Below is my column in The Hill on the growing distemper on the left after the loss of both houses and the White House in this election. In Pennsylvania, the politics of despair has stripped away all principle and pretense. There is a concerted effort to reelect Sen. Bob Casey by any means necessary. Even the Washington Post is now criticizing the effort.
Here is the column:
“People violate laws any time they want.”
Those words, shrugging off an alleged unlawful move last week, did not come from some Chicago gangbanger or Washington car thief. Those words of wisdom came from Democrat Commissioner Diane Marseglia in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
They came in response to the fact that the Democratic majority on the election commission had decided to ignore a binding state Supreme Court ruling in an attempt to engineer the election of Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).
Rather than prompting a degree of introspection, the loss of both houses of Congress and the White House has had a curious effect on many Democrats, dropping any pretense of protecting democracy over partisanship.
Despite polls showing that the public trusted former president Donald Trump more than Vice President Harris in combatting threats to democracy, Democrats made “saving democracy” the thrust of this election.
The polls reflected a certain common sense of the public when harangued with predictions from President Biden, Harris and a host of politicians and pundits that this would likely be our last election. Few believed that after over two centuries as the most stable and successful democracy in history, all three branches would collapse in unison and embrace dictatorship. Even fewer believed the predictions of the rounding up of homosexuals, journalists and political critics for camps in what some described as an American Third Reich.
American voters are not chumps and what they saw were strikingly anti-democratic positions from those claiming to be the defenders of democracy, including:
• Seeking to strip Trump from ballots under an unfounded theory rejected unanimously by the Supreme Court.
• Fighting to block opponents of Biden from ballots in the primary and general elections.
• Suing to keep Robert F. Kennedy on ballots after his withdrawal in swing states, in order to confuse voters and reduce the vote for Trump.
• Calling for blocking dozens of incumbent GOP officials and legislators from ballots as “insurrectionists.”
• “Protecting democracy” through the most extensive censorship in history and the blacklisting of opponents.
• Engaging in open and raw lawfare in the prosecutions of Trump in places like New York.
Each of these efforts ultimately failed to stop Trump and was opposed by a majority of voters even before the election. So now, Democrats are dropping the pretense for open partisanship.
That was evident in Bucks County, when a motion arose to reject a challenge to count provisional ballots, including undated or invalidly dated mail ballots.
It should have been easy. To its credit, the majority-Democratic Pennsylvania Supreme Court had already refused a Democratic push to change the rules shortly before the election and to ignore the plain language of the election laws.
In ordering the rejection of ballots without dates, Justice Kevin Doughtery (joined by Chief Justice Debra Todd) wrote a concurrence declaring “This Court will neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election.’ We said those carefully chosen words only weeks ago. Yet they apparently were not heard in the Commonwealth Court, the very court where the bulk of election litigation unfolds.”
It is apparently still not being heard. In the Bucks County hearing, Marseglia spoke as she and Democratic Board chairman Robert Harvie, Jr., dismissed the earlier rulings in order to accept ballots without required signatures or mandatory dates. She declared that she would not second the motion to enforce the rulings “mostly because I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country and people violate laws any time they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.”
That was a lot of words to say that she does not really seem to care if this is lawful. For his part, Casey has shown the same abandon as he clings to his Senate seat at any cost.
That cost, in this case, was an alliance with Marc Elias, the controversial Democratic lawyer at the center of the infamous Steele Dossier scandal. Elias has been sanctioned in court and criticized for his work to flip elections. He is known for baselessly blaming voting machine errors for electing Republicans and pushing gerrymandering plans rejected by the courts as anti-democratic.
Casey is unlikely to change the result without counting defective or challenged ballots. Fortunately, law and precedent “does matter in this country.” There are still officials who can transcend their political preferences to maintain the rule of law. After the last presidential election, many Trump appointees ruled against the former president, and many Democratic judges rejected the effort to strip Trump from ballots.
That does not mean that Democrats who value the weaponization of law will not continue to embrace lawfare warriors like New York Attorney General Letitia James (D).
Others will use the rage of these times as a license to ignore legal and ethical obligations altogether. They are arguably the saddest manifestation of our political discord. They are people who have not just lost faith in our system but in themselves. They have become untethered from any defining principle for their own conduct. This election has left them adrift in a sea of moral and legal relativism, with only their rage as a following wind. They cling to that rage as reason vanishes like a distant shore.
For the rest of us, there is work to be done as a nation committed to the rule of law. We cannot win at any cost when that cost is the very thing that defines us.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
So about 2 months ago give or take, not sure but I’m sure the editor they call Darren could find it, but I made a post in here predicting that if Trump wins, Biden will move forward with placing long range missiles in the Ukraine to inflame Russia and potentially launch World War III.
Putin in fact has stated several times recently that doing so would constitute an “act of war” to Russia.
So tonight I come home from work to see this.
I know no one listens to me and that’s cool, I’m nobody….but, …I am getting so tired of being right.
https://apnews.com/article/biden-ukraine-long-range-weapons-russia-52d424158182de2044ecc8bfcf011f9c?fbclid=IwY2xjawGo5tpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHX0zT_e1U-8TfLgeRmIaaP7pHWh0H3sSezb1ZK_kU2nXDRZEFA-fpRs3QQ_aem_YglDHV8KWmMw1QTHoEK-dg
And your point is?
My points apparently over the one on your head.
Chris,
Good call, but a scary one.
Bidens insane. I mean they’re all criminally insane now. He’s willing to light World War III to either spite Trump or worse maybe to keep him from office.
Whatever the reason, I hope and pray there’s something President Trump can do as President elect and force a stay of any further provocation of Russia until after he’s in office. Then he can end Biden’s damn war.
This has to be by far the worst and most insane thing ever done by an outgoing President in US history.
You pacifists are so naive. You have to credibly threaten WWIII to prevent it. What do you think the words “peace through strength” mean? Merely having superior military power is meaningless. You have to unsheath the sword to obtain strategic deterrence. Fortunately, both Biden and Trump understand this principle of peacekeeping.
Saber rattling in my humble opinion. Where are these systems currently, it takes US personnel to train and operate, what is deployment time? Zelensky knows it is over, the payola is over. It’s simply posturing over territory now. I think it was more of a Biden Fuk U to Trumps ending it in one day. If Russia or China put missiles on our borders we would have done same as Russia.
Wow, just read they were already in place and Zelensky fired one off. Let’s hope Putin is smarter than to fall for the bait.
I’m no pacifist you belly crawling coward .
“President Vladimir Putin has updated Russia’s nuclear doctrine, two days after his US counterpart Joe Biden granted Ukraine permission to strike targets deep inside Russia with American-made weapons.
Under the updated doctrine, Moscow will consider aggression from any non-nuclear state – but with the participation of a nuclear country – a joint attack on Russia.”
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/19/europe/putin-russia-update-nuclear-doctrine-ukraine-intl/index.html
So, you were wrong again. Biden is going to get us into WWIII.
The leftists are still beside themselves with hatred that the Russians tossed out the Communists. This was a huge blow to the leftists who are Marxists at heart and they have never forgiven them. They could have made a trade and prosperity ally of Russia just like they tried to do with the Chicoms, but no, they couldn’t get past their hatred of the anti-Communists there and sided with the existing Communists in China instead. So now we face a Communist enemy in China, who has successfully allied themselves with Russia and Iran. Russia alone has more warheads than we have. They have hypersonic missiles we can’t even manage to build, and together with the Chicoms are roughly 3 to 4 times enough warheads to bring about the end of civilization and perhaps an ELE.
Now the Big Guy has managed to put the entire world in jeopardy just to spite Trump and to pay off his debt to Zelenskyy for keeping his mouth shut. Biden isn’t providing peace through strength, he’s providing insurance for covering up his past at the expense of potentially starting a nuclear war.
That biggest smile anyone has ever seen him with at the Trump White House meeting was because the Big Guy figured he’d get two birds with one stone.
This is what happens when someone who gets lost and wanders off at international events still carries the nuclear football. It’s called a fumble.
I’m thinking Putin is more intelligent than to respond to this with any actions other than against Ukraine. Should there be a strike on populated Russia proper using these long range missiles then it may come to a strike back at the US. Russia and China both have provided weaponry used to kill Americans soldiers during Vietnam, posturing. Im sure Putin is already talking to Trump, I don’t think it’s WW3.
<< Traveler,
Good point there. I'm sure Putin is aware that the Marxists in this country are the one's responsible for the Russia delusion syndrome. They can't get past the Russians going anti-Communist. It's the very reason why the leftist party went cozy with our Chicom enemy. A few months back, when Putin was asked if he were willing to sit down and discuss the Ukraine issue with the U.S., he aptly responded; "I'm not going to talk with America, I have no idea who's in charge of the place."
That's all about to change.
When exactly did Russia went anti-communism?
I believe Russia is still a communist country with a communist dictator, as we all can see during his ‘elections’ and his reaching out to other communist, not capitalists, countries with a one person dictator at each of them..
Whether he is or isn’t, your inability to acknowledge the absolute INSANITY of Biden’s insane last minute move as he’s heading out the door, ….is quite telling.
Without dispute, Biden is a vindictive corrupt Ahole, always has been. Anyone old enough to have been drafted remembers his sleazy history. I remain convinced it was his fuku to Trump on his way out the door. Putin is way smarter and astute to what is going on in the world than Bedtime for JoJo.
I would not be surprised if Zelensky goes bye bye soon.
Bigger question is who and why in pushing this war with Russia. What do Russia and the Ukraine have that the globalist money mongers want control of at the risk to all mankind? Unlimited natural resources, a US debt larger than ever payable, so many possibilities, all evil.
So your definition of “threat” is “actually firing long range missiles to kill the enemy”?
Wow. Okay… So, what is “war” again?
.
No, it can’t also be killing the enemy; that’s only a “threat” after all.
Firing rockets to murder the enemy is NOT war in your view; you were very clear.
Is anything war, or are all the “wars” we’ve ever had simply “threats” by your defintion?
One problem with your blather.
Since when did Russia, …become our enemy?
Chris, since Russia invaded Ukraine it became an ‘unfriend’.
This ain’t social media David, its real life. And no they didn’t become our enemy then, they became our enemy when Joe Biden became President and proceeded to undo 4 years of diplomatic favorite nation-relation status built up under Trump. Russia and the US were doing fine, business was booming.
And then came Biden.
And they wouldn’t be our enemy, if Biden wasn’t trying to overthrow Putins regime via the Ukraine.
This is HIS war, and the people in the shadows behind him.
Russia becomes the enemy every time the Democrats and RINOs need a boogie man.
Sounds like a confession to me. Clear and unambiguous mens rea — conscious decision, in advance, to violate PA Election Law & prior ruling(s) of the PA Supreme Court. If I was on that PA Supreme Court, those Bucks County officials would be in the pokey for contempt of court, and prosecuted to full extent of whatever penalties those PA election laws provide. If any of those arrogant Bucks County election officials are attorneys, they should face state bar disciplinary actions too.
No doubt.
But they figure that they will only get a slap on the wrist.
However… the Dems did create a precedence where they could get the book thrown at them for election interference.
Don’t know if they can face bar disciplinary actions unless they are lawyers.
If the ballots got mixed in… the courts could probably rule that the ballots are corrupted so no recount period.
Election tampering at this level of brazenness rarely occurs. We need to use this term to describe it.
* who said: we’ve given you a republic if you can keep it?
It appears a monarchy with all the lords and ladies has been established with millions of bureaucrats to shuffle paper. The monarch can be sort of switched out every 4 to 8 years and the lords and ladies in congress can stay as long they want.
The serfs as in days of old are taxes by the royals. 👑
It’s the same in States. The American people have become serfs. The democrats aren’t hiding their corruption anymore and are challenging the opposition for absolute power absolutely.
My opinion
* We the serfs could revolt as was done with King Charles. Don’t pay taxes or send half or a fourth. Send a declaration stating the reasons among which is government is too big and too oppressive regarding personal freedom, property, safety, the infrastructure, wastefulness, lawlessness, murder and theft and robbery , depravity, just plain idiocy….
Why do you pay them? To buy a tuff shed for a homeless person at 450 thousand dollars? To pay them and then pay 20 dollars for a pound of hamburger that really could be horsemeat?
What was their last quarterly budget? Paying Zumba dancers?
That tea should be in the harbor.
At no point has the democrat party been concerned with right, wrong, or justice. It’s why their Anti-American agenda is so glaringly apparent.
Why would she think she needs to obey the law when Zhou Bai-Den ignored the Supreme Court and purported to forgive more student debt?
Turley for the next open Supreme Court seat!
“Turley for the next open Supreme Court seat!”
Never. When you can’t see malfeasance in the actions of those you practiced law with i.e. Merrick Garland, and soft soap your opinions on their actions, that’s too close to another Justice Roberts.
I like Professor Turley but I also agree with your argument.
That is just not true. Biden never ignored the supreme court and never defied it.
The supreme court not only never told him he couldn’t forgive student debt, it CAN’T tell him that. All it did, all it ever CAN do, was rule on a specific question of statutory interpretation: Does a specific clause in a specific statute mean what Biden’s lawyers told him it means? They ruled that it doesn’t mean that, and he ACCEPTED that decision and has been in full compliance with it. He didn’t like it, and said so, but he doesn’t have to like it and he’s allowed to voice his disagreement. But he has to comply and he has, to the letter.
The court never said, and CAN’T EVER say, that there are no other statutes that can be used for a similar purpose. Biden had every right to have his lawyers look for such statutes, and to use them when they were found. That is how the law works, and how it HAS to work, or we are not a free country.
JT complains about this from a democrat but has no problem with a president fomenting an insurrection to stay in office.
Yep, JT is “fair and balanced”
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeesh
Trump requested national guard and military to keep things under control, he was turned down by Pelosi and Milley disobeyed a direct order. The people who did show up protested but had no weapons.
Only a lunatic would call that “fomenting an insurrection.”
I mean how lonely and miserable must one be to spend their time on a conservative forum blathering out their little leftist soul with Marxist pearls of propaganda wisdom that no one is listening to and generally results in resounding condemnations? That’s sad. No one to talk to other than those who scorn them. Masochist perhaps? You’d think maybe they might have a life and socialize with someone that is stupid enough to listen to them at the bus stop or local laundromat, or at least maybe buy a goldfish to commune with. Sad.
See how Senator McConnell describes Jan 6. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/sen-mitch-mcconnell-rebukes-rnc-calls-jan-6-violent-insurrection
See how commies just LOVE McConnell when he isn’t thwarting their attempts to have lame duck president Bolshevik Barack put Merrick Garland on SCOTUS.
Why do you refer to me as “commies” when all I did was provide an article on Senator McConnell?
Something about shoes fitting.
“Why do you refer to me as “commies” when all I did was provide an article on Senator McConnell?”
Why do you commies think a massive RINO like McConnell who cuts personal deals with Chuck Schumer that none of the other GOP senators get to have a say in is celebrated by Republicans?
And why do you commies put up posts like that and assume you’re cleverly hiding in plain sight?
“See how Senator McConnell describes Jan 6.”
What do Senator McConnell and President Ten Percent have in common?
3. They both claimed that the months earlier assault by Democrat street thugs from Black Liars & Marxists and Antifaon the White House was just a two day riot.
2. The January 6th four hour long riot was an insurrection.
And the Number One reason…
1. The ChiCom government have made both of them and their families multi-millionaires (for doing… nothing, apparently).
The commies Bolshevik Barack and President Daddy-Daughter Inappropriate Incest Showers send here are about as clever as a pitcher’s mound in the center of an NBA basketball court.
Why do you talk about showers every day?
PTSD from hand-to-hand combat during the Ardennes Offensive.
“PTSD from hand-to-hand combat during the Ardennes Offensive.”
Flashbacks from Airsoft door kicking with Gravy Seal Team Six in your Mom’s back yard where you were Sergeant Major Gun Bunny?
That is a lie that has been debunked over and over again.
Gigi – it is actually what you beleive that is a lie.
This is much like the collusion delusion.
First Trump can nto send the NG to the capitol – that MUST be requested by the Capitol sargent at arms who answer to pelosi.
So the NG can not under any circumstances go to the capitol without a request from Peolsi.
Trump asked to send the NG several days before J6. This is unbeleivably well documents – including in the official VP Timeline.
Multiple people have confirmed HEARING Trump direct that the NG be sent.
Further immediately after the assistant Sec. Def. contacted the CP to make arrangements to send the NG – BEFORE J6.
Again incredibly well documents – emails back and forth between the CP and assit Sec Def, The CP cheif Sund could not get a committment from the Sargen at Arms office to allow the NG to come. BTW this back and forth between asst secdef and Cheif Sund and between Sund and the sargent at arms office went on for days and is again WILL documents.
Further those involved have testified under oath before the J6 committee – and NOW we have transcripts of all that testimony – despite Thomson and Cheney trying to encrypt and then delete it all.
But in addition to the J6 committee – the Dod conducted hearings under oath, and IG horowitz who is preparing a report has gather testimony, and the House J6 reveiw testimony has gathered testimony.
NEXT 0 Before J6 Trump’s ORDER to make the NG available from 6am J6 forward waiting ONLY a request from the CP is documented by the JCS – the military not only logs EVERY order, but records it as it proceeds every step down the chain of command.
Next the NG was at the Aromory on Busses waiting to go to the capitol PER ORDERS FROM TRUMP and down through the chain of command – at 7am on the 6th.
All they needed was a go order – that had to come From the CP to asst Sec Def or JCS
Starting sometime after noon J6 Cheif Sund was BEGGING the House asargent at arms for the NG – again repeated calls and all logged and documented.
We do not have the communications between the sargent at arms and Pelosi or schumer – that is priviledged.
But we no they communicated, and we no the the sargent at arms did not authorize the NG to enter capitol grounds prior to approx 2:50.
That order was relayed to asst. Sec Def, then JCS and down the chain of command – Where it STALLED with a Major General for more than an hour.
Before finally being relayed further down the chain of command to Walker at the Armory.
Where upon Walker brought the NG to the Capitol – but by then everything was over.
We also know that the CP could have been standing by near the mall – EXCEPT that Mayor Bowser had to make that request and she rejected it.
The ARmory is not all that far away – but had Boswer requested the NG they could have been in easy walking distance of the capital insteat of a 15 minute buss ride away.
Again at this time ALL of this is both incredibly well documented, but testified to under oath by those involved MULTIPLE times.
JT complains about this from a democrat but has no problem with a president fomenting an insurrection to stay in office.
Says a commie that supported the Obama/Biden ‘Russia Dossier’ illegal fraud to remove an elected president from office.
Says the commie who also has a medal for throwing Molotov Cocktails at Secret Service during the insurrectionist attempt to storm the White House and murder Trump before the 2020 election.
Commies think this is Rachael Mad Cow’s blog, and channeling will be both accepted and celebrated.
“a president fomenting an insurrection to stay in office.”
That never happened.
JT has roundly condemned Trump’s attempts to mickey the Electoral College result in late 2020. I don’t see any deviation from moral clarity.
“It’s not FAIR,” and (if it is), “We’re gonna make damn SURE it isn’t!”