Judge Finds Trump Led an Insurrection, Lets Him Stay on the Ballot Anyway
...also, the idolatry of Speaker Johnson, generational ambivalence on Israel, and Federal court bolsters PA ballot integrity
Citizens in Colorado and several other states have cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment it filing suit to keep Donald Trump off future ballots because of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Passed by the Senate in June of 1866 in the wake of the Civil War, and ratified by the states two years later, banned those who “engaged in insurrection” against the United States from holding any civil, military, or elected office without the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate. It was it was intended to keep unrepentant Confederate leaders out of Federal office.1
Last week the judge in the Colorado case issued a strong and unambiguous finding that Trump had fomented and engaged in an insurrection. I quote and abridge her findings below, but strongly encourage you to read pp. 90-95 yourself.
The Court concludes…that Trump incited an insurrection on January 6, 2021 and therefore “engaged” in insurrection within the meaning of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment…Trump acted with the specific intent to disrupt the Electoral College certification of President Biden’s electoral victory through unlawful means; specifically, by using unlawful force and violence...
…Trump undertook efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election well in advance of the election, making accusations of widespread corruption, voter fraud, and election rigging. These efforts intensified when the election results were returned showing that he had lost the election, despite a complete lack of evidence showing any such fraud and his knowledge that there was no evidence. As…the certification date drew closer, Trump…intensified his public efforts at disrupting the certification, even as violence, intimidation, and calls for political violence escalated [and]…supported calls for protests in Washington, D.C., and focused…on the date of the certification, January 6, 2021…
On…January 6…Trump proceeded to give a speech at the Ellipse…again inflame[ing] his supporters by contending that the election was “stolen,”[and]directed the crowd to march to the Capitol building, [saying] he would be joining them…After being informed of the attack, Trump did little…[He] resisted calls from advisors and members of his party to intercede and took no immediate action to quell the violence…2
HOWEVER, the judge did not rule Trump ineligible for the ballot. She somehow interpreted the language of the amendment not to be clear on whether the President was intended by the amendment’s authors to be “an officer of the United States.” She also noted that the amendment refers to those who swear an oath to “support” the Constitution, whereas the oath Trump took when he was sworn in after he was elected in 2016 was to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution. She somehow sees a distinction between supporting the Constitution, and preserving, protecting, and defending it (???) (see pp. 95-101 to read this tortured reasoning).
The case is being appealed to Colorado’s supreme court; from there, it will likely find its way to the SCOTUS.
My take is that Judge Wallace “punted” this case to higher courts intentionally.
She took a firm and unambiguous stance that Trump participated in – in fact, led – an insurrection against the United States. But given the enormous outcry that would emerge if there were a decision so momentous as to remove a major party’s leading candidate for the Presidency from the ballot, she wanted some backup…from higher courts.
Stay tuned.
Speaker Mike Johnson Said He Took Direction from God, but Bows to Trump Instead…
We have already discussed that Speaker Mike Johnson thinks of himself as the anointed one, stating in his first floor speech after becoming Speaker: “I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you. All of us.” His wife Kelly thinks so, too: “I believe that God has placed him here; that’s biblical,” Mrs. Johnson told Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany in the sole interview she has conducted since her husband’s unexpected rise. “I believe God has him here for just this time.”
And a few days prior to the vote making him Speaker, he told an interviewer on something called the WPN (“World Prayer Network”) Prayer Call that: “We need a supernatural intervention from the God of the Universe.” You can watch the entire chilling and cringeworthy hour and sixteen minutes here.
Seems he’s now worshipping another idol. Punchbowl News first reported that Johnson took time from a swing to raise money from Florida fat cats and fascists to visit DJT at Mar a Lago last Monday night. This follows his earlier endorsement of Trump during an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box, where he said “I’m all in for President Trump. I expect he’ll be our nominee, and we have to make Biden a one-term president.” He also called himself one of the “closest allies President Trump has in Congress.”
No surprise here.3 He was one of the architects of the January 6 shenanigans…that resulted in five dead and hundreds injured…and we haven’t seen any contrition from this publicly, ostentatiously pious…Christian Nationalist.
Surveys Show Support for Israel Varies Based on Age…
We can only hope and pray that the horror in Gaza brought on by terrible Hamas atrocities committed against Israelis can somehow be mitigated. Soon. The response to this atrocity has resulted in both a justified attempt to root out Hamas, and in atrocities committed against Palestinians by Israeli West Bank “settlers.” These illegal settlements – enabled by successive Netanyahu-led right wing governments for at least twenty years – have not only contributed to the rise of groups like Hamas, but also made it harder for people, especially younger people, to unquestioningly support Israel.
Many Israelis are opposed to Netanyahu’s settlement policy. It should change, and it is unfortunate it takes this war to bring that about.
Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus points out the generational split in her own Jewish family in her column of November 21. (Read it here.)
Judge rules PA mail-in ballots returned on time with wrong or missing dates must be counted…
Anti-democratic forces in the US have a long and despicable tradition of making it hard-to-impossible for “the wrong people” to cast their votes. From outright voter intimidation to poll taxes to literacy tests to eliminating drop-boxes and polling places, those forces have persisted in their efforts to disenfranchise voters they’d rather not have vote.
The state I currently live in, Pennsylvania, came under scrutiny in 2020 when vote-by-mail became such a big factor. If you are voting by mail, you have to place your ballot inside an interior “secrecy ballot” and then put it into the mailing envelope, being sure to write in the mailing date.
Ballots that either a) failed to use the secrecy envelope, or b) failed to date the return envelope were at risk of being thrown out by county election boards.
Why would such a requirement amount to suppressing the vote? Because Democrats historically vote by mail in far greater number than Republicans do. Thus such a mistake had a disproportionate chance of being a Democrat’s ballot.
Now there’s one less excuse for your absentee or mail-in ballot to be discarded; a Federal Court in Western Pennsylvania has rule that if you forget to date the envelope but send it in on time it will count. As a representative for the plaintiffs said: “The handwritten-date requirement is completely irrelevant and unnecessary because elections officials know whether the ballot was received on time. And the whole point of this provision in the Civil Rights Act was to stop states from disqualifying votes for frivolous reasons, like this date requirement. We’re grateful that the court understood that.”
It reads: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.” (Emphasis mine.)
Abridged from pp. 90-95 of Judge Sarah B. Wallace’s decision. You can read it in its entirety here.
…Although a bit of a turnaround from Johnson’s earlier size-up of Trump as “unfit,” “lacking in moral character,” and “dangerous.” Johnson Has Endorsed Trump. He Said in 2015 Trump Might Be ‘Dangerous.’ - The New York Times (nytimes.com)