As the contested Pennsylvania Senate race barrels towards a $1 million recount, Democratic officials in a few blue counties are openly admitting to counting disqualified ballots in defiance of state law and court orders. The Associated Press has called the race for Republican Sen.-elect Dave McCormick, who currently holds a 26,000 vote lead over incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey. But Casey has refused to concede and insisted that every vote be counted. The close margin – within one percentage point – triggered an automatic recount under Pennsylvania law. Yet the critical question is which votes should be counted? The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled before the election that mail ballots lacking formally required signatures or dates should not be included in official results. However, Democratic officials in Philadelphia and surrounding Bucks, Centre and Montgomery counties are ignoring that court order. "I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country," Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia, a Democrat, said Thursday as she and other Democrats voted to reject a GOP-led challenge to ballots that should be disqualified. "People violate laws anytime they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention. There’s nothing more important than counting votes." In Montgomery County, for example, officials deliberated for 30 minutes over whether about 180 provisional ballots without secrecy envelopes should be counted. The Inquirer reported that several of these votes came from the same precincts, suggesting an error made by poll workers. Democratic board chair Neil Makhija voted to accept the ballots so that voters would not be disenfranchised. But other members of the board, including one Democrat and a Republican, voted to reject the ballots on the advice of county attorneys who determined the law clearly states they should not be counted. Separately, there is ongoing litigation over undated mail ballots or those submitted with an incorrect date on the outer envelope. Several local Democratic officials have said an incorrect date should not be grounds to disqualify a person's vote. Lower courts have agreed with that reasoning, but Pennsylvania's high court has determined the law requires correct dates for mail ballots to be counted. "Let’s be clear about what’s happening here: Democrats in Pennsylvania are brazenly trying to break the law by attempting to count illegal ballots. They are doing this because they want to steal a senate seat," Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley wrote on X. "This is the exact kind of left-wing election interference that undermines voter confidence," Whatley said. Outgoing President Joe Biden is expected to conclude what will likely be his final major international trip as president this week, leaving Latin America following a series of embarrassing episodes including his bizarre departure into the Amazon Rainforest and G20 organizers omitting him from a group photo of world leaders on Monday. The APEC summit brings together Pacific Ocean countries and the summit featured both Southeast Asian and South American nations. As is customary with presidential-level summits, the attendees took a “family photo” that made headlines because the president of the United States, typically front and center in such affairs, was relegated to the back row. Video of the leaders taking the photo appeared to show the others smiling and ready, waiting for a late Biden. In America’s absense, Xi took the center position in the photo alongside President Dina Boluarte of host country Peru and Chilean President Gabriel Boric. At the G20 in Brazil, which brings together some of the world’s largest economies, photographers did not wait for Biden. Attending leaders took a photo together to inaugurate a new initiative, the “Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty,” but did not wait for Biden. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were also late and excluded from the photo. The three later took a separate photo together. Again, Xi Jinping took the center position in the photo. Outside of the summits, the most memorable image of Biden from his visit to Latin America is his strange disappearance into the Amazon Rainforest during a stop in Manaus, a Brazilian Amazonian city. Biden visited Manaus to announce that America under his presidency has spent $11 billion a year in America taxpayers’ dollars on “international climate financing,”... The G20 summit, in which Xi is also participating, will conclude today. President-elect Donald Trump urged Republican senators to remain in Washington to limit Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) ability to process President Joe Biden’s judicial confirmations. His comments, made on Truth Social, followed Senate Democrats confirming a controversial judge Monday night in a close vote, as well as a handful of other Biden picks. Several Republican senators were absent from the vote. “The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door,” he said. “Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line — No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!” A paper shredding truck was spotted on Tuesday outside the Justice Department, according to a photo from the Oversight Project. The truck’s appearance suggests the agency is destroying sensitive paperwork before the Trump administration takes power. President-elect Donald Trump announced that he had selected Dr. Mehmet Oz to serve as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator. In a press release from the Trump-Vance Transition team, Trump praised Oz as being an “eminent Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and World-Class Communicator,” and added that Oz would be working closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump had selected to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The lame-duck Biden-Harris administration is slapping new sanctions on Israelis, while sending nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in additional funding to the Palestinians, adding insult to injury in the closing weeks of its failed policy. The Washington Free Beacon noted Monday: The Biden-Harris administration on Monday unveiled sweeping new sanctions on Israeli Jews, just days after it awarded another $230 million in taxpayer funds to the Palestinians. The back-to-back announcements signal that diplomatic relations between Israel and the outgoing White House will continue to sour until President-elect Donald Trump retakes office next year. The new sanctions are the broadest to date, imposing unprecedented punitive measures on three Israeli organizations the administration accuses of fomenting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. They were leveled just days after a coalition of nearly 90 congressional Democrats petitioned the Biden administration to ramp up sanctions on Israel before leaving the White House. The sanctions were announced just three days after the Biden-Harris administration awarded another $230 million in funding for humanitarian projects in the West Bank and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The American government has now sent more than $2 billion in taxpayer funds to the Palestinians since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror spree on Israel—even as critics warn this cash is keeping Hamas on life support. Melania Trump will again be the First Lady of the United States — and perhaps, this time, the media will treat her as such. Not one magazine bothered to feature Mrs. Trump on its cover during President Donald Trump’s entire first term, despite her philanthropic work on the “Be Best” anti-bullying campaign, and despite her long and storied career as a cover model (née Melania Knauss) in high demand before her husband entered the political fray. Breitbart News was the only outlet to feature the First Lady, frequently noting her fashion choices, which were often inspired and original. In contrast, the media had gushed over First Lady Michelle Obama’s outfits — which, while occasionally interesting, were often perceived by the public as garish. The media also fêted Obama and First Lady Jill Biden.... (The Center Square) – Billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will take over a new effort to make the government more efficient. President-elect Donald Trump’s new “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, is a government efficiency effort that has turned a public spotlight onto government waste and duplication in a way not done for years. While journalists and nonprofits have been writing about examples of government waste during that time, very little of it actually got much attention. Musk created a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) account on X where he is asking followers for suggestions. Aside from lopping off entire agencies, here are some examples of controversial federal spending that... could be in the line of fire for coming cuts: https://alphanews.org/doge-examples-of-federal-spending-that-could-be-on-the-chopping-block/ In just a few weeks, Joe Biden will fade into obscurity and will no longer have access to America’s checkbook. He is making sure that, before that happens, he is spreading American taxpayer’s dollars all over the world. The announcement comes despite the fact that the DC-based international lender’s “poor recording keeping” has resulted in anywhere between $24 billion and $41 billion in misplaced funds. During his remarks, Biden said, “It seems to me there are certain key steps. First, we need to invest at a large scale. Now, we need to make sure the World Bank can continue its work in the most vulnerable countries.” “I’m proud to announce the United States is pledging $4 billion over the next three years to the World Bank International Development Association." Up to $41 billion in World Bank climate finance —nearly 40 percent of all climate funds disbursed by the Bank over the past seven years— is unaccounted for due to poor record-keeping practices, reveals a new Oxfam report published today ahead of the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings in Washington D.C. An Oxfam audit of the World Bank’s 2017-2023 climate finance portfolio found that between $24 billion and $41 billion in climate finance went unaccounted for between the time projects were approved and when they closed. There is no clear public record showing where this money went or how it was used, which makes any assessment of its impacts impossible. It also remains unclear whether these funds were even spent on climate-related initiatives intended to help low- and middle-income countries protect people from the impacts of the climate crisis and invest in clean energy. A World Bank insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested to The New York Post, the figure for the missing money “could be twice or 10 times more.” “All the figures are routinely made up,” the source said. “Nobody has a clue about who spends what.” “This is an outrageous waste of US taxpayers money on a useless woke political cause. It is an insult to the American people,” Nile Gardiner, the director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, told The Post. ...The former congressman continued, “While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition. There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1.” Gaetz’s withdrawal comes one day after the House Ethics Committee announced it would not release the files from the federal sex trafficking investigation into him—but a document from the Department of Justice’s probe was leaked to The New York Times two hours later. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/11/breaking-gaetz-withdraws-attorney-general-consideration/ 
Pennsylvania Democrats openly admit to counting illegal ballots in McCormick-Casey race:
Sidelined, Ignored, Forgotten: Joe Biden Irrelevant at His Last Major Global Summits:
Following his remarks in Manaus, Biden turned his back to reporters, not taking questions, and appeared to wander into the Amazon alone, providing ample fodder for late-night comedy hosts.
Socialist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had for months previewed his priorities at the summit to be global climate financing, calls for global internet censorship, and a global tax on “ultra-high-net-worth individuals,” all goals that the Trump administration will likely enthusiastically oppose.Trump Urges Republican Senators to Block Biden’s Judicial Nominees: ‘Show Up and Hold the Line’:
Paper Shredding Truck Appears Outside DOJ After Gaetz Nomination:
Trump Selects Dr. Oz to Lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:
Lame-duck Biden-Harris Admin Sanctions Israelis, Sends $230M to Palestinians:
Pollak: Maybe the Media Will Treat Melania Trump Like the First Lady This Time:
DOGE: Examples of federal spending that could be on the chopping block:
After World Bank “Misplaces” Up to $41 Billion in Funds, Biden Pledges Record $4 Billion More in U.S. Taxpayer Dollars:
BREAKING: Gaetz Withdraws from Attorney General Consideration:
