A witness whose dramatic testimony about alleged voter fraud in Michigan went viral last week has said she is not self-quarantining and has not been tested for the coronavirus even after Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who accompanied her at a legislative hearing, tested positive earlier this week and was later hospitalized to treat the virus, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
Continue reading “Giuliani Witness Who Went Viral Insists Only Trump Can Tell Her To Quarantine”
Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and David Perdue (R-GA) released a statement late Tuesday night praising a bizarre lawsuit out of Texas — part of Trump’s ongoing gambit to overturn the election — even after Georgia’s own Republican attorney general dismissed it as “constitutionally, legally and factually wrong.”
New York’s mammoth pension fund will divest from fossil fuels, the state’s comptroller announced Wednesday, sending a shockwave through the climate movement and energizing the effort to dump investments that contribute to climate change.
Continue reading “NY Pension Fund Becomes World’s Largest To Commit To Divesting From Fossil Fuels”
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There are currently over 500,000 homeless in America, while more than 750,000 have died from drug overdoses in the last 20 years. One out of five people incarcerated in the world is in the U.S., while we represent only 4 percent of the world’s population. Then there are the unemployed and the underemployed. A lot of Americans are not participating in the dream of upward mobility. In fact, more and more Americans see their lives trending downward, drowning in debt and facing diminished life spans — a trend that the coronavirus and the federal response to it has in many ways exacerbated.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar on Wednesday stepped away from President Donald Trump’s fantasy that he, not President-elect Joe Biden, won the 2020 election.
Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward (R) laid out in stark terms the pressure she and other Republicans are experiencing from their base to boost President Donald Trump’s corrupt war against the 2020 election results.
The Nevada Supreme Court unanimously ruled to reject an appeal late Tuesday from President Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn the election results in the state, dealing another blow to the one-term president’s efforts to undermine the integrity of the vote in one of the battleground states that he lost in last month’s election.
Trump and his allies have now lost dozens of court cases, failing many times over to demonstrate any evidence of voter fraud that they have claimed tainted the Nov. 3 election that delivered a win to President-elect Joe Biden.
The decision affirms one made last week by a district court in Nevada that ruled the Trump campaign had not backed up its claim that voting machines had malfunctioned and that results for the presidential race in the state which Biden won by a margin of more than 33,500 votes, had been manipulated.
“We also are not convinced that the district court erred in applying a burden of proof by clear and convincing evidence, as supported by the cases cited in the district court’s order,” the Nevada Supreme Court wrote in its judgement.
The news comes as Tuesday marked what’s known as the safe harbor deadline for states to resolve disputes arising from the election, per Reuters. Congress will consider a state’s election result to be “conclusive” if it is finalized by that date under U.S. law.
The ruling in Nevada followed yet another fruitless effort to hijack the election results and hand Trump an illegitimate win when the U.S. Supreme Court denied a last-minute attempt to overturn election results in Pennsylvania.
Nevada’s Republican Party on Tuesday said it was “extremely disappointed” by the court’s decision to bat down Trump’s false fraud claims.
“We were not afforded an opportunity to write our brief or argue the case in front of the Court,” Nevada’s GOP wrote in a statement. “Full denial of legitimate due process and appellate rights is truly unprecedented, shocking and extraordinary.”
The statement follows an earlier one by the GOP in Arizona who posted several inflammatory tweets earlier in the day that suggested a willingness by some Trump supporters to fight to the death in efforts to overturn the election in another battleground state lost by Trump last month.
The home of a county commissioner in Idaho was surrounded by anti-mask demonstrators on Tuesday night, forcing Ada County Commissioner Diana Lachiondo to abruptly leave a virtual public health meeting and the meeting to be cancelled 15 minutes after it started, by the recommendation of local officials as protesters swarmed outside the Central District Health office.
According to the Idaho Statesmen, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean and Boise Police Chief Ryan Lee asked the CDH board to quickly adjourn a meeting where a vote on a public health order aimed at combatting the spread of coronavirus was scheduled to take place due to safety concerns amid demonstrations against the pack of measures.
Hundreds of demonstrators protested the order, which among other restrictions, would have limited gathering to fewer than 10 people and required face masks be worn in public and private around non-household members when social distancing is not possible.
The news comes as more than 111,800 coronavirus cases and at least 1,055 COVID-19 deaths have been reported in the state as infections continue to multiply.
According to the Statesmen, Lachiondo, in tears, told the board members upon her sudden departure that her son was home alone as demonstrators banged outside of her door.
Another board member said protesters had swarmed outside of his house as well. Dr. Ted Epperly, told the Statesman that roughly 15 people were gathered outside of his home, “beating garbage cans and flashing strobe lights through my windows. Two came up and knocked on my door during the meeting.”
Boise police took custody of at least one protester for trespassing, according to a police statement.
“This has gone too far,” per the Statesmen, McLean said later on Tuesday at a Boise City Council meeting with regard to the anti-mask demonstrations. “We’re at a point now that we need to remind ourselves this is not who we are.”
According to the Washington Post, the protests on Friday and Tuesday were organized by a network of right-wing activists called People’s Rights — founded by anti-masker and anti-government activist Ammon Bundy.
The abrupt conclusion to Tuesday’s virtual meeting followed a tense meeting last week that delayed voting on the measures after it was interrupted by anti-mask demonstrators who attempted to force their way into the CDH building. A vote on the measures has now been postponed to an unspecified date.
Gov. Brad Little (R) condemned the protesters’ appearance at a public official’s private residence in a statement on Tuesday.
“It is nothing more than a bullying tactic that seeks to silence. Our right to free speech should not be used to intimidate and scare others,” he wrote. “There is no place for this behavior in Idaho. I urge calm among Idahoans so we can get through the pandemic together, stronger.”
The Boise mayor similarly urged an end to threats of violence and intimidation.
“No child should be frightened by a mob of protesters,” McLean said in a statement Tuesday, “No local official should fear violence for their public service.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden made two key domestic policy picks Tuesday, selecting former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to reprise that role along with Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge as his housing and urban development secretary in his administration, according to five people familiar with the decisions.
The picks highlighted Biden’s delicate balancing act as he builds out his Cabinet, seeking to diversify his picks and reward the coalitions that helped elect him while also following his instincts to surround himself with close allies who served in the Obama administration.
Vilsack spent eight years as head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the Obama administration and served two terms as Iowa governor.
Their intended nominations were confirmed to The Associated Press by five people familiar with one or both of the decisions who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid preempting the president-elect’s announcement.
Vilsack was selected in part because of the heightened hunger crisis facing the nation and the need to ensure someone was ready to run the department on day one, according to those briefed on the decision.
Biden’s relationship with Vilsack goes back decades. He was an early supporter of Biden’s first campaign for president in 1988 while Vilsack was the mayor of Mount Pleasant, Iowa. He endorsed Biden a year before the 2020 election and campaigned tirelessly for him in Iowa, the nation’s first caucus state. Biden adopted aspects of Vilsack’s rural policy agenda as Democrats look to make up ground they’ve lost to Republicans in rural areas over the past decade.
Vilsack entered politics in large part because of tragedy, when the mayor of Mount Pleasant was gunned down at a city council meeting in 1986. Vilsack, then a young lawyer, had grown up in Pittsburgh and moved with his wife, Christie, to her Iowa hometown. He was recruited to seek the mayor’s office, then served two terms in the Iowa Senate before being the first Democrat to win the governorship in 30 years.
After two terms, Vilsack ran a 10-week campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination before withdrawing and throwing his support to Hillary Clinton, even as Biden remained among the field. Vilsack was a finalist for Clinton’s running mate that year.
Politico first reported the news of Fudge’s selection, while Axios was first to report Vilsack as agriculture secretary.
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Lemire reported from Wilmington, Del. Associated Press writers Alan Fram in Washington, Kat Stafford in Detroit, Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, and Michael Casey in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.
President-elect Joe Biden is reportedly eyeing ex-fellow Democratic primary candidate Pete Buttigieg as his pick for ambassador to China.
Continue reading “Report: Biden Considering Buttigieg For China Ambassador Spot”
