4 Lessons Our Culture Can Learn From Saint Mary
Mary’s witness shows us that sacrificing for our family is the most simple but powerful way to rebuild our broken society.
Georgia election officials would like an apology from politicians — like President Joe Biden and Democrat Stacey Abrams — who claimed an election integrity law ushered in modern-day Jim Crow.
After Georgia passed the Election Integrity Act of 2021, Democrats claimed the law restricts voting rights and discriminates against minority voters.
"This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end. We have a moral and constitutional obligation to act," Biden said last March.
Abrams, on the other hand, called the law "racist" and described it as "a redux of Jim Crow in a suit and tie." She also claimed the law was passed because "more people of color voted, and it changed the outcome of elections in a direction that Republicans do not like."
Gabriel Sterling, COO for the Georgia secretary of state, says Democratic politicians owe Georgians an apology.
That is because Georgia voters have smashed early voter turnout records in the Peach State. By Sunday morning, 740,615 voters had voted in person. Through the same time period in the previous midterm election, just 428,413 voters had turned out to vote early.
In fact, between in-person and absentee ballots, nearly 817,000 Georgians have already cast their 2022 votes. That number continued to balloon on Sunday.
\u201cAs of this morning, we've seen 837,597 ballots cast in Georgia. 758,808 early in person & 78,789 absentees accepted. That means we should pass the 1 million mark by tomorrow, a full 2 weeks before Election Day. A record numbers of voters for a midterm. #gapol #PlanYourVote\u201d— Gabriel Sterling (@Gabriel Sterling) 1666612279
"How many turnout records do we have to break before Stacey Abrams and President Biden apologize to Georgia?" Sterling said in a statement to Fox News.
Meanwhile, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) explained, "We’re on track to break records in terms of voter turnout in every category."
According to those who oppose Georgia's election integrity law, record voter turnout does not prove the law does not restrict voting access.
"High turnout is not synonymous to voter access—rather the power of organizing and the urgency of voters to remove Brian Kemp and his allies’ far-right extremism from their communities," Jaylen Black, press secretary for Abrams' campaign, told Fox News.
Indeed, some in the media are already running with that narrative: that Georgia's law is about restricting voting access, but Democrats have negated its impacts through voter mobilization.
"The early results in Georgia are consistent with the outcomes of other voting restrictions. Evidence suggests voter suppression has little effect on turnout, because Democrats mobilize in response to restrictions, canceling out much or all of the suppressive effect," wrote Jonathan Chait in New York magazine.
Theories aside, if Georgia voters continue showing up en masse like they did during the first week of early voting, liberals will no longer be able to claim in good faith that Georgia voters have been restricted from voting.
On the first day of early voting in Georgia, voters in the Peach State smashed the previous record for opening-day early voting in a midterm election.
In the process, voters also smashed the liberal narrative about the election integrity law that Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed into law last year.
President Joe Biden infamously described Georgia's election integrity law as a modern-day Jim Crow law.
"This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end. We have a moral and constitutional obligation to act," he said last March.
The law itself, however, does not restrict voting, and it certainly does not promote discrimination. Rather, Georgia lawmakers shored up election integrity by extending early voting, tightening restrictions on absentee ballots to prevent fraud, increasing polling stations and poll workers in high-density areas, and lawfully preventing outside groups from soliciting voters at polling places.
On Monday, the first day for early voting in Georgia for the 2022 midterm general election, more than 130,000 voters cast their ballots.
In fact, voter turnout nearly doubled from the last midterm first-day record, which was set in 2018.
\u201cWe have reviewed the turnout yesterday and we did set a midterm 1st day of early voting & we nearly hit the record for a Presidential:\n1st Day of Early Voting by cycle\n2022: 131,318\n2020: 136,739\n2018: 70,849\nThat's an 85% increase from the last midterm. Midterm record! #gapol\u201d— Gabriel Sterling (@Gabriel Sterling) 1666104043
"The numbers clearly illustrate there isn’t any suppression going on. Record turnout in the Primary and record turnout is likely for this midterm as well," said Gabriel Sterling, COO to the Georgia secretary of state.
More from WAGA-TV:
More than 4 million people could vote in the state’s elections this year, and if past patterns hold, more than half are likely to cast ballots before Election Day. Nearly 2.7 million Georgians voted early during the 2020 general election.
This is the first year that Georgians will head to the polls under a new law passed by the Republican-led legislature following the party's defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
Ironically, the news comes just days after Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who is battling Herschel Walker for a U.S. Senate seat, said Georgia's election integrity makes voting more difficult.
"There is no question that SB 202 [the law] makes voting harder — and that is the intent," Warnock claimed in a debate.
Rhetoric aside, voters in Georgia have until Nov. 4 to cast their early-voting ballots, meaning they have at least another 17 days to get to their polling place before Election Day.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday significantly curtailed the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions from power plants, prompting Democrats to froth at the mouth because the court said Congress must act if lawmakers are concerned about climate change.
In a 6-3 decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the court said that the EPA lacks broad authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act.
"Congress did not grant EPA ... the authority to devise emissions caps based on the generations shifting approach the Agency took in the Clean Power Plan," the court said.
The case concerned an Obama-era EPA regulation known as the Clean Power Plan, which created guidelines for states to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, and its Trump-era replacement, known as the Affordable Clean Energy rule. The Trump administration repealed the Clean Power Plan after arguing it was illegal and introduced its own rule, known as the ACE rule, as a replacement. But some states and environmental groups sued, claiming Trump's rule did not go far enough and that the EPA had erred by issuing the ACE rule instead of following through with the Clean Power Plan.
The D.C. Circuit Court agreed with the challengers, vacating the ACE rule and sending the matter back to the EPA. But West Virginia and other states petitioned the Supreme Court to review the D.C. Circuit Court's opinion.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts held that the Obama-era Clean Power Plan was an "unprecedented" power grab by the EPA that "effected a 'fundamental revision of the statute, changing it from [one sort of] scheme of ... regulation' into an entirely different kind."
Roberts ruled that Congress had not intended to give the EPA the regulatory powers it was claiming and that the agency cannot force power plants to move away from fossil fuels and towards renewable resources without further legislation from Congress.
“A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body,” he wrote.
The three liberal justices dissented. Justice Elena Kagan complained that the court's decision removes the power of the EPA to address "the most pressing environmental challenge of our time."
She criticized Congress for being too ignorant and lacking expertise to write sensible laws regulating the environment.
"Members of Congress often don't know enough — and know that they don't know enough — to regulate sensibly on an issue," Kagan wrote.
"Members of Congress often can't know enough — and again, know they can't — to keep regulatory schemes working across time," she added.
\u201cIn dissent, Justice Kagan is like: Congress sucks, so executive agencies have to be able to do this.\u201d— Gabriel Malor (@Gabriel Malor) 1656597802
Reacting to the decision, Democratic lawmakers were aghast that the court said they have to pass laws before the EPA can issue climate change regulations.
"Our planet is on fire, and this extremist Supreme Court has destroyed the federal government’s ability to fight back," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted. "This radical Supreme Court is increasingly facing a legitimacy crisis, and we can't let them have the last word."
\u201cOur planet is on fire, and this extremist Supreme Court has destroyed the federal government\u2019s ability to fight back.\n \nThis radical Supreme Court is increasingly facing a legitimacy crisis, and we can't let them have the last word.\u201d— Elizabeth Warren (@Elizabeth Warren) 1656599584
House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), called Thursday's decision "catastrophic" and said the Senate needs to nuke the 60-vote filibuster threshold so Democrats can ram through climate laws.
"A filibuster carveout is not enough. We need to reform or do away with the whole thing, for the sake of the planet," she said.
\u201cCatastrophic. A filibuster carveout is not enough. We need to reform or do away with the whole thing, for the sake of the planet.\u201d— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) 1656598004
Republicans, on the other hand, praised the court for reasserting that the legislative power resides with Congress, not executive branch agencies operated by unelected bureaucrats.
\u201cThis decision confirms Congress, not the EPA, has the authority to create environmental policy. We\u2019ll continue working to protect the environment while making American energy as clean, reliable and affordable as possible. \nhttps://t.co/dPtYYmD3mm\u201d— Sen. John Barrasso (@Sen. John Barrasso) 1656599632
"SCOTUS' decision today rightfully reins in unreasonable and unlawful attempts to shut down American power plants and energy production," Sen. John Barasso (R-Wyo.) said. "For years Democrats have used overreaching @EPA regulations to side-step Congress and the American people to enact their extreme climate agenda.
"This decision confirms Congress, not the EPA, has the authority to create environmental policy. We’ll continue working to protect the environment while making American energy as clean, reliable and affordable as possible," he added.
Just because Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the new Fauci, it doesn’t mean COVID is over. In fact, cases are surging in many European countries, and U.K. seniors are now experiencing record numbers. “Covid infections surge to record high for over-70s in UK” was the title of a Financial Times article from Friday. But how can there be record infections precisely after nearly every senior was vaccinated and 90% were boosted, even though many already have had prior infection? Or are the record infections because of the shots, not despite them, and does this mean that they are preventing people from achieving immunity?
Ireland is one of the most vaccinated countries in the European Union, yet hospitalizations are rising.
Ireland - The situation is worrying \n\nHospitalization rate is now going vertical \n_\nH/T @amused_as_hellpic.twitter.com/ORw3N2gIgK— Gabriel H\u00e9bert-Mild\u2122 \u24e5 (@Gabriel H\u00e9bert-Mild\u2122 \u24e5) 1647860251
There are now more people in Irish hospitals than at any point in 12 months. Nearly 95% of all adults are fully vaccinated, and nearly 100% of seniors are vaccinated and boosted.
The number of COVID cases has nearly tripled in the U.K. since the nadir of the post-winter drop four weeks ago. Moreover, deaths are still hovering around 125 a day, whereas after the 2021 winter wave (with a much lower prior infection rate), deaths were nearly reduced to zero. Furthermore, Scotland, which has the highest vaccination rate of anywhere in the U.K. and is the only region with mask mandates, seems to be worse off than ever before. “Scotland recorded its highest infection rates of the pandemic so far, with one in every 14 people infected with the virus in the week to mid-March, up from one in 18 a week earlier,” reported the Financial Times.
Roughly 90% of all people over age 12 in Scotland have two shots, and 73% have boosters. Among seniors, boosters are nearly universal. Thus, there is nowhere to run or hide from the vaccine failures. The negative efficacy is out of control. What about protection against death? Well, we can’t exactly see where the deaths are coming from because Scotland conveniently stopped providing that data, but the U.K. government will still offer the weekly reports for a few more weeks.
According to the latest U.K. health surveillance report, roughly 95% of those over 70 are double-vaccinated and about 90%-93% of the age cohorts over 70 are boosted. Just 1.6% of the senior cases between weeks 7 and 10 of this year were among the unvaccinated, which is below the 5% share of the population pie they compose. The triple-boosted are 90% of the cases.
Although the shots do offer some protection for some people against critical illness for a certain period of time, numerous data points have shown that the protection not only wanes but goes negative. The U.K. data now shows that the double-vaccinated have negative protection and the triple-vaxxed are headed in that direction.
Table 12b shows COVID deaths within 60 days of a positive SARS-CoV-2 test during weeks 7 through week 10 of this year.
As you can see, 15% of all the deaths were among the double- (but not triple-) jabbed, whereas only about 4% of this population falls into that category. That is straight-up negative efficacy even against death. Thus, they placed people into a position forcing them to get boosters; otherwise they would be worse off than with nothing! But what does that portend for the triple-jabbed? Remember how early on, it looked like the boosters accorded broad protection against death, even though cases skyrocketed among them? Well, now, 77% of all deaths among those over 70 are triple-jabbed! That is still somewhat below their share of the population, but not by much, and the gap is closing with every subsequent weekly report.
When it comes to case rates, the U.K. is now reporting that in some age cohorts, the triple-jabbed are more than four times as likely to test positive, which would net an efficacy rate of -300%!
Hence, they needed Ukraine to distract from the narrative, because clearly there is something unsettling going on with these shots. One would think that by now there would be enough built-up immunity from prior infection to preclude waves like this. Yet the data raises the question: Are the shots sliding back people’s natural immunity and creating some form of original antigenic sin and antibody dependent disease enhancement, in which the shots wipe out their T cells and innate immunity, thereby preventing them from enjoying durable immunity from prior infection? In other words, can this keep going forever in a vicious cycle of more cases inducing more vaccine campaigns, which in turn create more infections?
A recent study from Stanford published in Cell might shed light on this phenomenon. Researchers observed a decreased immune response to new variants among those vaccinated for the original strain because the shots are teaching the body to respond improperly. “We find that prior vaccination with Wuhan-Hu-1-like antigens followed by infection with Alpha or Delta variants gives rise to plasma antibody responses with apparent Wuhan-Hu-1-specific imprinting manifesting as relatively decreased responses to the variant virus epitopes, compared with unvaccinated patients infected with those variant viruses,” observed the Stanford pathologists. They note that the extent to which this causes original antigenic sin “will be an important topic of ongoing study.”
Contrast the week 11 report to the week 5 report from just six weeks ago. You will see that in most age groups, the case rates among the triple-vaxxed were between 1.5 and 2 times greater, not between 3 and 4 times greater as they are today.
One would think that with so much infection for so many months among this group, at some point it would exhaust the pool of eligible people and perhaps revert back to the unvaccinated having a higher case rate. But in fact, the opposite is true; it’s getting worse every week for the triple-jabbed, especially among seniors.
And we already know from an Israeli study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that the fourth shot won’t make things better. "We observed low vaccine efficacy against infections in health care workers, as well as relatively high viral loads suggesting that those who were infected were infectious,” concluded the authors of the study comparing quadruple-jabbed Israeli health care workers to those with fewer shots.
It’s also important to remember that any degree of vaccine efficacy gleaned from any hard data or studies is factoring in the first 14 days post-vaccinated as “unvaccinated” and the first 14 days of the booster as double-vaccinated. It is already proven that this is a period of immunosuppression on the front end of the efficacy curve. Some have estimated that if you factor in those 14 days with elevated risk, there is negative efficacy for these shots out of the gate.
At the end of the day, we are 11 billion doses into this unparalleled global mass injection regime, and yet more than 72% of 6.1 million confirmed COVID-19 deaths have occurred since vaccine rollout. Half the deaths have occurred since mid-April, after all of the vulnerable population had ample time to get fully vaccine.
Perhaps this is why the U.K. Health Security Agency announced in this week’s report (p. 37) that “from early April onwards this section of the report will not be updated.” That’s the section with case and death rates by vaccination status.
The Georgia runoff election that will decide the partisan fate of the U.S. Senate tipped towards the Democratic challengers late Tuesday evening.
With 98% of the vote counted, Republican incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler garnered 49.5% of the vote, falling short of the 50.5% of the vote for Democrat challenger Rev. Raphael Warnock.
NBC News and the Decision Desk projected Warnock the winner of that election.
Democrat challenger Jon Ossoff garnered 50% of the vote with a margin of a few thousand votes over Republican incumbent Sen. David Perdue, who also received 50% of the vote.
Democrats celebrated in anticipation of votes that were left to be counted from heavily Democratic districts.
At one point in the evening it was reported that the vote counting in Chatham County had halted and that officials had gone home for the night.
Later, that report was clarified by Georgia's statewide voting implementation manager Gabriel Sterling, who said that officials counted the votes they had received but that some absentee votes were still outstanding.
Chatham County didn't just stop. They completed the counting of everything they have in. That includes Election Day… https://t.co/kj36yCh1jK— Gabriel Sterling (@Gabriel Sterling)1609906875.0
Kelly Loeffler addressed a crowd of supporters and encouraged them despite the election being too close to call.
"It's worth it for this election to last into tomorrow. We're gonna make sure every vote is counted, every legal count will be counted, and I'm not going to stop working!" said Loeffler to a cheering crowd.
Warnock also addressed the election in a live videoconference and appeared to claim victory.
"We were told that we couldn't win this election," said Warnock. "But tonight we proved that with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible. May my story be an inspiration to some young person who is trying to grasp and grab hold to the American Dream."
Ossoff released a statement late into Wednesday morning predicting a victory for the Democratic challenger.
"When all the votes are counted we fully expect that Jon Ossoff will have won this election to represent Georgia in the United States Senate. The outstanding vote is squarely in parts of the state where Jon's performance has been dominant," he said.
If Democrats are able to win both seats of the runoff election, they would gain 50 seats in the U.S. Senate. Any vote split evenly in the Senate would be decided by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
CBS News Special Report: Warnock takes lead over Loeffler; Ossoff-Perdue race a toss-upwww.youtube.com
On Tuesday morning, a programming error affected some Dominion Voting Systems voting machines in Columbia County, Georgia, requiring voters to use emergency paper ballots for a short time.
Georgia voting system implementation manager Gabriel Sterling reported the error on social media at 8:28 a.m. Tuesday, announcing that voting would continue on emergency handwritten ballots until the problem was resolved.
He said that the programming error had to do with security keys and poll worker cards for the voting machines. He indicated that law enforcement was working to deliver new keys and cards to the locations that were experiencing technical difficulties.
Some issues in Columbia Co. There was a programming error on security keys for some locations scanners & pollworker… https://t.co/4bPKj7WhHi— Gabriel Sterling (@Gabriel Sterling)1609853339.0
According to WRDW-TV, by 10 a.m. the problem was resolved and voters were able to use the voting machines again.
A poll manager for a voting location at Stevens Creek Church in Columbia County explained that poll workers are given a code that gives them access to the voting system at the start of Election Day. However, the code was wrong Tuesday morning. When there's a problem, poll workers report the issue to the elections office, which will then work to reset the code and get the machines working again.
WRDW reported that the voting system currently in place in Georgia has been used for less than a year. When it works properly, voters receive a key card to activate the voting machine and then will use a touch screen to cast their ballots. The machine prints a paper ballot with their selections, which voters will review before taking the printed ballots to a scanning station where their votes will be recorded.
The programming error caused the key cards not to work, so voters were provided with written ballots to fill out by hand. The written ballots were inserted into a slotted lock box attached to the ballot scanner. The polling manager who spoke to WRDW said that election staff works very hard to protect those written ballots and ensure they are counted.
Polling locations where handwritten ballots were filled out include West Acres Baptist Church, Kiokee Baptist Church, Stevens Creek, Augusta Christian, and River Island voting sites.
President Donald Trump commented on reports of the errors on Twitter, saying, "Ballots are being left in lock boxes, hopefully they count them."
Reports are coming out of the 12th Congressional District of Georgia that Dominion Machines are not working in cert… https://t.co/TdklHEmTnx— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)1609870704.0
Georgia's 12th Congressional District comprises parts of Columbia County, where the errors were reported.
The FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations are investigating threats lodged against the state's top election officials according to a report, after leaders became targets of ridicule over the handling of the general election.
President Donald Trump continues to allege that widespread voting fraud and irregularities occurred in Georgia, even placing blame on fellow Republicans despite a recount confirming tallies that indicated Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden won the state.
Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs told Forbes on Sunday that federal and state law enforcement agencies were investigating threats against Raffensperger and his team, but she did not provide further details. The GBI issued a statement confirming it was looking into alleged threats against the state's election officials.
Last week, Raffensperger told The Washington Post that he and his wife, Tricia, had received death threats while he was overseeing a second recount of the state's votes from the Nov. 3 election. The secretary of state said that one text message he received read, "You better not botch this recount. Your life depends on it."
Over the weekend, Georgia's voting system manager, Republican Gabriel Sterling, also said that he had been threatened and harassed.
"So this is fun," he tweeted, sarcastically. "multiple attempted hacks of my emails, police protection around my home, the threats. But all is well...following the the law, following the process...doing our jobs."
So this is fun...multiple attempted hacks of my emails, police protection around my home, the threats. But all is w… https://t.co/jMSNQDL0Kj— Gabriel Sterling (@Gabriel Sterling)1606011811.0
The New York Post reported that "despite calling himself a 'proud' supporter of President Trump, Raffensperger has also found himself repeatedly under attack over the handling of the state's election process after declaring Joe Biden the victor after a hand recount."
President Trump has led the charge on blaming Raffensperger for his performance on the election oversight, and Republican Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue — both up for re-election in runoffs races slated for January — have called for the GOP secretary of state to resign.
Days ago, the president also attacked Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, another Republican and Trump supporter, claiming he and Raffensperger "refuse to let us look at signatures which would expose hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots."
...Why won’t they do it, and why are they so fast to certify a meaningless tally?— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)1605901114.0
But Raffensperger refuted the president's claims, writing in a Washington Post op-ed that "in Georgia, signatures for absentee ballot voters are verified twice to ensure that each voter gets one vote — and only one vote."
He added:
The truth is that the people of Georgia — and across the country — should not have any remaining doubts about who was elected governor two years ago or who won the presidential election earlier this month. The presidential outcome was remarkably close, but the new paper-ballot system, the strong election security and integrity mechanisms in place, and the audit and hand recount should combine to put to rest any doubts about the final outcome.
Georgia's vote tallies will be counted a third time, with a second recount set to begin Tuesday morning at the request of the Trump campaign, the Associated Press reported.
The outlet noted that according to Sterling, "counties are to give public notice of when during that period they will be counting so monitors from political parties and any interested members of the public can be there to observe."
The election results, certified last week by Raffensperger, showed Biden winning by 12,670 votes out of about 5 million cast.