Tea at Trianon: Supreme Court Deadline

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, December 7, 2020

Supreme Court Deadline

From The Epoch Times:

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito asked officials in Pennsylvania to file briefs by Tuesday morning in response to an emergency injunction petition filed by Republicans seeking to invalidate or rescind the results of the Nov. 3 election in the Keystone State.

Tuesday is the “safe harbor” deadline that requires controversies surrounding elections to be ended so states can choose their electors before the Dec. 14 meeting of the Electoral College. Alito initially called for response arguments by Dec. 9, before moving the due date earlier by a day. The new deadline signals that the Supreme Court intends to rule on the request for the injunction before the safe harbor deadline runs out.

Marc Elias, the top attorney leading the Democrats’ post-election legal effort who had last month called the same lawsuit “frivolous,” wrote on Twitter on Sunday that he is “NOT worried about the date briefs are due” in the Supreme Court.

The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on Nov. 25 ordered state officials to not take any steps to perfect the certification of the election pending a resolution to the Republican lawsuit. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overrode the injunction three days later, leading the plaintiffs to appeal to the nation’s highest court.

With the Supreme Court petition pending, the Republicans asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to stay its own decision. The court rejected the request.

Kelly’s lawsuit argued that the Pennsylvania General Assembly illegally enacted Act 77, a measure that vastly expanded mail-in voting statewide. The act overrode provisions regarding limits to absentee voting outlined in the Pennsylvania Constitution, a change that requires going through the lengthy process of enacting a constitutional amendment, which includes approvals by two consecutive legislatures followed by a successful statewide referendum.

“Beginning with the Military Absentee Ballot Act of 1839, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court consistently rejected all attempts to expand absentee voting by statute—uniformly holding that a constitutional amendment is required to expand absentee voting beyond the categories provided in the Pennsylvania Constitution,” the Supreme Court petition states.

“Act 77 is the Commonwealth’s latest attempt to override through legislation the protective limitations on absentee voting contained in the Pennsylvania Constitution, as interpreted by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court over the last 158 years.”

Pennsylvania Commonwealth Judge Patricia McCullough sided with the plaintiffs on Nov. 25 and blocked the state from certifying the election. State officials had certified the results of the presidential election as McCullough was considering the case, creating the appearance that the state was attempting to preempt the court.

In explaining her decision for an injunction two days later, McCullough opined that the injunction was in order in part because the Republicans were likely to win the case.

The Democrat-dominated Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down McCullough’s injunction on Nov. 28, arguing that the plaintiffs filed the challenge too late, a legal restriction called laches. Following the ruling, conservative radio host and constitutional scholar Mark Levin criticized the decision, noting that the plaintiffs couldn’t have sued prior to the election because they could not establish standing without having suffered any harm.

One of the two questions now before the U.S. Supreme Court is whether the Constitution permits for the case to have been dismissed using the rationale that the challenge was filed too late.

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf signed Act 77 into law on Oct. 31, 2019. Eight of the nine sponsors of the bill in the Pennsylvania Senate were Republicans. The state Supreme Court justices had opined that the plaintiffs had more than a year to file their challenge.

“Rather than provide clarity and address this vitally important, and valid constitutional question on the merits, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court exercised its extraordinary jurisdiction to take over the case and dismiss it on the basis of laches,” Kelly’s petition states. “In so doing, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court violated petitioners’ right to petition and right to due process, guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, respectively, by closing all avenues of relief for past and future.”

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include congressional candidate Sean Parnell (R) and Pennsylvania House of Representatives candidate Wanda Logan (R). The defendants include Wolf, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, the Pennsylvania General Assembly, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The Republicans are seeking an order to temporarily block Pennsylvania from certifying the results of the 2020 election before it is too late. The injunction, if granted, would be in place while the full U.S. Supreme Court bench considers and resolves the Republicans’ appeal of the order by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

“Respondents have begun the steps necessary to certify the results of the Election, which was undertaken pursuant to an unconstitutional, no-excuse absentee voting scheme,” the petition states. (Read more.)

Also from The Epoch Times:

President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that the legislatures in Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan might end up deciding what electors are sent to the Electoral College, suggesting it could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Giuliani said that the GOP-controlled legislatures in the three states could vote on sending their own slate of electors, noting that such a move is supported in the U.S. Constitution. Both Giuliani and fellow Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis have lobbied state legislatures in recent days to reaffirm their power to choose their own electors due to evidence of fraud during the Nov. 3 election.

The former New York mayor told Fox Business on Sunday that Georgia lawmakers “started a petition to hold their own session, which they’re allowed to do under the Constitution,” adding the GOP members are “disgusted” by the evidence that was shown during a hearing last week.

On the program, Giuliani made reference to the State Farm Arena surveillance video in Atlanta that showed election officials pulling black containers on wheels from underneath a table after poll observers and election workers were sent home. While state elections officials have said the process was not unusual, they have not yet answered key questions raised by Trump’s team when presenting the video.

“They’re the first legislature to do this now,” he said of Georgia. “This is a constitutional role that the founding fathers gave to our legislatures. They’re the ones who are supposed to select the president, not the governors, not the board of elections. They’re the ones who have the constitutional obligation to decide on the electors.”

“Michigan is considering the same thing,” Giuliani said. “They’re not quite as far along, but they are drafting something right now, and so is Arizona, so those three … could very well end up in front of the legislature to decide who the electors are.” (Read more.)

From Conservative Treehouse:

“We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.” ~ Mike Vanderboegh

Right now, President Trump is watching how the Republican party is responding to the brutal and transparent evidence of election fraud from coast to coast…(Read more.)