A Deeply Fractured US

[mariomike]

Haley is the perfect candidate.

O.J. supports Vivek.

With Nikki as VP versus VP Harris.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1695857670991868178

 

[Fishbone Jones]

That's the endorsement I'd go after.

 

[Halifax Tar]

If you think Afghanistan and Iraq had insurgencies, imagine a US occupied Mexico.

 

[brihard]

If you think Afghanistan and Iraq had insurgencies, imagine a US occupied Mexico.

Indeed. And it would not limit itself to within the borders of Mexico.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Indeed. And it would not limit itself to within the borders of Mexico.

Its certainly not something that would be a net positive for anyone.

What would happen to my Avocado supply!?!

 

[dapaterson]

Its certainly not something that would be a net positive for anyone.

What would happen to my Avocado supply!?!

That's why you can't afford housing.

 

[OldSolduer]

Someone’s been reading / watching Clear and Present Danger.

Great book but a very .... unstable plan. Not recommended as a COA.

 

[brihard]

Lots of legal stuff going on today, but the big on: Donald Trump’s federal criminal trial in Washington D.C. for the attempts to overturn the election has been set for March 4th, 2024. The judges rejected both the prosecution’s request for a January 2024 trial date, and defence’s request to delay trial until 2026 (!!!).

 

[GR66]

Lots of legal stuff going on today, but the big on: Donald Trump’s federal criminal trial in Washington D.C. for the attempts to overturn the election has been set for March 4th, 2024. The judges rejected both the prosecution’s request for a January 2024 trial date, and defence’s request to delay trial until 2026 (!!!).

One day before Super Tuesday. From CNN's election calendar:

States holding elections include: Alabama, Alaska Republican presidential primary (party-run), American Samoa Democratic presidential caucuses, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah Democratic presidential primary and Republican presidential caucuses, Vermont and Virginia.

 

[shiska]

Its certainly not something that would be a net positive for anyone.

What would happen to my Avocado supply!?!

I see your avocado and raise you tequila.

 

[brihard]

One day before Super Tuesday. From CNN's election calendar:

Yeah, the judge was quite clear and frank that he will be treated like any other defendant and that his personal and professional pursuits are not going to stand in the way of trial. She’s also linking up with the judge in the New York criminal case, which is scheduled for later that month. Sounds likely that that one will end up moving.

 

[Blackadder1916]

Lots of legal stuff going on . . .

Florida lawyer files challenge to disqualify Trump from 2024 race, citing 14th Amendment

A Florida lawyer is challenging former President Trump’s ability to run for president in 2024 under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, citing the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Lawr…

thehill.com

Florida lawyer files challenge to disqualify Trump from 2024 race, citing 14th Amendment​

A Florida lawyer is challenging former President Trump’s ability to run for president in 2024 under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, citing the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Lawrence Caplan, a tax attorney in Palm Beach County, filed the challenge in federal court Thursday, pointing to a clause in the amendment that says those who “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the government cannot hold office.

The challenge was first reported by The Palm Beach Post.

“The bottom line here is that President Trump both engaged in an insurrection and also gave aid and comfort to other individuals who were engaging in such actions, within the clear meaning of those terms as defined in Section Three of the 14th Amendment,” Caplan wrote in the filing. “Assuming that the public record to date is accurate, and we have no evidence to the contrary, Trump is no longer eligible to seek the office of the President of the United States, or of any other state of the Union.”

Caplan’s challenge is one of the first questioning the legality of Trump’s 2024 bid, though Trump is also facing criminal charges at both the state and federal level over his actions to undo the results of the 2020 vote.

The former president is currently the far-and-away front-runner in the GOP presidential primary. A spokesperson for his campaign told The Hill that the lawsuit has “no basis in fact or law.”

“We look forward to its prompt dismissal, to an award of legal sanctions against the plaintiff and to receiving full payment from him of all of our legal fees responding to this meritless, bad faith case,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

In an interview with The Hill, Caplan said that “someone had to take the lead” on challenging Trump’s candidacy.

“This is a scary, scary guy, and if he’s president, I think we’re all on the way to fascism,” he said. “There’s no law that says we have to remain a democracy forever.”

In the filing, Caplan wrote that the facts of his case “are undeniably simple.” In 2016, Trump won the presidential election, and in 2020, he lost it. The following Jan. 6, Trump encouraged a throng of supporters to march to the Capitol, saying he’d be “right there with them,” Caplan wrote.

“As we are well aware, the throng marched on the Capitol, forced their way into the Capitol building, ransacked the rotunda area, and even made their way into several offices of representatives and senators,” he wrote.

The 14th Amendment’s “disqualification clause” was written in the context of the Civil War, meant to bar those who had joined the Confederacy from serving in state or federal office. But it would “theoretically still apply” to those who engage in future rebellions or insurrections against the U.S., according to Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute.

Caplan told The Hill that he did not originally believe Trump’s role in the Capitol attack could disqualify him from becoming president again. That changed when he read an analysis by former 4th Circuit Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig and Harvard legal scholar Laurence Tribe.

In an article published last week in The Atlantic, Luttig, a conservative, and Tribe, who is liberal, contended that Trump’s efforts to remain in power after losing in 2020 “place him squarely within the ambit of the disqualification clause.”

Trump’s grand jury indictments in the Washington, D.C., federal case and the Georgia case probing those efforts make his disqualification automatic, Caplan said.

Trump surrendered to authorities on the Georgia charges Thursday evening, becoming the first former U.S. president to have a mug shot taken.

“The common sense of it is that the law says that someone who’s indicted for causing an insurrection is automatically ineligible to run for federal office,” Caplan told The Hill.

Whether the Capitol attack rises to the level of an insurrection under the law is a question still hotly debated among both legal scholars and politicians.

In his filing, Caplan wrote that “one can certainly argue” that the clause has not been “thoroughly tested.” But he countered that is only because the U.S. has not otherwise “faced an insurrection against our federal government such as the one while we faced on January 6, 2021.”

Caplan told The Hill on Friday that he is not an “overtly political person.” He said his first job out of law school was working for the National Security Agency — “so nobody could say that I’m not a patriot” — and that he has voted for Republicans in the past.

“The law is the law,” Caplan said. “We’ll see whether or not the judges have the guts to follow the law.”

While Mr. Caplan wrote in his filing that “one can certainly argue” that the clause has not been “thoroughly tested”, there has been at least one elected public official who has been removed from office, and banned from holding office in the future, for his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection using the same argument of the 14th Amendment's disqualification clause.

Lawsuit filed to remove Couy Griffin from office - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Office holders like Couy Griffin who participated in an insurrection violated their Constitutional oath, must be barred from public office.

www.citizensforethics.org

New Mexico Supreme Court dismisses Griffin insurrection appeal - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

The NM Supreme Court just dismissed Couy Griffin’s appeal of the decision removing him from office for participating in an insurrection.

www.citizensforethics.org

New Mexico Supreme Court reaffirms dismissal of Griffin insurrection appeal - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Couy Griffin engaged in insurrection on January 6th and disqualified himself from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

www.citizensforethics.org

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Trump Lead Increases After Debate

https://www.newsmax.com/us/donald-trump-gop-primary/2023/08/27/id/1132273/

 

[brihard]

Florida lawyer files challenge to disqualify Trump from 2024 race, citing 14th Amendment

A Florida lawyer is challenging former President Trump’s ability to run for president in 2024 under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, citing the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Lawr…

thehill.com

While Mr. Caplan wrote in his filing that “one can certainly argue” that the clause has not been “thoroughly tested”, there has been at least one elected public official who has been removed from office, and banned from holding office in the future, for his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection using the same argument of the 14th Amendment's disqualification clause.

Lawsuit filed to remove Couy Griffin from office - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Office holders like Couy Griffin who participated in an insurrection violated their Constitutional oath, must be barred from public office.

www.citizensforethics.org

New Mexico Supreme Court dismisses Griffin insurrection appeal - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

The NM Supreme Court just dismissed Couy Griffin’s appeal of the decision removing him from office for participating in an insurrection.

www.citizensforethics.org

New Mexico Supreme Court reaffirms dismissal of Griffin insurrection appeal - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Couy Griffin engaged in insurrection on January 6th and disqualified himself from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

www.citizensforethics.org

Damn, I was completely unaware of the Couy Griffin disqualification under the 14th. That's a hell of a precedent.

It's inevitable that some parties in various jurisdictions will move similarly to disqualify Trump... I'd be surprised if any courts are willing to entertain it until and unless he's convicted of something relevant, as Griffin was before this lawsuit went through. That said, if Trump is hypothetically convicted in the Washington case in... Probably April or so, that would be after a bunch of the primaries are done. Were he actually disqualified in a couple of electorally significant states, that could cause no small amount of pandemonium. But if the Republicans still want to self-flagellate and choose him as candidate, more power to 'em I guess.

 

[KevinB]

Damn, I was completely unaware of the Couy Griffin disqualification under the 14th. That's a hell of a precedent.

It's inevitable that some parties in various jurisdictions will move similarly to disqualify Trump... I'd be surprised if any courts are willing to entertain it until and unless he's convicted of something relevant, as Griffin was before this lawsuit went through. That said, if Trump is hypothetically convicted in the Washington case in... Probably April or so, that would be after a bunch of the primaries are done. Were he actually disqualified in a couple of electorally significant states, that could cause no small amount of pandemonium. But if the Republicans still want to self-flagellate and choose him as candidate, more power to 'em I guess.

It’s been all over the news down here for quite sometime.
Several Constitutional scholars have already opined that just being indicted means Trump is already disqualified.

I think Trump is quite happy taking the GOP ship down with him, and

Trump Lead Increases After Debate

https://www.newsmax.com/us/donald-trump-gop-primary/2023/08/27/id/1132273/

Internal GOP polling doesn’t bear that out.
He dropped, DeSantis dropped, while Haley, Pence and Christie gained.

Heck 2/3rds of the voting base down here won’t vote for him.
The fact that Trump is still running tells all anyone needs to know about his vain narcissistic personality

 

[Brad Sallows]

Flaky election theories; flaky constitutional theories. Birds of a feather.

 

[daftandbarmy]

It’s been all over the news down here for quite sometime.
Several Constitutional scholars have already opined that just being indicted means Trump is already disqualified.

I think Trump is quite happy taking the GOP ship down with him, and


Internal GOP polling doesn’t bear that out.
He dropped, DeSantis dropped, while Haley, Pence and Christie gained.

Heck 2/3rds of the voting base down here won’t vote for him.
The fact that Trump is still running tells all anyone needs to know about his vain narcissistic personality

Despite having no identifiable facial expressions, or other traits that might identify him as a non-robot, I think that Pence has more than proven that he is ethically qualified to be President.

 

[brihard]

Flaky election theories; flaky constitutional theories. Birds of a feather.

Well, the section is in their constitution, so it’s there for a reason. It appears to be left to the states, generally, to determine implementation. The one case to date was affirmed up to the state Supreme Court level; there’s no higher judicial body within a state. So- to blithely dismiss it as ‘flaky’ is to wilfully disregard the limited jurisprudence that exists.

 

[mariomike]

I think Trump is quite happy taking the GOP ship down with him,

A guy asked Tim if he would not stand up to the former guy, how would he stand up to the presidents of Russia and China.

Tim Scott has tense back-and-forth with New Hampshire voter over support for Trump

The South Carolina senator was one of the GOP candidates who said at Wednesday's debate that he would support Trump in the general election if convicted of crimes.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Brad Sallows]

Well, the section is in their constitution, so it’s there for a reason. It appears to be left to the states, generally, to determine implementation. The one case to date was affirmed up to the state Supreme Court level; there’s no higher judicial body within a state. So- to blithely dismiss it as ‘flaky’ is to wilfully disregard the limited jurisprudence that exists.

It's there because of the Civil War. The interpretation some people are asking for, absent actual conviction of Trump on something, is flaky.

The more flaky things people keep pushing, the more the substantial things are going to get wrapped up with them and dismissed as a package. People who deem themselves responsible have to resist their unaccountable urges to damage institutions by constantly setting lower standards. They are doing way more harm to "democracy" than Trump ever could.

"Avoid the unnecessary battle". Always sound advice.