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Cruz Backs Supreme Review
Ted Cruz came out last night with a highly cogent argument for the Supreme Court taking up the case in Pennsylvania that would disqualify the mail-in ballots.
“Today, an emergency appeal was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the election results in Pennsylvania. This appeal raises serious legal issues, and I believe the Court should hear the case on an expedited basis.
“The Pennsylvania Constitution requires in-person voting, except in narrow and defined circumstances. Late last year, the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a law that purported to allow universal mail-in voting, notwithstanding the Pennsylvania Constitution’s express prohibition.
“This appeal argues that Pennsylvania cannot change the rules in the middle of the game. If Pennsylvania wants to change how voting occurs, the state must follow the law to do so.
“The illegality was compounded by a partisan Democrat Supreme Court in Pennsylvania, which has issued multiple decisions that reflect their political and ideological biases. Just over a month ago, Justice Alito, along with Justice Thomas and Justice Gorsuch, wrote-correctly, I believe-concerning the Pennsylvania court’s previous decision to count ballots received after Election Day, that ‘there is a strong likelihood that the State Supreme Court decision violates the Federal Constitution.’
“In the current appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed the claim based on a legal doctrine called ‘laches,’ which essentially means the plaintiffs waited too long to bring the challenge. But, the plaintiffs reasonably argue that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has not applied that doctrine consistently and so they cannot selectively enforce it now.
“Even more persuasively, the plaintiffs point out that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has also held that plaintiffs don’t have standing to challenge an election law until after the election, meaning that the court effectively put them in a Catch-22: before the election, they lacked standing; after the election, they’ve delayed too long. The result of the court’s gamesmanship is that a facially unconstitutional election law can never be judicially challenged.
“Ordinarily, the U.S. Supreme Court would stay out of election disputes, especially concerning state law. But these are not ordinary times.
“As of today, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, 39 percent of Americans believe that ‘the election was rigged.’ That is not healthy for our democracy. The bitter division and acrimony we see across the nation needs resolution. And I believe the U.S. Supreme Court has a responsibility to the American people to ensure that we are following the law and following the Constitution. Hearing this case-now, on an emergency expedited basis-would be an important step in helping rebuild confidence in the integrity of our democratic system.”
The initial lawsuit is summarized as follows:
Conservative Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and others contend state officials had no right under the Pennsylvania Constitution to expand mail-in voting in 2019, and the state Supreme Court was wrong to uphold that statute. The group called it “an unconstitutional, no-excuse absentee voting scheme.”
“Pennsylvania’s General Assembly exceeded its powers by unconstitutionally allowing no-excuse absentee voting, including for federal offices, in the election,” the challengers argued in court papers. As a result, the election was “conducted illegally.”
The group seeks an emergency injunction from the nation’s highest court to block the completion of any remaining steps in the state’s certification of Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results, which took place last week. The petition was submitted to Associate Justice Samuel Alito.
This is not a fraud case – it is about the legality of the changes to voting law. It will be interesting to see what the Supremes do – especially Clarence Thomas, who is very much about states’ rights.
Published in General
Or they’d rule for Trump.
That’s my prediction. One of the 3 outcomes. That’s how edgy I am, broseph.
The one case that the US Supreme Court might take and then rule in favor of Trump is the one where the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overruled state law and essentially changed the deadline for mail in ballots. But that wouldn’t change the results of the presidential election in Pennsylvania.
The more recent case where the federal judge nominated by Trump wrote the opinion for the 3rd federal circuit court of appeals saying Trump’s legal claim had “no merit” is unlikely to be heard by the US Supreme Court.
How long did the Mueller investigation take, to come up with nothing? 2 years?
I guess we get to limit presidential election investigation time to 3 weeks, and if you don’t have it wrapped up nice and neat in a bow in 3 weeks, forget it. We’ll just assume there was no fraud, no errors, no mismanagement, no incompetence, and no futzing with the vote. Because 3 weeks.
I’m not exactly confident in the DoJ, if you know what I mean. Barr or anybody else. A guy named “Comey” comes to mind here.
I have something to say to those who persist in characterizing those of us here who are insisting on an honest election process and outcome as Trump cultists. There may be cultists among some of those who gather for Trump rallies but I would not tag any here with that label unless those who want to be so tagged insist. I am not a cultist of any type, others may speak for themselves. I am a longtime anti-Communist and I continue in that mode. I am seeing emerging Communist behaviors in this pandemic, it is rampant in our educational processes and in public and social media, and I am seeing it in the election processes. I want honest and legal election processes and outcomes.
And since Bill Barr’s comments have been raised in this thread here is my comment from another post:
Bob Thompson
In these swing states where hearings are being conducted, with numerous witnesses who have provided sworn testimony indicating various forms of deliberate efforts to commit fraud during the voting process, many government employees and elected officials have acted in very deliberate ways to enable extensive fraud. This would include, for example, mailing out ballots to individuals without regard for their status as a registered voter, accepting mail in ballots without verification of signature, and judicial rulings overriding established constitutional requirements. Why would any of these actions be happening at all absent any intent to change an election outcome? I gave a very limited number of procedural variants designed to accommodate fraudulent votes and have not included any mention at all of possible computer system related fraud that has also been revealed in hearings.
Are AG Barr and his investigators at DoJ and DHS looking for some single act that would change an election outcome? That is what his statement leads me to believe and that is a very simple-minded approach to major national issue.
Well, there is a time limit involved.
There’s no question about that.
That would be a plausible reason for the Supreme Court or proper state authorities to take action to nullify voting by electors and shift the decision to Congress. The investigations could then be completed within whatever timeframe is required.
William Barr wants everyone to know that he is vigorously doing nothing and will continue vigorously doing nothing. This is very complicated,kind of like a NASCAR rope.
There is a time limit for the DoJ to take action that might affect the election results, but this is not the only remedy available. There is plenty of time to move forward with prosecutions for voting fraud, which should be done when warranted, whether or not such fraud would affect the result.
Thanks for the nice words. Let’s see if the SC will actually hear the case. This may shock you, but this idiot hopes SC does take the case so we can get some closure on this one way or the other and move on the GA Senate runoff, before the President completely ruins the chances of the R candidates winning there.
One question (admittedly from an idiot — but humor me): If the SC rules that there was no fraud or more likely — not enough fraud to overturn the results– will you accept that decision or will we have to listen to months and years about how the Conservative dominated SC is part of the vast, deep state conspiracy to prevent Donald Trump from having a second term?
Learning to live with it is not the same as thinking everything is kosher. I’m capable of managing my expectations when it comes to people in powerful positions. Unlike idiots, I actually expect to not win everything until the very end. In fact, I expect the powerful to be corrupt and protect their own interests. Unlike, it appears, idiots who enjoy punching down but can’t handle when their lessers punch up.
Yeah, I thought you were going to get steamrolled for your ‘idiocy’ usage and then it was confirmed by trying to make it all about a Trump second term. How can anyone think we can possibly have a Conservative dominated SC when the Democrats are lining up to pack it with Planned Parenthood advocates. The Anti-Trumpers are the true cultists.
From what I have seen in hearings and reported on testimony under oath given in affidavits there appears to have been significant fraudulent activity in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada. If all of this gets before the Supreme Court, they could decide to set aside the votes of the electors of these states because the amount of fraud is enough to make the actual outcome uncertain. So they send it to Congress where it is assured to get a constitutional result.
OK, folks — I can see that I need to bring some clarity to what I’m doing here, so pull up a chair and grab a bite to eat and maybe a drink (or two). This is going to take a while.
I have heard the punching down complaint a few times in past several weeks, but I don’t really understand it. Punching down implies I’m doing something nefarious like spiking comments or even suspending or banning members who I disagree with. Haven’t done any of that. Not once. I’m using the same commenting system you are in exactly the same way.
Yes, some of what I have written has been pointed. Sometimes it’s a tad sarcastic. Because it cuts through the noise and it tends to (not always) reset the conversation a bit. Is that punching down? If so, then guilty. But it’s not meant to punish or silence anyone, it’s only meant to draw fire away from others. More about that in a bit.
What I’m not doing is accepting your argument that the election was stolen or that there was massive fraud across multiple states involving hundreds of people at all level of government. This is not a fringe position as it puts me in the same ideological boat as many, many other prominent Republicans, including some cabinet level members of the Trump administration. I’m also not on board for making threats against elected officials, for encouraging Republican voters in GA not to participate in the runoff or to write in Donald Trump. I think the legal work on this case put forward by the Trump legal team has been shoddy and ineffective and their win-loss record is embarrassing.
My basic premise on this has been consistent: I’m open to your argument (I really am!), but show me the evidence. Affidavits and sworn testimony are one type of evidence, but realistically, the courts or even state legislators are never going to reverse the results on an election based solely on affidavits and sworn testimony. You need hard evidence to change election results, and I’m sorry, but we haven’t really seen that. Lots of smoke around hacked voting machines, and missing ballots, or mis-counted ballots, but the actual hard evidence never seems to materialize.
That’s not to say there wasn’t questionable interpretations about the rules surrounding mail in and absentee ballots. There clearly was. But the Trump legal team is ONLY going after those issues in states he lost. If this was actually about the integrity of elections, they’d be filing cases in every state where there was malfeasance.
This is getting far longer than I originally intended, so let me try and wrap it up: We have heard from many members in the past few weeks that these discussions have been very difficult to participate in if you are not Team Fraud. As someone who has participated, I have seen this myself as I have been called everything from a NeverTrumper (not an NT, more of a Trump Neutral), a Biden flak, a Socialist, an idiot, AOC hugger, and several things I cannot repeat here or I’d have to ban myself. That’s fine — I can take it, and in some respects it’s part of my job. But that’s not true of your fellow members. They’re paying for civil conversation too. And too many of the thread on these topics have turned into swamps.
I get asked a lot why we aren’t promoting more of these threads to the Main Feed. That’s why. We use the Main Feed as our primary marketing platform to sell memberships. If we promote a post full of name calling, vitriol, and wildly speculative theories, that’s bad for the business. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.
Most of the time, I and the other staff do not participate in the comments (OK, well, except for Max). We deliberately leave that area of the site to you. But we have gotten so many complaints about the tone and the browbeating nature of this debate, that I felt somewhat compelled to weigh in — not because I’m trying to squash or censor anyone, I waded into this because one, I don’t honestly don’t think there was massive fraud, and two, because Team No Fraud needed some players to help even out the match. That’s it. I don’t think I abused my position in doing that, but I’m open to being convinced otherwise.
That said, I’ll tell you what: I’ll pull back from these discussions and let you guys hash it out yourselves. But if we continue to see browbeating, name calling, and cut from The X-Files type conspiracy theories, you’ll likely be hearing from me again.
The problem is you aren’t persuadable. You take the court at it’s word without looking into the whys and wherefore of their rulings.
Did you know that when George Zimmerman sued CNN for libelous slander (they doctored a 911 recording making him sound racist), the court threw it out because he was a “Public Person.” That is farcical on its face. He was a public person because the press made him one. It created a circumstance where Z was completely locked out of justice.
While that’s not election related, it does go to the existence of questionable rulings and demands from courts that do stretch the demands of credulity.
Now, I’m sure you are a busy guy and you don’t have time to chase down every source of information and you rely on “trusted” media to keep you informed. You trust they are accurately presenting you the facts of the situation.
But are you aware they are blocking Trump’s efforts for discovery? Are you aware that they dismissed suits before the election because there were no damages yet? But they dismiss them after because they should have addressed it before? Are you aware there’s actually no process the court would accept when those are the rules? It is a Catch-22.
So sworn affidavits and testimony were claimed to be what you skeptics wanted at first. When it was shown those existed, you claimed suits had not been filed with the court. But they were. Now it’s that you need more than the affidavits, but all you are doing is regurgitating the courts that won’t allow the legal team to gain access to the means to find that evidence, even when they use sworn testimony to show there is a there there-more than anything that was provided to justify the mueller probe.
So that leaves us at an impasse – you assume a just court. I do not (see Zimmerman). You claim to be persuadable, but your moving goal posts suggest otherwise.
Punching down is what the media does to flyover country. Punching up is what flyover country does to the media. Punching at weight is what Trump does to the media.
I’m a stay at home mom. I rely on media to keep me informed, too. I don’t like reading court documents, I only understand somewhat the synopsis of research studies, I don’t have the time, desire, or even the means built on reputation and associations to chase down leads, ask questions, and document things.
I do not sit here on my phone finding info and tabulating links to findings so I can supply them to you. I get information in so many ways, many lacking the “reputation” of NRO and NYT, which means they have to document primary sources to back up their assertions. Like court documents, video recordings, and FOIA documents.
But you came in here waving Barr statements around like a flag relying on nothing but someone’s say so. No one can find an actual video of Barr’s statements. I’m sorry, but your news doesn’t deserve the benefit you give it.
Why would that not affect this election, especially since you acknowledge how easy it would be for those extra ballots to be “harvested?”
I’ve pointed out this comparison before: In something like a Soap Box Derby race, or a horse race or car race, if someone is found to have cheated – too heavy, or too light, etc – they are disqualified. It is not the responsibility of any of the other participants to somehow prove that they would have won, if not for the cheating. And indeed, in most situations such proof would be impossible. I don’t see any good reason for not applying the same standard to elections.
A thought experiment.
Some person votes twice, both times by secret ballot. So, we don’t know which candidate he voted for.
Biden wins the state by 12,000 votes. So, the answer is to award that state’s electoral votes to Trump?
If the shoe were on the other foot and judges used this reasoning to award the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton, I doubt you would support it.
We’re not talking about one person, and we know which way the fraud was directed. And we have very good reason, just by the numbers put forth so far in sworn affidavits in hearing testimony, and simple math with a pencil, to know that the fraud switched the election. We know this barring any strict standard of irrefutable video proof of each and every vote being fraudulently cast for Biden. In fact that irrefutable video proof may actually exist, but discovery isn’t being allowed. So — of course there’s not significant fraud! And of course we are just crazy conspiracy theorists!
What matters isn’t what you believe. It’s what you can prove to a state or federal judge.
Trump’s legal team has clearly failed.
I know of no one who would support an election being overturned because of one person voting twice (though obviously neither of the person’s votes should be counted)
But Scott Adams brought up a good point this morning on the issue of bullying. There are witnesses who have attested that the bullying was not only targeted towards R watchers/checkers, there was actual training on how to get rid of them. If there was training on how people could get rid of watchers, and that training was enacted, throw the whole damn election away as far as I’m concerned, regardless of consequences.
I would add that Yeti among others seem determined to require proof of some overall conspiracy based at Get Rid Of Trump By Any Means Necessary HQ in NYC or something.
That’s not the right comparison. The comparison would be that the person’s votes – both of them – get disqualified, without anybody having to prove that “it made THE difference in the outcome.”
This time around, an example would be, all of those improper PA mail-in ballots get disqualified, without anyone expecting proof that it would have changed the outcome. Because if you do that onesie-twosie, state by state, you end up not disqualifying ANYONE, and the result is that the fraud stands. But if you apply that standard everywhere, and ALL of the various improper ballots get thrown out, then maybe it DOES change the outcome.
Didn’t Yeti go to great lengths to explain his intimate connection to the Republican establishment elite:
“This is not a fringe position as it puts me in the same ideological boat as many, many other prominent Republicans, including some cabinet level members of the Trump administration.”
He’s not a member of the Trump cult like the rest of us so there’s no call for any evidence being uncovered to be reported in any national media in any fashion. What I think any of us can take Yeti’s statement to include is no problem at all with the almost totally negative coverage by mainstream media of Trump and no critical coverage at all of Joe Biden. The example posed of one voter voting twice is about it for Yeti given to us in his own words. So don’t believe your lying eyes and ears.
The burden of proof is on those who say Trump had the election stolen from him. So far, state and federal judges, including judges nominated by Trump, indicate they Trump’s legal team has not met the burden of proof.
You don’t recognize the Communist approach when it is right in front of you. Every crucial piece of this election operation , so far, has been in the hands of those using that approach. So far.
Very good. I’m glad you say that it doesn’t matter what you believe. For me, it matters. You bias is quite evident.
Repeating, because it seems to be necessary:
This time around, an example would be, all of those improper PA mail-in ballots get disqualified, without anyone expecting proof that it would have changed the outcome. Because if you do that onesie-twosie, state by state, you end up not disqualifying ANYONE, and the result is that the fraud stands. But if you apply that standard everywhere, and ALL of the various improper ballots get thrown out, then maybe it DOES change the outcome.
The Communist approach?
Are you accusing the Republican governors of Arizona and Georgia of being communists?
You can believe whatever you want. But in terms of who will actually become president next January, proof is required if the election results are going to be overturned.