I’ll let law prof Jonathan Turley say it for me. What I like about his two (!) articles today is that this constitutionally measured professor goes beyond calling out the Dems for their patent irresponsibility and describes what their long term goal is—the end of democracy:
Turley starts with the bottom line:
What is maddening is that Democratic groups and commentators are seeking to remove as many as 120 Republicans from the ballots in the name of democracy. It is like burning books in the name of literacy. Yet, on this anniversary of the January 6th riot, members of Congress and Democratic groups want to block voters from reelecting their preferred representatives. …, it appears that some members and activists believe that you have to destroy democracy to save it from itself.
He then provides a succinct explanation of what this purports to be about—for those headscratchers among readers.
It goes back to the aftermath of the Civil War—1865, to put a date to it—when:
… the 39th Congress convened in December 1865 and many members were shocked to see Alexander Stephens, the Confederate vice president, waiting to take a seat with an array of other former Confederate senators and military officers.
The result of their outrage was Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:
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.
So that’s why you keep hearing the drumbeat about “insurrection”—or, now, it seems, “deadly insurrection.”
What Turley finds particularly—and, I think, personally—repulsive is the very public involvement of Clinton crony and Russia Hoax insider Marc Elias, who has, in defense of democracy, made a career (and an excellent living) of jiggering election laws and even overturning elections on often dubious grounds. For the greater good of the Left’s great cause.
This week, Democratic lawyer Marc Elias predicted that 2022 would bring a renewed interest in disqualifying Republican members from office based on an obscure Civil War-era provision. Elias — the former Hilary Clinton campaign general counsel — is a well-known figure in Washington who has been prominently featured in the ongoing investigation of Special Counsel John Durham. Elias has founded a self-described “pro-democracy” group that challenges Republican voting laws and pledges to “shape our elections and democratic institutions for years to come.”
In the age of rage, nothing says democracy like preventing people from running for office.
Elias and others are suggesting that — rather than defeat Republicans at the polls — Democrats in Congress could disqualify the Republicans for supporting or encouraging the Jan. 6 “insurrection.”
It’s just about possible to actually hear the drip, drip, drip of Turley’s contempt.
Unfortunately, having got to that important point, Turley indulges in what really can only be described as blather—invoking bi-partisan blame:
Jan. 6 was a national tragedy. I publicly condemned President Trump’s speech that day while it was being given — and I denounced the riot as a “constitutional desecration.” However, it has not been treated legally as an insurrection. Those charged for their role in the attack that day are largely facing trespass and other less serious charges — rather than insurrection or sedition. That’s because this was a riot that was allowed to get out of control by grossly negligent preparations by Capitol Police and congressional officials. While the FBI launched a massive national investigation, it did not find evidence of an insurrection.
With an ominous mid-term election approaching, much of the effort among Democrats on the Hill and in the media has been to keep the enmity alive from Jan. 6. ...
Turley doesn’t explain what’s so “ominous” about the mid-term election that’s approaching—unless he’s referring to the transparent efforts of the razor thin Dem majority in Congress to rig all future elections, and the calls for canceling Republican candidates, as described above and featuring disreputable rogues like Elias.
The saddest aspect of this politicization of the Jan. 6 riot is that many of us wanted a full, transparent, and apolitical investigation. House Republicans rejected that idea, but there remain many questions to be answered — which has not happened. Instead, we have an effort to encode the notion of an actual insurrection through mantra-like repetition.
Turley is plenty smart enough to know that House Republicans did NOT reject the concept of “a full, transparent, and apolitical investigation.” No observer of the last five years—including the Russia Hoax and the Faux Impeachment and so much else—could honestly suppose that Republican participation in Pelosi’s dubiously constitutional commission would have led to “a full, transparent, and apolitical investigation.” Sometimes the best thing that politicians can do is to decline to participate in dishonest political stunts—especially stunts that have “ominous” implications for free and open elections in the future. Certainly nothing Pelosi, Cheney, and the rest are doing suggests that they’re interested in answering the “many questions” that Turley believes remain to be answered. Turley is a student of US constitutional history and surely recognizes that all these events were a long time in coming, and he knows who shoulders most of the blame.
Having got the blather out of his system, Turley continues on a higher note with some pointed observations from a legal and constitutional standpoint. It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to see that Turley understands where the greater blame lies:
The clause Democrats are citing was created in reference to a real Civil War in which over 750,000 people died in combat. The confederacy formed a government, an army, a currency, and carried out diplomatic missions.
Conversely, Jan. 6 was a protest that became a riot.
...
More importantly, even if you adopt a dangerously broad definition of “insurrection” or “rebellion,” members of Congress who supported challenging the electoral votes (as Democrats have done in prior years) were exercising constitutionally protected speech.
Moreover, the Democrats cannot simply use their razor-thin majority to disqualify opponents willy-nilly. Punishments like expulsions take two-thirds votes, and any disqualifications can be challenged in the court.
In other words, Turley reveals that he understands that this is political theater—albeit of a dangerous sort that is unprecedented in modern times.
Indeed, not long after ratification in 1869, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase ruled in a circuit opinion that the clause was not self-executing. He suggested that allowing Congress to simply bar political opponents from office would be a form of punishment without due process and would likely violate the prohibition on bills of attainder.
As Democrats push to federalize elections and negate the laws in a couple dozen states, figures like Elias are now suggesting that Republicans could also be listed as “rebels” and barred from the ballot. Congress would then control not just how states conduct their elections but even who can appear on such ballots.
You may also be interested in Turley’s needling of those calling for prosecution of Trump:
What Ever Happened to the Prosecution of Donald Trump for Incitement?
Yes, there’s some blathering there, too, but overall he scores repeatedly against the usual deplorables.
For a stylistically different approach …
They speak of upholding democracy and the rule of law while they hold political prisoners in jail cells in DC. Prisoners who are, apparently, being tortured and having their Rights violated--Rights, inviolable, clearly enumerated in the Constitution. And, yet here we are. "C'mon man, we are better than this."
And, thank you Joe Biden for reminding me, although I really didn't need to be reminded, of my oath -- that I have taken several times -- to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and DO-MEST-IC [Joe Biden's emphasis from this morning's rambling].
I remain vigilant, preparing for the conflagration that increasingly appears likely to ensue from this attack through their nonsense at some point in the future.
I will not bend the knee!