WorldNetDaily had a minor meltdown when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump could be removed from the 2024 presidential election ballot after he was found to have violated the 14th Amendment clause against insurrection. WND’s first move was to attack the legal system itself, which Bob Unruh did in a Dec. 20 article:
It was only a few years ago that Colorado’s courts were scolded by the U.S. Supreme Court for their “hostility” to Christianity.
That came in the case in which the state persecuted baker Jack Phillips for his decision not to violate his Christian faith by promoting the LGBT lifestyle choices.
Now, after the Colorado Supreme Court, without charges or a conviction, declared President Donald Trump guilty of being an “insurrectionist,” it will be known for its “banana republic election interference.”
That’s according to legal expert Hans von Spakovsky.
Unruh then moved to attacking the Supreme Court justices themselves in another article:
Four Democrat appointees on the Colorado Supreme Court who decided that President Donald Trump was guilty of being an “insurrectionist,” without any evidence of a conviction, or even charges, included a musician and a “gay icon,” according to an analysis by the Daily Mail.
The four made up a majority of the seven-member court that has claimed that Trump is not eligible to run for office in 2024 because of a relic from the Civil War, a constitutional provision that uniquely already has allowed Congress to overrule its requirements.
[…] [Monica] Marquez, a Yale graduate, promotes her “gay” lifestyle through the Colorado LGBT Bar Association.The report said Hood was praised by Democrat Gov. John Hickenlooper at his appointment for creating “informed decisions.”
Unruh didn’t explain what the point was of attacking Marquez’s sexuality; he also nonsenically lashed out at another justice because he is “known for playing his trumpet in various jazz bands.”
Joe Kovacs complained that there was one Republican who approved of the decision:
While most Republicans running for president are rallying to Donald Trump’s defense after the Colorado Supreme Court kicked the former commander in chief off the ballot Tuesday, one GOP presidential candidate is wholeheartedly agreeing with the decision.
It was a 4 to 3 ruling in which the state’s Supreme Court decided Trump should be disqualified under the 14th Amendment, which precludes candidates who engaged in an insurrection, a bogus reference to the events of Jan. 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol.
Now, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is among the lowest polling candidates for the Republican nomination, is voicing complete support for the legal ruling.
The Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling barring Donald Trump from the presidential ballot is what I raised as a concern in the first presidential debate in Milwaukee,” Hutchinson wrote.
“The factual finding that he supported insurrection will haunt his candidacy.”
The other Republicans still in the White House hunt are circling the wagons or Trump.
Unruh cheered Colorado Republicans planning to fight the ruling by disenfranchising voters and making the state’s Republican primary a private caucus:
It is a weaponized, Democrat-run state Supreme Court in Colorado that has banned President Donald Trump from the Republican primary heading into the 2024 presidential election.
But what if that ban applies to a primary that doesn’t exist?
[…]The new report said, “The Colorado GOP won’t tolerate Donald Trump being taken off the ballot by the Democrat Supreme Court. What the Supreme Court does doesn’t matter. The GOP has decided to withdraw and move to a caucus system if this is allowed to stand.”
Unruh also hyped a Trump lawyer unsurprisingly dismissing the ruling:
A lawyer for President Donald Trump says she’s “not even concerned” about a radical leftist ruling from Democrat judges on the Colorado Supreme Court, who want Trump banned from the state’s GOP primary.
The stunning decision that ignored the Constitution’s requirement for due process and court precedent and congressional intent was announced yesterday to the delight of those weaponizing the court system against Trump, and guffaws from those with a more constitutional perspective.
Trump lawyer Alina Habba was asked about the situation, and she predicted the Supreme Court will address the state court’s political activism quickly, and the result “could be” 9-0 for Trump.
“This is the problem that I face very day … judges want to make a name for themselves. They think they’re pioneers for the liberal radical left. You’re not a pioneer, you’re going to look ridiculous,” she said.
No explanation was provided for how a ruling that literally invokes the Constitution cannot be constitutional.
Also unclear on the concept is Laura Hollis, who ranted in her Dec. 21 column:
The latest travesty is the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court to strike Trump’s name from the ballot in that state “for his role in the January 6, 2021” riots at the U.S. Capitol. This gravely inappropriate decision not only exceeds the court’s power according to legal experts on both the Left and Right, but is an obvious effort to ignore mounting evidence that undermines the Left’s narrative that the Jan. 6 protests were an “insurrection” that Trump “instigated,” an accusation for which Trump has not been criminally charged, and for which he was acquitted by the U.S. Senate in the second impeachment proceeding.
A bare 4-3 majority of the Colorado Supreme Court has disqualified the candidacy of a man with nearly 70% support from his own party and increasing support from constituencies traditionally outside the realm of the GOP. This is disenfranchisement of Colorado voters and interference with a national election.
Whether one thinks that Trump is the devil or that his enemies are, the best protection against unlawful conduct is integrity in the application of the laws themselves.
When the rule of law is compromised, diluted or discarded – even in pursuit of some purportedly lofty aim (“Saving our democracy!” “Fighting misinformation!” “Dismantling systemic racism!” “Liberating Palestine!”) – wrongdoers profit while the public suffers.
Hollis appears to have forgotten that a conviction on insurrection charges is not mandated by the 14th Amendment, and Trump’s impeachment acquittal is irrelevant because impeachment is a political action, not a criminal one.
From there, WND moved on to plotting political revenge. Unruh touted one plot to do so in a Dec. 22 article:
Democrats and other extremists across America have been trying for months already to get President Donald Trump removed from the 2024 presidential ballot – primary ballots right now and then the general election ballot.
They claim that he’s an “insurrectionist” and being guilty of “insurrection” he’s ineligible for office. Of course, their arguments lack foundation since he’s never been charged with such a crime, and in the House, where Democrats made that claim during an unsuccessful impeach-and-remove scheme, he was acquitted.
Nevertheless, four far-left judges in Colorado this week gave them their wish, ruling in a decision that is being appealed that Trump’s name should be struck from Colorado’s ballot.
That now actually has opened a “tit-for-tat” season of disqualifications, where each party apparently will be trying to have opponents disqualified. Already, Republicans in three states have contended that Joe Biden is an “insurrectionist” for his radical decision to throw America’s southern border wide open and welcome millions of illegal aliens, and as he’s guilty of “insurrection,” he’s disqualified from the 2024 ballot.
Unruh touted a different plot in another article that day:
Activist Democrats all across America have been trying in recent months to use their “lawfare” election strategy that includes removing his name from the ballot against President Donald Trump, the leader, among candidates in both parties, to be elected to the Oval Office in 2024.
They’ve largely struck out, except for a ruling from four Democrats on an activist Colorado state Supreme Court that said he was an “insurrectionist,” even though he’s never been charged with that crime in court.
Democrats in the House accused him of that during one of their failed impeach-and-remove strategies several years ago, but he was acquitted.
But apparently now that the plan to fight an opposing candidate by demanding his name be removed from the ballot is so common, Republicans are using it.
Essentially the charges are that he’s an “insurrectionist” because of the southern border crisis he created – and the related charge he’s refused to defend the nation and its border.
Under the standard being demanded by Democrats, as an “insurrectionist” he would be ineligible to run for office again.
Given that Republicans can’t even get their act together enough to manufacture an impeachment of Biden on those charges, it’s unlikely any attempt to remove Biden from the ballot would hold up. But then, when have facts ever held back Republicans or WND?