I am trying to wrap my head around the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, section 3.
“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.”
I think I now understand what it means and how it works. It could prevent Trump from running. I felt that it could not be utilized unless the charges against him with respect to the insurrection on Jan. 6th were proven in court. But that is not the case.
Each state must certify candidates. I think that is done by the Secretary of State of each state. It is that person who says you are qualified under the Constitution to run for president. For instance, you must be a naturally born citizen. So if you are not, the Secretary of State would say you were unqualified to be on the ballot. Any Secretary of State declared Trump unqualified in any given state. The Trump side would initiate a lawsuit that would eventually and quickly go to the Supreme Court. It would be this court and not Congress that would decide the question. One of the disqualifications is supporting the insurrectionist. Trump has given a lot of support to these people. So maybe the Supreme Court would do the right thing. The only role for Congress is that they can overrule this and let the candidate run for office, but it requires a 2/3 majority from both houses. That is not going to happen.
I don’t know if this would occur at the primaries or just in general. I think the latter.
If a Secretary of State in any state certified Trump, they could be sued as well, which could go to the Supreme Court via this path.
Two Thirds Done 
Counting on is Supreme Court to do anything is a big mistake. 6 out of three 9 are so called conservatives, 3 were appointed by Trump. Several are guilty of accepting, bribes. The last time the court had a to make an important political decision it was on the Bush vs Gore presidential race in Florida. The court had 5 republicans and 4 democrats<. All nine voted for their own party. There is nothing supreme about the court and the idea that no one is above the law is not realistic.
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Hard to argue with this although I don’t think they like Trump. But probably more than they like Biden.
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If Supreme court decisions are down to who they like and who they dislike, I guess we are better of with MSNBC and Fox News deciding for us what is constitutional and what is not. At least they have no preferences and they are neutral.
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Six of them represent Fox and three represent MSNBC.
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I meant that I am not convinced SCOTUS judges are so corrupted.
I think there’s a philosophical difference between conservative judges and progressive ones: the former believe that they must strictly verify the conformity of laws and court rulings with the constitution as conceived by the founding fathers, while the latter believe that the constitution must be interpreted in an evolutionary manner, in line with social trends, and must not remain static.
BTW Aisle’s Fox News and Fox News today are not the same anymore. Fox News became never Trumper, fired Bill O’Reilly and Tucker Carlson, and moved toward the center. In the 2020 election cycle, James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn, donated $100 million to political causes, mostly to Democratic-leaning groups.
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I agree that there is a philosophical difference between conservative and progressive judges. Not surprisingly, I side with the progressive ones, as the Constitution could not comprehend many of today’s issues. I don’t understand why Fox moved away from Trump, but to the extent they did, that is good. James, whom I know (in fact, I know or better said, knew all the Murdochs), has always been liberal and broke from Fox long ago.
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I should say that Thomas is corrupt, in my opinion.
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