Tag Archives: election2024

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The Broadside | Voting Isn’t Just a Right, It’s a Duty

One of the things that has bothered me over the last several years is the tax-exempt status of US churches. It’s true that it’s helpful, but it’s also true that once the government has its hooks in you by conferring a special status, it then has leverage over you. The government can make demands or restrict the activities of the church as the price you pay for their indulgence.

Covid-19 anyone?

I have thought several times that there may come a day when the church will have to give up its tax-exempt status in order to stay true to its calling. That may mean going back to house churches, small gatherings without a formal organizational structure.

That’s the topic of the introduction to the following sermon that pastor Gary Hamrick of Cornerstone Chapel delivered on September 8. He mentions the 1954 Johnson amendment which, on the surface, is unconstitutional.

The Johnson Amendment is a provision in the U.S. tax code, since 1954, that prohibits all 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates.

The Johnson amendment is currently being challenged in court and Cornerstone Chapel is a party to the proceedings.

Hamrick takes us back to the early years of the founding era and observes that pastors freely spoke of politics in their sermons. He mentions a two-volume series called “Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805” (which I have on my shelf and recommend if you’re interested in that era). His point is that pastors used to be able to freely speak on what was happening politically in the colonies and then in the newly formed United States of America.

After his introduction he goes on to make three points about our responsibility to vote and why it’s important that we do. I post his sermon here because I think it’s worth listening to as we approach November 5.

I’ve cued it to the second point of his message, which is that we should “vote policies over personalities,” and he then goes on to discuss seven policies that a candidate will influence. I strongly urge you to listen to at least the 15 minutes devoted to those issues.

I know not all readers of this blog are Christians, but I think the majority of us are conservative. Even if you’re not a believer, you can better understand why someone of the faith thinks the way we do about these issues.

If you have the time, I’d encourage you to listen to the whole thing.

Happy Monday and farewell to September.

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The Broadside | The Debate Didn’t Change a Thing Except Make Me Want to Keep Harris Out of the White House Even More

I’m live blogging the debate tonight and will send it out in the morning.

First thing I observed: Kamala (KH) strode across the stage with arm extended to greet Trump and introduced herself. It didn’t look like Trump was going to approach her since he went right to his podium. I think that was a good tactic by KH. Made her look unafraid or intimidated. Made him look small for a moment, but he handled himself well by politely returning her greeting.

Overall, I think Kamala held her own and actually put Trump on the defensive a lot of the time. She knew her lines and, as we anticipated, she had allies in the moderators, David Muir and Lindsey Davis. They teamed up to fact check Trump throughout the debate; not once did they do that to Harris.

Lindsey Davis said after the candidates traded comments about abortion, “no state allows the killing of a baby after birth.” But Trump never said that. He referenced the former governor of Virginia who did indeed talk about allowing a baby to born and then decide whether to save it or not. The moderator became part of the debate at that moment.

Make Debates Fair Again.

Whereas I thought the muted mic helped Trump in his debate against Biden, I don’t think it helped him as much in this one. Harris was able to fire off her memorized talking points without interruption. But on the flip side, if Trump had interrupted her, he would’ve come off as rude and demeaning to a woman of color.

Trump had to point out Harris’s many lies including, incredibly enough, the debunked “many fine people on both sides” lie. Seriously, Harris knows it’s a lie, but they continue to smear Trump with it to keep their uninformed voter base hating Trump. If you’re going to hate Trump, at least come to it honestly.

She lied about Trump being behind “Project 2025.” He had to defend himself and tell everyone that he’s not part of it and hasn’t (and won’t) read it. She lied about his use of the word “bloodbath” and he had to correct the record. She lied that his father gave him $400 million dollars and he had to address that.

To me it’s obvious that her strategy was to force him to defend himself, chewing up the clock.

Honestly, it felt like Trump was winging it too much. He needs to really prep to stay focused and stay away from the bragging and hyperbole. Not everything was the “best” or the “worst” in “the history of our country.” I mean, things are bad—don’t get me wrong—but Trump’s need to exaggerate undermines what was really extraordinary about his administration.

If Trump had an advantage, it was that Americans got an earful of Harris’s nasally wine mom voice and fake grins, head shakes and eye rolls. Her voice and tone are not just irritating but grating. As Vodka Pundit Stephen Green asked, “can anyone stand to listen to THAT VOICE for the next four or eight years?”

I know I can’t.

She also tried playing to emotions. When talking about “Donald Trump’s abortion ban” (wut?) she talked about some pregnant woman “sitting next to strangers on a plane.” One of my littles laughed out loud when she said that.

At one point Harris accused Trump of not having a plan about something (it doesn’t matter what) and all I could think was, “This from a woman who hasn’t told us what her plans are since she was anointed as the Democrat’s candidate. That’s rich.”

The worst of all was the question from David Muir about Trump saying that he didn’t know Kamala was now black. That was low—and then, instead of grilling Harris on why she identified as an Indian, and now as a black woman, which Trump correctly pointed out, he had the audacity to ask Harris what she thought about Trump’s comment.

As Paula Bolyard asked, “Where is the question from Muir asking Kamala about the fake black accent she trots out when she’s in front of a black audience?”

It wasn’t about policy, it was about identity politics. Shame on the moderators.

Trump was very direct. He called Harris a Marxist, which she is. He said that Biden and Harris are weak and incompetent, which they are. He said we’re a nation in decline, which we are. He said we’re facing a real possibility of World War III, which is probably true.

Kamala bluntly said Trump wants to be a dictator and that he “adores dictators” so it went both ways.

In her closing statement, KH uses all kinds of trite sound bites like “the future” and “we’re not going back” and “we have so much more in common than separates us.” But the most cringey thing she said was that she will be a president who asks, “Are you okay?” just like she did as a prosecutor.

“I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” anyone?

Trump rambled (again, the guy has to be better prepared) but I think he hit his main points. He observed tht she’s been in office for three-and-a-half years and asks why she hasn’t done anything that she says she’s now going to do. He could’ve just said, Are you better off now? He rebuilt the military, we’re being invaded by millions of immigrants, we’re in serious decline, and we’re on the verge of WWIII.

Bottom line for me: The debate was fairly unbalanced and didn’t change anyone’s mind. Harris held her own, and Trump could’ve been stronger. But if you hate Trump, you still do. If you don’t trust Harris, you still don’t.

What’d you guys think? Let me know in the comments.

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Daily Broadside | Get Ready for One Party Rule

You know you’re being disenfranchised, right?

Tucker’s four points:

  1. There are at least 22 million illegals in the U.S.
  2. Democrats are calling for the legalization of all illegals (at least 22 million new voters)
  3. The overwhelming majority of first time immigrant voters vote Democrat
  4. The greatest margin of victory in a presidential election was 17 million votes in 1984

This is all about a permanent electoral majority. A permanent DEMOCRAT electoral majority.

Here’s some of the conversation that Tucker had with Catherine Engelbrecht from True the Vote.

TC: There is no way to justify an [sic] economic grounds mass immigration in 2024. So once again, why is it happening? And it’s happening for political reasons. It’s happening because the Democratic Party has ceased making case for itself to Americans. And so in order to keep power, in fact, to expand their power and to preside over the one-party state that they desire, they’re going to need a brand new electorate, and this is their electorate. Foreigners will choose your leaders. You’re not allowed to choose the leaders of foreign countries, but foreigners will choose your leaders, including in this election, this 2024 presidential election.

Well, how would that work? It’s illegal, you say, for illegal aliens to vote in a federal election. Well, actually, it’s not illegal, it turns out. Congress passed something in the US Code, the federal code, a line that unbeknownst to the rest of us, makes it legal for illegal aliens to vote in federal elections if they believe they are citizens. It’s a state of mind. Did you know that? We didn’t know that. Most people didn’t know that. Katherine Angelbrecht just found this provision in the US Code. That’s the thing she reads because she’s the founder of True the Vote and has been working on these issues for a few years now. She joins us to explain what she’s found. Katherine Albrecht, thank you so much for coming on.

His point about foreigners choosing our next president—it’s insane, but it’s really the only way to look at it if there’s any truth to it. Tucker goes on to ask Catherine to explain.

TC: Would you mind explaining what seems at first blush a very far-fetched idea that the US Code, as of right now, as of our speaking, would allow illegal aliens to vote in the upcoming presidential election? How would that work?

CE: Yeah. Well, True the Vote The organization I founded some years ago has been long involved in looking at the accuracy of the voter rolls, and we’ve long maintained that inaccurate voter rolls lead to inaccurate elections. With that as a backdrop, we’ve been very concerned about the lack of availability to determine citizenship status, not just by groups like ours, but by states themselves. They can’t get close enough to a citizenship status database to make good determinations. That then led me to look a little deeper, because as you rightly lay out, there’s a motivation here. So what might that be? We’ve seen many, many videos of people coming across the border who are talking about their excitement about voting for Joe Biden and claiming that they are citizens. But yet we hear debates in Congress where the congressmen will say, Don’t worry, the non-citizens can’t vote. It’s a crime of perjury. It’s a felony. So okay, we took a deep look at the criminal code, and Title 18 left us just gobsmacked. Because when you read all the way through it as it lists all of the stipulations against non-citizen voting in federal elections and lays out the Penalties, Therefore, scroll all the way down to the fine print.

What you read is that non-citizens can vote without penalty if at the time they are voting, they believe themselves to be US citizens.

Our UniParty politicians wrote into law that if someone merely thinks themselves a citizen, they won’t be punished for voting in an election in which they have no legal right to vote.

TC: Is there any question that the overwhelming majority of illegal aliens are going to vote Democrat when they vote, and they will vote?

CE: Yeah, I certainly see that the NGOs and the outfits that are bringing them across the country are grooming them for that purpose. That seems to be very apparent. They are immediately given access to all manner of social service programs. Those social service programs have as a portion of the application an automatic voter registration feature. States aren’t allowed to ask for proof of citizenship upon registration. I mean, this is layer upon layer upon layer of dysfunction. Wait, wait, wait.

TC: The Biden administration is registering illegal aliens to vote when they get here?

CE: They certainly are setting up all of the place settings to do it. They are registering them for government sanction programs like Medicaid, like Affordable Care Act. They’re giving them access to food stamps, lodging, other welfare types of programs. All of those programs come with the application. A opt-out voter registration. It is not at all beyond the realm of possibility. That is, that it’s in fact, exactly what’s happening, that non-citizens are being registered. States have no ability to stop it. If you are so fortunate as to find a way to prove this caught in the act, then you refer back to Title 18 that says, That was just a state of mind. So no harm, no foul, and it will be too late.

TC: I mean, so the election already seems rigged.

Exactly. The Democrats have brought in a bought and paid for new electorate and will hand them citizenship right after they give them free food, medical care and shelter.

But the Democrats aren’t even hiding what they’re doing anymore. Right on cue:

Keep this is mind as you go to the voting booth this fall.

Make sure you vote this fall.

Have a good weekend.

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Daily Broadside | Legacy Media Seizes On Trump “Bloodbath” Comments in Act of Journalistic Sabotage

If you weren’t convinced that the “mainstream” media is your mortal enemy, this should put all questions to rest.

On Friday Trump was in Ohio talking about China building automobile manufacturing plants in Mexico, and planning to sell the vehicles in the United States. He frames his comments as being for Chinese president Xi and says, “we’re gonna put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those [cars].”

He immediately follows that with, “if I get elected,” meaning that his plan will only happen if he wins the presidency back this fall.

Then, as Trump is wont to do, he speaks in hyperbole, saying, “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath, for the whole—that’s going to be the least of it. It’s gonna be a bloodbath for the country, that’ll be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars” and he continues to talk about the factories being built in Mexico.

It’s clear that the former president’s comment about a “bloodbath” are part of his commentary about Chinese car manufacturing plants in Mexico. But what do the journalistic rags take as the lede?

Makes for a great headline, doesn’t it? Note that the lede isn’t “Trump says he will place a 100 percent tariff on cars coming from Mexico if elected.” Yawn.

The Wall Street Journal at least had the integrity to put Trump’s comments in context.

But the legacy media, the stenographers for the Democrats, took his “bloodbath” comments and made that the lede, insinuating that Trump is threatening or predicting violence if he isn’t elected. It’s all part of the grand effort to sabotage Trump in the eyes of the public, an ongoing campaign of misinformation and disinformation.

There are some good news outlets that can be trusted, like The Epoch Times, which handled the controversy as good reporting should.

Besides, it isn’t as if the media isn’t familiar with the term bloodbath.

You have good reason to distrust the media.

And you should.

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Daily Broadside | Trump Winning Streak Ends But No One Cares

Haley wins a round, but it doesn’t matter.

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley notched her first victory of the 2024 primary campaign, besting former President Trump in Washington, D.C.

Haley won the contest with nearly 63% of the vote, according to an Associated Press call of the race about 90 minutes after polls closed Sunday. The results mean the former South Carolina governor will walk away with 19 delegates.

Sunday’s primary had a lower turnout than in 2016. The tally now stands at 244 for Trump and 43 for Haley.

“In Washington, D.C.” is all you need to know about Haley’s win.

Washington, D.C., represented Haley’s possible best shot at notching a victory and ending Trump’s undefeated primary streak. While Trump won the district in an uncontested 2020 primary, he finished a distant third behind Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich during the 2016 primary. The district also leans heavily Democrat, with President Biden garnering 92% of the Washington, D.C., vote in the 2020 election.

“Leans”? LOL.

All this win does is give Haley some false hope and a talking point about why she should remain in the race. After Super Tuesday’s results, we can put the race to bed and begin focusing on the November election, with Trump facing whoever the Democrats decide to put on the ballot.

Trump has so far made easy work of this year’s GOP primary, notching victories in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Virgin Islands, South Carolina and Michigan. The seemingly easy stream of wins has solidified the former president’s front-runner status in the race, with the campaign telling Fox News Digital ahead of the results that they have already begun to look forward to the general election.

“Republican voters have delivered resounding wins for President Trump in every single primary contest and this race is over,” a spokesperson for the campaign said. “Our focus is now on Joe Biden and the general election.”

Nimarata Nikki Randhawa Haley is delaying the inevitable.

Just drop out already.

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Daily Broadside | If You’re Looking for a Way to Make a Difference in Politics, You Could Start By Voting

So many “Republicans” are disgusted by American politics that they’re staying home and ceding power to their enemies.

LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Turning Point Action, the political arm of conservative movement leader Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, has identified more than 4.5 million so-called “disengaged” Republican voters in several battleground states around the country, enough to more than swing the 2024 presidential election’s results from 2020.

[…]

“It’s a turnout game,” Kirk, who leads Turning Point, told Breitbart News. “It’s the exact opposite of what people would have believed. I’m very, very focused and have been for quite some time and will continue to be on these numbers. I believe it’s all going to come down to three states. Trump is going to win Iowa. He’ll win Ohio. He’ll win North Carolina by a little bit—it’s not going to be a blowout. He’ll win Florida by a million votes, so I don’t think Trump should even actively campaign in Iowa, Ohio, and Florida. It’s got to be all in on Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Georgia, I’m feeling better and better about. Republicans are really coming home. They’re outpacing Democrats 1.5 to one in voter registration. Arizona, I think we’re beginning to get our act together. We’re headquartered there. We have a great new state party chair who really knows what she’s doing. Wisconsin, I’m worried about. The problem is, when I talk to some of these people, they say, ‘Oh my goodness, maybe Pennsylvania.’ I’m not that bullish on Pennsylvania. It’s a big state. If Pennsylvania falls, that means Wisconsin also falls. Look, it’s a turnout election. I really believe that, and it comes down to: Can we really turn out another 50,000 to 60,000 more Republican voters?”

I agree that those states are going to be key.

Here’s the thing: it’s great to identify a huge group of non-voters who could turn the election, but that’s assuming that we’re still dealing with “””normal””” election processes, which we’re clearly not. So not only is it important to target that group of people to commit to vote, it’s crucial to get as many as possible out to vote because if it’s close, the Democrats, the media, the Left, the Marxists and the progressives (but I stutter) can’t cheat their way to victory the way they did in 2020.

But they will try. Oh, how they will try.

The numbers, which Turning Point Action provided to Breitbart News exclusively, are stunning. Across ten battleground states, the group identified 4,571,210 disengaged GOP voters who did not vote in 2016 or 2020. The ten states counted are Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, North Carolina, and Nevada. While Trump won Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and North Carolina in 2020, Democrat President Joe Biden took the other six states—and in each one, the disengaged GOP voters total was more than the margin of Biden’s victory over Trump.

For instance, in Pennsylvania, the margin between Trump and Biden was 80,555. The number of disengaged GOP voters was, per Turning Point Action’s analysis, 589,350—more than seven times the margin. In Michigan, the margin was 154,188 votes by which Biden beat Trump. Turning Point Action found 490,630 disengaged GOP voters there, more than three times the margin.

It was even more profound in places like Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia. In Georgia, the margin was 11,779—and the number of disengaged GOP voters was, per Turning Point Action, 539,480—more than 45 times the margin. In Arizona, the margin between Trump and Biden was 10,457—and Turning Point Action identified 286,440 disengaged GOP voters there, more than 27 times the margin. In Wisconsin, 20,682 votes separated Trump and Biden—and Turning Point identified 542,720 disengaged GOP voters there. That is more than 26 times the margin.

In Nevada, where this conference is taking place, the margin between Biden and Trump in 2020 was 33,596 votes—and Turning Point Action has identified 140,540 disengaged GOP voters in the Silver State, more than four times the margin.

If you don’t want to live in a police state similar to China, you had best get out there and exercise your vote, even if you have to hold your nose while pulling the lever for Trump. As for me, if Trump is the nominee, I will crawl naked over broken glass scattered over hot asphalt to pull the lever for him.

Sitting home and pouting isn’t going to help.

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Daily Broadside | The Big Question is Who You Will Vote for in 2024

The big, fat, hairy, looming anxiety everyone has coming into 2024 is the question of whether Donald J. Trump will regain the presidency. Joe Biden is doing his best to demonize Trump and all of his supporters.

BLUE BELL, Pa. — BLUE BELL, Pa. (AP) — President Joe Biden warned Friday that Donald Trump’s efforts to retake the White House in 2024 pose a grave threat to the country, the day before the third anniversary of the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol by then-President Trump’s supporters aiming to keep him in power.

Speaking near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where George Washington and the Continental Army spent a bleak winter nearly 250 years ago, Biden said that Jan. 6 2021, marked a moment where “we nearly lost America — lost it all.” He said the presidential race — a likely rematch with Trump, who is the far and away GOP frontrunner — is “all about” whether American democracy will survive.

The speech, the president’s first political event of the election year, was intended to clarify the expected choice for voters this fall. Biden, who reentered political life because he felt he was best capable of defeating Trump in 2020, believes focusing on defending democracy to be central to persuading voters to reject Trump once again.

Full of hyperbole and fear-mongering, the speech packed plenty of disinformation malinformation. We didn’t “nearly lose America” on January 6. But we’ve nearly lost it—”lost it all”—in the years since, as the Biden DOJ, FBI and Garland’s Gestapo have hounded, imprisoned, tried and sentenced protestors to outrageous sentences, who were doing nothing but walking through the Capitol building that day. Did you know that they’re now pursuing protestors who were merely wandering around outside the Capitol on January 6? Not those who went inside, but those were merely present? We’re becoming subject to a tyrannical surveillance state that protects the powerful and abuses the patriotic.

And while this election IS all about “whether American democracy will survive,” it’s not in the way Brandon means it. He means that if Trump is elected, “American democracy” won’t survive. First and foremost, the United States is a representative republic, not a democracy. As Jay McConville writes,

We do not have pure democracy or “rule by the majority” because we have constitutionally protected rights that cannot be voted away, [we] operate under rule of law, and have, till recently, limited government with limited powers.

The Founders rejected a pure democracy. They were aware of what a tyranny of the majority would exact from the people. The word “democracy” is never used in our Constitution or in the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights. Any time a Democrat uses the term “democracy” you can be sure it is their own ignorance being used in the service of perpetuating a lie.

Second, the true threat to our “democracy” is Brandon and his ilk, not Donald Trump. They are waging a PR campaign against Trump, trying to dissuade the American public from supporting him. The Russia! Russia! Russia! lies, the two impeachments, the raid on his house over “stolen” documents, the 91 criminal charges levied against him, the attempts to remove him from the ballot in Colorado, Maine, Michigan and Illinois, and now smearing him and “MAGA Republicans” as the biggest threat to our “democracy” is all a psyop to persuade Americans to abandon Trump.

Trump isn’t the one allowing hordes of illegal aliens to swarm over our border, bringing crime and disease with them. Trump isn’t the one who sent our economy into a tail spin. Trump isn’t the one who has shut down domestic drilling, which would provide cheap fuel, and free us of Middle East oil and the whims of the Saudis. Trump isn’t the one who has depleted our strategic oil reserves, our supply of ammunition and bombs, and has turned our military into a woke joke. Trump isn’t the one trying to regulate which kitchen appliances you can use or what kind of car you can drive. Trump isn’t the one who allowed the world to blow up on his watch in eastern Europe, the Middle East, or the Far East.

That’s all courtesy of Brandon and his administration that is hell-bent on destroying this country as founded. Yet he has the temerity to suggest that the real threat to America is Trump.

Biden has made the preservation of the American democratic system a central theme of his reelection effort, characterizing Trump’s supporters as members of an “extremist movement.”

“The choice is clear: Donald Trump’s campaign is about him. Not America, not you,” Biden said, according to Politico. “Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power.”

“Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time. It is what the 2024 election is all about,” he also said. Biden further recalled the events of the Capitol riot and highlighted the participants’ wielding of Trump flags and Confederate flags.

“It was among the worst derelictions of duty by a president in American history,” he added.

This is pure, unadulterated BS. Biden’s puppet-masters are hyping a non-story. They’re the ones who are trying to keep themselves in power. They’re the ones willing to sacrifice our “democracy” on the altar of progressive Marxist dogma to make the US just another country that will be reliant on the elites in Davos and Brussels and New York to keep them fed and employed.

Here’s Dark Brandon’s latest campaign ad.

Trump is having none of it.

In his Valley Forge speech on Friday, Biden stated that “[w]hether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time. It is what the 2024 election is all about.”

Trump, for his part, called Biden’s speech a “pathetic fearmongering campaign event” while addressing supporters in Iowa on Friday, The Hill reported. He went on to criticize Biden’s official tenure, saying “Joe Biden’s record is an unbroken streak of weakness, incompetence, corruption and failure.”

“[I]f you take a look at what he’s doing on the border or inflation, or our military, that horrible day in Afghanistan, you look at what he’s done with energy… All throughout the world, we’re an embarrassment as a country,” Trump lamented. “We’ve become an embarrassment as a country.”

Trump made his remarks in Sioux Center, Iowa, weeks ahead of the Iowa Caucus, the first nominating contest in the Republican primary.

You better be sure who you want in the White House, because it will most likely be one of these two. And one of them is wrecking our country right now.

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Daily Broadside | The Insurrection Isn’t Coming from the Right. It’s Coming From the Left

Lots of reactions to the Colorado Supreme Court ruling from Tuesday, with Leftists, NeverTrumpers, anti-Americans, Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself five-fold) predictably gleeful with the decision, and conservatives, Trump supporters and other patriots condemning the decision as unAmerican and “election interference.”

I don’t know how you can look at it any other way than a partisan effort to disrupt our election process. (This is contra what yesterday I wrote that, “All seven of the Colorado Supreme Court justices were appointed by Democrats, so one can’t plausibly argue that it was a partisan decision.” I read something that I can’t find saying that the majority justices all attended an Ivy League law school [like Harvard or Yale] and the three dissenting votes attended non-Ivy League schools. So I stand corrected).

Trump has never been accused of, tried for, or convicted of being engaged in “insurrection.” There is no way that the Colorado Supreme Court has standing to 1) find that Trump engaged in insurrection and therefore, 2) to disqualify him from the ballot based on that finding.

They’re interpreting an amendment that was written to keep Confederate soldiers and leaders who had taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, but had then literally engaged in insurrection to the point of raising armies and killing other Americans, as applying to Trump.

All Trump did was encourage his followers to “fight” for what they believed in, and that is now “insurrection.” The Colorado Supreme Court stretched that word so far that if it had been Elastigirl, she would’ve dislocated her shoulder.

On closer inspection, the ruling undermines itself, leaving us to wonder what it’s all about.

The majority on Tuesday said every key legal issue came out against Mr. Trump.

“The sum of these parts is this: President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president,” the majority said in an unsigned opinion, saying that his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results amounted to engaging in an insurrection and that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, bars insurrectionists from federal office, including the presidency.

They’re unequivocal in stating their conclusion. Trump is disqualfied from holding office and therefore listing him on the Colorado primary ballots would be “a wrongful act” under the Colorado Election Code. One has to wonder how a State usurps federal prerogative to decide if a person engaged in “insurrection” or usurps the candidate’s State’s rights to make that determination.

Or if there is even a way to make that determination apart from a formal charge, trial and conviction.

But this is the interesting part of the Colorado court’s ruling: they issued a stay until January 4th.

The majority added: “We do not reach these conclusions lightly. 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.”

But the court gave Mr. Trump a provisional escape route. It put its ruling on hold through Jan. 4, and if he seeks review in the U.S. Supreme Court, as he said he will, the state court said his name would remain on the primary ballot.

What they don’t say is that in the ruling, which you can read here, it says,

Therefore, to maintain the status quo pending any review by the U.S. Supreme Court, we stay our ruling until January 4, 2024 (the day before the Secretary’s deadline to certify the content of the presidential primary ballot). If review is sought in the Supreme Court before the stay expires on January 4, 2024, then the stay shall remain in place, and the Secretary will continue to be required to include President Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot, until the receipt of any order or mandate from the Supreme Court.

In other words, because they knew Trump will immediately appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, their “stay” will be in force indefinitely. Trump’s name will appear on the ballot no matter what.

So why are they doing this?

I think it’s because being the Leftists they are, they are piling on Trump. They’re part and parcel of the real “insurrection” that is taking place across the United States, with our political, educational, medical, judicial and journalistic institutions all subverting our traditional, historical and legal processes. If they can provoke a reaction from the Right, that would be a bonus. If they can set precedent for the Left in other states, that would be a win for them, too.

And, right on schedule:

In a letter dated Wednesday, California lieutenant governor Eleni Kounalakis (D.) urged California secretary of state Shirley Weber (D.) to “explore every legal option to remove former President Donald Trump from California’s 2024 presidential primary ballot,” given the Colorado supreme court’s decision. On Tuesday, the court voted 4–3 to disqualify Trump from appearing on the Centennial State’s ballot because he allegedly incited an insurrection on January 6, 2021.

“This decision is about honoring the rule of law in our country and protecting the fundamental pillars of our democracy,” Kounalakis wrote to Weber.

“California must stand on the right side of history,” Kounalakis added. “California is obligated to determine if Trump is ineligible for the California ballot for the same reasons described in [Anderson v. Griswold]. The Colorado decision can be the basis for a similar decision here in our state. The constitution is clear: you must be 35 years old and not be an insurrectionist.”

This isn’t about doing the right thing or being “on the right side of history” (what, exactly, does that mean anyway?). This is about finding semi-judicial means by which to eliminate Trump as a candidate. They start with the premise that Trump must be stopped; then they look for any “legal” means by which they can get that outcome.

Sen. Mike Lee put it this way:

“Lawless thuggery masquerading as jurisprudence.” Exactly.

You get the idea. And if what these Congressman and Senators say is true—that what the four horsemen of the Colorado Supreme Court did was “lawless thuggery”—then the next step is to impeach the four of them and remove them from the court.

Which will never happen of course. Because they’re Democrats.

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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 stealing “fortifying” 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.

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Daily Broadside | An Important Moment Is Coming and You Will Have to Decide What You Will Do

I’m not going to comment on Wednesday’s “debate.” Still too early. Any analysis will only hold for a few days and then it will all be different. Suffice to say that Trump, once again, is doing things his way.

What is important to note is that the structure of the United States is still there. We’ve got the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the three branches of government, the election cycles, the free press, our educational system, our military, and independent states.

But that’s all it is: a structure. It’s been hollowed out and suffers from an infestation of dry rot brought on by a class of termites that no longer honor the law or the freedoms that we are guaranteed by our national charters. We are slowly but surely being choked off from our freedoms; we are being told what we can and cannot do, what we can and cannot say, what we can and cannot know.

I’m not the only one who feels this. (HT: JJ Sefton)

A coup d’etat is when a small group of people suddenly try to take power and subjugate a nation by force.

A coup du publique is when a small group of people already in power try to further subjugate an entire population by methodically taking away whatever rights they may have left.

That global sense of unease, that nearly audible universal skincrawl taking place across the planet, that unquestionable deprivation of the right to ask questions, that which is happening right now: that is the coup du publique in action.

In a run-of-the-mill coup d’etat, it is axiomatic that the people staging the coup seize the radio station, usually even before they track down and meat hook the unfortunate Great Leader of the People and Terror of the Nation’s Enemies and President For Life and replace him with some other Grand High Dirtbag.

OK, so we have a name for it: “coup du publique.”

In a sense, a coup is the opposite of a revolution in that it thrives not on the active involvement of the citizenry, but its passive isolation, unlike in popular uprisings and protests.

For example, besides the fact that it was over in time for dinner, that Jan. 6 participants called the next day asking if they could stop by to pick up jackets they left behind, that a significant percentage of the participants were being paid by certain government agencies to be there, that participants stood around taking pictures of statues, and that the police on scene may have allowed a large proportion of the protestors in is why the tragic stupidity of January 6 was not a coup or an insurrection or anything more than a stupid thoughtless gift to the Democrats and their deep state allies.

But what if you flip that script just a tiny bit and make sure that – before any other planning, ally recruiting, etc., is even started – you made sure to quietly, incrementally take control of the information infrastructure first?  A few years ago, that meant radio and television stations and phone company HQ – today that means the internet as it is all three in one.

And if instead of overthrowing a government, you did this to ensure a government’s survival and expansion – the public be damned.  Then you would not have a coup d’etat but a coup du publique.

This explains what we’re experiencing. But it doesn’t tell us what to do about it. For that, we turn to Michael Walsh at The Pipeline.

Perhaps one solution, then, is to abandon primaries altogether and return to the days of the smoke-filled rooms, during which the pros and cons of each candidate can be weighed and judged by party elders and officials; after all, the U.S. was never meant to be a plebiscitary democracy, and a system that produced Lincoln and Grant ought not to have been discarded so lightly, especially when it has since given us Romney and McCain. 

Desperate times demand desperate measures. You can find all four of my Epoch Times columns on this subject linked at the bottom of the last in the series, “What Is to Be Done? Preparing the Information Battlespace,” which include numerous suggestions for fixes and improvements. Remember: principles, not programs. Let’s discuss these ideas in the weeks going forward; please feel free to add your two cents in the comments below. Until this, chew on this:

What does the GOP stand for? The party fought Trump every step of the way, double-crossed him constantly, feebly supported his policy positions, undercut his authority via the media at every opportunity, and otherwise made it clear to the conservative electorate that in the GOP establishment they had an enemy every bit as dangerous as the Democrats.

This is not the place to argue the merits (non-existent, in any case) of the two bogus impeachments. Rather it is to force the GOP to act more like the Leninist/Stalinist Democrats and speak with one voice, in the pursuit of a single objective: winning. In these fraught times, “comity” is luxury only congenital losers can afford, and the sooner the party purges itself the better off both it and the country will be. As Barry Goldwater famously offered: “a choice, not an echo.” Now’s the time to take him up on it.

Or perhaps it’s finally time to start thinking beyond party boundaries and consider a unity ticket that dispenses simultaneously with Trump, Mike Pence, Biden, and Kamala Harris: and changes the equation at one stroke:  DeSantis/Bobby Kennedy, Jr., anybody? No revenge, no “identity” tickets, just two men either of whom could be a plausible presidential leader, even if you don’t agree with both of them in every particular.

I think most voters are beginning to realize that there isn’t a GOP cavalry coming to rescue them. That boat sailed while Paul Ryan was House Speaker.

(2) Parties vs. uniparty

There has been a seismic shift in the way Republican voters see political parties.  After Obama forced government-controlled health care on America, the Tea Party movement began a desperate fight against socialism’s advances.  From the energy of that movement, Republicans eventually took back the House and Senate.  Despite those triumphs, Paul Ryan rubber-stamped Obama’s budgets, while refusing to build Trump’s border wall.  McConnell’s Senate Republicans, who had run on repealing Obamacare, cemented socialized medicine with McCain’s decisive betrayal.

Grassroots voters finally rejected Establishment Republicans and catapulted outsider Donald Trump into office.  In response, Republicans quietly assisted Democrats in their attempt to remove Trump through the Russia hoax.  In the space of a decade, most Republican officeholders were outed as RINOs, before voters properly concluded that they were actually part of a single D.C. Uniparty all along.  

What will you do, indeed?

Have a good weekend.