---President Elect Musk and Convicted Felon Donald J Trump---

OnWis97 said:

I'm not wise enough to know whether the Colorado decision was the right one but I kinda wish it would not have happened. Ultimately, this most likely serves to embolden the notion that it's the dems* that are interested in fascism (and/or that's how scarred they are by this super-human America lover).

*even though it's the GOP that made this decision happen.

i believe it is the right decision. anybody that engaged in insurrection against the federal government does not deserve the chance to head that government.

but like i said, the court will not allow itself to appear to be a political arm of the gop, which we all know that it is, but they will not allow 5 individuals to determine the presidency a second time in 25 years.

gimmesometruth27 said:

OnWis97 said:

I'm not wise enough to know whether the Colorado decision was the right one but I kinda wish it would not have happened. Ultimately, this most likely serves to embolden the notion that it's the dems* that are interested in fascism (and/or that's how scarred they are by this super-human America lover).

*even though it's the GOP that made this decision happen.

i believe it is the right decision. anybody that engaged in insurrection against the federal government does not deserve the chance to head that government.

but like i said, the court will not allow itself to appear to be a political arm of the gop, which we all know that it is, but they will not allow 5 individuals to determine the presidency a second time in 25 years.

Here's the problem.  The SCOTUS is made up of Textualists.  That means they adhere to the specific text of the Constitution with little interpretation or implied meanings considered.  If you read the the actual amendment, it calls out Senators, Reps, and ELECTORS of the President and VP.  It does not name those offices.  Is there a reason why they specifically did not include the two Executive Branch elected officials?  This is really the question.  If Trump was running for senator, it would be an easier argument.  I don't think he will be disqualified when this is adjudicated.  I recognize that "hold any office" could be the trump card, but the question remains why the President was not called out specifically.  

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.

Halifax2TheMax said:

mrussel1 said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

OnWis97 said:

I'm not wise enough to know whether the Colorado decision was the right one but I kinda wish it would not have happened. Ultimately, this most likely serves to embolden the notion that it's the dems* that are interested in fascism (and/or that's how scarred they are by this super-human America lover).

*even though it's the GOP that made this decision happen.

i believe it is the right decision. anybody that engaged in insurrection against the federal government does not deserve the chance to head that government.

but like i said, the court will not allow itself to appear to be a political arm of the gop, which we all know that it is, but they will not allow 5 individuals to determine the presidency a second time in 25 years.

Here's the problem.  The SCOTUS is made up of Textualists.  That means they adhere to the specific text of the Constitution with little interpretation or implied meanings considered.  If you read the the actual amendment, it calls out Senators, Reps, and ELECTORS of the President and VP.  It does not name those offices.  Is there a reason why they specifically did not include the two Executive Branch elected officials?  This is really the question.  If Trump was running for senator, it would be an easier argument.  I don't think he will be disqualified when this is adjudicated.  I recognize that "hold any office" could be the trump card, but the question remains why the President was not called out specifically.  

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 Colorado decision answers your questions and provides reasoning, which is fascinating as they explain their methodology as well as how questions without concise answers have been addressed in the past, including intent and what POOTWH’s meaning would result in.

SCOTUS will be seen as fully bought and paid for if they’re going to toss aside intent, precedent and definition from the time of our founding.

I'm not arguing with the CO reasoning, I'm just saying that the definition of officer is going to be key here.  And in 2010, John Roberts noted in another case that the people don't vote for "officers" of the United States.  This gets into the "Textualist" makeup of the current SCOTUS.  Obviously I would love for him to be disqualified.  I think he's a cancer on our Union and a generally horrible, horrible person.  But it would not surprise me if the majority goes against Colorado and I won't just chalk it up to "bought" because there is enough evidence in their other decisions and comments about how they view the Constitution.  Again, I think the better argument is that "no person shall..... hold any office".  

mrussel1 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

mrussel1 said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

OnWis97 said:

I'm not wise enough to know whether the Colorado decision was the right one but I kinda wish it would not have happened. Ultimately, this most likely serves to embolden the notion that it's the dems* that are interested in fascism (and/or that's how scarred they are by this super-human America lover).

*even though it's the GOP that made this decision happen.

i believe it is the right decision. anybody that engaged in insurrection against the federal government does not deserve the chance to head that government.

but like i said, the court will not allow itself to appear to be a political arm of the gop, which we all know that it is, but they will not allow 5 individuals to determine the presidency a second time in 25 years.

Here's the problem.  The SCOTUS is made up of Textualists.  That means they adhere to the specific text of the Constitution with little interpretation or implied meanings considered.  If you read the the actual amendment, it calls out Senators, Reps, and ELECTORS of the President and VP.  It does not name those offices.  Is there a reason why they specifically did not include the two Executive Branch elected officials?  This is really the question.  If Trump was running for senator, it would be an easier argument.  I don't think he will be disqualified when this is adjudicated.  I recognize that "hold any office" could be the trump card, but the question remains why the President was not called out specifically.  

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 Colorado decision answers your questions and provides reasoning, which is fascinating as they explain their methodology as well as how questions without concise answers have been addressed in the past, including intent and what POOTWH’s meaning would result in.

SCOTUS will be seen as fully bought and paid for if they’re going to toss aside intent, precedent and definition from the time of our founding.

I'm not arguing with the CO reasoning, I'm just saying that the definition of officer is going to be key here.  And in 2010, John Roberts noted in another case that the people don't vote for "officers" of the United States.  This gets into the "Textualist" makeup of the current SCOTUS.  Obviously I would love for him to be disqualified.  I think he's a cancer on our Union and a generally horrible, horrible person.  But it would not surprise me if the majority goes against Colorado and I won't just chalk it up to "bought" because there is enough evidence in their other decisions and comments about how they view the Constitution.  Again, I think the better argument is that "no person shall..... hold any office".  

Does the following change your opinion?

2. The President Is an Officer of the United States

¶144 We next consider whether a President is an “officer of the United States.” U.S. Const., amend. XIV, § 3. The district court found that the drafters of Section Three did not intend to include the President within the catch-all phrase “officer of the United States,” and, accordingly, that a current or former President can engage in insurrection and then run for and hold any office. Anderson, ¶ 312; see U.S. Const., amend. XIV, § 3. We disagree for four reasons.

¶145 First, the normal and ordinary usage of the term “officer of the United States” includes the President. As we have explained, the plain meaning of “office . . . under the United States” includes the Presidency; it follows then that the President is an “officer of the United States.” See Motions Sys. Corp. v. Bush, 437 F.3d 1356, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (Gajarsa, J., concurring in part) (“An interpretation of the Constitution in which the holder of an ‘office’ is not an ‘officer’ seems, at best, strained.”). Indeed, Americans have referred to the President as an “officer” from the days of the founding. See, e.g., The Federalist No. 69 (Alexander Hamilton) (“The President of the United States would be an officer elected by the people . . . .”). And many nineteenth-century presidents were described as, or called themselves, “chief executive officer of the United States.” See Vlahoplus, supra (manuscript at 17–18) (listing presidents).

¶146 Second, Section Three’s drafters and their contemporaries understood the President as an officer of the United States. See Graber, Our Questions, Their Answers, supra, at 18–19 (listing instances); see also Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 915 (1866) (referring to the “chief executive officer of the country”); The Floyd Acceptances, 74 U.S. 666, 676–77 (1868) (“We have no officers in this government, from the President down to the most subordinate agent, who does not hold office under the law, with prescribed duties and limited authority.” (emphases added)).

¶147 President Trump concedes as much on appeal, stating that “[t]o be sure, the President is an officer.” He argues, however, that the President is an officer of the Constitution, not an “officer of the United States,” which, he posits, is a constitutional term of art. Further, at least one amicus contends that the abovereferenced historical uses referred to the President as an officer only in a “colloquial sense,” and thus have no bearing on the term’s use in Section Three. We disagree.

 ¶148 The informality of these uses is exactly the point: If members of the ThirtyNinth Congress and their contemporaries all used the term “officer” according to its ordinary meaning to refer to the President, we presume this is the same meaning the drafters intended it to have in Section Three. We perceive no persuasive contemporary evidence demonstrating some other, technical term-ofart meaning. And in the absence of a clear intent to employ a technical definition for a common word, we will not do so. See Heller, 554 U.S. at 576 (explaining that the “normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning” should be favored (quoting United States v. Sprague, 282 U.S. 716, 731 (1931))).

¶149 We also find Attorney General Stanbery’s opinions on the meaning of Section Three significant. In one opinion on the subject, Stanbery explained that the term “‘officer of the United States,’ within [Section Three] . . . is used in its most general sense, and without any qualification, as legislative, or executive, or judicial.” The Reconstruction Acts, 12 Op. Att’y. Gen. 141, 158 (1867) (“Stanbery I”). And in a second opinion on the topic, he observed that the term “Officers of the United States” includes “without limitation” any “person who has at any time prior to the rebellion held any office, civil or military, under the United States, and has taken an official oath to support the Constitution of the United States.” The Reconstruction Acts, 12 Op. Att’y. Gen. 182, 203 (1867) (“Stanbery II”).

¶150 Third, the structure of Section Three persuades us that the President is an officer of the United States. The first half of Section Three describes the offices protected and the second half addresses the parties barred from holding those protected offices. There is a parallel structure between the two halves: “Senator or Representative in Congress” (protected office) corresponds to “member of Congress” (barred party); “any office . . . under the United States” (protected office) corresponds to “officer of the United States” (barred party); and “any office . . . under any State” (protected office) also has a corresponding barred party in “member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 3. The only term in the first half of Section Three that has no corresponding officer or party in the second half is “elector of President and Vice President,” which makes sense because electors do not take constitutionally mandated oaths so they have no corresponding barred party. Id.; see also id. at art. II, § 1 (discussing a presidential elector’s duties without reference to an oath); id. at art. VI (excluding presidential electors from the list of positions constitutionally obligated to take an oath to support the Constitution). Save electors, there is a perfect parallel structure in Section Three. See Baude & Paulsen, supra (manuscript at 106).

 ¶151 Fourth, the clear purpose of Section Three—to ensure that disloyal officers could never again play a role in governing the country—leaves no room to conclude that “officer of the United States” was used as a term of art. Id. The drafters of Section Three were motivated by a sense of betrayal; that is, by the existence of a broken oath, not by the type of officer who broke it: “[A]ll of us understand the meaning of the third section,” Senator John Sherman stated, “[it includes] those men who have once taken an oath of office to support the Constitution of the United States and have violated that oath in spirit by taking up arms against the Government of the United States are to be deprived for a time at least of holding office . . . .” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 2899 (1866); see also id. at 2898 (Senator Thomas Hendricks of Indiana, who opposed the Fourteenth Amendment, agreeing that “the theory” of Section Three was “that persons who have violated the oath to support the Constitution of the United States ought not to be allowed to hold any office.”); id. at 3035–36 (Senator John B. Henderson explaining that “[t]he language of this section is so framed as to disfranchise from office . . . the leaders of any rebellion hereafter to come.”); Powell, 27 F. Cas. at 607 (summarizing the purpose of Section Three: “[T]hose who had been once trusted to support the power of the United States, and proved false to the trust reposed, ought not, as a class, to be entrusted with power again until congress saw fit to relieve them from disability.”). A construction of Section Three that would nevertheless allow a former President who broke his oath, not only to participate in the government again but to run for and hold the highest office in the land, is flatly unfaithful to the Section’s purpose.

¶152 We therefore conclude that “officer of the United States,” as used in Section Three, includes the President.

Halifax2TheMax said:

mickeyrat said:

https://twitter.com/AdamKinzinger/status/1739076147252478330?t=N7bBoveMNqtUxJXrHPsgkg&s=19

Did Melania hang any mistletoe?

Barron did, he hardly had to reach at all...

mickeyrat said:

feel so warm and fuzzy now

https://twitter.com/TomJChicago/status/1739373653504967020?t=nlPnJ2dPr_ZtCabRCza4-Q&s=19

Dude is a fucking clown. why does everyone keep amplifying him? he does not use twitter, yet everyone on twitter keeps posting his truths on there. can't come on here without people sharing it either. its exhausting. one cannot get away from him.