This may have been the quickest slap of this nature by the Supreme Court in history. 
Extraordinary Rebuke
The court’s ruling came just hours after administration lawyers asked the justices to immediately order California to set aside 20,000 mail-in ballots.
Please note Supreme Court Rejects Trump Administration Request to Intervene in California Ballot Case
The Supreme Court on Monday evening swiftly rejected a request by the Trump administration to require that California set aside 20,000 mail-in ballots that the administration claims have been provided to noncitizens.
The order, which was unsigned and gave no reasoning, came the same day that the administration lawyers had asked the court to step in after a divided federal appeals court had rejected the administration’s arguments that California officials should impound the ballots for further scrutiny. No public dissents were noted.
The ruling appeared to be an extraordinary rebuke of the Trump administration, sending a message that the court was not interested in stepping in to assist President Trump’s efforts to interfere with how states are administering elections.
It was a highly unusual ruling because it came only hours after the administration filed its emergency request and without the court even calling for a response or briefing from the opposing parties. It is nearly unheard of for the court to rule on an application filed by the federal government without first asking for a response from the opposing parties.
Color Commentary
All Rise News adds important context in its report SCOTUS immediately rejects Trump DOJ’s California election case
Entered on the Court’s emergency docket without any explanation, the denial fell roughly six hours after the Trump Justice Department filed its emergency application. A federal judge dismissed the same lawsuit last week, characterizing the government’s request as “indicative of a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials.”
Throughout the day, the Trump regime’s shape-shifting claims of voter fraud in California took a bruising until they finally collapsed.
The Department of Homeland Security initially estimated that there were nearly 200,000 suspected noncitizens on the voter rolls before dramatically lowering that number to 20,000 “likely” noncitizens.
Even the reduced number was wildly inflated: Los Angeles County authorities sampled 200 of the names on the government’s list, finding that 39 percent of them were listed as having been born in the United States. More than 70 percent of the sampled names never voted in past elections.
Earlier on Monday, a Trump Justice Department lawyer acknowledged in court that it was “fair” to say that the government’s list has a “high error rate,” according to independent journalist Chris Geidner of Law Dork.
Weasel Words
Joyce Vance Comments on a Tweet by Adam Klasfeld.
Late this afternoon, the Supreme Court told Trump no. There is no opinion, so we don’t know what the Court’s reasoning was. We don’t know whether the decision was unanimous or split, and if it was split, who voted which way. But we do know that the Supreme Court declined to let Trump interfere in the election in California at this late date. It rejected DOJ’s request, which would have forced the state to deal with the junk list of voters the administration thinks might not be citizens.
“Count the number of weasel words packed into a single sentence in the Trump DOJ’s emergency request for SCOTUS to bless attempted election interference.” It was hardly the kind of definitive statement you would expect the Justice Department to make before trying to interfere with votes while an election is already underway. “Likely not.” “In the United States’ view.” “Appear to be registered.”
The Yiddish word “shanda” comes to mind. It means a shame, a disgrace, a scandal, and an embarrassment—all rolled into one. Scandalously bad behavior. Shanda aptly captures Donald Trump’s efforts to interfere with the election, and I’m relieved that the Supreme Court didn’t let Trump get away with the stunt he tried to pull in California.
Swift Rebuke
Michael Sellers comments Supreme Court Swiftly Rejects Trump’s Last-Minute Attempt to Intervene in California Election
In an extraordinary election-eve decision, the United States Supreme Court on Monday evening summarily rejected the Trump administration’s emergency request to intervene in California’s election and require officials to set aside approximately 20,000 mail-in ballots.
The most remarkable aspect of the decision may have been the speed and manner in which the justices acted.
The administration filed its emergency application Monday, November 2, just one day before the midterm elections. Within hours, the Supreme Court rejected it.
The justices did not request a response from California. They did not order additional briefing. They issued no explanation. And not a single justice publicly dissented.
More than six million mail ballots had already been returned in California by Sunday. Voting had been underway for weeks, and election officials were preparing to process the remaining ballots in accordance with state law.
The administration’s proposed intervention would have required officials to identify and separate ballots associated with a disputed list of voters, potentially interrupting procedures already in progress. [And then Trump would have complained about the speed of California vote counting]
Instead, the Supreme Court disposed of the administration’s application almost as soon as it arrived.
The procedural circumstances are striking.
The federal government sought an extraordinary intervention in a state election, one day before Election Day. The Supreme Court rejected the request within hours, without asking the state to defend itself.
Any lawyer with an ounce of integrity would resign or refuse to argue this case and be fired.
But there is no one with an ounce of integrity in the DOJ. That is precisely why they were selected in the first place.
Trump’s legal henchmen (actually, their AI bots) know immigrant fear is their best card now. So they are doing this performative lawfare as a PR stunt, to focus and scare their voters to the polls. .
It’s standard mafia don stuff, fear and greed. Promise terror and destruction if they don’t vote for you and cash and goodies if they do.
As we become a chicken and pork eating nation because of poor governance and consequential devaluation of our currency, I have only one question on this election day.
Where’s the Beef
Point taken.
But I had my last bite of beef (or pork, or any large land or sea animal) 24 years ago. I will race you up any mountain or hill right now, or any time, day or night, you specify.
Where is the beef? The cows and the heifers have been sold off to the feedlots for decades because the “hoax” has dried up their forage and it was either watch them starve to death or sell them. By the ten of millions of head, the calf producers were fattened up and were eaten. Simple optical physics.
Thanks Mish, “shanda” as a shame, a disgrace, a scandal, and an embarrassment,is fitting.
This stunt has been weeks or months in the making, a present-day “October surprise” piece of shameless monkeywrenching by Trump, dropped at the most disruptive moment.
My explanation in a reply to Crispin below supplies what I believe the SCOTUS decision would say, if Trump has allowed any faintly reasonable time for SCOTUS to spell it out.
Trump just announced on Election Day that he and Netanyahu have agreed the US will cut off all aid to Israel by the end of the year. What this tells me is that he knows support of Israel is deeply unpopular in America and he is desperately trying to do something in an effort to address that. Of course, as always, he does that by lying.
I just watched a video of the reopening ceremony of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool where the President of these United States said that his administration was seriously considering changing the name to the “Donald J. Trump Memorial Reflecting Pool”. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!! I would have automatically considered this a spoof of some kind, but for the fact that this was on CNN’s own website. But let’s not forget the renaming of the Kennedy Center; it fits an undeniable pattern. It’s narcissism running wild. Why stop there? How about the “United States of Trump?! Bow down all ye, you worshippers of your God, Donald J. Trump, the Savior of all Mankind! But as Colonel Douglas Macgregor would say, “Let’s be frank here, the president of the United States, the most powerful leader in the world, is obviously suffering from a severe case of dementia, in spades.”
Lots of people in high places have suffered dementia. It’s nothing new.
What is impressive are the millions of people who insist that being a shameless doofus this is some kind of 5D chess strategy, and that these humans are not professional courtiers or others who have a vested interest in pretending that the emperor is not buck naked.
I live about 2 miles from Mar-A-Largo.
Since his re-election he has renamed:
The Palm Beach Airport (PBI call sign) to President Donald J Trump Airport
Part of Southern Boulevard (that goes from Mar-A-Largo to said airport) to President Donald J Trump Boulevard.
That he wants to rename the reflecting pool is par for the course.
I imagine much of it will be re-named once he is out of office.
Why is it so difficult for California to require their electors to demonstrate they have the right to vote? Drivers have to prove they have a right to drive. Costco customers have to prove they have the right to enter the store. What’s wrong with these people?
Said the perfect target of this rage bait set-up distraction.
Why doesn’t California set up police checkpoints on every street to verify valid driver’s licenses? Every legal system has a practical balance of catching violators, with the burdens of administration. Period. There will be noncompliance with every law. Some people are driving without licenses this moment near you. Every law has this, forever. It is an everyday management issue, of the type we the people delegate to our legislators, at the level fitting Constitutional requirements.
In this case, the state has ascertained that attestation of citizenship under penalty of perjury as a required part of voter registration is the appropriate response to strike that balance. The incidence of violation to date is microscopic, as far as is known. That could change and the legislature will address it.. If you don’t like it, move to California and vote differently or ideally, get in the legislature. Or just sit behind your keyboard and pretend to be informed and smart.
Thank you for the opportunity to help dispel your ignorance.
Republicans haven’t figured out how to get all those electors who might not have the right to vote voting republican. If they did California would quickly address the issue.
Electors in these US demonstrate their right vote at their registration.
This is the first election I can remember that didn’t have multiple pundits claiming “this is the most important election ever”
That’s because this is the most important election ever, unlike the other ones.
Midterms are never as important as presidential elections.
Supreme Court has said Constitutional Courts would not ordinarily interfere with the election process, but their hands are not tied when intervention is necessary.