RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/11/trumps_pennsylvania_complaint_is_brilliant.html

The complaint filed in Pennsylvania by the Trump campaign is a superb piece of legal craftsmanship.

It was filed in federal court, not state.  The gist is that some of the state’s actions, and particularly the exclusion of Republican poll-watchers during the counting of hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots, violated federal constitutional requirements.

The point is obvious enough once one thinks of it, but it’s brilliant all the same.  It shifts the focus from state law, where a politicized Pennsylvania court has the last word, to federal law, where the U.S. Supreme Court rules.

As for the obviousness of the point, consider as a thought experiment a state law requiring that all votes be counted in secret by an unelected board named by the party in power.  Could it survive a constitutional challenge?

As my old Harvard constitutional law professors would have said, “to ask the question is to answer it.”  It is hard to count all the constitutional guarantees violated here: Equal Protection, Due Process, Privileges and Immunities.  Indeed, the complaint stacks up the Supreme Court precedents supporting its arguments, including the long line of ringing statements in the chain of one-person-one-vote decisions.

https://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/2020/11/12/will-trump-ride-off-into-the-sunset-n1139227

I once wrote that whenever Donald Trump exits office, he will likely leave as a “tragic hero.” Over two millennia ago, the Athenian tragedian Sophocles first described the archetype in his portraits of an angry and old but still fearsome Ajax, and heroic but stubborn and self-fixated Antigone.

In the iconic John Ford Western “The Searchers” and in a host of other films from “Shane” to “High Noon,” we have seen stories of these sorts.

The legalistic but impotent town council, the idealistic but outgunned sodbusters or the incompetent posse in desperation turns to unconventional deliverance. They suddenly need a John Wayne as a scary Ethan Edwards or a mysterious gunslinger like Shane.

But to call in such Manichean outsiders is to admit that the status quo of a sober establishment has failed.

The outsider deliverers are suspiciously seen as self-absorbed. Their methods bother an endangered, polite society, even as they begin to bring it results.

We know such checkered iconoclasts from our own war stories of Gens. William Tecumseh Sherman, George S. Patton and Curtis LeMay. All three shredded pretensions. They reminded Americans that war is hell, and that the only thing worse than fighting so brutally against dangerous enemies is losing. And all three — only after the conflicts ended — were eventually deemed eccentric enough to be expendable.

As we learn from the second half of Sophocles’ tragedies and the last 30 minutes of classic Westerns, the nearer the tragic hero comes to ensuring results, the more his benefactors can begin to second-guess his bothersome methods.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/project-veritas-leaks-clip-purportedly-showing-feds-intimidating-usps-whistleblower-hopkins_3575907.html

Investigative journalism nonprofit Project Veritas on Wednesday released a recording it claims shows federal agents pressuring a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) whistleblower in Erie, Pennsylvania, to go back on his allegations last week that he overheard superiors discussing a scheme to backdate mail-in ballots.

Mail carrier Richard Hopkins last week claimed that he heard a local postmaster at Erie Post Office, Rob Weisenbach, instruct USPS workers to collect mail ballots they receive after Nov. 3 and hand them over to him to be backdated.

Hopkins, 32, who has since been placed on non-pay status by the post office, signed a sworn affidavit, under the penalty of perjury, containing the allegations. It was received by Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Nov. 7.

He said that he is willing to testify under oath that he heard Weisenbach tell a supervisor that he was backdating ballots “to make it appear as though the ballots had been collected on November 3, 2020, despite them in fact being collected on November 4 and possibly later.”

Under state election rules, ballots can be counted up to three days after Election Day as long as they are postmarked as having been sent on Nov. 3.

A USPS spokesman told The Epoch Times it was aware of Hopkins’s claim and had referred the matter to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Office of Inspector General. A USPS Office of Inspector General spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email, “The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General does not comment on ongoing matters.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/11/12/memo-to-joe-covid-is-skyrocketing-in-states-that-already-have-mask-mandates/

Ever since the mainstream media declared Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election, he’s been prattling on about how a nationwide mask mandate is vital to slowing the spread of the coronavirus. But has anyone noticed that the disease is spreading like wildfire in states that already have mask mandates?  

The day after he made up his “President Elect” signs, Biden declared that he would call on governors around the country to impose mask mandates. One Biden official told NBC News that “If a governor declines, he’ll go to the mayors in the state and ask them to lead. In many states, there is the capacity of mayors to institute mandates.”

“It’s time to end the politicization of basic, responsible public health steps like mask-wearing and social distancing,” Biden said on Monday. “The single most effective thing we can do to stop the spread of COVID: Wear a mask.”

Really? Let’s look at the data.

As it stands, 33 states already have statewide mask mandates. These states account for three-quarters of the nation’s population.

https://thenewamerican.com/heres-the-list-of-republicans-who-want-us-to-believe-biden-is-the-new-potus/

Lists can go both ways.

The media establishment and the political Left have taken it upon themselves to compile lists of lawmakers and regular Americans who rightly refuse to call Joe Biden the president-elect when the result of the 2020 election is far from conclusive. Naturally, they do this with the aim of shaming and intimidating the named individuals into submission.

The Left’s tactic of coercing is despicable; it is, nevertheless, useful to look at their “hit lists” and extrapolate the data to glean information about the stances of national figures and thus see which ones are interested in pursuing the truth and an honest election, and which are obediently heeding the call of the establishment’s propaganda mill.

When the next election season comes around, it will be useful to know who stood for integrity in America’s crucial moment and who didn’t. As noted by NBC News, the Republican members of Congress who have thus far broken with President Trump to definitively congratulate Joe Biden on his “victory” are:

Senator Lisa Murkowski (Alaska),Senator Mitt Romney (Utah), Senator Susan Collins (Maine),Senator Ben Sasse (Neb.),Representative Fred Upton (Mich.),Representative Francis Rooney (Fla.),Representative Will Hurd (Texas),Representative Paul Mitchell (Mich.), Representative Adam Kinzinger (Ill.).

Less vocal and more cautious but urging the President toward concession are: Senator Marco Rubio (Fla.),Senator Pat Toomey (Pa.),Senator Mike Rounds (S.D.),Representative Tom Reed (N.Y.).

PHOENIX—Arizona Congresswoman Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) said she believes President Donald Trump should not concede until every legal battle is resolved, as a number of her constituents have contacted her over perceived irregularities at voting places across the state. 

“I do not think that the president should concede until all of this has played out because it is not over yet,” she told The Epoch Times on Nov. 10. “I do totally believe that if the tables were turned and Biden was in this situation he would do the same thing.”

County officials said they expect to be done counting this week the remaining tens of thousands of ballots in Arizona. Trump is within 0.39 percent of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, according to the latest unofficial results. An automatic recount will take place if the final margin is one-tenth of 1 percent, per state law.

“It’s still possible Trump could win Arizona,” she added.

The congresswoman felt it was irresponsible for the media to call Arizona for Biden early on in the race with many votes still left to be counted. Trump’s campaign early on predicted that the president would win the state and its 11 Electoral College votes.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/11/two-videos-analysing-and-exposing-the-us-election/

Victor Davis Hanson speaks at length with former deputy prime minister John Anderson about the US election, fraud, misleading polls.

As the video is hosted by YouTube, those interested should watch now just in case the Google-owned platform adds the clip to the ever-growing list of things Big Tech doesn’t want you to see.From Mr Hanson’s helicopter view of the election, the culture war and the factors that determined its alleged outcome,  then listen to a surreptitiously recorded class in which Detroit poll workers are explicitly instructed how to produce the ‘votes’ Joe Biden needed.

https://www.scotusblog.com/election-litigation/

https://amgreatness.com/2020/11/10/could-these-court-cases-reveal-a-final-trump-victory/

It turns out, the American Founders forgot to include a clause granting CNN the power to decide close presidential elections. Supporters of President Trump’s reelection campaign have not yet been satisfied that Joe Biden’s campaign pulled off an Electoral College win. Indeed, the actual Electoral College votes are not due until December 23, 2020. The constitutional process set aside this lengthy period to resolve election tabulation disputes. 

Days ago, the media hysterically warned that President Trump might claim victory before “all the votes were counted.” But as soon as enough votes were counted to put Vice President Biden over the top, the networks immediately colluded to reverse their sanctimonious “every vote matters” position. What they really meant all along was that the votes should be counted until it looked like their guy was winning. 

The constitutional process allows challenges to irregularities in vote tabulation. The process allows courts, particularly state courts, to weigh whether the count includes ineligible votes such as double votes and votes received after election day. The website, SCOTUSblog, is tracking numerous election cases here. Could these court cases reverse Biden’s apparent victory? Let’s dig in and take a closer look at the cases that could still impact the final outcome.

Pennsylvania

The Trump campaign on Monday filed a massive lawsuit alleging voting and tabulation irregularities. Among other issues, the Trump campaign’s position is that Pennsylvania set a lower bar for accepting mail-in votes because those tend to go for Biden. Additionally, the complaint alleges that Biden-leaning counties allowed voters to “cure” defective ballots while the more rural Trump-leaning counties did not. Through this “cure” process, election officials would call select voters to give them the opportunity to correct mistakes in absentee ballots.