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Democrat ‘Election Deniers’ in Pennsylvania and Iowa Refuse to Concede Races


By: M.D. Kittle | November 18, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/11/18/democrat-election-deniers-in-pennsylvania-and-iowa-refuse-to-concede-races/

Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey on the campaign trail.
Democrat campaigns and their allies have no compunction about breaking election law to grab and keep power.

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Funny how the times change. 

Four years ago, Democrats and their pals in corporate media began painting then-President Donald Trump and Republicans who questioned the results of the troubled 2020 election as “election deniers.” Now, Democrats are doing all they can — including breaking election law — to challenge GOP victories in Iowa and Pennsylvania despite “insurmountable” odds. Even The Washington Post, part of the left’s corporate media public-relations team, sees the writing on the wall for Sen. Bob Casey, D-Penn. The entrenched incumbent lost to Republican challenger Dave McCormick by some 24,000 votes in a swing state election that helped Republicans take back the Senate with a comfortable majority. The Associated Press and other news outlets called the race for McCormick. But Casey and his party of election integrity deniers, led by Democrat political ambulance chaser Marc Elias (Hillary Clinton’s Russian dossier peddler), refuse to concede. Instead, Casey’s campaign has sought an expensive recount, and has no compunction about grinding election law under foot to tally enough votes to hold the seat.

‘Tipping the Scales’  

“Sen. Casey just refuses to accept the fact that he’s lost this election, so he is costing taxpayers well over a million dollars” for a statewide recount, Linda Kerns, 2024 Pennsylvania Election Integrity Counsel for the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign, told The Federalist late last week on the “Simon Conway Show” in Des Moines.

The Democrat senator and his attorneys are pushing for invalid provisional and mail-in ballots not correctly signed or properly dated to be counted, contrary to a Pennsylvania court ruling.  Democrats on some county boards dismissed the law and the court ruling in agreeing to accept suspect and invalid ballots. 

“I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country,” Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia, a Democrat, said Thursday.

“People violate laws anytime they want,” she added. “So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention. There’s nothing more important than counting votes.” It was a troubling statement from a public official, and another in countless examples of why Democrats got their clocks cleaned in this month’s election. Voters have had more than enough of leftist-led lawlessness over the past four years. 

Even the Dem-friendly Washington Post editorial board can smell the desperation. The election lawlessness, too, now seems a bridge too far for the left-leaning WaPo board.   

“Democrats would surely protest if a Republican commissioner made the same statement [as Ellis-Marseglia] to justify tipping the scales for their party’s Senate nominee — and they would be right,” the editorial board wrote in a piece headlined, “Democrats thumb their nose at the rule of law in Pennsylvania.” “Elections need rules, established in advance of the voting, and those rules must be applied equally and consistently.”

The same newspaper, of course, joined a chorus of accomplice media outlets chiding swing state Republican Senate candidates, Eric Hovde in Wisconsin and Kari Lake in Arizona, for not conceding closely contested elections. The conservatives have raised election integrity questions, but neither has asked election officials and courts to break the law to reverse their opponents’ election leads.  

“Four years ago, many Republicans embraced Trump’s brand of denialism when he stoked far-fetched theories to try to undo his loss of the presidency. Now, they are largely staying silent amid scattered false claims of rigged elections in downballot races — and they’re calling on Sen. Bob Casey (D) to concede that he narrowly lost in Pennsylvania,” a team of leftist Washington Post reporters concluded in the piece — published a day before the editorial — that served as a defense of Casey’s recount call and a knock-on Republicans mulling their own legal options. 

In Pennsylvania the math doesn’t look good for Casey, but he’s counting on the recount and a stack of invalid votes. 

“But even if Sen. Casey wins on these, there’s still not enough for him to win this election so he’s just desperately hanging on,” Kerns said. 

‘The Election Deniers are the Democrats’

It’s a similar situation in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, where Democrat Christina Bohannan’s campaign on Thursday sought a recount of the votes in an election in which incumbent Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks won by less than 1,000 votes. The purple district saw Miller-Meeks win her first term in 2020 by a final recount tally of just six votes. 

Bohannan’s path to victory appears unlikely, too, but the campaign said in a statement that a recount will ensure “that every voter is heard” and that they have “full trust in this process and will accept the results regardless of the outcome.” The Associated Press has yet to call the race. 

Miller-Meeks said the vote count, as it stands, is “insurmountable” and that the districtwide recount is an unnecessary expense to taxpayers. 

“In Iowa, all of the legal ballots have been counted, all of the provisional ballots and the military ballots have been counted. The counties have certified their election results, and we remain ahead. We gained votes on election night,” the congresswoman told The Federalist Friday on the “Simon Conway Show” on NewsRadio 1040 WHO in Des Moines. “So, it’s an insurmountable lead. But, yes, my concern is after the recount when we’re still ahead, which we will be, I’m very confident of that, they’re going to continue to deny the election and they may go on to do a contest and try to get ballots admitted that were illegal ballots.” 

Republicans have already secured enough victories to hold the House, but Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to stave off defeat and a wider GOP majority in a handful of races yet to be called. Those include Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, two House races in California, and one each in Alaska and Ohio.  

Miller-Meeks said the tables have turned in the “election denier” narrative. 

“We’ve heard for four years how Republicans were a threat to democracy; they were going to overturn democracy. But really what is happening is that the election deniers, the people who are trying to thwart the rule of law, trying to thwart what a state constitution allows when it comes to elections, are the Democrats,” the Republican congresswoman said. 

Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.


Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.

Pennsylvania School Board President Sworn In With Pornographic Books


BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | DECEMBER 18, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/12/18/pennsylvania-school-board-president-sworn-in-with-pornographic-books/

classroom
A recently elected Pennsylvania school board president made his priorities clear this month when she was sworn in using controversial books, including sexually explicit material.

On Dec. 4, Karen Smith, a Democrat who was elected to lead the state’s third-largest school district in November, was sworn in with a stack of books, including sexually explicit material.

“Thank you for your trust in me, I do not take this hand lightly,” Smith said when she became president of the Central Bucks County School Board. “To my supporters, I am so very thankful. To those of you who have challenged me, I will do all I can to hear your voices and concerns.”

However, based on the books upon which she swore an oath, Smith’s pledge to keep an open mind to parental concerns was hardly austere. According to Fox News, one of the books used in the swearing ceremony included Flamer, by Mike Curato, published in 2020.

“[Flamer] tells the story of a character who is bullied at a Boy Scouts summer camp for ‘acting in a manner considered stereotypical of gay men,’” Fox News reported. “The graphic novel includes characters discussing pornography, erections, masturbation, penis size, and an illustration that depicts naked teenage boys.”

Other books included in the stack upon which she was sworn in were Night, by Elie Wiesel; The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison; and All Boys Aren’t Blue, by George M. Johnson. At least three of the books Smith was sworn in on were listed in the top 5 of the American Library Association’s (ALA) “most challenged books” of 2022. The national library group’s activism promoting these books in local curriculums has led conservative policymakers in at least nine states to begin severing ties with the ALA. Last week, Texas, which ended its tax-subsidized affiliation with the ALA in August, passed new rules to keep “sexually explicit” books out of school libraries.

Smith’s decision to use material endorsed by far-left activists to infiltrate classrooms illustrates how identity politics has become embraced as a cynical, secular religion. Had Smith been genuine with a pledge to hear district parents’ concerns, she might have chosen different material to be sworn in on.

Silvi Haldipur, a mom of two boys in Bucks County schools, said she was previously “horrified” by LGBT and antisemitic remarks in the boardroom of the east Pennsylvania district. However, parents in this district could have more difficulty being involved in their children’s education moving forward. The school board’s new Democrat majority immediately voted to “freeze two policies related to library books that passed last year along with other policies.” This includes halting a previous update to the Library Materials policy that allowed parents to challenge certain books in the classroom.


Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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Email Shows Bucks County School Closures Weren’t Just Bad for Kids, They Were Illegal


BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JANUARY 25, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/25/email-shows-bucks-county-school-closures-werent-just-bad-for-kids-they-were-illegal/

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Central Bucks Schools shut down despite no waiver from the legislature to close classrooms.

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Emails uncovered by concerned parents in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, home of the state’s third-largest school district, reveal district leaders knew they were violating state law when they locked students out of the classroom after the 2019-2020 academic year. Years later, it’s finally coming to light.

In July 2020, an email from then-Central Bucks Superintendent John Kopicki acknowledged the legal limits to online instruction for the upcoming school year.

Hybrid options and staggered schedule options are NOT legal as of today, absent a waiver or legislative change,” the email read. No waiver from the state house ever came, but the schools shut down anyway.

At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, state lawmakers offered schools flexibility from Pennsylvania’s 180/990/900 rule, which requires students to be in the classroom for 180 days, for 990 hours in secondary school and 900 hours in elementary school. The legislature granted districts a suspension of the requirement for the remainder of the 2019-2020 academic calendar but refused to renew the waiver over the subsequent school years. Yet the Bucks County School District continued to shut down schools throughout the next two years. Classrooms closed again and again after the 2019-2020 school year despite no legislative waiver.

A spokesman for Pennsylvania Sen. Scott Martin, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, told The Federalist schools that violated the state’s 180/990/900 rule could face a “significant financial penalty if they fail to get a waiver.”

“If there are violations of [the] 990 rule, that can influence whether schools get their reimbursements from the state,” the spokesman said.

On whether Central Bucks County violated the rule, Martin’s office deferred to the state Department of Education. The department did not respond to The Federalist’s inquiries, leaving the possibility for substantive accountability in doubt two years later.

The Central Bucks School District also did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.

“It was never legal to shut schools down,” Jamie Walker, a mom of three children in Bucks County Schools told The Federalist. “It was always illegal. They knew it.”

The repeat closures in the Central Bucks School District are just the tip of the iceberg in a series of battles Walker and a group of upset parents have waged with administrators since 2020. Parents have protested the closures, accompanied by seemingly endless mask protocols and six-foot social distancing, which is an impractical standard that forced classroom shutdowns.

In June 2020, David Damsker, the director of the Bucks County Health Department, issued guidance on reopening classrooms for the fall that included three-foot distancing and an optional mask policy, given the difficulty of keeping facial coverings on children. The teachers unions, however, immediately launched an operation to discredit Damsker and demanded a six-foot distancing policy that forced students into virtual learning.

In July 2020, Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) Mideastern Region President Bill Senavaitis published an op-ed in a local paper headlined, “David Damsker’s remarks about 3-foot social distancing in schools are harmful.”

The Bucks County Department of Health should revise their school reopening guidelines to align with those made by the CDC and allow our students and staff at least the same level of basic prevention and protection as our colleagues across the state and country,” Senavaitis wrote. “Now is not the time to fall short on protecting our students and staff. I urge educators, parents, and community members to contact Dr. Damsker’s office and ask him to revise his guidance to support the health of all individuals in our public schools.

By August, PSEA President Rich Askey sent a letter to Bucks County Commissioners and urged officials to dismiss Damsker’s three-foot distancing recommendation.

In addition to the health risks that 3 feet of social distance will undoubtedly cause, your guidance has caused confusion in Bucks County’s schools,” Askey wrote. “This is certainly understandable, since the county guidance differs from recommendations issued by the state departments of Health and Education. The state has clearly recommended 6 feet of social distance in school.”

Additionally, Askey said he “repeatedly urged” the state’s Democrat leaders to mandate school reopening rules rather than issue guidance that could be left up to the discretion of local health authorities.

State bureaucrats have responded to parent pushback over strict Covid protocols by stonewalling requests for public records and even suing those who dare request them.

Last summer, Bucks County filed lawsuits against Walker and Megan Brock to deny the parents access to internal documents that shed light on the school reopening process.

“Brock, Walker, and their supporters have become thorns in the side of local leaders, filing dozens of records requests — Right-to-Know requests in Pennsylvania — over the last year and speaking out passionately at government meetings,” National Review reported. “At one point, the county blocked Brock from calling any government telephone lines. Brock said that was unwarranted and unacceptable. The county said it was an accident.”

Despite parents’ activism, the government schools have escaped accountability for years over their illegal Covid protocols. The lack of checks and balances creates a pandora’s box of negative possibilities: How else could schools and teachers’ unions harm children that nobody will ever find out about, or not be able to confirm until years later?


Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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