The 14th Amendment and guilty donnie

[just-jim]

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And so it begins…….


From the Sept 6 issue of H.C. Richardson’s “Letters from an American”:

“Today, six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters, including former state, federal, and local officials, sued the Colorado secretary of state and former president Trump to keep him off the 2024 ballot. Represented by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), they argue that Trump is “disqualified from public office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment” and therefore “does not ‘meet all qualifications for the office [of the President] prescribed by law.’” They believe the secretary of state must exclude him from the ballot because he is “constitutionally ineligible” to hold the office.”
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[Rideback]

I notice in Jim's piece that Conservative media, Charlie Kirk, is already tossing firecrackers into the mix by 'falsly claiming that the NH SoS office is trying to keep Trump's name off the primary ballot. That's led to his office being flooded with Trump supporters calling in to complain.

So to Michael Luttig's point that the SCOTUS will weigh in sooner rather than later, and likely before the primaries, it seems logical that the longer they wait the more disinformation will flood the zone. More Trump supporters will talk about rebellion.

This morning's new polling came out with Trump still well in the lead. DeSantis is collapsing. Just feeling sorry for the printers' offices who have to try and keep up with this when the print the ballots.

[just-jim]

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Another view….suggests SCOTUS might weigh in soon.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... reme-court
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[mister_coffee]

The way the trial dates are lining up and likely to line up it is hard to see how Trump can make an effective run for the President. There are only so many days available to campaign and he has a serious dilemma: either he can not show up to trial at least some days (which is sure to annoy the jurors) or he can not campaign, which makes it harder for him to win.

If he can't win, this whole situation solves itself. Although I doubt we will get off that easily. Though again, it is early days and projecting his commanding lead (amongst Republicans) into his nomination or even winning the presidency is a heck of a stretch. I mean, nobody is going to even vote for almost five months. And a lot can happen in five months, one way or the other.

[Rideback]

Thanks for the link. The piece was written in 2022 before we have seen the successful prosecutions of the J6 crowd, now numbering over 1,000. Definitions and applications of laws have been firmed up because of those prosecutions.

The questions that are lingering are related to 'self executing' when it comes to the office of the President and looking at the list of qualifications a candidate must display. It is undoubtedly up to Congress, as the legislative branch, the create specific language because the SCOTUS only has the authority to interpret laws, not make them.

With the aspect that the standing amendment is written there need be no criminal conviction (per the link) and the wording is for an insurrection or a rebellion so the J6 cases that have already come before many courts are useful for clarification. Judges in the cases that have already been ruled on have declared in their verdicts that J6 was an insurrection. The defendants that have been found guilty have frequently declared that they showed up at the instigation of Trump. 'Be there, it will be wild' as one instance. And we know from the court filings that Trump advisors knew that they were lying to the crowds, to the millions watching and of course there is the Dominion and Smartmatic cases that underscored how the Right's media also knowingly lied to the public.

There are already SoS reviewing their options and obligations on this. Resolution sooner rather than later would help everybody out. With court cases already set on the docket for March 4, March 25 and May 20 the primary season is bound to be a cluster f***.

[mister_coffee]

The Supreme Court will likely provide the definite interpretation of the 14th Amendment and how it pertains to Donald Trump.

In the meantime, we the people are still free to discuss the topic. There are some important questions that will have to be hashed out and it is anybody's guess at this time what shape the results will take. Things I am curious as heck about include:

* There seems to be a significant risk that before the Supreme Court will issue a ruling on this topic, Donald Trump may have already accumulated enough delegates to win the nomination. What happens then?
* What would happen if a state (one way or another) ignored the Supreme Court ruling and put (or did not put) Donald Trump on the ballot? Would their electoral votes be cast aside? This gets much more interesting if the Supreme Court rules that Donald Trump is qualified and some secretary of state disagrees.
* In particularly ugly and divisive cases, courts often like to "split the baby". What would that look like in this case?

[Fun CH]

This isn't paywalled and pretty definite:

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product ... B/LSB10569

sorry David,this quote from your link which is trying to define "insurrection" is anything but definitive. When I see the words "it seems to follow" I know the that conclusion that follows is opinion, not fact. The buck stops, as always, at the supreme court.


"It seems to follow that Congress has the authority to define insurrection for that purpose, which it has arguably done through enactment of the Insurrection Act. Part of that Act authorizes the President to call up the militia and armed forces in the event of “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States [that] make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.."

seem
/sēm/
verb
3rd person present: seems
give the impression or sensation of being something or having a particular quality.

[mister_coffee]

This isn't paywalled and pretty definite:

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product ... B/LSB10569

[Rideback]

David, your link is a members only so not accessible.

[mister_coffee]

Yeah.

https://medium.com/the-political-prism/ ... ee2eca0639

[just-jim]

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https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/can-t ... 24-ballots

Discussion of why some lawsuits about tiny, depends-Donnie’s fitness - for even being qualified - to run for office.
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Interesting….,
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