ER Covering All Bases

Emerald Robinson's on a roll today. It seems with incontrovertible election fraud news coming out the Left is trying to distract the public, but ER keeps her eye on the ball:

UPDATED: The Roberts Strategy Lives, Right?

Arizona wins. This is a case I may want to read in detail--Alito writing for the Court, not sure about other opinions yet, since I've been writing on other matters. I thought this decision might come out later in the day. 

For now I'll leave this with Jonathan Turley, who views this as a "big win for the states"--and, I suppose for the federalism embodied in our constitutional order. However, as I've maintained re the putative Roberts strategy, what this does is put the ball back in the States' court. The States need to act--the SCOTUS, rightly, isn't going to do the work that the Constitution delegates to the States.

As you read, bear in mind that Turley is probably tweeting as he reads. We'll be updating as more analysis comes out. Also, as context, the District Court--to whose opinion reference is made, upheld the AZ law, but the 9th Circuit--now reversed by the SCOTUS--overturned that court.

At this early point, it does seem to me that the Roberts strategy lives. Notice, too, embedded in commentary on the AZ case, the CA case, opinion by Roberts--CA can't force disclosure of political donors. Another big victory against the Left:

Roberts Strategy To Be Revealed Tomorrow?

For the last several months--since the abdication of the Roberts SCOTUS from involvement in Election 2020--we've been speculating about a possible 'Roberts strategy' for election law. The basic idea is that, based on recent election law rulings, CJ Roberts has devised a federalist strategy for extricating the SCOTUS from the swamp of election lawsuits--to the extent possible--by returning primary responsibility for elections to the states. Which is precisely where the Constitution places the exclusive responsibility. What a concept! That, of course, would run counter to the federalization of all elections that has been trending--at the instigation of the Left--for several decades.

The rubber may hit the road on Monday, when Jonathan Turley expects a ruling in the Arizona election law case that came to the SCOTUS from the Ninth Circuit. This term--since the election in any event--the SCOTUS seems to have adopted a policy of issuing quite narrow--perhaps excessively narrow--rulings, but on largely unanimous grounds. But it's difficult to see the Court disposing of the AZ case on narrow procedural grounds if Roberts truly has a strategy in mind. The AZ case seeks to legitimize the Left's favorite electoral tactics of ballot harvesting and so forth which the AZ law bans. If the Roberts court returns responsibility to the states there should be a scramble to rewrite elections laws--with the legislatures being held accountable to the voters.

In this context of a pending decision in the AZ case, DoJ took the step of initiating a lawsuit challenging Georgia's new law. Does the Zhou regime know something? Or, in my opinion, is this a last ditch effort to influence the SCOTUS decision in the AZ case? Or is it possibly an attempt to steal some of the thunder from a decision that Dems fear, for consumption of their base? 

Jonathan Turley, law prof at Geo Washington U., has weighed in at Fox News with some interesting thoughts on the matter.

AZ Audit Update

I've been waiting for the audit process to run its course, rather than try to keep up with breathless speculation. However, this morning sundance has pointed to an article in which a named person associated with the AZ audit makes important assertions of fact. Sundance argues that the fact that these assertions are not being reported anonymously warrants repeating them, and I agree. What follows is simply the relevant portion of the article as reproduced at CTH. I did check the original, and what follows does appear to be the extent of the relevant information:

ARIZONA – Several hundred thousand votes that were counted in Maricopa County, Arizona are associated with missing ballots, according to an audit organizer who is speaking regularly with people on the audit floor.

“We found a ballot shortage, anywhere from 5 to 10 percent of the votes,” Josh Barnett, an audit organizer who led the affidavit drive to make the audit happen, tells NATIONAL FILE. “It looks like a couple hundred thousand ballots are unaccounted for. The ballots are missing.”

“I also know that there were boxes filled with blank ballots in those pallets. There were blanks in there,” Barnett said, citing a person who is frequently at the audit site as part of the audit process. “They (election officials) were doing it for appearance, to try to hide the fact that ballots are missing by saying, ‘It’s okay, they’re all right here.’ But the ballots are blank.” (read more)

Obviously, if true--and we should know very soon now--this would be a genormous development, which nationwide ramifications.

Briefly Noted: China Won, But Who Won Georgia?

I'm heading out to give blood soon, but here are two good reads I noticed this morning.

The first is Conrad Black offering his big picture view of who won the Covid Panic. His answer is simple: China won. They were ruthless and opportunistic:

More On The Roberts' Strategy--If That's What It Is

My presentation in Is The CJ Roberts Plan Working? has received some vigorous pushback in the comments. I've also pushed back vigorously. What I'll do here is elaborate a bit on the issues involved and also paste in the comments below.

Here's the nub of what I wrote yesterday about the "Roberts Strategy"--an admittedly speculative notion:

Back at the beginning of March I wrote a post that examined an idea that Shipwreckedcrew had put forward. The basic idea was that, in declining to involve the SCOTUS in legal disputes over the 2020 presidential election Roberts was pursuing an actual strategy--not just abdicating the SCOTUS' responsibility to uphold the Constitution.

Let me elaborate on that idea just a bit, to give Roberts the benefit of the doubt. There's no question that the SCOTUS could have stepped in--the Texas case in which numerous additional states joined would have been, IMO, perfect. From that standpoint the reasons given by the SCOTUS for sidestepping the case were unconvincing and harmed the prestige of the court by calling its judicial integrity into question. After all, what constitutional issue could be more fundamental and more important than one that called into question our entire electoral process? I discussed this aspect in the earlier post: Arizona Election Law Case In SCOTUS.

On the other hand, while the SCOTUS--in contrast to the executive and legislative branches--is supposed to be above politics, it simply is no longer possible for the Court to disregard political considerations--if that ever was possible. That is all the more true in that politics in America have become utterly toxic from a constitutional standpoint. The country is sharply divided, with the current regime narrowly controlling both the White House and Congress impugning fundamental concepts of the American order. What is the SCOTUS to do--plunge forward, or ...

Encourage the state legislatures to act by exercising their constitutional authority to regulate elections? That would return elections to regulation by the political branches of state governments, where the US Constitution placed the authority in the first place. The idea is that the putative Roberts strategy would support state legislatures taking charge of their own affairs--rather than the SCOTUS arrogating that authority to itself. In future, then, the SCOTUS would largely butt out of election law cases--the effect being to neuter much of the electoral lawfare we currently see in the federal courts. Voters at the state level would be able to express their views on their own states' election laws and their own courts at the ballot box. That HOPEFULLY is the significance of the SCOTUS--having previously declined to get involved in more sweeping election cases--now taking on a much more pointed case involving the swing state of Arizona.

That is not an argument for ignoring election law. What it is is an argument for accepting cases on a very narrow basis--when state law on its face violates some constitutional principle, not based on speculative concepts of disparate impact, such as we're seeing more and more. Those issues were not raised in the TX case that the SCOTUS sidestepped, but they are very much front and center in the AZ case--from a Dem electoral strategy standpoint the AZ case is a potential dagger pointed at the heart of their strategy.

As you'll see when you get to the comments pasted in below, I make the argument that it wasn't the SCOTUS' responsibility to save the GOP. Because let's face it--Trump did what he could to win reelection. The election was sabotaged not just by the Dems but by the GOP. We've seen that in state after state, during the post election squabbling. We're at the point now that the GOPers who sabotaged Trump--governors, legislators, AGs, SecStates--are now scrambling to fix their standing with the voters. Because they now realize that their strategy failed. They thought voters would be duped by the fraud, and accept a false loss by Trump. Instead, voters realize that the fix was in.

The justices at the SCOTUS aren't entirely stupid, nor are they entirely without political views. Some, especially Roberts himself, may have desired a Trump loss. That's as may be. The question is, was it the responsibility of the SCOTUS to rescue officials in GOP run states who failed live up to their own responsibilities? Arguably it was the greater responsibility of the SCOTUS to wait for the right case to try to put US election law back on a sounder constitutional basis. Also arguably--because I can't know this--they may have felt that the AZ case that was heading their way would provide that opportunity in a better way than the TX case would.

Now, here's an excerpt from an article today by John and Andy Schlafly--Election Audits Confound Never-Trumpers. In the first part of the article they make a strong case for the utter fecklessness--not to say perfidy--of the GOPe at the state level. The SCOTUS justices would have had to be fools not to have seen this, immersed as they had been in last minute election cases--they had a better overview than most of us:

UPDATED: Briefly Noted: Is The CJ Roberts Plan Working?

UPDATE: I'm putting this update at the beginning because it tends to support what follows. Briefly, this.

The Soros SecState of AZ was declining to get involved in the AZ election law case discussed below--it's now before the SCOTUS and it deals with stuff like ballot harvesting. This is potentially a huge case with implications for the freedom of ALL states to police elections as they see fit. While CA would doubtless seek to continue its anti-election integrity ways, most states would not. So, since the failure of the SecState to defend AZ law could throw a monkey wrench into the appeal, the AZ Attorney General has formally jumped in to preserve AZ's interests in fair elections. This via TGP--this reads like a press release and appears as a quote, but I couldn't find a link:

On Tuesday, Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a Motion to Intervene with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of the State of Arizona in the Democratic National Committee lawsuit challenging Arizona’s ban on ballot harvesting and statutes regulating out-of-precinct voting. Attorney General Brnovich is moving to intervene on this matter on behalf of the State because defendant Secretary of State Hobbs has announced that she does not support an appeal.

As noted in today’s filing, Attorney General Brnovich moves to intervene in this matter, assuring the State’s interest in retaining its “broad authority to structure and regulate elections,” is fully preserved and that there is no possible procedural hindrance to Supreme Court review of the matter. The Attorney General is empowered by Arizona law to seek intervention in federal court on behalf of the State.

********************

Back at the beginning of March I wrote a post that examined an idea that Shipwreckedcrew had put forward. The basic idea was that, in declining to involve the SCOTUS in legal disputes over the 2020 presidential election Roberts was pursuing an actual strategy--not just abdicating the SCOTUS' responsibility to uphold the Constitution.

Let me elaborate on that idea just a bit, to give Roberts the benefit of the doubt. There's no question that the SCOTUS could have stepped in--the Texas case in which numerous additional states joined would have been, IMO, perfect. From that standpoint the reasons given by the SCOTUS for sidestepping the case were unconvincing and harmed the prestige of the court by calling its judicial integrity into question. After all, what constitutional isse could be more fundamental and more important than one that called into question our entire electoral process? I discussed this aspect in the earlier post: Arizona Election Law Case In SCOTUS.

On the other hand, while the SCOTUS--in contrast to the executive and legislative branches--is supposed to be above politics, it simply is no longer possible for the Court to disregard political considerations--if that ever was possible. That is all the more true in that politics in America have become utterly toxic from a constitutional standpoint. The country is sharply divided, with the current regime narrowly controlling both the White House and Congress impugning fundamental concepts of the American order. What is the SCOTUS to do--plunge forward, or ...

Encourage the state legislatures to act by exercising their constitutional authority to regulate elections? That would return elections to regulation by the political branches of state governments, where the US Constitution placed the authority in the first place. The idea is that the putative Roberts strategy would support state legislatures taking charge of their own affairs--rather than the SCOTUS arrogating that authority to itself. In future, then, the SCOTUS would largely butt out of election law cases--the effect being to neuter much of the electoral lawfare we currently see in the federal courts. Voters at the state level would be able to express their views on their own states' election laws and their own courts at the ballot box. That HOPEFULLY is the significance of the SCOTUS--having previously declined to get involved in more sweeping election cases--now taking on a much more pointed case involving the swing state of Arizona.

I'll go into these issues a bit down below, by pasting in part of the earlier post which discusses the Arizona case that is now before the SCOTUS. For now, I want to simply question whether what we see happening in Arizona with regard to the AZ senate's audit of Maricopa County may reflect the effect of Roberts' strategy. 

Here's what interests me. We saw early on in the audit process that Dem election lawyers descended upon AZ and urged the Zhou regime's DoJ to get involved. That hasn't happened, so far. Why not? Is it possible that the Dem lawyers have come to the realization--perhaps as a result of the SCOTUS taking on the AZ case--that any legal challenge by DoJ of a state exercising its authority under the US Constitution would likely get fast tracked to the SCOTUS, and could result in a sweeping ruling that the Dems could bitterly regret? The AZ senate is pressing forward with its audit, despite continuing obstruction--the senate shows absolutely no signs of backing down, which may be encouraging audit and/or reform efforts in other states as well. Again, the question arises: Is Roberts' strategy having an effect? We can only hope so. The road forward would be messy and prolonged, but politics almost always is. We have in our constitutional order a political regime. Such a Roberts strategy--if that's what we're seeing--would recognize that fundamental constitutional fact by returning to the states the authority that the SCOTUS unwisely usurped. We shall see.

Now, here's a portion of the previous post:

ER Re Audits, Fauci, Wuhan

Emerald Robinson is on a toot, er, tweet today. We all know the weaknesses of Twitter and related social media platforms, but when used well a single tweet can be a game changer for many people--it can give them just enough information in a convenient package to make their mind up. 

Robinson demonstrates this in a series of tweets this morning ranging over the only really important stories out there. For example, few of us any longer have the energy or time to really immerse ourselves in the details of the election fraud. We know it happened, but ...

What's important--as the Left knows so well--is the narrative. A few tweets can paint the big picture that's all most people really need or want:

Transparency And Constitutional Order

I'm not aware that the word transparency appears anywhere in the Constitution, but I'm pretty sure that most people would agree--in principle--that there is firm understanding that the government of our republic is supposed to deal with the people on the up and up. That understanding may be tacit, but my impression is that it's pretty firm. We all know that it's often honored in the breach, but it's the point behind the regular exposures of "hypocrisy" on the part of politicians and other public officials. If transparency in matters that affect the general public were not accepted as a fundamental principle nobody would be outraged by the lack thereof.

That understanding is also behind what's going on with the audits--or, attempted audits--of the 2020 election. The attitude is: If they don't have something to hide, then why are they jiggering with the process?

Then there's the Covid casedemic.

Just the other day I wrote a post about the VAERS reporting on vax deaths and injuries. It's well known that the VAERS data--being voluntary and not widely advertised among non-medical persons--is not terribly reliable, erring very much on the low side. Today, Off-Guardian has an interesting article that expose what can only be described as deliberate deception in constructing and applying statistics to measure what's going on with the Covid regime:

How the CDC is manipulating data to prop-up “vaccine effectiveness”

New policies will artificially deflate “breakthrough infections” in the vaccinated, while the old rules continue to inflate case numbers in the unvaccinated.

Many testing experts--including the now deceased inventor of the PCR test--have repeatedly pointed out the fact that the PCR test is being misapplied to identify Covid cases, both in principle and in the actual application. None other than Tony Fauci has openly admitted this. In fact, the author argues, the Covid pandemic is essentially a casedemic--a figment of bureaucratic statistical ingenuity:

Judge Orders Fulton County Absentee Ballots Unsealed

There's really not much more to the story for right now--except that the petitioners will be allowed to scan the ballots. Uh oh! Yeah, that's the real story. If you want more, go to Zerohedge:

Georgia Judge Decides To Unseal 2020 Absentee Ballots In Fulton County For Review

I assume this means that we'll learn that there was fraud--and lots of it. Of course we'll have to wait and see, and maybe there'll be more rulings, and etc. All these legal maneuverings, however, simply confirm what we all know happened. It doesn't really matter whether there are definitive findings of fact because nobody would be fighting so hard against electoral transparency if there weren't something to hide. Everyone knows that. Rasmussen's polling shows that--this hasn't been missed.

The way this worked is that the defendants--Fulton County and some other GA officials--were told to allow the petitioners to scan images of the ballots. They fobbed them off with crummy 200 dpi images, but the petitioners demanded images of no less than 600 dpi--and access to the ballots themselves. As of today the judge thinks that's reasonable and will issue an order next week establishing procedures for this process.

UPDATED: Stefanik Off To A Good Start--Plus Election Update

Elise Stefanik got off to a good start after replacing What's-her-name in the GOP House leadership. Asked by Maria Bartiromo about her (Stefanik's) support for the AZ audit, Stefanik responsed:

I support that audit. Transparency is good for the American people. And again, this should be a non-partisan issue, whether you are Republican, Democrat, Independent or conservative transparency is important. And the audit was passed by the Arizona State Senate. The Biden Department of Justice is trying to block that audit. That is unconstitutional from my perspective. Our states, constitutionally, are responsible for writing states constitution law. 

 

UPDATE: The election update comes courtesy of Emerald Robinson's Twitter feed today. No confirmation that I've seen re Wisconsin, but she's usually reliable. Some excellent points--I opted for simplicity:

Emerald Robinson 

@EmeraldRobinson

·

May 15

Maricopa County (AZ) officials have already admitted they don't have the router passwords. They are not in charge of the election. That's illegal.

Michigan officials are admitting the exact same thing now!

Quote Tweet

Matthew S. DePerno, Esq.

@mdeperno

 · May 14

SOS Benson’s responses 15, 16, and 17.  Fairest election ever and she doesn’t know how the equipment works. She’s admitting only a vendor knows the intimate details that control our elections.

.

Democrats would not be able to "game" the election systems of crucial swing states CONTROLLED BY THE GOP without the aid of GOP officials. 

These same officials are now trying to block audits in order to hide their activities in the 2020 election.

.

There's a civil war inside the GOP because the GOP establishment collaborated with Democrats against Trump in the 2020 election.

You know it. And the GOP knows that you know it. 

They're just hoping that you forget.

.

The state of Wisconsin authorized an audit of the 2020 election!

Update From Maricopa

Here's the thing about election fraud investigations--it's all so obvious that an update can be done in a single tweet. Or two, if you want to get really expansive:

Guess what: it's an undeniable fact now that the 2020 election was rigged in Arizona.

Maricopa County officials deleted a directory full of election databases right before the election equipment was delivered to the audit.

And now they deny they have the router passwords.

— Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) May 13, 2021

Yesterday @GOPLeader McCarthy said: “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election.”

Actually the entire GOP base is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election.

And 120 retired generals are questioning it too.

— Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) May 13, 2021

However, with the Establishment pretty much totally invested in thwarting the voice of the people, how will things change--unless people vote and then follow up on their vote?

UPDATED: Election Fraud Investigations Continue

We're all looking forward to see the results of the audit from Arizona soon, but already more and more irregularities in the handling procedures and in the access authorities are being revealed. Dem and, yes, GOPe stonewalling continues at a high legal level--local authorities are defying state senate subpoenas, even though state legislatures--under the US Constitution and most state laws--are in charge of elections. Some of these issues are finding their way to the SCOTUS. There's plenty of time for these matters to be resolved--or, if not resolved, then aired--before Election 2022.

As I've said previously, I simply don't have time to cover all the ins and outs of these investigations. As a result I'm waiting for more details on a broader scale than are currently available. We know that there are ongoing investigations with regard to GA, MI, and WI. I'm not sure what the situation is with regard to PA, but I believe there is action there, too.

I notice that my last reference to these matters at any length was all the way back at the beginning of February: BRIEFLY NOTED: Matt Braynard Is Still On The Case. In that post I noted Braynard's continuing outstanding efforts to document and expose widespread fraud. At that time I quoted Braynard from an appearance he made on Steve Bannon's show--and I don't believe anything has happened to change his assessment:

What I’m finding and continuing to find, because we’re actually still doing research, and we’re looking forward to presenting it more aggressively without the constraints of the lawsuits we were entangled with initially, is that among those three states, the number of illegal ballots surpassed the margin of victory. Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona, without those three, Joe Biden isn’t president – and I think we can prove that fairly conclusively.

Last night and this morning TGP had several posts which illustrate what Braynard was talking about as recently as two months ago (he's been on the case for far longer). Braynard, in his conversation with Bannon, focused strongly on Wisconsin, and since then there have been continuing revelations of collusion between local Dem elected officials and national Dem operatives--often circumventing local election officials. The first TGP report delves into more of that. It's now being documented that the scope of these operations was quite widespread:

Watch Bannon And Braynard

I'm not attempting to chronicle the continuing efforts to document the fraud in Election 2020. However, there is a big picture that's gradually emerging. The big picture varies from state to state--in some states the GOP was complicit with the fraud, in some states they were probably incompetent. The constant in it all is: fraud. 

Currently, all eyes are on Arizona, and understandably so. However, the hard work is continuing elsewhere. One of the guys who's been doing this hard work--from the beginning of the post election period--is Matt Braynard. We've focused on his work previously, and he's still at it. His work centers on "traditional" vote fraud--abuses of absentee voting, non-resident voters, abuses of mail in voting, etc.

Steve Bannon did a nice 9:00 minute interview with Braynard on Monday. Unfortunately, I can't embed Rumble here, so you'll have to follow this link to watch the video.

The video touts developments in Wisconsin: 97% of Ballots With No ID in Wisconsin Were Fraudulent. However, the WI portion doesn't kick in until about 2/3 of the way through--6:00. The first six minutes largely deal with Georgia, and it's equally interesting.

Bannon and Braynard get into the big picture a bit--and, remember, we're only about three months into this Zhou regime. Poll after poll has documented that a huge proportion of the population--including a remarkable number of Dems--are very open to the idea that fraud influenced the outcome of the election. Braynard and others aren't going away. They're digging and they're getting results. The big picture is coming out, and it means that a very large portion of the American people will see that this Zhou regime is illegitimate.

This is a very big story, albeit slowly unfolding. As we noted yesterday, it's what's behind James Carville's angst. Voters in the affected states, in particular, will be irate.

Briefly Noted: Legal News--And Russia

I had occasion to point out yesterday (An Independent Judiciary?) that President Trump's (and Mitch McConnell's) strategy of concentrating on confirming appellate level federal judges is paying dividends. Not all is smooth sailing, of course. The 9th Circuit can still be a problem (as recently in a 2A case), but it's still far better than when Trump took office. A couple of cases on this relatively slow news day (so far) illustrate the impact Trump's appellate judges are having.

Since I mentioned the 2A just now, a case from New Jersey is a good place to start. Defense Distributed is a TX company that distributes various 3d print files for firearms and firearm accessories. New Jersey's Attorney General, Gurbir Grewal, sent Defense Distributed letters in TX attempting to restrain Defense Distributed from doing its business in NJ and threatening to prosecute Defense Distributed. The federal district court in TX agreed with Grewal that those letters were insufficient to provide the TX court with jurisdiction in the case. However, the Fifth Circuit disagreed. The SCOTUS has now--by declining Grewal's petition for certiorari--agreed with the Fifth Circuit.

The practical effect of this jurisdictional decision is that NJ will now have to justify its conduct to an unsympathetic federal court in TX. The Truth About Guns points out that the Fifth Circuit

has already made it clear that it believes that governmental efforts to restrict Defense Distributed’s distribution of 3D files have very serious if not fatal First Amendment implications.

This complicates anti-gun matters for crusading officials in anti-2A states. The SCOTUS undoubtedly knew this.

There's more good news from the 6th Circuit (which includes Ohio). You can read a longer account here:

Interesting: Semi-Serious Social Science Study On January 6 Event

Victoria Taft wrote this up for PJ Media, but I got it through Zerohedge:

Study Shows Very Few Capitol Hill Rioters Were QAnon Red-Staters With Ties To 'Right-Wing' Groups

The study comes from the prestigious University of Chicago, and includes some interesting information about the people who participated in as well as those who were arrested at the January 6 Event. For example, the researchers were rather impressed with the level of intellectual sophistication of those involved. They also had to come up with a whole new category for people participating in protests: Business Owners! Go figure, eh? At a rally of conservatives we find ... business owners!

Read it all, but here are some highlights. The researchers labored from the usual stereotypical perspectives and narratives. What's interesting is that they found themselves struggling to come to grips with a reality that didn't fit their usual categories and stereotypes:

A New Concept: Sovereign Crime

Yesterday I offered a few Tentative Signs Of Hope? Today, a splash of cold water. Tentative signs of hope isn't the same as rampant optimism. I do try to offer tempered optimism--remember disgraced former AG Bill Barr, Justice Amy, etc.?--but I don't turn away from reality.

Today, starting soon, I'll be taking a bit of a mental health break--at least for the morning. Mental, not physical, health--the wrist/hand is much better, thanks to the brace and keyboard shortcuts (I have tried a trackball but am not crazy about it).

In the meantime, here are two related and highly recommended reads. There remain signs of hope, even as we suggested in Things Fall Apart, but these are very dark days for the Republic. What comes out on the other side of the tunnel we're in may look very different--for better or worse.

First (h/t Ray So-Cal) from AmThinker, Jay Valentine:

Quick Update On Brnovich V. DNC

I've been sitting on this since writing about the Arizona election law case that was argued before the SCOTUS on March 2 (Briefly Noted: Arizona Election Law Case In SCOTUS). Zerohedge carried a fairly thorough summary of the case along with an account of the oral arguments:

Supreme Court Appears Favorable To Arizona Election Integrity Laws

For our purposes, the first few paragraphs will do--things look fairly optimistic:

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich urged the Supreme Court on March 2 to affirm that his state’s electoral integrity laws were consistent with the federal Voting Rights Act and should be upheld.

The case Arizona’s top prosecutor argued is actually two consolidated cases: Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Arizona Republican Party v. DNC.

Although the justices peppered counsel for Arizona and the state’s Republican Party with at-times hostile-sounding questions, members of the Supreme Court seemed receptive to their arguments. Except for the more liberal members, the justices did not seem convinced that Arizona’s election laws violated the Voting Rights Act.

There's lots more at the link for legal junkies. It won't make you smarter but it will scratch the legal news itch.

Loss Of Trust: Elections And Vaxxing

Two interesting posts at Zerohedge touch on the "complete loss of trust" that is manifesting itself in seemingly unrelated areas of life. Seemingly unrelated, but in reality they touch on the breakdown of trust that the public has in our ruling institutions and elite.

The title of the first post is self explanatory, so I'll just add the initial sentences that will establish the connection:

"Complete Loss Of Trust": Half Of French Home Health Workers Say They'll Resist Taking Vaccine

Astounding new figures out of France suggest what is no doubt a broader global trend of hesitancy and skepticism when it comes to the current big push to 'vaccinate all'. 

Reuters in covering the country's vaccine rollout finds that merely around "half of health workers in French care homes do not want to be vaccinated" — even after many of these routinely witness the ravages of COVID-19 on the elderly and infirm. 

"There’s a complete loss of trust," one home health care worker and trade union representative was cited in the report as saying, reflecting resistance to the growing pressure ...

The post goes on to document similar attitudes in other Western countries. The point is simply this: The "complete loss of trust" is the loss of trust of the great unwashed, hoi polloi, the masses of the public who no longer have any faith in their rulers. All of this applies to America.

Switch gears, and James Bovard worries: Is The U.S. Going The Way Of Afghanistan? He's talking about electoral integrity, and what happens when that trust in the process is lost because of malfeasance on the part of the ruling elite. It's a long and somewhat rambling piece, but we can pick out some nuggets

UPDATED: Briefly Noted: Terrorists In The Senate? Lockdowns In Oz

I offer these two articles with no real comment, beyond that they exemplify the twisted and mad tenor of our times.

Obviously, if Cruz and Hawley have questioned the election results they are, by the definition advanced by former Bushie--and, who knows, she may still maintain contacts with Dubya, another disgraced former public official--Nicolle Wallace:

Senate Ethics Committee to Investigate Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz

The title here pretty much speaks for itself:

Western Australia Goes Into Lockdown Over One Coronavirus Case

Premier Mark McGowan announced the five-day lockdowns for the Perth metropolitan area, the region of Peel, and the South West region of the state after a hotel security guard tested positive for the Chinese virus. The security guard, confirmed to be in his twenties, caught the virus while working at the Sheraton Four Points in Perth, the capital of the state. The Sheraton had been used as a quarantine facility at the time.

The shutdown affects over two million people, who are only allowed to leave their homes for essential shopping, medical reasons, exercise, and jobs that must be done in-person. Schools, churches, and most other businesses including restaurants have been ordered shut down, with restaurants limited to takeout only.

UPDATE: While we're talking about "the twisted and mad tenor of our times," I should recommend Andrea Widburg's very balanced discussion of the comings and goings on Trump's legal team: Leftists are trying to destroy Trump's new attorneys. Beyond the balanced discussion of strictly legal considerations, Widburg provides extensive examples of the twisted Leftist view that some people--including a former president who received far more votes than any prior presidential candidate--are not entitled to legal representation. It's shocking, appalling, disgraceful.