Chris Christie

Colorado Upper Court Uses 14th Amendment – Illegally

Published by Papa Giorgio

(UPDATED BELOW)

NATIONAL REVIEW discusses the options in front of the courts… but remember, another way (split the horns Plato) is available. One site says “CHECKMATE” regarding this option. More below.

Chris Christie is no fan of Trump, yet, he can see the main issue at hand:

Christie

Jonathan Turley notes the following on TWITTER:

The Colorado Supreme Court has handed down the most anti-democratic opinion in decades. Yet, these justices barred voters from [voting] for their preferred candidate in the name of democracy. It is like burning down a house in the name of fire safety.

[….]

The Colorado Supreme Court has issued an unsigned opinion disqualifying Trump from the ballot: “The sum of these parts is this: President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three; because he is disqualified.” …

…This ends a string of losses for advocates of this dangerous novel theory. They finally found a court that would embrace what the court admits is a case of “first impression.” My first impression remains that same. The court is dead wrong in my view…

…It is striking that the court relies on Schenck v. U.S., where the Court upheld the denial of core free speech rights of a socialist opposing a war. The opinion of the Colorado Supreme Court is so sweeping that it would allow for tit-for-tat removals of candidates from ballots….

…The opinion is remarkable in how the four justices adopted the most sweeping interpretations to get over each barrier. The result is lack of a limiting principle. I view the opinion as strikingly anti-democratic in what it now allows states to do in blue and red states alike.

[….]

James Freeman Clarke once said “a politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation.” It is time for President Joe Biden to show that he can think of the next generation and oppose this insidious ruling.

[….]

Much can be said about this decision, but restraint is not one of them. The four Colorado justices had to adopt the most sweeping interpretation on every key element. The only narrow part of the opinion came with the interpretation of the First Amendment.

In a very truncated clip from a longer video via Bannon’s War Room, Alan Dershowitz says the following:

Dershowitz

TRANSCRIPT:

Even people like me, who would welcome the loss – on political grounds, wouldn’t accept it on Constitutional grounds, because this is about the most dangerous, worst, and…

um, unconstitutional decision I’ve read in my 60 years of teaching and practicing criminal law.

This is a power grab.

In violation of the specific words of the 14th amendment, you couldn’t be clearer when the 14th amendment allocates the power to enforce this provision.

  • “expressly and singularly to Congress, Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation”

Having the States do this? On an individual basis is (a) absurd under contemporary law. And as well, the idea that the framers of the 14th amendment, radical Reconstructionists, would allocate to Mississippi and Alabama… ahh… the right to decide who’s on the ballot, ah, just defies any kind of historical understanding.

POWERLINE has a decent update to their article expanding where the case may weave it way to:

UPDATE: A number of readers have wondered why I said the Supreme Court is unlikely to intervene. On reflection, that was an offhand comment that was not thoroughly thought through. There were two reasons for it:

First, the Republican majority on the Court is highly reluctant to wade into waters that are seen as political. Ruling in Trump’s favor would use up a large share of the Court’s diminished political capital, and Trump is hardly the person on whom the justices want to expend that precious commodity. On the other hand, the application of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is a federal question that is squarely presented by this case and may not be easy to duck.

Second, the Court would need to act fast, as the primary season is nearly upon us. Normally, litigating any case in the Supreme Court takes time. I assume the Court would want to hear from a number of parties and would want extensive briefing. On a normal calendar, I don’t think there is enough time for that to happen. On the other hand, the Court can act more quickly if it wants to, and if it is willing to expend, in this case, the necessary political capital. So it could be possible.

A friend who is a very good lawyer writes:

I suspect that in fact the Supreme Court will immediately grant an emergency appeal and will rule 9-0, or 8-1 if Justice Jackson wants to be her usual moronic self, to overturn the Colorado decision. I imagine that every justice on the Supreme Court understands the implications of the decision, which would mean that any partisan state court could take the other party’s candidate off the ballot. So I will be shocked if they don’t feel the urgency to settle this once and for all. In fact, there has to be a lot of concern about the partisan turn of the courts in general.

I hope my friend is correct. I would only note that in the minds of many voters, the “partisan turn” of the courts is in our direction under the current Court–something to which the justices are acutely sensitive. And for the Democratic justices to renounce partisanship by voting in a way that is good for America but bad for the Democrats, in a high-profile, politically-charged case, is theoretically possible, but I am not sure there is any precedent for it.

FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE UPDATE!

The “Insurrection Clause” Doesn’t Apply Without a Declaration of Insurrection:

Colorado judges don’t get to declare that there was a federal insurrection.

[….]

For the “insurrection clause” to apply, there has to be an insurrection. That means there has to be a declaration of insurrection.

Congress and the Lincoln administration both defined and declared an insurrection. There’s been no declaration now which means, legally speaking, there’s no insurrection and therefore no insurrection clause applies.

The 14th is still a legal minefield in this regard and the ability of a president to claim insurrection is in theory an open-ended nightmare. Biden could, for example, hypothetically declare that an insurrection is underway, but he hasn’t so the point is null.

Colorado judges, random uninvolved state legislatures and Uncle Bob do not get to define an insurrection against federal authority. Only federal authorities get to declare an insurrection. Neither Trump nor Biden declared one of those.

New York, for example, could not unilaterally decide that Confederate states were in a state of insurrection. But that is what Colorado is trying to do here. States ought to usurp federal authority more often, but this is a blatantly illegal usurpation.

And the factual forest should not be lost for the legalistic trees.

Other States To Use Colorado Ruling

Of course, as other states try ta do this using the Colorado “ruling,” …. which RED STATE notes:

California’s Lieutenant Governor, Eleni Kounalakis, has sent a memo to the California Secretary of State, Shirley Weber, seeking to have Donald Trump removed from California’s primary ballot. 

[….]

The memo states in part:

Specifically, the Colorado Supreme Court held in Anderson v. Griswold (2023 CO 63) that Trump’s insurrection disqualifies him under section three of the Fourteenth Amendment to stand for presidential re-election. Because the candidate is ineligible, the court ruled, it would be a “wrongful act” for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on that state’s presidential primary ballot.

That’s wrong. It’s so wrong it’s not even in the same time zone as right. The entire argument here is based on nothing more than raw assertion: “Donald Trump is guilty of insurrection because of course he is.”….

routing the courts by caucusing trump

Of course, if this ruling is allowed to stand and the real SUPES don’t fix it, there are other ways to vote for voters to express their God-Given ability for freedom (RED STATE):

…As I predicted to my oldest son when the decision dropped Tuesday night, there’s one remedy the Republican Party can use to avoid all of this expensive and time-consuming lawfare completely. To its credit, the Colorado Republican Party almost immediately said that they would invoke it.

That remedy: Switch to a caucus to determine the party’s nominee….

CHECKMATE!

Joe Biden’s Big Lie (Combo: A & G | Chris Christie | Hugh Hewitt)

Published by Papa Giorgio

I was up early this morning and had had some idea of this upload… so here it is in the time allotted before work. (See previous slam by LARRY ELDER as well as ARMSTRONG and GETTY)

From THE FEDERALIST:

….Amid a barrage of “reporting” and commentary on the law—including outlandish and false statements from President Biden, who said it amounted to “Jim Crow in the 21st century” and called the law “sick” and “un-American”—it has been nearly impossible to find any straight news articles that describe, in simple and dispassionate terms, what the Georgia law actually does.

It would not be hard to write such a story if any news organizations cared to do so. As it happens, the Heritage Foundation has posted one of the few articles that simply describes what the law does in an effort to correct the false corporate media narrative that this is a “voter suppression” law.

Contrary to what has been reported by The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and many other corporate outlets, the Georgia law doesn’t contain any onerous voter ID requirements. It simply replaces a shoddy signature match system with a voter ID system, and provides that any Georgia resident can get a state ID for free if he doesn’t already have one (97 percent of registered voters in Georgia already do).

Also contrary to widespread reports, the law doesn’t eliminate drop-boxes for mail-in ballots. Such drop-boxes didn’t exist in Georgia prior to last year; they were an ad-hoc pandemic measure. The bill simply codified them into law, providing a certain number of drop-boxes for every county.

The law also doesn’t ban drinking water while waiting in line at the polls, it simply prohibits political groups from distributing food and water at polling places to prevent efforts to influence voters.

And on and on. In reality, Georgia’s voting law is a ho-hum tweaking of state voting laws. But in the phantasmagoria of corporate media, it’s the new Jim Crow. Major corporations have committed to this fantasy, publicly denouncing the law, intentionally mischaracterizing what it does, and in the case of Major League Baseball, which pulled its All-Star Game out of the state, taking concrete actions.

Other corporations have settled for issuing intentionally misleading statements. Delta and Coca-Cola, two of the largest employers in Georgia, came out against the law last week. Coca-Cola’s chief executive James Quincey said the new law “makes it harder for people to vote, not easier.” Delta’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, said more or less the same thing.

Both of them are wrong — and not as a matter of interpretation or rhetoric. They are factually, objectively wrong. The bill does not make it harder for anyone to vote. Period. Any assertions that it does make voting harder would be treated as lies or errors of fact in a reality-based media world.

But we don’t have a reality-based news media, so corporations feel no need to be reality-based. On Monday, United Airlines declared, “Legislation that infringes on the right to vote of fellow Americans is wrong.” Yet there is no such legislation, in Georgia or anywhere else. It is not real. Yet United—and Delta, and Coca-Cola, and many others—are asking us to believe that it is.….

New York Democrats “Enable” Terror Attacks

Published by Papa Giorgio

By “enable” I mean legislate passivity in homeland security.

Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer and former NYPD counterterrorism detective Bill McGroarty weigh in on ‘Hannity.’

Sean Hannity interviews (RADIO SHOW) retired NYPD Lieutenant, Bill McGroarty, as well as Patrick Poole about the recent terror attack

Audio Description:

BILL MCGROARTY: Retired Lieutenant with NYPD, worked 10 years in the Counter Terrorism Unit. Bill McGroarty and his unit had done surveillance on the mosque that the terror suspect attended…unfortunately, Chris Christie outed the NYPD’s surveillance efforts and forced them to end the program

PATRICK POOLE: National Security Correspondent for PJ Media, give us an intel perspective on the terror attack in NYC yesterday (October 31st).

The Uzbekistan native accused of killing eight people in New York City had been planning his attack for weeks and did prior reconnaissance before he plowed a rented truck into pedestrians along a popular Manhattan bike path, officials revealed Wednesday.

Sayfullo Saipov, 29, was interviewed by investigators at the hospital after his surgery Wednesday, John Miller, NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism, said in a news conference. Miller did not reveal what was said, though reports indicated Saipov bragged about the assault and said he was “proud” of the attack. NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill would not confirm the statement.

Days before Tuesday’s assault, ISIS had been encouraging its followers to carry out Halloween attacks with propaganda from the terror group showing a graphic with a blood-splattered machete and Tuesday’s date. SITE intelligence group, which monitors terror activity online, also highlighted a recent photo taken by an ISIS supporter near the scene of Tuesday’s attack; but it remained unclear if there was a connection between that photo and the rampage.

(HANNITY)

Man versus Boy ~ GOP Wars

Published by Papa Giorgio

Ann Coulter:

There were a lot of long faces at Fox News Tuesday night, but there’s a silver lining for Sen. Marco Rubio. Now he can go be a bartender like his dad! (Have you heard him tell the story about his father being a bartender? Rubio was his pop’s best customer after the debate.)

He can wear a flowered shirt, tell yarns about his father, and if he’s asked to make any complicated concoctions: JEB CAN FIX IT!

Gov. Chris Christie will always be remembered for the noble service he performed for his country Saturday night. He must have known his campaign wasn’t lighting the world on fire, but he was damned if he was going to stand by and let that pretty-boy mountebank win.

Christie smacked Rubio down at the GOP debate by dramatically exposing the fact that Rubio’s only skill is a weird ability to regurgitate “the memorized 25-second speech that is exactly what his advisers gave him” — as the governor memorably put it.

In a surprising move, Rubio responded by regurgitating the memorized 25-second speech that was exactly what his advisers gave him. And then he did it again three more times.

This is what Rubio said, all within about 3 minutes:

(1) “But I would add this. Let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He is trying to change this country.”

(2) “And let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.”

(3) “Here’s the bottom line. This notion that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing is just not true. He knows exactly what he’s doing.”

(4) “I think this notion — I think this is an important point. We have to understand what we’re going through here. We are not facing a president that doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows what he is doing. That’s why he’s done the things he’s done.”

Far from “an important point,” it’s an incredibly boring point: The president knows what he’s doing! But Rubio kept pounding out the words as if he were announcing the theory of relativity…..

The Media, Bridge-gate, and the Clinton’s ~ Chris Christie

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via Newsbusters:

….In the first two  days after Hillary’s e-mail scandal broke, the broadcast networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) aired a total of 33 minutes and 15 seconds of coverage during the morning and evening news shows – a level which rapidly dwindled as reporters moved on from the story.

In contrast, those same network news programs allotted 88 minutes to Christie’s BridgeGate in just the first two days — a rate of coverage more than twice as intense….

Media Bias Is Not What You `Do` Report, But What You `Do Not` Report

Published by Papa Giorgio

Video Description:

[See video cross-posted here.] Media Research Center President Brent Bozell appeared with Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto to slam the “obnoxious” double standard in how journalists have covered Chris Christie’s traffic scandal in two days versus the scant number of stories on the IRS controversy over six months. According to Bozell, “It really goes to show you how out of control this left wing so-called news press is.” Cavuto explained, “The big three networks alone devoted 17 times more coverage to this story in one day, one day, than they devoted to the IRS scandal in six months.” A second analysis my the MRC finds the disparity is now up to 44-to-one. 

[See original MRC study here.]

In Less than 24 Hours, Networks Devote 17 Times More Coverage to Christie Than Six Months of IRS

Published by Papa Giorgio

See NewsBusters:

In less than 24 hours, the big three networks have devoted 17 times more coverage to a traffic scandal involving Chris Christie than they’ve allowed in the last six months to Barack Obama’s Internal Revenue Service controversy. Since the story broke on Wednesday that aides to the New Jersey governor punished a local mayor’s lack of endorsement with a massive traffic jam, ABC, CBS and NBC have responded with 34 minutes and 28 seconds of coverage. Since July 1, these same networks managed a scant two minutes and eight seconds for the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups.

Chris Christie Blames Boehner for Holding Up Hurricane Relief Bill ~ Dennis Prager

Published by Papa Giorgio

 From Video Description:

Dennis Prager comments on all the addition pork heaped on an otherwise good bill to help relive the financial burden due to the recent Hurricane on the East Coast.  What is in the bill?

TOWNHALL (http://tinyurl.com/aaf94t6):
——————

The pork-barrel feast includes more than $8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments. It also includes a whopping $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dole out to fisheries in Alaska and $2 million for the Smithsonian Institution to repair museum roofs in DC.

An eye-popping $13 billion would go to “mitigation” projects to prepare for future storms.

Other big-ticket items in the bill include $207 million for the VA Manhattan Medical Center; $41 million to fix up eight military bases along the storm’s path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; $4 million for repairs at Kennedy Space Center in Florida; $3.3 million for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and $1.1 million to repair national cemeteries.

Budget watchdogs have dubbed the 94-page emergency-spending bill “Sandy Scam.”

More:

★ $58.8 million for forest restoration on private land.
★ $197 million “to… protect coastal ecosystems and habitat impacted by Hurricane Sandy.”
★ $10.78 billion for public transportation, most of which is allocated to future construction and improvements, not disaster relief.
★ $17 billion for wasteful Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), a program that has become notorious for its use as a backdoor earmark program.

HOTAIR ~ Left Leaning Mayor BLOOMBERG (http://tinyurl.com/b64h8ne):
————————-

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who previously declined to slam House Speaker John Boehner over Congress’ stalled Hurricane Sandy aid, took his argument to the next level this morning and suggested federal lawmakers are partially to blame for the delay in the vote on the package because they insert “things that are totally extraneous” into bills such as this. Although Mr. Bloomberg didn’t specify the extraneous problem items, the legislation has been criticized by Republicans like Rep. Paul Ryan for being “packed with funding for unrelated items, such as commercial fisheries in American Samoa and roof repair of museums in Washington, D.C.”

“There’s this ‘Christmas Tree effect’ where legislators put in their favorite bills and tack them onto something. The [Obama] administration does that, that’s why you have an omnibus bill–to force everybody to vote for things that would never stand up in the light of day if they were individual,” Mr. Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show with John Gambling. “I’m sympathetic. Yelling and screaming at [Mr. Boehner] is just not my style. It may be effective, it may not be. Everybody’s got to make their own decisions. I think the legislative leaders who criticize and those in the Legislature should stop and think, they do exactly the same thing in terms of ladling on things that are totally extraneous but it’s the only way they get them through.”

WALL STREET JOURNAL (http://tinyurl.com/axuethf):
————————————–

…Look at some of what was in the $60 billion bill: $150 million for Alaskan fisheries; $2 million for roof repair at the Smithsonian in Washington; and about $17 billion for liberal activists under the guise of “community development” funds and so-called social service grants. Far from being must-pass legislation, this is a disgrace to the memory of the victims and could taint legitimate efforts to deal with future disasters.

California Republican Darrell Issa had it right when he told Fox News that “They had the opportunity to have a $27- to $30-billion legit relief package, packed it with pork, then dared us not to vote on it.”

Beyond the recriminations is the larger problem that every disaster has become a Washington political opportunity. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is fully funded but does an incompetent job. Federal flood insurance encourages overbuilding in storm zones, so taxpayers pay first to subsidize the insurance and then to save the homeowners who overbuilt. And politicians use the public sympathy after any disaster as an excuse to throw even more money not merely at victims but for pent-up priorities they should be funding out of regular state and local tax dollars.

Mr. Boehner’s sin was ensuring that the House had time to sort the pork from the parochial. Mr. Christie should thank him on behalf of New Jersey taxpayers.