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Screwed: Them Or Us?

This was your court, John Roberts

SCOTUS-watcher Dahlia Lithwick comments on the dilemma in which the Roberts court finds itself. Choose your clichéd metaphor: painted itself into a corner, hoisted on its own petard, shot itself in the foot, chickens coming home, etc.

Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife are just one court soap opera. The fact that conservative funders expend lavish sums to sustain the pair in the style to which they’ve become accustomed makes it clear that both the Federalist Society and SCOTUS conservatives believe justice goes to the highest bidder.

The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to ban Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot for engaging in insurrection is on its way to D.C. Thomas will surely not recuse himself from that and other Jan. 6 cases involving players with which his spouse Ginny is closely aligned. This is an imperial court, Lithwick writes, and conservative justices don’t care that we know:

Also in the coming months, with public mistrust for the integrity and character of some of the justices at record lows, the justices will have to help the public understand why they should be trusted to engage in sober, principled deliberations of thorny questions when reporting shows that at least some of them take 10 minutes to read 98 pages, that decisions in major cases are ends-driven and political, and that a couple of them are more than willing to distort the record to cover up for that fact. In the coming months, the public will have to sit with the fact that Justice Samuel Alito told Wall Street Journal opinion writers that the court is untouchable by Congress and with the fact that when the Senate sought testimony from the chief justice last year he just refused to show up. And the public will have to just get really comfortable with the fact that this imperial court thinks that kind of thing is fine.

Chief Justice John Roberts has taken care to oversee his legacy on the court, just not very well, as the previous paragraph suggests. What the “amicus brief industrial complex” has sown, etc.

For years, some of the most vocal critics of the court’s ethical lapses, its lack of transparency, and its refusals to take seriously its own brokenness and errors, have warned that the day would come when an election would be decided by a body that has refused to clean house and has blamed the press and the academy for the stench of its own illegitimacy. The worry wasn’t that the court would decide the election; that seems almost inevitable. The worry was that the public, grown weary of the stench, would not abide by their decision.

… When the hyperpolitical supercharged Trump cases catch up with the court—and that is beginning to happen, right now, this week—all that stench will run headlong into the questions about why the husband of the woman who went to the pep rally for the insurrection and the folks who lied to us all about Dobbs are objective enough to decide the outcome of an election. The same people entrusted with the protecting the reputation of the court have blundered into being wholly responsible for protecting democracy. Not one thing suggests they will take the latter any more seriously than they took the former.

“Late-stage capitalism” is another cliché, one native to the left internet. We are where we are as an unhappy society because laissez faire policies promoted since the time of Reagan (or before) have enabled capitalism’s worst instincts to flourish. The driver, what once was called movement conservatism has reached its logical conclusion and, like a cancer, now threatens to kill the host republic that sustains it.

Underlying that movement are imperial impulses far older: feudalism, monarchy, or worse. Some people still yearn for a king. They’ll settle for a dictator.

Happy Hollandaise!

Appeasement R Us

JV Last has a great piece up today about the Colorado decision that you should read in its entirety. I’ll just excerpt this one part:

Have you ever noticed how, whenever Trump does something terrible, there is always an argument that holding him accountable can only help him?

You can’t impeach him in 2020, because it’ll just make him stronger.

You can’t impeach him in 2021, because you’ll turn him into a martyr.

You can’t raid Mar-a-Lago to take back classified documents, because you’ll rile up his base.

You can’t prosecute him for crimes X, Y, and Z, because it’ll make Republican voters love him more.

There is a strange, self-limiting, helplessness to that thinking: A wicked man does immoral and illegal things—and society’s reaction is to say that we must indulge his depredations, because if we tried to hold him accountable then he would become even worse.

Is there any other aspect of life in which Americans take that view?

That’s not how parents deal with children.

It’s not how regulatory agencies deal with corporations.

And it’s not how the justice system deals with criminals.

The only analogue I can come up with is foreign policy: There have been times when American foreign policy has sought to give foreign dictators what they want in order to prevent them from making more trouble.

I am not an expert, but my impression is that this mode of operation has not often led to good outcomes.

This is one of the most frustrating repetitive dynamics in American politics and it makes me want to scream. It’s as Last writes, “Heads Trump Wins, Tails America Loses.” The reactions last night to the Colorado demonstrated that perfectly. Over and over people said things like this:

Sigh.

Last also points out how the opposite dynamic applies to Biden: Heads Biden Loses, Tails Trump wins. No matter what the guy accomplishes it’s always, always framed as a problem. This is what we’re up against folks.

Happy Hollandaise!

Snap Poll On Colorado

I’m sure this is terrible news for Joe Biden:

The best answer to most of this is “not sure” unless you are a highly educated constitutional scholar or Supreme Court expert. But we all have our uneducated opinions. I’m going with “will reverse” myself. But it’s nice to see that some of the Republicans agree that he committed an insurrection and should be barred though. If they stick with that then Trump will lose.

Happy Hollandaise!

What Are They Talking About?

This should have been interrogated a little bit more. These people disapprove of Biden’s Israel policy but think his support for Israel and Palestine is about right? I guess they might not think he shouldn’t support of either of them at all but that seems like a stretch. It’s weird question but it should be this confusing.

I think this shows the limitations of polling right now. People are expressing their discontent with Joe Biden on the economy despite telling pollsters their own financial situation is improved and they’re saying they disapprove of his handling of Israel despite the fact that they think he’s gotten the balance between the two warring parties about right. They’re basically saying they disapprove of Joe Biden and it actually has nothing to do with his policies. In fact, they like his policies. They’ve just decided they don’t like him.

I have to assume that some of this (at least among swing voters and Democrats) is about the PTSD dynamic that lingers from the pandemic and also the chaos that Trump and the Republicans constantly cause and which people think Biden is impotent to stop. Everything feels crazy — and the media isn’t helping.

But I also think that polling right now is sloppy, as with this daft question. They were trying to get people to tell them why they disapprove of Biden’s policy but worded it in such a way that probably did more to obscure than enlighten. There’s a lot of that around polling on Biden right now.

Some of this is just another way of saying “Biden’s an old white man and I don’t want to look at that.” I hear it in my personal life all the time. That’s what people see. But they also see Trump who hardly looks like a movie star and is getting weirder looking by the day. So that problem is going to balance itself out as the campaign takes off. And once it does, and other issues emerge, I think more people will be reminded of what they hated about Trump than think his term was the greatest time of their lives.

🙏 anyway….

In the meantime, Happy Hollandaise everyone!

“May You Live In Interesting Times”

Are you sure?

It seems like this new year can’t get any more turbulent or our political system more volatile. We’re going to have Donald Trump on trial, epic Supreme Court decisions, foreign policy crises and, oh yeah, the most important election of our lives. I’m already reeling with it and I’m sure you are too.

We are living through very, very consequential times. Obviously, the end of the cold war shook everything up after 40 years of a stand-off and the modern conservative movement’s long-term project finally flowering changed our politics. But things have been hurtling at warp speed over the past two decades with an epic terrorist attack that sent the nation into a frenzy and enabled a tragic war from which we still have not fully recovered. The financial crisis of 2008 was the worst economic catastrophe the vast majority of us have ever experienced. (Only the very oldest Americans went through the Great Depression.) The technological revolution of the last few decades is changing our lives so quickly that we can’t keep up from day to day.

And now we are living through the greatest threat to our democracy at least since the civil war and maybe ever. It’s a lot.

I know that people like you who are reading this little old blog and other sites around the internet, trying to keep up with what’s happening and maybe find some perspective are feeling the weight of all this right now. I know I am. But we can’t give up. There is simply no choice. So much depends upon Americans of good will taking a deep breath and girding ourselves for the political battle of our lives.

Donald Trump cannot become president again. It’s simply unthinkable. I don’t care if Joe Biden or a potted plant is his opponent, there is no choice. He must be defeated.

I hope you’ll keep stopping by here over the next year to read what we’ve gathered, synthesized and analyzed on any given day. There’s a lot going on and we can’t claim to be comprehensive but we do try to find information that’s useful in understanding the big picture. And I hope that we provide a little humor and humanity along the way.

If you’d like to help me keep this thing going for another year, you can do that by hitting the buttons below or using the snail mail address on the left. I’m incredibly grateful for your support and am blown away as always that you value this site and keep coming back to see what we have to say. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

cheers,
digby

Happy Hollandaise everyone!

It Doesn’t Get Any Stupider

The cult has been going mad over this:

Donald Trump keeps sharing a photo on social media featuring a bright-red arrow pointing at the head of a bearded man at his civil fraud trial — claiming he is the son of the judge.

The Post can now confirm that the pictured bespectacled, well-groomed target is not the kin of Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron.

I should know — I’m the guy in the photo.

Trump, 77, on Tuesday yet again signal-boosted the photo of me sitting a few rows into the court gallery along with an article by a fringe-right activist inexplicably claiming Engoron’s son is “financially benefitting” from being given a “prominent” seat at the trial.

The post went out to Trump’s 6.52 million followers on the Truth Social app.

It was the second time within a month that the former president shared the photo of me and a screenshot of the Nov. 7 article from Laura Loomer, an anti-Muslim activist who once described Islam as a “cancer” and has been banned from social media sites in the past.

I was first tipped off to this when Trump shared the post on Truth Social in late November but felt it wasn’t worth giving any air.

But after Trump shared it again Tuesday — and upped the ante by including a comment from famously fact-challenged disgraced ex-Congressman George Santos (R-NY) — I thought it was worth setting the record straight.

Santos had responded to Loomer’s Nov. 7 story with a “fire” emoji and asked his then-colleagues on the House Oversight Committee to “investigate further” the Engoron son situation for possible “misconduct.”

Perhaps that comment was mere misdirection from Santos — who was being probed at the time by a separate House committee, which days later exposed his alleged use of campaign funds on personal splurges such as X-rated OnlyFans subscriptions, Botox and spa treatments.

Who knows?

This was pushed by Laura Loomer who is lately one of Trump’s closest confidants and advisers:

In an online video, Donald Trump praised the white nationalist conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer as “terrific” and “very special” and said: “You are a very opinionated lady, I have to tell you. And in my opinion, I like that.”

Loomer, 30, is a Florida activist and failed political candidate who once described herself as a “proud Islamophobe”, earning bans from major social media platforms.

Among proliferating controversies, Loomer has called Muslims “savages” and Islam a “cancer”. She has spread conspiracy theories about mass shootings, including the Parkland school shooting in Florida.

Trump endorsed Loomer in 2020, when she won a Republican US House primary in Florida. Heavily beaten in the general election, she switched districts in 2022, narrowly losing another primary.

Loomer has been closely linked to Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist who, with the rapper Ye, controversially dined with Trump last year.

In April, the New York Times reported that the former president wanted to give Loomer a campaign role. It did not come to pass but she remains a vocal supporter. In the video posted online on Sunday, she said she was making her first visit to Bedminster, Trump’s golf club in New Jersey.

Sitting with the man she called “the greatest president ever”, she said Trump was “killing it right now” in the Republican presidential primary, adding: “You’re crushing it. You’re up over 50 points.”

Trump, 77, said: “It’s great to have you and you are very special and you work hard … I appreciate your support and everybody appreciates your support.”

Loomer said: “Thank you so much for inviting me to sit with you today. It’s a pleasure. You’re the best. I love you.”

Another fascist. Trump reposts her stuff constantly on Truth Social.

They commonly misidentify people online, sometimes so ludicrously you have to laugh. Recently they found a picture of someone who looks a little like John Nichols, liberal columnist for The Nation, at the insurrection and it found its way into one of Trump’s legal filings as evidence that the whole thing was a left wing set-up. It’s that dumb.

I don’t know how important it all is but in the end but it says something about Trump and his followers.I leave it up to you to decide what that is.

Happy Hollandaise everyone!

Will The High Court Save Trump?

Or will they help the GOP cut its losses and move on?

Donald Trump came to America’s attention as a political actor back in 2011 when he became the self-appointed leading voice on the right insisting that President Barack Obama had been illegally elected president because he supposedly wasn’t born in the US. He made all the rounds of the news shows demanding that Obama produce his birth certificate even claiming that he sent people to Hawaii, Obama’s birthplace, telling the Today show audience “they cannot believe what they’re finding.” When Obama produced the birth certificate Trump claimed “an extremely reliable source” told him it was a forgery. This went on for years until Trump was elected president in 2016. And it was all a lie.

Isn’t it so typically Trump that after all that it would be him who turned out to be disqualified from the presidential ballot? At least that’s what the Colorado Supreme Court ruled last night in a case that cites the 4th Amendment barring officers of the government from running if they’ve participated in an insurrection. The court found that he did that and said the Constitution applies to presidents as well.

It’s going to the US Supreme Court, of course, as it everyone expected. But if anyone thinks the high court will defer to a state supreme court out of their often stated commitment to “states’ rights” I wouldn’t hold my breath. It’s very likely they’ll agree to take it up and will decide it one way or another. This election is going to test Donald Trump’s belief that “his” three justices would save him. They refused to step up in 2020 but with potential jail terms looming and unprecedented constitutional challenges facing them, he might just luck out.

The court was already knee deep in Trump cases anyway. They will let us all know this week if they plan to take up the Special Counsel’s request that they weigh in early on the question of whether Trump has immunity because he was president when he tried to stage a coup. He filed with both the DC Circuit Court of Appeals as well and they have already said they’ll take it up in a couple of weeks so the Supremes may decide to wait until they issue their opinion.

They also agreed to take up another January 6th case brought by Joseph Fischer, a man who stormed the Capitol that day and is charged with obstructing an official proceeding. If the Court agrees with him that this law has been wrongfully applied, hundreds of people convicted of that crime will have their convictions overturned or the charge dropped. One of them could be Donald Trump who has been charged with that same crime.

If the court decides that Trump has immunity because he was acting in his official duties when he incited a riot that day it’s game over anyway and the January 6th case is pretty much dead. It’s hard to believe they’d do that but then most of us didn’t think the court would take up Bush v. Gore and order the counting of votes to stop either. But this court has shown some restraint with Trump cases so far, including a case in which he tried to claim “absolute immunity” and they ruled unanimously against him. So, they may decide that he shouldn’t have immunity in this case either, which of course he should not.

The idea that it was his official duty to call up election officials and say, “so what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break,” is so ludicrous that it makes your head hurt.

But they could really muck things up with a bad ruling in the Fischer case which seems as if it could be their reasoning for taking the case this term. Sure, they’ll grant that Trump isn’t immune from accountability but they could easily find that all those patriotic citizens who ransacked the capitol and threatened the Vice President and Speaker of the House may have been unruly but the charge of obstructing an official proceeding wasn’t meant to cover that particular crime. You can bet that Trump’s lawyers are going to ask for a stay until they decide it and that would give the court the excuse they may be looking for to delay Smith’s case until after the election.

If the court grants Trump a stay until they decide that issue, Smith could drop the two charges that pertain to that law, leaving two others: conspiracy to deny Americans their rights and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. So maybe the court wouldn’t see the usefulness in helping Trump out with that. On the other hand, the argument set forth by Fischer, that the law was meant to apply to document mishandling, actually does apply to Trump since he was involved in the fake elector scheme.

The only thing we know at this point is that the Supreme Court is now going to be involved in three major Trump election cases as we go into the election year. Do we really think the Supreme Court with a six-three right wing majority, three of whom were appointed by Trump to take the heat for Trump being held accountable for his crimes?

It really should be a 5-3 majority because Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself as former Chief Justice William Rehnquist did in the Nixon case . (He had been in Nixon’s Department of Justice before he joined the court.) Thomas has not only been exposed as a thoroughly corrupt judge who really should resign in disgrace anyway (with even more damning evidence coming out just this week) but the fact that his wife was heavily involved in the very insurrection Trump is accused of fomenting makes it even more obvious. He won’t and they can’t make him. He does what he wants. And in any case, they would still have a majority if they all stick together to protect the former president from the consequences of his actions. Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell saw to that.

I don’t think anyone can predict what’s going to happen. If the court does rule against Trump and somehow prevents him from running we know all hell will break loose, but what else is new? Unless Trump is exonerated and wins the election that’s going to happen anyway. If the Court is smart it will take my colleague Amanda Marcotte’s advice [INSERT LINK] and pull the band-aid off sooner rather than later. Maybe they understand that if Senate Republicans had lived up to their responsibilities and convicted Trump in his second impeachment for inciting the insurrection as they should have the GOP and the country wouldn’t be in this mess today. But I wouldn’t count on it.


Happy Hollandaise!

Salon

Not The Odds But The Stakes (Again)

Your right to vote: Use it or lose it

Antidemocratic actions in Republican-led legislatures. Militias gearing up for a second civil war (and staging to go weapons-hot on Jan. 6). Donald Trump echoing the rhetoric of Hitler and Mussolini. An economy and an ecology that’s left younger Americans with grimmer prospects than their parents’. Is it any wonder many younger Americans lack enthusiasm for a gridlocked politics that has not served them well?

Winston Churchill said (but did not originate the phrasing):

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters.

Readers know too well that a sizable faction on the “patriotic” right has abandoned democracy for a dalliance with autocracy if not outright dictatorship. If younger Americans join them, if not in MAGAstan then in apathy, we are, to put it plainly, in deep shit.

Karen Tumulty writes (Washington Post):

Over the past few decades, there has been “a small but steady erosion of support” for the ideal of democracy, not only in the United States but also around the world, says Eric Plutzer, the political scientist who directs the Mood of the Nation Poll for Penn State University’s McCourtney Institute for Democracy.

The latest survey, taken in November 2022 and published in January, found that 78 percent of those surveyed said democracy is “the best political system in all circumstances.” But among the Gen Z cohort, ages 18 to 25, nearly half answered either that it “makes no difference” whether they live under a democracy or a dictatorship (28 percent) or that “dictatorship could be good in certain circumstances” (19 percent). More than a third of millennials, ages 26 to 41, agreed with one of those statements.

Plutzer notes that this comports with polls that have asked similar questions, going back to the 1990s. “Young people have always been less enthusiastic about democracy,” he said. “But the generation gap has really exploded.”

That’s not to say there are no young bright spots: Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), Tennessee Democratic state Reps. Justins Jones and Pearson, David Hogg (Leaders We Deserve), and my N.C. state chair Anderson Clayton. But if, as Jay Rosen insists, we must make clear not the odds but the stakes in the next election, we’d best be about making them unmissable.

A Biden campaign official said the president’s team understands that democracy becomes a potent issue only when voters understand it in the context of having their rights taken away, as has already happened with abortion, thanks to the Trump-appointed justices on the Supreme Court.

“It’s an exercise in storytelling,” he told me. “The tragedy about the abortion issue is there really are a lot of sad stories to tell.”

Trump is also telling a story. He could hardly be clearer about what he will try to do, if given the opportunity. Democracy might be looking pretty ragged these days, but Americans should take seriously their responsibility to preserve what’s left of it.

Speaking of seeing your rights taken away, Molly Jong-Fast sees a nightmare unfolding in the wake of the Dobbs decision. She thought it could be bad. It’s worse and unmissable:

For millions of women, it’s more dangerous to be pregnant in post-Roe America, and there have been countless stories of doctors refusing to treat women who are miscarrying in OhioWisconsinMissouriand Texas, which was recently back in the news under particularly awful circumstances. The plight of Kate Cox, a Dallas-area mother of two, again highlighted the seemingly intentional vagueness of abortion-ban exceptions. Cox would appear to be an ideal candidate for an exception given that her 20-week-old fetus was diagnosed with trisomy 18, a defect which has roughly a 95% fetal death rate. She also already had two C-sections, and having more such surgeries could endanger the mother’s life.

With three overlapping abortion bans in Texas, according to NPR, the procedure “is illegal in the state from the moment pregnancy begins” and doctors can only legally “provide abortions in the state only if a patient is ‘in danger of death or a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.’” While “doctors, hospitals and lawyers have asked for clarity on what ‘serious risk’ of a major bodily function entails,” notes NPR, “the Texas attorney general’s office has held that the language is clear.” Republican attorney general Ken Paxton, the villain of this story (and others), reminded doctors that a lower court ruling saying Cox could have an exception to the draconian law “will not insulate hospitals, doctors, or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas’ abortion laws.”

“Everything we worried about, every worst-case scenario, is happening right before our eyes,” she writes. “For years I was told I was being a Cassandra about the danger to women of a post-Roe America but if anything, the reality is even bleaker than I imagined.”

Let’s do more than hope that reality sinks in with disillusioned younger voters sooner than the start of voting next fall. Let’s let them know. If they vote in numbers that match theirs, they can run this place. If they don’t, this place will run them.

Happy Hollandaise to all y’all!

Disqualified In Colorado

No, not a Tom Hanks sequel

The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled 4-3 that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment is not a dead letter. The court found Donald J. Trump ineligible to appear on the 2024 Colorado primary ballot. The Jan. 6 violence was consciously encouraged by Trump, that the violence constituted an insurrection, that his actions are disqualifying, and that no legislative action is required to make it so. The provision is self-executing.

The case brought by several Republicans and one independent voter charged that it would violate state election law if Secretary of State Jena Griswold placed an ineligible candidate on the Colorado primary ballot. Specifically, that Trump is ineligible (Washington Post):

“A majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the decision reads. “Because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.”

[…]

“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” the majority wrote. “We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”

Don’t be absurd

The Colorado court’s decision (between the lines) includes numerous FUs to the former president and his hapless attorneys.

The amendment’s other sections require no enabling legislation, the court found. Section 3 adds a disqualification to the constitution’s existing qualification for the presidency, no different from the age and citizenship requirements. The court cites multiple cases where states held those provisions to be self-executing (pg. 31). California refused to place a twenty-seven-year-old on the presidential ballot; Colorado (in the Hassan case involving then-Judge Neil Gorsuch) excluded a naturalized citizen from the presidential ballot; Illinois found a thirty-one-year-old candidate disqualified from its presidential ballot.

Now-Justice Gorsuch wrote in the Hassan decision he surely must remember:

… it is “a state’s legitimate interest in protecting the integrity and practical functioning of the political process” that “permits it to exclude from the ballot candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming office.”

The court brushed aside Trump’s arguments that in exercising its right to free association a political party has the right to nominate whomever it chooses. Could it then nominate that twenty-seven-year-old or someone not a natural-born citizen? No. Don’t be absurd, the court did not add.

The argument that Section 3 does not apply to the presidency the court also found absurd (CNN):

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says oath-breaking insurrectionists can’t serve as senators, representatives, presidential electors, “or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State.” But it doesn’t mention the presidency.

This textual vagueness is why the trial judge kept Trump on the 2024 ballot. But the high court disagreed. And this was the linchpin of their decision to disqualify Trump.

Trump argued that as mentioned in Section 3 the presidency is not an “office” under the Constitution. But the court finds 25 times elsewhere in the Constitution where the presidency is referred to as an “Office” (i.e., you’re wasting our time).

The court concludes (pg. 127):

Our independent review of the record in this case brings us to the same conclusion: President Trump incited and encouraged the use of violence and lawless action to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. The tenor of President Trump’s messages to his supporters in exhorting them to travel to Washington, D.C. on January 6 was obvious and unmistakable: the allegedly rigged election was an act of war and those victimized by it had an obligation to fight back and to fight aggressively. And President Trump’s supporters did not miss or misunderstand the message: the cavalry was coming to fight.

The decision itself is “unassailable” in the opinion of retired conservative appellate judge J. Michael Luttig (CNN):

“The individual justices of the Colorado Supreme Court brought honor to their court as well to the state and federal judiciaries with their opinion tonight in this historic case,” Luttig told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “AC360” Tuesday, describing their “meticulous” efforts to address all the issues involved in the case.

“Their opinion is unassailable under the objective law of the federal constitution and section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court of the United States ought to affirm this decision today,” he added.

The unprecedented decision opens a can of worms and raises too many questions to answer this morning.

What will SCOTUS decide? Will John Roberts find a way to “not mix in” and/or let the Colorado decision stand? Will other states follow if that happens or if the Supremes uphold Colorado? Will Republicans nominate someone else if they do? (Can RNC members afford the private security?) Will Justice Clarence Thomas, wife of Ginny of Insurrection, recuse? Will the outcome help Joe Biden or hurt him?

Amanda Marcotte worries what happens if Trump gets stripped off several state ballots (Salon):

All of those never-Trumpers we thought were our buddies will abandon the #Resistance so fast it will make Democratic heads spin. And the MAGA types could be so angry about losing Dear Leader they will rush the polls to vote as hard against Biden as possible. 

David Frum admits his predictions about the case were wrong and believes it more likely Trump will not be the GOP nominee. SCOTUS now has an opportunity to save itself and the republic on which Clarence Thomas‘ paycheck stands (The Atlantic):

The U.S. Supreme Court now has the opportunity to offer Republicans an exit from their Trump predicament, in time to let some non-insurrectionist candidate win the Republican nomination and contest the presidency.

The Colorado court has invited the U.S. political system away from authoritarian disaster back to normal politics—back to a race where the Biden-Harris ticket faces more or less normal opponents, rather than an ex-president who openly yearns to be a dictator.

Naturally, MAGA Republicans are not amused (CNN):

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel attacked the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot

She called it “election interference” in a post to X, and said the RNC’s legal team “looks forward to helping fight for a victory.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson said the ruling was “nothing but a thinly veiled partisan attack.” He said voters should be able to decide the nominee.

“Regardless of political affiliation, every citizen registered to vote should not be denied the right to support our former president and the individual who is the leader in every poll of the Republican primary,” Johnson said.

The decision is on hold until January 4, one day before Griswold is required to set the March 5 primary ballot candidate list in stone. This will allow the U.S. Supreme Court time to decide whether it will review the case. Which it almost certainly will. Trump will insist.

Happy Hollandaise to all y’all!

The 14th Amendment FTW

For now…

The Colorado Supreme Court threw Trump off the ballot because they say he’s disqualified under the `4th Amendment for stoking an insurrection on January 6th:

The 4-3 ruling, which rests on an interpretation of the 14th Amendment, will almost certainly force the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve whether Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination, is eligible to hold future public office.

“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” the Colorado majority opinion reads. “We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”

The court, which consists entirely of Democratic appointees, is the first in the nation to side with activists and voters who have filed numerous lawsuits claiming that Trump is barred from office under the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection clause.” That clause states that anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking an oath of office to support the Constitution is forbidden from holding any public office.

The divided decision, issued just two weeks after the court heard oral arguments in the case, reverses a Denver judge’s ruling that found that while Trump had engaged in insurrection, the Constitution’s ambiguity on the matter left Trump eligible to remain on the ballot. The four-justice majority of the Colorado high court agreed with the lower-court judge that Trump engaged in insurrection — and found that he is disqualified from the ballot as a result.

Moments after the ruling, Trump vowed to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

The Court issued a stay allowing Trump to appeal before January 4th, the day before the ballots are scheduled to be printed. There is every reason to believe they will do it.

I would imagine that the court is going to go Trump’s way on this. They do not want to open Pandora’s box on this, creating ballot chaos in a number of states. But you never know.