Georgia Announces Full, Hand Recount in Presidential Race

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Wednesday the state will do a hand recount of the ballots cast in the presidential election.

Raffensperger said the current margin between President Donald Trump and presumptive president-elect Joe Biden stands at 14,111. Because it’s so close and almost 5 million votes were cast in the race, a full hand recount of every vote is statistically necessary to correctly determine the winner, Raffensperger said.

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Wisconsin GOP Officials Allege Thousands May Have Skirted Voter ID Requirement

Wisconsin Republicans alleged that thousands may have skirted a voter identification requirement when casting their ballots in the battleground state, according to a Tuesday Washington Examiner report.

The state allows residents to classify themselves “indefinitely confined,” meaning the person is largely limited to his or her home due to age, disability or other factors, a GOP official told the Examiner. The classification requires a witness signature, but under it, voters can cast an absentee ballot without showing valid ID, the Examiner reported.

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Changes to Pennsylvania Election Laws Followed by Last-Minute Maneuvers May Lead to Historic Mishaps

The Pennsylvania Legislature passed Act 77 in October 2019 to make voting “more convenient and more secure” according to Governor Tom Wolf (D).  

Major features of the act include:

extending voter registration from 30 days before an election to 15 days;
allowing mail-in voting without an excuse to vote mail-in versus in-person;
extending mail-in request (online and by mail) and submission up to 50 days before an election;
extending the mail-in and absentee submission deadline from 5:00 p.m. the Friday before the election to 8:00 p.m. the day of the election.

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Truckers Plan ‘Stop the Wheels’ Shutdown in Protest of Joe Biden’s Plans for Fracking Ban, Green New Deal

If you notice store shelves that are empty of toilet paper and canned food again, it may be because of a truckers’ shutdown and not the Chinese coronavirus.

Truckers have been taking to social media to try to organize a “Stop The Wheels 2020” shutdown in protest of Joe Biden’s plans for the Green New Deal and a fracking ban in the event he assumes the presidency.

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GOP Unveils $1.4T Spending Bill Amid Post-Election Turmoil

Republicans controlling the Senate unveiled a government-wide, $1.4 trillion spending bill on Tuesday, a largely bipartisan measure that faces uncertain odds during this period of post-election tumult in Washington.

The GOP-drafted measure contains funding for President Donald Trump’s border wall and other provisions opposed by Democrats, but top leaders in both parties want to try to mount a drive to enact the unfinished spending bills — which, along with a separate COVID-19 relief effort and annual defense policy bill, represent the bulk of Capitol Hill’s unfinished business for the year.

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EU Files Antitrust Charges Against Amazon Over Use of Data

European Union regulators filed antitrust charges Tuesday against Amazon, accusing the e-commerce giant of using its access to data from companies that sell products on its platform to gain an unfair advantage over them.

The charges, filed two years after the bloc’s antitrust enforcer began looking into the company, are the latest effort by European regulators to curb the power of big technology companies. Margrethe Vestager, the EU commissioner in charge of competition issues, has slapped Google with antitrust fines totaling nearly $10 billion and opened twin antitrust investigations this summer into Apple. The EU’s executive Commission also opened a second investigation Tuesday into whether Amazon favors product offers and merchants that use its own logistics and delivery system.

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Commentary: A Biden–Harris Administration Would Unravel Middle East Peace

Stormy weather might be on the Middle East’s horizon. Following the U.S. presidential election, Iran offered a mafia-style protection deal to countries that have normalized relations with Israel: they must abandon Israel and align with Iran, or face the consequences. A Biden–Harris administration would likely undermine much of the progress towards Middle East peace that the Trump administration has made. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) have several policy positions that would jeopardize the progress towards Middle East peace brokered by the Trump administration.

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Barr Authorizes DOJ Prosecutors to Investigate Election Irregularities

Attorney General William Barr has issued a memo in which he said that he authorized federal prosecutors “to pursue substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation irregularities prior to the certification of elections in your jurisdictions in certain cases, as I have already done in specific instances.”

Barr noted that this did not serve to indicate the Justice Department has determined that voting irregularities affected election outcomes.

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Glitchy Dominion Voting Machines in Georgia Were Used in Response to Previous Voting Concerns

Dominion voting machines, which have drawn scrutiny over security concerns during the November 3 elections, ironically made their entrance into use in Georgia this year after concerns were raised about the sanctity of past elections.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in an undated press release that he had selected Dominion Voting Systems’ new verified paper ballot system to be in operation for the March 24, 2020 presidential primary.

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Commentary: Was Pfizer’s Vaccine News Slow-Walked Until After the Election?

As the coronavirus pandemic swept across the globe in the spring, President Trump announced his plan to fast-track an effective vaccine that would be available by the new year.

The goal of Operation Warp Speed, launched by the White House in May, was “to produce and deliver 300 million doses of safe and effective vaccines with the initial doses available by January 2021, as part of a broader strategy to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.” Congress appropriated $10 billion to fund the ambitious program.

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FDA Has Delayed Approval Process for Promising Cancer Drug for Months Because of COVID

A promising immunotherapy drug for patients battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma may fail to gain federal approval due to COVID-19 precautions, according to company executives and a quarterly report.

Liso-cel, manufactured by Bristol-Myers Squibb, originally had its Food and Drug Administration (FDA) application accepted in February, but has yet to have one of its contracted manufacturing sites undergo FDA inspection due to the coronavirus pandemic. Not only is the drug’s approval contingent on the facility inspections from the FDA, according to multiple company executives, but its application expires on Nov. 16, meaning that if the plant is not inspected in the coming days Bristol-Myers may have to completely resubmit the drug’s application as a result.

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Georgia’s Protections, Checks and Balances on the Vote Counting Process

In the disarray and distrust inspired by alleged voting irregularities in Georgia, it stands that the hallmarks of a trustworthy vote-counting process should be revisited.

The Tennessee Star contacted the elections officials a range of the most populated counties in the state to gain insider perspective and knowledge. However, several of the officials refused to offer comment, and the remainder didn’t respond by press time.

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Virginia COVID-19 Update: Coronavirus Numbers Rising Throughout the State, Vaccine Expected by Year End, Officials Say

As the winter months, colder weather and the holiday season are approaching, the coronavirus numbers, encompassing a number of different metrics, have been increasing throughout Virginia over the last month or so, according to government officials.

At a televised briefing Tuesday afternoon, Governor Ralph Northam said the state is seeing a rise in cases, percent positivity – now at 6.2 percent – and hospitalizations.

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Gov. Walz Calls Sixth Special Session for Thursday

Gov. Tim Walz on Monday said he will convene the sixth special session of the Minnesota Legislature on Thursday.

“Amid climbing COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, Walz intends to extend the COVID-19 peacetime emergency by 30 days,” a news release said.  The extension will mark a total of about 274 days or nearly nine months Minnesota has been under a state of emergency.

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COVID-19 Outbreak in Richmond Registrar’s Office Delays Election Results

Candidates in Richmond’s close elections will have to wait a little longer for certainty after three staffers in the Registrar’s office were diagnosed with COVID-19. Registrar Kirk Showalter said most ballots would be counted by Tuesday, but 975 provisional ballots remain to be evaluated and counted. At a Monday press conference, Showalter said she hoped results for those ballots would be available on Friday.

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Ohio Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Stiffen Penalties for Rioting, Vandalism, Looting

Saying they strongly support the right to protest, two Ohio Republican lawmakers responded to incidents around the country in the wake of protests with a bill that would stiffen penalties for rioting, looting and violence toward peace officers in the state.

“We have had conversations with peace officers and business owners around the state and they were like something has to be done,” state Rep. Cindy Abrams, R-Harrison, said at a news conference Tuesday. “Over the summer, we saw peaceful protests and then we saw rioting, vandalism and looting.”

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University of Virginia Extends Its Optional Credit Grading Policy for January-Term and Spring Semester

The University of Virginia (UVA) announced Monday the school is extending the optional credit grading policy, originally implemented this fall, for all undergraduate and certain graduate classes during January-term and the spring 2021 semester.

Provost Liz Magill made the announcement in a letter to students, which included details on how the grading policy will work.

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Liberty Stuns Virginia Tech with Game-Winning Field Goal to Remain Undefeated

In a back-and-forth contest that featured several lead changes, No. 25 Liberty beat Virginia Tech 38-35 on Saturday thanks to a 51-yard field goal with 1 second left on the clock.

The field goal put a stamp on the thrilling game, where Liberty were forced to rally from a seven-point halftime deficit, and moved the Flames to a 7-0 record for the first time in program history.

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U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Qualified Immunity Arguments for Michigander Beaten by Police

The highest court in the United States on Monday will hear oral arguments in a case seeking to reform a concept that gave police officers immunity after they nearly beat a college student to death six years ago.

James King, a 21-year-old college student, was walking between his two summer jobs in Grand Rapids, Mich., when two plain-clothes officers asked for his ID in a case of a mistaken identity involving a suspect of a non-violent crime.

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Vanderbilt University Won’t Say If They Will Dismiss Jon Meacham After Ethical Lapse Involving His Involvement With Joe Biden

MSNBC has dismissed Vanderbilt professor Jon Meacham from his job as a network contributor because he did not inform network staff that he was writing speeches for former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

The Tennessee Star left two messages with Vanderbilt University Tuesday, one by phone and one by email. We asked Vanderbilt officials if they planned to relieve Meacham of his duties because of his ethical lapse and lack of transparency.

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