Author: Bradley Vasoli

Democratic Congressman: ‘No One Can Defend Having Classified Documents’ at Penn Biden Center

Bradley Vasoli

A Democratic California congressman this week weighed in on President Joe Biden’s classified-document scandal, characterizing the president’s housing of restricted records in his University of Pennsylvania office and his Delaware home as indefensible. A member of the House Oversight and Armed Services committees, U.S. Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA-17) told Fox News that Biden warrants scrutiny for keeping numerous records he obtained during his earlier service as a U.S. senator and later as vice president. Khanna noted that the law requires classified federal documents to be kept in “sensitive compartmented information facilities” (SCIFs). While presidents can sometimes temporarily designate rooms within their personal properties as SCIFs, Biden has never suggested any spaces in his home or office were deemed to be such areas.

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Election Transparency Initiative Denounces Marc Elias’ Requested Change to Electoral Count Act Reform

Bradley Vasoli

A right-leaning election reform outfit on Wednesday denounced the current version of legislation to reform the Electoral Count Act, particularly a provision urged by Democratic election attorney Marc Elias. 

The original act was enacted in 1887 to prevent presidential election crises such as that of 1876, during which three states submitted competing groups of electors, forcing Congress to determine how to resolve the count. Ultimately Republican Rutherford B. Hayes emerged victorious over Democrat Samuel Tilden. 

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Wisconsin’s Gallagher and Illinois’s Krishnamoorthi File Bipartisan TikTok Ban Legislation

Bradley Vasoli

A bipartisan group of federal lawmakers this week filed legislation in the House of Representatives to ban the TikTok video-sharing application nationwide. 

Congressmen Mike Gallagher (R-WI-8) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL-8) submitted their bill in the House of Representatives while Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced companion legislation in his chamber. They call their measure the Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act). It is written broadly enough to possibly prohibit use of other platforms operating under the influence of “a country of concern” such as China or Russia. 

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Bail Calculator Developed by Leftist Billionaire Used for Accused Waukesha Murderer Also Used in Two Pennsylvania Counties

Bradley Vasoli

Two Pennsylvania counties use the same lenient bail-calculation system that is used in Milwaukee County, WI and that is now being scrutinized in the wake of the Nov. 21 Waukesha Christmas-parade massacre.

Suspect Darrell E. Brooks Jr. faces homicide charges for killing six people at the holiday celebration with his car. Earlier that month, prosecutors handling a case of physical abuse and vehicular assault regarding Brooks asked a court to set bail bond for the defendant at a mere $1,000, to which the court agreed.

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Head of Envoy Sage Promises Unbiased Investigation of Pennsylvania Elections

Bradley Vasoli
Woman voting at booth

In a call with reporters this week, the president of the firm selected to conduct a probe of recent elections in Pennsylvania promised a nonpartisan effort to determine what facets of election security in the Keystone State need improvement.

“We have no preconceived notions of what we will or will not find,” said Steven Lahr, president of Dubuque, IA-based Envoy Sage. “The facts, as they are gathered, both digital and physical, will drive our investigative services. We will handle all concerns, data or information presented by the citizens of the Commonwealth through the [investigation] website, or to us by the committee, with fidelity, due diligence and the utmost discretion.”

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‘It’s a Felony:’ A New Lawsuit, with Video Evidence, Alleges Delaware County, Pennsylvania Election Officials Destroyed Voting Records

Bradley Vasoli

A lawsuit alleging multiple violations of federal and state election laws as well as Pennsylvania’s “Right to Know” statute was filed in Pennsylvania Wednesday night, according to sources familiar with the litigation.

In early 2021, a whistleblower working for the Delaware County Bureau of Elections began inquiring why it was apparent to her that multiple documents pertaining to the Nov. 3, 2020 elections were being destroyed in the southeastern Pennsylvania county, the sources said. The name of the whistleblower has not yet been made public.

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Georgia Senate Committee Learns Private-Sector Workers’ Retirement Savings Low

Bradley Vasoli

According to data presented Friday to the Senate Retirement Security for Georgians Study Committee, about half of Peach State residents—and Americans generally—aren’t saving enough for retirement.

Jessica Eckman, a senior legislative representative with the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), told the committee that about 50 percent of U.S. households are at risk of accumulating insufficient retirement savings, up from 31 percent three decades earlier.

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Amidst Concerns of Election Irregularities, Commonwealth Court Recount Begins in Pennsylvania

Bradley Vasoli

Amidst public concerns of electoral irregularities in Pennsylvania, a recount will decide the outcome of the Commonwealth Court contest between Republican Drew Crompton and Democrat Lori A. Dumas.

Based on unofficial returns published by the Pennsylvania Department of State, Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Dumas now leads Superior Court Judge Crompton by 16,804 votes out of more than 2.5 million votes cast for either of the two. That’s a margin of about a third of one percent, within the 0.5 percent difference that prompts a recount under Pennsylvania’s Act 97 of 2004. 

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Bill to Require Post-Election Audits in Pennsylvania Advances with Support of Philadelphia Democrat

Bradley Vasoli

State Rep. Regina Young (D-PA-Philadelphia) voted with all Republican House State Government Committee members this week in favor of a bill to require post-election audits. 

The legislation to verify the accuracy of election outcomes will thus go before the full Pennsylvania House with at least a modicum of bipartisanship, making it more difficult for Democrats to call the bill merely “a reactionary thing being done because of the last election,” as Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Philadelphia) did at the committee meeting.

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As Dems’ Hope of Keeping Senate Dims, Vulnerable Warnock Hews to the Left, Links Election Reform to Racial Politics

Bradley Vasoli

Even as the 2021 elections and President Joe Biden’s approval ratings make Democrats’ hope of keeping Senate control after next year seem less likely, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) has doubled down on his thoroughly leftist agenda.

In a tweet the day after Republicans swept statewide contests in the previously “blue” state of Virginia and nearly unseated Gov. Phil Murphy (D) in the even more Democratic state of New Jersey, Warnock is accusing Republicans of having “stood in the way of” voting rights.

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Pennsylvania Democratic Lawmaker Would Permit Voters to Fix Signatures on Mail-In Ballots

Bradley Vasoli

A Pennsylvania legislator is in the process of introducing a package of election-reform bills, one of which would let voters adjust their signatures on their mail-in ballots when election officials identify problems with those signatures.

State Rep. Regina G. Young (D-Philadelphia) reasoned that it is common for an individual’s signature to vary over the years. County boards of elections nonetheless presently have the prerogative to void a mail-in ballot if the signature on that ballot fails to match the signature the county has on file for the voter.

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Pennsylvania Republican Lawmaker: Election Integrity Belongs in the Workplace Too

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state Rep. Torren Ecker (R-Abbottstown) believes the guarantee of free and fair elections with secret balloting belongs not only in contests for public office but in votes over labor representation. 

This week, he announced plans to introduce an amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution intended to cement that guarantee in the Keystone State in anticipation of federal legislation aiming to strengthen labor unions.

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Pennsylvania Bill Would Clarify That Courts Can’t Redraw Electoral Maps, as State Supreme Court Did in 2018

Bradley Vasoli

Legislation currently in the works in the Pennsylvania General Assembly would spell out two rules for redistricting in the Keystone State: Elections cannot legally take place in outdated districts and courts can’t create new districts themselves.

In Feb. 2018, the Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme Court not only struck down Pennsylvania’s congressional maps as unconstitutionally gerrymandered, it reimposed new maps created with no input from the legislature, something state law does not grant the court the right to do. The new maps strongly favored the Democrats’ electoral prospects.

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Pennsylvania State Senators Legislating to Prevent Privatizing Election Administration

Bradley Vasoli
Kristin Phillips-Hill

Pennsylvania lawmakers plan to introduce a measure banning private organizations from funding election administration in the Keystone State.

The bill’s sponsors, state Sens. Lisa Baker (R-Dallas) and Kristin Phillips-Hill (R-Jacobus) have cited the role that the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) played in election operations in Philadelphia and other Democratic-leaning counties in 2020. CTCL has been funded significantly by Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg.

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Impact of Unsecured Release on Georgia Crime Emphasized at Hearing

Bradley Vasoli

Law-enforcement professionals and judges testified at a Georgia Senate hearing Wednesday largely to consider the impact of pretrial release on violent crime in Atlanta and elsewhere, with particular scrutiny being placed on “signature bonds.”

Jeff Hamling, a representative of the Georgia Association of Professional Bondsmen (GAPB), gave the Senate Public Safety Committee a rundown of statistics pertaining to defendants who have been let out of jail under these arrangements. Signature bonds permit prosecutors and judges to release alleged offenders per a signed agreement that the defendants will report promptly for trial. Technically, these bonds have dollar amounts but they do not require defendants to deposit any cash or collateral.

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Pennsylvania Court Allows Lawsuit Against Use of Electronic Voting Machines to Proceed

Bradley Vasoli

A Pennsylvania court this week issued an opinion allowing litigation attempting to block the use of electronic voting devices in Philadelphia, Northampton and Cumberland counties to proceed. 

Commonwealth Court Judge Kevin P. Brobson (R), currently a candidate for Pennsylvania Supreme Court, ruled that two advocacy groups and several state residents have standing to challenge the use of ExpressVote XL systems.

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Georgia Students’ Average ACT Score Rises, Beating National Average and Bucking National Trend

Bradley Vasoli

Nationwide, American College Test (ACT) scores are down, but Georgia high-school students are defying the trend and scoring higher than the national average, according to new data.

Peach-State students’ average composite score on all components of the college-entrance examination in 2021 is 22.6, compared with a 20.3-point average U.S. score—the lowest national mean in more than a decade. (The highest score someone can achieve on the ACT is 36.) This is the fifth year in a row when Georgians exceeded the national average ACT score.

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New Book Tells How Trump’s Pennsylvania Election Lawsuit Lost Key Focus on Equal Protection and Unraveled

Bradley Vasoli

A new book by The Federalist editor and Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway details how 2020 Pennsylvania-election litigation by former President Donald Trump lost its focus on equal protection and got dismissed.

In Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections, Hemingway credits Philadelphia attorney Linda Kerns with attempting to keep Trump’s lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s election results focused on Fourteenth-Amendment concerns. The author significantly blames Rudy Giuliani for causing the case to unravel by making superfluous arguments.

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So Far, Ossoff and Warnock Are Voting Farther Left Than Any Other Georgia Senators in Recent Memory

Bradley Vasoli

When Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock sought Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats, both of which they won in special-election runoffs this January, there was little expectation they would match the centrism of fellow Peach State Democrats who held those seats before.

In 2017, when Ossoff initially ran unsuccessfully for Georgia’s 6th congressional district against Republican Karen Handel, Matthew Yglesias, then of the left-wing website Vox, observed that Ossoff’s message—support for abortion, aggressive anti-climate-change legislation and expanded healthcare programs—was “a lot more liberal than what you heard recently in Georgia.”

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Georgia Senate Committee Weighs Pension Changes to Attract and Retain Troopers

Bradley Vasoli

A committee established this year to examine retirement security for Georgians focused on public servants’ retirement needs in a hearing Thursday, particularly those of law-enforcement officers strained by heightened crime and a hostile media.

Members of the Senate Retirement Security for Georgians Study Committee examined pension reform—specifically the potential shifting from the current 401(k) system to an entirely defined-benefit plan for state law-enforcers—to attract and retain more personnel.

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Locales Across Georgia See Good Employment News; Big-Government and Union-Friendly States Less Well-Off

Bradley Vasoli

Georgia has a lower percentage of unemployed residents now than it did immediately before COVID-19 arrived, with some locales, like Warner Robins, experiencing their lowest jobless rates ever.

In Sept. 2020, around six months after the pandemic hit, the small city just south of Macon had a 5.3-percent jobless rate. Two months ago, Warner Robins’s rate fell to 2.9 percent, the city never before having seen such a small fraction of its residents out of work.

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Pennsylvania County Commissioners’ Group Opposes Live-Streaming of Mail-In Vote Counting

Bradley Vasoli

Bipartisan enthusiasm for election-reform legislation appeared solid at a Pennsylvania Senate State Government Committee hearing on Thursday, save for one part: video live-streaming of mail-in-ballot counting.

Elements of the bill, sponsored by Sen. David Argall (R-PA-Pottsville) and Sen. Sharif Street (D-PA-Philadelphia), have arisen largely from recommendations in a June 2021 report by the Senate Special Committee on Election Integrity and Reform. Argall and Street’s proposal excludes some of the ad hoc panel’s more contentious ideas, particularly enhanced voter-identification rules, which Rep. Seth Grove (R-PA-York) is spearheading in separate legislation. (While Gov. Tom Wolf [D] vetoed Grove’s bill in June, the representative has reintroduced it in light of the governor’s subsequent remarks in favor of a strengthened voter-ID requirement.)

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At Pennsylvania Senate Meeting on Elections, Subpoenas Issued, Dem Calls GOPers McCarthyites, Another Has Remarks Curtailed for Breaking Senate Rules

Bradley Vasoli

At Wednesday’s meeting concerning the Pennsylvania’s Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee’s election investigation, which saw Republicans winning a vote to subpoena voter records, Democrats fumed.

One angrily compared GOP colleagues to Joe McCarthy, the notoriously zealous anti-communist U.S. senator from Wisconsin who served from 1947 to 1957.

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Lawmaker Gears Up to Grill Pennsylvania Department of State on Voter-Registry Errors Uncovered by Democrat Auditor General

Bradley Vasoli

As Pennsylvania Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee Majority Chair Cris Dush (R-Wellsboro) investigates recent elections, Democratic lawmakers against tightening election security must contend with a withering 2019 audit of Pennsylvania’s voter registry.

At his investigation’s initial hearing last Thursday, Dush announced his intention to hold the Department of State (DOS) accountable for the mismanagement identified in the audit by calling the department to testify at the committee’s next hearing to be scheduled soon. 

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Savannah Mayor Johnson Supports Teaching Critical Race Theory; Georgia’s Other Big-City Mayors Mum on Mayors’ Conference Resolution

Bradley Vasoli
Savannah, GA Mayor Van R. Johnson II

In the wake of the U.S. Conference of Mayors adopting a resolution backing the use of critical race theory (CRT) in public schools, Savannah, GA Mayor Van R. Johnson II (D) has affirmed his support for the measure.

The mayors of Georgia’s four other largest cities have yet to declare their stand on the issue.

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Pennsylvania Congressman Lamb Silent on National Archives Labeling Constitution for ‘Harmful Language’

Bradley Vasoli

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has slapped “Harmful Language” warnings on online displays of American founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—and U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb (D-PA-17) is keeping quiet about it.

The Star News Network emailed Lamb’s press office Friday to ascertain his view of the matter. Neither the congressman—who recently announced a bid for U.S. Senate—nor his staff have replied.

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Georgia’s GOP Congresspersons, Along with Pro-Vaccine Governor, Resist Biden’s Vaccine Mandate

Bradley Vasoli

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) is leading the charge among Republican officials to litigate against President Joe Biden’s order that all employers with 100 or more staffers ensure that their workers are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or that they show a negative test weekly.

“Just ended a call with my fellow Republican governors,” Kemp tweeted Friday. “We are fighting back against @POTUS’ outrageous overreach and attack on individual freedom.”

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Studies Point to Varied Effects of Masking

Bradley Vasoli
Crowded street market with people wearing masks

New research published by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) Bangladesh, which tracked mask-wearing among 340,000 Bangladeshi adults, indicates mask usage can considerably reduce the spread of symptomatic COVID-19. 

Some medical professionals, however, remain uneasy about mask mandates in schools because of their possible impact on children’s learning and social health.

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Public May Not See Net Benefit of Infrastructure Bill That Could Expand Rail in Northeastern Pennsylvania

Bradley Vasoli

Much fanfare surrounding infrastructure legislation in Congress focuses on road and bridge improvements, but the bill’s implications for relatively costly rail transit in northeastern Pennsylvania and elsewhere have gotten far less attention.

The current proposal to spend $66 billion on Amtrak would be the largest federal expenditure on passenger rail since the creation of the transit agency.

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While Pennsylvania Democrats Want to Increase Welfare Payments, Some Experts Urge Focus on Bigger Picture

Bradley Vasoli

Democrats in the Pennsylvania General Assembly hope to increase monthly welfare benefits in Pennsylvania, reasoning that payments under the federally funded Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program have stayed flat since the 1990s, falling well behind inflation. 

Legislation being drafted by state Sen. Katie Muth (D-PA-Royersford) and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-PA-Philadelphia) would increase Pennsylvania’s TANF benefits, which average $403 per month for a family of three in most counties.

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Science on Mask Usage Indicates Scant Benefit

Bradley Vasoli

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recommended that all schools require mask-wearing indoors by teachers and students, vaccinated or unvaccinated against COVID-19. 

And many school districts are adopting that requirement, to the dismay of many parents.

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Fulton County, Pennsylvania Defends Post-2020 Election Audit and Right to Keep Voting Machines

Bradley Vasoli

Fulton County, Pennsylvania election officials are defending their decision to conduct an audit of the 2020 election in their jurisdiction and their right to continue use of their voting machines.

Attorneys from Dillon, McCandless, King, Coulter & Graham LLP who are affiliated with an election-integrity nonprofit known as the Amistad Project, will be handling the case for the small county of about 14,500 residents, situated about 90 miles southwest of Harrisburg.

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Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Vos Expands Election Probe

Bradley Vasoli
Robin Vos

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said Friday he plans to hire more investigators and anticipates allowing more time for a probe into the 2020 presidential contest for Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral-College votes, the Associated Press has reported.

The official vote count in Wisconsin last November put Joe Biden ahead of Donald Trump by 20,682 votes. The margin was just over 0.6 percent of the nearly 3.3 million votes cast statewide. 

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Opponents of Pennsylvania Gov. Wolf’s COVID Orders Present Case to Third Circuit Court

Bradley Vasoli

Before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia on Thursday, legal counsel for several Pennsylvania counties as well as numerous public officials and private companies, argued Governor Tom Wolf (D) abused his police powers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Specifically, the private-sector compainaints charge that the governor’s shutdown of and other demands on businesses during parts of 2020 and 2021 violate the takings clause and the due-process clause of the U.S. Constitution. All plaintiffs, governmental and private, further insist that the governor’s restrictions on public gatherings over the past year violated the rights of assembly, association and religion secured by the First Amendment. 

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