‘At times, there are things we need to review, and potentially revisit the way the data is being analyzed…’
Rachel Levine / IMAGE: CBS Philly via YouTube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The state of Pennsylvania was forced to remove hundreds of deaths from its official coronavirus death count after glaring errors in the state’s counting methods came to light.
Pennsylvania began adding “probable deaths” to its total number of deaths, but those “probable” cases were never confirmed with COVID-19 tests.
The state counted them anyways, and as a result the state’s death count nearly doubled in just two days, according to Fox News.
The state’s total death count, however, did not match the numbers Pennsylvania’s local coroners had been reporting, raising questions about the accuracy of the count and the irregularities that had appeared.
Then, all of a sudden, the Pennsylvania Department of Health removed 200 deaths from its total count, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“There’s a discrepancy in the numbers. I’m not saying there’s something going on,” said Charles Kiessling Jr., president of the Pennsylvania Coroners Association. “But accuracy is important.”
The state initially claimed that a computer glitch was to blame for the jump in reported deaths, and that the culmination of data from multiple counties had resulted in a mathematical error.
Now, Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine is attributing the discrepancy to the lack of information regarding individual cases.
But she did admit that the state should “revisit” the way it’s counting coronavirus deaths.
“At times, there are things we need to review, and potentially revisit the way the data is being analyzed,” she told the Inquirer. “And this is one of those times.”
Jeffrey Conner, the coroner in Franklin County, said that coroners across the state are growing increasingly “frustrated” with the lack of “leadership” and “definitive answers” from the state.
Coroners should be included in the state’s coronavirus investigations, Kiessling added, because right now they’re being left out of the conversation entirely.
“I know who died. They know who died,” Kiessling said. “We have accurate numbers. We don’t scare everyone to death.”
‘This additional strain on our already stressed law enforcement resources from a non-essential business seems out of order at this critical time…’
Hobby Lobby / NBC4 Columbus
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Hobby Lobby planned to reopen its Salisbury, North Carolina location on Monday after receiving the green light from the state government.
But Rowan County, the county in which the store is located, refused to grant Hobby Lobby permission to reopen and warned that local law enforcement would take action if necessary.
The North Carolina Department of Revenue told Hobby Lobby that its stores could begin to reopen with other businesses as long as the store continued to follow the federal government’s preventative guidelines—which include maintaining six-feet distances in between customers, providing exclusive hours for senior citizens, and limiting the number of customers in the store at a time—according to Alicia Crawford Wiley, the associate general counsel for Hobby Lobby.
When Hobby Lobby made Rowan County aware of this approval and its intentions to reopen, county officials dismissed the store’s plan and declared that Hobby Lobby should not reopen because it is not essential.
“Rowan County cannot offer local approval for your plan, but we appreciate you providing the detail,” Rowan County attorney Jay Dees told the store, adding that if Hobby Lobby were to open, the county would be forced to “reallocate deputies or local police officers away from other local needs and begin checking Hobby Lobby for compliance” to social distancing guidelines.
“This additional strain on our already stressed law enforcement resources from a non-essential business seems out of order at this critical time,” Dees continued.
Under North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s executive order mandating business closures, stores that obtain the approval of the North Carolina Department of Revenue are, in fact, allowed to open—regardless of whether the business is considered essential or nonessential.
“A business that has made a request to the Department to be included as a COVID-19 Essential Business or Operation may continue to operate until that request is acted upon,” the executive order states.
Wiley explained to Rowan County officials that Hobby Lobby received approval from the state to reopen because it provides essential goods that must be made available to the public.
“We supply materials to make PPE (we know anecdotally that these materials are becoming more and more scarce), such as fabric and elastic materials, which are very important for healthcare operations,” Wiley explained in an email to the county, according to WBTV.
Still, the county refused to acknowledge Hobby Lobby’s request and responded with a veiled threat.
“We had issues with Hobby Lobby remaining open in multiple counties in North Carolina after the first executive order, and I can only hope that we will not have compliance issues moving forward,” Dees said.
Hobby Lobby does not technically need Rowan County’s permission to reopen since it has already obtained approval from the state—which is something Dees acknowledged: Hobby Lobby “is not an essential business at this time,” he said, but “non-essential business that can strictly maintain the social separation distances prescribed in the Executive Order may operate.”
Even so, the Salisbury location remained closed on Monday, WBTV reported. No one answered the store’s phone, and the doors were locked.
‘Commissioner Gibbs is being punished for participating in the grand design of American democracy…’
Operation Gridlock / IMAGE: Click On Detroit Local 4 WDIV via Youtube
(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) Royal Oak City Commissioner Kim Gibbs attended the “Operation Gridlock” protests in Lansing, Michigan, and now the progressive majority on the city commission is trying to punish her, The Thomas More Law Center reported.
Gibbs, along with thousands of Michiganders, protested Gov. Gretchen Whitmer‘s executive decrees that shut down the state and arbitrarily restricted constitutional rights by jamming traffic, honking horns and wavering sounds around the state capitol.
The Royal Oak City Commission was set to vote Monday on a resolution to censure Gibbs and demand her resignation. With a 5-2 liberal majority on the Royal Oak City Commission, the censure appeared likely to succeed.
The Thomas More Law Center, which will represent Gibbs in any necessary lawsuits, said the attempt to censure Gibbs would violate her constitutional rights, specifically the rights guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
The resolution condemns Gibbs for traveling 90 miles to Lansing, participating in the protest, and walking on a public sidewalk without a face covering.
The city commission does not seem to explicitly claim that Gibbs violated any law or executive decree.
“Governor Whitmer recently publicly acknowledged the right to public demonstrations, but the Royal Oak Commission has not received the message,” Richard Thompson, TMLC’s president and chief counsel.
“There was no requirement to wear a mask at the time of the Lansing rally,” he said. “The latest Whitmer executive order requires wearing facemasks but only when in an enclosed area.”
Gibbs attended the protest in her private capacity and did not disclose her role as a Royal Oak city commissioner.
She did not willfully violate distancing mandates, and the Michigan State Police did not punish any citizens for violating Whitmer’s distancing orders.
“Commissioner Gibbs is being punished for participating in the grand design of American democracy,” Thompson said. “Neither the Governor nor the Royal Oak City Commission can suspend the United States Constitution.”
‘This happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it…’
Tara Reade / IMAGE: Hill.Tv screenshot via Twitter
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Despite efforts by the left-wing press to maintain near silence on the rape scandal ensnaring presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, new revelations could make it impossible to ignore.
On Monday, a former neighbor of Biden victim Tara Reade provided a corroborating account, saying Reade had discussed the allegations in the 1990s, shortly after they allegedly transpired, according to Business Insider.
The neighbor, Lynda LaCasse, acknowledged being a Biden supporter but maintained that Reade was being truthful in her accusations, which outlets like the New York Times have desperately sought to discredit amid pressure from the Biden campaign.
“This happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it,” said LaCasse, who recalled Reade telling her about the 1993 attack sometime around 1995 or 1996.
Business Insider said at least four independent sources have now confirmed that Reade previously discussed her assault. The others are her brother, Collin Moulton; a former coworker, Lorraine Sanchez; and a friend who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.
The revelation follows a shocking disclosure of what appeared to be contemporaneous video evidence from the ’90s, in which Reade’s now deceased mother had apparently phoned into CNN‘s Larry King Live offering details about the rape.
The Biden campaign continues not only to issue robust denials of the accusations—although Biden himself has yet to address them publicly—but it pressured the New York Times into making stealth edits on a recent “investigation” that was largely sympathetic to the former vice president.
“Women have a right to tell their story, and reporters have an obligation to rigorously vet those claims,” said Biden communications director Kate Bedingfield in a statement earlier this month. “We encourage them to do so, because these accusations are false.”
Democrats in Congress, along with other left-wing media—and even high-profile #MeToo activists, such as actress Alyssa Milano—all have circled the wagons around Biden.
That has put them in the awkward position of admitting to blaring hypocrisy following their previous demands that all rape accusations from women against men in power should be given due credibility, regardless of whether they are provable.
“#BelieveWomen does not mean everyone gets to accuse anyone of anything and that’s that,” Milano recently claimed on Twitter. “It means that our societal mindset and default reaction shouldn’t be that women are lying.”
The #BelieveWomen mantra crested during the contentious confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who faced a series of increasingly difficult-to-swallow accusations.
The most prominent of which was California professor Christine Blasey Ford‘s hazy claim of a drunken encounter with the future judge during a high school party in the 1980s.
However, a subsequent FBI investigation determined that Ford’s account could not be corroborated after her supposed witnesses offered varying accounts. Other accusations against Kavanaugh were later determined to be outright lies by partisan activists who admitted wanting to damage his reputation.
Despite the widespread cover-up attempt, some prominent left-wingers have scoffed at the double standard and have rallied behind Reade. Among them were several former high-level staffers from Sen. Bernie Sanders‘s rival primary campaign.
Gray added that it was worth noting that Sanders was still on the ballot, although the Vermont socialist recently dropped his campaign and endorsed Biden following a string of primary defeats.
Taking no chances with the possibility that the scandal could help revive Sanders’s erstwhile campaign, the state of New York abruptly cancelled its primary, citing as its supposed reason the coronavirus pandemic.
The growing traction behind Reade’s accusations continued to fuel speculation about possible ways the Democrats might be trying to rig the outcome while confronting the realities of a deeply flawed candidate.
Biden already has faced intense scrutiny over his declining cognitive abilities, frequent fabrications and uncomfortable violations of personal space, as well as scandals over a litany of corrupt family business dealings surrounding his siblings and children.
The involvement of Biden’s son Hunter on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, played a prominent role in House Democrats’ recent impeachment effort against President Donald Trump.
Some have long speculated that the party may seek to dispatch with Biden in one of two ways: either using a brokered-convention process to replace him on the ballot, or else allowing him to run and invoking the 25th Amendment to declare him “unfit” after taking his oath of office.
The latter option would allow his yet-to-be-announced vice-presidential successor to complete the remainder of his four-year term while qualifying the enfeebled Biden for a lucrative tax-funded pension to round out his sunset years.
Reade’s accusation could help bolster the party elite’s efforts or derail them, but only if the timing coincides with Democrats’ parallel efforts to neutralize the lingering threat from Sanders and bring into the fold his supporters.
Any effort to usurp Biden’s legitimacy also could backfire with the black voters who helped elevate him in the primaries, if it gives the appearance of disfranchising them.
‘Recent interviews and investigation … reveal [Steele] may not be in a position to judge the reliability of his sub-source network…’
Lindsey Graham / IMAGE: News 19 WLTX via Youtube
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) With the FBI’s Russia hoax conspiracy beginning to unravel amid a Justice Department criminal probe, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, is putting more pressure on the agency to reveal its sources.
Last week, Christopher Steele, a former British spy who became an FBI anti-Trump resistance operative, claimed that all his notes and correspondence with his primary source had been “wiped,” the Daily Caller Reported.
But Steele—whose infamous, now-debunked dossier, funded by Democrats, helped green-light FBI spying on the Trump campaign and paved the way for the politically disruptive Mueller investigation—will not get off that easily.
“As the Committee continues to investigate this and other abuses related to FISA coverage on Carter Page, it is important that the Committee have access,” Graham wrote in a letter to Barr.
That would include furnishing any details about Steele’s “primary sub-source,” whom FBI agents interviewed at least three times during the course of their investigation.
“During these interviews, the Primary Sub-source substantially undercut Steele’s election reporting, calling into question the accuracy and reliability of any of Steele’s reports,” Graham noted in his letter to Barr.
A report by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz last December revealed that the interviews should have raised serious red flags about Steele’s credibility when sources denied that the allegations Steele reported were based on serious first-hand knowledge.
Among them, the salacious claim that future President Donald Trump solicited prostitutes to urinate on him in a Moscow hotel, was likely culled from a drunken conversation with a hotel staffer who had heard it from friends, Horowitz revealed.
The FBI claimed that Steele’s primary sub-source was “truthful and cooperative” Graham noted.
However, recently declassified footnotes to the IG report also confirmed that Steele maintained close ties with powerful, Kremlin-linked Russian oligarchs, who may have been involved in the active spread of disinformation to undermine Trump.
The footnotes showed that the FBI was aware of Steele’s ties to the Russian disinformation campaign, but the investigative bureau proceeded with its eavesdropping warrants regardless, using Steele’s claims as the primary—if not sole—source of justification.
In addition to requesting the documents referenced in Horowitz’s report that relate to the primary sub-source, Graham requested that Barr supply an email exchange between the case’s top two overseers—the FBI’s assistant director for counterintelligence, Bill Priestap, and his deputy, Peter Strzok.
In the February 2017 e-mail, Strzok reportedly raised questions about the dossier’s trustworthiness, noting that “recent interviews and investigation, however, reveal [Steele] may not be in a position to judge the reliability of his sub-source network.”
Graham also requested several other documents referenced in the IG report and the recently unredacted footnotes.
‘The government has deliberately suppressed this evidence from the inception of this prosecution—knowing there was no crime by Mr. Flynn…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) With a pending Justice Department investigation expected to tie up loose ends in the Obama-era intelligence community’s Russia hoax, one of the first big signals that the conspiracy is unraveling could be the exoneration of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Flynn’s attorneys filed a motion to withdraw his guilty please, citing “stunning” new exculpatory evidence, reported American Greatness.
“Since August 2016 at the latest, partisan FBI and DOJ leaders conspired to destroy Mr. Flynn,” attorney Sidney Powell wrote in the motion. “These documents show in their own handwriting and emails that they intended either to create an offense they could prosecute or at least get him fired.”
The term “Brady evidence” refers to anything exculpatory or favorable to a defendant that investigators and prosecutors would be ethically—if not legally—obligated to release in order to assure a fair trial.
Instead of doing so, however, “evidence that proves Mr. Flynn’s allegations of having been deliberately set up and framed by corrupt agents at the top of the FBI,” Powell said in her motion to withdraw. “The government has deliberately suppressed this evidence from the inception of this prosecution—knowing there was no crime by Mr. Flynn.”
A DOJ review of Flynn’s case that was initiated in January may further have revealed that the evidence was withheld at the behest of current FBI Director Christopher Wray, reported outlets including the Daily Caller.
Also implicated was former FBI general counsel Dana Boente, who briefly served as acting attorney general under Trump and also was responsible for signing on of the warrants that authorized FBI spying against the Trump campaign.
According to The Federalist, Boente “led the charge” to suppress the exonerating material in coordination with Wray.
Powell said she had additional evidence of misconduct involving prosecutor Brandon Van Grack that “mandates dismissal.”
Michael Flynn/Photo by Gage Skidmore (CC)
Flynn, the first casualty of the deep-state attack on the Trump administration, had pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his conversations with a foreign diplomat.
His indictment during the Mueller investigation stemmed from his discussions with Russian emissaries in late 2016, after lame-duck President Barack Obama vindictively expelled the country’s diplomats in a show of indignation about Russia’s alleged election interference.
Obama had hesitated to act prior to the election, when it appeared Hillary Clinton would prevail, out of concern that it would cast aspersion on the outcome.
Flynn ostensibly sought to reassure Russia that new President-elect Donald Trump would not continue to impose sanctions, but he was caught in a perjury trap after the FBI broadsided him with questions about his highly sensitive Russia contacts during unrelated depositions.
The agency likely had obtained the information it used to entrap the decorated general due to its potentially illegal surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
The contents of a call between Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak later went public after being leaked to Washington Post reporter David Ignatius.
That smear attack, which publicly confirmed Flynn’s Russia communications, resulted in his forced resignation and helped the FBI to justify its ongoing investigative efforts against Trump.
Special prosecutor John Durham, who is leading the comprehensive criminal investigation into the Russia hoax for the DOJ, is said to be investigating the source of the illegal leak among many other facets of the conspiracy and cover-up scheme.
‘If you cannot afford to pay us and feed our families because the systems are so backlogged, then you have to let us work…’
Laredo Police Department / IMAGE: Valerie Gonzalez via Youtube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Two Texas women were arrested in an undercover sting operation for operating a beauty salon inside their homes.
After the Laredo Police Department received an anonymous tip on April 15 that 31-year-old Ana Isabel Castro–Garcia and 20-year-old Brenda Stephany Mata were offering beauty services in their homes, despite the state’s shelter-in-place order, police officers launched an undercover sting to bust the two women.
Castro–Garcia was arrested after she agreed to provide an undercover officer with a manicure, and Mata was arrested after she reportedly agreed to perform an eyelash service for an undercover home.
Both women were charged with “Violation of Emergency Management Plan C/B,” according to KGNS-TV, and held in Webb County Jail on a $500 bond.
“Both of the violators independently solicited customers via social media,” the Laredo Police Department said in a statement.
“On both cases, an undercover officer working on the COVID-19 task force enforcement detail made contact with each solicitor to set up an appointment for a cosmetic, beauty service that is prohibited under the emergency ordinance,” it said.
The arrests occurred just days after a Dallas salon owner announced that she would reopen her salon despite the city’s orders that nonessential businesses must stay closed.
“I’m behind on my mortgage,” Shelly Luther, who owns Salon a la Mode, told CBS-21. “I know a lot of my stylists haven’t paid their mortgages. It’s either come in and make money to be able to feed your family or stay home and freak out.”
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins then sent Luther a cease and desist letter, but Luther turned around and ripped the letter to shreds, joining hundreds of protesters who had gathered outside Frisco City Hall this weekend.
“If you cannot afford to pay us and feed our families because the systems are so backlogged, then you have to let us work,” she said. “You have to.”
‘We cannot continue to push through rapid-fire spending packages that leave a massive debt burden on our children and grandchildren…’
Ken Buck/Photo by Gage Skidmore (CC)
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Four outspoken fiscal conservatives were among those who opposed the $484-billion spending package the House passed on Thursday.
Congress now has committed almost $3 trillion in emergency spending to battling the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
But GOP Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ken Buck of Colorado, Jody Hice of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky argued that the uncontrollable spending and protracted economic shutdown are not sustainable.
“We cannot continue to push through rapid-fire spending packages that leave a massive debt burden on our children and grandchildren,” Buck said in a statement.
The legislation, signed into law by President Donald Trump on Friday, will provide additional funding for the Small Business Administration’s Personal Paycheck Program, which ran out of funds last week.
The PPP is geared toward businesses with fewer than 500 employees, incentivizing them to keep workers on the payroll by extending forgivable loans of up to $10 million.
But the latest $484-billion appropriation is little more than a temporary Band-Aid, according to the Republican congressmen who opposed it.
“We are engaged in a bipartisan bankruptcy of this country,” Buck said. “We will not heal our communities and put an end to this crisis by throwing trillions of dollars at an economy chained by a government-mandated quarantine.”
He said Congress should absolutely support “struggling small businesses, workers, and healthcare providers,” but that the best way to do that is by reopening the economy—not by throwing money at the problem.
The next package—the fifth of its kind since the economic shutdown—will likely require even more small-business funding, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Supporters are already warning that the business-backed Payroll Protection Program will exhaust the new $250 billion almost immediately.
‘If the state objective is to make it … impossible for its law-abiding citizens to purchase protected ammunition, then this law appears to be well-drafted…’
Semi auto magazines with ammo (screen shot: Dirt Road/Youtube)
(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) A federal judge on Thursday blocked the enforcement of a California law that puts harsh restrictions on the purchase of ammunition.
With the passage of Proposition 63 and Senate Bill 1235 in 2016, Californians mandated that all ammunition buyers must pass a federal background check through a licensed ammunition vendor, reported the National Rifle Association‘s Institute for Legislative Action.
The law also prohibits online purchases of ammunition.
In Rhode v. Becerra, Judge Roger T. Benitez gave four reasons for granting a preliminary injunction that prevents the state “from implementing or enforcing the ammunition sales background check provisions.”
First, he wrote that “criminals, tyrants, and terrorists don’t do background checks,” while the restrictions “unduly and severely [burden] the Second Amendment rights” of gun owners.
Second, he wrote that “the implementing regulations systematically prohibit or deter an untold number of law-abiding California citizen–residents from undergoing the required background checks.”
Third, he wrote that California’s background check system has denied 16.4 percent of citizens the right to purchase ammunition who “are not prohibited persons.”
Fourth, he wrote that California does not have the authority to restrict interstate commerce. The anti-importation provision violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The regulations on interstate ammunition sales took effect on Jan. 1, 2018.
The background-check law took effect on Jan. 1, 2019.
Benitez is the same judge who ruled against California’s ban on gun magazines that can hold more than 10 bullets.
“If the state objective is to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for its law-abiding citizens to purchase protected ammunition, then this law appears to be well-drafted,” Benitez wrote in his decision.
The plaintiff in the case, Kim Rhode, is an Olympic medalist who competes in skeet and double-trap shooting events, which require a lot of ammunition.
In the lawsuit, Rhode said California’s restrictions infringed on her right to buy the ammunition that she needs.
State Rep. Karen Whitsett, D-Detroit, recovered from COVID-19 earlier this month and met with Trump shortly thereafter.
“Thank you for everything that you have done,” she told Trump during a White House meeting, adding that she would not have asked for hydroxychloroquine had he not hailed the drug as a “game changer.”
This meeting was unacceptable, according to Whitsett’s Democratic colleagues, who announced they will vote to censure her this weekend.
Whitsett “has repeatedly and publicly praised the president’s delayed and misguided COVID-19 response efforts, thereby “endangering the health, safety and welfare of her constituents, the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan,” the 13th Congressional District Democratic Party Organization’s censure resolution states, according to the Detroit News.
If the censure passes, Whitsett will be barred from participating in the group’s activities for the next two election cycles, and she will not be allowed to receive the organization’s endorsement when she runs for reelection.
Upon hearing the news, Trump encouraged Whitsett to leave the Democratic Party.
Whitsett, however, said she has no intention of leaving the Democratic Party, even if “they change their ways.”
But Whitsett is the only one who needs to change, said Jonathan Kinloch, chairman of the 13th Congressional District Democratic Party.
“At the end of the day, we have political systems. We have political parties, and political parties exist for a reason,” he said.
Kinloch said that Whitsett and others like her were effectively the property of the organization and had no business voicing their independent ideas or opinions.
“[Democratic politicians] do not belong to themselves,” he said. “They belong to the members and precinct delegates of the Democratic Party.”
