Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules undated ballots won’t be counted in presidential election

Pennsylvania’s highest court did not, however, agree with Republicans that provisional ballots should not be granted to people whose original mail ballots were too flawed to be counted.

Mail ballots submitted without a date will not be counted in Pennsylvania after all, the state’s highest court ruled Friday after a lower court declared they should be accepted.

The Epoch Times reports that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted the Republican National Committee and Pennsylvania Republican Party’s emergency request for a stay of a appellate court ruling two days earlier that the “free and equal elections clause” of the Pennsylvania Constitution required the Philadelphia Board of Elections to count a set of undated envelopes in a September special election for a state House seat.

While those envelopes did not directly concern the 2024 presidential election, if the ruling stood it would have had major ramifications for the race between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris. Therefore, the justices made clear that the appellate decision “shall not be applied to the November 5, 2024 General Election.”

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s election decisions have not all been favorable to Republicans, however; it previously ruled that Pennsylvania voters will be allowed to cast provisional ballots in the event of a problem with the mail ballots they already cast, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene Friday.

“The actual provisional ballots contain no identifying information, only a vote,” GOP attorneys argued, to no avail. “Once ballots are separated from their outer envelopes, there is no way to retroactively figure out which ballots were illegally cast. In other words, once the egg is scrambled, it cannot be unscrambled.”

Pennsylvania holds 19 electoral votes (down one from prior elections due to redistricting), and is believed by many to be a crucial swing state that could be enough to decide the election’s outcome. The RealClearPolitics polling average for the state places Trump in the lead at just 0.4 percent, while RaceToTheWH’s average has Harris ahead by a scant 0.3 percent. Trump won the state in 2016; outgoing Democrat President Joe Biden claimed it in 2020.

Election integrity has long been an issue in American politics, but the controversy significantly intensified when the 2020 presidential election was marked by widespread election irregularities and numerous allegations that the election had been rigged for Joe Biden against Donald Trump, bolstered by the dramatic expansion of voting by mail in the wake of COVID-19.

Twenty-eight states relaxed their mail ballot rules in 2020, contributing to a 17-million vote increase from 2016. In addition to mail ballots generally being less secure than in-person votes, four of those states – Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – changed their rules without legislative consent. Those four alone comprised 56 of Biden’s electoral votes, more than enough to decide the victor.

At the same time, attempts to prove the election had been stolen were undermined by judges who dismissed some claims on process issues without ever considering their merits as well as flawed legal briefs by election challengers and dramatic examples of “smoking guns” that never panned out. Nevertheless, the controversy did lead to 14 states tightening their election rules over the following two years.

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CNN warns angry deep state workers might sell U.S. secrets out of spite

Published on February 26, 2025

Todayville

MxM News

Quick Hit:

CNN has raised alarms about potential risks to national security if President Donald Trump moves forward with plans to reduce staffing in intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA. The report suggests that disgruntled employees could be tempted to sell state secrets if they are fired, highlighting the delicate balance between maintaining national security and trimming government bureaucracy.

Key Details:

CNN’s report warns that mass firings at the CIA could make dismissed employees prime targets for foreign intelligence recruitment.
The article relies heavily on anonymous sources, raising concerns about credibility and journalistic standards.
Critics argue that if employees are willing to sell secrets out of resentment, they shouldn’t be trusted with sensitive information in the first place.

Diving Deeper:

CNN’s recent article, “How Trump’s Government-Cutting Moves Risk Exposing the CIA’s Secrets,” suggests that reducing the workforce at the CIA could have severe national security implications. According to the report, current and former intelligence officials are concerned that dismissed employees may become vulnerable to recruitment by foreign adversaries such as China or Russia. The article implies that financially stressed or bitter former employees could sell classified information to the highest bidder, potentially jeopardizing U.S. intelligence operations.

The report, written by Katie Bo Lillis, Phil Mattingly, Natasha Bertrand, and Zachary Cohen, relies heavily on unnamed sources, citing “current and former US officials familiar with internal deliberations.” Critics have pointed out that the extensive use of anonymous sourcing raises questions about the report’s reliability and objectivity. In fact, CNN uses unnamed sources 18 times throughout the article, only once attributing a quote to a named individual, Joseph Gioeli of the Fiscal Service.

This narrative raises an uncomfortable question: If intelligence personnel are indeed likely to betray their country over job loss, why are they entrusted with national secrets in the first place? Beth Brelje, writing for The Federalist, argues that if employees have such weak loyalty, they should be removed from sensitive positions immediately. “Those with too little integrity to exit with grace should not be employed in jobs with access to sensitive information,” Brelje writes, highlighting the paradox in CNN’s portrayal of these individuals as both valuable assets and potential security threats.

Critics also suggest that CNN’s coverage reflects a broader media agenda to undermine Trump’s efforts to reform government agencies. By framing standard budget cuts and workforce reductions as national security risks, the narrative portrays Trump’s cost-cutting measures as reckless rather than fiscally responsible. This perspective aligns with concerns that the media is attempting to protect entrenched bureaucracies that have historically served as sources for politically charged leaks.

The implications of this report are significant. If CNN’s warnings are accurate, then the integrity and loyalty of the nation’s intelligence community must be questioned. On the other hand, if the article is merely speculative propaganda, it raises concerns about the media’s role in shaping public perception with anonymous claims and vague threats. As President Trump continues to implement government reforms, the question remains: Who truly poses the greater risk to national security — the whistleblowers or the bureaucrats they expose?

conflict

Europe’s Heads of State Have Learned Nothing from 170 years of history

Published on February 26, 2025

Todayville

By John Leake

With the exception of Viktor Orban, Europe’s so-called leaders have a learning disability of miraculous proportions.

While the Congress of Vienna (1815) seemed to inaugurate a new era of hope for peace in Europe, Europe’s leaders couldn’t resist the siren song of bloodyminded pigheadedness that drew them into the Crimean War (1853-1856) in which Britain and France thought it more sensible to side with the Ottoman Turks than with Russia over various religious and territorial disputes in the Black Sea that are now too tedious to recount.

The only redemptive feature of the Crimean War—at least on the British side—is that members of the ruling class that wanted the war were willing to serve on the front line of it. Lieutenant-General James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, was notorious for his aristocratic haughtiness and extravagance. He also achieved legendary status for leading the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava, immortalized in Tennyson’s poem.

Watching Cardigan charge directly into a Russian battery, the French commander, Pierre Bosquet remarked: “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre: c’est de la folie (“It is magnificent, but it is not war: it is madness.”).

At least Lord Cardigan fought his own war.

After the British and French backed the Ottomans against the Russians in the Crimean War, they backed the Russians against the Germans, Austrians, and Ottomans during the Great War of 1914-1918. When it came to drafting the Treaty of Versailles, the Allies were more interested in ascribing blame to the Germans than in making a lasting peace. This led to World War II, when British and the French backed the Russians once again against the Germans and the Austrians—this time with the Turks joining their side.

After World War II, the Americans thought it more important to create a lasting peace than to punish Germany again, so they chose the Marshall Plan instead of the punitive Morganthau Plan.

At the war’s conclusion, erstwhile allies U.S. and Russia, became mortal enemies in a Cold War in which they threatened each other with nuclear annihilation. At the conclusion of the Cold War, Washington decided to revert to the spirit of the Treaty of Versailles to kick Russia while it was down and to maintain a state of enmity with it instead of taking pains to incorporate it into the West.

In its great sagacity, the Trump administration has recognized that there is nothing to be gained for the American people by continuing the U.S. proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Trump and his people recognize the reality that it would be far better to have a mutually respectful and beneficial relationship with Russia than to continue threatening it and maintaining a state of enmity with it.

Trump starkly contrasts with Europe’s so-called leaders, who wish to keep the Great Game pissing contest with Russia going. Like 15-year-old female rivals on a high school cheerleading squad, they find it more important to ascribe blame in the West’s longstanding conflict with Russia than to find a peaceful solution to it. All the phony expressions of solicitude for the people of Ukraine are pure humbug. Europe’s so-called leaders are perfectly happy to continue sending young Ukrainian men to their deaths and they will work hard to undermine Trump’s efforts to end the killing.

I would wager a large sum that not a single European head of state with the exception of Viktor Orban could—without referring to an Encyclopedia—provide an account of the various disputes, touchy matters of honor, and attributions of blame that were the casus belli of the Crimean War, the Franco-Prussian War, the First World War, or the Second World War. They are ignorant, childish brats who have learned nothing from European history.

I never thought I would say that President Trump must have the patience of a saint to suffer Europe’s irritating parcel of whiny, mercenary, and malevolent wimps.

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