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<title>06 January, 2024</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What’s Behind Israel’s Crackdown in the West Bank?</strong> - The Palestinian political analyst Ibrahim Dalalsha on the politics behind the violence and settlement expansion since October 7th. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/whats-behind-israels-crackdown-in-the-west-bank">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Ghost of January 6th Haunts 2024</strong> - The impending Biden-vs.-Trump rematch already has one dominant theme. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/the-ghost-of-january-6th-haunts-2024">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The California Town Owned by a New York Investment Firm</strong> - Scotia was created, a century and a half ago, so that lumberjacks could live near the trees they cut down. Its current owners have been trying for more than a decade to bring new residents to town. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/scotia-the-california-town-owned-by-a-new-york-investment-firm">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why Some Academics Are Reluctant to Call Claudine Gay a Plagiarist</strong> - A political-science professor wrestles with his role in the drama surrounding the former Harvard president. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-some-academics-are-reluctant-to-call-claudine-gay-a-plagiarist">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Joe Biden Makes Saving Democracy the Center of His Campaign</strong> - The President and his team are framing the 2024 race as a binary choice between him and an authoritarian Donald Trump. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/joe-biden-makes-saving-democracy-the-center-of-his-campaign">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>Why Taiwan is 2024’s first big election to watch</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="The candidate, in the midst of a crowd, smiles and clasps hands with a supporter." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZJMeFe3BJbiQG6jQTIVz92J7KXE=/278x0:4713x3326/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73029116/1896202515.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Taiwanese vice president and presidential candidate Lai Ching-te on the campaign trail in Taipei on January 3, 2024. | Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Next week’s presidential contest comes down to one issue: China.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fCdCFS">
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Even amid a<a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2024/1/3/24022864/elections-democracy-2024-united-states-india-pakistan-indonesia-european-parliament-far-right-voting'"> historically packed global election</a> calendar in 2024, next week’s presidential contest in Taiwan will be one of the most closely watched and significant. The political future of the island and its historically fraught relationship with <a href="https://www.vox.com/china">China</a> — by far the main issue for voters this year — will have consequences not just for Taiwan’s nearly 24 million people, but for global security and prosperity.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cJD1fG">
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China views Taiwan as a rebellious province, rather than an independent country, and Beijing’s longstanding position is that the two should be reunified. Chinese President Xi Jinping <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/fc1dfe48-a390-48c3-b27c-7e405978c166">recently described</a> this reunification as a “historical inevitability” in his New Year’s address.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oi1Cga">
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While China’s official position has been that this reunification — something Taiwanese voters <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-is-unification-so-unpopular-in-taiwan-its-the-prc-political-system-not-just-culture/">overwhelmingly oppose</a> — should be accomplished by peaceful means, it has not ruled out using force and has stepped up military and economic pressure on the island. This has alarmed governments and military leaders around the world, given the real possibility that a war over Taiwan could draw in other countries<a href="https://themessenger.com/grid/test-imagining-the-unimaginable-the-us-china-and-war-over-taiwan"> including the United States</a> and devastate the global <a href="https://www.vox.com/economy">economy</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Haxwlo">
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Underlining the stakes, a senior Chinese official warned Taiwanese voters this week to make the “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/chinese-official-urges-taiwans-people-make-correct-choice-election-2024-01-03/">correct</a>” choice, describing the election as a decision between “peace and war, prosperity and decline.”
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</p>
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<h3 id="T7f3rh">
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China on the ballot
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B6NnXp">
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The January 13 election pits current Vice President Lai Ching-te, also known as William Lai, of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) against Taipei Mayor Hou You-ih of the Kuomintang (KMT), as well as third-party candidate Ko Wen-je, of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wLNamd">
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Lai has been <a href="https://www.economist.com/interactive/2024-taiwan-election">leading in the polls</a> throughout the election, and benefited when an attempt by the two opposition parties to form a unity ticket collapsed in a <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2023/11/how-the-taiwan-opposition-alliance-talks-fell-apart/">messy public spat</a> in November. But the race has been tightening in recent weeks — Lai led by 5 points at the end of December. “Most people expect Lai to win, but I wouldn’t rule out a surprise,” said <a href="https://www.gmfus.org/find-experts/bonnie-s-glaser">Bonnie Glaser</a>, managing director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the Washington-based German Marshall Fund.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PdMBDY">
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In other places, voters might be debating taxes or social issues or government spending. But Taiwanese politics hinges on one subject.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DYyqX4">
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“Every election is ultimately about China, which makes the two parties big tents on everything else,” <a href="https://www.ipsas.sinica.edu.tw/en/%E7%A0%94%E7%A9%B6%E4%BA%BA%E5%93%A1/%E9%AE%91%E5%BD%A4/">Nathan Batto</a>, a professor of political science at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, told Vox. Supporters of one party “might be for higher taxes or lower taxes, for gay marriage or against it. The fundamental cleavage is China.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3Hjp8V">
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The KMT is descended from the nationalist party that led mainland China for two decades until retreating to Taiwan after the communist takeover in 1949. The KMT controlled Taiwan as an autocratic, one-party state until the island’s bumpy transition to democracy in the 1990s.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s8fRXP">
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Though the KMT long presented itself as the legitimate government not only of Taiwan but mainland China, ironically it is now the party that favors maintaining closer economic and political ties with Communist Party-ruled China. The DPP, which has held the presidency since 2016, argues that Taiwan is too reliant on the mainland and should build closer ties with other international powers. (The more recently founded TPP has tried to forge a middle ground between the two, with mixed success.)
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="olCX3t">
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Under outgoing DPP President Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-reports-21-chinese-air-force-planes-entered-its-air-defence-zone-2023-03-02/#:~:text=TAIPEI%2C%20March%202%20(Reuters),Chinese%20air%20force%20incursions%20nearby.">deepened its relationship </a>with the US, securing billions of dollars in new arms deals from Washington. The Tsai administration also experienced the most serious crisis in the Taiwan Strait in years when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/7/26/23278113/drama-nancy-pelosi-taiwan-travel-plans-china-policy-biden-explained">visited the island</a> in August 2022. Pelosi was the highest-ranking US official to come to Taiwan since 1997, which prompted China to respond with <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/3/china-conducts-live-fire-exercises-around-taiwan-as-pelosi-visits">live-fire military drills</a> around Taiwan while Pelosi was present.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SNmpdL">
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While the current election campaign in Taiwan has been bitter and polarizing, the debate itself takes place between very defined and fairly narrow guardrails.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pH1iz3">
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“<a href="https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/more-than-80-percent-of-taiwanese-01092019115150.html">More than 80 percent</a> of our people oppose reunification now,” said <a href="https://indsr.org.tw/en/archive?uid=44">Shen Ming-shih</a>, deputy CEO at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a Taiwanese think tank. “If a political party tried to revive the idea, they would be rejected immediately,”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c4PYXY">
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At the same time, neither party advocates declaring full independence, a highly provocative move that might risk war. In recent debates, the DPP’s<a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3246039/frontrunner-william-lai-challenged-renounce-independence-first-taiwan-election-debate"> Lai has had to defend past statements</a> in which he described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence.” Nowadays, Lai <a href="https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2023/08/16/2003804803">says</a> he subscribes to President Tsai’s position that there is no need to formally declare independence since the island “is already a sovereign, independent country called the Republic of China.” In other words, Taiwan is a de facto independent state, albeit one that is only formally recognized by a handful of small countries.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s5ULPu">
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Lai has <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3246417/taiwan-election-hopeful-william-lai-says-kmts-embrace-one-china-dividing-island">argued</a> that the KMT’s embrace of Beijing is actually the more dangerous path, and would put the country’s hard-fought sovereignty at risk. “Instead of countering the communists, they now befriend the communists,” he has said.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tRHDjk">
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If it returns to power, a Kuomintang government would be likely to try to lower the tensions across the Taiwan Strait and promote more <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/taiwans-2024-presidential-election-analyzing-hou-yu-ihs-foreign-policy-positions">trade, tourism, and cultural exchanges</a> between the two countries, all of which have declined under Tsai’s administration. But Batto is skeptical that a KMT win would dispel tensions altogether. The last time the KMT was in power, from 2008 to 2016, then-President Ma Ying-jeou took a more conciliatory tone and forged a number of trade deals with China, but Beijing <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9072a12e-b9d5-4385-a76f-e7f14f2e05e4">was ultimately disappointed </a>by the public backlash this brief detente provoked in Taiwan. In the years since, China under Xi has become even more authoritarian, widening the political gap with a <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/taiwan">highly democratic Taiwan</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KTvYpY">
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“It may be that [Beijing has] given up on the idea of achieving unification through winning at Taiwanese domestic politics,” Batto said. “They’re certainly not making any internal compromises to their own positions to build a constituency here.”
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</p>
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<h3 id="fTEHoy">
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Dialing up the pressure
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PwDEO7">
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Shen notes that in years past, Xi often played up the possibility of a “one country, two systems” model for Taiwan, referring to the arrangement by which Hong Kong, when it reverted to Beijing’s control in 1997, was promised a degree of political independence while being formally part of China. But Xi’s recent statements, including both his New Year’s address and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/xi-told-biden-taiwan-is-biggest-most-dangerous-issue-bilateral-ties-us-official-2023-11-16/">tough remarks </a>about Taiwan during a recent meeting with <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden">President Joe Biden</a>, showed the Chinese leader’s “determination to accomplish reunification.” And the promise of “one country, two systems” lost all credibility after Beijing-backed authorities <a href="https://apnews.com/article/china-hong-kong-beijing-democracy-national-security-9e3c405923c24b6889c1bcf171f6def4">cracked down on Hong Kong’s democratic opposition</a> in 2021.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lqZKeU">
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The trendlines in Taiwanese politics are certainly not heading China’s way. According to recent polls, <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-05-12/poll-taiwanese-distance-themselves-from-chinese-identity">66 percent of the population</a> now identifies as solely Taiwanese, as opposed to 28 percent as both Taiwanese and Chinese and just 4 percent as solely Chinese. (Notably, only 2.3 percent of Taiwan’s population is Indigenous, and not ethnically Chinese.) This trend is particularly pronounced among younger Taiwanese, including those whose grandparents or great-grandparents fled communist China.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hIK2oX">
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While there’s still significant trade across the Taiwan Strait, and Taiwanese companies like iPhone-maker FoxConn are major players in the mainland economy, the number of Taiwanese workers in mainland China has been <a href="https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2023/04/12/2003797746">falling steadily</a> in recent years. And while military tensions between the two are hardly new, China’s growing <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/19/china-defense-budget-military-weapons-purchasing-power/">military and economic power</a> has allowed it to dial up the pressure in recent years.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vJjYfd">
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This pressure campaign has included flying an increasing number of military aircraft into airspace around the island, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/china/taiwan-says-43-chinese-air-force-planes-crossed-taiwan-strait-median-line-2022-12-26/">sometimes up to dozens in a day</a>. Taiwanese officials have also claimed the government<a href="https://www.rfi.fr/en/taiwan-government-faces-5-million-cyber-attacks-daily-official"> faces millions of cyberattacks per month</a>, with about half of them believed to originate in China.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0Tmu29">
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China has also launched a campaign to use diplomatic pressure and financial inducements to encourage the remaining countries that have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan to drop them and recognize Beijing. Nine countries <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/04/not-about-the-highest-bidder-the-countries-defying-china-to-stick-with-taiwan">have dropped their recognition</a> of Taiwan since Tsai came to power in 2016. Just 13 countries remain, most of them small island states in the Pacific or Caribbean.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BWzHyI">
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China still has ways to <a href="https://themessenger.com/grid/how-a-chinese-naval-blockade-could-isolate-taiwan-and-send-shockwaves-across-the-world">dial up that pressure further</a>, including interfering with trade, either through a full blockade or by pressuring companies to avoid shipping to an island that is highly dependent on imports of food and energy.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5YkdxD">
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“China’s strategy has long been to try and erode the confidence of the people of Taiwan and and induce a sense of psychological despair,” said Glaser. The hope in Beijing, Glaser says, is that Taiwan’s population will reluctantly conclude that “the best future is one in which they are part of China in some way.”
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</p>
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<h3 id="DeGnaL">
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The toll of war
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DBP2J6">
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That’s how China’s wait-it-out strategy might work. But there is also the disturbing possibility that Xi, or one of his successors, could lose patience with Taiwanese intransigence.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tGj6me">
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Xi has said repeatedly that the task of reunification should not be “passed on from generation to generation.” During his recent summit meeting with Biden, Xi emphasized that he was still committed to peaceful reunification but, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/xi-told-biden-taiwan-is-biggest-most-dangerous-issue-bilateral-ties-us-official-2023-11-16/">according to US officials who were present,</a> “moved immediately to conditions that the potential use of force could be utilized.” Former US Indo-Pacific commander Adm. Phil Davidson suggested in congressional testimony in 2021 that China is likely to move on Taiwan “<a href="https://news.usni.org/2021/03/09/davidson-china-could-try-to-take-control-of-taiwan-in-next-six-years">in the next six years</a>.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CCIdHS">
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Such a war, if it did come, could make the <a href="https://www.vox.com/russia-invasion-ukraine">Russian invasion of Ukraine</a> look small by comparison. Some analysts have suggested an invading force of 1 million to 2 million troops <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/05/why-a-taiwan-invasion-would-look-nothing-like-d-day/">might be necessary</a>. The war could involve the United States, as well. Under what’s known as the “one-China policy,” the US technically recognizes Taiwan as part of China and doesn’t have formal diplomatic relations with Taipei. But in practice, Washington has become Taiwan’s most important political backer and <a href="https://www.forumarmstrade.org/ustaiwan.html">supplier of military equipment</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mLyZau">
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The US hasn’t made clear as an official matter of policy whether it would come to Taiwan’s aid if the island were attacked, a stance known as “strategic ambiguity.” But President Biden <a href="https://themessenger.com/grid/the-big-taiwan-question-as-china-issues-warnings-and-holds-military-drills-is-a-chinese-invasion-imminent">has said on three separate occasions</a> that the US has a commitment to defend Taiwan, and though the White House walked back these statements each time, growing tensions between Washington and Beijing may make US involvement more likely. Many analyses of a potential conflict have suggested that China might even preemptively <a href="https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2021-02/Thomas_Shugart_Testimony.pdf">strike US bases in the Pacific </a>to hamper the American response.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8Lb26i">
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The human toll of such a war would be staggering. A <a href="https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/230109_Cancian_FirstBattle_NextWar.pdf?VersionId=WdEUwJYWIySMPIr3ivhFolxC_gZQuSOQ">recent wargame by the Center for Strategic and International Studies</a> found that while a US-led international force, presumably including East Asian allies like Japan, could defeat the Chinese military in a conflict over Taiwan, in just three weeks of fighting, the US could lose half as many troops as in 20 years of fighting in Iraq and <a href="https://www.vox.com/afghanistan">Afghanistan</a>. In the CSIS scenario, the US was projected to lose two aircraft carriers and 10 to 20 large surface ships — the kind of losses not seen since World War II. And this is even without taking into account <a href="https://themessenger.com/grid/china-may-soon-become-the-worlds-third-nuclear-superpower-heres-what-that-means">China’s growing nuclear arsenal</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Il4ofb">
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While the fighting would likely be contained around Taiwan, the economic impact of a war, or even just a full-scale Chinese blockade of the island, would be felt worldwide. Taiwan’s dominant company, TSMC, <a href="https://themessenger.com/grid/how-a-chinese-naval-blockade-could-isolate-taiwan-and-send-shockwaves-across-the-world">produces the microchips</a> used in nearly all the world’s smartphones, about a third of its personal computers, and myriad other devices. Should these highly sophisticated factories suffer major damage or be destroyed in the course of an invasion, “we’d face an economic crisis globally akin to the disruptions that we saw during the Great Depression,” as Chris Miller, author of the book <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/chip-war-the-fight-for-the-world-s-most-critical-technology-chris-miller/18265375?gclid=CjwKCAiA7t6sBhAiEiwAsaieYoVdXQyIu2q_kuaB9mThnY64GGS-7PbABJuyBHlnn9uyvNAISU4yzhoC7mwQAvD_BwE"><em>Chip War</em></a>, said on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-chris-miller.html"><em>The Ezra Klein Show</em> last year</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DXvUhk">
|
||
The world’s reliance on these chips is so great that it has sometimes been called Taiwan’s “silicon shield.” The idea is that the global economy, very much including China itself, is simply too reliant on Taiwan-made semiconductors to risk any action that might take the supply offline. But as the invasion of Ukraine has shown, countries can be willing to incur severe economic costs to accomplish what they see as major geopolitical goals — and reunification is about as fundamental as it gets for China.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qNGX5z">
|
||
Of course, the costs borne by the world pale in relation to those that would be felt by Taiwan in an invasion scenario.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="17QaVD">
|
||
“Internationally, a lot of people look at Ukraine as an inspirational story of resisting aggression and the encroachment of a foreign power,” said Batto. “But here, we see apartment blocks [in Ukraine] being bombed and think, ‘That could be my house.’”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="afRD9H">
|
||
For now, both parties in the election are committed to maintaining the uneasy status quo in the Taiwan Strait, even if they have very different ideas of how to do so. Unfortunately, its massive neighbor across the strait may be less interested in maintaining it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bT7hRr">
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>The Supreme Court’s new, nightmare abortion cases, explained</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="People at a rally outside the Supreme Court building carry signs that read “Keep abortion safe and legal” as well as “I am the pro-life generation.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lgNag7FlL5QMGArHGcEN6DBj20Y=/0x0:4259x3194/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73028138/GettyImages_1084718214.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Abortion rights activists hold signs alongside anti-abortion activists participating in the “March for Life,” an annual event to mark the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court case <em>Roe v. Wade</em>, which legalized abortion in the US, outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, January 18, 2019. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The Court blocked a lower court order enforcing a federal law that protects patients who require medically necessary abortions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jUNYwD">
|
||
The <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus">Supreme Court</a> handed down two significant orders on Friday evening. The <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/010524zr2_886b.pdf">first</a> announces that the Court will hear a case asking whether former <a href="https://www.vox.com/donald-trump">President Donald Trump</a> is <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2024/1/3/24022580/supreme-court-donald-trump-ballot-insurrection-fourteenth-amendment-colorado-anderson">disqualified from running for president</a>. The Court’s decision to hear this case was widely expected, and the biggest news in this order is that the Court plans to hear the case on an expedited basis, with oral arguments taking place on February 8.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mX8dyy">
|
||
The <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/010524zr_9o6b.pdf">second order</a> is more surprising and potentially almost as consequential: The Court temporarily blocked a <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/12/4/23984674/supreme-court-abortion-emtala-emergency-medically-necessary-idaho">lower court’s decision</a> holding that patients who require an <a href="https://www.vox.com/abortion">abortion</a> to save their life or prevent catastrophic health consequences are entitled to such an abortion under federal law.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i19d6P">
|
||
In the second order, the Court also agreed to hear a pair of cases asking whether federal law requires hospitals to perform medically necessary abortions. Those two cases are called <em>Moyle v. United States</em> and <em>Idaho v. United States.</em>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vSiKMt">
|
||
Both the <em>Moyle </em>and <em>Idaho</em> cases <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2024/1/3/24023889/abortion-supreme-court-emtala-fifth-circuit-texas-becerra">should be slam dunks in favor of abortion rights</a>. A federal law known as the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1395dd">Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act</a> (EMTALA) requires hospitals that receive Medicare funds — which is nearly all hospitals because Medicare pays for <a href="https://www.vox.com/health-care">health care</a> for the elderly — to provide “such treatment as may be required to stabilize the medical condition” of “any individual” who arrives at the hospital’s ER with an “emergency medical condition.” (In limited circumstances, the hospital may transfer the patient to a different facility that will provide this stabilizing treatment, but the patient must receive the treatment.)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uRVC1Z">
|
||
EMTALA does not specifically mention abortions, but the law is written expansively and applies a blanket rule. When a patient arrives at an emergency room with a medical emergency, the hospital must stabilize that patient. That means that, if an abortion is the medically appropriate treatment, the patient must receive an abortion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iXUHtS">
|
||
This rule is triggered, moreover, not only when a patient has a life-threatening condition, but also when a patient has a condition that places their health “in serious jeopardy,” that threatens “serious impairment to bodily functions,” or “serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part.” So a patient must be offered abortion care if an abortion will save their life, but also if they need an abortion to prevent serious damage to their uterus or some other serious medical complication.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X8cZVm">
|
||
The Court’s decision to hear the <em>Idaho</em> and <em>Moyle</em> cases is not particularly surprising because the far-right United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently handed down a decision holding that <a href="https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/23/23-10246-CV0.pdf">EMTALA does not apply to abortions at all</a>. That decision is riddled with errors; among other things, the Fifth Circuit didn’t even have the <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2024/1/3/24023889/abortion-supreme-court-emtala-fifth-circuit-texas-becerra">lawful authority to decide this case</a>. But the Supreme Court often takes up legal questions that split lower courts, and the Fifth Circuit’s decision means that lower courts are divided on whether EMTALA means what it says.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xBVOyY">
|
||
Still, the Court’s decision to also suspend a <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/12/4/23984674/supreme-court-abortion-emtala-emergency-medically-necessary-idaho">lower court’s order holding that EMTALA does mean what it says</a> and that it preempts an Idaho law that prohibits all abortions except when “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman” is quite unexpected. The Court sat on these two cases for more than a month before blocking the lower court’s decision. And, again, the EMTALA statute is crystal clear that patients experiencing a medical emergency must receive “such treatment as may be required to stabilize the medical condition” — nothing in EMTALA suggests that this rule does not apply if the appropriate treatment is an abortion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TL4j2n">
|
||
But this is the same Court that <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/6/24/23181720/supreme-court-dobbs-jackson-womens-health-samuel-alito-roe-wade-abortion-marriage-contraception">overruled <em>Roe v. Wade</em></a>, and five of the Court’s Republican appointees have shown an extraordinary willingness to bend the law to benefit anti-abortion litigants — even ruling that the state of Texas may <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/12/10/22827899/supreme-court-texas-abortion-law-sb8-decision-whole-womans-health">immunize itself from federal litigation challenging its anti-abortion laws</a> by using bounty hunters to enforce those laws.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rdmdFc">
|
||
So, while the Court’s order in the <em>Idaho</em> and <em>Moyle</em> cases isn’t a sure sign that these cases will end disastrously for women who will die if they don’t receive an abortion, it is still a terrible sign of what the future may bring for these patients. And, if nothing else, the Court’s decision to suspend the lower court’s decision holding that EMTALA applies to hospitals in Idaho endangers pregnant patients in that state — at least until the Court issues its final decision in these cases.
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>The Supreme Court arguments for (and against) removing Trump from the ballot, explained</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="Trump speaks intro a microphone." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zUF2MJYiLBCxPSynORvRDCZlmJQ=/334x0:5667x4000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73019145/1868528185.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks to guests at a campaign event on December 19, 2023, in Waterloo, Iowa. | Scott Olson/Getty Images
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The Constitution has a right to defend itself, but Trump also has a right to due process.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EV1P0b">
|
||
Shortly before Christmas, the Colorado <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus">Supreme Court</a> dropped a bombshell opinion ruling that former <a href="https://www.vox.com/donald-trump">President Donald Trump</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/12/20/24009521/supreme-court-donald-trump-colorado-ballot-insurrection-fourteenth-amendment-anderson-griswold">must be removed from the 2024 ballot</a> because of his failed effort to overturn the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election">2020 election</a> and his successful incitement of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. Maine’s top elections official reached a similar conclusion about a week later, <a href="https://www.maine.gov/sos/news/2023/Decision%20in%20Challenge%20to%20Trump%20Presidential%20Primary%20Petitions.pdf">removing Trump from the ballot in that state</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jvAymK">
|
||
On Friday, the Supreme Court announced it would take up the case, now known as <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/trump-v-anderson/"><em>Trump v. Anderson</em></a>. Oral arguments are scheduled for February 8.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s05sRA">
|
||
Last week, the Colorado Republican Party asked the justices to take up the question of whether Trump may serve as president after attempting to overthrow the US government. Trump filed a similar request shortly thereafter.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VtAPND">
|
||
While many of the Colorado GOP’s arguments are meritless and should not be taken seriously by any court, they are correct about one thing: The Supreme Court needs to resolve this case as fast as it can.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="O4QPvf">
|
||
Indeed, the plaintiffs in the <em>Anderson</em> litigation — six Colorado voters who seek to remove Trump from the ballot in that state — agree with the GOP that the US Supreme Court needs to hear this case on an expedited basis. They <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-696/294458/20231228130328129_20231228%20Anderson%20Resp%20to%20Petr%20Mot%20to%20Expedite.pdf">filed their own brief</a> explaining that “voting in Colorado happens mostly by mail and will begin for in-state residents once the ballots are mailed out on February 12.” Accordingly, they “propose a schedule that will allow for briefing and argument in time for a [Supreme Court] decision by February 11.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="m0v4JB">
|
||
The case turns on a previously obscure provision of the 14th Amendment, which provides that anyone who previously held a high office requiring them to swear an oath supporting the Constitution is forbidden from holding a similar office if they “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv">have engaged in insurrection or rebellion</a>” against that Constitution.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r0y1se">
|
||
The Colorado Supreme Court concluded that <a href="https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/Opinions/2023/23SA300.pdf">Trump engaged in an “insurrection”</a> because he spent months falsely claiming that the 2020 election was “rigged.” He encouraged his supporters to “fight,” suggesting that Democrats would “fight to the death” if the shoe were on the other foot. And Trump named then-Vice President <a href="https://www.vox.com/mike-pence">Mike Pence</a> as someone who should be targeted by the pro-Trump mob that invaded the Capitol.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Gz29rN">
|
||
But there is <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/12/20/24009521/supreme-court-donald-trump-colorado-ballot-insurrection-fourteenth-amendment-anderson-griswold">precious little case law</a> laying out what this provision of the Constitution means, or defining key terms like “insurrection” or what it means to “engage in” such an attack on the United States. Since the period immediately following the Civil War, there has not been much litigation involving disloyal public officials who joined an insurrection against the very system of government they swore to defend. So courts asked to interpret the 14th Amendment’s Insurrection Clause — including the Supreme Court — must do so without the ordinary guideposts judges look to when reading the Constitution.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JRMCIN">
|
||
The Colorado GOP’s brief makes <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-696/294416/20231227184621636_Colorado-Republican-State-Central-Committee-v.-Anderson-Cert-Petition%20PDFA.pdf">three legal arguments</a> in favor of letting Trump remain on the ballot. Two of these arguments are silly and unpersuasive and should be ignored by the Supreme Court, but one of them raises a very plausible case for, at the very least, delaying the decision whether to disqualify Trump until after one of his criminal trials is over.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EdBPVK">
|
||
In addition to their legal arguments, Colorado Republicans also make a political argument for keeping Trump on the ballot — removing him would deny voters “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-696/294416/20231227184621636_Colorado-Republican-State-Central-Committee-v.-Anderson-Cert-Petition%20PDFA.pdf">the ability to choose their Chief Executive through the electoral process</a>.” This purely political argument has garnered sympathy from many observers, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/22/us/politics/trump-ballot-colorado-supreme-court.html">including outlets such as the New York Times</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lspLIb">
|
||
This final argument, if taken seriously by a majority of the justices, could render the 14th Amendment’s Insurrection Clause a dead letter — because it would prevent it from operating in the one circumstance when such a constitutional provision is needed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="TWC9sk">
|
||
The Constitution has a right to defend itself
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DmoiDQ">
|
||
Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, as ham-handed and ineffective as it was, was a direct attack on the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution lays out a process by which American presidents are chosen, and that process chose <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a> in 2020.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fYdV6H">
|
||
Nevertheless, the various legal proceedings challenging Trump’s ability to serve as president again have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/22/us/politics/trump-ballot-colorado-supreme-court.html">widely been portrayed as anti-democratic</a> by Trump, his allies, and a few reporters. As the New York Times’s Charlie Savage wrote shortly after the Colorado Supreme Court’s <em>Anderson</em> decision, that case “pits one fundamental value against another: giving voters in a democracy the right to pick their leaders versus ensuring that no one is above the law.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QzppJY">
|
||
There are two rebuttals to this claim. One is that democracy, as Harvard political scientists Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky wrote shortly after Trump’s rise to power, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/dp/1524762938">is a game that we want to keep playing indefinitely</a>.” One of the fundamental premises of all democratic systems of government is that elected officials must periodically stand for election, and that they lose their authority if they lose their popular mandate.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="k3zQhy">
|
||
Trump, by contrast, attempted to make the <a href="https://www.vox.com/presidential-election">2016 election</a> the last presidential election that mattered (at least for as long as he wanted to hold power). There is nothing democratic about canceling elections or about refusing to abide by their results.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oynyDw">
|
||
Nor should the 14th Amendment be read more cautiously because Trump still enjoys a broad base of popular support in some parts of the country. Indeed, allowing insurrectionists with significant public support to stand for office would defeat the whole point of the Constitution’s Insurrection Clause.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NgSpxH">
|
||
Unpopular insurrectionists will never get elected to office in the first place <em>because they are unpopular</em>. The whole point of the Insurrection Clause is to bar individuals who enjoy enough popular support that they could conceivably regain high office, not to impose a legal ban on candidates who are just going to lose their election anyway.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XKGy7G">
|
||
Of course, the fact that the Insurrection Clause is only needed when a politician hostile to the Constitution enjoys broad public support <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/23880607/trump-14th-amendment-lawsuits-federalist-society">raises its own problems</a>. Among other things, the most strident Trump supporters — the very kind of people who invaded the Capitol on January 6 — may not respond peacefully to a decision removing their political leader from the ballot.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NLG3Vv">
|
||
But these concerns can, at least, be mitigated by ensuring that the process used to disqualify Trump is ostentatiously fair, and that it complies with constitutional due process guarantees — which brings us to the GOP’s strongest argument against the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision removing Trump from that state’s ballot.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="ZWqZyW">
|
||
The GOP’s strongest argument for keeping Trump on the ballot — at least for now
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PVk36y">
|
||
The Colorado GOP does raise one fairly strong legal argument that supports deferring the question of whether Trump should be removed from the 2024 ballot until, at least, after he is convicted of a crime or otherwise determined to have engaged in insurrection by a federal trial court.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LuHwjW">
|
||
In <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9097097359975117830&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr"><em>Ownbey v. Morgan</em></a> (1921), a case that admittedly had nothing to do with the Insurrection Clause, the Supreme Court said that “it cannot rightly be said that the Fourteenth Amendment furnishes a universal and self-executing remedy.” This means that private litigants ordinarily cannot sue to enforce this amendment, absent some state or federal statute authorizing such lawsuits.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qwnoGt">
|
||
Ordinarily, this question of whether the amendment is “self-executing” doesn’t even come up in 14th Amendment litigation, because <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress">Congress</a> passed a law known as “Section 1983,” which allows private suits against state officials who deprive a plaintiff “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1983">of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws</a>.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1IHByJ">
|
||
So, for example, if a government official refuses to enroll a Black student in a public school because of that student’s race, in violation of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee that no one shall be denied “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv">the equal protection of the laws</a>,” that student may file a Section 1983 suit because they were denied the right to racial equality “secured by the Constitution.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zrq3gX">
|
||
But the plaintiffs in <em>Anderson</em> do not claim that their personal rights are violated if Trump appears on the ballot in Colorado, nor could they reasonably claim that they are. If Trump is allowed to run for election in 2024, that will impact all Americans in the same way — rather than impacting these six plaintiffs in any way that is specific to them. So Section 1983 does not permit them to sue, and there does not appear to be any other federal statute authorizing private litigants to sue to enforce the Insurrection Clause.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i8EVM1">
|
||
That said, the Colorado Supreme Court determined that a <em>state</em> statute permitting voters to challenge candidates’ eligibility to run for office <a href="https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/Opinions/2023/23SA300.pdf">does permit suits seeking to enforce the Insurrection Clause</a>, and states often have the power to pass laws permitting their own courts to enforce the Constitution. Colorado could, for example, pass a law providing that any state official who refuses to enroll a public school student because of the student’s race will be fired, even though the Constitution does not mandate that state employees who engage in race discrimination must be terminated.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o5QZEz">
|
||
But, as the Colorado GOP warns the justices, the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision also means that “individual litigants, state courts, and secretaries of state in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia have authority” to <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-696/294416/20231227184621636_Colorado-Republican-State-Central-Committee-v.-Anderson-Cert-Petition%20PDFA.pdf">determine which candidates must be removed from the ballot</a> for violating the 14th Amendment. And, while there is no reason to believe that Colorado’s judges acted in bad faith when they removed Trump, it’s <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-696/294416/20231227184621636_Colorado-Republican-State-Central-Committee-v.-Anderson-Cert-Petition%20PDFA.pdf">not hard to imagine</a> what could happen in states with less responsible judges if the Colorado decision is allowed to stand.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5AvgVs">
|
||
Imagine, for example, that the Florida Supreme Court — which is made up entirely of Republican appointees, most of whom were appointed by <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23550366/ron-desantis-first-amendment-free-speech-woke-academic-freedom-new-college-florida">far-right Gov. Ron DeSantis</a> — were to invent some completely fabricated reason to accuse President Joe Biden of engaging in an insurrection, and then imagine that they invoked this pretextual reason to remove Biden from the 2024 ballot.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SkaYsM">
|
||
Ordinarily, the US Supreme Court is supposed to <a href="https://adamunikowsky.substack.com/p/is-the-supreme-court-seriously-going-40f">defer to a lower court’s factual findings</a> when it reviews a state supreme court’s decision. So, if Florida’s courts are free to decide which candidates are disqualified because they engaged in insurrection, the US Supreme Court has limited authority to correct such a decision merely because it rests on made-up facts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D0E6cx">
|
||
And there’s also a semi-famous case warning against treating the Insurrection Clause as a self-executing provision that can be enforced without a federal statute laying out how it should be enforced. In <a href="https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0011.f.cas/0011.f.cas.0007.html"><em>In re Griffin</em></a> (1869), Chief Justice Salmon Chase wrote that the Constitution’s guarantee of “due process of law” — a guarantee, it is worth noting, that is <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv">also safeguarded by the 14th Amendment</a> — is inconsistent with a system that “at once without trial, deprives a whole class of persons of offices held by them, for cause, however grave.” (<em>Griffin</em> it should be noted, was not a Supreme Court decision. Although the case was decided by a sitting chief justice, justices in the mid-19th century frequently acted as ordinary trial or appellate judges.)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zvB66K">
|
||
Trump wasn’t exactly denied a trial altogether before he was removed from Colorado’s ballot. But, as Justice Carlos Samour wrote in a <a href="https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/Opinions/2023/23SA300.pdf">dissenting opinion</a>, the process Colorado’s courts used to determine that Trump engaged in an insurrection was unusually truncated. It lacked “basic discovery, the ability to subpoena documents and compel witnesses, [and] workable timeframes to adequately investigate and develop defenses.” And, as Justice Maria Berkenkotter <a href="https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/Opinions/2023/23SA300.pdf">wrote in her dissent</a>, the Colorado courts relied on a process that “up until now has been limited to challenges involving relatively straightforward issues, like whether a candidate meets a residency requirement for a school board election.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XVu8cb">
|
||
In any event, the Colorado GOP takes its argument that the 14th Amendment is not self-executing too far, suggesting that Trump cannot be disqualified unless he is convicted in a federal court specifically of violating a criminal statute that <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2383">uses the magic word “insurrection.”</a> But they raise valid points against allowing each state to have the final word on who can run for president, and against allowing Trump to be removed based on the limited process he received in the Colorado system.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1U9Gdz">
|
||
These concerns would be obviated, however, if the Supreme Court reverses the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision removing Trump from the ballot — but also states that Trump might still be declared ineligible <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/12/20/24009521/supreme-court-donald-trump-colorado-ballot-insurrection-fourteenth-amendment-anderson-griswold">if he is convicted in federal court</a> for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="ErL5SF">
|
||
The GOP’s remaining arguments are extraordinarily weak
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TN3FJD">
|
||
In addition to this one, reasonably persuasive argument for reversing the Colorado Supreme Court, the state GOP also makes two other arguments that the justices will hopefully have the good sense to ignore. First, they claim that the GOP has a “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-696/294416/20231227184621636_Colorado-Republican-State-Central-Committee-v.-Anderson-Cert-Petition%20PDFA.pdf">First Amendment associational right to choose its own political candidates</a>,” so kicking one of the GOP’s preferred candidates off the ballot would violate the Constitution.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I1DeXb">
|
||
Notably, however, the Colorado GOP cites no case law that even arguably supports this argument. The Supreme Court said in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/504/428/"><em>Burdick v. Takushi</em></a><em> </em>(1992) that “limiting the choice of candidates to those who have complied with state election law requirements is the prototypical example of a regulation that, while it affects the right to vote, is eminently reasonable.” So it would be quite odd if the Supreme Court concluded that a state cannot have a law disqualifying candidates who are constitutionally ineligible for the office they seek.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bjDKwS">
|
||
The GOP’s final remaining argument, meanwhile, is the sort of over-lawyered argument that, in the words of attorney Adam Unikowsky, is unlikely to persuade “<a href="https://adamunikowsky.substack.com/p/is-the-supreme-court-seriously-going-40f">anyone unburdened by law school</a>.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VUqCny">
|
||
Briefly, the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv">Insurrection Clause</a> itemizes a list of former officials who are constitutionally ineligible for office, and the GOP claims that Trump does not fit into any of these categories:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<blockquote>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1MIEPB">
|
||
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, <em>or as an officer of the United States</em>, 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.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</blockquote>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="86GQ02">
|
||
The key words in this provision are “as an officer of the United States.” The Colorado GOP argues that the president does not count as such an officer, and therefore Trump is not disqualified from holding office again in the future.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N6xw7e">
|
||
The GOP roots this argument largely in other provisions of the Constitution, drafted nearly a century before the 14th Amendment, which seem to describe the president as separate from “officers of the United States.” One provision of Article II of the Constitution, for example, states that the president “shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii">and all other officers of the United States</a>.” But the president obviously does not appoint himself. So, read in isolation, this passage does suggest that the president is not an “officer of the United States.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y3Dl8T">
|
||
But, as the Colorado Supreme Court held, these passages should not be read in isolation. And the Constitution as a whole suggests the far more intuitive conclusion that the highest-ranking official in the United States is, indeed, an officer of the United States. “The Constitution refers to the Presidency as an ‘Office’ twenty-five times,” the state supreme court notes. And the GOP’s preferred reading of the Constitution would lead to absurd results.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BY1ouR">
|
||
One provision of the Constitution, for example, states that Congress “can impose, as a consequence of impeachment, a ‘disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States.’” But, if the presidency doesn’t count as such an office, that would mean that Congress may disqualify impeached officials from holding any office except for the most powerful office in the entire government.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="l52flM">
|
||
Why on earth would anyone write a constitution with such a silly loophole?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UlHdUm">
|
||
Indeed, the GOP’s reading of the Constitution would lead to even more absurd results than this post-impeachment problem. The GOP does not contest, for example, that the Constitution disqualifies anyone who served as a senator, a member of the House of Representatives, a governor, a state lawmaker, or a cabinet official from holding office if they engage in insurrection. So, even under the GOP’s reading of the 14th Amendment, a former president who previously served in any of these other offices would be disqualified if they later engaged in insurrection.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0fazHM">
|
||
The GOP’s argument, in other words, is that a former president who once served in some other elected or appointed office is ineligible to serve again if they engage in an insurrection — but an insurrectionist former president who has only served as president, such as Trump, remains eligible. No one would intentionally write a constitution to include such an arbitrary distinction.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uCfm41">
|
||
Of course, Republican appointees enjoy a six-vote supermajority on the Supreme Court. So there is no guarantee that a majority of the justices won’t latch onto one of the GOP’s weaker arguments for keeping Trump on the ballot. But there’s no need for them to do so, even if they are determined to rule in favor of Trump, because the GOP raises an entirely plausible due process objection to the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision — albeit one that should only delay, and not eliminate, the need to determine whether Trump is eligible for office.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dTBBCN">
|
||
<em><strong>Update, January 5, 6:05 pm: </strong></em><em>This story was originally published on January 3 and has been updated to include new information regarding </em>Trump v. Anderson<em>.</em>
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Double Scotch, Amazing Attraction, Stravinsky and Ultimate Striker shine</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jendayi, Christofle, Lazarus and Spanish Eyes catch the eye</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Yuki Bhambri/ Robin Haase lose in the semifinals</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sports Council of the Deaf seeks clearance for World Youth Games</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Moise Kouame and Maria Golovina triumph</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Infrastructure witnessing rapid growth in the country: Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri</strong> - He inaugurates Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra in Vaniyamkulam grama panchayat in Palakkad</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Karnataka BJP to meet in Bengaluru on January 8 to chalk out Lok Sabha poll strategy, says V. Sunil Kumar</strong> - Two surveys have been conducted in Karnataka for selecting candidates for the Lok Sabha elections</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Millet pizza, burger, popcorn and muffin break culinary stereotypes at mela in Bengaluru</strong> - University of Agricultural Sciences-Raichur has come out with more than 100 millet-based products</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>ISRO’s Aditya-L1 successfully placed in a halo orbit around L1 point</strong> - India’s maiden solar mission Aditya L1 reached the L1 point on January 6, 127 days after it was launched on September 2, 2023</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Criminals cannot be spared just because they wear saffron shawls and raise Jai Sri Ram slogan, warns Karnataka Minister Priyank Kharge</strong> - Terming the BJP protest against the arrest of Hindutva activist Srikanth Poojari as a sign of its frustration, Mr. Priyank said that BJP leaders had not yet come out of the shock of their defeat in Karnataka</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Some residents leave Belgorod after deadly attacks</strong> - Twenty-five people were killed last weekend in Belgorod - the biggest Russian city near Ukraine.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Atesh, the group spying on Russians in occupied Crimea</strong> - Atesh, meaning fire in Crimean Tatar, says it collects data on Russian forces in occupied Ukraine.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: US says Russia using North Korea ballistic missiles</strong> - The US promises to raise what it calls a significant and concerning escalation at the UN Security Council.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Palace of Aigai: Greece reopens huge Alexander the Great monument</strong> - Greece spent 16 years restoring palace ruins where Alexander the Great was crowned more than 2,000 years ago.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Madrid City Hall apologises over blackface Epiphany videos</strong> - The videos were part of the Epiphany festivities which show the Three Wise Men bringing presents for children.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Here’s a first look at United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan rocket</strong> - ULA’s first flight-ready Vulcan rocket is finally on the launch pad. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1994128">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Experimental antibiotic kills deadly superbug, opens whole new class of drugs</strong> - The relatively large molecule clogs a transport system, leading to lethal toxicity. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1994119">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ivanti warns of critical vulnerability in its popular line of endpoint protection software</strong> - Customers of the Ivanti Endpoint Protection Manager should patch or mitigate ASAP. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1994088">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Discontinued and unreleased Microsoft peripherals revived by licensing deal</strong> - Classics like the Ergonomic Keyboard should be available again this year. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1994041">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Android users could soon replace Google Assistant with ChatGPT</strong> - The Android ChatGPT app is working on support for Android’s assistant APIs. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1993933">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A male and a female whale were swimming…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
… in the ocean when the male saw a whaling ship in the distance. He recognized it as the same ship that harpooned and killed his father many years ago. He suggested to female that they should both go under the ship and both blow air out of their blowholes which would cause the ship to turn over and sink.<br/> So they did just that and it worked, the ship turned over and sank. Then the male realized that the sailors survived and were swimming for land. He was enraged! So he says to the female, “let’s chase after them and gobble them up.” He notices that she seems unwilling to do this and asked, “why not?”<br/> She replied, “I was ok with the blowjob but I don’t swallow seamen.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Gaphumbala"> /u/Gaphumbala </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18zn94f/a_male_and_a_female_whale_were_swimming/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18zn94f/a_male_and_a_female_whale_were_swimming/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A guy with no skills and no brains gets a job helping out on a small family farm</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
On his first morning on the job, the farmer’s wife says to him:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“I’ve got somethin’ for you to do. The butcher’s comin’ by in half a hour to carve up some of our livestock into meat. Since my husban’ the farmer is asleep and likely still drunk off his ass, I need you to go kill the pig and drag his carcass to the road.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“Alrighty,” the guy says, and heads out. He comes back just a few minutes later.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“My, that was mighty fast,” the farmer’s wife says. “You done that before?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“No ma’am, but it was pretty easy,” the guy responds. “You know, since he was still asleep and drunk.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/lukeknep"> /u/lukeknep </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18zlvu8/a_guy_with_no_skills_and_no_brains_gets_a_job/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18zlvu8/a_guy_with_no_skills_and_no_brains_gets_a_job/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A groom gets drunk at his wedding reception and wakes up with a hangover. He says to his best man, “What happened last night?”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“Well,” says the best man, “your new wife got drunk, got up from the table, and started dancing like mad. Then I got drunk, and I started dancing with her. Then you got drunk, and you saw us dancing together, and you got so angry at us that you kicked her in the crotch.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“Ouch!” says the groom. “That must have hurt.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“It sure did!” says the best man. “Two of my fingers got broken.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/wimpykidfan37"> /u/wimpykidfan37 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18ze5hc/a_groom_gets_drunk_at_his_wedding_reception_and/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18ze5hc/a_groom_gets_drunk_at_his_wedding_reception_and/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Two men were washed ashore during WWI.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Their ship, an aging minesweeping model, had wrecked off the coast of an uninhabited island. As the older veteran worked to build a makeshift camp, the younger soldier managed to salvage a radio, and quickly telegraphed an SOS with their coordinates.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
To their surprise, a ship responded within the hour, confirming that it could arrive at their position in approximately two weeks.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The old vet sighed and shook his head, saying he’d rather take his chances swimming out to the wrecked ship and trying to repair it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The young soldier scoffed. “You’d really rather play with that old mine craft all day?”
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The older man shrugged. “It’s better than a fortnight.”
|
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</p>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/KairuSmairukon"> /u/KairuSmairukon </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18zsdj3/two_men_were_washed_ashore_during_wwi/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18zsdj3/two_men_were_washed_ashore_during_wwi/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>My daughter broke up with this amazing guy because he lost the top half of his foot in a tragic accident.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<div class="md">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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I asked her “did you break up with him because he was an amputee?”
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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She said, “no, it’s just that I am lack toes intolerant.”
|
||
</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
(Credit to my 11 year old. I just helped to package it a little bit)
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
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|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/thermbug"> /u/thermbug </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18zpd5f/my_daughter_broke_up_with_this_amazing_guy/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18zpd5f/my_daughter_broke_up_with_this_amazing_guy/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
|
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|
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