The Senate passed Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill on Tuesday with the help of 17 Republicans when much of the bill “has nothing whatsoever to do with infrastructure.”
QUICK FACTS:
Today Biden announced the passing of his infrastructure bill.
Seventeen Republican senators voted with all 50 Democrats on Wednesday to advance the infrastructure deal.
The bill will now be sent to the House for further vetting.
President Biden on the Senate passage of $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill: “There are no Republican bridges or Democratic roads. … This is about us doing the real hard work of governing. This is about democracy delivering for the people” https://t.co/94Pu0DzVerpic.twitter.com/n9lVbP8bjp
Tucker Carlson reported the bill includes making “science denial official.”
The bill will “enshrine gender identity in federal law.”
It will “allow the government to track your driving” in order to “charge you a fee for every mile you go.”
“Scariest of all,” says Carlson, “this bill requires all new vehicles in the United States to come with monitoring technology such as eye-scanners or breathalyzers.”
Tucker Carlson Calling Out The Republican Senators Who Are Going Along With Biden's "Infrastructure" Bill
"Now a few of these people plan to retire soon, thank heaven. But most of them intend to get re-elected at some point, and it might be good if voters made that impossible." pic.twitter.com/12XVcd9SZM
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced he will resign his office in 14 days.
BREAKING: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign following accusations of sexual harassment from multiple women: “Given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to governing.” https://t.co/MICPAfXk90pic.twitter.com/B4xdekfl9a
State health departments across the country are not publishing data on breakthrough cases and hospitalizations.
QUICK FACTS:
35 U.S. states have disclosed “some” data on fully vaccinated people who later contracted COVID-19 (celled ‘breakthough’ cases), according to The Hill.
But figures on breakthrough cases “are not available on the health department websites, social media or other publicly accessible sites for the other 15 states.”
New York, Texas, and Wisconsin did provide the numbers upon request from The Hill.
THE 15 STATES NOT PUBLISHING BREAKTHROUGH CASE DATA:
Florida
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Minnesota
Missouri
Nevada
New Hampshire
New York
North Dakota
Ohio
Pennsylvania
South Dakota
Texas
Wisconsin.
REPORTED BREAKTHROUGH CASES:
Of the states already reporting data, Utah reports 5,265 breakthrough cases.
Tennessee’s Department of Health says that as of July 29, “the state had reported 31 breakthrough deaths and 218 breakthrough hospitalizations,” but the state “does not specify when it started collecting COVID-19 breakthrough data.”
Illinois recently reported 714 breakthrough hospitalizations and 180 deaths.
The CDC reported 10,262 breakthrough infections in 46 U.S. states and territories from January through April.
THE CDC ADMITS TO NOT COLLECTING DATA ON BREAKTHROUGH CASES NOT RESULTING IN HOSPITALIZATION OR DEATH:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hasn’t collected data on how many vaccinated people contract the coronavirus since May.
The CDC only monitors “breakthrough hospitalizations and deaths but not the total number of cases,” reports The Hill.
On Tuesday, North Korea threatened to increase its “deterrent of absolute capacity” and build up its arsenal of “preemptive strike” capabilities in response to new joint military training between the U.S. and South Korea.
Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement reported by KCNA Watch that the U.S. and South Korea had begun “dangerous war games” which she claimed is “accelerating the instable situation” on the Korean Peninsula. She added that the U.S. continuing such actions “will surely make them face more serious security threat[s].”
“The prevailing situation proves once again that we were quite just when we decided to steadily build up the capabilities for national defense,” said Kim, who also serves as vice-department director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK).
“The reality proves that only substantial deterrent, not words, can ensure the peace and security of the Korean peninsula, and that it is a vital requirement for us to build up the force powerful enough to fully contain the external threats to us,” she continued.
Kim then said, “We will put more spur to further increasing the deterrent of absolute capacity to cope with the ever-growing military threats from the U.S., i.e. the national defense capabilities and powerful preemptive strike for rapidly countering any military actions against us.”
Ankit Panda, an Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Washington Post that Kim’s phrase “deterrent of absolute capacity” probably referred to North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.
Vipin Narang, an MIT professor who specializes in nuclear strategy, also told the Washington Post, “I would likely interpret [‘deterrent of absolute capacity’] — in the broader context — to be the overall nuclear deterrent and posture.”
During her remarks, Kim also said “I would like to express my deep regret at the perfidious behavior of the south Korean authorities.” Her comment comes after North and South Korea reopened a line of communication two weeks ago after going a year without dialogue, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Reuters reported North and South Korea were also in talks to set up a new summit meeting and rebuild the inter-Korean liaison office after North Korea blew up the previous office last year amid the last round of silence between the two Koreas.
“We will not jump to conclusions and keep an eye on North Korea’s attitude while preparing for all possible options,” South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a Tuesday statement obtained by the Washington Post.
On Monday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, “Nothing’s changed about our need for readiness on the Korean peninsula and our desire to work in lock-step with our ROK allies on training regimen that improves that readiness and keeps that readiness strong.”
“This is what a Rigged and Corrupt Presidential Election gets you!”
President Trump has issued a statement regarding COVID-19 spread on the southern border. NBC recently reported on a presidential briefing document that revealed nearly 20% of migrant children are testing positive for COVID-19 after crossing the border. “Just reported that over 20% of the people coming across our Southern Border have Coronavirus (sometimes referred to as the China Virus), many of them being immediately released into our communities,” said Trump. “Such a thing has never happened to any nation before. This is what a Rigged and Corrupt Presidential Election gets you!”
Trump criticized draconian measures opposed on American citizens as the virus spreads through the border with Mexico. Biden has recently stated that more COVID restrictions could be imposed on American citizens in the coming weeks. “Our ‘Government’ tells you how to mask up, use three if possible, and how to otherwise act as highly infected people pour into our country,” said Trump’s statement. The 45th President then called for border wall construction to continue. “Finish the wall in one month, stop paying contractors billions of dollars for NOT building the wall.”
The Department of Homeland Security document recommends DHS provide more medical staffing at border processing facilities, citing one facility where three EMTS were responsible for 3,000 migrants. “In the last 2-3 weeks, the percent positivity rates among all demographics has increased,” the document says. It also says that some flights scheduled to deport migrants had more than 25% COVID positivity rates before takeoff. Migrants scheduled for deportation are removed from the flight and quarantined if they test positive for the virus, according to the document.
A second DHS document said high COVID rates among migrants are “straining the capacity of the NGOs and local governments that DHS currently partners with to care for them.” That document also attributes the spike among migrants on “the highly transmissible Delta variant combined with lengthier stays in crowded facilities.”
The spiking COVID numbers on the border have triggered emergency meetings between the White House, HHS and DHS this week, according to NBC. July saw more than 210,000 migrant apprehensions, a 21-year-high.
Joe Biden is teetering in the corner. His popularity is careening downward due to the concurrent major crises he created: the border disaster and the inflation spike. Recognizing the data on this trend, amidst all the backroom machinations of the so-called infrastructure package, if the Republicans on Capitol Hill can steel themselves and see the opportunity, they can deliver a devastating knockout to Joe Biden.
Just how bad is Biden’s approval trend? Consider that his overall approval, per CNBC survey, has cratered a stunning 14 percent over the last six months, from 62 percent positive in February to only 48 percent. Given his rather stunning polling weakness on key issues, expect that overall approval to continue to slide, and likely test 40 percent to the downside this year.
On the most important issue of all, the economy, Biden’s gargantuan borrow and spend agenda sends consumer prices soaring to three decade highs, as reflected by the latest core Personal Consumption Expenditure numbers, the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation. This surge puts consumers in a very foul mood. CNBC also reports that only 22 percent of Americans are presently positive on the economy and optimistic on the future. Only 22 percent, that’s pathetic!
Conversely, 51 percent are negative on the present and future economy, the highest pessimism read in that poll since 2015… not coincidentally, the last time Biden worked in the White House.
Outside of the economy, Biden’s numbers similarly slide on hot-button issues. For example, the recent ABC/Ipsos poll found his approval on the issue of crime plunged to just 35 percent. On immigration, he registers just 37 percent affirmation.
This torrent of weak numbers reveals a hobbled politician, and one without the kind of hyper-loyal base his predecessor enjoyed. There are literally almost no hardcore Joe Biden partisans. Given this reality, why on Earth would the Senate GOP let this wobbly fighter escape from this corner? If the GOP can find a backbone and strike with swiftness and precision, it would effectively end Biden era and put the Republican Party on a solid trajectory toward America First electoral tidal waves in both 2022 for the Congress and then 2024 for the White House.
The 45th President sees the situation clearly.
Over the weekend, Donald J. Trump sent out a scathing rebuke of the boondoggle infrastructure package and the enabling GOP ineptness. He wrote “Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill is a disgrace. If Mitch McConnell was smart, which we’ve seen no evidence of, he would use the debt ceiling card to negotiate a good infrastructure package.”
A thousand times yes to this very strategy which I outlined right before the prior debt ceiling expired on August 1. As I proposed, a resolute GOP could “apply a fiscal tourniquet” to stop the borrow-and-spend profligacy that’s fueling inflation unseen since the 1970’s. But, “the clock is ticking. The window is closing. Will the GOP show the wisdom and the huevos to use the debt ceiling as a lever to stop the madness?”
So far, the signs from squish Republican senators are hardly encouraging.
For example, the always-disappointing Lindsey Graham hailed Saturday’s session as a “big day for bipartisan infrastructure.” Even if this bill focused on hard infrastructure spending – which it surely does not – then Graham and 16 other GOP Senators would still be fools to support it, knowing full well that it remains conjoined as the evil twin to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation monster that will be passed and signed as a two-for-one. Pelosi has made that coupling crystal clear, so a vote for one in the Senate is de facto a vote for both.
Big day for bipartisan infrastructure bill.
America is in desperate need of real infrastructure improvements and the Senate needs to prove to the country that it can still get big things done.
These legacy Republican establishment figures need to feel the wrath of their America First constituents.
Inflation is out of control and threatens to obliterate the spending power of middle- and lower-income Americans. The border teems with trespassers who will only further depress wages and make American streets even more dangerous, thanks to the radicalism of Biden and Harris. Senate Republicans should stipulate that they will only vote for an infrastructure bill that includes a full border wall and an immediate enforcement actions against the crossings of illegal migrants.
Americans awaken to the dismal Democrat rule realities, as reflected by crashing polling for Joe Biden. Consequently, time to check the nonsense “bipartisan” kid gloves in the Senate Republican cloakroom and instead don some boxing gloves, perhaps with brass knuckles underneath? It is time to deliver a political knockout right cross to the doddering Joe Biden.
Some Subway franchise owners are fed up with U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe and her apparent aversion to American patriotism.
What’s a brief history here?
Rapinoe, whom Subway hired in April for an advertisement, can be seen in the TV spot kicking a ball that knocks a burrito out of a man’s hand before she tells him to eat a Subway sandwich instead.
Rapinoe most recently made headlines for kneeling during the national anthem while kicking off the Tokyo Games.
In response to what many are calling Rapinoe’s woke activism, consumers are calling for a boycott of the popular quick-service sandwich restaurant if they refuse to remove Rapinoe as a brand spokesperson.
What are the details?
According to a Fox Business report, the response to the company naming Rapinoe as brand pitchwoman has been “mixed.”
“Last last month on a discussion forum hosted by the North American Association of Subway Franchisees, a Wisconsin store owner posted a picture of a hand-scrawled note from an irate customer taped to the front door of his shop,” the report noted. The note, the outlet reported, read “Boycott Subway until Subway fires the anti-American … Megan Rapinoe, the creep who kneels for our beloved National Anthem!”
The unnamed franchisee agreed, “The ad should be pulled and done with. It gets tiring apologizing.”
NAASF representatives last week told members that the group had heard a variety of complaints over the Rapinoe ads and had taken them to company’s Chief Executive John Chidsey.
A letter obtained by the New York Post revealed that the group’s executive director, Illya Berecz, told franchisees, “Your NAASF Board has already communicated with [Subway] leadership the concerns voiced by NAASF membership.”
“I had a bunch of franchisees calling me on this today,” Berecz told franchisees. “They are trying to get the ads pulled.”
According to a Monday report from the Daily Mail, Rapinoe’s “woke politics” and political activism are sending away customers in droves.
Mashed reported that much of the criticism against Rapinoe representing Subway “stems from the soccer player’s stance on police violence and bringing awareness of brutality and racism in the U.S.”
“Your ad using Megan Rapinoe makes me think twice about even visiting Subway,” one social media user insisted, according to the outlet. “She is a very negative representation of our nation, and I don’t want to support her.”
Another customer, the outlet noted, said that they and the rest of their family will “avoid” Subway as long as Rapinoe is a brand ambassador.
Former Acting Director of the United States National Intelligence Richard Grenell shared a video featuring proud American Olympian Tamyra Mensah-Stock and tweeted, “cc: @SUBWAY Dump the ungrateful @mPinoeand hire this patriot.”
In an interview with The Defender, Deborah Brenner said some doctors “were totally against” connecting her son’s heart damage to the COVID vaccine when he suffered an adverse reaction just days after receiving his first dose of the Moderna vaccine.
Christopher Brenner, a healthy 25-year-old from Ohio, was hospitalized with severe heart inflammation after receiving his first dose of Moderna’s COVID vaccine.
In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Christopher’s mother, Deborah Brenner, said she was frustrated when cardiologists initially pretended everything with her son was fine, and later refused to acknowledge his heart inflammation was caused by the vaccine.
After receiving his first Moderna vaccine on July 22, Christopher developed a fever. Within five days he was experiencing chest pain so intense he was unable to sleep, his mother said.
“He was concerned,” Brenner said. “He thought maybe he had something that could be contagious at that point.”
Brenner said her son wanted to go to the doctor to make sure he wasn’t going to get anyone else sick, so he went to the Defiance Mercy Clinic. “As soon as they found out what was going on they took him to the hospital attached to the clinic,” she said.
When Christopher was in the ER, doctors ran some tests and found his troponin levels were high. “I was alarmed at that point,” Brenner said.
According to Dr. Hooman Noorchasm, a cardiothoracic surgeon and patient safety advocate, doctors can detect evidence of heart damage, or tell if someone has suffered a heart attack, by measuring the patient’s blood troponin level.
Troponin, a protein, is normally undetectable in healthy persons who are not having a heart attack or are not experiencing myocarditis, Noorchasm said.
Brenner said she heard on the news some young men were having heart problems after getting vaccinated, so she asked the nurse if her son could be experiencing heart problems from his vaccine.
In an interview, 18-year-old Isaiah Harris + his father described how Isaiah had to be hospitalized within 48 hours of his second dose of the Pfizer vaccine + subsequently had a heart attack.#TheDefender: SIGN UP TODAY–> https://t.co/UTTfyj2wHihttps://t.co/Ie2T3leoid
— Children's Health Defense (@ChildrensHD) June 23, 2021
“One of the ER nurses mentioned it could be myocarditis from the vaccine, but everyone else played it down like it was serious — but wasn’t a big deal,” Brenner said. “When his numbers jumped higher, that’s when it became more serious.”
When nurses took Christopher’s troponin level a second time it was higher, so they kept him overnight.
“When he was still in Defiance, we saw the internist who diagnosed my son with myocarditis and said it was a reaction to the vaccine,” Brenner said. “The internist explained that one type of inflammation is around the heart and one is inside the heart — and Christopher’s was the type that caused inflammation inside the heart.”
According to researchers at the National Organization for Rare Disorders, myocarditis can result from infections, but “more commonly the myocarditis is a result of the body’s immune reaction to the initial heart damage.”
Severe myocarditis can permanently damage the heart muscle, possibly causing heart failure.
After observing Christopher overnight, the next morning his caretaker team tested his troponin level a third time, and found it was even more elevated. Chirstopher was transferred by ambulance to St. Vincent Hospital in Toledo. When they arrived at St. Vincent, Christopher’s troponin level had jumped again.
Brenner said:
“I started freaking out because they were acting like it was no big deal. I said there is something wrong because his numbers should not be going up like that. And they wouldn’t do anything to try and figure out what was going on. They just played it all down.”
Benner said the cardiologists in Toledo were totally against connecting the reaction to the vaccine. “They didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to talk about it and just said his numbers would come back down,” she said. “I was getting really frustrated because I was wondering what was going on in his heart that we couldn’t see.”
Benner said she spoke with the cardiologist in Toledo only on the first day they were there. The remaining days they worked with the nurse practitioner or internists.
“One of the internists said he was going to try and rule everything else out first,” Brenner said. “He explained myocarditis was treatable, but it was going to be a long process. But the cardiologist had previously told us Christopher was fine and he could go back to doing whatever he was before,” Brenner said.
Brenner said she told the doctors her son was not fine. “There’s something going on with the heart,” Brenner said. “His numbers are still very elevated.”
After four days of being hospitalized and treated with blood thinners and beta blockers, Christopher was discharged. The discharge doctor told Brenner he didn’t know why the other physicians didn’t want to admit her son’s reaction was caused by the vaccine.
“Everybody has allergic reactions and your son just had an allergic reaction to the vaccine,” he said. “I can’t sit here and tell you 100% that the vaccine is the cause but the fact that he got the vaccine and days later started having issues — something was going on.”
According to the CDC, healthcare providers are legally required to report serious adverse events regardless of causality, including life-threatening adverse events, inpatient hospitalization and important medical events that — based on appropriate medical judgement — may jeopardize the individual and may require medical or surgical intervention. However, there is no mechanism in place to enforce the law.
Brenner said she filed a report on behalf of her son (VAERS temporary I.D. 601231).
Christopher, who has taken time off work to recover as he still has chest pain and was told to limit his activities, was exposed to COVID in December but thought getting the vaccine was the “right thing to do.” Brenner said her son was influenced by the mainstream media messaging that if he didn’t get vaccinated, other people could die.
Both Brenner and her husband also got COVID vaccines, despite having had COVID, because she had a severe case and was told natural immunity was good for only 90 days.
“I was told if I got infected again, it would be much worse,” she said.
Brenner suffered an adverse reaction that landed her in the hospital after her second vaccine dose. Her adverse event was not reported to VAERS by her physicians, as required.
Benner said she cannot say with 100% certainty she’s against the vaccine, but it was very scary.
“I trusted what my doctor told me and — in a sense — the vaccine makes you feel safer,” she said. “But the risk is very high if you get vaccinated and you just don’t know what reaction you could have.”
Brenner said if she and her son had to get the vaccine again, they don’t know if they would do it. She encouraged anyone questioning the vaccine to be brave and speak up from a parent standpoint and request help. “Don’t be afraid to speak out or question things with the vaccine,” she added.
Heart inflammation and mRNA COVID vaccines
According to the latest data from VAERS, there have been 2,018 U.S. reports of myocarditis and pericarditis following COVID vaccines, with 1,275 cases attributed to Pfizer, 667 cases to Moderna and 71 cases to J&J’s COVID vaccine.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 25 added a warning to patient and provider fact sheets for Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines suggesting an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis — particularly following the second dose and with onset of symptoms within a few days after vaccination.
The FDA’s update followed a review of information and discussion by the ACIP during a June 23 meeting where the committee acknowledged 1,200 cases of heart inflammation in 16- to 24-year-olds, and said mRNA COVID vaccines should carry a warning statement.
Health officials said the benefits of receiving a COVID vaccine still outweigh any risks. Physicians and other public commenters accused the CDC during the meeting of exaggerating the risk to young people of COVID and minimizing the risk of the vaccines.
“Clinical presentation of myocarditis cases following vaccination has been distinct, occurring most often within one week after dose two, with chest pain as the most common presentation,” said Dr. Grace Lee, co-chair of VaST.https://t.co/1CYufBl3yd
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 23, 2021
Pfizer and its vaccine partner BioNTech submitted an application in May to the FDA requesting full approval of its COVID vaccine.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to President Biden, said Sunday he is hopeful the FDA will give full approval to Pfizer’s COVID vaccine by the end of August, and he predicted a wave of vaccine mandates would soon follow.
A university in Pennsylvania has set “racial quotas” for body parts of Black babies killed via abortion, a report reveals.
The University of Pittsburgh has been harvesting fetal tissue from the United States Department of Health and Human Services for the last five years and has now set its racial quotas for “aborted babies whose organs it harvests for scientific research,” Life News reported.
Life News said the Center for Medical Progress and Judicial Watch has exposed the fetal harvesting practices of the university in a 252-page document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and released this week.
As per Life News, the Department of Health and Human Services was sued by the Center for Medical Progress and Judicial Watch when it did not provide the documents after requesting through the FOIA.
The obtained documents revealed that the HHS has already released a minimum of $2.7 million taxpayer funds to the University of Pittsburgh as its “tissue hub” for scientific research on aborted baby body parts. The document also showed that the university sets racial targets for its fetal harvests.
Judicial Watch particularly cited a page 184 of the “JW v HHS NIH July 2021 Records” with a study title of “Research on tissue from an elective or spontaneous abortion < 24 weeks gestation” and has the subject “Planned Enrollment Report.”
The report lists the total number of collected fetal parts from aborted babies 25-42 weeks in gestation according to “Ethnic Categories.” The categories are subclassified to being “Hispanic or Latino” or not, and each is further categorized into gender as “female” or “male.”
It specified “Racial Categories” as either” “American Indian/Alaska Native,” “Asian,” “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander,” “Black or African American,” “White,” and “More than One Race.” The July 2021 record needed a total of 400 fetal tissues, with half expected to “be collected under this IRB approved project” that it intends to obtain from collections “throughout the US.”
Broken down into the racial categories, collections needed for White fetal parts were the highest at 220 that was followed by 110 for Black fetal parts, Asians at 50, and “More than One Race” at 20, while the rest had zero for requirements. This corresponds to fetal parts requested under “Not Hispanic or Latino Female” for “White” at 200 followed by “Black or African American” at 100 with the female under “Hispanic or Latino” registering the lacking 20 and 10 for each racial category, respectively.
Center for Medical Progress Founder David Daleiden likened the document they obtained from the HHS to “an episode of American Horror Story” for it showed “government-sponsored fetal experimentation at the University of Pittsburgh” that was taken from “aborted fetal organs” and targets “pregnant women and fetuses based on race.”
“The NIH grant application for just one of Pitt’s numerous experiments with aborted infants reads like an episode of American Horror Story. Infants in the womb, some old enough to be viable, are being aborted alive and killed for organ harvesting, in order to bring in millions of dollars in taxpayer funding for Pitt and the Planned Parenthood abortion business it support,” Daleiden disclosed.
“People are outraged by such disregard for the lives of the vulnerable. Law enforcement and public officials should act immediately to bring the next Kermit Gosnell to justice under the law,” he added.
In addition, the Center for Medical Progress highlighted page 7 of the HHS grant to the University of Pittsburgh wherein the latter proposed that “its existing fetal tissue collection ‘can be significantly ramped up'” to supply its nationwide-research “with aborted fetal kidneys, bladders, and other organs and body parts from healthy fetuses aborted up to 6 months old.”
The center also stressed how the university advertises to the government why it should be the best location for fetal harvesting since its “Ischemia time is minimized” and it uses “labor induction” for its “”procedure that will be used to obtain the tissue” in addition to its fetal harvesting by “sex/gender, race, and ethnicity.”
“Furthermore, Pitt also states in the application that its GUDMAP fetal harvesting program will feature “Inclusion (or exclusion) of individuals on the basis of sex/gender, race, and ethnicity” and sets quotas of 50% white patients and aborted fetuses, and 50% minority patients and fetuses, with a full 25% of the fetuses harvested to come from Black women (pgs. 74-76). Allegheny County, the major metropolitan area from which Pitt-based abortion practices draw patients, is 80% white and only 13% Black,” the center stressed.
According to the Center for Medical Progress, their expose on the University and the NIH is part of their “amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court in the Dobbs v. Jackson 15-week abortion limit case.”
Dobbs v. Jackson is a case filed by the state of Mississippi that asks the Supreme Court to review and possibly overturn the “egregiously wrong” Roe v. Wade ruling. It is a controversial case that has become a test case of the Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of abortions for 15 weeks of pregnancy, which is subject to debate on the unborn child as being “human.”
Machines act smart. But sometimes they can be really stupid.
So human beings have to take over to unravel what machines can’t understand.
That happens with election tabulation machines – sometimes a ballot is filled out in such a way that the machine is unable to figure out the intention of the voter. So the machine kicks out the ballot and it’s hand-counted.
If the voter’s intention is unclear to the human reviewer, in Georgia the ballot is to be marked “spoiled” and disregarded. At least that’s the way things are supposed to be.
But maybe not in Fulton County, according to an in-depth report by Just the News.
Absentee ballots in Georgia tell voters that if they make a mistake filling out their ballot, the voter should mark “spoiled” on the ballot, return it to the county board of registrars and get a new ballot.
However, some ballots are more “spoiled” than others. The word could be written on the ballot and it still count, Just the News reported.
For instance, Just the News cited one ballot that had been marked for both Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden, with the words “No Spoiled” scrawled above Trump’s name.
Despite the clear intent of the voter — that the ballot be considered spoiled — the ballot was adjudicated for Biden, with the notation “Mark removed for Donald J. Trump.” It should be noted that in every other race on that ballot, the check mark was in a Democratic candidate’s box, so that might well have been the right call.
However, Just the News reported another ballot that also had the word “spoiled” written on it, where the only presidential check was next to Trump’s name and every other race was checked for the Republican candidate.
That ballot was adjudicated with “Mark removed for Donald J. Trump” and every other Republican candidate.
In other words, it was a truly spoiled ballot that counted for nothing.
That kind of subjective result apparently wasn’t an isolated instance.
In fact, according to Just the News, “Scores of additional ballots that same day had checks manually removed next to Trump’s name as well as many other candidates up and down the ticket — Libertarians, Democrats and write-ins alike — and the votes awarded instead to other candidates.”
There were 148,000 absentee ballots in Fulton County and 5,000 of them required human review, Just the News reported. The article noted that there were hundreds of ballots that could readily be defined as spoiled, but the vote still counted.
Why? Because, “Georgia regulation gives election officials broad discretion to try to determine the intent of a confused voter, and actually encourages them to find a way to make flawed ballots count,” Just the News reported.
Did you read that?
Election officials get to figure out what voters were trying to communicate! Even when the absentee ballot rule spells out that unclear ballots are spoiled.
Just the News also cited a ballot that had markings next to both candidates’ names, a clear case where “spoiled” should have been placed on it by the voter. But that never happened. Instead, the ballot was adjudicated in Biden’s favor, with, again, the notation “Mark removed for Donald J. Trump.”
Every other race in that case was also marked for the Democratic candidate, so that might have been the correct call, but still, that’s not how the rest of the world works.
Arrive too late for your plane and too bad. You lose. Catch the next flight.
File your taxes late and, sorry, but there’s a penalty. Miss the deadline for a lawsuit filing and you don’t get to go to court. Be too late getting money in the bank to cover a check and you’ll get hit with that penalty.
But mess up an election ballot. A ballot that clearly says if you mess it up it’s no good and the word “spoiled” is supposed to be written across it. And the response is: “Waaaall, let’s take a look at that ol’ ballot and see what we can do here.”
Fulton County, of course, has been a sore spot in Georgia elections. So much so that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wants the county’s Election Director Rick Barron and its Registration Director Rick Jones fired, according to WGCL-TV in Atlanta.
And Fox’s Tucker Carlson has reported on discrepancies in Fulton County, including a lawsuit to gain access to warehoused ballots.
In all, there’s a serious issue involved. It’s more than the razor-thin margin by which Biden was reported to have taken Georgia (11,779 votes).
North Korea threatens US with new preemptive strike weapons – probably nukes
On Tuesday, North Korea threatened to increase its “deterrent of absolute capacity” and build up its arsenal of “preemptive strike” capabilities in response to new joint military training between the U.S. and South Korea.
Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement reported by KCNA Watch that the U.S. and South Korea had begun “dangerous war games” which she claimed is “accelerating the instable situation” on the Korean Peninsula. She added that the U.S. continuing such actions “will surely make them face more serious security threat[s].”
“The prevailing situation proves once again that we were quite just when we decided to steadily build up the capabilities for national defense,” said Kim, who also serves as vice-department director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK).
“The reality proves that only substantial deterrent, not words, can ensure the peace and security of the Korean peninsula, and that it is a vital requirement for us to build up the force powerful enough to fully contain the external threats to us,” she continued.
Kim then said, “We will put more spur to further increasing the deterrent of absolute capacity to cope with the ever-growing military threats from the U.S., i.e. the national defense capabilities and powerful preemptive strike for rapidly countering any military actions against us.”
Ankit Panda, an Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Washington Post that Kim’s phrase “deterrent of absolute capacity” probably referred to North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.
Vipin Narang, an MIT professor who specializes in nuclear strategy, also told the Washington Post, “I would likely interpret [‘deterrent of absolute capacity’] — in the broader context — to be the overall nuclear deterrent and posture.”
During her remarks, Kim also said “I would like to express my deep regret at the perfidious behavior of the south Korean authorities.” Her comment comes after North and South Korea reopened a line of communication two weeks ago after going a year without dialogue, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Reuters reported North and South Korea were also in talks to set up a new summit meeting and rebuild the inter-Korean liaison office after North Korea blew up the previous office last year amid the last round of silence between the two Koreas.
“We will not jump to conclusions and keep an eye on North Korea’s attitude while preparing for all possible options,” South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a Tuesday statement obtained by the Washington Post.
On Monday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, “Nothing’s changed about our need for readiness on the Korean peninsula and our desire to work in lock-step with our ROK allies on training regimen that improves that readiness and keeps that readiness strong.”