Hey American religious right, who do you prefer, Adolph or Vladimir Trump?

  

    

From down in Floriduh where the orange beast lives...

My Two Senses

It’s Like Déjà Vu All Over Again.

It’s time to consider the ugly realities of 2024

OL’ FLAWRIDUH CRACKER

MAR 11, 2024

The 1/6 2021 Capital Insurrection was only a botched trial run on disrupting and overturning the election to install Trump. These methods are being honed and expanded for 2024.

Barring Trump or Biden (or even both) having a fatal stroke we can now suffer months of angst in the run up of a Biden v. Trump 2024 Presidential Election rematch. 

Trump and his minions are salivating over the prospect of a victory, one in which Trump becomes “Dictator for a day” minutes after taking the oath of office. Former Sen. Liz Cheney (R) accurately warned on Dec. 4th of this year that Trump’s “Dictator for a day” is a dog whistle, assuring his base that he fully intends to take authoritarian hold of the government and “never leave.” Suffice it to say that Trump always tells us exactly what he intends to do.

The 2025 Plan Primer Ol’ Flawriduh Cracker Wrapped in the flag, holding a Bible and a big fascist playbook

The vision of Trump as a de-facto Dictator is relished by his base. In the innocuously titled 950 page “2025 Plan” of the far right Heritage Foundation , “Day One” launches an array of highly detailed actions and policies that will eviscerate the upper echelons of the military, as well the purging of some 50,000 career civil servants. The summarily fired employees will immediately be replaced by politically vetted Trumpista loyalists. Most of these moves are aimed at the eradication of Federal agencies. This fifth column cadre will continue to erode if not destroy what is left of many agencies and their mandate to serve the America people.

Another aspect of “Day One” is found in the seemingly innocuous term, “The Unitary Executive.” This theory argues that there is constitutional law in which the President holds total power over all government agencies, as well as Congress and the Courts. There has never been a President in our history with this kind of power. In actuality such persons have been historically defined as dictators or authoritarians. The Unitary Executive creates a leader with a rubber-stamp government, providing only the illusion of a democratic governmental structure. There are no checks and balances, only a government that consistently aligns with the leader’s agenda.

Trump’s Ace In the Hole: National Emergency

Most Americans don’t grasp how close Trump came to declaring a state of martial law on Jan 6, 2021. The national emergency would only end when Trump decides to end it. This is what Gen. Milley was referencing in Trump’s attempt to realize a “Reichstag Moment.“ Milley was alluding to a time when in Februrary of 1933 the building housing the German Parliament was burnt to the ground in the early days of Hitler’s Nazi Regime. Hitler, blaming the Communists, invoked the “Enabling Acts”, granting him extraordinary powers. Ironically the very laws the Fascist employed were created by the recently dismantled Weimar Republic in a vain attempt to quell violence and insurrection from Communists and Fascist political factions.

After declaring a state of emergency, Hitler assumed complete control of the government with an iron fist, making the Nazis the only legal party, while arresting and incarcerating thousands in concentration camps. He also shut down press outlets that did not parrot the Nazi view. The “State of Emergency” remained in Germany ending in 1945 when Hitler’s charred remains were found outside his Berlin bunker and after an estimated 65 million people world wide were dead.

Today the parallel form of laws the U.S. has to deal with national emergencies are referred to as PEADs (Presidential Emergency Action Documents). Since the attacks of 9/11, Congress has embedded numerous provisions into law that can be invoked by the Executive to meet threats to our nation in what he/she deems a state of Emergency.

According to Andrew Cockburn of Harper’s Magazine in his November 2020, article The Enemies Briefcase, these documents include: suspending habeas corpus, seizing control of the internet, imposing censorship, and incarcerating so called subversives. Among other repressive measures are suspension of a free press, mass arrest and detention without trial. 

It will be years in the future before we have real insight on how people in the Pentagon, and possibly Trump’s own White House, foiled Trump activating a state of national emergency in the January 6th insurrection, but the known and documented actions of Mike Pence and Gen. Milley give us a pretty clear insight on just how close we were to a Trump dictatorship. 

Trump’s Fellow Travelers: Who Are They and What Do They Believe? 

The growth of a Christo Fascist belief system known as “Christian Nationalism” has accelerated greatly since Bush Jr. courted and embraced the support of White Evangelicals in his run for President. Today Evangelical support has elevated Trump as literally being chosen by God to fulfill their mission of returning the nation to the rule to a specific sect of Christianity. One that sees Trump as a sign of Millennialist End Times prophecies including the Rapture and of course Christ’s return to annihilate all non-believers.

According to The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), Christians who identify as born-again or evangelical are each about five times as likely to be Christian Nationalist adherents as members of the same racial or ethnic groups who identify as Christian but not as Evangelical.

According to WAPO on the recent primaries and recent PRRI polls and research,  Trumps base incudes:

• 36% over the age of 65

• 37% are under 50

• 52% identify as very Conservative

• 46% are women (who have previously supported Trump)

• White Evangelicals who flock to him (70% according to data from PRRI)

• 71%  of White Evangelical Christian Nationalists embrace “Replacement Theory”

• Close to 70% agree that the man is the head of the household, with a wife who submits to his leadership

More Than Simple Opinions

The propensity of Evangelical Christian Nationalists to incorporate or append a host of Fascist ideologies into their dogma is well supported by research polling. 

We know from history and research that : “Replacement Theory”  is a belief held in racial supremacy, and it is supported by Christian Nationalists. According to PRRI 55% believe that immigrants are invading the U.S. and are “replacing our cultural and ethnic background.” They hold that women should be submissive to husbands. This is practice that further fuels and supports misogyny. These belief are all part of the Christian Nationalist religious world view.

That millions of Americans today see these belief as sanctioned a God and that he chose Donald Trump to realize his “plan” forecasts serious consequences for our Democratic Republic.

When People Know God Sanctions Their Beliefs, Bad Things Are Sure to Follow

If Biden wins:

A repeat of election denial with likely armed terrorism and insurrectionist assaults on Federal and State levels. January 6th insurrectionist activity will ratchet up on a nationwide scale, involving assaults on State Legislatures.

If Trump wins:

Instead of a focus on the real challenges we face in creating an egalitarian society that tackles issues like universal health care, free education, and never ending imperialistic warfare, much less saving ourselves from climate change; will be consumed by holding off a Fascist State.

Trump will initiate the 2025 Plan of the Heritage Foundation inevitably leading to protests by Democrats and/or Democracy supporters in the streets. The ensuing violence (fomented by Trump agent provocateurs posing as and/or blaming Antifa) will provide the pretext for Trump’s declaration of a National State of Emergency.

That’s when our long national nightmare truly begins. 

Sloan BashinskySloan’s Newsletter

I think you nailed it and now remains which apocalypse dystopia the 2024 presidential election delivers. 
I think it was in 2016 that I first learned of the Vanity Fairinterview of Ivana Trump, who was quoted saying, when she was married to Donald, he kept a book of Hitler’s speeches in a cabinet on his side of their bed and sometimes he read it at night.
A fellow named Trevor Ravenscroft explained in his book, The Spear of Destiny, how a powerful demon infiltrated Adolph Hitler and enhanced him, and did the same to Hitler's inner circle, and infiltrated most of the German population. Deja vu in America today. 
I am pretty sure a demon also is working on Biden, back up plan, but he has a ways to go to remind us of Hitler. 

Ol’ Flawriduh Cracker
Sloan, reference Hitler being infiltrated. Let’s just assume that anti-Semitism throughout Europe including Germany, England, Russia and France was always there. Ironically, it is mindset that crosses class distinction. Thus a loser street person like Hitler, could share a united bigotry with Richard Wagner and Henry Ford Sr.
Trump discovered, as Hitler had previously, that many people found genuine excitement and satisfaction in a personality that would say the things in open forums that they were to fearful of saying unless it was in the confines of close friends. One reason there are so many Trump wannabes is that once they realize they will not be financially or physically punished and that literally millions feel as they do, then it like a hit of cocaine.
Biden on the other hand is more concerned with a pretty much post WWII vision of America. America as a positive engine with a robust economy, with a well meshed safety net, and supportive of the plight of others throughout the world living under tyranny. America as the “Good Guy.” It’s a story we tell ourselves to avoid the sausage making details on how we make the world safe for large scale corporations, as we spread democracy to people who for the most part live in tribal societies whose “government” seldom goes beyond that of a village chief. I suppose you could describe this as many have as “Pax Americana.”
Hitler for me is proof that charismatic leaders and their minions are cults that get quickly out of control, usually under the quest for a mythic past that never existed.
Love you Sloan, but sometimes your “spirituality” is kinda spooky.  

Sloan Bashinsky 
Heck, God is kinda spooky and Trump and his hordes seem to have forgotten that passage in the Old Testament about fear of the Lord being the beginning of wisdom. I think you summed up America pretty well. 

 

Ol’ Flawriduh Cracker

It is clearly disturbing how many people find a uniting of motives between a Fascist Trump and a Centrist Biden.

There is plenty to improve and fix even running a nation within say the vision of Republicans in the Eisenhower era, who saw FDR as a genuine threat to the dream of rampant Capitalism as a normal state of a free economy.

I just hope we can push the Fascist back far enough to regain footing for making a better society before we end up setting the table for Techno Feudalsim

Thanks for comments! 

Sloan Bashinsky

Trump woke up and energized what was always there. This is obvious to me, who was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. The Klan, the South, the Christian crusaders, have risen again, and they love Trump, even though he is a spoiled New York trust fund brat, debt welcher, adulterer, pussy grabber, who brags about it, who dodged the draft and bowed to the Saudi prince who had a journalist chopped up into little pieces, and got bailed out financially 3 times by Saudi Arabia. What’s happening in America is similar to what has happened in Palestine and the Middle East. What’s happening in America is right wing religious fanatics vs. everyone else, and what’s amazing is, Trump has never pretended to be religious, but he knows how to wind them up and pull their strings, and in that sense he is their Adolph Hitler.

  

 

Lisa J Miller
There is NO comparison between Biden and Trump. None. One cares about America and keeping our Democracy and the other does not. Freedom vs. Fascism. That's our very stark choice in November.  

Sloan Bashinsky 

Trump is a monster becoming more monstrous, and he has a huge following. Unlike 1930s Germany, where Hitler became messianic, well over half of Americans do not view Trump as their messiah. If Trump loses in November, it may well get very nasty, but Biden, if he is president and still lives, or Harris, probably will have the Generals and Admirals on their side, and perhaps the national guards. However, if Trump wins in November, and he tries to do what Putin did in Russia, will the Generals and Admirals stop him? 

 

Ol’ Flawriduh Cracker

In looking at some pretty reliable stats on gun ownership it appears that the ratio of gun ownership between Rep and Dem is 2 to 1 for Reps. I think collectively they are far more comfortable with violence.

I might add that Hitler’s Nazi party did quite poorly for several elections and then had massive and sudden acceleration. So, in our situation the Independents (40%) provide that grist.

I can also assure you that the military (conservative by nature) is rife with Christian Nationalists and far right types. Whether they can be promoted in rank by a victorious Trump remains to be seen.

Sloan Bashinsky
You are correct that the military has many Trumpers, and we don’t see that being discussed on CNN or even on FOX. As for private gun ownership, I think the left is starting to catch up, but it still has a ways to go. Who has White House and can replace department heads and fire Generals and Admirals has a great deal of power. If you look at film footage and photos of MAGA rallies, Jan 6 mob, Charlottesville Confederate monuments removal protest, you see lots of white people. Res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself. 

 

Lisa J Miller

That's a very good question. Many of the Evangelicals do believe he is the "chosen one" and is sent by God so we can't forget that. I was talking with my Dr. about all of this and he says the Generals would not go along with Trump but we can't forget the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers etc. Also the 12,000,000 supporters (they estimate) who would not hesitate to do violence on his behalf. Any way you look at it it's going to be a roller coaster ride. Buckle up. 

Ol’ Flawriduh Cracker

These 12 million are a vital tool for Trump. He can use them as his Brownshirts or as agent provocateurs or both to justify them as “good people” or to declare martial law… Either way, it does not bode well.

Sloan Bashinsky

I think it helps to view Trump and his various legions are a religion and he is their high priest, ayatollah, etc. They remind me a lot of radical Islam, and of what happened in Germany leading up to World War II. They are certain they are right, and God is with them all the way, and they cannot be persuaded otherwise, and if you get in their faces about it, there is no telling how they might respond. Death by stroke, which might or might not be viewed as Act of God or assassination by Trump’s legions, might be the America’s best hope.

If Trump gets back in the White House, they will be his brownshirts. How the different branches of the federal government might deal with that cannot be predicted, but I hope the military does not cave. 

The Supreme Court is paving the way for Trump and his legions to take control of the federal government and public schools and even people’s bedrooms. 
You might wish to read my post about the Supreme Court ruling Amendment 14, Section 3 cannot be enforced by the states, but the Supreme Court could have enforced it, but all 9 justices declined, and 5 of the Republicans said only Congress can enforce 14/3. Here’s a link. I’m a lawyer, who clerked for a US District Judge.  

https://redneckmysticlawyerforpresident.blogspot.com/2024/03/amendment-14-justice-for-all-except.html

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

state of the plagued union America

       It’s now March 10, 2023.

    In dreams last night, I was shown that I had missed the main point in the March 8 “state of the union plagued America” post, in that I was supposed to write it as an American trying to bring all Americans together, because we are Americans. So, this morning, I rewrote that post and just now I deleted the original post, which I now wonder if I should not have done, but it’s done and I don’t know how to resurrect it. Anyway, here is the new version.

                                                  *****************   

    Last night, I watched President Biden’s state of the union message on CNN, which lasted around 70 minutes. I was transfixed by his focus, moving smoothly from one topic to another, speaking to bread and butter issues, calling out the Republicans before him, and their former president, like they were standing before a Gatling gun. Whatever I think about Biden as a person and his politics and philosophies, his cognitive function was splendid, and all of America and the entire world got to see it. I felt the Republicans might need:

     The looks on the faces of the Republican leader of the House of Representatives and all of the Republicans in the audience shrieked they were NOT HAPPY. Like it or not, willing to admit it or not, the fact is "Sleepy Joe Biden” is exponentially more mentally and emotionally stable than “very stable genius” Donald Trump.

    This college economics major and former practicing attorney with a tax law degree, who worked for his father’s large Alabama corporation Golden Flake Snack Foods, Inc. and then as a practicing attorney represented regular people and small companies, smiled when Joe Biden reeled off statistics showing how well the American economy is doing, and when he said it’s high time rich people and corporations start paying the same proportional taxes that ordinary working men and women pay, and it's high time Americans start paying the same low prices for prescription drugs and medical care that people every where else in the world pay, and it’s high time Republicans stop threatening to reduce Social Security and gut Obamacare.

    I smiled when Biden said he will pass a federal law bringing Roe v. Wade back to life, but as a lawyer, I didn’t see how he will be able to do it with 6 religious conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court. I wished Biden would issue an Executive Order saying the Supreme Court was wrong for saying in Dobbs v. Jackson that American women had no historic right to abortion, thus it could not be a constitutional right, when Ben Franklin himself wrote in his book, The American Instructor, that American women in his day, and since antiquity, used herbs, made by Mother Nature and/or God to prevent and terminate pregnancies, and he is ordering his Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Director to make abortion pills freely available at every FBI and DEA office and federal courthouse in the United States of America.

    When a man in the audience shrieked that his son was killed in Afghanistan because Biden pulled America out of Afghanistan, I wondered why that son’s father did not shriek about President George W. Bush and his Vice-President starting that rich white man for profit war, and President Barack Obama contining that war after accepting the Nobel Prize for peace, and President Trump contiuning that war, and that’s why his son was in Afghanistan in the first place? Those leaders knew how it went in Saigon after America pulled out of that rich white man for profit war. What were the father and his son thinking might happen if his son went to Afghanistan, which had proven a graveyard for American troops, and for Soviet Union troops before that, and for British troops before that?

    When Biden talked about the war in Gaza and having the Navy build a floating dock to receive American aid to the beleaguered people of Gaza, and he and his people were pushing hard for a ceasefire in Gaza, I wanted to tell him, “If you really wanted a ceasefire, why did you keep sending Israel money and arms after you saw Israel obliterating Gaza? Why aren’t you not spending that money to help Texas and other southern border states defend against the invasion from Mexico, and why aren’t you spending that money helping American cities deal with a flood of immigrants sent to them by Texas and other southern states?" 

   When Biden called out the Republicans for not passing his southern border defense bill before Congress, while criticizing him about the southern border, I wished he would bring home American troops from dangerous places to defend the southern border as peacefully as possible, and ban Americans and their money from going into Mexico, and ban people in America from sending money to Mexico- until Mexico stops the invasion into America.

    American cities are overwhelmed with having to take care of homeless immigrants, and that simply needs to stop. It is not America’s job to receive and take care of non-Americans, when so many Americans heed help with just getting by. Donald Trump and the MAGAs and the Republicans are right about that.

    When Biden called for much stronger gun control and comprehensive background checks, I wished he would bring his troops home and use them and the national guards to defend America’s public schools from domestic terrorists aided and abetted by gun makers, the National Rifle Association and the United States Supreme Court.

    When Biden talked about all the work he has done helping bring electric cars and trucks and their several thousand pound batteries and  charging stations to America, I wondered where he will put the toxic batteries after they wear out? I wondered why he has not allowed the automotive industry to use road-tested devices in the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C., which can be installed in car and truck engines, which use electrolysis to pull hydrogen out of water to fuel internal combustion engines, which do not pollute the air, and a sedan can go several hundred miles on a quart of water, and gasoline no longer will be a burdensome expense for most Americans, and while the oil industry will become a whole lot less important, maybe America can forget about the Middle East because it no longer needs oil from there.

    When Biden talked about the covid shutdown of America, I remembered that he, the Democrats and the American medical industrial complex led the charge to discredit New York family practitioner physician Vladimir Zelenko’s cheap 5-day early stage infection cure, which would have allowed America to stay open and save America from Red China’s bioweapon. 

    After President Trump and Meadows received that letter, Dr. Zelenko was interviewed by Sean Hannity on his FOX show.

    Trump told Americans on National TV that hydroxychloroquine might be a miracle cure.

    

    Trump’s FDA director gave temporary emergency approval for hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19. 

    The Biden-Democrat-Medical-Industrial complex shrieked hydroxychloroquine killed people, even though for a long time hydroxychloroquine was used to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

    The FDA director rescinded permission to use hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19.

    From the website of Wisconsin U.S. Senator Ron Johnson:

April 10, 2020

Dear Mr. President:

We, the undersigned practicing physicians, urgently ask that you take two steps to help us treat patients according to our best ability and medical judgment, using the clinical and basic science data we already have on the effectiveness of certain established medicines in this war against COVID-19:

1. A Presidential Directive to remove the FDA Emergency Use Authorization restriction that states Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and Chloroquine (CQ) from the Strategic National Stockpile, are only approved "for certain hospitalized patients,"  and to direct the FDA to include the option of early out-patient use of these medications.  

2. A Presidential Directive or Executive Order to a) prohibit Governors from arbitrarily restricting hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to only hospitalized patients, and b) prohibit State Medical Boards and State Pharmacy Boards from threats of disciplinary action (now occurring in multiple states) against doctors and pharmacists legally prescribing and dispensing HCQ and CQ off-label for early treatment or prophylaxis for COVID-19 in out-patients or at-risk or exposed persons. 

Restricting use to hospitalized patients means loss of the critical early window of opportunity to: (1) prevent the virus attaching to host cells, (2) reduce viral replication that prolongs time of infectivity and spread, (3) reduce the number of hospitalizations and need for intubation and mechanical ventilators, and (4) reduce risk of multi-organ damage and death or permanent lung impairment after recovery.    

Evidence of successful treatment in thousands of patients is accumulating from many countries as well as U.S. physicians; it is far beyond “anecdotal.”

HCQ has been FDA-approved for malaria since 1955, and it is now also approved for treating lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, with an impressive safety record.      

When World Health Organization and U.S. academic experts say there is “no evidence that any medicine can prevent or cure” COVID-19, they correctly mean that we don’t yet have a randomized, placebo-controlled, doubleblind clinical trial (RCT). But designing, setting up, conducting, and analyzing any RCT takes many months or years.

We can’t wait months for a completed RCT or a vaccine. People are dying every day. Staggering numbers of people have lost jobs, incomes, and ability to live life normally, all of which lead to loss of life that could quickly exceed losses from the virus.

Physicians taking care of patients in our communities across the country must be free to use the medicines at hand free of politicians and bureaucrats’ second-guessing and threats. It is unprecedented—and lethal—for state governors and medical boards to forbid physicians’ freedom to prescribe long-approved and safely used medications.    

In a war to save lives and our country, we must fight with all the weapons we have at hand.

   Instead of firing the FDA director and hiring a new FDA director, who would allow the use of hydroxychloroquine, zinc and azithromycin to treat Covid-19 in its early stage, very stable genius make America great again President Trump caved to the political pressure and launched Operation Warp Speed, which made some pharmaceutical companies a whole lot of money, while MAGAs and millions of other people all over America refused to be vaccinated, and hospitals all over America, including my home state Alabama, were flooded with dying Covid-19 patients, and people with other serious medical conditions were turned away by those hospitals. 

   The angels who run me and my tech friend Bob, who created The Redneck Mystic Lawyer Podcast and gets my books into the free internet library, archive.org, very much liked Dr. Zelenko’s March 23, 2020 letter to President Bush and Mark Meadows.

    Those angels told Bob that Red China invented the bioweapon and was working on a vaccine, and the angels told me that it could not be allowed for Red China to have the weapon and the vaccine, so an angel caused the weapon to get loose to prevent Red China holding the rest of the world hostage.

    Dr. Zelenko was God’s doctor for Covid-19. 

    President Trump and Joe Biden and the Democrats and the medical-industrial complex screwed America when they threw God's cure under the bus. 

    A Trump fan who attended the January 6, 2020 rally, but did not go with the mob to assault the national capitol, Dr. Zelenko died on June 30, 2022.

    If you Google search Dr. Zelenko, you will find plenty to discredit him. But then, if you Google search Joe Biden and Donald Trump, you will find plenty to discredit them.

    The fate of Dr. Zelenko and his cheap, fast, early stage infection cure is one of many reasons why America needs a president and congressmen and federal judges who set aside their personal agendas and do what is best for rank and file Americans. The rich people in America need to go along with that, because it is the rank and file Americans who made them rich, unless they are trust fund babies whose parents were made rich by rank and file Americans.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

Amendment 14 justice for all except Donald Trump

    

    Ta, da! 

Amendment XIV

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Section 3.

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.

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

    Ta, da... 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 23–719

DONALD J. TRUMP, PETITIONER v.

NORMA ANDERSON, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT

OF COLORADO

[March 4, 2024]

PER CURIAM.

A group of Colorado voters contends that Section 3 of the

Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits for-

mer President Donald J. Trump, who seeks the Presidential

nomination of the Republican Party in this year’s election,

from becoming President again. The Colorado Supreme

Court agreed with that contention. It ordered the Colorado

secretary of state to exclude the former President from the

Republican primary ballot in the State and to disregard any

write-in votes that Colorado voters might cast for him.

Former President Trump challenges that decision on sev-

eral grounds. Because the Constitution makes Congress,

rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3

against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse.    

 

    Here’s a google docs link to the entire opinion:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GfVSw80agqDr5WQAF-WVw6av_BO-AO6vo1hItfk5Cxo/edit 

     More specifically, 3 Democrat and 6 Republican Supreme Court Justices ruled states cannot enforce Amendment 14, Section 3 in federal elections, and 5 Republican Justices went further and ruled only Congress can enforce 14/3 in federal elections, especially the presidency. States can enforce 14/3 in state elections. The majority opinion became the new law of the land.

    Of note, the 9 Justices did not overrule the Colorado State Court finding and the Colorado Supreme Court affirmance that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution.

    Of note, in past times, the U.S. Supreme Court enforced the other parts of Amendment 14 without any Act of Congress prescribing or allowing such enforcement.

    For example, On May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. This historic decision marked the end of the "separate but equal" precedent set by the Supreme Court nearly 60 years earlier in Plessy v. Ferguson and served as a catalyst for the expanding civil rights movement during the decade of the 1950s.

    For example, in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy", which protects a pregnant woman's right to an abortion. It also held that the right to abortion is not absolute and must be balanced against the government's interests in protecting women's health and prenatal life. It resolved these competing interests by announcing a pregnancy trimester timetable to govern all abortion regulations in the United States. The Court also classified the right to abortion as "fundamental", which required courts to evaluate challenged abortion laws under the "strict scrutiny" standard, the most stringent level of judicial review in the United States.

    Thus, in Trump v. Anderson, the U.S. Supreme Court, sui juris (in its own right), could have ruled Trump was barred from holding federal office regardless of whether Colorado or any state could enforce 14/3 against Trump.

    Instead, the  U.S. Supreme Court made Congress the sole enforcer of 14/3 in federal elections, while the Court retained the power to enforce the rest of Amendment 14.

    That is so beyond nuts that it defames nuts to be dragged into it.

    Let me back up.

    For a very long time, Republicans screeched states' rights trumped the power of the federal government to interfere in states' affairs. Before then, Democrats, including Alabama Governor George Wallace, screeched states’ rights trumped federal government interference in states’ affairs. 

    In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court held the Constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion. The court's decision overruled Roe v. Wade and said abortion is a matter for each state to decide. 

    Yet, according to the nine justices in Trump v. Anderson, states cannot enforce Amendment 14/3, nor by logical inference, any other part of Amendment 14, unless Congress has passed an act allowing states to do that.

    That is so beyond nuts that it defames nuts to be dragged into it.

    So, what do you think really happened?

    What really happened is plain as day.

    After a Denver Colorado satellite radio station interviewed a federal judge about my Amendment 14, Section 3 law school exam question and answer, which is a free read at  https://archive.org/details/amendment-14-section-3-law-school-exam, and my tech friend Bob’s and my podcast about the law school exam question, https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox?projector=1, the radio station was inundated with death threats, its bonding company cancelled coverage, and the station went off the air.

    After the Colorado Supreme Court then ruled 14/3 barred Trump from holding public office and thus could not be on the Colorado ballot, the justices on that court were inundated with death threats.

    After the Maine Secretary of State then ruled 14/3 barred Trump from being on the Maine ballot, the Maine Secretary of State was inundated with death threats.

    In the federal and state civil and criminal cases against Trump, the presiding judges and prosecuting attorneys were inundated with death threats.

    Wanting to stay alive, the 6 Republican and 3 Democrat Supreme Court Justices ruled states cannot enforce Amendment 14, Section 3 in federal elections. Members of Congress have the same self preservation interest.

    On top of that, the Republican members of Congress will never vote to pass a law applying 14/3 to their candidate, Donald Trump. But they might vote to apply 14/3 to Joe Biden, if Trump tells them to do it.

    Sloan Bashinsky, J.D., LLM (taxation), former United District Court Judge’s law clerk and practicing attorney

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

I moved from small open air insane asylum Key West back to multitudes flew over the cuckoo’s nest Alabama

    I mostly lived in Key West from 2001-2018. Locals called it The Conch Republic. Before I lived there, the city briefly seceded from the Union, until it realized it depended entirely on FEMA to resurrect it after being clobbered by a big hurricane. 

    Locals also called Key West, Key Weird, where the weird go pro. I viewed the city as an open air insane asylum, where you couldn’t get locked up for being different, and unlike Hotel California, you could leave any time you wanted.

    A small city, Key West had people from many ethnic backgrounds and nationalities, and I concluded it was a proxy for the rest of America, and as Key West went, so went America. 

    I was wrong.

    Although Key West had a lot of churches, about 1/5 of the adults living there were not heterosexual and the religious right had very little sway. A lesbian Democrat living in Key West was elected to the city's county commission seat. A lesbian Democrat was elected to the city commission. Now she is the city’s mayor.

    I was further wrong.

    Key West voted Democrat in every national and state election. Perhaps that dated back to the Civil War, when Key West was a Union port, but the locals sympathized with the Confederacy.

    I was further wrong.

    Even the professional weirdos in Key West thought I was weird.

    In the late fall of 2018, I moved back to my home state Alabama, which bills itself as The Heart of Dixie. 

    Montgomery was the Confederacy’s capital. 

    When I was growing up, Alabama voted Democrat in national and state elections, until the U.S. Supreme Court, Congress and President John F. Kennedy and the Alabama National Guard and President Lyndon Baines Johnson de-segregated Alabama, and Alabama morphed into a Republican stronghold.

    Today, Alabama is MAGA country. 

    Today, Alabama is right-wing religious freak country. 

    What the fuck am I doing here?! 

    In Al.com’s Down In Alabama today...

Embryos and an alleged fetus

It's good to see y'all back, and I hope your weekend was a good one.

It's no surprise we're going to pick right back up with Story No. 1 in the state right now -- the legal status of embryos and its effect on in vitro fertilization.

Thanks for being with us.

Ike Morgan

Embryo-gate raged on through the weekend, even taking up time on Saturday Night Live, for anyone who might've been watching.

Heading into the weekend in Alabama, Democrats introduced a bill in the House and Republicans in the Senate said they were preparing legislation to preserve in vitro fertilization in the wake of the state Supreme Court's ruling that interpreted a state law as giving human embryos the same rights as children.

Gov. Kay Ivey also said she was working with lawmakers to preserve IVF.

Within days of the court's ruling, some clinics stopped providing IVF services. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said on Friday that the AG's office had "no intention" of prosecuting anyone using the procedure. That prompted some, including Hoover Republican Rep. Susan DuBose, to lean on clinics to restart IVF treatments, reports AL.com's Sarah Whites-Koditschek.

Note that while the AG's promise may have eased concerns over criminal prosecution, this issue arose from a civil case over destroyed embryos. 

 

to fetuses (or a lack of, in this case)   

AL.com did a story last year on the extent to which Etowah County has arrested women who allegedly used drugs while pregnant. It's happened more there than anywhere else -- 250 over a 10-year period -- and led to some women spending much of their pregnancy in jail.

Now, reports AL.com's Amy Yurkanin, a woman recently settled a lawsuit against Etowah County Sheriff's Office employees over being jailed for endangering a fetus that didn't exist.

According to court documents, the woman spent 36 hours in jail and wasn't pregnant at all. Apparently, her young child -- who does exist -- told a case worker that the mom was pregnant.

Young'ns, man.

According to court documents, the woman offered to take a pregnancy test but it didn't happen. Terms of the settlement were not released.

I emailed Ike:     

Your IVF and imaginary pregnant woman in jail howlers today, and what I already knew about The Make Alabama Great IVF FUBAR, left me laughing my ass off and wondering when the Jesus never knew me freaks in the Alabama Legislature will pass legislation to reopen Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa to shelter themselves and their birds of cuckoo feather Supreme Court justices and like-minded dodo bird Alabamians from the bright sunlight, which would reveal the truth that would set them free, if their heads didn't permanently reside where the sun never shines.

    In another of my 81-year-old play pens, Poetic Outlaws:

Sloan Bashinsky

Sloan’s Newsletter

81, with its physical aches and pains, waking up each morning wondering why I’m still here? Still hoping a miracle will cause my body to feel better, or the death angel will take me home, or somewhere new, to spare me what no beloved old, suffering pet has to endure. Living alone, a monk, all but a few months since late 2000, engulfed in metaphysics day and night, in all the way but not of this world, what woman could endure that regimen with no end? Lightly, what is that? Remember, I cannot. Perhaps it’s possible? I haven’t a clue. Is romance possible? Will viagra work? I haven’t a clue. Do I even want to try? I really don’t know. Back in the day, I would be all in.

Lasita

Lasita’s Substack

Sending love; sorry I cannot do it in person... but perhaps you can feel it.

Sloan Bashinsky

Sloan’s Newsletter

Maybe in person, I might go into cardiac arrest and depart this plane and see what happens then? :-)

    I went to Lasita’s Substack to see what was there:

Openness and Love

LASITA

AUG 12, 2023

How do I live my basic principles? Also, how do I continue writing a post? Being a newbie in this practice, makes it difficult. I feel a need to share since so many people are feeling similar emotions these days and to know we have support is important. I met a friend today on my walk by the Santa Fe River: Rachamana, and she asked me; "how are you feeling hope in these times?" I acknowledged that it was very challenging, especially since the invasion of Ukraine.

Lasita

I will keep adding comments UNTIL I work out how to publish new posts.

Today I want to share a LESSON from one of my Spiritual Teachers: HERMAN REDNICK. 

This is from Volume 1 of EARTH JOURNEY, p. 629

BROTHERHOOD

To break the hypnosis and see with a clear eye, imagine for a moment that you love everyone here. There is no criticism or resentment. Your heart glows and you are grateful for the person sitting next to you. You have no fear of how anyone will react or of what they think of you. For a moment you let the divine fire within your heart glow. You feel a sense of joy and freedom you never felt before. The hypnosis that gripped you in the past and your resistance to people is gone. Now it is not your personality but your true self coming through the heart. You experience what it means to truly love your brother. You realize that in the past you were in a state of bondage through a state of hypnosis. You can now taste the pure joy and freedom that come from love without reservation.

mantra:

I love my neighbor.

His (Her) soul and mine are one.

Sloan Bashinsky

Sloan’s Newsletter

I dunno, I just get up each morning and face the day and whatever it brings, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, and even the horrible sometimes, doing the best I can, being as real as I can, which Includes sometimes getting angry and wondering what’s the point? Because I am somewhat woke after 81 years and climbing, what I see, in the main, looks like SNAFU progressed to FUBAR and even past that to FIDO. But I keep waking up each day, so I’m still supposed to be here, and since I can’t do a lot of things I use to do, I do what I am able, which kinda reminds me of a line out of a Rolling Stones song, "You can’t always get what you want, but you always get what you need," which kinda reminds me of the title of a Gloria Steinem book, “The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off."

This came to me as I was moving into something new in 1995.

Love without Truth

is mush

Truth without Love

is harsh

They live together, 

or die

I then proceeded to forget all about that and ended up in a black night of the soul, which made an earlier dark night of the soul seem wonderful. But, if I had not experienced the back night, I might not have been able to cope with what came after it, which was, well, not exactly a bed of roses, but it was a lot easier than the black night. 

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com