CONGRESS HAS A CONSTITUTIONAL PATH TO BAR TRUMP FROM OFFICE IF THE TRIAL FAILS

BY Gerard Magliocca, in The Conversation January 31, 2021

UNDER THE 14^TH Constitutional Amendment:
“ANY CONGRESSIONAL MEMBERS DETERMINED TO HAVE “ENGAGED IN INSURRECTION” MAY BE EXPELLED UNDER THIS PROVISION BY A TWO-THIRDS VOTE IN THEIR HOUSE OF CONGRESS. THAT INCLUDES, POTENTIALLY, LAWMAKERS WHO ARE FOUND TO HAVE DIRECTLY AIDED OR INCITED THE RIOTERS. CAPITOL POLICE ARE INVESTIGATING SEVERAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES FOR LEADING “RECONNAISANCE” TOURS OF THE BUILDING ON JAN. 5, 2021.

Until recently, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was an obscure part of the U.S. Constitution. The 14^th prohibits current or former military officers, along with many current and former federal and state public officials, from serving in a variety of government offices if they “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States Constitution.

This provision is cited in the article of impeachment against former U.S. President Donald Trump, introduced after the insurrectionist violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. An impeachment trial is slated to begin in the Senate on Feb. 8.

Even if the trial is called off or acquits Trump, some senators are considering a resolution invoking Section 3 of the 14th amendment in an effort to bar him from holding future office.

Right after the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868, Section 3 was enforced vigorously.  Congress directed the Union Army to oust any former Confederate officials then holding office in the ex-Confederate states still under martial law.  Tens of thousands of men were made ineligible to serve by Section 3.

Congress then enacted legislation as part of the First Ku Klux Klan Act in 1870 giving the Justice Department authority to bring lawsuits in federal court to enforce Section 3 against former Confederate officials still holding office in other states.

Three justices on Tennessee’s Supreme Court were sued under this law. One resigned; the other two contested their ineligibility in court. North Carolina and Louisiana also enforced Section 3 in court upholding in 1869 the dismissal of some state officials who had served the Confederacy, including a sheriff, a constable and a district attorney.

In 1871, after the North Carolina Legislature elected their Civil War-era governor, Zebulon Vance, to the Senate, the Senate deemed him ineligible to serve under Section 3. The state legislature was forced to choose someone else.

Less than five years into Reconstruction, however, many Northerners began calling on Congress to grant amnesty to Southern officers barred from office by Section 3. The 14th Amendment gives Congress the power to restore the right to hold office with a two-thirds vote in each chamber.

This campaign, led by New York newspaper editor Horace Greeley, reflected white fatigue with the burdens of enforcing the entire 14th Amendment and a desire to move past the bitterness of the Civil War. Greeley and his “Liberal Republicans” mounted a presidential campaign in 1872 based in part on a platform of “universal amnesty.”

President Ulysses S. Grant, who was running for reelection, knew white public opinion now favored amnesty. In a Dec. 4, 1871 message to Congress, he asked lawmakers to grant amnesty to former Confederate officials. After a long and emotional debate, Congress did so in 1872 with the General Amnesty Act.

Soon Southern voters sent many previously disqualified men back to Congress, including Alexander Stephens, the former Confederate vice president.

Confederate president Jefferson Davis and a few hundred other former federal officials and military officers remained excluded from public office.

In granting this amnesty, Congress rejected a proposal by Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner, an eloquent advocate for racial equality, to couple forgiveness for white Southerners with a new civil rights law that would, among other things, have barred racial discrimination in schools.

In 1898, with the Spanish-American War about to begin, Congress removed Section 3 ineligibility from all living ex-rebels. It was widely seen as another gesture of national unity, but it was another nail in the coffin of Reconstruction.

During the 20th century, Section 3 was largely ignored. It was used once, during World War I, to exclude the socialist Congressman Victor Berger from the House for his anti-war speeches.

In the 1970s, Congress gave Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis posthumous Section 3 amnesty in the name of national “reconciliation,” after the divisive Vietnam War.

Today Section 3, created to vanquish white supremacy, is seeing a revival. The Confederate flag, which never entered the Capitol during the Civil War, was carried inside during the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

ANY CONGRESSIONAL MEMBERS DETERMINED TO HAVE “ENGAGED IN INSURRECTION” MAY BE EXPELLED UNDER THIS PROVISION BY A TWO-THIRDS VOTE IN THEIR HOUSE OF CONGRESS. THAT INCLUDES, POTENTIALLY, LAWMAKERS WHO ARE FOUND TO HAVE DIRECTLY AIDED OR INCITED THE RIOTERS. CAPITOL POLICE ARE INVESTIGATING SEVERAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES FOR ALLEGEDLY LEADING “RECONNAISSANCE” TOURS OF THE BUILDING ON JAN. 5.

Though lawmakers can remove their colleagues from office, they cannot legally keep those members from running for, and occupying, public office again. That’s because there is today no federal statute enforcing Section 3; those parts of the Ku Klux Klan Act were repealed long ago. Unless Congress passes a new enforcement law, any expelled lawmakers could return later.

Similarly, Congress could at any time use Section 3 to declare its constitutional opinion that Trump is ineligible to hold public office again, with a majority vote. But only the courts, interpreting Section 3 for themselves, can bar someone from running for president.

The issue may never come up. The Senate may disqualify Trump first, as part of impeachment, or he may choose not to run again. If he does run, though, he may have to take his case to the Supreme Court. A bipartisan congressional opinion of ineligibility would be a big blow to his candidacy.

TRUMP WORKED FOR PUTIN; HIS APPOINTEES—crybaby Kavanaugh & anti-choice Barrett—WILL BE REMOVED (I hope) IF HE’S PROVEN A RUSSIAN ASSET

After acquittal, Trump 2024?

By Mark Sherman

WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump’s acquittal by the Senate in his impeachment trial may not be the end of the line for efforts to keep him from seeking the presidency again.

If Trump chooses to run for the White House in 2024, opponents are likely to call on a constitutional provision adopted after the Civil War to try to stop him. The Supreme Court could have the final say.

The Constitution’s 14th Amendment disqualifies from future office any former elected officials and military officers who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States. Ratified in 1868, the language in Section 3 of the amendment was aimed at former Confederate civilian and military leaders.

It could be applied to people who incited or took part in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, legal scholars said, noting that a congressional commission to investigate the attack and lawsuits against Trump could help make clearer his role in the deadly insurrection that day.

“If Trump runs again in 2024, I think it’s very likely that we’ll see efforts to keep him off the ballot on Fourteenth Amendment grounds,” Daniel Hemel, a University of Chicago law professor, wrote in an email.

But there is a lot of uncertainty about how it might happen and whether Congress or just state officials would be involved.

KEEPING CONFEDERATES FROM OFFICE

The drafters of the 14th Amendment wanted to keep former officials who joined the Confederacy from resuming public service, without an explicit vote from Congress restoring their eligibility. Section 3 was enforced for several years at both the state and federal level, according to Gerard Magliocca, a professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. But in 1872, by a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate, Congress lifted the prohibition against most who had been barred from office.

Since then, it’s fair to say, the provision has fallen into disuse. “Nobody talks about it really,” said Laura F. Edwards, a professor of legal history at Princeton who has studied the 14th Amendment. “You haven’t had to talk about it since the Civil War.”

HOW IT COULD BE INVOKED AGAINST TRUMP

At least two Democrats in Congress say they are working on it. Rep. Steven Cohen, D-Tenn., said he is drafting legislation he hopes to unveil in the coming that weeks that would allow enforcement of the constitutional provision against anyone with ties to the violence at the Capitol last month. The bill would authorize the Justice Department to bring cases against would-be candidates and designate a federal court to handle any efforts to keep candidates off the ballot, Cohen said. The Capitol riot to try to keep Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory “was about as heinous and reprehensible an act since Benedict Arnold,” Cohen said, referring to the Revolutionary War general who was a traitor to the American cause.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said in a statement that she is working on a measure “that would prevent traitorous men such as Donald Trump and others from ever serving in a government they once sought to topple.”

Legislation would require Biden’s signature. Congress also could pass a resolution declaring that Trump and perhaps others are disqualified from future office, though, as Hemel pointed out, “that nonbinding resolution would be worth no more than the paper it’s written on.”

Even if Congress does nothing, though, state elections officials, or even state courts, might say that Trump cannot appear on their ballots because he engaged in insurrection, the professors said.

With or without congressional involvement, that matter would inevitably head to the courts, said Elizabeth Wydra, president of Constitutional Accountability Center. “But I think that’s OK, testing out a constitutional provision that has not often been used,” Wydra said.

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN THEN?

Judges would have to answer three questions, Magliocca said.

First, was there an insurrection? Trump’s lawyers argued in the impeachment trial that there wasn’t, but Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has called the events of Jan. 6 a failed insurrection, and the term was repeatedly used by Democrats in the impeachment process as well as widely used by the media. Merriam-Webster defines insurrection as “an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.“

Second, did Trump engage in insurrection? Here, too, Trump’s team and the House prosecutors differ. The answer could depend on more information that could emerge from a congressional investigation of the Jan. 6 riot, a lawsuit filed this week by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., against Trump or the court case over Trump’s disqualification, Magliocca said. “We need a lot more development of the facts,” he said.

Third, is Trump even covered by Section 3? The section doesn’t explicitly mention the presidency, but Magliocca is among legal scholars who believe Trump could be barred. If the presidency were excluded from the provision, former Confederate president Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy’s top military commander, Robert E. Lee, would have been barred from most offices but not the presidency, he said.

FINAL ANSWER

Ultimately, the Supreme Court probably would be asked to weigh in — and possibly in the heat of the presidential campaign since the issue probably would arise only if Trump announced his candidacy and sought to qualify for the ballot.

That development might not please Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts, who presided over Trump’s first impeachment trial. Roberts has been eager to keep the court out of cases related to Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, which were overwhelmingly rejected by courts and state elections officials, and partisan political controversies when possible.

“I don’t think the potential to give the chief justice heartburn is a reason to avoid enforcing the Constitution, but I’m sure he would be very unhappy to have this land at his court,” Wydra said.

One other possibility, Magliocca suggested, is that the specter of having to testify in court about his actions on Jan. 6 could be enough to keep Trump from running in the first place.

TRUMP TRASHED TOLERANCE
By Janet Kira Lessin, CEO, Aquarian Media

Trumpism plays out like a reality show that’s lost its glamour and has become ugly and boring. The Trump “reality” show is delusional and anything but real. Trump attempts to shove his desired reality down our throats despite the fact that he (Trump) lost the election and Biden won. There’s no evidence of any relevant amount of “fraud” that may affect the outcome that Trump lost.

Trump persists because he will be penniless and in prison if he’s not in the White House. Meanwhile, Trump tortures the world with his reality and we, the majority of humanity do not share his version of existence.

Trump will not be happy unless and until he wins no matter who else suffers or dies. He only cares for himself. He holds the planet hostage, much like Hitler did.

How is it that every generation the world suffers its tyrants, dictators and despots? How can we overcome this meglamaniac and prevent the next psychopath from running amok and taking over?

As Trump Loses And Eyes Post-WH Plans, Reality TV Exec Explains The Uphill Battle | MSNBC

After decisively losing the election to Joe Biden, Trump is being tuned out by TV networks. Reality TV show producer Michael Hirschorn explains to MSNBC’s Ari Melber how the decline of Trump’s show “The Apprentice” and other reality shows can show Americans what to expect from Trump as his days in the White House diminish. (This interview is from MSNBC’s “The Beat with Ari Melber, a news show covering politics, law and culture airing nightly at 6pm ET on MSNBC. http://www.thebeatwithari.com). Aired on 11/11/2020. » Subscribe to MSNBC: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc

TRUMP MANIPULATES HUMANITY TO SERVE HIMSELF

To delusional Trump supporters, mind-controlled cult followers, Trumpism has become a religion. The Republican party is swallowed up, absorbed, dead, gone. What’s left is unrecognizable.

Trump gathers followers, groupies and born-again Trumpets who push his products like the wares of a snake oil salesman or a used car salesman. He convinces his true believers to follow his one and only pathway to glory like a charismatic evangelist as depicted by Steve Martin in “Blinded by the Light” That may not be so bad if his intention was that his followers had a better life or even afterlife.

The only one served by these machinations are Donald Trump as he saves his ass from jail, avoids creditors who are about to call in the multi-million dollar loans he personally guaranteed. He sells America’s secrets, jeopardizes every American, and kills thousands whom he told not to wear masks.

In the real world, President-elect Joe Biden continues to hurtle toward his January 20 inauguration. [CNN November 12, 2020 Politics: https://apple.news/ATf2Qv6JlTwKP320C4pwDSQ]

Trump’s endgame comes into view

• He named his longtime aide Ron Klain, his longtime friend as chief of staff,
• He’s taking calls from more foreign leaders, although without help from the US State Department that he’ll soon oversee.
• A few more Republican senators said he should begin to get classified briefings even though they wouldn’t publicly acknowledge the fact he won.

Biden’s job is going to be hard. Infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm, a member of Biden’s Covid task force, suggested a four-week nationwide lockdown with the government covering wages and losses for many companies. “If we did that then we could lock down for four to six weeks and if we did that, we could drive the numbers down. Like they’ve done in Asia. Like they did in New Zealand and Australia,” he told Yahoo! Finance.

BIDEN TRANSITION

• Biden named Ron Klain as his White House chief of staff
• State Department is preventing Biden from accessing messages from foreign leaders
• Republican senator says he will step in if Biden doesn’t have access to intelligence briefings
• MAP: Full election results

Biden does not share that view. “Trump’s comments were not in line with the PEOTUS view,” a transition aide said, according to CNN’s Arlette Saenz. (PEOTUS is aide-speak for President-elect of the United States).

Trump, says Gloria Borger, thinks only of himself. “He’s not worried about the Republican Party. He’s worried about how he can commercialize and monetize all of this.

“Monetizing his loss could include post-election King Trump rallies across America (with paid attendance). He’ll say his rallies are bigger than Oprah’s motivational gatherings? A TV show! A big book deal, worth millions! (He’ll want more than Obama, but won’t get it.) Another run in 2024!

“Dragging out the election will help him raise money too. Denying reality lets Trump ask supporters for money he can use to influence them down the road.”

“Right now, though, he’s raising money allegedly to fight the inevitably fruitless court battles on some imagined voter fraud. But look at the small print: The money also seeds his newly established political action committee. So while he’s telling his voters he’s fighting to stay, he’s also looking for way to fund his future endeavors when he leaves. Always looking for a way to find a buck.”

The election-denying media landscape. With Gloria’s report in mind, now read Brian Stelter’s report about the rise of Newsmax TV. Its ratings are still small compared to Fox but have skyrocketed as Fox pushed the reality that Trump lost and Newsmax burrowed into the fallacy that Trump could still win.

Stelter interviewed Chris Ruddy, the Newsmax CEO and longtime Trump confidant/informal adviser: From Stelter’s story: “ Taking a big picture view, Newsmax’s sudden gains are about demand meeting supply. There is a demand for content that swears Biden is not president-elect; that Trump is not a loser; that Trump might even win a second term.

Al Schmidt, the Republican city commissioner of Philadelphia, touched on the demand side when he told CNN’s John Berman: “One thing I can’t comprehend is how hungry people are to consume lies and to consume information that is not true.”AND: This is a demand issue right now.

Trump loyalists are discovering Newsmax, some are also downloading Parler, the “Twitter-like app that describes itself as the world’s ‘premier free speech social network,'” New York Times’ Mike Isaac and Kellen Browning wrote Wednesday. “ We are witnessing a further “fracturing of the information ecosystem,” caused by conservatives who can’t or don’t believe that more Americans voted for Biden than Trump.“

Stelter said,” Hackers and trolls captured the public’s imagination when the most disruptive propaganda has been coming from more familiar sources. Think about Sean Hannity’s daily dose of whataboutism: His insistence that Trump fans should trust their tribe and disregard all outside sources of information has been staring us in the face for years. Newsmax is another example of this. The storylines and statements merit scrutiny but resist easy fact-checking. Ruddy, for example, said he spoke with Trump on Thursday, and said both men agree that every vote should be counted. The way Ruddy said it implied suspicion like there was some sort of conspiracy afoot to stop Trump voters from being heard. But all the votes are being counted, and in fact the vast majority already have been.“Trump’s now got it in for Fox. Consider Trump’s increasingly frantic Twitter attacks on Fox. He sent 44 tweets or retweets Thursday morning and 16 of them were either bashing Fox or promoting Newsmax or another network, OANN.“

Here’s Stelter’s latest on that.

How long will Trump hold out?

CNN’s Dana Bash and Jeff Zeleny report that Georgia is doing a hand recount do not expect the President to make any public moves towards stating the obvious – that he lost – until at least that’s done. Georgia’s certification deadline is November 20. Michigan’s and Pennyslvania’s are November 23.

Republican leadership has told senators they expect this to not drag on “no more than another week.”But who knows, really. And this report from CNN’s White House team suggests even Trump is waffling, hour by hour, on what he should do. And nobody knows when or how he’ll ultimately acknowledge defeat. Once he does, expect a raft of last-minute pardons, including, maybe, the never-before-attempted pre-emptive self-pardon.“

Trump’s national security purge continues

Two more national security-related officials fired — this time at DHS, including Assistant Secretary for International Affairs Valerie Boyd, who wrote a resignation letter, which says

“People of character should support the institution of the Presidency and work within it to inform and influence policy decisions that reflect well on the people’s government. I wish you and our colleagues across the government the strength to act with honor in the months ahead.”

There is an open disagreement between Trump loyalists and the rest of the GOP establishment about CIA Director Gina Haspel, who has opposed the release of secret information related to Russia.

Senators Mitch McConnell and Marco Rubio have publicly displayed support for Haspel. But she appears to be endangered as she faces criticism from Donald Trump Jr., who makes it seem on Twitter like he’s in the know on secret national security matters relating to Russia.

THE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS PROMISED TO UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION, NOT JUST OBEY THE MAN WHO SAYS HE’S PRESIDENT 

Gen. Mark Milley, the top American service member, said,

“We are unique among militaries. We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual.

“We do not take an oath to a country, a tribe or religion.

“We take an oath to the Constitution.

“Every soldier sailor, airman, Marine, Coast Guardsman, each of us will protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price.”

TRUMP’S PATHOLOGY MAY KILL MILLIONS; HE MUST BE REMOVED

Since the start of Donald Trump’s presidential run, one question has quietly but urgently permeated the observations of concerned citizens: What is wrong with him? Constrained by the American Psychiatric Association’s “Goldwater rule,” which inhibits mental health professionals from diagnosing public figures they have not personally examined, many of those qualified to answer this question have shied away from discussing the issue at all. The public has thus been left to wonder whether he is mad, bad, or both.

Psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health experts argue that, in Mr. Trump’s case, their moral and civic “duty to warn” America supersedes professional neutrality. They then explore Trump’s symptoms and potentially relevant diagnoses to find a complex, if also dangerously mad, man.

Philip Zimbardo and Rosemary Sword, for instance, explain Trump’s impulsivity in terms of “unbridled and extreme present hedonism.” Craig Malkin writes on pathological narcissism and politics as a lethal mix. Gail Sheehy, on a lack of trust that exceeds paranoia. Lance Dodes, on sociopathy. Robert Jay Lifton, on the “malignant normality” that can set in everyday life if psychiatrists do not speak up.

“His madness is catching, too. From the trauma people have experienced under the Trump administration to the cult-like characteristics of his followers, he has created unprecedented mental health consequences across our nation and beyond.

THE FAMILY: Trump, Pence & Christian Mather at the Helm

Secretive Jesus Breakfast Club convinces Trump and other rulers to enforce planet-wide Fundi Christian Sharia Law

Panel: Russell Brinegar, Karen Patrick, Janet Kira Lessin & Dr. Sasha Alex Lessin ~ “The Family” ~ 09/24/29 ~ Stargate to the Cosmos ~ Revolution Radio, Studio B

The podcast, an amazing panel discussion in which Russell Brinegar brings his research on the dangers and methods of the Far Right to any whose lifestyles they detest in a campaign to conquer the world for Jesus and them.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/jES5ay6cVgY
Start at 2:36/1:59:57 to skip commercials

Brinegar, Patrick, and the Lessins discuss

Evidence regarding

“The Family,”

Stochastic murders perpetrated by the Trumpets,

Fundamentalists’ campaigns to 

      >kill gays, 

      >re-subjugate women to their biblical status, and

     >foment an armed rebellion in the U.S. if Trump is impeached or loses or is about to lose the Presidency.