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How incompetent does the leadership of a national political party have to be to schedule its nominating committee after the deadlines of two states to confirm the party’s nominee to be included on the ballot?
That’s a good question — and one the Democratic National Committee is apparently well-placed to answer.
Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen sent a letter Tuesday to the Alabama Democratic Party and the DNC to inform both groups that the party must, under state law, confirm its presidential and vice presidential candidates by Aug. 15 to be eligible to appear on the state’s ballots in November.
The only problem with that is that Democratic National Convention isn’t scheduled to begin until Aug. 19. Whoops.
Of course, everyone knows that the incumbent, President Joe Biden, will be the Democrats’ nominee again this year, despite some conspiracy theories to the contrary. But that’s not the same as the DNC confirming those nominees to the state.
Letter to AL Democratic Party 4.9.24 by The Western Journal on Scribd
Biden faces a similar problem in Ohio, as The Western Journal reported Monday.
In case you were wondering, the Republican National Convention is scheduled for July 15-18 in Milwaukee, well before the deadlines in both Alabama and Ohio.
Neither state is likely to be competitive, it should be noted. Combined, the two states represent 26 electoral votes that Biden may not even have a shot at, but he probably didn’t have much of a shot at them anyway.
Former President Donald Trump won Ohio by better than 8 points in each of the last two presidential elections, and he demolished his Democratic opponents in Alabama by more than 25 points in both 2016 and 2020.
Still, this isn’t a good look for Team Biden.
So far, the Democrats’ response to the issue has been simple: Rather than replace the people responsible for their terrible planning, they’re simply denying that there’s a problem.
“We’re monitoring the situation in Ohio and we’re confident that Joe Biden will be on the ballot in all 50 states,” a Biden campaign spokesperson told ABC News last week.
After the news about Alabama broke, a Biden campaign spokesperson — perhaps the same one — made a similar statement to Fox News, but actually amped up the denial.
“Joe Biden will be on the ballot in all 50 states,” the unnamed spokesperson said. “State officials have the ability to grant provisional ballot access certification prior to the conclusion of presidential nominating conventions.”
Some state officials may have that ability, but not those in Alabama.
“Under Alabama law, there are no ‘provisional certifications’ for candidates,” the Alabama secretary of state’s office told CNN. “All candidates must comply with current Alabama law to gain ballot access.”
So, back to my original question: How incompetent does the leadership of a national political party have to be to schedule its nominating committee after the deadlines of two states to confirm the party’s nominee to be included on the ballot?
Sit back and grab the popcorn. It looks like we’re about to find out.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Biden Now at Risk of Being Left Off Two State Election Ballots – 26 Electoral College Votes at Stake appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Forget everything you think you know about the path of Monday’s solar eclipse.
Well, OK… maybe not everything. But the projected “path of totality” has shifted enough that some people who were expecting to see the full monty without leaving their homes may be disappointed.
“A new eclipse map — based on an updated figure for the radius of the sun — was published recently by John Irwin, a master in eclipse computations,” Forbes reported last weekend.
We’ve included the updated map below, because if you’ve been thinking how lucky you are to be right on the fringe of the area where the total eclipse will be viewable, well, that might not actually be the case.
The issue stems from the fact that no one is absolutely certain about the diameter of the sun, Forbes said.
This surprised me, by the way. Scientists confidently state where pandemics come from (or don’t) or by how many degrees the earth’s average temperature is going to rise over the next five decades, but they don’t know how big the sun is?
I mean, humans have been looking at the sun for … well, forever. Since there have been humans. No one has figured out how to measure it yet?
It’s only the source of all our planet’s energy, the largest object in the solar system. Or is it, even? Apparently there’s no way to know for sure.
Anyhoo, if you don’t know how big a light source is, it’s going to be challenging to predict the size of the shadow it might cast.
Other measurements are important, of course, and we know those with some confidence — the distance between the sun, moon and earth, for example, and the size of the moon that will be casting the shadow that we call an eclipse.
But the size of the sun? One scientist who has been working for over 10 years on solar eclipse calculations told Forbes that that number is basically up to the person doing the math.
“The solar radius is one of the parameters that enter into eclipse computations,” Luca Quaglia said in an email to the outlet. “But the choice of its value is really left to the eclipse computer.”
For well over a century, scientists have generally used the “standard value” of 959.63 arc seconds — “an arc second being one 3,600th of a degree,” Forbes explained.
“Measurements and observations in the last decade have demonstrated that this value is slightly too small,” Quaglia said. The actual diameter is now thought to be more like 960 arc seconds.
That’s enough of a difference to shift the path of totality by more than a third of a mile, Forbes said.
At any rate, the new, updated map appears below.
It should be noted, however, that this map is based on that 960 arc second estimate that no one is apparently certain is accurate.
Caveat emptor.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Scientists Warn Eclipse Totality Path Has Shifted from What Was Previously Projected appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The family of a Missouri school girl who was badly beaten earlier this month says she is out of her coma — and out of the intensive care unit.
“Kaylee is now out of the intensive care unit, and in the past few days Kaylee has been able to engage in limited verbal conversations,” her parents said in a statement released by their lawyer cited by St. Louis’ KSDK.
“Kaylee also recently began speech therapy, and has gone on a few short walks with the assistance of hospital staff as she is still unable to ambulate on her own,” they added. “However, Kaylee does not have any recollection of the altercation that led to her hospitalization.”
Earlier, her mother had written on a fundraising site that her daughter “still has an incredibly long journey ahead of her,” which seemed hardly less true a week later.
Gain’s parents are also demanding that her attacker be tried as an adult for inflicting brain damage on their 16-year-old daughter.
“[T]he family believes trying the accused as an adult is the most appropriate way to provide the justice that Kaylee deserves,” the statement said, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
The Gain family said such a trial was appropriate “”given the particularly violent nature of this assault, and also taking into account the devastating injuries that Kaylee has incurred,” even though her accused attacker, Maurnice DeClue, was only 15.
Because of her age, authorities had not publicly identified DeClue, KSDK noted.
However, DeClue’s parents issued what the outlet described as “an open letter” Thursday, in what seemed to be an attempt to defend DeClue’s character and reputation.
DeClue’s mother also “seemed confused” by attempts to politicize the incident.
“This is not about racism,” she told KSDK. “This is about two girls having a fight.”
Family friend Sarah Hall, who started a GoFundMe to support the Gain family, wrote on that site that Kaylee Gain had been admitted to a St. Louis hospital “with a skull fracture and frontal lobe damage.”
At the time, she had been diagnosed with “major brain bleeding and swelling and is in critical condition,” Hall wrote then.
“Kaylee is fighting hard to stay alive and heal but this is only the beginning of a very uphill battle for Kaylee and her family,” she wrote.
Ten days later, mom April Gain wrote an update there, saying that Kaylee had been moved from the ICU and was considered to be in “stable” condition.
“She still has an incredibly long journey ahead of her but she is strong,” she wrote.
The GoFundMe, started three days after the fight on March 12, crossed the $400,000 threshold early Saturday morning.
It was seeking to raise a total of half a million dollars to help cover “lost wages and piling up medical bills.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Missouri Teen Kaylee Gain Awakens from Coma After Brutal Beatdown from Classmate, Only to Face Another Big Problem appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Wednesday to protect the rights of homeowners in the state against so-called “squatters.”
That morning, DeSantis posted a video to X explaining the need for the new law.
“Does your house belong to you?” the Republican governor asked rhetorically. “Or, if you are not using it, can someone just come in, squat for a period of time, and then claim that they have a right to be there?
“This so-called ‘squatter scam’ is something that’s happening around the country — there’s even videos telling people how to go in and take over and empty house,” he said.
“That was never how the law was supposed to work,” DeSantis said. “And in Florida, we are going to take action today to end this scam and to protect the private property rights of our homeowners.
Commandeering a private residence through “squatting” is a scam that violates private property rights.
While some states are choosing to indulge this behavior, Florida is putting an end to it.
Stay tuned… pic.twitter.com/ESBuwgtFZH
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 27, 2024
DeSantis called the current state of affairs “absurd” and said his state would lead the way in ending the scam.
The new law, HB 621, will take effect on July 1, Tampa’s WTVT reported Wednesday.
Once it does, homeowners will have a much more streamlined process to evict a squatter by filing a complaint with their local sheriff’s office and requesting assistance.
“Sheriffs from across the state will be able to provide the adequate resources and support for victims of these crimes and homeowners to preserve their property,” Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma told WTVT.
Squatters rely on the fact that, even when they are clearly not authorized to be present in a given residence, getting them out can be expensive and time-consuming for a homeowner. Meanwhile, the can continue to live rent-free in an unoccupied home while the eviction process drags on, DeSantis said.
Under the new process, the sheriff can make a quick determination about who actually owns the property and then take action against unauthorized occupants. Homeowners who files such complaints do so under penalty of perjury, according to a summary of the bill on the Florida Senate website.
“If the complaint shows that the owner is eligible for relief and the sheriff can verify ownership of the property, the sheriff must remove the unauthorized person,” the summary says. “The property owner must pay the sheriff the civil eviction fee plus an hourly rate if a deputy must stand by and keep the peace while the unauthorized person is removed.”
If that process results in an improper removal, however, the person so removed would have recourse.
“A person wrongfully removed pursuant to this procedure has a cause of action against the owner for three times the fair market rent, damages, costs, and attorney fees,” the summary explains.
According to that site, the bill passed both houses of the Florida legislature unanimously.
Later on Wednesday, DeSantis shared another video on X that showed some of the recent horror stories involving squatters around the country.
Other states are allowing squatters to take over homes, and those states even side with the squatters.
Not in Florida.
We are ending the squatters scam once and for all. pic.twitter.com/yRe1Pc8cDR
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 28, 2024
“Other states are allowing squatters to take over homes, and those states even side with the squatters,” the governor wrote in that post. “Not in Florida. We are ending the squatters scam once and for all.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post DeSantis Ends ‘Squatter Scam Once and for All’ by Signing New Bill Into Law appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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