"I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee and I will honor that pledge."
There is little else to say. More links.
Sunday, January 21, 2024
Sunday announcement, prior to New Hampshire vote - DeSantis drops out.
A Wikipedia image.
A Palestinian child sitting on a roadblock at Al-Shuhada Street within the Old City of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinians have nicknamed the street "Apartheid Street" because it is closed to Palestinian traffic and open only to Israeli settlers and tourists.
From here, a reminder the Occupied West Bank is - occupied. As a 1967 spoil of war. Occupied - Still. Subject to ongoing illegal colonization by Israelis - mainly along the Jordan. Controlled entirely by IDF military occupation.
New Hampshire voters - with Biden not on ballot - write in: STOP GENOCIDE
If that is done, a message will be sent. Remember - There are good movements, others questionable
Dean Phillips is whose bot?
 |
| click image to enlarge and read |
This Dean Phillips bot thing, https://dean.bot/ -- I wanted to ask it about the phony sounding PAC that received $1 million from hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, the billionaire Zionist who led the charge to oust Harvard University president Claudine Gay. Ask the bot about how close Dean is to Ackman. See what the bot would reply. If Dean is playing games with a rabid Israeli war apologist who led the McCarthy-like crap against academic freedom featuring Elise Stefanik as hit-man, then Dean, if so, quit that BS please. ASAP. It greatly corrodes your credibility. Especially with the campaign website change to fit Ackman's pleasure. But the bot's quit the campaign? Fading away?
Ackman? That misguided zealot? Friend Dean -- in short -- We Deserve Better!
____________UPDATE_____________
Biden IS better. Go away, Dean. Cut the ageism. Then go away.
_______FURTHER UPDATE_________
Dean.bot gets a heads up endorsement, if not a vote - agree or disagree.
https://news.yahoo.com/ai-bot-version-dean-phillips-210956007.html
The campaign moves on. The entertainment remains ripe.
________FURTHER UPDATE__________
Phillips has "passed the torch" for MN HD3, declining to keep a foot in two camps. This was a sound decision, and we hope he is succeeded in office there by a Democrat unaffiliated in any way with Ackman. The greater the distance of the new Rep. from Ackman, the better.
Academia, nationwide, has seen more than enough grandstanding toxin from Ackman / Stefanik.
Harvard will survive. The Ivy League too. But the assault surely leaves a bad taste .And a smell of insincerity. Elise throwing her alma mater so easily under the bus. For what?
For Trump? For the ghosts of Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn and HUAC? Are you now or have you ever been . . . against Semitic people?
Was it worth it? She's unlikely to get Trump's VP nod. To vocal for second fiddle.
_________FURTHER UPDATE_________
 |
| Websearch. Image source. |
John
Holman, of Denver, Colorado, and others with the group "No Labels" take
part in a rally on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 18, 2011. Jacquelyn
Martin/AP Photo
FURTHER: A NYTimes Facebook thread for anyone wanting to see commentary.
Friday, January 19, 2024
Crabgrass' view of Twitter (now called X) are known. Yet, a tweet no rational American should ignore. [UPDATED]
Link. No commentary. It speaks for itself.
----------------------UPDATE-----------------------------
Steve Timmer writing at the end of last month.
Wikipedia,
Israel and apartheid
------------------------------------------------
Jurusalam post, two years ago, not war mongering.
Times of Israel, Gantz - two "entities" Sept. 2022
Greyzone - ZAKA lies aimed to provoke
Days ago, Axios, Read it.
Monday, January 15, 2024
On the eve of the Iowa caucuses where Dems don't care, Republicans are MAGA, and Marco Rubio shows his regard for his State and its Governor.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) endorsed former President Donald Trump on Sunday for the presidency on the eve of the Iowa Caucuses, reportedly marking the 23rd senator to endorse the 45th president.
Rubio, who joins Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) and most of the House Republican Florida delegation in backing Trump, announced his support in a tweet Sunday afternoon.
The senior senator from the Sunshine State highlighted that policies he had pursued for years finally came to fruition during Trump’s tenure in office because the former president was not beholden to special interests.
“When Trump was in WH I achieved major policies I had worked on for years (like expanded Child Tax Credit & tough sanctions on regime in Cuba & Venezuela) because we had a President who didn’t cave to special interests or let bureaucrats block us,” wrote Rubio, one of Trump’s top 2016 Republican primary rivals.
“I support Trump because that kind of leadership is the ONLY way we will get the extraordinary actions needed to fix the disaster Biden has created,” he added. “It’s time to get on with the work of beating Biden & saving America!”
So, Trump calling him "Little Marco" got his attention. Suck up time.
And Marco laid it on with a trowel. A man of gravitas.
On Martin Luther King day - One man's genocide is another's "self defense." Is Israel's Gaza war genocidal? Either in cause or conduct? AP reports.
Israel surrounds Gaza, and on Oct. 9 lost 1200 lives in a Hamas attack where a year earlier Israel had the Hamas plan on paper, but somehow let it happen. To exact revenge, 21,000 Gazans have been murdered, 2/3 being women and children; Israel dropping a massive number of American made bombs from American made jet airplanes against people with no uniformed military and not a single armed aircraft. And they're still at it. And that is according to a plan Israel instituted earlier in bombing Hezbollah targets disproportionately with a troubling disregard for civilian casualties. Wikipedia notes Israel's top military commander said at the outset of its war impacting Gaza civilians -
On 9 October 2023, following the beginning of the October 2023 Gaza−Israel conflict and attacks in Israel by Hamas militants, Gallant said that Israel would impose a "total siege" of the Gaza Strip while at the same time "fighting human animals", referring to Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.[25][26][27] A total blockade of the Gaza Strip was announced by Gallant, who stated: "There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly."[28][29]
On 13 October 2023, Gallant met with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant called on Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza, including Gaza City, saying: "The camouflage of the terrorists is the civilian population. Therefore, we need to separate them. So those who want to save their lives, please go south. We are going to destroy Hamas infrastructure, Hamas headquarters, Hamas military establishment, and take these phenomena out of Gaza and out of the Earth."[30] On 13 October, he said that "Gaza won't return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything."[31]
If not a genocidal intent to that it does fall quite short of "Love thy neighbor." Moreover, this is not a one-off shot in the dark over-reaction to 1200 lost souls. It is a coldly calculated reviewed and adopted Israeli policy:
The Dahiya doctrine, or Dahya doctrine,[1] is a military strategy of asymmetric warfare, outlined by former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot, which encompasses the destruction of the civilian infrastructure of regimes deemed to be hostile as a measure calculated to pressure combatants,[2] and endorses the employment of "disproportionate force" (compared to the amount of force used by the enemy[3][4]) to secure that end.[5]
There has been media concern and express Palestinian exception taken over an Israeli document proposing hostility sufficient to drive a majority of Gazans into the Sinai to shelter as refugees-
JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli government ministry has drafted a wartime proposal to transfer the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million people to Egypt's Sinai peninsula, drawing condemnation from the Palestinians and worsening tensions with Cairo.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office played down the report compiled by the Intelligence Ministry as a hypothetical exercise — a “concept paper.” But its conclusions deepened long-standing Egyptian fears that Israel wants to make Gaza into Egypt's problem, and revived for Palestinians memories of their greatest trauma — the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of people who fled or were forced from their homes during the fighting surrounding Israel's creation in 1948.
“We are against transfer to any place, in any form, and we consider it a red line that we will not allow to be crossed," Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said of the report. “What happened in 1948 will not be allowed to happen again."
Crabgrass has posted of this before. Now a new "genocide" charge has been lodged by South Africa in the World Court alleging genocidal intent and action -
Among other sources, MiddletownPress carrying an AP feed:
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africa says more than 50 countries have expressed support for its case at the United Nations' top court accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in the war in Gaza.
Others, including the United States, have strongly rejected South Africa's allegation that Israel is violating the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Many more have remained silent.
The world's reaction to the landmark case that was heard Thursday and Friday at the International Court of Justice in The Hague shows a predictable global split when it comes to the inextricable, 75-year-old problem of Israel and the Palestinians. Sunday marks 100 days of their bloodiest ever conflict.
The majority of countries backing South Africa's case are from the Arab world and Africa. In Europe, only the Muslim nation of Turkey has publicly stated its support.
No Western country has declared support for South Africa's allegations against Israel. The U.S., a close Israel ally, has rejected them as unfounded, the U.K. has called them unjustified, and Germany said it "explicitly rejects" them.
China and Russia have said little about one of the most momentous cases to come before an international court. The European Union also hasn't commented.
US: ‘MERITLESS’ ALLEGATIONSU.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on a visit to Israel a day before the court proceedings began that South Africa's allegations are “meritless" and that the case “distracts the world” from efforts to find a lasting solution to the conflict. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said genocide is “not a word that ought to be thrown around lightly, and we certainly don’t believe that it applies here.”
“We don’t agree with what the South Africans are doing,” U.K. Foreign Minister David Cameron said of the case.
Israel fiercely rejects the allegations of genocide and says it is defending its people. It says the offensive is aimed at eradicating the leaders of Hamas, the militant group that runs the territory and provoked the conflict by launching surprise attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and taking around 250 hostages.
[...] Israel's military response in Gaza has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The count doesn't distinguish between combatants and civilians. It says more than two-thirds of the dead are women and children. Much of northern Gaza has become an uninhabitable moonscape with entire neighborhoods erased by Israeli air strikes and tank fire.
South Africa has also condemned Hamas' Oct. 7 attack but argues that it did not justify Israel's response.
[...] Germany said it intends to intervene in the case on Israel's behalf.
The EU has only said that countries have a right to bring cases to the U.N. court. Most of its member states have refrained from taking a position.
Turkey, which is in the process of joining the EU, was a lone voice in the region. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country provided documents that were being used against Israel in the case.
“With these documents, Israel will be condemned,” he said.
ARAB CONDEMNATION
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation was one of the first blocs to publicly back the case when South Africa filed it late last month. It said there was “mass genocide being perpetrated by the Israeli defense forces” and accused Israel of “indiscriminate targeting” of Gaza's civilian population.
The OIC is a bloc of 57 countries that includes Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt. Its headquarters are in Saudi Arabia. The Cairo-based Arab League, whose 22 member countries are almost all part of the OIC, also backed South Africa's case.
South Africa drew some support from outside the Arab world. Namibia and Pakistan agreed with the case at a U.N. General Assembly session this week. Malaysia also expressed support.
“No peace-loving human being can ignore the carnage waged against Palestinians in Gaza,” Namibian President Hage Geingob was quoted as saying in the southern African nation's The Namibian newspaper.
Malaysia's Foreign Ministry demanded “legal accountability for Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.”
[...] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no one — including the world court — will stop Israel's war against Hamas. Russia didn't obey the court when it told it to halt its invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.
As a large fraction of the nation is facing cold winter days, we should be grateful we are not having to live in Gaza, where bombing continues and hunger and disease adds misery to the constant threat of being killed, or otherwise dying. We are fortunate and should be appreciative it is so. We should question our war materiel being put into play to stress Gaza's citizens; it being national policy to assist the Israeli effort.
As Gazans die in distressing numbers, the IDF in turn is suffering lost lives, but far less so than Gazan civilians, the disproportion being even greater than the 1200 to 21,000 ratio from the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion to the present. And when three Israeli hostages are being shot dead by the IDF, white flag and all, one has to wonder if take no prisoners is military policy at least in part of the IDF action in northern Gaza. In turn, some prisoners have been shown in media events to have been taken and transported alive into Israel. Things are unclear.
Then, there is this Jan 14, 2024, WashingtonTimes.com item, which suggests a high leadership stress level in Israel along with a lack of accord and sound behavior among Israeli war leadership:
Tensions boiled over Saturday night during a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and key aides, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant storming out of the room amid deepening disagreements at the highest levels of government in Jerusalem, Israeli media reported.
The clash between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant came as Israel marked the 100th day of its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which began after the Palestinian militant group launched a terrorist assault on Israel on Oct. 7. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant have been key partners in Israel‘s “war Cabinet” formed immediately after that attack and charged with overseeing the military campaign in Gaza.
But the two men now appear at odds. The Times of Israel reported that Mr. Gallant stormed out of a Saturday night meeting with Mr. Netanyahu after being informed that his top aides would not be allowed to attend the session. Mr. Netanyahu, meanwhile, brought multiple assistants with him to the meeting, the Times of Israel reported.
Mr. Gallant reportedly rejoined the meeting about an hour later. But both he and fellow war Cabinet member Benny Gantz, a former defense minister and political rival of Mr. Netanyahu‘s, were not invited to a press conference the prime minister gave Saturday evening, according to Israeli media.
Israeli lawmakers cast the rift between war cabinet members as immature and dangerous. Tally Gotliv, a member of Israel‘s Knesset and of Mr. Netanyahu‘s Likud party, took aim at the government in a post on X.
“How can you trust a limited cabinet that behaves like children in kindergarten?” she wrote. “Isn’t there one responsible adult who will call the people to order?
“The minister of defense can’t enter with his assistant who serves as his right hand?” Ms. Gotliv said. “Little children is what you are … None of the cabinet members has the right to broadcast a message of disunity. The circus broadcast of indescribable ego games hurts our soldiers who demand the leadership and rightfully so to be strong and united.”
[...]
Last March, Mr. Netanyahu fired Mr. Gallant after Mr. Gallant had publicly questioned the pace of the prime minister’s controversial judicial reform push. Mr. Netanyahu reversed that decision just weeks later after heavy public criticism of the firing.
Amid the political drama in Jerusalem, Mr. Netanyahu spoke Saturday night. He projected his trademark defiance and took aim at Iran and its allies in the region, and at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, which last week held hearings on charges that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.
“No one will stop us, not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anyone else,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
BDS might fail to stop Netanyahu and his more intransigent cabinet members, but it might message the Israeli population that there are difficulties and outside judgments which can impact complacent well being. That after Gaza it might be time for a change. For a re-evaluation of settlement policy and other things. Meanwhile, opinions may differ, but to Crabgrass this is an unsettling photo:
We as a nation so far are fortunate no other nation is fingering us as a material asset to any alleged genocide, real or imagined. We arm one side, the sides being disproportionately armed, while Israel itself has a major worldwide arms industry, arming itself and with booming sales.
Sunday, January 14, 2024
Guardian is doing what any responsible, fair, non-corporate-owned media entity should do. Injecting a bit of Bernie into election thought, instead of the laughable Nikki Haley fluf package now afloat, too universally. It is as if mass-media "journalists" as a pack are taking orders from wealthy idiots like the Murdochs. Keep feeding out bold faced denial of the obvious, as if a lingering smell of meadow dressing left as the herd moves along can be sold as, "Smells like roses to me."
In the Wiemar Republic many - despite the lesson of the failed beerhall putsch - believed the money behind Hitler would be in control of Hitler, if elected. The money surely thought so. And that business-as-usual would assure all would be content. This begins the post because many feel that American democratic inertia would survive a Trump four-more. Crabgrass holds that belief. However, Crabgrass admits it could be a mistaken belief. The potential of a Trump four-more carries an existential threat load. So, either way, don't insult me by trying to fob off that Nikki stuff. That said -
Guardian- an ocean away - has the chutzpah to publish:
Sanders warns Biden: address working-class fears or risk losing to demagogue
Warning comes at a critical time as Republicans in Iowa will gather for caucuses that mark official start of 2024 presidential election
Sat 13 Jan 2024 05.00 EST
In an interview with the Guardian from his home base in Burlington, Vermont, Sanders urged the Democratic president to inject more urgency into his bid for re-election. He said that unless the president was more direct in recognising the many crises faced by working-class families his Republican rival would win.
“We’ve got to see the White House move more aggressively on healthcare, on housing, on tax reform, on the high cost of prescription drugs,” Sanders said. “If we can get the president to move in that direction, he will win; if not, he’s going to lose.”
The US senator from Vermont added that he was in contact with the White House pressing that point. “We hope to make clear to the president and his team that they are not going to win this election unless they come up with a progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of the working class of this country.”
[...] Recent polls have shown Trump not only doing well in key battleground states but gaining traction with demographic groups who proved vital to Biden’s 2020 victory, including Hispanic and young voters.
In his Guardian interview, Sanders cast the threat of a second Trump presidency in existential terms. “It will be the end of democracy, functional democracy,” he said.
He predicted that over a further four years, Trump would shift the electoral goalposts so that “many people who would vote against Trump are unable to do so. He will make it harder for young people, people of colour, to participate in the political process.”
It is in that dystopian context that Sanders criticises the president’s re-election team for failing to bang the drum hard enough. “They’re not their own best advertisers, they don’t do a particularly good job in explaining what Biden has accomplished,” he said.
Sanders praised Biden for the $1.9tn Covid rescue plan which he said helped avoid economic collapse during the pandemic, and for the Inflation Reduction Act which pumped money into transforming US energy away from fossil fuels. He was also effusive about Biden’s historic decision to join a United Auto Workers (UAW) picket line during the union’s strike with the three biggest carmakers, which he said made him “the strongest pro-union president that we have had, certainly, since FDR [Franklin D Roosevelt]”.
But Sanders urged the White House to resist sitting back on its laurels. “The president has got to do something that’s very, very hard,” Sanders said.
“He should be proud of his accomplishments, but he’s also got to say that he understands that there is a housing crisis, that people can’t afford healthcare or prescription drugs or childcare – that he’s trying, but he hasn’t yet succeeded.”
Biden could find a historical template for such messaging, Sanders suggested, in Roosevelt’s 1936 re-election campaign. By then, the Democratic president had been in office for almost four years and had implemented the first two of his groundbreaking New Deal programmes.
“Roosevelt didn’t go around saying, ‘Look at all I’ve done’,” Sanders explained. “He said: ‘I see a nation that is ill-clad, ill-housed. We made some progress, but I know there are enormous problems.”
Go Bernie! Shake the FDR ghost at the Biden people. It might wake them up to liven up things where Dean Phillips in his unlikely thing is more atop a need to be more than The Anti-Trump, while the Beast rages. (Last cycle, memory of Trump in office being immediate, all it took was I'm-not-Trump.)
Will indifferently being not=Trump fly today? Will the Biden campaign awaken? There is sufficient time, and multiple juries will be intervening news, anticipated now as unfavorable to Trump with all but a cadre of MAGA misled minions seeing and thinking.
However - Will we see a successful Trump revenge show, like a professional wrestler who lost his champion's belt in a prior rigged bout, wanting to regain it and "get revenge," as he bloviates when presented a microphone.
That is the Trump manner and WWE has adherents.
It entertains, "I'll slam him into the turnbuckles, and you'll love it. I'll make him hurt!"
Nonetheless, Biden quietly being "the only option" might prove better than raging back against an obvious trainwreck?
The Founders anticipated a Republic where only landed gentlemen voted.
If only landed gentlemen voted, Trump and Biden each would be quietly offering, "Let's reason together. We can reach a deal." Which is how the donor class gets treated. It's The American Way.
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Washington State now has a Trump ballot removal petition at trial court level, a judge appointed by a Dem governor. Eight Kitsap County citizens petitioning.
Court to consider removing Trump from WA presidential primary ballot
Donald Trump in downtown Manhattan on Jan. 11, 2024. Eight Kitsap County residents are challenging Trump’s place on Washington’s presidential primary ballot. (Stefan Jeremiah / The Associated Press)
A Kitsap County Superior Court will consider a motion to remove former President Donald Trump from the presidential ballot in Washington state, part of a growing effort in states across the country to bar Trump from running for reelection because of his role in fomenting the attacks on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The U.S. Supreme Court has already agreed to hear a case stemming from Colorado, where the state Supreme Court barred Trump from the presidential ballot, ruling that he had participated in an insurrection against the United States.
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution bars anyone who has served as “an officer of the United States” from holding “any office … under the United States” if they have “engaged in insurrection.”
In Washington, a special hearing has been set for 10:30 a.m. Tuesday in Kitsap County Superior Court. The case is titled “In re the Ballot Eligibility of Donald J Trump.” It will be heard by retired Judge Jay Roof, who was first appointed by then-Gov. Mike Lowry, and who also served as a Superior Court judge for more than 20 years before retiring in 2016.
The case comes from eight Kitsap County residents — Frankey Ithaka, Connor Shelton, Gwyn Johnson, Michelle Howald, Nicholas Roberts, Robert Brem, Shayna Hartley and Stefanie Shelton — who are challenging Trump’s place on the presidential primary ballot. Ballots for the March 12 presidential primary were finalized this week.
The eight petitioners, in an affidavit filed the day after Washington’s ballot was finalized, argue Trump “engaged in an insurrection” when “he and his supporters, without evidence, attempted to overthrow the election of Joseph Biden through violence.”
More of the same. It will be cumulative, not record shattering.
Trump has to employ lawyers - personally, or from campaign money? There is a difference.
Yet it appears a metro county with a likely shorter court docket was chosen, and the judge is coming out of retirement to hear the case. Expedited procedure, where it might be consolidated with the Supreme Court's hearing of the Colorado case; especially if there are unique facts found, or unique arguments of law.
Sunday, January 07, 2024
Is Trump an insurrectionist? Cert. was granted. The Petition seeking cert. has one most interesting paragraph, to Crabgrass.
What is insurrection? Your insurrection is my protest?
"Cert granted" item, online, showing the timing schedule set by SCOTUS.
Online copy, Petition for cert., contesting the Colorado case (Maine not included, but the Maine administrative decision cross-references the Colorado evidence and in stating its factual basis Maine's decision is largely duplicative.)
A few things have gained Crabgrass focus, i.e., p.26 of the Petition:
Moreover, the result of divergent standards and deter-
minations is particularly problematic in presidential elec-
tions. As this Court has recognized, “in the context of a
Presidential election, state-imposed restrictions implicate
a uniquely important national interest” because “the
President and the Vice President of the United States are
the only elected officials who represent all the voters in
the Nation” and “the impact of the votes cast in each State
is affected by the votes cast for the various candidates in
other States.” Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 796
(1983) (footnotes and citations omitted).
That is stating the obvious, but it remains a factor worth some considerations. Uniformity matters. Moreover, there is the Petition at p.26 et seq.
IV. PRESIDENT TRUMP DID NOT “ENGAGE IN
INSURRECTION”
The Court should also reverse the Colorado Supreme
Court’s holding that President Trump “engaged in insur-
rection.”
First, the events of January 6, 2021, were not “insur-
rection” as that term is used in Section 3.
“Insurrection” as understood at the time of the pas-
sage of the Fourteenth Amendment meant the taking up
of arms and waging war upon the United States. When
considered in the context of the time, this makes sense.
The United States had undergone a horrific civil war in
which over 600,000 combatants died, and the very survival
of the nation was in doubt. Focusing on war-making was
the logical result.
By contrast, the United States has a long history of
political protests that have turned violent. In the summer
of 2020 alone, violent protestors targeted the federal
courthouse in Portland, Oregon, for over 50 days, repeat-
edly assaulted federal officers and set fire to the court-
house, all in support of a purported political agenda op-
posed to the authority of the United States. See Portland
Riots Read Out: July 21, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security (Jul. 21, 2020), https://www.dhs.gov/news/
2020/07/21/portland-riots-read-out-july-21. In the context
of the history of violent American political protests, Jan-
uary 6 was not insurrection and thus no justification for
invoking section 3.
Moreover, nothing that President Trump did “en-
gaged” in “insurrection.”
President Trump never told his supporters to enter
the Capitol, either in his speech at the Ellipse33 or in any
of his statements or communications before or during the
events at the Capitol. [...]
[...] The Court should also review and reverse the Colo-
rado Supreme Court’s holding that President Trump’s
speech could be constitutionally proscribed incitement un-
der Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969). The
state supreme court relied on Professor Simi’s testimony
and deferred to the district court’s factfinding in wrong-
fully holding that President Trump had encouraged vio-
lence and that his words were likely to have that effect.
App. 106a–113a. But constitutional speech protections
should not turn on opinions from sociology professors, and
constitutional facts of this sort should be reviewed de novo
rather than deferentially. See U.S. Bank National Ass’n
ex rel. CWCapital Asset Management LLC v. Village at
Lakeridge, LLC, 138 S. Ct. 960, 967 n.4 (2018).
Three things highlighted. First, original intent - The Confederacy had just fallen after years of armed conflict involving great devastation. That was "insurrection" history at the time. Presidential pardons Andrew Johnson gave or might have given were forestalled as a basis for letting prominent Confederate politicians and military men back into official U.S positions, post-Civil War, by Amendment 14, sect. 3; absent a super majority of Congress. Johnson and Congress were strongly at odds at the time Congress proposed the Amendents, (A. 14, s. 3, included.)
Looking forward, any future possible similar scale of "insurrection" was addressed, but the entire Civil War amendments were looking backward very much. Primarily so. Yet, none of the Civil War Amendments specify "Confederate" bases. (A search of complete Constitution text for "Confeder" only yields references to the earlier arrangements under the Articles of Confederation, two places, both in the original unamended Constitutional text.)
The second thing, "participate" in insurrection, technically Trump never said enter the Capitol, but he said he'd lead them, which he did not do, and he said "fight like hell." So he incited action but did he "engage" in it? Trump gave a long speech and went home.
Amend. 14, sect. 3 states:
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.
Third thing, if he "engaged" in the action, was it insurrection? Surely not of the degree that inspired the Civil War Amendments. That is what the Petitioners say is a critical question which they argue should be decided de novo by SCOTUS.
The closest recent thing to renouncing the government and taking up arms against it was, as best as Crabgrass recalls a while ago, The Order, an identifiable band of White Supremacists doing much over time against what they called ZOG, to them, the Zionist Occupation Government, which they renounced. It was violence over time, but surely not near the scale of a secessionist government being formed coining money, producing cannon, ships and other war goods, and fielding uniformed troops in a substantial part of the nation, thereafter at war on a large scale of fighting battles at multiple locations against federal troops. Yet it clearly went further than forced entry into the Capitol as a rag-tag vandalizing band who exited peacefully later the same day.
Go figure. Perhaps the soundest SCOTUS decision would be to hold in an "originalist" sense that the Amendment text clearly was aimed at those who'd just lost an "insurrection" and incidentally touched upon a possible recurrence at such a scale - as conduct of a substantial nature sufficient to trigger a bar against holding any federal or State office. Historically, as southern states were allowed back into the union ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment was a pre-condition. Former members of Congress were accorded positions in the Confederacy and at the time there was strong Congressional belief they should not be allowed back into the U.S. government. General Robert E. Lee was an academy graduate, having taken an oath to enter the federal military before taking arms in the Confederacy. I.e., there were specific individuals in mind as targets of adding that Amendment language to the Constitution. All of that adds context to holding the bar to office to its original history, context and timely imagination and intent. Such a holding would forestall any further contentions that so-an-so should in the future be barred from being on a ballot, which would stop a lot of potential mischief.
The Crabgrass belief is Trump should not be barred from any ballot in the 2024 election unless he loses a primary. It makes the best sense, let the people vote.
____________AN EXPERIMENT___________
Asking Microsoft Copilot (preview) in Microsoft's Edge browser - Is Donald J. Trump an insurrectionsit? The Bot replied:
This is a controversial and complex question that does not have a definitive answer. Some people argue that former President Trump engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021, when he incited a violent mob to storm the US Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Others disagree and say that the events of that day were not an insurrection, but a riot or a protest, and that Trump did not directly participate in or support the violence.
Waffle AI, ya betcha. But - expected.
Learn more
Try a related question - What sort of person would vote for Donald Trump for President?
The bot replied:
Learn more
So, had I not given fair attribution to the bot, I could lose my position as head of an Ivy League University, if I had such a position. But I gave attribution. To a Bot. What a world!
Friday, January 05, 2024
For the New Year. Rearranging sidebar items. Things atop.
Things get onto the sidebar based on feelings at the time they were chosen.
Some are cynical, not fundamental. Today -
Atop, the two likely 2024 Presidential ballot choices. Neither perfect, the career politician showing up better than the trainwreck.
Next - Wellstone. Always a shame the man died as and when he did. He would have made an excellent President. There is a nagging dislike that I never got the chance to see him placed where I could vote for him as President; dying while young Bush and Norm Coleman were politicians of the moment.
Next - Why I could not vote for Ms. Clinton, would not, and went third party option. This is a very, very major point, a theme that is timeless, a Promethean thing eating daily at the nation's liver.
Next - Two issues in sequence. Personal liberty. Voting integrity. Each with a cost and needs and nuance.
Then we are a nation. A flag is a symbol. National matters come before international opinion of what may worldwide be best.
After that, in prior order, good or bad. It simply is as they fell, and then previously were arranged. And everybody sees the header. There is a footer.
The following post is one I had to write, where some might not have otherwise known of Strib's editorial thinking. No other posting - today.
Earlier reported, now judged in an editorial - Strib opines about a joint Trump endorsement by four Minnesota politicians that Strib appears to believe were "in a position to know better."
Here, Crabgrass noted PiPress reporting that Minnesota's four Republican House members unanimously endorsed Trump.
Now Strib's "Editorial Board" does a number judging that action, and not liking it. Perhaps Glen Taylor also might have a low opinion of Trump.
Strib's editors wrote:
Emmer, fellow GOPers bow down to Trump -- Despite being derailed by the vindictive ex-president, the House Majority Whip leads his Minnesota congressional colleagues in lockstep support.
By Editorial Board Star Tribune -- January 4, 2024 — 5:30pm
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"Campaigns matter" is a mantra long heeded by the Star Tribune Editorial Board. We wish elected officials, especially those in a position to know better, would do the same. That's why it was so profoundly disappointing (albeit not surprising) that Minnesota's Republican congressional delegation offered a lockstep endorsement of former President Donald Trump on Wednesday.
That is Strib's headlining and first paragraph, and they write showing their opinion is not in any way consonant with wearing MAGA caps. Quiet the opposite. Yet they write as a traditional-Republican leaning paper's editors. In their second paragraph the editors show it, Crabgrass believing they stretch the truth, given that the also-ran bunch are who they are.
Never mind that there's a dynamic race with viable, conservative alternatives to the chaotic, divisive front-runner. Or that their candidate of choice faces four indictments and 91 criminal charges. Or that he is looking to settle old scores, promising in stump speeches that "I am your retribution."
The editors really do not think much about Trump that you'd call positive, and that is clear from headlining and two paragraphs into a longer item. They pound the point further:
The four GOP representatives were led by House Majority Whip and third-ranking Republican Tom Emmer of the Sixth District, who included in a statement posted to X this sentence: "Democrats have made clear they will use every tool in their arsenal to try and keep Joe Biden and his failed policies in power."
Talk about projection. It was Trump, after all, who used every tool to try to preserve power, including trying to subvert the Constitution and whipping up a MAGA mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol and threatened to kill some U.S. lawmakers — Emmer's colleagues — as well as former Vice President Mike Pence.
Since then, the unrepentant ex-president has lied, loudly, about the disgrace and embraced a message that has led Republicans to be "more sympathetic to those who stormed the U.S. Capitol and more likely to absolve Donald Trump of responsibility for the attacks than they were in 2021," according to a Washington Post poll released Tuesday. And in another troubling development, a Post poll published on Thursday found that 44% of Trump voters believe the FBI instigated the Jan. 6 attack.
This far into reading and quoting, readers, guess - Will this critical item reach to and judge two of those allegedly bunched up stellar GOP options to Trump who are presently running as on record that they'd pardon the man the editors are roasted, if convicted. My money would be bet the don't. But let me read the whole thing. That is just an aside; the gist of Trump frustration shown by Strib's people is a very good and newsworthy thing and Crabgrass does not want to minimize those truths. Continuing -
The Minnesota GOPers in Congress certainly seem to be absolving Trump of responsibility, unlike the handful of their colleagues (tragically, almost all now ousted), like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, true conservatives who put country above party.
Check that highlighting. These four shamed, and should feel guilt as well. Failure clear at not being "true conservatives." Perhaps later the editors use the discriptive word "opportunists." Reading on - singularly one of the four endorsees gains Strib editorial scorn - for not being true conservatives like Cheney and Kinzinger, who are Congressional outsiders at this point -
The character they displayed seems absent in Emmer, who proclaimed he was "proud to endorse" Trump even though he had ample reason to endorse an alternative after the former president derailed his bid to become House speaker by calling Emmer a "globalist RINO" (Republican in name only). Writing on Truth Social at the time, Trump said Emmer was "totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters. I believe he has now learned his lesson, because he is saying that he is Pro-Trump all the way, but who can ever be sure?"
They could have called Emmer a "crypto RINO," but, after all, they already did enough name calling and piling on - while raising the unstated question; given history, what's in it for Emmer, now, to be dancing this endorsement tango with The Lying Donald?
Crabgrass's guess - nothing special in it for Emmer, besides Emmer wanting to keep the paycheck and the honor of being Congressman Emmer, a player at high levels in DC, (never mind the district), with that more important than looking as if asking "How high?" when Trump says, "Jump!"
It looks unseemly, and we could leave it at that. Strib does so in a next-to-last paragraph, instead of saying, "kissing what," Strib instead chooses to cut to the truth that it's not just Emmer co-opted to MAGA mania --
Actually, Wednesday's endorsement confirmed that Emmer and his Republican congressional colleagues from Minnesota have kowtowed "all the way."
Minnesota's Sixth District (where I live) surely deserves better than Emmer, except he is the one they've repeatedly elected, after having repeatedly elected Michele Bachmann, so maybe they simply get what they deserve --- twice --- first an unhinged true believer in office long enough to lock in a pension, and then an opportunist who appears to have cut some kind of an understanding with Trump. Likely no special deal for the district, and more likely simply less Truth Social heat to the feet, feet that yearn for reelection again.
CRABGRASS BOTTOM LINE: Tom Emmer - put a MAGA hat on the man. He's earned it. There are three other MAGA hats on display.
Strib saying more or less the same thing from the outset, by calling the four folding ones' bend to the wind decision "profoundly disappointing (albeit not surprising)."
_________UPDATE________
The question left hanging, Strib editors shed criticism only on the home team.
They made no mention of Ramaswamy and Haley on record saying they'd pardon Trump of any federal crimes of which he may be convicted. That is a sad position taken by these two. One deserving mention and scorn. Yet arguably defensible if premised on a belief that indicting and trying Trump is basically too politically divisive a move.
We await to see who, at Republican primary time, Strib will endorse, if there are still other presidential candidates who have not dropped out by then.
However, again this is a very courageous stand for a paper to make, not bending to poll numbers suggesting the venture could lose a part of their following by taking note of Trump's trainwreck behavior and persona, saying what is true despite poll numbers.
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