US Elections 2020

[broncofan]

-Because the team can't tell the difference betwen Michigan (MI) and Minnesota (MN) -neither can I, but I not a lawyer be.

People should be filing complaints with the state bar for every attorney who has filed a frivolous lawsuit, collected a sworn affidavit that included perjury, or who has wasted the public's time spreading conspiracy theories that they are then afraid to repeat in court.

Below is the link for the model rules which all states adopt with minor variations (each section is elaborated on in a separate section labeled "comments"). At first glance, I think Trump's lawyers should be disciplined for violation of 1.1 competence, 1.3 diligence, 3.1 meritorious claims and contentions, 4.1 truthfulness in statements to others, and 8.4 misconduct (see 8.4c). I've read appeals court reviews of disciplinary findings by the state bar and while the first two are sometimes harder to find violations of except where deadlines are missed and the client himself complains, the last two should be a problem for these attorneys.

The claims and contentions are not advanced on a good faith basis and the legal theories are not just untested or novel, they are completely without merit or any chance of success. The attorneys, particularly Giuliani and Powell, have repeatedly lied to the public about matters within the scope of litigation. If Rule 4.1 is supposed to include only third parties involved in the representation I would think rule 8.4 prohibiting conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit etc would cover it.

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/p...e_of_contents/

[Stavros]

I am unable to grasp the full legal technicalities you provide, but if it is a matter of politics, I wonder if these people will ever be held accountable by their own profession, if only to maintain the standards of practice in law that citizens have a right to expect. And not just because of the fees these people charge. From what little I have read about it, it seems the incoming Biden administration is not going to use time/waste time in revenge actions against either the President or his supporters, because they want to 'move on' and have higher priorities.

But if this means Giuliani and the others 'get away with it' because people can't be bothered or dismiss it as 'well, that's just Rudy', does this not help to erode standards in public life? The two might not be comparable, but in the UK Boris Johnson in his handling of an enquiry into bullying by the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, not only asked the investigating team to 'go easy' on her, they refused to hear testimony from witnesses, and even then when Johnson said he would take no action on the report, its author, a senior civil servant, resigned, apparently in digust. But this is where are these days, when Ministers of the Crown don't just make mistakes, which we can allow at times, but willlfully act in bad conscience, or without one, and refuse to resign or take responsibiity, or even blame others for their mistakes. Boris Johnson, when he was Foreign Secretary misled Parliament when describing the purpose of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's visit to Iran, and as a result she remains a prisoner in Tehran, threatened with an extended sentence. Years ago, he would not have resigned because the Prime Minister would have sacked him. He is now the Prime Minister.

Is it any wonder people become cynical about politics when they can see and hear their democratic system being undermined by the people who swear an oath to protect it?

[holzz]

step down orange man!!!
You have no evidence. I do0n't even like you, but i would support you out of principle if you had evidence.
If not, gtfo and let "sleepy Joe" in. Not so "sleepy" when he beat you.

[Stavros]

Depending on how you feel about it, either 24 hours that has helped restore some old fashioned respect for the law, or the deterioration of bitter sectarian politics into war.

One expects the President to condemn anyone and everyone who does not agree with him, but to advance the belief that Texas must now consider independence outside the US is in its tone as seditious as the bogus law suit the Supreme Court declined to hear.

"A Texas state lawmaker has vowed to introduce legislation allowing a referendum for voters to cast their ballots on whether to secede from the United States.
“The federal government is out of control and does not represent the values of Texans. That is why I am committing to file legislation this session that will allow a referendum to give Texans a vote for the State of Texas to reassert its status as an independent nation,” Texas state Rep. Kyle Biedermann (R) shared on Facebook on Tuesday.
Biedermann said the legislation aligns with the Texas Constitution, which reads “The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.”
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...secession-from

Is this sort of thing going to be the norm in the US now? Or is someone, perhaps the next Attorney General, going to take action to disbar manifestly incompetent lawyers, and call to account elected representatives seeking to overturn the result of a democratic election just because they don't like it, or even worse, don't want to offend Trump? Or is the next Government going to do nothing in the hope these neo-Confederates are just going to go away, their campaigns fizzle out?

[broncofan]

Republican lawmakers are upset that the Supreme Court failed to grant certiorari in the case filed by Texas. There seems to be a widespread belief that the Court has refused to hear the dispute because they don't think it has merit. It did not get that far and the decision was not a matter of discretion but a Constitutional mandate. The plaintiff did not meet the standing requirement for their case to be heard and it would be unconstitutional for the Supreme Court to allow it to proceed. Just as the executive branch has limits to the exercise of its power so too does the Judiciary. Donald Trump took to twitter to complain about the Court refusing to hear this bundle of conspiracy theories because of "standing" which he put in quotation marks. To him standing requirements are a newly invented hurdle to keep him from prevailing in an election he lost but for anyone familiar with the Constitution they are the prerequisite to the exercise of the Court's authority and keep the Judiciary from deciding matters that are political in nature or otherwise not cognizable legally.

Nobody who has signed on to these delusional, frivolous filings should ever be trusted again. Pathetic doesn't even scratch the surface.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Republican lawmakers are upset that the Supreme Court failed to grant certiorari in the case filed by Texas. There seems to be a widespread belief that the Court has refused to hear the dispute because they don't think it has merit. It did not get that far and the decision was not a matter of discretion but a Constitutional mandate. The plaintiff did not meet the standing requirement for their case to be heard and it would be unconstitutional for the Supreme Court to allow it to proceed. Just as the executive branch has limits to the exercise of its power so too does the Judiciary. Donald Trump took to twitter to complain about the Court refusing to hear this bundle of conspiracy theories because of "standing" which he put in quotation marks. To him standing requirements are a newly invented hurdle to keep him from prevailing in an election he lost but for anyone familiar with the Constitution they are the prerequisite to the exercise of the Court's authority and keep the Judiciary from deciding matters that are political in nature or otherwise not cognizable legally.

Nobody who has signed on to these delusional, frivolous filings should ever be trusted again. Pathetic doesn't even scratch the surface.

The US Supreme Court once again shoots down Donald-D.A.M.N-Trump's quest to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election,an election he lost by 74 electoral votes and the popular vote by over 7 million,he and his enablers thought by ramming through an nominee to the US Supreme Court,that he was going to get re-elected and stay in power,however they were in for a rude awakening when SCOTUS told them that their case was dismissed.and completely agree that the 126 Retrumpicans and 18 Attorney Generals who signed on to the delusional,frivolous filings should ever be trusted again.

[holzz]

the president shouldn't nominate SCOTUS judges. they shouldn't appoint people based on poltiical leanings but on judicial competence. If a judge makes consistently good judgments, promote them.

[Beaver1]

Orange Man is bad!

[Stavros]

the president shouldn't nominate SCOTUS judges. they shouldn't appoint people based on poltiical leanings but on judicial competence. If a judge makes consistently good judgments, promote them.

It is up to Americans to begin this debate. If they move to a system where Supreme Court Justices are nominated by other members of the Court, or a congregation of Justices on the Supreme Court and the Circuit Courts, for example, you might find so-called Liberal judges nominating Liberals, Conservatives nominating Conservatives, and the arguments over bias would continue, and doubtless be fed by the Sectarian policies that have divided the US for so long.

The UK had and continues to have a system in which the Bench nominates its own, but on what basis we do not always know. In his controversial book, The Politics of the Judiciary (1977), JAG Griffiiths argued that the top jobs on the Bench went to men who either knew each other because they went to the same schools or Oxbridge together, or nominated those who had travelled the same path after them. How much has changed since the 1970s? We do now have a Supreme Court, thanks to Tony Blair's reforms, but how did the Justices get there?

Currently, nine of the twelve Justices on the Supreme Court of the UK graduated from either Oxford or Cambridge, the other three graduating from Edinburgh, Durham and Manchester. Four also have degrees from Harvard Law School.

Eight of the Nine Supreme Court Justices in the US graduated from two law schools -Harvard and Yale, while Justice Barrett graduated from Notre Dame.

I don't know what reform looks like, but it seems to me the backgrounds of our senior Justices is drawn from a small number of institutions, as if a law degree from, say Southampton University might get the graduate a good job, but probably not see him, or her crown their career on the Bench. I imagine the same is true of the US, but at least the candidates for the Supreme Court must be challenged in public, in the Senate, and may even be rejected. We don't get to choose in that way in the UK.

[Stavros]

The man needs help. Help him, someone.

"Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser who was pardoned by the president last week for lying during the Russia investigation, wants Trump to declare martial law and “temporarily suspend the Constitution” until a new election is held.
Flynn, who had been awaiting sentencing for lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts before Trump’s pardon, on Tuesday retweeted a news release from a right-wing Ohio group called We The People Convention asking the president to declare martial law so troops can supervise a do-over of the 2020 election.
Flynn tagged many conservative celebs in his post and added: “Freedom never kneels except for God.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ent...bmX8hNhqNHqYrI