U.S. Electile Dementia paralytica 2020

[rogue]

It is probably a good thing that the Democrats still control the House of Representatives. If they did not, then I could see Congress throwing out the election results and keeping Trump in power.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by kladner

Here is a comment from the Independent:

Can you post a link to that? My quick searches came up void.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kladner

Here is a comment from the Independent:

I suspect you made this up



When I saw no link, I looked just to see if was in The Onion or other satirical publication. No soap. It's reasonably funny, but sad to think our Crybaby-in-Chief's behavior makes the idea plausible. He did tweet that SCOTUS had "let us down" and that they showed no "courage" or "wisdom."

Of course, there is no venue in which to sue the US Supreme Court, and of course the European Court of Justice in particular lacks jurisdiction.

Here in the USA, you can't sue any judge in any court for a ruling, even if it's a bad ruling, an unlawful ruling, a malicious ruling. A lower court's decisions can be appealed.

I suppose they could try to resurrect the Texas case with a Petition to Reconsider, but I doubt it.

Treason is a criminal offense, not a civil tort. However, it has been a tactic of Team Orange to call those contradicting him "traitors." Chris Krebs is suing over it.



Treason against the United States is also unique in American jurisprudence. It is the only crime explicitly defined in the Constitution of the United States (Article III, Section 3, which also prescribes a unique standard of proof required for conviction.)

Our founding fathers were familiar with the history of despots using trumped-up treason charges to kill off political opponents or other troublesome persons.

(The aptness of the usage "trumped-up" is merely coincidental, but the coincidence absolutely delights me.)

[Dr Sardonicus]

While the Wisconsin Supreme Court was hearing arguments on a Saturday in the State elections case, the decision came down in the federal case in US District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Case No. 20-cv-1785-bhl Trump v. The Wisconsin Elections Commission et al.

Judge Brett H. Ludwig, whose nomination went to the US Senate in March 2020 and was confirmed by the US Senate in September 2020, wrote:

A sitting president who did not prevail in his bid for reelection has asked for federal court help in setting aside the popular vote on disputed issues of election administration, issues he plainly could have raised before the vote occurred. This court allowed the plaintiff the chance to make his case and he has lost on the merits.

Case dismissed "with prejudice."

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Case dismissed "with prejudice."

Those are important words.

They are different than "without prejudice", which many people receive in some forms of comms.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Those are important words.

They are different than "without prejudice", which many people receive in some forms of comms.

Important indeed. Plaintiffs' case was absolute garbage. Judge Ludwig said Plaintiff's arguments "fail as a matter of law and fact." Dismissed "with prejudice" means the case can't be reworked and refiled -- not in that court, anyway. Judge Ludwig said he didn't expect his decision to be appealed, but we'll see. Judge Brann's dismissal of the US District Court case in Pennsylvania was appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. To say the appeal was not successful would be to risk arrest for criminal understatement. Team Orange said they would then appeal that decision to the US Supreme Court, but AFAIK they didn't. The "emergency petition" in Kelly v. Pennsylvania, filed initially in the US Supreme Court, was denied in a single sentence without noted dissent, after, reportedly, all of 34 minutes of deliberation.

I first encountered a case being dismissed "without prejudice" in Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi's account of the Manson case. He had already filed arson charges against Manson, and had a strong case. But then, he had murder charges to deal with, and he needed to set the arson charges aside. So he moved to dismiss the arson charges "without prejudice." Subsequently, he was seriously considering refiling the arson charges, because he was concerned that Manson might be released. I don't remember how this happened, but I do remember he was highly critical of the police work -- or I should say lack of police work -- on the case.

Back to the here and now. Team Orange keeps repeating the same bogus claims of "election fraud" in case after case after case. Defendants' responses to their filings in some cases document where claims being made in the current case, had already been litigated in and rejected by other courts. It's not so much that they've lost fifty-odd cases, but more like that they've lost the same case fifty-odd times in different courts. The late, not-so-great case of Texas v. Pennsylvania, which the Supremes wouldn't even consider, re-re-re-re-re-recycled a bunch of the phantasmagorical claims of "election fraud" previously litigated in and rejected by other courts.

I confess I have difficulty with Alito and Thomas's view (previously also expressed in other cases) that the Supreme Court does not have discretion to deny a motion for leave to file a case under its original jurisdiction. If a court does not have the option of ruling "Motion denied," I do not understand why the motion needs to be filed at all.

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States gives the US Supreme Court original jurisdiction in "Controversies between two or more States." Not having any legal training, I do not know exactly what that means. But assuming it means something, I do not understand why the Court would lack discretion to consider whether a "Bill of Complaint" the Plaintiff is asking for leave to file, actually qualifies as such a "Controversy" before granting leave to file. To paraphrase Judge Bibas in the unanimous Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruling he wrote in the Pennsylvania case, calling something a controversy between two or more states does not make it so. Apparently the seven Justices other than Alito and Thomas see it that way too. They denied leave to file because they found that "Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections." In other words, Texas had failed to demonstrate any interest, an injury to which would fall under the Court's jurisdiction and enable it to grant relief. Thus, there was in fact no "Controversy between two or more States" to adjudicate.

[rogue]

Wisconsin Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump's election challenge features heated rhetoric

Still, the court’s conservative-backed wing, particularly Chief Justice Patience Roggensack and Justices Annette Ziegler and Rebecca Bradley, appeared to welcome some of the Trump campaign’s arguments that the Democracy in the Park event, as well as clerks filling in absentee ballot witness address information, was unlawful.

But the conservatives also questioned how they could fairly disqualify ballots only in the two counties where Trump sought a recount and not other counties where the same procedures were followed.

Will they toss out these votes because someone didn't follow election rules?
Could they charge those voters with a felony even though they cast their ballots in good faith?

I struggle with the idea of tossing votes when the voters themselves are not to blame for someone else not following election rules. This opens the door to Republicans purposefully setting up illegal voting operations in an attempt to get Democratic voters to "waste their vote".

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by rogue

Wisconsin Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump's election challenge features heated rhetoric

Will they toss out these votes because someone didn't follow election rules?
Could they charge those voters with a felony even though they cast their ballots in good faith?

No and no. When the case was initially filed before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and sent to a lower court, even the so-called "conservative" Justices who wanted to hear the case then indicated they wouldn't throw out the votes.

Voters who relied on officially-sanctioned rules won't be charged for so doing.

I struggle with the idea of tossing votes when the voters themselves are not to blame for someone else not following election rules. This opens the door to Republicans purposefully setting up illegal voting operations in an attempt to get Democratic voters to "waste their vote".

There were reports in some cases of R-s setting up their own "drop boxes" for this very purpose in this election.

I don't know that it actually is "unlawful" for clerks to fill in information like witness signatures on ballot envelopes. Team Orange made a similar argument in Pennsylvania, because the State Secretary of State had issued guidelines for County election officials to do just that -- fill in missing addresses or otherwise "cure" minor technical defects which might cause a ballot to be rejected. One of the "injured parties" had had their ballot rejected in Lancaster County, which had not followed the guidelines, and was not named as a Defendant.

As far as the 2020 election is concerned, Plaintiffs could have challenged election procedures when they were adopted if they thought they were "unlawful." Instead, they waited until weeks after the election to bring these claims to court. This delay has obviously prejudiced Defendants, since Plaintiffs are now demanding that tens or hundreds of thousands of votes already cast be thrown out.

It is for precisely for this sort of shenanigans that the "doctrine of laches" exists. Defendants can claim it as an an affirmative defense to get the case dismissed without considering the underlying claims on the merits. State cases in Wisconsin and Minnesota were dismissed based on this doctrine. In the Georgia case in US District Court, Judge Batten, ruling orally from the bench, pointed out the same issue. If Plaintiffs wanted to object to the voting machines, they should have filed that case when the use of those machines was adopted. "You could have filed this case months ago. Instead, you waited until three weeks after the election,..." He concluded by saying that the restraining order previously entered "is dissolved, the motions to dismiss are granted, and we are adjourned."

Federal court rulings issued orally from the bench are unusual. I think it's fair to say that this was one truly pissed-off judge.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Hijacking the electoral college: The plot to deny JFK the presidency 60 years ago

It was a bitter, close election, and there were furious allegations of fraud.

After Democrat John F. Kennedy barely beat Republican Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 election, a coalition of opponents plotted to deny him the presidency in the electoral college. Most were White, conservative electors from the south who opposed the young Massachusetts senator's liberal policies, especially his support for civil rights for Black Americans.

If these electors had succeeded, segregationist Democratic Sen. Harry Byrd of Virginia would have been elected president. His vice president would have been Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Both men had nothing to do with the idea.

One of the states where claims of election fraud were brought to court was Illinois. There was plenty of "ballot box stuffing" by both Democratic election officials in Cook County, and Republican election officials in other Illinois counties that year.

It was that election that earned Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley the title "King-maker." He admired JFK and was determined to do all in the considerable power he had as both Mayor of Chicago and Chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party Organization to secure his victory. (His position of party chairman meant that he had absolute control of all the patronage jobs.) He devised a plan.

Step One: Get objective data on voter sentiment. The polling data he used was not made public, but it was very accurate. He used that data to figure out how many votes Kennedy was going to need in Chicago to offset Nixon's margin in the rest of the County, and in the 101 other Illinois counties.

Step Two: Get the required number of votes. He spoke at party organization meetings full of precinct captains about the "great victory" he was expecting, and threatening party workers' jobs if they failed.

Step Three: On Election Night, get the results for Chicago done - and reported quickly - while the polls were still open further west.

Unlike in many previous elections, there would be no holding back totals from certain wards, so they could be "corrected" to offset Republican cheating elsewhere in the state. And when some Republican counties tried playing that game, Democratic officials went on the news demanding they report their totals or face legal action.

Kennedy's margin in Chicago was 456,312. (His margin in Cook County was significantly smaller, 318,736 votes.)

And when the Chicago totals were made public, reporters bit on the bait -- hard. It is unknown whether this affected turnout further west, but it is a fact that turnout further west did fall off somewhat after Kennedy's Chicago margin was made public.

Nowadays, of course, election totals aren't reported until the polls have closed across the country. What happened in the 1960 election is among the reasons.

Kennedy would up winning Illinois by 8,858 votes. Even if Nixon had won Illinois, Kennedy would still have had enough electoral votes to win. Nixon would have had to carry at least one other State that went to Kennedy in order to have won the election.

There is another reason the vote for Kennedy in Chicago was as large as it was that year: demographics. Cook County had a lot of Catholic residents, and a lot of Black residents. JFK was Catholic, and had to deal with claims his religion was, or could be, in conflict with his duties of office. As to Black residents, there is one of those accidents of history that can make one wonder...

On May 4, 1960, Martin Luther King’s traffic ticket changed history's course

By MICHAEL WARREN
May 4, 2020

DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — On this day 60 years ago, a black man driving a white woman was pulled over in a traffic stop that would change the course of American history.

The incident was unknown to most at the time and has been largely forgotten. The man was Martin Luther King Jr., and his citation on May 4, 1960, led to him being sentenced, illegally, to a chain gang.
<snip>
With days left in the race, the campaigns of Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy sought to downplay civil rights issues for fear of losing southern white votes.

African Americans had mostly voted Republican, since Abraham Lincoln. Nixon had just been endorsed by Martin Luther King Sr., the leader of Ebenezer Baptist Church.

But Nixon ignored their pleas for help, while Kennedy called Mrs. King to express his sympathy.

Historians Taylor Branch and David Garrow wrote that Robert F. Kennedy threw a fit, telling aides who fed Mrs. King's number to his brother that they cost him the presidency. But Robert Kennedy called Mitchell, who reversed his denial of bond, immediately freeing King.

King's father switched his endorsement, saying Kennedy had "the moral courage to stand up for what's right." That quote, and others, appeared in a blue-papered pamphlet titled "No Comment Nixon Versus a Candidate with a Heart, Senator Kennedy." Unnoticed by the national media, Kennedy aides and King supporters distributed the pamphlet in black churches around the nation the Sunday before Election Day.

Black people had voted 60-40 Republican just four years earlier; this time they voted 70-30 for the Democrat, providing more than enough for Kennedy to win the electoral college and the popular vote by a narrow 113,000 margin nationwide, according to Theodore H. White in "The Making of the Presidency 1960."

[Dr Sardonicus]

This is a big one. This case has had multiple incarnations, originally Fish v. Kobach (Chris Kobach, then Kansas Secretary of State), begun in 2016. The suit contested Kansas's Documentary Proof of Citizenship requirement.

The US District Court for the District of Kansas ruled in Plaintiffs' favor during a bench trial, during which Kobach was found in contempt. The Court granted a preliminary injunction against enforcing the Kansas DPOC requirement, and ordered appropriate updates to web sites and related relief measures.

The ruling was appealed to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed, and remanded the case for further proceedings in District Court. The case was consolidated with another case, Bednasek v. Kobach, and at some point renamed Fish v. Schwab (Schwab succeeded Kobach as KS SOS) and tried in District Court. The result was a permanent injunction replacing the earlier temporary injunction.

The case was appealed to the Tenth Circuit, which again affirmed.

The case was then appealed to the US Supreme Court, with the result following:

(ORDER LIST: 592 U.S.) MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2020

20-109 SCHWAB, SEC. OF STATE OF KS V. FISH, STEVEN W., ET AL.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied. Justice
Gorsuch took no part in the consideration or decision of this
petition.

[Nick]

Congratulations to all our friends in the US on a (reasonably) democratic election.