theblaze--2020-11-29--Japan had more suicides in October than all of the COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic

Japan had more suicides in October than all of the COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic Is the cure more harmful @ @ @ @

Japan recently released somber statistics regarding the number of suicides in the country, which found more suicides in one month than the total coronavirus deaths during the entire COVID-19 pandemic.
In Japan, suicides in October surged to 2,153, according to a report from the National Police Agency. This is a 39.9% increase compared to the same period in 2019. Suicides by Japanese women spiked by 82.6% in October, compared to a 21.3% increase in suicides by men, as reported by Nippon.
October marked the fourth straight month of increased suicides in the country. Thus far in 2020, there have been 17,219 suicides in Japan between January and October. In 2019, Japan had 19,959 suicides, the first time it was lower than the 20,000 since officials began tracking and recording suicide data in 1978.
The 2,153 suicides in October is more than the 2,051 total coronavirus deaths in Japan since the country started keeping track in mid-February.
Experts believe the isolation brought on by coronavirus lockdowns, other pandemic-related restrictions, and economic uncertainty has exacerbated mental health issues this year.
"We didn't even have a lockdown, and the impact of Covid is very minimal compared to other countries ... but still we see this big increase in the number of suicides," Michiko Ueda, an associate professor at Waseda University in Tokyo and an expert on suicides told CNN. "That suggests other countries might see a similar or even bigger increase in the number of suicides in the future."
"We need to seriously confront reality," chief government spokesman Katsunobu Kato said last week while announcing new initiatives to help people through suicide hotlines and social media outreach.
Japanese authorities increased suicide prevention funding by an additional $10 million, raising the total budget to $24 million.
In the United States, experts found that tens of thousands of people in nursing homes "have died from neglect and sorrow related to the pandemic," according to a report from the Associated Press.
"Interviews with dozens of people across the country reveal swelling numbers of less clear-cut deaths that doctors believe have been fueled not by neglect but by a mental state plunged into despair by prolonged isolation listed on some death certificates as 'failure to thrive,'" the report stated.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than one quarter of young adults in the U.S. considered suicide in June. CDC Director Robert Redfield said in July, "There has been another cost that we've seen, particularly in high schools. We're seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are deaths from COVID."


theblaze--2020-11-29--Report: Trump considers launching 2024 campaign during Joe Biden's inauguration

' ... we 're with you 100 percent '

President Donald Trump is reportedly already considering his options for the 2024 presidential contest, and is actively discussing the specifics of re-launching his campaign with his closest confidants.
According to the Daily Beast, Trump has even floated the possibility of launching his challenge against Biden on Inauguration Day.
From the Daily Beast:
The conversations have explored, among other things, how Trump could best time his announcement so as to keep the Republican Party behind him for the next four years. Two of these knowledgeable sources said the president has, in the past two weeks, even floated the idea of doing a 2024-related event during Biden's inauguration week, possibly on Inauguration Day.
The president and some of his closest associates have already started surveying prominent donors to get a sense of who would be with him, or perhaps against him, if he chose to run in the 2024 election. Some top Trump allies have told The Daily Beast that they are doing what they can to stay in the president's good graces, calculating that doing so will help ensure a seat at the table and a future in the party—in the event he runs again.
According to the outlet, Trump is confident that he would remain in the spotlight during a Biden presidency because of the media's affinity for covering him.
What's the background?
During a meeting in the Oval Office earlier this month, Trump told Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien that he planned to run for president again in 2024 if his legal challenges contesting the 2020 results did not overturn Biden's win, according to Bloomberg.
"If you do that — and I think I speak for everybody in the room — we're with you 100 percent," O'Brien reportedly told Trump.
Polls, in fact, indicate that a majority of Republican voters would back Trump if he chooses to run for president again in 2024.
One survey from Seven Letter Insight found that 66% of Republican voters support Trump running again. Another survey, from Morning Consult-Politico, found that 54% of Republicans would support Trump in the 2024 Republican primary contest.
However, there will likely be another large group of Republicans vying for the nomination in 2024 as there was in 2016. Some top contenders, aside from Trump, include: Nikki Haley, Pence, Pompeo, Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, among others.


theblaze--2020-11-29--Time magazine's 'Person of the Year' nominees: Stacey Abrams, Andrew Cuomo, Dr. Fauci, Gretchen Whit

Time magazine's 'Person of the Year' nominees: Stacey Abrams, Andrew Cuomo, Dr. Fauci, Gretchen Whitmer, BLM activists

The pool of contenders is predictably extremely left-leaning and has no shortage of Democratic politicians

The list of nominees for Time magazine's "Person of the Year" award were announced on Wednesday, and the pool of contenders is predictably extremely left-leaning and has no shortage of Democratic politicians.
Despite issuing a directive forcing nursing homes in New York to accept coronavirus-positive patients, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is a candidate for the "Person of the Year," according to Time. Thus far in the voting, there have been 35% of people who Cuomo is deserving of the accolade.
Fellow Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is also nominated, and there are 19%, who voted for her to win the award despite her exceedingly prohibitive COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Snatching up a 59% approval rating on the poll is Stacey Abrams, who lost her gubernatorial race in Georgia in 2018. There were no Republican governors on the list.
The only Republicans who were eligible to vote for were President Donald Trump, who was at 8%, Vice President Mike Pence at 3%, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) coming in at 2%.
Meanwhile, there were plenty of Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Kamala Harris (68%), Joe Biden (64%), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (38%), Sen. Bernie Sanders (23%), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (22%), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (17%).
There were 6% of people who said Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett should be Time's "Person of the Year," the same percentage as rapper Cardi B.
Dr. Anthony Fauci was the highest-rated individual with 81% of people voting for him to be the "2020 Person of the Year."
"How to Be An Antiracist" author Ibram X Kendi garnered 11%, and quarterback-turned-racial justice activist Colin Kaepernick snagged a 29% approval rating.
There were 61% of voters who believed that Black Lives Matter activists should win the honor. The World Health Organization was given 32% of a "Yes" vote.
Essential workers earned a whopping 81% for their contributions during the coronavirus pandemic, and firefighters came in at 54%.
Other non-political nominees include Pope Francis, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, tennis player Naomi Osaka, LeBron James, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Patrick Mahomes, Beyonce, Sacha Baron Cohen, Megan Markle, comedian Sarah Cooper, Mark Zuckerberg, singer Billie Eilish, Trevor Noah, Taylor Swift, and teen climate change activist Greta Thunberg, who won the award in 2019.
The final results will be announced by Dec. 10, after Time editors select a winner.
Time has been naming its "Person of the Year" since 1927, when aviation legend Charles Lindberg won the accolade.


theblaze--2020-11-29--Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejects GOP challenge after judge said it had 'likelihood to succeed'

Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejects GOP challenge after judge said it had 'likelihood to succeed' ' ... failure to file their @ @ @ @ @ timely manner '

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down a lawsuit late Saturday that challenged the legality of a new state law that allowed voters to obtain an absentee ballot for any reason.
What's the background?
As TheBlaze reported, Commonwealth Judge Patricia McCullough issued an injunction last Wednesday after Republicans made an emergency request to stop the certification of Pennsylvania's election results.
The central claim of the lawsuit was that Act 77, a law passed in Oct. 2019, violated the state constitution by allowing voters to obtain absentee ballots for any reason. The state constitution, on the other hand, specifies only a limited number of reasons for which an absentee ballot may be cast.
McCullough later issued an opinion on Friday explaining that the petitioners would likely win on the merits of their case.
Petitioners appear to have established a likelihood to succeed on the merits because Petitioners have asserted the Constitution does not provide a mechanism for the legislature to allow for expansion of absentee voting without a constitutional amendment. Petitioners appear to have a viable claim that the mail-in ballot procedures set forth in Act 77 contravene Pa. Const. Article VII Section 14 as the plain language of that constitutional provision is at odds with the mail-in provisions of Act 77. Since this presents an issue of law which has already been thoroughly briefed by the parties, this Court can state that Petitioners have a likelihood of success on the merits of its Pennsylvania Constitutional claim.
What did the state Supreme Court say?
The Pennsylvania high court — which is controlled by a 5-2 Democratic majority — unanimously dismissed the lawsuit, ruling the challenge came too late for a reasonable legal remedy.
The lawsuit had asked for the absentee ballots cast as a result of Act 77 to be invalidated.
"Upon consideration of the parties' filings in Commonwealth Court, we hereby dismiss the petition for review with prejudice based upon Petitioners' failure to file their facial constitutional challenge in a timely manner," the Pennsylvania Supreme Court wrote in a three-page opinion.
In fact, the court said the lawsuit violated the "doctrine of laches" because of the petitioners' "complete failure to act with due diligence in commencing their facial constitutional challenge, which was ascertainable upon Act 77's enactment."
The court explained:
The want of due diligence demonstrated in this matter is unmistakable. Petitioners filed this facial challenge to the mail-in voting statutory provisions more than one year after the enactment of Act 77. At the time this action was filed on November 21, 2020, millions of Pennsylvania voters had already expressed their will in both the June 2020 Primary Election and the November 2020 General Election and the final ballots in the 2020 General Election were being tallied, with the results becoming seemingly apparent. Nevertheless, Petitioners waited to commence this litigation until days before the county boards of election were required to certify the election results to the Secretary of the Commonwealth. Thus, it is beyond cavil that Petitioners failed to act with due diligence in presenting the instant claim. Equally clear is the substantial prejudice arising from Petitioners' failure to institute promptly a facial challenge to the mail-in voting statutory scheme, as such inaction would result in the disenfranchisement of millions of Pennsylvania voters.
Meanwhile, Chief Justice Thomas Saylor and Justice Sallie Mundy filed a concurring and dissenting opinion suggesting that the constitutional merits of the case — that Act 77 may violate the state constitution — could be considered by a lower court at a different time. They agreed, though, that the current petitioners acted far too late.
Saylor and Mundy are the court's two Republican justices.


theblaze--2020-11-30--Jon Voight makes dire prediction of what's to come if Joe Biden takes office in January

Jon Voight makes dire prediction of what 's to come if Joe Biden takes office in January 'We 're heading @ @ @ @ @ no name now '

Actor Jon Voight — an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump — says that the country is headed into a dangerous situation if former Vice President Joe Biden is inaugurated as president in January 2021.
What are the details?
In a now-viral video, Voight, 81, can be seen making the remarks while sitting in front of an American flag backdrop. He warns that the country is in a "great danger if we fall under a Biden administration."
"We're heading down a street that has no name now. We must not allow our nation to crumble," he explains.
"Let me warn you all that we are in great danger if we fall under a Biden administration."
The award-winning actor explains that Democrats and leftists are responsible for "burning and destroying our cities."
"I ask all to fight this battle now to get them all out," he says. "I have been attacked by my fellow peers saying I am preaching violence, when the truth is they all are. The left are burning and destroying our cities."
"We are willing to fight for freedom, not freedom to burn down our flag, but to raise her up with the glory of this land of the free," he adds.
"Let the truth show itself that President Trump is the only man that can save this nation," he says.
Voight, who lives in California, also took aim at Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) during the video.
"Our state, California, is being ruled by a leftist mob," he says. "Governor Newsom is taking away our freedom, your freedom. He is a disgrace to mankind — he and his relative, Nancy Pelosi, who has tried to bring President Trump down. ... He is a lie like all the left that are trying to destroy the U.S.A. I ask all to fight this battle now to get them all out."
Voight urged his fans and social media followers to join him in praying "in the name of Jesus, Moses, and all saints for their hands of safety to be on us now."
Voight captioned the video "America" and tagged President Donald Trump in the post.
At the time of this reporting, the video has received more than 64,000 likes and has been retweeted more than 21,000 times.


theblaze--2020-11-30--Anthony Fauci: Open up all schools — but close the bars

Anthony Fauci : Open up all schools — but close the bars

Dr. Anthony Fauci says that the United States should open up — and keep open — all schools, but should close bars amid the coronavirus pandemic.
What are the details?
In a Sunday interview on ABC's "This Week," the infectious diseases expert spoke with ABC News' Martha Raddatz, who asked Fauci if a Biden administration could work on a plan to reopen schools.
Fauci said, "Martha, that's a good question. We get asked it all the time. We say it, not being facetiously as a sound bite or anything, but you know, close the bars and keep the schools open, is what we really say."
He continued, "Obviously, you don't have one size fits all, but as I said in the past, and as you accurately quoted me, the default position should be to try as best as possible within reason to keep the children in school or to get them back to school."
He also pointed out that mitigating community spread will help keep children in school.
"If you mitigate the things that you know are causing spread in a very, very profound way, in a robust way, if you bring that down, you will then indirectly and ultimately protect the children in the school because the community level is determined how things go across the board," Fauci explained.
He then went on to insist that schools largely have not been behind large swaths of community spread.
"So my feeling would be the same thing. If you look at the data, the spread among children and from children is not really very big at all, not like one would have suspected," he reasoned.
Fauci concluded, "Let's try to get the kids back, but let's try to mitigate the things that maintain and just push the kind of community spread that we're trying to avoid."
(H/T: The Daily Caller)


theblaze--2020-12-01--Liberals pounce after Dr. Scott Atlas resigns as special coronavirus adviser to the president

Dr. Scott Atlas resigned as the special adviser to President Donald Trump on the coronavirus pandemic and liberal critics pounced on the news to criticize him and the president.
Atlas was seen as a controversial voice on the pandemic because he went against the grain and questioned the validity of many social distancing guidelines, including face masks, overly restrictive lockdowns, and the closing of schools.
On Monday, Atlas said that he was resigning from his post just ahead of the expiration of his 130-day assignment to the coronavirus task force.
"I worked hard with a singular focus — to save lives and help Americans through this pandemic," Atlas said.
"I always relied on the latest science and evidence, without any political consideration or influence. As time went on, like all scientists and health policy scholars, I learned new information and synthesized the latest data from around the world, all in an effort to provide you with the best information to serve the greater public good," he added.
"But, perhaps more than anything," Atlas continued, "my advice was always focused on minimizing all the harms from both the pandemic and the structural policies themselves, especially to the working class and the poor."
Liberals attack
Liberals and other critics of Atlas mocked him as he resigned and made jokes at his expense, and some blamed him for the coronavirus deaths.
"Scott Atlas resigns to spend more time infecting his family," ABC producer Danny Zuker tweeted.
"Scott Atlas is quitting to spend more time with the virus," Vox journalist Aaron Rupar tweeted.
"And with a whimper, after contributing to over 100,000 deaths, Scott Atlas is out! Possibly the most deadly voice in the US response to #COVID19," Dr. Rob Davidson tweeted.
Others said that Atlas should lose his medical license over his advocacy.
"Scott Atlas should lose his medical license," one user said.
"Will someone permanently remove him from the medical profession now???" Grant Stern, a progressive editor, tweeted.
"I really hope @Stanford fires him immediately. What university wants a mass murderer on their faculty?" writer Don Winslow tweeted.
Some noted that Atlas appeared to accept the results of the election in his statement, which referenced the "new team" picked by former Vice President Joe Biden.
"I sincerely wish the new team all the best as they guide the nation through these trying, polarized times," Atlas said in his statement.
Here's more about Atlas' resignation:


theblaze--2020-12-01--Sen. Joe Manchin takes dig at fellow Democrat AOC: 'She's more active on Twitter than anything else'

Sen. Joe Manchin takes dig at fellow Democrat AOC : 'She 's more active on Twitter than anything else' The @ @ @ @ @ to eye

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin took a swipe at fellow Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, appearing to question the New York representative's effectiveness in Congress and accusing her of being "more active on Twitter than anything else."
What are the details?
During a recent interview with the New York Times, Manchin was asked about the far-left congresswoman's reaction to him declaring on social media earlier this month, "We do not have some crazy socialist agenda, and we do not believe in defunding the police."
Although Manchin, a centrist, did not mention Democratic socialist Ocasio-Cortez by name in his message, she reacted by tweeting out a picture showing her glaring at him from behind.
"I guess she put the dagger stare on me," Manchin told the Times of the incident. "I don't know the young lady — I really don't. I never met her. I'm understanding she's not that active with her bills or in committee. She's more active on Twitter than anything else."
Manchin and Ocasio-Cortez represent opposite ends of the Democratic Party's political spectrum. In addition to speaking out against defunding the police, Manchin has vowed to stop far-left proposals such as packing the U.S. Supreme Court and ending the Senate filibuster. He is also against Medicare for All and is a critic of the widely panned Green New Deal that Ocasio-Cortez drafted with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
While Ocasio-Cortez has shown herself to be a powerhouse at fundraising and social media, Manchin is a seasoned lawmaker and former governor with a critical role in deal-making as a moderate in the narrowly divided upper chamber.
The Dispatch editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg argued earlier this month that Manchin is "more important" to the Democrats, even though Ocasio-Cortez tends to get more press.
He wrote in the Boston Herald:
AOC talks a lot about the glories of massive voter turnout, but she won her first primary in an extremely liberal district thanks to low voter turnout. It's not clear to me she understands her own district, never mind the political realities outside Queens. Meanwhile, Manchin's West Virginia is the fourth-most Republican state in the country — Trump beat Biden by almost 40 percentage points there. And yet Manchin keeps getting re-elected. Maybe he knows more about how to compete and win than she does? He certainly knows more about how government is supposed to function.


theblaze--2020-12-01--CNN: Leaked documents prove that 'China underreported COVID-19 numbers'

CNN reported Monday that a trove of leaked internal documents from China prove that the communist nation underreported COVID-19 numbers in the early stages of the outbreak .
The news confirms what U.S. officials have believed for months : that China did not tell the truth about the severity of the pandemic from the beginning .
What are the details ?
In its exclusive report , CNN revealed details from 117 pages of documents verified by experts to have come from the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention .
The city of Wuhan , where the virus was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hubei province .
The documents show that on Feb. 10 , there were more than 5,900 new cases of coronavirus in the province , but officials reported that there were only 3,911 .
On Feb. 17 , Chinese officials reported that there were 93 COVID-19 deaths , but the documents showed there were actually 196 — more than twice what the government disclosed .
For the date of March 7 , the officials underreported both deaths and new cases .
The leaked documents showed 115 new cases and 3,456 deaths , but officials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases and 2,986 deaths .
Yanzhong Huang , a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations told CNN after reviewing the documents , `` It was clear they did make mistakes — and not just mistakes that happen when you 're dealing with a novel virus — also bureaucratic and politically-motivated errors in how they handled it . ''
He added , `` If you look at the local level , the picture is not as rosy as the government had claimed . ''
Andrew Mertha , director of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ University , said that the underreported numbers from February `` appeared to be a deception , for unsurprising reasons , '' explaining , `` China had an image to protect internationally , and lower-ranking officials had a clear incentive to under-report — or to show their superiors that they were underreporting — to outside eyes . ''
U.S. intelligence officials warned the White House months ago in a classified report that China was underreporting both its COVID-19 case numbers and deaths , according to an April 1 report from Bloomberg .
President Donald @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , `` Their numbers seem to be a little bit on the light side , and I 'm being nice when I say that . ''

CNN reported Monday that a trove of leaked internal documents from China prove that the communist nation underreported COVID-19 numbers in the early stages of the outbreak.
The news confirms what U.S. officials have believed for months: that China did not tell the truth about the severity of the pandemic from the beginning.
What are the details?
In its exclusive report, CNN revealed details from 117 pages of documents verified by experts to have come from the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The city of Wuhan, where the virus was first discovered, is the capital of Hubei province.
The documents show that on Feb. 10, there were more than 5,900 new cases of coronavirus in the province, but officials reported that there were only 3,911.
On Feb. 17, Chinese officials reported that there were 93 COVID-19 deaths, but the documents showed there were actually 196 — more than twice what the government disclosed.
For the date of March 7, the officials underreported both deaths and new cases. The leaked documents showed 115 new cases and 3,456 deaths, but officials reported that there were only 83 new cases and 2,986 deaths.
Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations told CNN after reviewing the documents, "It was clear they did make mistakes — and not just mistakes that happen when you're dealing with a novel virus — also bureaucratic and politically-motivated errors in how they handled it." He added, "If you look at the local level, the picture is not as rosy as the government had claimed."
Andrew Mertha, director of the China Studies Program at John Hopkins University, said that the underreported numbers from February "appeared to be a deception, for unsurprising reasons," explaining, "China had an image to protect internationally, and lower-ranking officials had a clear incentive to under-report — or to show their superiors that they were underreporting — to outside eyes."
U.S. intelligence officials warned the White House months ago in a classified report that China was underreporting both its COVID-19 case numbers and deaths, according to an April 1 report from Bloomberg.
President Donald Trump said of China at the time, "Their numbers seem to be a little bit on the light side, and I'm being nice when I say that."
Vice President Mike Pence told CNN the same day:
The reality is that we could have been better off if China had been more forthcoming. What appears evident now is that long before the world learned in December that China was dealing with this, and maybe as much as a month earlier than that, that the outbreak was real in China.


theblaze--2020-12-01--YIKES: Joe Biden says 'palmist' instead of 'Psalmist' — twice — then fractures foot while playing wi

YIKES: Joe Biden says 'palmist' instead of 'Psalmist' — twice — then fractures foot while playing with dog

YIKES : Joe Biden says 'palmist ' instead of 'Psalmist ' — twice — then fractures foot while playing with @ @ @ @ @ the former VP

The media went nuts after President Donald Trump said "Two Corinthians". But apparently, nobody cares when Joe Biden called the authors of Biblical Psalms "palmists" — twice.
During a Thanksgiving speech on Wednesday, Biden said, "I'm sure we can, we can pros-claim [sic] a palmist, with a palmist who wrote these following words, 'The lord is my strength and my shield and with my song, I give thanks to him.'"
On the radio program Monday, Glenn Beck and producer Stu Burguiere pondered whether Biden actually meant to quote a fortune teller instead of a psalmist, but ultimately decided the former vice president likely had no idea what he was reading.
They also discussed the hairline fractures Biden suffered in his right foot on Saturday while playing his dog, and Glenn tossed out a few headlines he thought might work just a little too well.
Watch the video below:
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theblaze--2020-12-01--Ted Cruz torches Alyssa Milano after she tries to blame Republicans for standoff on coronavirus reli

Ted Cruz torches Alyssa Milano after she tries to blame Republicans for standoff on coronavirus relief

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas took on liberal actress Alyssa Milano after she tried to blame him and his fellow Republicans for the lack of a deal on a new coronavirus aid package.
The Twitter feud began after Cruz posted a comment about the changing demographics of the Democratic Party based on statistics about the changing voting habits of the highest earning counties in the U.S.
"Today's Dems are the party of the rich. GOP is and should be the party of the working class," Cruz said.
Milano, a vehement and vocal critic of President Donald Trump and the Republican party, criticized Cruz in response.
"This is hilarious. Why is the GOP blocking covid relief from working class families if it's the party of working class? Or blocking the bill to raise minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour. Sit down," Milano tweeted, garnering almost 800 retweets for the retort.
"Alyssa, facts matter. Dems have TWICE filibustered $500Bn in emergency COVID relief," tweeted Cruz in response.
"EVERY SINGLE Senate Dem voted to block relief — Pelosi refuses even to talk — bc they believe maximizing economic pain helped Biden & it helps Dems in GA," he added, "[and] they trust the press to cover for them."
Milano responded but ignored the specific points that Cruz raised in order to continue to blame Republicans.
"The American people aren't dumb, Ted. 14 million children and 5.5 million seniors don't have enough food to eat in this country and your party wants to bail out corporations and wealthy sycophants. Your president would rather claim unsubstantiated election fraud than govern," she tweeted.
Cruz made similar arguments when socialist Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York attempted to make the same accusations against Republicans.
While experts are cautioning against opening up the economy in light of what appears to be a second spike in coronavirus cases, many workers and business owners are speaking out against lockdown measures and arguing that they are far too draconian.
Here's more about the battle for the next relief bill:


theblaze--2020-11-30--MSNBC viewers lash out at Andrea Mitchell and demand she retire over comments critical of Joe Biden

MSNBC viewers lash out at Andrea Mitchell and demand she retire over comments critical of Joe Biden 'Time to take @ @ @ @

MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell faced the ire of her network's viewers when she criticized former Vice President Joe Biden over an injury to his foot.
Mitchell made the comments on Monday on "Andrea Mitchell Reports," pointing out that Biden had suffered the injury on Saturday but didn't disclose it to the public until later.
"It was also notable, you know he fell, playing with his dog Major, we're told, on Saturday, it wasn't until Sunday that the White House pool knew that he was going somewhere, and then it turned out to be a doctor, you know, for an x-ray, and then they needed more imaging, so CT scans," Mitchell said.
"They weren't as forthcoming as you would hope they would be with the press pool that's supposed to cover them," she concluded.
Viewers lash out at Mitchell
Many liberals and other critics of President Donald Trump were outraged that Mitchell would criticize Biden.
"Are you f**king serious with this Andrea Mitchell? Biden not transparent enough about his ankle? THEY VIDEOTAPED HIM AT THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE!" tweeted Mediaite writer Tommy Christopher with a video of her comments.
"This is STANDARD FOR ORTHOPEDIC diagnoses as I well know ffs STOP THIS CRAP BOTH SIDESING," responded another viewer.
"Not only can I not stand her boring ass voice, I can't stand her ridiculous reporting either," said another viewer.
"Oh my did Andrea Mitchell actually saying the [sic] Joe Biden wasn't as forthcoming about his ankle give me a fking break," said another.
Others demanded that Mitchell retire or be fired from her position over the comments.
"You and @chucktodd both need to go," said one viewer.
"Time to take an early retirement @mitchellreports . The people are done watching you," said another viewer.
"@mitchellreports needs to go. This two standards crap for the GOP vs. Dems is beyond old," said another viewer.
Mitchell is no stranger to pushback from social media. In March she was excoriated over a video of Biden that selectively edited out his cursing and and a threat in order to make it look far less unhinged.


theblaze--2020-11-30--SCOTUS sides with 1st Amdt., slaps down Cuomo's COVID restrictions on religious gatherings

SCOTUS sides with 1st Amdt.
, slaps down Cuomo 's COVID restrictions on religious gatherings

The Supreme Court slapped down New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo's COVID-19 restrictions on religious gatherings Wednesday, arguing that strict limitations on the number of people in churches, synagogues, and other houses of worship — while liquor stores, bike shops, and many other non-religious places face few or no restrictions at all — are in violation of the First Amendment.
On the radio program Monday, Glenn Beck and Stu Burguiere applauded Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who reportedly cast the deciding vote in the 5-4 ruling, as well as Justice Neil Gorsuch who took specific aim at Gov. Cuomo for limiting religious gatherings to as few as 10 people in some areas, while imposing "no capacity restrictions on certain businesses he considers 'essential'."
"It turns out the businesses the Governor considers essential include hardware stores, acupuncturists, and liquor stores," Gorsuch said. "Bicycle repair shops, certain signage companies, accountants, lawyers, and insurance agents are all essential too."
"Government is not free to disregard the 1st Amendment in times of crisis," Gorsuch wrote in a separate opinion.
Gov. Cuomo has since called the Supreme Court ruling "moot" and "irrelevant" because he had recently lifted restrictions in most of the affected areas.
"This is a trick they play all the time. They've done this with Second Amendment cases as well," Stu noted. "They'll put a ridiculous restriction in that's obviously not constitutional, keep it in place for a year while it goes through the courts, and right before it gets to the Supreme Court they withdraw the rule. So then the case gets thrown out because it's moot."
Watch the video below for more details:
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theblaze--2020-11-30--Oregon nurse placed on leave over TikTok video where she dismissed COVID-19 guidelines

Oregon nurse placed on leave over TikTok video where she dismissed COVID-19 guidelines Her employer said she showed a 'cavalier @ @ @ @ @ this pandemic '

An oncology nurse at a hospital in Salem, Oregon, has been placed on leave by her employer after she posted a TikTok video suggesting she flouts coronavirus guidelines outside of work.
Her employer, Salem Health, issued a statement saying her video message "displayed a cavalier disregard for the seriousness of this pandemic."
What are the details?
The nurse, identified by Salem Health as Ashley Grames in an interview with Buzzfeed, posted a TikTok video under the username @Loveiskind05 over the weekend that quickly went viral. In the clip, Grames can be seen wearing scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck while she pretends to "scream" in sync with audio from the movie "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."
The caption reads, "When my coworkers find out I still travel, don't wear a mask when I'm out and let my kids have play dates."
Grames' account has since been deleted along with the video, but a video made by another nurse reacting to Grames' video is still being widely circulated.
A day after Grames posted her video, Salem Health issued a statement announcing that she had been placed on leave pending an investigation into her actions, saying the clip "displayed cavalier disregard for the seriousness of this pandemic and her indifference towards physical distancing and making outside of work."
The hospital noted that the "video has prompted an outcry from concerned community members," and added that Grames "does not speak for Salem Health."
More than 1,600 people reacted to Salem Health's statement on Facebook over the video, overwhelmingly calling for Grames to be terminated.
One person wrote, "No investigation needed. The video supplied should be evidence enough. She needs to be FIRED. Not on PAID leave. As someone fighting cancer, I can only imagine how her patients feel after seeing this news. Their opinion on your hospital and nurses in general are now ruined due to this woman's actions. And even though you say that her views do not represent your hospital, you still employed her. You need to take responsibility by firing her, not putting her on leave."
Another responded, "The videos flying around are proof. There should be no investigation. Fire her and take away any of her licenses. She doesn't deserve to be a nurse if all she's going to do is endanger some of the most immunocompromised people. She's a mockery to the healthcare field. They take an oath to do whatever they can to help their patients, not potentially bring in a virus that can kill them because they are selfish."
Salem nurse placed on leave over TikTok video www.youtube.com
Anything else?
According to The Hill, "Salem Hospital has the highest employee-related count of any hospital in Oregon, according to data released by the state last week."


theblaze--2020-11-30--VIDEO: Reporter actually counts people exiting church, calls their actions 'bold breach' of Canadian

VIDEO: Reporter actually counts people exiting church, calls their actions 'bold breach' of Canadian COVID rules. Then reporter is compared to Hitler.

VIDEO : Reporter actually counts people exiting church , calls their actions 'bold breach ' of Canadian COVID rules .
@ @ @ @ @ Hitler .
'Stalking people at church .
Our country is sliding into the pits of @ @ @ @ @ reacted

A journalist posted video of her counting people exiting a church Sunday in Chilliwack, British Columbia, and called their presence in the house of worship a "bold breach" of Canadian COVID restrictions.
What are the details?
Georgie Smyth — who's with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and covers the Vancouver area — appears to be sitting in a vehicle some distance from the church and can be heard on her video counting people as they exit:
"I counted more than 60 people inside this church in Chilliwack, a bold breach of [Provincial Health Officer] orders to suspend gatherings due to record high COVID cases," she wrote. "Another church nearby was visited by [Royal Canadian Mounted Police]. Unfortunately both religious leaders decline to speak with us on camera."
How did folks react?
As you might imagine, some observers were appalled at Smyth's keen interest in the church's head count:
"You actually sat outside of a church...apparently with binoculars and a camera...to spy on people who are trying to worship?" one user asked. "Seriously?!?"
"I'm proud of your counting skills," one commenter wrote. "Now go use them usefully."
"National Socialist Alert," another user said.
"Stalking people at church," another commenter noted. "Our country is sliding into the pits of hell."
"And once again another proof that Canadian state-run media is not there to inform the public. It's there to inform the state. And that Canada is still NOT A FREE COUNTRY," another user declared.
"You should reevaluate your priorities if this is what you're choosing to report on," another observer said.
And another person left no doubt as to who the reporter reminded him of:
Image source: Twitter
Anything else?
Smyth was one of three reporters to contribute to a CBC story Sunday about two Chilliwack churches — Free Grace Baptist Church and Free Reformed Church — that are "continuing to offer in-person services despite orders from health officials to suspend the gatherings."
"Our constitution guarantees us the freedom of conscience and religion, which includes peacefully gathering together to worship our God," John Koopman, pastor of the Free Reformed Church, wrote in a statement shared with media this week, the outlet said. "Our constitution is the highest law in our land. Our convictions compel us to worship our God in the public gathering of his people and we must act in accordance with our conscience."
James P. Butler, pastor of Free Grace Baptist Church, in a statement rejected virtual-only worship services, the CBC reported, and argued that people continue to go to grocery stores even though they could shop online.
Butler said "online shopping does not provide everything that an 'in-person' shopping experience can provide," the outlet noted. "In a much greater way, the same is true for the church, especially in a time of pandemic when depression, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic abuse, and other mental health challenges are soaring."
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry suspended all in-person faith-related gatherings earlier this month in order to slow the COVID-19 spread, the CBC reported, adding that worshippers were told not to attend services at their gurdwara, synagogue, church, mosque, or temple.


theblaze--2020-11-30--Republicans are seething over Biden’s OMB pick — Sen. Cornyn's spokesman says there's 'zero chance'

Republicans are seething over Biden’s OMB pick — Sen. Cornyn's spokesman says there's 'zero chance' she'll be confirmed

Republicans are seething over Biden ’ s OMB pick — Sen. Cornyn 's spokesman says there 's 'zero chance ' @ @ @ @ @ that 's if the GOP holds the Senate

The communications director for Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Sunday there is "zero chance" that former Vice President Joe Biden's pick to lead the Office of Budget and Management will be confirmed by the Senate in the coming year.
What are the details?
Drew Brandewie responded to a tweet announcing that Biden had selected Neera Tanden for the post by alleging that Tanden, who runs the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, has made too many Republican enemies to be approved.
"Neera Tanden, who has an endless stream of disparaging comments about the Republican Senators' whose votes she'll need, stands zero chance of being confirmed," he wrote on Twitter.
Brandewie's complaint was in line with negative responses from several other prominent Republicans in Washington.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) called Tanden a "partisan hack" while former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) characterized her selection for the OMB as a "sacrifice to the confirmation gods."
"Neera Tanden is a big-government, big-spending radical liberal who's a terrible choice for OMB Director," tweeted Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla). "It's just more proof that [Joe Biden] and the Democrats will continue to move further and further to the Left."
Aside from her role at an influential liberal think tank, at issue for many Republicans was Tanden's vocal opposition to the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, CNN reported. Tanden did, as Brandewie alleged, call out many Republicans over their support for Kavanaugh, some of them by name.
After news of her selection, the left-wing news outlet asked, "Is this Joe Biden pick already doomed?"
Anything else?
It appears Tanden knows she'd be fighting an uphill battle to get confirmed. Over the weekend, she was caught furiously deleting past tweets about Republican senators that would likely raise eyebrows during the process.
In one deleted tweet, she said "the mask is off" before calling Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) a "terrible person."
Of course, Brandewie's assertion will likely only prove true if Republicans are able to maintain their majority in the Senate. Right now Republicans hold 50 seats in the chamber while Democrats hold 46, with two Independent legislators, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucus with the Democrats.
The GOP's tenuous 50-48 lead makes the two forthcoming runoff elections in Georgia that much more important as the Senate is responsible for confirming important positions like the one Tanden is hoping to land. The vice president is responsible for breaking ties in the chamber.
If Republicans are able to win at least one of the seats, they would theoretically have the numbers to block controversial appointees. If Democrats win both of the seats, they will have the numbers to push appointees through with little resistance.


theblaze--2020-11-30--Steven Crowder checked the status of his ballot in Texas — and found someone could have voted under

Steven Crowder checked the status of his ballot in Texas — and found someone could have voted under his name in Michigan

Steven Crowder checked the status of his ballot in Texas — and found someone could have voted under his name @ @ @ @ @ , this is a broken system '

Conservative comedian and BlazeTV host Steven Crowder said that he saw bizarre anomalies when he tried to track his ballot and the ballots of his family from November's election.
The results from the 2020 election have been questioned by President Donald Trump and his allies after highlighting some of the problems associated with the rush to vote by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Crowder documented the anomalies of the votes from his wife, his grandmother, and his own vote on his show on Monday.
He said that both his wife and his grandmother voted with absentee ballots, but that when he went to track their ballots, he saw that his grandmother's ballot was not in the system, and neither was the ballot of his wife.
Crowder went through the process to show how someone might track the ballot in Michigan, and entered the information for his wife to show that there was no status on whether they had received the ballot.
Crowder then said that he discovered that he was registered in Michigan even though he had personally registered in Texas and voted there.
"Let's bring this up from [news outlet] Forbes. Michigan's law is that everybody that's registered to vote, gets a ballot, they don't have to be requested," he explained.
"This was signed into law, everyone registered to vote gets a ballot, so someone living at that address, where I no longer live, this is an old residence, received my ballot, as to whether they voted, I do not know!" Crowder continued.
"All I know is my wife voted in Michigan. My wife voted absentee, my grandmother voted absentee, who lives in Michigan, 100% of the days of the year, and the information we have on their absentee vote is the exact same information we have on my voter registration in Michigan, which is false," he added.
"So, best case scenario, this is a broken system where you cannot check the status on your absentee ballot," Crowder said.
"Worst case scenario, it's the perfect system to try and remove any transparency for obvious fraud," he concluded.
Crowder encouraged voters, especially in Michigan, to check the status of their ballots and to call their county clerk's office if they saw anything that might cause suspicion.


theblaze--2020-11-30--Trump's 44 uses of clemency powers seen as a bad thing by critics. Obama granted clemency nearly 2,0

Trump's 44 uses of clemency powers seen as a bad thing by critics. Obama granted clemency nearly 2,000 times.

Trump 's 44 uses of clemency powers seen as a bad thing by critics .
Obama granted clemency nearly 2,000 @ @ @ @ @ clemency less often then any president in more than a century

When President Donald Trump announced that he would be issuing a pardon for retired Gen. Michael Flynn, a longtime Trump ally and former national security adviser for the Trump administration, the president's opponents ripped the move as an alleged abuse of the president's clemency powers.
Criticism of Trump's use clemency for allies is nothing new. Many observers were upset when he pardoned former Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio in 2017 for targeting Hispanics while searching for illegal aliens.
With so much alleged abuse of the presidential clemency power, the average news consumer could be excused for thinking that President Trump might have racked up a massive number of pardons (forgiving crimes and restoring civil rights) and commutations (reducing sentences for convictions) over the last four years.
But that estimation would be wrong, as a recent report from Pew Research pointed out.
The real numbers
The truth is that Trump has granted clemency only 44 times, Pew reported.. He has granted 28 pardons and 16 commutations. The president has granted less than 0.5% of all clemency requests.
Trump critics might not like whom the president has pardoned and why, but the Constitution grants him — and every president — the power to do so.
And he's a piker compared to his predecessor.
President Barack Obama issued clemency 1,927 times — including 212 pardons and 1,715 commutations.
And many of Obama's clemency moves were seen extremely controversial at the time, Pew noted:
But Trump is far from the only president who has faced scrutiny over his use of clemency. Obama's frequent use of commutations, particularly for prisoners convicted of drug-related crimes, prompted criticism from Republicans, who said it benefited “an entire class of offenders" and infringed on the “lawmaking authority" of the legislative branch.
Defenders of President Obama's use of clemency power will note that Obama granted only 5.3% of all requests.
But that doesn't tell the whole story. There was a spike in the total number of requests during the eight years of the Obama presidency — 36,544 — nearly three times the previous record number of requests, which was set in 12 years of the Franklin Roosevelt administration.
The reason for the spike, as Pew noted, was that the Obama administration actively encouraged prisoners to request pardons and commutations. They even set up a program called "the Clemency Initiative."
This massive increase in the number of petitions drove down Obama's requests-granted rate.
More from Pew:
Obama's relatively low percentage, however, is largely due to the fact that his administration encouraged federal prisoners to apply for leniency under a program known as the Clemency Initiative. The program, which launched in April 2014 and ended in 2017 when Obama left office, allowed “qualified federal inmates" – those who met certain Justice Department criteria – to apply to have their prison sentences commuted. The initiative led to a surge in petitions and helps explain why Obama's use of clemency tilted so heavily toward sentence commutations, rather than pardons.
Overall, Obama received more than 36,000 clemency petitions during his time in office, by far the largest total of any president on record. Petitions have declined considerably during Trump's tenure.
Prior to President Trump, the lowest rate of clemency requests granted was came during the George W. Bush presidency (2%).
This story has been updated.


theblaze--2020-11-30--Armed robber demands cash at Philly Wingstop. But customer with license to carry walks in — and puts

Armed robber demands cash at Philly Wingstop. But customer with license to carry walks in — and puts perp down for good with one shot.

Armed robber demands cash at Philly Wingstop .
But customer with license to carry walks in — and puts perp @ @ @ @ @ shot .
Cops say customer who pulled trigger likely wo n't face charges

Looks like yet another criminal didn't pay attention to the growing number of headlines announcing that law-abiding citizens in greater and greater numbers are deciding it's time to arm themselves with guns — and use them if necessary.
What happened?
Philadelphia police said a Wingstop in the 2100 block of Cottman Avenue — located in the northeast section of the city — was open for takeout Sunday night and was staffed with three employees when a 53-year-old man walked in around 10:30 p.m. wearing a mask and gloves, WPVI-TV reported.
Employees said the man pointed a gun and ordered them to empty the drawer, the station said.
But investigators said a customer soon walked into the store while talking on his cellphone, WPVI reported.
"And that's when the robber pointed a gun at that customer and demanded his cell phone," Chief Inspector Scott Small told the station. "The customer, who is in his late 20s, pulled his gun, fired one shot at the perpetrator, striking him in the neck."
The shot was fatal — and the customer who pulled the trigger has a license to carry, WXTF-TV reported.
In addition, WXTF said the three employees and the customer all told the same story to police, and surveillance video showed that when the customer handed over his phone to the suspect, it was at that moment — when the suspect was busy holding a gun and customer's cellphone — that the customer saw an opening and fired his own gun.
Police found the suspect dead behind the counter, WXTF added.
Anything else?
Authorities added to WPVI that the suspect had prior run-ins with the law.
The customer is cooperating with the investigation, and police said it doesn't appear as though he'll face any charges, the station said. Police also said they found one spent shell casing on the customer side of the counter, WPVI reported.
A WXTF reporter said on camera that the Wingstop is open until midnight and that on a Sunday full of football games, it's a "tempting target" for crooks "thinking there's a whole lot of cash in there."
But on this night, the suspect came away empty handed in more ways than one.


theblaze--2020-11-30--Viral video showing a man assaulting a police officer takes a very unexpected turn

Viral video captured the moment a man appearing to be a police officer intervenes in a brutal street fight .
Twitter user Otto Dinero tweeted the video in the early hours of Sunday morning , writing , `` Plot twist literally . ''
At the time of this writing , the video has been viewed more than 1.9 million times .
What are the details ?
Throughout the 51-second video , two younger males can be seen pummeling each other on a public street .
What appears to be a police officer rushes the two and deftly breaks up the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and swinging at the officer , but the officer appears to respond only with defensive action and is ultimately able to subdue the suspect .
At the end of the video , the police officer helps the young suspect to his feet and claps him on the back as they put their arms around each other and breathlessly walk away from the scene .
TheBlaze has reached out to the social media user responsible for sharing the video in order to receive more details .
The user told TheBlaze that the incident recently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Atlanta , Georgia , and escalated after the two men in the beginning of the video engaged in a verbal disagreement .
TheBlaze has reached out to the Atlanta Police Department for comment on the matter , but did not receive a response at the time of publication .
Atlanta InTown reported that the Atlanta police are investigating another brawl that took place in nearby neighborhood Atlantic Station .
Police said that the large-scale fight involved `` more than 300 teenagers '' on Friday .
At least one teenager was arrested in connection @ @ @ @ @ @ @ InTown .
`` Social media video showed a large group of teens fighting on 17th street with one child being knocked to the ground and kicked by a group of others , '' the outlet reported .
`` Police suggested that the teens had gathered to fight as part of an 'ongoing dispute , ' but did not elaborate . ''

Viral video captured the moment a man appearing to be a police officer intervenes in a brutal street fight.
Twitter user Otto Dinero tweeted the video in the early hours of Sunday morning, writing, "Plot twist literally."
At the time of this writing, the video has been viewed more than 1.9 million times.
What are the details?
Throughout the 51-second video, two younger males can be seen pummeling each other on a public street. What appears to be a police officer rushes the two and deftly breaks up the fight.
The apparent aggressor begins hitting and swinging at the officer, but the officer appears to respond only with defensive action and is ultimately able to subdue the suspect.
At the end of the video, the police officer helps the young suspect to his feet and claps him on the back as they put their arms around each other and breathlessly walk away from the scene.
TheBlaze has reached out to the social media user responsible for sharing the video in order to receive more details.
The user told TheBlaze that the incident recently took place in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, and escalated after the two men in the beginning of the video engaged in a verbal disagreement.
TheBlaze has reached out to the Atlanta Police Department for comment on the matter, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
(Content warning: Rough language):
Anything else?
Atlanta InTown reported that the Atlanta police are investigating another brawl that took place in nearby neighborhood Atlantic Station.
Police said that the large-scale fight involved "more than 300 teenagers" on Friday.
At least one teenager was arrested in connection with the incident, according to Atlanta InTown.
"Social media video showed a large group of teens fighting on 17th street with one child being knocked to the ground and kicked by a group of others," the outlet reported. "Police suggested that the teens had gathered to fight as part of an 'ongoing dispute,' but did not elaborate."


theblaze--2020-11-30--Judge orders Georgia officials not to 'erase' data from Dominion voting machines in 3 counties

Judge orders Georgia officials not to 'erase ' data from Dominion voting machines in 3 counties Republican electors are seeking @ @ @ @ @ machines

A federal judge on Sunday barred state officials in Georgia from wiping Dominion voting machines in three Atlanta-area counties after Republicans electors filed an emergency motion seeking their inspection.
What are the details?
U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten Sr.'s order — which applies to voting machines in Cobb, Gwinnett, and Cherokee counties — came about after pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell filed a lawsuit in the state alleging the machines were manipulated to procure an election victory for Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Plaintiffs in the case, including conservative teen pundit C.J. Pearson, are seeking an order to allow them to forensically inspect the machines for evidence of fraud.
"Defendants are hereby enjoined and restrained from altering, destroying, or erasing, or allowing the alteration, destruction, or erasure of, any software or data on any Dominion voting machine in Cobb, Gwinnett, and Cherokee Counties," the order stated. "This temporary restraining order shall remain in effect for ten days, or until further order of the Court, whichever comes first."
Batten also ordered the group of defendants, which includes Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), to "file a brief setting forth in detail the factual bases they have, if any, against allowing" forensic inspections of the machines in the three counties. They have until Wednesday to do so.
According to the order, in a hearing on Sunday, state officials demonstrated opposition to a forensic inspection of the machines and argued they don't have the authority to instruct county officials on the matter.
What else?
In their emergency motion filed on Friday, plaintiffs argued that the vote count certified by Georgia officials last week, which declared Biden the winner of the state's 16 electoral votes over President Donald Trump, is "wrong."
"Tens of thousands of votes counted toward Vice President Biden's final tally were the product of illegality, and physical and computer-based fraud leading to 'outright ballot stuffing,'" they stated.
"Georgia's election process depends entirely on voting machines, tabulators and software purchased from Dominion Voting Systems Corporation that was compromised. Computerized vote recording and tabulations are controlled by software programs that were designed to cheat, and which were open to human manipulation," the motion continued.
Batten noted in his order that the defendants argued "allowing such forensic inspections would pose substantial security and proprietary/trade secret risks."
Anything else?
On the same day that Batten issued the order, a machine recount in Georgia requested by the Trump campaign was forced to stop when a server maintained by Dominion crashed in Fulton County.
Election officials said the crash was due to an unspecified problem but maintained that Dominion technicians had been dispatched to resolve the issue.
The current tally in the state shows Trump trailing Biden but just under 13,000 votes, or a margin of 0.2%.


theblaze--2020-11-30--Al Sharpton: President Trump 'and his cronies' will pay for their 'many crimes.' But the good revere

Al Sharpton: President Trump 'and his cronies' will pay for their 'many crimes.' But the good reverend is mum on his own tax history.

Al Sharpton : President Trump 'and his cronies ' will pay for their 'many crimes . '
But the good @ @ @ @ @ own tax history .

During the "Gotcha!" portion of his MSNBC program Sunday, Al Sharpton went to work on President Donald Trump, going over a lengthy list of folks the president may pardon soon following his pre-Thanksgiving pardon of former national security adviser Mike Flynn.
Who could be next? Paul Manafort? Rick Gates? Steve Bannon? Elliott Brody? Trump himself?
Sharpton then said "the villains in the Trump administration cannot be granted a total reprieve with the presidential pardon because the president of the United States can only pardon federal crimes. He has absolutely no power over state charges, and nearly everyone in the Trump orbit is facing state-level liability."
He added that Trump "and his adult children are facing multiple tax fraud cases. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is under investigation for falsifying real estate documents, and Paul Manafort could see a revival of state charges, just to make a few. And none of those can be disappeared with the presidential pardon. The president and his cronies will be held accountable for their many crimes. The turkeys have come home to roost. And I gotcha."
POLITICS NATION WITH REV AL GOTCHA RE tRump TURKEY 11 29 2020 youtu.be
What about Sharpton?
It's one thing for a cable news host to call out elected officials and their employees over purported criminal activities, but it's quite another thing when said host does the calling out while legal questions surround him.
USA Today reported in September that Sharpton owed nearly $700,000 in back taxes for three for-profit businesses.
In addition, the New York Post reported earlier this month that Sharpton's charity, the National Action Network, paid Sharpton's 33-year-old daughter $63,250 last year to do social media work and consulting and paid his 45-year-old niece $13,750 for special-event work in NAN's Atlanta bureau, citing the group's most recent tax filing.
NAN also gave a $5,000 grant to Sharpton's wife, from whom he separated in 2004, the Post reported, adding that the amount was listed on the form as scholarship money.
Sharpton — NAN's president — received a "modest raise of 1% in 2019, bringing his pay to $327,570," the paper added.
The Post also said Sharpton's relationship with NAN "raised eyebrows in 2018 when tax filings revealed he was selling the rights to his life story to the nonprofit for $531,000. NAN said it would make money by selling the rights to filmmakers or others although it's unclear if any cash has come in."


theblaze--2020-11-30--Horowitz: Hopkins analysis showing COVID-19 has 'relatively no effect on deaths' in US retracted fro

Horowitz: Hopkins analysis showing COVID-19 has 'relatively no effect on deaths' in US retracted from publication. Why?

Horowitz : Hopkins analysis showing COVID-19 has 'relatively no effect on deaths ' in US retracted from publication .
Why @ @ @ @ @ insensitive or appears to 'trivialize ' a pandemic , does it make the research false @

If data analysis is insensitive or appears to "trivialize" a pandemic, does it make the research false? The arguments of the lockdown and mask totalitarians are so fickle that they must resort to unprecedented censorship in order to win the day. Their views cannot coexist with any trace of dissent on the internet, which is why Johns Hopkins University, which has become a lead advocate for lockdowns, is evidently now censoring its own faculty in academic research.
Last week, the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, a student newspaper, posted an article by Yanni Gu titled, "A closer look at U.S. deaths due to COVID-19." It was based on an analysis conducted by Dr. Genevieve Briand, an economics teacher at Hopkins. I originally saw the article on Thanksgiving morning and quickly saw this very catchy conclusion. "These data analyses suggest that in contrast to most people's assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States."
When I clicked on it Thursday night, the link was dead. Then I saw that the Twitter account for the Hopkins News-Letter announced that it had been deleted:
Thankfully, the internet is eternal and you can still see an archived version here.
Isn't it interesting how any analysis that seems to cast doubt on the prevailing panicked narrative of the virus must immediately be deleted or censored? When was the last time you saw one of the numerous inaccurate papers overstating the threat of the virus taken down from the web or labeled as inaccurate on social media?
How many people really died earlier in 2020?
The article originally posted by Gu seeks to answer the following question: Are there really anywhere near 260,000 excess deaths this year of people who died early due to COVID-19? Gu, the student who wrote the article, notes that based on Briand's use of CDC's excess death data, there have actually been relatively few excess deaths this year. More shocking still is that her analysis shows a commensurate drop in deaths among other typical leading causes of fatality this year. "Briand believes that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may instead be recategorized as being due to COVID-19."
So how are the deaths being recategorized?
"The CDC classified all deaths that are related to COVID-19 simply as COVID-19 deaths. Even patients dying from other underlying diseases but are infected with COVID-19 count as COVID-19 deaths. This is likely the main explanation as to why COVID-19 deaths drastically increased while deaths by all other diseases experienced a significant decrease …
If [the COVID-19 death toll] was not misleading at all, what we should have observed is an increased number of heart attacks and increased COVID-19 numbers. But a decreased number of heart attacks and all the other death causes doesn't give us a choice but to point to some misclassification," Briand replied.
What professor Briand also found peculiar is that the percentage of deaths among those in the 65+ bracket appear to be relatively similar to those in younger brackets and has remained pretty constant even after the epidemic began.
To be clear, the data she is using is just from April. A lot of additional people have allegedly died from COVID-19 since then. However, April is when we experienced the strongest wave, which would have netted the most deaths of any month.
On Friday, following much social media buzz about the publication's retraction notice on Twitter, the News-Letter posted an editor's note explaining why the article was removed but did provide a link to it in a pdf. Just two of the paragraphs even attempt to entertain the points made in the original analysis. The editors claim the article "has been used to support dangerous inaccuracies that minimize the impact of the pandemic." Next, they move on to the typical "credentials" insult by noting, "As assistant director for the Master's in Applied Economics program at Hopkins, Briand is neither a medical professional nor a disease researcher."
The main point the editors' retraction notice makes is that the CDC has said there have been 300,000 excess deaths. However, we already know that many of them have been due to lockdown and that many the CDC considers excess deaths would have died from other conditions during the same calendar year, which is the main point of Briand's analysis. And with conflicting data, who is to say the CDC is correct about that? This is why this needs further study to harmonize and validate all the data, as Briand herself said.
Next, the editors' retraction notes,"Briand presented data of total U.S. deaths in comparison to COVID-19-related deaths as a proportion percentage, which trivializes the repercussions of the pandemic" and further "does not disprove the severity of COVID-19." So now an academic institution is writing an emotional screed about "severity." We all understand that people have died from the virus. If this virus killed people a few months early within the same year, we can have a debate over language sensitivity, but it doesn't disprove the point that the excess deaths for a given year are not what they are being portrayed as. While we can debate the language the student used in the original article stating the deaths were "not alarming," the retraction doesn't disprove, and in indeed tacitly agrees, with Briand's main research point – that the distribution of deaths seems to be fairly constant across all age groups.
Hence, one could take issue with some of the language used by the student to portray Briand's research, but the broader findings are intriguing and should be discussed and debated. This retraction is a political decision, not an academic one.
This is not the first analysis to "downplay" the human toll of COVID-19
While this analysis, which can be viewed in an hour-long video, needs further study, it's not like the point is entirely novel. The retraction notice notes, "Briand's study should not be used exclusively in understanding the impact of COVID-19, but should be taken in context with the countless other data published by Hopkins, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)."
Exactly! None of us are using the Briand analysis in a vacuum as an end-all. We want to embark on debate; the censors want to shut it down. This is part of broader evidence that this virus is not killing massive numbers of people well before their natural time to die.
Professor Neil Ferguson, the father of lockdown policies, suggested earlier this year that two-thirds of the people who would ultimately die in the U.K. would have died within the year anyway. Punctuating this point is a brand-new retrospective study published over the weekend by scientists at Rutgers University showing that 89% of those who died of COVID in two New Jersey hospitals had prior "do not resuscitate" orders. Thus, these are not exactly new excess deaths who died tragically early. The findings harmonize very well with any analysis showing limited excess deaths caused by the virus this year.
Also, much as with masks, some of the evidence we are now seeing on excess deaths tracks very closely with the original consensus – before the virus became a political issue and a tool for social control. On March 26, Dr. Anthony Fauci, along with National Institutes of Health deputy director of clinical research Clifford Lane and CDC Director Robert Redfield, published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine making exactly this point. They predicted that once the true number of asymptomatic and subclinical cases was factored in, "the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively."
Well, given that the flu has all but disappeared since COVID-19 has become the predominant respiratory virus in circulation, that would mean there would not be a large number of excess deaths, given that this virus is replacing, not augmenting, the flu deaths. Last year, for week 46 of the CDC's Influenza Surveillance Report (ending Nov. 16), there were 1,786 confirmed flu cases. This year, there were just 41. That is a 97.7% decline! Which tells you that for this year, COVID-19 is the Angel of Death's respiratory fatality tool of choice, to the exclusion of the other typical tools.
The only other criticism the editors' retraction notice had of Briand is that her contention that other deaths were reclassified as COVID deaths is wrong because "COVID-19 disproportionately affects those with preexisting conditions, so those with those underlying conditions are statistically more likely to be severely affected and die from the virus." Again, she is discussing excess deaths – meaning people who would otherwise not have died this year. So her point is not just that some deaths have been mislabeled (e.g. motorcycle accidents turning into COVID deaths), but even among those who legitimately did die from the virus, many of them, as the editors' retraction notice is clearly conceding, would have died fairly soon from those other diseases. They are clearly granting the point that, by and large, these people would not have died of heart attacks or the flu 10 years later. These are people who largely would have died within the year. And let's not forget that, thanks to the lockdown policies, many of these people are also dying a few months early because of isolation.
Yes, the CDC's excess death data can be unreliable, and yes, we need more recent months of data to make a better assessment. But rather than engaging in censorship, why are we not debating the merits of both sides? Why does any shred of good news about the virus have to be stifled rather than rebutted or debated?
American media and scientific journals have strong bias against good news
This problem seems to be unique to the U.S., at least to the extreme lengths that the censorship is taken. A brand new working paper published for the National Bureau of Economic Research found that "ninety-one percent of stories by U.S. major media outlets are negative in tone versus fifty four percent for non-U.S. major sources and sixty-five percent for scientific journals." This was found to be true even when logic would dictate there should be more positive stories or studies in circulation.
"The negativity of the U.S. major media is notable even in areas with positive scientific developments including school re-openings and vaccine trials," observed Sacerdote et al. in the working paper. "Media negativity is unresponsive to changing trends in new COVID-19 cases or the political leanings of the audience. U.S. major media readers strongly prefer negative stories about COVID-19, and negative stories in general."
Thus, whenever any study, analysis, or news story surfaces showing that deaths might not be as bad as reported, it is immediately censored. Given that deliberate bias against good news, how are we to fairly evaluate the merits of the data and science? In that sense, the danger to the public is likely more in what is not being published than what is affirmatively being disseminated with pomp and flair across the dark annals of the web.
Nobody made this point better than Kamran Abbasi, executive editor of the British Medical Journal, in a recent editorial in which he accuses scientists and politicians of "suppressing science" for political gain.
"Politicians often claim to follow the science, but that is a misleading oversimplification," charged Abbasi. "Science is rarely absolute. It rarely applies to every setting or every population. It doesn't make sense to slavishly follow science or evidence. A better approach is for politicians, the publicly appointed decision makers, to be informed and guided by science when they decide policy for their public. But even that approach retains public and professional trust only if science is available for scrutiny and free of political interference, and if the system is transparent and not compromised by conflicts of interest."
In other words, "shut up and mask up" is not science and certainly does not exude transparency that will give the public confidence in the decision-making process. And as Abassi warns, "When good science is suppressed, people die."


theblaze--2020-11-30--Airline industry pushes 'digital passport' to track whether you have COVID-19 vaccine before flying

Airline industry pushes 'digital passport ' to track whether you have COVID-19 vaccine before flying ' I think it will @ @ @ @ @ talking to my colleagues in other airlines across the world '

Once the coronavirus vaccine is widely distributed, you may not be able to fly on commercial airlines without first having been inoculated if some in the airline industry have their way.
The news comes as the first doses of vaccine will likely be distributed this month, as multiple pharmaceutical manufactures have announced effective vaccines.
What are the details?
Airline industry leaders are reportedly exploring the implementation of a "digital passport," which would provide airlines with health information on passengers, including whether they have received the COVID-19 vaccine.
The International Air Transport Association announced last week that it is in the final stages of developing what it hopes is "universally accepted documentation" to track passenger health information, The Hill reported.
The so-called "travel pass" will "manage and verify the secure flow of necessary testing or vaccine information among governments, airlines, laboratories and travelers," the IATA said in an announcement.
"Testing is the first key to enable international travel without quarantine measures. The second key is the global information infrastructure needed to securely manage, share and verify test data matched with traveler identities in compliance with border control requirements," IATA CEO Alexandre de Juniac said.
IATA senior vice president Nick Careen added, "Our main priority is to get people traveling again safely. In the immediate term that means giving governments confidence that systematic COVID-19 testing can work as a replacement for quarantine requirements. And that will eventually develop into a vaccine program."
What are airlines doing?
At least one airline, Australian-based Qantas Airways, has said it will require passengers to prove their COVID-19 vaccination before traveling internationally.
"Whether you need that domestically, we will have to see what happens with COVID-19 in the market. But certainly, for international visitors coming out and people leaving the country, we think that's a necessity," Qantas CEO Alan Joyce explained.
In fact, Joyce predicted that vaccination requirements will be commonplace in the entire industry.
"I think it will be a common theme, talking to my colleagues in other airlines across the world," he said.
Are there dangers with digital passports?
Privacy International, the London-based privacy rights advocacy organization, is warning about the dangers of digital passports.
"Proponents of immunity passports do not yet know the extent of the problem they are solving," the organization warns. "Companies selling their pre-existing digital identity solutions should be viewed with suspicion; this is not a problem that has been 'solved' as we have yet to define what the problem is."


theblaze--2020-11-30--Chinese sociologist says 'As long as 1.4 billion Chinese people eat, sleep, defecate, and urinate ev

Chinese sociologist says 'As long as 1.4 billion Chinese people eat, sleep, defecate, and urinate every day,' 'we will drive the U.S. to its death'

Chinese sociologist says 'As long as 1.4 billion Chinese people eat , sleep , defecate , and urinate every day @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. to its death '

Chinese sociologist Dr. Li Yi says that it's just a matter of time before China takes over the United States' GDP.
What are the details?
According to a Monday report from the Daily Wire, Yi's remarks — reported by MEMRI TV — came in mid-October and were delivered at the Shenzhenwan Dialogue Forum in Shenzhen, China.
MEMRI TV reported, "Chinese sociologist Dr. Li Yi said in an October 16, 2020 speech delivered at the Shenzhenwan Dialogue Forum in Shenzhen, China that China would overtake the United States in GDP by 2027, and that COVID-19 has been harmful to the U.S. and Europe but beneficial to China and North Korea."
"Dr. Yi holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Illinois and according to his LinkedIn account, he is a full-time professor at Renmin University in China," MEMRI TV noted. "Following Dr. Yi's October 16 speech, Renmin University issued a statement denying his employment at the university."
As highlighted by the Daily Wire, Yi in his remarks said, "It turns out that China is going to overtake the United States in 2027. It was said that this might be delayed for a year or two, but this year, God has pulled off a little trick, right? God created COVID-19 and spread it to every country in the world. ... COVID-19 is bad for Europe and America, but it is beneficial for North Korea and China."
Yi also said that the United States "will not survive" in the global economy.
"In the global economy, China stands out," he said. "We are ahead of schedule in terms of overtaking the United States. There will be no problem reaching this goal in 2027. The U.S. will not survive. ... As long as 1.4 billion Chinese people eat, sleep, defecate, and urinate every day, as long as we go to work every day, we will drive the U.S. to its death."
Yi also said that China's "4,000 dead" as a result of COVID-19 is nothing compared to the still-rising death toll in America.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Yi added, "We still have 4,000 dead, right? But if 4,000 die versus 220,000 in the United States, we haven't really lost a single person, have we? We're close to zero infections and zero deaths. If 4,000 people out of 1.4 billion die, that's the same as no one getting sick and no one dying."


theblaze--2020-11-30--Mother, sister wielding golf clubs and kitchen knives fight off and kill man who broke into ex-GF’s

Mother, sister wielding golf clubs and kitchen knives fight off and kill man who broke into ex-GF’s home and attacked her: Police

Mother , sister wielding golf clubs and kitchen knives fight off and kill man who broke into ex-GF ’ s @ @ @ @ @ Police 'They tried to pull him off , and it did n't work ... so @ @ @ @ @ using weapons '

A man who broke into his ex-girlfriend's home in South Pasadena, California, on Saturday was fatally stabbed and beaten by the woman's mother and sister, who defended her using golf clubs and kitchen knives, authorities said in a press release.
According to police, the man, identified as 40-year-old Justin Goss, threw a large concrete paver through the front window of his estranged former girlfriend's home before stepping inside and proceeding to choke the woman and punch her in the face.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Lieutenant Barry Hall said that the woman's mother and sister immediately came to her defense, first unsuccessfully attempting to pull him off before using the weapons they had at their disposal.
"They tried to pull him off, and it didn't work; he was too strong," Hall told the Los Angeles Times. "So they had to resort to using weapons."
When law enforcement officers arrived on the scene at 10 a.m. local time on Saturday following a domestic violence call, they found the window shattered and reportedly heard the women screaming inside. When they entered the residence they found Goss bloodied and beaten.
South Pasadena police officers administered aid to Goss before the South Pasadena Fire Department arrived and pronounced the him dead.
The woman, 37, was transported to a nearby hospital, where she was treated for injuries to her face and then released.
Hall told the Los Angeles Times that the mother and sister would not face charges for their actions.
"They were well within their right to act in defense of their sister and daughter," he said.


theblaze--2020-11-30--Horowitz: New analysis shows Biden winning nearly impossible margins on mail-in ballots in Pennsylva

Horowitz: New analysis shows Biden winning nearly impossible margins on mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania

Horowitz : New analysis shows Biden winning nearly impossible margins on mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania

There has been a lot of focus on the number of mail-in ballots counted in Pennsylvania and the illegal state Supreme Court decisions that enabled them. But what is even more important to examine is the impossible margins Joe Biden would have achieved just among those mail-in ballots and just in Pennsylvania in order to obtain the unofficial lead he currently has.
Here are the facts. We know that 2.6 million mail-in ballots have been counted in the Pennsylvania election returns, in addition to nearly 4.2 million Election Day votes. We also know from the secretary of state that Trump won Election Day votes, 2.7 million to 1.4 million. But we are to believe that Biden won 76% of mail-in ballots.
Yes, mail-ins overwhelmingly skewed Democrat, like Election Day votes skewed Republican, but they were not all from Democrats. We know that 64.7% of those votes were from registered Democrats, 23.7% from Republicans, and 11.6% from nonpartisan or other party voters.
What does this mean in simple arithmetic? My friend (who goes by screen name Gummi Bear on Twitter) crunched the numbers and showed that had Biden won 95% of returned Democrat mail-in votes, 21% of returned Republican votes, and 80% of returned independent votes, he would still have come up short of his margin of victory reported in the unofficial tally.
We know those numbers alone are absurd. There is no way Biden won 21% of mail-in ballots from registered Republicans in this state. Exit polls showed Biden getting just 8% of the GOP vote overall. While the 95% number for Democrat mail-ins is more believable (exits showed him getting 92%), the notion that 80% of mail-ins from independents went to Biden is nearly impossible. Exit polls showed Biden winning 52% of the vote of independents overall. It would defy logic to think that there was such a qualitative gap between the type of independents who came out on Election Day and those who voted by mail.
Assuming the mail-ins broke down in accordance with the exit polls, Biden would be down by 213K votes, even if every one of the 2.6 million mail-ins were truly valid and had proper matching signatures.
And speaking of signature validation, this statistical anomaly should lend a lot of suspicion to the already questionably low rejection rate of mail-in ballots this year. According to the 2016 Election Administration and Voting Survey, the rejection rate last election was just a tad under 1% in the Keystone State, even though there were only 266K mail-in ballots, which are mainly those who have experience filling out absentee ballots. This year, with 2.6 million mail-ins, consisting primarily of first-timers, we are to believe that just 0.038% were invalid?
Some estimates show that mail-in ballots from first-timers are three times more likely to be rejected. Yet we are to believe the acceptance rate this year was 27 times higher than in 2016?
Can you imagine what we would find if there was an attempt to audit and match all 2.6 million ballots for valid signatures and other information? Even Barack Obama, during his March 2008 primary with Hillary Clinton, raised concerns about the need to verify signatures on mail-in ballots.
FLASHBACK: Obama Cast Doubt On Mail-In Ballots, Praised Signature Verification (As Dems Sue To Ban) www.youtube.com
The sheer number of perfectly completed absentee ballots and the shockingly lopsided margins for Biden seem to lie beyond our willing suspension of disbelief on numerous fronts. For example, as state Sen. Mike Jones (R) explained at the hearing in Gettysburg last Wednesday, just an apples-to-apples comparison between Republican Election Day vs. Republican mail-in ballots and then Democrat Election Day vs. Democrat mail-in ballots reveals an extremely anomalous and contradictory trend in down-ballot races as compared to the presidential race.
While Trump supposedly lost at the top of the ticket, Republican Stacy Garrity beat incumbent Democrat Joseph Torsella in the race for state treasurer, even though she garnered 91,000 fewer votes than Trump. That in itself is not surprising, because many people don't bother to complete the down-ballot votes, so it stands to reason that the total votes cast would be lower. What is interesting, however, is that while Trump got 170,000 more Election Day votes than Garrity, the obscure Republican running for the little-known state treasurer office got 41,000 more votes than Trump via mail-ins.
Source: Pennsylvania Secretary of State
So again, mail-in voters seem to really dislike Trump, even compared to other Republicans.
The same dynamic played out in the state auditor's race, where the Republican ultimately won the election with fewer votes than Trump, but did better than Trump in mail-ins. Trump received 105,000 more votes that Republican Timothy Defoor on Election Day, but managed to receive 65,000 fewer votes among mail-ins.
Source: Pennsylvania Secretary of State
Now hold that thought for a moment.
We see that when comparing predominantly Republican voters to each other in both races, fewer people filled out the ballot for the obscure Republican treasurer and auditor candidates when voting in person. This makes sense, because more people would be in a rush after waiting in line for an hour and would be feeling pressured by the people and election officials around them, compared to those filling out ballots in the comfort of their homes. I'd certainly expect to find more "lazy ballots" among those voting on Election Day.
With this in mind, let's move on to the race for attorney general. Incumbent Democrat Joshua Shapiro is certainly more well known than either candidate for state treasurer or auditor, and he won by the largest margin of any statewide election candidate that night. If the obscure Republican victor for treasurer outpaced Trump's total for mail-in ballots (while garnering fewer votes than Trump overall), one would certainly expect Shapiro to outpace Biden among mostly Democrat voters in mail-in ballots.
Source: Pennsylvania Secretary of State
Well, as luck would have it, Shapiro got 52,000 more votes than Biden on Election Day, but 54,000 fewer votes than Biden among mail-ins. If people are lazy about filling out down-ballot races, wouldn't you expect to see that more among Election Day votes, as we saw with Republican candidates?
These are not conclusions or closing arguments, but these observations definitely warrant further investigation for one simple reason: The entire premise of having an election with one-third of the ballots cast through mail was built upon an illegal political decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which unilaterally overrode state laws, violating the federal Constitution, which vests state legislatures with the power over election procedures. It also violated the state constitution.
The suggestion that we should somehow move on from this is a greater threat to democracy than anything in our history. Republicans who think they can just walk away from this without controversy will learn the hard way in the years to come about their inability to win against this novel form of electioneering. After all, we live in a time of "the new normal."


theblaze--2020-11-30--Eric Clapton records a new anti-lockdown song. Now the cancel culture is coming for him.

Eric Clapton records a new anti-lockdown song .
Now the cancel culture is coming for him .
They 'll try @ @ @ @ @ goes against the narrative

Eric Clapton announced Friday that he and fellow music legend Van Morrison will be releasing a new anti-lockdown single in early December.
The announcement did not sit well with those who believe stringent, business-killing lockdowns to combat the coronavirus pandemic should not be questioned. So the cancel culture went to work to try to discredit Clapton's anti-lockdown work by reminding people of racially insensitive remarks the rocker made more than 40 years ago.
What lockdown song?
Irish rocker and songwriter Morrison began releasing a series of anti-lockdown protest songs this fall for which he received serious pushback — including from his own government.
His first three songs — "Born To Be Free," "As I Walked Out," and "No More Lockdown" — questioned the COVID mandates the U.K. government put in place and said the lockdowns were being used to "enslave" the people. Morrison complained that the government was not allowing people to "have the right to think for themselves."
In response, Northern Ireland's health minister called the songs "dangerous."
Now Morrison is at it again with the new record collaboration with Clapton, which will the be the fourth song in the series, Variety reported Friday.
The new song, "Stand and Deliver," which was written by Morrison and recorded by Clapton, is set to be released Dec. 4.
Proceeds from the new single will be donated to Morrison's Lockdown Financial Hardship Fund, which the artist set up to benefit musicians whose careers were hobbled by lockdowns.
Clapton called the lack of live events due to government-imposed restrictions "deeply upsetting" and shared his appreciation for and alignment with Morrison in a statement Friday, as reported by Variety.
"There are many of us who support Van and his endeavors to save live music; he is an inspiration," Clapton said. "We must stand up and be counted because we need to find a way out of this mess. The alternative is not worth thinking about. Live music might never recover."
In the same release, Morrison said he and his fellow musicians are not giving up in pressing the government to stop standing in the way of live music events: "Eric's recording is fantastic and will clearly resonate with the many who share our frustrations. It is heart-breaking to see so many talented musicians lack any meaningful support from the government, but we want to reassure them that we are working hard every day to lobby for the return of live music, and to save our industry."
What old Clapton quote is the cancel culture focusing on?
Because Clapton dared to stand against government-instituted mandates, the cancel culture came for him.
In an effort to discredit Clapton's stance against lockdowns, the woke crowd dug up 44-year-old racist comments the artist made — comments he has recanted and for which he has repeatedly apologized.
The pro-lockdown crowd posted comments Clapton made at a 1976 Birmingham concert during which Clapton told the crowd he wanted to "stop Britain from becoming a black colony" and "keep Britain white."
In a profanity- and epithet-laden rant, Clapton told the crowd to support Enoch Powell, a known racist Tory member of Parliament, and to send foreigners packing, the Daily Beast reported.
Clapton has long lamented his statements and repeatedly said he was "ashamed" of how he had acted.
"I sabotaged everything I got involved with," the artist said, according to the Daily Beast. "I was so ashamed of who I was, a kind of semi-racist, which didn't make sense. Half of my friends were black, I dated a black woman, and I championed black music."


theblaze--2020-11-30--Police arrest elderly woman on weapons charges for reportedly shooting at intoxicated driver who plo

Police arrest elderly woman on weapons charges for reportedly shooting at intoxicated driver who plowed into her back yard — but charge driver with just public intoxication

Police arrest elderly woman on weapons charges for reportedly shooting at intoxicated driver who plowed into her back yard — @ @ @ @ @ public intoxication

Authorities arrested a 74-year-old Virginia woman after she reportedly opened fire on a vehicle that allegedly crashed in her back yard, striking her vehicle and her other personal property.
Police charged the driver of the vehicle with public intoxication.
What are the details?
According to a Monday Newsweek report, authorities in Warrenton, Virginia, arrested Nancy Blough after police said she shot at the vehicle of 29-year-old Kaitlyn Yontz on Saturday night.
Yontz, who was reportedly under the influence, was said to have crashed her car in Blough's yard. Blough, hearing the disturbance, reportedly armed herself, went out onto her property, and opened fire at Yontz's vehicle as it tried to flee from the scene of the accident.
No one was injured as a result of the incidents.
According to authorities, the elderly woman "fired several shots at the vehicle, striking it as it attempted to leave the area."
Local station WJLA-TV reported that police charged Yontz with being intoxicated in public. Authorities charged Blough with reckless discharge of a firearm and unlawful discharge of a firearm into an occupied vehicle and held her on a $5,000 secured bond.
Authorities continue to investigate the incident and urge anyone with information to call Detective Michael Gemmell at (540) 347-1107.
What else?
News of Blough's arrest resulted in mixed reactions on social media.
On WJLA's Facebook post pertaining to the incident, one social media user wrote, "I took a gun class which discussed 'fearing for your life' and this doesn't warrant shooting at someone. Sorry for you trigger happy folks but it is what it is. A car crashing in your backyard while you are inside isn't putting your life at risk no matter how scared and surprised you are. Especially not while they are attempting to leave!"
"Stupid OWL ... you are not allowed to take the law into your own hands like this ... you can only fire your weapon if the intruder is in your house .... not outside, not near, inside ... ya'll trumpets need to go back to school and learn your state, county or city laws," another user wrote.
Another added, "[S]he's driving drunk, wreaking havoc & granny gets penalized for trying to protect her property?!?"
"Looters can openly steal, burn, and shoot people protecting their shops and homes, but an old lady protecting her home and car is arrested?" another user observed.