Thank God for the Rule of Law
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Man-made laws are a mixed bag. Motivations range from desire to build a better society to desire to pander to a constituency, increase personal power, settle a score, or cover up wrongdoing. Even when well meant, laws often bring unintended consequences.
Rule of law, though, is better. As an alternative to the rule of mere men, it’s a rare and precious blessing. A portion of the Oxford English Dictionary definition captures what I mean by the term.
… the principle whereby all members of a society (including those in government) are considered equally subject to publicly disclosed legal codes and processes.
Events of the past four years, especially the last four weeks, have exposed the fact that many who ought to be the most devoted and disciplined in support of the rule of law have lost sight of its value and importance.
Rule of law is God’s invention.
When God organized ancient Israel into a nation, He chose to do more than put Moses in charge and rule through him. He provided words etched in stone (Exodus 32:16). Eventually He provided the entire Torah (Pentateuch), and Moses and later rulers were expected to apply it to the needs of the nation—and also obey it themselves.
We might argue that Hammurabi introduced the rule of law first. Regardless, its invention was an act of God’s gracious providence in the world (James 1:17). By providing a written law to Israel, God made that clear.
Rule of law points to greater realities.
Decrees from autocrats and oligarchies inspire people to look no further than the arbitrary will of humans. They’re the ones in control and we do what they want.
Rule of law separates authority from personality, basing it outside the people in charge. But it does even more: it appeals to moral principles that are bigger than us—even all of us collectively.
In Israel’s case, those principles included “you shall be holy” (Exod. 22:32; Lev. 11:44, 19:2, 20:26) as well as principles such as the rightness of being kind to foreigners (Lev. 19:34, Deut. 10:19), respecting other people’s property (Exod. 20:15), and taking responsibility for unintended harm (Exod. 21:33, Deut. 22:4).
From a natural law perspective, the rule of law points to a transcendent order built into creation itself. From a biblical perspective, it points to the Transcendent Orderer who created. Either way, though secularists may try to deny it, law points beyond the merely human.
Of all people, Christians should treasure and zealously uphold the rule of law!
Rule of law seeks wisdom.
Legal proceedings privilege facts and reasoning over the passions of the moment, and it’s a blessing to all of us that they do. Scripture reveals that this elevation of careful though over emotion is characteristic of wisdom.
- Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. (Prov. 14:29)
- Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered. (Prov. 28:26)
- An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. (Prov. 18:15)
- If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame. (Prov. 18:13)
- The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him. (Prov. 18:17)
- The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things. (Prov. 15:28)
- But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. (James 3:17)
- By me [wisdom] kings reign, and rulers decree what is just; (Prov. 8:15)
The conflict over the 2020 presidential election result boils down to one question: Will the political right honor the rule of law—in most cases, long-standing state laws—or will we be ruled by our passions? The latter is the path of folly but also the path of instability and oppression. The fact that the left demonstrated the same tendencies (though on a far smaller scale) in 2016 only underscores the point. If the right doesn’t champion the rule of law, who do we think we should leave that job to?
Many conservatives believe claims of large scale election fraud and efforts to keep Donald Trump in power are honoring the rule of law. But there’s a fundamental problem with that view: the rule of law includes due process and the burden of proof placed on accusers. Accusers are required to prove that their accusations are true using credible evidence (which is not the same as “someone saying what we want to hear;” see Prov. 19:28).
Any attempt to shift the burden of proof from “innocent until proven guilty” to “guilty until proven innocent” is a direct assault on the rule of law. It’s not how we do law in America—and that reality is a blessing to all of us every day we live here.
Rule of law resists idolatry.
It’s easy to idolize a Queen Elizabeth or a Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, or a President Donald… or Ronald, or Barack or Joe. We’re constantly tempted to “put our trust in princes” (Psalm 146:3, 118:8-9).
It’s harder to idolize laws. It can be done (Rom. 10:2-4), but we’re much more prone to idolize people.
Where law is king (see Rutherford and Paine), power is distributed in written codes across regimes and generations. In the U.S., the law embodied in the Constitution spreads power across the legislative, judicial, and executive branches, and also spreads it across states. Though candidates and voters often act as though the President gets all the credit for national accomplishments, that’s not really how it works. U.S. presidents have substantial policy power, strong influence over what happens in Congress, and enormous cultural influence. But the rule of law ensures that achievements are the result of many individuals and groups working together.
It also has a way of throwing a wet blanket on our hero worship. We need that. We should thank God for it.
Rule of law is defining.
Given our national cultural decay, I think this is not overstatement: If we don’t have the rule of law, we don’t—as a nation, have anything. It’s ultimately all that keeps us from becoming Venezuela, Somalia, Russia, or China.
It’s also what makes all our other policy pursuits worthwhile. There’s no point in electing officials who are against murder if those officials are against the rule of law. This remains true if the murder we’re talking about is the killing of human children still in the womb.
This is a major shift in where we are as a nation, and one that many conservatives don’t yet seem to recognize. The rule of law used to be assumed on both the left and the right, but we can no longer take that commitment for granted—on the left or the right. Our first question about any potential president or legislator or judge can no longer be “are they pro-life”? Our first question must now be, are they pro-rule-of-law? Do they contribute to the strength of our national commitment to the rule of law or do they—directly or indirectly, through policy or rhetoric—weaken it?
Other things might be equally important to our national life. Nothing is more important.
Photo: Bill Oxford.
Aaron Blumer 2016 Bio
Aaron Blumer is a Michigan native and graduate of Bob Jones University and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He and his family live in small-town western Wisconsin, not far from where he pastored for thirteen years. In his full time job, he is content manager for a law-enforcement digital library service. (Views expressed are the author's own and not his employer's, church's, etc.)
The Dominion stories have been debunked many times over. I sincerely hope they sue for defamation.
In Wisconsin for example, multiple hand audits of the data have been conducted and they’ve all found the machines to be accurate.
You have to do some scrolling, but The Dispatch has about half a dozen debunkers on bogus Dominion system claims. https://factcheck.thedispatch.com/archive?sort=new
But the courts are going to continue to insist on evidence, regardless. Thank God for the rule of law!
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
According to 19 congressional leaders, it seems that SCOTUS and many other courts so far have not been willing to do what they are supposed to do. These congressional leaders want to hold hearings about fraud in this election.
This effort is not about who worships Trump and who does not. It has everything to do with whether we have had free and fair elections in our country this past November.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/rep-mo-brooks-18-colleagues-re…
You should read the entire letter from these congressmen to understand what they are concerned about and want to address.
It’s politics, Rajesh.
I don’t object to hearings into individual cases of suspected fraud. Lots of that has happened across the states and it helps states develop refinements to their procedures and laws. I don’t really object to Congress doing it either, but let’s keep something in mind: everything that happens in Congress is politics. There may also be some sincere desire to solve problems mixed in there also, but there will always be spin. The courts are far less oriented toward that, since they don’t have to be re-elected every few years. (This is by design in our Constitution.)
But simply as a matter of probability: which is more likely to make somewhat objective assessments of evidence and law? Judges (quite a few of them Republican-appointed conservatives) or politicians who are always campaigning, always going for the optics, always pandering to a base to some extent?
I’m all for fact finding investigations, whoever does them. But declaring the conclusion first (a made up large scale fraud story) then trying repeatedly to find evidence and convince courts is completely backwards—and anti-rule of law.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
ALARMING: OFFICIAL MICHIGAN ELECTION REPORT Blatantly States More Than 174,000 ABSENTEE BALLOTS HAVE NO VOTER RECORD, Yet Were Counted Anyway
https://www.thedailyfodder.com/2020/12/alarming-official-michigan-election.html
The election officials in Wayne County admit that there are no voter registration number on these ballots, yet they counted them anyway. When they can do this and the Secretary of State and Attorney General do not look into it, we have a huge problem. The theory is that these ballots do not have registration numbers because these were the ballots that were counted multiple times or they were the ballots that came in the “food trucks” in the middle of the night. When these matters are not allowed to be investigated, we should be concerned.
We also need to remember that just because the prominent media sources are not reporting about this does not mean that it did not happen. We have election officials admitting that there are no voter registration numbers and we also have witnesses testifying that laws were broken. Even if you are suspicious of Mellissa Carone’s testimony- as I am- there are other witnesses as well. Further, there is a request for video footage to back up the witness testimony:
Gateway Pundit Requests 3:30 AM TCF Center Footage of Detroit’s Biden Ballot Dump
This article is worth reading. It shows why we want more answers. I also see no reason why the video footage should not be released.
I heard about the 174,000 votes on a local radio show and wanted to find an article, so I did a Bing search. I found that it is much more likely to find this info doing a Bing search than a Google search. Some have said that Google is censoring these things. I cannot prove that, but I do know that I get more balanced results with Bing when it comes to political issues (they seem to give links to articles from both sides of the political spectrum more often than Google- not that Google never gives both sides).
[Aaron Blumer]How do you explain courts, including SCOTUS, that are doing things like this?It’s politics, Rajesh.
I don’t object to hearings into individual cases of suspected fraud. Lots of that has happened across the states and it helps states develop refinements to their procedures and laws. I don’t really object to Congress doing it either, but let’s keep something in mind: everything that happens in Congress is politics. There may also be some sincere desire to solve problems mixed in there also, but there will always be spin. The courts are far less oriented toward that, since they don’t have to be re-elected every few years. (This is by design in our Constitution.)
But simply as a matter of probability: which is more likely to make somewhat objective assessments of evidence and law? Judges (quite a few of them Republican-appointed conservatives) or politicians who are always campaigning, always going for the optics, always pandering to a base to some extent?
I’m all for fact finding investigations, whoever does them. But declaring the conclusion first (a made up large scale fraud story) then trying repeatedly to find evidence and convince courts is completely backwards—and anti-rule of law.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/georgia-supreme-court-slow-wal…
[Aaron Blumer]Here is a brief video (around 7 minutes) that you and everyone else should watch. In the video, the key IT expert who was involved with the forensic audit in Antrim, MI, denies what you (and others on SI) say about courts (so far) ruling objectively based on the evidence. He categorically asserts that there was voter fraud with the voting machines used in the election.It’s politics, Rajesh.
I don’t object to hearings into individual cases of suspected fraud. Lots of that has happened across the states and it helps states develop refinements to their procedures and laws. I don’t really object to Congress doing it either, but let’s keep something in mind: everything that happens in Congress is politics. There may also be some sincere desire to solve problems mixed in there also, but there will always be spin. The courts are far less oriented toward that, since they don’t have to be re-elected every few years. (This is by design in our Constitution.)
But simply as a matter of probability: which is more likely to make somewhat objective assessments of evidence and law? Judges (quite a few of them Republican-appointed conservatives) or politicians who are always campaigning, always going for the optics, always pandering to a base to some extent?
I’m all for fact finding investigations, whoever dhttps://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/going-evidence-comes-forward-n… them. But declaring the conclusion first (a made up large scale fraud story) then trying repeatedly to find evidence and convince courts is completely backwards—and anti-rule of law.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/going-evidence-comes-forward-n…
I’ve already called it what it is. Courts doing their job vs. politicians playing politics.
Recommend reading better sources.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Recommend reading better sources.
One of the huge challenges that we face is difficulty in knowing what sources are reliable and which sources are not. Many of us are convinced that the traditional news sources are not always reliable and that they even have a clear bias. No doubt the source Rajesh quoted above has a right leaning bias, but we also know that the traditional news sources have a left leaning bias. The solution is not to just ignore all news nor is it to say that only that SI approved sources should be used (I doubt we could agree on what those approved sources would be anyway).
The media bias has even crept into how our state of South Dakota and our governor are represented (see Joab’s post above). We have had a few covid outbreaks here, but so have other states. Our state is not way worse than others. We live about 10 miles from Sioux Falls, the largest city in SD. I have a neighbor who was quite sick with covid (he is under 70) but I know of no one personally who has died from it. I am not saying no one has. We have a good friend who had a loved one die of it. I am simply pointing out that South Dakota does not have people dropping like flies over covid.
South Dakota did make recommendations, but did not implement extreme lockdowns. Businesses were allowed to function, although many have allowed employees to work from home and safety measures were taken to promote social distancing. Because we did not have extreme lockdowns, our economy has done well. Our state has had plenty of tax revenue this year and again has a surplus. Our budget is balanced. The city of Sioux Falls is within a couple percentage points of the tax revenue that they had last year. The unemployment rate is the same as it was a year ago.
You are free to disagree with our governor’s support for the president, but it is unfair to say that her covid response was a disaster. I am here living in South Dakota. The info I am giving you has not been filtered through News Max or CNN. Her response has been a success.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/a-whopper-of-an-election-rigging…
There is symmetry, then, in that Antrim is central to the latest fraud claim: namely, that a long sought “forensic imaging” investigation has shown that the software used in Dominion voting machines has a 68 percent error rate!
The claim is false. President Trump retweeted it all the same, notwithstanding that, for the source of the claim, Russell Ramsland Jr., a personal 68 percent error rate might be something to strive for at this point…..
This figure, in an apples-to-oranges manner, refers not to an error rate but to an alert rate, and not to ballots but to the election-management system’s tabulation logs.
It’s instructive to note the differences in tone and quality and quantity of reasoning in this piece vs. what one finds at gateway pundit.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Writing as someone in MN, COVID got here in spades way before Sturgis. Moreover, if you look at the COVID infection/death rates in South Dakota, there’s really not a spike after August. There was the famous (German? infamous?) prognosis that Sturgis would lead to half a million deaths back in August, but the data simply don’t bear that out.
I’m not quite sure why there wasn’t a spike. Maybe it’s because revelers stayed in their tents and campers when they were feeling down, and maybe it’s because most activities were outside to begin with. But what’s going on in South Dakota now is simply that the virus eventually got there and took off. They’re getting hit harder than MN because their age and weight demographics are worse, IMO. Lots of farmers in their seventies carrying a lot of extra weight is not a good recipe for fixing things.
(there were spikes in August and September around colleges that re-opened, but not clearly due to Sturgis)
The correlation I see in the nationwide data do seem to indicate a big spike after the beginning of November, but whether that’s people coming out for election rallies, the onset of winter, or what is anyone’s guess. My personal guess is a bit of everything.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
The Sioux Falls mayor just said today that Covid rates in Sioux Falls are going down now. He replied that he is not sure why. Like Bert, he shared his observations but did not make dogmatic pronouncements about the reasons. I find it interesting that someone out in PA is making dogmatic statements about what is happening here. I am starting to think that our own eyes are not the right sources because we are not “Never Trump” even though we are not all that pro Trump either. I am starting to wonder if some will ignore all information sources unless they are anti-Trump and believe any news sources that are rabidly against Trump. I am sick of Trump and how people are using him as an excuse to ignore the truth. Sadly I am not convinced that getting rid of Trump will allow the truth to come back into journalism.
We were in Rapid City a week before Sturgis. We visited some friends just outside Rapid and they commented on how it was a record tourist season out there and had been for months. The hotel we stayed in was packed. We asked them if the Rapid City hospital was overwhelmed with Covid cases at that time. It was not. We saw license plates from all over the USA there. Covid took a bit of a break over the summer- not sure why- but it was not spreading much and there was no serious problem in the Black Hills of SD. Our state was able to take advantage of that break and stay open, save jobs, stabilize mental health, and thus save lives. Our governor made that decision, not Trump.
I still hope Newsmax et al. get sued and severely fined.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
The reason we didn’t have a huge spike in COVID cases after Sturgis was most likely because bikers are not exactly the most compliant group of people out there to begin with, and hence when they got to Sturgis, they most likely did exactly the same social distancing that they did before—which might be minimal. So a big “duh” for me. :^)
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Not just Newsmax. Fox News did the same with a 3-minute prerecorded segment before several Fox News hosts that accused Dominion and Smartmatic of Fraud without any evidence. If you have been continually publishing false information without any evidence that damages a company’s reputation, which then costs the company several hundred of millions of dollars worth of contracts, the libel damages against them will be huge.
What I could never understand was how the tinfoil narrative that Dominion corroborated with Smartmatic to use their software in order to defraud Trump of votes was taken seriously by certain conservatives. The two companies don’t like each other. Back in 2013, they sued and countersued each other. https://casetext.com/brief/smartmatic-usa-corporation-et-al-v-dominion-voting-systems-corporation-et-al_reply-memorandum-of-law-in-support-re-10-motion-to-dismiss They attempted to work together but it completely fell apart. They are fierce competitors of each other.
You mean the SD Emergency room nurse’s story that all of the hospitals say is not at all reflective of what is going on in their facilities? The one that co-workers said did not match up to any of their experiences working with the *same exact* patients?
Her? She is your source?
I have *many* friends that are nurses here in South Dakota (where I live). They aren’t seeing what Jodi Doering claims is going on in our hospitals. The National Review even couldn’t find anyone to corroborate her story.
[Joel Shaffer]Not just Newsmax. Fox News did the same….
What I could never understand was how the tinfoil narrative that Dominion corroborated with Smartmatic to use their software in order to defraud Trump of votes was taken seriously by certain conservatives. The two companies don’t like each other. Back in 2013, they sued and countersued each other. https://casetext.com/brief/smartmatic-usa-corporation-et-al-v-dominion-voting-systems-corporation-et-al_reply-memorandum-of-law-in-support-re-10-motion-to-dismiss They attempted to work together but it completely fell apart. They are fierce competitors of each other.
Also worth noting: Smartmatic wasn’t even used in the contested states.They’ve only done recent work in the U.S. for one county in California.
And people wonder why courts “don’t look at the evidence.”
About the difficulty of knowing what sources are reliable….
On that topic, from a few posts up the thread: it’s really not all that hard. I’ve done some writing on the topic here at SI already, and plan to do some more, but it’s pretty easy to look at reports on a controversial topic and sift them like this:
- Toss out all the ones with clear partisan loyalties
- Toss out all the ones making the most dramatic claims in the most dramatic language
- Looking at what’s left, what points of fact do both left-leaning and right-leaning sources agree on?
- What do centrist sources say?
- What do the most boring, fact-filled, analytical sources say?
It usually takes about fifteen minutes to see a clear pattern. Maybe an hour to see what the best sources are saying in detail. (This is all reading, by the way. Video is always highly suspect unless it’s extremely boring.)
But one more step should precede all of those: what’s the probability that story X is true to begin with? If you start out putting the burden of proof in the appropriate place, that also sifts claims pretty rapidly. You don’t have to do an enormous amount of digging to find out if an extremely improbable claim is true. File it under “almost certainly not” and maybe revisit it after looking into the “well, maybe” items and the “very likely” items.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
The trouble with tossing out those with clear partisan loyalties is that almost all of the mainstream media clearly put their finger on the scales for Obama, and again for Biden. Let’s not mince words; failing/refusing to cover the information found on Hunter Biden’s laptop is a courtesy that would not have been extended to any Republican. Same thing with Biden’s obvious mental decline—had Trump shown the same symptoms, you know it would have been on page one on CNN and such. So when you advocate tossing media with clear partisan loyalties, that’s just about everybody—and as a reader of Fox, I’ll concede that includes Fox somewhat on the other side.
Some real soul searching is needed on the part of the media, because the 4th Estate is taking a big role in leading the decline of civic discourse. And back to this topic, that’s a big reason that many on the right aren’t trusting the reports which “clear” the process in Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Atlanta.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
The trouble with tossing out those with clear partisan loyalties is that almost all of the mainstream media clearly put their finger on the scales for Obama, and again for Biden. Let’s not mince words; failing/refusing to cover the information found on Hunter Biden’s laptop is a courtesy that would not have been extended to any Republican. Same thing with Biden’s obvious mental decline—had Trump shown the same symptoms, you know it would have been on page one on CNN and such. So when you advocate tossing media with clear partisan loyalties, that’s just about everybody—and as a reader of Fox, I’ll concede that includes Fox somewhat on the other side.
Some real soul searching is needed on the part of the media, because the 4th Estate is taking a big role in leading the decline of civic discourse. And back to this topic, that’s a big reason that many on the right aren’t trusting the reports which “clear” the process in Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Atlanta.
The impeachment hearings were quite revealing as well. I did not have time to watch them all, but instead had to get key points from the media. It was quite interesting to see what was highlighted and what was hidden by various sources. The best part is that we actually had the testimony available so we could check the accuracy of the reporting. I feel like we no longer have reliable sources of journalism. I wish Aaron’s approach would always work. It does seem quite reasonable on the surface, but our news sources have proven over and over the reality of the depravity of mankind.
Before the election the sources that were reporting the Hunter Biden email stories would not have passed Aaron’s test, but sources that would pass Aaron’s test are now reporting the same thing. The point that I am making is that we cannot assume something is false just because a news source has a bias nor should we assume something is true just because we like the news source. We have reason to be skeptical and we also have reason to ask for more information when we have multiple witnesses.
The multiple witness issue is something that should not be constrained by the media reporting. Multiple states have broadcast hearings were multiple witnesses have been able to give their accounts. It does not matter who reports these witnesses an who does not. Evidence was presented by multiple witnesses and it thus needs to be investigated. Who reports on it or who does not- which media sources credit or discredit it is not the issue. We should not have trial by media, because the media is tainted. That is why state legislatures are calling for investigations and asking for specific information. Depending on your media sources you may not know that when these legislatures are asking for the information that would prove the allegations of voter fraud to be true or false, they are being hindered from getting that information. It appears that in some cases the media is doing all it can to hinder the exercise of the rule of law and so are some state officials.
If you curate your news media and understand their respective biases, you’ll get a very well-rounded and informed view of the world. It isn’t hard. The refrains about the “mainstream media” remind me about “mainline denominations.” They’re legacy institutions that are part of the narrative, but certainly not the whole story. We don’t have to reference “mainstream media” as though we’re helpless consumers, held fast in the steely grasp of their demagoguery. You can, each one of you, curate your news media intelligently and discriminately … if you choose to do so.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
The point that I am making is that we cannot assume something is false just because a news source has a bias nor should we assume something is true just because we like the news source. We have reason to be skeptical and we also have reason to ask for more information when we have multiple witnesses.
This sums it up how I see it pretty well, but I would nuance the part about witnesses. Numbers of witnesses are not all of equal weight. In the case of the stolen-election narrative, a public figure known to have legions of devoted fans made a public appeal for “reports.” So, this really poisoned the witness pool, so to speak. I can’t really fault the courts much for choosing not to sift through mountains of junk to find a few credible witnesses of process failures or wrongdoing. So, ironically, Trump et al.’s publicity campaign made actual prosecution of actual misconduct cases more difficult. A court swamped with lies is going to be hindered in its pursuit of truth.
I suspect that was the goal. It’s not about truth, it’s about sustaining belief in the narrative, which, if you’re Trump, translates into money and political influence post-presidency.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Andre McCarthy points out some strongish points in the case, then…
There are, moreover, the now-familiar flaws: The campaign continues to complain about the potential for fraud while not alleging any actual fraud — even as, for public consumption, the president persists in portraying the election as pervasively fraudulent to the point of being “rigged.” And, without having established that the alleged misconduct materially affected the outcome of the election, much less resulted in massive fraud, the campaign would have the high court nullify the election, disenfranchise 6.8 million Pennsylvanians, and delegate the state legislature to select new electors — never mind that the electors have already been chosen by popular election, been certified under state law, and cast their votes pursuant to federal law.
He goes on to talk a bit about what he thinks needs fixing to better ensure election integrity. (He thinks mail-in ballots should only be permitted as absentee and only for specified reasons.) Then adds,
All that said, though, what I’ve just described is a prospective project. As far as the 2020 election is concerned, the Trump campaign has already lost on at least three of these issues, and arguably on all of them.
Later…
The campaign is simply wrong in its claims about signature review. The theory of its claim is that, in eliminating signature review, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar effectively amended law enacted by the state legislature. But there is nothing in Pennsylvania election law that requires signature verification.
The Commonwealth’s law calls for proof of identity (an examination of the voter’s driver’s license or similar statutorily approved form of identification). While the ballot certification must be signed, the statute does not mention signature comparison.
It’s a pretty detailed analysis. I’ve quoted some excerpts to illustrate, but also because it tagged “NR Plus” which is usually paywalled (though my subscription has expired and I can still see it, so…?).
The link: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/a-fatally-flawed-trump-petition-…
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Seventh Circuit upholds dismissal of suit seeking to declare Trump winner in Wisconsin
This happened Christmas Eve, I guess.
The suit alleged that Wisconsin violated the Electors Clause of the US Constitution. The president claimed that guidance released by Wisconsin voting commissions facilitated voter fraud by allowing unmanned drop-off boxes and expanded absentee voting due to the pandemic.
The lower court had dismissed the case on the merits, citing that the time to bring suit was before the recounts and the official certification of the election.
The Seventh Circuit affirmed the decision ….
On the merits of an Electors Clause claim, the court found that the clause “could be read as addressing only the manner of appointing electors and thus nothing about the law that governs the administration of an election.” In this case, it said, the electors were rightfully appointed according to the process set forth by the Wisconsin Legislature.
So, the objection that the courts aren’t looking at the actual evidence is technically true in this particular case. The law doesn’t allow for the legal maneuver the plaintiffs were attempting, so the evidence wasn’t relevant. However, in Wisconsin, the legislature has already had some hearings looking at the actual evidence, and those efforts are continuing. Which is how election fraud problems actually get fixed—locally, case by case, by officials who have that responsibility… not by candidates trying to flip whole elections in their favor (or candidates trying to bring lots of cash for their post-election careers!)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I think Trump lost but the charge of sedition or treason that is being floated around is ridiculous. It is not sedition or treason to take every legal avenue and to make your case to the American people. Yes, he is a clown. He is arrogant and brash and unpresidential and all that. But that is not sedition.
We all know that the vote was fraudulent to some degree. No one thinks that every single one of 160 miilionish votes were completely above board, cast by the legal voter whose name is attached to it. In the best of cases, that wouldn’t be true. And given the number of anomalies in this election, it is clearly worth questioning. Again, I think Biden won, but it seems nearly impossible that he did so legitimately. It was the perfect storm.
“Fraudulent to some degree…” Well, every election is. Do we have real evidence this one was at all special? I suspect Christopher Krebs’ take on it is closer to the truth than the politicians’ and pundits’ and lawyers’ take on it. He would know.
“take every legal angle”….. A distinction worth noting here. Knowingly trying to reverse a legal election is morally treason, even if the means of attack is partly “legal.” In this case, there has also been a massive propaganda campaign. The legal efforts have mostly been spurious. Just for show.
Does it rise to the legal act of treason or sedition or something like that? I had written that this is ridiculous, but looking at the definition of sedition—or at least one definition—I’m not sure it deserves that label.
https://dictionary.thelaw.com/sedition/
An insurrectionary movement tending towards treason, but wanting an overt act; attempts made by meetings or speeches, or by publications, to disturb the tranquillity of the state.
The distinction between “sedition” and “treason” consists in this: that though the ultimate object of sedition is a violation of the public peace, or at least such a course of measures as evidently engenders it, yet it does not aim at direct and open violence against the laws or the subversion of the constitution….
It could never be proven in a court of law unless written communications or video or audio recordings or something could be found, showing both intent and strategy.
I still can’t decide if Trump…
- Really believes the election was rigged
- Knows deep down that he genuinely lost, but refuses to face it (so he’s lying to himself basically)
- Knows the truth, has faced it, and has engaged in a deceitful propaganda campaign
- To pad his pockets (many millions have come into his election legal fight fund)
- To enhance his post-election influence
- To enhance his ability to keep getting a lot of attention and feel important
- Out of spite
- A mix of the above
Maybe some days he believes it and some days he doesn’t. That wouldn’t be surprising either.
If he even mostly believes he got robbed, it’s not sedition or treason to say so and try to use legal means to get justice.
But one more distinction is important here: it’s one thing to do due diligence and then have a well-informed, responsible view that a crime was committed against you. It’s another thing assume that you couldn’t possibly lose unless it was rigged, then try to dig up evidence to fit what you want to believe.
So there’s sincere responsible (though incorrect) belief and there’s sincere, irresponsible, self-indulgent and lazy (and incorrect) belief.
Which is it, in Trump’s case? Well, what fits his character? Secondly, it’s almost impossible to have a responsible belief that the election was rigged/stolen from Trump.
Irresponsible indulgence in egotistical fantasy is more likely than sedition in this case. Still, the whole charade has done a lot of social/civil damage.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Joeb wrote:
the Proud Boys and other White Supremacist Groups
I am not a fan of the proud boys. Proud really describes what this group is all about. They come across as brash and arrogant. In some cases they have been involved in physical altercations and it appears that their pride was a contributing factor to these altercations. Anyone who calls them white supremacists is clearly ill informed. They are made up of men from many racial backgrounds. Leaders within the Proud Boy groups are black, white, and Hispanic.
We have people on this site labeling Proud Boys as white supremacists and conservatives as fascists. Clearly people are being influenced by propaganda rather than truth.
Do we have real evidence this one was at all special?
We don’t know. There appears to be strong evidence of a variety of serious problems in some places.
I suspect Christopher Krebs’ take on it is closer to the truth than the politicians’ and pundits’ and lawyers’ take on it. He would know.
Here’s what Krebs actually said at the hearing: “The focus of the statement, the joint statement was security. It was secure. I think terms have been conflated here alleging that we were speaking to the fraud aspect. We absolutely were not. We were talking about security, hacking, manipulation of these machines. That was the thrust of the statement” (2:33:29).
Krebs told NBC, “”It is important to distinguish between the security of the systems and the ability to resist foreign interference, foreign tampering, and machine algorithms and fraud” (https://www.newsmax.com/politics/christopher-krebs-election-security-fr…).
In addition, he specifically said he did not dispute the claims of others at the hearing regarding problems for instance in Nevada. So we can believe Krebs and still wonder about fraud in the election because Krebs has not investigated fraud (so he says).
Watch particularly the claims about Nevada and Wisconsin in this hearing. I have heard no reports that those claims have actually been tried in a court of law. It would be interesting to know.
A distinction worth noting here. Knowingly trying to reverse a legal election is morally treason, even if the means of attack is partly “legal.”
In this case, the “legal” status of the election is what is under dispute. Calling it a “legal election” does not make it so. Contrary to some, we do not have the power to speak reality into existence. And if there are legal ways to attack it, those are not treasonous by definition.
As for what Trump believes, who knows. I certainly don’t and I don’t care. I think people are too focused on Trump in this. The real issue is the integrity and trustworthiness of elections.
Pennsylvania Reported About 200,000 More Ballots Cast than People Who Voted
It is bad enough that people can vote without ID or signature verification, but now it looks like votes can actually be counted without voters. I am pretty sure that does not fit with the rule of law. The easy explanation would be that mass amounts of ballots were manufactured and counted that were not legitimate votes. Of course we could also just assume that someone typed in the wrong numbers at the state level, but with all the testimony from multiple witnesses who saw ballots that had not been folded and had perfectly matched oval stamps, I think that is grasping at straws. How much evidence do we need? I fear for some, it does not matter how much evidence there is- they have already made up their minds.
I was warned as a young Christian to be very careful about words like always or never. Saying I am never Trump is kind of like saying I will never believe evidence. I have had a lot of respect for those who are “not Trump” supports and that respect continues, but I do not respect the “Never Trumpers.” The very term is evidence of a closed mind that refuses to ever be persuaded.
This link is to the site of a PA lawmaker who broke this story:
http://www.repdiamond.com/News/18754/Latest-News/PA-Lawmakers-Numbers-Don
BTW: bringing up fringe accusations of fraud that many of us had not even heard of and then discrediting them, does not negate the legitimate concerns that must be investigated.
[JD Miller]Pennsylvania Reported About 200,000 More Ballots Cast than People Who Voted
It is bad enough that people can vote without ID or signature verification, but now it looks like votes can actually be counted without voters. I am pretty sure that does not fit with the rule of law. The easy explanation would be that mass amounts of ballots were manufactured and counted that were not legitimate votes. Of course we could also just assume that someone typed in the wrong numbers at the state level, but with all the testimony from multiple witnesses who saw ballots that had not been folded and had perfectly matched oval stamps, I think that is grasping at straws. How much evidence do we need? I fear for some, it does not matter how much evidence there is- they have already made up their minds.
I was warned as a young Christian to be very careful about words like always or never. Saying I am never Trump is kind of like saying I will never believe evidence. I have had a lot of respect for those who are “not Trump” supports and that respect continues, but I do not respect the “Never Trumpers.” The very term is evidence of a closed mind that refuses to ever be persuaded.
This link is to the site of a PA lawmaker who broke this story:
http://www.repdiamond.com/News/18754/Latest-News/PA-Lawmakers-Numbers-Don
BTW: bringing up fringe accusations of fraud that many of us had not even heard of and then discrediting them, does not negate the legitimate concerns that must be investigated.
What if a person is a “Never those policies” person? Please don’t respond with the lesser of two evils argument. Can a person legitimately only vote for people that approximate their political position? Have we now ended up in a place where that is “pie in the sky”?
I can understand a never those policies position. But the reason I would not use the term “Never Trump” or “Never Biden” is because policy positions can change. Further what makes things difficult is that with both Trump and Biden there is a lot of inaccurate information about what their policies actually are. The other challenging position for all voters is that we may like some of their policies and not others. That is why we need to extend grace to those who make different choices in the voting booth than we do.
Yes I agree. I do think that a candidate’s political history (Trump had none) can be well-established enough to rule them out no matter what they claim campaigning.
More evidence of fraud continues to come out, but while some are skeptical of the election process others are skeptical of the fraud accusations. We now have representatives and senators on record saying that they will object to accepting the electoral college votes on January 6th. Such objections are not unprecedented, but are unlikely to change the final vote.
What I do think is possible, is that there will be a debate on the subject on the House and/or the Senate floor and if the debate provides an opportunity for the evidence to be brought forth and also provides the opportunity for the evidence to be refuted, that can provide important information to the public. My hope is that the information that comes from this can then lead to reforms on the state levels.
Regardless of who the next president is, I want fair elections and I am convinced that changes should be made to further safeguard vote integrity. Fraud likely affected more than just the presidential election. I do not mean to imply that the choice of president is insignificant, but if the fraud was as widespread as many are claiming, then many other offices from senator to school board were likely affected.
If nothing else, I hope the debate over the subject leads to a more uniform application of the rule of law.
(Please note that evidence and proof are 2 different words and I would caution those who use them interchangeably. I have consistently used the word evidence in these threads even though the word proof has been falsely attributed to me. In fact, I reread my posts to make sure and multiple times I made it clear that that there was room for the evidence to be argued against. Still when the evidence keeps piling up, the rule of law requires that it be investigated. This should not just be about the presidency, but about states looking into this and reforming their election laws and about bringing violators to justice).
Here is a defining question for you JD. If it was in your power or you knew of a way to accomplish it would you make Donald Trump President for Life would you. Yes or No. I hope it’s a resounding No.
No. I have made it very clear here and in other threads that I am not a big fan of Trump. I did vote for him once (not both times he ran), but there is much about him I do not appreciate. It is wrong to characterize those who simply voted for him as Trump cultists. It is also wrong to assume that all the election concerns I have are coming from the Trump campaign or that my positions on Covid come from Trump. I do not read Trumps tweets or Trumps statements about the election or anything else unless they happen to be in some other news article and thus I seldom come across them. I do not get my positions from Trump. In fact, I am not all that interested in hearing what Trump lawyers have to say about the election. I am more interested in the testimony of first hand witnesses that are testifying before the state committees and legislatures.
I have made it clear that when it comes to voting, we should show love and grace for one another when different choices are made. I fear that position has become controversial on SI.
Joe B keeps using my name, but I think he is arguing with someone else. I would prefer to ignore him, but I want to clarify what I have said so that others do not read his posts and get the wrong impression of what I said earlier. As far as the Michigan witness he just referred to, I already made it clear on page 2 of this long thread that I do not find her credible. I am not sure why this has become so personal. Here is what I wrote (bold and underline added for this post).
Even if you are suspicious of Mellissa Carone’s testimony- as I am- there are other witnesses as well.
I have no problem with others disagreeing with my statements, I just do not want them misrepresented. I am praying for you Joe. I hope you are able to find comfort in spending time with loved ones during this holiday season.
The stolen election story absolutely depends on the voting machines/software manipulation claim that Krebs rejected.
Individual cases of fraud here and there are a different question and don’t really have any bearing on the national outcome.
In Pennsylvania, the courts have clarified what the law means. The rule of law was upheld both in the election and after.
So here’s what it boils down to: either the election was rigged (this story only exists at all because Trump created it) and every American has an interest in correcting that, or there were isolated irregularities/cases of misconduct/fraud which were local and really only of interest to people who live there.
There is evidence of the latter and none of the former. (So also said AG Barr, for example, no never-Trumper)
What the GOP is doing to fuel the rigged election lie is all about Trump. It’s irresponsible, short sighted, anti-rule of law, and anti-conservative.
Edit: Blessedly, the rule of law continues to win.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I’ve lost track of where, but the idea seems to resurface here and there that arguments and facts against the stolen election narrative are only coming from Never Trump sources. Or that was my impression.
So, some helpful, usually well reasoned and factual sources that aren’t never Trump:
- National Review (several Trump supporters, and several “critical but voted for him twice” people… only one never-Trumper I know of: Kevin Williamson; might be one or two others.)
- Washington Examiner (the opinion columns feature passionate Trump fans like Scarry, but also consistently Trump critical guys like Quin Hillyer)
- WORLD Magazine/website (in my view, has not been critical enough of Trump, but certainly not a never-Trump source)
- Wall Street Journal - used to be generally seen as leaning right of center, though I’m not sure about that. I can’t afford it. I do know they feature views all over the map on Trump and his actions.
In addition, NY Post is usually very pro-Trump but even their editorial board has had enough of the rigged election/flip the election charade: https://nypost.com/2020/12/27/give-it-up-mr-president-for-your-sake-and…
Then you have all the Trump-appointed judges and until-lately Trump-backing local GOP officials who have rejected the stolen election canard, as well as some Senators, such as Sasse and Kinzinger. I don’t know what Kinzinger’s history is vis a vis Trump, but Sasse has been a sometimes defender and sometimes critic. He hasn’t earned being accurately termed a Never-Trumper.
Speaking of non-Never Trump Sasse: Some of his recent thoughts… (It’s difficult to copy paste any text from Facebook, so this is OCR… It probably has some scan errors and the links are almost certainly broken, but my link to the source is good. You can read it all there and follow the links.)
2. IS THERE EVIDENCE OF VOTER FRAUD SO WIDESPREAD THAT IT COULD HAVE CHANGED THE OUTCOME OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION? No.
For President-Elect Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College victory to be overturned: President Trump would need to flip multiple states. But not a single state is in legal doubt.
But given that I was not a Trump voter in either 2016 or 2020 (I wrote in Mike Pence in both elections), I understand that many Trump supporters will not want to take my word for it. So, let’s look at the investigations and tireless analysis from Andy McCarthy over at National Review. McCarthy has been a strong, consistent supporter of President Trump, and he is also a highly regarded federal prosecutor. Let’s run through the main states where President Trump has claimed widespread fraud:
* In Pennsylvania, Team Trump is right that lots went wrong. Specifically, a highly partisan state supreme court rewrote election law in ways that are contrary to what the legislature had written about the deadline for mail-in ballots — this is wrong. But Biden won Pennsylvania by 81,000 votes — and there appear to have been only 10,000 votes received and counted after election day. So even if every one of these votes were for Biden and were thrown out, they would not come close to affecting the outcome. Notably: Stephanos Bibas (a Trump appointee) of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled against the president’s lawsuit to reverse Biden’s large victory, writing in devastating fashion: “calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”
* In Michigan, which Biden won by 154,000 votes, the Trump team initially claimed generic fraud statewide — but with almost no particular claims, so courts roundly rejected suit after suit. The Trump team then objected to a handful of discrepancies in certain counties and precincts, some more reasonable than others. But for the sake of argument, let’s again assume that every single discrepancy was resolved in the president’s favor: It would potentially amount to a few thousand votes and not come anywhere close to changing the state’s result.
* In Arizona, a federal judge jettisoned a lawsuit explaining that “allegations that find favor in the public sphere of gossip and innuendo cannot be a substitute for earnest pleadings and procedure in federal court,” she wrote. “They most certainly cannot be the basis for upending Arizona’s 2020 General Election.” Nothing presented in court was serious, let alone providing a basis for overturning an election. (https:// www.azcentral. comistoryinewslpolitics/elections/2020/12/09/federal-judge-throws-out-last-election-challenge-pending-arizona/6506927002)
* In Nevada, there do appear to have been some irregularities — but the numbers appear to have been very small relative to Biden’s margin of victory. It would be useful for there to be an investigation into these irregularities: but a judge rejected the president’s suit because the president’s lawyers “did not prove under any standard of proof’ that enough illegal votes were cast; or legal votes not counted, “to raise reasonable doubt as to the outcome of the election.” (https://www.8newsnow.com/i-team/judge-no-evidence-to-support-voter-frau…vegas-clark-county/)
* In Wisconsin, as McCarthy has written, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled against President Trump, suggesting that President-Elect Biden’s recorded margin of victory (about 20,000 votes) was probably slightly smaller in fact: but even re-calculating all of the votes in question in a generously pro-Trump way would not give the president a victory in the state. (https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/biden-won-wisconsin-but-it-was-e…)
* In Georgia: a Georgia Bureau of Investigation complete audit of more than 15,000 votes found one irregularity — a situation where a woman illegally signed both her and her husband’s ballot envelopes.
At the end of the day, one of the President Trump’s strongest supporters, his own Attorney General, Bill Barr, was blunt: “We have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” (https://apnews.comiarticlelbarr-no-widespread-election-fraud-blf1488796…)
Read the whole thing.
So, as a for instance, it’s really not that hard to get at truth by looking for points of agreement among non-extreme sources that have differing biases.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
No mention is made of sending money to Timmons.Timmons to Object to Electoral College Certification on January 6
America is a Republic whose leaders are chosen in democratic elections. Those elections, in turn, must comply with the Constitution and with federal and state law.
When the voters fairly decide an election, pursuant to the rule of law, the losing candidate should acknowledge and respect the legitimacy of that election. And, if the voters choose to elect a new office-holder, our Nation should have a peaceful transfer of power.
The election of 2020, like the election of 2016, was hard fought and, in many swing states, narrowly decided. The 2020 election, however, featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities.
Voter fraud has posed a persistent challenge in our elections, although its breadth and scope are disputed. By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes.
And those allegations are not believed just by one individual candidate. Instead, they are widespread. Reuters/Ipsos polling, tragically, shows that 39% of Americans believe ‘the election was rigged.’ That belief is held by Republicans (67%), Democrats (17%), and Independents (31%).
Some Members of Congress disagree with that assessment, as do many members of the media.
But, whether or not our elected officials or journalists believe it, that deep distrust of our democratic processes will not magically disappear. It should concern us all. And it poses an ongoing threat to the legitimacy of any subsequent administrations.
Ideally, the courts would have heard evidence and resolved these claims of serious election fraud. Twice, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to do so; twice, the Court declined.
On January 6, it is incumbent on Congress to vote on whether to certify the 2020 election results. That vote is the lone constitutional power remaining to consider and force resolution of the multiple allegations of serious voter fraud.
At that quadrennial joint session, there is long precedent of Democratic Members of Congress raising objections to presidential election results, as they did in 1969, 2001, 2005, and 2017. And, in both 1969 and 2005, a Democratic Senator joined with a Democratic House Member in forcing votes in both houses on whether to accept the presidential electors being challenged.
The most direct precedent on this question arose in 1877, following serious allegations of fraud and illegal conduct in the Hayes-Tilden presidential race. Specifically, the elections in three states-Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina-were alleged to have been conducted illegally.
In 1877, Congress did not ignore those allegations, nor did the media simply dismiss those raising them as radicals trying to undermine democracy. Instead, Congress appointed an Electoral Commission-consisting of five Senators, five House Members, and five Supreme Court Justices-to consider and resolve the disputed returns.
We should follow that precedent. To wit, Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commission’s findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.
Accordingly, we intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified’ (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed.
We are not naïve. We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise. But support of election integrity should not be a partisan issue. A fair and credible audit-conducted expeditiously and completed well before January 20-would dramatically improve Americans’ faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next President. We owe that to the People.
These are matters worthy of the Congress, and entrusted to us to defend. We do not take this action lightly. We are acting not to thwart the democratic process, but rather to protect it. And every one of us should act together to ensure that the election was lawfully conducted under the Constitution and to do everything we can to restore faith in our Democracy.
I really respect Tom Cotton’s position. He has concerns about the 2020 election and wants further investigation (not ignoring evidence or multiple witnesses) but he also respects the rule of law so much that he does not want to go against the electoral votes that were certified. IE Joe Biden will be president, but that does not mean that there will be no investigations or reforms. Here is an article that explains Cotton’s position: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/01/04/tom-cotton-blocking-electoral-vote-will-only-embolden-democrats-to-undermine-the-constitution-n1304212
I would hope that there could be bipartisan support for such an approach.
One of the better ideas out there right now.
But constitutionally, looking into election problems is the job of the states … which, oh yeah, they’re already doing.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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