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Some Democrats, independents and even never-Trump Republicans here in Minnesota and elsewhere may be overly enthused with the prospect of using the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot.

They envision achieving that objective by invoking the portion of that post-Civil War measure that bars anyone from holding elective office who has engaged in an insurrection or aiding others in doing so.

They could be flirting with fire.

Following a civil case initiated in Colorado early in September and serving as a forerunner for similar thrusts taken in other Trump-hostile jurisdictions, a legal proceeding was initiated here in the Twin Cities shortly after Labor Day seeking to prevent the 45th president from becoming the 47th. It asks to bar Steve Simon, Minnesotas secretary of state, from placing the former president on the ballot for the upcoming Republican primary in March and the election next November, if he is endorsed by the Republican Party.

The claimants in the Minnesota case are operating under the umbrella of a national group known as Free Speech for People. They include high-profile heavyweights no less than Paul Anderson, a highly respected former state Supreme Court justice and a pre-MAGA moderate Republican; Joan Growe, a former secretary of state and long-time progressive DFLer, and a few other political middleweights.

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Their case has been expedited and scheduled for hearing before the state Supreme Court on Nov. 2, a year and three days before the 2024 presidential election. The jurists in St. Paul are likely to issue a ruling upon the case soon thereafter, probably before the Jan. 5, 2024, cut-off date for primary ballot eligibility. Unless leapfrogged by another state, the Minnesota decision may be the first one in the nation addressing the insurrection issue.

Its ruling would only apply to the ballot here in Minnesota, but it would create a nonbinding precedent to be used as guidance for upcoming judicial decisions in other states.

If successful, the larger effort at candidate suppression would eliminate Trumps aspirations to return to the White House a second time the way another native New Yorker did: Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th president, who split his two terms in the late 19th century around an election defeat.

But the Minnesota case and similar ones sprouting up across portions of the nation are rife with hazards. One is that the litigation plays right into what Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida described in the 2016 presidential primary campaign as the unusually small hands of the ex-president.

It allows Trump and his supporters to point to efforts to keep him off ballots as another example of weaponization of the legal system and an attack on his followers ability to exercise their rights to vote for him. That, in turn, helps his narrative that he is the victim of forces out to punish him and suppress his supporters, an assertion that has substantial appeal to Trump acolytes.

The keep-Trump-off-the-ballot movement is flying blind in uncharted territory. The prospect of the insurrection provision sidelining the former president from returning to the White House, let alone make it onto the ballot to get there, is attractive to some academics and pundits.

While simmering for some time, the insurrection clause concept turned into a realistic possibility spurred by the odd couple authorship of a piece by high-profile legal scholars like retired federal appellate judge Michael Lustig, a conservative icon, in concert with Harvard Law Schools Lawrence Tribe, a celebrated liberal lion, as well as an academic paper by Prof. Michael Paulson of St. Thomas University Law School in the Twin Cities, among other legal luminaries. Even the leader of the arch right-wing Federalist Society, the greenhouse for conservative judges, initially endorsed the idea, before the organization recanted a couple of weeks ago when it saw that the concept it supported was actually proceeding.

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But the effort to disenfranchise Trump-inclined voters may not be as appealing to elected officials and judges who must decide whether to allow him to be on the ballots in the various states where challenges have been lodged.

The most formidable hurdle is that the issue will end up, sooner or later, before the U.S. Supreme Court, a Trump-packed tribunal that is unlikely to ban him from the ballot.

The chances of success might be greater here in Minnesota. After Secretary of State Simon, who certifies electoral candidates, declined to bar the ex-president from ballot, the matter landed in the lap of the state Supreme Court, which is in transition due to the recent retirement of Chief Justice Lori Gildea and replacement by Justice Natalie Hudson, who now heads a tribunal that consists of six DFL appointees and a single one from the GOP.

But even with Minnesotas liberal-imbued high court, it might be an uphill fight for the challengers.

In 2020, an erstwhile obscure Republican candidate sued to be placed on the primary ballot after the state party denied him access to run against the sole GOP-approved candidate, none other than the-ex president.

The case, de la Fuentes v. Simon, reached the state Supreme Court on the eve of the primary, where it floundered. The court ruled it would not intervene on grounds that the parties decide whom to place before the voters.

Gildea, who retired at the end of last month after 13 years at the helm, was troubled by that challenge, pointing out at the hearing that there is something disturbing about the proposition that courts can effectively control whom voters get to vote for.

The stop-Trump advocates run the risk of the same rationale being invoked against them in a different context, in the new Trump insurrection ineligibility case to be heard next month.

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But whatever lower tribunals, state or federal here or elsewhere adjudicate the issue, it will probably be up to the U.S. Supreme Court to come up with a solution. Its unlikely to be favorable ruling for the anti-Trump challengers in the absence of a prior judicial declaration by a lower court that the ex-president engaged in the prohibited conduct.

In addition to the distinct potential for defeat in court, the anti-Trump ballot brigade may lose in the court of public opinion.

Marshall H. Tanick

Like his quartet of indictments, a legal challenge on insurrection grounds could redound to the benefit of the ex-presidents popularity, at least within his party, not to mention the millions of dollars he will gather from small donor contributors to wage his ballot battles.

So, the insurrection-disqualification advocates ought to be careful because they are sparking a blaze that might burn them badly. If they dont pay attention to this warning, theres another admonition adage they ought to heed: If you try to take out the king, dont miss.

Marshall H. Tanick is a constitutional law attorney in the Twin Cities.

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The risky effort to keep Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot - MinnPost

When former President Trump hysterically called for shoplifters to be shot in a speech last week before California Republicans, we know who he thinks hes talking about: Black and Brown people. We will immediately stop all of the pillaging and theft, Trump said. Very simply: If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store. Shot!

It continues more than four decades of Trump unapologetically calling for capital punishment or for the accused to be kneecapped way beyond for what crimes usually call for. Those who have a long memory about Trump will recall his full-page ads in New York newspapers 34 years ago calling for the death penalty in after the Central Park rape that wrongfully sent Black and Brown men to prison.

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Now this, as the former president remains the clear front runner for the Republican nomination to return to the White House. Now, the easy thing here is to keep going about his ongoing efforts to place the political mark of the beast on Black and Brown people. But his fascist rant to bring the full weight of lethal federal law enforcement against shoplifters carries a peculiar irony. Trump is so unhinged, he forgot that most shoplifters are White.

Despite the decades of Black people being profiled in stores as possible shoplifters (and being shot and killed, as was John Crawford in 2014 for holding an unboxed pellet gun in the sporting goods section of a Walmart outside Dayton Ohio), much of the loot that leaks out of stores iare in the backpacks and purses of the least profiled.

According to a 2014 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, 77.5 percent of shoplifters are White, significantly above their 59 percent of the national population. Only 8 percent of shoplifters are Black and only another 8 percent are Latino, well below their shares of the national population. That study said, Shoplifting was significantly more common in individuals with at least some college education, among those with individual incomes over $35,000 and family incomes over $70,000.

Going even farther back, a 1986 Washington Post story on shoplifting in the Washington, D.C. area found that while young Black males were routinely put under heavy surveillance in stores, 71 percent of people arrested for shoplifting were from middle- and upper-income brackets. That story said:

If there was a profile of a shoplifter, it might show a woman from a middle-income group, who has either a high school diploma or college degree. In reality, the statistics show that shoplifting cuts across age, educational and income levels. All available evidence suggests, in fact, that young black males, as a group, between the ages of 18 and 25, pose no greater threat as shoplifters than most groups.

In a 2013 interview on National Public Radio, Rutgers University marketing professor Jerome Williams said, About 70 percent of all the shoplifting in this country is done by whites. And in fact, if you look at store shrinkage or loss, most of the loss is done by employees and not by customers. And in some states where weve looked at the data, what we call the modal group thats most likely to shoplift is white women in their 40s and 50s.

When Trump went off about shooting shoplifters, his audience of California Republicans cheered as if a football team scored a touchdown. That was because in that same speech, he referred to California as a dumping ground. Trump has long used the phrase to refer to Mexico dumping its worst elements into the United States.

The crowd clearly assumed that shoplifters in the crosshairs of another Trump White House would be Brown and Black. The data says otherwise. If Trump really means what he says, hes about to mow down a whole lot of White housewives.

Derrick Z. Jackson is a former Boston Globe columnist and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary.

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Donald Trump Says Shoplifters Should be Shot, but Does He Know Who Most Shoplifters Are? - Yahoo News

Republican presidential candidates seized on the Hamas attack on Israel Saturday to try to lay blame on President Biden, drawing a connection between the surprise assault and a recent hostage release deal between the United States and Iran, a longtime backer of the group.

Former President Donald J. Trump, who has frequently presented himself as a unflinching ally of Israel and who moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in 2018, blamed Mr. Biden for the conflict.

While campaigning on Saturday in Waterloo, Iowa, he said the attacks had occurred because we are perceived as being weak and ineffective, with a really weak leader.

On several occasions, Mr. Trump went further, saying that the hostage deal was a catalyst of the attacks. The war happened for two reasons, he said. The United States is giving and gave to Iran $6 billion over hostages.

In exchange for the release of five Americans held in Tehran, the Biden administration agreed in August to free up $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenue funds for humanitarian purposes. The administration has emphasized that the money could be used only for food, medicine, medical equipment that would not have a dual military use.

A senior Biden administration official responded to the comments by Mr. Trump as well as to criticism by other Republican candidates by calling them total lies and accusing the politicians of having either a complete misunderstanding of the facts or of participating willingly in a complete mischaracterization and disinformation of facts.

Another Biden administration official, Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said in a statement, These funds have absolutely nothing to do with the horrific attacks today, and this is not the time to spread disinformation.

Mr. Trump, the G.O.P. front-runner, was not alone in assailing Mr. Biden, as the entire Republican field weighed in on the attacks on Saturday.

In a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida faulted the Biden administration for its foreign policy decisions in the Middle East.

Iran has helped fund this war against Israel, and Joe Bidens policies that have gone easy on Iran has helped to fill their coffers, he said. Israel is now paying the price for those policies.

In a statement issued through the White House, Mr. Biden pledged solidarity with Israel and said that he had spoken with Benjamin Netanyahu, the countrys prime minister.

The United States unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, and I made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the Government and people of Israel, Mr. Biden said.

Yet while the G.O.P. candidates rallied around Israel on Saturday, there is a divide in the party between foreign policy hawks and those who favor a more isolationist approach.

In addition to criticizing Mr. Biden on Saturday, former Vice President Mike Pence had harsh words for fellow Republicans who prefer a more hands-off approach to conflicts abroad.

This is what happens when @POTUS projects weakness on the world stage, kowtows to the mullahs in Iran with a $6 Billion ransom, and leaders in the Republican Party signal American retreat as Leader of the Free World, Mr. Pence wrote on X. Weakness arouses evil.

Other Republican candidates, including Nikki Haley, who was an ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina denounced the attacks as acts of terrorism.

Make no mistake: Hamas is a bloodthirsty terrorist organization backed by Iran and determined to kill as many innocent lives as possible, Ms. Haley said in a statement.

Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey echoed the criticism of his Republican rivals in a social media post, calling the release of $6 billion by the Biden administration to Iran idiotic. Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and Mr. Hutchinson similarly sought to connect the attack with the release of humanitarian funds for Iran.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur, called the attacks barbaric and medieval in a post on X.

Shooting civilians and kidnapping children are war crimes, he wrote. Israels right to exist & defend itself should never be doubted and Iran-backed Hamas & Hezbollah cannot be allowed to prevail.

Michael Gold contributed reporting from Waterloo, Iowa, and Nicholas Nehamas from Keosauqua, Iowa.

Read more here:
Trump and Other GOP Candidates Use Israel-Gaza to Criticize Biden - The New York Times

A short window is all we need in the House to reinstate Kevin McCarthy and change the rule, Rep. John Duarte (R-Calif.) told POLITICO.

Duarte also said he thought the Biden administrations positions and our disarray in the House, were factors in the timing of the attacks.

Israel attacks have moderates holding out for the one person who can truly unite us: Kevin McCarthy, according to a third House GOP lawmaker.

McCarthy is aware and grateful of the growing effort to reinstate him, but hes not engaging at this point, this lawmaker added.

The attempt to reinstall McCarthy faces long odds. Two strong candidates are running active campaigns with only days to go before voting, and many dozens of Republicans have already made endorsements. There is little reason to think the basic math for McCarthy has changed for McCarthy since last Tuesday.

Republicans behind the push, however, believe the urgency to address the terror attacks and aid Israel could pressure the eight House Republicans who voted against McCarthy earlier this week to switch their stance. The third House GOP lawmaker said the members behind the push are still livid at the Republicans who voted against McCarthy, a staunch Israel supporter, and are using this moment to show how wrong they were.

McCarthy played an active role in the House GOP response to the attacks Saturday, railing against the Biden administrations actions and noting the House is currently unable to move major legislation without a speaker.

There is nothing the House can do until they elect a speaker, and I dont know if that happens quickly, McCarthy told Fox News.

Lawmakers are also are looking into outlining more clear powers for acting Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry in the short-term or possibly by electing him speaker outright.

The House could take other actions to get around McHenrys restrained role, including voting him in as a speaker pro tempore, thus shedding his acting title to give him more authority while Republicans figure out who they want to lead them. If McHenry attempts to act, on Israel legislation or any other, without broader authority from the House, he risks being challenged on the floor and votes to overturn his actions.

The push for McCarthy or McHenry are more palatable options for many vulnerable Republicans, especially those in Biden districts, who are not closely aligned with either of the current candidates Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

A major complicating factor is that both Democrats and Republicans in the House have made clear that they are interpreting McHenrys role in its narrowest form, which at this point would limit him from bringing legislation to the floor before a speaker is elected.

There is no precedent for how broadly McHenry can exert powers within the House, and that has driven some Republicans to explore other paths to move legislation to bolster Israel in the coming days or weeks.

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) said Saturday that she will introduce legislation to supplement funding for Israels Iron Dome missile defense system and is urging Republicans and Democrats to quickly bring this bill to the floor.

Our disunity in Capitol Hill is weakening Americas position as a global leader and hindering our ability to respond to atrocities committed by Hamas on the Israeli people, Rep. Jim Baird (R-Ind.) said Saturday. We must stop these political games and show leadership during this international emergency.

But that as seen in January is not a swift process. House Republicans are expected to host a candidate forum on Tuesday and hold a closed door, secret ballot internal election on Wednesday. With neither candidate close to the 218 votes needed to clinch the gavel, it is not yet clear when it could reach the floor for a final vote.

Other House Republicans have called for McHenry and House GOP conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to move up the speaker election thats slated to begin next Wednesday.

We need to have a forum Sunday or Monday, Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.) posted on X Saturday.

We are paralyzed as a body, Alford added. World events dictate urgency.

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Some Republicans making bid to bring back McCarthy to move on aid to Israel - POLITICO - POLITICO

WASHINGTON To Rep. Mike Collins, China is a bigger threat to the United States than Russia. So the Georgia Republican has voted against providing military aid to Ukraine as he advocates for doing more to arm Taiwan, the self-governed island thats at risk of military aggression from Beijing.

For Collins and other Republican lawmakers, Taiwan and Ukraine are effectively rivals for a limited pool of U.S. military assistance. But thats not necessarily how Taiwan and many of its supporters see it. They view Taiwans fate as closely linked to that of Ukraine as it struggles to push back a Russian invasion.

They say China is watching closely to see if the United States has the political stamina to support an ally in a prolonged, costly war. The U.S. aid to Ukraine also has led to weapons manufacturers stepping up production something that could benefit Taiwan in a clash with China.

Read More: Taiwan's Civilian Soldiers, Watching Ukraine, Worry They Aren't Prepared to Defend Their Island

Ukraines survival is Taiwans survival. Ukraines success is Taiwans success, Taiwans diplomat in the U.S., Hsiao Bi-Khim, said in May at the Sedona Forum hosted by the McCain Institute.

Still, Taiwan has been careful not to weigh in on the U.S. debate about continued funding for Ukraine, which has become a divisive political issue after initially having strong bipartisan support.

Asked about Congress removing Ukraine funding from a temporary spending measure that prevented a U.S. government shutdown on Oct. 1, Taiwans diplomatic office responded with discretion.

Taiwan is grateful to have strong bipartisan support from the U.S. We will continue to work with the U.S. to maintain the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press.

But Congress refusal to include the aid raises alarm bells in Taiwan. said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund. She noted that the Taiwanese government has argued that Ukraines victory is existential for Taiwan.,

These worries exist even though most Republicans who seek to end U.S. support for Ukraine are still very pro-Taiwan and willing to do more to help defend Taiwan, she said.

Taiwan is the thorniest issue in the frayed U.S.-China relationship. Beijing claims sovereignty over the island, which lies roughly 100 miles (160 kilometers) off the mainlands southeastern coast, and vows to seize it, by force if necessary, to achieve national reunification. The United States wants a peaceful resolution and has a security pact with the island, supplying it with military hardware and technologies to prevent any forced takeover by Beijing.

Read More: Both Wary of War, Taiwans Voters Eye China and China Eyes Taiwans Voters

China's military actions near the island have fueled concerns over armed attacks. President Joe Biden has said he would send troops to defend Taiwan in case of war, while Chinese President Xi Jinping has demanded the U.S. respect his country's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Collins traveled to Taiwan on his first overseas trip as a congressman. When he returned, he called for timely weapon deliveries to the island, especially since as much as $19 billion worth of weapons sold to Taiwan have been delayed.

These delays are primarily a result of a U.S. manufacturing backlog and a distracted Biden administration with weapons deliveries to Ukraine taking preference over Taiwan, Collin said. We must get serious about offering support to our ally Taiwan because ultimately when it comes to countering China, our interests align.

Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center of Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, disagrees with that logic.

It's not a zero-sum game, he said. Taiwan supports the U.S. aid to Ukraine. They understand that the deterrence message works.

And on a practical level, Bowman said, the aid for Ukraine is helping the U.S. expand its weapons production, which will both benefit Taiwan and enhance U.S. military readiness.

Read More: China Plays Long Game With Softer Response to Taiwan President Visiting U.S.

Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who in April led a congressional delegation to Taiwan as chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said support for the island has not diminished on the Hill.

Throughout the conversations about aid to Ukraine, I have not heard a single person take a swipe at Taiwan," McCaul said at a recent National Day celebration hosted by Taiwans representative office in Washington.

Glaser said the Chinese leadership is unlikely to discount the U.S. support for Taiwan, even when U.S. support for Ukraine is waning, but it is likely to exploit any failure to fund Ukraine in a disinformation campaign to sow doubts among the Taiwanese people about the U.S. commitment to their defense.

In a social media post, Hu Xijin, a retired chief editor of the Communist Party-run Global Times newspaper and now a political commentator, said this month that most U.S. overseas military interventions have rotted if the U.S. fails to cinch a rapid victory.

Read more here:
Some Republicans Want Less Aid for Ukraine and More for TaiwanBut Taiwan Doesn't - TIME