UNITED STATES

Voters in the battleground state of Wisconsin will decide at the ballot box in November whether to revise the state constitution to explicitly ban noncitizens from voting in municipal, state and federal elections. The statewide referendum authored by Republican legislators is listed at the bottom of the ballot and will ask voters for permission to amend section 1 of article III of the state constitution, which deals with voting, to specify that “only a United States citizen age 18 or older who resides in an election district may vote in an election for national, state, or local office or at a statewide or local referendum.” Currently, the state constitution says “every United States citizen age 18 or older” can vote.”Addressing this issue now will ensure votes are not diluted in the future,” state Sen. Julian Bradley, a Republican, explained to the nonprofit news organization Votebeat Wisconsin. “It’s best for the government to address this concern before it becomes a problem.”NEBRASKA HIGH COURT RESTORES VOTING RIGHT FOR THOUSANDS OF CONVICTED FELONSIn recent years, North Dakota, Alabama, Florida, Colorado, Ohio and Louisiana have passed amendments to their state constitutions specifying that “only” U.S. citizens can vote. The question is on the ballot in eight other states this year, including Wisconsin, Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri, The Associated Press reported. Republicans argue they are trying to protect election integrity as migrants pour across the border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows more than 10 million encounters with illegal immigrants at U.S. borders under the Biden-Harris administration and at least another 2 million known got-a-ways. Democrats and other opponents say the state amendment prohibiting non-citizens from voting has no practical effect – no Wisconsin municipalities allow noncitizens to vote – and is instead designed to draw conservatives to the polls and stoke anger against foreigners in the United States.”There is no problem with noncitizens voting,” Jeff Mandell, an attorney with Law Forward, a nonprofit organization, told the AP. “It is the very definition of a solution in search of a problem.”DOJ ONCE OK’D LAW AT CENTER OF YOUNGKIN VOTER ROLL-CULLING ORDER FEDS NOW SUING TO BLOCKA 1996 federal law bans noncitizens in any state from casting their ballots in a federal election. It does not apply to state and local elections. Multiple municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont as well as the District of Columbia allow noncitizens to vote in some local elections such as school board and city council races. The Department of Justice last week sued Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration for removing people from the voter rolls who had been identified as noncitizens and could not verify their citizenship within a two-week grace period. The state said it removed 6,000 ineligible people from its rolls.Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in August that over 6,500 potential noncitizens had been removed from the state’s voter rolls since 2021. Ohio Secretary of State Frank La Rose also said in August that he referred 138 apparent noncitizens found to have voted in a recent election for prosecution. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPAlabama Secretary of State Wes Allen has said 3,251 people previously identified as noncitizens by the federal government have been deactivated on the state’s voter registration rolls.The Associated Press contributed to this report. 



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Publish date : 2024-10-20 16:19:40

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The United States is investigating the unauthorized release of classified documents detailing Israel’s planned attack against Iran, The Associated Press reported.The documents, attributed to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, note that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1. They were sharable within the “Five Eyes,” which are the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.The documents, which are marked top secret, were posted to the Telegram messaging app last week and first reported by CNN and Axios. The AP first reported Sunday about the U.S. investigation into the unauthorized release, citing three U.S. officials. The AP said a fourth U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, indicated that the documents appeared to be legitimate. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also confirmed the investigation in an appearance on CNN. “The leak is very concerning. There’s some serious allegations being made, there’s an investigation underway, and I’ll get a briefing on that in a couple of hours,” Johnson said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “There’s a classified level briefing and then another. But we’re following it closely.” IDF SAYS ‘MISSION IS NOT OVER’ UNTIL HOSTAGES ARE RETURNED: ‘WE WILL NOT REST’The investigation is also examining how the documents were obtained – including whether it was an intentional leak by a member of the U.S. intelligence community or by another method, like a hack – and whether any other intelligence information was compromised, one of the officials told the AP, adding that officials are working to determine who had access to the documents before they were posted. The documents first appeared online Friday via a channel on Telegram, claiming they had been leaked by someone in the U.S. intelligence community, then later the U.S. Defense Department. The information appeared entirely gathered through the use of satellite image analysis.ISRAEL’S UN AMBASSADOR: RESPONSE TO IRAN WILL BE ‘VERY PAINFUL’The AP reported that one of the two documents resembled the style of other material from the U.S. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency leaked by Jack Teixeira, an Air National Guardsman who pleaded guilty in March to leaking highly classified military documents about Russia’s war on Ukraine and other national security secrets.The Telegram channel involved in the leak identifies itself as being based in Tehran, Iran’s capital. It previously published memes featuring Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and material in support of Tehran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance,” which includes Middle East terrorist groups armed by the Islamic republic.In a statement to the AP, the Pentagon said it was aware of the reports of the documents but did not elaborate further. The AP said the Israeli military did not immediately return their request for comment.Fox News Digital reached out to the U.S. Department of Defense but did not immediately hear back. The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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Publish date : 2024-10-20 15:04:32

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The FBI has joined a search for a missing Montana teen who vanished from her home two weeks ago, vowing not to rest until answers are found about the teen’s disappearance.Sa’Wade Birdinground, a 13-year-old member of the Crow Tribe, has not had any known contact with family or friends since she disappeared on Oct. 6, the FBI said Saturday in a news release.”The FBI is working closely with local law enforcement to find Sa’Wade Birdinground,” said Rhys Williams, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Salt Lake City Division. “We are asking for the public’s assistance in locating her, and we won’t stop until we have answers.”Sa’Wade was last seen at her home in Garryowen on the night of Oct. 6, the Big Horn County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release on Oct. 7. She was last seen wearing a black hoodie with mushrooms on it, an anime t-shirt, basketball trunks and purple slip-on shoes. She is known to wear an elk tooth necklace and is believed to be carrying a black and purple Adidas backpack.MISSING VIRGINIA ANTIQUE SHOP OWNER’S FAMILY BELIEVES HE WAS MURDERED AFTER MONTHS WITHOUT ANSWERSThe teen is described as “a quiet, kind and artistic child who likes to laugh,” and is well liked among her teachers and peers, the FBI said.”She has never run away from home or been in any serious trouble,” the FBI news release said. “Her disappearance from home is totally out of character for her, and her family is very concerned about her.”The Montana Department of Justice issued a Missing Endangered Persons Advisory due to concerns about Sa’Wade’s safety.MISSING TEXAS REAL ESTATE AGENT’S HUSBAND KEPT IN JAIL WITH HIGH BOND AS FAMILY RIPS HIS LACK OF COOPERATIONThe FBI said that based on the investigation thus far and the amount of time the teen has been missing, they are taking the case “very seriously and chasing down every lead.”Big Horn County Sheriff Jeramie Middlestead said authorities are doing everything they can to bring Sa’Wade home safely and called on the public for help.”The community’s help is crucial at this time, and we urge anyone with information to come forward immediately,” said Middlestead. “Sa’Wade’s family is deeply worried, and any information, no matter how small, can make a difference.”The FBI asked anyone with information about Sa’Wade to contact 406-665-9798, adding that “any details, no matter how small, could assist in bringing her home safely.”



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Publish date : 2024-10-20 14:10:57

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The Justice Department once green lit the very election reform law it is now suing Virginia over, a measure aimed at removing noncitizens from the commonwealth’s voter rolls, Fox News Digital has learned.The DOJ filed suit Oct. 11 in Alexandria federal court, alleging the state, its board of elections and Elections Commissioner Susan Beals violated a federal law by carrying out an executive order by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The order directed municipal and/or state officials to cull names of people who are “unable to verify that they are citizens” to the Department of Motor Vehicles for voter registration purposes.FLURRY OF PRE-ELECTION LEGAL CASES IN NOW ‘STANDARDIZED’ STRATEGY, EXPERTS SAYYoungkin told Fox News Digital the order he issued in August simply followed a rule put in place in 2006 by then-Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine and approved by the DOJ. But with the November election just weeks away, the agency is now saying it violates a provision of the National Voter Registration Act which requires any voter roll maintenance to be completed before the 90-day window prior to an election.”[W]e now know that the Virginia law was reviewed and expressly approved by the DOJ civil rights division,” Youngkin said. “Now, after being applied for 18 years by both Democrat and Republican governors, with just 25 days before the presidential election, the Biden-Harris DOJ sues Virginia: Ensuring Virginia’s voter rolls do not include non-citizens is constitutional, it’s the law in Virginia and it’s common sense.”YOUNGKIN: EDUCATION IS THE BEDROCK OF THE AMERICAN DREAMYoungkin’s order cited Virginia code 24.2-439, requiring government registrars to cancel noncitizens’ voter registrations deemed to have been sought under false pretenses. It also cited Virginia Code 24.2-1019, requiring registrars to immediately notify their county or city prosecutor of such situations.At least 165 election-related lawsuits have already been filed across the country, with the majority focused on issues such as who should be eligible to vote, how ballots are cast and counted, and how to ensure election security and protect against alleged voter fraud. Legal analysts say they doubt that any of these lawsuits will have a protracted impact on the 2024 election and describe the nature of the claims as fairly standard fare, especially during the more than two decades since George W. Bush fended off Al Gore and a mountain of legal challenges to win the 2020 presidential election.The DOJ alleged in its lawsuit that actions resulting from the August order violated the federal 90-day window. However, Virginia officials maintain their actions target self-reported eligibility discrepancies and were not the kind of systematic voter-roll purging that would violate the Quiet Period provision.An internal Richmond memo obtained by Fox News Digital asserted that the established process for removing noncitizens from voter rolls has taken place under Democratic and Republican governors since Kaine, now a senator, signed the law in 2006.The federal Quiet Period cited by DOJ is “not relevant” to the Commonwealth’s policy, the memo stated, adding that individuals also have the two-week window to affirm citizenship before they are stripped from the rolls, so disqualification is not automatic.If a person believes they were wrongly removed from the rolls, Virginia has long offered same-day voter registration at the polls. In Kaine-era official correspondence obtained by Fox News Digital, an official in the Virginia attorney general’s office wrote the George W. Bush Justice Department asking for approval of the new law.Two months later, in December 2006, an official in the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section wrote back that the U.S. attorney general “does not interpose any objections to the specific changes,” although it added that the feds’ lack of objection does not rule out future injunctions against the law’s enforcement.CLIMATE PROTESTERS INTERRUPT YOUNGKIN’S 9/11 SPEECHThe process for removing an ineligible voter described by the law only begins when a person who files for a driver’s license or other government document attests that they are a noncitizen.From there, the Department of Motor Vehicles shares that information with the state Department of Elections, which matches the information with the county or independent city’s registrar.The individual is then notified that they are ineligible and is given 14 days to prove their citizenship. If they do not, they are then notified that they will be removed and are ultimately removed, the source said.Virginia reportedly removed more than 6,300 individuals from their voter rolls since the order was signed.In a statement after the lawsuit was filed, Youngkin called the legal action “unprecedented” and said he was simply assuring a law signed in 2006 by Kaine, who is running for reelection to the U.S. Senate this year, was being followed by counties and independent cities.In a statement following the filing of the DOJ’s lawsuit, Youngkin staunchly defended his order.”Americans will see this for exactly what it is – a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth, the very crucible of American Democracy,” he said. “I will not stand idly by as this politically motivated action tries to interfere in our elections, period.”However, at the DOJ, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Kristen Clarke said that culling voter registrations this close to election day potentially places qualified voters “in jeopardy of being removed from the rolls and creates the risk of confusion for the electorate.””Congress adopted the National Voter Registration Act’s Quiet Period restriction to prevent error-prone, eleventh-hour efforts that all too often disenfranchise qualified voters,” Clarke said in a statement.As a result of Youngkin’s order, more than 1,000 registrations in two major Washington, D.C-area counties were canceled, according to local reports.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPLoudoun County, a formerly-red bastion now tinted blue due to exurban sprawl from the nation’s capital, culled 98 names. Eastward along US-50, heavily-Democratic Fairfax County removed 985 and is transmitting them to the local prosecutor and Attorney General Jason Miyares to probe any potential lawbreaking, according to the local ABC affiliate.In July, Kaine reiterated that voting is a right reserved for U.S. citizens.Last week, a spokesperson for the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee said “just as we want to block non-citizens from voting, we need to keep eligible voters from being purged from voting rolls, particularly just weeks from an election.””Senator Kaine is focused on making sure that every eligible Virginian has the opportunity to vote in this critical election.”Meanwhile, former President Trump scorched the lawsuit as evidence of DOJ “weaponization” and praised Youngkin’s “important work” to protect the veracity of voter rolls.



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Publish date : 2024-10-20 12:44:13

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Before she became her party’s nominee for president, Kamala Harris had not made a substantial, discernable positive public impact during her nearly four years in the White House. She largely operated under the radar and fell short regarding some of her most high-profile assignments. She had not universally distinguished herself as a leader. She had not won over swaths of new fans. She had not fully earned her place as next in line. She was known more in Washington circles for her rocky relationships with her staff members and her sagging approval ratings than for anything she had actually accomplished.HARRIS STRUGGLES TO NAME ‘ONE POLICY’ DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HER AND BIDENTo be sure, through the first few years of the Biden-Harris administration, the vice president received praise for assuming an outsize role in the fights for abortion and voting rights, and for building solid relationships with important foreign allies. Although mocked for her word salads and piercing guffaws, she did not overtly undercut the administration’s agenda. For those who saw her up close, she was impressive but not iconic, charismatic but not yet a superstar.And on July 21, when Joe Biden stepped aside and Harris stepped in, she was good enough. Democrats and Never Trumpers had said it time and again. They just wanted someone healthy. Someone normal. Someone sane. Someone different. Someone not Biden, someone not Trump. Someone else.I would vote for any functioning politician over Biden and Trump.I would vote for that squirrel in that tree over Trump.There’s no such thing as a perfect candidate.The country needs to turn the page on tired, wacky, old men.Harris is tolerable.Maybe Harris will surprise us.And surprise them she did.On that sticky summer Sunday afternoon when Biden announced his decision to drop out of the presidential race and endorsed his number two to be the Democratic nominee for president, no one, not even Harris herself, knew what was going to happen.A collective derecho-sized sigh of relief rose up from Democrats coast to coast, north to south, and every Blue enclave in between. President Biden’s disastrous June debate performance had exposed the extent of his decline and put a glaring and unequivocal spotlight on his limitations as a candidate and as a prospective second-term president. Democratic voters and staunch party loyalists, Trump detractors, Trump loathers, and Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers had all feared the worst: They were stuck with an acuity-compromised octogenarian who could not deliver the votes and would surely lose the election. And then, their unthinkable, impossible nightmare would occur—Donald Trump would return to the White House.After several weeks of party pressure and serpentine political machinations the likes of which have rarely been seen in this country, Biden agreed to withdraw his reelection bid. Bypassing a Democratic Party nomination fight, he handed the torch to Harris. In a statement, Biden asserted that bringing in Harris as his vice president was “the best decision I’ve made,” and offered “my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year.””Democrats,” he added, “it’s time to come together and beat Trump.”This vigorous affirmation was standard but phony. Biden and his team, even members of the vice president’s office, had long thought Harris was not yet prepared to be president, and would be a weak candidate against Trump, maybe a doomed one. Some White House staff clung to the belief that Biden, with all his visible infirmity, remained the less risky option. Regarding their long-held view of Harris, they were as certain as they were worried.Once Harris accepted the mantle from Biden, she seemingly became a political supernova overnight. She expanded, she leaned in, she improved. She showed charm and grit, confidence and swagger, grace and guts. She was, for the imperatives of the moment, great.Democrats, once despondent over candidate Biden, now cheered as loudly as they had exhaled. The Dominant Media was euphoric—a fantastic story to cover, a Democratic heroine to bolster. The newspaper headlines and cable pontification surged beyond mere hagiography and well into farce. The blinders were firmly in place. The buzz words of summer were vibe shift and joy, and, of course, brat. Harris chose a running mate lickety-split, selecting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after a drastically abbreviated vetting process, and pulled off a strong convention in Chicago, which managed to be both dignified and buoyant. Harris was in command. Her polls were competitive, her fundraising boffo.But vibes can’t sustain a presidential campaign, and supernovas, no matter how luminous and intense the explosion, fade within a few weeks. When the glow dissipated, voters were left with the same Kamala Harris they had before, the same Kamala Harris that always had been, the one about whom there were substantial doubts in her own camp. That Kamala Harris had no clear theory of the case for winning the race or governing, nor tested presidential-level skills. Reality set in. She began to stall.By Labor Day, the brat summer had largely evaporated. The mood shift, it turned out, was not a national phenomenon at all, but rather a instinctive and manic reaction from the Democratic base.Independents, double haters, and undecided voters, meanwhile, had taken a pause and paid attention, waiting to learn more about Harris’ positions and policy plans. But Harris didn’t set forth a rationale for her presidency, beyond blocking a second Trump term. By Labor Day, Harris had not challenged herself by sitting for a tough interview, nor offered consistent straight answers about her intentions once in office, nor reached out to Red America. She had not risked the customary “What my party has gotten wrong” concession on anything, eschewing a way to show boldness and political self-awareness which every elected president since Bill Clinton had made a core part of their pitch.Harris supporters enjoyed a fresh burst of adrenaline on Sept. 9 when Harris and Trump faced off in the presidential debate. Harris was performatively strong, but the debate ironically only highlighted her fundamental problem. She looked and sounded good, appeared relaxed and unflinching, and brilliantly manipulated Trump’s ego, but in front of a huge audience of engaged citizens, she neglected to hammer any hard facts or clarify her own agenda. It was a chillingly short-sighted example of style over substance, and an egregious wasted opportunity.It was time for Harris to stop coasting on vibes and parables and start doing the work.But could she?Her professional history indicated that the arduous task of crafting a message and headlining a full-blown campaign might be an uphill climb. Biden and many White House operatives still feared Harris could not beat Trump, and their failed efforts to prepare her both for the presidency and the race remained still fresh in their minds.Even those with short memories know that Harris had not in the past shown she was adept at assembling the basic building blocks of a viable national candidacy. During her extensive and prominent career in California, Harris made as many foes as friends, with a significant number of local Democrats, both political operatives and regular citizens, declining to support her enthusiastically or, in some cases, under any circumstances.  Nor had Harris been a particularly distinguished or popular member of the Senate, unable to impress many colleagues on either side of the aisle. Indeed, some of her biggest detractors to date have been fellow senators who worked with her in the Capitol, although to be fair, she barely had time to establish herself in the position before moving out and up to the vice presidency. The presidential bid she launched in January 2019 ended before the year was up; she failed to convey a winning message or gain any traction, and she ran out of money before a single ballot was cast.  Postmortems on her campaign emphasized her apparent lack of decisiveness, authenticity, direction, and guiding principles.CNN DATA EXPERT SAYS HARRIS’ MOMENTUM HAS ‘STALLED’ WHILE TRUMP IS MORE POPULAR THAN IN PAST ELECTIONSThe various criticisms that have threaded throughout Harris’ professional rise are intertwined with the weak filaments of her current campaign. For most of the fall, it has been difficult for her to drive a message. She has struggled to produce a winning soundbite from an interview or rally. Despite a freshly honed oratorical style, Harris has been too vague and cautious in her rhetoric to spark a crystallizing moment, a revelation of the soul. Her travel schedule for almost the entirety of the campaign has been curiously light, with few rallies, no coast-to-coast blitzes, and a lack of interconnection within her organization, the calendar and the polls.The feeling remains strong, even among some Democrats who desperately want her to win, that the Harris who was on offer before her ascendancy to the nomination is the one too often on display now.  These Democrats see someone who is living in the moment rather than rising to the occasion.If Harris loses on Nov. 5, it should be no surprise to anyone who has watched her political path these past several decades. The signs were all there. However, if Harris triumphs, sending Donald Trump once and for all into political retirement, at this point, it will be something somewhat short of a shock.CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONWith less than three weeks to go, Harris is demonstrating new signs of life, hitting her stride and having more fun. Her latest anti-Trump tagline—unhinged, unstable, and unchecked—seems to have some resonance. She is emitting refreshing flashes of authenticity, as she pivots from something in which her heart seems divided (shredding her previously held liberal positions) to something she relishes (cheeky denunciations of Trump’s fitness for office).Democrats are fired up, and the country is primed for a reset.  Harris has millions of supporters who are champing to vote for her, and not merely because they dislike Trump, or want to cast a ballot for a woman, or are true-blue Democrats. These citizens are voting for Harris herself now, because they have an appreciation for her accomplishments. Harris’ resume has always been solid and hard-earned—one must demonstrate true skill, stamina, and determination to become a United States senator and vice president. Despite the odd confluence of events that presented her with the Democratic nomination, Harris is now holding her own, in it to be sure, and with the potential to win it.Even as the country hurtles towards Election Day, Harris still has time to meld her summer vibes with the steely gladiator focus that was on display this past week. Going up against Trump, one of the most formidable, most original, most agile campaigners of the modern era, is no simple feat. Among every other variable at issue in presidential campaigns, candidate quality matters a lot, perhaps most of all.And no one ever said that winning the White House would be easy, even for a candidate – especially for a candidate, perhaps – who was given her party’s nomination without a fight.



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Publish date : 2024-10-20 11:14:51

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