Yesterday’s 4-3 ruling from
the Colorado Supreme Court to bar Trump from the state’s primary ballot was a
watershed. It marked the first serious effort to prevent a confirmed traitor
and seditionist from accessing elective power in any state, and sustaining a
drive to take down this country. To turn it into his personal autocracy. The state Supreme Court ruling said in part:
“We conclude that because President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three (of the 14th Amendment), it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Secretary to list President Trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot,” the court’s majority opinion says. “Therefore, the Secretary may not list President Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot, nor may she count any write-in votes cast for him.”
This was a blockbuster decision to say the least. Indeed, it marked the first time a court has kept
a presidential
candidate off the ballot under an 1868 provision of the
Constitution that prevents insurrectionists from holding office. The 14th
Amendment, ratified in 1868, includes a provision meant to keep those who sided
with the Confederacy during the Civil War from serving in office. Specifically,
Section 3 states in full:
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative
in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office,
civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having
previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the
United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or
judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United
States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or
given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of
two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
That Trump engaged in such an insurrection on January 6, 2021 is beyond any doubt, and only an illiterate, a traitor -protecting weasel or outright fool would deny it. This despite the near certainty that the decision will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. It will be up to the justices (ought to be eight – Clarence Thomas recusing) to decide whether to take the case. Scholars have said only the nation’s high court can settle the issue of whether the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol constituted an insurrection and whether Trump is banned from running.
Trump’s backers and hack lawyer bootlickers will clearly argue that “an
officer of the United States” does not include presidents. Which is pure bollocks. If presidents who act
as commanders in chief (i.e. of the armed forces) aren’t officers, what the
hell are they? So it’s reckless and
egregious to claim those offices are for military officers and postmasters, not
presidents. The litigants bringing the lawsuits say the presidency is clearly
an office under the United States.
There is also a precedent. A judge in New Mexico last year removed a county commissioner from office after the official was found guilty of a misdemeanor for trespassing on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6. The state judge determined Couy Griffin, an Otero County commissioner and the founder of Cowboys for Trump could no longer serve in his position as a county official because he had violated Section 3. It was the first such ruling since 1869, according to those who brought the lawsuit.
Trump’s backers will claim the attack on the Capitol was not an insurrection, noting he has not been criminally charged with insurrection. But special prosecutor Jack Smith has already brought that charge, and intends to use it. (In fact, he has acquired one of Trump's burner phones used during the insurrection, and extracted the data from it.) Also, clearly what Trump did on Jan. 6, 2021 was obvious to anyone with a brain and two eyes. The scum actually called out those who might be weak and not prepared to charge the Capitol. And he specifically used the words 'WE will be going...." to the Capitol.
The claim Trump was acquitted by the Senate after he was impeached by the House for inciting an insurrection doesn’t count because a partisan band of Reepo pro-traitors in the Senate (led by Mitch McConnell) protected him.
The other argument that even if it was an insurrection, it was not one Trump “engaged” in because he wasn’t at the Capitol at the time is also misbegotten. He may not have been exactly in the Capitol but he was occupying a center stage can barking at his supporters to attack the Capitol. As Robert Reich put it in a blog post two days after the insurrection:
"When the president of the United States encourages armed insurgents to
breach the Capitol and threaten the physical safety of Congress, in order to
remain in power, I call it an attempted coup. Last week’ rampage left
five dead, including a Capitol Hill police officer who was injured when he
tangled with the pro-Trump mob. We’re fortunate the carnage wasn’t greater."
This isn't 'rocket science' or differential geometry, in other words. It's as clear as the nose on anyone's face and doesn't need parsing or interpretation. Just because the law underlying it is nearly 150 years old doesn't mean it's no longer applicable. All the states - certainly blue ones - need to follow Colorado's lead and prevent this infernal maggot from getting on the ballot. We sh0uld not have to have a 2020 re-do, revote to prevent this Hitler wannabe from trashing the country he clearly hates. He ought to have been hanged by now anyway - as my Revolutionary War ancestors would have done.
Update: 3: 30 p.m. MT
Just watched (on Deadline White House)
conservative judge J. Michael Luttig, formerly of the United
States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, giving his opinion of the
Colorado Supreme Court decision. A few
of the points he made:
i) The decision was neither partisan nor political,
it was “a purely masterful decision under constitutional law"
ii) The decision was not “anti-democratic”, rather
it was the conduct giving rise to the disqualification that was antidemocratic.
iii) The 14th amendment, Sec. 3 is
“self-executing” meaning no prior criminal proceedings are necessary for the
insurrectionist to be so disqualified.
See Also:
by Amanda Marcotte | December 22, 2023 - 8:04am | permalink
Let's just get this out the way up front: If Donald Trump is removed from enough state ballots that one of the also-rans vying for the Republican nomination gets to run for president instead, there's a risk that President Joe Biden loses in November. All of those never-Trumpers we thought were our buddies will abandon the #Resistance so fast it will make Democratic heads spin. And the MAGA types could be so angry about losing Dear Leader they will rush the polls to vote as hard against Biden as possible.
Or maybe the opposite will happen: Trump will whine, cry and blame whoever gets the nomination, convincing enough MAGA types to sit the election out in protest, thus handing Biden an easy victory next fall.
The reality is we're facing a situation never seen before in the United States. A shameless insurrectionist is running for president while under 91 felony indictments. To add to this historic situation, the Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday banned Trump from appearing on the state's Republican presidential primary ballot. The 4-3 decision follows the clear language of the Constitution's 14th Amendment barring those who "have engaged in insurrection" from running for office. Yet anyone who thinks they know how this will play out over the next 11 months is kidding themselves. The one thing that is dead certain, however, is that the Supreme Court justices would be fools not to uphold this decision.
And:
— from Robert Reich's Substack
As I have argued on this page, Trump shouldn’t be allowed on any ballot because Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits anyone who has held public office and taken an oath to protect the Constitution from holding office again if they “have engaged in insurrection” against the United States.
This key provision was enacted after the Civil War to prevent those who rose up against our democracy from ever being allowed to hold office again.
This applies to Donald Trump. He cannot again be entrusted with public office. He led an insurrection.
Today, the Colorado Supreme Court agreed, ordering the Colorado secretary of state to exclude Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot.
If Trump is re-elected, he’d be America’s 47th president, so he’s named the plans for his second term “Agenda 47.” At best, it’s a dystopian nightmare: at worst it means ending our current system of American government; aligning the US with Russia and other autocratic nations; and the USA leading the charge against democracy and in favor of authoritarian, strong-man forms of government across the world.
Over at his website, Trump lays out the details of his governing agenda, complete with short videos promoting each of the steps he plans to take. They, and his many statements about future plans, include:
Criminalizing homosexuality
Part of Agenda 47, Trump says, is “finishing the job” he started as president between 2017 and 2021, targeting homosexuality. All of this is just the beginning. The Human Rights Campaign has documented page after page of anti-queer policies put into effect by Trump that will be resurrected and put on steroids in a second term.
Destroy academic freedom and gut our public schools
In the Agenda 47 section of his website, Trump explains how he’s going to use our schools and colleges to indoctrinate young Americans in rightwing ideology. He explicitly says:
— from The New Civil Rights Movement
U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack on Tuesday revealed then-President Donald Trump’s now-infamous December 19, 2020 tweet promoting January 6 as an important day for his supporters to come to the Capitol was received. “Be there, will be wild,” Trump had told them.
The Committee explained that Trump posted his “will be wild” tweet as a last-ditch effort to retain power, after being told for weeks by many, including his White House Counsel, that he had lost re-election and there were no legal avenues to stay in office.
In this video, the Committee features the responses to Trump’s tweet, from far-right extremists including Alex Jones. One declared January 6 would be a “Red Wedding,” a reference to “mass slaughter,” Rep. Jamie Raskin noted, from the HBO series “Games of Thrones.”
No comments:
Post a Comment