the Trump administration’s legal challenge — and his legal team has shown amazing resolve in revealing only little bits here and there — is starting to take shape, and it could put as many as 94 electoral college votes in play by some estimates. //

There are many angles the Trump administration could take based on anecdotal reports out of many states. In Michigan and Georgia there were problems with glitches in the vote counting software (Dominion, used in 28 states, which has its own interesting history I won’t get into here except to say in 2010 it bought the software named in a federal investigation into the 2004 recall election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela). It should be noted, the Michigan county in question is disputing Dominion — used in almost all other Michigan counties — was the source of the glitch. Georgia, however, has four counties that experienced some kind of tech glitch, Spalding and Morgan counties, Gwinnett (which led to a delay counting absentee ballots), and Fulton (which led to people being asked to fill out provisional ballots). Fulton has also indicated a problem with their vote count reporting leading to a rescanning of some ballots. //

In Wisconsin, poll workers may have altered thousands of absentee ballots in violation of the law. And — get this — they made their illegal corrections in easily traceable red pen.

None of this is proof the Democrats didn’t win the election, even if it strongly suggests illegal and undemocratic activity in states across the union. But it is a naked corporate attempt to exert control over what is happening in the United States. If just one thing, remember this: Corporations don’t get to pick our president—and they don’t decide our elections.

Donald Trump’s entire presidency is an affront to the media. His victory was an assertion that they are not in charge, we are. That’s why they hate him; that’s why they have to destroy him; and that’s what this power grab is about. It isn’t an election result, it is media elites reminding the people who is really in charge, and who gets to make the rules.

Judges who obtained their positions by fraud, according to an indictment, have denied the Trump campaign's ballot-watchers access, providing crucial unsupervised time to Democrat vote counters.

From communists on Mars to 'The Expanse' in real life, the questions about the future of Musk's Mars are huge. Here's what you need to know.

Sullivan’s apparent animus toward Flynn's attorney and his fixation on Flynn being punished demonstrate bias in this case — sufficient to require his disqualification.

[T]he Secretary’s actions in altering the deadline for mail-in ballots likely violates the Electors Clause of Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution. The analysis is relatively straightforward. By its plain terms, the Electors Clause vests the power to determine the manner of selecting electors exclusively in the “Legislature” of each state. U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 2… And this vested authority is not just the typical legislative power exercised pursuant to a state constitution. Rather, when a state legislature enacts statutes governing presidential elections, it operates “by virtue of a direct grant of authority” under the United States Constitution… Consequently, only the Minnesota Legislature, and not the Secretary, has plenary authority to establish the manner of conducting the presidential election in Minnesota.

Thus, the Secretary’s attempt to re-write the laws governing the deadlines for mail-in ballots in the 2020 Minnesota presidential election is invalid. However well-intentioned and appropriate from a policy perspective in the context of a pandemic during a presidential election, it is not the province of a state executive official to re-write the state’s election code, at least as it pertains to selection of presidential electors. The democratically-enacted election rules in Minnesota provide that mail-in votes must be received by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day in order to be counted (or 3:00 p.m. if delivered in person).

. It is USNA leadership that has willfully ignored the President’s cease-and-desist order on critical race theory training (CRT) in the federal government and in fact has arbitrarily exploited the racial division that CRT creates to separate MIDN Standage from the Navy via the APCS adjudication sham. //

This is the very definition of a sham legal process – and this is exactly what MIDN Standage was forced to endure. MIDN Standage, with the Sword of Damocles figuratively hanging over his head, was required to organize and conduct his own defense while USNA leadership was supported by a full staff including multiple JAG officers. And now the government has an Assistant United States Attorney representing them at the district court!

The Appeals Court blocked the order, and Texas will follow the signature matching procedure set forth in the statute. But the decision today, if left to stand — and then built upon by other decisions in other courts — is going to send shock waves through the activist legal community because of some of the “markers” it lays down. Language in the decision paves the way for the Fifth Circuit to ultimately find that while “the right to vote” is constitutionally protected, the right to vote “in a particular fashion” or in the most convenient manner, are not covered by the same constitutional protections. Such a holding would curtail much of the effort by liberal judges to rewrite state voting statutes on the basis that the procedures sanctioned by a state are constitutionally unsound.

The Senator asked:

• How did Twitter determine that the New York Post story was a violation of its policy governing the distribution of hacked materials or approach to blocking links? Will Twitter make its decision-making process with regard to this case of content removal publicly available?
• How did Twitter find that the New York Post was “directly” distributing hacked materials – and thus in violation of its policy – when it is not clear that this is the case?
• Why did Twitter take additional, unprecedented action to lock the primary Twitter account of the New York Post, one of the nation’s most widely-distributed newspapers?
• If you have evidence that this news story contains “disinformation” or have otherwise determined that there are inaccuracies with the reporting, will you disclose them to the public so that they can assess your findings?
• Did any member of the Biden-Harris presidential campaign team or any person representing themselves as a representative of the campaign’s interests ask, encourage, or direct Twitter to suppress the New York Post story?

Josh Hawley
@HawleyMO
My letter to the FEC re ⁦@Twitter⁩ ⁦@Facebook⁩ potential violation of federal election law //

This conduct does not merely censor the core political speech of ordinary Americans, though it certainly does that. Twitter’s and Facebook’s conduct also appears to constitute a clear violation of federal campaign-finance law. Federal law prohibits any corporation from making a contribution to a federal candidate for office. Twitter and Facebook are corporations. A contribution includes “anything of value…for influencing any election for Federal office.”

So, a link to an article in the NY Post — a publication founded in 1801 when Thomas Jefferson was President — is now “Unsafe” for Twitter users to read.

Now note the following:

Abigail Marone 🇺🇸
@abigailmarone
🚨📩 INBOX from @TeamTrump —>

Former Democrat operative turned Facebook official censoring journalism harmful to Biden //

There is a very interesting angle to these actions by Twitter and Facebook, as they come only one day after Justice Clarence Thomas issued a statement as part of a Denial of Cert by the Supreme Court, addressing the fact that the Court has yet to take a case involving issues under Sec. 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Senator Hawley covered Justice Thomas’ published statement in the clip above.

ss396
11 hours ago edited
Laws for me, but not for thee....

It seems they forget that, despite their intent or their connivance, laws really are "one size fits all." That is why it is so critical to assign political powers to the proper level of their exercise: that municipal affairs should be empowered and conducted at the municipal level; that State affairs should be empowered and conducted at State level, while bearing in mind that everything they do, even regarding municipalities, is "one size fits all". And that's especially true at the Federal level - which is what the Founders were trying to accomplish, and which is the lodestone for small government Conservatives. If a law requires certain regional or class carve-outs, then it is not being assessed at its proper level of governance. (Or it is not yet "ripe" enough for consideration. The Supreme Court seems to be the only body that even tries to embrace that concept.)

Meanwhile, it's not the laws but the AG enforcement, or lack thereof, that creates the two-tiered legal system we find ourselves living under.

Over the weekend ballot collection boxes sponsored by the California GOP were set up in numerous counties throughout the state, including Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura, presumably in an effort to conduct pandemic-friendly ballot harvesting, which is legal in the state. Word of the boxes’ existence spread quickly on social media, with the state’s Democrats suddenly clutching their pearls and worrying about ballot security.Over the weekend ballot collection boxes sponsored by the California GOP were set up in numerous counties throughout the state, including Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura, presumably in an effort to conduct pandemic-friendly ballot harvesting, which is legal in the state. Word of the boxes’ existence spread quickly on social media, with the state’s Democrats suddenly clutching their pearls and worrying about ballot security. //

Senator Melissa Melendez
@senatormelendez
California State law is silent on where ballots must be held in the three days between someone dropping their ballot off with a harvester and the harvester turning it in.

What republicans are doing is legal, no matter what threats the Secretary of State makes. //

As the Los Angeles Times’ John Myers tweeted, there is no evidence that Republicans placed the private dropboxes with ill intent. They simply, amazingly, decided to utilize the laws Democrats passed to help themselves, to their own advantage. Refusing to bow to the demands of Becerra and Padilla is the right move. Let them attempt to arrest people.

So, not necessarily the outcome that GOP interests would like to have, but the correct outcome on the law nevertheless.

If President Trump wins a second term, the delays by Durham will be forgotten before the champagne goes flat.

The question really is “What is the end game if Biden wins?”

My guess is that Durham will have one or more indictments returned in December or early January, ahead of the inauguration. I think Attorney General Barr will then accept Durham’s resignation as US Attorney and name Durham as a “Special Counsel” under DOJ Regulations in simultaneous actions. He might do the same thing with US Attorney Jensen in Missouri who seems to be investigating the actual cases brought by the Special Counsel’s Office.

The Supreme Court “has repeatedly emphasized that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election.”

This is not — as so many Obama appointees seem to believe — a question of whether “My alteration is minor, or it makes the process fairer and easier for the voter”.

The principle is “Don’t change the rules to satisfy your views as to what is “fairer” or “easier”.

DON’T CHANGE THE RULES — it’s not your job.

Elections are about the political branches of government, and politics. Changing the rules accomplishes the goals of one political point of view at the expense of an opposing political point of view.

THAT is what elections are for. //

dging markvol
15 hours ago
That's exactly right. If you can hand in your vote to an authority, then you can vote in person.

I've said this in other posts, but this is the death of our republic. Many judges are doing this. They are rewriting laws they disagree with. This is blatantly unconstitutional. These judges, for the most part, are near the top of the field. They graduated from top law schools and often worked at top law firms. They know what they are doing is unconstitutional, but they do it anyway.

And it wears down the system. Even if most of the rulings get overturned, some will get through. More importantly, it sets the precedent that judges are allowed to issue unconstitutional rulings. In essence they wear down the constitution. The constitution then means nothing. And that, my dear friend, is the end of our republic.

A wise man once warned us to try and keep it. I think we failed in that endeavor. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But I doubt it.

Judge Pittman used the same rationale as all the other Obama appointees who have interjected themselves into state election process matters — the COVID-19 pandemic creates unprecedented challenges for voters to be able to cast their vote in a safe manner, and pursuant to a reliable process that ensures their right to vote will not be forfeited by a process problem. The argument boils down to whether a state can reasonably do something more that would make the casting of a ballot more convenient, and if so the State must have a compelling reason for NOT taking that step. The failure to do so is being determined by liberal federal district court judges as a violation by the State of the First and Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of the right to vote. //

Judge Pittman justifies his action by claiming that he is only returning the Texas process for collecting absentee ballots in person to the status it had between July 27 when Gov. Abbott issued his first Order allowing “drop boxes” without limitation on the number, and Oct. 1 when he issued his second Order that said no more than one “dropbox” per county regardless of the size of the county. //

While this argument has some facial validity, it ignores the words of Justice Kavanaugh in his “statement” accompanying the Supreme Court’s Order granting an emergency stay in connection with judicially mandated changes to South Carolina election law, which I wrote about in this story.

[F]or many years, this Court has repeatedly emphasized that federal courts ordinarily should not alter state election rules in the period close to an election.

Justice Kavanaugh did not write that “election rules” should not be altered close to an election — he wrote that federal courts should not altering election rules close to an election. Gov. Abbott’s Oct. 1 Order is an “election rule” under Texas law. Judge Pittman’s order changes the “election rule” less than 30 days prior to the election and after voting has already begun. The fact that he claims he’s only changing it back doesn’t make it any less of a change.

Gov. Abbott is accountable to the voters of Texas for his decisions. Judge Pittman is not. //

Judge Pittman has changed the election rules. It makes no difference that Gov. Abbot changed the rules on Oct. 1 — he’s not a federal judge, he’s an elected official in the State of Texas who has the authority invested in him by the voters of Texas who elected him.

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan denied a request from Republicans to stop Montana Gov. Steve Bullock’s (D) plan to mail ballots to all registered voters.

Kagan, who has jurisdiction over the case based on geography, denied the request without referring the case to the full court.

The suit was brought by Joe Lamm of the Ravali County Republican Central Committee and other voters.

The GOP-dominated Legislature banned mail-in ballots for general elections, instead allowing only by-request, no-excuse-required “absentee ballots” and in-person voting compatible with Phase 2 safety restrictions in the governor’s COVID-19 reopening plan.

But Bullock argued an emergency declaration connected to the coronavirus pandemic allows him to suspend that state law.

Bullock gave counties wide latitude regarding mailed ballots. Counties with approved plans began sending them to all registered voters in those counties on Oct. 9.

The [Supreme Court] Justices have deprecated but not forbidden all change close to an election. A last-minute event may require a last-minute reaction. But it is not possible to describe COVID-19 as a last-minute event. The World Health Organization declared a pandemic seven months ago, the State of Wisconsin closed many businesses and required social distancing last March, and the state has conducted two elections (April and August) during the pandemic. If the judge had issued an order in May based on April’s experience, it could not be called untimely. By waiting until September, however, the district court acted too close to the election.

The district judge also assumed that the design of adjustments during a pandemic is a judicial task. This is doubtful, as Justice Kavanaugh observed in connection with the Supreme Court’s recent stay of another injunction issued close to the upcoming election. Andino v. Middleton, No. 20A55 (U.S. Oct. 5, 2020) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring). The Supreme Court has held that the design of electoral procedures is a legislative task.

Yesterday the Wisconsin Supreme Court, acting on an expedited basis, answered the question posed by the Seventh Circuit in the “affirmative” — the Wisconsin Legislature was authorized to act as a litigant on behalf of the State of Wisconsin when the issue in dispute was defending the validity of a law passed by the legislature. Because Judge Conley’s order declared parts of the Wisconsin election code to be in violation of federal constitutional law, and therefore unenforceable for the upcoming election, the Wisconsin Legislature could challenge his ruling.

What about the Wisconsin Attorney General you might wonder. Why did he not seek to defend the Wisconsin statutes and oppose Judge Conley’s order? He’s a Democrat, elected in 2018, and serving his first term as Wisconsin Attorney General. He’s too busy helping to prosecute Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha.

And, prior to running for office, he worked for the notorious Democrat Party election law specialists, the Perkins Coie law firm in their Madison, Wisconsin office.

Barrett’s authored opinions give no reason to believe she automatically accepts or rejects a government agency’s interpretation of the law. //

The executive branch of George Washington’s presidency was but a pale image of what we have today. The 91 members of the first Congress outnumbered the executive branch officials empowered to implement congressional acts and presidential orders. Since Congress chartered the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887, however, the number, reach, and power of executive officials have grown exponentially, creating our contemporary Leviathan administrative state.

A major criticism of the administrative state is that it consists of unelected officials with the power to govern virtually every aspect of modern life without serious oversight by the federal courts. //

The opinions Barrett wrote or joined are reasoned analyses of the relevant statutory provisions, the applicable case law, and the pertinent aspects of the administrative record. These cases suggest Barrett is prepared to do the hard work of statutory interpretation and not simply declare that a statute or regulation is ambiguous and, therefore, the court should defer to the applicable agency’s interpretation.