Monday, December 26, 2022

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

An Arizona judge on Saturday rebuffed an effort by Kari Lake, the defeated GOP candidate for governor in Arizona, to reverse the outcome of her November election, ruling against her after a two-day trial that showcased speculation about systematic malfeasance at the polls but failed to prove it.

The finding was in line with recent judgments against Abe Hamadeh and Mark Finchem, the unsuccessful candidates for attorney general and secretary of state, respectively, who also challenged their losses. Taken together, the rulings show how the judiciary in Arizona, a state rife with distrust in the democratic process, rejected challenges to election results and affirmed the will of voters.  [snip]

The judge hearing Lake’s case, Peter A. Thompson of Maricopa County Superior Court, earlier tossed most of her assertions but allowed arguments to proceed on two claims — that employees at Maricopa County’s ballot contractor stuffed extra ballots into the system and that the printer problems on Election Day were intentional.

In Saturday’s 10-page ruling, Thompson said the court “acknowledges the anger and frustration of voters” who were inconvenienced by technical problems on Election Day.

“But this Court’s duty is not solely to incline an ear to public outcry,” he wrote. “It is to subject plaintiff’s claims and defendants’ actions to the light of the courtroom and scrutiny of the law.” [snip]

Tom Liddy, an attorney for Maricopa County, confirmed to The Washington Post that the county will be seeking sanctions.

“A lawyer may not go to court without the evidence necessary for a chance to prevail,” Liddy said. “Lake had to make up 17,117 votes. She failed to identify one lawful ballot that was not counted, or one ballot that was counted that should not have been — and she knew that before she filed the contest.”...

Her attorneys are MAGA loons and deserve sanctioning.  After her appeals are exhausted, they need to go after "Shallow" Lake as well.  Being saboteurs of democracy should have consequences for these dead- enders.

The bad:

Three buses full of migrants arrived at Vice President Harris’s residence in Washington, D.C., from Texas on Christmas Eve amid bitingly cold temperatures, the latest in an influx of newcomers sent to the Northeast by Southern states.

About 110 to 130 men, women and children got off the buses outside the Naval Observatory on Saturday night in 18-degree weather after a two-day journey from South Texas. Some migrants were bundled up in blankets as they were greeted by a mutual aid group that had received word that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) had sent the caravan.

Volunteers scrambled to meet the asylum seekers after the buses, which were scheduled to arrive in New York on Christmas Day, were rerouted due to the winter weather. In a hastily arranged welcoming, a church on Capitol Hill agreed to temporarily shelter the group, while the restaurant chain Sardis provided 150 breakfasts, lunches and dinners, a mutual aid organizer said.

Abbott began offering asylum seekers free passage to immigrant-friendly Democratic cities on the East Coast in April, an effort to pressure the Biden administration into cracking down at the border. Other Republican governors, including Arizona’s Doug Ducey and Florida’s Ron DeSantis, have also sent buses to New York and the nation’s capital...

Rancid Christofascist Texas Republican pustule Gov. Greg Abbott sent these migrants, many clothed in shorts and sweatshirts, to Washington, DC, where the temperatures were in the teens.  What a fine thing for a "Christian" to do on Christmas Eve, no less.  Perhaps detaining the bus drivers and impounding their buses would send a message, too?

The ugly

The huge winter storm that has already killed 46 people in the United States looked set to continue wreaking havoc into Monday with plummeting temperatures and huge snow drifts trapping people inside their homes and snarling travel across the country.

The full brunt of the storm was being felt in western parts of New York, which had become a “warzone,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Sunday, with looting incidents and roads blocked by emergency vehicles.

A “band of heavy snow” in the Buffalo area was producing two to three inches of hourly snowfall, the National Weather Service said in a 3 a.m. bulletin, warning of rapidly deteriorating conditions. 

Stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the Mexican border, the storm has killed at least 46 people as of Monday morning, according to an NBC News tally. The deaths were recorded in 12 states: Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wisconsin. [snip]

The National Weather service said “hazardous travel conditions” were expected to continue over the next few days and that they would slowly ease over the new year.

“Much of the eastern U.S. will remain in a deep freeze through Monday before a moderating trend sets in on Tuesday,” it said in a 2:56 a.m. bulletin.

Meanwhile, the western parts of the country were also bracing for an incoming storm, with forecasters warning of a “potent surge of moisture” into the Pacific northwestern and California on Tuesday, threatening flash floods.

“The life-threatening cold temperatures and in combination with dangerous wind chills will create a potentially life-threatening hazard for travelers that become stranded, individuals that work outside, livestock and domestic pets,” the National Weather Service said in an earlier bulletin...

Especially hard hit Buffalo, NY, is currently reporting 16 storm-related deaths, with the number expected to rise.