Election 2020: Running a Little Late Are We?

Running a little late today, fortunately the number of items is small, and largely inconsequential.

From the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 01.28.01, Volokh questions Impeaching Officials While They're in Office, but Trying Them After They Leave. Of course they can do it, the Senate can pretty much do what it wants at this point. The question is whether it means anything, and whether it makes things better or worse. To that point, Paul Bedard at WaEx points out Most say don’t convict Trump, fear further division by 3-1. But then think of the amusement value  as The All-Organic QAnon Wonder Shaman Wants To Come Back To Congress — As An Impeachment Witness (Former Republican Capt. Ed at Hot Air).

At Da Wire, Cruz On AOC’s False Claim That He Was ‘Trying To Get’ Her Killed: ‘Not Conducive To Healing Or Unity’. Healing and unity is not her goal. And the AP whines Gov. Noem refuses to say whether Biden victory was free and fair. The witch must confess!

Also from the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 01.28.01, at LI, Capitol Hill Riot: DOJ Arrest Reports Focus On Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Barely Mention Parler. So all that nonsense about shutting down Parler because it led to violence is just a lying excuse for censorship, as we suggested. Shut down the socials! Disgraced ex-Sec Def  Gen Mattis: Trump 'fomented' Jan. 6 Capitol assault (YaHoo!). And how does that differ from incited?

Ace, Matt Gaetz Trashes Liz Cheney at the Wyoming Capital Building, Calls for Primary Challenger for "RINO" and "Neocon" Cheney "Do me a favor and spare me the "Muh Civic Norms" and "Muh Nice Tweets" bleating if you're going around calling your opponents queers, huh?" AllahPundit at Hot Air, Video: Gaetz Defies McCarthy, Rips Liz Cheney In Speech At Wyoming Capitol

Watch some of this if you have time, just so that you fully understand that it’s *not* really an attack on Cheney for voting to impeach Trump. That’s part of it, of course — Trump Jr even calls in at 19:30 of the clip — but it’s actually a full-spectrum assault on Cheneyism, especially her interventionist foreign policy which was undertaken for “personal profit” according to Gaetz and which has left her with “blood on her hands.”

This isn’t a niche pro-Trump/anti-Trump flashpoint, in other words. This is the sort of speech you’d hear from a campaign opponent, yet delivered by a member of Cheney’s own party who represents a district on the other side of the country. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like it outside of a primary. Frankly, it’s harsh even by primary standards.

Video at either link. Twitchy,  Chris Stirewalt explains what he learned from calling Arizona for Biden so early on election night. Ace, Chris Stirewalt: I Was Right to Call Razor-Thin-Margin Arizona Nine Days Before Everyone Else Did, The News Panders Too Much to Nasty Partisans Such as People Who Don't Think I'm a Cute and Snarky Slice of Awesome-Pie

I guess he remains, as he said on election night, "serene and pristine" about his erroneous call.

And it was erroneous. He says he's right, but only because a coin flip came up his way. If a state with millions and millions of votes has only an 11,000 vote separation between candidates, you don't call it. That is statistically TIED, and "sampling" and guesstimating will not avail you. You have to wait until votes are actually COUNTED -- something all the leftwing networks did, except for Fox.

Mediaite, Dominion Spox Confirms to MSNBC That Voting Company Has Drafted Letter for Trump Over Election Fraud Defamation. Bring it on. Discovery will be fun.

And an update on our favorite House election from John Sexton at Hot Air, Claudia Tenney Picked Up A 93 Vote Advantage In NY-22’S Ongoing Vote Counting

To fully appreciate what is going on here, we need to take a step back. Earlier this month it appeared that Tenney was ahead in the unofficial vote tally by 29 votes. However, Democrat Anthony Brindisi had assembled a team of six attorneys and there were 1,028 affidavit ballots yet to be dealt with in Oneida County. Brindisi’s camp was eager to have the judge count 69 of those votes.

But last week Judge DelConte surprised both sides and ruled that Oneida county should canvas all of those disputed ballots. The judge noted in his ruling that it was an outcome neither candidate had asked for:

“Both candidates press this Court to disregard either some, or all, of the potentially valid ballots because it is strategically advantageous for them in this election,” he wrote. “…Both of these arguments ignore the fact that this problem only exists because…the Oneida County Board of Elections failed to comply with (election law) and review its records.”

Judge DelConte was right about neither camp wanting this. The Brindisi camp asked an appellate judge to temporarily halt the counting of those ballots. But after a 10 minute hearing Monday morning, the appellate judge said no.

An appellate judge today allowed a review to continue of more than 1,000 affidavit ballots cast in the 22nd Congressional District race, despite an appeal by Democrat Anthony Brindisi to stop it.

The hearing took about 10 minutes today before appellate division Justice Patrick NeMoyer and attorneys for candidates Brindisi and Republican Claudia Tenney…

Brindisi’s attorneys are asking DelConte to count just 69 ballots from those voters, most of which are from Democrats. They argued in the appeal that DelConte does not have the jurisdiction to order Oneida County to fix its mistake and that a review of these ballots would take too much time and resources nearly three months after Election Day.

Tenney’s attorneys don’t think the judge should count the 69 ballots challenged by Brindisi, because they argued those voters are not registered and that the judge doesn’t have the ability to retroactively register them. Tenney currently leads by 29 votes.

So both sides are playing to win but what’s interesting is that up until this week, the Democrats have been loudly arguing that it’s important that every vote be counted. They have mostly been behind in this race so counting more votes appealed to them. But when Judge DelConte announces you know what, we should count these 1,028 votes from people who weren’t registered only because the DMV failed to register them suddenly the Democrats are singing a different tune. Now counting the votes takes too long and is too much of a hassle. Their commitment to counting every vote seems a bit situational.

More at the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 01.28.01 and at JJ Sefton's The Morning Report - 1/29/21 at Ace's.