[Life Liberty & Levin] The Democrat Party's fetish for the 14th Amendment is a vile attack on our elections directed at one man: Donald Trump

[Ubiquitous]

The modern Democrat Party has an unhealthy fetish for the 14th Amendment, one
of the three post-Civil War constitutional amendments. Democrats are
constantly and relentlessly trying to rewrite it to accommodate their
political ends.

A few months ago, Joe Biden and his party insisted that Section 4 of the 14th
Amendment granted the president power to unilaterally increase the debt
ceiling, which would destroy Congress's sole power under Article I, Section 8
of the Constitution to tax, spend, and borrow. Of course, Section 4 of the
14th Amendment does no such thing, and there is nothing in the history of the
amendment that supports such an interpretation. Here's the relevant language:

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.

As I explain in my new book, "The Democrat Party Hates America," nobody was
challenging the validity of the debt. Second, the language is specific to
Civil War-related debt. Third, the language says nothing about fundamentally
altering the way the federal government raises revenue or pays debt. Fourth,
to repeat, the language and legislative history in no way support the
proposition that the core power of Congress was replaced or repealed. Fifth,
the language does not and was never intended to abolish separation of powers,
which is core to our constitutional system. The proponents of this absurdity
would have turned Biden into a bigger dictator than he already is. But none
of this mattered to the proponents. They seek power at any cost.

If the Democrat Party, their media, and their academicians cannot rewrite the
Constitution by interpretation, then they argue for abolishing it altogether
and replacing it with a more "relevant" document -- that is, a document that
ensures their monopoly power and destroys our founding principles. After all,
how many times have they told us that the Constitution was written by
slaveholders, perpetuates racism and inequity, and is illegitimate?

The same kind of fraudulent approach is now before us with respect to Section
3 of the 14th Amendment. Here is the text that these constitutional
saboteurs, in the name of the Constitution, are desperately and cravenly
insisting prevents former President Donald Trump from effectively running for
a second presidential term.

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.

You need not be an aging retired judge, washed-up former law professor, or
NeverTrumper academician to notice that the word "president" cannot be found
in this text. So, why would the amendment's drafters, adopters, and ratifiers
all exclude the word "president" from the text but include virtually every
other form of officeholder, federal and state, elected and appointed, in the
text? Did they forget to add the word "president"? Or could the reason
possibly be that they did not want to include the word "president" and,
therefore, intentionally did not? Of course, there is nothing anywhere that
even suggests the drafters, adopters, or ratifiers intended otherwise. It
took two NeverTrumper law professors (members of the Federalist Society no
less), joining the Democrat Party mob, over 125 pages to try to convince us
that by omitting the word "president," not only did the drafters, adopters,
and ratifiers intend to include the president, but the proper interpretation
of the amendment and its construction and application make it undeniable and
clear.

In fact, so clear are these professors and their ilk that we are supposed to
intuit the intention of the drafters, adopters, and ratifiers by, among other
things, the words "as an officer of the United States." Thus, this phrase, we
are told, should be read to include the word "president." Therefore, there
was no need to single out by name the most powerful and important
governmental official in the entire country. Consequently, the argument goes,
of course the president was intended to be included in the amendment by
general reference to "officer." Any why not? After all, the local South
Carolina county commissioner was not specifically mentioned either.

This is preposterous. For most people, the absurdity is self-evident. Indeed,
if they intended to include the president, you'd think he would not only be
mentioned but that he'd be at the top of the list of officials included in
the text. In fact, they even mention "elector of President and Vice-
President," but not the president himself.

Moreover, what does the phrase "shall have engaged in insurrection or
rebellion against [the United States]" mean? If you are going to bar the
leading Republican candidate for the presidency from even appearing on a
state ballot, thereby disenfranchising untold numbers of citizens who would
like to vote for him, and potentially alter the course and outcome of a
presidential election, there should be some definitive way to know what this
phrase means and who gets to make that decision. Obviously, as the 14th
Amendment is one of the so-called Civil War amendments, we know what was
meant when the amendment was ratified -- engaging in insurrection or
rebellion on behalf of the Confederacy and against the Union, aka the Civil
War. It wasn't very difficult to figure out who did or did not engage in such
activities or what was meant by insurrection or rebellion. They didn't need
law professors or members of the Democrat Party -- the party of the
Confederacy -- to tell them. But did the drafters, adopters, and ratifiers
intend Section 3 to apply beyond the death of the last Confederate?

Of course, there's no evidence that it did, other than the wishful
meanderings and self-serving declarations of the proponents. Strangely,
however, if that was the true intention and purpose, the amendment doesn't
provide any guidance on how these decisions would be presented and resolved
in the case of a presidential candidate or president. I say strangely because
at the Constitutional Convention, the framers spent a great deal of time
debating and working through the way we elect presidents. They came up with
the Electoral College system. It didn't take long until it was evident that
even that process needed some adjustment. Hence, the 12th Amendment to the
Constitution. If, in 1868, the drafters, adopters, and ratifiers of the 14th
Amendment intended it not only to apply to a presidential candidate or
president but knew it could upset the presidential election process, why did
they say absolutely nothing about it?

For example, how is it determined whether a presidential candidate or
president engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the United States
when he has not been charged with, let alone convicted of, such offenses? You
won't find the answer in the 14th Amendment. That would seem to be an
essential question in need of a definitive answer. Did the men behind Section
3 intend that a presidential candidate be barred from a state ballot based
merely on accusations? And accusations from whom? The media? Democrat Party
officials, operatives, and litigators? Academicians? NeverTrumpers? In fact,
the second impeachment trial against President Trump fell well short of the
number of senators needed to convict him for the events of January 6. As a
result, he was not barred under Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution from
"hold[ing] and enjoy[ing] any office of honor, trust or profit under the
United States." If anything, there was a constitutional adjudication in
Trump's favor.

Indeed, on January 4, 48 hours before the so-called January 6 insurrection,
President Trump offered to call up 10,000 National Guardsmen to protect the
Capitol Building and Congress during the official Electoral College count.
The Democrat speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the D.C. Democrat mayor refused the
offer. These facts are intentionally ignored by the Biden regime's special
counsel, as they were by the Democrat Party's so-called January 6 Committee.
And they ignore it because a president clearly is not engaged in an
insurrection or rebellion when he offers thousands of armed troops to do
precisely the opposite.

Moreover, does any serious scholar believe that the post-Civil War Congress
was so committed to preserving federalism that it would have written an
amendment giving a single state the power to upend a federal presidential
election? Would that Congress have believed when it was drafting and adopting
Section 3 that it was granting power to a state official, say, a secretary of
state or attorney general, to unilaterally bar a leading presidential
candidate from the state's ballot, thereby possibly affecting the outcome of
a national election? Or, for that matter, even a state legislature? No way.
Indeed, the post-Civil War Congresses were mostly hostile to states' rights.
Several Southern states remained occupied military territories until they
capitulated to the demands of the federal government.

Putting aside all the issues raised previously, one can only imagine the
Pandora's box this would open. It was not opened by the drafters, adopters,
and ratifiers of the 14th Amendment. It is being opened by the modern-day
saboteurs of the Constitution.

This entire movement is a vile assault on the electoral process directed at a
single individual: Donald Trump. There is absolutely no constitutional basis
for it. However, if it somehow succeeds, the implications will live far
beyond today. We are left not with the rule of law but the rule of men - and
in this case, the rule of Democrat Party officials and operatives and their
academic allies. The party of the Confederacy once again seeks to nullify the
federal Constitution and the nation's electoral system, disenfranchise tens
of millions of voters nationwide, and push the country toward its breaking
point, from which we may never recover.

It's worth remembering that the Democrat Party and its surrogates are a
power-hungry lot. They are also driving other dangerously illegitimate and
self-serving attacks on our voting system.

How many times have we heard from Democrat politicians, academics, media, and
activists that the Electoral College should be abolished, that it is a racist
system set up by white slaveholders to perpetuate racism, etc.? Of course,
this is another anti-American lie. The purpose of the Electoral College is,
among others, to ensure that all parts of the country have a say in the
election of a president and vice president, not just the most populous areas,
and to prevent mob rule by way of unchecked majoritarianism. Thus, the
Electoral College is an institutional block on the Democrat Party's efforts
to monopolize our voting system, since the most densely populated areas of
the nation are run by Democrats.

The Democrat Party is behind another unconstitutional scheme that seeks to
disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans, specifically Republican voters
- the so-called National Popular Vote movement. It involves an interstate
compact in which states agree in advance of actual voting to assign their
Electoral College votes to the candidate who nationally receives the largest
number of popular votes - even if that candidate loses the popular vote in
their own state. The NPV is only triggered once enough states reach the 270
majority under the Electoral College system. So far, the states that have
joined the compact hold 196 electoral votes. They're getting close.

The Democrat Party is also relentlessly attempting to nationalize state
voting systems to empower itself and destroy any meaningful opposition from
the Republican Party. The Democrat Party dressed up this tyranny as a civil
rights effort. It was introduced in the House by Nancy Pelosi as H.R. 1, the
first bill to be considered by the new Democrat majority. It would have
effectively eliminated state voter ID laws, make it virtually impossible to
clean up voter registration lists, instituted online registration throughout
the country, virtually eliminated protections against absentee ballot fraud,
provided for taxpayer funding for congressional candidates, attacked
political speech by individuals and groups, etc. Vladimir Lenin called it
"democratic centralization."

This is the party, and these are the people (with cover from some odd-
thinking professors, et al.) who are organizing around a twisted fiction for
banning Trump from the ballot and disenfranchising his would-be voters in
advance of an election.

--
Let's go Brandon!