(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Extreme Court Will Vote Six to Three to Keep Trump on Colorado Ballot [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-02-09 This isn’t a fact. Factual information can only exist in the present or in the past, not in the future. If and when something happens, then there is valid factual knowledge—but not until. The above is a prediction. It’s not one I want to make, but is cynically the one most likely to occur. In the words of Yogi Berra, “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” Technically Yogi was wrong; it is easy to make predictions; it’s just extremely difficult to make accurate ones. Going back through my diaries and blogs, most of my predictions were merely wishful thinking—and proved to be embarrassingly wrong. For instance, I thought Trump would lose the nomination in 2016 to Bush or another Republican; and Trump not accepting defeat, would run as a third-party candidate with Sarah Palin as his running mate. The third-party entry would divide the Republican Party, allowing the Democratic nominee for president, Bernie Sanders, to win the White House. Missed it. Although I predicted mayhem on January 6th, 2021, I never thought it would be a violent armed insurrection. I had simply warned that Mike Pence might follow suit of being Trump’s number one sycophant, and refuse to carry out his duty to accurately declare the winner of the electoral count. This would result in a Constitutional crisis, but not necessarily a violent coup to try to keep Trump in office. So it pains me to predict The Extreme Court will refuse to carry out its duty of accurately reading the Constitution and concluding the Fourteenth Amendment clearly 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. The Constitution says a lot of things I don’t like. I abhor the Electoral College. I think the entire Second Amendment should be scrapped. But these anomalies are clearly in the Constitution—like it or not. The Republican Extreme Court might not like the idea that Trump, who engaged in a violent insurrection to hold on to power, is no longer eligible to become President again, but that is what is written in the Constitution. This diary is based on two simple premises: Trump instituted an insurrection. The Constitution stipulates this makes him an ineligible candidate for high office. One could argue, as several have, that people in each state should have the right to vote for anyone they want to vote for. But this isn’t what the Constitution says. You cannot vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger to be president because he wasn’t a natural-born citizen. You cannot vote for Taylor Swift to be president, because she is under age thirty-five. You cannot vote for Barak Obama for president as he has already served two terms. Yet, it appears that you will be able to vote for Trump in Colorado, or any other state, even though Trump engaged in a violent insurrection. At first, prior to listening to the Extreme Court hearings yesterday, I held out a glimmer of hope. The inspiration came from Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. The Roman Senators plotted to kill Caesar, as he threatened to become an emperor (dictator), thus destroying the Roman Republic. Cassius was in it for power. If Caesar became emperor with all-encompassing power, that would leave the Senate, and Senator Cassius, without power or influence. Brutus reluctantly joined the plot because he believed it was in the best interests of Rome. To be clear, I am not advocating anyone literally stab Trump in the back. Assassination is wrong, immoral, and would only turn Trump into a martyr. And the lesson from ancient Rome shows such extreme measures don’t even work. The Roman Republic was doomed, whether Caesar was assassinated, or not. After Julius Caesar, Rome suffered with emperors (dictators) like Tiberius, Caligula, Commodus, and Nero. And these were just a few of the bad apples. As History Skills.com notes in their article, The 9 Worst Roman Emperors in History: The reigns of these nine Roman emperors are cautionary tales of the dangers of absolute power, illustrating how the worst aspects of human nature can thrive when left unchecked. If you think President Trump was bad for America, imagine what Emperor Trumporius would do to our country. And what do dictators do when they want to absolutely increase their power? They try to nullify, if not destroy, the courts and judicial system that could limit their power. The founding fathers had no illusions that those seeking power would be benevolent statesmen who would always wisely choose what was best for the country. So they instituted a system of checks and balances, so no one branch of government, including the executive, could completely over-rule the others. If Trump becomes re-elected, or this time does manage to steal the election, the first thing he will do is to nullify, if not destroy, the courts and the judicial system. He will have to, as that would be the only way to stop the courts from prosecuting him and finding him guilty. So, although I never expected the Extreme Court to do the right thing for the right reasons. I did hope they might realize that Trump becoming president again would be an existential threat to our entire judicial system; just as Julius Caesar was a threat to the Roman Senate. And it is the nine members of the Supreme Extreme Court, who are at the apex of the judicial system. Trump wouldn’t be satisfied with simply controlling the Department of Justice; he would want to either force the courts, especially the highest courts, to do his bidding, or eliminate them altogether. Thus, I had hoped the Extreme Court would decide Trump’s name should be excluded from the ballot in Colorado (or any other state) not because it was Constitutional law, or even because it was the right thing to do, or even to save American democracy; but simply because keeping Trump out of the presidency is the best way for them to maintain their plush positions of power which allow them to receive millions of dollars from billionaires interested in their decisions. In other words, it would be in their best interests of political self-preservation to keep Trump off the ballot and out of the White House. Alas, it was all wishful thinking. Listening to the arguments and questions of the Extreme Court on the radio, I soon found all my previous optimism melting away. As one expert on MSNBC observed, you can often tell which way someone will vote based on the kinds of questions asked. Hearing the questions asked by the Republican members of the court, I realized they had already made up their mind. Regardless of what was written in the Constitution, they would do nothing to prevent Trump from becoming president again. They would not concede there was an insurrection. They would not concede that the President of the United States was an “officer of the United States.” They would not concede that any state had the right to exclude anyone from the ballot. What they did concede was that if someone was ineligible to become President, Congress could vote to have them removed because they were disqualified. That’s like closing the barn door after the horse ran away. It’s too late then. Besides, they are making a bet they can’t lose. If Trump wins and Biden loses, you can bet your bottom dollar the Democrats won’t have control of the House and Senate to vote to disqualify Trump. And if Biden wins, there is no need to disqualify Trump. Besides, even if Congress voted to disqualify a candidate after the election is over, who then becomes president? His vice-presidential running mate? The person who got the second-most votes, which in this case would be Biden? And who would decide which? The only pragmatic way to make sure someone ineligible to be president, doesn’t become president; is to keep their name off the ballot before the election. The Constitution clearly states this is the responsibility of the states. Historically, the conservatives have allegedly favored the rights of the individual states over the Federal Government. I say allegedly because the Extreme Court is far less conservative, as much as it is, extreme right-wing Republican. As Mark Twain supposedly said, “History doesn’t always repeat itself, but it rhymes.” Well, history is almost precisely going to repeat what it did in the Al Gore vs. George Bush presidential election; ignore “states’ rights” and give the election to the Republican candidate. They did it before; they will do it again. Clarence Thomas will do it twice. Why do Extreme Court justices have to know so much about Constitutional law? Why do they have to have so much experience on previous high courts before becoming a member of the Extreme Court? Is it because they need so much expertise to know what the Constitution actually says? No! It is because they need so much expertise to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes in order to make an argument that black is white, or white is black, using whatever legalese jargon is necessary to obscure the issue. Republicans who ridiculed Bill Clinton for saying, “It depends on what the meaning of the word is is;” are now befuddled over what the meaning of officer is, and the Extreme Court will likely conclude the President of the United States is not an “officer of the United States” and thus the Constitutional law prohibiting him from becoming president again, doesn’t apply to him. This is just what Trump wants. The Extreme Court can use this and other arguments to allow Trump’s name to remain on the ballot—even if they concede Trump incited an insurrection! I may not be a good political prognosticator, and by God, I hope I am wrong; but I am a pretty good Political Psychologist. The Republican members of the Supreme Court may not be consciously aware of it, but they had already decided to keep Trump’s name on the ballot, before they heard the first argument. What their keen legal minds were busy doing was coming up with excuses and rationalizations, i.e. legal justifications, for not calling a spade a spade. They were grasping at straws to say the Constitution really doesn’t say what is says. Although some Extreme Court justices, such as Neil Gorsuch, pay lip-service to the myth that as justices they are non-partisan, the de facto truth is they are such loyal Republicans who will blindly do anything to help the Republican candidate. Hopefully, one year from today, Biden will still be president and Trump will have lost again; the courts will find Trump guilty and Trump will be facing time in prison; and best of all, the Democrats will have won both the House and the Senate. Then it will be time to redeem America by having Congress vote to allow Joe Biden appoint four new Democrats to the highest court in the land, changing the nine-member Extreme-right Court to a thirteen-member Supreme Court. If I got to make the list, like the extreme-right wing Federalist Society does for Republican justices; I would nominate Barak Obama, Michele Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Al Franken. The Dobb’s decision to prevent women from having control over their own bodies—gone. The Citizens United decision that gives corporations and billionaires control of the government—gone. Distorted interpretations of the Second Amendment which restricts sensible gun-control—gone. Court decisions which allow partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression—gone. The best way to save American democracy from rampant Trumpism and future fascism is to renew and repair the damaged and distorted Extreme Court. Doing so will nullify the vote of Clarence Thomas, just as he will join the six-to-three majority to nullify the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Who would you nominate if you could pick four new members to the Supreme Court? [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/9/2222462/-The-Extreme-Court-Will-Vote-Six-to-Three-to-Keep-Trump-on-Colorado-Ballot?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/