Kari Lake's Conspiracy-Addled Lawsuit Over Arizona Election Loses Some Weight
Lake is working hard to put the "goober" back into "gubernatorial."
By Charles P. PiercePUBLISHED: DEC 21, 2022
(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...a-lawsuit/
Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin' gets done, and where you take what you can gather from coincidence.
We begin in Ohio, where the attorney general is dreadfully sorry about that whole kerfuffle about the 10-year-old rape victim who had to leave the state for an abortion. From cleveland.com:
In a year-end interview last week with The Associated Press, Republican Attorney General Dave Yost maintained that his comments pertained to "a one-source newspaper story" and not “a crime report or crime victim, because that didn’t exist to the best of anyone’s knowledge at the time that I spoke[...]But as I’m looking back here with some distance, I realize that what I said was not what people heard, and what people heard created a lot of pain — and I regret that deeply,” Yost said Wednesday.
“Now, I’m delighted that that guy is in the dock and her rapist looks like he’s headed for a well-deserved life sentence in prison, where he belongs. But I’ve got nothing in my heart but compassion and grief for what that little girl went through.”
It takes considerable brass to turn your infamous moment of public inhumanity into a pitch for law 'n order, but this guy is clearly up to the job.
We move along to Georgia, where the state GOP has grown restive losing elections and has focused its ire on the state chairman, David Shafer, who may have his own problems with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her grand jury. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
He presided over devastating losses in the 2020 election cycle that cost Republicans control of the U.S. Senate and helped tank Donald Trump’s bid for a second term as president, then scapegoated Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for the defeats. He was a key promoter of Trump’s election fraud lies and his role as a “fake” elector has potentially put him in the crosshairs of state and federal investigators weighing whether to file criminal charges against the former president and his allies for seeking to overturn the election.
He has alienated many of the state’s most powerful Republicans for picking the pro-Trump losing side in party primaries. Among them is Gov. Brian Kemp, arguably the state’s most popular Republican, who has used his own newly formed committee to circumvent Shafer.
And you know you're in trouble when your fellow Republicans hit you over the head with scripture.
Jay Morgan, the former executive director of the state GOP, called Shafer a “part of the Trump tribe” whose blind loyalty to the former president has contributed to stinging defeats the past two campaigns. “The governor’s team carried the entire ticket to solid wins while David Shafer and the moneychangers in the temple worked against incumbents in the primary,” said Morgan, now a lobbyist.
Let's check in with Arizona, where losing gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has opened a banana farm. From AZCentral:
The 70-page lawsuit, filed Dec. 9 in Maricopa County Superior Court, contends that "hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected" the election. With its thousands of pages of exhibits, Lake's case relies on witness declarations and so-called expert analysis.
The defendants include Hobbs, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, the five members of the county Board of Supervisors, and Scott Jarrett, county elections director. Lake wants the court to declare her the rightful winner, or order a new election.
A judge this week threw out eight of 10 elements of Lake's lawsuit, but he allowed two elements to proceed to trial, which has inspired Lake to get giddy.
Even without Hobbs testimony, which − despite Lake's claim − could have been done virtually, the short trial was welcomed enthusiastically by Lake and other promoters of election-conspiracy claims. "We're taking these bastards to trial," Lake told the Turning Point crowd. "We're really excited. We have an excellent case."
Lake is going to be allowed to present evidence behind these two claims: 1) that a Maricopa County official deliberately caused a printer to malfunction to restrict the number of ballots; and 2) that a subcontractor added completed ballots without a proper chain of custody. And Lake is bringing in the pros from Dover:
To bring the case, Ms. Lake is relying on an assortment of people who have long been involved in unfounded election claims.
Her lawyer, Kurt Olsen, works frequently for Mr. Lindell and helped bring an unsuccessful legal challenge in an effort to overturn the 2020 results. One witness Ms. Lake plans to call, Clay Parikh, has spoken at election denial events organized by Mr. Lindell and served as an expert witness in a failed federal lawsuit, backed financially by Mr. Lindell, that Mr. Olsen brought on behalf of Ms. Lake in an effort to block the use of voting machines before the election.
In the spirit of the season, I'll choose to believe that this judge just needed some entertainment to liven up an afternoon.
And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, whence Blog Official Figgy Pudding Taster Friedman of the Plains brings us the tale of a town that would like wayfaring strangers to shut the hell up for a spell. From nondoc:
For Tuesday evening’s City Council meeting, Midwest City Mayor Matt Dukes has proposed a new resolution that would prohibit people from speaking during public comment periods unless they are residents of Midwest City or operate a business in the Oklahoma County municipality, with some exceptions.
The agenda item comes as a response to a Sept. 27 meeting where several people who are not Midwest City residents spoke in support of Midwest City ending its relationship with the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Advisory Council, otherwise known as CJAC. The council later voted to end its relationship with CJAC.
The fight is over what prison reformers call a bad deal that will short-circuit attempts to correct problems at local jails and leave the way clear for further privatization.
Conditions at the Oklahoma County Jail have been a problem for decades, and a federal report last year called the situation “disturbing.” So far this year, 14 people have died in the jail. According to the Oklahoma State Department of Health, 14 people died at the facility in 2021.
Over the past year, the jail has seen escape attempts, the arrest of jail employees, and an alleged case of sexual assault. [City council member Sara] Bana claims the Oklahoma County Jail has gotten worse since CJAC got involved. “They came in to make the county jail and the county courthouse operations better, but the facts and the statistics showcase that things are not better,” Bana said. “Conditions have even deteriorated further. More people are dying statistically than ever before in that facility.”
I think Midwest City might benefit from the occasional wayfaring stranger, and in any case, it looks like a great many wayfaring strangers may be showing up, some of them with badges.
This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.
Lake is working hard to put the "goober" back into "gubernatorial."
By Charles P. PiercePUBLISHED: DEC 21, 2022
(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...a-lawsuit/
Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin' gets done, and where you take what you can gather from coincidence.
We begin in Ohio, where the attorney general is dreadfully sorry about that whole kerfuffle about the 10-year-old rape victim who had to leave the state for an abortion. From cleveland.com:
In a year-end interview last week with The Associated Press, Republican Attorney General Dave Yost maintained that his comments pertained to "a one-source newspaper story" and not “a crime report or crime victim, because that didn’t exist to the best of anyone’s knowledge at the time that I spoke[...]But as I’m looking back here with some distance, I realize that what I said was not what people heard, and what people heard created a lot of pain — and I regret that deeply,” Yost said Wednesday.
“Now, I’m delighted that that guy is in the dock and her rapist looks like he’s headed for a well-deserved life sentence in prison, where he belongs. But I’ve got nothing in my heart but compassion and grief for what that little girl went through.”
It takes considerable brass to turn your infamous moment of public inhumanity into a pitch for law 'n order, but this guy is clearly up to the job.
We move along to Georgia, where the state GOP has grown restive losing elections and has focused its ire on the state chairman, David Shafer, who may have his own problems with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her grand jury. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
He presided over devastating losses in the 2020 election cycle that cost Republicans control of the U.S. Senate and helped tank Donald Trump’s bid for a second term as president, then scapegoated Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for the defeats. He was a key promoter of Trump’s election fraud lies and his role as a “fake” elector has potentially put him in the crosshairs of state and federal investigators weighing whether to file criminal charges against the former president and his allies for seeking to overturn the election.
He has alienated many of the state’s most powerful Republicans for picking the pro-Trump losing side in party primaries. Among them is Gov. Brian Kemp, arguably the state’s most popular Republican, who has used his own newly formed committee to circumvent Shafer.
And you know you're in trouble when your fellow Republicans hit you over the head with scripture.
Jay Morgan, the former executive director of the state GOP, called Shafer a “part of the Trump tribe” whose blind loyalty to the former president has contributed to stinging defeats the past two campaigns. “The governor’s team carried the entire ticket to solid wins while David Shafer and the moneychangers in the temple worked against incumbents in the primary,” said Morgan, now a lobbyist.
Let's check in with Arizona, where losing gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has opened a banana farm. From AZCentral:
The 70-page lawsuit, filed Dec. 9 in Maricopa County Superior Court, contends that "hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected" the election. With its thousands of pages of exhibits, Lake's case relies on witness declarations and so-called expert analysis.
The defendants include Hobbs, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, the five members of the county Board of Supervisors, and Scott Jarrett, county elections director. Lake wants the court to declare her the rightful winner, or order a new election.
A judge this week threw out eight of 10 elements of Lake's lawsuit, but he allowed two elements to proceed to trial, which has inspired Lake to get giddy.
Even without Hobbs testimony, which − despite Lake's claim − could have been done virtually, the short trial was welcomed enthusiastically by Lake and other promoters of election-conspiracy claims. "We're taking these bastards to trial," Lake told the Turning Point crowd. "We're really excited. We have an excellent case."
Lake is going to be allowed to present evidence behind these two claims: 1) that a Maricopa County official deliberately caused a printer to malfunction to restrict the number of ballots; and 2) that a subcontractor added completed ballots without a proper chain of custody. And Lake is bringing in the pros from Dover:
To bring the case, Ms. Lake is relying on an assortment of people who have long been involved in unfounded election claims.
Her lawyer, Kurt Olsen, works frequently for Mr. Lindell and helped bring an unsuccessful legal challenge in an effort to overturn the 2020 results. One witness Ms. Lake plans to call, Clay Parikh, has spoken at election denial events organized by Mr. Lindell and served as an expert witness in a failed federal lawsuit, backed financially by Mr. Lindell, that Mr. Olsen brought on behalf of Ms. Lake in an effort to block the use of voting machines before the election.
In the spirit of the season, I'll choose to believe that this judge just needed some entertainment to liven up an afternoon.
And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, whence Blog Official Figgy Pudding Taster Friedman of the Plains brings us the tale of a town that would like wayfaring strangers to shut the hell up for a spell. From nondoc:
For Tuesday evening’s City Council meeting, Midwest City Mayor Matt Dukes has proposed a new resolution that would prohibit people from speaking during public comment periods unless they are residents of Midwest City or operate a business in the Oklahoma County municipality, with some exceptions.
The agenda item comes as a response to a Sept. 27 meeting where several people who are not Midwest City residents spoke in support of Midwest City ending its relationship with the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Advisory Council, otherwise known as CJAC. The council later voted to end its relationship with CJAC.
The fight is over what prison reformers call a bad deal that will short-circuit attempts to correct problems at local jails and leave the way clear for further privatization.
Conditions at the Oklahoma County Jail have been a problem for decades, and a federal report last year called the situation “disturbing.” So far this year, 14 people have died in the jail. According to the Oklahoma State Department of Health, 14 people died at the facility in 2021.
Over the past year, the jail has seen escape attempts, the arrest of jail employees, and an alleged case of sexual assault. [City council member Sara] Bana claims the Oklahoma County Jail has gotten worse since CJAC got involved. “They came in to make the county jail and the county courthouse operations better, but the facts and the statistics showcase that things are not better,” Bana said. “Conditions have even deteriorated further. More people are dying statistically than ever before in that facility.”
I think Midwest City might benefit from the occasional wayfaring stranger, and in any case, it looks like a great many wayfaring strangers may be showing up, some of them with badges.
This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.
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