Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Georgia Senate Panel Requests Forensic Audit of Fulton County Absentee Ballots
Georgia Senate’s Election Law Study Subcommittee unanimously passed a motion during a Dec. 30 hearing to request an audit of absentee ballots in Fulton County.
The senators are asking the state’s largest county to make the ballots “available for inspection” through a method outlined during the hearing by digital ID systems inventor Jovan Pulitzer.
Pulitzer suggested all absentee ballots in the state of Georgia be forensically examined and fraudulent ones identified in just a matter of hours. He called on state officials to allow the examination.
Officials in the Georgia Secretary of State’s office didn’t immediately respond to requests by The Epoch Times for comment on the subcommittee motion.
“Fulton County did not participate in today’s hearing,” county spokeswoman Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez said in an email to The Epoch Times. “We will continue to collaborate with the Secretary of State and General Assembly as we execute elections in compliance with all applicable state and federal laws.”
Georgia is one of the states where election results are being contested by the campaign of President Donald Trump and others. The current count in the state shows former Vice President Joe Biden ahead by some 12,000 votes.
The state has conducted manual and machine recounts, and an absentee ballot signature match audit in one county. These uncovered some issues
The brunt of the fraud allegations has been aimed at the heavily Democratic Fulton County, which includes Atlanta.
One of the county’s polling managers previously told state lawmakers that she opened a box of mail-in ballots with a batch of 110 that were “pristine” and not folded, indicating that they were never put in secrecy envelopes, as is required.
Pulitzer said that he and his team can detect if that’s the case.
Security camera footage from election night shows that in Fulton County, what appears to be tens of thousands of ballots were counted in the absence of party or state monitors. The video seems to show that election workers scanned the same batches of ballots repeatedly. This could be a legitimate action when there’s a scanning error in the batch, such as when the ballots get jammed in the scanner.
In that scenario, the workers are supposed to discard the whole batch of scans and scan the ballots again, but the video quality makes it hard to discern if that was the case in each instance . Pulitzer said that he and his team could detect if that was the case as well.
“We would be able to tell if they were folded, if they were counterfeit, whether they were filled out by a human hand, whether they were printed by a machine, whether they were batch-fed continually over and over, we can detect every bit of that,” he testified.
The ballot paper itself, when scanned, becomes a piece of code, he explained. Every time the paper is physically handled, such as folded or written upon, the code would change and the change can be detected.
The examination he proposed can be done expediently, he said.
“All of these problems that you’ve heard today can be corrected and detected now by the simplest of things. It takes you days or weeks to recount votes. Give me these 500,000 ballots, we’ll have them done in two hours,” he said, apparently referring to the 528,777 ballots cast in Fulton.
About 5 million ballots were cast statewide.
Pulitzer criticized state authorities for refusing to allow a full-scale forensic audit.
“This is the historical artifact of a voter. And states are telling voters, ‘You have no right to that,’” he said.
“The very voter that pays your salary, that paid for that ballot, that paid for that piece of paper, and paid for the machine that you’re running it in. And so those people that pay your salary, that you work for, and do this for, you’re telling them, ‘You can’t look at them.’
“That is both unacceptable and un-American.”
Thanks China! Ohio State study: 30% of student athletes have heart damage linked to COVID-19
LOS ANGELES - In a study published in September, researchers from Ohio State University found that out of more than two dozen athletes from the university who tested positive for COVID-19, 30% had cellular heart damage and 15% showed signs of heart inflammation caused by a condition known as myocarditis.
After mapping the hearts of 26 Ohio State University athletes using a process known as cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR), researchers found that not only 15% of students exhibited the rare heart condition but 30% showed cellular damage.
"Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging has the potential to identify a high-risk cohort for adverse outcomes and may, importantly, risk-stratify athletes for safe participation," study authors wrote. "Recent studies have raised concerns of myocardial inflammation after recovery from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), even in asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patients."
According to researchers, "myocarditis is a significant cause of sudden cardiac death in competitive athletes."
Acoording to the Mayo Clinic, myocarditis is typically caused by a viral infection with symptoms ranging from chest pain, fatigue, shortness of breath, to a negative impact on heart rate and rhythm as seen in conditions such as arrhythmias.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tweeted on Sept. 17, "Heart conditions like myocarditis are associated with some cases of #COVID19. Severe cardiac damage is rare but has occurred, even in young, healthy people."
Medical experts have previously warned the public of links between the novel coronavirus and heart damage, especially in young people. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health explained that while COVID-19 most commonly impacts the lungs as it is a respiratory illness, damage to the lungs can lead to serious heart complications.
Because the heart needs oxygen to function properly, COVID-19 can damage the lungs, preventing enough oxygen from reaching the heart muscle and further restricting oxygen from reaching other important tissues in the body.
A separate report by a group of U.S. doctors published in the medical journal JACC warned of the potential of heart damage to children from the novel coronavirus.
The report detailed the case of a 2-month-old infant diagnosed with COVID-19 who experienced a myocardial injury as well as a type of heart failure most commonly seen in adults.
"Most children with Covid-19 are either asymptomatic or have mild symptoms, but our case shows the potential for reversible myocardial (heart) injury in infants," said Dr. Madhu Sharma, the report’s lead author.
In a news release published on Dec. 2, the group of doctors said the infant recovered with normal heart function and was eventually discharged with no heart failure medications.
"The presentation and clinical course of this patient mirrors four case reports of acute myocardial injury reported in adult patients with COVID-19," said Sharma.
Another study published on June 25 in the journal Cell Reports Medicine found thatCOVID-19 has also been known to instigate inflammatory responses in the body which can negatively affect the function of one’s heart and brain.
According to the study, researchers observed SARS-CoV-2 infecting human heart cells that were grown from stem cells in a lab. Within 72 hours of infection, the virus managed to spread and replicate, killing the heart cells.
The researchers brought up the particularly alarming possibility that if COVID-19 can can infect the heart cells in a laboratory setting, it could possibly infect those specific organs, prompting the need for a "cardiac-specific antiviral drug screen program."
Hawley Becomes First Senator Committed to Challenging Electoral College Results
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said he will object during the counting of the Electoral College vote process on Jan. 6, becoming the first senator to confirm they are joining an effort launched by more than a dozen House Republicans.
“I cannot vote to certify the electoral college results on Jan. 6 without raising the fact
that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws,” Hawley wrote in a statement on Dec. 30. “And I cannot vote to certify without pointing out the unprecedented effort of mega-corporations, including Facebook and Twitter, to interfere in this election, in support of Joe Biden,” he added.
Hawley said that Congress should investigate voter fraud allegations and make sure that future elections are secure. According to the Missouri Republican, both chambers have failed to act in an appropriate manner.
“For these reasons,” Hawley continued, “I will follow the same practice Democrat members of Congress have in years past and object during the certification process on Jan. 6 to raise these critical issues.”
Hawley noted that Democrats objected during the 2004 and 2016 elections “in order to raise concerns” about election integrity. “They were praised by Democratic leadership and the media when they” objected, Hawley added, saying that they “were entitled to do so” and Republicans concerned about election integrity in the Nov. 3 election “are entitled to do the same.”
For the past several weeks, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and other House GOP lawmakers have pledged to object to the counting of the Electoral College votes during the Joint Session of Congress. Their effort requires a senator and a House member that would trigger a series of debates before a vote on whether to certify a state’s Electoral College votes is held.
Some members of the GOP leadership, including Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), have said their efforts are doomed to fail. And over the past weekend, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), in comments widely publicized by news outlets, referred to Brooks’s effort as “a scam.”
And, according to anonymously sourced reports, Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told GOP senators that they should not take part in the House GOP-led effort on Jan. 6. Another Republican, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), said the attempt to challenge the votes is an improbable one.
“It’s basically going through the motions,” Cornyn said, reported The Hill. “It’s a futile exercise.”
But Brooks, for his part, indicated that “dozens” of House members back the effort. “We’re going to sponsor and co-sponsor objections to the Electoral College vote returns,” Brooks told Fox News on Dec. 28.
In a previous interview with The Epoch Times’ American Thought Leaders program, Brooks said he believes the Electoral College vote can be rejected, and the election can ultimately be decided in the House of Representatives.
Former California Sen. Barbara Boxer “tried to strike Ohio for George Bush back in 2005, so this is not unusual,” Brooks said in an interview with Fox Business on Dec. 15. “The law is very clear, the House of Representatives in combination with the United States Senate has the lawful authority to accept or reject Electoral College vote submissions from states that have such flawed election systems that they’re not worthy of our trust.”
The new Congress is slated to be sworn in on Jan. 3.
Louisiana Congressman-elect Luke Letlow died Tuesday at Ochsner LSU Health in Shreveport with COVID-19.
Letlow, 41, was transferred from St. Francis Medical Center to the Ochsner LSU Health ICU on Dec. 23 and has been treated there since then.
Letlow is survived by his wife, Julia Barnhill Letlow, and two young children.
"The family appreciates the numerous prayers and support over the past days but asks for privacy during this difficult and unexpected time," the family said in a statement. "A statement from the family along with funeral arrangements will be announced at a later time."
Letlow, R-Start, announced Dec. 18 he tested positive for COVID-19 and was first quarantining at his Richland Parish home.
But on Dec. 19, he was admitted to St. Francis as symptoms persisted and eventually he was transferred to Shreveport.
Gov. John Bel Edwards mourned Letlow's death.
"COVID-19 has taken Congressman-elect Letlow from us far too soon," Edwards said. "I am heartbroken that he will not be able to serve our people as a U.S. representative, but I am even more devastated for his loving family.
© Greg Hilburn/USA Today Network Congressman-elect Luke Letlow, R-Start, his wife Julia and their two children Jeremiah, 3, and Jacqueline, 11 months, are pictured outside their Richland Parish home on Monday, December 7, 2020.
"I hope all of the people of Louisiana will join Donna and me in praying for Congressman-elect Letlow’s family, especially his wife Julia and their two children, his many friends and the people of the 5th Congressional District. Louisiana has lost more than 7,300 people to COVID-19 since March, and each one of them leaves a tremendous hole in our state.”
Letlow won the 5th Congressional District seat with 62% of the vote Dec. 5 in a runoff election against fellow Republican state Rep. Lance Harris of Alexandria.
He would have succeeded his former boss Congressman Ralph Abraham, R-Alto, who didn't seek reelection after honoring a pledge to serve a limit of three terms.
Letlow had been Abraham's chief of staff.
Louisiana's 5th District is the largest geographically in the state covering 24 parishes. Alexandria and Monroe are the population hubs, but the boundaries dip into Acadiana to take in Opelousas and into the Florida parishes to take in Bogalusa.