Anything but an
Yes.
Not a novel application at all, it's entirely straightforward. 1) The Constitution bars officials who engage in insurrection from office. 2) Trump engaged in an insurrection. 1 -> 2.
Although it is true it's never been applied to a presidential candidate/former president before. This is of course because no other one engaged in an insurrection! Similarly, the Espionage Act had never been applied to a former president before...because no others violated the Espionage Act.
This is a political argument, not a legal one.
This disagreement is facially ridiculous. The idea that the people who wrote the 14th amendment thought any federal official engaging in insurrection should be barred from office except for the most powerful one is laughable.
Can anyone explain with a straight face why the framers of the 14th amendment would write it to say say 'insurrection is barred unless you're the president, in that case insurrect all you want.'?
That doesn't make the case weak.
This I agree with - but corruption in the federal judiciary doesn't make the case weak, it makes the judiciary corrupt.
For these reasons plus the need for no appearance of a conflict of interest, an 8,0 decision is the only one that can represent an Supreme Court following the law and the Constitution. This is simply crystal clear. A decision other than that will indicate who is corrupt and who is not. So what makes corruption possible. The problem, of course, is that no matter the number of layers of protection against corruption we can think of to put in place all of them, where human beings are involved, are subject to human ego. For unenlightened humans every ego-involved moral question comes down to whose ox gets gored.
And that is because self hate creates fear. Our egos become attached to isms out in the world as a ego identification that provides a source of phony pride. In the Supreme Court today we see that as a commitment to God over the Constitution. Good depends on Him and not man made law and where the Constitution does not match the religious belief it will get shoe horned in via legal fictions and rationalizations. This is all because as children the religious are taught that their souls are at risk of eternal damnation if they do not behave. You will get no justice from them that derives solely from secular wisdom.
What can be done? How can there ever be an answer to this that does not depend on a person's inner character. Only the ego free can resist this. Only those who willing to sacrifice their own personal ambitions and truth for the sake of others can offer any hope. Meanwhile, some help can come from changes in the law that determine who sits on the court and how many justices there are, length of terms etc. Another would be, in my opinion, that lawyers arguing for justice against the political bias they perceive in the court should make their suspicions known and directly challenge the justices in arguments as to where their bias is coming from and why they have it. Thirdly, we need to find some way to reinvigorate the determination among the population of our nation to prefer truth above all else, to develop better citizens and inner character.
It would also be nice if millions of people would take to the streets around the Supreme Court. Why should justices willing to put their own political philosophies above the interests of democracy get to live their lives in peace. Why shouldn't a call for justice hammer in their ears. We know that decisions by the unenlightened are made on the basis of self interest and self interests change with the environment. A new fear can cancel override another. Other people have interests too.