Day: November 29, 2020

MICHELLE MALKIN: HOW ELECTION TAMPERING & HACKING WERE DONE

Michelle Malkin investigates the history of systems used to calculate results from November's big race, and presents claims that suggest the winners and losers might have been influenced by outside parties.

FIND OUT WHO HE IS:

HEIDER GARCIA
ELECTIONS ADMINISTRATOR, TARANT COUNTY, TEXAS

Heider Garcia Elections Administrator

A VENEZUELAN INTRODUCES "MODERN" ELECTION MACHINES IN TARRANT COUNTY, TEXAS?:

TARRANT COUNTY "SCANNING ISSUES" WITH BALLOTS;

"BAD BATCH" BARCODES "UNREADABLE" OCTOBER 27, 2020:

GARCIA BLUFFS & PREVARICATES AGAIN:

"We’re not seeing a problem that’s never been seen. We’re not improvising a solution that has never been tried," Garcia said. 

SEE: https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/politics/elections/tarrant-county-elections-officials-re-scanning-thousands-of-ballots-after-machine-error/287-773571db-c19c-43af-8e57-3ddc66646fb6

EXCERPTS: 

"What we believe at this point, is that the print shop that did these ballots for us, basically, can improve the quality of the printing," he said. 

Commissioner Roy Brooks said it is crucial that the issue is resolved so that the votes are counted. 

"It is not the voters’ fault that we hired a vendor that did sub-standard work," Brooks said. "The persons who voted on those ballots voted in good faith, and they deserve to have their votes counted."

Garcia said the ballots would be counted and that the vendor was authorized by the state. The elections officials said the ballot board will be following the law during the counting process. 

"We’re not seeing a problem that’s never been seen. We’re not improvising a solution that has never been tried," Garcia said. "And it’s clearly identified in the law, not just what the process is, but who has to do it and how to guarantee the integrity of the ballot." 
Runbeck Election Services said in a statement Tuesday that it "is working with Tarrant County elections officials to investigate if the problem is printing-related or scanning-related. Once the investigation is complete, we will offer our support to all partners and vendors involved to determine the appropriate next steps to ensure that all ballots are properly tabulated."

Kevin Runbeck

Chief Executive Officer

SEE: https://runbeck.net/about/our-executive-team/

bio image

20,000 (1/3) Texas mail-in ballots could be rejected due to scanning problem:

FORT WORTH, Texas - Tarrant County elections officials say a third of received mail-in ballots have been rejected because the company that printed them made a mistake. With one week until Election Day, elections administrator Heider Garcia said barcodes are not scanning properly on some ballots because the print shop that made them did a poor job and they are unreadable by machines. Garcia estimates more than 20,000 mail-in ballots are affected and the elections board will have to manually tabulate those ballots. “The print shop that did these ballots for us basically can improve the quality of printing because those barcodes are not 100% legible 100% of the time to the scanner,” Garcia said. Garcia said his top priority is to legally process them and Commissioner Roy Brooks gave him a very clear warning. “Any solution to this problem that does not result in having every one of those votes counted is unacceptable,” Brooks said during Tuesday’s Commissioner’s Court meeting. The county judge agreed. “Top priority,” said Judge Glen Whitley. “The integrity of the ballot.” Garcia had no issue with their requests. “You’re right. There is no other option,” he said. Garcia emphasized Tarrant County voters with mail-in ballots should send their completed ballots by mail or in person just as they normally would and those ballots will be counted. “Basically what this is, we are going to have to keep scanning those ballots, let the certified system say we can’t read these. Then the ballot board is going to replicate those into clean copies so they can be counted. That is the process outlined in the law,” Garcia said. Days before early voting began, Garcia gave FOX4 a look at the process. A company called Runbeck Election Services in Arizona was selected over dozens of bidders to print those ballots. “It is not the voters fault that we hired a vendor that did substandard work,” Brooks said. Garcia said his office will be able to overcome this hurdle. “That’s the important message here. This is not a, ‘We think this will work.’ We’ve been doing this for years every election,” Garcia said. “It’s looking just like a matter of a lot of work more than we expected. But not unknown, not unfamiliar.”

Heider Garcia of Smartmatic Confronted: Philippines

JULY 20, 2015:

Fury in the Philippines against Smartmatic

Apparently frustrated at Smartmatic's Heider Garcia's failure to explain the internal clock glitches of some Precinct Count Optical Scan machines, automation defender Makati City Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. cursed at the Smartmatic official during his committee's hearing on alleged fraud committed during the May 10 elections. ANC Live coverage, May 20,2010 (Enhanced audio, original here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEnV6...)

 

 

US Navy Denies Carrier Group Moved into Gulf after Any ‘threats’

USS Nimitz to Gulf as Iran War Threat Grows

USS Nimitz (CVN-68).jpg

SEE: https://www.newsmax.com/headline/iran-war-threat-nimitz/2020/11/29/id/999121/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

A US aircraft carrier group has moved back into the Gulf region, but a navy spokeswoman said Saturday its return was not triggered by any "threats" after the killing in Iran of a top nuclear scientist.

Tensions in the region are extraordinarily high after the assassination Friday of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an act still unclaimed but which Iran has blamed on close US ally Israel.

But naval commander Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the US 5th Fleet, told AFP the return Wednesday of the carrier group led by the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz was unconnected to any "specific threats."

"There were no specific threats that triggered the return of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group," she said in a statement.

"The return of Nimitz is centered on maintaining CENTCOM’s ability to remain postured and prepared to help preserve regional stability and security," Rebarich said, referring to the US Central Command.

The Pentagon said earlier that the carrier group would be providing combat support and air cover as the military withdraws thousands of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan by mid-January, under orders from President Donald Trump.

About 2,000 troops will be pulled from Afghanistan and 500 from Iraq, leaving roughly 2,500 in each country.

The flotilla led by the Nimitz -- one of the world's largest warships -- had recently joined Australia, India and Japan in scheduled exercises in the Arabian Sea.

The 5th Fleet's Twitter account showed pictures of the Nimitz's air wing conducting flight operations there Saturday.

Carrier groups typically include a cruiser, a destroyer squadron and an air wing.

Nimitz-class carriers are more than 1,000 feet (300 meters) long, have a crew of more than 6,000, and carry up to 90 helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.

Iran's supreme leader on Saturday demanded the “definitive punishment” of those behind the killing of a scientist who led Tehran's disbanded military nuclear program, as the Islamic Republic blamed Israel for a slaying that has raised fears of reignited tensions across the Middle East.

After years of being in the shadows, the image of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh suddenly was to be seen everywhere in Iranian media, as his widow spoke on state television and officials publicly demanded revenge on Israel for the scientist's slaying.

Israel, long suspected of killing Iranian scientists a decade ago amid earlier tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program, has yet to comment on Fakhrizadeh's killing Friday. However, the attack bore the hallmarks of a carefully planned, military-style ambush, the likes of which Israel has been accused of conducting before.

The attack has renewed fears of Iran striking back against the U.S., Israel's closest ally in the region, as it did earlier this year when a U.S. drone strike killed a top Iranian general. The U.S. military acknowledged moving an aircraft carrier back into the region, while an Iranian lawmaker suggested throwing out U.N. nuclear inspectors in response to the killing.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Fakhrizadeh “the country’s prominent and distinguished nuclear and defensive scientist.” Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state, said Iran’s first priority after the killing was the “definitive punishment of the perpetrators and those who ordered it.” He did not elaborate.

Speaking earlier Saturday, President Hassan Rouhani blamed Israel for the killing.

“We will respond to the assassination of Martyr Fakhrizadeh in a proper time,” Rouhani said. “The Iranian nation is smarter than falling into the trap of the Zionists. They are thinking to create chaos.”

The United Nations called for restraint.

“Of course we condemn any assassination or extra-judicial killing," said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "We urge restraint and the need to avoid any actions that could lead to an escalation of tensions in the region.”

Both Rouhani and Khamenei said Fakhrizadeh’s death would not stop the nuclear program. Iran’s civilian atomic program has continued its experiments and now enriches a growing uranium stockpile up to 4.5% purity in response to the collapse of Iran's nuclear deal after the U.S.' 2018 withdrawal from the accord.

That's still far below weapons-grade levels of 90%, though experts warn Iran now has enough low-enriched uranium for at least two atomic bombs if it chose to pursue them.

Analysts have compared Fakhrizadeh to being on par with Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who led America's Manhattan Project in World War II that created the atom bomb.

Fakhrizadeh headed Iran’s so-called AMAD program that Israel and the West have alleged was a military operation looking at the feasibility of building a nuclear weapon. The International Atomic Energy Agency says that “structured program” ended in 2003. Iran long has maintained its nuclear program is peaceful.

Fakhrizadeh's widow appeared unnamed on state television in a black chador, saying his death would spark a thousand others to take up his work.

“He wanted to get martyred and his wish came true,” she said.

Hard-line Iranian media has begun circulating memorial images showing Fakhrizadeh standing alongside a machine-gun-cradling likeness of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, whom the U.S. killed in the January drone strike.

Soleimani's death led to Iran retaliating with a ballistic missile barrage that injured dozens of American troops in Iraq. Tehran also has forces at its disposal all around Israel, including troops and proxies in neighboring Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad — and to a lesser extent Hamas — in the Gaza Strip. The Iranian Guard's naval forces routinely shadow and have tense encounters with U.S. Navy forces in the Persian Gulf as well.

Hours after the attack, the Pentagon announced it had brought the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier back into the Middle East, an unusual move as the carrier already spent months in the region. It cited the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq as the reason for the decision, saying “it was prudent to have additional defensive capabilities in the region to meet any contingency.”

Iran has conducted attacks targeting Israeli interests abroad over the killing of its scientists, like in the case of the three Iranians recently freed in Thailand in exchange for a detained British-Australian academic.

Iran also could throw out inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, who have provided an unprecedented, real-time look at Iran's nuclear program since the deal. Nasrollah Pezhmanfar, a hard-line lawmaker, said a statement calling to expel the “IAEA's spy inspections” could be read Sunday, the parliament's official website quoted him as saying.

Friday’s attack happened in Absard, a village just east of the capital that is a retreat for the country's elite. Iranian state television said an old truck with explosives hidden under a load of wood blew up near a sedan carrying Fakhrizadeh.

As Fakhrizadeh’s sedan stopped, at least five gunmen emerged and raked the car with rapid fire, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency said. The precision of the attack led to the suspicion of Israel's Mossad intelligence service being involved. The CIA separately declined to comment on the attack Saturday.

State media has only said the attack killed Fakhrizadeh, though a statement Saturday from the European Union described the incident as killing “an Iranian government official and several civilians.” EU officials did not respond to requests for comment.

In Tehran, a small group of hardline protesters burned images of Trump and President-elect Joe Biden, who has said his administration will consider reentering Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. While burning an American and Israeli flag, the hard-liners criticized Iran's foreign minister who helped negotiate the nuclear deal, showing the challenge ahead of Tehran if officials chose to come back the accord.

On Saturday night, the family of Fakhrizadeh gathered at a mosque in central Tehran for his funeral service, a website associated with Iranian state TV reported. The scientist's body lay in a flag-draped, open coffin, his eyes closed.

 

Faith Takes the Forefront as Georgia Senate Runoffs Heat up

SEE: https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/election-2020-georgia-faith-politics/2020/11/29/id/999135/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Bishop Reginald Jackson stepped to the microphone at a drive-in rally outside a church in southwest Atlanta as his voice carried over a loudspeaker and the radio to people gathered in, around and on top of cars that filled the parking lot.

“Let’s keep Georgia blue," Jackson said. “Let’s elect Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock to the United States Senate.” The presiding bishop of more than 400 African Methodist Episcopal churches in Georgia added a pastoral flourish as horns honked and supporters cheered: “If I have a witness, somebody say amen!"

As Georgia becomes the nation’s political hotspot this winter before twin runoff elections Jan. 5 that will determine control of the Senate, faith-based organizing is heating up.

Conservative Christians are rallying behind Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, while Black churches and liberal-leaning Jewish groups are backing Democratic challengers Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. The Democrats' fates are seen as intertwined in a state that this year turned blue in the presidential election for the first time since 1992 by a razor-thin margin.

“These runoffs are critically important,” Jackson said. “We want to make sure there is no decrease in turnout.”

Across Georgia, the African Methodist Episcopal Church is implementing a program designed to ensure its members, and Black voters overall, cast ballots in the runoff — focusing on votes by mail and early in-person voting. Pastors at each church remind tens of thousands of congregants every week to apply for an absentee ballot and of early voting dates, Jackson said in an interview. Each local church also follows up with congregants to make sure they have a plan to vote.

The New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan voter mobilization group founded by Democrat Stacey Abrams, who ran for governor in 2018, is also preparing to tap the influence of faith communities in stoking turnout.

Rev. Billy Honor, director of faith organizing at the group, said the conservative Christian Faith & Freedom Coalition — founded by former Georgia GOP chairman Ralph Reed — has long positioned Georgia “as the home of evangelical fundamentalist types when it comes to the political space."

“But the truth is, for a very long time, there has been an active, effective movement of progressive-minded, justice-centered clergy” who have worked in the state on voting rights, health care and other issues, Honor added. He said Warnock was part of that work before his candidacy. Warnock is senior pastor at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, the congregation led by the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Meanwhile, Loeffler and Perdue can expect to benefit from a conservative Christian base that has long boosted the state’s Republicans. Faith & Freedom made Georgia one of its top three spending targets in a $50 million get-out-the-vote program during the general election and plans increased organizing for the runoffs.

The reach of "the evangelical vote in Georgia is very large and very strong,” Timothy Head, the group’s executive director, said in an interview.

Head noted that while President Donald Trump kept a strong hold on white evangelical voters this year, Perdue out-performed Trump in Georgia during the general election. President-elect Joe Biden may have won over some evangelicals by contrasting his character with that of Trump, Head said, but he argued that the same sort of case would be harder for Democrats to make against Loeffler and Perdue.

Another faith-focused conservative group, the legislative affiliate of the Family Research Council, is holding trainings and pastor briefings before the runoffs. The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, whose president advised Trump’s reelection campaign on Catholic outreach, has announced a $4.1 million plan to boost Loeffler and Perdue through a partner political action committee.

Religious issues already have become a campaign flashpoint in the runoff. The GOP has resurfaced excerpts from past Warnock sermons to assail him as insufficiently supportive of the military as well as anti-Israel. The Democrat signed a letter last year comparing Israel's policy toward Palestinians to “previous oppressive regimes" and criticized it in a 2018 sermon, while also calling for a two-state solution in the region.

Warnock pushed back in a recently released television ad, saying the attacks are “trying to scare people by taking things I’ve said out of context from over 25 years of being a pastor.”

One group criticizing Warnock as too left-leaning on Israel, the Republican Jewish Coalition, is also mobilizing on behalf of the GOP incumbents.

Jewish Democrats in Georgia predicted that the GOP attack on Warnock’s Israel record would fall flat, citing his record of friendship with the Jewish community through his pulpit at Ebenezer.

Sherry Frank, president of the Atlanta section of the National Council of Jewish Women, said she sees “no doubt in the Jewish community about (Warnock’s) stance on Israel and anti-Semitism.” Frank's group is conducting nonpartisan voter turnout work for the runoffs.

Georgia’s Jewish Democrats also see, in Ossoff and Warnock, candidates whose joint push for the Senate harkens back to a tradition of Black and Jewish leaders working together during the civil rights movement. Warnock has a bond with a prominent Atlanta rabbi whose predecessor at the synagogue was close with King.

Warnock is viewed “as the inheritor" of King’s legacy, said Michael Rosenzweig, co-chair of the Georgia chapter of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, which has endorsed both Democrats. “And to the extent that Jews were supportive of the civil rights struggle and supportive of (King), I think they look supportively on Rev. Warnock.”

Ossoff, who is Jewish, has defended Warnock against GOP criticism over Israel and fondly recalled his own connection to the late Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia civil rights leader who endorsed Ossoff before his death in July. In October, Ossoff said he and Lewis talked during their first meeting about “the bond between the Black and Jewish communities, marching alongside rabbis and young Jewish activists in the mid 1960s ... and how important it was that these communities be brought together."

 

Sidney Powell to Newsmax TV: Dominion Contracts Warrant Criminal Probe

BY ERIC MACK

SEE: https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/sidney-powell-georgia-lawsuit-contract/2020/11/28/id/999106/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

The $107 million contract awarded by Georgia for Dominion Voting Systems should be thoroughly investigated for potential "benefits being paid to family members of those who signed the contract," according to former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell on Newsmax TV.

"There should be an investigation, a thorough criminal investigation, frankly, of everyone involved in acquiring the Dominion [Voting] System for the state of Georgia," Powell told Saturday's "The Count" hosted by Tom Basile and Mark Halperin.

"And frankly for every other state, given how appalling the system is and the fact it was designed to manipulate the votes and destroy the real votes of American citizens who were casting legal votes."

Powell's investigation is turning up potential criminal allegations, including "money or benefits being paid to family members of those who signed the contract for Georgia."

"I think there are multiple people in the Secretary of State's office and other that should be investigated in Georgia for what benefits they might have received for giving Dominion the $100-million, no-bid contract," Powell said.

The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported in 2019, however, Georgia did receive three bids for the new voting systems, with Dominion winning on being "the lowest-cost system among three companies that submitted bids."

That contract was pursued by the state after Stacey Abrams never conceded to Gov. Brian Kemp in the 2018 midterm elections, claiming the Secretary of State and Kemp unlawfully ''suppressed'' votes by voiding registrations found to be illegitimate.

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