But that’s basically the argument in the latest Hail Mary! move to overturn Biden’s victory.
No, wait, that’s not fair. A Hail Mary! play is a long-shot; this case has zero shots. The courts on Htrae, the Bizarro planet, would find it too stupid to consider. The thesis is that as Congress and Biden are “usurpers” given power by an illegal election, there is no legitimate government, just as Gondor had no king. Therefore the courts must step in and appoint stewards: “During the course of the epic trilogy, the rightful King of Gondor had abandoned the throne. Since only the rightful king could sit on the throne of Gondor, a steward was appointed to manage Gondor until the return of the King, known as ‘Aragorn,’ occurred at the end of the story. This analogy is applicable since there is now in Washington, D.C., a group of individuals calling themselves the President, Vice President, and Congress who have no rightful claim to govern the American People. Accordingly, as set forth in the Proposed Temporary Restraining Order, as a remedy the Court should appoint a group of special masters (the ‘Stewards’) to provide a check the power of the illegitimate President until this Constitutional Crisis can be resolved through a peaceful legal process of a Preliminary Injunction Hearing and a jury trial on the merits.”
No, this is not from The Onion. Paul Davis, one of the seditionists who attacked the Capitol this month, has made this argument in an amended motion to an earlier lawsuit. The amended motion argues that if the government stands, the plaintiffs will suffer from cancel culture and a bad economy (because we all know Democrats will ruin it, amiright?) so they need immediate redress. Until stewards are appointed to Stop the Steal, the current government must be banned from taking any actions contradictory to Trump policy. It’s 1776 all over again, which side are you on, judges? According to Law and Crime, the lawsuit this amended motion relates to would have the stewards chosen from Trump’s cabinet. Oh, and it also shields Davis from being sued or arrested over his peaceful protesting because freedom!
Attorney Mike Dunford on Twitter rips into this with jaws agape: “This is the single most insane request I’ve seen in a case like this and that includes the time Orly Taitz wanted the entire Hawaii Department of Health to be arrested for treason. This is a bananapants clownshoes performance. Except they’re wearing the bananapants on their heads, the shoes on their ears, and nothing else.”
I realize this is slightly off our usual topics here, but hey, LOTR! And besides, we could probably all use a good laugh. To reflect the absurdity we’re dealing with, here is a photograph of my cat.
#SFWApro.
Hey! There’s nothing absurd about that cat!
Otherwise, until this moment I’d completely forgotten about that raving birther goblin Orly Taitz. Although in retrospect I’m a bit surprised she wasn’t appointed to the cabinet by the Two Impeachment Kid.
No, Wisp is a most adorable cat.
Taitz has perhaps unsurprisingly been on the fringes of Stop The Steal, arguing that if Obama could have a fake SSN (another theory of hers I gather), obviously massive amounts of voter fraud are possible. And that Trump will be the great champion of civil rights in the Biden era!
So still raving.
That is a handsome cat. Not as adorable as the cat that I share living quarters with, but very cute. I will have to show off my guy soon.
One of the really troubling things about this whole mess (amongst all the troubling things) is that I hope it doesnât make non-insane lawmakers realize that we can and should take even more steps to ensure that our elections are as well run and secure as possible. Yes, there was nothing so wrong with the presidential election that the final results would have been affected, but there are places where things still are done badly and can be done better. I live in the congressional district where my congressperson still hasnât been determined, and some of the things that have happened with the results are astoundingly bad. Some ballots are in dispute because they used post-its stuck to the ballots to indicate they were in question, but oops, some of those came off, so now they donât know if they were counted conditionally or not. Some ballots are in question because the voters werenât put into the system in time after registering on the DMV site, because they werenât put into the local governmentâs computer system quickly enough. And after all that, the vote count is within only 30 votes in favor of one candidate over the other. Itâs crazy that things can get that bad, and we shouldnât let âthis was the safest and most secure election everâ mean that we canât make sure we do even better.
I’d love to see your cat, Travis.
We met Wisp about 2.5 years ago when she had kittens in our compost bin. After we got her trapped and neutered, she still lurked in the area so we started feeding her. Now she’s an inside/outside cat, though mostly outside. Sleeping in my lap as we speak.
One of my takeaways from the last few months is that there are too many lawyers who should be having their licenses stripped away. I know that’s an incredibly rare thing to happen, and incredibly difficult to make happen, but there comes a time when frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit just becomes too much. Guiliani, Powell, Wood, Ellis. They make those late-night personal injury commercial lawyers look like paragons of integrity…