Good afternoon, followers of "just because he's President doesn't mean he won" litigation - update in the Seditionists v 117th Congress case.

Plaintiffs, apparently confused by the court's silence in the face of their nitwittery, want a hearing. https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1120287/gov.uscourts.txwd.1120287.5.0_1.pdf

Now the court hasn't said anything about why there's no hearing set yet, but the reasoning looks pretty simple to me.

I mean, I'm not a litigator, but the language of Rule 65 is not terribly complex, and I'm looking at a docket with no verified complaint or affidavit.

Nor is there an explicit certification, in writing, detailing any efforts made to give notice to any of the hundreds of defendants.

So it seems clear to me why the court isn't bothering to do much with this one.

For the nonlawyers:
If you want an ex part temporary restraining order, you have to do certain things. Plaintiffs appear to have done none of those things.

I know that must come as a total shock.

Instead of doing something productive, like brushing up on the rules, Plaintiffs appear to have decided to file another motion for a TRO.

This one also comes with none of those other required things.

So it seems that the Plaintiffs have their own theory about why there's no hearing in the trainwreck that they've dropped on the docket.

They think it's because the judge is literally a coward, and they are so brave that they're willing to, for all intents and purposes, say so.

Implying that a federal judge is a coward strikes me as an unusual strategy - a bold strategy even - for getting the judge to issue the unprecedented, Republic-shattering relief you demand. But it's no less sane than the rest of the case, so it's at least got that going for them.

This is also fun - "American People" has a footnote. The footnote says that capitalized terms not defined herein have the meaning given in the complaint.

The complaint appears to contain zero uses of "American People."

These people are really bad at this.

Also, I think their real worry in this case is still that the FBI is going to get around to knocking on their door to ask about things that happened at the Capitol two weeks ago.

Telling the court that nobody is likely to recognize a TRO as legitimate is certainly a choice. It's maybe not a choice I'd make, but it's certainly a choice.

So I guess the news of the inauguration has reached sedition central, so they're modifying their request - now they want the Court to "restrain Congress and the President from passing and signing any new legislation or from making any substantial departures from current policy."

This is a very law-ish legal serious law serious legal thing of seriousness that I'm sure could seriously happen in some other galaxy in some other arm of the multiverse.

Not so much here though.

ohgod

They're unironically citing the Epoch Times.

Best. Prayer. For. Relief. Ever.

"Judge, please give us an immediate hearing while we try to figure out what we want now."

I mean that's literally the prayer for relief in this one.

Overall:

I said something last month about dumb lawyers, cases, and outcomes. That again, but on drugs. Maybe some of the drugs are steroids, but mostly it's just drugs. In bad combinations.

/fin