As most readers are by now aware, the Supreme Court refused to proceed with challenges by President Trump and the Republican Party to the outcome of certain states' elections in November 2020.
Democrats and Republicans in Pennsylvania had clashed in court over the three-day extension. Democrats contended that the coronavirus pandemic was sufficient reason to extend the deadline to accommodate a significant expansion of mail-in voting. The state Supreme Court agreed, granting the extension over the objection of the Republican-controlled legislature.
Republicans argued that extending the deadline violated the Constitution and federal law and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the state court's ruling.
There's more at the link.
To me, the biggest problem with SCOTUS' decision is that it leaves US voters out in the cold. The court refused to intervene prior to the results of the election being announced; but, now that they have been announced, it states that it would be "moot" to intervene at this point. In other words, there is no avenue of jurisprudence available to voters like you and I to challenge such results. As SCOTUS would put it, we "lack standing" before the fact, and our challenge would serve no purpose after the fact.
Justice Thomas expressed this dilemma well in his dissent.
"The Constitution gives to each state legislature authority to determine the 'Manner' of federal elections... Yet both before and after the 2020 election, nonlegislative officials in various States took it upon themselves to set the rules instead. As a result, we received an unusually high number of petitions and emergency applications contesting those changes. The petitions here present a clear example. The Pennsylvania Legislature established an unambiguous deadline for receiving mail-in ballots: 8 p.m. on election day," Thomas wrote. "Dissatisfied, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended that deadline by three days. The court also ordered officials to count ballots received by the new deadline even if there was no evidence—such as a postmark—that the ballots were mailed by election day. That decision to rewrite the rules seems to have affected too few ballots to change the outcome of any federal election. But that may not be the case in the future. These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority nonlegislative officials have to set election rules, and to do so well before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is inexplicable.
"One wonders what this Court waits for. We failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence. Our fellow citizens deserve better and expect more of us," he continued.
Again, more at the link.
I think Justice Thomas is exactly right. SCOTUS had a golden opportunity to clarify an important point of law - and failed. It punted, rather than settle the matter. That means the next time there are such disagreements, those challenging the results will believe, right from the start, that they're going to be cheated out of a fair, honest and trustworthy election, and that the courts will do nothing to stop this.
I can only regard SCOTUS' inaction as deliberately choosing to throw gasoline onto burning flames. If anything can rouse good men and women to fury and direct action, it's the knowledge that their voices don't count, that they're seen as irrelevant. If you don't remember the Battle of Athens, Tennessee, shortly after World War II, go read about it. I think we're going to see that again in some centers. We're also going to see the opposite of that battle, where the entrenched forces of dishonesty and corruption will take up arms to stop anyone trying to take away their stolen powers.
In so many words, this decision is yet another contribution towards civil war. It's not the only one, or even the strongest one . . . but it's another nail, and a big one, in the coffin of civil society. What's more, when SCOTUS finds itself ignored by all concerned, it'll have only itself to blame, for not acting when it could have done so.
Go back and watch the reports of Pennsylvania Democratic Party officials restricting Republican Party poll watchers, openly revelling in the fact that they're about to steal the election and they know nobody will stop them. Stand by for more of that in future - and stand by for direct attempts to stop it. I don't see how they can be avoided, now that SCOTUS has abdicated its responsibilities. There are more than enough hot-heads on both sides who'll act first, think later.
Today, thanks to SCOTUS, the rule of law is even more tenuous and fragile in the USA than it was before. No thanks to them for that.
Peter
16 comments:
Cowardice and good intentions...
They are trying so hard to not be political.
I think we saw that the scuffle at the Capitol was the best resistance the Republicans could offer. We dont have the stomach to step away from our beer and football to do anything meaningful. The more observant of us will sit around bitching about the good old days over coffee while blaming the younger generation for the death of the republic in its sleep.
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This kind of infantile and absurd logic just defies belief and takes one's breath away. And not just mine. I think it’s clear that Justice Clarence Thomas is even more mystified than am I, and he was livid. He was also, as he always is, right on the money in his analysis.
"One wonders what this Court waits for,” understates Thomas in his dissent, adding “we failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence. Our fellow citizens deserve better and expect more of us.”
In other words, we are punting the ball again. But let’s make no mistake -- this is “not doing nothing” with all respect to Justice Thomas. This is proactive, and it absolutely legalizes institutional voter fraud and neuters state legislatures in lieu of state courts.
Lawyers gonna lawyer, I reckon.
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/02/our_supreme_court_goes_full_nicaragua_in_pa_election_case.html
We do not live in the USA any more.
We have had the last open election in this country.
I predict joe Biden’s corpse or body double will get 98% of the next election.
Prior to the actual election, no one has been injured, therefore no one has standing. After the election, the votes are in and have been certified, so the case is moot. Since no single instance of fraud was of itself, sufficient to swing the overall federal results, no attention need be paid to the sum total of all the instances of fraud. This proves that the SCOTUS is adequately partisan that adding 3 more justices isn't necessary, so the court wins.
The initial revisions to the rules by non-legislative bodies should have been nipped in the but, but weren't, mostly due to the time delay involved in getting anything to the Supreme court.
Did I miss anything?
One of the Democrat judges in PA's Supreme Court said that just because people don't cast ballots in accordance with election law is no reason to not count them.
So, then, why even have election law?
Some folk are still saying "just wait two years, we'll recover both houses in the 2022 midterms."
Since it's obvious to the casual observer and their own admission that they "fortified" and cheated this last election how in bloody blue blazes can anyone think that they won't do the same again since it worked so very well for them?
It's a tossup to me as to whether it will be another stolen election or the mass confiscation of evil weapons of war, essentially any semi auto firearms, that opens the ball. Both seem to me to be inevitable given the left's track record.
"Wolverines!"
The saying goes that those suits weren't going to the Supreme Court to challenge the election, those suits were going to challenge the Supreme Court itself. To determine if it was still doing its duty.
Clearly the courts are as corrupted as every other part of the swamp.
Our country has been taken over by some sort of coup. The US is gone.
So to answer your rhetorical "Are we one step closer to civil war?", we are in that civil war now, only one side is fighting.
The "scuffle" at the capitol was not a right-wing creation, it was an Antifa/BLM invention, exactly like the Reichstag fire: a provocation based upon a prevarication.
If the right wing had been behind it, there wouldn't be one congressweasel not hanging from the upper windows by a rope of their own entrails, and any survivors would have had a lifespan measured in hours.
But it's never too late to remind them of that, by doing it, and SCPOTUS just provided all the pretext for such action whenever the mood strikes.
When you rig a game so it's crooked, and refuse to intervene before or after, you have - exactly as SCOTUS has now done - completely self-delegitimized yourself, and made any thought of using you for any recourse a risible and futile act.
The soap box, ballot box, and jury box have all been taken away.
The sole remaining option is now not only both necessary and justified, it is furthermore now entirely inevitable.
SCOTUS has sown the wind, and the nation will soon reap the whirlwind.
That is what you get when at least six robed jackasses cannot tell the difference between Solomonic and moronic.
"That means the next time there are such disagreements, those challenging the results will believe, right from the start, that they're going to be cheated out of a fair, honest and trustworthy election, and that the courts will do nothing to stop this."
*snip*
"the next time there are such disagreements"
See, that's the thing: the only way that there will be a "next time" is if the Left at least gives the appearance of playing fair. But why would they? They got away clean this time, and nobody did anything about it. Next time is just a formality.
Thomas Jefferson, who refuted the Supreme Court–or any court–having such power: “You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would put us under the despotism of an oligarchy…their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in the office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruption of time and party, its members would become despots.”
Video - The judiciary’s actions has fulfilled the warning of Thomas Jefferson, and we see The Supreme Court has also become corrupt despots. The oligarchs like such a system where the courts are in control; but that is not what the American Republic was set up to be.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/12/yvonne-lorenzo/there-is-no-judicial-branch-per-the-constitution-and-thomas-jefferson/
As Sarah has said, first it goes slowly and then it goes very, very fast. We're ramping up to the very, very fast part I think. SCOTUS has now on multiple occasions failed to address actual grievances, dismissing obvious illegal activity because the plaintiff didn't have "standing" and now after refusing to hear the case before the election have decided that it's to late to do so after the election. The law as written means nothing anymore. We are not a republic
I agree and believe because of Rhinos we have been betrayed. We are caught with our pants down. They are purging t h e military as we speak. After that, it's all over unless we start taking each state back one by one.
Don't be silly.
Ants don't eat an elephant from trunk to tail.
They eat the whole thing at the same time.
As will we.
Every government in the country, including the dotMil and all LEOs at every level, combined, would be hard-pressed, even with advanced notice, to take and hold an area the size of MA, CT, and RI.
If a patriot version of Tet were to erupt here, the whole thing comes down in days. In some places, hours.
The problem isn't, and never has been, the minions of state power. They're a relative pushover.
The problem is the 50% Progtard half of the country that votes for a living, instead of working for a living.
Once their ricebowl is broken, it's going to be The Walking Dead for some good time.
If you are correct Aesop, the answer is not to start hanging the elites - the answer is to make sure the people on the left half of the IQ distribution curve get their rice bowls broken. The the problem will take care of itself while we eat popcorn and watch it on TV.
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