It may be unlawful but it’s super enlightened, so no one will mind.

It’s more coherent and human-grammar-based than the first frenzied Announcement, but it’s just as ridiculous.

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Now ineligible.

Beware of anyone telling you there are clear answers here.

I’m sympathetic to the arguments in the paper, though I wouldn’t draw any conclusions without hearing an opposing view. But even the authors of that paper concede that the major precedent on the “self-executing” issue is a case from shortly after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and it’s by the then-Chief Justice Salmon Chase (in his capacity as a circuit justice), and it comes out the other way.

I don’t want to get into a long discussion about stare decisis and such. Suffice it to say that it’s a perfectly acceptable argument to say that Chief Justice Chase got it wrong. And it’s possible that today’s Supreme Court would disagree with Chase and agree with the authors. But it’s not how I would bet, and not just because it’s a conservative court.

The article strikes me as a perfectly reasonable piece of legal scholarship, but I’ve seen it passed around recently as the 163rd version of “THIS time they’ve got Trump! Here’s the ONE WEIRD TRICK that will keep him from regaining the presidency!” (Not saying that’s what OB or HHO are doing here. This thing’s been making the rounds, and with people who are less restrained in their commentary.) And I just don’t see it happening.

I strongly suspect that the Biden campaign is not going to get behind any effort to block Trump from being on the general election ballot, and even the few Republicans (Christie, Hutchinson) who have criticized him aren’t going to try to get him disqualified from the primary ballot. Yes, it’s possible that some activist groups will sue on their own, or some enterprising Secretary of State or other election official will decide to act on his or her own. Then you’ll have counter-demands from the GOP that Biden be disqualified from the ballot because, I don’t know, his border policies are aiding and abetting an invasion and insurrection or whatever. And the courts are going to be strongly motivated to say “no, we are not having this election decided by individual state officials taking it upon themselves to declare what an insurrection is by watching some videos and reading some tweets. If someone actually gets convicted of something, maybe then.”

There is no Adult in Charge who is going to step in and assert his or her (supposed) authority to make sure Trump can’t be president again because he was naughty. The American electorate is going to have to do their job again. And yes, that makes me nervous.

That’s just a prediction, and I could easily be wrong. But I’m going to need to see more than “a couple law professors came up with a neat argument.” There are law journals full of such neat arguments that will never be adopted by an actual court.

Sam Levine at the Guardian explains the “is he barred from running?” question this way:

Can Trump still run for president?

Yes. The US constitution does not prohibit anyone charged with a crime, nor anyone convicted of one, from holding office.

The 14th amendment, however, does bar anyone who has taken an oath to protect the United States and engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.

Relying on that provision, a slew of separate civil lawsuits in state courts are expected in the near future to try to bar Trump from holding office.

So agitated they can’t type a single coherent sentence.

“we would like to thank the public for bringing to our attention, about a comedian” – “via emails from, and rightly so, outraged members”

And they are an inclusive venue that excludes people who are accused of no one knows what via emails from, and rightly so, outraged members.

Timothy Snyder writes:

Section 1 of Article Two is one, but not the only, place where the Constitution defines who may run for president. Whereas Section 1 of Article Two has to do with a factors over which a person has no control, place of birth and legal status of parents, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment concerns how an American citizen behaves. It forbids officeholders who try to overthrow the Republic from holding office again.

It is obvious on a plain reading of this part of our Constitution that (absent a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress) Donald Trump is now ineligible for the office of the presidency. He took an oath as an officer of the United States, and then engaged in insurrection and rebellion, and gave aid and comfort to others who did the same. No one seriously disputes this. Trump certainly does not. His coup attempt after losing the 2020 election is the platform on which is he is now staging what he portrays as his campaign for the presidency. The big lie he told at the time he continues to tell. He defied the Constitution and is now running against the Constitution.

Well I’d say Trump does dispute that he engaged in insurrection and rebellion. He would call it something else – something much easier to spell, for a start. He certainly disputes that he did anything wrong.

I was heartened just now to read a comprehensive, powerfully argued (and beautifully written) article by the (conservative) legal scholars William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen. It defends the plain reading of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment on what would seem to be every historical and interpretive ground. It was written with all possible objections in mind. Rather than belabor these, I suggest you read the article itself (which should be published as some sort free ebook.)

The authors conclude that Trump is “no longer eligible to the office of Presidency, or any other state or federal office covered by the Constitution. All who are committed to the Constitution should take note and say so.” Although I am focusing on Trump here, the authors of the article are concerned with insurrectionists in general. For them, Trump is one of many people who are now, given their participation in Trump’s coup attempt, ineligible for office.

I thought at first “But doesn’t he have to be convicted to make that true?” Then I thought no, maybe not. He has to be convicted before he can be sentenced and punished, but maybe not before he can be ineligible to run again. I don’t know what the facts are on this.

I worry that we will find some excuse not to draw the obvious conclusion about Trump, so well grounded in the article. It was troubling, for me at least, to see the New York Times coverage of the article relativize its central finding with this vague but suggestive formulation: “voters remain free to assess whether his conduct was blameworthy.” This wording suggests that Trump can run for president, and that we as voters can then consider his ineligibility for that office alongside his legal problems (which the Times article then rehearses). That is wrong, because it misunderstands what ineligibility is.

Snyder compares it to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is ineligible to run for president because he was born a citizen of another country.

we cannot decide to elect a president who is not a natural-born citizen. This is not an issue we are “free to assess,” because we are governed by the Constitution. For the same reason, we cannot vote for oath-breaking insurrectionists such as Donald Trump. Such people are barred by the Constitution from running for president.

H/t Harald Hanche-Olsen

Why would any radio personality bring in India Willoughby of all people to talk about hate?

James O’Brien spoke to former Loose Women panellist and trans woman India Willougby after two men were stabbed outside a Clapham gay bar in a homophobic attack, as police hunt for the knifeman.

Why? Why not talk to a gay man rather than a man who calls himself a woman? Especially when the man who calls himself a woman is the venomous misogyny-mongering horror show that is India Willoughby?

India said to James: “You see attacks on drag queens, drag queen storytime. Now drag is not trans. Drag is gay culture and for me, thugs and bullies, they do not differentiate when you’re out and about whether you’re gay or trans.

“They’re not checking who you are before throwing a punch, you’re all the same.”

Why get him in to change the subject to trans? Why get him in to bring the conversation around to himself?

India went on to say: “It’s all the responsibility of, to me as somebody who is trans, it’s the government, it’s British media who stand these flames in a horrendous way and unfortunately the gender critical movement.

“So it’s those three components that have all come together and you cannot control hate. Once you give permission to hate one group it goes elsewhere.”

Why bring him in to blame feminist women for male gay-bashing?

Detailed but irrefutable. Why “but”? Detailed and irrefutable are not incompatible or contradictory. He meant “and” but his brain tricked him, probably because he knows the “details” are inventions aka lies.

Norm Eisen and another lawyer (Amy Lee Copeland) on why the Georgia indictment is such a good thing.

Ms. Willis charges a wide range of conspirators from the Oval Office to low-level Georgia G.O.P. functionaries and is the first to plumb the full depths, through a state-focused bathyscope, of the conspiracy.

Her case also provides other important complements to the federal matter: Unlike Mr. Smith’s case, which will almost certainly not be broadcast because of federal standards, hers will almost certainly be televised, and should Mr. Trump or another Republican win the White House, Ms. Willis’s case cannot be immediately pardoned away. It offers transparency and accountability insurance. As Ms. Willis said in her news conference Monday night, “The state’s role in this process is essential to the functioning of our democracy.”

But the indictment stands out above all because Georgia offers uniquely compelling evidence of election interference — and a set of state criminal statutes tailor-made for the sprawling, loosely organized wrongdoing that Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators are accused of engaging in…

…The indictment charges 41 counts (to Mr. Smith’s four), among them Georgia election crimes like solicitation of violation of oath by public officer (for Mr. Trump’s infamous demand to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to just “find 11,780 votes”) as well as state offenses like forgery and conspiracy to commit forgery (for those fabricating the fake electoral certificates) and conspiracy to commit computer trespass (for defendants allegedly unlawfully accessing election machines in Coffee County to attempt to prove that votes were stolen).

…

There is one final important advantage of the Georgia case. It is shielded from what may be Mr. Trump’s ultimate hope: the issuance of a pardon should he or another Republican be elected in 2024 (or from a Republican president simply commanding the Justice Department to drop the case). A president’s power to pardon federal offenses does not extend to state crimes.

And pardons in Georgia are not an unreviewable power vested solely in the chief executive. They are awarded by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles — and are not even available until a period of five years after completion of all sentences.

It’s encouraging.

Racketeering.

• A Georgia grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump today, charging him with felony racketeering and numerous conspiracy charges as part of a sweeping investigation into the effort by him and his allies to overturn the 2020 election.
• The 41-count indictment also names lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Ray Smith and several other people.
• Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis enlisted a special grand jury last year that heard testimony from 75 witnesses.
• Among the best-known moments in the pressure campaign against Georgia officials was a call in which Trump asked Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes he needed to beat Joe Biden.

That was indeed a moment. I remember it – I remember listening to the phone call, dumbfounded.

Trump has seized the golden opportunity for more fundraising.

In an email to supporters late Monday night, Trump encouraged his supporters to donate and show that they will “NEVER SURRENDER.”

Trump’s fundraising appeal claimed that “Deep State thugs” were attempting to “JAIL me for life.”

Previous Trump indictments have led to similar fundraising emails for the Trump campaign. In the first week after Trump’s initial indictment, in Manhattan, his campaign brought in $13.5 million in donations. The first seven days after the second indictment, in Florida, brought in $5.8 million.

Profit! Sadly, though, the legal bills are cutting into the profits some.

Trump’s attorneys in Georgia blasted the indictment and the witnesses who testified before the Fulton County grand jury.

“The events that have unfolded today have been shocking and absurd,” attorneys Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg said in a statement where they also argued that the witnesses who testified before the grand jury were biased.

No you are – Trump is shocking and absurd.

Forbes:

Former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, on Monday saying Georgia’s former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan “shouldn’t” testify in grand jury proceedings this week regarding allegations that Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election results in the state—and some legal analysts are saying the post could be witness intimidation or tampering.

…

Ryan Goodman, former special counsel in the Department of Defense, tweeted a screenshot of Trump’s post alongside a screenshot of a Georgia law requiring that a judge find the defendant “poses no significant risk of intimidating witnesses” before approving bail.

CNN’s top legal analyst, Elie Honig, said the post is “straight-up witness tampering, witness intimidation.”

…

Per Georgia law, anyone who attempts to influence a witness is subject to felony charges and, if convicted, can face one to five years in prison; anyone who threatens a witness is subject to felony charges and, if convicted, faces 10 to 20 years in prison.

Trump’s request for Duncan not to testify comes just days after Judge Tanya Chutkan—who is presiding over the federal case against Trump for his alleged involvement in trying to overturn the 2020 election—said that if more “inflammatory” statements are made about the case, she’ll have more urgency to move quickly so as to prevent witness intimidation. The Associated Press reported Chutkan—who has been the subject of Trump’s posts—also said it’s possible for “arguably ambiguous statements” to be understood as intimidation of potential witnesses.

And they’re not all that ambiguous, especially coming from Trump.

Victoria Smith on Mhairi Black’s contempt for women who are older than she is:

Ageist sexism is central to trans activism. The idea of “womanhood” that it promotes is bound up in the social construction of femininity, whilst utterly dismissive of the material reality of ageing female bodies. Through history, patriarchy has not just sought to define and exploit women as a sex class; it has done so in different ways depending on where women are in the female lifecycle. Trans activism, as an expression of patriarchy, does this, too.

…

Ageing female bodies interrupt the pornified fantasies of the likes of Andrea Long Chu, Julia Serano and Grace Lavery. They spoil the self-pitying narrative that depicts “cis women” as eternally youthful mean girls who’ve been handed “femininity” on a plate and, to quote Serano, “sadly take their female identities and anatomies for granted”. When Long Chu writes of transitioning “for Daisy Dukes, bikini tops and, my god, for the breasts”, it’s pretty obvious that the bodies being pictured here haven’t yet seen thirty.

No woman fully conforms to the male fantasy of untroubled “cis womanhood”, in which an ungrateful cohort of sexy ladies walk the world at peace with their bodies, secretly thrilled at objectification, only ever complaining to make those excluded from femininity (that endless Barbie dream house pool party) feel extra bad. It’s older women who offer the most direct challenge to the myth. Why don’t those bitches just, like, not age? I swear they’re only doing it to annoy India Willoughby. It’s bad enough that we carry on existing, but then we go and have opinions as well.

…

Trans activism is just a variation on the theme of “if men see no obvious use for women, women don’t have any business existing”.

We have plenty of business. That is what, from one century to the next, misogynists struggle to tolerate. Karens, hags, shrews, mothers-in-law, witches — we’re not going anywhere. For the younger woman, there is a status boost in positioning yourself against us, but it’s all so obvious and so repetitive. If you really wanted to redefine what it means to be a woman, you’d join us. Why cling to borrowed time?

Aha.

Does Donald Trump pose no risk of intimidating witnesses? Apart from the fact that he does it in public and in all caps every day?

They wanted to find evidence of voter fraud in Georgia, so they did everything they could to find some.

Atlanta-area prosecutors investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia are in possession of text messages and emails directly connecting members of Donald Trump’s legal team to the early January 2021 voting system breach in Coffee County, sources tell CNN.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to seek charges against more than a dozen individuals when her team presents its case before a grand jury next week. Several individuals involved in the voting systems breach in Coffee County are among those who may face charges in the sprawling criminal probe.

Investigators in the Georgia criminal probe have long suspected the breach was not an organic effort sprung from sympathetic Trump supporters in rural and heavily Republican Coffee County – a county Trump won by nearly 70% of the vote. They have gathered evidence indicating it was a top-down push by Trump’s team to access sensitive voting software, according to people familiar with the situation.

Trump allies attempted to access voting systems after the 2020 election as part of the broader push to produce evidence that could back up the former president’s baseless claims of widespread fraud.

It’s not clear, to me at least, whether or not it’s a crime to try to get access to sensitive voting software. It sounds as if it might be, but also as if it might not. Can we all do that? Is it just a normal, if unusually energetic, attempt to make sure everything is kosher? Or is it an attempt to get access to something people are not allowed to get access to?

[T]he voting system breach in Coffee County quietly emerged as an area of focus for investigators roughly one year ago. Since then, new evidence has slowly been uncovered about the role of Trump’s attorneys, the operatives they hired and how the breach, as well as others like it in other key states, factored into broader plans for overturning the election.

Together, the text messages and other court documents show how Trump lawyers and a group of hired operatives sought to access Coffee County’s voting systems in the days before January 6, 2021, as the former president’s allies continued a desperate hunt for any evidence of widespread fraud they could use to delay certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

Last year, a former Trump official testified under oath to the House January 6 select committee that plans to access voting systems in Georgia were discussed in meetings at the White House, including during an Oval Office meeting on December 18, 2020,  that included Trump. 

Six days before pro-Trump operatives gained unauthorized access to voting systems, the local elections official who allegedly helped facilitate the breach sent a “written invitation” to attorneys working for Trump, according to text messages obtained by CNN.

There’s my answer, I guess – they were looking for, and got, unauthorized access.

The messages and documents appear to link Giuliani to the Coffee County breach, while shedding light on another channel of communication between pro-Trump attorneys and the battleground state operatives who worked together to provide unauthorized individuals access to sensitive voting equipment.

There again. Unauthorized individuals, unauthorized access.

MSP Patrick Harvie thinks men should be allowed to invade women’s sports.

His stupid little cardboard sign says TRANS PEOPLE BELONG IN SPORT which is of course repetition #18 billion of the Big Lie. Nobody is saying trans people don’t belong in sport; people who know their ass from their elbow say male people don’t belong in female sport. Men who claim to be women can still be in sport, they just shouldn’t be in women’s sport.

Conspicuous twit Xander Elliards writes:

PATRICK Harvie stood in solidarity with trans women at a protest on the final day of the cycling world championships.

The Glasgow MSP, who also serves as Active Travel Minister in the Scottish Government, was criticised in some corners after he took part in a protest ride with the charity LEAP Sports Scotland, which coincided with the elite women’s road race.

Leap, which stands for “leadership, equality and active participation” for LGBT people in sports, organised the protest ride after the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) banned trans women from competing in female sporting events.

Why did the UCI do that? Because trans women are men, and have the physical advantages that men have over women, so it’s unfair for them to compete in female sporting events.

Harvie was joined at the event by Bailie Elaine Gallagher, a Greens councillor in Glasgow Southside who is also a trans person. Campaigners with the group held a flag which said “let trans women win” and a placard which said “trans people belong in sport”.

Gender-critical campaign group For Women Scotland criticised the messaging, writing: “The sign … says ‘Let trans women win’. Not enough that they are ‘included’, they are openly confirming what we all already knew, they want to take women’s prizes.”

The comment was amplified by tennis star-turned-campaigner Martina Navratilova, who added: “Sure. Why not? I mean what else is there to take? Nothing.”

Props to Elliard for including that.

Questions were raised about why the protest had targeted the women’s elite road race and not the mens’. However, the UCI has not imposed any restrictions on the rights of trans men to enter men’s competitions.

Because women competing against men is not unfair to the men. Men competing against women is unfair to the women. It’s very simple and very obvious.

The Daily Beast lines up some lawyers who say Trump is indeed engaged in open witness tampering.

Donald Trump publicly insisted on Monday that a key witness in Georgia’s grand jury probe shouldn’t testify this week as ordered—a brazen ask that one legal expert described as “witness tampering in real time.”

Georgia’s former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican, was the witness at the center of the early morning tirade from Trump, who has been raging for weeks as the Fulton County grand jury is seemingly inching closer to filing criminal charges against him over alleged efforts to meddle in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

While singling Duncan out on Monday, Trump misspelled his first name.

“I am reading reports that failed former Lt. Governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan, will be testifying before the Fulton County Grand Jury,” Trump posted to Truth Social. “He shouldn’t.”

Scores of legal experts were shocked by the brazen post.

“This morning’s first attempt at witness intimidation,” attorney George Conway, a frequent Trump critic whose ex-wife Kellyanne worked in the Trump administration, posted to Twitter.

Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade posted a similar sentiment, writing that Trump’s morning rant was “witness tampering in real time.”

Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, similarly called the post “blatantly unlawful stuff” that could warrant a charge of influencing witnesses.

“This is exceptionally bad even for Donald Trump,” he said.

And we’ve seen what Joyce Vance said.

In more news from Georgia:

Former President Donald Trump on Monday launched a string of familiar attacks against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Monday as Willis is expected to begin presenting her election interference case to a grand jury later today.

In three all-caps posts on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump attacked Willis over her investigation, blasted media leaks, specifically urged “someone” to tell the grand jury he did not interfere in the election while continuing to make false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Witness tampering and DA intimidation right out in the open.

Joyce Vance six minutes ago:

He’s blabbing about stuff from the disclosure docs!

Update: No he’s not; this is the Georgia case. My bad. I was so startled I didn’t pause to read any replies.

But still. Farking hell.

Via Tim Harris at Miscellany Room: Ron DeSantis and Prager U (not a university, just an initial!) explain slavery.

I could only stand 4 minutes.

Trump thinks he can do whatever he wants no matter what. He may turn out to be right.

Donald Trump slammed the judge presiding over his newest criminal case early Monday, testing her three-day-old warning that he refrain from “inflammatory” attacks against those involved in his case.

In a Truth Social post just before 1 a.m., Trump assailed U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan as “highly partisan” and “very biased and unfair,” citing as evidence a statement she made during the sentencing of a woman who participated in the mob that breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“She obviously wants me behind bars,” Trump wrote.

He’s jumping up and down in front of the judge saying “Nyah nyah you can’t stop me.” I worry that he’s right, that no one will be able to stop him.

Trump was alluding to Chutkan’s remark during the October 2022 sentencing of Christine Priola of Ohio. Chutkan admonished Priola, before sentencing her to 15 months in jail, about the Jan. 6 mob’s threat to the peaceful transfer of power.

“I see the videotapes. I see the footage of the flags and the signs that people were carrying and the hats that they were wearing, and the garb,” Chutkan said. “And the people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty to one man, not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this county and not to the principles of democracy. It’s blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”

It’s an interesting ploy. He’s openly criminal and treasonous, so people say that’s what he is, so he uses their saying so as a reason to ignore them, including (and especially) law enforcement and prosecutors and judges. Terrifyingly, he may get away with it.

Chutkan’s sentiments have been common among judges who have sentenced Jan. 6 rioters. Several have expressed discomfort over punishing rioters — who had been deluged with lies about the election by Trump and steered to the Capitol with a warning that their country was being stolen and their livelihoods were in danger — while those who misled them have faced no consequences. But Chutkan is the first of those judges to end up with Trump as a defendant in her court, charged by special counsel Jack Smith with seeking to subvert the 2020 election with lies and a plan to violate the constitution.

Trump is so open and brazen with his crimes that he makes it impossible to find any judges who aren’t aware of them…thus they all have a “bias” against him. Case dismissed!

Trump’s conditions of release at his arraignment earlier this month included a vow — which Trump swore to uphold in court — that he would not intimidate or harass witnesses and officers of the court or threaten the administration of justice. It’s unclear what Chutkan will do if she determines Trump has violated those conditions.

Of course he’s violated them. He’ll continue to violate them.

An item from last month:

Now more than ever, cis female athletes must show solidarity with trans athletes

Must? Why?

Is there ever going to be a time when we’re told trans athletes must show solidarity with women?

Of course not. Stupid question. Women are privileged bitches, Karens, hags.

Johanna Mellis goes on:

Kathryn Bromwich argued that the main threat to us cisgender women comes from cisgender men, and not trans women. It is the same in sport: historically and currently, the common perpetrators of sexual assault, abuse and harassment in sport are cisgender men.

Trans women are men. Skip the “cis” label, which doesn’t mean anything. Trans women are men who pretend to be women, which doesn’t make them not-men, much less women. They’re just men; it’s nonsensical to say the threat to women doesn’t come from men, it comes from men. The three letters c i s are not magic and don’t change men into women any more than the five letters t r a n s do.

 The GOP is using sporting exclusion as an entry point to gain support for their proto-genocidal assault to eliminate trans people.

Proto-genocidal?

For the gazillionth time I wonder why the Guardian publishes this kind of childish dreck.