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ELECTIONS

Election Lawsuits Move Forward Despite Silencing Crusade Even though Trump’s fate is sealed, the Supreme Court still has time to rectify the election’s many wrongs. The only remaining question is—will they? By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/18/election-lawsuits-move-forward-despite-silencing-crusade/

As the country looks back at the mayhem that has unfolded over the past few months, one moment stands out: The most consequential event since Election Day—hands down—was the Supreme Court’s rejection of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit against four states that helped decide the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

In fact, it’s easy to assume if the court had agreed to consider the petition, the melee on January 6 never would have happened.

Paxton’s case detailed the unlawful handling of mail-in ballots in Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, votes that overwhelmingly favored Joe Biden. (Biden flipped those states by a combined 270,000 votes; more than 9 million ballots were absentee.) Several Republican state attorneys general and more than 100 GOP House members immediately joined the suit. There were no claims of “kraken” or foreign servers or bribed governors, just indisputable facts of what happened.

But a mere four days after receiving the 154-page filing on December 7, the Supreme Court neglected its duty to protect the U.S. Constitution, refusing to ensure that election laws codified by state legislatures were followed in accordance with the Electors Clause.

“Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections,” the court wrote in an abrupt order issued December 11. (Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas disagreed with the majority’s “standing” argument and concluded the case did fall within the court’s jurisdiction.)

In a hard slap to both the Constitution and those responsible for their rise to the highest court in the land, the three justices appointed by the president agreed with the majority’s ruling.

Now that the news media, Big Tech, and lawmakers of both parties are attempting to criminalize criticism of the 2020 election—the president was impeached a second time for allegedly inciting an “insurrection” following his fiery speech to supporters gathered in the capital on January 6—the court’s denial of the Texas lawsuit looms large. As I cautioned in December, the vacuum created by inaction in the court system and the Justice Department would fuel chaos.

The Left Slanderously Accuses Trump of Inciting the Capitol Riot Progressives’ malicious power grab escalates to the wickedest heights. Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/left-slanderously-accuses-trump-inciting-capitol-joseph-klein/

A contingent of protestors invaded, vandalized and occupied portions of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th — as the constitutional process of electoral college certification of the 2020 presidential election results was getting underway. The mob violence was an outright assault on the greatest constitutional republic in the world. But instead of making an effort to unite the country against such anarchy, the Left’s leaders and their friends in the establishment media are applying their usual double standard of “for thee, but not for me.” Not surprisingly, they are blaming President Trump for the Capitol unrest, falsely claiming he incited violence during his speech to supporters at Wednesday’s otherwise peaceful “Save America” rally.

President Trump and his supporters at the rally were simply exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech and peaceable assembly. The president’s refusal to concede an election marred by reports of widespread fraud which troubled many voters was not an incitement to violence, nor was his presentation of evidence of a stolen election.

President Trump told his supporters, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women.” In so doing, he was clearly urging them merely to march peacefully and petition their government.

President Trump did NOT tell supporters to “storm the Capitol” or anything remotely similar. He was in no way responsible for the actions of a fringe breakaway group. Moreover, it remains a question as to who the rioters actually were. Indeed, there are credible reports of Antifa infiltration of the crowd.

President Trump made a video telling people to avoid violence and he urged calm on Twitter. Yet Twitter locked him out as if he were doing the opposite.

After recessing their electoral college certification proceedings for nearly six hours until the Capitol building was secured by a strengthened law enforcement contingent, the members of Congress reconvened to resume in a bipartisan show of support for constitutional order. The electoral college results were officially certified early Thursday morning.

The Trump Coup Attempt That Wasn’t Who’s really assaulting democracy? Matthew Vadum

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/trump-coup-attempt-wasnt-matthew-vadum/

Leftists and weak-kneed Republicans were quick to accuse President Donald Trump of attempting to overthrow the democratic process on January 6 as individuals bearing Trump campaign flags and paraphernalia ran amok in the United States Capitol while lawmakers were attempting to officially certify the results of the November 6 election.

The election –don’t forget—that the Democrats stole with the connivance of those same Republicans.

The disorder in the Capitol complex, during which an apparently unarmed Trump supporter, 35-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, was shot to death by police, didn’t end the certification process, but merely delayed an official declaration a few hours. The barely sentient former Vice President Joe Biden, a left-winger now held hostage by even more radical elements of his anti-American party, hobbled across the finish line as he was pronounced president-elect early in the morning January 7 after lawmakers rejected a series of Republican objections to states’ presidential electors. Support for the objections collapsed after an angry mob took over the premises, smashing windows, breaking down doors, and occupying lawmakers’ offices.

Rogue lawmaker Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman from Illinois, led the charge against Trump, not the rioters, labeling the freelance storming of the Capitol building then in progress “a coup attempt,” in a tweet time-stamped 2:24 p.m.

Former Michigan Congressman Justin Amash, who fled the Republican Party under pressure, tweeted “Donald Trump needs to resign or be removed from office. America has endured enough.”

RINO Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor, said President Trump has been “very disappointing” since his November election loss and that he will be “judged harshly by history.”

Time for Trump to start the Great American Party By Ted Noel

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/time_for_trump_to_start_the_great_american_party.html

Vice President Mike Pence is an honorable gentleman.  We know from Jenna Ellis, a constitutional law scholar and Donald Trump’s legal counsel, that he is fully aware of the unconstitutionality of the Electoral Count Act.  He is also fully aware that he has the authority to call on the contested states of AZ, GA, MI, NV, PA, and WI to have their legislatures revisit the certification of their electoral votes before allowing them to be counted.  And yet… nothing.

Joe Biden will be our next President. He didn’t win, he stole the office. Or more accurately, it was stolen for him. Trump’s trusted ally, Mike Pence, has refused to fight.

To Pence’s name we must add a legion of other subsea invertebrates with “R” after their names.  So-called “Republicans” have in large measure become pale versions of their political counterparts across the aisle.  One wag put it this way: Republicans are Democrats, just twenty years late.  Translated into plain English, our frustration with D.C. is with almost all those who have official chairs in the Congress, the White House, and supporting agencies.  Those people serve themselves, with complete disregard for those of us who live outside the Beltway.  The stolen election has lit a match.

Donald Trump will change his address within a couple of weeks.  He will still have a voice, but the swamp and fake news media will feel free to ignore him unless the Democrats in power decide to prosecute him as an example for any who might ever again deign to think or speak freely.  The Republican Party will happily disregard him as an uncomfortable interlude in their peaceful slide into irrelevance.

If America is to have a future as something other than a vessel for the aggrandizement and enrichment of the privileged few, Donald Trump is probably the only figure large enough to create an organization with the size and sway to elect officials who are committed to the idea that the people are the rulers of America, as he said in his inaugural address.

MAGA Patriots: The Best of People in the Worst of Times Where was the constitutional duty to act forcefully when BLM and Antifa goons romped and rampaged across the country? None was evident. Ilana Mercer

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/08/maga-patriots-the-best-of-people-in-the-worst-of-times/

Why repeat hackneyed phrases about annus horribilis 2020? 

Recall the opening paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities, a classic by Charles Dickens. Interspersed in that epical introduction are countervailing, sweetness-and-light words. Excise these—and you get 2020:

. . . it was the worst of times . . . it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch . . . of incredulity, it was . . . the season of darkness . . . it was the winter of despair. . . . we had nothing before us.

MAGA men and women are just that: The best of people in the worst of times. 

These good people converged on Washington, D.C. Wednesday to protest the certification of the Electoral College vote.

They, who have “nothing before them,” had come to demand that something be done by those who had “brought [them] forth into this wilderness,” yet sit “by the fleshpots [on the Potomac] and [eat] bread to the full.” (My adaptation of Exodus 16:3.)

Cassandra Fairbanks of Gateway Pundit framed her report about the protest that ensued just right: “Patriots Have Stormed the Capitol Building—Masses Breaching Federal Barriers—Cops Losing Control.” 

Yes, patriots. Rage that had been simmering over an election whose results lacked constitutional credibility had finally come to a boil. 

Prior to the eruption, on January 5, patriots had gathered at the Freedom Plaza in D.C. They patiently awaited their president, who was due to deliver a “Stop the Steal” address the following day. In short succession, they recited the “Lord’s Prayer” (from Luke, not the one-chord grunts of Lil Baby, or other rappers, emblematic of the Black Lives Matter repertoire).

These good people, who have been thoroughly marginalized and demonized—their country made diverse to the point of distrust—puncture their prayers with an “amen,” ancient Hebrew for “so be it.” 

The End It didn’t have to end this way. But most got the ending they deserved. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/07/the-end/

In the end, almost everyone got what they deserved.

The president’s Achilles’ heel—relying on the wrong people to advance his political interests—led to his final ouster this week. Donald Trump ran out of runway and instead of preparing for a soft landing, he pumped the gas. It’s hard to blame him: His court challenges had been thwarted by the very judges he elevated to the federal bench, his hodgepodge legal team whirred in defeat, and Republican senators he helped elect quickly turned on him.

As usual, the president was right: extensive proof of vote fraud in key states justified his belief, shared by tens of millions of Americans, that the election was stolen from him. Trump’s instinct to fight back was spot-on but the plan and the people he put in place failed to launch yet again. Despite advance warning that a majority mail-in election would doom his chance to win, the president’s team was infuriatingly unprepared both in terms of messaging and legal strategy. An odd press conference the day after the election featured not top-tier legal killers but his son and daughter-in-law.

The prologue already was written.

A vacuum created by a complete lack of interest from his own Justice Department—led by a man the president refused to fire even though he had cause to do so months before—was filled with any number of caricatures peddling far-fetched claims obscuring legitimate evidence. The president, as is his wont, whether because of loyalty or ignorance, didn’t shut them down until it was too late. The damage to his case was done, another self-inflicted wound suffered unnecessarily at the most crucial time imaginable.

As the president greeted tens of thousands of Americans who had traveled to the nation’s capital to show their support for Trump’s last stand, Senate Republicans learned they would lose control of the chamber after both Georgia races were called for the Democrats.

Left’s Hypocrisy On Full Display After D.C. ‘Insurrection’

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/01/08/lefts-hypocrisy-on-full-display-after-d-c-insurrection/

The angry election fraud protest that led to the temporary takeover of the U.S. Capitol Wednesday perfectly illuminates the hypocrisy of the Democratic far left when it comes to political violence.

Republican officials and rank-and-file GOP conservatives immediately and forcefully condemned the pro-Trump rioters. Nothing unusual about that: During this riot-torn year, Republicans have consistently, loudly and frequently denounced violence, no matter who did it.

What about the Democrats and their extreme-left supporters? Tragically, for them, violence is always acceptable when it’s in service to their cause. That’s especially true since the riots and mass protests began in late May following the death of George Floyd.

But, as usual, congressional Democrats, the legacy press and social media giants have misreported, distorted and twisted facts to suit their own leftist agenda and inflame public opinion.

Republicans, however, have taken a mature and responsible path.

Oklahoma Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin, appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday, didn’t excuse the behavior. Far from it.

“There is no excuse and no one is to blame but ourselves,” he told host George Stephanopoulos. “We need to take a hard look at our country, we need to take a hard look at the way we debate. We can agree to disagree but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. That doesn’t mean I don’t care for you. That doesn’t mean I don’t love this country any more or less than you but what we did yesterday was absolutely inexcusable.”

SYDNEY WILLIAMS: HIS LAST HURRAH

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Defending President Trump over the past four years has sometimes felt like being caught in a whirlwind. No matter which way I turned, something or somebody was coming at me. While most comments I receive are supportive, I have been accused of being insensitive, stupid, a racist and, if not a Nazi, something akin to a storm trooper. 

Despite his obvious character flaws, I have defended Mr. Trump for five essential reasons: First, I believed (and still do) that Washington’s morass of arrogant and sanctimonious bureaucrats needed (and needs) disrupting. Second, his appointment of dozens of conservative judges and three justices. Third, his accomplishments in terms of the economy, particularly what he did for black and minority unemployment, and in world affairs, especially in the Middle East where, in 2020, he was instrumental in getting four Arab nations to recognize Israel. Fourth, he fought for public school choice and against undemocratic trends toward political correctness, identity politics, “cancel” culture and the prohibition of conservative speech on college campuses. And fifth, his courage in fending off attempts by Democrats to undo the 2016 election and their attempt to create roadblocks for his new administration in 2017 and beyond. And this he did while continuously being assaulted by a feckless mainstream media, and a social media industry intent on separating him from his followers. As well, I was impressed with Operation Warp Speed and how quickly, and against most expectations, the vaccine appeared.

Trump Supporters Take Stock of Jan. 6, Feel Mischaracterized by Media By Charlotte Cuthbertson

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-supporters-take-stock-of-jan-6-feel-mischara

““People can go to Portland and Seattle and burn buildings down and take over police stations and everything else, and it’s called Summer of Love.”

WASHINGTON—Empty streets and a subdued atmosphere characterized Washington on Jan. 7 as Trump supporters processed the events of the previous day and the certification of the Electoral College votes by Congress overnight.

Many were packing up to go home, at the same time a fence was being erected around the Capitol; the National Guard presence was obvious.

Marine veteran Tony Good traveled from Florida and walked to the Ellipse to hear President Donald Trump speak in the morning. He said Trump didn’t incite violence in his speech.

“No, absolutely not. There’s a line between inciting to riot and standing on convictions,” Good told The Epoch Times. “He wasn’t telling anybody to riot, he was just telling them it’s our right to protest. That’s a right we have in America.”

Good became separated from his group and returned to his hotel to regroup after the speech. He didn’t go to the Capitol, but said he wishes he had.

“I call yesterday the first day in the 10-year war,” he said. “It’s going to be 10 years before this gets turned around. It’s going to take that long. War in the sense of … getting things to where they should be in America, as far as fair and free elections, election integrity.

The Washington protest and its context Unlike the summer protests/riots by young thugs, this protest was done by an older crowd, with very few storming the building. Howard Rotberg

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/294448

Hundreds of thousands of Trump supporters did what people do when they believe their government has abandoned them – they went to Washington to protest. Unfortunately, a small percentage, (whether or not there were a number of Antifa members among them) succeeded in spoiling the non-violent nature of the protest and attacked the American Congress building. No Senator or Congressman or police officer was hurt but one woman, a 14 years military veteran, who was unarmed, was shot by police and killed.

We cannot be too timid in our repudiation of political violence. Violence begets more violence, and those who participated in violence must be sanctioned by the legal system.

On the other hand, when Antifa and Black Lives Matter extended their violent riots to Washington steps from the White House, the anti-Trump media had nothing to say about violence. Republicans compete with how strong they can make their criticism of the violent part of the protest in Washington but Democratic politicians were mostly silent as violent protests went on all summer. People noticed that. They also notice that big Tech like Facebook, Twitter and Google censor conservative speech but not leftist speech.

Some say that President Trump incited violence, but his communications throughout the day made it clear that people should go home “in peace”.

Without tolerating violence in any way, we need to understand the context, the context of what Democratic Party power-brokers have done to them and their political choices, including the President, for four years
The worst mistake we make when analyzing critical events like this one, is to lose sight of the context. Here the context was that hundreds of thousands of peaceful American citizens from all over such a large country drove all night or otherwise found transportation to Washington. They came because they feel that the elites in government and media and the academy and the bureaucracy disdain them, care not for their human rights, and hate the man they voted for in 2016.