Does Chapter 11 cover moral bankruptcy or is that covered in another chapter?

Some people are so craven that they are beyond word.

With that in mind, it wouldn't surprise me if he's Cheeto's 2024 running mate.  He's qualified.

From AP -

Infowars host Alex Jones files for personal bankruptcy

Infowars host Alex Jones filed for personal bankruptcy protection 

Friday in Texas, citing debts that include nearly $1.5 billion he has 

been ordered to pay to families who sued him over his conspiracy 

theories about the Sandy Hook school massacre.

Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Houston. His filing 

listed $1 billion to $10 billion in liabilities and $1 million to 

$10 million in assets.

The definition of "morally bankrupt" from Merriam-Webster is here.

Not a good week for lawyers

From CNN, dated 12/1 -

First on CNN: Federal judge orders former top lawyers in Trump’s White House to testify in criminal grand jury probe

 

A federal judge has ordered former top Trump White House lawyers to provide additional grand jury testimony, rejecting former President Donald Trump’s privilege claims in the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of his effort to overturn the 2020 election, people briefed on the matter said.

Pat Cipollone, the Trump White House counsel, and his deputy, Patrick Philbin, appeared in September before the grand jury in Washington, DC, as part of the Justice Department probe, which is now being overseen by newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith.

Then, on 12/2, from KJZZ -

Judge sanctions legal team for Kari Lake and Mark Finchem

Attorneys for two failed Arizona Republican candidates have been sanctioned by a federal judge for what he said was a series of factual and legal problems in a lawsuit against Arizona election officials.

The original lawsuit was filed in April by attorneys for gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem. 

In Cochise County, ideology trumps public service. Of course, threats of going to jail trump ideology.

Even election-denying ideology.

From CNN -

Rural Arizona county certifies midterm election results after judge’s order

Officials in rural Cochise County, Arizona, on Thursday certified the results of the county’s midterm elections – ending a high-stakes confrontation with state officials over the county’s failure to sign off on election results by the legal deadline.

The 2-0 vote came shortly after a judge ordered the county’s three-member board of supervisors to certify the results by 5 p.m. local time.

[snip]

In Cochise County, Peggy Judd, one of the Republican supervisors who initially voted to delay certification, said Thursday that she was “not ashamed of anything I did” but was voting “yes” in response to the court order. She was joined by the lone Democrat on the Cochise Board of Supervisors, its chairwoman Ann English, in certifying results.

[snip]

The third member of the board, Republican Tom Crosby, did not attend the meeting.

Not sure which is worse - Judd's shamelessness or Crosby's cowardice.

Short Attention Span Musing

 - First up: A mea culpa.  A few days ago, I wrote that the election-denying counties in AZ wouldn't follow through on their threat to not certify the election results.

I was wrong.

From AP -

GOP-controlled Arizona county refuses to certify election

Republican officials in a rural Arizona county refused Monday to 

certify the 2022 election despite no evidence of anything wrong 

with the count, a decision that was quickly challenged in court by the 

state’s top election official.

The refusal to certify by Cochise County in southeastern Arizona 

comes amid pressure from prominent Republicans to reject results 

showing Democrats winning top races.

Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who narrowly won the 

race for governor, asked a judge to order county officials to canvass 

the election, which she said is an obligation under Arizona law. 

Lawyers representing a Cochise County voter and a group of retirees 

filed a similar lawsuit Monday, the deadline for counties to 

approve the official tally of votes, known as the canvass.

Turns out that for certain people, ideology trumps public service.

- Dear Florida educators,

Move to AZ.  We have our problems (not least of which is that we don't pay public school teachers and administrators anywhere near enough) but we have one advantage over FL: we don't have Ron DeSantis.  

From Politico -

DeSantis-backed school boards begin ousting Florida educators

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis put his weight behind dozens of conservative school board candidates across Florida during the midterms. Now they’re in office — and are purging some educational leaders who enforced Covid-19 mandates.

New board members in two GOP-leaning counties essentially sacked their school superintendents over the span of one week. The ousters were spurred by how the superintendents carried out local policies like efforts to support the rights of parents, an issue inflamed by schools imposing student mask mandates last fall in defiance of DeSantis.

- Apparently, politics is a family enterprise.

From The Hill -

Capito’s son announces run for West Virginia governor

Moore Capito, the son of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), announced his candidacy Tuesday to become governor of West Virginia, running as a Republican to lead the same state his mother represents in the Senate.  

“Join me as I seek my party’s nomination for Governor of West Virginia in ‘24. Together, we can build a West Virginia that makes our young people proud to call home and champions freedom to conduct business how you want,” Moore Capito said on Twitter.

Anyone want to speculate on how long before primogeniture becomes a Republican political plank?

- Cheeto has proven, yet again, that he doesn't care about elections...especially ones that don't go his preferred way.

From Rolling Stone, via Yahoo! -

Trump, Done with Democracy, Calls on Kari Lake to Be

 

‘Installed’ as Arizona’s Governor

Donald Trump on Monday declared the Arizona midterm election “yet another criminal voting operation” and demanded that defeated gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake be “installed Governor of Arizona.”

Much of Lake’s Trump-backed campaign was centered around bolstering unfounded claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 election, and the former TV anchor has lived up to her commitment to only accept election results if she won.

Know what the two election-denying counties in AZ have in common? Republican former legislators in significant elected offices.

Not that there are any insignificant ones...though Katie Hobbs might argue that some are more significant than others. :)

Two Arizona counties, Cochise and Mohave, have proclaimed that they won't certify their election results until the last minute, if even then.

The two counties are located in diametrically opposite parts of the state, with Cochise being in the southeast corner of the state while Mohave is in the northwest corner. 

From the University of Arizona -

While the counties are in opposite parts of the state, they do share something in common....aside from being dusty and rural Republican strongholds.

In Cochise County, the elected Recorder is David Stevens, a former state representative.  He was in the lege from 2009 thru 2016.  He regularly earned failing grades from organizations like the Sierra Club and laudatory grades from organizations like the Goldwater Institute and the Arizona Small Business Association when there.  He also regularly sponsored or cosponsored a litany of anti-voter and anti-choice bills.

In Mohave County, one member of the board of supervisors there is Ron Gould, a former state senator, one who makes Attila the Hun look like a bleeding heart liberal.

To be sure, the election-denying extremism in Arizona isn't limited to *former* legislators:

Outgoing state senator Kelly Townsend has issued a baseless subpoena to Maricopa County over the 2022 election.

Returning state senator Ken Bennett was the face of the "fraudit."

Newby state representative Alexander Kolodin is an attorney who has not only represented Anthony Kern in a January 6th-related lawsuit, he's repping Cochise County in this matter.

While I expect the two counties to certify their election results (else the votes wouldn't count and a number of races would flip and become Democratic wins), I also expect that there will be a lot of self-righteous pearl clutching and foot stamping before that happens.

Preview of the 2023 session of the Arizona Legislature

 1. Expect lots of vetoes.  Unless election-denier Kari Lake's lawsuit is  successful, Katie Hobbs has won the race for Arizona governor.

In many ways, that makes things easier for GOP leadership in the legislature - they can appease their most extreme members by allowing their bills to advance in the expectation that Hobbs will veto them.

2  Expect *many* bad measures out of the incoming legislature.  AZBlueMeanie at Blog for Arizona already has a post up taking the position that this will be "the most extremist GQP legislature ever."

I was going to disagree with him - after all, this is still the home of the infamous SB1070; also, many of the most extreme members of the lege sought higher office and failed.  Mark Finchem, Michelle Ugenti-Rita, Shawnna Bolick, and Kelly Townsend are gone; all lost in the primary or general this year.

However, some of the most extreme members of the 2022 lege are part of the 2023 lege - Wendy Rogers, Jake Hoffman, John Kavanagh and more all remain.  And the ones who are no longer there were replaced by other extremists. 

And they'll be around to influence the ones who are in the lege.

In short, in 2022 the legislature proposed over 90 anti-voting/anti-democracy bills.  I'm going to take the "over" in 2023; they're already whining about the 2022 election.

Double standards - are they taught to all lawyers or just to Supreme Court justices?

Like Samuel Alito.

In 2014, he (allegedly) leaked a decision involving Hobby Lobby and contraception to a GOP megadonor.

From CNN, dated 11/19 -

New York Times: Former evangelical activist claims he knew of 2014 Supreme Court decision before it was released

A former evangelical activist claimed in a letter to the Chief Justice of the United States that he knew about the outcome of a 2014 Supreme Court decision involving contraception and the Affordable Care Act by the court prior to the formal announcement, according to The New York Times.

Rev. Rob Schenck wrote in the letter this summer to Chief Justice John Roberts, which was originally obtained by the Times, that he was informed by a wealthy political donor, Gayle Wright, about the verdict of the ruling prior to it coming out.

According to the letter dated in June of this year but not sent until the following month, Wright had dinner with Justice Samuel Alito and his wife and spoke of the upcoming ruling at the time.

Yet, no outrage from Alito.

Yet, leaking an anti-choice decision to the public inspires lots of outrage from Alito.

Also from CNN, dated 10/25 -

Alito calls leak of Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe a ‘grave betrayal’ that endangered some justices

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Tuesday called the leak of his draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade last spring a “grave betrayal” and “shock,” saying that it put the lives of some of the high court’s conservative justices at risk.

In his most extended and direct comments about the leak to date, Alito said it made the justices who were thought to be in the majority “targets for assassination” because it gave some people a reason to think they may be able to prevent the release of the final opinion “from happening by killing one of us.” He also noted officials have charged a man with attempting to murder Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

He did not offer an update on the leak investigation, but his comments suggested the court has yet to find out who breached its inner sanctum.

Well, at least we know what to get him for Christmas.

From ULine -

Election denying is public policy in certain AZ counties

Yes, {start sarcasm} shockingly {/end sarcasm} it's a Republican thing.

From The Hill, emphasis added by me -

Two Arizona counties delay certification of 2022 election results

Two rural Arizona counties have voted to delay certifying their ballot canvasses as some in the GOP claim voters were disenfranchised.

Cochise County, a Republican-leaning area in the state’s southeastern corner, delayed its certification on Friday after three conspiracy theorists claimed the county’s vote-counting machines were not properly certified. 

[snip]

In Mohave County, which is located in Arizona’s northwestern corner, the five Republicans who comprise the Board of Supervisors delayed their certification of the county canvass in a split vote on Monday.

If Cochise County is "Republican-leaning", then Mohave County is "overwhelmingly Republican".

From the latest voter registration figures from the Arizona Secretary of State -

From the AZ SOS' page regarding hand count audits, by county -

Apparently, in certain areas of the state, ideology Trumps reality.

Lesson from Cheeto: An electoral loss isn't a loss, it's a chance to litigate

Kari Lake has absorbed that lesson at Cheeto's knee.

From The Hill, dated 11/17 -

Kari Lake declines to concede, says she’s assembling legal team

Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (R) declined to concede governor race to Democrat Katie Hobbs Thursday, raising concerns about the election process.

The Associated Press and other outlets projected that Hobbs won the race on Monday. But Lake indicated she is assembling a legal team that is “collecting evidence and data” pertaining to the electoral process.

Not to worry; Lake may involve lawyers, but, like Cheeto, she'll never stop whining.

From the NY Times via The Seattle Times -

Kari Lake claims her voters were disenfranchised. Her voters tell a different story

 When he stepped inside a Phoenix polling place on the morning of Election Day on the way to work, Kevin Bembry was told that the tabulation machines were not functioning properly and he might want to vote somewhere else.

“I’ve never had that happen before,” Bembry, 57, a security officer, said in a

 

video later posted online.

[snip]

Lake has vowed to keep fighting the election after her race was called by

 

The Associated Press for her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs. Lake has claimed

 

her defeat was the result of the “disenfranchisement” of her supporters in

 

Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and where technical problems on

 

Election Day introduced delays, confusion and conspiracy theories. On Twitter,

 

Lake’s campaign has claimed that the election was compromised and said that

 

“the appropriate thing to do would be to let Maricopa County cast their votes again.”

But a crucial element has been missing so far in all of these accounts: clear claims

 

that any eligible voters in Maricopa County were actually denied the chance to vote.

The video the campaign circulated of Bembry, for instance, was an edited version

 

of a longer video posted on the site Rumble. In the full video, he states that,

 

despite the inconvenience, he cast his ballot at a nearby polling site.

 

“I was able to vote — no waiting, no misreads of the tabulation machines, nothing,” he says.

From the website of the Arizona Secretary of State -

It's Hobbs for the win!

A week after the election, the race for AZ Governor has been called...for Katie Hobbs!

From AP -

Hobbs wins Arizona governor’s race, flipping state for Dems

Democrat Katie Hobbs was elected Arizona governor on Monday, 

defeating an ally of Donald Trump who falsely claimed the 2020

 election was rigged and refused to say she would accept the results

 of her race this year.

Hobbs, who is Arizona’s secretary of state, rose to prominence

as a staunch defender of the legitimacy of the last election and 

warned that her Republican rival, former television news anchor 

Kari Lake, would be an agent of chaos. Hobbs’ victory adds 

further evidence that Trump 

is weighing down his allies in a crucial battleground state as the 

former president gears up for an announcement of a 2024 presidential run.

She will succeed Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who was prohibited 

by term limit laws from running again. She’s the first Democrat 

to be elected governor in Arizona since Janet Napolitano in 2006.

From the website of the Arizona Secretary of State -

The interesting part of that second pic is that Maricopa County, long considered a "red" county, voted very purple this time.  The people that saw Hobbs in action as both a member of the AZ Legislature and as AZ Secretary of State, accepted her, while the same people who saw Kari Lake up close as a TV personality on a Fox affiliate, rejected her.

As could be expected, Hobbs said "thank you" and got to work, while Lake, well, whined.

Lake campaign claimed a "white powder" was found in a letter; but reality finds nada

Last weekend (before the election), the Lake campaign claimed that a letter delivered to it contained a "suspicious" susbstance.

This weekend (after the election), the police are saying that nothing was found.

From AP via Yahoo! -

Police: No powder found in envelopes in candidate's office

An envelope that had been reported by the campaign of the Republican candidate for Arizona governor as containing a white powder was thrown away before it could be analyzed, and no powder was found in two other letters the campaign turned over to authorities, officials said.

An analysis by the state public health lab of the two subsequent letters sent to Kari Lake's campaign office showed “there was no powder present and no harmful substance in either of the envelopes, but the two letters contained additional derogatory and vulgar statements," Phoenix Police spokesperson Donna Rossi said in an overnight statement.

Lake's campaign security chief Scott Masino said in a statement provided Saturday that the first envelope containing a “white powdery substance along with a hateful letter” was tossed into the trash by a campaign volunteer who did not report it to security until the bin had been emptied.

[snip]

Initial reports about the discovery of suspicious mail by the Lake campaign last weekend mentioned only the first envelope, and nothing was said at the time about it being tossed into the trash and carted away before it could be studied.

As someone who has served as both a juror and a campaign volunteer, I feel qualified to make some observations here -

When the (alleged) victim of an (alleged) crime change their story to reflect known facts creates instant reasonable doubt.

When are campaign volunteers allowed to do *anything* other than fetch coffee?

Well, it's obvious that Masters has learned one thing from Cheeto-it doesn't matter if one wins or loses an election, one should never stop grifting

Did Masters hear Peter Thiel's whip cracking did he respond to a silent tug on his leash as if he had heard the whip?

The Arizona race for a seat in the U.S Senate favors incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly.

In fact, it favors him so much, the race has been called for Kelly.

From Yahoo! -

Mark Kelly defeats Blake Masters in Arizona, leaving Democrats 1 seat away from holding the Senate

Incumbent Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly has defeated his Republican challenger, Blake Masters, in Arizona, boosting Democratic hopes of holding onto the Senate.

With 83% of votes counted, the Associated Press called the race Friday evening for Kelly — a Navy combat veteran, retired NASA astronaut and the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz. He leads Masters, a 36-year-old “anti-progressive” venture capitalist, by an insurmountable 52% to 46% margin.

Yet that loss isn't slowing down Masters.

From an email from Conservative Intel (I'm on some really weird email lists.  :) ) -

The biggest winners in Tuesday's election?

Hint: *Not* the American people.

If the runoff election in GA goes Sen. Warnock's way*, the Senate will likely be 50-50 again, until 2024 this time, so the real "winners" will be Sens. Sinema and Manchin.

They'll still be relevant.

* - And if it goes the way of Republican Walker, Sinema and Manchin will be less relevant.  The Rs will then hold a 51-49 advantage in the chamber, and Mitch McConnell will use that advantage to kill off the filibuster in order to railroad through a raft of bad bills.

Bill Montgomery - the people that know him best rejected retaining on the AZ Supreme Court

Former Maricopa County Attorney who got nominated and appointed to the Arizona Supreme Court to be a reliable vote for Doug Ducey will be retained as a Supe.

That's the statewide result, but in Maricopa County, he didn't do so well.

Statewide -

Maricopa County, from the website of the Maricopa County Recorder -

Learned two things from this:

1. Ouch!  The slap that Montgomery received from voters has gotta sting.  Not only did he come in ~15% less than the other AZ Supes on the ballot, a majority of voters in Maricopa County want him to go away.

2. Maricopa County, long a Republican bastion, is bluer than most people thought.  In addition to rejecting Montgomery, the voters here tended to support Democratic statewide candidates in a greater percentage than they garnered in the rest of the state.

Not a "red wave", though the "fraud" bleats will start soon

Tweets, I mean tweets. :)

Caveat: Since 2020, late votes tend to skew Republican, so the outcome of some of these races could flip.

From the AZ Secretary of State's website -

In the race for U.S. Senate, incumbent Mark Kelly looks to be comfortably ahead of Peter Thiel Blake Masters.  While the margin could shrink, I'll be really surprised if this one flips.

Too close to call:

CD1, where newby Jevin Hodge is leading embattled incumbent David Schweikert.

CD6, where Republican Juan Ciscomani is leading Democrat Kirsten Engel.

The other CDs went as expected, except in CD2, where Republican Eli Crane looks to be upsetting incumbent Democrat Tom O'Halleran.  Only time will tell if Crane will become AZ's version of Madison Cawthorn.

The top of the ballot state-level races are leaning Democratic at this point; though with one exception, all could flip (the one exception being Adrian Fontes leading Mark Finchem for AZ Secretary of State.

Two lower ballot statewide races are trending R.

Yee over Quezada isn't much of a surprise - Quezada had an uphill battle once Yee dropped out the R primary for governor.

Horne over incumbent Hoffman?  Surprising.  Guess that certain voters prefer corruption to competence.

The biggest disappointment, for me, anyway, was Lauren Kuby and Sandra Kennedy coming up short in the race for two seats on the Arizona Corporation Commission.

I've known Lauren for many years and thought she would have been a spectacular addition to the ACC.