Today’s paragraph comes to us from powerlineblog.com’s John Hinderaker. It relates to the insane, possibly civil war-inducing ruling by four unelected, Democrat-appointed judges in Colorado that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist and, as such, cannot be on the presidential ballot; voter can’t even write him in.
The claimed basis for this ruling is section 3 of the 14th amendment – passed by the senate in 1866 and ratified in 1868 – which 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.
OK, there’s the clause. Now, here, from Mr. Hinderaker’s latest commentary, is the paragraph (the bold print is mine):
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment precluded those who were federal officials before the Civil War, and then served in the Confederacy or its army, from again holding federal office after 1865. I have written that the theory that this provision somehow applies to Donald Trump is idiotic and ahistorical. The January 6 protest, which certainly did get out of hand, was not an “insurrection”–insurrectionists would have remembered to bring at least one firearm–and Trump urged those who were present in Washington that day to go forward and protest peaceably and legally. Not exactly Fort Sumter.*
Here’s a thought for the four “judges” (I think that description needs quotation marks) who decided they were in charge of who you can and can’t vote for. If you’re going to disqualify someone from the presidency based on insurrection, it would probably be a good idea to have some kind of trial where that person is convicted of the insurrection you’re basing your disqualification on. It would be a good idea if your decision were based on something other than your personal opinions in the absence of any such trial or verdict.
But, then again, this is Donald Trump. So I guess the rules don’t apply.
John Hinderaker wins Paragraph Of The Day honors for making the insanity/hate/disregard for the law shown by these four “judges” so plain that even a Trump hater just might see it and understand how far it takes us toward third-world status.
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*Mr. Hinderaker did not get Trump’s statement exactly right. Here is his verbatim quote:
“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
