'it's a problem'

Jonas immediately ran toward the exit stairs

'We did not find a single person'

His official cause of death has not been reported

A standard progressive claim is that the Left truly cares about democracy but the other side, not so much.  Yet the Biden-Harris White House is now suing my home state, Virginia, and our Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, for simply following and appropriately enforcing a 2006 law meant to protect our voting rights. That measure was signed into law by Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat now seeking a third term in the U.S. Senate representing Virginia. By undermining the security of our ballot box and the rule of law, the Biden-Harris administration is the true threat to democracy. The law requires Virginia officials to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls, a process that starts with someone declaring themselves a noncitizen and then registering to vote.  It also requires Virginia to use data from the Department of Motor Vehicles to do so, a practice in place for 18 years. Democrat governors since Kaine, including Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam, used this process all the way through October in election years.  For the current election cycle, the commonwealth in recent months removed more than 6,300 noncitizens from the rolls so they couldn’t vote in the Nov. 5 general election. Virginia has followed the prescribed process of notifying the elections registrar that noncitizens must be told that if they can’t affirm U.S. citizenship in 14 days, their names will be taken off the voter rolls. It’s shocking that with less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Justice Department filed this unprecedented lawsuit.  “Virginians—and Americans—will see this for exactly what it is: a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the commonwealth, the very crucible of American democracy,” Youngkin said in a public statement in response to the Justice Department’s suit.  “With the support of our [state] attorney general, we will defend these commonsense steps, [which] we are legally required to take, with every resource available to us,” the governor said. “Virginia’s election will be secure and fair, and I will not stand idly by as this politically motivated action tries to interfere in our elections, period.” Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution gives control of elections to state legislative branches, not to city workers or state or federal judges at the last minute. The 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause doesn’t allow the federal government to corrupt the integrity of elections in favor of noncitizens and in violation of the law. In a Fox News interview, Youngkin said: “To me, this is unprecedented, and I think it represents a Department of Justice that is trying to achieve something other than fair and free elections.”  He’s right.  Youngkin vowed to battle on in the courts against the Biden-Harris administration. But the governor also is resisting progressives in Virginia who want to undermine the rule of law in voting.  Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, or RITE, a nonprofit voter-integrity organization, wrote Virginia elections officials to request immediate action to halt Democrat-leaning Prince William County from ignoring a state law that safeguards elections from noncitizen voting. Under Virginia law, election officials must challenge any voter whom they suspect of not being a U.S. citizen. Challenged individuals may still vote if they sign a statement affirming, under oath, that they are U.S. citizens. Recently, however, RITE noted that Prince William County published an operations manual that ignores this requirement. The county manual directs election officials to allow those who present so-called Driver Privilege Cards—or DPCs, which are issued exclusively to noncitizens—to vote without challenge so long as they also present another form of identification. This is blatant disregard for the law. Someone with a Driver Privilege Card gives ample evidence of being a noncitizen because only noncitizens may receive a DPC.  So Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections requested that Virginia election officials correct the situation in Prince William County by notifying the county of its obligation to challenge voters who present DPCs.  “The Youngkin administration has made great progress in protecting Virginia’s elections from noncitizen voting,” said Derek Lyons, the organization’s president and CEO. “Undertaking the actions RITE has requested would further this work and give the commonwealth’s citizens even more reason to have faith and trust in this year’s elections.” As a voter, homeowner, and taxpayer who was born in Virginia, I couldn’t be more proud of my governor for standing up to the tyranny of President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other progressives in defense of the U.S. Constitution, the Virginia Constitution, and the rule of law. Carrie Sheffield is a senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Voice. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Virginia’s Governor Bucks Biden-Harris Admin Over Noncitizen Voting appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Florida pro-lifers filed a lawsuit Wednesday against a pro-abortion group found to have engaged in fraudulent practices to put on the ballot a radical amendment legalizing abortion up to birth. Alan Lawson, a lawyer who is a former Florida Supreme Court justice, filed the lawsuit against the group Floridians Protecting Freedom on behalf of four state residents to challenge the validity of Amendment 4, the Washington Examiner first reported. If the suit succeeds, the pro-abortion measure would be removed from the Nov. 5 ballot in Florida. “Irrespective of what a Floridian believes about the merits of this amendment and abortion in general, every Floridian ought to want to protect their [state] Constitution from fraud and criminal activity,” Lawson told the Examiner. According to a Friday report from the Florida Office of Election Crimes and Security, more than 100 paid petition circulators associated with Floridians Protecting Freedom engaged in fraudulent practices to get the amendment on the ballot. If approved by voters, the initiative would amend the Florida Constitution to prohibit restrictions on abortion when “necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.”  Because the text of the constitutional amendment contains no definition of “health” or “health care provider,” the measure likely would legalize abortion at any stage of pregnancy if anyone who claims medical expertise asserts that the mother would benefit physically, emotionally, or otherwise.  Illegal activities by Floridians Protecting Freedom include forging signatures, misrepresenting voter information, and using personal identifying information without consent, the Office of Election Crimes and Security’s 348-page interim report says. Many of the petition forms collected were erroneously validated, allowing fraudulent submissions to slip through existing checks, the office said. The allegations could affect more than 1,500 voters across 35 counties in Florida. During late 2023 and early 2024, the Office of Election Crimes and Security received a high number of complaints about Floridians Protecting Freedom. Two paid petition circulators for the organization were arrested, charged, convicted, and sentenced for felonies involving election fraud early this year. “In addition to the arrests, OECS has, to date, opened well more than 100 preliminary criminal investigations into individual paid petition circulators and organizations involved in the collection of petitions on behalf of [Floridians Protecting Freedom],” the report says. “Given the credibility of the allegations, OECS has referred over a hundred individual FPF cases to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is actively pursuing dozens of criminal investigations together with the [state attorney general’s] Office of Statewide Prosecution.” Floridians Protecting Freedom gathered more than 900,000 signatures to put Amendment 4 on the ballot. The OECS report concludes that 16.4% of the signatures may be invalid. “Each of these petitions could correspond to a Floridian who (unbeknownst to him or her) is a victim of felony election fraud,” Brad McVay, Florida’s deputy secretary of state for legal affairs and election integrity, said in the report’s cover letter. “This illegal scheme is likely driving the petition fraud outlined above. If a circulator is paid per signature, circulators are incentivized to forge as many signatures as possible to make a quick and easy buck.” In September, the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis asked law enforcement to “prioritize” the investigation into what may be “fraudulent” signatures on petitions, according to a letter shared with The Daily Signal. The report from the Office of Election Crimes and Security asserts that Floridians Protecting Freedom submitted petition forms on behalf of more than 20 individuals who are dead. The Florida election office also found that registered circulators were hiring unregistered individuals to collect signatures, violating state laws requiring registered circulators to oversee the signing process. “Both the unregistered circulators who circulated petitions for compensation and the registered petition circulators who hired them committed crimes, and petition forms collected in this manner are invalid,” the report says. Some paid petition circulators had criminal histories and were not Florida residents, the report says. Circulators reportedly altered completed forms to fill in missing information before submitting the forms, according to the Office of Election Crimes and Security. Some misrepresented the purpose of the petition to potential signers, leading to signatures being gathered under false pretenses. Despite Florida’s attempts to combat petition fraud, the report says, Floridians Protecting Freedom’s agents compensated circulators based on the number of forms gathered—a third-degree felony in Florida. California-based PCI Consultants Inc. conducted and oversaw the petition circulation campaign; campaign finance reports show that Floridians Protecting Freedom paid PCI Consultants more than $27 million in 2023 and 2024. “Criminal intelligence generated by OECS, law enforcement, and the Office of Statewide Prosecution strongly indicates that multiple subcontractors engaged by PCI Consultants paid individual circulators per petition collected, in gross violation of Florida law,” the report says. “At least one of these subcontractors advertised the illegal payment scheme on social media websites.” Floridians Protecting Freedom recently was fined $328,000 for election law violations and already has paid $22,000 in additional civil penalties, McVay writes in the OECS report. The report from the Office of Election Crimes and Security recommends that Florida’s executive and legislative branches require paid petition circulators to be state residents and make convicted felons ineligible for these paid positions to prevent future fraud. In an emailed statement to The Daily Signal, Floridians Protecting Freedom denied allegations of fraud. “Ask yourself, why is this happening now, over half a year after over 997,000 petitions were verified by the state of Florida and now with less than a month until the election they want to revisit the petition collection process?” Hazel Smith, campaign director for Yes on 4, said. “Simply put, it’s because our campaign is winning and the government is trying to do everything it can to stop Floridians from having the rights they deserve.” Some legal scholars oppose ballot questions because of fraud such as what Floridians Protecting Freedom is accused of engaging in, said Daniel J. Schmid, associate vice president of legal affairs at Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based law firm specializing in religious freedom. “It’s rife with fraud, and it’s difficult to identify in the best of circumstances, and we’re basing significant changes in the law off of petitioners, some of whom have a financial stake in the petition itself,” Schmid told The Daily Signal. “That creates a problem, and I guarantee it’s happened in other places, on the abortion amendments and others, but particularly on the abortion amendments because they are so insistent on maintaining the right to slaughter children.” “In order to maintain the massive amounts of money that they retain because of this stuff, and to maintain the political power that they gain by it,” Schmid said, “they stop at nothing, up to and including fraud [in] the petition process.” The post Floridians Challenge Radical Abortion Amendment After Report Reveals Fraud in Petition Process appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Alleged 'Assassin' Suspect Sues Riverside Sheriff for Defamation

FBI Juked the Crime Stats, Quietly Revises

The online headline captured the tone of Monday’s PBS News Hour segment from the dueling Trump and Harris presidential campaigns: “Trump ramps up his dangerous political rhetoric in final weeks of campaign.” Taxpayer-supported PBS even let its gross partisanship show while showcasing the segment on X: "On the campaign trail, Vice President Kamala Harris is working to shore up support from Black voters while former President Donald Trump is increasing his extreme political rhetoric. @lbarronlopez reports." That would be Laura Barron-Lopez, the News Hour’s most partisan reporter. Anchor Amna Nawaz introduced Barron-Lopez’s report from the campaign trail, with Donald Trump stumping in Pennsylvania and Kamala Harris in North Carolina. Laura Barron-Lopez: This afternoon, Kamala Harris jetted off to the country's largest battleground state. The vice president is doing in Pennsylvania as she did in North Carolina over the weekend, energizing black voters. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump increased his extreme rhetoric, describing some American citizens as enemies. Donald Trump: I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. Barron-Lopez: In a FOX News interview yesterday, Maria Bartiromo asked Trump whether or not Election Day would be peaceful. Trump: We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they're the -- and it should be very easily handled by -- if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military. New York University professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a recurring PBS favorite, did what she does best: Wax hysterical on anything a Republican says, no matter how unhinged it makes her look. (Remember her 2023 attack on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for sensibly suggesting cellphones be banned from classrooms? She tweeted, then deleted: "He is so dangerous in every way. Truly an authoritarian personality.”) Ruth Ben-Ghiat, NYU History Professor: This kind of terminology is the terminology of dictators. Barron-Lopez: Ruth Ben-Ghiat is an American historian and scholar. Ben-Ghiat: Initially -- and he's been doing anti-immigrant rhetoric since 2015 -- it was keeping people out so that you should militarize the border. But now it's the enemy within. And that enemy can be anywhere, even in the Heartland, such as Aurora or Springfield. And, thus, he's talking about using various types of armed forces, National Guard and, he says, even the military, to go and liberate these territories. And this is very dangerous rhetoric. It's turning armed force against a domestic population, and that's what dictators have done in the past. There was a distinct vibe shift when Barron-Lopez checked in from the Harris campaign. Laura Barron-Lopez: Across the country, at her own rally in Greenville, North Carolina, Harris, who released her own medical records on Saturday, took a swing at the former president's lack of transparency. Note that this comes after the media spent at least four years hiding Joe Biden's clear mental decline. Kamala Harris: He refuses to release his medical records. I have done it. Every other presidential -- every other presidential candidate in the modern era has done it. He is unwilling to do a 60 Minutes interview, like every other major party candidate has done for more than half-a-century. He is unwilling to meet for a second debate. There was no mention of Harris’s notorious reluctance to do interviews before her recent media blitz. This segment was brought to you in part by Raymond James financial advisers. A transcript is available, click “Expand.” PBS News Hour 10/14/24 7:13:39 p.m. (ET) Host Geoff Bennett: Turning our focus now to the 2024 presidential race, over the weekend, Vice President Kamala Harris made stops in North Carolina while out West, former President Donald Trump ratcheted up his political rhetoric. But, tonight, both candidates are in opposite corners of one of the most important states in this election. That's Pennsylvania. Laura Barron-Lopez has our report. Laura Barron-Lopez: This afternoon, Kamala Harris jetted off to the country's largest battleground state. The vice president is doing in Pennsylvania as she did in North Carolina over the weekend, energizing black voters. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump increased his extreme rhetoric, describing some American citizens as enemies. Donald Trump, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. Laura Barron-Lopez: In a FOX News interview yesterday, Maria Bartiromo asked Trump whether or not Election Day would be peaceful. Donald Trump: We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they're the — and it should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, NYU History Professional: This kind of terminology is the terminology of dictators. Laura Barron-Lopez: Ruth Ben-Ghiat an American historian and scholar. Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Initially — and he's been doing anti-immigrant rhetoric since 2015 — it was keeping people out so that you should militarize the border. But now it's the enemy within. And that enemy can be anywhere, even in the heartland, such as Aurora or Springfield. And, thus, he's talking about using various types of armed forces, National Guard and, he says, even the military, to go and liberate these territories. And this is very dangerous rhetoric. It's turning armed force against a domestic population, and that's what dictators have done in the past. Laura Barron-Lopez: Trump's choice language didn't stop at FOX News. On Saturday, he described American towns as being invaded at a rally in Coachella, California. Donald Trump: We're like an occupied country. We got people taking over parts of Colorado. We have people taking over other states. November 5, 2024, will be liberation day in America, liberation day. Ruth Ben-Ghiat: This is a strategy. The ultimate goal is to convince Americans that democracy is failing and that strongman leadership to fix everything, and Donald Trump will say, I alone can fix it, is supposed to be the answer. And so as soon as he would take over and go back to the White House, all of our problems would be solved. But this is based on a fictional reality that's been created by disinformation. Laura Barron-Lopez: In Prescott Valley, Arizona, this weekend, Trump made a new immigration pledge, to add 10,000 agents to Border Patrol ranks and bump up their salaries. Donald Trump: After I win, I will be asking Congress immediately to approve a 10 percent raise, haven't had one in a long time, for all agents, at a $10,000 each retention and signing bonus. So we're going to retain them. We're going to retain them. Laura Barron-Lopez: Across the country, at her own rally in Greenville, North Carolina, Harris, who released her own medical records on Saturday, took a swing at the former president's lack of transparency. Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: He refuses to release his medical records. I have done it. Every other presidential — every other presidential candidate in the modern era has done it. He is unwilling to do a "60 Minutes" interview, like every other major party candidate has done for more than half-a-century. He is unwilling to meet for a second debate. Laura Barron-Lopez: Back in Pennsylvania where the stakes couldn't be higher, this festival in Greeley described by vendors as three days of God, guns and motorcycles, drew huge crowds of Trump voters. With November 5 just three weeks away, die-hard Trump supporters are counting down the days. Todd Herhart, Voter: We're 23 days away from the election. And the days drag. It's like a 10-year-old waiting for Santa Claus to come. The days just can't get here fast enough. Laura Barron-Lopez: For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Laura Barron-Lopez.

It was a classic case of liberal-media condescension to the great unwashed Trump masses during Wednesday's CNN This Morning. And what made it all the more outrageous was the obliviousness of it all. Speaking about CNN as if it was above the commoners in the wider country, host Kasie Hunt said to her panel: I have to say, I mean, we're sitting at this table, right? I mean, Kate [Bedingfield], you've worked, you've dedicated your career to electing Democrats the White House. Matt, you've done the same for Republicans. We're able to sit here and have a conversation about what's going to happen. To try to do it in a civil way, where we're operating kind of in the same world.     Operating in the "kind of same world," indeed! The world of political and media elitism. Along with Hunt, the panel was composed of Edward-Isaac Dovere, a senior CNN reporter, formerly of The Atlantic and Politico; Kate Bedingfield, Biden's former communications director; and Matt Gorman, who served as a communications person for the presidential candidacies of Republicans Tim Scott (SC), Jeb Bush (FL), and Mitt Romney (UT). In contrast, Kasie kvetched, the American electorate was incapable of "civil" conversation - and it's all Donald Trump's fault. She gave as an example the situation in western North Carolina, where statements Trump has made have made people distrustful FEMA. Dovere did his bit: "The reason why this began, with the hurricane disinformation about FEMA and everything, is because Donald Trump is talking about it." Bedingfield's take was simultaneously the worst and the most hilarious of all: "This is why his continuing erosion of faith in the media is so dangerous . . . If there's not an independent arbiter of the facts, people cannot start from a place of -- we can't function as a society." And just who should be that "independent arbiter of facts," Kate? CNN? MSNBC? The New York Times? If elected, perhaps Kamala Harris could create a cabinet-level Department of Truth to certify approved media outlets. And who better to head the department than Kate herself! Gorman did push back. While not entirely lifting the onus from Trump, he said that the discrediting of the media has been going on for 30 years.  Thirty years. That roughly coincides with Brent Bozell's founding of the Media Research Center, NewsBusters' parent organization.  To the extent MRC/NewsBusters has contributed to the well-deserved discrediting of the liberal media's outrageous bias--something we document every day--we proudly accept responsibility! Hunt ended the segment on an ominous note: "It's just a reminder that 20 days to go, we are hurtling toward something, toward an unknown that has, you know, it's, it has the potential to be a really significant and potentially difficult chapter in our history." Translation: If Trump doesn't win, he will stir up his stormtroopers! The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN This Morning 10/16/24 6:12 am EDT KASIE HUNT: Look, I have to say I mean, we're sitting at this table, right? I mean, Kate, you've worked, you've dedicated your career to electing Democrats the White House. Matt, you've done the same for Republicans. We're able to sit here and have a conversation about what's going to happen. To try to do it in a civil way, where we're operating kind of in the same world. But increasingly, and Matt, I'm really interested in your perspective on this. Like, what happened with FEMA in the mountains of North Carolina this week really, for me, crystallized the degree to which people are living in alternate information universes. Where you have federal officials going in, trying to help, trying to give people money that they are entitled to as Americans, who are the victims of this kind of a disaster. And they can't do it because there are people out there who think that FEMA is dangerous and a threat and they're going after them. Militia types. It just really kind of underscored to me the degree to which we are not -- two separate groups of people in America are living in two different worlds. MATT GORMAN: Oh, there's no better example of this than Covid, right? I mean, imagine if you were, like, let's say, an investment banker living in Florida during Covid or a waitress in San Francisco. You live two very different existences for the better part of two years. And that would shape how you would probably view that event. I mean, it's so much, it's broader, it's broader than purely media. It's broader than where you live. It's broader than how you consume information, from whether it's media online or just the people you live around and talk to. We live in one country, but can have vastly different experiences. EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE: But there's an agency here though. Donald Trump is, he's not the only reason why this exists, that diversification of media, the people paying attention to different things, living different experiences in their lives. But the reason why this began, with the hurricane disinformation about FEMA and everything, is because Donald Trump is talking about it. And we had a congressman from North Carolina who last week, a Republican congressman, had to put out a long statement on his website that began, the first thing was, no one controls the weather. That's where we are in 2024. KATE BEDINGFIELD: Yeah, and this is why Trump's continued erosion of people's faith in institutions is so dangerous. I mean, this is why his continuing erosion of faith in the media is so dangerous. Because if there is not an independent arbiter of the facts -- before you get  about how to present them or your feelings about them or your opinion about them. If there's not an independent arbiter of the facts, people cannot start from a place of -- we can't function as a society. I mean, that sounds dramatic, but I think that that's true. And I think that the role that Trump has played in exacerbating and furthering this erosion of faith in institutions is really scary. And he wields an enormous amount of power. I mean, half the country feels incredibly, passionately about him and about his leadership. And he uses that to make it so that people in a hurricane-ravaged area don't trust that they can go get the help that they need. HUNT: Very quickly. GORMAN: Trump might have gotten the [inaudible], but this was happening for the last 30 years. BEDINGFIELD: I agree with that. GORMAN: He might have it, but [inaudible.] BEDINGFIELD: No, no question. But he accelerated it, absolutely. HUNT: Well, it's just, it's just a reminder that 20 days to go, we are hurtling toward something, toward an unknown that has, you know, it's, it has the potential to be a really significant and potentially difficult chapter in our history.