Daily Broadside | Pile On! Illinois Joins the States Trying to Kick Trump Off the Ballot

Anti-Trump Coloradoans have appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove Trump from the GOP’s presidential primary ballot, pending review of SCOTUS.

Colorado voters seeking to remove former President Trump from their state’s GOP primary ballot responded Thursday to the former president’s appeal, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to disqualify him from appearing on the ballot for another term.

“The Court should decline Trump’s invitation to second-guess the Colorado Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Colorado Election Code,” the court filing said.

Trump isn’t second-guessing their interpretation of the election code; he’s challenging their conclusion that he led an insurrection and therefore could be removed from the ballot.

On Wednesday, Trump asked the justices to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling to disqualify him from the Republican primary ballot for engaging in an insurrection.

In our country, a person is innocent until proven guilty unless they’re a bitter clinger MAGA Republican deplorable. Then a group of judges can determine innocence or guilt based not on a trial with evidence and witnesses before a jury of peers, but on whatever they claim an “insurrection” is.

Of course, the Colorado Supreme Court’s fevered decision is catching on in other states. It’s like the Chinese Lung Pox, but it’s a virus of the mind rather than the body.

Amid ongoing legal battles over his removal from the Republican primary ballots in Maine and Colorado, former President Donald Trump faces a new challenge to his eligibility for high office, this time in Illinois.

A group [sic] five Illinois voters, represented by Free Speech for People, has filed a challenge to Trump’s eligibility under the 14th Amendment, contending that his actions related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot constituted “insurrection” and disqualified him from the presidency, The Hill reported.

“Trump gave aid and comfort to enemies of the Constitution by, among other things: encouraging and counseling the insurrectionists; deliberately failing to exercise his authority and responsibility as President to quell the insurrection; praising the insurrectionists, including calling them ‘very special,’ ‘good persons,’ and ‘patriots’; and promising or suggesting that he would pardon many of the insurrectionists if reelected to the presidency,” the filing claimed.

These kind of hysterical denunciations are the Left’s specialty—long on impressive sounding accusations, short on actual evidence. To wit, not one of the 1,069 J6 political prisoners in the Garland Archipelago has been charged with the crime of sedition or insurrection.

Not one.

But here we have five—count them, FIVE—Illinois voters who have, again, decided without evidence or a trial or a jury, that Trump is an insurrectionist and is disqualified from the presidency. (The five objectors are all men. Where is the diversity I was promised?!)

Again, the irony here is that they represent “Free Speech for People” which, judging by it’s grotesquely colored website that promotes abolishing the Electoral College and replacing it with a national popular vote, is a progressive non-profit that wants to “restore our democracy.” (Funny—when I think of “restoring” something, I think of taking it back to how it originally was, not breaking it from it’s foundational design. But I’m sure that’s just me.)

In their Petition, the Objectors rely on the decisions of Colorado and of Maine, both of which determined that Trump engaged in insurrection. But they also cite “multiple judges and government officials” who claim that January 6 was an insurrection (p. 60).

Again, just because “multiple judges and government officials” have claimed it was an insurrection doesn’t make it one. Frankly, the fact that “multiple judges and government officials” have claimed it was an insurrection makes me all the more suspicious that it was the farthest thing from an insurrection.

I’m not claiming that there was no violence or that things didn’t get broken. But I am claiming that there is actually no evidence whatsoever that Trump engaged in an insurrection, except as claimed by people who defined what happened as “an insurrection.” It was a march on the Capitol that got out of hand and, as we’ve come to learn, was facilitated by the Capitol Police and, most likely, by the FBI.

If it had truly been an insurrection, there would have been an organized assault with guns and a lot of people would’ve died on both sides. Not one of the protestors has been charged with having a firearm on them. As it stands, the only people to die were protestors who were shot or beaten to death by the Capitol Police. It was a Reichstag moment, and the progressives have milked it for all it’s worth.

But the smart people who rule us have all decided that Trump is guilty of “engaging in” an insurrection. He’s the only one. Must’ve been quite a feat, Trump pulling that off all by himself.

The activist judges in Colorado got the ball rolling and now the rest of the states are piling on. Our country is beginning to turn yellow, like a banana republic.

Have a good weekend.

Daily Broadside | But Muh Democracy! Colorado Supreme Court Rules Trump Ineligible To Be on Ballot For Inciting “Insurrection”

Amazeballs.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot.

However, the court stayed its ruling until Jan. 4, 2024, “pending any review by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

If the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to review the issue by Jan. 4, the Colorado Secretary of State will be required to continued to include President Trump on the primary ballot. Otherwise, he will be removed from the primary ballot.

The hysterical and criminal Democrats are using lawfare any way they can to kneecap Trump in his quest to retake the White House in 2024, after stealingfortifying” the 2020 election.

“We conclude that because President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Secretary to list President Trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot,” reads the majority opinion.

“Section Three” of the 14th Amendment reads,

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 Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, has disqualified Trump for something he hasn’t been charaged, tried or convicted for. They’ve just decided that he engaged in “insurrection” and have ruled that he can’t be on the Colorado ballot.

Trump responded with his usual biting tone:

Trump Campaign Spokesman Steven Cheung wrote in a statement that an appeal would be filed on Tuesday night.

“Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump, supporting a Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden by removing President Trump’s name from the ballot and eliminating the rights of Colorado voters to vote for the candidate of their choice. Democrat Party leaders are in a state of paranoia over the growing, dominant lead President Trump has amassed in the polls. They have lost faith in the failed Biden presidency and are now doing everything they can to stop the American voters from throwing them out of office next November,” Cheung wrote.

“The Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision tonight and we will swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision. We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these unAmerican lawsuits,” he added.

This is an escalation of the war on Trump, on his MAGA supporters and on conservatives everywhere. I’ve said before, many times, that the trajectory we’re on will lead to a civil war, and the Left seems to be actively trying to start one.

All seven of the Colorado Supreme Court justices were appointed by Democrats, so one can’t plausibly argue that it was a partisan decision. Further, the Justices recognized that their judgement would be appealed, so they stayed their decision until January 4, 2024 to see what the U.S. Supreme Court says.

I’m sure the majority weren’t influenced at all by their personal ideology. Not a whit!

It’s unlikely that Trump not being on the ballot would change the outcome of the election, since Brandon won Colorado by 13.5 points in 2020. It’s more the seriousness of the ruling, which is novel interpretation of Section Three, orignally written to keep former Confederate soldiers out of the government.

But there’s this:

Similar challenges have been heard or are pending in half the states across the nation, and state courts have thus far ruled that they do not have the jurisdiction to interpret and apply Section 3 of the 14th Amendment for a presidential primary.

Those states that still have pending disqualification lawsuits relating to Trump’s appearance on the ballot include Texas, Nevada and Wisconsin, and you can bet they will be watching how this plays out. It’s all going to boil down to defining an “insurrection” and whether Trump is guilty of engaging in one.