No, I am not paying any attention to the ongoing efforts to kick the TOFF off the ballots in several states.
I'm not because, whether or not there is wriggle room in the language of the 14th Amendment as to the applicability to presidential candidates, it's a matter that's going to end up in the Supreme Court.
And if you, Gentle Reader, have any doubt whatsoever as to how they'll rule on that issue, then may I interest you in some prime seafront acreage in North Dakota?
When You Have Too Many Things On Your Plate
33 minutes ago
20 comments:
In my college class listserv, there's a few that are bomb-throwing jerks. One in particular phrases questions in the form of have-you-stopped-beating-your-eife. His latest: Make a Prediction. How Will the Court Rule on Disqualification? As if there is any question. My answer:
I make a prediction with 100% surety:
SCOTUS will make a decision based on the spineless venality of its soi-desant conservative majority thus securing the legacy of Roberts Court as one of the most corrupt and tribally political of all time.
The cake was baked in Bush v. Gore, where the Court ruled 5 Republicans to 4 Democrats.
This will be 4 Republicans and 2 Fascists to 3 Democrats.
There's that pesky detail that he hasn't even been formally CHARGED with insurrection, much less tried and convicted, despite what y'all think.
AFAIK, none of the Jan 6th prisoners have been convicted of insurrection either.
Don't let your principles falter just because you hate Trump. Remember the Rule of Law.
Seriously. I get it, You Hate Him and Wish He Would Die. I get it. But we are either a country of laws or we aren't....pick one.
The only interesting thing will be watching them do this while trying to hold on to the fig leaf of originalism. Also , giving absolute immunity to the TOFF also gives it to Biden, unless they do a Bush v Gore non- precedent thing, which might be too much of a lift for tose POS's.
And one practitioner who believes in witchcraft:
Alito's America: Where 'eminent' jurists believe in witches but women are the hysterics.
Burned at the stake or by a thousand legislative cuts, women will die at the hands of a court that relies on a man who sentenced witches to death.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2022/07/02/supreme-court-abortion-alito-witches/7747134001/?gnt-cfr=1
And so will the rest of us until the cons are purged.
B, there is nothing in the text that requires a court finding of any kind.
Mark, the law is what the Court says it is.
B. the man did the deed in front of God, TV and everyone on 1/6 and was recorded and witnessed thereafter in multiple venues trying to overthrow the election. In every way, he is standing there with a smoking gun, cartridge brass everywhere, with blood on the ground, tear gas in the air and dead on the ground....and telling everyone He Done Good. And your defense is He Hasn't Been Charged. You are all but putting the TOFF up for beatification and sainthood to ignore that...never mind his Plans of Day One. But of course, you're one of his brown shirts, so jes' fine with you.
Stewart, the last sentence of your reply to B is a personal attack.
Rule 6 violation. Yellow card.
(Slack cut because you're a good guy with a solid track record.)
"B, there is nothing in the text that requires a court finding of any kind."
True, if you look at it that way.
Therefore, I claim that Joe Biden has committed abrogated his responsibilities as President, by failing to ensure the execution and enforcement of the laws created by Congress (Article II) making him unfit for office as well.
One works as well as the other. Just claiming it doesn't make it so, no matter how much you hate him.
Even Biden's DOJ declined to indict him, which should tell you something.
(and thanks for enforcing your rules this time)
B, bless your heart.
Nice. Can't refute my statement? Do the rules work both ways?
Or are there double standards for folks like Biden vs Trump in your mind?
Again: are we a nation of laws or not? Please pick one and stick with it.
+1
B, neither I nor anyone else here feels a need to refute your utterly nonsensical “arguments”. If you want to confuse distain for victory, then knock yourself out.
"AFAIK, none of the Jan 6th prisoners have been convicted of insurrection either."
Nope, what they're doing decades in prison for is seditious conspiracy, mostly, and admittedly at Fergus' direction, which makes him guilty also. Whether seditious conspiracy fulfills the textual requirement of the 14th amendment is the relevant question here, and I have very little confidence that his appointments to the scotus will do more than just try to help him out of the bind he got himself into and cover their own asses.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
Comrade: sorry for the length here, but this is the actual answer to why Fergus isn't charged with "insurrection", it comes from Jack Smith's reply to Fergus' double jeopardy claim:
Any double-jeopardy claim here would founder in light of these principles. Without support, the defendant asserts that his Senate acquittal and the indictment in this case involve “the same or closely related conduct.” Br.52. Not so. The single article of impeachment alleged a violation of “Incitement of Insurrection,” H.R. Res. 24, 117th Cong. at 2 (Jan. 11, 2021) (capitalization altered), and charged that the defendant had “incit[ed] violence against the Government of the United States,” id. at 3. The most analogous federal statute is 18 U.S.C. § 2383, which prohibits “incit[ing] . . . any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof.” A violation of Section 2383 would therefore require proof that the violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, constituted an “insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof” and that the defendant incited that insurrection. Incitement, in turn, requires proof that the speaker’s words were both directed to “producing imminent lawless action” and “likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969) (per curiam); NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 927-28 (1982). None of the offenses charged here—18 U.S.C. § 371, 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) and (k), and 18 U.S.C. § 241—has as an element any of the required elements for an incitement offense. And the elements of the charged offenses—e.g., conspiring to defeat a federal governmental function through deceit under Section 371, obstruct an “official proceeding” under Section 1512, and deprive persons of rights under Section 241—are nowhere to be found in the elements of a violation of Section 2383 or any other potential incitement offense. The mere fact that some of the conduct on which the impeachment resolution relied is related to conduct alleged in the indictment does not implicate the Double Jeopardy Clause or its principles. See Dixon, 509 U.S. at 696.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
Impeachment is a political process, not a criminal justice process. If you need proof of that, see the current fact-free push by the House crazies ti impeach President Biden.
Also, Mitch McConnell stood on the floor of the Senate and justified his vote on impeachment by stating that nothing the Senate did would prevent the legal system from holding Trump accountable.
And if acquittal at impeachment is a get-out-of-jaik-free card, why did President Ford offer a pardon to Nixon and why did Nixon accept it?
President Ford pardoned Tricky Dick because at the time, the dark ages of 1973, there were still Republicans who believed in the Rule of Law, and placed the good of the Nation above the good of the Party. They would have convicted Nixon.
It's kind of a shame that those last reasonable Republicans weren't place in some kind of captive breeding program, to try to preserve the specis before they died out. Too late now.
Despite all of the usual pettifoggery from the expected source, nobody has seriously contested the main point of my post, which is this:
All of the discussion about the 14th Amendment is a sterile, academic exercise. The Supreme Court will keep Trump on the ballot.
So I'm calling time, gentlemen.
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