California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday signed an executive order permitting all registered voters in the Golden State to vote by mail in the upcoming presidential election.

“I signed an executive order that will allow every registered voter in California to receive a mail-in ballot,” Newsom said. “That mail-in ballot is important but it’s not an exclusive substitute to physical locations.”

“People that are otherwise not familiar with mail-in ballots, are uncomfortable with them, may have disabilities, may have other issues that may preclude that as an appropriate option, we still want to have the appropriate number of physical sites for people to vote as well,” the governor added.

WATCH: Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to allow all registered voters in California the ability to vote by mail for the November election.

An “appropriate” number of physical locations to vote at will still be available. https://t.co/LV2wPAd58o pic.twitter.com/QGmFVd8kdD

— NBC 7 San Diego (@nbcsandiego) May 8, 2020

Newsom said while offering voters the chance to vote by mail, he is committed to providing the ability to vote on election day.

“There’s a lot of concern and excitement around this November’s election in terms of making sure that you can conduct yourself in a safe way and to make sure your health is protected and to make sure we are reaching out to all registered, eligible voters,” the governor stated. “And giving them the opportunity, giving them the choice not to feel like they have to go into a concentrated, dense environment where their health may be at risk but provide an additional asset and additional resources by way of voting by mail.”

Newsom’s order comes as Democrats across the country are pushing efforts to allow voters to vote-by-mail in the 2020 election, despite concerns of potential voter fraud. On Wednesday, Reps. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) went as far as to call for vote-by-mail to be permitted beyond the election.

“If we don’t act fast, we will jeopardize participation in what may be the most important election of our lifetime. People will stay home. Disproportionately, those people will be of color, who live in neighborhoods most likely to lose polling locations,” the Democrat lawmakers wrote in an op-ed for The Hill. “They’ll be students, single parents, and low-wage workers, who can’t put their lives on hold to go vote. They’ll be seniors and medically-vulnerable patients, who would be literally risking their lives just to cast their ballots. So a privileged few will get to decide our country’s trajectory while the people most impacted by this crisis are forced to forfeit their voice.”

Recent data has not shown a compelling public health justification for vote-by-mail. Wisconsin is one of the only U.S. states that held its primary election with in-person voting after the coronavirus lockdown began. Only a few dozen people at maximum were confirmed to have contracted the virus after participating either as voters or poll workers, and none of those cases were fatal. Out of the 413,000 participants, that equals an infection rate below two-hundredths of one percent. Just days later, South Korea held national elections which did not result in any new coronavirus cases.

Do you think Schiff should release the transcripts?

Adam Schiff, the fanatic who from the begining launched probe after probe of President Trump, is about to see the 2017-2018 Russia collusion transcripts he’s been sitting on all these months released to the public, all 6,000 pages, with 73 witnesses stating there was no Russian collusion in 53 transcripts. National Intelligence Director Richard Grenell did the job Schiff wouldn’t do, releasing the transcripts, and now Schiff is expected to be looking more bug-eyed than usual. 

According to Fox News:

 Transcripts of House Intelligence Committee interviews that have been cleared for release show top law enforcement and intelligence officials affirming they had no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, senior administration and intelligence community officials told Fox News on Wednesday.

This would align with the results of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — which found no evidence of illegal or criminal coordination between President Trump, the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016 — but the numerous transcribed interviews could raise further questions about committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s past statements saying that there was “direct evidence” of collusion.

“Schiff is in panic mode,” a senior administration official told Fox News.

Those would be the original Russia collusion transcripts, released after a House investigation he called for, after claiming he had proof positive that President Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.

Schiff, recall, had been making statements like this to a fawning press in 2017:

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the Ranking Member on the committee, was asked by Chuck Todd on “Meet The Press Daily” whether or not he only has a circumstantial case.

“Actually no, Chuck,” he said. “I can tell you that the case is more than that and I can’t go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now.”

Schiff later claimed he had “direct evidence” of collusion in fact, stating in 2019:

“I think there is direct evidence in the emails from the Russians through their intermediary offering dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of what is described in writing as the Russian government effort to help elect Donald Trump,” Schiff said during an appearance on Sunday on CBS’ “Face The Nation.”

Schiff added: “They offer that dirt. There is an acceptance of that offer in writing from the president’s son, Don Jr., and there is overt acts and furtherance of that… That to me is direct evidence.”

And this drumbeat of fanciful claims that the transcripts would indicate he knew was false expose him now as telling “lie after lie after lie” as House ranking intelligence committee member Devin Nunes put it. “Look for witnesses who were not so truthful,” he told Fox Business. If so, there must be some doozies.

As for Schiff, it was all about covering up the evidence and then lying about it to the fawning media. He told lies all right, and the bad part was they had consequences. Schiff’s claims were among the reasons why a naive attorney general, Jeff Sessions, went ahead and appointed a Special Counsel to investigate President Trump, which, as with the congressional investigation, came up empty. Maybe if those 73 interviews in those 53 transcripts had been out there, they’d all have known this was bogus information before wasting all those millions to come up empty too.

Now it’s Schiff’s turn on the hot seat. Which is appropriate, given that he’s the principle liar. The emperor of collusion is about to be exposed as having no clothes and it’s not going to be a pretty picture. 

Image credit: Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of public domain U.S. Air Force photo illustration by Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Rissmiller and shareable CNN YouTube screen shot.

Adam Schiff, the fanatic who from the begining launched probe after probe of President Trump, is about to see the 2017-2018 Russia collusion transcripts he’s been sitting on all these months released to the public, all 6,000 pages, with 73 witnesses stating there was no Russian collusion in 53 transcripts. National Intelligence Director Richard Grenell did the job Schiff wouldn’t do, releasing the transcripts, and now Schiff is expected to be looking more bug-eyed than usual. 

According to Fox News:

 Transcripts of House Intelligence Committee interviews that have been cleared for release show top law enforcement and intelligence officials affirming they had no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, senior administration and intelligence community officials told Fox News on Wednesday.

This would align with the results of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — which found no evidence of illegal or criminal coordination between President Trump, the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016 — but the numerous transcribed interviews could raise further questions about committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s past statements saying that there was “direct evidence” of collusion.

“Schiff is in panic mode,” a senior administration official told Fox News.

Those would be the original Russia collusion transcripts, released after a House investigation he called for, after claiming he had proof positive that President Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.

Schiff, recall, had been making statements like this to a fawning press in 2017:

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the Ranking Member on the committee, was asked by Chuck Todd on “Meet The Press Daily” whether or not he only has a circumstantial case.

“Actually no, Chuck,” he said. “I can tell you that the case is more than that and I can’t go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now.”

Schiff later claimed he had “direct evidence” of collusion in fact, stating in 2019:

“I think there is direct evidence in the emails from the Russians through their intermediary offering dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of what is described in writing as the Russian government effort to help elect Donald Trump,” Schiff said during an appearance on Sunday on CBS’ “Face The Nation.”

Schiff added: “They offer that dirt. There is an acceptance of that offer in writing from the president’s son, Don Jr., and there is overt acts and furtherance of that… That to me is direct evidence.”

And this drumbeat of fanciful claims that the transcripts would indicate he knew was false expose him now as telling “lie after lie after lie” as House ranking intelligence committee member Devin Nunes put it. “Look for witnesses who were not so truthful,” he told Fox Business. If so, there must be some doozies.

As for Schiff, it was all about covering up the evidence and then lying about it to the fawning media. He told lies all right, and the bad part was they had consequences. Schiff’s claims were among the reasons why a naive attorney general, Jeff Sessions, went ahead and appointed a Special Counsel to investigate President Trump, which, as with the congressional investigation, came up empty. Maybe if those 73 interviews in those 53 transcripts had been out there, they’d all have known this was bogus information before wasting all those millions to come up empty too.

Now it’s Schiff’s turn on the hot seat. Which is appropriate, given that he’s the principle liar. The emperor of collusion is about to be exposed as having no clothes and it’s not going to be a pretty picture. 

Image credit: Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of public domain U.S. Air Force photo illustration by Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Rissmiller and shareable CNN YouTube screen shot.

Well, that didn’t go as planned.

Reuters reporter Jeff Mason, I suppose, has — as part of his job — the obligation to test any White House press secretary as a rule and any new press secretary as an especial rule. Whether or not this obligation was ever fully exercised under previous administrations, I don’t particularly know.

He’s been a White House correspondent since 2009 and served as vice president of the White House Correspondents Association from  2015 to 2017, but I don’t remember him asking pointed questions during his time in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at 1600 Pennsylvania until 2017 for reasons you can probably guess on your own.

Before then, I do remember him on occasion engaging in hard-hitting reporting like this:

President Obama at the Jolly Pumpkin in Detroit. pic.twitter.com/4BScyL4JdB

— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) January 20, 2016

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During President Donald Trump’s administration, meanwhile, I best remember him for squawking like an injured parrot after being precluded from covering a dinner at the second Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi after he engaged in speaking truth to power by … asking questions at an event at the summit the media were specifically discouraged from asking questions.

Obama wouldn’t have ejected him from the Jolly Pumpkin for the same thing, would he have? Trump’s America, folks. Read your Orwell.

Anyhow, Mason did his job on Wednesday by testing new White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany — who was previously the national spokeswoman for the Trump re-election campaign — on statements she made about the novel coronavirus in her earlier job. He probably wished he’d done a bit more homework on the matter first.

“In a previous life, before you were press secretary, you worked for the campaign,” Mason said.  “And you made a comment, I believe on Fox, that President Trump would not allow the coronavirus to come to this country. Given what has happened since then, obviously, would you like to take that back?”

McEnany first clarified that the statement she made involved an appearance on Fox Business in which she was asked about the intent behind the travel restrictions with China and  she “noted the intent behind the restrictions, which is that we will not see the coronavirus come here.”

This is a bit different from what Mason’s question implied. (The media-centric website Grabien has the video of McEnany’s Feb. 25 interview with then-Fox Business Network anchor Trish Regan.)

Here’s the crux of McEnany’s issue, though: Mason had apparently forgotten what his fellow scribes had also said on the matter.

“I guess I would turn the question back on the media and ask similar questions,” McEnany said.

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“Does Vox want to take back that they proclaimed that the coronavirus would not be ‘a deadly pandemic’? Does The Washington Post want to take back that they told Americans to ‘get a grippe, the flu is bigger than the coronavirus’?

“Does The Washington Post, likewise, want to take back that ‘our brains are causing us to exaggerate the threat of the coronavirus’?” she continued.

“Does The New York Times want to take back that the ‘fear of the virus may be spreading faster than the virus itself’? Does NPR want to take back that ‘the flu was a much bigger threat than the coronavirus’? And finally, once again The Washington Post, would they like to take back that ’the government should not respond aggressively to the coronavirus’?

“I’ll leave you with those questions, and maybe you’ll have some answers in a few days,” McEnany said in closing, and cue mic drop.

McEnany wasn’t just making those headlines up. Townhall has some here. The NPR one is here. As it turns out, Vox has deleted the Twitter post McEnany was apparently referring to, The Daily Caller reported back in March. But McEnany’s point was clear. You’re going to want to watch that one again and again.

This exchange, for reasons unexplained and inexplicable, doesn’t turn up in a search of Reuters’ stories about Wednesday’s media briefing. In articles specifically including information from McEnany, Mason was apparently much more willing to affix his byline to reports on Beijing’s adherence to its new trade deal with Washington– a story somewhat drier than one suggested by this question, although of more importance the national discourse in the long run.

McEnany’s mic drop questions deserve to be answered, though. If the extent of the coronavirus crisis was ill-predicted by many, including a media that could hardly wait to trot out the shopworn xenophobia plot line about travel restrictions with China, why should the president be castigated by a media that has engaged in nary a moment of self-castigation over the entire matter and now pretends they were onto this all along?

Either way, I’d say McEnany’s performance is a sign Americans ought to get their popcorn ready during her tenure as press secretary. I wonder if they serve any at the Jolly Pumpkin.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

The administration "allowed indoor gatherings to occur in numerous, specifically-enumerated circumstances so long as social distancing precautions are observed," the suit states, claiming that excluding religious services places a "substantial burden" on religious exercise.

The church is committed to following the Centers for Disease Control’s guidance on social distancing during services, according to the suit. It adds that Jessamine County, where the church is located, has also not reported a significant number of coronavirus cases.

Like many other states, Kentucky is preparing to lift restrictions in the coming weeks. The first wave of businesses, including construction companies and office-based businesses, may open with limited capacity on May 11, followed by more businesses on May 20 and May 25.

Beshear addressed religious gatherings at a press conference Wednesday, urging caution on reintroducing large crowds at religious observances.

Imagine following the governor’s orders to a tee and getting rewarded for it by nearly losing everything.

That has been the case for Horseshoe Cafe owner Debbie Thompson, whose Wickenburg, Arizona, business has slowly been dying because of Gov. Doug Ducey’s stay-at-home order. When Ducey extended the order on April 29, she finally said enough is enough and decided to serve customers again.

When she stood up to that order, government officials were quick to try to smack her back down. The local community of Wickenburg, however, did their best to pick her back up.

“I obeyed the law. I did what the governor said to do. I did takeout, I did everything and I’m losing everything. Everything,” Thompson told KNXV-TV.

May 1 was originally the last day of Ducey’s stay-at-home order. On April 29, the order was extended to May 15.

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Police officers came to the cafe on Friday and warned Thompson that she had to close up shop, according to the Arizona Republic.

“I told them I refused to close,” Thompson said, wearing a shirt bearing the image of President Donald Trump. “I’m not going to comply.”

After reopening, customers came out in droves and lined around the block to support Thompson and her business.

One of Thompson’s biggest supporters is her attorney, Anthony Ramirez of Warnock MacKinlay Law.

Ramirez spoke with The Western Journal about Thompson and businesses such as hers affected by the shutdown.

“It’s very important to understand that I think the order does carry the force of law. The governor did have a right to implement the order; there is a rational basis for the order,” Ramirez said.

“The issue that my client took, Ms. Thompson specifically, with this order was that it’s being applied vaguely and in an overbroad manner.”

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Not only is the law being applied vaguely, but Ramirez also made the case that it’s being applied unequally.

“If you’re Costco or Target or any other retailer out there that has been able to remain open and have people enter your business and otherwise be exposed to other people, they can do it. But small owners are being told to stay shut down,” Ramirez told The Western Journal.

“It is what it is, but when you start criminalizing a business owner that is operating an otherwise legal business, their crime is just opening, we have an issue with that and my client is willing to fight that.”

Ramirez then made it clear that he isn’t denying the fact that there is an outbreak, but rather questioning the government’s response to it.

“Nobody’s denying that there’s a virus out there. Nobody denying that people have died,” he said.

“Municipalities should be very, very careful when they’re considering making criminal that of otherwise legally operating business owners.”

Anthony Ramirez and his firm are hoping to help more Arizona business owners like Thompson who need to reopen before they lose their livelihoods.

“I’ve never advocated for anybody to violate the order,” Ramirez said.

“What I have told them is that if you’re a business owner that’s decided that you need to do what you need to do to take care of your family, I’m a defense attorney. I’ll defend you.”

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