Two states, Colorado and Maine, have ruled that Donald Trump is disqualified to appear on their state ballot for President because of Section Three of the 14th Amendment.
That section, written after the Civil War, says:
Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office
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.
Trump did take an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” and he did incite and encourage a mob to invade the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the counting of the electoral votes and thereby “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution. In addition, he spent months trying to block the orderly transition of power from himself to Joseph Biden, who won the Presidential election of 2020.
His speech on January 6 was incendiary. Just as bad were his efforts to pressure state officials to change the results in their states and to create slates of fake electors. All of his actions were aimed at remaining in power despite the fact that he lost both the popular vote and the vote of the electoral college. Because he is a SORE LOSER, he summoned a mob to Washington, D.C. on January 6 and urged them to “fight like hell” to overturn the election and to march on the Capitol and prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
Nothing like this happened before in the history of the United States.
All of these facts, including the video footage of the horrific events of January 6, are evidence that he should be disqualified from the ballot.
The Supreme Court is dominated by conservative jurists who claim to be Originalists, who read the Constitution in light of its original intent. The original intent of Section Three of the 14th Amendment is unambiguous. Trump disqualified himself.
Somehow, I expect, the Court will find a way to avoid ruling against Trump. They might say that the case involves politics and is not in the judicial realm, as some state courts have ruled. That is an evasion, of course, but it may suffice to get them off the hook. How many judges want death threats, a frequent tactic of the Trump mob?
But I disagree. I want Trump on the ballot.
My reason for wanting Trump ON the ballot has nothing to do with the Constitution. I believe that his role in the insurrection is indisputable. The Biden campaign should run ads featuring the mob overrunning the Capitol and attacking police officers again and again. They should remind the public that Trump did nothing for three hours while the seat of our government was ransacked.
I want him to be defeated by vote of the American people. I believe he will lose in 2024. I can’t be certain. But if he is taken off the ballot, a significant part of the population will believe that he was removed for partisan reasons.
For the rest of his life, he will rail about the “rigged” election and how he was cheated.
I want him to be beaten fair and square as he was in 2020.
I do not believe that the American people will again vote into the presidency a man of no character, a man facing multiple indictments, a man whose motive for running is to pardon himself of federal crimes and to wreak vengeance on his critics, , a man who has no respect for the Constitution, a man who can’t be trusted to leave office ever.
He lost the popular vote by almost three million in 2016. He lost it by 7 million votes in 2024, along with a decisive defeat in the Electoral College. His behavior since he lost in 2020 has been undignified and loathsome. I predict he will lose by 10 million votes in 2024.
Let him run.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I 100% agree with you, I do not believe he will win. He already lost once!! There are surely now more who have seen the light! He will loose again. I love the idea of using video’s of the insurrectionists beating police for Biden’s presidential adds! Brilliant!
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Leaving *rump on the ballot will invite a second January 6. He will not accept loosing the vote. He will continue the big lie.
As you have admitted, he is an insurrectionist and that alone should disqualify him from being on the ballot along with disqualifying him from ever holding office.
We should uphold the law and in this case the 14th amendment.
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I agree.
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Trump, the Teflon Don 2.0, has gotten away with a lifetime of flouting the law with impunity. Enough. Time for him to be held to account.
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what Insurrection? FBI, antifa, and many agents were ones doing this with pelosi and many others. This was coordinated, how about you watch some of the tapes and see exactly what happened instead of listening to joy reid and rachael maddcow. Trump is being slandered all over and he is winning, black votes and spanish votes coming his way too. its over baby!!!. The most extensive voter fraud party the dems will continue to cheat
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FBI, antifa, and many agents were ones doing this with pelosi and many others
The level of gullability required to come to this conclusion is staggering. I’m thinking IQ in the mid 70s.
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Bob, “Chewy” is our goofy troll, who pops up with new names almost every day. I leave him alone because his comments display the utter stupidity of the MAGA-nuts.
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IKR? This same person was banned at one point from your site and started posting again and again and again on mine. Just got one today offering to bet me $1,000 dollars against my $10,000 that Trump would win. But then he went on to say that what with electronic ballots and what not, if he doesn’t win, it’s cheating. So, he would his bet either way if I were idiot enough to take it.
I think that this person might well be an alcoholic because he gets into binge mode with the texts. They say that the great Faulkner scholars know just where, in his books, he had had too much to drink but continued writing.
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And, Diane, I’m glad you leave his stuff. It’s hilarious and self parodying and it’s great to read in his stuff what’s out there on the bizarro Reich-wing memosphere these days.
Let’s see. We have this huge deficit and no willingness to raise taxes on the rich. Putin has just fielded hypersonic nuclear missiles and is threatening the United Kingdom and various NATO states. A rapist and Russian asset is the leading candidate for president of the United States. Birds and amphibians and insects, including pollinators, are experiencing cataclysmic declines in their populations, from 60 to 95 percent, depending on the species. We are experiencing extreme droughts, flooding, tornadoes, and hurricanes due to global warming and have done nothing to counter it. By midcentury, at current rates, ALL commercial fish species will have collapsed. Our elderly can’t afford dental work and are going without it, often at extreme cost in suffering and shame. A quarter of our children are food insecure (and in the worst state for this, Arkansas, the freaking governor just rejected a federal government offer to give the poorest families another $40 a month for food). Women are dying because they can’t terminate fatally flawed pregnancies.
And what are Republicans in Congress interested in?
Hunter Biden’s laptop.
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gullibility
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My brother and I have had an intense argument about this issue. I think that the court should block him from being on the ballot. My brother doesn’t want state Attorneys General deciding whether particular candidates have, earlier in their lives, acted as insurrectionists. To see his point, think of someone who participated in a protest calling for the impeachment of Richard Nixon for war crimes and withdrawal from Vietnam at which there was property damage, say, the burning of draft cards. Was that an insurrection? I think that the definition of insurrection for the purposes of the 14th Amendment has to be violent uprising with the goal of overthrowing the government. I would argue that in the case of the Vietnam protest, the protest itself was not an attempted coup, and a coup or attempted coup is what the Amendment was talking about.
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Was John Hinckley an insurrectionist? He tried to murder the President, but did he try to overthrow the government?
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I would say that this qualifies as an attempted overthrow of the government and that John Hinckely should therefore have been forever barred from holding political office in the United States. I’m good with that.
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Hinckley never took the oath of office. That’s required in Section 3.
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You are right. He never previously took an oath to uphold the Constitution (that we know of).
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If I were on the court and had to rule on this, I would say that trying to kill the president is a variety of “attempt at overthrowing the government.” Again, I am fine with would-be president murderers being barred from office under this Amendment.
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I’m fine with the result but I’m not sure I agree with the rationale.
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I agree. I would have to give some time and thought to the rationale. But I am inclined, first glance, to say that yes, attempted murder of a head of state is an attempted overthrow of the government, even if the rest of the government would remain with him or her gone.
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No, he tried to seduce Jodi Foster.
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I agree, Diane.
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So, in what situations should the court rule that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does apply if not in ones in which someone attempted the overthrow of the government?
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It certainly applied to those office holders named in the amendment who swore an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and who fought in a war against the Union. That’s the heartland. Beyond that it’s not clear to me—I really haven’t looked at this beyond reading a few articles.
“Overthrow the government” is interesting. Is an attempt to stop the counting of electoral votes an attempt to “overthrow the government”?
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Is an attempt to stop the counting of electoral votes an attempt to “overthrow the government”?
Yes. It clearly is. The election created a new government. Stopping the counting of the votes overthrows that government. So, this was an attempted overthrow of the new government. My take.
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Yes, FLERP, I think that qualifies. Diane’s position is more pragmatic, and looks beyond the legal ability to disqualify to the political ramifications of doing so.
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14th Amendment text: “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.”
flerp!’s comment: “It certainly applied to those office holders named in the amendment who swore an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and who fought in a war against the Union.”
There is nothing — NOT ONE WORD – about “fought in a war in a Union” in the amendment.
flerp!, the text of the amendment says nothing about “war” at all. Nor does it mention “Union”.
What is mentioned is people who have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
There is no mention of fighting a war against the Union. The 14th amendment is about those who fought against the Constitution.
And if your point is that the Supreme Court has a good chance of ruling that Biden has free reign to incite violent rebellion to stop a different president from being installed, so he can remain in power after losing an election, then that’s fine, but why you think it isn’t obvious why the amendment doesn’t allow sitting presidents to stay in power through inciting people to violently prevent the winning candidate from holding office is beyond my understanding. Wise legal minds presented arguments for why this is an obvious call, and no one – including you – has presented anything resembling a coherent legal argument to justify their absurd contention that the amendment was never meant to prevent a sitting president from inciting a violent mob to prevent anyone from taking over the presidency except him.
I hope our lousy, complicit media makes sure that everyone who says that sitting presidents should be able to incite a mob to violently prevent their legally elected successor from taking office – because that isn’t insurrection!! — endorse that Biden should feel free to do that, too.
I just find it odd that anyone who believes in democracy thinks that the intent of the amendment was to condone insurrection by a sitting president.
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NYC public school parent writes: “Wise legal minds presented arguments for why this is an obvious call, and no one – including you – has presented anything resembling a coherent legal argument to justify their absurd contention that the amendment was never meant to prevent a sitting president from inciting a violent mob to prevent anyone from taking over the presidency except him.”
NYC: You missed the bus to Context with “coherent.” You see . . . it’s a problem of interpretation. To “them,” coherent means *it’s what Trump and the Maga Morons want.”
+Bob’s two notes on words are worthy for everyone’s refrigerator door. CBK
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Trump is definitely awful, but the Biden Justice Department has not even indicted him under existing laws governing insurrection, let alone secured a conviction after a criminal trial. The U.S. Supreme Court should – and likely will – overturn state court and officials’ decisions removing him from the ballot. The SCOTUS vote should be 9-0, thus refuting the narrative that only conservative justices will support the Trump argument.
I agree that it’s best for Trump to be beaten fair and square next November. That’s the only hope to destroy the cult of personality that controls the Republican party now.
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Some have been arguing that Trump cannot be barred from standing for office in 2024 because he has not yet been charged and convicted of insurrection. This is ahistorical. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applied to all who had engaged in insurrection against the United States, MOST OF WHOM HAD NOT BEEN CHARGED AND CONVICTED AND WERE NOT EXPECTED TO BE CHARGED AND CONVICTED. Having engaged in insurrection was sufficient to bar a person from office. Having been convicted of insurrection or even charged was not required by this Amendment. The act of insurrection was sufficient.
And, of course, Trump engaged in insurrection several times over, in several different ways, concurrently:
by pressuring his VP to violate his duty and refuse to accept the state electors’ ballots,
by running slates of fake electors,
by asking “his” court to rule illegally that the vote was questionable,
by pressuring the head election officials of various states to invalidate their elections or “find” votes for him, and
by encouraging a violent mob to attack the Capitol to prevent the counting of the electoral ballots.
So, he is, clearly, an insurrectionist SEVERAL TIMES OVER, and if the Supreme Court finds otherwise, it has given up any pretense of ruling according to the law. It is simply a collocation of partisan political hacks.
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We’ll have to wait for SCOTUS to rule on the legal questions regarding this matter. If I were deciding the case purely on partisan political grounds, I would keep Trump on primary and general ballots everywhere. Despite the current polling data, I believe that he would be a very weak candidate in November after the campaign ads bring to public attention his appalling conduct after the 2020 election. Nikki Haley would crush Biden, Harris, or any other Democratic candidate. Be careful what you wish for.
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I suspect that you are right about that, Mr. Kernster. I suspect that Haley would crush Biden in a head to head, A Wall Street Journal poll has her beating Biden by 17 points!!!!
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Meanwhile, as I write this, police are responding to yet another shooting at yet another school, this time in Perry, Iowa, about which the Repugnican Party will do nothing.
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I find myself, alas, disagreeing with Diane Ravitch! Given her brilliance and insight, this gives me pause. LOL.
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I was shocked when he won the first time. I do not preclude that he could win again (especially since the GOP has ravaged the Middle Class, with Dem support) so the bulk of voters are disaffected.
The weakness in your approach is that if Trump runs and loses he can run again. All him losing would give us is time for the various court cases he is involved in to run their courses.
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So the Constitution does not apply to rich white men.
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exactly
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Hi Bob: In your list, you left out Trump’s sin of omission/his inaction while the violence was occurring. (Hardly anything more telling than that as he was watching all along.)
DIANE: I disagree with your take also: If Trump runs for office anyway (regardless of the Constitution’s disallowance), and wins, then we have allowed as clear a breach of the Constitution as could be, and the whole rule of law is ruined (it loses its respect and power to order our lives) . . . it becomes meaningless because we who are law abiding will have bowed to the MAGA cult’s intimidation and political stupidity–which makes us all cowards. BAD IDEA. CBK
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Thanks, CBK, for the correction! –Bob
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BOB: Also, as others have said here, even if Trump loses, he won’t quit with the lying and whining, that Fox and others will spread across the land; and incredibly ignorant people who have lost their philosophical bearings (re the truth) will believe and so be inspired by their overload of misguided political outrage. CBK
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Yes. Trump has made it clear, and his cult goes along with this, that it is impossible for him to lose an election. It’s an impossibility like a round square.
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I’m not confident that Trump will lose, especially with so many states in GOP control, who will cheat. Maybe, we’re stuck with Biden, but I wish there was an alternative who would be more appealing to voters who might sit out the vote. In general, Dems are not addressing people’s insecurities and Biden’s support for Israel’s war is turning many off.
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I, too, am not confident that Trump will lose, despite the Democrats’ surprisingly strong showing in the midterms. Here are a few reasons not to be sanguine about this: a) Joe Biden has the lowest approval rating of any incumbent president at this point in his tenure; b) Biden’s age and potential for missteps and gaffes precludes his running an active campaign in person, out in the world, in front of the cameras, and this is a huge problem for his campaign, perhaps an insurmountable one; c) the Trumpists are galvanized to get out and vote, for they don’t just not like Bidenl but, rather, utterly loathe him for some bizarre reason; d) Biden has been hemorrhaging support among Blacks and young people, and getting out these groups (think of Obama’s victories) has been key to Democratic wins in the past. If they stay home this time, Biden loses.
So, I don’t think it a foregone conclusion that Trump will lose.
The Biden DOJ should have made sure that the criminal rapist pathological liar, malignant pathological narcissist, would-be authoritarian dictator, con man, and Russian asset Trump was behind bars a long time ago. That it did not will forever stain an otherwise admirable administration.
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Add to that the Electoral College. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College.
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Merrick Garland waited too long to start the federal investigation of Trump’s multiple crimes.
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He certainly did. This was shameful. It makes a mockery of the phrase appearing above the West entrance to the Supreme Court: Equal Justice Under Law.
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About your option D. It isn’t that Biden is hemorrhaging support among blacks and young people. It’s the far Left policies that MOST people really don’t like. People are leaving the Dem party…period. We aren’t running to the GOP…..we are running from the loud and ridiculous far Left. I will re-register as a Dem (I’m now an I) when the Dem party returns to a more centrist and nuanced party for “We the People”.
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I was sharing info from an article I read about polls showing that his support among Blacks and young people was in sharp decline. I’m busy with something else right now, or I would try to look that up.
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You don’t have to look it up. It’s likely cherry picked data anyway. All I’m trying to point out is that MANY people have left the DEM party and the reasons seem to be very similar. It doesn’t mean that “we” will vote R……it just means that “we” are not satisfied with Dem party platform and “we” refuse to participate any longer.
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LisaM,
Which of Biden’s policies do you consider “far left”?
There is most certainly a “far-right” in the Republican Party, and it is the mainstream.
There is a “far left” in the Democratic Party but they are not in the mainstream and do not control the party or President Biden.
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I felt the same way about the refusal of mainstream Democrats to get behind Medicare for all. That they are also beholden to the healthcare industry that steals have of our healthcare dollar in this country to buy helipads for their big shareholders is sickening. And I’m sorry you are going through those personal concerns related to Democratic policy. Perhaps they will resolve themselves in time.
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Many fools consider far left to be anything Third Way or No Labels opposes.
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I agree. Trump hasn’t done anything remarkable after leaving the office. It is Biden and Democrats who have been creating the situation that is turning so many people off. It is Biden and his administration’s implicit support of Israel that is costing the support of young democrats. He just lost another official –who is a Palestinian-American–who was appointed to the Department of Education.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/cc5217b9-6dde-4391-a4fd-abbc57602792.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_4
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Trump hasn’t done anything remarkable since leaving office?
He has promulgated his big lie about the election being stolen.
He has announced his candidacy for president again.
He has squirreled away large numbers of highly classified, top secret documents in ball rooms and bathrooms at his freaking country club.
He has lied continually to his base and fomented Civil War.
He has expressed his support for dictators around the globe.
He has promised that he would be a dictator if reelected and would run a government intent upon vendettas against his enemies.
He has somehow “lost track of” highly secret intelligence files having to do with Israel and Russia and Saudi Arabia.
He has failed to return items he and his family stole from the White House.
His son-in-law has received 2-billion (with a B) from the Saudis, and Trump has been the figurehead of the Saudi public relations campaign for its new golf league.
Need I go on? Because I could.
And no, young people in general are not abandoning Biden over Palestine, though there have been some small-scale pro-Palestinian protests on campuses. A recent study showed that the young people of the United States who are in college, who are doubtless the most aware of our young people, have no clue what the phrase “from the river to the sea” means and what river and sea are being talked about. That’s how familiar with the situation in Gaza they are. My strong suspicion is that if you polled people in their 20s in the U.S. about Biden’s policy re: Gaza, most of them would have no clue what it is or what the administration has done. No idea.
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It would be ironic if American Muslims and their sympathizers helped to re-elect Trump. Did they forget that he wanted to impose a complete ban on immigrants from Muslim countries?
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I still remember the moment democrats blamed everyone except for themselves on Clinton’s loss in 2016. That’s when I lost my respect for them. It’s totally unaccepable. Opponent’s idiocy doesn’t justify their disturbing behavior.
I would call it dejavu all over again, should Biden lose to Trump and Democrats and liberals started smearing Arab-American voters.
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Ken,
Trump won’t win. Even Arab-American voters will vote for Biden. Trump wanted to exclude all Muslim immigrants.
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Fear of potentially (assuredly?) violent consequences is no reason not to do the right thing, which is to stand by the Constitution and rule of law and not bend to the fickle will of the loudest, angriest segment of the population. Ami I being pedantic? Don’t spare my feelings.
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I agree entirely.
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William Exactly . . . the issue is spine or spineless for those of us who support the rule of law and our Constitution.
Also, and BTW, all that flap about the Nikki Haley Civil War/Slavery gaffe? There’s that double-standard again, and more evidence of a MAGA/Trump cult: Everyone but Trump is held to a standard that never applies to Trump and his game show mentality. CBK
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william– I did not read Diane’s position as fear of potentially violent consequences. I read it as a prediction that erasing Trump from the ballot would simply fully activate his base and expand it– if that ever should happen IRL. SCOTUS is not going to take up CO &/or ME cases and rule that Trump gets to stay on or get off the ballot.
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SCOTUS announced tonight that it will rule on the CO case. I hope they kick him off if they truly are textualists, but I would be surprised if they do.
If he stays on the ballot, I predict he loses by 10 million votes.
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I am late to this discussion, but had to put my two cents in. If we ignore the clear understanding of the 14th Amendment on insurrection, what other parts of the Amendment can we decide to ignore? A rigorous democratic process led to the codification of the 14th Amendment. There is nothing antidemocratic about following it. As William says, we can’t ignore it because we are afraid of the MAGA crowd. Have we decided to follow the Constitution and the rule of law only when it is comfortable?
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Totally agree, Speduktr!
On this day our memory of the fallen in this horrific event should be foremost, and if we allow him to escape punishment under the CLEAR meaning of the law, then that will be a national disgrace, and the idea that we are a nation of laws a bad joke.
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And among the victims of the January 6th insurrection were the people who took part in it, who DID WHAT THEIR PRESIDENT TOLD THEM TO DO.
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Trump may lose, but he will then say the election was rigged and promote action that may be even worse than the first round. And if he doesn’t lose? well then the election “wasn’t rigged” and we are all screwed.
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Exactly.
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Meanwhile, Putin is gleefully talking about the possibility of Civil War in the United States, something that through his dog, Trump, he has been working toward for a long time. There is no winning against Trump, and that’s why Garland’s sleeping for so long on bringing charges against him and putting him in prison was such a colossal mistake.
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Let’s assume that Trump is actually guilty of the crimes he is accused of. Why did it take so long for him to be indicted, and why are the trials all scheduled during the 2024 campaign season? I would love to see Trump held accountable for his actions, but in fairness to him I can’t help believing that prosecutors timed their actions to politically help Democrats. All of the alleged crimes occurred by the end of January, 2021 at the latest. Investigations and grand jury proceedings – no matter how painstaking – did not require 2+ years to complete.
Two things can both be true, and likely are true: (1) Trump is guilty of numerous crimes and belongs in prison (2) Prosecutors allowed partisan politics to factor into their official actions regarding Trump.
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One of the folks who posts here from time to time was a former federal prosecutor. His take is that the delay was due simply to the fact that it takes that long to prepare a case in situations like those involving Trump.
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I am suspicious of that argument. It didn’t take them long to go after the little guys involved with January 6th. But our prosecutor says, correctly, that the Trump cases are a lot more complicated and that they really want to have their ducks in a row before going after the big guy. Nonetheless, I was asking for a long time whether someone might wake up Sleepy Merrick Garland and get him to do his freaking job.
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We will have to deal with an unprecedented amount of Russian propaganda that is more sophisticated on social media. Russians will be bombarding Americans with deep fakes and other misleading information that will evaporate before any laws can address them.
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It’s gotten really bad. I get tons of this stuff, and it’s really worrisome. Constant vigilance.
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Though I question that prosecutor’s judgment at my peril. He’s a sharp person, and his posts are generally well-reasoned and wise.
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Joe Kernster– The documents case dragged well beyond Jan ’21. Natl Archives dickered with Trump for a yr before receiving 15 boxes in Jan ’22. The 150 classified docts included were of such a high-level nature that they subpoenad him that spring for the rest (to no avail), finally seding Justice Dept into Mar a Lago that June, then FBI that August, for a total haul of 300 highly classified docts.
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Which is just insane. If this had been anyone ordinary person, he would have been arrested and jailed immediately. All these guys like Merrick Garland keep saying that we are a national of laws and that no one is above the law. And then they do this.
I guarantee you that if someone told the FBI that your Uncle Vinnie had ONE classified document, a swat team would be knocking down his door the next day, he would be hauled off to jail immediately, he would be tried for the OBVIOUS crime in very little time at all, and then he would be in prison.
We have two systems. A justice system for you and me. And a “just us” system for the likes of Don the Con. It’s sickening. It is the worm at the heart of the apple that is American democracy.
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The FBI never searched his golf club in Bedminster. Or his other hiding places. They don’t even know what’s missing. I think he sold some.
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I do not believe he will win but no one thought he would win the first time . Look what happened the last time we trusted the wisdom of the SC-we received tge rigged election of Bush vs . Gore . We cannot take a chance in the whimsy caprices of millions of Trump acolytes voting away our democracy .
No matter what the SC decides and even if Trump lost by 50 million votes ,he will still resort to his hijinks again . A narcissistic , borderline sociopath knows no other way .
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no one thought he would win the first time
Exactly
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I disagree because he violated the Constitution. This should be about the Constitution. Why should Trump get a free pass?
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He has gotten free passes all his life. That needs to stop. Now.
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Apparently, there are others who feel this would be the right way to get rid of him.
From Bob Cesca in The Banter:
“It will benefit us greatly if we continue to operate under the assumption that he won’t be removed from any ballots. We need to approach this election with a level of energy and fury that’s equal to the very real threat of a fascist dictatorship and the end of democracy. I’m optimistic that Joe Biden can win again – as long as we don’t get happy. But if we’re sitting on the sidelines waiting for a judge or panel of justices to save us, we will most assuredly lose.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/thebanter/p/heres-how-trump-could-lose-the-nomination?r=ottd6&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
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“…a significant part of the population will believe that he was removed for partisan reasons. For the rest of his life, he will rail about the “rigged” election and how he was cheated.”
But his supporters and he himself will believer this EITHER WAY– whether he is removed or OR runs and loses. trumpers are working right now to steal the elections. We should use every opportunity to stop him. Remove him now, and if that doesn’t work, THEN work against him in the election, and of course pursue all the legal cases against him throughout.
The trumper insurrectionist traitors are going to be with us in any case–, breaking laws, advocating violence, threatening and attacking at will, in FULL denial of whatever, whether trump is elected or not, alive or dead.
Let us not be “The patriots who gave them the rope with which they hung us,” to paraphrase lenin.
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Lenin’s words are particularly chilling right now. “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we shall hang them.” Fat cats who care only about their tax breaks have coddled and supported Trump, and Trump has sought the destruction of our alliances and the end of democracy itself here. And he has brought us closer to Civil War than we have been since 1860. Vladimir has gotten exactly what he wanted in return for his long-term investment in his dog Trump.
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Perhaps a split decision may be that he can remain on the ballot, giving citizens the ability to vote or reject him. But he would be disqualified from taking office, based on Section 3, which prohibits an insurrectionist from holding office, unless 66.5% of both houses of Congress vote to allow him to do so. Even the Originalist Supremes ought to be able to see their way clear to that.
Also, remember when Trump got Covid, and we though he might die? I’m waiting for the deus ex machina of this election.
One more thing, I wish the media would broadcast, on all of its varied platforms, the archival events of January 6, 2021, just as they unfolded on that date. The Washington Post reports today that 25% of Americans believe Jan. 6 was an FBI operation. Wall to wall footage might be a good antidote.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/04/fbi-conspiracy-jan-6-attack-misinformation/
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Christine,
I’m hoping that the 25% of the electorate who believe that Jan 6 was led by the FBI are the same percentage who will vote for him: 25%.
The Trump cult used to say that Jan 6 was Antifa.
Maybe they think Antifa is the FBI?
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Is “think” the right word choice?
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As noted in the article by Thom Hartmann recently posted on this blog (tho I can’t find it now), Republicans know there are more of us than them, so they have been very busy doing all they can in regard voter suppression. This ranges from trying again to make voting by mail illegal, dropping legal voters from the roles, such as those with minor changes in their signatures, to extensive gerrymandering, to closing and limiting voting locations, to preventing college students from voting on campus and making them go home to vote.
These are the same people who made it illegal to give water to thirsty people who are waiting in long voting lines, so I have no doubt there is more up their sleeves. I think it it would be a HUGE mistake to believe they WON”T get away with stealing the election this time. And there is way too much at stake to leave chooseing a known dictator-wannabe up to voters –who might not actually be able to vote due to the antics of the GOP. So I don’t think it would be wise to keep Trump’s name on the ballot if it can be removed by states and the courts due to his behaviors as an insurrectionist.
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So would it be correct to say that you’d like, hope, want the Supreme Court to violate the constitution?
Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS
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Sadly, they (SCOTUS) regularly violate the Constitution. They did it by overlooking Clarence Thomas’ blatant grifting. They sue it in Dobbs. Like “Alice in Wonderland,” the Constitution says whatever they want it to say.
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Thanks for responding, but I don’t think you answered my question.
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Here is your question:
“So would it be correct to say that you’d like, hope, want the Supreme Court to violate the constitution?”
No, I do not want or hope that the Supreme Court will violate the Constitution. I would like and hope and want them to be literal and abide by the clear wording of Sectuon 3 of the 14th Amendment. But I don’t expect them to. I expect them to twist the words and leave Trump on the ballot. But I believe it will ultimately work out well because Trump will lose by an even greater margin than in 2020. He will whine about fraud, rigged election, blah, blah. And he will be a laughing stock.
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That clarifies matters nicely, thanks.
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In confirmation hearings, the Leonard Leo and Charles Koch-picked SCOTUS nominees said law about abortion was settled. Sen. Susan Collins said she was deceived by the jurists.
Diane is correct in her assessment about SCOTUS..
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The way that red states are placing new limits on the ability of people to vote — especially on likely Democratic voters — combined with the way red states have gerrymandered their districts, there is no guarantee that Trump will again lose the popular vote and/or lose the Electoral College vote.
Even if Trump were to lose the election, the results would not be accepted by his faithful followers or by Republican lawmakers and Party leaders, pushing America even further toward a civil breakup that could spell disaster for our nation.
It would be far better for the U.S. Supreme Court to agree with the Colorado Supreme Court that Trump engaged in insurrection and is therefore both in violation of his Oath of Office and is also ineligible to hold any government office in accord with Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That would make his being on the ballots mute because why would the Republican Party choose as their presidential candidate a person who could not serve even if elected? The Republican Party would select someone else as their presidential candidate and the fight between that person and Trump supporters would be very interesting…and it would also guarantee a Democratic Party victory.
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It was clearly an insurrection. The Confederate battle flag was raised. Let’s, just for whits and giggles though, say the Supreme Court rules that Jan 6 was an insurrection, and Trump is barred from the ballot. That would also mean that anyone who swore an oath the Constitution and gave aid or comfort to the insurrectionists and Trump is also disabled from holding office. Nearly the entire Republican Party would have to be removed from government to uphold the law. That would be dangerous to national security and also set a dangerous legal precedent. Might anyone who gave aid or comfort to 2020 Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon be removed as well? There go all the Democrats too.
Fear not, however, because the Roberts Court, with its masterful mendacity, will save the day and not interpret the 14th Amendment contra the Republican Party. The Roberts Republican Supreme Court justices glibly make jambalaya of the 1st Amendment, so why not the 14th? Even if it were clear cut that January 6th was a coordinated, armed rebellion meant to force surrender of the United States government, even if the people who stormed the Capitol had been a well regulated militia with commanding officers and grey uniforms, Trump would still make the ballot. Not to worry.
Diane, you are sagacious as ever. Inviting Trump to run and lose the 2024 election is the perfect thing for President Joey R Biden to do. The SCOTUS will do what the SCOTUS will do. Energetically saying, “Get your butt on the ballot, and bring on the fight, you worm!” is a great campaign strategy. I hope his campaign team realizes that.
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The current court will twist the law and reasoning every which way from the second Sunday of the week to arrive at the foregone Repugnican conclusions they and their extremist priests and ministers and fat cat providers of luxury vacations want. Justice? Law? Such quaint notions. These exist for the current supermajority solely for the purpose of providing flimsy rationalizations. The cover of legality. You are right, LCT. The clear meaning of this other other laws simply does not matter to them.
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Biden would be a shoe-in for the second term if he used precisely these words on this subject:
“Get your butt on the ballot, and bring on the fight, you worm!”
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Despite the rather odd image of a worm butt.
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I’m tempted to discuss dissecting earthworms in high school. Better not to, I suppose.
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There are few topics as fascinating. Charles Darwin wrote, as you might know, a truly superb book on earthworms, The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits. He was the fellow who figured out how much we owe to their aerating the soil.
Two superb opportunities for photographs from historical times were missed, and the missing pictures form magnificent scenes in my mind:
The first is of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, in her signature black mourning clothing, receiving Black Elk and other performers in a private audience for the Queen of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show.
The second is of 80-year-old Charles Darwin with his amazing growth of beard PLAYING THE SAXOPHONE FOR A TRAY FULL OF EARTHWORMS in an attempt to figure out if they had a sense of hearing. (Darwin actually did this.)
I am tempted to do a drawing of a worm, complete with worm butt and a Trumpy face. In lieu of that, I leave you with this:
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And this:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10232311504317424&set=a.1200477179262
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What an invitation to the imagination that is!
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I agree, LCT, that every member of Congress who supported the insurrection should be removed from office.
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Starting with the ringleaders, Ted Cruz and Jim Jordan. Co-conspirators.
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Diane “should be removed from office.” You read my mind when I was reading that note above. But how is that different from disallowing Trump from running because of his insurrection activities and the Amendment?
Worm butts aside, I am also thinking of lots of cartoons about Lady Justice and her blindfold. . . . CBK
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Evidently that blindfold has kept her from seeing any of the lifetime of crimes committed by The Don, Cheeto “Littlefingers” Trumpbalone, aka Don the Con. And this image continually occurs to me as well:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=248502045185400&set=pob.1448524152
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CBK,
In a different world, where the Constitution were taken seriously as our founding document, Trump would be removed along with those in Congress who voted to reject the results of the Electoral College in 2020. They are as guilty of violating Section 2 of the 14th Amendment as Trump. But it’s not going to happen. If so, I would like to see Biden crush Trump at the polls in November.
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Diane Thank you for responding to my note. I’d also love to see Biden beat Trump at the polls. But I think the Constitution, as battered and ignored as it is, is way too much to give up for whatever satisfactions we might get from seeing Trump lose–and I know that would be a Rocky Mountain High for huge numbers of us.
BTW, in the discussion about being so influenced by “optics,” I was reminded of the Comey situation with Hilary. No matter what Comey said about his decision to raise questions so late in the game, I have always thought he also was swayed by the fear of poking the Trump bear, his voters, and whoever those disgusting moral midgets are who harass poll workers and judges. CBK
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CBK,
I Hold James Comey responsible for Trump’s win. When I worked in the first Bush administration, all of us were warned y the Department’s Ethics Officer to do nothing in the last few weeks of the election that would have any bearing on the election. That was widely understood throughout the government. Comey chose to intervene only days before the election, announcing that the FBI was re-opening the investigation of her emails. At that moment, she was far ahead in the polls. Comey closed the investigation a couple of days before the election. But what he did was enough to cause some Hillary voters to stay home.
I know a lawyer who is close to Comey. He says Comey had a duty to warn. I don’t agree.
Charges fly in the last days of an election. No federal official should tilt the playing field.
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Diane Yes about Comey and Hilary. . . exactly that, though, from what I could tell at the time and later in his book, he claimed it was a legitimate action. As with the Gore debacle, the whole thing makes me sick to my stomach. CBK
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In case anyone has trouble with identifying these, they are, clockwise:
a blobfish
a parasitic lamprey
the moronovirus Trumptitus orangiaii
a penis fish
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If this gets reversed 9-0 I’ll be checking back in here with you and others.
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9-0 reversal, hot off the presses.
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BTW, there is a report out today that the wife of Bill Ackmann, who pressured the Harvard Corporation to fire President Gay over allegations of plagiarism plagiarized parts of her MIT dissertation. I bring this up because I want to defend them both.
I have been a professional editor for most of my life. I even wrote a best-selling textbook on writing the research paper, which included extensive information on documentation styles.
Having edited MANY prominent public and not-so-public intellectuals, I can tell you without a doubt that almost all of them commit errors in documentation. THESE ARE EXTREMELY COMMON AND CAN BE FOUND IN ALMOST ANY EXTENDED ACADEMIC WORK, and the reasons are obvious enough. Often, an extended work is done over years. It is easy enough for people to make mistakes in their notetaking and not to remember many months later that some delicious phrase in his or her notes was not original. And errors of transcription and editing and typesetting also occur.
This was no reason for the corporation to ask for Dr. Gay’s resignation.
The refusal to say straight up without equivocation that calling for genocide against Jews is a violation of university policy? That’s another matter. I think, on reflection, that were it up to me, I would ask for a public retraction of that and a clarification that university policy indeed would not allow that without sure punishment.
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because I wish to defend both Dr. Gay and Bill Ackman’s wife, a renowned designer
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I am an expert, professional editor, but most posts are full of errors. People make mistakes in editing and writing. That’s why editors exist. They shouldn’t be fired for them. They belong to the “shit happens” class of phenomena. Btw, even though I am a professional editor with significant credentials in my field, when I do work where documentation style is concerned, I have to refer to stylebooks. Even I do not have all the minutiae of documentation style in the many accepted forms (MLA, Chicago, AP, APA, COBE, GPO, etc) memorized, and these change all the time.
And how many fat cats hired a professional editor to clean up their documentation before submitting their theses and dissertations to committee?
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I hope you will forgive me, but I can’t resist the impulse to comment and say thank you for much for citing Bill Ackmann’s wife’s “plagiarism” and your take on it. Spot on. Apparently that kind of “plagiarism” only entirely discredits a scholar’s reputation when people who are not privileged do it. I have no doubt Ackmann’s wife “plagiarism” will be minimized, which you point out is a reasonable response. But the hypocrisy and double standards are glaring.
Once again, apologies. Very glad you mentioned that in your comment.
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Same. And let me say, your comments about whether Trump should be on the ballots were spot on. As both you and Timothy Snyder argued, it is simply a matter of applying the law as intended. There is no doubt at all that Trump is in insurrectionist many times over.
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Thank you.
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If he doesn’t divorce her he’s a hypocrite!
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“divorce”?? what does that have to do with anything? I did not hear Ackmann demand Gay divorce her spouse (if she has one).
Do you mean, if he doesn’t denounce his wife and shout that she was undeserving of all of her positions in academia, he’s a hypocrite? Maybe you believe he should publicly donate all the money his unqualified plagiarist wife took from Epstein and announce to the media that his wife must be condemned for accepting such tainted money just to support her plagiarism-infected and discredited work at MIT?
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LOL, Flerp. That was funny.
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I want Trump defeated, too. Still there is a risk to let him stay on the ballot in every state in 2024. Trump is going to cheat. The traitor is already cheating. He tried to cheat to pull off a coup but failed, so far.
Back in 2016 I read a piece that said to insure winning both the popular vote and the electoral college without risk of losing would take more than 15,000,000 votes.
In 2016 Hillary lost to Trump through the Electoral College and she had the largest popular vote in U.S. history compared to other Electoral College wins over popular votes.
In 2020, Biden won the popular vote by about 8,000,000 but could have lost the Electoral College in the six battle ground states by a few hundred thousand votes, and Biden would have still won the popular vote by about 7.6 million votes, but Trump would still be president lying that Biden cheated to get 7.6 million more votes than the traitor.
My guess is that in a Trump vs Biden 2024 presidential campaign, Biden will win the popular vote by about 10,000,000 more votes than Trump, but Trump could still win through the Electoral College, because he’s not going to stop cheating and lying with support from millions of dangerously dumb and dumber MAGARINOs causing chaos at every turn.
Due to that risk, Trump must not be allowed to run. He has to be in a prison in New York state or Georgia serving a sentence that means he will die behind bars, broke and skinny (I can’t imagine the traitor holding on to his excess weight on prison food). The fraud case the traitor already lost in New York state comes with a potential of more than 130-years in prison. And that’s just one court case. The one in Georgia may add more years to that, but I think once in prison in New York state, that is where the traitor will die… unless he runs to North Korea or Russia on his private jet before they can lock him up.
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If Repugnicans had the sense their guy in the sky gave lettuce, they would ensure that Trump is imprisoned ASAP to clear the way for a candidate on their side who has a clear chance of winning. Trump is an iffy deal for them. And ofc would be in a second term a disaster for our country and for the world of epic proportions. A cataclysm.
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What’s worse than a cataclysm?
ANSWER: an apocalypse
And that is what most if not all extreme right fundamentalist evangelicals, that are not real Christians, want.
They support Traitor Trump because they want the traitor to bring on the end times, since they believe once everyone’s dead, they are all on their way to heaven without the rest of us.
Lunatics support Traitor Trump.
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I can see Diane’s point here. It would be a clear rejection of trumpism if it came in the polls. That said, trumpists are just as sure that there is no justice unless it falls to their advantage. If he wins, it was in spite of the conspiracy. If he loses, it is because of the conspiracy.
As far as his conviction goes, I wonder what will be the outcome if a jury finds him guilty of the various accusations. I understand some of these are felonies. Can we have a person as President who has been convicted of a felony? Imagine the conservatives if a group of black Americans had stormed the capital. They would be drowning in their own spittle as they decried the outrage.
It was mentioned above in a comment that people were put off by “the far left.” I am old enough to remember the real left, and some of them were far left. Bombs were sent to university programs that were perceived as supporting war. Farther back, Alexander Berkman went after industrialist Henry Clay Frick with a knife. That is happening on the right now, with attacks on places like synagogues and black churches. But it does not happen on the left much. Someday it will. This an indication of how far right our political time is.
A trump presidency is possible only because of the lurch to the right we are into now.
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Traitor Trump’s crime family, the one he leads, has already been found guilty of a felony in New York state. The penalty has not been decided yet. I’ve read that judge’s decision may arrive in the next few months and with it a penalty that may be $250 million along with a jail sentence with up to 134 years in prison.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/judge-finds-trump-liable-fraud-new-york-civil-case-2023-09-26/
Even IF the traitor stays on the ballot and wins the Electoral College in 2024, he cannot pardon himself out of this fraud verdict.
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From all I can tell, there is nothing in the constitution preventing a felon from running. Eugene V Debbs ran for President from prison, but I do not know what he was convicted of.
It is remarkable that felons cannot vote in many states, but each of them could run for President.
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true that, roy
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More of Trump’s voters should listen to his medical advice.
At a WH briefing he said, “What do you have to lose? Take it (hydroxychloroquine).
French researchers reported on their findings- nearly 17,000 people, probably more, died across 6 countries as a result of taking the drug as a Covid medication. (The Hill)
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Haaaaa!!!!!!
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Reading this discussion is depressing. Trump should not be allowed on the ballot because LEGALLY (as well and morally and ethically) he should not be on the ballot. It is entirely irrelevant whether Trump being struck from the ballot will help Trump or hurt Trump or help the Democrats or hurt them. The “optics” are irrelevant. Right and wrong matters.
This reminds me of the many similar discussions in 2019 – should the Dems impeach Trump or not after he illegally extorted Ukraine? So many “very important” voices in the so-called liberal media and who claimed to be Democrats or “not Trump supporters” said the Dems must not impeach Trump and they gave a myriad of views which almost all boiled down to “optics”. Unless a Republican publicly confesses to criminal behavior, no evidence no matter how extensive, compelling and unimpeachable, is ever enough to even investigate them, because of “optics”. It would look “partisan”.
I was so proud of the Democrats (shout out to Adam Schiff) for not letting the nearly universal chorus of “it will seem too partisan” guide them when they decided to hold impeachment hearings DESPITE hearing non-stop that it would just help Trump and make them look bad and partisan. Turns out that doing the right thing actually can be popular even if it starts out as UNpopular.
The evidence that Trump is an insurrectionist is unimpeachable. And the legal defenses are so absurd that if the person was making those defenses about anyone who wasn’t a powerful Republican, they would be laughed out of the room. Trump didn’t just yell “fire” in a crowded theater. Trump is a man who spent weeks claiming there was a fire, getting multiple investigations to search for evidence of a fire, getting court decisions and multiple careful “hand re-searches” of the places where Trump believed there was fire, and he was finally told specifically that no one could find any evidence of any fire, but who STILL gathered a bunch of people in a theater and yelled fire at the top of his lungs, assuring them it was true. Can you imagine anyone giving that defense: “Sure I spent weeks looking for evidence of a fire, found nothing and was told over and over again that there was no fire, but I decided there was a fire, so I am allowed to yell fire in any crowd that I want to.” That has to be the most absurd defense and the brainwashing of us all is that we have normalized it. “There’s not enough evidence” is the mantra. “Maybe Trump did believe it.” Just like Trump could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and those folks would say “there’s not enough evidence” to press charges because Trump says it was self-defense, so case closed. Trump is always innocent until he publicly confesses to guilt, because evidence is irrelevant, “what Trump thought” is all that matters. Except that only powerful white Republicans get to use that ridiculous excuse when there is unimpeachable evidence of how many times the Republican was informed that there was no fire or that the man they just shot was unarmed and 10 people had just told him that the man was not dangerous — if Trump says he believed the man was dangerous, Trump is allowed to shoot him, according to the neo-fascist beliefs that even some of those on the left have been normalizing, to the detriment of our country.
The beginning of fascism.
In my opinion, the only debate should be: Do we care about the Constitution, or do we spurn the Constitution and doing what is right because of optics?
A few brave judges did what was right. I have no doubt the neo-fascist Supreme Court right wing will overturn it. We should be making them pay a price, instead of making it easy for them to overturn a couple brave judges when it is absolutely unimpeachable that Trump is an insurrectionist. I’d like to hear the defense, because it always is about Trump “believing” something so that any illegal actions Trump commits are always legal.
It should go down in history that in 2024, the Supreme Court was so partisan that they spurned the Constitution and allowed an insurrectionist to run for office because the insurrectionist had appointed 3 of them and was from their political party. And perhaps some “liberal” justices will cowed or brainwashed into believing it is “the best thing” to spurn the Constitution and let Trump run.
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Bravo! Yes!
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NYC parent, Indeed!
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Bravo! Yes!
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Off topic
Today, Al Sharpton planned a protest against Bill Ackmann, a hedge funder in NYC. As back story, the MIT lab of Ackmann’s wife took a donation from Epstein. Daily Beast has a couple of articles posted together, one about the Epstein donation which is followed by a recent one about the alleged plagiarism of Ackmann’s wife.(“MIT Researchers forced….,” 9-14-2019). Reportedly, when the Epstein scandal was front and center, Ackmann wrote to Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media lab, to discourage him from mentioning Bill’s wife in discussions about Epstein.
Ackmann is all in for school choice so, his education vision could be viewed as boomeranging with a certain payback quality. When Amy Comey Barrett and Alito decide for SCOTUS that religious charter schools should receive tax money, we can all witness how that works out for members of minority religions.
Sharpton’s protest appears to be about Ackmann’s response to DEI (and Harvard’s Black leader). Ackmann wanted the Black president of Harvard, out, after her recent questioning on Capitol Hill. We can speculate, Harvard graduate, Ackmann has a protective concern about Jewish students on Ivy League campuses, some of whom are likely legacy admissions.
Reconciling the hypocrisy that some privileged students in a religious/cultural segment should have expectations about community treatment in a private institution while other segments face discrimination….
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Looked like there were about 12 people at the rally. But of course Al had his megaphone.
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If President Trump or Jared Kushner is quartered in the White House, might that be a violation of the 3rd Amendment? Just saying. I mean it is our house, after all.
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Speaking of the Constitution, you think he who made $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments while in office ever got around to reading it? Nah.
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Why do we have the Emoluments Clause and the Hatch Act if neither is ever enforced?
And this is true of a lot of laws routinely broken by the rich and the powerful.
Oh, and what happened to the caches of blackmail photos and video compiled by Epstein?
Poof. Down the memory hole.
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I was watching this interview by Jon Stewart of Columbia Professor Matthew Connolly last night: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qicghSVOm0A. I don’t think our government is corrupt so much as it is incompetent. They seem incapable of enforcing our laws.
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“There are more people who have secret clearances, even at the top secret level, than people who live in the District of Columbia.”
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The Emoluments Clause in the Constitution was ignored during Trump’s term. He should not have been allowed to own a hotel within walking distance of the White House.
Foreign diplomats spent lavishly at Trump International Hotel to curry favor with him.
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I completely agree that Trump will not win in an election, and you may very well be right that he’d lose by 10 million votes this time. That said, if there’s anything we’ve learned about Trump since 2016, it’s that there’s just no end to him. There is no fair and square loss with him. No mater the outcome, or how much he loses by, he’ll say it was rigged, and the media will make sure we hear about it for years to come. If he can be legally disqualified, he’ll say it was political, but at least there wouldn’t be a chance, no matter how slim, of him being president again. You just never know.
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Gary,
I would be elated if the Supreme Court threw Trump off the ballot. I think they are likely to weasel word their way to a different conclusion. I hope I’m wrong.
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“The Wrong Reasons to Keep Trump on the Ballot:
Whether the former president violated the insurrection clause is debatable, but some of the lame excuses being bandied about are not.”
by Garrett Epps, Washington Monthly, December 26, 2023
“it seems insupportable to suggest that if a sitting president decides to lead a coup d’état, it cannot be an insurgency unless he proclaims himself an outlaw. Insurgency is most properly regarded as a matter of fact, not of form, and to deny the treasonous nature of January 6 would be more sinister than absurd.”
“The exclusion of Trump from the ballot may have harmful political consequences. But harmful political consequences don’t excuse violations of the law. If a 30-year-old or a naturalized citizen sought a place on the ballot, we wouldn’t worry about how their supporters would feel; the candidate wouldn’t be qualified. The Insurrection Clause is no less the “supreme law of the land” than Article II Section 1 Clause 3, which lays out the age and citizenship requirements.
Calculating partisan consequences isn’t part of enforcing the Constitution. I can foresee dire consequences if Trump is barred from the ballot, but, on the other hand, we seem likely to find ourselves in a hellscape of concentration camps and military rule if he runs and prevails. The destruction of American democracy is a dire consequence too.”
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^^^https://washingtonmonthly.com/2023/12/26/the-wrong-reasons-to-keep-trump-on-the-ballot/
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In other news, the “party of life” is killing women:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/ohio-woman-criminally-charged-after-a-miscarriage/vi-AA1mrlKO?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=50a967fbe9a146b9bd0a55b9dee49f4a&ei=143
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Sorry I missed all these comments yesterday. I was at school subbing.
Fascinating.
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“I want him to be defeated by vote of the American people.”
Trump AREADY WAS defeated at the polls by the American people in 2020. How’d that work out?
Lies. More lies. Insurrection and sedition.
As Susan Glasser points out at the New Yorker:
“To his original Big Lie about the ‘rigged election’ in 2020, Trump has added ever more lies. He now calls January 6th ‘a beautiful day’ and the nearly thirteen hundred defendants arrested in connection with the attack on the Capitol martyrs and ‘hostages.’…he has dangled pardons for the insurrectionists, to be issued ‘on Day 1’ of his second term, and threatened to lock up the police who tried to defend the Capitol that day…Trump’s January 6th revisionism has proved politically salient with the Republican electorate…A Washington Post/University of Maryland survey published this week found thatthe number of Republicans who believe Trump’s lies about a ‘rigged election’ has gone up…thirty-four per cent of Republicans say they believe the bogus conspiracy theory that the FBI itself was responsible for inciting the attack on the Capitol.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/the-ghost-of-january-6th-haunts-2024
And, per the Associated Press:
“Washington’s federal courthouse remains flooded with trials, guilty plea hearings and sentencings stemming from what has become the largest criminal investigation in American history. And the hunt for suspects is far from over…730 people have pleaded guilty to charges, while another roughly 170 have been convicted of at least one charge at a trial decided by a judge or a jury…750 people have been sentenced, with almost two-thirds receiving some time behind bars. Prison sentences have ranged from a few days of intermittent confinement to 22 years in prison…Only two defendants have been acquitted of all charges.”
Trump INCITED all of this. HE needs to be held accountable for it, in court and with regard to what Section 3 of the 14th Amendment so clearly states.
Former federal judge and legal scholar J. Michael Luttig said this about the Colorado decision to bar Trump from the ballot in that state:
“the Colorado Supreme Court decision is unassailable in every single respect under the Constitution of the United States…The Colorado Supreme Court addressed every single state law question and every single federal constitutional question as to the meaning and interpretation of the 14th Amendment…it resolved each and every one of those questions as required not just under state law, but, more importantly, under federal constitutional law…the opinion is unassailable in every respect. It is a masterful judicial opinion, and based on the objective law of the 14th…”
We are about to find out if the Supreme Court’s conservatives really do believe in “textualism.” Some of them lied — egregiously — to the Senate and the American people when they said that Roe v. Wade was “settled law” and then voted to overturn it.
If Supreme Court conservatives turn their backs on their self-professed “textualism” — and maybe they will — then they PROVE to “We, the People” and to historians of the Trump era that they are intellectually dim right-wing ideologues who care not a whit for the Constitution, and they give American voters the responsibility to do what they would not, to turn Trumpian fascism fascism AWAY from the White House.
As Ben Franklin is alleged to have said, A republic, if you can keep it.”
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By the way, someone commented about Trump’s “win” in 2016.
There are lots of people who blame – wrongly, in my view – Hillary Clinton for running a “bad” campaign. But that’s just not true.
The deciding factor was a small number of votes in four “swing” states.
Here’s the Senate Intelligence Committee report (Vol. 5) on the 2016 election:
“the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multifaceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election…Manafort’s presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign. Taken as a whole, Manafort’s highlevel access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat…Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president. Moscow’s intent was to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process…While the GRU and WikiLeaks were releasing hacked documents, the Trump Campaign sought to maximize the impact of those leaks to aid Trump’s electoral prospects. Staff on the Trump Campaign sought advance notice about WikiLeaks releases, created messaging strategies to promote and share the materials in anticipation of and following their release, and encouraged further leaks. The Trump Campaign publicly undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia and was indifferent to whether it and WikiLeaks were furthering a Russian election interference effort.”
Click to access report_volume5.pdf
Some would dare call this treason.
Jane Mayer put it like this in her New Yorker report on what was clearly a stolen election (Yes, the 2000 election was stolen too, by Sandra day O’Connor and her conservative Court cronies):
“James Clapper, the former director of National Intelligence, emphasized that, although he and other intelligence officials produced a postelection report confirming an extensive cyberattack by Russia, the assessment did not attempt to gauge how this foreign meddling had affected American voters. Speaking for himself, however, he told me that ‘it stretches credulity to think the Russians didn’t turn the election.’”
“Kathleen Hall Jamieson is widely respected by political experts in both parties…As Steven Livingston, a professor of political communication at George Washington University, puts it, ‘She is the epitome of a humorless, no-nonsense social scientist driven by the numbers. She doesn’t bullshit. She calls it straight.’…Her case is based on a growing body of knowledge about the electronic warfare waged by Russian trolls and hackers—whom she terms “discourse saboteurs”—and on five decades’ worth of academic studies about what kinds of persuasion can influence voters, and under what circumstances.”
“…the impact of the Russian cyberwar was enhanced by its consistency with messaging from Trump’s campaign, and by its strategic alignment with the campaign’s geographic and demographic objectives…Russian trolls created social-media posts clearly aimed at winning support for Trump from churchgoers and military families—key Republican voters who seemed likely to lack enthusiasm for a thrice-married nominee who had boasted of groping women, obtained multiple military deferments, mocked Gold Star parents and a former prisoner of war, and described the threat of venereal disease as his personal equivalent of the Vietcong…Russian trolls pretended to have the same religious convictions as targeted users, and often promoted Biblical memes, including one that showed Clinton as Satan…Of the four hundred and seventy Facebook accounts known to have been created by Russian saboteurs during the campaign, a mere six of them generated content that was shared at least three hundred and forty million times. The Facebook page for a fake group, Blacktivist, which stoked racial tensions by posting militant slogans and stomach-churning videos of police violence against African-Americans, garnered more hits than the Facebook page for Black Lives Matter…Russia’s influence was far larger than social-media companies originally acknowledged. Facebook initially claimed that Russian disinformation posted during the campaign had likely reached only ten million Facebook users; it subsequently amended the figure to a hundred and twenty-six million. Twitter recently acknowledged that it, too, was deeply infiltrated, hosting more than fifty thousand impostor accounts.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump?mbid=social_twitter
“A republic, if you can keep it” indeed.
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Thank you for this, and thank you for all your insightful and well-argued posts here. I appreciate that you always support your opinions with facts and reasonable argument. So very important.
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Trump said yesterday that he would issue pardons to all the convicted 1/6/21 criminals. No more hinting.
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Not at all…
And amid all that, I am still utterly astonished by this:
“I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do…I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are…And I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life. They don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do. They don’t need to be a part of your life.”
Nikki Haley, in response to the question, “What was the cause of the United States Civil War?”
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Nikki was trying her best to answer the question without answering it so as not to alienate the Nazi wing of the Repugnican Party that has been so vocal and out front ever since Trump came down the escalator.
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She didn’t want to alienate the neo-Nazis. That alone should keep people from voting for her. These panderers to Fascist bigots are disgusting.
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Democracy,
A textbook example of word salad by Nikki Haley.
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I appreciate Jamelle Bouie’s take in the NYT today:
Is it antidemocratic to disqualify Trump from office and deny him a place on the ballot? Does it violate the spirit of democratic life to deny voters the choice of a onetime officeholder who tried, under threat of violence, to deny them their right to choose? Does it threaten the constitutional order to use the clear text of the Constitution to hold a former constitutional officer accountable for his efforts to overturn that order?
The answer is no, of course not. There is no rule that says democracies must give endless and unlimited grace to those who used the public trust to conspire, for all the world to see, against them. Voters are free to choose a Republican candidate for president; they are free to choose a Republican with Trump’s politics. But if we take the Constitution seriously, then Trump, by dint of his own actions, should be off the board.
There are many reasons people can be precluded for running for election to the presidency: age, parentage, place of birth – and insurrection. Let’s not buy the arguments Trump and his cult repeat endlessly.
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This reminds me of a joke. I remember only the punchline: he’s right, and you are right too.
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Remember when certain Republicans were pursuing a strategy to nominate Arnold Schwarzenegger for president cause he fit their image of a tough guy? But they couldn’t; he was not eligible.
No wonder Trump wants back in office – it was the best grift he ever had! $7.9 million dollars worth of foreign money! And that’s only some of his businesses.
In total, the Oversight Democrats allege that Trump benefited from nearly $7.9 million in foreign payments to Trump-owned properties while he was president. The bulk of that came from interests in China, which spent more than $5.5 million at his businesses, including rent paid by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) at Trump Tower in Manhattan…
Another million-plus of the $7.9 million came from interests in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. This total does not include whatever the Trump Organization gained from its partnership with LIV Golf, itself linked to the Saudi government.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/04/trump-foreign-money/
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There’s no “winning” against Trump. He lies and projects on a constant basis. He’s a pathetic but powerful figure. If he loses in a landslide he’ll tell his base to rise up and destroy the deep state that denied their votes. And they’ll believe him.
The decisions that the Supreme Court makes on this and related cases will impact future decisions and cases, as they’ll establish precedent to that which has been unprecedented until Trump got his hand into the pot.
We need to follow the rule of law. Expecting a gracious exit from Trump and his followers, should he lose, is not realistic. More important to me is sending a message to intelligent people who might be working against our best interest.
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“One of the folks who posts here from time to time was a former federal prosecutor. His take is that the delay was due simply to the fact that it takes that long to prepare a case in situations like those involving Trump”
I’ve heard this from numerous lawyers, as well. Add the fact that Trump has enough money to file appeal after appeal after appeal, and you’ve got a slow moving ship.
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And Clarence Thomas should recuse himself for all matters related to Jan 6.
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Hi Bob I think it important also to point out to all the “Chewy’s” in the country that, regardless of one’s answer, the question of a “stolen” election is now a dead issue.
Quietly but surely, the question for the voting booth has changed to:
Are you for freedom in a Constitutional democracy? OR are you for fascism in a dictatorial state? CBK
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This just in: Supreme Court to hear case to determine if alive means dead, hot means cold, and night means day. At issue: does the law mean not what it CLEARLY says but whatever a court can say it means in order to achieve a particular political end that it wants to see? This question has already largely been settled by the court’s fanciful “interpretation” of the 2nd Amendment. And, of course, the law in the United States applies to those not wealthy enough to afford fancy lawyers.
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Supreme Court rules that hot means cold when applied to Trump and any other right wing Republican, but hot means hot when applied to Biden.
“No”, Alito writes for the majority, “If Biden loses the election, this ruling does NOT endorse Biden inciting violent mobs to storm the Capitol and prevent the peaceful transfer of power and endorse Biden remaining president indefinitely. We the Supreme Court reserve the right to incite mob violence to remain in power ONLY for Donald Trump and any right wing Republican who wants to do so in the future.”
“Remember”, Alito writes, “if Biden loses the election and dares to make one move inciting a mob so he can remain in power, we the Supreme Court will call for his head. Because we the Supreme Court have found that the original intent of the founders is that the Constitution is a document that only Democrats are bound to, while the founders intended Trump and all Republicans to be kings for life if they choose.”
Alito concludes: “Don’t ask us to give a reasoned argument as to why the obvious – that Republican and Dem presidents are equally bound to the Constitution – is not true. We have plenty of complicit folks who will happily endorse that it is just too complicated for them to understand, but they know that it is definitely not obvious that Biden could do what the Supreme Court says Trump can do.”
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Doubtless he can find some precedents among witch-hunting jurists of the 16th and 17th centuries to back up his decisions, as he did in Dobbs.
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Exactly. Alito could quote the immortal and beloved words of Richard Nixon: “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal, by definition”
(Far right enablers love to cite “definition” and here is a clear “definition” for them to grab onto as their precedent!)
But what’s even worse is that Alito could cite the operating manual for the Kenmore dishwasher, or the 1970 West Beverly High School Yearbook, or his grand grandmother’s second cousin’s childhood diary, and the complicit so-called liberal media and the complicit folks who say they just don’t know enough because it isn’t obvious would ooh and aah and say “see, I was right, it wasn’t obvious and the Supreme Court made a brilliant argument for Trump being allowed to incite violent insurrection to remain in power.”
To me, the only solution is for Biden to make it clear that he will use this new power that the Supreme Court has now said he has to insure he remains in power after the next election. The Supreme Court should be put on notice NOW that they are either giving Biden carte blanche to stay in power indefinitely or they are simply saying “only a Republican can do this because the Kenmore dishwasher manual says so” and showing that they should be impeached immediately.
None of us has to worry since the Supreme Court is likely going to give carte blanche for a sitting president to incite violence to overturn any election that would remove him from power. And Biden SHOULD use that since it would be “totally legal” and Supreme Court-endorsed as the American way! Biden can use that power far better than Trump did and he can remain in power with the full endorsement of the Supreme Court. With some here who argue that Trump wasn’t Constitutionally barred from doing this having to now argue that Biden is also not Constitutionally barred from doing this. I wonder if instead they will explain that it’s just not obvious that Biden could do this just because the Supreme Court said it was fine if Trump did.
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From the Associated Press today, January 6:
“Trump’s persistent false claims that the election of 2020 was stolen has been rejected in at least 60 court cases, every state election certification and by the former president’s one-time attorney general…Trump faces more than 90 criminal charges in federal and state courts, including the federal indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith that accused Trump of conspiring to defraud the U.S. over the election…Trump is trying to revise the narrative of what happened that day — calling the rioters ‘patriots’ and promising to pardon them…”
“140 police officers were injured in the Capitol siege, including U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick who died later. Several others died later by suicide…Trump’s decision to reject the results of the 2020 election was the only time Americans have not witnessed the peaceful transfer of presidential power, a hallmark of U.S. democracy…More than 1,200 people have been charged in the riot, with nearly 900 convicted, including leaders of the extremist groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who are serving lengthy terms for seditious conspiracy.”
https://apnews.com/article/jan-6-trump-biden-insurrection-congress-690af49cbf1f7a5696545b1ebbe45c47
From The Post’s editorial page, today, January 6:
“A Post-University of Maryland poll published this week shows a sizable share of Americans accept lies about the 2020 election and the insurrection that followed on Jan. 6, 2021… Disproportionate numbers of Republicans hold them, showing how corrosive Trump’s repeated lies amplified by a right-wing media echo chamber have been…”
“Only 62 percent say Joe Biden’s victory was legitimate, down from 69 percent two years ago, and far lower than after the contested 2000 election. One-third of U.S. adults say they believe there’s ‘solid evidence’ of ‘widespread voter fraud’ in the 2020 election. Regarding Jan. 6 itself, 28 percent say former president Donald Trump bears no responsibility, 21 percent say the people who stormed the Capitol were ‘mostly peaceful’ and 25 percent say the FBI probably or definitely instigated the attack…The devotion of the GOP base to this alternative history helps explain why Mr. Trump has avoided meaningful accountability, why he is still the front-runner, by far, for the Republican nomination — and how dangerous he could be back in power. Already, he promises ‘full pardons’ and a government apology to Jan. 6 rioters, plus ‘revenge’ and ‘retribution’ for unnamed others.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/01/05/jan6-trump-insurrection-2024-election/
From the January 6 Committee Report:
“What most of the public did not know before our investigation is this: Donald Trump’s own campaign officials told him early on that his claims of fraud were false. Donald Trump’s senior Justice Department officials—eachappointed by Donald Trump himself—investigated the allegations and toldhim repeatedly that his fraud claims were false. Donald Trump’s White House lawyers also told him his fraud claims were false. From the beginning, Donald Trump’s fraud allegations were concocted nonsense…”
“Among the most shameful findings from our hearings was this: President Trump sat in the dining room off the Oval Office watching the violent riot at the Capitol on television. For hours, he would not issue a public statement instructing his supporters to disperse and leave the Capitol, despite urgent pleas from his White House staff and dozens of others to doso. Members of his family, his White House lawyers, virtually all those around him knew that this simple act was critical. For hours, he would not do it. During this time, law enforcement agents were attacked and seriously injured, the Capitol was invaded, the electoral count was halted and the lives of those in the Capitol were put at risk. In addition to being unlawful, as described in this report, this was an utter moral failure—and a clear dereliction of duty. Evidence of this can be seen in the testimony of his WhiteHouse Counsel and several other White House witnesses. No man who would behave that way at that moment in time can ever serve in any position of authority in our nation again. He is unfit for any office.”
Liz Cheney (R-WY)
Vice Chair, January 6 Committee
Trump clearly DID commit sedition by inciting the January 6 insurrection to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Section 3 of the 14 amendment disqualifies him, plain, pure and simple.
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[T]here are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents—’
‘Certainly,’ said Alice.
‘And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,”’ Alice said.
Alito smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument,”’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Alito said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Alito, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’
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I disagree with Attorney General Todd Rokita [R-IN] who supports Trump. I read this morning that 70% of Republicans believe that Trump won the election. Fox news always does its best to present ‘alternative facts’.
It would be a horrible situation for the U.S. if he won the Presidency again, and that is a possibility.
I do believe that Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court would vote to support him. [Trump only enriches and helps himself.]
His three picks for the Supreme Court, in my opinion, were chosen because he made a deal. “I’ll appoint you to the Supreme Court but if I ever need help, you will vote to support me.”
Attorney General Todd Rokita co-leads 27 states in support of Donald Trump’s appeal to US Supreme Court
Attorney General Todd Rokita and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey are leading a 27-state brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of former President Donald Trump’s right to appear on the Colorado ballot in 2024.
The brief asserts that the Constitution gives Congress, not courts, authority to decide who is eligible to run for federal office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“American voters choose the President, not a partisan court in Colorado,” Attorney General Rokita said. “This is an obvious attempt to confuse and disenfranchise millions of voters wanting to cast their ballots for former President Donald Trump.”
The brief asserts the state court’s decision to declare former President Trump an insurrectionist has vast consequences that reach far beyond Colorado and will create widespread chaos just weeks before an election cycle. Given that reality, the brief argues, the U.S. Supreme Court should immediately intervene.
“Trust in the integrity of our elections is essential to a free republic,” Attorney General Rokita said. “If activist judges in Colorado can dilute the voices of ordinary voters in states like Indiana, all confidence in our election process will be lost.”
For elections to be fair, voters need a single, certain answer as to whether former President Trump is eligible to run for president under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
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https://www.facebook.com/reel/384330934076532
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This is the video in question.
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Correction on losing the vote by 7 million in 2020, not 2024.
Thank you for always sharing important information.
Judith Clinger
Sent from my iPad
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