Five Excuses Dems Could Use to Get Rid of Biden Before 2024

posted by Kira Davis at RedStateVIP 

There is much (warranted) speculation about whether or not President Joe Biden will run for reelection in 2024. Although he has signaled his intention to run, it seems two very important things are not on his side…time and the Democrat party.

At 81, Biden is already seeming extremely frail. His physical and mental health have been huge causes for concern. The octogenarian is prone to falls (never a good thing for the elderly), often exhibits confused behavior at public appearances, and generally seems confused at speaking engagements or meetings with world leaders.

As morbid as it sounds, the limitations of the human form are universal. Biden does not have many years left, and while many people survive into their 90s, they’re mostly retired and not doing the most stressful job in the world.

Biden is the laughing stock of global politics right now, and everyone knows it, even if not everyone is saying it. While our own sycophant comedy sector struggles to lampoon his increasingly ridiculous behavior, even the Saudis are figuring out how to squeeze a laugh out of the Biden administration situation.

All of this is to say it doesn’t seem very promising for a second Biden term, and word has it Democrats are quietly preparing for a primary season. This represents a problem, because the Democrats are already struggling with being seen as weak, nearly every one of their policies failing spectacularly over the past three years. The party is in disarray and Republicans have at least two very strong contenders for 2024 in former President Trump and hugely popular Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. They can’t be seen as any more confused than their current leader already looks. In addition, party players have been verbally supportive of Biden in public, and Jill and Jill’s husband still hold a lot of power in D.C. Who wants to be on the hook for public booting the current President halfway through his presidency?

How will it all play out? How will the Dems get rid of Biden without seeming like they’re getting rid of him? I have a few theories. Most of them depend on Jill and Joe actually cooperating with their behind-the-scenes handlers, which is another wild card that could throw a wrench in the gears, to mix metaphors.

1.Health Issues

Who wouldn’t believe it? The President has been a walking advertisement for Life Alert since he took office. His wife has to visibly guide him around in front of cameras. He is frail, his mental capacity is waning, and the amount of falls the man has suffered in the past year or two does not bode well for someone his age. Eventually one of those will take its toll. Democrats could negotiate an exit with the Bidens under the guise that POTUS is simply waning in health and has too much respect for the office to leave it unattended while he struggles with his health. Democrats get their empty slot and their voters get to pretend Biden isn’t already absent as a leader most of the time.

2.Under the Bus

The legacy media has been uncharacteristically (if not mildly) interested in the business dealings of the Biden family lately. They’ve even finally admitted the Hunter Biden laptop was true and may present a real issue for national security. Why? We watched the media collude with Big Tech and Big Government in 2020 to knock the laptop story out of the news cycle and deplatform anyone who tried to report on it. So why are they (slightly) interested in it now? They still have the power to ignore the story and let all the Biden sludge sink to the bottom of history. Why not just keep looking the other way?

This smells like a set-up. It might not go anywhere, but if the Democrats need to pull the trigger on booting Biden, it would be so easy to point to the potentially traitorous and illegal actions of his family over the years. Democrats can pretend they’re taking the moral high ground and the next candidate can run on “restoring integrity” to the party and the office.

3.Family 

A popular excuse for politicians who need to leave their position before a scandal breaks is “spending time with family.” We know all about Hunter’s issues. We know the Bidens have a rift with daughter Ashley. And I don’t know if you’ve heard, but President Biden’s oldest son died some years ago. The family has been through a lot, and the presidency is not an easy position. The Bidens could bow out with the excuse that their family needs them. Poor Hunter has his demons, and with his modern art career turning out to be a huge failure, he needs dad and pretend-mom more than ever. Also, maybe the family has never really healed from losing Beau Biden and it’s taken a toll. POTUS could say he needs to spend his final days caring for his children and wife. We will laugh at the obvious lie, but his voters think men can be women, so they’ll buy it.

4.White Privilege

This one is my favorite theory, not because I think it’s most likely, but because it would be so very fitting. A ridiculous end of a ridiculous presidency based on a ridiculous notion. Biden himself has already set the stage for this, though he may regret that now. In the days following the election, he was careful to highlight Kamala Harris as an emerging leader, and someone he fully intended to take advice from (lol), going so far as to say there were some issues he would even defer to her on altogether (lol lol). Obviously the Bidens have since realized what we all knew from the beginning – Kamala is a moron. Still, they can use the excuse that Joe recognizes the time for a BRAVE WOMAN OF COLOR™ to take the helm has come, and he is stepping aside to support her for President. This could happen right now, so Kamala could go into ’24 as the incumbent (but I doubt that) or at a time when a primary season might be legally or physically impossible.

5.No Confidence

Joe Biden is not all there. I think at this point everyone pretty much agrees, though some may be a bit more quiet about it than others. Democrats can pull the “senility” trigger if they’re motivated. There’s plenty of evidence to support it, it would not be shocking given the President’s age, and it clears the way for a younger candidate who can go the distance…maybe someone who’s name rhymes with gruesome?

Of course, as I mentioned before, all of this is contingent on Jill and Joe being willing to vacate the White House. Given what she gladly puts her husband through every day, I’d say Jill isn’t keen to leave the premises anytime soon. There are rumors of deep tensions between the Bidens and the White House handlers who seem to be running too many things behind the scenes. It is clear they’re not all on the same page. We’ll just have to see how it all shakes out, but for now, these are my main theories on how the Democrats could make it all go away and start fresh if they are motivated enough.

What do you think? Is Biden going to make it to 2024? Will the Dems try to push him out? If so, how?

Time to End the Veil of Secrecy Inside D.C. Kangaroo Court

The new chief judge needs to shine much-needed light inside the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse. 

Julie Kelly reporting for American Greatness

Judge Beryl Howell did not get the gushing send off from her colleagues she undoubtedly expected.

Howell, appointed to the D.C. District Court by Barack Obama in 2010 and elevated to the court’s highest post in 2016—just in time to oversee numerous criminal investigations into Donald Trump—finished up her seven-year stint as chief judge earlier this month. Colleagues and staff assembled in her courtroom as the proverbial torch was passed to Judge James Boasberg, another Obama appointee.

But according to Politico, the retirement celebration turned into a “roast” of sorts as one judge after another chided Howell for her closed-doors dealings. 

“Howell seemed to freeze in her seat as the most senior jurist on the court, Judge Paul Friedman, publicly described her still-secret rulings in grand jury-related matters,” reporters Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney wrote on March 17. “[Her] fellow judges made clear they were as tantalized as the rest of the political world by Howell’s secret work presiding over grand juries that could lead to charges against former President Donald Trump.”

Howell sat “stone-faced” when Friedman teased how, “we’d all love to read her opinions, but we can’t.” Friedman also noted that Howell issued “100 secret grand jury opinions” as chief judge.

Tanya Chutkan, another Obama appointee, also chimed in. “There’s so much work Chief Judge Howell has done that we may never know about,” she joked.

Although she will remain on the bench as an associate judge, her farewell as chief ended on a sour note. Nevertheless, Howell got the last laugh, once again, at Trump’s expense.

In yet another sealed ruling, Howell rejected claims of privilege and ordered Evan Corcoran, one of Trump’s attorneys, to testify before a grand jury in the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into Team Trump’s handling of alleged classified documents. 

Howell’s penchant for secrecy, of course, doesn’t extend to the news media; details related to the sealed order were leaked a few days later. 

“Sources added that Howell also ordered Corcoran to hand over a number of records tied to what Howell described as Trump’s alleged ‘criminal scheme,’ echoing prosecutors,” ABC News reported on March 21. “Those records include handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings.” (Corcoran testified on Friday.)

In a matter of months, Howell has authored a flurry of secret decrees, including authorization to retain the contents of Representative Scott Perry’s (R-Va.) cell phone—seized by FBI agents last August, the day after the Mar-a-Lago FBI raid—and compelling the testimony of key Trump aides including former chief of staff Mark Meadows, former national security advisor Robert O’Brien, and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, a ruling also leaked to ABC News last week.

In fact, much of the work conducted in Washington, D.C.’s E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse is far out of the public eye. In the ongoing prosecution of at least 1,000 people (and counting) in what the Biden regime considers an act of domestic terror comparable to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, it is nearly impossible for Americans to watch what’s happening on a daily basis. When initial court proceedings began in the January 6 investigation—arraignments, pretrial detention requests, plea agreements—Howell made those individual hearings available on a public access line.

But shortly before the first jury trial in March 2022, most of the public access lines were disabled. Reporters or members of the public who want to view any part of the Justice Department’s largest criminal investigation in American history must travel to the nation’s capital, go through an intense security screening, and sit in a small courtroom without access to electronic devices. (For example, I sat in an empty courtroom in February and watched Chutkan sentence a J6 defendant to 12 months in prison on misdemeanor convictions while mocking him for using a public defender.)

This is in stark contrast to the D.C. appellate court, which livestreams hearings on YouTube and posts recordings on its website.

So, why would a lower court not follow suit?

The reason is obvious. If citizens and independent journalists not based in Washington, D.C. had access to these courtrooms, the public would be outraged at the conduct of prosecutors and judges overseeing January 6 cases. They would hear federal judges routinely berate January 6 defendants, even those accused of low-level petty offenses, for their minor involvement in the Capitol protest. The public would learn how lengthy prison sentences are often handed down for crimes no different in nature (though, in most J6 cases, much less serious) from those committed in 2020 by left-wing rioters who largely remain unpunished to this day.

They would hear the weak evidence presented by prosecutors—usually nothing more than a collection of social media posts, chat messages, and cherry-picked video clips rather than hard proof of plans to “overthrow democracy” that day—and how often D.C. judges act as a rubber stamp for the government.

For example, in the past few weeks alone, the public would have learned about the presence of numerous FBI informants embedded in the Proud Boys; five members of the group are now on trial for seditious conspiracy and other charges. In fact, the steady drumbeat of revelations about the amount of FBI informants prompted one defense attorney to joke last week in court that “I am not and have never been a CHS”—the acronym for confidential human source or informant.

In the latest scandal for the Justice Department at trial—the defense team recently uncovered multiple messages exchanged between FBI agents that discussed doctored and destroyed evidence as well as the jailhouse surveillance of attorney-client communications—prosecutors waited months before notifying the defense team that one of their witnesses had been an FBI informant for nearly two years. Not only was this particular witness accused of cozying up to a few Proud Boy defendants and their loved ones, she also repeatedly contacted at least one defense attorney and met in person with others.

Did any of this alarm Judge Timothy Kelly, the Trump-appointed judge overseeing the trial? Nope.

Kelly, working without any meaningful public scrutiny, did not admonish prosecutors for waiting until the day before the witness was scheduled to testify to let defense counsel know she was an informant. And when the government came up with excuses about why her role as an FBI informant was not relevant and the jury should not know about it, Kelly agreed. 

“Everyone involved has, sort of, sworn that [targeting of defense team] didn’t happen and I think her contacts with the defense camp have, are easily explained, by her sympathy for the defendants,” Kelly told attorneys. “So all that stuff will be out of bounds when she comes up.”

Now, no one knows if Kelly’s conclusions are accurate because most of the official records related to this informant’s work remain under seal, even hidden from the defense team. One defense lawyer complained that the documents they did receive were heavily redacted.

But the government got its way; the defense dropped the FBI informant from its witness list. And that move came just a few days after Kelly quashed a defense subpoena to compel the testimony of a key FBI informant who drove the then-leader of the Proud Boys to a meeting with the member of the Oath Keepers on January 5, 2021 among other activities.

Kelly’s heavy-handedness against transparency earned a rare rebuke from a coalition of major news organizations, which noted in a new motion that Kelly has held “previously sealed hearings and excluded the press and public from attending proceedings in this high-profile case”

It is time for the new chief judge to shine a much-needed light inside the Prettyman courthouse. Open the records, remove the protective order on thousands of hours of surveillance video, and, most importantly, give the American people access to trials and hearings.

The January 6 prosecution is dominating our political discourse, irrevocably altering the way the government handles political dissent, destroying lives, and closing in on Donald Trump. None of the goings-on should take place before an exclusive audience composed of only those who live and work in the nation’s capital. Judge Boasberg should stop allowing judges and prosecutors to hide from Americans. The moment of truth is long gone, but he can, and should, remedy it without delay.

X22, And we Know, and more- March 29

 

Still unofficial for now, But I got more unofficial hints yesterday that clearly point to Hetty being in both parts of the finale! Shouldn't be too much longer before it's finally made official.

Here's tonight's news:

Xi Jinping’s Visit to Moscow and the Neo-Cold War

The United States can no longer afford to invest itself in each and every international crisis, while its own home front is vulnerable to political, economic, and financial disasters. 

by Hicham Tohme for American Greatness

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Moscow, by all accounts, was an historic moment in foreign affairs and international relations. The meeting between Xi and Putin, as well as the resulting signing of several agreements in the domains of trade, economic, military, and technological cooperation, were nothing short of a declaration of the demise of the unipolar world order dominated by the United States since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Xi proudly proclaimed that change which “had not been seen in 100 years” was coming. This statement did not convince many observers, including Atlantic Council president and CEO Frederick Kempe, who perceived the event as nothing more than Beijing’s open support of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

With Russia’s pivot to the east, however, the world is more likely witnessing a seismic change and a return to the same world order that governed international relations during the second half of the 20th century, a renewed Cold War.

All of this would have seemed far fetched just a couple of years ago. With Russia’s constant groveling to be accepted as a “great power” in the eyes of the West, China’s reach and ambition had been all but curtailed to a regional role—with only minor incursions into in places like Africa, where a lack of global attention opened up voids the Chinese felt comfortable filling.

Today, however, and after signing several agreements and memoranda of cooperation, particularly in the fossil fuel, nuclear energy, and military technology sectors, the world is facing a conjunction of forces that is morphing two regional powers into a political camp with the potential to act as a superpower in the very near future.

What makes this alliance between Russia and China troubling for the current world order is the complementarity of their weaknesses and strengths. China has a robust and growing economy, expected to surpass that of the United States within the next decade or two, a major limitation of Russia, which historically has struggled to balance its ambitions with its resources. 

Russia, on the other hand, has the technology and natural resources China still needs to advance its global standing and power, despite the Asian behemoth’s great leaps in those domains during the past decade. 

Furthermore, there is no indication that the two powers are diverging on any topic of contention where observers expect their national interests to contrast, particularly in Central Asia, where both Russia and China exert overlapping influence to varying degrees. For the moment, their foreign policies seem to be perfectly in sync with one another.

The rise of a competing geopolitical rival to the United States is not the only indication of this return to a Cold War. The fact that this adversary is concretely positioning itself as an alliance that is an antithesis to the current global unipower leaves no room for question. This Eurasian alliance is expecting conflict with the West and might even be insistent on it. 

But what is equally interesting is the reappearance of the Cold War’s often forgotten player, the Third World.

In a recent piece, Brian Jenkins observes this reemergence when considering the position of most non-Western nations on the war in Ukraine. Most of Africa and Asia remain, to this day, neutral in a conflict they perceive to pit Russia against the United States. Jenkins also notes that, similar to their stance during the Cold War, most of these countries adopt neutrality primarily out of “reflexive antipathy” for U.S. foreign policy.

The rise of this revitalized Third World should be understood to mean a more encompassing and global attitude toward the standing global order of the past three decades. The spirit of the Bandung Conference of 1955, which set the framework for Third World neutrality, is alive once more.

India is competing with China for Russian oil purchases, Chad is nationalizing foreign interests in its economy, South Africa wants to spearhead BRICS efforts, and several African nations are contemplating a common African bank to try and divert from the use of the American dollar in international trade. These news stories from the past two months read like similar headlines from the Cold War era, when decolonization politics were at their apex.

Even close U.S. allies have taken this chance to distance themselves, as they see opportunity in the shifting global order. For example, Saudi Arabia has been trying to gain some autonomy from the United States and has adopted energy policies in line with Moscow’s interests over the past year, much to the dismay of Washington, particularly in a post-pandemic era when global fossil fuel prices needed to be kept in check. The last time the Kingdom took such a step was at the height of the Cold War in 1973.

The rise of a serious contending superpower with a solid political block supporting it, a reemerging block of neutral countries, and a looming political, economic, and even ideological conflict on the world stage look like strong indicators a neo-Cold War is already under way. Xi’s visit to Moscow was but an open declaration to this effect.

If the United States hopes to maintain its current status as the leading world superpower, its foreign policymakers need to recognize the changes to the international system and reassess America’s position and positioning in it. Primarily, they need to recognize that the United States can no longer afford to invest itself in each and every international crisis, while its own home front is vulnerable to political, economic, and financial disasters. 

As for the rising global order, we must remember that the Cold War era was a period of relative global stability. The clashing interests of the two superpowers at the time were negotiated through multiple means, violent or otherwise, but never led to direct confrontation between the two belligerents.

Xi’s vision of changes that we have not seen in over 100 years takes us back to one of history’s greatest dark periods, however. At that time, rising regional powers created belligerent pacts and alliances to try and cement their geopolitical position, leading to a World War that cost the lives of more than 40 million people. It is in everyone’s best interest to try and avert this scenario. 

Foreign Influence And Hack-And-Leak Operations Apparently Only Matter If They Hurt Democrats

The double-standard animating the press and prosecutors is bad enough, but Broidy’s allegations raise serious national security concerns.

Margot Cleveland reporting for The Federalist

Disgraced former RNC Finance Chair Elliott Broidy claims the special counsel’s office used email and text messages a retired CIA operative hacked from his computer for the state of Qatar. But according to a lawyer on Robert Mueller’s team, they never investigated the hack.

Broidy’s accusations and the supporting sworn declarations filed in his lawsuit against the alleged hacker suggest the underbelly of foreign lobbying now includes Middle Eastern foes engaging in commercial espionage to sway American foreign policy — with prosecutors ignoring the potential crimes unless they can take down a Republican.

In the midst of Mueller’s investigation into Donald Trump, prosecutor Zainab Ahmad questioned multiple witnesses about Broidy, a former top Republican fundraiser with connections to Trump and the Republican National Committee, according to recently filed declarations sworn under penalty of perjury. The special counsel’s interest in Broidy followed a series of damning high-profile articles about the then-RNC deputy finance chair based on material allegedly hacked from his computer.

The Wall Street Journal, for instance, reported Broidy “was in negotiations to earn tens of millions of dollars if the U.S. Justice Department dropped its investigation into a multibillion-dollar graft scandal involving a Malaysian state investment fund.” The New York Times published another article based on a purportedly hacked memorandum summarizing a private meeting between Broidy and Trump, in which Broidy allegedly lobbied the then-president to meet privately with the United Arab Emirates’ “de factor ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan; to back the U.A.E.’s hawkish policies in the region; and to fire Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson.” 

A month after those stories ran, The Wall Street Journal and New York Times reported Broidy had paid hush money to a Playboy “model” with whom he had an affair, resulting in her pregnancy and the later abortion of their unborn baby. It is unclear, however, if the hack or the raid on Michael Cohen’s law office served as a source for that story; Cohen had negotiated the non-disclosure agreement for Broidy. Either way, the latter story resulted in Broidy quitting as the deputy of the finance committee of the RNC.

The press coverage apparently also grabbed the attention of Mueller’s office. In a recently signed declaration by Richard Gates III, Gates swore under oath that he was questioned in three different interviews about Broidy and that during his interrogations, the special counsel’s team presented Gates with “both emails and screenshots of WhatsApp messages” that Broidy claims were hacked from his computer. 

“I was asked questions concerning Mr. Broidy’s interactions with Trump campaign and Trump Administration officials in 2016-2017, his efforts to expose Qatar’s extensive support of terrorist groups, his business dealings related to Romania, Malaysia, UAE and other ventures,” Gates’ sworn statement read.

Gates further attested that on Sunday, March 18, 2018, attorney Ahmad “specifically asked if [Gates] knew who had hacked Mr. Broidy.” Gates allegedly told Mueller’s team that he “did not have specific knowledge at that time beyond [his] belief that the State of Qatar was responsible for it.” 

In contrast, Ahmad swore in a declaration that Broidy’s name never came up in her presence “related to the alleged hacking.” Rather, according to Ahmad, she was not present for much of the March 18 interview, which special counsel attorneys Andrew Weissmann and Greg Andres conducted, along with two FBI agents. Ahmad acknowledged she had joined the interview in the afternoon but that it continued after she left. 

Significantly, Ahmad further claimed in her declaration that to the best of her “knowledge and recollection,” no one at the special counsel’s office investigated the alleged hacking of Broidy. 

Why not? Was it because the special counsel’s office referred an investigation into the hacking to other components of the Justice Department? If so, why has nothing come of that investigation? 

Potential Scandal

If not, though, this represents a huge scandal because it means Mueller’s team ignored the apparent hacking of an American citizen allegedly carried out at the request of a foreign country to influence American policy, while prosecutors then allegedly used the hacked materials to target the Trump-connected Republican.

Broidy’s civil lawsuits against those he claims are responsible for hacking his computer system and then feeding the stolen documents to the press include detailed allegations that, if true, suggest our government ignored the foreign targeting of Americans for political reasons. 

Among others, Broidy sued Kevin Chalker, who is allegedly a former CIA officer, and Chalker’s cybersecurity company, Global Risk Advisors, LLC, with Broidy claiming Chalker and Global Risk Advisors are responsible for hacking his system. Broidy also filed a parallel lawsuit in a federal court in D.C. against one of Qatar’s top D.C. lobbyists, Nicolas Muzin, and others the former RNC moneyman claims bear responsibility for feeding his hacked materials to the media. 

In his first lawsuit, Broidy alleged that Chalker, Global Risk Advisors, and others engaged in a “hack-and-smear operation designed to silence Broidy’s criticism of Qatar’s support for terrorism.” Broidy also claimed the state of Qatar funded the operation.

In his proposed Second Amendment complaint, Broidy further alleged that after the press onslaught based on the hacked materials began, Muzin texted a “public relations official[] who was involved in the media dissemination and use of the Broidy hacked materials,” writing: “It’s very good. We got the press going after Broidy,” and later celebrating that they put Broidy in Mueller’s “crosshairs.” 

While the federal court originally tossed Broidy’s case against Chalker and Global Risk Advisors, concluding his complaint failed to connect the defendants to the hack-and-leak operation, Broidy has since filed an amended complaint with a declaration, signed under penalty of perjury, from a purported whistleblower.

In the sworn statement, the self-proclaimed whistleblower attested that he had been employed by Chalker’s company, Global Risk Advisors (GRA), or its affiliates and learned that “Chalker had knowledge of the Broidy hacking and GRA was responsible for the hacking.” The whistleblower further attested that “Chalker and GRA engaged in physical and electronic surveillance of Broidy” and that “Chalker and others at GRA took steps to hide and destroy electronic devices that contained information that would show involvement with the Broidy hacking.”

Cause to Investigate

From the filings in Broidy’s civil cases, there appears ample cause for the government to have investigated the hack. This is not merely because a private individual’s electronic communications were illegally accessed, but because the allegations, if true, would place responsibility for the hack on a foreign country seeking to advance its policy perspectives. Yet, according to Ahmad, the special counsel did not investigate the hack.

Unless another part of the DOJ did, here it appears partisan politics were in play again, as the Department of Justice would later charge Broidy with conspiracy to serve as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act related to Broidy’s lobbying for a foreign national connected to the Malaysia embezzlement scandal. Broidy had also lobbied (unsuccessfully) for the return of a Chinese national to the People’s Republic of China, again without registering as required by law. President Trump would later grant Broidy clemency.

But what of those who hacked Broidy? And what about evidence of other high-profile lobbying by Democrats, such as Hunter Biden and his business partners? Are only the unregistered lobbyists connected to the wrong party targeted?

Then there is the press, which in 2018 had no problem reporting on Broidy’s affairs, lobbying and otherwise, based on illegally hacked or leaked materials. Yet by 2020, a purported “hack-and-leak” operation that did not exist made Hunter Biden and the Biden family pay-to-play scandal off limits.

The double-standard animating the press and prosecutors is bad enough, but Broidy’s allegations raise serious national security concerns. If our government really wants to counter malign foreign influence, the focus shouldn’t be on the new media and ordinary Americans, but on illegal foreign lobbying — no matter the political party of the unregistered lobbyist. 

The Federalist requested comment from Andrew Weissmann, Zainab Ahmad, and Greg Andres, but none of the former Mueller attorneys responded to the inquiries. 

With Fresh Evidence and Interviews, Arizona AG Candidate Abe Hamadeh's Still Fighting to Count All Valid Votes

Jennifer Oliver O'Connell reporting for RedState 

Abe Hamadeh, the Republican candidate for Arizona Attorney General in 2022, is still fighting to ensure that every valid vote cast in his race – the closest race in Arizona history – is counted.

Democrat Kris Mayes was declared the winner, with the initial official result showing she’d won by 511 votes. Hamadeh initially filed suit in December challenging those results; a judge dismissed that suit on December 23, six days before recount results were announced that cut Mayes’ lead nearly in half, to 280 votes. In that recount, “significant, material discrepancies” were identified that “cast doubt upon the completeness and accuracy of the election results,” Hamadeh’s attorneys argue in court filings, and then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and other Arizona election officials knew about those discrepancies no later than December 21 – yet none of that information was shared with Hamadeh or with the Court.

Because of the new information provided when the recount results were unsealed, Hamadeh filed a motion for a new trial in January, and his attorneys provided even more information about those errors in a brief filed on February 6. According to Jennifer Wright, one of Hamadeh’s attorneys, the team has identified more than 500 high-propensity voters who attempted to vote in the 2022 election and had their provisional ballot rejected. What the team is finding is that voters who might have a secondary residence in another county are being re-registered in that county after having some kind of contact with state bureaucracy, and their former registration is automatically canceled, without notice to the voter.

Wright shared a video to Twitter of one such voter, Howard, who lives in Mesa (Maricopa County).

Howard is a disabled war veteran and retired long-haul truck driver who lives in Mesa but has a summer home in Show Low. Every summer he temporarily changes his address with the post office to the Show Low address so he can continue to receive mail without delay, but this has never affected his ability to vote in Maricopa County since he’s not actually changing his official address. During the summer of 2021 Howard needed to obtain an Arizona ID card since he could no longer drive due to medical issues and took care of that while he was in Show Low, in Navajo County, and that’s where the problem started.

Unknown to Howard, his request for the state ID card triggered ADOT’s Service Arizona portal to create and submit a voter registration form registering him to vote in Navajo County. The signature displayed on the form was “pulled” or copied from the data file used to order Howard’s state ID card.

The system-generated form was reported to the Navajo County Recorder’s Office. This then caused the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office to cancel Howard’s right to vote there based on the “new” registration.

But no notice was sent to Howard at the time by either county recorder.

Howard learned that he was registered to vote in Navajo County in May 2022 when that county registrar mailed information related to the upcoming primary election, but he was never notified by Maricopa County that that registration had been canceled. He wrote to Navajo County immediately to inform them that he did not live there, that he lived in Maricopa County, and the Recorder canceled Howard’s Navajo County registration and confirmed the action in writing by sending a letter to Howard’s Maricopa County address.

When Howard went to vote in person on Election Day he was able to vote a provisional ballot, but that ballot was never counted even though he offered proof that day that he is a resident of Maricopa County.

As Hamadeh awaits a decision from Judge Jantzen and the Arizona Superior Court, he is working to interview voters who have claimed they were disenfranchised and had their provisional ballots rejected. The County Recorder has dismissed claims like Howard’s as “voter error” or simply ignored the voters who have sought redress on the issue, but Hamadeh calls it what it is – disenfranchisement.

My team has discovered that many Arizonans were wrongfully disenfranchised, due to system or process error. Prior to running for Attorney General, I served as a prosecutor at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and overseas with the U.S. Army Reserve. I swore an oath to uphold the laws and defend the Constitution. My commitment to fight is instilled in my values, and I will continue to seek justice and accountability for those who were wrongfully disenfranchised.

As Hamadeh said, the way Mayes and the rest of the Arizona Democrats are responding shows that above all, they are afraid of the truth.

Defendants’ responses demonstrate one thing: fear. Fear that the election was not conducted properly, fear that the reported results were not accurate, and, at bottom, fear of finding out the truth of the proper election result.

Wright had this to say about the election officials treatment of the voters:

As to those who say Hamadeh should “move on,” and that there’s nothing to be done now since Mayes is already in office and working, Hamadeh points out that there is precedent for his continued legal challenge.

Hamadeh is confident that this is the way to shine light on the election processes in Arizona and right the discrepancies, errors, and incorrect handling of ballots in the November 2022 election, saying, “The courts are the proper venue for these ballot disputes, not the corporate media or political consultants who act as spokesmen and propaganda for the government. I will continue to fight relentlessly to make sure the will of the people is honored and that all lawful votes are counted.”

Pope Francis in hospital with respiratory infection

 

Pope Francis has a respiratory infection and will need to spend "a few days" in hospital in Rome, the Vatican has said.

The pontiff had breathing difficulties in recent days but does not have Covid, the statement said.

He will need "a few days of appropriate hospital medical therapy".

"Pope Francis is touched by the many messages received and expresses his gratitude for the closeness and prayer," the statement added.

His closest staff, including security, were expected to stay the night at the Gemelli Hospital, a person with direct knowledge told the BBC earlier.

This is the busiest time of the year for Pope Francis, 86, with many events and services scheduled ahead of Easter weekend.

A Palm Sunday Mass is scheduled this weekend, and Holy Week and Easter celebrations next week.

He is also scheduled to visit Hungary at the end of April.

On Wednesday morning, he presided over his weekly general audience in St Peter's Square.

Though he looked to be in good spirits, he was seen grimacing as he was helped with getting into his vehicle, AFP news agency reports.

The pontiff has suffered from mobility problems related to his knee in recent months, forcing him to use a wheelchair.   

He also underwent surgery to treat a colon problem at the same hospital in Rome in 2021. In January he said the condition had returned.

Despite his ailments, the Pope has remained active and has undertaken trips abroad this year. He visited the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan in February.

In January, the Pope led the funeral of his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI - who was the first pope to step down voluntarily for centuries. He said this was due to ill health.

Pope Francis has previously indicated that he may also wish to follow in Benedict's footsteps in the event that his health deteriorated.  

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65117270    

James O’Keefe Starts Looking – Donations Via Act Blue Appear to be Money Laundering

“The O’Keefe Media Group broke its first story investigating what appears to be a national plot to utilize senior citizens matching a similar profile as vehicles to launder millions of dollars into political campaigns.” [link]

James O’Keefe uses publicly available FEC data to locate donors who are reported to have given thousands of donations to Act Blue.  However, the people listed on the FEC reports have no idea why there is a massive difference between the number, frequency and scale of their contributions, compared to their actual donations.  The differences are massive.  WATCH:

One of the possible explanations is that people inside ACT BLUE use previous organic donor activity to fraudulently launder donations that come from larger networks.  By breaking up large donations into smaller amounts, it gives the appearance of a larger support base (small donors) and washes the fingerprints away from the identity of the originating large donor, individual, group or institution.