Interesting analysis about "Can President Trump win his election challenges in court?" by Alan Dershowitz.

Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, served on the legal team representing President Trump during the Senate impeachment trial but even so, he is pessimistic about Trump's prospects.

Source

This is an article from June of 2019 that predicts and discusses the situation we are now in, with Trump denying the election results and refusing a peaceful transfer of power. This was written long before the pandemic existed and long before anyone knew that so many people were going to be voting via mail-in ballots because of the pandemic.

What if Trump won’t accept 2020 defeat?
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/...n-2020-1374589

"Constitutional experts and top Republican lawmakers dismiss the fears as nonsense, noting there are too many forces working against a sitting president simply clinging to power — including history, law and political pressure.

“That is the least concern people should have. Of all the silly things that are being said, that may be the silliest,” said Missouri GOP Sen. Roy Blunt, who presided over the 2016 inauguration ceremony and expects to do so again in 2020. “The one thing we are really good at is the transition of power.”

Spot on. Some media are making a big deal out of the fact Trump hasn't yet put up the estimated $3 million deposit required for a recount there. Thing is, WI is not certified yet and until it is certified a recount can't officially be requested. After municipal and county canvasses that certification date could be as late as the 17th.

Emphasis mine. As much as I like her, I disagree. In order to get elected to the presidency you need serious name recognition and publicity. She only published her book in December of 2019, far too late to get much traction for the primaries. She's from a tiny state. She's a representative as opposed to a senator or governor. She's never held a cabinet position or a high-level position in the armed forces. She was vice-chair of the DNC, so more connected Ds would know her but not the average voter. Also she's not a billionaire TV personality.

Agree on both these points. Trump could have done a small pivot, not even a full U-turn. Just a bit more acting like an adult and a dignified president would have changed the game. I guess you can say he stayed true to himself though.

I think Trump and his most loyal followers somehow think that allegations can be used in court to overturn actual ballots. Even if poll watchers were 10 ft back instead of 6, no laws were broken (that I know of). Even if a handful of people voted that should not have or voted twice, it's not tens of thousands in multiple states.

Given enough time you can physically check 150 million votes but I'm not sure anyone would want to. Not even me.

I read that Trump wants to stop the vote counting in Pennsylvania. If you stop the count, how are you ever going to catch up Mr. President?

And in today's Twitter tantrums...

Trump is now trying to take credit for the vaccine being developed by Pfizer AND is trying to accuse Biden of trying to take credit for the vaccine. Pfizer is not even part of Trump's "operation warp speed" incentive plan for the development of a vaccine. Trump also tried to accuse Pfizer of intentionally waiting to announce the vaccine until after the election.

Pfizer CEO: Our vaccine timing had nothing to do with politics
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/09/b...ine/index.html

Clearly, Trump is not capable of understanding the fact that he is not the center of the universe. And I bet that if he could get away with it, he would say "I'm not letting anyone get that vaccine unless I get a second term!"

It's like watching a delusional psychopath have a continuous series of meltdowns. His loss of the election appears to be making him all the more irrational / irate.

Long predicted and completely unsurprising, I'm only hoping that the whole thing doesn't get messy.

I wonder whether Politico ever envisaged Trump would also spend most of his time out playing golf
while making his legal challange to the ballots.

At least President-elect Joe Biden is forging ahead getting his team together and focused
on the challenges ahead in the White House, whereas Trumps appears more concerned about his golf handicap.

Supreme Court appears ready to uphold Affordable Care Act over latest challenge from Trump, GOP

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...-live-updates/

November 10, 2020 at 6:38 p.m. GMT+1
A majority of the Supreme Court appeared ready Tuesday to uphold most of the Affordable Care Act in the face of a challenge from Republican-led states and the Trump administration.

Two key members of the court — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh — said that Congress’s decision in 2017 to zero-out the penalty for not buying health insurance did not indicate a desire to kill the entire law.

“I tend to agree with you this a very straightforward case for severability under our precedents, meaning that we would excise the mandate and leave the rest of the act in place,” Kavanaugh said to a lawyer defending the law.

Roberts, who wrote the 2012 Supreme Court decision upholding the act’s constitutionality, suggested again that the justices should not do something Congress itself has failed to do — repeal the law.

“I think it’s hard for you to argue that Congress intended the entire act to fall if the mandate were struck down when the same Congress that lowered the penalty to zero did not even try to repeal the rest of the act,” Roberts told Kyle , the Texas solicitor general leading the red-state effort.

“I think, frankly, that they wanted the court to do that. But that’s not our job.”

The court’s three liberal justices again were ready to defend the law, which would indicate a majority. And it was unclear if other conservative justices thought the objecting states and the Trump administration had made its case.

Washington lawyer Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who as President Barack Obama’s solicitor general had defended the law called Obamacare at the Supreme Court previously, argued this time on behalf of the House of Representatives.

He told the justices that to intervene to kill the law would cause disruption in the health care market and a loss of coverage to more than 20 million Americans in the midst of a pandemic.

“To assume that Congress put all of that at risk when it amended the law in 2017 is to attribute to Congress a recklessness that is both without foundation and reality and jurisprudentially inappropriate,” Verrilli said.

“In view of all that transpired in the past decade, the litigation before this court, the battles in Congress, the profound changes in our health care system, only an extraordinarily compelling reason could justify judicial invalidation of this law at this late date.”

Tuesday’s case posed three questions: Do the challengers — two individuals and 18 states led by Texas — have legal standing to bring the case? Did changes made by Congress in 2017 render unconstitutional the ACA’s requirement for individuals to buy insurance? And if so, can the rest of the law be separated out, or must it fall in its entirety?

Hawkins said the changes made in 2017 eliminated the only reason that the Supreme Court in 2012 said the ACA could survive.

The individual mandate once was seen as the law’s linchpin, a buy-in necessary to the goals of preventing insurers from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions and providing the subsidies that would make insurance affordable.

It was also what saved the law in its initial challenge at the Supreme Court. Roberts said the penalty for not buying insurance could be construed as a tax, and thus the law was constitutional under Congress’s taxing power.

When the Republican-controlled Congress failed to kill the ACA in 2017, it did what it thought was the next best thing: It reduced to zero the penalty for not complying with the mandate.

Hawkins said the changes made in 2017 eliminated the only reason that the Supreme Court in 2012 said the ACA could survive.

“The mandate as it exists today is unconstitutional,” Hawkins said. “It is a naked command to purchase health insurance and as such, it falls outside Congress’s enumerated powers.” Because the mandate is essential to the law, he continued, “the mandate is inseparable from the remainder of the law. ”

But those defending the law say that’s too clever, and justices seemed skeptical. For one thing, if the penalty for not complying with the mandate is zero, the plaintiffs and the states are not harmed and thus lack the essential ingredient for bringing a lawsuit.

Because the 2017 Congress left the mandate on the books, and simply zeroed out the formerly income-based penalty, it could be revised as a tax at any time, with a solution as simple as setting the penalty at $1.

A round of layoffs at the Republican National Committee Monday blindsided staff, three sources familiar with what happened told CNN.
Though the President refuses to accept his election loss, one RNC source put it bluntly: "Layoffs are the logical next step considering the outcome."

Just had an amusing thought, in the unlikely event that Trump succeeds in delaying Biden's inauguration then when his and Pence's terms run out on 20th Jan - "Hello President Pelosi".

Promising news.

Not too surprised about Roberts, but I certainly did not expect Kavanaugh's questions.

(I'll be very happy to be proven wrong with my worries over an ACA overturn.)

Justices have spines and brains, and have nothing to fear. They are there on merits and of course a certain record, but they are not the poodles some people think they are. Doesn't mean you like their brains, but hey, could be worse.

On the other hand, this here seems to be a very uphill case to make by our Texan friends.

You know I find Supreme Court nominees/appointees so fascinating. Kavenaugh has not been as conservative as expected - nor Roberts - or Gorsuch for that matter. They base their rulings as to how they interpret the law and not how the administration who appointed them wanted them to vote. I personally find that refreshing and a positive thing for one branch of our government!

Source

I wonder what the Ambassadors and other people who work for Pompeo in State and have daily contact with world leaders can say to them about the US election?

Looking back to the anguish and anxiety around Barrett's nonimation and confirmation, maybe even fear, you'd expect the exact opposite.

Clicketyclicketybaitybaity...

It was totally ludicrous hysteria, and frankly "stack the Court" was the kind of behaviour that one expects from Trump:

Throw your toys out of the pram, scream and behave like an enraged gorilla when you don't get something you want.

At the end of the day they are all serious judges and it's more of a proxy war than a real one.

I believe "not been as conservatice as the MSM made you believe" would be closer to the truth, certainly only a tiny minority will have firsthand information to form their opinion on them.

Mhhh, what was that again about #Metoo and #Believephoneywomen

Tbh anything but originalism is a bit weird. I mean, construing a document without a thought to what the author intended to convey is extremely odd. It's getting into the territory of ruling on what you'd want the constitution to say (even if it does not).

For instance, I think gay marriage should 100% be permitted - but I doubt very much that the founding fathers (or more accurately the 19th Century authors of the fourteenth amendment) intended the constitution to provide an express right for it. Maybe it's me being a Brit - but I think it should just be voted on and then passed into law rather than be the result of some legal handwaving.

The founding fathers didn't have cars, telephones, internet, etc, but laws have evolved to account for progress.

I am tempted to talk about intent vs. meaning. But it is late and I need to finish my beer and go to bed so I am original tomorrow morning.

Yes. Although I watched Cony Barrett’s hearing and found her answers too evasive. No one’s expecting her to rule, but a bit more substance would have been helpful. I don’t know.....I think one problem with her is that she has not a lot of judicial history, and the circumstances of her appointment were just rushed and distasteful.