies are not that different from the far left. He was even aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America before reportedly being expelled by a local chapter in 2023.

Thanedar has also become a sad joke in Democrat circles with his pathetic attempts to impeach President Trump and endless humiliating TV appearances.

But there is a quite sinister side to Thanedar as well: several years ago, this monster allegedly tested drugs on innocent beagles and left them to die.

Thanedar formally owned a pharmaceutical testing lab facility in New Jersey called AniClin Preclinical Services before it was shuttered in 2010. Several reports confirm that 118 lab-tested beagles were rescued from the facility along with dozens of monkeys.

The animals were left behind in horrific conditions.

Here is how USA Today described the scene before the heroic rescue:

Day after day, month after month, year after year, they were confined to plexiglass crates, fed and watered on precise schedules, kept clean. But with no opportunity to leave their solitary little boxes and spend time with others like themselves, with nothing but the most antiseptic contact with humans and no time outside the gleaming, climate-controlled facility, the 118 beagles — lab dogs used to test drugs and chemicals—displayed nothing of the much-acclaimed breed characteristics: joyful, noisy, and curious.

But that’s not all: USDA inspection reports from 2009 showed multiple previous federal violations by Thanedar’s company. Even worse, Thanedar’s legal team also sought to sell the innocent animals to recover corporate debt.

Thanedar got a much-delayed version of karma from a political standpoint. It’s just too bad he won’t be seeing the inside of a cell.

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Establishment Democrats Wasted $63.9 Million Trying to Take Down Abdul El-Sayed

Establishment Democrats in Washington spent over $60 million in support of Rep. Haley Stevens’ bid for the Michigan U.S. Senate nomination. It wasn’t enough.

The messy primary pitting their pick, Stevens, against progressives Abdul El-Sayed and Mallory McMorrow (before she abandoned her bid) saw a record amount of outside spending. AdImpact, which tracks campaign advertising, called the 2026 race the most expensive on the Democrat side in history. 

“Stevens (MI-11) has seen a majority of ad support targeting the primary, at $63.9M. In total, 78% of all spending targeting the primary went towards supporting Haley Stevens. Her opponent, El-Sayed has seen $7.5M in ad support. Prior to dropping out, McMorrow saw $9.0M,” said the company in a summary of the race. 

The pro-Israel organization AIPAC spent the most of any group, backing Stevens with more than $30 million in spending over the past year. That funding came via United Democracy Project, doubling the amount it spent to defeat former Democrat Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York in 2024. 

Stevens’ bid was heavily supported by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). 

The New York Times wrote in June that Schumer asked party donors to support Stevens, calling her the “strongest candidate” in private conversations and spawned efforts giving her a sizeable edge from big-spending Democrats. 

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Greer Blasts Democrat State Attorneys General For Choosing Foreign Sweatshops Over American Workers

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer accused Democratic-led states challenging President Donald Trump’s new tariffs of putting foreign sweatshops ahead of American workers and siding with China against U.S. efforts to eradicate forced labor from global supply chains.

“It’s official: Twenty-five Democrat-run states, spanning from Michigan to California, have made their priorities clear: foreign sweatshops come before protecting hardworking Americans,” Greer said in a statement obtained exclusively by Breitbart News.

The statement is the Trump administration’s most forceful response yet to lawsuits filed by 25 states seeking to overturn tariffs of 10 percent to 12.5 percent imposed last month on goods from more than 80 countries.

The states, led by New York, California and Illinois, filed their complaint Monday in the U.S. Court of International Trade. They argue the administration used forced labor as a pretext for rebuilding the global tariff system invalidated by the Supreme Court in February.

“After losing at the Supreme Court, the administration is once again trying to illegally raise taxes on families and businesses with a new round of tariffs,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said when the lawsuit was filed.

Greer rejected that characterization, saying the states are asking courts to give countries that tolerate forced labor in their supply chains a free pass.

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Jasmine Crockett Said the Quiet Part Out Loud About James Talarico’s Chances

If Democrats were counting on Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) being a team player this cycle, they severely miscalculated. Sure, after she lost the Democrat Senate primary to state Rep. James Talarico (D-Texas) earlier this year, she endorsed him right away, but it’s basically been the cold shoulder ever since.

While Democrats nationwide are convinced Talarico represents their best chance to flip Texas, Crockett just threw cold water on their fantasy when she told a national reporter she has no idea if Talarico can win, and let slip the sign that he probably won’t.

Crockett sat down with NBC News reporter Sahil Kapur while she was in St. Louis, and he asked her a simple question: does she believe Talarico can flip Texas’ U.S. Senate seat this November? Her answer wasn’t the confident, party-line response Democrats wanted.

“I don’t know,” Crockett admitted.

That alone would have been enough to set off alarm bells inside a party desperate to project inevitability in Texas. But Crockett kept going, laying out exactly why she isn’t buying the hype. She said she doesn’t trust the polling that’s been floating around, because Texas polls have a long history of overstating Democrats’ chances right before Election Day. “I watch money,” she told Kapur.

“When I look at the money, if Republicans start spending money in Texas, then I’ll be convinced,” Crockett said. “But right now, national Republicans decided they wanted to dump money into North Carolina, as well as Georgia. That’s where they’re fighting, and national Democrats have not decided to dump money into Texas either.”

She went further, pointing to the two parties’ Senate campaign arms, which typically form joint fundraising partnerships with their endorsed candidates. “I look at: where does the NRSC stand? Where does DSCC stand? Right now, neither one are investing, which tells me that their internals are saying the same thing,” Crockett said. She added that she won’t commit to which races she’ll actually help with until roughly September or October.

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Francesca Hong: Thanksgiving ‘Incredibly Painful for Many’, ‘There Are Multiple Views, But Views Can Evolve’

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Democratic Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong responded to a question on whether she still believes Thanksgiving should be canceled as she had previously tweeted by saying that she has cooked Thanksgiving meals, “But Thanksgiving is also a time that’s incredibly painful for many people in our communities. And so, I think there, I wanted to make sure that people understood that there are multiple views, but views can evolve.”

Host Kaitlan Collins asked, “Do you still believe that Thanksgiving should be canceled?”

Hong answered, “I’m a chef, and one of the first meals that I made that was for the community, when I was 16, was a Thanksgiving meal. I always think my hospitality background in owning a restaurant for seven, eight years, that, bringing folks around the table to share conversation and build community, is always a good thing. But Thanksgiving is also a time that’s incredibly painful for many people in our communities. And so, I think there, I wanted to make sure that people understood that there are multiple views, but views can evolve. And the position that I’m running for right now, and I think my background as a chef will actually help me become a better governor that’s able to bring more people to the table.”

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Cursing, Unhinged Democratic Congressional Candidate Arrested After Violent Altercation on Keawakapu Beach

Another violent, cursing Democrat takes a fall.

Kirill Basin, a democratic candidate for Congress, was arrested on Keawakapu Beach on Saturday.

Kirill is running against incumbent U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda in Hawaii. He was arrested after a violent altercation at Keawakapu Beach in South Kihei.

South Kihei is a census‑designated place in Maui County, Hawaii, located on the leeward (south) side of Maui, between Maʻalaea and Wailea.

The ambitious Democrat was filmed taunting a group on the beach, saying, “What you gonna do? What you gonna do?”

He was then filmed getting knocked out cold in one punch from a fed-up man who took was tired of his mouth.

Kirill Basin, 40, was charged with two counts of first-degree terroristic threatening, and his bail was set at $1 million.

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Nervous Chuck Schumer Dodges Questions About Endorsing Socialist Michigan Senate Candidate in General Election and Whether Rise of DSA is Good for Party

America’s top-ranking Democrat, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), is running away as the Democratic Socialists of America storm his party. 

Schumer on Tuesday fielded questions from reporters during a weekly press conference, where he was asked about his party’s DSA wing and once again dodged the questions.

A reporter asked about tonight’s Michigan Senate primary between Schumer-backed Haley Stevens and far-left DSA-aligned Abdul El-Sayed, and whether Schumer would endorse the winner if El-Sayed emerges victorious.

El-Sayed has denied that he is a socialist, but he’s attended and spoken at at least six DSA events over the years, according to Fox.

“I’m not technically or practically DSA,” he claimed in an interview last month. “I am not somebody who is a socialist. I believe in capitalism; I just believe that capitalism has to be regulated.” He’s also been described as “a longtime friend of Detroit DSA” during a 2019 event where he was photographed with Socialist Rep. Rashida Tlaib.

Schumer responded with a complete non-answer. “Bottom line, we are going to win Michigan, take back the Senate, and have a majority,” he said before enthusiastically moving on to take a question from CNN’s Manu Raju.

Raju, however, asked an equally daunting question for the Senate Minority Leader: Is the rise of the DSA good for your party?

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NO COMEBACK FOR YOU: Former ‘Squad’ Member Cori Bush Defeated in Missouri District 1 Race

As the Gateway Pundit has previously reported, Cori Bush, the former Missouri rep. who was voted out of office in 2024 has been attempting a return to office.

Bush saw the rise of the DSA and thought that she could ride that wave back into the halls of Congress.

Tonight, Missouri voters responded by telling her ‘no.’

CBS News reports:

Wesley Bell beats Cori Bush in Missouri Democratic House primary rematch that put party’s rifts on full display

Rep. Wesley Bell on Tuesday beat former congresswoman Cori Bush in a heated Democratic primary in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, CBS News projects.

The race was the latest display of intraparty rifts between establishment Democrats and democratic socialists over the future of the party and the U.S. alliance with Israel. Given the district’s heavily Democratic leaning, Bell is favored to win in November.

Bell, a moderate Democrat who is supportive of the U.S. relationship with Israel, has represented the solid-blue district, which includes St. Louis, since 2025 after unseating the two-term Bush, who rose to prominence as a Black Lives Matter activist and blamed her 2024 defeat on the pro-Israel lobby, which spent millions against her.

The two clashed in a fiery debate on July 24 over their support for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, U.S. military aid for Israel and campaign spending.

On Israel, Bell voted earlier this month against eliminating $3.3 billion in assistance to Israel in a vote that split House Democrats. Bell was in the minority, with more Democrats voting in favor of ending aid.

“I am no fan of Bibi Netanyahu, but we’re still going to stand with our allies,” Bell said.

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