Happy Thought For The Day

 

Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment

August 12, 2023

The Federalist Society touts itself as the end-all-be-all of constitutional scholarshit…I mean, scholarship…no, I take that back, I mean scholarshit. They claim that their raison d’être is to provide us with the original intent of the wealthy white Christian men who fashioned the U.S. Constitution. They insist that they, and they alone know what the Founders meant with each and every word of our nation’s mission statement.

Never mind that there have been more than two dozen amendments added over the years. Never mind that the Founders themselves were often of two (or more) minds, and argued vigorously – often in a public house, or pub as now known – before during and after drafting one of humanity’s great documents. And never mind that at least some of them – slave owner/fucker and major contributor Thomas Jefferson leaps to mind – believed that the document should be flexible and revisited in order to respond to the times, which were likely to change from time to time.

Did these modern-day soothsayers of our Constitution have a Ouija Board? Did they consult a medium? Hold a séance? Did they drive their Delorean back to 1776 and commune with the Constitutional Convention?

My guess is no. My guess is they are full of themselves and full of shit. Think Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Antonin Scalia (still dead), Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Current Chief Justice John Roberts denies being a member, and you take that to the bank…the river bank that is. The list of major donors to the Federalist Society reads like a who’s who of what the fuck.

All that being said, it appears that – likely for the first time – this allegedly august body has produced something of actual value to American democracy and constitutional thought. Two respected, active members of this generally delusional, self-aggrandizing cult have just published a 126-page University of Pennsylvania Law Review paper that should turn some heads and shut some mouths – especially one very big, perpetually-open one that speaks in all caps. These two highly-credentialed conservative constitutional law professors say the U.S. Constitution already “disqualifies former President Donald Trump” from holding any office because of his “participation in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 presidential election.”

They write: “Section Three remains an enforceable part of the Constitution, not limited to the Civil War, and not effectively repealed by nineteenth century amnesty legislation.”

According to The New York Times, “Steven G. Calabresi, a law professor at Northwestern and Yale and a founder of the Federalist Society “called the article ‘a tour de force.’”

According to watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), who were quoted in the article, “Section 3’s text and historical applications make clear that a criminal charge or conviction is not necessary for a person to be adjudged disqualified.”

Calabresi also told The Times, “Trump is ineligible to be on the ballot, and each of the 50 state secretaries of state has an obligation to print ballots without his name on them,” adding, “they may be sued for refusing to do so.”

I rest their case.

This has been your Paying Attention™ Happy Thought For The Day.

What do you think?