https://files.constantcontact.com/2a3af9ce001/33139feb-7e79-4da3-8472-a3682c85bf34.gif" width="404" height="303" />Happy New Years
http://cache2.artprintimages.com/p/LRG/58/5870/QCPSG00Z/art-print/bb-sams-democrats-vs-republicans-july-aug-1980.jpg" alt="" width="192" height="192" border="0" />Issues of Interest
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj113/kiluan/divider.gif" width="163" height="22" />Pence asks judge to toss GOP lawmaker's
bid to overturn election results
https://www.newsmax.com/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=75115973-ce9d-4264-bf32-2cbeb713e03e&SiteName=Newsmax&maxsidesize=600" width="254" height="212" />By JOHN KRUZEL
{ thehill.com } ~ Vice President Pence on Thursday asked a federal judge to reject a bid by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and other Republicans to broaden Pence’s powers in a manner that would effectively allow him to overturn President-elect scumbag/liar-Joe Biden’s electoral win.
The lawsuit, filed earlier this week, seeks to expand Pence’s role in an upcoming Jan. 6 meeting of Congress to count states’ electoral votes and finalize scumbag/liar- Biden’s victory over President Trump.
But in a Thursday brief to Texas-based U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, Pence said he was not a proper defendant to the suit.
“A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,” a Department of Justice attorney representing Pence wrote in the filing.
Typically, the vice president’s role in presiding over the Jan. 6 meeting is a largely ceremonial one governed by an 1887 federal law known as the Electoral Count Act.
But the Republican lawsuit seeks to invalidate the law as an unconstitutional constraint on the vice president's authority to choose among competing claims of victory when state-level election results are disputed.
Republicans in several key battleground states have disputed scumbag/liar-Biden's win and offered alternate "slates" of pro-Trump electors to be counted on Jan. 6, but experts say these efforts carry no legal weight.
The lawsuit targeting the vice president comes as Pence finds himself under increasing pressure from supporters of the president, and even the president himself, to use his statutory role to challenge normal election protocols.
The White House did not provide a comment when contacted by The Hill.
Among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit were Kelli Ward, who chairs the Arizona Republican Party and formerly served as an Arizona state senator. Ward has repeated unsupported claims similar to Trump and his allies that the 2020 election was tainted by widespread fraud.
Ward was also involved in an earlier unsuccessful lawsuit to overturn scumbag/liar-Biden’s win in Arizona.
Election law expert Edward Foley, a law professor at the Ohio State University, said Pence’s position amounted to “a straightforward lawyerly response" to the lawsuit.
“It’s main argument is to say that the plaintiffs should have sued the Senate and House of Representatives, not the Vice President, but it also suggests reasons — like no standing on the part of the plaintiffs — that a suit against the two chambers of Congress would fail as well procedurally,” Foley said.
In separate developments in the case Thursday, an attorney for the Democratic-led House indicated that Democratic lawmakers would file an amicus brief in the suit.
Additionally, a scumbag/liar-Biden elector from Colorado asked the judge for permission to join the lawsuit as a defendant, citing concerns that Pence and the Justice Department would not adequately represent the interests of scumbag/liar-Biden electors.
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Feds Consider Releasing More Vaccine,
Stop Reserving for Second Dose
https://www.newsmax.com/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=fd6ee204-967c-4eed-a24d-7b28c474032b&SiteName=Newsmax&maxsidesize=600" width="212" height="177" />By Brian Trusdell
{ newsmax.com } ~ The U.S. government is considering using the recommended second dose of the approved COVID-19 vaccines to inoculate more people during a first round, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
''I still think, if done properly, you can do a single dose, reserve doses for the second dose, and still get the job done,'' Fauci said Thursday on NBC’s Today Show. ''But there’s a lot of discussion about whether or not you want to spread out the initial vaccination by getting more people vaccinated on the first round.''
Of the two approved vaccines, both have proven to be 95% effective. But for that efficacy rate, Pfizer’s injection requires a second dose 21 days after the first and Moderna’s 28 days after the initial injection.
At present, the federal government is withholding some of the received vaccines for the recommended second dose. But the current discussion is to scrap that plan, Fauci said.
''One of the problems of doing that is if you don’t then get the second dose in time, you’re going to have a lag period,'' he said. ''And we know from the clinical trial that the optimal time is to give it on one day and then for Moderna 28 days later and for Pfizer 21 days later. That’s what the data tells us to do it. So if you want to stick with the data, that’s the way you should do it.''
Fauci seemed non-committal on his recommendation, opining: ''You could debate either way on that."
Fauci admitted that since only 2.8 million of the 14 million doses received have been injected, the U.S. government has missed its goal of inoculating 20 million by the end of the year. However, he expects the pace to increase in January.
''I still think, if done properly, you can do a single dose, reserve doses for the second dose, and still get the job done,'' Fauci said Thursday on NBC’s Today Show. ''But there’s a lot of discussion about whether or not you want to spread out the initial vaccination by getting more people vaccinated on the first round.''
Of the two approved vaccines, both have proven to be 95% effective. But for that efficacy rate, Pfizer’s injection requires a second dose 21 days after the first and Moderna’s 28 days after the initial injection.
At present, the federal government is withholding some of the received vaccines for the recommended second dose. But the current discussion is to scrap that plan, Fauci said.
''One of the problems of doing that is if you don’t then get the second dose in time, you’re going to have a lag period,'' he said. ''And we know from the clinical trial that the optimal time is to give it on one day and then for Moderna 28 days later and for Pfizer 21 days later. That’s what the data tells us to do it. So if you want to stick with the data, that’s the way you should do it.''
Fauci seemed non-committal on his recommendation, opining: ''You could debate either way on that."
Fauci admitted that since only 2.8 million of the 14 million doses received have been injected, the U.S. government has missed its goal of inoculating 20 million by the end of the year. However, he expects the pace to increase in January.
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Dems Call Hawley’s Election Concerns ‘Coup Attempt’ After Objecting To Every
GOP Certification This Century
https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Josh-Hawley-998x666.jpg" width="290" height="194" />By Jordan Davidson
On Wednesday, Hawley announced he will object during the Electoral College certification process on Jan. 6, unless an election integrity and voter fraud investigation is called.
“I cannot vote to certify the electoral college results on January 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws,” Hawley said, noting that some Democrats objected to the elections in 2004 and 2016.
“And I cannot vote to certify without pointing out the unprecedented effort of mega corporations, including Facebook and Twitter, to interfere in this election, in support of scumbag/liar-Joe Biden,” he added. “At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our elections. But Congress has so far failed to act.”
Hawley’s announcement was met with harsh backlash from politicians, journalists, and others on the left.
“This is how you run for President on the Republican side in 2024. You join a coup attempt,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said.
“By announcing that he will object during Congress’s counting of Electoral College votes, @HawleyMO is the clear winner of the ‘Most Craven, Unprincipled, & Corrupt Senator’ award. Senators Johnson, Paul, Graham, McConnell, Cruz, & Rubio were very competitive, but Hawley wins,” former CIA Director scumbag/commie-John Brennan said.
By announcing that he will object during Congress’s counting of Electoral College votes, @HawleyMO is the clear winner of the “Most Craven, Unprincipled, & Corrupt Senator” award. Senators Johnson, Paul, Graham, McConnell, Cruz, & Rubio were very competitive, but Hawley wins. https://t.co/N6wMF8SpXV
— scumbag/commie-John O. Brennan (@scumbag/commie-JohnBrennan) December 30, 2020...
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Germany's "Shameful" Two Years
on the UN Security Council
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/pics/1108.jpg" width="311" height="210" />by Soeren Kern
{ gatestoneinstitute.org } ~ Germany's two-year term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council ended on December 31, 2020. The German Foreign Ministry, in a self-congratulatory compilation of its supposed achievements to "strengthen the international order," declared that Germany now deserves to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
A closer examination of Germany's voting patterns at the UN over the past several years, however, reveals a troubling double standard on a range of issues, especially on human rights, which the German government claims to be "a cornerstone" of its foreign policy.
The record shows that during its stint on the UN Security Council, Germany voted for dozens of resolutions — many of which smack of anti-Semitism — that singled out Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
The anti-Israel resolutions supported by Germany were sponsored by mostly non-democratic Muslim countries including Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen, as well as by dictatorships such as Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela — and by Thailand on behalf of China.
Moreover, Germany remained silent as multiple serial human rights abusers, including China, Cuba, Libya, Mauritania, Pakistan, Russia, Somalia and Venezuela, among others, were elected to the UN Human Rights Council, the UN's highest human rights body.
Germany also voted for resolutions condemning the United States, which guarantees not only German but European security, stability and prosperity.
In 2020, Germany voted 13 times to condemn Israel, but failed to introduce a single resolution on the human rights situation in China, Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Venezuela — or on 175 other countries, according to UN Watch, a Geneva-based, independent non-governmental watchdog group.
One of the resolutions approved by Germany referred to Jerusalem's Temple Mount solely by its Muslim name of Haram al-Sharif. The executive director of UN Watch, Hillel Neuer, said:
"The UN today showed contempt for both Judaism and Christianity by passing a resolution that makes no mention of the name Temple Mount, which is Judaism's holiest site, and which is sacred to all who venerate the Bible, in which the ancient Temple was of central importance."...
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scumbag/liar-Nancy Pelosi’s election as House Speaker is in doubt because of the pandemic
scumbag/liar-Nancy Pelosi’s supporters were sure that she would easily win reelection to her position as Speaker of the House.
Now it appears that she’ll need to successfully perform a “high wire act” to pull it off.
scumbag/liar-Pelosi herself claims to have the needed votes – Democrats lead Republicans 222-211 with one seat undecided, and one seat vacant due to the death of incoming congressman Luke Letlow, a Republican. But that assumes that all the Democrats will be there, and that they’ll all vote for scumbag/liar-Pelosi.
As the AP noted: “The full House elects the speaker, and Democrats will have the chamber’s smallest majority in 20 years in a vote in which Republicans are certain to vote unanimously against her, joined by Democratic defectors….’It’s extraordinarily tricky’ for scumbag/liar-Pelosi, said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., an 18-year congressional veteran. Still, he said, he expects her to prevail ‘because I don’t see what the alternative is’ for Democrats.”
Those words seem to indicate a really volatile situation for scumbag/liar-Pelosi. How many times has “the alternative” become clear if the initial voting fails to produce a conclusive result?
But at 80, about the same age as her top two lieutenants, scumbag/liar-Pelosi remains a source of frustration for younger Democrats eager to climb the leadership chain. Discontent and division have grown after expected gains in last month’s elections evaporated and 12 Democrats lost House seats, prompting calls for fresh messengers in response to criticism that party leaders did a poor job of campaigning on the country’s deep economic problems.
No Democratic rival to scumbag/liar- Pelosi has emerged, greatly diminishing the odds she’ll be toppled. Perhaps unanimously, Republicans will back Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California for speaker, but he seems destined to become minority leader again.
Even so, scumbag/liar-Pelosi must minimize the number of Democrats opposing her.
Of 15 Democrats who bucked her when she was elected speaker in January 2019, three lost reelection last month. One is in a race where votes are still being counted and another became a Republican.
That leaves 10 Democrats who opposed her two years ago.
If all 211 Republicans vote against her, only six defectors would be required to unseat her. Wouldn’t that be a great way to usher in 2021?
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