Patterico's Pontifications

11/27/2020

Elite Strike Force Loses Big Again

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:35 pm



A dose of reality:

A federal appeals court on Friday handed another loss to the Trump campaign’s effort to undo President-elect Joe Biden’s win in Pennsylvania, with a judge — one of Trump’s nominees — writing that the campaign’s “claims have no merit.”

In a 3-0 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit rejected the campaign’s effort to get a do-over of its lawsuit challenging the election results in Pennsylvania, which a lower court had already tossed out last week.

“Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote in a 3-0 decision from the US Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.

Crazy Trump superfans who think the election was stolen hardest hit.

26 Responses to “Elite Strike Force Loses Big Again”

  1. They also ordered the Trump campaign to pay the cost of the appeal as well, not sure how much that would be though.

    I’m sure it’s all a plot by something something deep state something, to ensure that something something Soros something something gets something.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0)

  2. In a 3-0 decision

    Oh sure, but that’s like just the first quarter and stuff. Wait until Trump gets his field goal kicker on to the field.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  3. Over at Hot Air, Allahpundit says the 3rd Circuit court of appeals “savaged” Trump’s supposedly “elite” legal strike force team.

    https://hotair.com/archives/allahpundit/2020/11/27/3-0-republican-panel-third-circuit-savages-trump-appeal-pennsylvania-election-case/

    Giuliani has become a national embarrassment.

    Meanwhile, more Republicans are publicly declaring Trump should concede.

    https://reason.com/2020/11/24/as-trumps-fraud-allegations-founder-more-republican-lawmakers-are-acknowledging-his-defeat/

    But Trump will never admit he lost the election, or that Biden received the most votes for a presidential candidate in history. He just won’t, because he can’t. He is psychologically incapable of admitting he’s a loser. So it’s going to be accusations of fraud, a rigged, stolen election for as long as he has a platform.

    I think the best path forward is simply to ignore him completely. That’s what he dreads most, by the way, not being the center of attention.

    He now says he will step down after Biden wins the electoral college. Well, that’s going to happen by or on Dec. 8, when the states certify their vote tallies. The electoral college will convene and vote on Dec. 14, then the Congress will certify their votes on Jan. 6. And on Jan. 20, Biden will be sworn in.

    There is absolutely nothing Trump can do to prevent the inevitable.

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  4. Latest breaking news! CBS reports in its lates pulitzer prise winning scoop bidens will adopt a cat! No word yet on if it will be called hunter jr.

    asset (a7214c)

  5. Sidney Powell’s ‘Kraken’ Lawsuit Didn’t Get Much Better When It Was Actually Filed
    Former Trump campaign and alleged freelance attorney Sidney Powell filed her so-called “Kraken” lawsuit in a Georgia federal court on Friday. The case seeks to de-certify the Peach State’s 2020 election results which indicated Joe Biden won a slim but decisive victory. …….[A] similar complaint was filed in Michigan federal court.
    ……..
    Initially hyped up to intense fanfare among Trump’s stalwart followers, the Georgia petition came under intense scrutiny and close-readings that quickly led to a cascade of Twitter-based mockery and scorn as legal observers noted several clumsy formatting and typographical errors. Freshly filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the actually-submitted lawsuit appears to repeat each and every one of those heavily discussed and reported on errors.
    ………
    See here for a great Twitter reaction roundup.

    Rip Murdock (8cb7cc)

  6. Communist china reports the bidens are not for sale! We bought them and we are keeping them! China news agency.

    asset (a7214c)

  7. Stephanos Bibas is a Greek name. That should say it all, I think.

    nk (1d9030)

  8. @4. First Trump; now Biden; what is it w/presidents and pussys??

    Even the Clintons had Socks. 😉

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  9. claims have no merit

    That’s just nit-picking, isn’t it?

    Dave (1bb933)

  10. Stephanos Bibas is a Greek name. That should say it all, I think.

    Like, she’s really cute if she’s under 30?

    JVW (ee64e4)

  11. Stephanos Bibas is a dude, with quite the beard in the photo I saw.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0)

  12. Stephanos Bibas is a dude, with quite the beard in the photo I saw.

    Yeah, but, you know, still under 30?

    Here I avoid reciting those old Greek jokes I learned as a boy which nk would find funny yet be moderately offended by.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  13. Trump leaves the Presidency completely unchanged from the man he has been his entire adult life — liar, lawfare Plaintiff-in-Chief.

    DRJ (aede82)

  14. Neat link, lurker 9.

    DRJ (aede82)

  15. The other Pennsylvania lawsuit, the one claiming that the methods of voting were inherently unconstitutional under the state constitution, is interesting for its implications. The law expanding absentee voting was passed a year ago by overwhelming majorities and has been used in two subsequent elections. The claim, by legislators who if I understand correctly voted for the bill, is that because it alters methods set forth in the state constitution for absentee voting, and was not passed in two successive sessions, as required under the state constitution, that all the votes by citizens, cast in good faith by legal voters, need to be thrown out as unconstitutional illegal votes.

    The claim is that the passage of time, or voter reliance, doesn’t alter the unconstitutionality. I will not opine on how accurate that is as a question of state law. But the underlying thinking is telling. Voting is a privilege, and the legislature can set up various hurdles, and if the voter doesn’t successfully scamper over the hurdles, as determined later by a subsequent court, it all must be thrown out. It reminds me of Roman augurs, where the sacrifice had to be performed in a precise manner if the future was to be determined, and otherwise you had to start again.

    I think i’d just declare that the new law was not really a constitutional amendment and let it go. But if nothing else this election season is going to produce some interesting new law on what remedies makes sense with elections that include some irregularities.

    Victor (4959fb)

  16. Donald J. Trump tweet:

    “Biden can only enter the White House as President if he can prove that his ridiculous “80,000,000 votes” were not fraudulently or illegally obtained. When you see what happened in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia & Milwaukee, massive voter fraud, he’s got a big unsolvable problem!”

    That’s the kind of sh!t that lives for centuries in the history books.

    noel (9fead1)

  17. Trump is not going to go away. In fact, there are reports he’s planning to announce his bid for a second term while Biden is being sworn in.

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-already-gaming-out-a-2024-run-including-an-event-during-bidens-inauguration?ref=scroll

    What’s he going to do, hold a rally? His lawsuits are being laughed out of court after court. His complaints of vote fraud and election theft ring hollow. The Republicans appeasing and supporting him in his delusion are doing so under the illusion they can gain control of his cult base in 2022 and 2024. But that’s a dangerous strategy.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/22/trump-wreak-havoc-gop-white-house-438859

    The Republicans run the risk of losing governorships, majorities in state legislatures, the gains they made in the House, and control of the Senate. For as long as Trump remains the face of the party, it will lose more credibility than it already has.

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  18. Here I avoid reciting those old Greek jokes I learned as a boy which nk would find funny yet be moderately offended by.

    JVW (ee64e4) — 11/28/2020 @ 12:26 am

    And well you should, because everyone would be better served clicking DRJ’s lawfare Plaintiff-in-Chief link from her Comment #14 about Trump, Roy Cohn, their “close and intimate relatioship”, and 3,500 lawsuits.

    nk (1d9030)

  19. Here’s a teaser: “They met in a bar.” Donnie and Roy, I mean. From DRJ’s link. Actually, it deserves its own post.

    Although, I suppose, some might feel like Trump’s parents did when Roe v. Wade was decided: “What difference at this point does it make?”

    nk (1d9030)

  20. ‘Loser’: How a Lifelong Fear Bookended Trump’s Presidency
    ……..
    Loser.

    “The first thing he calls someone who has wronged him is a loser,” said Jack O’Donnell, who ran an Atlantic City casino for Mr. Trump in the 1980s. “That’s his main attack word. The worst thing in his world would be to be a loser. To avoid being called a loser, he will do or say anything.”

    Across his long career, he has spun, cajoled and attacked — in the press, in lawsuits and lately, of course, on Twitter — whenever faced with appearing as anything less than the superlative of the moment: the greatest, the smartest, the healthiest, the best. This has at times required audacious attempts to twist a negative into a positive, often by saying something over and over until it either displaces the truth or exhausts the audience into surrender.
    ……..
    But his famous aversion to the label of loser has now reached its apotheosis.

    Since Joseph R. Biden Jr. was declared the winner of the Nov. 3 election — and Mr. Trump therefore declared the loser — the president has repeatedly trafficked in baseless allegations of a fraudulent and corrupt electoral process. What was once considered the quirky trait of a self-involved New York developer has become an international embarrassment, nearly upending the sacred transition of power and leaving the world’s foremost democracy — grappling with a deadly pandemic and a teetering economy — with a leader who refuses to concede despite the basic math.
    ……..
    After Mr. Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States in January 2017, his administration asserted that the inauguration’s audience was the largest ever, despite all evidence to the contrary. But any suggestion otherwise would have rendered Mr. Trump a loser in some imagined contest about inaugural crowd sizes.

    Now, nearly four years later, the citizens have cast their ballots, baseless lawsuits alleging electoral fraud have been dismissed and states have certified the vote. Still, the loser of the 2020 presidential election continues to see crowds that the rest of the country does not.

    It ends as it began.
    >>>>>>>>>

    Rip Murdock (8cb7cc)

  21. Crazy Trump haters and crazy Biden/Harris/Hillary/Pelosi/Schumer/Schiff superfans who think the election was not stolen will be hardest hit by this.

    Pennsylvania State Judge Upholds Halt To Certification, Finds Likelihood Mail-In Balloting Procedures Violate PA Constitution https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/11/pennsylvania-state-judge-halts-certification-finds-likelihood-mail-in-balloting-procedures-violate-pa-constitution/

    Liberty & Truth require constant vigilance. GLZ.

    Gary L. Zerman (a1521c)

  22. No worries, GLZ. The Pennsylvania appeals court will slap down that county judge that held a grudge so hard she’ll bounce.

    nk (1d9030)

  23. Addendum to post #22.
    Lying by government? Cheating? Fabricating documents? Wrongful charges/convictions? Stealing elections? To see what our governments are capable of, see: U.S. v. Edwin P. Wilson, 289 F.Supp.2d 801 (USDC-SD, TX, 2003). https://www.leagle.com/decision/20031090289fsupp2d80111004

    There at 809, after finding that the CIA/DOJ had fabricated the affidavit of the Executive Director of the CIA (Charles Briggs – his previous position at the CIA was its Inspector General) and had withheld reams of exculpatory documents, vacated the conviction of Wilson (who had been incarcerated for 17 years; 10 in solitaire) stated: “Honesty come hard to government.”

    Here is more of Judge Hughes found and wrote starting at page 802:
    “Twenty years ago the government tried a former central intelligence officer for exporting explosives to Libya. His defense was simple. He said he was still working for the Company. The government refused to disclose records of his continues association with the agency. When he presented witnesses to his contacts after the end of his formal employment, the government convinced the judge to admit an affidavit from a principal CIA official to the effect that there were, with one minor exception, none—zero. There were, in fact, over 80 contacts, including actions parallel to those in the charges.
    “[P] … Because the government knowingly used false evidence against him and suppressed favorable evidence, his conviction will be vacated. [P] This opinion refers only to the part of the record that the government has reluctantly agreed may be made public. It does not attempt to recount even that limited range of data in its entirety; the governmental deceit mentioned here is illustrative—not exhaustive.
    * * *
    [at 809] “Honesty comes hard to the government. It describes its non-disclosure as ‘information allegedly concealed by the Briggs declaration.’ (Gov’t Answer at 64.) This is a semantic game—the information was not allegedly concealed; it was actively concealed…” [P] “The investigation is a dodge; there was no need to investigate: it knew the affidavit was false before it offered it. …”
    * * *
    “[at 811] “The government says that its use of the false affidavit was an innocent error. … In this case, however, the falsity comes from high public officials with access to voluminous records—not some high school dropout street-level drug dealer with a memory of one sale. … [P] … The evidence, now, shows that the hierarchies of both the Justice Department and CIA were as knowledgeable as was the individual talking to the judge and jury. … The court has identified about two dozen government lawyers who actively participated in the original non-disclosure to the defense, the false rebuttal testimony, and the refusal to correct it. …”
    * * *
    [at 815] ”In the course of American justice, one would have to work hard to conceive of a more fundamentally unfair process with a consequently unreliable result than the fabrication of false data by the government, under oath by a government official, presented knowingly by the prosecutor in the court room with the express approval of his superiors in Washington.”
    * * *
    [at 816] “This sort of behavior is among the reasons that the Constitution allows an accused to confront the witnesses against him. Instead of a witness who Wilson could examine before the jury, in his Texas trial Wilson was contradicted by a dishonest agency issued from a bunker in Virginia.”
    _____________________________

    Judge Hughes is to be commended for doing his duty here, defending the constitution, upholding the law, holding government to some degree of accountability, and attempting to right the extreme wrong done Mr. Wilson. Then again, this simply is his job and – he took an oath to defend the constitution. Judge Hughes though, goes rather light on the trial judge – Ross Sterling (barely mentioning him), who ignored Wilson’s objection to the Briggs affidavit, the Constitution-6th Amendment, wrongly favored government, wrongly allowed the Briggs’ affidavit and therefore failed in his gate-keeping function and helped cause the bogus conviction of Mr. Wilson. The same is true of the appellate circuit judges, Politz, Gee and Johnson, who unanimously affirmed Wilson’s conviction, as Judge Hughes does not even mention their names. U.S. v. Wilson, 732 F.2d 404 (5th Cir. 1984). There Judge Politz wrote in part at page 413:
    “The affidavit [Briggs] was not inadmissible hearsay. … It was executed by the third highest official in the CIA whose duties include overall management, and it is attested to by the General Counsel of the CIA, the custodian seal of the CIA. [P] Wilson argues that introduction of the affidavit violated his right to confrontation of witnesses. The claim is not devoid of merit but it is not sufficient to render the affidavit inadmissible as a matter of law. Most exceptions to the hearsay rule necessarily implicate an interruption of the right of confrontation. That fact alone does not bar use of otherwise relevant, material evidence which satisfies sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness and reliability.
    * * *.
    “Appellant claims a Brady violation, suggesting that the government had information about association of certain people with the CIA which would have materially aided Wilson/s defense. Our review of the record, with particular emphasis on the classified filings, briefs and oral arguments, satisfies us beyond peradventure that no Brady violation occurred.”
    Satisfies sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness and reliability? Wrong. But once again here is government – judges- siding with, favoring government, instead of upholding the constitution and protecting the rights of the People. Satisfies us beyond peradventure that no Brady violation occurred? Wrong again.
    It must be pointed out, several of the intimately involved federal officials in the Wilson case had their careers greatly enhanced by the conviction and “went on to become some of the most prominent men in legal circles today” including becoming federal judges. (See April 28, 2005 ABC Nightline expose “The Most Dangerous Man in American–Conviction of former CIA Agent Overturned on False Affidavit” at http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/print?id=708779.) Will anything happen to those involved federal officials who lied, deceived and manufactured evidence? Or will they have they government protect them?
    The matter provides a test case whether we have a Rule of Law? A meaningful Constitution.? Or tyranny?

    When the dust settled – NOTHING was done to the above involved officilas and laywers from the DOJ/CIA and judges responsible for the wrongful incarceration of Wilson. The above dastardly and despicable conduct, is why former Asst. U.S. Attorney and appellate specialist attorney Sidney Powell wrote LICENSED TO LIE: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice (2015) https://www.licensedtolie.com/
    and Justice Kozinski wrote in dissent in U.S. v. Olsen, (No. 10-36063, 9th Cir. 2013 – order 1/8/13) – https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/10-36063/10-36063-2013-12-10.html – against the affirmance of the trial conviction of Kenneth Olsen:

    “There is an epidemic of Brady violations abroad in the land. Only judges can put a stop to it.”

    President Trump was correct – DC is a SWAMP that must be drained.

    Liberty & Truth require constant vigilance. GLZ.

    Gary L. Zerman (a1521c)

  24. The substitute host for Rush Limbaugh is focusing his show on the alleged fraud – the big alleged fraud seems to creating ballots before the election that were not tied to any voters and.or Dominion supposedly rigging the count.

    You can;t create ballots without any voters any more than a bank teller or manager can create deposits without any depositor and without any deposits (unless the deposits is created by making a loan, and then the depositor is the person who was loaned the money)

    At 2pm EST the show will carry or try to carry. a public appearance by Sidney Powell and Lin Wood whom the ubstitute host (who’s from Pennsylvania) described as members of president Trump’s legal team – even though Giuliani repudiated them, which I guess he hasn’t noticed.

    They wouldn’t share any information with Giuliani and earlier with Tucker Carlson.

    Meanwhile, Trump wants the Governor of Georgia to cancel the runoffs on the grounds that they won (Kelly Loeffler in her 3-way race, too?)

    Sammy Finkelman (bbf750)


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