It wasn't that the Supreme Court didn't support the crack Team Trump filing on Pennsylvania yesterday that leaped out to me -- it's that the entirety of their decision was:
"The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied." That's it. No explanation. Just 18 words. I have this suspicion that Justice Alito did begin to write a ruling about why the decision was reached -- this was about the presidential election, after all. He probably got maybe halfway down the page, working hard to make the legal thinking not too insulting -- this was about the presidential election, after all. And then, after an hour he perhaps stopped, thought, "What the hell am I doing??!" and crossed it all out, and then just wrote, "The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied." There, he likely thought, that's much simpler. Clean. I don't have to say how insanely stupid and insulting this filing was, and how incredibly close we came to sanctioning the lawyers. Just say "Denied," stamp it and leave it at that. The thing is, this statement is far more insulting than it may otherwise appear in its surface simplicity. The fact that this was about the presidential election, after all, and no explanation for dismissing the suit shouts volumes insultingly, because it says that no explanation is needed Because the filing was insanely stupid and insulting. Now, granted, this wasn't a Supreme Court ruling. Those do go on for pages and pages. And I'm sure when the Supreme Court decides not to hear a case, one sentence is all many such filings get. But -- again -- this is about a presidential election, after all. One sentence for something coming in at that high a level is the Supreme Court equivalent of "Don't bother me, go ask your mother." And your mother is peering at you with a glare that says, "We talked about this already, don't you dare ask me again." And worst of all for Trump is that from the beginning it's been widely accepted that the Trump Team strategy was, "Okay, we're going to get crushed in the popular vote, and lose the Electoral College, but that's okay because we're going to go to the Supreme Court -- and we have three justices who I appointed and hold the Court by a margin of 6-3." The Supreme Court was a slam-dunk for the Trump administration. Except that Trump was the only one who got slammed. Certainly, this isn't the end of Supreme Court challenges for the crack Trump Legal Team. There likely will be others. And some may get passed "Denied." But with this start, it shows the Court's hand on what they require, and "This is from Trump, just give it your OK" clearly isn't good enough. They'll need an actual case with actual evidence. And so far, their record in lower courts is is a horrendous 1-50. And the one case they won was to allow observers to move four feet closer -- which was actually a horrible thing to want, since we're in a pandemic, and the reason for the farther distance was social distance safety. When Trump ran for office, he declared that the country would get tired of winning, Losing the popular vote twice, losing his second election by seven million votes, and losing 50 of his 51 court challenges is just a recipe for Loser..
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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