December 7, 2020: The "Kraken" Proves a Goldfish

 

12/7/20: Team Trump suffered a series of courtroom beat-downs today. First, a federal judge (and a Trump appointee to his post) threw out a lawsuit filed by conservative and-slightly-unbalanced lawyer Sidney Powell, asking to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia. 

Powell had promised to “unleash the Kraken” in this instance, a legal monster made up of irrefutable evidence of massive fraud. 

“No dice,” ruled Judge Timothy Batten.

The fearsome "Kraken."

 

Plaintiffs in this case, he said, were in essence asking, “this court to substitute its judgment for two-and-a-half million voters who voted for Joe Biden. And this I am unwilling to do.”

 

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“With nothing but speculation and conjecture that votes for President Trump were destroyed, discarded or switched to votes for Vice President Biden, Plaintiffs’ equal protection claim fails.” 

U.S. District Court Judge Linda Parker

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Nor did the “Kraken” fare any better in a second election-related lawsuit farther north. A second federal judge threw out a lawsuit seeking to overturn the vote in the state of Michigan. 

In this case, Powell had claimed that certain voters were treated differently in different counties. So, plaintiffs, she insisted, had been denied “equal protection under the law.” For example, in some counties, election officials called voters who had flawed mail-in ballots and allowed those flaws to be “cured.” According to Powell, that mean all the mail-in ballots in Michigan should be tossed. 

Even if this were true, that some voters were treated differently, U.S. District Court Judge Linda Parker ruled, “alleged injury does not entitle [Plaintiffs] to seek their requested remedy because the harm of having one’s vote invalidated or diluted is not remedied by denying millions of others their right to vote.” 

Which is pretty obvious.

 

Parker continued: 

This lawsuit seems to be less about achieving the relief Plaintiffs seek – as much of that relief is beyond the power of this Court – and more about the impact of their allegations on People’s faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government. Plaintiffs ask this Court to ignore the orderly statutory scheme established to challenge elections and to ignore the will of millions of voters. This, the Court cannot, and will not, do. The People have spoken.

 

With nothing but speculation and conjecture that votes for President Trump were destroyed, discarded or switched to votes for Vice President Biden, Plaintiffs’ equal protection claim fails.

 

The bad news for Team Trump piled even higher when Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, a Trump supporter, and yet a man of principle, went ahead and recertified the state’s election results. 

“Today is an important day for election integrity in Georgia and across the country,” he said. Then, he couldn’t resist a little dig. “The claims in the Kraken lawsuit prove to be as mythological as the creature for which they’re named. Georgians can now move forward knowing that their votes, and only their legal votes, were counted accurately, fairly, and reliably.” 

The final tally, based on a second recount, like the original tally, and the first recount, showed Biden taking the Peach State by roughly 12,000 votes.

 

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Team Trump took another kick in the gonads, when, in an unrelated legal matter, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court order that threw out a lawsuit against Oregon’s Dallas School District No. 2. 

In a decision sure to outrage Trump’s evangelical base, justices refused to overturn school district rules that allowed transgender students to use bathroom facilities that matched their “gender identity.” 

The school district had tried to walk a fine line, noting that the boys’ bathroom and the boys’ showers at the school had private stalls – as did the girls’ facilities. It was felt this would mitigate any “embarrassment” or “discomfort” other students might feel sharing accommodations. The school allowed students to use single-occupancy bathrooms if they were bothered. The one transgender student involved, identified as female at birth, but identifying as male in high school, used the boys’ bathroom and showers for three years, and graduated in 2018. 

School officials noted that the transgender student and other boys “never actually did see each other undressing.” 

In 2018, the Trump administration, which fought the new bathroom rules, also banned most transgender individuals from serving in the military, even though an estimated 2,450 already were. 

This policy is under challenge, with cases slowly working their way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

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IN NEWS that involves all of us, of whatever gender, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), a European scientific group, reports that this November was the hottest ever recorded. November 2019 and November 2016, which had been tied for first, have been knocked down a peg. “These records are consistent with the long-term warming trend of the global climate,” said C3S Director Carlo Buontempo in a warning statement. “All policy-makers who prioritise mitigating climate risks should see these records as alarm bells and consider more seriously than ever how to best comply with the international commitments set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.” 

That would be the Paris Agreement that Trump withdrew from in a snit, so he could focus on keeping us from having to share bathroom facilities with people who pee in a different fashion. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: You know Trump lawyers are trawling bottom when 1,500 attorneys from around the country sign a letter condemning the antics of the president’s legal team. In a statement they warn of growing danger: 

More than 35 losses in election-related cases have made one thing painfully clear: President Trump’s barrage of litigation is a pretext for a campaign to undermine public confidence in the outcome of the 2020 election, which inevitably will subvert constitutional democracy. Sadly, the President’s primary agents and enablers in this effort are lawyers, obligated by their oath and ethical rules to uphold the rule of law. 

 

BONUS DICKISHNESS: You may recall, in October, that a doctor at Walter Reed Hospital was critical of President Trump’s decision to ride around in a limousine, to show supporters what a tough guy he was, even though he was still recovering from the coronavirus. And still contagious. 

As The Hill explains: 

James Phillips, chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University and an attending physician under contract for Walter Reed, criticized Trump in October for his decision to drive with Secret Service agents to greet supporters while he was hospitalized at the Bethesda, Md., facility.

 

“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity,” Phillips tweeted.

Dr. Phillips, we learn today, has paid the price in Trumpistan. This is the price all critics of this president pay if they tell a truth. He has been removed from the hospital’s schedule beginning in January.