By Mike Scruggs
Category: Mike Scruggs' Column

Two Tales of Unconstitutional Political Tyranny - Part 1 of 3

The Moral Compass for January 6 Committee - Adam Schiff.
The Moral Compass for January 6 Committee - Adam Schiff.

The so-called U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6, 2021, “Attack” on the United States Capitol denied genuine bipartisan membership of the Committee over the protest of Republican House leadership and the great majority of Republican Members. The Committee of nine Members consists of seven Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans appointed by the Democrat Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. The Chairman of the Committee is Democrat Bennie Thompson of Mississippi. The two Republicans are Liz Chaney, Vice Chair, from Wyoming, and Adam Kinizinger of Illinois. Three of the other Democrats are from California: Adam Schiff, Pete Aguilar, and Zoe Lofgren. The other three Democrats are Stephanie Murphy of Florida, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, and Elaine Luria of Virginia. The first public hearing was on July 27, 2021, but prime time TV public hearings did not begin until June 9, 2022. The Committee plans to continue its big-media oriented investigation.  

Adam Schiff, who has represented the 28th District of California (Hollywood, etc.) for over 20 years and called Trump a “xenophobic autocrat dangerous to democracy” in December 2021, is undoubtedly the moral and political compass of the Committee and arguably most House Democrats. He is Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and is proud of his 20-year NRA grade of F. He has earned a 100 percent rating by Planned Parenthood and zero rating by the Family Research Council (FRC). He is an avid supporter of the anti-fossil fuel Green New Deal Climate Emergency and Build Back Better Biden spending economics. He is a Stanford graduate with a Harvard Law degree, so he is probably smart enough to know better than his woke supportive progressive politics.

The Democrat-stacked committee is a major and flagrant violation of traditional American values of fairness. Moreover, and even worse, no cross-examination is allowed of witnesses called by the Committee, and there is no legitimate bipartisan input on what witnesses will be called. Altogether, this is an astonishing violation of American legal traditions of justice, due process, and honesty. Yet most of the mainstream media treat the unexamined testimonies as legitimate.

The stacked membership of the Committee and gross violations of due process and lack of cross examination are a disgraceful display of injustice, tyranny, and  corrupt politics. They are a deep stain on American traditions of justice and Constitutional government and a threat to the rights of every American. The conduct of this Committee bears a close resemblance to Stalinist show trials. All this effort has been to mispresent and  slander former President Trump and prevent him from being elected President in 2024. This Soviet-style Democrat public slander-committee has also demonstrated the same bullying tactics as Communist dictators and Marxist thugs.

The media conglomerates and advertisers, which have aided and abetted this unjust show trial and propaganda platform do not deserve viewer support or public trust.  American voters should vote any Democrat or Republican supporting this unjust Stalinist show trial and vicious instrument of political and personal slander out of office at the first opportunity.

The instrument this Congressional Kangaroo Court plans to utilize in blocking President Trump from election in 2024 is Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment adopted July 9, 1868, as part of Reconstruction legislation following the Civil War. The 14th Amendment was formulated by radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania in April 1866. After highly irregular and ruthless Congressional maneuvers, it was submitted to the States for ratification in June 1866. Its final 1868 ratification and recognition by Congress and Secretary of State William Seward followed after more than two years of ruthless and unconstitutional Reconstruction threats and actions.  

The key word in Section 3 that the Committee continually throws around is: Insurrection. As we shall see in more detail in parts 2 and 3 of this article, the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment itself was marked by outrageous violations of due legislative process in both the House and Senate and violated Articles I, IV, and V of the Constitution. Ironically, Section 1 of the 14th Amendment deals with due process, which the current Kangaroo Committee seems eager to forget.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

The insurrection or rebellion in Section 3 refer to the Civil War, which was an attempt by Southern and Border States to secede. The Revolutionary War was a secession from Great Britain. The 14th Amendment was widely opposed by Southern States, and much of that opposition was the punitive nature of Section 3. 

There were some legitimate points to be made in the 14th Amendment, but good points do not justify gross violations of parliamentary fairness, honesty, and violation of other Articles and Sections of the Constitution. By passing the 14th Amendment dishonestly they weakened the foundations of the American Republic and set a precedence for legislative dishonesty to enact tyranny. An even more damaging aspect of the 14th Amendment is that in many ways it turned the Constitution upside down. The Bill of Rights Amendments were to protect the States and the people from tyrannical Federal Government. Note the words of the First Amendment. “Congress shall make no law…”  The First Amendment restricts the power of Congress, not the States. Yet the 14th Amendment has frequently been used to grant unconstitutional Federal authority over the States and the people. 

So the 14th Amendment may not be all bad, but its illegitimate and dishonest passage also set a precedence for the sort of Congressional dishonesty now being practiced by the Select January 6 Committee.  To make the 14th Amendment truly legitimate it should be properly re-passed or amended.  It would set a much needed precedent for honest and principled government and legislation. It is the lack of government and Congressional honesty that is weakening our country and threatening our future

Following the great tragedy of the “Civil War” and the assassination of President Lincoln in April of 1865, national leadership was largely in the hands of a Congress dominated by the Radical Republicans.  They undermined the new President, Andrew Johnson, at every opportunity, and had little regard for the Supreme Court. They considered the Constitution to be an inconvenience and the Supreme Court to be an annoyance to the will of the people accomplished by Congress.  States’ Rights, having been defeated by the coercion of bayonets, was no longer an effective check on Federal power. 

President Johnson planned to follow Lincoln’s relatively benign plan for establishing loyal civil governments in the South and restoring them to the national family.  Pursuant to this on May 29, 1865, he declared an amnesty for most Confederate veterans.  By the middle of July, many Southern state governments under the control of Union loyalists were functioning.  But the Radical Republicans were bent on exacting vengeance and remaking the South. Johnson was uncomfortable with coercing the States into enfranchising former slaves, but the Radical Republicans, most of whom had been radical abolitionists, were insistent.  Their motives in this were by no means pure.  These included both political justice for blacks and exacting a humiliating vengeance on the South. But most importantly, they wanted to remake the South into an unassailable bastion of Radical Republican political support. This was accomplished by March 1867 Reconstruction legislation and additional actions of Radical Republican Governor William Brownlow of Tennessee effectively changing the electorate.  Former slaves were enfranchised and heavily indoctrinated to vote Republican, while at least 228,000, more than one-third of Confederate veterans, were disenfranchised in 11 Southern States to assure Republican majorities (source Phil Leigh). This  newly created Republican majority in Southern States would be used to guarantee the permanent political dominance of the Radical Republican faction over the nation and thereby guarantee the ongoing success of their economic and political agendas.

The Radical Republican hard core in Congress numbered only about thirty of some 230 Northern Senators and Representatives, but their influence was very powerful, and they had strong and widespread support in the Northern press. Five men exercised dominant leadership:  Thaddeus Stevens, Representative from Pennsylvania; Benjamin Butler, Representative from Massachusetts; Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts; Benjamin Wade, Senator from Ohio; and Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton.

In December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery.  Included in the three-quarters of the States necessary for ratification were seven Southern States whose governments had been appointed and reconstituted by President Johnson.  This, however, did not guarantee many civil rights for the former slaves, and as the Southern legislatures began to consist more of elected Democrats, they trended back to more traditional Southern thinking and far away from Radical Republican thinking.  The Radical Republicans believed more amendments were needed to ensure civil rights but also to advance their political agenda for the South and the nation.  Thus the 14th Amendment, which was really a combination of several amendments, was born in concept.  Passing the 14th Amendment became a high priority for the Radical Republicans.  In passing the 14th Amendment, they would ruthlessly violate the Constitution, engage in blatantly dishonest and despotic legislative manipulation, and impose a mean-spirited tyranny on the South that would poison race relations and regional trust for generations.  Several aspects of the 14th Amendment would essentially turn the Constitution on its head and open the door for widespread Judicial and Congressional abuse and tyranny. The shameful coercion, blatant dishonesty, and numerous legislative and constitutional irregularities involved in passing the 14th Amendment place its legitimacy in extreme doubt. The legacy of such manipulative political dishonesty hangs over us in the form of the January 6 Committee on the “Attack” against the Capitol.

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