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Judge tells the five Republican losers she has to hear their case, but she doesn't have to like it
By adamg on Tue, 12/08/2020 - 5:06pm
A federal judge today told five failed Republican office seekers that she's not real happy with the way they waited more than a month after the November election to legally question its validity.
Brian Dowling, who covered a scheduling hearing in their pro-se case today, reports US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs, was, in fact, pretty scathing about the a suit asking her to invalidate the electoral decisions of an entire state of people who turned out despite a deadly pandemic to vote.
Burroughs gave the state's lawyers until Dec. 15 to stop snorting and file a reply that explains everything that's wrong with the candidates' arguments on why she should either throw out more than half the ballots cast across the state last month - because they were cast before Nov. 3 - or order a new election even though the governor and the governor's council certified the results last week.
Burroughs will then hold a hearing Dec. 17 to consider the arguments.
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The more I've thought about
The more I've thought about it today, the more ridiculous it has become to me.
This was NOT the first year we had widespread early voting options in Massachusetts for a federal level election.
So, the existence of such practice should not have been a surprise to any of these allegedly aggrieved candidates. And heading into this election, it was widely expected that early voting would include a significant portion of the votes, possibly a majority of them in some places (like MA did see.)
So why did they choose to wait over a month after they lost their elections to raise the red flags about the allegedly illegality of the process? They are accusing our process of being unlawful. If you knew a crime was going to occur, months to years in advance, but you just sat there and waited, then you watched it occur, and you neither said nor did anything. Then a month later, you came out screaming about how awful it was, what kind of person would you be?
If they had won their elections under the same system, would they have also challenged the results right now?
Misprision
A person is guilty of misprision, a Federal crime, if they know of a crime but fail to report it. Interesting bind for these folks. They claim they know of a crime, waited a month to report it. Seems to me that if there is a crime then they are looking joining the Federal criminal system - on the side a person really does not want to be part of. The side where they are finger printed, their DNA is registered into a national database, the side that will be a major impediment to their getting jobs - unless they were hired by Trump and Co.
One thing that we can be sure of is that lying, cheating and committing the Seven Deadly Sins is, in Trumpland, polishing the brass. Those are the ost important resume qualities in Trumplandia.
Misprision clarification
One general note: misprision requires concealment, not merely a failure to report something known. That is, one’s quiet knowledge of something, absent additional efforts to conceal it, does not give rise to criminal liability.
Similar to the PA case
The case SCOTUS just shot down the injunction on was ruled on a similar basis in the PA Supreme Court. The law for mail in ballots was passed in 2019 and the decision ripped them for waiting more than a year before filing and openly posed that they would be arguing the opposite had Biden lost the state.
Wasting Federal tax dollars
Hope these folks never complain about Federal agencies wasting money. Unless they think that Federal Courts are funded by the money tree next to Braintree then they have to realize that they are wasting Federal tax dollars.
Actually, every one of the bogus and obvious to fail attempts to cancel democracy via Judicial fiat has been a waste of Federal tax dollars. Every phone call from Don the Con to Brian Kemp has been a waste of Federal tax dollars.
Apparently the new, unofficial political group called Trump, fully believe in wasting tax dollars. They also believe in destroying the Earth by revoking laws the stop industries from destroying the planet but so long as the money saved from following regulations can pay for the Trumper's fakery and lies, what the heck!
the money tree next to Braintree
When last I checked, neither money nor brains grow on trees.
Wouldn't you have to protest this earlier?
Early voting is not brand new in MA. Wouldn't you have to raise the issue when it started? At least at the September primary?
We had early voting in the 2016 general election
Nobody objected to it then.
Nobody objected to it yet. Is
Nobody objected to it yet. Is it too late for us to file a lawsuit about 2016?!
Yes.
Yes.
Mail in voting,early voting not new in the United States
Oregon has been all mail-in ballots since 1998.
Early voting has been around in the US for nearly as long.
Why do I bring up other states? Because they are trying to make a federal case.
if the state constitution forbid these practices, this would not belong in federal court.
What they are objecting to is a free and fair election where most people who wanted to vote were able to do so. They want to make voting a privilege, not a right.
Is there a statute of limitations on filing
this? If not, it is within their right to file this whether anyone likes it or not. I wonder if this judge also admonishes other plaintiffs in suits the she deems frivolous. Since a judge is supposed to be impartial, her reaction makes one think that she is not at all impartial in this matter.
Sure
They have a right to file an idiotic lawsuit. The judge has a right to say that it's frivolous, and I bet she does that whenever she encounters one. Doing so doesn't make her biased.
Are you impartial, or do you approve of this foolish lawsuit?
Impartial feelings
Judges admonish frivolous suits all the time. Does it hurt your feelings?
It's hard to be impartial
to sheer stupidity.
Respect to the judiciary branch!
Current bums in office thought their court appointees might swing this for them.
Thank God that's not the case.
jail them for treason.
jail them for treason.
Also audit their finances
Some of these cranks are true believers but I think at least a minority are paid agitators getting money from folks who'd prefer a less democratic, less centrist government.
Treason?
It's become one of those words that everybody uses but nobody seems to know just what it is. But it's the only crime that's specifically spelled out in the Constitution and what these five are doing may be many things, but treason is not one of them.
Not so specific
The Constitution was written by a committee, and in many places uses deliberately vague language as a means of smoothing over disagreements and getting things approved. The big fat dangling modifier in the Second Amendment is a notorious example. In the definition of treason, an enormous amount of room for interpretation is left open by use of the the phrase "adhering to their Enemies". The requirement for two witnesses to an overt act would seem to make it more specific, except that it would be an act of the undefined "adhering".
I think it's an absurd stretch to accuse these 5 halfwits of "adhering to their Enemies". The phrase is perfectly appropriate, however, for the behavior of Donald Trump, and there are many millions of witnesses to overt acts of such adhering.
Treason better fits the armed gang in Michigan
which besieged the Secretary of State's home this week.
Not Treason
Although there is an argument to be made for requiring them to pay the government back for legal work to deal with this garbage.
And another for a psychiatric evaluation.