<Former Republican candidate Kari Lake claims her lawsuit that challenged the results of the Arizona gubernatorial election was "brought in good faith" in light of sanctions filed against her by Maricopa County and Governor-elect Katie Hobbs.

On Saturday, Maricopa County Judge Peter Thompson ruled against Lake's suit, saying that the Trump-backed candidate failed to provide "clear and convincing" evidence that there was intentional misconduct from election officials.

Lake and her legal team had claimed that she actually won Arizona's election by 400,000 to 500,000 votes, but failed to bring forward any evidence that proved so.

Maricopa County was the first to file sanctions against Lake and her attorneys on Monday, writing in the conclusion of their motion that "enough really is enough."

"It is past time to end unfounded attacks on elections and unwarranted accusations against election officials," Maricopa County Deputy Attorney Thomas Liddy wrote on behalf of several county election officials Lake had attempted to sue.

"This matter was brought without any legitimate justification, let alone a substantial one," Liddy added.

Hobbs joined the motion shortly after and requested over $600,000 in compensation for fees and expenses she accumulated while defending against Lake's suit. Attorneys for the governor-elect wrote that Lake's "claims and the manner in which they were brought" were made "without substantial justification," quoting Maricopa County's motion.

Lake's legal team responded to the sanctions later in the night, arguing that the joint motion had "no basis in law or fact" because Lake had filed the suit "in good faith."

"[Lake] put forth evidence in good faith that showed substantial support for her claims—claims which also remain of great public concern," read the conclusion written by attorney Bryan Blehm.

Under Arizona law, Hobbs and county officials may be awarded "reasonable attorney fees" if claims in the suit were brought "without substantial justification" or if the claims were brought "solely or primarily for delay or harassment."

In Thompson's decision to dismiss Lake's suit over the weekend, he wrote that the court found "nothing to substantiate" Lake's claims of intentional election misconduct. The court also anticipated that sanctions would be filed for court fees, and gave Hobbs and election officials until 8 a.m. Monday morning to submit a "statement of cost" for such expenses.

Lake's attorneys have previously faced sanctions for a lawsuit filed in April alongside former Arizona Attorney General Mark Finchem, which had attempted to block the use of electronic voting machines in the 2022 midterm election. U.S. District Judge John Tuchi awarded sanctions to Maricopa County officials at the beginning of December in the suit, writing that Lake had made "false, misleading, and unsupported factual assertions."

Maricopa County officials acknowledged on Monday that they had previously filed sanctions against Lake's attorneys and not the Republican candidate herself, but added that Lake had since "doubled down" on her false accusations.

Ross Trumble, Lake's communications director, said her team had no further comment on their response filed Monday.>

<According to legal experts who have poured over the final report from the House select committee investigating the Jan 6 riot that forced lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to flee for their lives, the Department of Justice and, in particular, special counsel Jack Smith, have been handed a powerful document that provides a detailed roadmap that should lead to criminal indictments.

The report notes that Donald Trump is the centerpiece of the 800-page report that one legal scholar claimed went far "beyond a call for heads to roll."

As former DoJ inspector general Michael Bromwich explained, "“The January 6 committee’s final hearing and lengthy executive summary make out a powerful case to support its criminal referrals as to Trump, [attorney John Eastman, and unnamed others.”

Bromwich added, "Although the referrals carry no legal weight, they provide an unusual preview of potential charges that may well be effective in swaying public opinion.”

Former prosecutor Daniel Richman applauded how comprehensive the report was, explaining, "Although the committee’s hearings gave a good preview of the criminal liability theories it has now laid out in its summary, the new [executive summary] document does an extraordinary job of pulling together the evidentiary materials the committee assembled,” before adding, "The committee’s presentation goes far beyond a call for heads to roll, and amounts to a detailed prosecution memo that the DoJ will have to reckon with.”

Frequent MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade added, "Although the committee’s referral to the justice department is not binding in any way, and the DoJ will make its own independent assessment of whether charges are appropriate, the most important parts of the report are the facts it documents.”

"That factual gold mine has caught the eye of special counsel Jack Smith, who attorney general Merrick Garland tapped last month to oversee the DoJ’s sprawling criminal inquiries into the January 6 insurrection," wrote the Guardian's Peter Stone, before adding, "On the broader legal challenges facing the DoJ, ex-prosecutors say the panel’s work should goad the department to work diligently to investigate and charge Trump and others the panel has referred for prosecution."

Former US attorney Michael Moore added to that by stating, "The committee report gives the special counsel not only the benefit of knowing what certain witnesses will say, it also lets him know what other witnesses won’t say. That type of intel gives him the ability to put together a stronger case with fewer surprises. More information is never a bad thing to a good lawyer.”>

<Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), often grouped together as Congresswomen elected in 2020 who were at least curious about QAnon, have been openly feuding for some time. Their latest disagreement is over the speakership candidacy of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, which Greene supports and Boebert opposes. Boebert made a crack recently about Greene’s supposed belief in “Jewish space lasers.” At the same time, Greene accused her Colorado counterpart of engaging in “high school drama and media sound bites,” while also mocking Boebert for her surprisingly narrow re-election win.

Now, another prominent far-right member of the House appears to have broken with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

According to The Daily Beast, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) recently stated that Greene has “crossed the Rubicon,” in accusing the anti-McCarthy faction of lying. The comments originally came in an interview with Lindell TV. “She’s calling us liars and saying we’re misleading,” Biggs added.

Biggs is part of the “Never Kevin Five,” a group of five Republican House members who vow to “never” support McCarthy as the speaker, and Biggs announced in early December that he is seeking the speakership himself. Biggs was also one of four members of Congress who were referred to the House Ethics Committee by the January 6 Committee for refusing to comply with subpoenas. At issue is an op-ed recently authored by Greene for the Daily Caller.

“Lying to the base is a red line for me, and that’s what five of my closest colleagues are doing when they claim a consensus House Speaker candidate will emerge as they oppose Kevin McCarthy,” Greene wrote, in something of a curious thing to write for someone with a long and colorful record of false statements.

Greene did argue, with some merit, that there is no particularly viable non-McCarthy candidate should the House Minority Leader not gain the votes for the speakership. Biggs himself certainly does not have the votes, having only gained 31 votes in the conference nomination contest last month. “Perhaps more than any Republican, I am ready for our majority because I believe there is real work to be done to save our country. And the last thing I want is everything blown up on day one simply because a few dislike Kevin McCarthy, who is promoting the very agenda they believe in.” With the speakership vote set for January 3, it’s unclear what exactly will happen. CNN reported earlier this month about the “doomsday scenario” that may happen if McCarthy fails to gain the necessary 218 votes for speaker. The most likely scenario appears to be that McCarthy agrees to some demands of the holdouts in exchange for their votes, possibly agreeing to make it easier to oust the speaker in the middle of the next Congress. “To prevent [multiple ballots], McCarthy and his team have been engaged in serious talks with a group of conservatives, including over potentially giving them influential committee assignments and more power to drive the legislative process. GOP sources said those negotiations are still early in the process and could ultimately end up giving the group some aspect of what the hardliners desperately want: additional power to seek a sitting speaker’s ouster with a vote on the floor.” There is another scenario, however unlikely, per CNN:

“Some pro-McCarthy Republicans are signaling support for a different approach. Some said they would be willing to work with Democrats to find a moderate Republican who can get the 218 votes to clinch the gavel – a long-shot idea that underscores the uncertainty looming over the speaker’s race.” It’s unclear who among the Republican caucus might be put forward in such a scenario. The last several times that control of the House has changed parties, there has been little doubt over who would become speaker in the new Congress. >

<Donald Trump's three appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court launched a judicial revolution this year rolling back the past half-century of constitutional advancements.

The Trump-shaped right-wing majority reversed abortion rights, declared the separation of church and state dead and decided the Second Amendment blocked state concealed-carry laws, and seems poised to steer the court in an even more radical direction in next year's decisions, according to Bloomberg columnist Noah Feldman.

"What unifies this conservative revolution is a radical vision of the restoration of constitutional law to the state it was in before the liberal decisions of the Warren court created modern constitutional law more than 50 years ago," Feldman wrote. "But this conservative court doesn’t only want to roll back the clock. They also want to change how judicial decisions are made: Instead of relying on precedent and principle, they insist on using a nostalgic version of history to decide major cases. And like most forms of nostalgia, the court’s approach is less historical than pseudo-historical."

The conservative majority based their radical decisions on loosely defined "historical practices" that reflect the idealized fantasy of Trump's worldview more than the actual historic record, which numerous historians have tried to correct in filings before the court.

"What makes this conservative majority the Trump court is of course partly the fact that Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh were appointed by Trump," Feldman wrote. "But the better reason to identify the revolutionary conservative majority with Trump is the similarity between its pseudo-historical nostalgia and Trump’s own rebarbative slogan, Make America Great Again. The MAGA ideology, at its core, is very obviously its nostalgic appeal for an English-speaking, Christian America full of manufacturing jobs for White men, homemaker status for White women, and subordinate or invisible status for people of color."

"The current conservative majority’s constitutional philosophy, like MAGA, invents an idealized past and strives to bring it back," he added. "It talks the talk of history without being responsible to reality — and without considering seriously the ways our country and our Constitution are in fact much greater now than they were in the old days. They often use the term 'historical test,' but it would be more accurate to call it a doctrine of nostalgia.">

<The January 6th committee just released another batch of transcripts from their year-and-a-half-long investigation. They include a range of figures, from activists Kyle Kremer and Caroline Wren who played a central part in planning Jan. 6, to more tertiary characters in the ongoing drama like former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and former White House aide Johnny McEntee, who is the focal point of this particular story.

McEntee, who was 29 years old at the time, was briefly deemed “deputy president” during the Capitol insurrection. His transcript spans a thick 191 pages as a result, but hidden among them is a tidbit about an entirely separate political scandal: The reported investigation into whether Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R) violated sex trafficking laws.

The Florida Republican has reportedly been under investigation for potentially trafficking a 17-year-old girl since late 2020. His buddy and alleged accomplice Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector, was recently sentenced to 11 years in prison for his involvement in the case. Meanwhile, Gaetz is still standing, and it doesn’t look like he’ll be charged any time soon: Both Greenberg’s sentencing, and reports from those close to the investigation, suggest it may wind down with the congressman untouched.

We knew Gaetz sought a presidential pardon from White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to sidestep the whole ordeal. Tuesday’s transcript adds new details from McEntee.

“He told me to ask Meadows for a pardon,” McEntee said.

The former aide claims that he’d had dinner with the congressman — or rather, “I had dinner. He didn’t eat.” — either before or after January 6th. When a federal investigator asked him to recall the details of the conversation, McEntee responded:

“That they’re launching an investigation into him, or that there is an investigation into him, and he didn’t do anything wrong, but they’re going to try to make his life hell. And, you know, if the President could give him a pardon, that would be great. Something along those lines.”

McEntee claimed he’d had little interaction with the congressman before that point. “I just interacted with him on the road, traveling with the President over the years,” he told the panel.

But when McEntee brought the issue of the pardon up to unidentified White House staffers, he was allegedly told “no, we’re not doing that.”>

<Interregnum
Edward Winter

(2003-04, with updates)

In a series of items we shall be examining a period often skated over by historians, i.e. the re-emergence of organized chess after the Second World War and up to the 1948 world championship match-tournament.

In early 1946 the President of the United States Chess Federation, Elbert A. Wagner, Jr., announced the imminent re-organization of FIDE and a resumption of activities broken off in Buenos Aires in 1939. Various magazines carried reports to that effect, examples being the January-February 1946 American Chess Bulletin (page 4) and the March 1946 BCM (page 85). A driving-force in disseminating the news was Hermann Helms, who was then the USCF’s Publicity Director.

Alexander Rueb, who had been the President of FIDE since its foundation in 1924, announced that a general meeting of the Federation’s delegates would be held during the summer of 1946. The above-mentioned BCM item (a statement by Helms) said that this meeting would be held…

‘… in Zurich, to which city the FIDE headquarters were transferred from The Hague before the German occupation of The Netherlands. The Swiss Chess Federation will be the host. In the meantime officials of 44 national organizations affiliated with the FIDE will have an opportunity of studying the plan of procedure mapped out by President Rueb.

Of prime importance will be the resumption of the biennial team matches for the trophy donated by the late Hon. F.G. Hamilton-Russell, of England [who had died in 1941]. This trophy, it is understood, is still in Buenos Aires, where, with the United States (four times winner of it) unrepresented, it was won by the German team.

It is proposed to divide the national units of FIDE into five areas or zones … Referring to the Soviet Union, the prospectus sent to all the units says:

“Europe is awaiting and expecting the affiliation of USSR chessplayers. By the collaboration of this great area, where chess is developing as perhaps nowhere else, the consolidation of European chess would be accomplished. The Government and chess authorities of the USSR are urgently requested to take once more into consideration the eventuality of joining the new FIDE.”

Switzerland is proposed as the seat of the International Federation. D. Hajek, of Zurich, a member of the Permanent Fund Commission, has been in charge of that fund since 1940. A Central Committee, consisting of three officers and five executive members from various units, will be in active control, and a divisional committee will have directive authority. The laws of the game and regulations for tournament and match play, including matches for the world championship, will come up for consideration at the Congress this summer.’

At that time the most commonly evoked solution concerning the world title was an Alekhine-Botvinnik match, but Alekhine died in late March 1946.....>

<fredthebore: Kiss my mass stalker.>

Biden: 'Get shtupped!'

<With less than a week left of the 117th Congress, the Biden White House's efforts to hinder a Republican-controlled House have already begun.

On Thursday, GOP Representative Jim Jordan, who is expected to chair the House Judiciary Committee, received a letter from White House Counsel Richard Sauber informing him that he'd have to restart his oversight demands and that the Biden administration had no plans to respond to the onslaught of recent requests.

"Congress has not delegated such [oversight] authority to individual members of Congress who are not committee chairmen, and the House has not done so under its current Rules," Sauber wrote, according to a letter obtained by Politico.

Republican Representative James Comer, who is expected to head the Oversight Committee, also received one of Sauber's letters.

Shortly after it became clear the GOP would take the majority after the midterms, both congressmen began demanding records from the Biden administration and vowed to investigate a number of issues related to the federal government—including the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the Department of Justice, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas' response to the situation at the border, and Biden's son, Hunter.

When reached for comment, Jordan's spokesperson Russell Dye referred Newsweek to the House Judiciary GOP's Twitter thread, which accused the White House of leaking Thursday's letters to Politico before Jordan received his copy.

"This was clearly a planned and coordinated effort between the White House and 'journalists' at Politico," the House Judiciary GOP wrote. "And it just shows how the media and White House will work hand-in-hand politically to obstruct legitimate constitutional oversight."

The Republicans said the latest oversight developments are "why it's so important for us to hit the ground running on January 3rd."

The White House's letter did not specify if GOP requests would be satisfied once the new Congress is sworn in, but the Biden administration's tone sent a clear warning signal to House Republicans that the next two years will likely be combative on both sides.

Sauber said should Republicans issue similar requests in the next Congress, the White House "will review and respond to them in good faith, consistent with the needs and obligations of both branches."

"We expect the new Congress will undertake its oversight responsibilities in the same spirit of good faith," the White House counsel wrote.

However, the House Judiciary GOP countered the Biden administration's promises of "good faith," contending that it was against good faith to send the letter to Jordan at 4:34 a.m.

"It shows how scared you are of important congressional oversight, particularly one where your administration targeted parents protesting at local school board meetings," the Republicans hit back at the White House.>

<Remember when Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election (I know, I don’t like thinking about it either) and he claimed he would donate his entire presidential salary—a hefty sum of $400,000 a year—to charity? He sure loved talking about it. During his campaign in 2015, he tweeted that he wouldn’t keep “even one dollar” of his salary, claiming that he would “totally [give] up my salary if I become president.” In March 2019, he tweeted that “While the press doesn’t like writing about it, nor do I need them to, I donate my yearly Presidential salary of $400,000.00 to different agencies throughout the year.”

To his credit, Trump actually did make donations to various government agencies, like the National Parks Service. However, thanks to the release of his tax returns from 2015 to 2020, we now know more about his history of donations—and there’s a significant gap. According to CNN, Trump claimed no charitable donations at all on his 2020 tax return, making it extremely unlikely that he donated that year’s salary. Plus, many of the charitable donations he claimed in previous years are “unsubstantiated.”

Did the enormous loss he claimed on his 2020 taxes mean that he needed the $400,000 to scrape by? Did he just get bored and spiteful after losing the 2020 election? We don’t know for sure what happened to that money, but what his tax returns make clear is that, after promising to donate every last cent of his salary, he failed to keep that promise. Quelle suprise.

The tax returns have plenty of other revelations besides the salary donations—including business expenses that are miraculously identical, down to the last dollar, to the profits from those businesses—which makes his tax liability for said businesses zero dollars.

Trump’s tax returns have me thinking about the time he hosted the Clemson Tigers, the 2019 national college football champions, at the White House. Trump clearly didn’t want them there, and instead of springing for catering, he fed them mountains of fast food. The whole fiasco was trashy, racist, and disrespectful—made even more so by Trump’s inability to shut up about how he had paid for the burgers out of pocket.

One thing we know about Trump is that the more he blathers on about having paid for something, the less likely he is to have actually ponied up all the cash he said he would. The man is a chronic liar and a lifelong miser, and the sooner he’s out of the public eye, the better.>

<....On the positive side, 'believe me' -- I lost my stalker pervicious. He musta tripped a fell in the gloomy dark.>

Wrong again!

The only darkness hereabout is that which you infest.

<Trolling is cyberbullying. The troll should be banned from the website for good.

Internet trollz are people who want to provoke and upset others online for their own amusement. Here's how to spot the signz that someone is a troll, and how to handle them.

What Are Internet Trollz?

If you've been on the internet for any period of time, you've likely run into a troll at some point. An internet troll is someone who makes intentionally inflammatory, rude, or upsetting statements online to elicit strong emotional responses in people or to steer the conversation off-topic. They can come in many forms. Most trolls do this for their own amusement, but other forms of trolling are done to push a specific agenda.

Trollz have existed in folklore and fantasy literature for centuries, but online trolling has been around for as long as the internet has existed. The earliest known usage of the term can be traced back to the 1990s on early online message boards. Back then, it was a way for users to confuse new members by repeatedly posting an inside joke. It's since turned into a much more malicious activity.

Trolling is distinct from other forms of cyberbullying or harassment. It is normally not targeted towards any one person and relies on other people paying attention and becoming provoked. Trolling exists on many online platforms, from small private group chats to the biggest social media websites. Here's a list of places online where you're likely to see online trolls:

Anonymous online forums: Places like [sic] removed to prevent more trolling are prime real-estate for online trolls. Because there's no way of tracing who someone is, trolls can post very inflammatory content without repercussion. This is especially true if the forum has lax or inactive moderation. Twitter: Twitter also has the option to be anonymous, and has become a hotbed for internet trolls. Frequent Twitter trolling methods involve hijacking popular hashtags and mentioning popular Twitter personalities to gain attention from their followers.

Comment sections: The comment sections of places such as YouTube and news websites are also popular areas for trolls to feed. You'll find a lot of obvious trolling here, and they frequently generate a lot of responses from angry readers or viewers.

You'll find trollz anywhere online, including on Facebook and on online dating sites. They're unfortunately pretty common.

Signs Someone Is Trolling

It can sometimes become difficult to tell the difference between a troll and someone who just genuinely wants to argue about a topic. However, here are a few tell-tale signs that someone is actively trolling.

Off-topic remarkz: Completely going off-topic from the subject at hand. This is done to annoy and disrupt other posters.

Refusal to acknowledge evidence: Even when presented with hard, cold factz, they ignore this and pretend like they never saw it.

Dismissive, condescending tone: An early indicator of a troll was that they would ask an angry responder, "Why you mad, bro?" This is a method done to provoke someone even more, as a way of dismissing their argument altogether. Use of unrelated images or memes: They reply to others with memes, images, and gifs. This is especially true if done in response to a very long text post. Seeming obliviousness: They seem oblivious that most people are in disagreement with them. Also, trolls rarely get mad or provoked. The list above is by no means definitive. There are a lot of other ways to identify that someone is trolling. Generally, if someone seems disingenuous, uninterested in a real discussion, and provocative on purpose, they're likely an internet troll.

How Should I Handle Them?

A "Danger: Do not feed the troll" sign on a computer keyboard.

The most classic adage regarding trolling is, "Don't feed the trollz." Trollz seek out emotional responses and find provocation amusing, so replying to them or attempting to debate them will only make them troll more. By ignoring a troll completely, they will likely become frustrated and go somewhere else on the internet.

You should try your best not to take anything trollz say seriously. No matter how poorly they behave, remember these people spend countless unproductive hours trying to make people mad. They're not worth your time of day.

<<rufus....I sell marketing services and marketing services are legal. My job is to make people richer. In my experience, rich people are the nicest, kindest, most generous people I've met.>

If this is what the master of mendacity truly does, it is telling, but needs translation:

<I kiss lots of ass, because as a sociopath, narcissist and the ultimate chameleon, I am supremely adept at telling others what I think they want to hear, and because it brings home the bacon with the well-to-do who are clients, thus my very life blood. It is only to my advantage that I lack a conscience: that just gets in the way as I go through life blithely putting the boot in on everyone, at every turn.>

<As a new session of Congress begins Tuesday, Republicans have already unveiled plans to change how Capitol ethics complaints can be independently investigated. One measure tucked into House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy's, R-Calif., proposed House Rules package would impose limits on the non-partisan Office of Congressional Ethics.

The proposal comes as the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) — which independently vets and refers misconduct allegations to the House Ethics Committee — faces calls to investigate Congress members who may have participated Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The GOP's rule would muzzle the OCE's staffing and investigative authority, treating the office as a standing House Committee. The rule also directs the House Ethics Committee to begin accepting complaints from the public directly, potentially offering lawmakers an end-run around the OCE.

Ethics advocates decried the proposal on social media early in the week.

"It's bad enough that the GOP is going to seat (GOP Representative-elect George) Santos," tweeted Senior Brookings Fellow Norm Eisen. "But at the same time they're also going to move a rules package that will insulate him from a major avenue of ethics oversight!"

While the OCE's eight-member board is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, McCarthy's proposal would impose a term-limit cap that would immediately force out three Democrats. The OCE would only have 30 days to fill those seats — a difficult deadline for federal appointments with traditionally lengthy vetting requirements, made harder by a rule requiring four OCE board members to approve the new appointee.

Public Citizen Executive Vice President Lisa Gilbert said the GOP's rules package "guts the Office of Congressional Ethics."

"This must be stopped," she tweeted Monday.

As previously reported by The Wall Street Journal, House Republicans last attempted to restrict the OCE in 2017. The effort to dismantle the OCE was abandoned following bipartisan backlash — a backlash that McCarthy himself joined.

But in December 2022, McCarthy ignored a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee, leaving him vulnerable at the time for referral to the House Ethics Committee. Now, seeking House Speakership, his bid faces its loudest in-party opposition to his bid from the sitting members of Congress whose actions during the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol have since spurred public calls for an OCE investigation -- and who may stand to benefit from a toothless watchdog in a half-empty office.>

<I certainly have a long-standing right to complain. I must put up with this crap on a daily basis:

<Jan-04-23 stone free or die: <Fred> - you're a bum, not just for several pages, but forever and ever.>

<Jan-04-23 perfidious: Fresh from his latest 'break', <fredthebore> simply cannot resist.... Maybe one day he will rise to 1000 level.

pervicious insisting that I lied and was suspended, then denigrates me daily. That's his stalker SOP. He knows my chest posts are sound -- he cannot refute them -- so it's constant name-calling, mischaracterization, and belittling comments, none of which are true.

If y'all are tired of hearing me complain, then SUSPEND these germs for their constant misbehavior.

<Arizona Republican Kari Lake is still not letting go after her failed bid for governor last year.

However, her legal challenges to an election she claimed was rife with fraud and other issues appear to be going nowhere.

On Wednesday, the Arizona Supreme Court denied Lake's direct appeal of a December decision throwing out her case against state and county election officials, saying the former television news anchor first needs to go through a lower appeals court before reaching the state's highest court.

"No good cause appears to transfer the matter to this Court," Duty Justice John Lopez IV wrote in a two-page decision denying the effort. "Therefore, upon consideration of the Court en banc, it is ordered denying the Petition to Transfer both the appeal and the petition for special action without prejudice to seeking expedited review of an adverse decision in either proceeding."

Lake filed her appeal Thursday morning, according to Fox News. However, whether she ever gets a hearing before the Arizona Supreme Court remains an open question, particularly as she has failed to provide any evidence to support her claims that she won by between 400,000 and 500,000 votes.

Since her November loss, Lake, who has been referring to herself as Arizona's "duly elected" governor in television interviews despite losing by just over half a percentage point, has experienced little success in her myriad challenges to overturn the result.

While Lake has a second appeal pending, the previous judge in the case—Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson—had already ruled the court was not presented with clear and convincing evidence there was widespread misconduct that could have impacted the final result.

Regardless, Lake argued on Christmas Eve that her failure in court—which was filled with mishaps and questionable claims in and out of the courtroom—helped prove her case, saying the case her attorney outlined "provided the world with evidence that proves our elections are run outside of the law."

Though Lake has failed to provide concrete evidence of errors that could have swung the result of the election, she and her allies have relied on other circumstantial arguments, including Pinal County's elections director receiving a $25,000 bonus after initially reporting incorrect election results, as evidence of a corrupt system poised to favor Democrats.

"Unbelievably corrupt," she tweeted Wednesday.

Circumstantial evidence, however, doesn't win court cases. In his initial ruling, Thompson dismissed eight of her 10 claims in the lawsuit, noting that Lake's legal team failed to establish that someone intentionally interfered in the election and that the result changed because of it.

"Her legal team has failed to show any intentionality and they have failed to show that any mistakes made were so serious that they cost her the election," David Schultz, an election law expert and professor at Hamline University, told Newsweek at the time.

To everyone else, the election has already been settled. The result of her race has already been certified twice, while ensuing recounts in some of the state's closest elections were narrowly certified in favor of Democrats. But Lake isn't giving up.

"Katie Hobbs was not duly elected," she said in an interview on Real America's Voice this week. "Everybody in the state knows that. And she can play house and play governor for a while, but eventually the truth is going to catch up and we will win."

Meanwhile, Lake's opponent—former Secretary of State Katie Hobbs—has already been sworn in, leaving little recourse for Lake to overturn the result. Hobbs' inauguration is scheduled for Thursday.

When reached for comment, a Lake spokesperson referred to a tweet saying that the court's decision "was done without prejudice," and that she was "confident the case will end up in their hands eventually."

"We're moving forward," she said.>

<The judge overseeing New York Attorney General Letitia James' $250 million civil lawsuit against former President Trump is pondering whether to sanction his attorneys, new court filings revealed Thursday.

Judge Arthur Engoron, in an email to the attorneys, said he "is considering imposing sanctions for frivolous litigation" over Trump's motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

Trump's attorneys, Alina Habba, Christopher Kise and Clifford Robert, argued the lawsuit should be dismissed because the attorney general lacks standing or capacity to sue. They also echoed Trump's "witch hunt" line by arguing "the NYAG has pursued this crusade against all things Trump."

Those are "the same legal arguments that this Court previously rejected," Engoron said.

"[D]efendants are making the same arguments based on the same facts and the same law," Engoron's email said. The defense attorneys responded in a letter that said they acted properly to advance their client's interests.

"There was and is no intention to disregard or disrespect the Court or its rulings, but fundamental principles of advocacy and established law require presentation and preservation of arguments even where there is, respectfully, disagreement between the parties and/or the Court. This is the core of the adversarial process and in no way reflects any effort to disrespect the Court or impede the course of these proceedings," the defense letter said.

In its own letter to the judge, the attorney general's office did not take a position on whether Engoron should impose sanctions but senior counsel Kevin Wallace noted "the form of the rehashed arguments here appears calculated to delay the proceedings and needlessly divert the parties' and court's resources."

James filed her lawsuit in September after a three-year investigation into Trump's business practices. It names Trump, his three eldest children, his company and its two executives, and accuses them of fraudulently adjusting the value of the Trump real estate portfolio to obtain better terms on loans and taxes. The lawsuit, which Trump wholly denies, alleged that the defendants inflated Trump's net worth to obtain better lending terms than deserved.>

<Update: I randomly failed to win the lotto, but I'll randomly try again next week. Have to admit that I'm not a fan of gambling because it hurts poor college students and families....>

'Not a fan', yet assiduously chances his arm on it.

<Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, shared Kevin McCarthy's first legislative priority after a rocky start to his House speakership.

McCarthy, who secured enough votes to become speaker of the House after 15 rounds of voting early Saturday morning, announced what the first introduced bill would be in the GOP-controlled Congress shortly after his victory. Republicans will soon vote on a bill that would repeal the funding of 87,000 Internal Revenue Services (IRS) agents. Funding for the agency was included in the Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed last August.

"When we come back, our very first bill will repeal the funding for 87,000 IRS agents," McCarthy said, receiving a thunderous applause from his conference. "We believe government should be to help you, not go after you."

Greene, seen as one of the leading "MAGA Republicans" in the House, touted his pledge as only the first of many conservative policies that would be passed by House Republicans.

"This is only the beginning of the great things we are going to do," Greene tweeted Saturday. "Repeal the 87,000 IRS Army!"

McCarthy's pledge follows a days-long, contentious speakership vote. Roughly 20 hard-right lawmakers refused to back the California Republican, listing several demands for Congress' rules package. After nearly five days of failed votes, McCarthy eventually won enough support from his conference to become speaker.

Although Greene is viewed as one of the chamber's most conservative members, she broke from her closest allies to support McCarthy, previously acknowledging that other right-wing alternatives would be unlikely to defeat him. Relations with Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida appeared to grow tense, as they traded public barbs amid the speaker battle.

Before any legislative bill can receive a vote, House Republicans must next vote on the rules package.

It remains unknown how many Republicans will oppose the rules package, but so far at least one, Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas, a centrist, has pledged to vote against it. Because Republicans only won a slim majority during last year's midterms, McCarthy can only afford to lose a handful of votes.

However, the bill that would defund the IRS would likely stall in the Senate. Any legislation would need to pass the 60-vote filibuster, meaning it would need substantial support from Democrats, who hold a majority of seats in the chamber. Furthermore, it remains unknown if President Joe Biden would sign it.

The bill could also unite Republicans, who remain divided after the speaker race and about how far right they can govern. Meanwhile, no Republican has publicly spoken out against the bill, and several others praised McCarthy for making it a top priority.

Why Conservatives Oppose Hiring 87,000 IRS Agents

Funding for the new IRS agents was included in the Inflation Reduction Act, a law passed by Democrats last year aimed at lowering inflation, which created economic uncertainty for millions of Americans in recent months. The bill passed the House on party lines and has faced conservative criticism.

The agents are intended to monitor digital currency to ensure citizens don't illegally evade paying their taxes, with the Inflation Reduction Act set to raise $124 billion in revenue from collecting taxes over a 10 year period from the rich and large corporations.

Republicans seized on this aspect of the bill in their campaign messaging, running on opposition to their hiring. Republicans have said these agents will be used to target everyday Americans or small businesses. However, the IRS has said the increased number of agents will not equate to a higher audit rate for low and middle class taxpayers.

Newsweek reached out to McCarthy and Greene's offices for comment.>