Behind The Wall of Government Election 2020
Supreme Court denies Trump allies’ bid to overturn Pennsylvania election results
Dec. 8, 2020 at 5:45 p.m. EST
The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a last-minute attempt by President Trump’s allies to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania, a blow to the president’s continuing efforts to reverse his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
The court’s brief order denying a requested injunction provided no reasoning, nor did it note any dissenting votes. It was the first request to delay or overturn the results of last month’s presidential election to reach the court, and it appears that Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s latest nominee, took part in the case.
The lawsuit was part of a blizzard of litigation and personal interventions Trump and his lawyers have waged to overturn victories by Biden in a handful of key states. But time is running out, and the electoral college is scheduled to meet in less than a week.
[ . . . ]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-trump-pennsylvania-election-results/2020/12/08/4d39e16c-397d-11eb-98c4-25dc9f4987e8_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0OZAzx9RTA-6J7_Nhq6Vc6QMysf7hleFT5mHHAq2bhZ7pymdjNxL0Ts4Y
Dec. 8, 2020 at 5:45 p.m. EST
The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a last-minute attempt by President Trump’s allies to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania, a blow to the president’s continuing efforts to reverse his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
The court’s brief order denying a requested injunction provided no reasoning, nor did it note any dissenting votes. It was the first request to delay or overturn the results of last month’s presidential election to reach the court, and it appears that Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s latest nominee, took part in the case.
The lawsuit was part of a blizzard of litigation and personal interventions Trump and his lawyers have waged to overturn victories by Biden in a handful of key states. But time is running out, and the electoral college is scheduled to meet in less than a week.
[ . . . ]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-trump-pennsylvania-election-results/2020/12/08/4d39e16c-397d-11eb-98c4-25dc9f4987e8_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0OZAzx9RTA-6J7_Nhq6Vc6QMysf7hleFT5mHHAq2bhZ7pymdjNxL0Ts4Y
...
Arkansas, Alabama & Louisiana support Texas before US Supreme Court, alleging ‘unconstitutional’ election in four states
8 Dec, 2020 23:09 / Updated 5 hours ago
Attorneys-general of Arkansas and Alabama have now joined Louisiana in backing the push by Texas to challenge the presidential election results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin before the US Supreme Court.
“After reviewing the motion filed by Texas in the US Supreme Court, I have determined that I will support the motion in all legally appropriate manners. The integrity of our elections is a critical part of our nation and it must be upheld,” Arkansas AG Leslie Rutlege announced on Tuesday evening.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall issued a statement likewise supporting the effort of his Texas colleague Ken Paxton, saying that “unconstitutional actions and fraudulent votes in other states not only affect the citizens of those states, they affect the citizens of all states.”
Every unlawful vote counted, or lawful vote uncounted, debases and dilutes citizens’ free exercise of the franchise.
The four battleground states declared Democrat Joe Biden the victor based on large numbers of mail-in ballots counted after Election Day.
While Marshall stopped short of signing on to the Texas lawsuit, he said that he expects the Supreme Court to “quickly” decide whether to hear the case, and that the decision will “instruct” Alabama how to continue fighting to ensure election integrity.
Earlier in the evening, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said his state had “deep concerns” about how the elections were run in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
While Landry did not sign onto the Texas lawsuit either, he said it echoes the claims made in the previous amicus brief by several states, backing Pennsylvania Republicans who wanted the election results in the Keystone State voided due to irregularities.
Both mainstream media and social networks hastened to declare Biden the winner of the election and label as “false” or “disputed” anything that challenged that, in particular President Donald Trump.
Unlike the cases brought by Trump’s own lawyers and allies, however, Texas is not alleging election fraud, but arguing that the four states engaged in “voting irregularities,” improper “amendments to States’ duly enacted election laws,” and even potential suppression of the Republican vote, “whether lawful or unlawful.”
“These flaws cumulatively preclude knowing who legitimately won the 2020 election and threaten to cloud all future elections,” said the motion filed by Texas AG Ken Paxton, which the Supreme Court has placed on the docket, but has yet to adjudicate.
Paxton argues that the four states’ declaring Biden the winner is “unlawful” and should be reviewed by state legislators, who under the Constitution have the power to appoint electors themselves. Republicans control all four state legislatures.
The Supreme Court has given the four states until Thursday afternoon to file responses to Paxton's suit.
8 Dec, 2020 23:09 / Updated 5 hours ago
Attorneys-general of Arkansas and Alabama have now joined Louisiana in backing the push by Texas to challenge the presidential election results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin before the US Supreme Court.
“After reviewing the motion filed by Texas in the US Supreme Court, I have determined that I will support the motion in all legally appropriate manners. The integrity of our elections is a critical part of our nation and it must be upheld,” Arkansas AG Leslie Rutlege announced on Tuesday evening.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall issued a statement likewise supporting the effort of his Texas colleague Ken Paxton, saying that “unconstitutional actions and fraudulent votes in other states not only affect the citizens of those states, they affect the citizens of all states.”
Every unlawful vote counted, or lawful vote uncounted, debases and dilutes citizens’ free exercise of the franchise.
The four battleground states declared Democrat Joe Biden the victor based on large numbers of mail-in ballots counted after Election Day.
While Marshall stopped short of signing on to the Texas lawsuit, he said that he expects the Supreme Court to “quickly” decide whether to hear the case, and that the decision will “instruct” Alabama how to continue fighting to ensure election integrity.
Earlier in the evening, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said his state had “deep concerns” about how the elections were run in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
While Landry did not sign onto the Texas lawsuit either, he said it echoes the claims made in the previous amicus brief by several states, backing Pennsylvania Republicans who wanted the election results in the Keystone State voided due to irregularities.
Both mainstream media and social networks hastened to declare Biden the winner of the election and label as “false” or “disputed” anything that challenged that, in particular President Donald Trump.
Unlike the cases brought by Trump’s own lawyers and allies, however, Texas is not alleging election fraud, but arguing that the four states engaged in “voting irregularities,” improper “amendments to States’ duly enacted election laws,” and even potential suppression of the Republican vote, “whether lawful or unlawful.”
“These flaws cumulatively preclude knowing who legitimately won the 2020 election and threaten to cloud all future elections,” said the motion filed by Texas AG Ken Paxton, which the Supreme Court has placed on the docket, but has yet to adjudicate.
Paxton argues that the four states’ declaring Biden the winner is “unlawful” and should be reviewed by state legislators, who under the Constitution have the power to appoint electors themselves. Republicans control all four state legislatures.
The Supreme Court has given the four states until Thursday afternoon to file responses to Paxton's suit.
December 9, 2020 (Wednesday)
[ Covid Stuff ]
As the country suffers, Trump has launched a new approach in his attempt to steal the 2020 election. While he has previously insisted that he actually won, and that his “win” must be recognized, this morning he tweeted simply “OVERTURN.” Republican leaders have ducked the question of Trump’s refusal to acknowledge Joe Biden’s win in the election by saying that the president has a right to challenge an election through legal means. Few of them commented on this new attack on our democracy.
Instead, the Republican attorneys general of seventeen states supported a lawsuit Texas has asked the Supreme Court’s permission to file against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, suing them over their voting processes. A majority of voters in those four states voted for Biden, thus giving him their state’s electoral votes and the presidency. The states that want to sue are all Republican-majority states. They are hoping they can get the Supreme Court to allow them to sue, and that it will then agree with their complaint and throw out the votes from those states so the Republican legislatures there can then choose their own electors and give the win to Trump.
[ States backing the Texas lawsuit ]
[ Trump's statements at a House Hannukah party [ I kid you not. . .]
Legal experts say this case is a non-starter. University of Texas Law Professor Steve Vladeck writes, “It is lacking in actual evidence; it is deeply cynical; it evinces stunning disrespect for both the role of the courts in our constitutional system and of the states in our elections; and it is doomed to fail.”
But the fact that Republican leaders have accepted,
rather than condemned, this attempt to overturn a legitimate election says they are willing to destroy American democracy in order to stay in power. On CNN tonight, former Ohio Governor John Kasich, a Republican himself, called the lawmakers supporting Trump’s attack on democracy “morally and ethically bankrupt.”
Republicans might be stoking attacks on our electoral system because they know the courts will shut them down. After all, Trump’s lawyers are currently 1-51 in court, and it is unlikely the Supreme Court will take up Texas’s lawsuit. So siding with Trump is a cheap way for leaders to avoid alienating his voters when they will want those voters in 2022.
But they are playing a deeply cynical and wildly dangerous game. Yesterday, the official Twitter account of the Arizona Republican Party asked followers if they were willing to die to overturn the election, then posted a clip from the film “Rambo” in which the main character is threatening someone’s life, saying “This is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something.”
[ Rush Limbaugh's stuff ]
The theme of civil war, and of America tearing itself apart, was one pushed hard by Russian operatives in 2018. On Twitter, “Civil War” trended today. An actual civil war is highly unlikely, but the unwillingness of leaders to stop this language is already leading to death threats against election officials. The longer they permit it to go on, the worse things will get.
Republicans are working to undermine the incoming Democratic administration in other ways, too. Last week, Attorney General William Barr announced that he appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham as special counsel in October to investigate the FBI agents who worked on the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. While the law about special counsels says they must come from outside the government, Barr claims to have found a loophole in that rule. Durham can be fired only for specific reasons such as conflict of interest or misconduct. Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) applauded the appointment and the continuation of the investigation.
Today Biden’s son Hunter told the media that he has just learned that he is under investigation by the Department of Justice for tax issues, although CNN suggested it is a much wider financial investigation than that, and that it began in 2018. The Justice Department is also investigating a company related to Joe Biden’s brother James. While the DOJ is supposed to be independent of the president, these investigations echo Trump’s own calls for such investigations. Immediately Representative Ken Buck (R-CO) called for a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, and tonight, Trump tweeted that “10% of voters would have changed their vote if they knew about Hunter Biden…. But I won anyway!”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told Fox News Channel personality Laura Ingraham today that Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) should be “removed from Congress” after an Axios report that a Chinese intelligence operative had worked to ingratiate herself with California lawmakers between 2011 and 2015. The operative targeted a number of politicians, including Swalwell, and she fundraised on his behalf, but there is no evidence she broke any laws. In 2015, FBI officers alerted Swalwell, who immediately cut all ties to her. He was never accused of any wrongdoing. The operative left the country unexpectedly during the FBI investigation.
Although the Axios story was about Chinese espionage, right-wing media is aflame with attacks on Swalwell in what seems an attempt to discredit a Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Don Jr. tweeted that Swalwell “was literally sleeping with a Chinese spy,” an allegation that is nowhere in the story, although the story mentions that two unidentified midwestern mayors had affairs with her.
The White House appears to be trying to sabotage the Biden administration not only by keeping the Biden team from information it needs, but by tying its hands and slowing it down. The day after the election, the Trump administration proposed a new rule requiring the new Department of Health and Human Services appointees to review most of the department’s regulations by 2023. The rule would automatically kill any regulations that haven’t been reviewed by then. This would mean that, just as the new administration is trying to fight the coronavirus, it would be slammed with administrative paperwork. The department’s chief of staff denies the unusual move is political, saying that a review is necessary because one hasn’t been done for 40 years.
Now that the transition process has finally started, Trump loyalists are blocking meetings, or sitting in on them to monitor what is being said, especially at the Environmental Protection Agency. At Voice of America, Trump’s appointed head, Michael Pack, has refused to give meetings or records to Biden’s team. For their part, Biden’s transition folks are avoiding fights in order to get whatever information they can.
Republican senators are also signaling that they intend to delay confirmations on Biden’s nominees, although in the past 95% of Cabinet nominees have had hearings before an inauguration, and 84% of those were approved within three days. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), for example, questioned the experience of Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra. Becerra is the Attorney General of California, and he sat on the House Committee on Ways and Means, which oversees health issues, during his 24 years in Congress. “I don’t know what his Health and Human Services credentials are,” Cornyn told The Hill. It’s not like [Trump’s HHS Secretary] Alex Azar, who worked for pharma and had a health care background.”
~ Heather Cox-Richardson
I've omitted some of the information because of the character limitation per post; however, you can read the full post here is you so choose.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/
[ Covid Stuff ]
As the country suffers, Trump has launched a new approach in his attempt to steal the 2020 election. While he has previously insisted that he actually won, and that his “win” must be recognized, this morning he tweeted simply “OVERTURN.” Republican leaders have ducked the question of Trump’s refusal to acknowledge Joe Biden’s win in the election by saying that the president has a right to challenge an election through legal means. Few of them commented on this new attack on our democracy.
Instead, the Republican attorneys general of seventeen states supported a lawsuit Texas has asked the Supreme Court’s permission to file against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, suing them over their voting processes. A majority of voters in those four states voted for Biden, thus giving him their state’s electoral votes and the presidency. The states that want to sue are all Republican-majority states. They are hoping they can get the Supreme Court to allow them to sue, and that it will then agree with their complaint and throw out the votes from those states so the Republican legislatures there can then choose their own electors and give the win to Trump.
[ States backing the Texas lawsuit ]
[ Trump's statements at a House Hannukah party [ I kid you not. . .]
Legal experts say this case is a non-starter. University of Texas Law Professor Steve Vladeck writes, “It is lacking in actual evidence; it is deeply cynical; it evinces stunning disrespect for both the role of the courts in our constitutional system and of the states in our elections; and it is doomed to fail.”
But the fact that Republican leaders have accepted,
rather than condemned, this attempt to overturn a legitimate election says they are willing to destroy American democracy in order to stay in power. On CNN tonight, former Ohio Governor John Kasich, a Republican himself, called the lawmakers supporting Trump’s attack on democracy “morally and ethically bankrupt.”
Republicans might be stoking attacks on our electoral system because they know the courts will shut them down. After all, Trump’s lawyers are currently 1-51 in court, and it is unlikely the Supreme Court will take up Texas’s lawsuit. So siding with Trump is a cheap way for leaders to avoid alienating his voters when they will want those voters in 2022.
But they are playing a deeply cynical and wildly dangerous game. Yesterday, the official Twitter account of the Arizona Republican Party asked followers if they were willing to die to overturn the election, then posted a clip from the film “Rambo” in which the main character is threatening someone’s life, saying “This is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something.”
[ Rush Limbaugh's stuff ]
The theme of civil war, and of America tearing itself apart, was one pushed hard by Russian operatives in 2018. On Twitter, “Civil War” trended today. An actual civil war is highly unlikely, but the unwillingness of leaders to stop this language is already leading to death threats against election officials. The longer they permit it to go on, the worse things will get.
Republicans are working to undermine the incoming Democratic administration in other ways, too. Last week, Attorney General William Barr announced that he appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham as special counsel in October to investigate the FBI agents who worked on the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. While the law about special counsels says they must come from outside the government, Barr claims to have found a loophole in that rule. Durham can be fired only for specific reasons such as conflict of interest or misconduct. Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) applauded the appointment and the continuation of the investigation.
Today Biden’s son Hunter told the media that he has just learned that he is under investigation by the Department of Justice for tax issues, although CNN suggested it is a much wider financial investigation than that, and that it began in 2018. The Justice Department is also investigating a company related to Joe Biden’s brother James. While the DOJ is supposed to be independent of the president, these investigations echo Trump’s own calls for such investigations. Immediately Representative Ken Buck (R-CO) called for a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, and tonight, Trump tweeted that “10% of voters would have changed their vote if they knew about Hunter Biden…. But I won anyway!”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told Fox News Channel personality Laura Ingraham today that Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) should be “removed from Congress” after an Axios report that a Chinese intelligence operative had worked to ingratiate herself with California lawmakers between 2011 and 2015. The operative targeted a number of politicians, including Swalwell, and she fundraised on his behalf, but there is no evidence she broke any laws. In 2015, FBI officers alerted Swalwell, who immediately cut all ties to her. He was never accused of any wrongdoing. The operative left the country unexpectedly during the FBI investigation.
Although the Axios story was about Chinese espionage, right-wing media is aflame with attacks on Swalwell in what seems an attempt to discredit a Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Don Jr. tweeted that Swalwell “was literally sleeping with a Chinese spy,” an allegation that is nowhere in the story, although the story mentions that two unidentified midwestern mayors had affairs with her.
The White House appears to be trying to sabotage the Biden administration not only by keeping the Biden team from information it needs, but by tying its hands and slowing it down. The day after the election, the Trump administration proposed a new rule requiring the new Department of Health and Human Services appointees to review most of the department’s regulations by 2023. The rule would automatically kill any regulations that haven’t been reviewed by then. This would mean that, just as the new administration is trying to fight the coronavirus, it would be slammed with administrative paperwork. The department’s chief of staff denies the unusual move is political, saying that a review is necessary because one hasn’t been done for 40 years.
Now that the transition process has finally started, Trump loyalists are blocking meetings, or sitting in on them to monitor what is being said, especially at the Environmental Protection Agency. At Voice of America, Trump’s appointed head, Michael Pack, has refused to give meetings or records to Biden’s team. For their part, Biden’s transition folks are avoiding fights in order to get whatever information they can.
Republican senators are also signaling that they intend to delay confirmations on Biden’s nominees, although in the past 95% of Cabinet nominees have had hearings before an inauguration, and 84% of those were approved within three days. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), for example, questioned the experience of Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra. Becerra is the Attorney General of California, and he sat on the House Committee on Ways and Means, which oversees health issues, during his 24 years in Congress. “I don’t know what his Health and Human Services credentials are,” Cornyn told The Hill. It’s not like [Trump’s HHS Secretary] Alex Azar, who worked for pharma and had a health care background.”
~ Heather Cox-Richardson
I've omitted some of the information because of the character limitation per post; however, you can read the full post here is you so choose.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/
^
Heather Cox Richardson is an American historian and Professor of History at Boston College, where she teaches courses on the American Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, the American West, and the Plains Indians. She previously taught at MIT and the University of Massachusetts.
Heather Cox Richardson is an American historian and Professor of History at Boston College, where she teaches courses on the American Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, the American West, and the Plains Indians. She previously taught at MIT and the University of Massachusetts.
I admire this post Ahavati
Legal experts say this case is a non-starter. University of Texas Law Professor Steve Vladeck writes, “It is lacking in actual evidence; it is deeply cynical; it evinces stunning disrespect for both the role of the courts in our constitutional system and of the states in our elections; and it is doomed to fail
Legal experts say this case is a non-starter. University of Texas Law Professor Steve Vladeck writes, “It is lacking in actual evidence; it is deeply cynical; it evinces stunning disrespect for both the role of the courts in our constitutional system and of the states in our elections; and it is doomed to fail
Yesterday, the official Twitter account of the Arizona Republican Party asked followers if they were willing to die to overturn the election, then posted a clip from the film “Rambo” in which the main character is threatening someone’s life, saying “This is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something😮.
