Author: J.P. Knowles

Prosecutors in Washington informed Senator Rand Paul that they do not plan on investigating the origins of protestors who harassed him and his wife at the Republican National Convention this past August.

Paul confirmed this on Twitter by retweeting footage of the incident with the caption, “The DC U.S. Attorney today confirmed to me that they will not pursue an investigation of who is funding the thugs who attacked my wife and me and sent a DC police officer to the hospital.”

The DC U.S. Attorney today confirmed to me that they will not pursue an investigation of who is funding the thugs who attacked my wife and me and sent a DC police officer to the hospital. https://t.co/abpESDJ4nx

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) November 23, 2020

At the time of the incident, a crowd of protestors approached Paul and his wife as they were leaving the White House grounds after President Trump’s keynote address at the RNC. The crowd demanded that Paul acknowledge the death of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor who was killed when police stormed her apartment in pursuit of a no-knock warrant on March 13.

Paul noted that he was the author of the “Justice for Breonna Taylor Act,” a bill that would ban no-knock warrants, during an interview on “Fox and Friends” in August. He alleges that the crowd that confronted him was connected to “interstate criminal traffic being paid for across states line” and demanded federal authorities conduct an investigation.

“I promise you that at least some of the members and the people who attacked us were not from D.C., they flew here on a plane, they all have fresh new clothes and they were paid to be here,” Paul suggested. “It is a crime to do that and it needs to be traced. The FBI needs to investigate.”

Paul wasn’t the only one of the RNC attendees confronted by protestors after the event. And while a video shows there was no violence against Paul during the encounter he tweeted at the time that he had been “attacked by an angry mob” and thanked local police for “literally saving our lives from a crazed mob.”

While recent COVID-19 vaccine trials have shown promising results on adults, testing on children is just getting started.

For top candidates like Pfizer and Moderna, the next big step will be clinical testing on children. The Cincinnati Children’s Hospital became one of the first sites to begin testing on adolescents after the Pfizer vaccine proved to be about 95% effective in adults.

In the past couple of months, the children’s clinic has been one of several testing sites working on COVID-19 vaccine trials on younger candidates. So far results have been successful, signaling progression to even younger age groups.

From Fox News:

“What we’ve seen so far is that safety has been very similar to the adults,” Dr. Robert Frenck told FOX Business. “We are seeing that some people are having aches and pains but nothing has been serious or caused a child to miss a day of school. We are very excited about that, and it really gives us heart that we will be able to move down further in age and actually may even need to go down as young as infants eventually to try to really stop this whole outbreak.”

Around 400 children, ages 16 and 17, have enrolled in the study, which administers two doses of Pfizer’s experimental vaccine, in addition to about 100 children in the 12 to 15 age group. After the safety review confirms that testing can continue, the clinic will aim to enroll up to 2,600 between the ages of 12 to 18 nationwide.

Even though only about 13% of all participants have experienced mild side effects, with 87% showing no side effects at all, safety has become a critical focus to parents who still hold concerns about a non-certified vaccine. Among some of the setbacks include the potential side effects and whether or not the vaccine will give children COVID-19.

According to Dr. Frenck, the vaccine does not give you COVID-19 because it is not a live virus. Testing on adults has been relatively safe on adults so far and the doctor anticipates that all age groups will receive the same doses of vaccine.

A simple act of kindness launched a college professor in Iowa into internet fame after she offered Thanksgiving meals to any kids who can’t go home for the holidays because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Liz Pearce, a communications professor at the Univerity of Iowa sent a mass email to her students that went viral after one of her students posted a screenshot of the invitation on Twitter.

“My email offer to make a few extra Thanksgiving meals would probably have been greeted by an – ‘oh that’s nice’ fleeting thought last year,” said Pearce. “This year, I think as we’ve socially distanced, we’ve psychologically distanced and that’s why my email went viral. Instead of a simple gesture of a meal, it was seen as a moment of connection in our current disconnected world.”

The student, Leah Blask, captioned the post, “My professor is absolutely too pure for this world.”

My professor is absolutely too pure for this world😢❤️ pic.twitter.com/jrXRifFnp8

— leah girl (@leahh_163_) November 19, 2020

By Monday evening the tweet had gained over 900,000 likes and 78,000 retweets.

Pearce said there will be turkey, stuffing, peas, apple pie, and vegan options on the menu.

She said, “My kids are very happy to help me do this. Two of them are going to school online and my oldest daughter is working remotely at an internship.  I think we all view this as a moment of connection with students who may feel alone, or sad because they aren’t with their family.  It’s an acknowledgment that we’re all in this together.”

Only three people have accepted the offer so far but Pearce is extending the offer to all the majors in the department, that’s over 600 students.

Pearce said she has no idea how many will still sign up so she is going to stock up on groceries to feed as many students as she can.

“Since it went viral, the only thing that changed was me – it made me realize just how hungry people are, not for food but for a bit of good news. It showed me how raw and vulnerable we all are,” she said.

Senate Judiciary Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein is facing backlash for how she handled the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Now it’s being reported that she will not seek to maintain her role as the top Democrat on the committee.

“After serving as the lead Democrat on the Judiciary Committee for four years, I will not seek the chairmanship or ranking member position in the next Congress,” Feinstein said. “I look forward to continuing to serve as a senior Democrat on the Judiciary, Intelligence, Appropriations and Rules committees as we work with the Biden administration on priorities like gun safety, immigration reform and addressing inequities in criminal justice. I will continue to do my utmost to bring about positive change in the coming years.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was said to have had a long talk with Feinstein following the hearings after several top left-leaning groups demanded her resignation.

President of NARAL Pro-Choice America Ilyse Hogue made a statement during a press release back in October saying, “This nomination is illegitimate and this process is a sham. Tens of millions of Americans have already voted and majorities have said unequivocally that they want to choose the next President who should fill this seat.”

“Americans — whose lives hang in the balance — deserve leadership that underscores how unprecedented, shameful and wrong this process is,” added Hogue. “The Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, failed to make this clear and in fact offered an appearance of credibility to the proceedings that is wildly out of step with the American people. As such, we believe the committee needs new leadership.”

Schumer gave his Senate colleague praise and thanked her for her service on Monday.

“I am deeply grateful for Senator Feinstein’s leadership and contributions to our caucus and country as the Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee over the last four years,” Schumer wrote in a statement. “As a senior member of the Judiciary, Appropriations, Intelligence, and Rules Committees, I know Senator Feinstein will continue her work as one of the nation’s leading advocates for women’s and voting rights, gun safety reform, civil liberties, health care, and the rights of immigrants who are yearning to become citizens of this great country. Senator Feinstein’s experience, decades-long relationship with President-elect Biden, and leadership on so many issues will continue to be an asset for our caucus, California, and the country as we begin a new term with the new president.”

At the conclusion of Barretts’s hearing, a hug was exchanged between Feinstein and Chairman Lindsey Graham which gained negative attention.

“Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you. This has been one of the best Senate hearings that I’ve participated in, and I want to thank you for your fairness and the opportunity of going back and forth,” Feinstein said to Graham. “It leaves one with a lot of hopes, a lot of questions, and even some ideas of good bipartisan legislation we could put together to make this great country even better.”

“I know we have very different views about the judge and whether we should be doing this or not,” Graham replied. “But having said all that, to my Democratic colleagues, you have challenged the judge, you have challenged us, and I accept those challenges as being sincere and not personal.”

An internet law enacted in 1996 is the topic of a heated debate over the power of social media companies’ after President Trump signed an executive order in May that would allow some of their liability protections to be removed if they engage in “selective censorship” harmful to national discourse.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act states that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

The law has played a vital part in the rise of today’s social media by allowing Internet service providers and platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and others to be safe from liability from anything posted on their sites by third parties.

President Trump handed down the executive order shortly after Twitter slapped fact-check warnings on some of his content.

According to the executive order, “Section 230 was not intended to allow a handful of companies to grow into titans controlling vital avenues for our national discourse under the guise of promoting open forums for debate, and then to provide those behemoths blanket immunity when they use their power to censor content and silence viewpoints that they dislike.”

There are many people out there who are defending Section 230 so the president’s attempts to change how social media platforms are regulated may be met with some resistance.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, for example, calls Section 230 “one of the most valuable tools for protecting freedom of expression and innovation on the Internet.”

President Trump’s election campaign announced that it will be dropping the lawsuit disputing the voting results in Michigan, which shows Joe Biden leading by about 150,000 votes.

Former Mayor of New York and President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said in a statement on Thursday, “This morning we are withdrawing our lawsuit in Michigan.”

Giuliani said the decision to withdraw the lawsuit is the “direct result of achieving the relief we sought: to stop the election in Wayne County from being prematurely certified before residents can be assured that every legal vote has been counted and every illegal vote has not been counted.”

The lawsuit in Michigan had attempted to stop the state’s most populated county which includes Detroit from certifying its election results by claiming that thousands of invalid ballots were counted by election officials.

On Tuesday two Republicans on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers blocked the approval of the votes cast but just hours later in a sudden turn of events, the election results that showed Biden beating Trump were unanimously certified.

The two Republicans on the Board would later admit in their signed affidavits that they only voted to certify the results after they were subjected to “hours of sustained pressure” and being assured that their concerns about the election would be investigated.

A source with inside knowledge of the matter informed The Associated Press that Trump reached out to the two Republicans to personally thank them for their support.

They responded to his gratitude in a statement, “We deserve better – but more importantly, the American people deserve better – than to be forced to accept an outcome achieved through intimidation, deception, and threats of violence. Wayne County voters need to have full confidence in this process.”

State officials said the certification of the Wayne County area will stand and no evidence or proof of widespread election fraud has been found.

In fact, federal and state officials from both the Republican and Democratic parties have agreed that the 2020 election was safe and secure.

State health officials in Alabama warned that the coronavirus is running “out of control” in the southern state.

According to reports from the state health department, over 225,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Alabama to date. In the past two weeks, the daily average has increased by over 50% to 684. This means in just the past week an estimated one in every 342 people in the state has tested positive for the virus.

President of the Alabama Hospital Association and former director of the state health agency, Dr. Donald Williams said during a news conference, “It’s out of control. Our ability to contain the virus has been lost.”

And with Thanksgiving and the holiday season fast approaching, Williamson warned, “We have everything necessary to have a disaster between now and the end of December.”

State hospitals only have 14% of their intensive care beds available and more people are showing up with the regular seasonal flu. Some hospitals are forced to hire traveling workers from out of state to assist in caring for patients and some are even attempting to hire workers from other countries to handle high caseloads and fill gaps caused by workers who have gotten sick themselves or are too fatigued from months of fighting the pandemic.

Williamson told the local news outlet, “Every hospital I talk to, their biggest problem is staffing.”

With the number of cases rising all over the country, people are looking to Moderna and Pfizer to produce their vaccines which both have produced promising results in late-stage clinical trials. Dr. Anthony Fauci would even go so far as to call the results “truly striking.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom is in hot water after getting caught attending a birthday party exceeding the 12-person limit which means he violated at least two of his own state’s coronavirus rules even after stressing to Californians the importance of only interacting with family members of their own household.

Newsom admitted to attending the birthday party at the French Laundry restaurant just north of San Francisco with a dozen friends earlier this month.

“While our family followed the restaurant’s health protocols and took safety precautions, we should have modeled better behavior and not joined the dinner,” Newsom confessed in a statement.

Due to a recent surge in coronavirus cases the governor and local health officials are asking people to stay within their own households and if you must visit others they suggest meeting outside while including no more than three households. Everyone in attendance should still wear a mask, even outdoors, keep a safe social distance, and limit interactions to less than two hours.

According to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle, the dinner Newsom attended included twelve other people at the posh restaurant in Napa County. The gathering was a celebration of Newsom’s friend and political advisor, Jason Kinney’s 50th birthday.

On Wednesday night in Carrollton, Texas, a mayoral candidate was arrested for allegedly sending 84 mail-in ballot applications and is now facing several felony voter fraud charges.

Zul Mohamed was running for mayor of Carrollton but has now been charged with 25 counts of knowingly possessing a ballot with intent to defraud, a second-degree felony, and 84 counts of giving false information on a voting application, which counts as a third-degree felony

“Mail ballots are inherently insecure and vulnerable to fraud, and I am committed to safeguarding the integrity of our elections,” said Attorney General Ken Paxton. “My office is prepared to assist any Texas county in combating this form of fraud.”

Investigators from the county and state issued a search warrant for Mohamed’s home and found 25 ballots. According to the sheriff’s office, investigators became aware of a suspicious request for ballots to be sent to a P.O. Box in Lewisville, Texas, allegedly belonging to a nursing home facility. However, when investigators contacted those residents whose ballots had been requested, none of the individuals claimed to have applied for the ballots.

Police say after the box of requested ballots was picked up at the post office they searched Mohamed’s house and allegedly found the box containing the ballots with several of them already opened.

Denton County Sheriff Tracey Murphree made a statement addressing the arrest, “Voter fraud is a serious and widespread issue and cannot be tolerated. The fact an actual candidate for public office would engage in these activities is appalling. We will continue to aggressively investigate allegations of voter fraud.”

Mohamed is currently being held in Denton County jail and if convicted faces up to 20 years in prison.

All across the country governors and mayors are tightening restrictions in response to these growing numbers. Pennsylvania is planning on taking some extreme measures to fight the sharp increase in coronavirus cases which include wearing masks indoors with very few exceptions.

Also, starting Friday, anyone planning on entering the Keystone State must be tested for the virus at least 72 hours before arrival, otherwise, they will be required to quarantine for 14 days. This order will not apply to Pennsylvania residents that commute to neighboring states for work or health care.

These new rules will be largely self-enforced.

▪️ Issuing order requiring anyone who visits PA from another state to get tested w/in 72 hours before entering PA. Pa'ians who traveled to other states must follow same rules when coming home. Does not apply to those who commute to/from another state for work or medical treatment

— PA Department of Health (@PAHealthDept) November 17, 2020

Pennsylvania already has a statewide mandate in place as well as limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings and occupancy restrictions at bars and restaurants.

These new rules will take things a step further because not only are masks required outside where it is not possible to keep a minimum six-foot distance from others but also inside where people from multiple households are gathering, even if they are maintaining a safe social distance.

Pennsylvania, like the rest of the nation, has seen a huge influx of coronavirus infections in recent weeks. Every day the state is reporting more than 5,000 new infections per day, that a 115% rise in just two weeks. Hospitalizations and the number of positive tests are also up sharply which leads to a rise in deaths.

#COVID19 Update (as of 11/17/20 at 12:00 am):
• 5,900 additional positive cases of COVID-19
• 275,513 total cases statewide
• 9,355 deaths statewide
• 2,588,467 patients tested negative to date

More information: https://t.co/7pzosEXhEX

— PA Department of Health (@PAHealthDept) November 17, 2020

Philadelphia officials announced on Monday that a ban would be enforced for indoor gatherings, dining, shutter casinos, gyms, museums, and libraries.

Early in the pandemic Democratic Governor Tom Wolf exacted a stay-at-home order and shuttered every business deemed “non-life-sustaining” but a judge ruled Wolf’s restrictions unconstitutional.