Democrats have resorted to nothing short of "ballot cleansing" as they try to bar Republican candidates for Congress under the 14th Amendment theory, writes renowned American legal expert Jonathan Turley, warning against placing the US on a slippery slope to political chaos.

Several US voters in Illinois and Massachusetts have filed motions seeking to remove former President Donald Trump from each state's primary ballot for the 2024 election. Earlier, Colorado and Maine moved to disqualify the ex-president.

Jonathan Turley, a renowned US legal scholar, raised the red flag over Colorado's Supreme Court decision to bar Trump from the 2024 election last month, stressing that the state’s justices "put this country on one of the most dangerous paths in its history."

The unusual initiative is driven by Democratic politicians who decided to utilize Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which says that any candidates who have engaged in acts of insurrection after vowing to defend the US Constitution should be barred from holding political office. The amendment was ratified in 1868. Now, the Dems are arguing that the January 6 riots were a full-fledged "insurrection" and that the law could be applied to the former president.

"In December 1865 many in Washington were shocked to see Alexander Stephens, the Confederacy’s onetime vice president, waiting to take the same oath that he took before joining the Southern rebellion," Turley wrote on December 22. "So Congress declared that it could bar those 'who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.’”

According to the legal expert, the January 6 events – no matter how bad they were – cannot be compared to the US Civil War (1861-1865) and qualified as an "insurrection."

"It was a protest that became a riot, not a rebellion," Turley highlighted, arguing that the Civil War-era amendment should not be used in this case.

He warned that the Colorado court's undemocratic decision and clear defiance of the First Amendment could result in a domino effect "where red and blue states could now engage in tit-for-tat disqualifications.”

Turley's concerns aren't unjustified given that Democrats have decided to bar not only Trump, but all Republican candidates for Congress who have dared to question the fairness of the 2020 elections. Some Democratic lawmakers have called for the disqualification of up to 126 Republican colleagues as "insurrectionists." What is especially chilling is that many have supported them.

Thus, on December 11, US Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) called on House leaders to remove congressional lawmakers who were "supporting Donald Trump’s efforts to invalidate the 2020 presidential election."

"Stated simply, men and women who would act to tear the United States government apart cannot serve as Members of the Congress. These lawsuits seeking to obliterate public confidence in our democratic system by invalidating the clear results of the 2020 presidential election undoubtedly attack the text and spirit of the Constitution, which each Member swears to support and defend," claimed Pascrell, citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) introduced a similar initiative which was supported by 63 Democratic co-sponsors, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman, Ritchie Torres, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.

Meanwhile, Turley drew attention to an obvious double-standard approach exercised by Democrats: previously, some of them have openly challenged and even sought to block certification of election results.

"Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) praised the effort then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) organized to challenge the certification of President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election," the legal scholar recalled on January 5, adding that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sought to block certification of the 2016 election result.

According to Turley, Democrats are increasingly using labels of "insurrectionists" and "Putin lovers" to cancel their political rivals, opponents, and even journalists. However, if the trend turns into some sort of a legal precedent, nothing would stop overzealous lawmakers from expanding this cancellation spree, according to the expert.

"That is why the [US] Supreme Court needs to take up this issue and put this pernicious theory to bed once and for all," Turley concluded.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240107/ballot-cleansing-how-democrats-pushing-us-to-political-chaos-1116024952.html

MEANWHILE:

There is little appreciation inside the United States for the grave damage being inflicted on our country by President Joe Biden’s foreign policy being conducted through the mechanism of starting or sustaining a new war every year. The justifications provided by the White House, State Department and Pentagon are so vacuous that they have succeeded in creating a new low standard for the art of government lying. The country is burdened by unsustainable debt yet we have the so-called Secretary of the Treasury Janice Yellen declaring in October that another war beyond Ukraine, presumably to directly intervene supporting Israel in destroying Gaza, can “certainly” be afforded. And with the current US military build-ups near China and in the Middle East to confront Iran there presumably is enough gas in the tank to pick up on another conflict or two before Genocide Joe stands for reelection later this year.

But in spite of the damage to our economy, which is quite real, some of the gravest threats come from within, from the attacks delivered by special interest groups directed against our fundamental liberties. The most significant assaults have of late been directed against the First Amendment, freedom of speech, which is the bedrock of all the rights and which is currently being assailed continuously by that most protected of all protected groups, America’s Jewish and Israeli Lobby.

Hardly a minute of the day passes without a new article in the mainstream media about “surging antisemitism.” The journalists involved, most of whom are Jewish, hardly ever observe that Israel’s slaughtering of 30,000 Gazans, mostly women and children, just might have something to do with how the public is beginning to regard the behavior of the Jewish state and its leaders. What actually fuels public outrage that groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) choose to regard as antisemitism is Israel slaughtering ten thousand children under a flag displaying the Star of David and stating its intention to continue the massacre until all the Palestinians have fled to other countries or been killed. We are talking of 2 million plus people but Israel’s friends in the US regard them as little more than “sub-humans” or “terrorists.”

The Jewish/Israel lobby in America does not forgive and forget. Witness the continuing attacks on America’s universities for not rolling over and purging all suspected antisemites among faculty and students. Liz Magill, the President of the University of Pennsylvania, resigned almost immediately after being interrogated by the US Congress and the multiple attacks began. Poor Claudine Gay, president of Harvard, hung on but eventually also resigned after she was subjected to near continuous harassment by Israel’s friends, including in the US Congress, because she, like her presidential colleagues, had not accepted that nearly all criticism of Israel in the context of Gaza is based on Jew-hatred, which she was apparently expected to assert. To no one’s surprise, in her resignation letter she was not even honest about who had brought her down, blaming it instead mostly on racism. The letter did not even include the words “Congress” or “Gaza” or “antisemitism” or even “Israel.” To be sure, Gay is not a top level academic and probably was an affirmative action hire but has anyone ever heard of a Congressional committee going after an academic for the sin of plagiarism before? The involvement of the phony claims of antisemitism and the desire to protect Israel are what has made the difference in this case and led to the intensity and persistence of the attacks.

Indeed, the ADL’s revolting director Jonathan Greenblatt is demanding that there be more “consequences” for “antisemites on campus” and the media is hot on the story. Sally Kornbluth, President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who has not resigned after the ridiculous encounter of the three presidents with Congress is still being hotly pursued by that body. Also engaged in the hunt are the many US Government entities whose sole task is to root out antisemites and holocaust deniers. The Department of Justice, headed of course by Jewish Attorney General Merrick Garland nee Garfinkel, is reportedly investigating a number of leading universities including Tulane and Rutgers for failure to “protect the civil rights of Jewish students.” It is a typical pattern where Jewish officials investigate alleged crimes against other Jews and come up with a predictable conclusion.

The universities are scrambling to comply with the government demands to get tough with alleged antisemites. At Columbia University, for example, certain slogans and chants used by Palestinian students have been banned and blocked, but there is no corresponding interference with Jewish student activities. Professor Rashid Khalidi has written a response to the university administration saying “Our deans state that the Columbia community should acknowledge ‘that hearing chanted phrases such as ‘by any means necessary,’ ‘from the river to the sea,’ or calls for an ‘intifada’—irrespective of intentions and provenance—is experienced by many Jewish, Israeli, and other members of our community as antisemitic and deeply hurtful. They have thus unilaterally decided that no one should rise up [the actual meaning of ‘intifada’] against 56 years of illegal military occupation; that Palestine should remain unfree from the river to the sea; and that the oppressed should take permission from the oppressor as to the means to relieve their oppression. They have come to this decision because hearing otherwise is ‘antisemitic and deeply hurtful’ to some. This statement amounts to a new norm that prohibits using or learning about these terms and their histories, in favor of the privileging of a politics of feeling. While perhaps appropriate to a kindergarten, it is hard to imagine an approach more contrary to the most basic idea of a university. This statement is characteristic of a university that picks a task force nearly devoid of expertise on antisemitism and on Palestine/Israel (much of which exists among the faculty), but packed with outspoken advocates for Israel, a university that has decided that faculty expertise on freedom of speech or on language to be proscribed should be rigorously excluded from deliberations on such issues. With complete disregard for the principle of faculty governance, crucial matters like these are being decided upon by administrators, presumably with hefty input from trustees, donors and politicians, who have negligible expertise, but robust and one-sided opinions.”

Khalidi might also have observed how pro-Israel groups at colleges are compiling and blacklisting names of student-critics of the Gaza situation so they can be denied jobs after they graduate. And beyond the damage done to freedom of speech and critical thinking at the universities there are already plenty of other possible consequences for those who are choosing to speak up about the atrocities that are underway but they only appear to apply to Palestinian and antiwar groups that are demonstrating against Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Gazans. Ambitious politician wannabe Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida was one of the first to respond, banning Palestinian groups at all state universities due to their alleged “antisemitism.” He did not ban or even criticize a single Jewish group for cheerleading the slaughter of the Palestinians. And this has been the pattern elsewhere with the banning or denying of facilities to Palestinian and antiwar groups, but leaving Hillel and other Jewish groups alone no matter what they do. Is that freedom of speech? Of course not, but it is a measure of who has power in the United States and who does not. Speak ill of whomever you choose but leave Israel alone or you will be in real trouble!

And protecting Israel also extends to the punishing of supporters of completely nonviolent action, like boycotting or divesting from Israeli products to put pressure on the Benjamin Netanyahu regime. If you belong to a group that opposes Israeli policies you could be denied goods and services for that fact alone. In more than thirty states one can be compelled, for example, to sign an agreement not to support any action against Israel if one wants a job or government services. This special arrangement is unique to Israel and there are also special trade missions often manned by American Jews or Israelis, including in my state Virginia, which create special investment opportunities for Israel that do not exist for any other country.

But perhaps the most insidious attempt to complete America’s falling under the control of Israel-think is what is taking place in lower-to-mid level public education. Many school districts and even state educational boards require courses in the horrors of antisemitism and the so-called holocaust. The courses are, of course, being pushed most ardently by Jews and by select Evangelicals who are sitting around waiting for the Second Coming, a prophecy that involves in their minds the return of Jews to the Holy Land as a prerequisite. Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada, who is, of course, Jewish, has just introduced legislation called the “Never Again Education Act,” which has an impact nationwide. The “Never Again Education Act” was first introduced in July of 2019 before passing in the House in January 2020 with 300 co-sponsors and in the Senate in May 2020. As it is set to expire in 2025, Senator Rosen is looking to have the Act reapproved to extend it to 2030 to “provide funding for training and lessons on the ethnic cleansing of Jews.”

The problem with the Act is that it rests on a contrived narrative that is essentially political in nature, including as it does many non-historical and even fabricated assertions about what took place in the 1930s and 1940s. The Act is intended to bestow on Jews a special victimhood that in turn conveys on them and on Israel exemption from normal rules regarding their behavior. It, of course, is part of the narrative that is giving Netanyahu and his rogues a more-or-less free pass from the US for their crimes against humanity against the Palestinians.

So the America we once knew is under siege. Free speech is being eroded and will soon be subject to criminal penalties if one says the wrong thing about Israel. This is intolerable and one prays that the American people will have its own “intifada” and wake up to the new infamy and put an end to it.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/are-we-losing-free-speech-in-america/

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Eric Zuesse (blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/)

The speculations in the U.S. and its colonies (‘allies’) that Ukrainian troops and NATO weapons and guidance will achieve victory against Russia in the battlefields of Ukraine are receding (if not already disappearing) down the memory-hole of U.S-empire propaganda; and, so, the time has arrived for an analysis of that memory-hole itself, to see what has been forgotten or else never known to the public.

As I have previously documented, Russia has achieved, ever since Putin came into power in 2000, a rate of economic growth that is almost as steep as China’s, and vastly higher than America’s or any of America’s colonies. The stagnation now is in The West, not in The East. And the growth is especially in China and Russia. But the U.S. regime resolutely refuses to acknowledge Russia’s success. Even more, it refuses to acknowledge America’s decline (which is blatant). And even more than that: it hides the fact that the imperial regime, U.S. Government itself, is doing as well as it is, only by exploiting its European colonies and Japan (America’s biggest colony in The East), which are therefore doing even worse than America itself is. This is the traditional result in any empire — exploitation of its colonies — and it’s certainly the case regarding every one of America’s colonies except South Korea (whose economy is unique in the American empire, for performing better than America’s does — though still not as well as the global average).

The reason why South Korea is performing better than the imperial power isn’t yet clear, but all of the at least major nations in the empire are performing significantly worse than the global average; and both China and Russia (the two major Asian powers) are performing significantly better than any of those U.S.-empire nations is — and significantly betterthan the global average.

As to which nations are democracies, and which are dictatorships, the only nation that has been empirically studied in depth on that question is the United States, which in all of the studies shows as being very clearly a dictatorship by its super-rich (wealthiest 0.01%, and especially by its almost a thousand billionaires), no democracy at all. Furthermore, a NATO-affiliated poll taken in 53 countries during 2022, asked in each country whether they agree with the statement, “My country is democratic,” and the highest percentage who said Yes amongst all of the 53 countries surveyed was China, at 83%. 2nd-highest was Vietnam, at 77%. The U.S. was worse than average, and was tied at #s 40&41, out of the 53 nations, with Colombia, at 49%. Barely less than half its citizens said that they live in a democracy. Tied for #s 44&45 were Peru and Russia, at 46% each. So: if America — which is the only country that has been scientifically analyzed to determine whether it is a democracy, and it has consistently been found NOT to be — is less of a dictatorship than Russia is, it’s only slightly less of a dictatorship than Russia is. Moreover, the United States has a higher percentage of its people living in prisons than does any other country on the planet — it is authentically #1 on that, at 639 prisoners per 100,000 residents — whereas Russia is #25 on that, at 341. China is #117 (tied with Tajikistan) at  only 121. (Vietnam has 128 per hundred thousand, slightly worse than China.) So: on that measure, Russia isn’t nearly as bad as America, and China is significantly better than both. America is the world’s top police-state. But we already know that it is a dictatorship.

Furthermore: on 8 December 2023, Gallup headlined so as for their article to get as few viewers as possible, “Russian Life in 6 Charts”, and reported actually a number of key realities that the U.S. regime wants its public notto know, such as that “Russians See Economic Uptick and Brighter Living Standards Ahead” “Approval of China’s Leadership Climbs to Record Heights” and in Russia “Most Are Satisfied With Personal Freedoms, More Divided on Media” and “Feelings of Safety Reach Record High Among Russians” and also “Russians’ Approval of China’s Leadership Climbs; U.S. and Germany Flat.” This last one might have been showing that whereas 71% of Chinese answered Yes to “Do you approve or disapprove of the job performance of the leadership of [your country]?” the comparable percentage regarding the people in Germany was 10%, and the comparable percentage regarding U.S. was 6%. However, (in accord with the need by Gallup — a frequent U.S. Government contractor — to hide instead of draw public attention to, information that the regime wants the public notto know), Gallup left unanswered there what the phrase “U.S. and Germany Flat” actually meant. It probably meant only that Russiansdisliked Germany’s leadership and disliked America’s leadership even more — and that Russians (NOT Chinese) rated China’s leadership 71% favorably. Gallup’s report said nothing about how Russians view Russia’s ownleadership. Probably the reason for this is that the U.S. regime doesn’t want the public to know that the reason that Putin has been winning re-elections ever since 2000 is that his leadership of Russia has been stellar, easily beating that of the U.S. or any U.S. colony (‘ally’). And would the U.S. regime want the American people to know that whereas in America, Joe Biden’s leadership gets only a 39% job-approval rating, and historically going back to America’s worst-ever President Truman in 1945, American Presidents have averaged only a 50% job-approval rating from Americans, Putin, ever since he came into power has averaged a 75% job-approval-rating from Russians (and it’s even higher now at 80%)? So, instead, the U.S. regime’s propaganda-media hide that reality, and pretend that Putin is a ‘dictator’. And they hide all of the facts that were in this Gallup article and headlined it as “Russian Life in 6 Charts” — which is less interesting than any of those facts are.

So: what IS the job-approval-rating of China’s leader, Xi Jinping? On 20 December 2014, The Diplomat headlined “The World’s Most Popular Leader: China’s President Xi” and reported:

The Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation co-sponsored a survey on global perceptions of international leaders. The results, released this month, were based on polls of citizens in 30 countries around the world, who were asked about their familiarity with and approval of 10 world leaders. According to the survey, Chinese President Xi Jinping had the highest approval rating, both at home and abroad. Xi earned a composite 8.7 rating (out of 10), beating Russian President Vladimir Putin (8.1) for the top spot.

Both Putin and Xi had astonishingly high domestic approval ratings, with Xi at 9 out of 10 and Putin at 8.7 (for comparison, U.S. President Barack Obama scored 6.2). International perceptions, however, set Xi and Putin apart. The Russian President scored only a 6 when being evaluated by foreigners, dead last among the 10 leaders included in the survey. Xi got a 7.5, just edging out Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at 7.3. Xi was viewed particularly favorably in Asian countries (except Japan and Vietnam), as well as Africa.

Of course, that was being reported just a few months after America’s Obama regime had grabbed Ukraine in a bloody coup that he hid behind mass anti-corruption demonstrations in Ukraine in February 2014; so, since the U.S. propaganda-factory had been portraying Putin instead of Obama as the global villain, the low international approval-rating for Putin is understandable.

After the propaganda against China starting with the Trump regime in 2017, America’s Pew Research Center reported on 27 July 2023 its polling in 24 countries, mainly U.S. colonies, concerning the person’s “confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping to do the right thing regarding world affairs,” and found that mainly they had “none at all” and the 24-country median was 74% hostile toward him. Propaganda (such as from the Trump and Biden White House) can cause a political leader’s (such as Xi’s) polls (such as in U.S.-and-‘allied’ countries) to turn upside-down virtually overnight.

The Chinese Canadian Xiaoming Guo headlined on 29 September 2022, “What is the approval rating for Chinese president Xi Jinping?” and wrote:

There are no approval ratings in China domestically. China does not depend on polls to govern. The west does not depend on polls to govern either. The west depends on polls for election campaigns. The politicians of the west depend on polls to design their campaign strategies for attracting more ballots. They are, in essence, not leaders but echo to polls. They are populists. When the west says they are leaders, they actually manipulate public opinions through polls, statistics, and rhetoric. They manipulate public opinions so that voters believe in what is not necessarily true.

Xi, on the other hand, is a true leader who just does whatever is good for the people, regardless of what kind of poll is. Xi accomplished a few things that win the hearts of the Chinese people. One of them is cracking down on corruption. It is a significant turn. …

But Western polling firms have polled in China on how the citizenry feel about their Government. I headlined on 24 March 2023, “How Nations’ Citizens Rate Their Own Government” and reported from the Edelman Trust Barometer: For “Trust in Government,” China ranked #1 at 91%. For “Trust in Media,” China ranked #1 at 80%. For “Trust in Business,” China ranked #1 at 84%. U.S. scored around 40% in each, and Russia scored around 30% in each. Just about the only thing that Russians trust is the nation’s leader — which the U.S. and its colonies want to “regime-change.” They want to do to Russia and to China what they did to Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.; and, so, the propaganda-media are demonizing (for “regime-change”) Putin and Xi.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

https://theduran.com/why-russia-is-enormously-under-rated/

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