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2020 Election Results

Worldtraveller said:
Angry Floof said:
I can't express enough just how much I'm looking forward to the time when Trump no longer has any power over the GOP. Those people, no matter how cowardly or complicit they have been, are going to be writing books and doing interviews like crazy.

We've been watching a spectacular pageant of sycophancy and groveling for years, and Perdue's "speech" at Trump's rally the other night is no exception. You have to wonder what that feels like to have something to say but being drowned out by chanting cultists to the point where you just give up on what you were gonna say and just join in the worship. A lot of ideological scumbags are going to profit big from their stories once they feel safe to tell them.
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I wish I shared your optimism. While I don't think trump has direct access to it, I would bet that the russian intelligence system has dirt on many of the GOP reps/senators. It's been revealed at this point that they know and were told to back trump.

Where that goes from here, though, I can't predict. I think putin will continue to try to destabilize the US through the GOP and their mouthbreathing knuckledragging minions.
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Yeah, sure, but I don't think every member of the GOP is in the clutches of Russian or Trumpian blackmail. They want to maintain their careers and offices, and they face consequences of not going along with Trump even without any personal blackmail issues.
 
lpetrich said:
So Trump expects "his" judges to support him no matter what.
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The problem with that expectation is that they were never his judges, they are Heritage Foundation judges. That means they are ultra-conservative, and that means that they are ultra-religious, and that means that the only allegiance they will recognize other than the Constitution when making decisions, is their religion. So, no matter what Trump thought he was buying with those appointments, all he is really going to get is an end to legal abortion in a broad swath of the US.
 
Opinion | What Really Saved the Republic From Trump? - The New York Times - "It wasn’t our constitutional system of checks and balances."

Author Tim Wu proposes something else:
What really saved the Republic from Mr. Trump was a different set of limits on the executive: an informal and unofficial set of institutional norms upheld by federal prosecutors, military officers and state elections officials. You might call these values our “unwritten constitution.” Whatever you call them, they were the decisive factor.
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He then mentions the courts' mixed record at stopping Trump's nastier initiatives, like not stopping his anti-Muslim travel ban.
The bigger and more important failure was Congress. Madison intended Congress to be the primary check on the president. Unfortunately, that design has a key flaw (as Madison himself realized). The flaw is vulnerability to party politics. It turns out that if a majority of members of at least one body of Congress exhibits a higher loyalty to its party than to Congress, Congress will not function as a reliable check on a president of that same party. This was what happened with Mr. Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate.

The problem is chronic, but over the last four years it became virulent. Confronted with a president who was heedless of rules, Senate Republicans, in ways large and small, let him do what he wanted. They allowed acting appointees to run the federal government. They allowed him to claim a right to attack Iran without congressional approval. The impeachment process was reduced to nothing but a party-line vote. The Senate became a rubber stamp for executive overreach.
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One has to ask why Congressional Republicans have been such shameless cowards. If Trump ordered them sent to Alaskan prison camps for allegedly being enemies of the American people, they seem like they would plead guilty and get ready to go.
Instead, the president’s worst impulses were neutralized by three pillars of the unwritten constitution. The first is the customary separation between the president and federal criminal prosecution (even though the Department of Justice is part of the executive branch). The second is the traditional political neutrality of the military (even though the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces). The third is the personal integrity of state elections officials.
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About the first one, Trump once claimed that “I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department.”

TW about the second one: "As the history of lapsed republics suggests, when the military becomes involved in domestic politics, it tends to stay involved."

About the third one, TW notes where it can go wrong: "In Russia, for example, the neutrality of its Central Election Commission during President Vladimir Putin’s rule has been repeatedly questioned, especially given the tendency of that body to disqualify leading opposition figures and parties."
It may sound naïve in our untrusting age to hope that people will care about ethics and professional duties. But Madison, too, saw the need for this trust. “There is a degree of depravity in mankind,” he wrote, but also “qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.” A working republican government, he argued, “presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form.”

It is called civic virtue, and at the end of the day, there is no real alternative.
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KeepTalking said:
lpetrich said:
So Trump expects "his" judges to support him no matter what.
Click to expand...

The problem with that expectation is that they were never his judges, they are Heritage Foundation judges. That means they are ultra-conservative, and that means that they are ultra-religious, and that means that the only allegiance they will recognize other than the Constitution when making decisions, is their religion. So, no matter what Trump thought he was buying with those appointments, all he is really going to get is an end to legal abortion in a broad swath of the US.
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Trumpy could care less about abortion. He only wants power and influence so he can enrich himself.

/pedantic
 
Opinion | There’s Still a Loaded Weapon Lying Around in Our Election System - The New York Times - "State legislatures are still a threat to appointing electors contrary to the will of their voters."
There is no legal basis for what the president is urging, but it calls attention to a previously obscure provision in federal election law. This provision, known as the “failed election” provision, lies around like a loaded weapon. It is the only place in federal law that identifies circumstances in which, even after a popular vote for president has been taken, a state legislature has the power to step in and appoint electors.
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Federal judge casts doubt on Trump's Wisconsin lawsuit
A federal judge Thursday cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s lawsuit that seeks to overturn Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin, saying siding with Trump would be “the most remarkable ruling in the history of this court or the federal judiciary.”

Trump is pursuing extraordinary attempts to overturn Biden’s win with a pair of lawsuits in Wisconsin, in federal and state courts. Hearings on both cases were scheduled for Thursday. In the state case, Trump wants to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots and in the federal case he wants to give the GOP-controlled Legislature the power to name Trump the winner.
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That is sort of like Hillary Clinton saying in 2016 that she won because the Electoral College should not exist.
 
If nothing else, it is time to get rid of humans in the Electoral College. They failed in their action in 2016, which pretty much makes this an entirely unnecessary thing to have people in. We shouldn't have to have electoral votes represented by human beings, when we can just submit a piece of paper to Congress saying Wisconsin gives its votes in entirety to Biden.
lpetrich said:
Opinion | There’s Still a Loaded Weapon Lying Around in Our Election System - The New York Times - "State legislatures are still a threat to appointing electors contrary to the will of their voters."
There is no legal basis for what the president is urging, but it calls attention to a previously obscure provision in federal election law. This provision, known as the “failed election” provision, lies around like a loaded weapon. It is the only place in federal law that identifies circumstances in which, even after a popular vote for president has been taken, a state legislature has the power to step in and appoint electors.
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Federal judge casts doubt on Trump's Wisconsin lawsuit
A federal judge Thursday cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s lawsuit that seeks to overturn Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin, saying siding with Trump would be “the most remarkable ruling in the history of this court or the federal judiciary.”

Trump is pursuing extraordinary attempts to overturn Biden’s win with a pair of lawsuits in Wisconsin, in federal and state courts. Hearings on both cases were scheduled for Thursday. In the state case, Trump wants to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots and in the federal case he wants to give the GOP-controlled Legislature the power to name Trump the winner.
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That is sort of like Hillary Clinton saying in 2016 that she won because the Electoral College should not exist.
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There seems to be a remarkable inconsistency with the lawsuits. The Texas lawsuit is upset that some states modified application of laws in light of a pandemic.

Yet, the Trump Campaign wants to allow a complete rewriting of legal codes to allow legislatures to control who gets to select the slate of electors.
 
Explaining the Supreme Court lawsuit from Texas and Trump challenging Biden's win - CNNPolitics
They are asking the Supreme Court for an emergency order to invalidate the ballots of millions of voters in four battleground states -- Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania -- even though there is no evidence of widespread fraud.

Critics of the President and his allies say the case reflects an audacious and legally dubious gambit to keep the lawsuits flowing in order to prolong baseless claims that President-elect Joe Biden's victory was somehow illegitimate.
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States respond to Texas bid to overturn U.S. election at Supreme Court | Reuters
Officials from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin already have called the lawsuit, which aims to throw out the voting results in the four states, a reckless attack on democracy. The Supreme Court gave the four states a 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT) deadline to file court papers in the case.

Pennsylvania was the first to file, with the state’s Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro saying that the Texas lawsuit was adding to a “cacophony of bogus false claims” about the election.

“What Texas is doing in this proceeding is to ask this court to reconsider a mass of baseless claims about problems with the election that have already been considered, and rejected, by this court and other courts,” Shapiro added.
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That's long been a Trump strategy: try to win by litigation.

If the Supreme Court has any sense, it will throw out this lawsuit. That one-sentence response to the PA-lawsuit appeal suggests that it might, but I'm not going to bet on a similar dismissal.
 
Some are saying Paxton is doing this to suck up to Trump for a pardon for his criminal activity.
 
Angry Floof said:
Worldtraveller said:
Angry Floof said:
I can't express enough just how much I'm looking forward to the time when Trump no longer has any power over the GOP. Those people, no matter how cowardly or complicit they have been, are going to be writing books and doing interviews like crazy.

We've been watching a spectacular pageant of sycophancy and groveling for years, and Perdue's "speech" at Trump's rally the other night is no exception. You have to wonder what that feels like to have something to say but being drowned out by chanting cultists to the point where you just give up on what you were gonna say and just join in the worship. A lot of ideological scumbags are going to profit big from their stories once they feel safe to tell them.
Click to expand...
I wish I shared your optimism. While I don't think trump has direct access to it, I would bet that the russian intelligence system has dirt on many of the GOP reps/senators. It's been revealed at this point that they know and were told to back trump.

Where that goes from here, though, I can't predict. I think putin will continue to try to destabilize the US through the GOP and their mouthbreathing knuckledragging minions.
Click to expand...

Yeah, sure, but I don't think every member of the GOP is in the clutches of Russian or Trumpian blackmail. They want to maintain their careers and offices, and they face consequences of not going along with Trump even without any personal blackmail issues.
Click to expand...

I think that most of them are going along because that is what Hertiage/Heartland/ALEC are telling them to do. Trump/McConnell have done more to forward their agenda than any federal government in my lifetime. Once they figured out social media round about 2011-2012 they really figured out how to push the right buttons in the electorate.
 
T.G.G. Moogly said:
KeepTalking said:
lpetrich said:
So Trump expects "his" judges to support him no matter what.
Click to expand...

The problem with that expectation is that they were never his judges, they are Heritage Foundation judges. That means they are ultra-conservative, and that means that they are ultra-religious, and that means that the only allegiance they will recognize other than the Constitution when making decisions, is their religion. So, no matter what Trump thought he was buying with those appointments, all he is really going to get is an end to legal abortion in a broad swath of the US.
Click to expand...

Trumpy could care less about abortion. He only wants power and influence so he can enrich himself.

/pedantic
Click to expand...

Exactly my point. My apologies if I wasn't clear, Trump did not buy what he thought he was buying, or even anything he wanted, when he nominated the Heritage Foundation's judges.
 
KeepTalking said:
T.G.G. Moogly said:
Trumpy could care less about abortion. He only wants power and influence so he can enrich himself.

/pedantic
Click to expand...

Exactly my point. My apologies if I wasn't clear, Trump did not buy what he thought he was buying, or even anything he wanted, when he nominated the Heritage Foundation's judges.
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Trump believes that all human interactions are transactional. In his mind he appointed the judges in a trasaction that would cause them to support him. It's beyond his little mind box to understand that the judiciary don't view it that way.
 
John Kruzel on Twitter: "⚖️JUST IN: New amicus brief from 106 Republican House members in support of Texas' bid to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's win in the Supreme Court. Here they are👇 https://t.co/QLN4jDfoto" / Twitter
then
John Kruzel on Twitter: "https://t.co/2eL9MPOtfm" / Twitter

According to  116th United States Congress, there are currently 196 Republicans in the House. This means that over half of the House Republicans have signed that brief. "The usurpation of power in (state) produced unconstitutional ballots." - GA, MI, PA, WI

Then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "106 House Republicans are spending critical time when people are starving and small businesses are shuttering trying to overturn the results of our election, but please tell us more about how “both sides are just as bad”" / Twitter


Ilhan Omar on Twitter: "Republicans get a pass from serious scrutiny. Just imagine if @AOC @RashidaTlaib @AyannaPressley and I were suing to over turnout an election because our candidate lost.

The whole country would erupt. It would be media frenzy. They would call us names and call for our arrest." / Twitter
 
Supreme Court rejects Texas' effort to overturn election in fatal blow to Trump legal blitz to stop Biden - "The court's ruling was essentially a unanimous rejection of the Texas claims."
President Donald Trump called the case "the big one," and 126 of the 196 Republicans in the House urged the court to take it. But the justices acted quickly to turn it down.

"Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections," the court said in a brief unsigned opinion.
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What a relief. I was concerned that the Supreme Court might do what it did in 2000, but I'm happy that it didn't. It would have been one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in history, like in this list: 13 Worst Supreme Court Decisions of All Time A list that includes Bush vs. Gore, that infamous 2000 decision.

It would have been major judicial malpractice, since it would go against what numerous other judges have decided -- and decided with very good reason.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said the court had no authority to refuse a case filed on its original docket, where one state files to sue another. But they said the would not have granted Texas any other relief and expressed no view on any of the issues raised in the lawsuit.

So the ruling was essentially a unanimous rejection of the Texas claims.

...
The four battleground states, joined by friend-of-court briefs from Democratic attorneys general from 20 states and the District of Columbia, said Texas also waited too long to bring its claim to court.

Many of the new voting procedures, such as a move by the Pennsylvania legislature to allow no-excuse voting by mail, were adopted months ago. They were also unsuccessfully challenged in the courts of the four states, another point against the Texas suit
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From the Texas Tribune,
Legal experts warned that if Texas succeeded, the case would set a dangerous precedent of allowing states to intervene in one another’s affairs — and allowing courts to overturn settled, certified election results.

“Let us be clear,” attorneys for Pennsylvania wrote in the state’s reply brief. “Texas invites this Court to overthrow the votes of the American people and choose the next President of the United States. That Faustian invitation must be firmly rejected.”

Texas’ lawsuit leaned heavily on discredited claims of election fraud in swing states. Election officials and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr have said there is no evidence of election fraud on a scale that could have swayed the results.
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From the NYT,
Georgia, which Mr. Biden won by less than 12,000 votes out of nearly five million cast, said in its brief that it had handled its election with integrity and care. “This election cycle,” the brief said, “Georgia did what the Constitution empowered it to do: it implemented processes for the election, administered the election in the face of logistical challenges brought on by Covid-19, and confirmed and certified the election results — again and again and again. Yet Texas has sued Georgia anyway.”
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The Supreme Court had a more verbose statement than last Tuesday, but it was a short one.
Order in Pending Case: TX vs. PA et al.
(ORDER LIST: 592 U.S.)
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2020
ORDER IN PENDING CASE
155, ORIG. TEXAS V. PENNSYLVANIA, ET AL.

The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.

Statement of Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins: In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. See Arizona v. California, 589 U. S. ___ (Feb. 24, 2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting). I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.
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Then some different legal issue.

Trump wanted to take the issue of his election up to the Supreme Court. He got what he wanted, and the Supremes gave him a firm thumbs down.
 
2020 election: What's next in the states' fight at the Supreme Court - CNNPolitics - gives a lot of background info.

Like
  • Plaintiff: TX
  • Defendant states that Biden won: GA, MI, PA, WI
  • States with GOP attorneys general backing Texas: AL, AR, AZ, FL, IN, KS, LA, MO, MS, MT, ND, NE, OK, SC, SD, TN, UT, WV
  • States/territories with Democrats backing the defendant states: CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, GU, HI, IL, MA, MD, ME, MN, NC, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OR, RI, VA, VI, VT
The Texas legal massacre: The state’s Supreme Court case, joined by 18 other states, is a horror show - New York Daily News
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has one valid point, that the U.S. Constitution, which holds together the Union Texas joined in 1845 — then seceded from in 1861 — says “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.”

The rest of Paxton’s lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court, which seeks to hand the White House to Donald Trump based on junk allegations, which have already been thrown out of other courts, is dangerous garbage that could provoke a new Civil War. The Big Nine must toss it with prejudice. Paxton is suing Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin for having appointed electors based on Joe Biden’s victories there because he doesn’t like how their elections were conducted.
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Kevin McCarthy backs Supreme Court bid from Texas to overturn Biden wins - 20 Republican Reps were omitted in a clerical error, making the number 126 out of 196.That's nearly 2/3 of the House Republicans.

Cheney, Buck lead House resolution backing Trump legal efforts: 'Must protect the integrity of our elections' | Fox News - "House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Liz Cheney and Rep. Ken Buck on Friday are leading a group of 18 lawmakers in sponsoring a resolution in the House that backs efforts by President Trump regarding voter fraud."
 
Trump, election lawsuits, and judges: the chaotic aftermath in the courts
Reality check for Trump's fantasies: Judges aren't his pawns on election lawsuits.

Scorching rulings even from judges Trump named show that American democracy can survive an assault even by the president of United States.
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Electoral College meeting Monday will hand Trump loss he won't accept
The Democrats have 306 electoral votes, the Republicans 32. If at least 37 Democratic electors can be persuaded to become to vote for someone other than Joe Biden, then the election will go to the House. But can Trump's campaigners persuade at least 37 of them to vote for Bernie Sanders?


The Texas lawsuit shows Republicans went from fighting Democrats to fighting democracy - "How can a Democratic president function when a majority of House Republicans now support a lawsuit that would overturn our system of government?"

Microsoft Word - Texas v. Pennsylvania Amicus Brief of 126 Representatives -- corrected - 20201211132250339_Texas v. Pennsylvania Amicus Brief of 126 Representatives -- corrected.pdf
 
It ain't over yet. The electors still have to be accepted by the House of representatives. You can bet there will be a fight.
 
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