Rand Paul: Fauci Will ‘Keep Us Masked Until the End of Time’

Appearing Thursday on Newsmax, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) quipped that Dr. Anthony Fauci, a White House coronavirus task force member, will “keep us masked until the end of time.”

A transcript is as follows:

BOB SELLERS: We’re going into the winter. We’re being warned it’s going to be a bad winter when it comes to COVID. We have the vaccines that are very promising. How do you see the coming months?

SEN. RAND PAUL: The incidence of COVID-positive individuals has gone through the roof… The masks aren’t working, social distancing’s not working. What is my proof? The numbers. The numbers are going through the roof. So all these mask mandates have had no effect on it. The incidence of the virus has gotten worse since we’ve done lockdowns. We should not comfort ourselves with masks. We should push hard to get the vaccine released. I think it’s ready to go for those who are willing to sign an informed consent and voluntarily take it. And I think millions of people would sign up, and we would very quickly get to a large enough number that people would be more satisfied with the safety… I would get it out there, I wouldn’t wait. Fauci’s talking about April. I think that’s a terrible idea. He’s going to keep us masked until the end of time, which does very little of anything to change the course of this.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/11/20/rand-paul-fauci-will-keep-us-masked-until-the-end-of-time/

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp Says He Will Certify Election Results

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) announced Friday that he will certify the Peach State’s election results, cementing former Vice President Joe Biden as the winner in the state.

Kemp stated during a press conference that the law requires him to “formalize the certification, which paves the way for the Trump campaign to pursue other legal options and a separate recount if they choose.” The governor did not explicitly endorse the results.

“State law now requires the governor’s office to formalize the certification, which paves the way for the Trump campaign to pursue other legal options and a separate recount if they choose,” he said.

Earlier Friday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certified Biden’s narrow victory in the state.

“Working as an engineer throughout my life, I live by the motto that numbers don’t lie,” Raffensperger said in a press conference. “As secretary of state, I believe that the numbers that we have presented today are correct. The numbers reflect the verdict of the people, not a decision by the secretary of state’s office or of courts or of either campaign.”

Biden is leading President Donald Trump by over 12,000 votes in the state.

As Breitbart News reported, various ballot counting issues plagued Georgia’s election.

On Friday, a DeKalb County elections manager was fired after local officials determined the official “failed to follow our established protocols and blatantly disregarded processes” used to “account for and record all legal and verified ballots.”

“Since the employee’s departure, management’s corrective actions and reviews ultimately yielded 59 additional ballots that were omitted from our court,” DeKalb County officials said.

The Floyd County, Georgia, elections board on Thursday fired its executive director after an audit found ballots left uncounted prior to the county’s initial certification.

FOX 5 reported:

The board met for little more than an hour Thursday afternoon in a special meeting, which resulted in [Floyd Chief of Elections Clerk Robert Brady’s] termination. Officials cited at least two reprimands that Brady received in the past six months as the reason for his firing. […] Election officials discovered around 2,600 votes that were not counted in the county’s total earlier this week during the statewide audit. Election workers ultimately had to recount more than 8,000 ballots to get to the bottom of the problem.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Tuesday an audit of the state’s voting machines found no evidence of tampering.

Raffensperger said in a statement announcing the completion of the audit that there was “no sign of foul play.”

He ordered Pro V&V, a U.S. Election Assistance Commission-certified testing laboratory, to conduct the audit on a random sample of Dominion Voting Systems machines statewide, which used forensic techniques and verification processes to confirm no tampering, cyberattacks, or election hacking.

“Pro V&V found no evidence of the machines being tampered,” the secretary of state’s office said.

“We are glad but not surprised that the audit of the state’s voting machines was an unqualified success,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “Election security has been a top priority since day one of may administration. We have partnered with the Department of Homeland Security, the Georgia Cyber Center, Georgia Tech security experts, and wide range of other election security experts around the state and country so Georgia voters can be confident that their vote is safe and secure.”

https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2020/11/20/georgia-gov-brian-kemp-says-he-will-certify-election-results/

Judge Dismisses AZ GOP’s Lawsuit Demanding Hand Recount Based on Precinct

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah dismissed a petition from the Republican Party of Arizona on Thursday asking for a hand count audit of the votes in Maricopa County based on precinct rather than by voting centers.

Last week, the Republican Party of Arizona announced a legal challenge, demanding a hand recount of votes by precinct rather than by voting centers, citing the “fundamental difference” between the two.

“[The] most notable being the fact that there were only around 175 voting centers in this election but there were 748 precincts,” the Republican Party of Arizona said in a statement at the time.

Hannah dismissed the petition on Thursday.

“We brought this suit because the statute is clear that to audit, hand audit the electronic count, it is supposed to be done by precincts,” Republican Party of Arizona Chairwoman Kelli Ward said in a Friday update.

“There are 748 precincts while there are only 175 voting centers, so theoretically there would be a larger sample of votes that needed to be hand-counted to adjudicate, or to check on the machine count of these ballots,” she added:

In a formal statement, Ward called for a “full hand count audit” of the state’s election results:

This election has been fraught with tension as voters were forced to adjust to new election procedures put in place because of COVID-19, as well as organized efforts by Democrats across the country which helped lead to a wildly different voting process than in years past. Here in Arizona, we have identified problems in our own process where the will of a Democrat Secretary of State is being substituted for the black letter law passed by the State Legislature.

Our most recent lawsuit sought judicial clarification on the question of whether the Secretary of State’s Elections Procedures Manual would be allowed to supersede state statute. Unfortunately, this ruling instead makes clear to Arizonans that they must ensure that this issue is addressed with new legislation that clearly outlines the parameters in which the Secretary can and cannot impose their own interpretation of our laws in the future.

Arizona voters deserve to have complete trust in their election procedures. They should also have supreme confidence that only legal ballots were counted in the 2020 election. Failure to address their concerns actively harms our state and our nation. Because of this, I stand by my call for a full hand-count audit of our state’s election results.

Our response to today’s order by Judge Hannah rejecting our request for a legal hand-count audit at the precinct level: pic.twitter.com/1cq9phV1Yh

— Arizona Republican Party (@AZGOP) November 19, 2020

Arizona Reps. Andy Biggs (R) and Paul Gosar (R) have also expressed their belief that America “deserves an election audit”:

Me and the great @RepAndyBiggsAZ got something to say about the election. Check out the video. https://t.co/5nRkrlXw9K

— Paul Gosar (@DrPaulGosar) November 17, 2020

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/11/20/judge-dismisses-az-gops-lawsuit-demanding-hand-recount-based-on-precinct/

More conservatives break with Trump over election claims

A growing number of conservative Republicans are breaking with President Trump and his legal team over what they view as a dangerous effort to overturn the election results by promoting conspiracy theories.

GOP lawmakers, conservative lawyers and key figures in rightwing media say it is time for his legal team to either back up their claims about fraud or concede defeat to President-elect Joe Biden.

The voices range from Fox News’s Tucker Carlson to Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) to conservative lawyers and thought leaders such as Karl Rove.

For many, the tipping point was Thursday’s press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters led by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, in which they spun an elaborate tale about how a bloc of communist countries had hijacked the nation’s voting machines by installing an algorithm to flip a percentage of Trump votes over to Biden.

The lawyers have not taken that claim to court and have not provided any evidence to support it.

“This is delusional,” said Mark Braden, the former chief counsel at the RNC. “I’m a professional Republican so it’s not easy for me to have to deal with my friends on this. Look — voter fraud occurs. I’ve seen it. It happens. But you have to be realistic about the size and scope of it.”

Republican lawyers interviewed by The Hill said Trump’s early legal challenges on voter fraud were defensible and reasonable, even if they had no chance of changing the outcome of the election. But they’re disturbed by the dark turn things have taken, and worried that Trump’s claims are undermining democracy and misleading millions of his own supporters.

“The Venezuelans didn’t screw around with the voting machines,” Braden said. “That’s 100 percent total nonsense. I don’t know what’s going on here. It’s very dangerous that we’re undermining the system. Democracy isn’t a God-given right. It’s a fragile process. The two most important things are that the person with the most lawful votes wins, and that the people who voted for the losing side also believe their candidate lost. This is undermining that idea and it’s a dangerous thing.”

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who has been largely supportive of the president, fumed at Powell’s unsubstantiated claim that candidates in both parties paid money to the company that makes voting machines to flip ballots.

“That is an offensive comment,” Ernst said. “To insinuate that Republicans and Democratic candidates paid to throw off this election I think is absolutely outrageous, and I do take offense to that.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a staunch Trump ally, said Friday on "Fox & Friends" that it’s past time for lawyers and politicians to be making their claims at press conferences or on cable news.

“This is not the time for politicians or press conferences," Cotton said. “That was during the election. This is a time for evidence in court.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/526938-more-conservatives-break-with-trump-over-election

Town of “Beheadings” In Northeastern Mozambique Returned Under Government Forces Control

Mozambican government forces have recaptured the district of Muidumbe, where ISIS-linked militants beheaded at least 50 people earlier this month.

The horrifying attack, which took place in Muatide village, was first reported by the state media on November 9. The militants drove the village’s locals to a football pitch before beginning the executions. A number of women and children were reportedly abducted.

Muidumbe is located in the northeastern province of Cabo Delgado, where a multi-billion gas project is under construction.

Mozambican Police General Commander Bernardino Rafael confirmed on November 19 that Mudiumbe had been recaptured. The commander said 16 militants were killed in the operation.

“We marched and arrived in Muidumbe district headquarters, we expelled those who had occupied it,” he said in footage broadcast by state broadcaster TVM. “Congratulations to our brave men … what we achieved up to now is not a victory, we achieved one step of our work.”

The commander added that the militants should stop the violence and engage in talks with the government, which is open to dialogue.

The situation in Cabo Delgado remains tense. Mozambican government forces are working to push the militants, who occupy the port town of Mocimboa da Paria, away from Mueda town.

https://southfront.org/town-of-beheadings-in-northeastern-mozambique-returned-under-government-forces-control/