What a fucking piece of shit:
Until it was suddenly removed from Twitter on Thursday, an anonymous account called “LaxaltStan” — which spent much of its time posting bigoted comments denigrating Jews, women and gay and transgender people, among other groups — had made sure to emphasize in an all-caps disclaimer that it was “NOT AFFILIATED” with Adam Laxalt, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Nevada.
But a review of past social media activity contradicts that assertion, linking the account to a right-wing political operative who has received payments from the Laxalt campaign as recently as late August, according to filings from the Federal Election Commission.
In a now-deleted tweet uncovered on the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine, the anonymous user behind the account directly identified himself as Michael Pecjak, a conservative activist from Nevada who has previously served as a campaign staffer for a former Republican House candidate in the Las Vegas area, among other roles.
“Go follow my main @MichaelPecjak,” the “LaxaltStan” account declared last March, directing users to Pecjak’s personal profile. It is no longer available on Twitter but remains viewable in an archived screenshot captured just a month before by the WayBack Machine.
In the profile’s biographical section, Pecjak — who has also publicly used “Pecjak-Sanchez” as his surname — described himself as a political director for Carolina Serrano, a former Trump campaign staffer who has promoted election-related conspiracy theories while calling to dissolve the FBI and Justice Department. In January, she was endorsed by Laxalt — a former attorney general of Nevada who has also trafficked in far-right conspiracy theories — but failed to advance past the June Republican primary in the state’s redrawn 1st Congressional District.
The “LaxaltStan” account, which had previously been active during the primary election, reemerged on Twitter in mid-August, with the ostensible purpose of promoting Laxalt, who had clinched the Republican nomination to challenge Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), a vulnerable Democratic incumbent. But the account also posted a number of blatantly antisemitic tweets, among other offensive remarks that have since been deleted.
Throughout the entire month of August, Pecjak received more than $6,500 from the Laxalt campaign, filings show. With the exception of one “mileage reimbursement,” for $265, the payments were listed only as “salary” in recent campaign finance disclosures. The most recent disbursement of just over $500 was paid on Aug. 31, according to the FEC.
The Jewish Insider has noted that the campaign had been active until being shut down last week. Here are a few screengrabs from the account provided to the Jewish Insider:
By the way, here’s a great piece from Rolling Stone on Laxalt that is a must read:
IF ADAM LAXALT’S Senate race becomes a referendum on abortion, he’ll lose. The Republican is running in Nevada, a solidly pro-choice state where voters in 1990 overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure that codified the right to abortion up to 24 weeks. Support for reproductive rights remains strong to this day: A recent survey by the Nevada Independent and OH Predictive Insights found that 90 percent of voters thought that abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances. Only 10 percent thought it should be made illegal.
And so as he makes his case to Nevada voters, Laxalt has sought to avoid the issue of abortion, insisting when pressed that even if he disagrees with Nevada’s pro-choice policies, they won’t be in jeopardy if he’s sent to the Senate. In an August op-ed published in the Reno-Gazette Journal, he accused his rival, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, of spreading the “falsehood” that he would support a national ban on abortion.
But by claiming that the state’s protections are “settled law” (does that phrase sound familiar?), Laxalt is asking asking voters to believe that, if Republicans’ plan for an nationwide abortion ban came to the floor, he’d break with his party and cast one of the most important pro-choice votes in U.S. history. And that is a highly dubious claim from a candidate who has spent his career taking every opportunity to restrict reproductive rights, and who, despite his attempts to minimize them, has deep ties to the anti-abortion movement.
As attorney general for Nevada from 2015 to 2019, Laxalt filed multiple briefs boostering anti-abortion causes, without consulting the state’s pro-choice govenor: He asked the Supreme Court to overturn a California law imposing rules on crisis pregancy centers, he asked an appeals court to uphold a Texas law effectively banning abortions in the second trimester, and a different appeals court to uphold an Alabama law that would do the same. He also supported, as AG, a federal rule that would empower nurses, doctors, and pharmacists to refuse care to women seeking emergency contraception or abortion, refuse gender-affirming care to trans patients, and deny people living with HIV medication to manage their condition.
Before he became Nevada’s top cop, Laxalt was a founding member of the St. Thomas More Society of Southern Nevada. That particular chapter no longer appears to be active, but the national outfit achieved notoriety earlier this year for working to advance legislation that would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a resident of a state where abortion is banned obtain an abortion in a state where it is legal, like Nevada. Laxalt’s campaign did not respond to an inquiry from Rolling Stone about whether he supported the St. Thomas More Society’s proposed law.
That is part of a pattern in this race, as Laxalt has sought to minimize the public exposure of his anti-abortion views. In May, for example, two days after the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade leaked to the public, Laxalt tweeted — and then deleted — photos chronicling his attendance at gala for Nevada Right to Life in a post thanking the group for its endorsement.
Here’s the latest from Nevada:
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