Obama-Appointed Judge Denies GOP Lawsuit Against New Jersey Over Mail-In Voting

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Obama-Appointed Judge Denies GOP Lawsuit Against New Jersey Over Mail-In Voting

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from President Donald Trump’s campaign on Thursday that aimed to stop New Jersey’s Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy from sending hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots to all registered voters.

U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote that the Trump campaign’s concerns about the potential for voter fraud “are largely conjectural, hypothetic, and lacking in imminence,” according to Bloomberg.

But recent reports prove that New Jersey’s elections have been seriously tainted by voter fraud.

Just this summer, a New Jersey judge ruled that an election in Paterson, N.J., was too fraudulent to be counted and ordered a new vote to be held. And during the July 7 primary, more than 1,600 ballots in Sussex County were left uncounted for more than two months.

Shipp, however, claimed that state election officials have taken steps since then to implement new security measures, including bar codes on each ballot and laws making it a third-degree crime to engage in voter fraud.

“Any suggestion of these measures’ imminent failure is also speculative,” he wrote.

The Trump campaign cited the recent examples of Paterson and Sussex County, but also reminded the court that a mail carrier in New Jersey was recently arrested for allegedly discarding mail, including 99 general election ballots.

However, Shipp argued these “unfortunate circumstances” do not indicate widespread voter fraud.

“Perhaps it will recur. But perhaps not,” Shipp wrote. “It is difficult—and ultimately speculative—to predict future injury from evidence of past injury.”

The Republican National Committee responded to Shipp’s ruling and said the GOP legal team will assess its options.

“Governor Murphy, who has disingenuously quipped that New Jersey has ‘a higher probability of being hit by lightning than we do uncovering voter fraud’ better seek shelter,” Samantha Zager, the Trump campaign’s deputy national press secretary, said in a statement.

“[H]e only has himself and his liberal legislature to blame for the chaos and confusion we’ve already seen ahead of November 3,” she added.

WHISTLEBLOWER: Bidens Knew of Likely Espionage Ties in Corrupt China Deal

Ben Sellers
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WHISTLEBLOWER: Bidens Knew of Likely Espionage Ties in Corrupt China Deal

Information from a whistleblower in the Hunter Biden laptop scandal not only corroborated the recovered hard-drive data but revealed that Biden associates knew they were dealing with Chinese spies in a massive joint equity venture with one of the country’s largest energy companies.

The Wall Street Journal on Thursday offered new e-mail material from Tony Bobulinski, the former CEO of Sinohawk Holdings, a 2017 venture which several members of the Biden clan hoped to use to cash in on their family brand and access to power.

The $10 million deal, involving a top executive from China’s CEFC, first took shape in the final years of the Obama administration, while Joe Biden was vice president.

Despite Joe Biden’s denial during Thursday night’s debate, evidence indicates that the current Democrat presidential nominee was among those claiming a 10 percent stake in the investment.

Bobulinski confirmed that the Biden family patriarch/cash-cow was referred to as “the big guy” in a May 2017 email addressing “remuneration packages” for the new company, one of several euphemistic nicknames that appear designed to conceal his direct involvement.

In providing the corroborating material, Bobulinski also refuted the claims made by Joe Biden and his campaign allies that the scandal was part of a Russian ‘disinformation’ plot.

Bobulinski said in a statement Wednesday that he considered the suggestion to be “offensive.”

After his name and contact information surfaced in the newly public emails, recovered from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, Bobulinski came forward to cooperate with investigators, already suspecting after the revelations in a Senate report last month that the Bidens had thrown their American business partners under the bus.

“I don’t have a political ax to grind; I just saw behind the Biden curtain and I grew concerned with what I saw,” Bobulinski said in his statement.

“The Biden family aggressively leveraged the Biden family name to make millions of dollars from foreign entities even though some were from communist-controlled China.”

According to the Wall Street Journal analysis of the new evidence furnished by Bobulinski, the all-American former wrestler and Navy lieutenant had no ties to the Bidens when initially approached about the China deal.

He expressed his reservations in messages to James Gilliar, the chief intermediary among the business partners, who acknowledged that Hunter Biden had “skill sets missing” and “has a few demons.”

Nonetheless, Gilliar told Bobulinski that Hunter—and later his uncle Jim—brought immeasurable brand value to the venture.

Gilliar told Bobulinski that the Chinese partners involved “are intelligence so they understand the value added.”

The partners seem to have had a rift, however, over the compensation levels and the unequal contributions of the stakeholders.

Bobulinski objected to adding Jim Biden into the mix with an incentives package substantially larger than his own CEO compensation.

As to Hunter’s long list of demands, Bobulinski wrote to complain that “he thinks things are going to be his personal piggybank.”

Hunter fired back by making clear that his family name gave him all the negotiating leverage.

“[I]n this instance only one player holds the trump card and that’s me,” he wrote. “May not be fair but it’s the reality because I’m the only one putting an entire family legacy on the line.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Chinese company, CEFC, maintained close ties with the Chinese communist government and military. It ultimately went bankrupt amid a US probe into money laundering.

Shortly thereafter, CEFC Chairman Ye Jianmin, the top Chinese stakeholder in the joint venture, was arrested by the Chinese military and reportedly has not been heard from since.

Gilliar acknowledged to Bobulinski that the goal in bringing on the Bidens was to wield influence, likely as protection against such criminal investigations.

Joe Biden had done so earlier by pressuring Ukrainian officials to drop a corruption investigation against Burisma, an energy company paying Hunter Biden an estimated million-dollar annual consulting fee to sit on its board.

“I know why [Ye] wants the deal and what makes it enormous,” Gilliar told Bobulinski. “It’s the family name.”

He also warned Bobulinski to maintain the utmost secrecy about Joe Biden’s role in the enterprise.

“Don’t mention Joe being involved, it’s only when u are face to face, I know u know that but they are paranoid,” Gilliar wrote.

Seeing the Sinohawk Holdings deal fall through, Ye renegotiated a new offer with the Bidens that involved a 50–50 equity split, which Hunter said was more agreeable to his family than the “consulting” fees offered under the earlier terms.

The new company, Hudson West, also opened credit lines for Hunter, Jim and Sara Biden (Jim’s wife) according to the report by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“Mr. Bobulinski suspects Hunter and Jim had found an easier way to cash in on their name, one that didn’t involve pesky partners and complex deals,” reported the Wall Street Journal.

Ohio Sheriff Offers to Help Celebrities Leave the U.S. if Trump is Reelected

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Ohio Sheriff Offers to Help Celebrities Leave the U.S. if Trump is Reelected

An Ohio sheriff went viral this week for offering to help Hollywood celebrities leave the U.S. if President Donald Trump is reelected.

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones posted a video this week responding to celebrities who have threatened to move if Trump wins in November.

Instead of blasting them, Jones offered to pay for their flights out.

“Hell, I’ll even help them pack,” he said.

Jones pointed out that these celebrities are “mostly the same people who don’t like police, that don’t like first responders.”

“I hope you do leave,” he said. “Maybe you can make a better life there in that country.”

The Butler County Sheriff’s Department backed Jones’s statement and reminded residents that celebrities made similar statements in 2016, and “it is believed not one celebrity left then, and it appears the same threats are being made this election year.”

Just last week, Bruce Springsteen vowed to leave the country if Trump is reelected.

“If Trump is re-elected—which he will not be; I’m predicting right now he’s gonna lose—if by some happenstance he should be, I’ll see you on the next plane,” Springsteen said.

Earlier in September, Jones also took a stand against radical Black Lives Matter protesters and warned them that if they came to his county, he would take action.

“I won’t tolerate it, period,” he said. “You shoot at the police, expect us to shoot back. I will not allow my deputies or any law enforcement officer in Butler County to take the abuse I have seen over the past several months. If you come to this county expecting a free pass to harm one of my men or women in uniform keep in mind, nothing in life is free.”

Congressman Threatens to Pull Funding from NPR Over Hunter Biden Story

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Congressman Threatens to Pull Funding from NPR Over Hunter Biden Story

A House Republican threatened to pull funding from NPR, a taxpayer-subsidized media organization, after it announced it would not cover recent allegations made against Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

NPR released a statement this week calling reports about Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop “pure distractions,” and claimed it would be a waste of time to investigate the story further.

NPR public editor Kelly McBride expanded on this decision and claimed there are “many, many red flags in that New York Post investigation.”

The Post‘s bombshell reports appeared to confirm longstanding allegations about Hunter Biden’s corrupt foreign business deals in places like China and Ukraine.

Moreover, they raised explosive questions about whether his father, while serving as vice president, may have had a financial stake in or played a direct role in Hunter’s influence-peddling operations.

The laptop’s data files also contained photographs that appeared to show illegal drug use and, allegedly, sexual impropriety involving minors.

The FBI is believed to be investigating their veracity after Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani provided the material to Delaware law enforcement on Monday.

Meanwhile, efforts by mainstream media and social media to dismiss and censor the story drew outrage from President Donald Trump’s supporters, who saw it as part of a broader pattern of increasingly brazen and partisan media bias.

McBride echoed left-wing suggestions that Russia was responsible for the story, although Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has categorically rejected those assertions.

“Intelligence officials warn that Russia has been working overtime to keep the story of Hunter Biden in the spotlight,” McBride said in a statement.

“Even if Russia can’t be positively connected to this information, the story of how Trump associates Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani came into a copy of this computer hard drive has not been verified and seems suspect,” McBride continued. “And if that story could be verified, the NY Post did no forensic work to convince consumers that the emails and photos that are the basis for their report have not been altered.”

In response, Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., sent a letter on Friday to John Lansing, NPR president and CEO, threatening to take congressional action against NPR’s funding.

“Your organization is among a whole host of mainstream media outlets that have proven not to be dedicated to reporting unbiased news to the American people,” Duncan wrote, according to Fox News.

“While other outlets do not receive taxpayer funds, NPR does,” he continued. “Because of such willful neglect, NPR should not receive another cent from the taxpayers.”

Duncan pointed out that not one fact in the New York Post’s report has been debunked or discredited.

“Your organization stated that they would not be reporting on the Biden family’s corrupt business dealings because they find the reporting, emails, text messages, and corroborating witness statements to be a ‘distraction,’” he said.

“Distraction is an interesting word choice since it does not call the Biden news illegitimate or fake,” Duncan continued. “Rather, NPR is fully admitting its legitimacy and is choosing to bow out and exclaim ‘distraction’ since the news is devastating to the Biden campaign and the leftist cause.”

Duncan also reminded NPR that it gladly ran stories about the Steele dossier, which was an unreliable source that proved to be fake.

“The American people see right through the bias,” Duncan wrote.

“They know exactly why organizations like NPR, Google, Twitter, and Facebook are censoring unfavorable news on Joe and Hunter Biden,” he said. “It’s because the Trump Presidency broke your profession and now you have shuttered all credibility.”

He warned that the outlet can’t have it both ways by playing political favorites at taxpayers’ expense.

“You can’t choose to report on the fake Steele dossier and not the real Hunter Biden scandal,” he said. “If you think you can have it both ways, you deserve to operate on your own dime.”

Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.

Stuck in Delaware, Biden Tries to Clean Up Debate Mess as Trump Hits Trail

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Stuck in Delaware, Biden Tries to Clean Up Debate Mess as Trump Hits Trail

(Headline USA) President Donald Trump and his allies fought for momentum in election battleground states on Friday after a solid debate performance the night before that gave renewed hope to Republicans.

Meanwhile Democrat Joe Biden tried to clean up a debate misstep while urging voters to focus on the president’s handling of the coronavirus.

Trump immediately jumped back into campaign mode with just 11 days remaining in the 2020 contest. His heavy travel schedule contrasted with the energy-less Biden’s plans to stay for a single speaking event near his Delaware home on Friday, and only two events in nearby Pennsylvania on Saturday. It highlighted the candidates’ divergent strategies, styles and policy prescriptions shaping the election’s closing days. Nearly 50 million votes have already been cast, with an additional 100 million or so expected before a winner is declared.

Biden’s team was forced to defend an unpopular political stance on Friday and tried to walk it back. In the final moments of Thursday’s debate, the former vice president said he supports a “transition” away from oil in the U.S. in favor of renewable energy, saying it “pollutes, significantly.” Trump jumped on his stance immediately, telling voters in oil-rich states like Texas and Pennsylvania, “I hope you’re listening.”

The Biden campaign released a statement hours later declaring that he would phase out taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuel companies, not the industry altogether.

While ending the nation’s reliance on fossil fuel is popular among many liberals, that prospect could hurt Biden among working-class voters in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas who depend on the industry, and fracking in particular, to make a living.

“Let’s be really clear about this: Joe Biden is not going to ban fracking,” running mate Kamala Harris told reporters in Georgia on Friday, despite multitudes of video evidence the both of the Democrat nominees have said they would. “He is going to deal with the oil subsidies. You know, the president likes to take everything out of context. But let’s be clear, what Joe was talking about was banning subsidies, but he will not ban fracking in America.”

Trump’s allies immediately began running new attack ads seizing on the Democrats’ inconsistent answers on energy. One ad unveiled Friday calls Biden and Harris “fracking liars.” Another claims Biden’s plans could cost up to 600,000 jobs in Pennsylvania alone.

Speaking in the Oval Office before making multiple stops in Florida, Trump lapped up positive feedback for his toned-down debate performance, which marked a sharp shift away from his constant badgering of Biden in last month’s contest.

“This was better,” an optimistic Trump said, predicting as always sweeping success on Election Day even as polls suggest he and his party are behind. “It’s going to be a great red wave like you’ve never seen before.”

Both campaigns predictably claimed a boost from the televised debate that drew an audience of tens of millions. But with roughly one-third of expected ballots already cast through early voting, it is unclear how much the faceoff could alter the course of the campaign.

During the debate, Trump rosily predicted that the pandemic, which is escalating in several states, will “go away;” Biden ominously countered that the nation was headed toward “a dark winter.”

“He says that we’re learning to live with it,” Biden said of Trump. “People are learning to die with it.”

Even in the closing days of the race, the Democrat has maintained a cautious campaign schedule, citing the pandemic, while Trump has been a much more aggressive traveler. With Biden in Delaware, Trump was attending a pair of rallies in battleground Florida before casting an early ballot on Saturday in his adopted home state.

Republicans have questioned Biden’s physical and mental stamina.

GOP strategists believe, however, that the most effective attacks focus on Biden’s liberal policies. And for Friday, at least, Biden’s misstep on fossil fuels gave Trump the opening his party had been looking for.

Perhaps sensing that the comment could soon appear in Trump campaign ads, Biden did his own clean-up before boarding his plane after the debate, unconvincingly declaring, “We’re not going to ban fossil fuels. We’ll get rid of the subsidies of fossil fuels, but not going to get rid of fossil fuels for a long time.”

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

GOP Sen. Commends FBI for FINALLY Taking Interest in Hunter Biden Scandal

Ben Sellers
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GOP Sen. Commends FBI for FINALLY Taking Interest in Hunter Biden Scandal

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) A scheduled Friday morning interview between Hunter Biden’s ex-business partner, Tony Bobulinski, and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was delayed after the FBI stepped in.

The agency has been under fire amid questions that it may have tried to suppress the massive trove of damning information contained on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop from going public.

After Biden left the device at a Delaware computer repair shop, the store owner eventually seized control of it and discovered the data. He contacted the FBI, which initially did an analysis and later took possession of the laptop.

However, a copy of the hard drive files made it into the hands of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who delivered it to the New York Post.

Despite the inconvenience of having to reschedule, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., the HSAG committee chair, applauded the move.

“I appreciate that the FBI has a job to do, and I am glad they are finally taking an interest in these concerning financial matters that our Committees have been investigating for months,” Johnson said.

“I expect that Mr. Bobulinski will speak with our committee as soon as possible and fully share his insights into the Biden family’s business dealings,” he added.

Bobulinski provided a number of corroborating materials to the Wall Street Journal and other outlets after the bombshell story hit the New York Post last week.

Democrats, including the presidential campaign of Hunter’s father, Joe Biden, have continued to insist, despite the evidence, that it is a Russian disinformation smear.

While Bobulinski’s documents appear to corroborate aspects of it at least—involving a corrupt business deal with a Chinese energy company that ultimately fell through—some of the more shocking revelations from the data remain shrouded in secrecy.

Notably among those are the allegations from Giuliani that the laptop contained sexually explicit images of underage girls, including a 14-year-old relative of Hunter’s.

After Giuliani presented the evidence to Delaware authorities, the state’s Justice Department quickly punted it to the FBI, citing questions about its “veracity.”

Meanwhile, Johnson and the GOP-led HSGA committee, which released a report outlining many of the Biden family’s foreign entanglements prior to the laptop’s public disclosure, have indicated that they will continue their probe.

Already, Bobulinski has provided his materials. The committee made a similar request of Hunter Biden and his uncle Jim, who also was implicated in the Chinese scandal, as well as two other business partners in the venture whose names appear in emails discussing “remuneration packages” with a 10 percent cut for “the big guy.”

Top Senate Democrats, however, sounded the alarm on Thursday, warning FBI Director Christopher Wray not to investigate the allegations, which—regardless of their veracity—might carry the stain of a partisan campaign operation.

“In carrying out this critical national security mission, law enforcement’s handling of this matter must be above politics and beyond reproach,” wrote Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-NY,.

“We therefore urge you to resist pressure from President Trump and other partisan actors to take any actions intended to benefit President Trump politically on the eve of the election,” they continued. “Succumbing to such pressure would deeply undermine our national security interests and the credibility of law enforcement, and could have devastating consequences for the resiliency of our democracy.”

Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.

WATCH: Gun-Rights Group Touts 10 Wins for 2nd Amendment During Trump’s Tenure

Joshua Paladino
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WATCH: Gun-Rights Group Touts 10 Wins for 2nd Amendment During Trump’s Tenure

Gun Owners of America released a list of 10 wins that President Donald Trump secured for the 2nd Amendment—victories that Hillary Clinton would have prevented and that Joe Biden would overturn.

The Democratic presidential nominee has already stated that he does not believe the 2nd Amendment secures an individual right, that it “is not absolute,” and that its fundamental purpose was “to muster people to deal with an enemy called Great Britain we were fighting in a war,” the Daily Caller reported.

When Anderson Cooper asked if a Biden administration means “they’re going to come for my guns,” Biden said, “Bingo. You’re right if you have an assault weapon. The fact of the matter is they should be illegal. Period. Look, the Second Amendment doesn’t say you can’t restrict the kinds of weapons people can own.”

Biden said he supports a national gun-confiscation program to take so-called assault weapons, including the widely owned AR-15.

So far, Trump has blocked the Democratic Party’s radical anti-gun agenda and implemented a pro-gun agenda, GOA reported.

Court Appointments

Trump has appointed three Supreme Court justices. So far, the Senate has confirmed two, and the third nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, should be confirmed on Monday.

Their judicial philosophies indicate that they would uphold the precedent in D.C. v. Heller, which affirmed the individual right to own and use a firearm, if there were any challenges to the Constitutional precedent.

Amy Coney Barrett ruled on a 2nd Amendment case in Kanter v. Barr while she sat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. She said that the government could not institute an across-the-board ban on firearms, even for people with criminal records, except for violent felons, Fox News reported.

State Reciprocity

Trump has expressed willingness to “support” and “sign” Concealed Carry Reciprocity legislation if Congress can pass it.

This legislation would require states to honor each other state’s concealed carry permits, preventing states like Illinois from regulating the right to carry of citizens in surrounding Midwestern states.

‘Essential Businesses’

The Trump administration protected gun rights during the pandemic, even as states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, and California restricted freedom of movement, of religion, and of assembly.

In line with the wishes of Gun Owners of America, the Department of Homeland Security designated Second Amendment-related industry as “essential business.”

This protection of the industry has kept many gun manufacturers, stores, and ranges open, and it has given citizens more power to fight against unconstitutional regulations and shutdowns.

Federal Land

The Army Corps of Engineers changed its rules, at Trump’s request, to restore 2nd Amendment rights on federal land, including “on over 400 lake and river projects, totaling over 11 million acres of public lands in 43 states,” GOA reported.

Protecting the Vulnerable

Trump protected 75,000 seniors and disabled persons from losing their gun rights. He signed an executive order in March 2017 to prevent their names from being added to the prohibited persons list in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

UN Withdrawal

Trump pulled the United States out of the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty, a program that authorizes $70 billion per year to regulate the international weapons trade.

“We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your 2nd Amendment freedom,” Trump said in 2019, according to Breitbart. “Under my administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone.”

3-D Printing

The Trump administration has fought for the release of Defense Distributed’s 3-D printed gun files, which would decentralize and distribute the knowledge of firearm schematics.

The State Department scrapped the Obama administration’s lawsuit on the matter and won the right to “unlimited release,” but states have appealed the decision in federal district court. The judge blocked the implementation of the earlier ruling.

New York Overreach

The Justice Department defended the rights of gun owners in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. New York City, a case that determined whether New Yorkers had a right to transport their weapons.

The Supreme Court ruled against the 2nd Amendment in this case, but Trump’s Justice Department backed the rights of gun owners.

Excessive Sales Fees

The State Department updated rules for the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and removed a $2,250 registration fee on gunsmiths and firearm stores, even if they did not manufacture or export firearms or ammunition.

Fixing Legislative Flaws

The final win for firearm owners comes on the heels of a loss. Trump signed the “Fix NICS Act of 2017,” a law to create stricter enforcement of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

While GOA opposed the legislation, the Trump administration worked with the 2nd Amendment group to remove its worst provisions, including one that would have defined a person as a “fugitive from justice” and stripped him of his 2nd Amendment rights for an unpaid out-of-state parking ticket.

“This 2020 presidential election will determine if our next president will sign or veto legislation put on his desk and the congressional elections will determine whether that legislation is pro-gun or gun control,” GOA wrote in a press release.

ANOTHER TRUMP DEAL: Sudan to Join UAE, Bahrain in Recognizing Israel

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ANOTHER TRUMP DEAL: Sudan to Join UAE, Bahrain in Recognizing Israel

(Associated Press) President Donald Trump announced Friday that Sudan will start to normalize ties with Israel, making it the third Arab state to do so as part of U.S.-brokered deals in the run-up to Election Day.

The deal, which would deepen Sudan’s engagement with the West, follows Trump’s conditional agreement this week to remove the North African nation from the list of state sponsors of terrorism if it pays compensation to American victims of terror attacks.

It also delivers a foreign policy achievement for Trump just days before the U.S. election and boosts his embattled ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Recently, the United States brokered diplomatic pacts between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Jordan recognized Israel in the 1990s.

“President Trump is getting results and bringing peace to the world’s most volatile region, two things previous administrations and talking heads told us would never happen,” said Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. “Normalized relations between Sudan and Israel is a huge breakthrough in the quest for peace in the Middle East and another testament to our president’s bold leadership and effective diplomacy.”

Trump invited reporters into the Oval Office while he was on the phone with the leaders of Israel and Sudan. Trump said Sudan had demonstrated a commitment to battling terrorism.

“This is one of the great days in the history of Sudan,” Trump said, adding that Israel and Sudan have been in a state of war for decades.

“It is a new world,” Netanyahu said over the phone. “We are cooperating with everyone. Building a better future for all of us.”

Netanyahu has made it a priority to forge ties with formerly hostile countries in Africa and the Arab world in the absence of any progress with the Palestinians during his more than decade in office. The deal also is aimed at unifying Arab countries against their common adversary, Iran.

These recent recognitions of Israel have undermined the traditional Arab consensus that there can be no normalization with Israel before the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The Palestinians say the recognitions amount to betrayal, while Israel says the Palestinians have lost what they have seen as their “veto” over regional peace efforts.

The deal with Sudan will include aid and investment from Israel, particularly in technology and agriculture, along with further debt relief. It comes as Sudan and its transitional government teeter on the edge. Thousands have protested in the country’s capital Khartoum and other regions in recent days over dire economic conditions.

Trump’s announcement, the morning after the final presidential debate with Democrat Joe Biden, came after Sudan followed through on its pledge to deliver $335 million to compensate American victims of past terror attacks and their families. The money is meant for victims of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by the al-Qaida network while its leader, Osama bin Laden, was living in Sudan. Trump said on Tuesday that one the funds were transferred, he would remove Sudan from the list.

The removal of the terror designation opens the door for Sudan to get international loans and aid needed to revive its battered economy and rescue the country’s transition to democracy.

Sudan is on a fragile path to democracy after a popular uprising last year led the military to overthrow the longtime autocrat, Omar al-Bashir. A military-civilian government rules the country, with elections possible in late 2022.

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok thanked Trump for signing the executive order to remove Sudan from the terrorism list and said in a statement that he hoped to complete the process in a “timely manner.”

The normalization agreement had been in the works for some time but was finalized when Trump’s Mideast peace team, led by Jared Kushner and Avi Berkowitz, visited the region earlier this week to mark the first commercial flight between Israel and Bahrain and then went on to the United Arab Emirates, according to U.S. officials.

Unlike with Bahrain and the UAE, there has been a state of hostilities between Sudan and Israel, even if they had not been in direct conflict.

Key to the agreement was Sudan’s deposit of $335 million into an escrow account to pay compensation to victims of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A senior U.S. official said Sudan had borrowed the money needed to pay that amount.

Unmentioned in the joint statement was that Sudan has agreed, according to the senior U.S. official, to designate Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement as a terrorist organization, something that Israel has long sought from its neighbors and others in the international community.

Kushner said that other normalization agreements between Israel and Arab nations are in the works but would not predict which countries or when those deals might be completed.

Headline USA contributed to this report.

Trump Campaign Videos Illegal Multiple-Ballot Drop Offs in Pa.

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Trump Campaign Videos Illegal Multiple-Ballot Drop Offs in Pa.

(Associated Press) The Trump campaign has videotaped people as they deposit ballots in drop boxes in Philadelphia in what it says is an attempt to catch violations, surveillance that the battleground state’s Democratic attorney general suggested that, without evidence, could amount to illegal intimidation.

The campaign acknowledged the taping in a letter from a lawyer that complained it had caught voters on video illegally depositing multiple ballots. City elections officials responded they could not confirm the activity was inappropriate under Pennsylvania law.

Linda Kerns, the lawyer for the Trump campaign — which has already sued to ban the use of drop boxes — wrote to city election officials last week to request that they end the use of “unmanned drop boxes.” The New York Times first reported the development Thursday.

Philadelphia and many other heavily populated counties in Pennsylvania are using drop boxes to help collect an avalanche of mail ballots under a year-old law greatly expanding such voting.

Kerns wrote that video taken by a campaign representative shows three people dropping off as many as three ballots in a limited time period Oct. 14.

Pennsylvania law, in most cases, requires voters to deliver their own mail-in ballots, Kerns wrote, although it makes an exception for voters with disabilities.

Kerns suggested the images amount to “blatant violations” of state election law and said the campaign would sue, unless the city’s election office “commits to remedy this problem immediately.”

She asked for copies of city surveillance video at City Hall, for a list of voters who dropped ballots in the Philadelphia City Hall drop box on Oct. 14, and that the ballots be set aside “until an investigation can determine whether the ballots were personally delivered” by the voter.

In a response, a city lawyer, Benjamin Field, wrote Monday to Kerns to reject her assumption that the law was violated. Third-party delivery is permitted in certain circumstances, he wrote.

Though the city had forwarded the campaign’s information to the district attorney’s office, Field said, the elections office does not track whose ballots are dropped into particular drop boxes.

In a statement, the office of District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, said it is committed to investigating “any and all” allegations of voter intimidation and harassment. The office of the state attorney general, Democrat Josh Shapiro, warned in a statement that videotaping voters at drop boxes could be construed as illegal voter intimidation.

In any case, Shapiro’s office said, Trump’s campaign had provided similar photos and videos in a lawsuit in federal court in its effort to ban drop boxes. A judge threw out the case.

In another development in President Donald Trump’s battle with Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden for Pennsylvania’s key 20 electoral votes, a lawsuit filed Thursday challenged a court-ordered extension of the deadline to receive mailed presidential ballots.

Plaintiffs — including four registered voters from Somerset County and a Republican congressional candidate — asked a federal judge in Pittsburgh to block the deadline extension in the presidential battleground state from going into effect.

The state Supreme Court last month ordered county election officials to receive and count mailed-in ballots that arrive up to three days after the Nov. 3 election, until Nov. 6, even if they don’t have a clear postmark, as long as there is no proof it was mailed after the polls closed.

Thursday’s lawsuit came 12 days before the election and three days after the U.S. Supreme Court, divided 4-4, rejected a Republican plea making a slightly different argument than Thursday’s lawsuit.

The new lawsuit said the court’s deadline extension and the lack of a postmark requirement “will allow for late and otherwise unlawful ballots to be counted.”

That is unconstitutionally unfair to in-person voters and exceeded the court’s authority by exercising a power that is constitutionally vested in Congress and the Legislature, it said.

With the plaintiffs seeking expedited consideration, the new argument could theoretically arrive at the U.S. Supreme Court after Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, is sworn in, providing a tie-breaking vote before the election.

Most states make Election Day the deadline, but more than 20 states have a post-Election Day deadline.

Several lawsuits — including another filed against Philadelphia by Trump’s campaign — are currently being fought over how Pennsylvania’s election is being conducted. The wave of court cases has prompted concerns that the presidential vote count will be heavily litigated and dragged out for weeks.

With about 2.9 million mail-in ballots requested so far, registered Democrats have requested about 1.1 million more mail-in ballots than Republicans, or 1.8 million to 700,000, according to state data.

Senate GOP Marches Ahead on Barrett Over Democrats’ Blockade Efforts

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Senate GOP Marches Ahead on Barrett Over Democrats’ Blockade Efforts

(Headline USA) The Senate is gearing up for a rare weekend session as Republicans race to put Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court and shift it in a conservative direction before Election Day, despite Democratic efforts to stall President Donald Trump‘s nominee.

Democrats used time-consuming procedural hurdles to delay the start of Friday’s Senate session until midday, but the party has no realistic chance of stopping Barrett’s advance in the Republican-controlled chamber. Barrett, a federal appeals court judge, is expected to be confirmed on Monday and quickly join the court.

“It’s hard to think of any nominee we’ve had in the past who is any better than this one,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Fox News late Thursday.

Barrett, 48, presented herself in public testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee as a neutral arbiter of cases on abortion, the Affordable Care Act and presidential power — issues soon confronting the court.

At one point she suggested, “It’s not the law of Amy.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Friday, without evidence, that the Republican push to seat Barrett was “the most partisan, hypocritical, least legitimate process in the history of the nation.”

“We’re not going to have business as usual,” Schumer said as he forced one procedural vote after another.

With a 53-47 GOP majority, Barrett’s confirmation is almost certain.

Republicans on the Judiciary Committee powered Barrett’s nomination forward on Thursday despite a boycott of the vote by Democrats.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the committee chairman, acknowledged the partisan nature of the proceedings, but said he could not live with himself if the Senate failed to confirm someone he said was such an exceptional nominee. Graham, R-S.C., called Barrett a “role model” for conservative women and for people strongly held religious beliefs.

Democrats decried the “sham” process and said Barrett would undo much of what was accomplished by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal icon who died last month.

In trying to derail or at least slow Barrett’s confirmation, Democrats argue the winner of the presidential election should decide who replaces Ginsburg.

Barrett was a professor at Notre Dame Law School when she was tapped by Trump in 2017 for an appeals court opening. Two Democrats joined at that time to confirm her, but none is expected to vote for her in the days ahead.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

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