David Mamet: Why Trump will win in 2024 (28:01 – 36:20)
00:00 – 00:45 – Introduction 00:45 – 05:58 – When did David Mamet realise he was destined for the storytelling business, and how has the industry changed? 05:58 – 10:40 – The politicisation of the screenwriting industry 10:40 – 17:43 – David Mamet on being politically outspoken in a liberal industry 17:43 – 22:40 – The role of the mainstream media 22:40 – 23:28 – âNobody cares about diversityâ 23:28 – 28:01 – Does David Mamet feel any differently about being an American Jew in light of recent events? 28:01 – 36:20 – Will Donald Trump win in 2024? 36:20 – 38:44 – Does Mamet believe in banning speech? 38:44 – 42:28 – The future of Hollywood 42:28 – 43:06 – Concluding thoughts
Listen, I am not saying crazy Islamic fundamentalists would not have eventually made a move â even under Trump. But Republican administration foreign policy views are typically more realistic regarding the Middle East and Africa, and the spread of Islamo-Fascism. Under Biden one of the first things he did was remove the Houthis from the terrorist listing. And ignored [for the most part] Iranâs involvement in the hundred[+] attacks on bases in the Middle East and it took a record number of drone and missile strikes to garner a reaction [defensive] to these Iran backed terrorists.
The Biden administration has a skewed view of foreign policy that has created MORE unrest in a volatile area for evil opportunists âto pounce.â As well as a VERY porous border that is another opportunist wedge to get terrorists across the border who are creating cells in the country that will surely âpounceâ when ordered.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., examines increased tensions in the Middle East after the U.S. struck Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.
Remember, this was an “attack” [not preemptive, but retaliatory] with supported from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands. For the record.
And the night of the attack on Houthi terrorists [Iranian proxies] led to this exchange that is a rarity on news channels that are not FOX:
Victor Davis Hanson critiques [destroys] the Democrat and mainstream mediaâs narrative regarding Trumpâs 2nd term as a dictatorship. Must listen to response.
Of course the left thinks this “okay” symbol is racist, like everything is now “racist” (milk, the term “athletic,” criticizing the IRS, saying that Barack Obama lied, wanting lower taxes, Star Wars, your baby, craft beer, being white, lunch bags, etc., etc. —TOWNHALL | TWITTER [Tucker Carlson] | WASHINGTON TIMES | NATIONAL REVIEW | ZERO HEDGE [Tucker Carlson]).
Of course, if you are not familiar with the original graphic from SANTA CRUZ, it made #3 in the TOP 50 GREATEST SKATE LOGOS.
I was happened upon DICTIONARY.COM’s definition of the “Okay” symbol — and can you guess what I found? And the reason for Savory Agent’s version of the Santa Cruz Symbol? Here is the WRONG DEFINITION description first:
Important context: While the OK hand emoji đ has many harmless meanings, it was co-opted as a white supremacist symbol in the late 2010s. One should now be mindful of context when using or coming across this emoji.
This is just factually wrong. The “okay” symbol as a white supremacist symbol was first a hoax by 4Chan dating to 2017, and, the media made such a stink about it [thinking it was true] that after the media freakout, white supremacist groups adopted it.
In 2017, users on the message-board site 4chan aimed to convince the media and other people that the OK gesture was being used as a white power symbol as a joke. According to The Boston Globe, users on 4chan’s /pol/ (“Politically Incorrect”) board were instructed in February 2017 to “flood Twitter and other social media websites…claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy,” as part of a campaign dubbed “Operation O-KKK”.
The satirical association of the gesture with white supremacy derived from the assertion that the three upheld fingers resemble a ‘W’ and the circle made with the thumb and forefinger resemble the head of a ‘P’, together standing for “White Power.” While some members of the alt-right used the symbol after the launch of the 4chan campaign, it initially remained ambiguous whether or not it was being used to communicate genuine adherence to white supremacy, or with deliberately ironic motives.
In September 2019 the ADL revised their earlier position and added the OK gesture to its “Hate on Display” database. The listing notes that the usage of the OK hand gesture is sometimes benign, but that it is intended as a symbol of hate in some contexts, as some white supremacists have begun using the OK symbol “as a sincere expression of White Supremacy”. White supremacists have acknowledged using the symbol as a gesture of White Power. As a result of white supremacists’ co-opting the symbol….
Dennis Prager says it often, “everything the Left touches it ruins.” The Mainstream Media and Democrats [the Left] had their grubby hands/paws/mitts all over this story as factual — and because of the perceived power play seen in using this politically — they even ruined the “okay symbol.”
Here is the ADL’s dealing with it — take note the “circle game” was ruined as well by the Democrats and Media:
In 2017, the âokayâ hand gesture acquired a new and different significance thanks to a hoax by members of the website 4chan to falsely promote the gesture as a hate symbol, claiming that the gesture represented the letters âwp,â for âwhite power.â The âokayâ gesture hoax was merely the latest in a series of similar 4chan hoaxes using various innocuous symbols; in each case, the hoaxers hoped that the media and liberals would overreact by condemning a common image as white supremacist.
In the case of the âokayâ gesture, the hoax was so successful the symbol became a popular trolling tactic on the part of right-leaning individuals, who would often post photos to social media of themselves posing while making the âokayâ gesture.
Ironically, some white supremacists themselves soon also participated in such trolling tactics, lending an actual credence to those who labeled the trolling gesture as racist in nature. By 2019, at least some white supremacists seem to have abandoned the ironic or satiric intent behind the original trolling campaign and used the symbol as a sincere expression of white supremacy, such as when Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant flashed the symbol during a March 2019 courtroom appearance soon after his arrest for allegedly murdering 50 people in a shooting spree at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The overwhelming usage of the âokayâ hand gesture today is still its traditional purpose as a gesture signifying assent or approval. As a result, someone who uses the symbol cannot be assumed to be using the symbol in either a trolling or, especially, white supremacist context unless other contextual evidence exists to support the contention. Since 2017, many people have been falsely accused of being racist or white supremacist for using the âokayâ gesture in its traditional and innocuous sense.
Other, similar-seeming hand gestures have also been mistakenly assumed to have white supremacist connotations as a result of the âokayâ hoax. One of these is the so-called âCircle Game,â in which people attempt to trick each other into looking at an okay-like hand gesture made somewhere below the waist. Another is the hand sign of the Three Percenter movement, a wing of the anti-government extremist militia movement. Three Percenters, who are right-wing extremists but are not typically white supremacists, often make a hand gesture to symbolize their movement that uses the outstretched middle, ring, and pinky fingers to represent a Roman numeral â3.â This gesture, from certain angles, can often resemble an âokayâ hand gesture and has been misinterpreted by some as a white supremacist symbol.
The myth of the OK gesture as a secret symbol of white supremacy begins in 2017 as a deliberate effort on 4chan to spread the sign as such. It was chosen in part due to its use by the controversial speaker Milo Yiannopoulos and some white nationalists in support of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Its creators also claimed that the fingers of the OK gesture represent a W for white and the ring a P for power, as illustrated below. (read it all, it’s good)
I rarely say anything positive about VOX, but the link in the bullet point above surprised me. Bravo.
Hamas Fires 5,000 rockets Into Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Israel declares ‘state of war’ — More than 100 Israelis are dead and 900 Israelis have been injured in the Hamas rocket and terror assault from Beersheba to Jerusalem, the Health Ministry said.
Israel Declared War…
“Since this morning, the State of Israel has been at war. Our first objective is to clear out the hostile forces that infiltrated our territory and restore the security and quiet to the communities that have been attacked.
The second objective, at the same time, is to exact an immense price from the enemy, within the Gaza Strip as well. The third objective is to reinforce other fronts so that nobody should mistakenly join this war.
We are at war. In war, one needs to be level-headed. I call on all citizens of Israel to unite in order to achieve our highest goal â victory in the war.”
Israel is now under attack by Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists. Iran has helped fund this war against Israel and Joe Biden’s policies that have gone easy on Iran have helped fill their coffers.
We are going to stand with Israel as they root out Hamas and we need to stand up to⌠pic.twitter.com/FENQtAxiDE
So the real question after going through this post is:
“Do you [government officials] dissuade or encourage illegal immigration?(deportation back to your country, build walls, etc. | VS. | cut razor wire to allow into country, invite to swarm the border, reverse previous policies shown to dissuade people making the trip up to our border, etc.)”
In other words, do you encourage more rape? Put another way: do you sacrificially offer more women up to the rapists? Or do you dissuade this offering?
JUST AN UPDATE TO THE BELOW:
Just read this DAILY WIRE story this morning, and thought of this post:
Migrant women are reportedly being raped on the Mexican side of the southern border as they wait and seek to enter the U.S.
Sexual violence has ticked up in the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros, both of which are across the border at the southern tip of Texas, Reuters reported.
Both border cities are major destinations for migrants who make the treacherous journey north in hopes of coming to America.
The two cities have seen record criminal investigations into the rape of foreign nationals this year, state data stretching back to 2014Â shows. Eight sexual assault survivors and more than a dozen local aid workers also confirmed the rise in sexual violence to Reuters.
The sexual attacks are often perpetrated by human smugglers who demand cash from migrants. The details are graphic.
One woman, Carolina, said she arrived in Reynosa on a commercial bus with her 13-year-old son, but she was quickly kidnapped and brought to a house where she and other migrants were raped. At dawn one morning in late May, she was pulled out of the stash house by the men and raped on a broken-down bus.
âItâs the saddest, most horrible thing that can happen to a person,â she told Reuters.
She was released when her family paid a $3,100 ransom, and she was interviewed by Reuters after she had arrived in Chicago.
Another woman from Ecuador said she was also held hostage in Reynosa, and her captors allowed a drug dealer to rape her in exchange for a white powder he gave them, possibly cocaine. She escaped through a window one night holding her Christ child figurine as her kidnappers were sleeping.
She was interviewed by Reuters after she arrived in New Jersey and said, âI still have nightmares.â
Rape is also reportedly one of the torture tactics used by smugglers to get migrants to pay them more money……
END OF UPDATE
(As an aside, the “rape culture” Democrats always mention is being created at the border and the trip up here by their invitation to come, illegally.)
Just wanted to excerpt a portion of a larger post where I detail three lies by the media and Democrats about President Trump. Before that excerpt however, I want to add a more recent story regarding a portion of what will follow:
JUST THE NEWS reports on Senator Ted Cruz’s above mention of “rape trees”:
Mexican cartels are moving millions of people into the U.S. over the border, and “rape trees” are a reminder that the Biden administration isn’t doing enough to stop them, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said during a news conference with a group of Republican senators who visited the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We heard multiple reports of something, I’ll be candid, I had never heard of before until today â something called a rape tree, which are trees where the traffickers would violently rape young women and then hang their undergarments in the tree as a trophy,” Cruz said on Friday.
According to an Amnesty International report, about 60% of the women and girls who make the trek to the U.S.-Mexico border are raped.
Cartels reportedly charge thousands of dollars to bring someone through Mexico to the U.S. illegally. Republican senators have noted that migrants who cannot afford to pay the fee end up working for the cartel to repay the debt once they enter the U.S.
“How do you think the young women pay off their 5, 6, 7, 8 thousand dollar human trafficking fee?” asked Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. “I think we all know,” he said, referring to the “rape tree.”
I mentioned this way back in November of 2016, as well as the Amnesty International report… here is the excerpt.
EXCERPT
OKAY… I will now post three responses to items of discussion that my guess is those who are very distraught over Trump’s win and view either him or a large segment of the population who voted for him as racist or bigoted, or mean to disabled persons, is more complicated than these labels. First up is this:
Is Mexico Sending Rapists?
When I ask people to offer me an example of Trump’s “racism,” I get a reference to this example most often:
“The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody elseâs problems…. When Mexico sends its people, theyâre not sending their best. Theyâre not sending you…. Theyâre sending people that have lots of problems…. Theyâre bringing drugs. Theyâre bringing crime. Theyâre rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” ~ Donald J. Trump
Before I add information that I doubt a millennial has heard because either they or their friends are quick to label Trump as being bigoted or racist for saying this, and moving on without further reflection, I want to note that all Republican politicians said to round up illegals in America would be an impossible task. Trump has evolved on his statement that many understood as rounding up 11-million (actually, there are 30-million). ALSO, every Republican politician noted that the Constitution would not allow for the banning of all Muslims coming to our country. Again, our Constitution forbids this. It allows for banning all persons from a country, but not a religious or sectarian belief. He [Trump] has backed away from this as well, as all of us knew he would. In fact, this was removed from his site. Trump is not a politician, but his team is counseling him well.
…Continuing.
Okay. What of Trump’s statement? It surely sounds bigoted at best.
I will shock the reader.
I think that is the most pro-woman statement in a long time by a politician regarding real — violent — crime against women.
As the number of Central American women and girls crossing into the U.S. continues to spike, so is the staggering amount of sexual violence waged against these migrants who are in search of a better life.
According to a stunning Fusion investigation, 80 percent of women and girls crossing into the U.S. by way of Mexico are raped during their journey. Thatâs up from a previous estimate of 60 percent, according to an Amnesty International report…
[….]
Through May, the number of unaccompanied girls younger than 18 caught at the US-Mexico border increased by 77 percent.
But while many of these girls are fleeing their homes because of fears of being sexually assaulted, according to the UNHCR, they are still meeting that same fate on their journey to freedom…
For clarity in the sources for the HUFFPO article, for those that are of the impatient and research non-oriented generation:
⌠60% Amnesty International Report (PDF) ⌠80% Is rape the price to pay for migrant women chasing the American Dream? (FUSION)
(UPDATED EDITORIAL BY RPT) To be clear, these rapes are happening by residents who live in towns and districts these migrants are passing through. Other rapes are happening by Coyotajes, as well as many by the men making the trip as well. We know that many Honduren gang-members make the trek, and so, a high percentage of these men (criminals) do in fact cross our border into our nation. Where American women of all ethnic background are subjected to assault. Since we know illegals commit crimes at double the rate of native-born… rape is also part of these increased stats.
…âAccording to a stunning Fusion investigation, 80 percent of women and girls crossing into the U.S. by way of Mexico are raped during their journey. Thatâs up from a previous estimate of 60 percent, according to an Amnesty International report,â the well-known news outlet continued….
So, many of the men they travel with are rapping them. Many of the Coyotajes as well take advantage of them. There are what are now being called “RAPE TREES,” which you can learn more about on a previous post of mine, here. Here is how a conversation using this understanding went in the real world:
The above exchange was discussed a bit wrong, like Trump, the main idea is lost in the presentation. Gavin McInness made it sound as if the rapes were happening at the border when in actuality they are happening during the entire trip. And the girl thought he meant Coyotes, the real animal. Not Coyotajes. (That was very funny BTW, and why I ended the video like I did.)
What would be the most compassionate step to take? I would say, to control our border. That would help the migrant woman AS WELL AS our own mothers, daughters, and wives. Many from these countries that are experiencing these horrible circumstances are experiencing it because of their government models they have chosen. But this is neither here-nor-there.
The bottom line is that Trump, while not explaining this well at all, was actually making a statement about policy that in the end will protect women. There is this as well dealing with drugs and violence aspect of the comment:
A fresh wave of crime from the infamously violent MS-13 gang in the District of Columbia is being driven by the heavy recruitment of young illegal immigrants.
A surge of minors crossing the U.S. southern border is helping the notorious gang boost their ranks and instigate a new string of violent attacks in the city, reported The Washington Times. Over the past few years a wave of illegal migrant children crossed the U.S. border, and MS-13 appears to be targeting them for recruitment.
âThey are certainly susceptible,â Ed Ryan, gang prevention coordinator in Fairfax County, Virginia, told The Washington Times. âThey are new, they have very little family, they donât know the language very well. They are looking for someone who looks like them, talks like them.â
Experts say violence from MS-13, which originally started in California, historically occurs in waves. Currently MS-13, on orders from El Salvador, is ramping up efforts in cities across the U.S. to reestablish their dominance on the streets, reports The Washington Times….
This is just a very short clip of a longer audio (here: ) of John and Ken discussing Mollie Tibbetts and her murderer, Christian Bahena-Rivera. According to the DAILY CALLER, he was employed by a Republican small business owner…
“He worked on Yarrabee Farms, which is owned by the family of GOP official Craig Lang, who was a former 2018 Republican candidate for state secretary of agriculture, according to reports by the Des Moines Register.”
…who may have illegally had him in their employ? However, he was an example of the DACA young… so did he have his temporary papers? I have no idea. Nor would I know if he immigrated legally if he would have passed all the checks/balances.
As an side…
Is this man a racist or bigot? He was the co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, and spoke out against the racist organization, La Raza, as well as calling workers who crossed the border “illegal immigrants” and “wetbacks.”
“In the mid 1970s, he conducted the ‘Illegals Campaign’ to identify and report illegal workers, ‘an effort he deemed second in importance only to the boycott’ (of produce from non-unionized farms), according to Pawel. She quotes a memo from Chavez that said, âIf we can get the illegals out of California, we will win the strike overnight.â
…âCesar Chavez opposed illegal immigration,â Levin said during a Wednesday appearance on Fox Newsâ Hannity.Â
After saying that the premise that âcompassion is an open borderâ is a ânew ideaâ that has been pushed in recent times, Levin said that âa nation has a right to secure its borderâ and its citizens have a right to know who is coming into their country.Â
Chavez, who was also against ethnic organizations like La Raza, would tell illegal immigrants to get out of the country, especially because they lowered the wages of American workers. And he was often far from compassionate in handling illegal immigrants….
This is a large “Sploosh” as a Part Three to the question of Trump’s ability to be on the ballot for the 2024 election. In my Part Two dated Sept 7th, based on a great couple readings that: âI see nothing in the 14th Amendment including the President or Vice President in the outcome. In fact, I see language excluding them.â (Also Part One is worth reading through as well.)
Steven Calabresi â the law professor who co-founded the conservative Federalist Society legal organization â has conceded that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does not in fact bar former President Donald Trump from the presidential ballot, despite claiming in a much-hyped op-ed from August that this was the case.
The Northwestern University law professor had been an outspoken proponent of the legal theory that Trump was barred from running for office on the grounds that he incited an insurrection on January 6th, 2021 â in violation of a Civil War era constitutional provision. Itâs an initially floated by law professors William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, with Calabresi quickly popularizing it.
[….]
The three men were originally in agreement that âan officer of the United Statesâ included individuals elected as either President or Vice-President. However, Calabresi now says he believes that the President and Vice-President are not, due to âa technicality in the drafting of the disqualification clause of Section 3 of the 14th Amendmentâ, âofficersâ â that term being reserved for positions appointed by the President, rather than the President himself.
Additionally he concedes the events of January 6th do not constitute an âinsurrectionâ. Calabresi credits former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey with changing his mind.
New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan has already rejected calls to disqualify Trump, via the 14th Amendment, from the stateâs ballot.
The VOLOKH CONSPIRACY notes the change of mind: “Calabresi now agrees with Tillman that the President is not an “Officer of the United States.” And YAHOO NEWS also notes that last week professor Calabresi made an about-face
In a letter to The Wall Street Journal, he said he had been persuaded by an opinion article in that newspaper that the provision â Section 3 of the 14th Amendment â did not apply to Trump.
So I wanted to help out the #NeverTrumpers and pre-empt their correcting themselves:
Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukaseyâs op-ed âWas Trump âan Officer of the United Statesâ?â (Sept. 8) has caused me to change my mind about an argument that I have had with Prof. Seth Barrett Tillman for 25 years. Mr. Mukasey is right: Looked at in the context of the Disqualification Clause of the 14th Amendment, the president is neither an âofficer of the United States,â nor, obviously, a âmember of Congress.â That must be why the Constitution prescribes a separate oath for the president.
As a result, former President Donald Trump isnât covered by the Disqualification Clause, and he is eligible to be on the ballot in the 2024 presidential election. I am correcting the public record on this important issue by sending you this letter.
Last week, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. He contended that the President is not an “Officer of the United States.” Many of Mukasey’s arguments track a 2021 article that Seth and I wrote in the NYU Journal of Law & Liberty. Long-time readers may remember that Tillman persuaded Mukasey on this issue back in 2015. (This issue also came up with the Mar-A-Lago raid.)
A careful look at the 14th Amendmentâs Insurrection Clause shows that it doesnât apply to him.
….A good deal of attention has focused thus far on whether the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an âinsurrection or rebellionâ and, if so, whether Mr. Trump âengagedâ in it. Those questions, however, need not be answered until two preliminary questions of law are addressed: Is the presidency an âoffice . . . under the United States,â and was the presidential oath Mr. Trump swore on Jan. 20, 2016, to support the Constitution taken âas an officer of the United Statesâ?
The latter question is easier. The use of the term âofficer of the United Statesâ in other constitutional provisions shows that it refers only to appointed officials, not to elected ones. In U.S. v. Mouat (1888), the Supreme Court ruled that âunless a person in the service of the government . . . holds his place by virtue of an appointment . . ., he is not, strictly speaking, an officer of the United States.â Chief Justice John Roberts reiterated the point in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (2010): âThe people do not vote for the âOfficers of the United States.â â
Article VI of the Constitution provides that senators and representatives âand all executive and judicial Officers . . . of the United Statesâ take an oath to support the Constitution. But the presidential oath is separately provided for at the end of Article II, Section 1, which would be superfluous if the presidentâs oath were required by the general language in Article VI. Mr. Trump took an oath as president pursuant to Article II, not as an officer pursuant to Article VI. Because the Insurrection Clause applies only to those who have taken an oath âas an officer of the United States,â he canât be barred by that clause from serving in any capacity.
As for the former question, the language disqualifying a rebel from holding âany office . . . under the United Statesâ follows the language disqualifying the rebel from office as âSenator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President.â If âany office . . . under the United Statesâ is broad enough to cover the president, it is certainly broad enough to cover senators, representatives and perhaps electors. Such a reading would make reference to those specific offices superfluous.
[….]
As for the former question, the language disqualifying a rebel from holding âany office . . . under the United Statesâ follows the language disqualifying the rebel from office as âSenator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President.â If âany office . . . under the United Statesâ is broad enough to cover the president, it is certainly broad enough to cover senators, representatives and perhaps electors. Such a reading would make reference to those specific offices superfluous.
Is it plausible that the authors of the 14th Amendment specified senators, representatives and electors but meant to include the presidency and vice presidency under the general term âany office . . . under the United Statesâ? Note that the term is âany office,â not âany other office,â which implies that the positions listed before it arenât âoffices under the United States,â because they are elected not appointed.
But that conclusion is uncertain. The phrase âoffice under the United Statesâ appears four other times in the body of the Constitution, at least two of whichâone barring officeholders from accepting a foreign title or emolument, and one barring anyone impeached and convicted from holding such an officeâmay well apply to an elected official, including the president. Also, if a holder of an âoffice under the United Statesâ meant the same thing as âOfficer of the United States,â why werenât the same words used to specify it?
That may be puzzling, but as applied to Mr. Trump it is irrelevant, becauseâagainâhe didnât take and thus didnât violate an oath as an âOfficer of the United States,â and so cannot be barred by the 14th Amendment from seeking re-election.
Even a criminal conviction wouldnât bar him from seeking and winning the presidency. The Constitution specifies only that a person seeking that office be at least 35, a natural-born citizen and a 14-year U.S. resident. If Mr. Trump is to be kept from office, it will have to be done the old-fashioned way, the way it was done in 2020âby defeating him in an election.
Mr. Mukasey served as U.S. attorney general, 2007-09, and as a U.S. district judge, 1988-2006.
This will be my first installment to a legal challenge just getting underway in keeping Trump from office. Some say this is new, it is not. Some say Trump being charged with “insurrection” isn’t needed, it is. David Frum correctly says the Court will decide in the end. Frum also notes that if this tactic is opened up, our body-politic will be riddled with keeping our political foes from office. More distortions of the law will surely come as the Left uses Lawfare to attack the “Democracy” they say they want to protect. As more is written on these challenges and the hyperbole from the MSM and politicians splash into our lives, I will be posting on this more in the future.
Two Federalist Society law professors have published their findings stating that Trump is disqualified from serving as President based on the originalist interpretation of the 14th amendment ban on anyone who has engaged in insurrection against the United States from running for office. (MTN)
Donald Trump is ineligible to become president again, leading conservative scholars argue. “The Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3 says that anybody who takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and thereafter engages in or gives aid and comfort to an insurrection cannot hold any office under the United States, period,â Harvard University Carl M. Loeb University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus Laurence Tribe tells Joy Reid. (YAHOO NEWS)
Firstly, as much as the Left opines that an insurrection conviction isn’t needed, it is, in reality, in order to bar Trump from office. If the Left tries to push this thru without a solid legal ground, the electorate will clearly note this and there will be hell to pay.
And, I assume, in the end the Supes will need to get involved. Especially if pushed thru before the election like Trump’s 2nd shampeachment.
More on SCOTUS from David Frum below.
COURT CASE ALREADY STARTED
Here is a recent news story of a Florida case already being pushed thru:
A Florida lawyer is challenging former President Trumpâs ability to run for president in 2024 under the U.S. Constitutionâs 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 âhave engaged in insurrection or rebellionâ against the government cannot hold office.
Here is a video, also Left leaning, explaining the issue well:
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on a new disqualification lawsuit filed against Donald Trump in Florida federal court under the 14th Amendment Section 3.
PUSHING BACK ON THIS IDEA
[As an aside: just to note officially on my site, the current cases against Trump are being rushed through the courts, however, Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley both say isn’t going to happen.]
….Despite the scenes of the attack on the Capitol and extensive investigations, the American people do not seem to agree that Trump took part in an insurrection or rebellion. Almost half the respondents in a THE HILL rejected the claim that the events of Jan. 6 were an actual âinsurrectionâ (with the divide tracking partisan lines), and 76 percent viewed it as a âprotest gone too far.â
Other considerations also call into question the claim that Trump instigated an âinsurrectionâ in the constitutional sense. If it were clear that Trump engaged in insurrection, the Justice Department should have acted on the Jan. 6 Committeeâs referral for prosecution on that charge. Special Counsel Jack Smith should have indicted him for insurrection or seditious conspiracy, which remain federal crimes. If it were obvious that Trump had committed insurrection, Congress should have convicted him in the two weeks between Jan. 6 and Inauguration Day. Instead, the House impeached Trump for indictment to insurrection but the Senate acquitted him.  Â
The Senateâs acquittal is the only official finding by a federal or state institution on the question of whether Trump committed insurrection. The failure of the special counsel to charge insurrection and the Senate to convict in the second impeachment highlights a serious flaw in the academic theory of disqualification.
According to Luttig and Tribe, it appears self-evident that Trump committed insurrection. They assume Trump violated the law without any definitive finding by any federal authority. According to their view, he must carry the burden of proof to show he is not guilty of insurrection or rebellion â a process that achieves the very opposite of our Constitutionâs guarantee of due process, which, it so happens, is not just provided for by the Fifth Amendment, but reaffirmed in the same 14th Amendment that contains the disqualification clause. It would be like requiring Barak Obama to prove he was native-born (a constitutional prerequisite for being president) if state election officials disqualified him for being foreign-born.
The Electoral College Chooses Presidents, Not State Officials
If this academic view were correct, it would throw our electoral system into chaos. One of the chief virtues of the Electoral College system is that it decentralizes the selection of the president: State legislatures decide the manner for choosing electors, with each state receiving votes equal to its representation in the House and Senate. States run the elections, which means that hundreds, if not thousands, of city, county, and state officials could execute this unilateral finding of insurrection. A county state election official, for example, could choose to remove Trumpâs name from printed ballots or refuse to count any votes in his favor. A state court could order Trump barred from the election. A state governor could refuse to certify any electoral votes in his favor. The decentralization of our electoral system could allow a single official, especially from a battleground state, to sway the outcome of a close race in the 2024 presidential election.
Allowing a single state to wield this much power over the federal government runs counter to broader federalism principles articulated by the Supreme Court. In our nationâs most important decision on the balance of power between the national government and the states, McCullough v. Maryland, Chief Justice John Marshall held that a single state could not impose a tax on the Bank of the United States. Marshall famously observed that âthe power to tax is the power to destroy.â
Marshall may well have frowned upon single state officials deciding to eliminate candidates for federal office on their own initiative. The Supreme Court lent further support for this idea in United States Term Limits v. Thornton (1995), which held that states could not effectively add new qualifications for congressional candidates by barring long-time incumbents from appearing on the ballot. Writing for the majority, Justice Stevens argued that allowing states to add term limits as a qualification for their congressional elections conflicted with âthe uniformity and national character [of Congress] that the framers sought to ensure.â Allowing state election officials to decide for themselves whether someone has incited or committed insurrection, without any meaningful trial or equivalent proceeding, would give states the ability to achieve what term limits forbid.
[….]
We are not apologists for Trumpâs spreading of baseless claims of electoral fraud or his efforts to stop the electoral count on Jan. 6. But as with the weak charges brought by the special counsel, the effort to hold Trump accountable for his actions should not depend on a warping of our constitutional system. Prosecutors should charge him with insurrection if they can prove it and have that conviction sustained on appeal. Congress should disqualify Trump if it can agree he committed the crime. Ultimately, the American people will decide Trumpâs responsibility for the events of Jan. 6, but at the ballot box in 2024âs nominating and general elections for president…
TRUMP NOT CHARGED with INSURRECTION
Insurrection is still key in this endeavor, and, as mush as Laurence Tribe thinks it is self evident, the case has not been made. In THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR has a great little article worthy of noting,
For 31 months, the Democrats and their allies in the corporate media have characterized the Capitol Hill chaos that erupted on Jan. 6, 2021 as an âinsurrection.â The House of Representatives reinforced this version of events by impeaching then-President Trump for âincitement of insurrection.â The Senate acquitted him, of course. Nonetheless, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack referred the case to the Justice Department for further investigation. Consequently, it was something of a surprise that the formal indictment unsealed last Tuesday by Special Counsel Jack Smith failed to charge Trump with fomenting insurrection.
This must have been particularly frustrating for those who have long insisted that the 14th Amendment prohibits Trump from serving a second presidential term. The primary purpose of the 14th Amendment was, of course, to grant citizenship to emancipated slaves. However, it also includes language in Section 3 that bars anyone who has âengaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [United States]â from holding office in the federal government. This passage was included to prevent former officials of the Confederacy from returning to Congress and creating more mischief. The problem with using this clause against Donald Trump is explained by constitutional law professor Josh Blackman in Reason:
In some legal circles, advocates contend that it is so obvious that Trump committed insurrection. Yet, the special counsel, after studying the issue for months, opted not to bring that charge. Why? Perhaps Smith determined that he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump engaged in insurrection. Or maybe Smith determined there were considerable legal questions about how to obtain such a conviction â most critically, was there an actual insurrection? (Yes, for the Supreme Court to knock Trump off the ballot, you need five votes to say that there was an insurrection as a matter of law â good luck with that!)
It evidently never occurred to the victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome that âinsurrectionâ is a legal term with an actual definition in the U.S. Code. In order to convict former President Trump of this crime, the Special Prosecutor must prove that he fits the following description in 18 U.S.C. § 2383: âWhoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto.â Anyone convicted of insurrection can expect a long prison term and a hefty fine. It would be difficult to convict Trump under this statute, considering that not one participant in the Jan. 6 riot has been charged with insurrection…..
DAVID FRUM’S ATLANTIC PIECE
And it may be a 50-state attempt, which will push it to the Supes sooner rather than later. David Frum, a #NeverTrump guy, notes this will be a failed endeavor by simply stating in his ATLANTIC piece:
“The fourteenth amendment wonât save us from Donald Trump.”
Continuing he states:
….The least of these problems is the legal one: whether Trumpâs scheme to seize the presidency by fraud, then violence, amounts to a ârebellionâ or an âinsurrectionâ under the amendment. There will be a lot of disagreement on that point, enough to generate litigation. But letâs suppose that the excluders win in court or that the courts abdicate altogether, kicking the dispute back to the elected branches of government as a âpolitical matter.â
In that case, the use of the section to debar candidates would not stop at Trump. It would become a dangerously convenient tool of partisan politics.
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.
Because Section 3âs meaning seemed so obvious in 1866, a lot of the hard questions about its interpretation and application were shrugged off. Iâll nominate just two examples.
First, the section does not apply only to candidates for presidentâit does not even mention the president. It mentions senators, House members, electors, and civil and military officers of the United States or any state. The section appears to apply to the presidency only as part of that final catchall category.
Second, that phrase âaid and comfort to the enemies thereofââwhat does that mean? The language is copied from Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution. But there, the language was drafted to make it difficult to convict an accused person of crime: âTreason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.â
Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment strips away all of the 1787 restrictions: the overt act, the two witnesses, the requirement of public confession. The question of what constitutes âaid and comfortâ is left to the judgment of ⌠waitâSection 3 gives no clue about how it should be enforced or by whom. Again, thatâs understandable. In 1866, none of this looked complicated. But in a modern context, that enforcement question of a reactivated Section 3 will be nasty.
Consider the scenario in which Section 3 is invoked against Trump in 2024. Although he has won the Republican nomination, Democratic secretaries of state in key states refuse to place his name on their ballots, as a person who engaged in insurrection against the United States. With Trumpâs name deleted from some swing-state ballots, President Joe Biden is easily reelected.
But only kind of reelected. How in the world are Republicans likely to react to such an outcome? Will any of them regard such a victory as legitimate? The rage and chaos that would follow are beyond imagining.
And then what? If Section 3 can be reactivated in this way, then reactivated it will be. Republicans will hunt for Democrats to disqualify, and not only for president, but for any race where Democrats present someone who said or did something that can be represented as âaid and comfortâ to enemies of the United States. Didnât progressive Representative Ilhan Omar once seemingly equate al-Qaeda with the U.S. military? Do we think that her political enemies will accept that she was making only a stupid rhetorical point? Earlier this year, Tennessee Republicans tossed out of the legislature two Black Democrats for allegedly violating House rules. Might Tennessee Republicans next deem unruly Democrats ârebelsâ forbidden ever to run for office again?
Where are the federal courts in all this? Do they actually stand aside as local officials exercise veto power over whoâs a loyal enough American to be listed on the ballot for county commissioner? Do they really let the âelected branchesâ decide? And what would that mean in practice? The section transfers an otherwise presidential prerogative, the pardon power, to Congress. If the courts step back, does that not imply that the House and Senate must somehow find a way to wield the power of the section together?
That seems unlikely. But the alternative of judicial decision is fraught with institutional risks too. Imagine a serious effort to block Trump from appearing on ballots in 2024, and then suppose he challenges that block in courtâand ultimately wins a ruling in his favor from the Supreme Court, by a margin of 5â4 or even 6â3. Now the rage and chaos would be reversed. A pro-Trump Thomas-Alito-Gorsuch-Barrett-Kavanaugh majority might obliterate whatever deference the Court still commands among Democrats and liberals. Although much is wrong with the present Court, this country will not be in a better or happier place if it loses its last, imperfect arbiter….
UPDATED ON 09/18/2023 | CNN Transcript
A CNN interview was just pointed out to me where a “not-fan of Trump” said rationally what David Frum said, and that is, allowing states to go down this path will create vindictive cross-fire that will spread through our body-politic:
STERLING:Â What we need to do is focus on the voters. We have a Constitutional Republic of laws that essentially empowers voters to make decisions. They make good ones. They make bad ones. They generally come out OK. We have to trust the voters in this.And anybody using an electoral scheme or a constitutional interpretation to remove anybody from the ballots is going to be a dangerous precedent.
Because I can guarantee you what happens, it start up from the Bork hearings in ’86. One side does one thing, the other side does something else. The other side blames the last side for doing it. There will be a Republican saying, you have violated your oath of office under the Constitution. I’m barring you from the ballot. That’s all we’re going to see happening.We need to have grown-ups in the room look at the long term implications of these things. Whether we disagree with the individual candidate or loved a individual candidate.
FRUM IS RIGHT
Bottom line?
IN THE END, SCOTUS SAVES THE DAY
And Frum is exactly right on this point as well: Republicans will hunt for Democrats to disqualify. As much as I love the GOP using the Dems tactics against them. Take for instance Mitch McConnell’s warning to Harry Reid, which came to fruition when the Republicans [thankfully] used to get judges onto the bench that were center-right. If this “insurrection/sedition” tactic is unleashed, our system will have a ton of these potholes, forever disrupting the turnover of power peaceably.
ALREADY TRIED
The WASHINGTON TIMES also notes that this effort has already been unsuccessful with other Republican candidates
….According to the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan shared staff to congressional committees and members of Congress, âInvocation of the Disqualification Clause raises a number of novel legal questions involving the activities that could trigger disqualification, the offices to which disqualification might apply, and the mechanisms to enforce disqualification.â
CRSâ analysis of the 14th Amendment relating to the Capitol events adds, âThe clause has been seldom used, and the few times it has been used in the past mainly arose out of the Civil Warâa very different context from the events of January 6.â
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have joined Free Speech for People with plans to hit Mr. Trumpâs campaign with legal broadsides under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
They have written letters to state election officials requesting them to block Mr. Trump from the ballot and are preparing voter lawsuits and state election board complaints.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War during Reconstruction, disqualifies someone from holding office after taking an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution but later engages in âinsurrection or rebellionâ against the country.
The clause was intended to deal with Confederate rebels who went to war against the Union or provided aid or comfort to national enemies.
Throughout 2022, liberal organizations such as Free Speech for People and Our Revolution sent letters urging election officials in all 50 states to disqualify Mr. Trump and his allies from qualifying for the ballot.
The groups cited the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, to make a case for barring lawmakers and the former president from running campaigns because of their perceived role in inciting the protest.
Liberal activistsâ 2022 legal attempts under the 14th Amendment, however, to throw Republican House lawmakers they contended were âinsurrectionistsâ off ballots in their home states were all unsuccessful.
These lawmakers were Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona, Tom Tiffany and Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin, Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
A law firm recently filed a lawsuit arguing that former President Donald Trump can be disqualified from the elections. And while this is new, it pulls from an agenda that the establishment has been proposing since 2021. The basis is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 just after the Civil War. It says a person can be banned from election or appointment to any level of government office if they âengaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [United States], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.â The establishment has been arguing this could apply to President Trumpâs actions to challenge the 2020 election, and for his alleged role in Jan. 6.
HOWEVER, as pointed out, Joshua Philipp points out this has already been tried, and failed:
EXCERPT ONE:
John Yoo Says That January 6th Was âThee Most Important Legal Eventâ
In this excerpted discussion John Yoo notes that the January 6th stuff is not nearly as strong as the Mara-Lago case (and in the fuller video he throws cold water on that as well). John Malcolm also discusses the ability of counsel to delve into all sorts of avenues of legal thought and advice. Jack Smith laid out an argument that undercuts his and Georgiaâs entire case [should watch the above linked video for more]:
3.The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. He w6as also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the Defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful. (HERITAGE FOUNDATION)
EXCERPT TWO:
Insurrection and Sedition Not Part of Indictments | PLUS: Trumpâs State of Mind
In this excerpted discussion John Yoo notes the lack of âinsurrectionâ or âseditionâ in the indictments. John Malcolm speaks to Trumpâs clear words of âpeacefully and patriotically marchingâ â which he says is not in the record of the indictment. Trumpâs state of mind is discussed a bit.
EXCERPT THREE:
Brad Raffensperger/Trump Phone Call Dissected by John Malcolm
In this excerpted discussion John Malcolm quickly notes the failure of any criminal law breaking in the phone call between Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Donald Trump regarding the âfindingâ of votes. The worst of intentions is applied to Trump by those that dislike him, however, the law done well looks beyond peopleâs opinions of him.
EXCERPT FOUR: A Question About What Type Of Legal Advice John Eastman Gave
This is a question regarding John Eastmanâs legal advice from the Q & A portion of the video.
FLASHBACK… w/update:
During the weeks leading up to the 2020 election, Lil Pump endorsed Trump and was even brought on stage by Trump at his rally in Michigan. (GATEWAY PUNDIT)
Throwback to one of the best moments of the 2020 campaign:
At today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) questioned Special Counsel John Durham about his report on the FBI and the investigations into former President Trump.
What did Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Loretta Lynch, and James Comey know about Russia-collusion â and when did they know it? John Durham dropped a bombshell in his testimony today at House Oversight, which will go on for at least a couple of hours or more, but this part wasnât the bombshell. In his special-counsel report, Durham had already revealed that CIA Director John Brennan briefed these four in August 2016 that Hillary Clinton planned to paint Donald Trump as linked to Russian intelligence, presumably to shift attention away from her own e-mail scandal.
That briefing resulted in a âreferral memorandum,â and one of its recipients was then-FBI director James Comey. Oversight chair Jim Jordan asks Durham whether Comey ever bothered to share that with the agents assigned to the newly launched Operation Crossfire Hurricane or ever presented to the FISA court when applications were made for domestic surveillance of Trump campaign officials.Â
[….]
JORDAN: “Did [Comey] share it with the agents…working the Crossfire Hurricane case?!”
DURHAM: “No.”
JORDAN: “Can you tell the committee what happened when you took that referral memo, and shared it with one of those agents?”
DURHAM: “He indicated he had never seen it before. He immediately became emotional…”
JORDAN: “He was ticked off!”
DURHAM: “The information was kept from them.”
Let me expand the truncated transcript on Durhamâs recollection:
JORDAN: Can you tell the committee what happened when you took that referral memo, and shared it with one of those agents?
DURHAM: We interviewed the first supervisor on the Crossfire investigation, the operational person. We showed him the intelligence information. He indicated he had never seen it before. He immediately became emotional, and got up and left the room with his lawyer, spent some time in the hallway, came back.
JORDAN: He was ticked off, wasnât he? He was ticked off because this was something he should have had as an agent on the case. This was important information that the director of the FBI kept from the people doing the investigation.
DURHAM: The information was kept from them.
In other words, the director of the FBI knowingly withheld evidence pertinent to an FBI investigation. That resulted not just in errors made by the agents conducting the investigation that might have resulted ending what turned out to be a witch hunt, but also contributed to misrepresentations to the FISA court about the nature of the evidence they used to conduct surveillance on Trump campaign figures.
Representative Troy Nehls (R-TX) questioned Special Counsel John Durham in the House Judiciary Committee today, spending his time dismantling the absurd claims made by Democrats about the existence of an alleged “Trump Pee Tape.”
Hank Johnson shames John Durham for failing to indict Hunter Biden (but there’s a good reason for that) | TWITCHY
