Israel will hold a snap election in March after parliament failed on Tuesday to meet a deadline to pass a budget, triggering a ballot presenting new challenges for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Campaigning in Israel’s fourth parliamentary election in two years gets underway with Netanyanu facing public anger over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and while he is engaged in a corruption trial, the first against an Israeli prime minister.

Israel’s longest-serving leader will also have to contend with a new rival from the right, Gideon Saar, a defector from Netanyahu’s Likud party who an opinion poll on Israel’s Kan public TV on Tuesday showed was drawing even with him.

Netanyahu, who has denied any criminal wrongdoing, and the current defence minister, centrist politician Benny Gantz, established a unity government in May after three inconclusive elections held since April 2019.

But they have been locked in a dispute over passage of a national budget key to implementing a deal in which Gantz was to have taken over from Netanyahu in November 2021.

The Speaker of Parliament declared its dissolution late on Tuesday in a session broadcast on live television, saying a snap election was automatically triggered by its failure to approve a budget.

Source: REUTERS

US President Donald Trump has launched his latest long-shot effort to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, saying he would again ask the Supreme Court to overturn results from the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Trump’s campaign said it filed a petition asking the high court to reverse three rulings by a Pennsylvania state court interpreting the state’s rules for mail-in ballots.

The campaign said a trio of Pennsylvania Supreme Court cases “illegally changed Pennsylvania’s mail balloting law immediately before and after the 2020 presidential election.”

“This petition follows a related Pennsylvania case in which Justice Alito and two other justices observed ‘the constitutionality of the [Pennsylvania] Supreme Court’s decision [extending the statutory deadline for receipt of mail ballots from 8 pm on election day to 5 pm three days later] … has national importance, and there is a strong likelihood that the State Supreme Court decision violates the Federal Constitution”, Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani said in the campaign statement.

The actual rulings include prohibiting election officials from checking whether signatures on mail-in ballots are genuine during canvassing on Election Day and eliminating the right of campaign’s to challenge mail ballots during canvassing for forged signatures and other irregularities.

“Collectively, these three decisions resulted in counting approximately 2.6 million mail ballots in violation of the law as enacted by the Pennsylvania Legislature,” Trump’s attorney John Eastman wrote in the filing.

Congress is set to formally tally the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 and Biden will take office on Jan. 20.

The petition came days after Democrat Joe Biden won 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232 and defeated the Republican president by more than 7 million ballots in the popular vote. A candidate needs 270 of those votes.

Trump has refused to concede and continues his battle to overturn election results in several battleground states.

The Supreme Court on Dec. 11 rejected a lawsuit filed by Texas and backed by Trump seeking to throw out voting results in four states, including Pennsylvania that went for Biden.

Trump says widespread electoral fraud has taken place and has tried but failed to overturn Biden’s victory, pressing state officials, lawmakers and governors to throw the results out.

Several senior Republican US senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have acknowledged Biden as the country’s president-elect after the Electoral College affirmed his victory.

Source: Presstv

President-elect Joe Biden threw his weight into the Democratic battle for control of the US Senate on Tuesday, as his White House win was finally acknowledged by top Republicans and holdout foreign leaders.

Biden flew into Georgia — a southern state he won in an upset against President Donald Trump — to host a rally for two Democratic candidates in runoff races that will determine the Senate’s balance of power.

“Honk for your next United States senators Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock,” Biden told the crowd at the drive-in event in Atlanta — urging voters to turn out in force on January 5.

“Send me these two men, and we will control the Senate!”

Buttigieg named secretary of transport

One day after the Electoral College affirmed Biden’s victory, attention shifted to the looming Senate battle — and to the shape of the incoming administration, as Biden also announced he had nominated Pete Buttigieg, a former Indiana mayor and presidential rival, as secretary of transportation.

Buttigieg would be the first openly gay person confirmed by the Senate to a presidential cabinet post — in sync with Biden’s pledge to usher in the most diverse cabinet ever when he takes office on January 20.

And while Trump still refuses to concede — continuing to tweet baseless allegations of mass fraud that have been rejected in dozens of lawsuits — top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell finally broke his silence with a message to the president: it’s over.

“The Electoral College has spoken. So today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden,” McConnell said on the Senate floor, adding that Americans can also “take pride” that they will have their first female vice president in Kamala Harris.

Biden told reporters before flying to Georgia that he had a “good” phone conversation with McConnell, a longtime Senate colleague.

“I told him that while we disagree on a lot of things, there are things we can work together on,” Biden said.

The Electoral College confirmation triggered an acknowledgement of Biden’s win from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said he was “ready for collaboration” with the Democrat.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador — who had both waited until now to recognize the president-elect — also sent their congratulations.

‘Turn the page’

Trump, in unprecedented fashion, has yet to acknowledge his defeat in the chaotic election that will see him exit the White House after a single four-year term.

But Biden urged the divided country to “turn the page” as he welcomed the Electoral College vote on Monday, saying US democracy proved “resilient” against Trump’s “abuse of power.”

He praised voters for casting ballots in record numbers despite fears of Covid-19 and “enormous political pressure, verbal abuse and even threats of physical violence.”

The White House transition is occurring with the coronavirus pandemic surging, pushing US Covid-19 deaths above 300,000.

While critical winter months lie ahead, a bright spot has emerged with health care workers receiving the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine distributed in the nation.

And with top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci recommending Biden and Harris quickly take the vaccine, the president-elect said they would receive the shot in public view.

Minds on Georgia

Although the door has all but shut on his efforts to overturn the vote results, Trump has remained defiant, insisting in a series of tweets that he won a “landslide victory” and that there were still “tremendous problems” with the vote.

In a threatening move against Republican leaders in Georgia, where he has made baseless claims of massive voter fraud, he retweeted a pro-Trump lawyer who posted a picture of Georgia’s governor and secretary of state, saying “they will soon be going to jail.”

Democrats, who control the House of Representatives, need to flip both Georgia Senate seats in order to seize control of the upper chamber, while Republicans must hold just one to maintain their majority.

Republicans have framed Georgia as must-win races, with the state forming the last line of defense against what they describe as radical “socialism.”

If Republicans do, McConnell remains majority leader, and his relationship with Biden will quickly become the most closely watched in Washington.

The pair were known for striking deals during crunch periods when Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president.

But McConnell gave Obama no quarter, repeatedly stymying him on judicial nominations and forcing the president to curtail his legislative agenda.

Source: AFP

US President-elect Joe Biden has officially gained the Electoral College victory by hitting 270 votes.

Biden reached the crucial milestone after electors in the Blue state of California handed the former vice president 55 votes on Monday.

“We stand not for ourselves and not for our party but for the people of Georgia,” Stacey Abrams, a former Democratic gubernatorial candidate and one of her state’s 16 electors in Georgia said.

Barr resigns

Biden’s presidency was secured as Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr resigns.

“Just had a very nice meeting with Attorney General Bill Barr at the White House,” outgoing President Donald Trump said on Twitter. “Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job!”

He added that, “Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen, an outstanding person, will become Acting Attorney General. Highly respected Richard Donoghue will be taking over the duties of Deputy Attorney General.”

Barr’s resignation was announced amid speculations that the US president was considering parading himself from myriad potential crimes, some currently under investigation.

Trump is yet to concede his defeat in the 2020 presidential election to the Democratic nominee.

Members of Congress are expected to certify the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6. Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president on Jan. 20.

Source: Presstv

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he hopes France will “get rid of” President Emmanuel Macron in the shortest possible time, in his harshest remark against the French leader yet.

“Macron is a burden on France. Macron and France are going through a very dangerous period actually. My hope is that France gets rid of the Macron trouble as soon as possible,” Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul on Friday.

Turkey and France have been at odds over a range of issues, including Ankara’s dispute with Greece over sea boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean.

France has backed Athens in the maritime dispute, taking part in joint war games with Greece and Cyprus amid conflicting Greco-Turkish claims to territory in the sea believed to be rich in oil and natural gas.

Ties between the two NATO allies have also deteriorated over conflicting policies in Syria and Libya, even though they have backed and supplied militants in the two war-ravaged Arab countries.

Ankara and Paris have also traded barbs over their roles in the recent Nagorno-Karabkah conflict.

But Erdogan has grown specially bitter toward Macron over the French president’s defense of the publication of offensive caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by a French satirical magazine.

Anger grew across the Muslim world after Macron publicly attacked Islam in defense of the publication of the derogatory cartoons.

In early October, Macron said he would not “renounce the caricatures.” He instead described Islam as a religion “in crisis” and declared war on “Islamist separatism,” which he claimed was taking over France’s estimated six-million-strong Muslim population.

His remarks sparked sharp criticism from Muslim leaders and activists from around the world, including Erdogan, who described Macron’s posture as an “open provocation.”

Erdogan later said Macron “needs treatment on a mental level.”

Source: Presstv

The US attorney general rejected Republican claims of significant voter fraud in the presidential election on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on President Donald Trump to give up his quixotic effort to overturn Joe Biden’s clear victory.

“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” Attorney General Bill Barr told the Associated Press in an interview.

Barr’s comments confirmed the conclusions of the Department of Homeland Security, US intelligence and independent poll watchers that the 2020 election was, in the language of government officials, the “most secure in American history.”

They came as Trump persisted in claiming, without evidence, that fraudulent voting practices and systems in key states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia had robbed him of a second term.

In tweets Tuesday afternoon Trump highlighted testimony being offered in a public hearing on the election in Michigan, which has already certified Biden’s win in the state, and a separate Republican-organized event in Virginia.

Unsubstantiated claims

In several legal filings — all rejected by the courts — the Trump campaign has sought to invalidate millions of votes for Biden based on claims that lacked any evidence.

According to official vote tallies, Biden earned 6.2 million votes more than Trump and captured 306 state-by-state Electoral College votes, well above the 270 needed to win the presidency.

But Trump’s campaign has strived to delay the popular vote tally from being finalized before the Electoral College meets on December 14 to certify the election winner.

His personal and campaign attorneys, led by  , have made numerous allegations ranging from ballot-box stuffing and fake ballot printing, to thousands of dead people having voted, to vote-counting machines being programmed to favor Biden.

On November 17 Trump fired Chris Krebs, the respected head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which was responsible for election security and had made the “most secure ever” claim about the November 3 election.

Krebs has since been demonized by the White House, with Trump campaign lawyer Joe DiGenova sparking outrage by calling him a “moron” who should be “taken out at dawn and shot.”

No systemic fraud

Barr, an ally of Trump, didn’t address specific claims, but dismissed the idea of any “systemic” fraud that would have changed the outcome of the vote.

Any problem for which there has been evidence, Barr noted, would impact an insignificant number of votes.

“There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud, and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results,” he told the AP.

“And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that,” he said, referring to the departments of Homeland Security and Justice.

Giuliani rejects Barr

There was no immediate reaction to Barr from Trump. But in a joint statement Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, a senior legal advisor to the outgoing president’s campaign, dismissed the remarks.

“With all due respect to the attorney general, there hasn’t been any semblance of a Department of Justice investigation,” they said.

“We have gathered ample evidence of illegal voting in at least six states, which they have not examined. We have many witnesses swearing under oath they saw crimes being committed in connection with voter fraud.”

They said they would “continue our pursuit of the truth through the judicial system and state legislatures.”

Barr’s comments were reported about the same time he arrived Tuesday at the White House for unspecified meetings.

Recent news reports have said that Trump is unhappy with Barr for not making efforts to support the president’s reelection.

But, likely pleasing Trump, on Tuesday he revealed that he had named an independent special prosecutor to investigate the Justice Department and FBI investigators who probed links between Trump’s campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.

Trump has claimed that those investigators, including former special counsel Robert Mueller, were part of a corrupt, political “witch hunt” by the “deep state” to undermine his administration.   

Source: AFP

US ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison has spoken of a “smooth” and “seamless” transition into the administration of President-elect Joe Biden despite President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

“We are going to have a smooth transition so they have all the information they need to determine what the policy is,” she said Monday. “I think there will be a seamless transition.”

During his tenure, President Trump has pressured US allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, blaming them for not paying their “fair share.”

“President-elect Biden certainly is pro-NATO,” Hutchison said. “I served with him in the United States Senate and I know he is very much a multi-lateral organization supporter. We like to have allies. He likes to have allies. And I think that is ongoing from this administration to the next administration.”

She further suggested that Biden has the option to overturn the anti-NATO position Trump has adopted.

“Options are left open for the incoming administration in January,” Hutchison said. “The way that this has been put forward does leave the decisions for the next administration to determine what is in their best interests and in the interests of the United States, of course.”

Source: Presstv

President Donald Trump on Sunday questioned whether the Supreme Court would ever hear a case airing his unproven allegations of widespread election fraud as senior U.S. Republicans said a transition to a Joe Biden presidency looked inevitable.

Trump’s comments in a telephone interview with Fox News Channel suggested a growing resignation to the results of the Nov. 3 election that handed the White House to his Democratic opponent Biden, and it came as the Republican president’s team was dealt another blow.

The recount of ballots in Wisconsin’s two largest counties finished on Sunday, confirming Biden won the hotly contested state by more than 20,000 votes.

Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, chair of the congressional inaugural committee, said the group of senior lawmakers expects Biden to be sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

“We’re working with the Biden administration, the likely administration on both the transition and the inauguration as if we’re moving forward,” Blunt said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” though he stopped short of acknowledging Trump lost.

Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas is one of a few Republicans to refer to Biden as the president-elect.

“The transition is what is important. The words of President Trump are not quite as significant,” Hutchinson told “Fox News Sunday.”

Trump used his interview on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” to repeat the allegations he has made without evidence about widespread electoral fraud. His campaign and legal team have lost dozens of lawsuits by failing to convince judges of election irregularities in states including Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, all critical to Biden’s victory.

Trump was not clear on what legal steps he would take next. “The problem is it’s hard to get it to the Supreme Court,” Trump said, without clarifying whether he thought the court would decline to hear an appeal or whether his campaign may not even make one.

Trump’s legal team has offered conflicting statements on their likely course following a defeat in a federal appeals court on Friday in a case they were pursuing challenging Biden’s win in Pennsylvania.

“On to SCOTUS!” Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis wrote on Twitter after the ruling, suggesting a plan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Later, however, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani reportedly told One America News Network that the legal team was still weighing which case might be appropriate to pursue at the top court.

The U.S. Supreme Court has always been unlikely to tip the election in Trump’s favor, and the president finally seems to be acknowledging that reality, said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Trump’s challenge to the results in Pennsylvania, rejected by the appeals court on Friday, is a particularly poor vehicle for getting to the high court because at its core it involves a procedural question about whether Trump’s campaign should have been allowed to expand the case, Levinson said.

“There is nothing for the Supreme Court to decide,” Levinson said.

Trump said he will continue to fight the results of the election, saying “my mind will not change in six months.”

His comments appeared to signal his intention to continue contesting the outcome even after he leaves office. Aides say he has discussed several media ventures, including starting a television channel or social media company to keep him in the spotlight ahead of a potential 2024 White House bid.

Biden won the presidential election with 306 Electoral College votes – many more than the 270 required – to Trump’s 232. Biden also leads Trump by more than 6 million in the popular vote tally.

Source: REUTERS

President-elect Joe Biden will have an all-female senior communications team at his White House, led by campaign communications director Kate Bedingfield.

Bedingfield will serve as Biden’s White House communications director, and Jen Psaki, a longtime Democratic spokeswoman, will be his press secretary.

Biden also plans to name Neera Tanden, the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, as director of the Office of Management and Budget, according to a person familiar with the transition process granted anonymity to speak freely about internal deliberations.

All three are veterans of the Obama administration. Bedingfield served as communications director for Biden while he was vice president; Psaki was a White House communications director and a spokesperson at the State Department; and Tanden served as a senior adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

“Communicating directly and truthfully to the American people is one of the most important duties of a President, and this team will be entrusted with the tremendous responsibility of connecting the American people to the White House,” Biden said in a statement.

“These qualified, experienced communicators bring diverse perspectives to their work and a shared commitment to building this country back better,” he added.

Karine Jean Pierre, who was Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ chief of staff, will serve as a principal deputy press secretary for the president-elect. She’s another Obama administration alum, having served as a regional political director for the White House office of political affairs.

Pili Tobar, who was communications director for coalitions on Biden’s campaign, will be his deputy White House communications director.

Source: AP

The top US cyber security official fired by Republican President Donald Trump for saying the Nov. 3 election was the most secure in American history said on Friday voter fraud allegations made by Trump and his allies are “farcical”.

Chris Krebs, the former director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber security and Infrastructure Security Agency, told the CBS 60 Minutes program that allegations of U.S. voting machines being manipulated by foreign countries were baseless.

Sidney Powell, a Trump attorney cut loose by the Trump legal team this week, had put forward a conspiracy theory that election systems created in Venezuela at the behest of the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez helped tip the U.S. election to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.

She and others have also alleged that voting machines had flipped votes from Trump to Biden and some U.S. voting information was stored on servers in Germany.

“All votes in the Unites States of America are counted in the United States of America. Period,” Krebs said, in an excerpt broadcast on CBS Evening News. The full 60 Minutes interview will air on Sunday. Krebs was fired by Trump on Nov. 17 after calling the election the “most secure in American history.”

“There’s no evidence that any machine that I’m aware of has been manipulated by a foreign power,” Krebs said, calling such allegations “farcical claims.” He added: “The American people should have 100% confidence in their vote.”

Biden won the election with 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232. He leads Trump by over six million in the popular vote.

Trump and his lawyers continue to allege, without evidence, that the election was stolen through widespread fraud and Trump is the winner. Trump said on Thursday he will leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for Biden.

(Source: Reuters)