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NDP uses BC United research to mount attacks on ‘crackpot’ B.C. Conservatives

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VICTORIA – Almost 200 pages of research on the B.C. Conservative Party, which sources within BC United confirm were compiled before the party dropped out of the British Columbia election campaign to support their former rivals, have come back to haunt the new alliance.

The New Democrats are using the leaked documents to depict B.C. Conservative candidates as supporters of what they call “crackpot” conspiracy theories, including that Donald Trump won the 2020 U.S. presidential election and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol involved “antifa” in disguise.

Two BC United members, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed Saturday the documents were the result of research compiled by the party before the election campaign, but denied being sources of the leak.

They said the research was handed over to the B.C. Conservatives as part of last month’s deal to suspend United’s campaign in hopes of avoiding a centre-right vote split.

One of the members suggested the Conservatives themselves could be the source of the leak in an attempt to “rip off the Band-Aid,” and one of the sources said up to eight people within BC United had access to the research.

When asked by a reporter about the documents during a campaign stop Saturday, B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad said he is confident about his party’s slate of candidates and the legislature is in need of “fresh people” who are willing to “stand up, say things and be themselves.”

“There are some obviously that still believe (NDP Leader) David Eby’s approach is the right approach and want to do everything they can to support him,” said Rustad.

“But I can tell you this, here’s the thing I really have to chuckle about: David Eby, close to half of his cabinet has resigned and is not running. He obviously does not have the confidence in his own team to do a cabinet shuffle and put people in position. What does that say about David Eby’s leadership?”

The documents were first publicly released by radio host and former BC United MLA Jas Johal on Thursday.

Portions were then shared by NDP candidate Ravi Parmar on social media platform X on Friday, and distributed by the NDP communications team in a short document titled “BC Conservative MAGA conspiracies.”

The accompanying NDP news release said: “Rustad’s candidates are openly endorsing crackpot MAGA conspiracies.”

The document uploaded to document-sharing site Scribd by Johal is 199 pages long and cites hundreds of social media posts by B.C. Conservative candidates.

It also includes material about Rustad that has already been highlighted by the NDP, including a speech in May last year in which he said children should not be expected to “eat bugs.”

Eby said at a Friday campaign appearance in Cumberland, B.C., that Rustad and his team were “focused on bizarre internet conspiracy theories — vaccines are a hoax, the COVID-19 pandemic was a hoax, kids are being forced to eat bugs.”

“Today (you see) a significant number of B.C. Conservative candidates advancing American election conspiracies that the January 6 riot at the Capitol Building was, in fact, a hoax, that it was actors that were made up,” he said.

“We can’t run our province based on internet conspiracy theories,” he added.

Ravi Kahlon, the NDP candidate for Delta North, said in an interview Friday that he is calling on Rustad to drop the candidates named in the “BC Conservative MAGA conspiracies” document ahead of Saturday’s nomination deadline.

“It’s very troubling that candidates, (and) John Rustad himself, have been falling down this rabbit hole of conspiracy theories,” he said.

Kahlon said he’s sure “everyone” has someone in their life who has fallen down those “rabbit holes” online and “come out saying weird things,” but people should ask themselves whether they want a premier who shares those views.

“These are people who are making important health decisions, important decisions about our environment, making decisions about where housing will be built, if it will be built at all, and so we want people who haven’t fallen down this rabbit hole of conspiracy theories leading the province,” said Kahlon.

He said the NDP was alerted to the various tweets after they were shared by Johal on social media.

The party previously highlighted comments by Rustad in June in which he said he regretted getting the “so-called vaccine” against COVID-19, and that vaccine mandates were “not so much” about achieving herd immunity or stopping the spread of the disease as they were about “shaping opinion and control of the population.”

Rustad said this week he regretted getting vaccinated because he developed heart problems after his second shot, and when he went for his third he wasn’t asked about it.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.

— With files from Brieanna Charlebois, Nono Shen and Chuck Chiang.

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In Alabama, Trump goes from the dark rhetoric of his campaign to adulation of college football fans

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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — As Donald Trump railed against immigrants Saturday afternoon in the Rust Belt, his supporters in the Deep South had turned his earlier broadsides into a rallying cry over a college football game as they prepared for the former president’s visit later in the evening.

“You gotta get these people back where they came from,” Trump said in Wisconsin, as the Republican presidential nominee again focused on Springfield, Ohio, which has been roiled by false claims he amplified that Haitian immigrants are stealing and “eating the dogs … eating the cats” from neighbors’ homes.

“You have no choice,” Trump continued. “You’re going to lose your culture. You’re going to lose your country.”

Many University of Alabama fans, anticipating Trump’s visit to their campus for a showdown between the No. 4 Crimson Tide and No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs, sported stickers and buttons that read: “They’re eating the Dawgs!” They broke out in random chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” throughout the day, a preview of the rousing welcome he received early in the second quarter as he sat in a 40-yard-line suite hosted by a wealthy member of his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

Trump’s brand of populist nationalism leans heavily on his dark rendering of America as a failing nation abused by elites and overrun by Black and brown immigrants. But his supporters, especially white cultural conservatives, hear in that rhetoric an optimistic patriotism encapsulated by the slogan on his movement’s ubiquitous red hats: “Make America Great Again.”

That was the assessment by Shane Walsh, a 52-year-old businessman from Austin, Texas. Walsh and his family decorated their tent on the university quadrangle with a Trump 2024 flag and professionally made sign depicting the newly popular message forecasting the Alabama football team “eating the Dawgs.”

For Walsh, the sign was not about immigration or the particulars of Trump’s showmanship, exaggerations and falsehoods.

“I don’t necessarily like him as a person,” Walsh said. “But I think Washington is broken, and it’s both parties’ faults — and Trump is the kind of guy who will stand up. He’s a lot of things, but weak isn’t one of them. He’s an optimistic guy — he just makes you believe that if he’s in charge, we’re going to be all right.”

The idea for the sign, he said, grew out of a meme he showed his wife. “I thought it was funny,” he said.

Katie Yates, a 47-year-old from Hoover, Alabama, had the same experience with her life-sized cutout of the former president. She was stopped repeatedly on her way to her family’s usual tent. Trump’s likeness was set to join Elvis, “who is always an Alabama fan at our tailgate,” Yates said.

“I’m such a Trump fan,” she said, adding that she could not understand how every American was not.

Yates offered nothing disparaging about Trump’s opponent, Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris, instead simply lamenting that she could not stay for the game and see Trump be recognized by the stadium public address system and shown pumping his fist on large video screens in the four corners of Bryant-Denny Stadium.

That moment came with 12:24 left in the second quarter, shortly after Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe ran up the right sideline, on Trump’s side of the field, to give the Crimson Tide an eye-popping 28-0 lead over the Vegas-favored Bulldogs.

Trump did not react to Milroe’s scamper, perhaps recognizing that Georgia, not reliably Republican Alabama, is a key battleground in his contest against Harris. But when “the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump” was introduced to the capacity crowd of more than 100,000 fans — all but a few thousand wearing crimson — Trump smiled broadly and pumped his fist, like he had done on stage in July after the bullet of a would-be assassin grazed his ear and bloodied his face.

The crowd roared its approval, raising cell phone cameras and their crimson-and-white pompoms toward Trump’s suite, where he stood behind the ballistic glass that has become a feature after two assassination attempts. A smattering of boos and a few extended middle fingers broke Trumpian decorum, but they yielded to more chants of: “USA! USA! USA!”

Indeed, not everyone on campus was thrilled.

“There is, I think, a silent majority among the students that are not with Trump,” argued Braden Vick, president of Alabama’s College Democrats chapter. Vick pointed to recent elections when Democratic candidates, including President Joe Biden in 2020, vastly outperformed their statewide totals in precincts around the campus.

“We have this great atmosphere for a top-five game between these two teams, with playoff and championship implications,” Vick said, “and it’s just a shame that Donald Trump has to try to ruin it with his selfishness.”

Trump came as the guest of Alabama businessman Ric Mayers Jr., a member of Mar-a-Lago. Mayers said in an interview before the game that he invited Trump so that he could enjoy a warm welcome. And, as Mayers noted, Trump is a longtime sports fan. He tried to buy an NFL team in the 1980s and helped launch a competing league instead. And he attended several college games as president, including an Alabama-Georgia national championship game.

Mayers also invited Alabama Sens. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville. Britt, a former student government president at Alabama, delivered the GOP response to Biden’s last State of the Union address, drawing rebukes after using a disproven story of human trafficking to echo Trump’s warnings about migrants. Tuberville, a former head football coach at Auburn University, Alabama’s archrival, is a staunch Trump supporter.

Joining the politicians in the suite were musicians Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr. Herschel Walker, a Georgia football icon and failed Senate nominee in 2022, traveled in Trump’s motorcade to the game.

Fencing surrounded parts of the stadium, with scores of metal detectors and tents forming a security perimeter beyond the usual footprint. Sisters of the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority showed their security wristbands before being allowed to their sorority house directly adjacent to the stadium. Bomb-sniffing dogs stopped catering trucks carrying food. Hundreds of TSA agents spread out to do a potentially unpopular job: imposing airport-level screening for each ticket-holder.

But what seemed to matter most was a friendly home crowd’s opportunity to cheer for Trump the same way they cheered the Crimson Tide, unburdened by anything he said in Wisconsin or anywhere else as he makes an increasingly dark closing argument.

“College football fans can get emotional and kooky about their team,” Shane Walsh said. “And so can Trump supporters.”

They didn’t even mind that Trump’s tie was not crimson. It was Georgia red.

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B.C.’s NDP, Conservatives nominate full slates of candidates for Oct. 19 election

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VICTORIA – Elections BC says the New Democrats and Conservatives have nominated full slates of candidates for the upcoming Oct. 19 provincial election.

Elections BC says in a statement the two main parties will field candidates for each of the province’s 93 ridings, while the Green Party nominated 69 candidates.

Nominations closed Saturday afternoon with 323 total candidates, of which 269 represent seven different political parties and 54 who are contesting the election as Independents or unaffiliated candidates.

Elections BC says the official list includes five Freedom Party of B.C. hopefuls, four Libertarians, three representing the Communist Party of B.C. and two candidates from the Christian Heritage Party of B.C.

There are no BC United candidates.

BC United officials said earlier they might run some candidates in the election to preserve the party entity for the future after Leader Kevin Falcon announced the suspension of BC United’s election campaign in late August to prevent a centre-right vote split.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Trump lists his grievances in a Wisconsin speech intended to link Harris to illegal immigration

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PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, Wis. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump meandered Saturday through a list of grievances against Vice President Kamala Harris and other issues during an event intended to link his Democratic opponent to illegal border crossings.

A day after Harris discussed immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump spoke to a crowd in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, about immigration. He blamed Harris for migrants committing crimes after entering the U.S. illegally, alleging she was responsible for “erasing our border.”

“I will liberate Wisconsin from the mass migrant invasion,” he said. “We’re going to liberate the country.”

Trump hopes frustration over illegal immigration will translate to votes in Wisconsin and other crucial swing states. The Republican nominee has denounced people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border as “poisoning the blood of the country” and vowed to stage the largest deportation operation in American history if elected. And polls show Americans believe Trump would do a better job than Harris on handling immigration.

Trump shifted from topic to topic so quickly that it was hard to keep track of what he meant at times. He talked about the two assassination attempts against him and blamed the U.S. Secret Service for not being able to hold a large outdoor rally instead of an event in a smaller indoor space. But he also offered asides about climate change, Harris’ father, how his beach body was better than President Joe Biden’s, and a fly that was buzzing near him.

“I wonder where the fly came from,” he said. “Two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. You’re changing rapidly. But we can’t take it any longer. We can’t take it any longer.”

Trump repeatedly brought up Harris’ Friday event in Douglas, Arizona, where she announced a push to further restrict asylum claims beyond Biden’s executive order announced earlier this year. Harris denounced Trump’s handling of the border while president and his opposing a bipartisan border package earlier this year, saying Trump “prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”

“I had to sit there and listen” to Harris last night Trump said, eliciting cheers. “And who puts it on? Fox News. They should not be allowed to put it on. It’s all lies. Everything she says is lies.”

The Republican nominee also intensified his personal attacks against Harris, insulting her as “mentally impaired” and a “disaster.”

Trump professed not to understand what Harris meant when she said he was responsible for taking children from their parents. Under his administration, border agents separated children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border in a policy that was condemned globally as inhumane and one that Trump himself ended under pressure from his own party.

On either side of the stage with Trump were poster-sized mug shots of men in the U.S. illegally accused of a crime, including Alejandro Jose Coronel Zarate, a case Trump cited in his speech.

Wisconsin Republicans in recent days have cited the story of Coronel Zarate’s arrest in Prairie du Chien as more evidence that people in the country illegally are committing crimes across the United States, not just in southern border states. Prosecutors charged Coronel Zarate on Sept. 18 with sexual assault, child abuse, strangulation and domestic abuse. His lawyers declined to comment.

Police Chief Kyle Teynor posted statements on Facebook saying that Coronel Zarate is not a U.S. citizen and that he had two fake immigration documents, including a fake Social Security card. The chief added that Coronel Zarate’s tattoos indicate he’s affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang, which started in Venezuelan prisons and is posing a growing threat in the U.S.

Speaking to the crowd Saturday, Teynor stressed to the crowd that Coronel Zarate is the only Venezuelan gang member his agency has encountered, but the violence his two alleged victims suffered at his hands earlier this month was very real.

Republicans including U.S. Sen. Derrick Van Orden, who is from Prairie du Chien, have criticized authorities in both Minneapolis and Madison for letting Coronel Zarate go, saying they essentially allowed him to attack the woman in Prairie du Chien. They have accused both jurisdictions of being sanctuaries for people in the country illegally.

Van Orden told the crowd Trump was the only one who could restore order.

“You’re going to see the one man who has enough strength and courage of conviction to stand up to anyone up to and including being shot in the head for us,” he said.

___

Long reported from Washington.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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