SCOTUSblog still hasn't mentioned the stay in the Trump/House case. Strange. Though SCOTUSblog is a valuable resource, I think they seem more eager to report news unfavorable to Trump than news that's favorable. The response by the House is due this Thursday.

Sadly, with 90% in, the Dem has taken the lead.

The link given earlier seems to provide more up-to-date Louisiana results. With 79% in: John Bel Edwards (DEM): 622,727 "Eddie" Rispone (REP): 632,350 It all depends on which precincts remain.

Mirengoff at Powerline doesn't disappoint. He repeatedly asserts how strong the evidence for his opinion is, without citing the evidence.

... as it clearly would be ... Will I ever complete a long comment without typos?

I will add a bit more about secret impeachment votes. I should have been clearer on one aspect (both in my comments and in my own mind). There are really two questions: First, can one of the chambers hold a secret vote in which no one, including the members, knows how the other members voted? Second, can one of the chambers hold a vote in which the public doesn't know how the members voted? The answer to the first question is No. The Constitution say: Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal. If 1/5th of the members demand the yeas-and-nays, they will be taken and recorded in the journal. There's no secrecy exception for recording them, only possibly for publishing them. The answer to the second question is trickier. As I've mentioned, the reason a relatively low number of members are allowed to demand the yeas-and-nays is to force the members to take responsibility for their votes. If the sole reason for not publishing the result is to frustrate that purpose -- as it cleanly would be for the secret impeachment votes -- I believe it would be unconstitutional. In some ways, I doubt it would matter. If a vote as important as impeachment were recorded but not published, the chance that it would be leaked seem high.

JIB: Are you a lawyer? You seem to have a better grasp of the constitution and law then many around here. Sorry to admit, I'm not. And I won't bother to make any jokes about what hotels I my or may not have stayed in.

JMH: Yes, iI would be counter to the purpose of the 1/5th provision, but not strictly unconstitutional? I would say it is strictly unconstitutional. The Constitution says, "the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal. Any, not any except those that are deemed secret. To overcome that, there would need to be good evidence that the Constitution meant otherwise. In this case, there's unquestionable evidence that the intent of the Constitution is to prevent legislators from voting without taking responsibility for their votes.

In my previous comment, "despite a 1/5th vote" should be "despite a 1/5th demand"

In regard to the secret impeachment vote idea, I'd like to address the argument made by some (for instance, on the Volokh Conspiracy blog) that the secrecy exemption provides an out to the yea-nay requirement. Article I, section 5(3) reads: Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal. The theory is that by a majority vote, the House or Senate could declare the vote a "Part[] as may in their Judgment require Secrecy," and therefore have a secret vote. I'll leave open the question of whether, when discussing an actual secret matter, such as funding a new weapon, they could, despite a 1/5th vote, keep the vote secret. The question here is whether, in an otherwise non-secret matter such as impeachment, they could use the secrecy exception to to hide the yeas-and-nays. I think the clear answer is No. If they could, the rule would be: if 1/5th demands the yeas-and-nays, they will be recorded, unless a majority opposes it. In other words, the 1/5 clause is a nullity. The rules of statutory interpretation greatly disfavor such a thing. Furthermore, it would defeat the precise purpose of the yea-and-nay requirement, which is to force the legislators to take responsibility for their votes.

On twitter, someone posted picture of a painting of Jeffery Epstein, to which "the penultimate straw" responded: Hope you have a hammer and nails cus it’s not gonna hang itself

On the secret impeachment vote question, Eugene Volokh agrees with me. (I note, though, that from the date on the article, I said it first.)

Paul Mirengoff at PowerLine can be annoying and rather dense when talking about Trump, but he can sometimes be interesting. His comments about the DACA oral argument are interesting and hopeful. His feeling is, that based on Roberts' questioning, he's unlikely to go against Trump. Amy Howe's SCOTUSblog article is less optimistic (from our point of view, not hers), but suffers from the problem mentioned by Mirengoff: it claims the justices were hard to read, but in support seems to offer only examples of the liberal justices pro-DACA positions.

. . . They can't afford to . . .

I'm no good at predictions, but I expect jimmyk will lose his wager. I don't see how the Democrats can get around voting impeachment. They can afford to infuriate a large portion of their voters in an election year.

Those difficulties seem the likeliest reason the Dems would float the idea of a secret ballot. They'd love a secret ballot; but the Constitution explicitly prevents it. And, as I mentioned, if they refused to follow the Constitution, the Senate would almost certainly, and with very good reason, not recognize the vote.

For Democrats in swing districts, the impeachment vote would certainly present a conundrum: vote in favor, alienate Trump voters; vote against, risk being primaried. It seems like a more difficult situation than the usual case, where the at-risk members are given a pass to vote against the party, provided there are sufficient votes to achieve the desired result. The question is, can they at this point avoid a final vote? That would seem difficult.

I thought the concern over secret ballots was in the House vote. I was referring to a tweet at the linked-to site saying: No,no...@BillKristol and another guy i heard on @MSNBC about 2 weeks ago let this slip....a simple majority to change the senate rules and voila...Mitt and the RINO's can burn Trump. This fit with the (dubious) contention that if the vote were secret, Trump would be convicted. However, the Constitutional rule I cited applies to both the Senate and the House. A refusal to follow the Constitution on that point in the House would be even less likely to succeed. I expect that the Senate would simply refuse to take it up.

MJW, that wouldn't stop the Dems from doing it anyway and letting the courts settle it later. Well, the Republicans control the Senate, but that aside, I doubt they would that explicitly violate the Constitution. It's like asking what would stop them from declaring that a simple majority vote in the Senate would be enough for conviction.

For anyone concerned that the Senate impeachment-conviction vote could be done by secret ballot, recall that Article I, Section 5(3) of the Constitution provides that on any question, at the desire of one-fifth of the members present, the yeas and nays will be recorded.

One of the "panel" guests on Fox News this afternoon said Ciarmella's name. I think that was the first time I heard it used on FNC.

The odds must be astronomical. I have no idea how errors like that occur. Autocorrect?

The NDA/Anonymity detail strikes me as too coincidental Sure. I'm mean how likely is it that there could be two deep-staters who didn't want to be outed? The odds must the astronomical.

Well, that's about as near to nothing as there could be. Wake me up when some scintilla of evidence emerges.

Melinda, it seems like the assumption is that Anonymous is Ciaramella. That would be very interesting if true, but I didn't see that any evidence was presented.