By the way, one other point I forgot to make earlier when someone raises the (predictable) “whataboutism” defense claiming Democrats are guilty of the same stuff.
No. No they are not. They haven’t attempted anything on this scale, there’s nothing comparable. You can disagree 100% with the party platform and even accuse them of cynical political moves - but they haven’t attempted anything remotely as bad as this affront to constitutional democracy, as the PA response put it.
Thanks guys. This part might be the best:
The cascading series of compounding defects in
Texas’s filings is only underscored by the surreal alter-
nate reality that those filings attempt to construct.
That alternate reality includes an absurd statistical analysis positing that the probability of President-
Elect Biden winning the election was “one in a quadril-
lion.”
The whole thing is scathing. Like, if it were a rap battle there would be mic drops. I’m about halfway through and it just keeps getting better. All of the objections raised earlier in this thread about viewing of the ballots, judicial change of deadline, everything is addressed (pages 3 - 8 on the document).
The table of contents list is also humorous.
I love this part:
Emphasis mine. His two key assumptions are fucking bullshit. Wouldn’t pass a freshman level stats course.
Shouldn’t there be some sort of standard for what gets brought before the USSC? There should be standards for ANY court, but to waste tax payer money on this is criminal. This case would get laughed out of Judge Judy’s court.
But Trumpkins got to use “quadrillion” in a sentence?
Kidding aside, it’s an absurd argument for many reasons, all based on a weird premise that a 2016 Trump voter would never, ever change his/her mind to vote for Biden after the last 4 years of performance to consider.
They questioned the legitimacy of the government after Obama was elected.
Given that these claims aren’t made against white politicians, you have to wonder.
Basically yes. Thunderbolt would be a better source for a specific standard, but in my layman’s view of things this was probably brought on basis of emergency (impending timeline whereby it would skip the line of waiting cases) and the fact that POTUS signed on as well.
But there is a standard for consideration, and a large part of PA’s brief is basically delineating all the ways Texas failed to reach anything close to the standard required for original jurisdiction to apply.
You are right though. This thing would get laughed out of Judge Judy
I don’t even understand how he was allowed to make that a premise. I mean, this is beyond ridiculous.
Assuming the voting ballots are pulled from random pools (they weren’t. At all. And we all knew it. It was reported for months ahead of time that mail in ballots would shift democrat) and simply assuming the exact same likelihood of a voter voting for Biden as HRC (which is absurd on the face of it for NUMEROUS reasons) is complete trash.
It’s actually the opposite on this - the only jurisdiction under this is when a state has a beef with another state. SCOTUS only entertains this extraordinary remedy when there is really no other forum that makes sense. The presence of a non-state party - enter the Trump administration - is a reason to say this can clearly be heard in another forum, it’s no longer straightforwardly state versus state. Trump’s intervention actually creates a separate reason for SCOTUS to throw it out.
One other wrinkle - you can’t sue states, see the 11th Amendment. Trump’s intervention is also ludicrous on that basis alone.
This is all icing on the cake, of course - it’s trash that will be dismissed even before Trump the aggrieved party showed up. But Trump’s intervention actually reduced the chances of SCOTUS hearing this from zero to minus one.
There are, tons of them, and I mentioned some issues in a reply to @Aragorn. This filing is DOA. But - the larger question is when do people face sanctions for bringing such bullshit claims, especially to SCOTUS? Lawyers are given a lot of latitude because we err on the side of zealous advocacy and giving room to bring novel claims in the spirit of allowing unconventional thinking, but a line has been crossed here many times with frivolous claims. There are a number of attorneys whose licenses should be in jeopardy at this point, if you ask me.
Interesting. I knew that original jurisdiction was reserved only for serious state-state problems, being that states are meant to be semi-sovereign and there is no clear remedy. But I didn’t know that Trump’s involvement would signify an extra reason to toss it.
This I don’t quite follow. If the AG is bringing suit on behalf of a state, then it becomes a state-state dispute at least nominally. Standing and merit obviously separate factors (which are completely missing here).
If you’re talking about the fact that a state can’t volunteer to bring suit on behalf of it’s citizen’s complaints then I got that.
I agree. I mean I’m a layman, but… There needs to be some sort of consequence for this, even if it is a sanction instead of license revocation.
As ridiculous as Trump’s past lawsuits have been, I think this particular one is a separate and distinct line that was crossed.
I’m not sure I’d be in favor of the the AG’s employees losing licenses since they are effectively told what to draw up by the AG (correct?). But for the boss himself, some sort of consequence needs to occur.
That reminds me of these “that stinks” contests me and my kiddo have wherein we say something like “That stinks worse than dinosaur barf left in the washing machine on spin for three and a half billion years!”. 
Except that this dude presented it to the SCOTUS! 
Yeah, I can’t believe someone would intentionally do that .
But I do love those contests! Some really awesome lines get thought up.
A state can sue a state, per the unsual remedy in the Constitution - but Trump himself can’t sue a state. The 11A bars that. So if he tries to intervene and join Texas as a party, he can’t.
Trump can sue various state organs/agencies - like a state’s secretary of state in his/her official capacity, etc. - to claim violation of election laws, which is what he’s done and lost over 50 times.
Got it! That makes complete sense.
1 for 50+… Gotta be a record batting average. Pretty sure they send you down to AA for that.
I don’t know exactly what you could compare it to, but I’ve never seen this type of sustained nonsense in a big litigation. I know we’ve become numb to “unprecedented”, but it’s unprecedented.
And now the SCOTUS case has over 100 Congressmen signing a letter in support of it as well as 17 red state AGs. Tragic as all this is, it exposes who is for and against this affront to the country. That’s helpful, especially for 2022.
Unless you throw a high 90s, backed with breaker of some sort.
Of course, if you can’t hit the strike zone - Coach TB is calling the bullpen
Do you think the most likely result is that the USSC just declines to hear the case? Here’s their 1 sentence order from the Kelley case a couple of days ago:
(ORDER LIST: 592 U.S.)
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2020
ORDER IN PENDING CASE
20A98 KELLY, MIKE, ET AL. V. PENNSYLVANIA, ET AL.
The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice
Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.
Will it be similar, and does it matter if it’s just a one sentence reaction, or would it be better if they explain in detail why this suit is so fraught with problems? I guess what I’m asking is If it gets hammered by the USSC will this put an end to this nonsense or will we continue to be subject to more of Trump’s last “last ditch efforts” which seem to pop up every other day.
Serious question:
Was this current SCOTUS filing that these 20 or so IG’s and half the House supports…is this the “big thing” that we are supposed to be waiting for?