Australian Atheists Forum

The cray-cray is big in this one, as if the recent videos after the terror attacks in the middle east aren't telling enough, his lawyers are now arguing that the President is not required to support the constitution, and this therefore makes his involvement in the Jan 6 insurrection fine, I am not sure his lawyers made the decision to try this line, it appears Trump probably picked it up from another source, probably Q or some similar moron, and insisted his lawyers ran with it, this is the argument his lawyers put forward;

"The Presidential oath, which the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment surely knew, requires the President to swear to 'preserve, protect and defend' the Constitution — not to 'support' the Constitution," said the filing by Trump's attorneys. "Because the framers chose to define the group of people subject to Section Three by an oath to 'support' the Constitution of the United States, and not by an oath to 'preserve, protect and defend' the Constitution, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment never intended for it to apply to the President."

So he is required to preserve, protect and defend, but not support? That's going to be a hard one to push! This is the defense being used against a lawsuit to have him barred via the 14th Ammendment.

The argument came as he seeks to dismiss a lawsuit filed in the state by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), seeking to have him disqualified from the ballot in the state under the 14th Amendment. The Insurrection Clause of the amendment prohibits those who have "engaged in insurrection" against the United States from holding a civil, military, or elected office unless a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate approve.

This is just madness.....

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-wont-sup ... stitution/

stevebrooks wrote: ↑Fri Oct 13, 2023 1:20 amThis is just madness.....

The application of law can seem esoteric and counter-intuituve, but the 14th Amendment looks to my non-lawyer eyes like an inescapable block to Trump running again. Also this madness as you rightly call it just seems to make things worse for him. It's actually consistent with him wanting to lose in court so he can rile up his zealots to stage another, worse insurrection.

Edit: it's also a version of the Nixonian argument: "it's not unconstitutional when the President does it."

stylofone wrote: ↑Fri Oct 13, 2023 7:06 amEdit: it's also a version of the Nixonian argument: "it's not unconstitutional when the President does it."

Yeah Trump has already used that one in other arguments with the "it's not illegal if the President does it" position.

However more news on the speaker of the house, there isn't one, or at least a nomination for one, because Scalise, apparently unwilling to agree to the demands of the mad MAGA sideshow and therefore unable to get the votes to be elected, has dropped his nomination for speaker, so, they have to do it all again. Meanwhile no business can be conducted in the house!

Latest news is that at least 20 Republicans would vote against him if it came to a full house vote and it only needs 4 for him to lose.

stevebrooks wrote: ↑Fri Oct 13, 2023 1:05 pmHowever more news on the speaker of the house, there isn't one, or at least a nomination for one, because Scalise, apparently unwilling to agree to the demands of the mad MAGA sideshow and therefore unable to get the votes to be elected, has dropped his nomination for speaker, so, they have to do it all again. Meanwhile no business can be conducted in the house!

Latest news is that at least 20 Republicans would vote against him if it came to a full house vote and it only needs 4 for him to lose.

The whole party has rolled over for the MAGA loonies so many times, but it's NEVER going to be enough. They are the forces of chaos. It's so bizarre that anyone votes for them at all.

stylofone wrote: ↑Fri Oct 13, 2023 1:25 pmThe whole party has rolled over for the MAGA loonies so many times, but it's NEVER going to be enough. They are the forces of chaos. It's so bizarre that anyone votes for them at all.

It may be that it's finally coming to an end, with Trump's more and more bizarre rantings since the terrorist attacks in the middle east. He has now started to attack Israel and it's leaders repeatedly and praise Hamas and Hezbollah, apparently this has come about due to Israel's repeated thanks to Biden for being a solid ally. It's becoming incoherent and these recent speeches and rallies may see him lose crucial support. He won't of course lose support of the most extreme fringe, but those people are almost irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, they are actually such a small part of the population they won't have any power....well at least that's what should be happening, it's a wait and see game but I think Trump has lost it now.

stevebrooks wrote: ↑Fri Oct 13, 2023 2:28 pmIt may be that it's finally coming to an end, with Trump's more and more bizarre rantings since the terrorist attacks in the middle east.

There's a thing in politics which I call "the stench of loserdom". Sometimes the viewers and voters and commentators mistake it for something else and only realise in hindsight that what they thought might be Parmesan cheese was actually vomit. John Hewson in Australia had it, Mitt Romney in the US had it and anyone who tried to beat Reagan had it. I really wonder if this is the moment when Trump's various perfumes wear off and enough people start to smell his foul stench, for him to be treated as the crass cheap sideshow he deserves to be. He has an instinct to always be the number one trending topic. It is a "society of spectacle" instinct, he admires Hamas and Xi for the attention they receive. It doesn't matter if they get it through brutality and ruthlessness. But breaking from the pro-Israel orthodoxy of the American right could be a step too far, especially at a time like this.

Well...i find myself here and in rl, on a fairly regular basis, cautioning against writing Trump off, and i'll go again because actually criticizing Israel might play out well in America, perhaps not within the political and economic classes, but they were never going to vote for Trump to begin with, so i'm not sure it matters to his chances. The question is, is loyalty to the nation state of Israel deeper and more animating than antisemitism, in the US? I'd say amongst the aforementioned class, very much so but among Trump voters...i'm going to guess no. And the tens of millions that don't vote, and couldn't even find Israel in an atlas? It's antisemitism vs Islamaphobia but mostly Americans are having trouble paying the rent. Trump comes across as dismissive of the whole situation. It could be a major vote winner and he is the candidate for radical change, of blowing up the whole system (...in order to make it greeeaaat).

My suspicion is that antisemitism will begin to flourish with a vile new energy at a genuine grassroots level in the US. The GOP are already skeptical about Ukraine, it may not be such a giant stretch for them to take a few steps back from Israel too.

Trump wants to change sides, globally speaking. The GOP might follow if it means winning an election. And the people? 50 million living in poverty, crippling debt, zero healthcare etc etc....i suspect that changing sides might seem like a reasonable gamble, what is there to lose?

Yes you are right not to write him off, that's probably what happened the first time he was elected, even if people in the US who oppose Trump think he has done his dash with whatever craziness he last spouted, they should still fight for every vote and oppose every attempt by the GOP to suppress voter numbers and gerrymander districts, because, like the christian right, they will never stop. They demonstrated if you keep fighting long enough those who oppose you may make a serious blunder that will see you victorious in whatever aim you have! Don't make the mistake of not voting because you think he is a sure loser candidate, GET OUT AND VOTE no matter what it takes!

Here's a much more specific bit of punditry, about the GOP rather than Trump.

https://law-and-politics.online/@Teri_K ... 6673531308

Remember in 2017 when Trump went completely off the rails as president and his authoritarian instincts and lawbreaking became evident even to people who tried to excuse him, and commentators wondered if the GOP would split . . . and instead the party continued to coalesce around Trump?

Maybe (just maybe) what we're seeing in the House is that split.

Instead of Trump being the central figure, the decision is: Align with the crazies like Marjorie Taylor Greene or split the party.

Well wouldn't that be sad if all these MAGA Trumpers caused this to happen?

Politico reporter Olivia Beavers said that one House Republican told her the dispute could see Jeffries elected to the speaker's office, if a number of frustrated GOP representatives don't turn up to vote against him. Beavers quoted them as saying: "What happens when Jordan forces us to the floor to try to pressure us and all of a sudden we don't show up and Hakeem Jeffries is speaker cause he wanted to be a bully?"

https://www.newsweek.com/matt-gaetz-mig ... in-1834747