Tag Archives: SCOTUS

legal news

My thoughts exactly …

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A member of my family, a highly educated man who lives in the Pacific Northwest, sent me an email today that asks: What the hell is going on down there?

I’m trying to figure it out.

He is referring to Ken Paxton, our state attorney general, who filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court that sought to give Texas the right to tell other states how to run their elections. The four states in question, I hasten to add, all voted for President-elect Joe Biden. Paxton sought to order the states to toss out those Biden votes and then endorse Donald Trump for re-election.

The SCOTUS said “no can do.” Paxton doesn’t have the standing to make that demand, justices said.

I would have hoped the high court’s dismissal of Paxton’s idiocy would spell the end of Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Silly me. It ain’t happening … at least not yet.

Meanwhile, Paxton vows to keep fighting. For what, I have no clue. The SCOTUS is at the very tippy-top of the judicial chain of command in this country.

Now the AG is turning Texas into a laughingstock. Who out there is laughing? I mean, really! It ain’t funny, folks. Some of us in Texas are embarrassed beyond measure at what our state’s top legal eagle is trying to do.

Consider that he’s already indicted for securities fraud and is awaiting trial in state court. Plus, the FBI has subpoenaed records from his office as part of a federal probe brought forward by seven assistant AGs who blew the whistle on what they allege is criminal behavior by Paxton.

How in the world this guy, Paxton, got elected as AG in the first place is beyond me, let alone re-elected four years later.

My dear family member, I am sad to admit, has asked me a question for which I have no good answer. I do not know what the hell is going on here. 

national news

Hey, GOP lawmakers … you need to resign!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A thought occurs to me that I want to share on this blog.

A number of those 126 Republicans who signed on to a lawsuit challenging the election of President-elect Joe Biden serve in the U.S. House of Representatives come from four critical states: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

They ought to resign their House seats immediately.

You see, here is what happened. They signed a brief that endorsed a suit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sought to throw out the results of those aforementioned states. Thus, the House GOP members admit they were elected illegally. If they believe in Paxton’s loony lawsuit then they also believe the voters in their congressional districts cast their ballots in violation of whatever Paxton sought to argue.

They won’t quit. The rank hypocrisy of them and that idiotic lawsuit speak terribly of the state of the Republican Party these days.

The Supreme Court decided to toss the complaint that Paxton brought. Two justices dissented: Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The rest of them voted correctly, including Donald Trump’s three nominees: Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.

The Constitution is clear. It says that states have the exclusive power to run their elections. The court said Paxton, as the Texas AG, has no standing to bring a complaint against how other states conduct their electoral business.

What about the House members from those contested states who joined the lunatic lawsuit? Should they remain in office? I can argue they should not. They should quit. As in right now.

If hey won’t quit, then the voters in their respective districts should remember in 2022 when they run for re-election what they did to subvert the Constitution they took an oath to defend and protect.

legal news

Lunacy continues

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, my … it appears that political lunacy is a bottomless well.

There must be no end to it.

The U.S. Supreme Court has tossed aside a stupid lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to overturn election results in four states. Donald Trump keeps yammering about rampant and widespread voter fraud. The court said he hasn’t made the case and that Paxton lacks the standing to challenge other states’ electoral process.

That’s the end of it, right? Not even.

Trump now is considering the appointment of a special counsel to examine the baseless allegations he has leveled. He also wants to look into Hunter Biden’s finances; yes, the son of the president-elect who defeated Trump this past month in the presidential election.

Lunacy, man. Lunacy!

Trump appears ready to take this fight all the way to Inauguration Day. Maybe even past it. Donald Trump might go for as long as he walks among us.

Yes, the nation elected a lunatic as its president in 2016. It decided it had enough of his idiocy and tossed him out in favor of President-elect Biden.

He ain’t going quietly. He is showing himself to be the lunatic many of us realized we were getting four years ago.

legal news

Lack of ‘courage’? Really?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump blasted the U.S. Supreme Court overnight for striking down that idiotic lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Trump said the court lacked “courage” and “wisdom” in declining to hear the suit that sought to overturn the election results in four states that voted for Joe Biden.

Hmm. Wow! 

I shall insist that the real courage was shown by three justices in particular, all of whom voted with the majority in refusing to hear the case. Those justices are Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

What do they have in common? They were nominated by Donald Trump to join the nation’s highest court and now are facing the wrath of their political benefactor.

They weren’t my preferred picks to join the court. In this case, they stood tall … and courageously.

legal news

SCOTUS delivers the KO

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am worn out, bushed, whipped, exhausted by all this legal wrangling, which means I am delighted beyond belief that the U.S. Supreme Court has put an end to Donald Trump’s challenge of a free and fair presidential election.

Oh, wait. I should mention that Trump lost that election. President-elect Joe Biden will take office in about 39 days.

SCOTUS rejected a specious lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that sought to get four states to throw out their election returns that went favorably toward Biden. The high court, in a brief summary statement, said that Texas could not interfere in other states’ electoral process.

Ba da boom!

More to the point, the court ruling stated  that Texas lacked standing to pursue the case, saying it “has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections.”

This is the end of the road for Donald Trump, for his Trumpkin toadies, his cult of personality followers.

The lesson once again comes in the form of the strongly conservative court ruling with dispassionate analysis what almost every legal scholar in the land had predicted it would rule.

My advice now for Donald Trump: Shut the hell up about an election you lost; accept the results … and go away.

legal news

Good news and better news

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There might be some good news and even better news to come from the U.S. Supreme Court.

The good news would be that the court will declare that a profoundly stupid and senseless lawsuit will not get a hearing; that the court will dismiss it summarily.

The lawsuit comes from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the state’s indicted top lawyer, who is suing to have the presidential vote results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania tossed out because, Paxton alleges, they were cast illegally. Seventeen state attorneys general — all Republicans (imagine that) — have joined Paxton’s idiotic legal maneuver.

The better news would be that all nine justices lock arms and declare in a stern rebuke of Donald Trump’s attempt to undermine, subvert and destroy the democratic electoral process. Chief Justice John Roberts can issue the order to fire off the rhetorical barrage. My hope is that the chief does so.

Donald John Trump needs to be exposed as the fraud that he is and the nation’s highest court can lend its voice to that important message by telling us why it is tossing his baseless, phony complaint about “widespread voter fraud” into the trash can … where it belongs!

legal news

Sanity must prevail … or else

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am a firm believer in judicial sanity, which is to say that sane minds are likely to prevail in the face of insane legal challenges.

Thus, we have a U.S. Supreme Court roster of justices who will get to decide whether a lawsuit brought forward by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has merit and is worth hearing.

Judicial sanity would seem to dictate that this is a slam dunk for the nation’s highest court. It should toss the matter aside. My hope for the sake of judicial sanity prevailing is that it does so with a terse statement that says in effect: Texas has no standing to bring this case to this court.

Paxton, who appears to be a lousy lawyer, wants the SCOTUS to overturn the results of four states that voted Nov. 3 for President-elect Joe Biden. From the get-go my question has been this: How in the name of election meddling can one state purport to intervene in the electoral affairs of another state? 

Therein might lie the case for judicial sanity presenting itself. The high court should tell AG Paxton to mind his own bee’s wax and butt the hell out. He cannot bring a lawsuit against four states that all have certified the results of their presidential balloting results.

I would say that sanity is a sure thing to prevail, except for this: 17 states’ attorneys general have joined Paxton’s clown show and signed on as intervenors in this idiotic lawsuit. All the AGs have swilled the Donald Trump Kool-Aid and are seeking — and this is as rich as it gets — to overturn the legitimate electoral results of a free and fair election.

I believe in the U.S. Constitution. I believe in the power of reason. I continue to believe that judicial sanity is going to have the final say on this profoundly un-American legal challenge.

legal news, political news, State news

Paxton seeks to bask in some perverse glory

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have concluded, based on zero hard data and only on my inherent bias that I admit to freely, that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is hellbent on making a spectacle of himself.

He seeks to bask in some sort of perverse glory derived from Donald Trump’s idiotic pursuit of “widespread voter fraud” where none exists. Thus, Paxton has filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court that seeks to overturn the free and fair election results in four states that cast most of their votes for President-elect Joe Biden in the just completed presidential election.

Paxton’s alleged “logic” is beyond belief.

He says the four states — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia — changed their voting rules in an unconstitutional fashion by allowing more voters to cast their ballots using the U.S. Postal Service. He wants the high court, therefore, to toss out those states’ election returns.

To its credit, the SCOTUS — with three justices nominated by Donald Trump already aboard — has declared already that another lawsuit brought by a Pennsylvania GOP member of Congress has no merit; it has tossed it aside with a single-sentence ruling.

So what the hell is Paxton trying to do here? I mean, the dude already is in trouble already. He is awaiting trial in Texas courts for securities fraud allegations. He also is being investigated by the FBI for allegedly doing favors illegally for a campaign donor. Seven key legal aides have quit or been fired by the AG after they blew the whistle on what they allege is illegal conduct.

The word on Paxton is that he was a mediocre lawyer prior to his election to the Texas Legislature, where he didn’t distinguish himself as the author of much key legislation. Then he got elected Texas AG in 2014 and was almost immediately showered with suspicion when a Collin County grand jury indicted him for securities fraud.

Now this? The AG must have a screw loose.

Let me be as clear as possible: Joe Biden won the election; there is no evidence of the kind of “widespread” fraud that Trump and his Trumpster Team allege. Even the U.S. attorney general, William Barr, has reached that conclusion.

Ken Paxton needs to stop meddling in other states’ affairs.

legal news

‘Yes’ on lifetime appointments!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s shout out a cheer for the U.S. Supreme Court and the Constitution that allows its justices to receive lifetime appointments as part of the federal judicial branch of government.

The court has tossed out with little comment yet another frivolous lawsuit that sought to get the Pennsylvania legislature to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The suit, brought by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, wants to hand Pennsylvania’s electoral votes to Donald Trump instead of Joe Biden, who won them in a free and fair election on Nov. 3.

What is so gratifying is that the high court ruled unanimously against the complaint brought by the Trumpkin Kelly. That means Trump’s three appointees — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — ruled against The Donald.

Hey, this is a big deal. Why? Because Trump declared it essential to have a nine-member court seated to enable him to win a close call in any complaint brought to challenge the results of the election.

Well, it wasn’t a close call. The justices, all of them, saw fit to toss this latest complaint onto the scrap heap where it belongs.

Yes, the nation’s founders had the right idea when they established a judiciary that should be as free as possible from political pressure.

legal news

Texas AG files ridiculous lawsuit

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas, we have an attorney general who is now showing the extent to which he is willing to engage in cheap publicity stunts and it’s going to cost us all a pretty penny to boot!

Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the presidential election results in four states: Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. They were states that President-elect Joe Biden won over Donald J. Trump.

The basis of Paxton’s lawsuit is as idiotic as the complaints that Trump has pursued in all those states: Paxton contends there was widespread voter fraud that resulted in Biden’s election as president.

Oh, let me add: Paxton doesn’t provide a shred of evidence of such voter fraud in his filing with the U.S. Supreme Court. Indeed, judges in all those states have dismissed summarily complaints that the Trump campaign has filed. What’s more, they have counted the ballots three times in Georgia, with the result remaining the same: Joe Biden won the state’s 16 electoral votes.

Good grief, man. Paxton already is under investigation himself for allegations of criminal activity brought to light by whistleblowers who used to work in his office. They have all left the AG’s office, either by dismissal or resignation.

Now we have the AG engaging in a patently stupid attempt to meddle in other states’ electoral business.

The Texas Tribune reports:

In a filing to the high court Tuesday, Paxton claims the four battleground states broke the law by instituting pandemic-related changes to election policies, whether “through executive fiat or friendly lawsuits, thereby weakening ballot integrity.”

Paxton claimed that these changes allowed for voter fraud to occur — a conclusion experts and election officials have rejected — and said the court should push back a Dec. 14 deadline by which states must appoint their presidential electors.

I will predict right here that this lawsuit will get as much traction as any of the legal actions that Trump’s team has filed already in state and lower federal courts already. Which is to say it will go nowhere.

The Texas attorney general is engaging in a patently absurd fishing expedition … and wasting Texans’ valuable taxpayer money.