Below is my column in USA Today on the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court to reject the disqualification of former president Donald Trump from the 2024 election. Some Democrats are now seeking to resume the effort through Congress to prevent voters from being able to vote for the leading candidate for the presidency.
Here is the column:
“Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos.” Those words from the Supreme Court in its Trump v. Anderson ruling on Monday put an end to the effort of Democratic secretaries of state to engage in ballot cleansing by removing former President Donald Trump from the 2024 election.
The court’s decision was one of the most important and impactful moments in its history.
During the first Trump impeachment in 2019, I cautioned Democrats not to toss aside constitutional standards out of their hatred for the president. I quoted from the play “A Man For All Seasons,” when Sir Thomas More is told by his son-in-law that he would “cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?” More responded, “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ‘round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?”
As More described England, the United States also is “planted thick with laws, from coast to coast.” The nation’s highest court on Monday decided to leave them standing.
After months of activists and experts calling for the court to allow ballot cleansing by individual states, the justices refused. Figures like Harvard professor Laurence Tribe had insisted that the legal theory allowing Trump’s removal from ballots was “unassailable” and rejected opposing positions as “absurd.”
Many news outlets posted the analysis of former federal court Judge J. Michael Luttig, who also called the theory “unassailable” and denounced the arguments against disqualification as “revealing, fatuous, and politically and constitutionally cynical.” He predicted that the court would simply affirm the Colorado Supreme Court.
Democratic members of Congress further pushed the narrative that only judicial activists and MAGA justices would oppose disqualification. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., declared: “This is their opportunity to behave like real Supreme Court justices.”
Well, the court rejected that “unassailable” theory in a unanimous decision. While Tribe’s view was repeated with little contradiction on many networks and newspapers for months, it failed to garner a single vote from either the left or the right of the court.
Things are not going well for those seeking to remake the nation. In 2020, Harvard professor Michael Klarman warned that all of the plans to change the country were ultimately dependent on packing the court. With the 2020 election, he stated that Democrats could change the election system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.”
However, Klarman conceded that “the Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described,” so the court itself had to be changed.
Now that the three progressive justices have joined their conservative colleagues in ruling for Trump, they apparently also will have to go. Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann declared that “the Supreme Court has betrayed democracy. Its members including Jackson, Kagan and Sotomayor have proved themselves inept at reading comprehension. And collectively the ‘court’ has shown itself to be corrupt and illegitimate. It must be dissolved.”
The problem for many on the left is that the unanimous decision shattered the narrative repeated for months that Colorado would be reversed because the conservative justices would robotically protect Trump (despite the fact that they have repeatedly ruled against Trump and his policies). Now, by Rep. Raskin’s measure, Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor are no longer acting as “real Supreme Court justices.”
Supreme Court transcended ideological divisions
The fact is that the Supreme Court justices have proved, again, that they are precisely the “real Supreme Court justices” that the Founding Fathers envisioned. The court was created to be able to transcend our divisions and politics. On Monday, a court sharply divided along ideological grounds showed the nation that it could speak with one voice. In doing so, it spoke to the things that bind us to each other, including an article of faith in our Constitution that defines us all.
In the news media and in universities, there is a persistent message that the court and the Constitution are the problem. In a New York Times column, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for the Constitution to be “radically” altered to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”
Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks previously went on MSNBC to warn citizens not to become “slaves” to the Constitution and that the Constitution itself is now the problem for the country.
Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet and San Francisco State University political scientist Aaron Belkin even called upon President Joe Biden to defy rulings of the Supreme Court that he considers “mistaken” in the name of “popular constitutionalism.”
The lumberjack school of constitutional law is the rage on our campuses. Free from the obstructions of constitutional demands, activists (and a newly constituted court) could set about pursuing the devil as a nation of Ropers.
Supreme Court ruling provides moment of clarity
Despite the push of court packing and extreme interpretations of the law, most Americans continue to cling to America’s core institutions and constitutional values.
For those reasons, this opinion could be one of the most significant in the court’s history, not because of what it did but what it would not allow to be done.
It is a moment of clarity for a nation mired in rage politics. It was not just the opinion that brought that clarity but what followed the opinion.
A day after the unanimous ruling, millions of citizens will line up at polling places around the country to vote for their preferred candidates. It is their choice and privilege as citizens. They are also speaking with one voice. Not for a particular party or person, but as free people claiming their right to choose their own leaders.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @JonathanTurley
There’s a man who sits in the White House who could have done a very simple thing. He could have said that barring his opponent from running for office without any conviction for the offense of insurrection is against all the principles of our founding document. If he would have done this one thing he would probably still be President in November. Now we know that his oath of office telling us that he would defend our nation was not considered with even a speck of mortality. That oath was the first lie of many lies to come.
How can barring Trump from office be “against all the principles of our founding document” when it is literally part of the document? No conviction required. Due process yes, but Trump had that. The chickenshit SCOTUS punted when they should have followed the text of the constitution.
The chickenshit SCOTUS punted when they should have followed the text of the constitution.
The ruling was 9-0. You think all nine Justices were wrong but you’re right, and worse that they were “chickensh*t”, and only you are right? Wow.
They agreed that a state court could not disqualify a candidate. They bitterly disagreed on everything else.
Is “bitterly disagreed” the new “scathing concurrence”? Hahahahahaha!
No they did not – please read the concurrance.
They did NOT say that the majority was WRONG, they said they had violated the traditions of the curts and decided additional issues not currently before them.
That is NOT “bitterly disagreed about everything”
“No conviction required.”
Since when ? A14S3 does not say those accused of insurrection.
It does not say those that some people think were insurrectionists.
It says those who actually committed insurrection.
” Due process yes, but Trump had that.”
Yes, this went to the supreme court and the left LOST RESOUNDINGLY.
Due process and the rule of law not man require that whatever result you are trying to accomplish can be repeated most anywhere in the country.
We find murder convictions dubious – when we KNOW that in 95% of the country the defendant would have been aquitted.
This is not different.
The rule of law/Due process does NOT mean – anything that you can weasel through with biased prosecutors, judges, and juries in a half dozen of the over 4000 counties in the US.
” The chickenshit SCOTUS punted when they should have followed the text of the constitution.”
The text says that congress must put the rest of the 14th amendment to effect by passing laws.
That congress must define what constitutes insurerection, and what constitutes “due process” and it must do so without running afoul of the rest of the constitution.
This just in: https://babylonbee.com/news/raytheon-lowers-flags-to-half-staff-after-nikki-haley-drops-out
This is totally hilarious!
That pitiful woolly mammoth has given up in abject capitulation.
A trustworthy sources reports that Raytheon has lowered its flags to half-staff to mourn Nikki Haley dropping out.
(from the Babylon Bee: fake news you can trust)
Jonathan: When we say DJT is a “deadbeat” we are not just referring to his failure to come up with the cash to post bonds in the E. Jean Carroll and AG James judgments. There is another important reason. In a recent SEC filing in connection with his proposed SPACC, DJT had to disclose all his bankruptcies and other business failures.
In the 600 page filing there was this heading: “A number of companies that were associated with President [former President!] Trump have filed for bankruptcy. There can be no assurance that TMTG [the SPACC] will not also become bankrupt” (at p. 132) Under this heading 6 different DJT entities were listed, including Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza, Plaza Hotel, etc.
This list was followed by another heading: “A number of companies that had license agreements with President Trump have failed. There can be no assurance that TMTG will not also fail”. After this heading it lists Trump Shuttle, Trump Vodka, Trump University, Trump Mortgage LLC, GoTrump.com and Trump Steaks as some of the entities that failed.
There you have it. By DJT’s own admission he is not the “successful businessman” he claims. So going into this year’s presidential election we will have two candidates with starkly different records. One who has a string of bankruptcies and business failures. And the other candidate who was never involved in his son’s business dealings and has no bankruptcy on his record. Take your pick. For voters on Nov. 5 it will be, as you say, “A Moment of Supreme Clarity”!
Sophistry
DJT is not a traitor. FJB is.
James Comer and the House Oversight Committee should subpoena Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Xi Jinping and compel them to produce all bank and financial records.
Dennis.
Take a guess at the number of failed companies Under Berkshire Hathaway.
A few years ago, Warren Buffett publicly confessed that he had lost substantially to the S&P 500 index, to those cretinous “buy and holders.”
iowan2: Berkshire Hathaway is not running for President of the US!
LOL. The people stuffing your head are idiots.
If there is anyone, then, that could lead the US, which is effectively bankrupt – largely by democrat and swamp-owned congresses, then Trump is the man.
Face it, your candidate is a dolt, a demented dolt. Of course he will lose and all your leeching will be curtailed. Boo-hoo. Just go change your pronouns to not Trump and Brandon rules, maybe that will help you – seems to help your similarly-minded voters.
Prof Tribe, who taught me Con Law and whose books I’ve bought, has turned into a Trump-obsessed Twitter clown. This isn’t his first 9-0 loss at the Court. His hyperbolic argument on this subject pitifully overlooked all of the issues raised in oral argument or the opinions. It offered no better than a B/B- understanding of the issue.
As for the rest of these idiots, if the Rs ever get back full control of the pursestrings, they need to ban federal aid to any law school where a faculty member urges disobedience of the Constitution or the Supreme Court’s interpretations of it.
For a decision that actually helps ‘save democracy’,
it shines quite a light on those who are squawking that it doesn’t.
I read only the first 2 sentences of today’s Turley swill and stopped right there, because what he said was simply not true–to wit: “Below is my column in USA Today on the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court to reject the disqualification of former president Donald Trump from the 2024 election. Some Democrats are now seeking to resume the effort through Congress to prevent voters from being able to vote for the leading candidate for the presidency.”
The SCOTUS did NOT “reject the disqualification” of Trump from the 2024 election–it rejected the procedure employed by Colorado and other states’s courts that ruled that Trump was disqualified. The high court specifically did NOT say Trump could not be disqualified under the 14th Amendment–just that states couldn’t disqualify a candidate for a federal office. Turley knows better. And, then, compounding this bit of chicanery, Turley goes on to claim that Democrats are somehow trying to do something the SCOTUS said was improper–to wit: disqualify Trump as a candidate in 2024. Democrats are seeking a legislative path to validate the 14th Amendment’s provision that states that those who engage in insurrection are not qualified to hold federal office, like the Court said was the proper procedure. And, there is NO poll outside the margin of error saying that Trump is the “leading candidate for the presidency”. Turley knows this too. I don’t have more time right now to read or respond to the rest of the swill Turley wrote, which I have no doubt is full of similar distortions of fact, which is Turley’s modus operandi.
Suppose defendant X was convicted of a crime in which the judge refused to give a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt jury instruction, and instead instructed the jury it could find guilt by a preponderance of the evidence. Now, if Scotus invalidated that conviction, isn’t it true that you could appropriately say that Scotus “rejected X’s conviction”? I mean it’s true, you could also correctly state that Scotus “rejected the procedure employed by the court reaching its conviction.” But wouldn’t both be accurate descriptions?
BS you moron!
Sounds just like you only read two sentences, the ones that suited your bias.
Gigi. If someone told you to post that. It was a prank. A bright 4th grader would not bite on such silliness
I only read the first two words of your post and I knew it would be an embarrassment to you, then I read the other replies and I was right.
You should change your name to gigo, garbage in, garbage out.
NUTCHACHACHA knows swill.
In the absence of welfare, affirmative action, and the balance of the antithetical and unconstitutional Great Society benefits and entitlements, NUTCHACHACHA would be bathing in it.
Worst decision since Dred Scott. Maybe even worse than that, rubbing out a clause of the Constitution.
What the H…, I guess I can have on the ballot the brighest young man I have ever met, barely 21 years of age now and also a Maasi, born in Kenya .
That makes no sense.
Worst decision since Dred Scott. Maybe even worse . . .
I assume you’re joking. No reasonable person would say that except in jest.
Kansas Elder, no joke and I’m not alone in so saying.
Yet you agree that all nine Justices disagree with you, otherwise they wouldn’t have voted that way, right? I realize there are people out there who are upset (so true, you’re not alone), but they seem pretty unhinged to me. So Olbermann (who thinks the Court should be dissolved), Tribe, Raskin, and Luttig.
Now it’s one thing to say it’s the worst decision since Dred Scott, but can you convincingly explain why? For example, are you of the view that partisan low-level state officials should be able to decide for the whole nation who is going to be president? Are you in favor of the very type of chaos that Scotus (correctly) pointed out would result from that state of affairs?
Kansas Elder, the decision renders section 3 null and void. But it is self-enforceable just like the citizenship and age provisions. Both are administered by the several states along with varying other requirements, following the Constitutional provision which states that federal elections are up to the several states.
No ‘chaos’ has resulted from having the several states follow the Constitution and “different strokes for different folks” seems to have worked, mostly alright, so far.
Finally, there are always the possibility of write-in candidates.
The chaos is that three states, acting through state or local officials, had removed Trump from the ballot. Others were moving to remove Biden from the ballot. To me that’s the kind of chaos that, if tolerated, would turn the Constitution into a suicide pact.
As someone else has said, Section 3 certainly is *not* null and void. It’s enforceable through legislation enacted by Congress – which already existed. See 18 U.S.C. 2383. Further, Congress continues to be free to supplement 2383 with other legislation that could make someone ineligible for office based on a non-criminal provision where the proof must be by clear and convincing evidence or by a preponderance.
Tell me, what aspect of the Court’s decision rendered Section 3 null and void?
Kansas Elder — Fine, but that is not what section 3 states. It doesn’t require the intervention of a court of law, as the insurrection is to be self-evident, not the result of a guilty verdict.
The Colorado courts found that Trump was an insurrectionist. That ought to be enough to keep his name off the ballot in Colorado. Other states, attempting to remove Biden, would surely have to face a similar obstacle; assuming a honest court (not Alabama) such attempts would fail.
There is a provision for Congress to set guidance regarding the conduct of federal elections by the several states. AFAIK Congress has never done so.
You say that whether someone is an insurrections is “self evident,” but that’s false, as demonstrated by the widely varying (and strongly held) opinions on whether Trump is one. It would be best not to have biased local politicians making that decision for the whole nation. That’s probably why the Constitution assigns to Congress the role of passing legislation to enforce Section 3.
That was surely a wise move by 14A’s framers, because if anything is self-evident, it is the need for legislation passed by the people’s representatives defining the procedure for how a determination is made that someone is disqualified under Section 3. Because Congress will be dealing with the subject as a general matter – and not in relation to one particular politician that they may hate – it will have to come up with non-idiosyncratic procedures – that is, procedures that apply to people they like and people they dislike, which is the best way to ensure fairness.
Scotus’s decision reflects a reasonable reading of 14A’s text. One can still disagree with it based on a different construction of that same text. But describing it as the worst decision in the Court’s history, and worse than Dred Scott, is patently absurd . . . and quite frankly is beneath you.
Kansas Elder, Section 5 of 14A clearly states permission, not obligation.
I continue to disagree, along with abuncha other people, many much more knowledgeable about constitutional law than I, that the Supreme Court blew it badly.
For example, read the comments on the New York Times od-ed on this matter.
Section 3 says: “The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of” 14A. That’s authorization, true, but I don’t think anyone has denied that. The only question is whether that authorization is exclusive. The MO in the Scotus case explained its reasoning for concluding that it is. As I said before, one may disagree with their conclusion, but their reading is not unreasonable. Again, describing it as the worst decision in the Court’s history, and worse than Dred Scott, is patently ridiculous.
Kansas Elder — The precedent is the application of A14 following the Civil War without any enforcement legislation by Congress. The Supreme Court violated precedent, legislating from the bench to rub out Section 3 as it stands today.
David B. Benson, in what seems like a racist opinion, thinks that the decision that said black people are not citizens and facilitated the civil war, is not the worst decision the Court has ever handed down.
So Justice Jackson Brown has now rendered a decision worse than the decision that would have made it impossible for her to even be a citizen???
David, cut the pills in half, put the bong down, seek immediate help and go touch some grass.
hullbobby, no I didn’t writer that. If you seriously want to engage have some thoughts behind your words before you write.
I’m beginning to think that the likes of fishwings, sammy, gigi, dennis are simply Turleys’ students tasked with ‘defending the indefensible’ as part of their lawyer training. Wilmer, Elias Law Group, and Perkins Coie need staff, too.
Assuming that they are not Paid Shills, or one person posing as many, then I think that they are severely mentally ill people, lost in a Cult of Democrat/Leftist blather. If I found myself at a cocktail party with any of them, I would not talk to them, or take any glass of booze they offered me. Because who knows what kind of lunatic they are, and how crazy. Plus, they are stupid, and incapable of learning. They are not just retarded, but they are below the Trainable class of retards, and could probably not be trusted around heavy machinery or knives, scissors or other sharp objects
Nothing says Soviet Democrat Defenders Of Our Democracy(TM) more convincingly than 17 states ran by Soviet Democrats saying they are protecting their stupid voters right to vote by trying to remove their president’s opposing candidate from the ballot – so that those stupid voters can’t make the mistake of voting for the opposition.
And now, Defenders Of Our Soviet Democrat Domocracy(TM), move on to the next evil threat to that democracy: voter suppression.
I’m looking for a bookie that will take the bet that this 6-3 SCOTUS will spin 180, when it comes to red states disqualifying the democratic Presidential candidates.
Has anyone passed a resolution, law, made a state SC ruling disqualifying a Democrat Presidential candidate from a ballot?
Looking at yesterdays Super Tuesday results, I did not see any Democrat Presidential candidates had been disqualified from ballots.
Okay. There is the Florida DNC who would not permit any other Democrat candidate other than Biden.
Biden was not on NH’s ballot…
Ah, yes.
The the action made by the DNC in Feb 2023 to make SC the first state to hold the Democrat primary on Feb6 of 2024.
NH state law says it is required to hold the primaries first, NH boycotted the DNC in a bipartisan decision. Biden ran as a write in and won.
You asked whether any state has passed a law disqualifying a Democrat presidential candidate from a ballot.
I said, yes, NH.
NH law says its primaries must be held first. Therefore, the Democratic party cannot put forward its candidate if another state holds a Democratic primary before NH. Therefore, Biden is disqualified.
Colorado law says that candidates committing wrongful acts must be disqualified. Finds that Trump committed a wrongful act. Disqualifies Trump. It is the same thing, i.e., state administration of its process for federal elections.
Upstate – after the actions by Maine and Colorado, some GOP state officials sought to remove Biden as a “turnabout is fair play” kind of tactic. Part of the motivation probably was to demonstrate how untenable it was to go down this path is – and I think Scotus realized that too.
https://www.newsweek.com/states-wanting-kick-joe-biden-ballot-full-list-1859028
As I mentioned in response to Anon, that has nothing to do with double standards. To the contrary, it was an attempt to use the same standard as the Left, but to use it against them.
The Democrats disqualify Democrats. Denunciation, prosecution, disqualification, impeachment, rig election rules – that is the entire playbook of the Democratic establishment today.
Classic projection. The Dems live by double standards, so naturally they think everyone else does too.
Not a projection. The NH state legislature disqualified Joe Biden from its ballot.
NH’s constitution requires it to hold the first-in-the-nation primary each year for a presidential election. That is a STATE law, which regulates the administration of the primary process for a federal election. The Supreme Court limited its holding to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, but it did not explain why its reasoning should not apply to any other state laws, which regulate federal elections. It references Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, but doesn’t say why that would not apply equally to the other sections of the 14th Amendment, thereby making that justification textually insufficient.
NH’s actions are not a reflection of double standards. Fishy’s claim was that the six conservative justices would in future rule the other way where a Dem has been removed from the ballot. It’s that specific (somewhat fanciful) claim that I was responding to.
As for the Scotus decision, it states: “Section 5 confers on Congress ‘power to enforce’ those prohibitions [in Section 1], along with the other provisions of the Amendment, “by appropriate legislation.” (page 4) So . . . do you want to amend your claim in that regard?
No.
It says Section 5 confers on Congress the powers to enforce all of the provisions of Section 14 “by appropriate legislation.” But, it doesn’t explain why the existence of Section 5 means that appropriate legislation is required for Section 3 to take effect, whereas its existence does not require the same process before Section 1 can take effect.
As Sotomayor’s concurrence notes, Section 5 gives Congress the power to enforce the Amendment by appropriate legislation, but “[r]emedial legislation of any kind . . . is not required. All the Reconstruction Amendments (including the due process and equal protection guarantees and prohibition of slavery) ‘are self-executing. City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U. S. 507, 524 (1997); see Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, 20 (1883). Similarly, other constitutional rules of disqualification, like the two-term limit on the Presidency, do not require implementing legislation. See, e.g., Art. II, §1, cl. 5 (Presidential Qualifications); Amdt. 22 (Presidential Term Limits). Nor does the majority suggest otherwise. It simply creates a special rule for the insurrection disability in Section 3. The majority is left with next to no support for its requirement that a Section 3 disqualification can occur only pursuant to legislation enacted for that purpose.”
And Sotomayor is absolutely right. It treats this Section completely different from the others. She is using a textualist argument here, which exemplifies how both the Court’s conservatives and liberals love to cherry-pick their use or omission of textualism when it supports their desired ends.
So then on what basis did Sotomayor say state legislation is precluded? As far as I can see, the only basis was the “vision” of the framers, and the “principles of federalism,” right?
This topic has been debated in Turley’s blog at some length before. Section 1 has indeed been enforced by legislation from Congress (e.g., the Civil Rights Act of 1964). But beyond that, Section 1 and Section 3, by their wording, function differently. This topic has been debated before on this blog.
Section 1 is designed as a limitation on state action, and as such, it can be used as a shield against unlawful state action. If the state seeks to deprive someone of life, liberty, or property without due process, or if the state seeks to treat similarly-situated individual unequally, and the state initiates action in that regard, a person who is adversely affected by that state action can interpose Section 1 as a shield against it.
The enforcement mechanism in such a scenario is inherently different than for a provision that is used as a sword, e.g., to disqualify someone from office in advance. Why? Because with a Section 1 violation the state has already initiated a process governed by another source of law and, as noted, Section 1 can be raised as a shield. With Section 3, that’s not true unless that other source of law exists somehow – which is where Section 5 comes in: it gives Congress (and only Congress) the authority to bring that other source of law into existence.
The issue of whether that precludes state legislation is a separate matter. All Justices believe that for one reason or another state legislation is excluded.
But, it doesn’t explain why the existence of Section 5 means that appropriate legislation is required for Section 3 to take effect, whereas its existence does not require the same process before Section 1 can take effect.
Of course the opinion doesn’t delve into that topic. There was no issue before the Court concerning how Section 1 is to be enforced, or regarding the interaction between Sections 1 and 5. The Court doesn’t just sua sponte start deciding issues that are not raised by a case. In fact that was the very criticism the concurring justices leveled against the majority: they claimed the majority reached out to decide an issue that they didn’t need to decide to resolve the appeal.
NH did not remove Biden from the Ballot – Biden removed himself.
Because NH refused to comply with DNC dictates, The DNC including Biden boycotted the NH primary.
NH did not remove Biden.
Biden removed Biden.
No the Suprme Court did not limit its holding to A14S3 – a significant portion of the decision rests on A14S5
That said this decision would be precidential for other attempts to exclude someone from the ballot for a federal election.
Well it would be precident EXCEPT that we already have prior precident THAT SAYS THE SAME THING.
The only quialifications for Federal elected office are those in the constitution.
The Decision would apply to any other state laws that limit a persons ability to get on the ballot for a federal election.
But that is not NEW. The Supreme court has CONSISTENTLY ruled that the only ballot qualifications for federal elections are in the constitution.
This is why you can not require tax returns for federal elections.
FishAnus tried a play from Obama’s favorite communist’s insurrection book, ‘Rules For Radicals’:
I’m looking for a bookie that will take the bet that this 6-3 SCOTUS will spin 180, when it comes to red states disqualifying the democratic Presidential candidates.
Except of course, unlike the Soviet Democrats, no red state will do what the Soviet Democrat states attempted. Therefore, no SCOTUS decision either way, and therefore FishAnus doesn’t have to use his welfare cheque and SNAP benefits to cover his losing bet.
…
RULE 10: If you push a lie hard enough, it will push through and become established as fact.
…
Born in Chicago in 1909, Saul Alinsky was a Communist who helped establish the tactics of infiltration that have been implemented in the U.S. government, media, and Hollywood of today. His two most famous followers are Hillary Clinton (believed to have had an affair with Alinsky) and Barack Obama
As an amused Briton, I would simply remind the frothing Democrats that every single one of the Founding Fathers was an “insurrectionist”… plus that Washington chap who had even served King George as an army officer, doubly naughty!!! Your entire country owes its independent existence to insurrection, and is that fact not merely recognised but exulted in your Declaration of Independence?
We’re all revolutionaries all the time because tyranny is the ever-present wolf at the door. That’s what the American Revolution should have taught us.
Yeah, yeah, George was such a tyrant. Might have made you give up slavery for a start… Bless.
You will be claiming next that you won the War of 1812. You know, the one that near destroyed New England mercantile trade, with thousands of American sailors taken prisoner, saw poor defenceless plantation owners terrorised by Royal Navy landing freed slaves as red-coated auxiliaries to the Royal Marines all along your undefended coast, and led to a major spot of redecoration being needed in DC. I had the privilege of serving in HMS President – I wonder where the RN got that name from?
🙂
Oliver – I’m an anglophile at heart. One endearing characteristic is your natural conservatism – in the sense that it takes you folks a while to accept change. Perhaps you’re just getting used to the idea that we Yanks have obtained our independence, no?
And I like and deeply respect Americans having served alongside them in Baghdad when the rockets were falling.
Trust me, with the benefit of two and a half centuries of hindsight, we are quite happy to no longer be responsible for you!
It is just that, as a historian, I am always amused by the framing of the Revolution and the War of 1812, and particularly the blindness towards the genuine atrocities of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s tyranny. It was the Bourbon monarchy that helped you win your independence, yet you lauded the extremists who murdered that royal family and so many of their adherents.
We also find it very amusing when someone like Mr Biden witters on about being Irish because his family emigrated a century and a half ago. On that timeline, I am not an Englishman, born and bred in London, but Welsh and Jewish because that is what two of my ancestors were in the 1850s. I identify as neither! The mocking term we have for those who suddenly remember ancient family connections on St Patrick’s Day to justify drinking a pint of Guinness is “Plastic Paddy”.
Speaking for myself, I’m not blind to the atrocities of the French Revolution, nor have I lauded those revolutionaries. The Jacobins and their reign of terror remind me of many elements of the Left in this country right now (think of the 2020 “summer of love” and the subversive interests that funded it).
As for Biden, he spent decades as a sleazy politician and serial plagiarist before morphing into a geriatric patient with advanced dementia, propped up to run for POTUS by his puppet masters. At this point, everything out of his mouth is (a) read without thinking from a teleprompter or note card, and (b) a flat-out lie. So Plastic Paddy most likely applies, except that in his case he won’t be drinking a pint but eating a soft-whip ice cream cone while his diaper is being changed.
“Speaking for myself, I’m not blind to the atrocities of the French Revolution, nor have I lauded those revolutionaries. The Jacobins and their reign of terror remind me of many elements of the Left in this country right now (think of the 2020 “summer of love” and the subversive interests that funded it).”
***********************
OR is the only literate guy in history to consider the French monarchy a blameless, beneficent “royal family” just loving the common folk in America. Starving wolves are more humane to their prey. Here’s one Brit’s take on those fine French aristocrats – this one who ran over a four-year-old child with his horse-drawn carriage killing her. Note the generousity of spirit and of cash!
“But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses’ bridles.
“What has gone wrong?” said Monsieur, calmly looking out.
A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal.
“Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!” said a ragged and submissive man, “it is a child.”
“Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?”
“Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis—it is a pity—yes.”
The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt.
“Killed!” shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. “Dead!”
The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes.
He took out his purse.
“It is extraordinary to me,” said he, “that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him that.”
He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, “Dead!”
~Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Ch. 7, Monseigneur in Town,
“
“. . . the blindness towards the genuine atrocities of the French Revolution [. . .] yet you lauded the extremists who murdered . . .”
That is false.
Even at the start of the FR, the Founders were split. Those who supported it, initially, (e.g., Jefferson) were taken in by the words. By the time of Madame Guillotine, there was universal condemnation.
Oliver Reeder posted this:
Yeah, yeah, George was such a tyrant. Might have made you give up slavery for a start… Bless.
The tongue in cheek aside, it appears that the historical blindness is just as prevalent on both sides of the pond.
The British oppression that the Revolutionary War fought and won freedom from had relatively little to do with that evil ol’ King George.
English monarchs have pretty much confined themselves to their role as the equivalent of the position America emulated with the creation of the position of Secretary of State once free of English rule. It’s been that way since the Brits eliminated the Divine Right Of Kings by lopping off the head of the last monarch, Charles I, who tried to place himself above the will of the elected Parliament. The English Bill of Rights followed shortly afterwards.
The lesson of history that is being lost here is that the Colonists were NOT being oppressed with taxes and then wars ordered by evil ol’ King George. Those taxes, the oppressive actions, and the war were passed by the elected Parliament of the day. A Parliament freely elected by their fellow English citizens back home in England. Like every monarch since Charles I died in possibly the first FAFO, the monarch of the day gives Royal Assent to what Parliament passes for taxes, spending, and wars.
And now we have the elected Soviet Democrats in power 12 of the last 16 years, police state fascists who engage in police state fascism straight out of the playbook of Stalin’s head attorney and prosecutor, Lavarentiy Beri: “Show you the man and I’ll find you his crimes or manufacture them”.
Can’t blame what’s going on today on English monarchs instead of the elected government.
My naughty teasing aside, if one wanted a comparison with the English Civil War, one might be tempted to portray that Raskin chap as a failed imitator of John Pym. Determined to see his party prevail due to an arrogant blindness that he is right and anyone who disagrees with him is wrong, but thankfully, unlike Pym, utterly inept at manipulating the parliamentary and legal system to deliver his one-party-rule dream, and lacking the intellect to scheme and manoeuvre to that end…
OR:
“You will be claiming next that you won the War of 1812.”
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Oh and we did whupp you twice (proven since we’re not all running about saying “God save the King” and playing “I Vow to Thee, My Country” on the Spotify. And what’s that quote about doing the same thing and expecting different results?) not to mention saving you twice from those Big Bad Teutons and needing just a half-American to guide you through it!
Certainly, the British Empire was all milk and honey to their vassal states. Here’s one valentine from the Arabs about England’s favorite mercantile “partner,” India:
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/2/how-british-colonial-policy-killed-100-million-indians
The ever-present wolf was doing nothing in the WH when tyranny was knocking down doors and police officers at the capital for the wolf.
FW: thanks. I disagree only with two words you wrote: Trump was not “doing nothing”–he was basking in the glory of his power over his gullible followers. This was his Last Stand. He knew they had broken into the Capitol and had assaulted and injured police officers. He didn’t care. He waited for over 3 hours to see whether they would capture Pence and/or Pelosi and potentially kill them. He didn’t care because he was the one who sicced the gullibles onto Pence–telling them he “hoped” Pence woud “do the right thing”–Pence, in fact, had no power to refuse to certify Biden’s victory. He KNEW they were shouting “hang Pence”–so, he can hardly deny knowledge that they were there to kill him. He didn’t care. He only stopped the violence when it became apparent that Pence and Pelosi were safe and that Pence couldn’t be cajoled to leave the Capitol for parts unknown. And, at this point, Ashli Babbit was dead–to this day, he has yet to admit his guilt for causing her death, and he continues to spout the Big Lie, to lie about Nancy Pelosi “refusing” the National Guard, and his media enablers continue to lie about Jan 6th being only “a protest” that got out of hand. They ignore proof that the invasion of the Capitol to stop the certification of Biden’s victory was well-planned in advance, in strategic meetings held at the Willard Hotel. A British reporter who was embedded with the Proud Boys testified that they did reconnaisance missions to determine how to distract the Capitol Police away from the more-vulnerable points of entry into the Capitol, so they could invade the building. They were wearing riot gear and broke through the police lines in combat formation. These facts alone prove the criminal intent to disrupt the certification of Biden’s victory–at the instance of and due to the lies of DJT. And, they had a hotel room across the Potomac in Virginia with a stash of weapons, waiting for their dear leader to give the call to arms. Instead, the Secret Service made him go back to the WH–they help save American democracy on Jan 6th. Of course, this isn’t all the proof of the conspiracy–there were the calls to Secretaries of State to “find” votes, pressure on Pence, and the fake electors who falsified Electoral College documents. Those J6 disciples of Trump have testified that they wouldn’t have done these things but for his lies and call to action.
Americans deserve to have this conduct addressed in courts of law-in a fair trial held before November. While pro-Trump media downplays all of the above, sensible Americans see Jan 6th for the day American democracy could have died. It didn’t because of Pence and the Secret Service. The rest of the world wonders how or why someone who did these things is still running around loose, continuing to tell the same lies that spawned this incident, especially after he was found liable for raping and defaming a woman, and falsifying tax and financial documents.
The Jacobins were insurrectionists. The American colonists were, like the Confederates, secessionists.
Jonathan: While the decision in Trump v. Anderson was unanimous the separate concurrences by four Justices, including conservative Amy Comey Barrett, were as close to a dissent as it gets in Court decisions. All four indicated the majority went way beyond what was required to decide the case at hand. That could create further “chaos” down the road. What happens if DJT is re-elected and the Dems take back control of the House? And suppose Jamie Raskin gets the House to pass legislation to bar DJT from taking office? What happens then? More “chaos”.
One issue you do not address is the failure of the majority to address the quintessential issue of whether DJT is an “insurrectionist” within the meaning of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The majority intentionally ignored that issue because the court record in CO clearly established that DJT engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” within the meaning of Section 3. Had the majority actually confronted that issue they would have been hard pressed to find DJT was qualified to be on the ballot.
So what happens if DJT is re-elected and the MAGA Republicans retain control of the House? The majority on the Court will have virtually endorsed the proposition that an “insurrectionist” is entitled to hold the highest office in the land. That’s not what the framers of Section 3 had in mind. Not exactly “a moment of clarity” for the Court as you claim!
The history of the SC is that it often gets the facts and the law wrong. I think Trump v. Anderson is one such case. Despite your criticism of Lawrence Tribe and Michael Luttig, they and many other constitutional experts have found the plain language of Section 3 compelling–it does not require an act of Congress to declare an “insurrectionist” does not belong on the ballot. In none of your previous columns have you addressed the plain meaning of Section 3. Probably for the same reason the majority of the Court refused to address the issue. This speaks volumes about how you have sided with the supporters of DJT on the Court.
What is also is also remarkable is the majority waited and chose to release its decision the day before “Super Tuesday”. A gift for DJT’s candidacy! I don’t think that was accidental. If you are right that “Americans continue to cling to America’s core institutions and values” then on Nov 5 voters will reject the decision in Trump v. Anderson and that an “insurrectionist” is not entitled to be the next president!
Dennis – you are correct. It does not take an act of Congress to declare someone an insurrectionist. It takes an act of Congress to establish a mechanism for the judicial determination of that status as to any accused person.
Can you explain where DJT was charged with insurrection? As a matter of fact can you point to anyone that has been charged with insurrection tied to January 6? So if not one person was charged with insurrection, just maybe there was no insurrection.
As for charges and findings brought about by clearly politically motivated findings, the Supreme Court does not need to address anything. The States have no standing in Federal jurisdictional matters. To answer your question with a question, why did the three “Liberal” Justices not name DJT an insurrectionist? They had a perfect opportunity to do so. Their only complaint is the rest of the court went too far in their decision. They could have ruled he engaged in activities and still found the States have no standing since insurrection is a Federal offense.
I personally believe the Court went as far as it did to slam shut this type of case in the future and prevent a revisit on similar grounds. You now will not see Republicans try at the same charge against a Democrat. I am not sure if I agree with the four concurrences or not. It does give me great pause and food for thought. The rightness or wrongness of the opinion will remain to the future.
The election of the President is the only Federal election the country votes. All other elections are either state, county or local. To remove any person seeking the Presidency when not convicted nor even charged is appalling and anti-Democratic. Especially when one State wants to decide for the country at large. Trying to dress it up to pass the smell test does not take the stench off. It is shameful and yet I see no shame from those involved.
Regardless of what one thinks of DJT (I am no fan), he has not been charged nor convicted with any crime. Being a truly irritating human being is not a crime and should not be treated as such.
The Quiet Man: For a guy who pretends to be “quiet” you sure have a lot to say. As to your first Q both the CO district court and the CO SC found that DJT engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” within the meaning of Section 3. Have you read both both decisions? That’s why, based on the factual record, the CO SC found DJT was ineligible for the ballot.
As to your second Q we can only speculate why the three “Liberal” Justices did not address the issue of whether DJT was an “insurrectionist”. Probably because CJ Roberts wanted to craft a unanimous decision without any long dissents. Why? Because the Court is also considering the Q of whether DJT can claim absolute immunity from criminal prosecution and Roberts knows that decision will split on ideological grounds. Roberts tries to avoid that when possible because he likes to be thought of as a “unifier”. Maybe Roberts told the four concurring Justices: “Give me the CO case and I won’t stand in your way of crafting a decision finding DJT is not immune from criminal prosecution”. I say this because the Chief Justice is not above playing politics when it serves his interests.
Finally, Section 3 does not require that a person first be convicted of a crime in a court of law to be disqualified from office. In New Mexico commissioner Couy Griffin was removed from office because of his participation in the Jan, 6 insurrection. I suppose the rubber will meet the road when the NY Stormy Daniels criminal case goes to trial this month. If convicted that will no doubt affect how a lot of voters view DJT.
Dennis McIntyre posted this ‘BBBUUUTTTT… MUH TRUMP!’ for today
Jonathan: While the decision in Trump v. Anderson was unanimous the separate concurrences by four Justices, including conservative Amy Comey Barrett, were as close to a dissent as it gets in Court decisions.
There’s an amusing screed from Commissar McIntyre, commanding Soviet Democrats Defending Our Democracy/Republican Voter Suppression LLC.
Translated from Soviet Democrat speak: “Jonathan: My close and dearest friend… clearly there was ALMOST a dissenting opinion in this unanimous decision!”
Now does that sound like it was cloned from “These are mostly peaceful protesters” during the Year of Soviet Democrat Nationwide Insurrection or what?
Particularly those Mostly Peaceful Protestors that spent an entire day rioting and throwing Molotov Cocktails at police while they stormed the gates of the White House to get inside and murder Trump and his family.
Nothing says “Defending our democracy” more than something like 17 states attempting to eliminate the right of voters in their states to choose to vote for the opposing party’s nominee.
It’s not that “voter suppression” that Merrick Garland claims he’s concerned about today. Because this voter suppression is Soviet Democrat Different.
For now the SC is the dam holding back the totalitarian thugs who infest Academia, the Democratic Party and much of the media. How long it can continue to protect our basic constitutional righta remains uncertain. When one reads commenters assailing Sotomayor and Jackson as pawns of right wing fascism (as one sees on the Post and MSNBC) it is clear that there is no difference between these people and the thugs of Nazi German or Maoist China. They are inherently violent in word and deed and are vile. Period.
Hitler’s ‘Night of the Long Knives’, made it even simpler still. Patience. We’re getting there. They’ll cut their own throats as well as our.
It has been clear since long before Trump entered politics in 2015 that many Democrats wish they could emulste Germany’s 1933 “Enabling Act.”
With so many “woke” law professors in the United States calling on Lunch Box Joe to defy rulings of the Supreme Court that he considers “mistaken” in the name of “popular constitutionalism”, he might just start. Forgive all of those student loans, ramp up the massive asylum fraud operation on the southern border, and seize all Bitcoin accounts for openers. He’ll just pass another Executive Order to make all of it “legal”. Sound about right Jonathan ?
“The fact is that the Supreme Court justices have proved, again, that they are precisely the “real Supreme Court justices” that the Founding Fathers envisioned. The court was created to be able to transcend our divisions and politics. On Monday, a court sharply divided along ideological grounds showed the nation that it could speak with one voice. In doing so, it spoke to the things that bind us to each other, including an article of faith in our Constitution that defines us all.”
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I had my doubts about the Lefties on SCOTUS but with that unanimous decision they made me proud to be a lawyer. They did exactly what the Founders (particulary John Marshall) envisioned and what my favorite reporter de Tocqueville said they should do:
“Men who have made a special study of the laws derive from occupation certain habits of order . . . and a kind of instinctive regard for the regular connection of ideas, which naturally render them very hostile to the . . . unreflecting passions of the multitude.”
~Democracy in America (1831)
(In the news media and in universities, there is a persistent message that the court and the Constitution are the problem.) That is the only course open to the prog/left. Their fanatic goal is to “fundamentally transform” this nation and they know they cannot accomplish this without first destroying the national ethos as it was envisioned by our founding fathers. These ideologues want to destroy us in the same manner as the globalists would wish to eliminate American hegemony across the globe as they also realize that they cannot control the world if there is a free and powerful nation such as the US ready to block their moves. People who will cast their votes this November must be made aware of the much larger picture is with regard to, not only our internal freedoms at home, but the ultimate diminishing of America should more progressives have the ability to weaken us internationally.
GOD HELPUS