MURDOCK: Dems’ Election Fiasco Makes Filling SCOTUS Seat Imperative

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MURDOCK: Dems’ Election Fiasco Makes Filling SCOTUS Seat Imperative

(Deroy Murdock, Headline USA) One key factor makes it imperative to fill the seat vacated by the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg immediately.

And Democrats can thank themselves for this.

To understand why, imagine this analogy:

World Series Game Six just ended. The Yankees and Red Sox are tied, three wins each.

With shockingly little respect for baseball’s institutions, the liberal-minded Red Sox unilaterally change Game Seven’s rules.

The more conservative, traditionalist Yankees complain loudly, but in vain. They must play the deciding game the Red Sox’s way:

  • Any Red Sox batter may try to steal first base. If he succeeds, he earns a base hit, and may advance from there.
  • It takes four strikes, not three, to retire Red Sox.
  • Red Sox runners who reach third base may stroll home, unchallenged.
  • No winner will be declared until at least two weeks after Game Seven, especially if the Yankees are ahead.
  • Meanwhile, the Red Sox may review Game Seven videos and request score-boosting rule interpretations.

Fearing chaos, the Yankees insist that—at a minimum—every umpire’s post be manned until a final decision.

Like the Red Sox in this thought experiment, Democrat governors and left-wing judges have invented their own self-serving, Game-Seven rules changes:

  • They are proliferating mass mail-in ballots with few safety precautions.
  • Witness-signature requirements have been diluted or dropped.
  • Signature-verification standards have been weakened.
  • Postmark requirements have been diminished or dumped.
  • Ballots can arrive and be counted six days after Election Day in Wisconsin, nine in North Carolina, and 14 in Michigan.
  • North Carolina began delivering absentee ballots on September 4 — 25 days before the first presidential debate and 60 days before Nov. 3. During the two months preceding Election Day, stored ballots could be abused, shredded, or snatched. Absent malice, they could be damaged or destroyed in floods, fires, or hurricanes—as were criminal records and pre-trial evidence, when Katrina flooded law-enforcement facilities in New Orleans.
  • Humiliated Democrat presidential wannabe Michael Bloomberg is raising funds to pay the fines of and restore voting rights to 32,000 ex-felons in Florida. The multi-billionaire’s money-for-votes scheme seemingly violates state and federal law.
  • Partisan-activist ballot harvesters in California, Nevada, North Carolina, and other states will grab votes by the armful. Will they faithfully submit them or remove those marked “the wrong way?” Only God knows. Federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania announced Thursday that they are probing nine mail-in ballots discarded and recovered, seven of them favoring President Trump.

Conniving Democrats turned the China virus into an excuse to drown voters in some 80 million mass-mail-in ballots fire-hosed to everyone on often-outdated rolls.

Unrequested live ballots are landing in the mailboxes of the apathetic, the relocated, and the deceased.

These orphan ballots can be adopted by cheaters, submitted, and counted—with little worry of prosecution.

Even assuming universal honesty, the U.S. Postal Service could let 3.2 million of these mail-in ballots disappear and still meet its 96-percent delivery standard for political and electoral mail.

If so, enough voters to populate Utah would be disenfranchised—and candidates, from presidential nominees to aspiring aldermen, could be swindled in four time zones.

Unfortunately, this Democrat-created election calamity could reach the Supreme Court.

SCOTUS might need to settle a Pennsylvania recount, weigh the votes of Florida’s ex-felons or evaluate ballots that materialized a fortnight after Nov. 3.

A 5-4 ruling would decide these questions and, possibly, determine the next president.

But what if the eight living justices deadlocked, 4-4? A coast-to-coast question mark would haunt this land.

The American people rightfully would blame such a catastrophe on diabolical Democrats. Again: Republicans engineered none of this.

So, the very least that Democrats can do is stand down, accept precedent (among 19 jurists nominated during presidential election years, when one party controlled the White House and the Senate, 17 of them—89.5 percent—were confirmed), and let Republicans fill Ginsburg’s seat.

May America enjoy a full crew of umpires for the Democrat-concocted cataclysm that likely follows.

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor, a contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research. Bucknell University’s Michael Malarkey contributed research to this opinion piece. 

REPORT: Sources Confirm Amy Coney Barrett Will Be SCOTUS Pick

Ben Sellers
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REPORT: Sources Confirm Amy Coney Barrett Will Be SCOTUS Pick

CBS News and other outlets were reporting on Friday that they had confirmed list-topper Amy Coney Barrett would be President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick when he makes his formal announcement on Saturday.

Reports said the White House had begun reaching out to Republican senators to schedule meetings with the judge when Congress reconvenes on Wednesday following a two-day break for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

Barrett, 48, currently serves on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals but has been considered a favored pick for the Supreme Court since early in Trump’s presidency.

She was floated as the likely backup choice after Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s contentious hearing raised the possibility that the Senate might not confirm him.

Barrett’s status as a woman should help to insulate her somewhat from the sort of specious rape hoaxes endured by justices Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas during their confirmation hearings.

Filling the seat vacated by liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she would be the second Republican-appointed woman following Ronald Reagan’s appointment of Sandra Day O’Connor, and the fifth woman overall on the court.

Barrett is well known for her devout Catholic faith, which Democrats sought to hammer her for during her confirmation to the appellate court.

Catholic voters in Pennsylvania, in particular, are viewed as a pivotal demographic in the swing state that Democratic nominee Joe Biden, nominally Catholic, is trying to recapture.

Vice President Mike Pence defended Barrett when asked whether her affiliation with People of Praise, a charismatic Christian community, would complicate her ability to serve on the high court.

“I must tell you the intolerance expressed during her last confirmation about her Catholic faith I really think was a disservice to the process and a disappointment to millions of Americans,” he told ABC News.

The pick also is likely to fire up the key anti-abortion contingent of the Republican base in the lead-up to the November election.

However, it is just as likely to mobilize radical pro-abortion forces who already have ratched up the rhetoric threatening to “burn down” the entire democratic system for refusing to capitulate to their demands.

Activists linked with the domestic terror group Antifa were arrested for suspected arson in connection with several of the out-of-control wildfires that have ravaged the Pacific Northwest.

Trump told reporters Friday evening that he had made a decision but did not reveal his pick.

The choice of Barrett, if confirmed by the Senate, would allow Trump to put a historic stamp on the high court just weeks before the election.

Trump said his choice was “very exciting,” without giving away the name, but Republican allies said it would be Barrett.

“Well I haven’t said it was her, but she’s outstanding,” Trump said of the Indiana federal judge.

Conservative groups and congressional allies are laying the groundwork for a swift confirmation process for her, even before Trump makes the selection official in a Rose Garden ceremony Saturday evening.

They, like the president, are wasting little time, organizing multimillion-dollar ad campaigns and marshalling supporters both to confirm the pick and to boost Trump to a second term.

Senate Republicans are readying for confirmation hearings in two weeks, with a vote in the full chamber now expected before Election Day. Democrats are essentially powerless to block the votes

“I’m confident he’s going to make an outstanding nomination,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox News. “The American people are going to take a look at this nominee and conclude, as we are likely to conclude, that she well deserves to be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

“They’re hell-bent on getting this done as fast as possible,” said Democratic Senate whip Dick Durbin. “They think it helps Donald Trump get reelected.”

Outside conservative groups, who have been preparing for this moment for 40 years, are planning to spend more than $25 million to support Trump and his nominee.

The Judicial Crisis Network has organized a coalition that includes American First Policies, the Susan B. Anthony List, the Club for Growth and the group Catholic Vote.

“One of the things we’ve learned from the histories of confirmation processes, the intensity of the fight has more to do with the previous occupant of the seat than who the nominee is,” said JCN’s Carrie Severino. “We expect this to be a very high stakes confirmation.”

The White House has already concluded a round of vetting this month, as Trump released an additional 20 names he would consider for the court. He has challenged Democrat Joe Biden to list possible nominees, too.

Trump had said he was considering five women for the opening, but Barrett was at the White House at least twice this week, including for a Monday meeting with Trump. He is not known to have met with any of the other contenders.

Barrett’s appointment would transform the court from a divided 4-4 between conservatives and liberals, with Chief Justice John Roberts as a liberal-leaning swing vote, to one in which five members are conservative-leaning.

Barrett has been hailed as a justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia, for whom she clerked.

Trump played up the power to make judicial nominations with conservative voters in 2016, when Republican senators kept open the seat vacated by the death of Scalia rather than let President Barack Obama fill the opening.

Trump’s decision to release lists of accomplished conservative jurists for potential elevation was rewarded by increased enthusiasm among white evangelical voters, many of whom had been resistant to supporting the candidacy of the one-time New York Democrat.

“This is big jet fuel on our base,” said Bill Schuette, a former Michigan attorney general and now a Trump campaign surrogate.

“This is going to fire up our base in order to support the responsibility of the Senate and the president to make the nomination, the Senate to confirm.”

Headline USA’s Joshua Paladino contributed to the article, with additional reporting by the Associated Press.

Judge: 2020 Census Must Continue for Another Month

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Judge: 2020 Census Must Continue for Another Month

(Headline USA) A federal judge has stopped the 2020 census from finishing at month’s end and suspended a year-end deadline for delivering the numbers needed to decide how many seats each state gets in Congress.

The preliminary injunction granted by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in California late Thursday allows the once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident to continue through the end of October.

Koh said the shortened schedule ordered by President Donald Trump’s administration likely would produce inaccurate results that would last a decade.

“Those facts show not only that the Bureau could not meet the statutory deadline, but also that the Bureau had received pressure from the Commerce Department to cease seeking an extension of the deadline,” she wrote.

The judge, an Obama appointee, sided with radical left-wing activists groups and sanctuary cities who claimed that minorities and others in hard-to-count communities would be missed if the counting ends this month.

“As the court recognized, the Census Bureau has itself repeatedly recognized that a full, fair, and accurate count takes time, especially when faced with a historic pandemic,” said Melissa Sherry, the lead plaintiff’s attorney.

“Every day that the 2020 Census count continues, and Census operations appropriately continue, will help ensure the accuracy and completeness of this once-in-a-decade tally.”

The attorneys for the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Commerce, which oversees the statistical agency, argued that much of the counting was complete already and that the injunction was interfering with the ability to finalize the process by the deadline.

Koh said inaccuracies produced from a shortened schedule would affect the distribution of federal funding and political representation over the next 10 years. The census is used to determine how $1.5 trillion in federal spending is distributed each year and how many congressional seats each state gets.

Before the coronavirus pandemic hit in March, around the same time the census started for most U.S. residents, the bureau had planned to complete the 2020 census by the end of July.

In April, in response to the pandemic, it extended the deadline to the end of October. Then, in late July or early August, the deadline changed once again to the end of September after the Republican-controlled Senate failed to take up a request from the Census Bureau to extend the Dec. 31 deadline for turning over the numbers used for deciding how many congressional seats each state gets.

Koh’s preliminary injunction suspended that end-of-the-year deadline, giving Census Bureau statisticians time to crunch the numbers for apportionment from the start of November until the end of next April, for the time being.

Previously, the Census Bureau had only half that time for data processing, from the start of October until the end of December.

The San Jose, California-based judge earlier this month issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Census Bureau from winding down field operations until she ruled.

Attorneys for the Census Bureau and the Department of Commerce said Friday they would file an appeal and asked the judge to suspend the injunction while that happens.

“Were the Bureau to miss these deadlines, Congress could well decide to disregard the 2020 census results in conducting apportionment, as it previously did for the 1920 census,” the attorneys for the federal government said in court papers.

The bureau was facing a shortfall in census takers after large numbers reported for training but then dropped out.

FBI Director Wray Again Criticized by White House Over Ignorant Testimony

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FBI Director Wray Again Criticized by White House Over Ignorant Testimony

(Headline USA) FBI Director Christopher Wray was the target of White House criticism for the second time in a week Friday as Chief of Staff Mark Meadows chided him over remarks made a day earlier to Congress about voter fraud.

Meadows suggested in an interview with CBS that Wray was ill-informed when he told the Senate that there has not been any significant coordinated national voter fraud.

Wray, who last week drew criticism from President Donald Trump for his description of Russian election interference and the threat posed by the anti-fascist movement known as Antifa, said in Senate testimony that the U.S. has only experienced occasional voter fraud and on a local level.

The statement seemed especially foolhardy after reports earlier this week of trays of absentee ballots being found in a Wisconsin ditch, and military ballots — all votes for Trump — found discarded in Pennsylvania.

It was the latest sign of tension between the president and senior officials over election security.

Meadows was critical in his CBS interview of the director, tying his remarks on voter fraud to a probe of the FBI’s potentially corrupt — or at least inept — handling of the Russia hoax.

“Well, with all due respect to Director Wray, he has a hard time finding e-mails in his own FBI, let alone figuring out whether there is any kind of voter fraud,” Meadows said.

He then suggested that Wray needed more information about the allegations of voter fraud that have surfaced in several places.

“Perhaps he needs to get involved on the ground and then he would change his testimony on Capitol Hill,” Meadows said.

It was unusually pointed criticism of an FBI director, especially one who was appointed by Trump.

In his testimony to the Senate Homeland Security committee on Thursday, Wray said the FBI takes “all election-related threats seriously,” including voter fraud or voter suppression.

But in response to a question from Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the FBI director said the agency has not seen evidence of widespread voter fraud, at least not to date.

“Now, we have not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it’s by mail or otherwise,” he said. “We have seen voter fraud at the local level from time to time.”

It was the kind of answer that riled Trump last week when Wray was asked at a House hearing by lawmakers about Antifa, and its role in violent riots in recent months.

Wray said Antifa activists were a serious concern and that the FBI has launched investigations into people who identify with it and have engaged in violence. But, he said, ignoring evidence, that “It’s not a group or an organization. It’s a movement or an ideology.” Only two days ago organizers unloaded shields and supplies from a U-Haul truck in Louisville, driven by an activist funded by George Soros-funded groups, for rioters to cause mayhem.

Wray told the Senate this week that people who associate themselves with Antifa have organized locally or regionally but not at a national level.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

ATTORNEY GEN.: Steele’s Primary Sub-Source a Likely Russian Agent

Ben Sellers
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ATTORNEY GEN.: Steele’s Primary Sub-Source a Likely Russian Agent

Attorney General William Barr revealed Thursday that a key source in the FBI’s anti-Trump “Crossfire Hurricane” sting operation was likely a known Russian agent.

According to Barr, a previously classified footnote in a report from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz indicated that “[t]he Primary Sub-source was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011 that assessed his/her documented contacts with suspected Russian intelligence officers.”

Barr dropped the bombshell in a letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, as part of the effort to wrap up several ongoing cases and investigations about the intelligence community’s role in the Russia collusion hoax before the November election.

“In connection with your Committee’s investigation of these matters and ongoing hearings, you have been asking us to accelerate this process and to provide any additional information relating to the reliability of the work of Christopher Steele and the so-called ‘Steele dossier‘ as long as its release would not compromise U.S. Attorney John Durham‘s ongoing criminal investigation,” Barr explained.

Former FBI Director James Comey is scheduled to testify next Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Graham chairs.

A globalist realignment


Declassified revelations from the Russia-hoax probes have often come at a slow drip, leading to a patchwork process of stitching together the complex set of facts into a cohesive narrative.

In July, following the declassification of several IG footnotes that first shed light on the FBI’s advance knowledge of Steele’s credibility issues, media outlets including the Washington Times identified the dossier’s primary sub-source informant as Igor Danchenko, a 42-year-old lawyer and policy expert who worked for five years at the far-left Brookings Institution.

Danchenko, a native of Ukraine, was educated at both Georgetown University and Russia’s Perm University.

While his social-media accounts have since gone dark, one “about me” site directs visitors to a 2011 Persian-language blog in which Danchenko strongly advocates for improved relations between Russia and Iran.

The Obama administration’s softening of foreign policy in Iran—including the delivery of billions of dollars in bribe money to the Islamic regime—certainly complicated Russia’s global influence and trade relationships in matters like energy policy.

The assumption has been that Obama officials sought to maintain an adversarial relationship with the Vladimir Putin-led government.

But in reality, the newly declassified evidence suggests, it may have been President Donald Trump who threatened globalists’ ambitions for a geopolitical realignment that would have frozen out America’s longstanding Middle Eastern and European allies.

A win–win for corruption

Barack Obama and James Comey
Barack Obama and James Comey / IMAGE: The Guardian via YouTube

That Danchenko had, himself, been the subject of a counterespionage probe indicates that he was on the FBI’s radar and that, at the very least, his pro-Russia motives should have been evident.

That he also worked for a far-left DC think-tank, advising on the same pro-Iran policies that the Obama administration seemed to be pursuing, suggests that Danchenko’s apparent involvement was more than just happenstance.

Beyond simply sowing chaos in the US election, Russia shared a common interest with Trump’s Democrat political adversaries in undermining his candidacy and presidency.

Doing so would effectively hobble any efforts to reverse US policies that the Kremlin stood to gain from—including those in Iran, Ukraine and elsewhere—even as Trump’s campaign made friendly overtures toward Putin.

Redefining the Cold War notions of a double-agent embedded with one spy ring to report its actions back to another, Steele’s sub-sources may have been double-agents actively and openly cooperating with US, Russian and other intelligence operations to pool their efforts against the Republican presidential candidate.

A duplicitous motive?

Lindsey Graham
Lindsey Graham / IMAGE: News 19 WLTX via YouTube

Graham, whose office publicly released the attorney general’s letter on Thursday, said he planned to follow up with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts.

He said the declassified detail provided by Barr exposed the staggering scope of “how wide and deep the effort to conceal exculpatory information” went as the FBI sought permission to spy on the Trump campaign.

While Graham praised the patriotic work from the vast majority of FBI officials, “[a] small group of individuals in the Department of Justice and FBI should be held accountable for this fraud against the court,” he added.

Some remained suspicious, however, that the new wrinkle in the unfolding probe could yet be part of the cover-up.

The Conservative Treehouse blog suggested that Graham—a longtime pro-government centrist turned fervent Trump ally—might have a “duplicitous” motive in supporting the idea that Steele relied on Russian agents as his sources.

Doing so, it said, fed the narrative of plausible deniability advanced by Comey to suggest that the FBI was, itself, taken in by the disinformation.

“[A]s a consequence their investigative efforts were done under the most honorable of motives, but they were just tricked by Russians,” the blog said. “Ergo, see the Russians did interfere in the election.”

Setting the stage

Andrew McCabe
Andrew McCabe / IMAGE: MSNBC via YouTube

Others speculated that Comey’s voluntary cooperation in the Senate hearing could signal that his former deputy director, Andrew McCabe, is poised to take the fall in Durham’s forthcoming probe.

McCabe directly oversaw the work of bad actors at the FBI including lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

After the agency was forced to cut direct ties with Steele for attempting to sell his salacious story to the radical leftist publication Mother Jones, McCabe continued to receive it using a backdoor pipeline from the firm Fusion GPS.

The dossier’s dispatches were instead transferred directly to McCabe via thumb drive, courtesy of high-ranking DOJ deputy Bruce Ohr and his wife, Nellie.

McCabe also was reprimanded by the IG’s office for his own conflicts of interest in refusing to recuse himself after his wife, who was running for Virginia’s state legislature, received nearly half a million dollars in campaign donations from Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton surrogate who was serving at the time as Virginia governor.

Appeals Court Revives House Dems’ Lawsuit to Block Trump Border-Wall Funding

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Appeals Court Revives House Dems’ Lawsuit to Block Trump Border-Wall Funding

(Headline USA) A federal appeals court on Friday revived a House challenge of President Donald Trump’s use of Defense Department money to build a border wall after Democrats refused to provide funding he requested.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed a lower court’s dismissal of the House Democrats’ lawsuit.

The appeals panel cited the House’s argument that it was cut out of its “constitutionally indispensable legislative role” when Trump unilaterally moved about $8 billion to border wall construction.

Congress’s power to appropriate spending “is a core structural protection of the Constitution—a wall, so to speak, between the branches of government that prevents encroachment of the House’s and Senate’s power of the purse,” the panel wrote.

Proponents of Trump’s plan argue that under U.S. code, appropriations for such a purpose were built into the existing funding for counter-terrorism and anti-conspiracy statues as are often used against drug-runners.

Although Democrats have made obstructing the Trump agenda a symbolic mission, the barrier Trump has built thus far largely falls in line with that which other administrations had overseen.

The U.S. Border Patrol says it has completed 321 miles of wall during the Trump administration, though almost all of that is replacing existing barriers.

The case now returns to the court of U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden—a Trump appointee, who had initially ruled that House Democrats lacked the authority to sue in April 2019.

McFadden wrote that the House’s lawsuit was about trying to “conscript the Judiciary in a political turf war with the President over the implementation of legislation.”

The Justice Department did not immediately comment.

House Democrats sued three months after the end of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, triggered by their refusal to work with the White House on border wall funding.

The president later signed a funding bill that included $1.4 billion for border barriers, short of the $5.7 billion he had requested from Congress.

But he then declared a national emergency to secure billions more in funding, in part by reallocating money for military housing and counter-drug programs.

The move triggered several legal challenges, including the one by House Democrats.

Another appeals court ruled in June against the transfer of money from military construction projects.

But the U.S. Supreme Court in July declined to order wall construction stopped while the case continued. The high court’s four liberal justices dissented. One of those four, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, died Sept. 18.

The three-judge panel consisted of Senior Circuit Judge David B. Sentelle, nominated to the court by former President Ronald Reagan, and two nominees of former President Barack Obama: Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins.

Building a border wall was one of Trump’s signature campaign pledges four years ago, though he promised then that Mexico would pay for the wall.

He continues to maintain that tolls and renegotiated trade deals will offset the balance.

The incalculable benefit of preventing illegal immigration likewise saves money long-term in welfare, education and health costs, while the prevention of drugs and other crimes from maintaining trans-border operations likewise offers a more intangible value.

In a statement Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats would keep fighting to “ensure the President cannot negate the separation of powers and the will of the American people in order to fulfill an outrageous campaign promise.”

Florida Gov. DeSantis Reopens State’s Economy, Bans Mask Mandate Penalties

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Florida Gov. DeSantis Reopens State’s Economy, Bans Mask Mandate Penalties

(Headline USA) Gov. Ron DeSantis lifted all restrictions on restaurants and other businesses in Florida on Friday, and banned local fines against people who refuse to wear masks as he seeks to reopen the state’s economy despite the coronavirus.

The Republican governor’s order unleashed fresh debate in the politically divided state, where pandemic responses have become intertwined with the upcoming presidential election.

DeSantis, a major ally of President Donald Trump, acknowledged that the pandemic is far from over, but he said the threat has eased and the time has come to reopen for business.

“We’re not closing anything going forward,” DeSantis said, while insisting that the state is prepared if infections increase again.

The governor said he would stop cities and counties from collecting fines on people who don’t wear face masks, virtually nullifying local mask ordinances.

“As an act of executive grace, all fines and penalties that have been applied against individuals are suspended,” the governor said.

Florida Democrats have bemoaned the governor’s push to reopen as hasty.

“No one is advocating for a full-scale lockdown in Florida. But we have been and continue to ask for common sense prevention measures such as face masks, which are essential to preventing further spread,” state Sen. Audrey Gibson said Thursday.

Some local officials appealed to the governor for continued authority to control the outbreak.

“We’re hoping that the governor will allow us to have deeper restrictions than the rest of the state. We have a greater spread of the virus in South Florida than other parts of the state,” Broward County Mayor Dale Holness told WLRN, a public radio station in Miami.

The governor reluctantly closed bars and nightclubs on St. Patrick’s Day due to the outbreak, and days later, restricted restaurants to take-out dining. Amusement parks ground to a halt.

The closures battered the economy, leaving hundreds of thousands of Floridians unemployed. Since March 15, More than 2.5 million Floridians have sought unemployment benefits.

DeSantis slowly reopened the state for business since then, allowing restaurants and bars to reopen at half capacity, while deferring to local officials who advocated reopening more slowly in the pandemic’s epicenters in southern Florida.

The governor had resisted imposing a statewide mask mandate, but had allowed cities and counties to do so and impose stricter measures than he was willing to do, including closing beaches and public venues to keep the virus from spreading.

The governor’s action does not preclude private businesses, such as grocery stores and sports venues, from requiring masks. In February, Florida will again host the Super Bowl.

With the economy and his political standing foundering, DeSantis has been under pressure to revive the economy — much of it depended on tourism. As the state has reopened, DeSantis and tourist-dependent businesses have been trying to woo back visitors.

Like Trump, DeSantis has questioned the efficacy of closures, arguing that states that had more aggressively shut down, including California, have fared no better.

“The state of Florida is probably the most open big state in the country,” he boasted Friday.

New infections in Florida have steadily declined since the state’s caseload peaked in July.

The governor’s announcement Friday allows restaurants across the state to immediately reopen at full capacity — and prevents cities and counties from ordering restaurants to close or operate at less than half-capacity, unless they can justify a closure for economic or health reasons.

“We’ve been able to put a lot of people back to work over the last few months, and obviously we have more to do,” the governor said.

The governor’s announcement wasn’t totally unexpected, although it had been unclear when he would move his state to the next phase of his reopening plan.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

AOC Pressures de Blasio, Cuomo to Hike NY Taxes as Wealthy Leave in Droves

Joshua Paladino
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AOC Pressures de Blasio, Cuomo to Hike NY Taxes as Wealthy Leave in Droves

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, is pressuring New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to raise taxes for her socialist wishlist, Fox Business reported.

The state’s debt is billions of dollars-deep due to major COVID expenses and loss of tax-revenue due to shutdowns.

Cuomo has resisted AOC’s pleas, fearing that high taxes as well as COVID restrictions will continue to drive the wealthy away and ruin the city’s chances of paying off its COVID-related debts.

“They’re not coming back right now. And you know what else they’re thinking? ‘If I stay there, I pay a lower income tax,’ because they don’t pay the New York City surcharge,” Cuomo said to the New York Post.

61 percent of residents leaving the city earn more than $100,000 per year.

Between state and city income taxes, New York City’s wealthiest residents currently pay 12.6 percent, the New York Post reported.

Tax hikes are a key part of AOC and her allies’ plans for a socialist take-over of New York.

“I’m calling on Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo to raise revenue to fund universal child-care programs, significantly increase staffing at schools and fund the infrastructure improvements, including ventilation, that our school buildings need to be safe,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Post on Wednesday.

AOC does not intend to use the would-be tax hikes to help pay off the city’s already massive debt.

New York isn’t alone in proposing to increase taxes. Several cities and states have either already acted to raise taxes or are planning on it soon.

New Jersey has passed its millionaire tax, which will raise the income tax from 8.97 percent to 10.75 percent for those who earn more than $1 million. Those who earn more than $5 million per year already pay the 10.75 percent tax.

Colorado and California are contemplating raising property taxes.

Nashville already has approved a “painful” increase in property taxes, whereas San Francisco might target executive compensation.

Kyle Rittenhouse Fights Extradition to Wisconsin for Murder Charges

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Kyle Rittenhouse Fights Extradition to Wisconsin for Murder Charges

(Headline USA) A 17-year-old in Illinois accused of killing two protesters days after Jacob Blake was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Friday fought his return to Wisconsin to face homicide charges that could put him in prison for life.

Kyle Rittenhouse was arrested at his home in Antioch, Illinois, a day after prosecutors say he shot and killed two protesters and wounded a third on the streets of Kenosha on Aug. 25. His attorneys have said Rittenhouse acted in self-defense and have portrayed him as a courageous patriot who was defending property during unrest over the police shooting of Blake, who is black.

Rittenhouse attorney John Pierce said during a hearing Friday that he intends to fight extradition. Judge Paul Novak gave 14 days for the defense to review papers and file pleadings ahead of an Oct. 9 hearing.

Pierce asked for a month to prepare arguments challenging extradition that he said involve “issues of some complexity, frankly that have not arisen in the country for some time.”

“We intend to challenge extradition by writ of habeas corpus,” Pierce said.

He didn’t provide further details at the hearing about the basis for the challenge. Novak granted two weeks to prepare those arguments and scheduled another hearing for Oct. 9. The delay in returning Rittenhouse to Wisconsin is the second in the case.

Rittenhouse attended the hearing via Zoom and did not speak, other than to say, “Good morning your honor” to the judge. He wore a blue face mask and a black sweatshirt.

Rittenhouse is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the killing of two white protesters and attempted intentional homicide in the wounding of a third. He also faces a misdemeanor charge of underage firearm possession for wielding a semi-automatic rifle.

If convicted of first-degree homicide, Rittenhouse faces a mandatory life in prison sentence.

Some on the political left have portrayed Rittenhouse as a domestic terrorist whose very presence with a rifle incited the protesters in Kenosha. To others — who have become frustrated with riots across the country — he’s seen as a hero who took up arms to protect businesses, including some that were damaged during leftists’ destruction the previous two nights.

According to prosecutors and court documents, Rittenhouse shot and killed convicted child rapist Joseph Rosenbaum, of Kenosha, after Rosenbaum had chased Rittenhouse after he tried to put out a fire that Rosenbaum started, and Rosenbaum tried to wrestle his rifle away.

While trying to get away in the immediate aftermath, Rittenhouse was captured on cellphone video saying “I just killed somebody.” According to the complaint filed by prosecutors, someone in the crowd said, “Beat him up!” and another yelled, “Get him! Get that dude!”

Video shows that Rittenhouse tripped in the street. As he was on the ground, 26-year-old Anthony Huber, of Silver Lake, hit him with a skateboard and tried to take his rifle away. Rittenhouse opened fire, killing Huber and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz, of West Allis, who approached Rittenhouse with a handgun. Both Huber and Grosskreutz also have criminal records.

Rittenhouse’s extradition might not be an issue at all if he had been arrested in Kenosha the night of the shootings. Cellphone video that captured some of the action shows Rittenhouse afterward walking slowly toward a police vehicle with his hands up, only to be waved through by police. He returned to his Illinois home and turned himself in soon after. Police later blamed the chaotic conditions for not arresting Rittenhouse at the scene.

The killings happened two days after a white Kenosha police officer shot Blake seven times from behind as he resisted arrest and appeared to reach for a weapon in his vehicle, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down and sparking outrage after video of the shooting was posted online. A Wisconsin Department of Justice investigation into that shooting is ongoing. The three responding officers are on administrative leave.

Rittenhouse’s legal team includes Los Angeles-based Pierce and Lin Wood, a defamation lawyer who represented falsely accused security guard Richard Jewell in the 1996 Olympic Park bombing case in Atlanta and is a lawyer for Sean Hannity, the Fox News host with close ties to President Donald Trump.

Pierce has described Rittenhouse not as a vigilante, but as a model citizen who was cleaning graffiti from a vandalized high school before he received word from a business owner seeking help to protect what was left of his property after rioters burned two of his other buildings.

Pierce and Wood did not respond to messages ahead of Friday’s hearing.

Huber’s partner and others filed a federal lawsuit against Facebook this week, saying it refused to remove a militia group’s call to protect businesses in Kenosha before the Rittenhouse shootings.

The lawsuit, which also names Rittenhouse as a defendant, said he may not have traveled the roughly 15 miles from his home to Kenosha had it not been for that Facebook post, though the company said it had evidence to suggest that he followed the militia group’s page or was invited to the event posting.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

Virginia Gov. Northam, Wife, Test Positive for Coronavirus

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Virginia Gov. Northam, Wife, Test Positive for Coronavirus

(Associated Press) Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced Friday that he and his wife have both tested positive for the coronavirus.

The governor’s office said in a statement that Northam is showing no symptoms while those of Pam Northam are mild.

Northam and his wife plan to isolate for the next 10 days while working remotely.

Northam, a Democrat, is the country’s only governor who is also a doctor. Some Republican lawmakers criticize his restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus, calling them too stringent.

Northam said in a statement that the positive test result shows that the virus is “very real and very contagious.”

“We are grateful for your thoughts and support, but the best thing you can do for us — and most importantly, for your fellow Virginians — is to take this seriously,” Northam said.

The governor and first lady were notified Wednesday that a member of the Executive Mansion staff also had tested positive for the virus.

Three other governors also have tested positive for COVID-19, though one of those turned out to be a false positive.

Earlier this week, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, announced he’d tested positive.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt in July became the first governor to announce he’d tested positive. He recovered and returned to work less than two weeks later.

In August, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced that a rapid test was positive. But a short time later, DeWine said a more sensitive test was negative.

Northam’s announcement that he tested positive for the virus comes on the same day as a planned rally by President Donald Trump in Newport News, an event the governor’s staff has asked to be canceled, re-scheduled or scaled down because of concerns about the virus.

The event is expected to draw 4,000 people, which would violate Northam’s executive order generally banning gatherings of more than 250 people.

The Trump campaign has routinely flouted public health guidelines intended to halt the spread of COVID-19.

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