Don't Give In To Threats Of Political Violence

I've been seeing comments that using the 14th Amendments to keep Trump off the ballot is unconstitutional and will lead to violence.

As everyone should know, the 14th Amendment is part of the United States Constitution.  So using the 14th Amendment is literally constitutional!

As for violence, Trump lied about the 2020 election being stolen from him and then attempted to stop the transfer of power and in doing so incited violence.

So if he is kept off the ballot we can expect violence.

If he loses the 2024 election we can expect claims the election was stolen again and violence.

If he wins the 2024 election he will implement the plans he has been telling about and we can expect violence.  Violence from Trump's retribution and, possibly, violence from people who refuse to let him: 

 

* Destroy the non-partisan FBI

* Destroy the independent DOJ

* Destroy the rule of law

* Destroy our non-partisan and independent judiciary (he will ignore the courts)

* Use the military for domestic control

* Put his political opponents in jail

* Shut down media that criticize him.

Basically the same goals he had for his first administration, but now with better execution and still no Republican party that will rein him in.

Threats of violence should not be allowed to further any domestic political goals. So I vote to keep him off the ballot and use our intact FBI, DOJ and independent judiciary to handle any domestic violence he incites.

Why Is Trump Stalling Trials?

I hear a lot of politicians and pundits espouse that voters, not courts, should decide if Donald Trump should be president again.  As described in previous blogs, the 14th Amendment in clear text says he should not be allowed to be re-elected.  But courts are the place where Constitutional issues are resolved or at least we hope they would be resolved.

But if politicians and pundits believe so strongly that voters should decide Trump's fitness, why are they not calling for Trump to stop the judicial stalling?  If voters should decide the election, don't they have a right to know if Trump is guilty of any of the dozens of crimes he has been indicted for?  And know before the nomination and election?  If Trump is innocent it would be in his interest to get these trials over with.

If Trump is as innocent as he keeps telling us, he should fighting to get before a jury as soon as possible and be exonerated.

Silly me, I know why he is stalling.  He thinks the DOJ, the judicial system, jurors, the majority of voters, bankers, bus drivers, little old men, election workers, etc. are all against him.  The whole system, actually the whole world is against him and he can't possibly get a fair trial.

Truth is, he knows he is guilty as hell and will do anything to escape punishment for his crimes.

14th Amendment Was Written For Trump

After carefully reading the 14^th Amendment, Section 3, I was struck by how it seems to be perfectly written to fit the situation we currently find ourselves in.

I'm obviously not a Constitutional or legal scholar, but as I hear the comments from people who are experts I'm taken by how we are facing issues similar to those that legislators faced after the Civil War when the 14^th Amendment was written and adopted.

The South was defeated and brought back into the Union, but there were many southerners who would never concede they were wrong or they actually lost (sound familiar?). What was to stop these people from picking up where they left off before the war started and again elect people to state and federal offices to continue to try to break or harm the Union?  Congress believed laws were needed to prevent this. I've heard several ideas were floated and rejected before the 14^th Amendment was adopted (with some later changes). I'll admit the amendment language seems somewhat out of step with other parts of the Constitution, but I think it was intentional.

Let me conjecture why I think the amendment was written as it was and so clearly matches our current needs. The 14th Amendment applies to certain federal and state office holders (civil and military).  For this discussion I'm focusing primarily on the presidency.

The amendment says people are disqualified from holding office again "if previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States,... 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.".

These are people who have shown they can't be trusted.   They broke their oath.

The amendment does not require that an insurrectionist be convicted of a crime. I'm guessing that this may have been for several reasons.  The number of people who could have been taken to court for engaging in an insurrection or rebellion after the civil war would have been in the millions.  How could you find enough unbiased jurors in the south to hear the cases?  Most southerners were themselves insurrectionists or had given aid or comfort to an insurrectionist.

Another reason for not requiring a conviction was that in general it was obvious who was an insurrectionist.  Most people did not hide what they believed and what they did.  In fact they were defiantly proud of their actions.  Again, sound familiar?

Since the vast majority of the population of much of the country were obvious insurrectionists the authors set the bar low for disqualification. If a person has engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the U.S. the 14^th Amendment finds the person is disqualified from holding office again. That disqualification could then be appealed to Congress. This put the onus for prompt action to reverse their disqualification on the insurrectionist rather than on election officials or courts.

Why didn't the authors add text that said if an insurrectionist were elected by voters, that should override the disqualification language of the 14^th Amendment? As stated above, in former Confederate states, how many Confederate officers (civil or military) would be overwhelming elected or selected again?  Many voters would clearly believe that insurrectionists had done nothing wrong. They agreed with the insurrectionists. So the 14^th Amendment does not disqualify insurrectionists from voting, it just says you can't vote for a former insurrectionist. Punish the oath breakers not the average voter.

Trump brags that he could shoot someone in a public space and his followers would still vote for him. Or he could be convicted of a felony and they would vote for him. Those supporters are telling us clearly that many of them will vote for him even though his participation in an insurrection is obvious to anyone willing to objectively look at the facts. These voters seem to believe that a person who did not honor their oath to uphold the Constitution or the rule of law should be allowed to further damage our country.

Donald Trump publicly tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power. If you don't believe that, you have to be willfully ignorant. On an almost daily basis he tells us how little he believes in the Constitution and the democratic institutions that have made us the leader of the world. He tells us how he will use his presidential and political power to remake our country. He had one term as president and we know how it went.  It ended with him trying to stop the peaceful transfer if power, a hallmark of our country

If we allow him to be elected again, and he begins to reshape our country in the illegal ways as he is promising, what do we do? (And no, he is not joking. Trump is only about Trump. Anything he says or does is just to help Trump.). Unless Democrats have super majorities in the House and Senate the constitutional solution of impeachment will not be an option (remember, we already tried that).  That will leave Donald Trump free to work very hard to remake this country in his image (as he is telling us he will) with few restrictions on his efforts. 

The Constitution make is clear that there are some candidates that are disqualified from holding office (age, citizenship, impeachment conviction, insurrection). Why should we make an exception for an insurrectionist Donald Trump?

I'm The President! Get Off My Yard Or I'll Nuke You!

Hey you kids, get off my yard!

When I first saw Trump's mug shot I started laughing.  My first thought was he looked like some grumpy old man yelling at the neighbor kids who were walking on his grass again.  

I'm sure he spent a lot of time thinking about what image he wanted to project and then practicing that glare until he got it just right.  He wanted to make sure that his first mug shot looked presidential.  

What a clown.

No Get Out of Jail Free Card for Trump

As one of the justifications for his vote against conviction during the second impeachment of former president Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell said that the acquittal did not allow Trump to escape consequences for his actions before and during the January 6th insurrection. McConnell correctly said Trump could be prosecuted for any crimes committed during or after his presidency after he was no longer president.

Donald Trump faces indictments this year from the DOJ and/or the state of Georgia. Convictions on any one of these additional indictments would be serious enough to disqualify him from ever holding office again. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says any federal office holder, like Trump, who engages "in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or who give aid or comfort to enemies of the United States" is prohibited from holding office again.

Trump is no longer president, but he is already complaining that any legal actions against him should not be allowed since he is a presidential candidate.

By DOJ rules, but not by the constitution, Trump had a "get out of jail free" card for prosecution of any federal crimes while he was in office. (Note, this GOOJF card never applies to state or civil court cases.) Now that he is out of office, we need to make it clear that these cases will go forward whether or not Trump is a candidate or even if he is again elected president.

A wealthy person can't suddenly file for the presidency to delay any federal indictments or convictions until the next presidential election. 

I am not aware of any laws on this subject, but Trump and voters should expect that any indictments this year will be be handled as they would for any other citizen. They won't be delayed by campaign contingencies, the actual election or, should he win, by any responsibilities of his new status as president-elect or president.

Trump and his supporters have to accept the possibility that Trump could be inaugurated in a jail cell or the Oval Office moved to Leavenworth.  

We've all seen enough of Trump's play book to know that once he is indicted he will use every opportunity to slow down the judicial process. He is entitled to the same legal options as any other defendant, but he and his supporters need to accept that these slow downs increase his chances that the legal processes against him will interfere with what they see as his need to campaign or serve. If you can't accept that, don't vote for him in the primary.

Trump supporters have been able to turn a blind eye to Trump's inadequacies for years. From the day he walked down the escalator it has been been very clear that Trump lies about anything and everything. He has only a superficial understanding of the Constitution, science or the Bible. He has no idea of what is expected of a US president who is responsible for the entire country. He does not understand the concepts of independent and impartial judiciary system and justice department. He has practically no understanding of the US place in the world as an advocate and defender of democracy and as a leader who protects us, our allies and and world from countries and organizations that would harm us. Laws and norms that have guided us for centuries mean nothing to him.

Trump believes the world exists to serve him. He has repeatedly shown he is willing to sacrifice the constitution or country if he thinks that is needed to further his goals. His supporters must believe this also since nothing he does seems to affect their fealty. That is why he must face the law as any other citizen would until he is acquitted or convicted and his sentence is completed.

 

Save My Marriage, Vote For Obama

Recently, to explain his infidelity and the failure of two previous marriages, Newt Gingrich basically said that his patriotism and love for this country caused him to work too hard for his country and not hard enough at maintaining his marriages.

What a novel explanation. What he is basically saying is, I'm so patriotic I was willing to sacrifice my marriages for the good of the country.

If Newt should win the Republican presidential nomination for 2012, do you think the current Mrs. Gingrich will vote for Newt or vote for President Obama and possibly save her marriage?

Chameleon Gingrich

Newt Gingrich has been making conflicting statements about Libya. He was emphatically for a no-fly zone before President Obama decided to support the UN resolution. Once President Obama expressed support for a non-fly zone, Newt was suddenly emphatically against it.

The argument's he uses to defend his flip-flop are tortuous. It is obvious his opinions are purely driven by a simple logic - I don't agree with Obama. A tactic he fully developed years ago when it was - I don't agree with Clinton. He should change his name from Newt to Chameleon. His opinions quickly change to match the current Republican political landscape.

Presidential Primary Reform

Once again states are jockeying to move their presidential primaries to the front of the line. You can't blame them. An early primary means money and political clout, but at the rate we are going we may end up with the first presidential primary occurring more than a year before the actual election.

It is time for common sense to intervene. I recommend the American Plan from FairVote. It seems to be the best of several I've heard about. They make the point that determining the nominee early hurts both parties

• A short campaign does not fully vet nominees or issues.
• Writing a check has become more important than casting a vote. Since 1980, 13 of the 14 presidential nominees--in both parties--were those who raised the most money by December 31 of the previous year.
• There are 4 months of dead air until the national convention.
  

Their solution is to spread the process out over about 20 weeks and front load the process with smaller states to make it easier and cheaper for candidates to participate.

The American Plan:The Graduated Random Presidential Primary System, or The American Plan (sometimes known as the California Plan), is designed to begin with contests in small-population states, where candidates do not need tens of millions of dollars in order to compete. A wide field of presidential hopefuls will be competitive in the early going. A "minor candidate's" surprise successes in the early rounds, based more on the merit of the message than on massive amounts of money, will tend to attract money from larger numbers of small contributors for the campaign to spend in later rounds of primaries.

Thus there should be more longevity of candidacy, and more credible challengers to the "front-runners." However, as the campaign proceeds, the aggregate value of contested states becomes successively larger, requiring the expenditure of larger amounts of money in order to campaign effectively. A gradual weeding-out process occurs, as less-successful candidates drop out of the race.

The goal is for the process to produce a clear winner in the end, but only after all voices have had a chance to be heard.

While there are several proposals for reform, this one has a lot to recommend. Let us hope that the political parties and states come to their senses and decide on a national plan.