News of the World

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Maryland Officials Can Count Mail-In Ballots Before Election Day: Judge

Maryland law states that officials can not start tabulating mail-in ballots until “8 a.m. on the Wednesday following election day.” But waiting that long would mean results could not be verified within 10 days after an election, as required by another law, Maryland Circuit Judge James Bonifant wrote in an 11-page ruling on Sept. 23.

Bonifant granted a request from the Maryland State Board of Elections, which claimed that a one-time suspension of the former law was required because of “emergency circumstances.”
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State Del. Dan Cox, a Republican who is running for governor, intervened in the case. He said that the state’s request should not be granted because no emergency exists.

Bonifant acknowledged that the situation was foreseen by state legislators, who passed a bill that would enable officials to count mail-in ballots before Election Day. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, vetoed the bill.

The judge said that “the full extent of the difficult situation caused by so many mail-in ballots did not materialize until the primary election occurred this past summer,” necessitating the ruling.

“This Court does not believe it is violating the State Constitution by granting the State Board’s requested relief. To the contrary, the Court believes it is exercising the powers granted to it under the Constitution to decide a case between competing parties who have different views on the interpretation of the law,” he concluded.

 His ruling sounds more like passing a new bill by judiciary force than respecting the state constitution.

Putin Grants Russian Citizenship to NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 26 granted full Russian citizenship to Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who leaked information about the U.S. agency’s widespread domestic surveillance operations during the Obama administration.
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Snowden is one of about 75 foreign nationals who were granted Russian citizenship, Russian state-run media reported, citing a presidential decree issued by Putin. The decree also was published on a Russian government website.

The former NSA contractor was granted permanent Russian residency in 2020. At the time, Snowden said he planned to apply for Russian citizenship and wouldn’t renounce his U.S. citizenship. In 2020, a U.S. appeals court found that the program Snowden had exposed was unlawful and said that U.S. officials who had publicly defended it weren’t telling the truth.

‘Illogical’ for Beijing to Compare Its Claim to Taiwan to Hawaii–US Union: Historian

It’s “illogical” for the regime in Beijing to equate a possible communist takeover of Taiwan with Hawaii’s historical union with the United States because the Hawaiian people voted for U.S. statehood, according to Miles Yu, director of the China Center at Hudson Institute.
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He was responding to a speech by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to the Asia Society on Sept. 23, when Wang said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was resisting Taiwan’s independence in the same way that the United States would oppose secession by Hawaii.
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He described the self-ruled island’s separation as “a highly destructive and dangerous gray rhino” that must be stopped, attributing the expansion of Taiwan’s defense forces to U.S. interference and “connivance.”
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Hawaii became the 50th U.S. state in August 1959 after citizens of the cluster of islands voted in a referendum to accept the Hawaii Admission Act, which was signed into law by then-President Dwight Eisenhower.
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The CCP claims that Taiwan is a breakaway province that must be united with the mainland, and vows to use military force to achieve this goal. Taiwan has been a self-governing democracy since the Chinese civil war ended in 1949 and has never been controlled by the CCP.
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In his speech, Wang said that China–U.S. relations can only improve if Washington adheres to the CCP’s three principles—mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation.
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Yu said that it’s been the CCP’s aggressive behavior that is undermining peace in the Pacific, and that the Chinese regime conveniently continues to ignore the fact that its system of governance remains unattractive to the Taiwanese people.

Americans Have Lost $4,200 in Annual Income Under Biden Administration

Americans have lost over $4,000 in annual income since President Joe Biden took office owing to soaring inflation and higher interest rates, according to data compiled by The Heritage Foundation and released on Sept. 22.
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The foundation said its experts calculated this “shocking” figure by looking at various sets of data: consumer prices data and the Federal Reserve’s interest rates.

Consumer prices have risen 12.7 percent since January 2021, much faster than wages, which Foundation analysts say has lost the average American worker $3,000 in annual purchasing power.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve’s tighter monetary policy to combat inflation has meant that interest rates are rising, resulting in increased borrowing costs on mortgages, vehicle loans, and credit cards. This, Heritage Foundation analysts say, has reduced the average American’s purchasing power by another $1,200 per year.
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The research fellow also took aim at the Biden administration and Congress for continuing on the spending spree and allowing the Federal Reserve printing presses to roll instead of “correcting course over a year ago when inflation began rising.”

Inflation was at 1.4 percent when Biden took office in January 2021.
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Meanwhile, Biden has continued to downplay red-hot inflation, telling CBS’ “60 Minutes” program on Sept. 18 that the “inflation rate month to month was just … an inch, hardly at all.”