U.S. Electile Dementia paralytica 2024

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by chalsall

It is interesting to observe that Law is simply code.

Testing that code seems to be a rather interesting exercise lately.
<snip>

The results of one test are in. US District Judge Aileen Cannon exceeded her authority when she ordered a "Special Master" to review documents lawfully seized by executing s search warrant. She has been instructed to dismiss the entire proceeding.

DONALD J. TRUMP, Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 9:22-cv-81294-AMC

Opinion of the Court 22-13005

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, GRANT, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

This appeal requires us to consider whether the district court had jurisdiction to block the United States from using lawfully seized records in a criminal investigation. The answer is no.
[...]
The law is clear. We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so. Either approach would be a radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts' involvement in criminal investigations. And both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations. Accordingly, we agree with the government that the district court improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction, and that dismissal of the entire proceeding is required.

The district court improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction in this case. For that reason, we VACATE the September 5 order on appeal and REMAND with instructions for the district court to DISMISS the underlying civil action

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

She has been instructed to dismiss the entire proceeding.

A bit like a divide-by-zero interrupt, only different... 9^)

[retina]

Legal language isn't like computer code. It is more like the Bible or the Quran. Open to interpretation, misunderstanding, misuse and abuse.

A good example of this is the recent US abortion re-interpretation. In just the same way the flat/round Earth had various religions in a spin, until they were re-interpreted. And obviously the most recent interpretation is the "correct" one, Right? Until the next time it is re-interpreted to mean the something else.

[Dr Sardonicus]

IMO a much more cogent point is that people aren't computers. A computer has no discretion in "interpreting" its programming. It will interpret instructions as it is told to interpret them. As the peasant-robot said in the Fururama episode The Honking, "I choose to believe what I was programmed to believe!"

People, on the other hand, can and will disregard legal provisions in favor of what they want, or what they think the law should say. In some cases, litigants file actions in "bad faith," that is, knowing their cases are garbage. They might even make claims they know, or should know, to be false. A lot of the cases filed, purportedly contesting the 2020 Presidential election, were of this type.

And, as in the present instance, judges can make bad rulings. The language of the ruling from the 11th Circuit appeals court indicates that the badness of Judge Cannon's ruling is particularly egregious.

Bad faith filings and bad rulings may reasonably be viewed as "hardware problems." If a computer starts exhibiting hardware problems, the obvious thing to do is to identify what's malfunctioning, and then decide what to do about it. Unfortunately, our legal system is not doing a good job in defending itself against bad-faith litigants. AFAIK the only attorney in the 2020 election challenges who has had his law license even suspended is Rudy Giuliani. IMO he, Sidney Powell and Lin Wood should all be permanently disbarred.

Judges who make bad rulings are more problematic. The only real sanction is kicking them off the bench. Kicking a federal judge off the bench requires impeachment by the US House of Representatives, and a more than 2/3 vote of the US Senate to convict.

It seems, however, that Krazy Kari Lake was absolutely right about Arizonans knowing BS when they see it. Voters who were generally voting Republican were splitting their tickets, specifically to vote against "election deniers," including her.

Originally Posted by Poor Richard's Almanac

A lie stands on one leg, truth on two.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

IMO a much more cogent point is that people aren't computers. A computer has no discretion in "interpreting" its programming. It will interpret instructions as it is told to interpret them.

At a low enough level: registers, RAM cells, microcode, and the like that is overwhelmingly true. Exceptions to the rule include thermal noise, radioactive decay and specifically designed sources of random numbers.

At a high enough level that is very far from true. Ever heard of GIGO - garbage in garbage out? A complex system responding to an unpredictable environment very often has unpredictable behaviour. It might be possible to explain why a particular reaction occurred after a series of events occured but it is frequently exceedingly difficult verging on impossible to predict a particular sequence of events in advance.

FWIW, I bellieve the same is true of people at a biochemical level.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Arizona's midterm election results were certified by state officials Monday, December 5. This came after the Cochise County Board of Election Supervisors, which had missed the legal deadline for certification, was ordered to comply with the law and certify the results for that county.

The only legal reason the Board would have had for not certifying was if not all results were in. But all results were in. Legally, they had no discretion - certification was a "ministerial function," a mere formality, and they were legally required to carry it out.

The reason the two R's on the Board refused to certify was, they didn't like the results from another county (Maricopa County) and just had to throw a hissy fit. Of course, legally, that is no excuse.

So they had to come up with a plausible excuse. The excuse they came up with was a bogus claim that the machines used in counting the votes were not certified. This claim had already been taken to court and had been shot down in flames.

When the certification deadline expired, state officials sued, and the matter went to court. The Cochise County Attorney, who normally handles legal matters for the Board, refused to handle this case, because he had already advised the Board that they were acting illegally. The Board turned to Bryan Blehm, who had represented the "Cyber Ninjas" in its shambolic "audit" of the 2020 general election in Arizona. Even he turned them down. So, a couple of hours before the Thursday court date, they turned to a Phoenix law firm. When the Board showed up in court without counsel, and asked for a continuance, the judge wasn't having any of it. He pointed out that they'd had plenty of time to hire a lawyer, and that delay was not in the interests of justice. He finally ordered from the bench that the Board meet and certify the results that very day. One of the R's skipped the meeting, and the other two members voted to certify the results for the county.

Also on Thursday, a federal judge granted a defense motion to sanction the lawyers who filed a lawsuit by Kari Lake et al, ordering them to pay opposing counsel for their efforts in representing the defendants against a lawsuit he had already dismissed as legally frivolous. Too bad he didn't sanction the Plaintiffs themselves.

Kari Lake is expected to file a new lawsuit claiming that the fact she lost proves the election was invalid. Or something like that.

[retina]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Kari Lake is expected to file a new lawsuit claiming that the fact she lost proves the election was invalid.

There is nothing like accepting defeat with grace and dignity.

And indeed that is nothing like accepting defeat with grace and dignity.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by retina

And indeed that is nothing like accepting defeat with grace and dignity.

The new dark ages. My heart sincerely goes out to those who are working within these kinds of spaces.

[Dr Sardonicus]

One Mohave County, AZ election official decided to vote to certify after being threatened with jail if he didn't. He then made the ludicrous assertion that the threat of jail for breaking the law was "duress." A week ago on Steve Bannon's show, Lake said the certification would not stand up in court because it was made "under duress." Then,

Originally Posted by Kari Lake

But I wish that somebody would say, 'You know what? Arrest me then. I don't care. We need people with courage to say, 'Class what felony? Go ahead, go for it, arrest me because this is a botched election and you're disenfranchising the folks in Mohave County when you allow this kind of election in Maricopa County to stand.'

It seems that refusing to perform the legally mandated certification is a class 6 felony. According to Arizona state law, Kari Lake could be charged with a class 2 misdemeanor for soliciting the offense:

2010 Arizona Revised Statutes
Title 13 - Criminal Code
13-1002 Solicitation; classifications

A. A person, other than a peace officer acting in his official capacity within the scope of his authority and in the line of duty, commits solicitation if, with the intent to promote or facilitate the commission of a felony or misdemeanor, such person commands, encourages, requests or solicits another person to engage in specific conduct which would constitute the felony or misdemeanor or which would establish the other's complicity in its commission.

B. Solicitation is a:

1. Class 3 felony if the offense solicited is a class 1 felony.

2. Class 4 felony if the offense solicited is a class 2 felony.

3. Class 5 felony if the offense solicited is a class 3 felony.

4. Class 6 felony if the offense solicited is a class 4 felony.

5. Class 1 misdemeanor if the offense solicited is a class 5 felony.

6. Class 2 misdemeanor if the offense solicited is a class 6 felony.

7. Class 3 misdemeanor if the offense solicited is a misdemeanor.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

It seems that refusing to perform the legally mandated certification is a class 6 felony. According to Arizona state law, Kari Lake could be charged with a class 2 misdemeanor for soliciting the offense:

Please forgive me for this, but that looks like a fairly simple logic path.

Trivial to implement in hardware. Or even in software (if ... then ...).

[Dr Sardonicus]

The US Supreme Court hears arguments today in Moore v. Harper. At issue is the recently concocted "Independent Legislature Theory" which basically says that state legislatures have absolute authority to dictate how federal elections are run in their state, not subject to any form of review. A state legislature could, according to this theory, give itself the authority to override election results and appoint whomever it chose to go to D.C. in any race.

Meanwhile, the last race in the 2022 midterm election, the US Senate runoff in Georgia, has been decided. Raphael Warnock will be returning to D.C. The Democrats will have a 51-49 majority in the US Senate.

I started reading about Kari Lake's lawsuit to undo the 2022 election in Arizona. I stopped when I read

Lake's legal team has been collecting affidavits from voters who claim they were unable to vote on Election Day because of problems with ballot machines

That told me all I needed to know. The suit is absolute BS.