Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Media, Politics, Uncategorized

Washington Post Columnist Calls For Expulsion Of Members Who Challenged Electoral Votes

Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin is calling for the expulsion of Republican members for challenging the electoral votes this week as “sedition.”  From the outset, I opposed this challenge as unfounded.  However, think about this demand (which has been raised by others).  Rubin wants to expel members who joined challenges allowed under a federal law (on the very same grounds that Democrats have made in past elections). Indeed, she declares “Every Republican bears a responsibility for what happened on Wednesday, whether or not they participated in a seditious attempt to overthrow our democracy.” So Republicans who opposed the challenge and denounced the violence should still be punished or blamed?

Moreover, Rubin objects to how these members used “disinformation” to incite violence but proceeds to misrepresent both the law and the record. For example, she singles out figures like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)  who stated previously that he did not believe that Vice President Michael Pence had the authority to simply “send back” such electoral votes.

Rubin states these members “knew the objections were baseless. They saw the violent results triggered by disinformation, yet they doubled down on Republicans’ sedition.”  As is often the case in her columns, Rubin seems to reconstruct reality to fit her preferred conclusion. She accuses these members of “inciting” rioters by making the very same challenge brought by Democrats in past elections involving Republican presidents. She does not call for those Democratic members to be expelled.

In January 2005, Boxer joined former Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones to challenge George W. Bush’s victory over Democratic challenger John Kerry in the state of Ohio. I was working for CBS in that election and shared concerns over the voting irregularities. At the time, Boxer argued that Republicans had engaged in voter suppression that contributed to Bush’s victory.  The media and Democratic leadership was highly supportive. Indeed, many who are condemning the challenge today heaped praise on Boxer in 2004. There was no hue and cry in the media over anti-democratic measures and refusing to respect the election results. For example, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called the current challenge an assault on democracy but, in the 2004 election challenge, she praised Boxer’s challenge as “witnessing Democracy at work. This isn’t as some of our Republican colleagues have referred to it, sadly, as frivolous. This debate is fundamental to our democracy.”

Notably, many Democrats like Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., raised analogous complaints over voting systems and insisted that “as Americans, we should all be troubled by reports of voting problems in many parts of the country.” Sen. Dick Durbin has also denounced the challenge this year but took to the Senate floor to praise Boxer in 2005.  He declared “Some may criticize our colleague from California for bringing us here for this brief debate. I thank her for doing that because it gives members an opportunity once again on a bipartisan basis to look at a challenge that we face not just in the last election in one State but in many States.”

Moreover, it is not “sedition” to use a federal law allowing for such challenges.  Sedition is an attempt to overthrow the rule of law.  Indeed, these members stated that they wanted to highlight the voting irregularities just as Boxer did in 2004. The use of such a law is not an invitation to riot. Moreover, when liberal groups rioted at the Trump inauguration, Rubin did not blame Democratic members refusing to recognize Trump as the legitimate president.

During Trump’s speech, I was tweeting out objections to his statements and defending those he was attacking. I have denounced the speech as reckless and wrong.  However, the effort to weaponize this incident against Republican members is unfair.

What is most chilling is Rubin’s absurd standard proposed for the expulsion of members:

Each chamber can enact a simple rule: “No member shall retain a seat if he or she endeavors to overthrow the results of an election, file frivolous lawsuits seeking to do the same or seek to pressure any election official to change the results of an election.”

Under that standard, any member who filed a lawsuit deemed “frivolous” by Rubin or others could be expelled. Likewise, any challenge to electoral votes under the Electoral Count Act is clearly viewed by Rubin to be sedition . . . unless you are a Democrat. So we have seen a slew of meritless lawsuits over the last four years from Democratic members. The lawsuits were dismissed. Would they also be expelled?  Rubin is calling for a federal law that would allow an entirely subjective standard for the expulsion of members.

Fortunately, the Washington Post cannot rewrite the Constitution for allow for such mob rule.  What Rubin is suggesting would raise serious constitutional problems as a majority party punishes members for taking positions or filing cases that it deems “frivolous” or seditious.

For full disclosure, I clashed with Rubin over her personally attacking me for a theory that I did not agree with in a column that I did not write. I also challenged her on an equally bizarre column where she wrote about my impeachment testimony with a clearly false account of a “concession” pulled out of me by counsel Norm Essen, the very same source that she used in a later column that misrepresented the holding in an appellate case involving Trump. That false account was never corrected the Washington Post.

The reason that columns like this are being printed is that they are largely protected from contradiction in most of the mainstream media. Indeed, in siloed media like the Washington Post, readers are largely protected from opposing views.  Rubin can misrepresent an actual holding and not be subject to a correction.  This proposed expulsion standard is an attack on free speech and representational rights. Yet, it is being applauded by those who want to use this riot to cleanse Congress and cancel opposing viewpoints.

227 thoughts on “Washington Post Columnist Calls For Expulsion Of Members Who Challenged Electoral Votes”

  1. I hope Turley sees what he has wrought. Either you’re going to tell the truth, or cash the checks from the RNC. Turley is fast approaching to have his name with the stable geniuses of Wood, Powell and Rudy G.

  2. President Trump has conducted many multiple campaign rallies (as do all politicians) without any hint of, or reference or incitement to violence.

    It’s highly unusual for the perpetrator of a crime to hold a nearby rally beforehand to announce he’s coming.

    Large crowds are vulnerable, susceptible and cannot be protected perfectly from antagonists such as Antifa, BLM and the likes of Stephen Craig Paddock in the 2017 Las Vegas Shooting.

    Antifa and BLM conduct crimes and “false flag” operations repeatedly.

  3. If you think I am prone to hyperbole consider this. The house to pass new rules that do not allow House documents to include references to father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, neice, husband, etc. Google it for the full list of words that can not be used. Notice that the prohibitions are selected to prohibite reference to the family unit. The family unit is of no value. The only leader that is allowed is The State. Next will be the expungement of these words from past historical documents. My declaring that a new Fahrenheit 451 era is here is not hyperbolic but todays reality. Some of you voted it in. The heat from the burnings may indeed increase the global temperature. It’s not to late to become really “woke”. Time may be short.

    1. “There is no swifter route to the corruption of thought than through the corruption of language.”

      – George Orwell

  6. She won’t care, the damage is done, and she’ll benefit from right-wing benefactors, the same as Turley.

  7. Nancy Pelosi is writing new legislation. The Proticals of Fahrenheit 451. For the non-readers among us, 451 fahrenheit is the temperature necessary to destroy a book. Books have been burned by people in history. We are no different than people in the past. We are history. If we don’t recognize who we are, we are doomed to repeat our previous atrocities. A document was created that accepted this reality. The document was the Constitution of The United States. The first amedment is Freedom of Speech. If this foundation falls, the edifice will quickly crumble. If you are among those who espouse “free speech for me but not for thee”, your legacy will be the enslavement of your grandchildren.

  8. She is just another that believes the Marxist ideology. They are becoming more than annoying. They want you to believe they don’t do what they accuse you of doing although they know you know they are lying.

  9. Both political parties have claimed voting malfeasance in the past. To claim that only one side was justified is to remove oneself from reality for the purpose of proving ones point. Both sides have made claims without definitive proof. Antidotal evidence is not enough. What can be seen here is a clinging to ones ideology in fear that if you do not the losing of your mind will be emminent. If I have to, I will even lie to keep my widdle teddy bear.

  10. How did Antifa and BLM get into the Capitol Building?

    How did Jack Ruby get into the Dallas Police Department (police left a door unlocked)?

    Why did JFK’s limo turn on Elm St. against all security protocols?

    Why did the Secret Service not put the bubble-top on JFK’s limo?

    How was an unknown armed security guard assigned to escort RFK by the elbow through the Ambassador Hotel and how did Sirhan hit RFK in the back of the head from the front?

    How did mere coincidence explain the violent assassinations of JFK, MLK and RFK within a 5-year period?

    How was Flight 800 blown out of the sky by “spontaneous fuel tank explosion” when it has never happened to any other plane (especially in an Atlantic Ocean U.S. Navy practice range)?

    How did the FBI NOT investigate and arrest Saudi Arabians learning to fly but not take off and land passenger airliners in 2001, 8 years after the WTC was first bombed by Ramzi Yousef, “Blind Sheik” et al.?

    How did Building 7 perfectly fall into its own footprint on 9/11 when it was not hit by a plane?

    How did Gallup’s Most Admired Man in 2020 and the President who engineered the best economy in U.S. history lose the 2020 election (“It’s the economy, stupid!” – James Carville)?

    How did “China Flu, 2020” get released and hit America 9 months before the 2020 Presidential Election?

    How did courts, the Supreme Court and state legislatures NOT investigate and adjudicate the greatest election fraud, corruption and vote tampering crime in U.S. history?

  11. Reverse McCarthyism is coming–cancel culture, phony investigations, etc. We just need to find a Democrat to name it after.

    2. Sen. McCarthy was hardly known outside the confines of Capitol Hill and the State of Wisconsin prior to February 1950 and he was relegated to the back benches where he was ignored after Sept. 1954. There were some congressional investigations and such which antedated McCarthy by two years and change. The Smith Act trials and the sentences derived from them ran on for 13 years. So, the period in question lasted from 1947 to 1962. Prior to 1949, the Communist Party had had influence in the publishing business, Hollywood, and a selection of trade unions. It had in it’s ambo almost no elected officials. The Red Haze generally commanded about 2.4% of the vote in the 1948 presidential elections and counted only a few members of Congress among its supporters. The Red Haze was on the margins of American political life. Trump is front and center.

  12. Free Speech means Approved Speech under the Democrat Regime. The purge of conservative and MAGA voices on FB and other social media has begun. A digital book-burning is now happening. There will be no dissent against the new regime. You are now entitled to only one set of ‘facts’ approved by the regime. Criminalizing dissent is not coming; it is already here.

    Keep up the ‘unifying and healing’ Joe Biden.

    1. ‘Every pundit who absurdly peddled Joe Biden as a “unifying” figure knew damn well he is a uniquely divisive, bitterly partisan, ruthlessly opportunistic politician, as he demonstrated again yesterday. “Put y’all back in CHAINZZ” Joe is the real Joe.’ @Doc_0

        1. What’s that mean?

          Do you mean see the real communist wolf in the freedom-loving sheep’s clothing or do you mean see the real “unifying” Kamala like Willie Brown did?

          1. Not sure what you call a self-described feminist who offers sex for political favors? A role model?

            1. Are you talking about a useless, barren woman who has no purpose in life thus seeks power for power’s sake through the offering of her body to a married man in exchange for favor, a woman who has failed and, as a result of that failure, seeks laws to guarantee success, who is anti-freedom and anti-American, and who rented a nice white family for the election?

              1. I’m talking about a woman who is a power-hungry, ruthless, political street-walker, bereft of principle.

                1. And this is her running mate:

                  “This is a man of enormous integrity.” Joe Biden on Mitt Romney

                  “He’s going to put ya’ll back in chains.” Joe Biden on Mitt Romney

              2. I suspect you’re a barren man, George. I bet you’re involuntarily celibate or you pay for it.

                1. Did you know that German Chancellor, Comrade Angela Merkel, raised and steeped in communism in East Germany, enjoys the same idiosyncrasy as Kamala Harris, that being the maniacal, insatiable desire for and pursuit of power solely for power’s sake, as a result of a life without purpose; barren and without progeny?

                  1. I suspect you’re also barren, George. I can’t imagine any woman who would sleep with a guy who thinks women shouldn’t have the right to vote.

    2. 1st Amendment

      Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
      _______________________________________________________

      Enemies of the State

      Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg are the most egregious and unpatriotic anti-Americans in U.S. history for providing a public service with their private property, including Twitter and Facebook, then violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the First Amendment and abridging the freedom of speech of the President of the United States of America. Freedom of speech exists to allow speech we disagree with to be heard.

      In the interests of freedom, the American thesis, national security, constitutional support and general welfare (all well proceed), these apostates should have their private property platforms, Twitter and Facebook, “taken” by Congress under eminent domain and operated as state-regulated monopolies.

      These borderline traitors must receive training and “re-education” related to the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights and repair of their obviously defective logic circuits.

      1. “Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg are the most egregious and unpatriotic anti-Americans in U.S. history for providing a public service with their private property, including Twitter and Facebook, then violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the First Amendment and abridging the freedom of speech of the President of the United States of America.”

        Mark Zuckerberg is a megalomaniac. I have heard contrary opinions of Jack Dorsey–that what is going on is opposite his personal beliefs regarding free speech. If that is indeed true, then could something be going on behind the scenes that is forcing his hand? Can the Patriot Act allow for more than just obtaining Americans’ information from media/tech companies? Can they be caused to censor it, too?

        I do not think these platforms should be state-regulated monopolies. Good heavens, that’d really increase statist power.

    3. The purge of conservative and MAGA voices on FB and other social media has begun.

      Purge is a perfect word for what is taking place. It’s not enough to have merely taken the White House and both chambers of Congress. There’s history to write and 70+ million people to get control of. They will not permit the record to reflect the Trump era was anything other than a 4 year abomination “on our shared democracy.” This will include the demonization of the electorate that had the temerity to challenge the validity of the assault the Trump administration has endured for 4 years. The problem they face however is these Americans have had the curtain pulled back and they’ve seen with their own eyes how this works. They’ve already rejected the alternate reality being pumped out by the Democrats. Things are about to get a lot hotter.

    4. “Free Speech means Approved Speech under the Democrat Regime. The purge of conservative and MAGA voices on FB and other social media has begun. A digital book-burning is now happening. There will be no dissent against the new regime. You are now entitled to only one set of ‘facts’ approved by the regime. Criminalizing dissent is not coming; it is already here.”

      “Keep up the ‘unifying and healing’ Joe Biden.”
      _____________________________________

      The singular American failure since “Crazy Abe” Lincoln’s “Reign of Terror” has been and is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court, which should have struck down and voided all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution – everything from denial of fully constitutional secession, suspension of Habeas Corpus, an undeclared war of aggression against a sovereign foreign nation, confiscation of private property, the Federal Reserve, IRS, Social Security, Medicare, wealth redistribution, affirmative action, forced busing, quotas, Obamacare, WIC, SNAP, HAMP, HARP, HUD, Energy, Education, Agriculture, etc., etc., etc.
      ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

      “[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”

      – Alexander Hamilton

  13. I feel like the nation inexplicably followed Alice through the looking-glass. Next thing we’ll be confronting is a jabberwocky.

  15. “They were driven beyond all bounds of moderation by the apprehension of the return of power …” Edmund Burke

  17. Antifa and BLM tactics and effects in Portland and Seattle are similar to those seen at the Capitol.
    _____________________________________________________________________________

    George Soros’s Foundation Pours $220 Million Into Racial Equality Push

    Mr. Soros’s group will invest $150 million in grants for Black-led racial justice groups, and another $70 million toward local grants for criminal justice reform and civic engagement opportunities.

    – New York Times

        1. “Don’t rush to judgment on assault on Capitol.”

          “All may not be (and likely is not) what appears. Evidence growing that fascist ANTIFA orchestrated Capitol attack with clever mob control tactics.”

          – Congressman Mo Brooks, R-Ala.

    2. Approximately 500 thousand show up to protest and 41 break into Congress. Shame on the 41 for vandalism, unlawful entry or any physical harm to caused to police. They should be prosecuted for their actions. However this is far from an insurrection especially in light of video that shows Trump supporters also also stopping a man from braking a window to get in. There is much more to this story than there appears and we should hold judgement until more details are released.

      1. Absolutely correct. The Left’s reaction to this event is orders of magnitude worse than the event itself.

  18. In an appearance on MSNBC, Rubin said “Burn down the GOP and start over”. Burn means set on fire. Down means to the ground. Another way to put it would be, burn the witches at the stake. Put them on a post and place wood at the base of the post and set it on fire. It worked for the witches.

    1. She’s a Republican. She still wants a conservative party, just one that doesn’t kowtow to a con artist like Trump. The GOP is more likely to split than to be burned to the ground.

        1. She’s a Republican.

          You don’t have any say about what party she’s registered with.

        2. She’s not that either. The thing is, she isn’t motivated by any of the same concerns which animate Republican voters. It’s a common phenomenon among soi-disant conservatives in the media, but she’s the most extreme example. My sense of what regulates this people is that it is (1) vanity – they’re in the business today of defending what they said yesterday, even when it’s been proven wrong and (2) vanity; they’re own sense of self as educated professional people with the idioms that sort of person uses – things Trump has made clear do not interest him and (3) Ellis Island schmaltz. Immigration enforcement is Trump’s signature policy and it would appear these people have a neuraglic reaction against that. (Interestingly, the one among them whose public writings concern immigration is Tamar Jacoby, who has had a more circumspect reaction to Trump).

      2. How about we need to reorganize the party. Or, the party needs new leadership. Burn it down is a long way from reorganize or new leadership. She is just another click bait queen trying to make sure her column gets read. If Trump said “burn it down” you would hold up an image of his bloody head. She is the one who used the volatile launguage and you defend her. For some, anything is excused when the disruction of the witches at stake.

        1. Whenever someone pretends to know what I would do in a hypothetical situation, I know that the person isn’t truthful.

          1. If you defend Rubin and her “burn it down” position you reveal that you would have the same position if you had her platform. You have done so on this platform The exposure is made by you. All that is necessary is to point to the words you have written. I will accept any editing of your declarations if you are so inclined. Waiting.

            1. I didn’t defend her. Go ahead, “point to the words” I’ve written. If you’re so inclined, I will accept you admitting that you read things into what I wrote. Waiting.

      3. She’s a Republican.

        Actually, she’s a lapsed lawyer who was given a berth at Commentary magazine about a dozen years ago, from which perch she jumped to The Washington Post. She sells herself as a Republican as she was for a time affiliated with the circle around the Podhoretz and Kristol clans and wrote columns promoting Mitt Romney. See Charles CW Cooke’s critique of her writings. She’s grown increasingly emotions-driven over the years to the point where you can amuse yourself by comparing passages of her writing side by side and see her directly contradicting judgments she’d made as little as three years previously.

        One of the people I correspond with is the blogger Neo-neocon, who knows Kristol personally. She says she cannot make sense of the stances he’s taken over the last several years. There is no popular analogue to these people. There’s an irriducible population of Republican voters dissatisfied with the Republican president at any time. It’s about 6% of the total. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W Bush, and Donald Trump were all regarded congenially by Republican voters to about the same degree (somewhat north of 20% were discontented with Gerald Ford and George Bush – pere). Characters like Kristol, Rubin, Mona Charen, and Jonah Goldberg speak only for themselves. They have no discernable rapport with Republican voters and are not curious about the disconnect.

  19. Turley writes:

    “From the outset, I opposed this challenge as unfounded. ”

    No you didn’t. Where’s the column?

    You did and still are selling the BS that the election was somehow suspect based only on the repeated claims of a known serial liar who’s been saying that for months before the 1st vote was cast. When are you apologizing for your part in enabling Wednesday horror?

    Meanwhile, looks like like Dominion has released the Kraken.

    https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.225699/gov.uscourts.dcd.225699.1.0_2.pdf

    Powell’s a.s is sued.

    1. Powell will welcome this. During discovery, she can learn what really happened. Dominion will block her discovery, and then the lawsuit will be dismissed. Dominion cannot afford being put under the microscope and deposed under oath.

      1. They chose to file the suit knowing that it would involve discovery. Powell also has to submit to discovery.

      2. “Dominion cannot afford being put under the microscope and deposed under oath.”

        That is correct. Here are four of the troublesome issues that their suit omits, which they do not want raised in discovery:

        — That two independent audits by the state of Texas rejected Dominion, because its system is so easily corrupted.

        — That its Security Chief, Eric Coomer, is openly biased against Trump — which fact destroys Dominion’s claim to be unbiased.

        — That in 2018, it leveraged or sold its IP, via HSBC bank, a company that is in bed with communist China

        — That in October 2020, China “invested” some $400 million in Dominion/Staple Street Capital, via the China cutout UBS Securities LLC.

  20. Maybe her Trump Derangement Syndrome will be cured after January 20th but I expect not. Expect 4 years of blaming Trump.

    1. TDS is like an addiction. They cannot even let it go with their candidate being inaugurated on the 20th. I expect lawsuits against Trump and family to continue as well as for those that supported him.

      1. The OLC’s view is that Trump couldn’t be indicted while in office. He’ll no longer have that protection. He’s already in the midst of multiple civil suits, and that’s certainly not going to end. The outcome of some of them, like Trump v. Vance, may result in additional criminal suits. So it’s only normal to expect suits against him to continue. Anyone who doesn’t expect that isn’t paying attention.

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