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11 20 20 President Trump addresses the nation on drug price plans

This was the outcome of a state appeals court decision on Thursday in a case not involving the Trump or Biden campaigns. A local Republican candidate had brought suit to invalidate 2349 mail-in ballots in Allegheny Count which the Allegheny County Board of Elections counted even though the voters had failed to put a date on the envelope at the time he/she signed the declaration.

A trial court judge had ruled that the failure by the voter was technical, and the Election Board had it within its discretion to count the ballot which was otherwise appropriate filled out and sent to the Elections Board.

The appeals court reversed and ordered that the ballots not be counted. Allegheny County voted in favor of Joe Biden 59.4 to 39.1%. It was not reported how many of the invalidated ballots had votes for Biden and how many had votes for Trump.

Yesterday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to hear a similar case out of Philadelphia County that was brought by the Trump Campaign. That case involves over 8000 mail-in ballots where the voter did not properly complete the information required on the outer envelope. A trial court judge in Philadephia ruled that the Elections Board had the discretion to accept the ballots and count the votes. The Trump Campaign was preparing to appeal that ruling when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stepped in at the request of the State given the short time remaining before the State must certify the election results in order to name the electors for the Electoral College.

The decision from the appeals court on the missing dates is significant because of the language used by the majority in the opinion.

This is the very argument that the Trump campaign was making in the case filed in federal court last week — that the seven County Board of Elections named as defendants in that case had applied standards of their own choosing in deciding how to pre-canvass ballots, and what should be done about ballots which were discovered during the pre-canvass to be defective and would therefore be rejected.

Biden’s margin of victory has now grown to 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania, and it is uncertain if the number of ballots that can be called into question in the litigation underway will ultimately involve enough ballots to potentially reverse the final vote count. But at this point, it is still not yet known how many ballots might have been rejected in those seven counties had all the requirements for casting a valid mail-in ballot had been strictly enforced. Most significantly, there has still not been a public statement issued by any of the seven counties as to how many ballots arrived lacking the required inner “security sleeve”, and if all such ballots were rejected.

Sen. Tom Cotton Friday insisted that it is time for the Trump campaign to present evidence of fraud and illegal activities rather than hold press conferences where claims are made.

“I think we are at the point that we need the evidence to be produced in court,” the Arkansas Republican said on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” Friday, in response to a contentious press conference headed by President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani and campaign attorneys Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis.

“Rudy Giuliani and the president’s lawyers have multiple lawsuits filed around the country, but we are to the point though where this is not the time for politicians or press conferences,” Cotton said. “That was during the election. This is a time for evidence in court.”

Giuliani and the other attorneys on Thursday outlined what he called “massive fraud” that they said was conducted on behalf of Joe Biden, including accusations that voter software was manipulated to pull votes away from Trump and give them to his Democrat rival.

Meanwhile, Cotton said he’s focusing on the upcoming runoff election in Georgia that could determine which party controls the Senate. He said the race has “gone into overtime,” as Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, the two Republicans, try to defend their seats against Democrat challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

“I can tell you having been in Georgia yesterday, people there don’t intend to let [Sen.] Chuck Schumer take Georgia or to change America,” said Cotton. “His kind of change means packing the court, raising your taxes, making Washington, D.C., a state, taking away your health insurance on the job, taking away your guns, giving amnesty to illegal immigrants. That’s not what Georgia wants.”

He added that he thinks there needs to be more authentication of signatures on absentee ballots, so that if signatures don’t match up, the ballots aren’t counted.

“It wasn’t done effectively enough on the election on Nov. 3,” said Cotton. That ended up leading to the vote recount.

The Georgia Secretary of State issued a correction Friday afternoon, saying this state is still completing the certification process, despite an earlier announcement that the state had rectified an electoral victory for Joe Biden.

Brad Raffensperger, the Republican Secretary of State, said he expects the certification will be complete later on Friday.

Joe Biden continues his transition effort, as he plans Friday to meet with top congressional Democrats.

President Trump, conversely, continues to pursue his bid to reverse the results of the election. He has invited top Republican leaders from Michigan to meet with him at the White House.

In a segment on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Thursday, former President Barack Obama suggested sending in the Navy SEALs to remove President Donald Trump from the White House.

Obama is on a media tour promoting his more than 700-page memoir titled “A Promised Land,” amid the contested presidential election.

While the race has not been certified, and Trump is mounting a legal campaign alleging widespread fraud and other election discrepancies, the establishment media has called the race for Democratic Joe Biden.

While only two weeks have passed since the Nov. 3 election, prominent liberals in entertainment, such as Kimmel, are furthering a narrative that the president is refusing to leave the White House.

On his program Thursday, Kimmel made light of the situation which has divided millions of Americans, when he joked about someone, presumably the president, hiding in the White House.

“You know the White House well. You lived there for eight years,” Kimmel said to Obama.

“Are there places someone could hide? Like, if, say, they were going to be removed? Are there little cubby holes or anything that you know about?”

Obama laughed at the comment.

“Well, I think we can always send the Navy SEALs in there to dig him out,” the former president responded.

11 20 20 Farmers are being forced to grow smaller turkeys this year

Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes announced Thursday that his deputies are not responding to calls over masks and social gatherings under Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest stay-at-home order.

Newsom issued a new partial lockdown order scheduled to take effect on Saturday night to combat the coronavirus. Barnes responded to the announcement by saying that his already stretched department would not rigorously enforce new regulations over masking and crowd sizes.

“Earlier today, the Orange County sheriff’s department became aware of a limited Stay at Home Order that Governor Newsom’s office ordered to go into effect on Saturday, November 21 at 10 PM,” Barnes said in a statement. “Throughout the pandemic, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department has taken an education-first approach with regard to the public health orders. We are currently assessing the action by the governor. At this time, due to the need to have deputies available for emergency calls for service, deputies will not be responding to requests for face-coverings or social gatherings-only enforcement.”

The Trump campaign, which has filed a petition for a statewide recount in Wisconsin, said Friday that when all legal ballots are counted – and illegal votes were thrown out – Trump “will be proven the winner.”

“Our democracy depends on fair and impartial elections that fully adhere to the Constitution and state statute,” Jim Troupis, Wisconsin counsel to the campaign, said in a statement.

“By staging a last-minute attempt to change the rules, and by providing unlawful advice before then, the Wisconsin Elections Commission has repeatedly failed to follow the law. They have disenfranchised voters and undermined the integrity of this election. We continue to be confident that when all of the legal ballots are counted and illegal ballots are not counted, President Trump will be proven the winner,” Troupis said.

Republican Mike Garcia, the surprise winner of a special election for the U.S. House in Los Angeles County last May, is now inching toward election to a full term.

On Thursday, the latest figures from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s Office showed Garcia edging past Democrat State Assemblywoman Christy Smith by 422 votes.

This figure increases Garcia’s margin from the 159-vote advantage he held last week.

A spokesman for the Registrar-Recorder’s office said there are 66,245 outstanding ballots waiting to be counted in Los Angeles County. But it wasn’t clear how many are from the 25th District, which includes Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Smith has been in the state Assembly for two years and got into the special election following the resignation of fellow Democrat and Representative Katie Hill after the release of salacious photos and rumors of an extramarital affair with a staffer.

In 2018, Hill unseated Republican Representative Steve Knight.

Garcia, 44, is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a Navy pilot.