Imprudent Actions Have Consequences

Among the many courses I taught from the Spring 1974 Semester at State University of New York at Albany, at which I was studying for my doctorate in political science and serving as graduate teaching and research assistant prior to starting my full-time teaching career at Mohawk Valley Community College, Utica, New York, during the 1976-1977 academic year, until the last winter intersession course I taught at the then named C. W. Post Campus of Long Islan University, Brookville, New York (with lots of stops in between in Illinois (twice), Pennsylvania, New York (four different institutions, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Ohio, and Texas), were American National Government, State and Local Government, Political Parties and the Election Process, Judicial Process, Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, the American Presidency, Congress and the Legislative Process, Media and Politics, Introduction to Political Science, International Relations, Government and Politics of Western Europe, Government and Politics of Eastern Europe, Far Eastern Government and Politics, Contemporary Political Philosophy, American Political Philosophy, and the Principles of the American Founding (in addition to a lot of history courses that were assigned to me to teach now and again).

Although, my days of college teaching ended for good nearly ten years ago when a brief return to the college classroom ended rather abruptly after finishing an eight- week course at a community college in Texas because I would not maintain a “strict neutrality” on matters moral truth, there are occasions when I use my background in the fields above on this website, especially in commentaries dealing with decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, such as I have done several recent commentaries, including in Supreme Inconsistencies. This brief commentary will be another such instance.

The decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Donald J. Trump, Petitioner v. United States, July 1 2024, was well-reasoned and documented a variety of references to the views of the American founders, especially as found in The Federalist series of articles published in various newspapers between 1787 and 1788 to convince the members of the thirteen state ratify the Constitution that had been drafted for their consideration by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that adjourned on September 17, 1787, concerning the nature of the American presidency. Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., rejected the absurd claims made by the attorneys for former President Donald John Trump that a president enjoys total immunity for whatever he does while in office and those made by United States Solicitor General Elizabeth Prolegar that a president enjoys no such immunity even for his official acts.

The six to three majority opinion, however, represented more of a defeat for “special counsel” Jack “One Set of Rules for all except Democrats” Smith and his prosecution of Trump on charges relating to the events of January 6, 2021, than it did for former president as the chief justice rejected the finding of anti-Trump United States District Court Judge for the District of Columbia Tanya Chutkan that Trump had no immunity and remanded the case back to her so that the two sides can be present arguments as to how much of what Trump is charged with constitutes the exercise of his official duties, which enjoy complete immunity, and how much is immune from prosecution because the former president’s act were at the “outer perimeter” of those official duties. This means that losing side in each of Judge Chutkan’s findings that must be consisted with the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Trump v. United States will appeal each finding, whether individually or collectively, to the Supreme Court yet again. As a practical matter, of course, this means that there will be no trial before the presidential elections on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, something that the decrepit, morally corrupt, pathological liar, plagiarist and serial harasser of his subordinates during his thirty-seven years in the Senate of the United States of America named Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., who believes he needs to work less, and sleep more (!) in the supposition that eighteen hours a day is not enough, believes should take place before the election.

Although Chief Justice Roberts did not as much admit that the case against former President Trump is part of a wider campaign of lawfare waged against by Minister of Injustice Merrick Garland at the behest of President in Name Only, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., but this lawfare did not begin with the efforts by James Brien Comey, James Clapper. John Brennan, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton and her confederates to stop Donald John Trump from being elected to the presidency on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, and then to undermine his presidency for four straight years with one hoax after another, most notably the Russian Collusion hoax, for which no one was held truly accountable after minimal charges were brought in Democratic Party friendly venues from a special prosecutor, John Durham, who proved to be as ineffective as the inept Kennth Starr was thirty years ago, and the current special counsel, Jack Smith, who was named as such Merrick “I Bear A Grudge Against Republicans for Blocking My Nomination to Serve on the Supreme Court of the United States of America,” played a leading part in lawfare in the first and second decades of this century:

Former President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again PAC is ripping into the special counsel, Jack Smith, claiming he has a "sordid history of targeting conservatives."

In a statement issued Friday, the Trump team pointed to a number of examples of Smith's "troubling history" with conservatives:

• The Washington Examiner reported in November, 2022, that Lois Lerner, as director of the IRS' Exempt Organizations Unit, led an IRS effort targeting Tea Party groups and other conservative nonprofits. The Trump team noted Smith "was involved in the Lois Lerner IRS scandal."
• "Congressman Jim Jordan had said [on Fox Business] that while at the Obama DOJ, Smith worked with the IRS to find ways to target conservative non-profits," the statement said.
• "Guess who was the lead person at the Justice Department looking for ways to target and prosecute the very people looking into who Lois Lerner went after? Jack Smith, the guy Merrick Garland just named as special counsel to go after President Trump," Jordan said.

And, the Trump PAC said that "Smith also has a history of targeting a Republican presidential candidate."

The PAC said: "As Mike Davis, president of Article III Project, put it: 'In 2010, Obama Attorney General Eric Holder picked Jack Smith to run Public Integrity Section. Smith took out VA Gov. Bob McDonnell as a potential Republican presidential candidate — on bogus corruption charges. Supreme Court reversed, 9-0.

"Now Smith is back — to take out Trump."

The statement continued: "Gov. McDonnell gave an interview to Newsmax in which he said he's 'very concerned about this person heading it up.' "

The statement also said Smith's wife donated $2,000 to support Joe Biden's presidential campaign and donated to progressive Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

The Trump team said Smith's wife also "produced a glowing documentary about Michelle Obama for Netflix."

And it said: "Ted Cruz summed it up well: '5 facts about Trump Special Counsel Jack Smith: 1 — Picked by Garland 2 — Led debacle of a prosecution of Bob McDonnell, reversed 9-0 by SCOTUS 3 — Involved in the IRS targeting of conservatives 4 — Wife is a Biden donor 5 — Wife produced a Michelle Obama doc & anti-Citizens United film.' " (Trump Team: Smith Has 'History of Targeting Conservatives'.)

Although unrelated to McDonnell, efforts were made in the past by local Texas prosecutors in Travis County to bring down former House Majority Leader Thomas DeLay, who was convicted in 2011 of taking illegal money laundering before the conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of the State of Texas in 2013—see Tom DeLay conviction reversed by Texas court; Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was accused of taking  in 2012 because of charges he took illegal campaign donations prior to a 2012 recall election he was forced to face because of the opposition to him by state employee unions before the Wisconsin Supreme Court ended a criminal inquiry in 2015—see Scott Walker: Wisconsin Supreme Court rules campaign didn't violate finance laws; and it was simultaneously in the State of Texas that the then Democratic district attorney in Travis County, Texas, Rosemary Lehmberg, had then Texas Governor indicted on “abuse of power” charges stemming from Perry’s efforts to force her from office after she had been arrest for drunk driving and for being belligerent upon her arrest—see Charges against Rick Perry dismissed in abuse of power case.

Chief Justice John Glover Roberts, Jr., did not take judicial notice of this lawfare. However, the senior associate justice on the court, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas did take judicial notice of the illicit appointment of private citizen Jack Smith to serve as a special counsel in violation of the appointments clause of Article II, Section 2, Subsection 2 of the Constitution of the United States of America:

Few things would threaten our constitutional order more than criminally prosecuting a former President for his official acts. Fortunately, the Constitution does not permit us to chart such a dangerous course. As the Court forcefully explains, the Framers “deemed an energetic executive essential to . . . the security of liberty,” and our “system of sep[1]arated powers” accordingly insulates the President from prosecution for his official acts. Ante, at 10, 42 (internal quotation marks omitted). To conclude otherwise would hamstring the vigorous Executive that our Constitution envisions. “While the separation of powers may prevent us from righting every wrong, it does so in order to ensure that we do not lose liberty.” Morrison v. Olson, 487 U. S. 654, 710–711 (1988) (Scalia, J., dissenting)

I write separately to highlight another way in which this prosecution may violate our constitutional structure. In this case, the Attorney General purported to appoint a private citizen as Special Counsel to prosecute a former President on behalf of the United States. But, I am not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been “established by Law,” as the Constitution requires. Art. II, §2, cl. 2. By requiring that Congress create federal offices “by Law,” the Constitution imposes an important check against the President—he cannot create offices at his pleasure. If there is no law establishing the office that the Special Counsel occupies, then he cannot proceed with this prosecution. A private citizen cannot criminally prosecute anyone, let alone a former President.

No former President has faced criminal prosecution for his acts while in office in the more than 200 years since the founding of our country. And, that is so despite numerous past Presidents taking actions that many would argue constitute crimes. If this unprecedented prosecution is to proceed, it must be conducted by someone duly authorized to do so by the American people. The lower courts should thus answer these essential questions concerning the Special Counsel’s appointment before proceeding. . . .

We cannot ignore the importance that the Constitution places on who creates a federal office. To guard against tyranny, the Founders required that a federal office be “established by Law.” As James Madison cautioned, “[i]f there is any point in which the separation of the Legislative and Executive powers ought to be maintained with greater caution, it is that which relates to officers and offices.” 1 Annals of Cong. 581. If Congress has not reached a consensus that a particular office should exist, the Executive lacks the power to create and fill an office of his own accord.

II

It is difficult to see how the Special Counsel has an office “established by Law,” as required by the Constitution. When the Attorney General appointed the Special Counsel, he did not identify any statute that clearly creates such an office. See Dept. of Justice Order No. 5559–2022 (Nov. 18, 2022). Nor did he rely on a statute granting him the authority to appoint officers as he deems fit, as the heads of some other agencies have.3 See supra, at 5. Instead, the Attorney General relied upon several statutes of a general nature. See Order No. 5559–2022 (citing 28 U. S. C. §§509, 510, 515, 533). . . .

Even if the Special Counsel has a valid office, questions remain as to whether the Attorney General filled that office in compliance with the Appointments Clause. For example, it must be determined whether the Special Counsel is a principal or inferior officer. If the former, his appointment is invalid because the Special Counsel was not nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, as principal officers must be. Art. II, §2, cl. 2. Even if he is an inferior officer, the Attorney General could appoint him without Presidential nomination and senatorial confirmation only if “Congress . . . by law vest[ed] the Appointment” in the Attorney General as a “Hea[d] of Department.” Ibid. So, the Special Counsel’s appointment is invalid unless a statute created the Special Counsel’s office and gave the Attorney General the power to fill it “by Law.”

Whether the Special Counsel’s office was “established by Law” is not a trifling technicality. If Congress has not reached a consensus that a particular office should exist, the Executive lacks the power to unilaterally create and then fill that office. Given that the Special Counsel purports to wield the Executive Branch’s power to prosecute, the consequences are weighty. Our Constitution’s separation of powers, including its separation of the powers to create and fill offices, is “the absolutely central guarantee of a just Government” and the liberty that it secures for us all. Morrison, 487 U. S., at 697 (Scalia, J., dissenting). There is no prosecution that can justify imperiling it.

In this case, there has been much discussion about ensuring that a President “is not above the law.” But, as the Court explains, the President’s immunity from prosecution for his official acts is the law.

The Constitution provides for “an energetic executive,” because such an Executive is “essential to . . . the security of liberty.” Ante, at 10 (internal quotation marks omitted). Respecting the protections that the Constitution provides for the Office of the Presidency secures liberty. In that same vein, the Constitution also secures liberty by separating the powers to create and fill offices. And, there are serious questions whether the Attorney General has violated that structure by creating an office of the Special Counsel that has not been established by law. Those questions must be answered before this prosecution can proceed. We must respect the Constitution’s separation of powers in all its forms, else we risk rendering its protection of liberty a parchment guarantee. (23-939 Trump v. United States, 07/01/2024.)

Justice Thomas knows what he is doing as his concurring opinion likely will give United States District Judge Aileen Cannon of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida a reasoned justification to cite if she rules against the legality of Jack Smith’s appointment, something that she seemed to be consider when she heard arguments from former President Trump’s attorneys on the matter.

Nevertheless, however, there is no guarantee that Donald John Trump will not be prosecuted in both the January 6, 2021, case on at least some charges or in the presidential papers case at some point, especially if he loses to the comatose incumbent figurehead president (or whoever might replace him) on November 5, 2024.

Of particular note in this regard is the concurring opinion of Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the Trump v. U.S. case on July 1, 2024, as Barrett made it clear that she did not believe that then President Trump’s efforts to pressure state legislators and other state officials to create alternative slates of electors to be sent to Vice President of the United States of America, Michael Richard Pence, so that he could choose which slate of electors to accept even though I agree entirely with Chief Justice Roberts that the role the vice president plays in the counting of the electoral vote is ceremonial and not ministerial, something I explained in great detail in Put Not Your Trust in Princes: In the Children of Men in Who There is No Salvation.

Here is an excerpt from Justice Barrett’s concurring opinion:

Some of those allegations raise unsettled questions about the scope of Article II power, see ante, at 21–28, but others do not. For example, the indictment alleges that the President “asked the Arizona House Speaker to call the legislature into session to hold a hearing” about election fraud claims. App. 193. The President has no authority over state legislatures or their leadership, so it is hard to see how prosecuting him for crimes committed when dealing with the Arizona House Speaker would unconstitutionally intrude on executive power. (23-939 Trump v. United States, 07/01/2024.)

Although I disagree very vehemently with the self-destructive course of action that then President Donald John Trump took after the presidential election on November 3, 2020, as imprudent, it was not a criminal act to “obstruct” an official proceeding. (A historical review of the vice president’s role in the counting of the electoral votes from the fifty states and the District of Columbia for president and vice president every four years can be found the appendix below.)

If then President Trump’s actions after the November 3, 2020, elections were criminal in nathre then men such as Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (aka Madame Defarge)’s campaign manager, John Podesta, who proposed doing exactly what Donald John Trump unwisely proposed doing in 2020 (see Put Not Your Trust in Princes: In the Children of Men in Who There is No Salvation) and for which he has been indicted as conspiring to commit “fraud” against the United States of America, should be prosecuted as well;

A group of former top government officials called the Transition Integrity Project actually gamed four possible scenarios, including one that doesn’t look that different from 2016: a big popular win for Mr. Biden, and a narrow electoral defeat… They cast John Podesta, who was Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, in the role of Mr. Biden. They expected him, when the votes came in, to concede...

But Mr. Podesta… shocked the organizers… he persuaded the governors of Wisconsin and Michigan to send pro-Biden electors to the Electoral College. In that scenario, California, Oregon, and Washington then threatened to secede from the United States if Mr. Trump took office…

News that Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chief rejected a legal election result, even in a hypothetical simulation, was obvious catnip to conservative media, which took about ten minutes to repackage Smith’s story using the same alarmist headline format marking earlier TIP write-ups. Breitbart published “Democrats’ ‘War Game’ for Election Includes West Coast Secession, Possible Civil War,” and a cascade of further red-state freakouts seemed inevitable.

“At that point,” says Nils Gilman, COO and EVP of Programs at the Berggruen Institute think tank, who served alongside Brooks as TIP’s other co-founder, “we decided we needed to be out about having run this exercise, to prevent the allegation that this was a ‘shadowy cabal’ — not that that narrative didn’t take hold anyways.”

The final TIP report was released the next day, August 3rd, 2020. Titled “Preventing a Disrupted Presidential Election and Transition,” the full text was, as any person attempting an objective read will grasp, sensational.

The Podesta episode was worse than reported, with the secession proposal coming on “advice from President Obama,” used as leverage to a) secure statehood for Washington, DC and Puerto Rico b) divide California into five states to increase its Senate representation, and c) “eliminate the Electoral College,” among other things. TIP authors also warned Trump’s behavior could “push other actors, including, potentially, some in the Democratic Party, to similarly engage in practices that depart from traditional rule of law norms, out of perceived self-defense.”

More tellingly, there were multiple passages on the subject of abiding by and/or trusting in the law, and how this can be a weakness. TIP authors concluded that “as an incumbent unbounded by norms, President Trump has a huge advantage” in the upcoming election, and chided participants that “planners need to take seriously the notion that this may well be a street fight, not a legal battle.” They added the key observation that “a reliance on elites observing norms are [sic] not the answer here.”

Asked about that passage, Gilman replied that it was “the right question,” i.e. “Why can’t we just rely on elites to observe/enforce norms?” Noting that two-thirds of the GOP caucus voted not to certify the 2020 election, he went on: “If I had had total confidence in the solidity of the institutions, I wouldn’t have felt the need to run the exercises.”

This answer makes some sense in the abstract, but ignores the years-long campaign of norm-breaking in the other direction leading up to the TIP simulation. In the eight-plus years since Donald Trump entered the national political scene, we’ve seen the same cast of characters appear and reappear in dirty tricks schemes, many of which began before he was even elected (more on that below). The last time we encountered this “loose-knit group” story, the usual suspects were all there, and the public by lucky accident of the Smith leak gained detailed access to Democratic Party thinking about how to steal an election — if necessary, of course, to “protect the democratic process.”

That incident acquires new significance now in light not only of this NBC story, but also the dismal 2024 poll numbers for Biden, a host of unusually candid calls for preemptive action to prevent Trump from taking office, the bold efforts to remove Trump from the ballot in states like Colorado and Maine, and those lesser-publicized, but equally important campaigns to keep third party challengers like No Labels or Robert F. Kennedy from gaining ballot access in key states. (Is the Electoral Fix Already In?)

This gets to the point I made in a commentary earlier this year:

Things have degenerated so badly that which have reached a point where well-meaning and truly patriotic Americans think they there is some human means to reverse the gradual transformation of the government of the United States of America into a monstrous web of a permanent bureaucracy that seeks to control every aspect of human life to the point of monitoring private conversations and proscribing the public utterance of ideas and beliefs contrary to those that the apparatchiks themselves hold and advance to the point where the country has been, in effect, the “People’s Republic of America” or the Union of Soviet Socialist America.

We have been eyewitnesses to the dissolution of the southern border and an invasion of our country that has been made possible by a president who refuses to enforce border security laws that are among those he swore to uphold, and we have seen abject insanity take over every nook and cranny of the Federal government of the United States of America by certifiable lunatics who want to divide Americans by race and to force Americans to accept the absurd, irrational delusion that ther are more than two sexes.

As noted before, however, no one—no, not Donald John Trump and not Nikki Haley, the war mongering Bush wannabe who refused to answer a simple question recently whether a man can “become” a woman—in the false opposite of the naturalist “right” believes in the Divine Plan that God Himself instituted to effect man's return to Him through the Catholic Church as each is a son or daughter of the rotten fruit of that Divine Plan's violent overthrow wrought by the Protestant Revolution and institutionalized by the forces of Judeo-Masonry that are committed to the elimination of the Holy Name of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, from public discourse as all manner of evils become accepted gradually over time as "regrettable realities" about which we can do very little. After all, we have to win an election. right? Things will get "better" after that, right.

This is but sheer deception. Does anyone really think that the organized forces of the “left” would react with civility if Donald John Trump does defeat the decrepit gasbag Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., on November 5, 2024? The “left,” funded by the usual suspects, would harass electors pledged to vote for Trump on Monday, December 17, 2024, at their homes, places of work and wherever it is they choose to shop and eat. The “left” would not go gently into that good night as they have long believed that “democracy” is defined solely by their ability to gain and retain the levers of power and that the enemies of “democracy” are anyone and everyone who dares to disagree with them or challenge their hegemony over law, education, the “arts,” the commentariat class, “science,” finance, commerce, and industry.

The “left” never believes than anything, including elections, is “settled” unless they get their way on whatever cause du jour is being promoted. It is their “way” or “democracy” is under attack, which is why it is probably a good idea to remind readers that Dom Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, the great Dominican foe of Modernism and the Twentieth Century’s greatest exponent of the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas, explained the flaws inherent in democracies that lead to their decay and dissolution over time:

Democracy is an imperfect regime, as a regime in ratione regiminis, as a result of the lack of unity and continuity in the direction of interior and exterior affairs. Also this regime should only be for the perfect already capable of directing themselves—those virtuous and competent enough to pronounce as is fitting upon the very complicated problems on which the life of a great people depends. But it is always true to say as Saint Thomas noted that these virtuous and competent men are extremely rare; and democracy, supposing such perfection among subjects, cannot give it to them. From this point of view, democracy is a bit in politics what quietism is in spirituality; it supposes man has arrived, at the age or the state of perfection, even though he still may be a child. In treating him as a perfect person, democracy does not give him what is required to become one.

Since true virtue united to true competence is a rare thing among men, since the majority among them are incapable of governing and they have a need of being led, the regime which is the best for them is the one which can make up for their imperfection. This regimen perfectum in ratione regiminis, by reason of unity, continuity, and efficacy of direction towards a single end which is difficult to achieve is monarchy. Above all a tempered monarchy which is always attentive to the different forms of national activity. It is better than democracy or than the feudal regime. Monarchy assures the interior and exterior peace of a great nation, and permits her to long endure. (Dom Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, “On Royal Government,” translated by Andrew Strain, On Royal Government)

Pope Pius IX prophetically what would happen when the “societies” (Freemasonry then, Freemasonry and the cabal of globalist elites who plot the demise of us peons and plan a diet of insects for those who are deemed “fit’ enough to live at present) got hold of the fraud that is the universal franchise:

To allow the masses, invariably uninformed and impulsive, to make decisions on the most serious matters, is this not to hand oneself over to chance and deliberately run towards the abyss? Yes, it would be more appropriate to call universal suffrage universal madness and, when the secret societies have taken control of it as is all too often the case, universal falsehood." (Pope Pius IX, Statement to French pilgrims, May 5, 1874, cited by Abbe Georges de Nantes, CCR # 333, p. 24.)

This prophetic statement has come true in our own time.

Mind you, this could all have been avoided if former President Donald John Trump listened to those who were advising him to concede in 2020 and then organize anew to recapture the presidency if he chose to do so four years later rather than to the crazy triumvirate of Sydney Powell, Rudolph William Giuliani, and Mike Lidell.

All things happen within the Providence of God, and it is good that the events that did transpire are being portrayed in the light of unvarnised facts rather than by the special pleading of the Republicats who edited tapes, refused to seat Republicans, such as United States Representative James Jordan (R-Ohio), who were chosen by then House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) to serve on it, and was called "bipartisan" because two anti-Trump neoconservative "Republicans," Elizabeth Cheney (R?-Wyoming) and Adam Kitzinger (R? Illinois) were willing to do the bidding of the professional character assassins and merchants of outright lies within the orgnized crime family of the false opposite of the naturalist left.

Nonetheless, however, it is thus necessary, at least as I see it, to remind the readers of this site of several basic facts:

First, despite Donald John Trump’s repeated insistences to the contrary, there was never any constitutional or legal basis for then Vice President Michael Richard Pence to refuse to accept the certified slates of electors from those states where electoral fraud was alleged to have taken place. Then President Trump was not then nor is he now an expert on the Constitution of the United States and the fact that he found several attorneys who said that Pence had the power to intervene means nothing. I provided a detailed explication of this point in Put Not Your Trust in Princes: In the Children of Men in Who There is No Salvation.

The former president, who appears to have no sense of self-awareness enough to convince him that it is time for others without his baggage to make the naturalist case against statism, did not realize that there was no rational good to be accomplished in gathering his followers in Washington, District of Columbia, in the delusional belief that the mentally challenged leader of a family crime syndicate and stooge for American Marxism hidden upon the banner of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (which actually means "conformity, iniquity, and exclusion") could be denied the presidency.

Second, I guarantee the readers of this little-read website that had Pence obeyed Trump’s desires that the Supreme Court of the United States of America would have rendered a 9-0 decision stating that the Vice President of the United States of America, acting in his capacity as President of the United States Senate, has no constitutional or legal authority to refuse to accept slates of presidential electors that have been certified by their respective states’ governors. The “woke” General Mark Milley, Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, would have intervened if Trump disobeyed such a Supreme Court decision, a scenario that would have been without precedent in the history of the United States of America.

Third, worst of all is the fact that the date of January 6 will be associated with the needless and self-defeating events that took place at the United States Capitol in 2021 rather than with the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the manifestation of Christ the King to the Gentile kings of this world. I will return to this theme in my concluding remarks.

Fourth, the events that unfolded in and around the grounds of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, prevented Republican members of the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives from making a clear, rational, and compelling case for election fraud in the states where the election fraud did take place. The outcome would have been the same given the composition of Congress. However, the arguments would have been made in the sort of detail that the events of January 6, 2021, prevented, and even beyond the fraud that took place on November 3, 2021, and thereafter, very few people want to discuss the many ways in which Big Tech, Big Pharma and the mainslime media worked to suppress information that was unfavorable to Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. (see  J6 Hysteria Is To Avoid Accountability For Rigging Of The 2020 Election).

Fifth, it is laughable that the members of the organized crime family of the naturalist “left” keep saying that all talk of election fraud in 2020 is part of a “Big Lie” strategy even though they lied boldly and repeatedly about Russian collusion as part of their effort to delegitimize President Trump’s administration and to undermine him at every turn. How many times did United States Representative Adam Schiff (D-California; see Of Men Who Keep Not Eternity in Mind) claim to have “evidence” “proving” Trump’s collusion with Russia? They were the ones who engaged in a coup attempt, not the hapless rioters of January 6, 2021, most of whom entered on a lark and wandered aimlessly with no specific purpose in mind.

Sixth, the defenders of “law and order” at the United States Capitol who remain self-righteously sanctimonious about punishing even those who committed no violent acts and had simply permitted themselves to be swept up into the chaos of the moment are, of course, the very ones who indemnified Antifa rioters in Portland, Oregon, who defaced and vandalized  Federal property, including a court house, and the rioters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Kenosha, Wisconsin, and elsewhere. Had the shoe been on the other foot two years ago, there is simply no telling what the loose coalition of forces funded by the likes of George Soros might have done to cause chaos if there had been allegations of vote fraud that cost Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., the election.

Seventh, the events of January 6, 2021, have given the enemies of the American concepts of free elections, freedom of speech and freedom of the press within the organized crime family of the false opposite of the naturalist “left” and their sycophantic fellow fascists in the mainslime media, Big Tech and Big Pharma with a bludgeon to intimidate silence all critics of the statist, globalist and truly anti-American policies of the hapless Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. Although these self-anointed “defenders of democracy” are really undisguised fascists, they are shameless in their efforts to curb dissenting speech and to use the plandemic as a means of imposing the sort of repressive measures that exist in Red China, doing so all in the name of “democracy.”

This last point is very important as former President Donald John Trump lives in a world of fantasy in which he can never be wrong about anything, which is why he is constitutionally incapable of accepting the fact that “his” vaccines (gene therapy treatments) have killed and continue to kill thousands of people worldwide in addition to seriously injuring over a million others globally (Trump doubles down on COVID shots, tells Candace Owens they're 'one of the greatest achievements of mankind’). All the poor man has to do is to check the latest statistics of the Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System (VAERS) and then have the intellectual honesty to admit the truth. To do this, however, would mean for him to admit that “Trump” was wrong, and “Trump” does not admit that “Trump” can be wrong about anything.

These are facts, facts that are bolstered by the evidence of actual scientists, not ideologues such as Anthony Fauci, who continue to warn those who have the intellectual honesty to consider facts in a spirit of rationality that the “vaccines” are gene therapy treatments that are injuring people now and will continue to do in the future as they shed spike proteins to infect the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike (see Dr. Peter McCullough—The Inexplicable Suppression of Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, and Other COVID-19 Treatments, par one and Dr. Peter McCullough on Omicron Realities and VAERS Reports on Vaccine Injuries and Deaths, part two) while protecting no one against a disease that can certainly make people who get it very sick and cause death in those who do not get proper treatment or are elderly and/or have preexisting co-morbidities. One of those attesting to the facts about these “vaccines” is Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA gene therapy treatments (Dr. Malone on Madness Of Mass Formation Psychosis and Dr. Robert Malone says he can’t support Trump while ex-president stands by COVID-19 jabs. Also see: Revised and Expanded: Sin: More Deadly Than the Coronavirus, part twenty, and Sin: More Deadly Than the Coronavirus, part twenty-one.)

As noted just above, the events of January 6, 2021, were needless. As explained in Put Not Your Trust in Princes: In the Children of Men in Who There is No Salvation, a mature person who had the capacity to accept the will of God in his life would have understood that there was no rational good to be accomplished in raising the hopes of his political supporters that there was even the ghost of a constitutional or legal chance for the results of an election that involved the misuse of mail-in ballots, the overcounting of Biden votes and undercounting of Trump votes, (Narrative of a perfect 2020 election eroding as Wisconsin becomes investigative ground zero), wholesale disposals of votes and, in one celebrated case, a postal truckload of mail-in votes being driven from Bethpage, New York, to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Whistleblower Drove Ballots From New York to Pennsylvania), to be overturned.

It is one thing to believe that one has been the potential victim of fraud, but it is quite another not to recognize that one is not going to realize justice in all the circumstances of one’s life in this passing, mortal vale of tears and that one has to have the wisdom to know what is prudent and what is intemperate. Donald John Trump does not have this wisdom as he does not know God, Whose Holy Name he uses in vain quite regularly, as He has revealed Himself to us through His true Church, does not have belief in, access to, and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace and thus does not understand that nothing any of us suffer in this life—including the loss of an election—is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday and that caused His Most Blessed Mother to suffer in perfect compassion with Him.

Although former President Donald John Trump has certainly been the victim of those who hate him because they hate anyone who disagrees with them and has the ability to win office despite their claims that “democracy” is “endangered” by elections conducted on any terms other than their own and/or produce results other than the ones they try to engineer so demagogically and deceitfully, the fact of his victimization does not indemnify his bad decisions, especially with respect to the choosing of personnel to serve in his administration, inattention to detail, his obsession with twitter and constant self-justification, and his refusal to listen to constructive advice from his political allies.

Nations Founded and Steeped in Error Must Degenerate into Totalitarianism Over Time

Our salvation is not to be had in the farce of the clash between the members of the organized crime families of the false opposites of the naturalist “left” and “right,” which is why is why it is important for readers of this site to remember that it is impossible to produce the conditions conductive to social comity while men continue to live as the enemies of the King of Kings Who was made manifesto the Kings of the Gentiles. Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar worshiped the Baby King, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, but the lords of Modernity want us to worship them and to obey their “infallible” commands and diktats without complaint.  We are undergoing a chastisement that is long overdue, a chastisement that, if we are honest with ourselves, we deserve solely for our own sins of lethargic self-indulgence, worldliness, and the countless numbers of invisible compromises we have made with the world and its false allures.

This chastisement is long overdue as a world bereft of a due submission to the Catholic Church in all that pertains to the good of souls is a world that has descended into the depths of madness in which contingent beings who did not create themselves and whose bodies are destined one day for the corruption of the grave have determined that they can play God with impunity and, quite indeed, be heralded for their being “champions” of scientific research. No one, of course, is supposed to notice that the “research” being conducted at this time is identical to what was being done by mad scientists in the German “Weimar Republic” between 1919-1933 and under the so-called “Third Reich” of Adolph Hitler between 1933 and 1945.

Most of the people alive today are so distracted with bread and circuses that they have grown “comfortable” with and/or “indifferent” to the daily slaughter of the innocent preborn by surgical means and completely ignorant of the fact that, to quote the late Father Paul Marx, O.S.B., “most contraceptives abort, and most contraceptives abort all the time.” There is near-universal support for the myth of “brain death”/human organ vivisection and transplantation and “palliative”/hospice “care.” Even sadder still, most people alive today think nothing of blasphemy, immodesty, indecency, impurity, or “little” acts of dishonesty in their own daily lives.

God the Holy Ghost Himself inspired these words that apply to the situation that faces us today:

[34] Justice exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable. (Proverbs 14: 34.) 

The United States of America has long sanctioned sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance under cover of the civil law and in every nook and cranny of what passes for popular culture. 

Yet it is that even many fully traditional Catholics in the catacombs continue to believe that this or that election is going to retard the advance of the grave evils that are the product of the natural degeneration of the welter of naturalistic, anti-Incarnational, religiously indifferent, semi-Pelagian errors of the founders, some of whom had a founding hatred for Christ the King.

Perhaps it would be good to consider the following words from Pope Pius XII’s encyclical letter on the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in order to contrast the spirit of hatred that motivates the leaders of this passing world with the tender mercies of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, Who was made manifest to the Gentile Kings on the Feast of the Epiphany that is still being observed as octave in those chapels that adhere to the General Roman Calendar of 1954.

Pope Pius XII emphasized that devotion to the Most Sacred Heart is not “burdensome” and is at the heart of fighting for Christ the King and His rights in the midst of a world that is cold and hostile to Him:

8. The Church has always valued, and still does, the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus so highly that she provides for the spread of it among Christian peoples everywhere and by every means. At the same time she uses every effort to protect it against the charges of so-called “naturalism” and “sentimentalism.” In spite of this it is much to be regretted that, both in the past and in our own times, this most noble devotion does not find a place of honor and esteem among certain Christians and even occasionally not among those who profess themselves moved by zeal for the Catholic religion and the attainment of holiness.

9. “If you but knew the gift of God.”[7] With these words, venerable brethren, We who in the secret designs of God have been elected as the guardians and stewards of the sacred treasures of faith and piety which the divine Redeemer has entrusted to His Church, prompted by Our sense of duty, admonish them all.

10. For even though the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has triumphed so to speak, over the errors and the neglect of men, and has penetrated entirely His Mystical Body; still there are some of Our children who, led astray by prejudices, sometimes go so far as to consider this devotion ill-adapted, not to say detrimental, to the more pressing spiritual needs of the Church and humanity in this present age. There are some who, confusing and confounding the primary nature of this devotion with various individual forms of piety which the Church approves and encourages but does not command, regard this as a kind of additional practice which each one may take up or not according to his own inclination.

11. There are others who reckon this same devotion burdensome and of little or no use to men who are fighting in the army of the divine King and who are inspired mainly by the thought of laboring with their own strength, their own resources and expenditures of their own time, to defend Catholic truth, to teach and spread it, to instill Christian social teachings, to promote those acts of religion and those undertakings which they consider much more necessary today. (Pope Pius XII, Haurietis Aquas, May 15, 1956.)

A Brief Comment:

Paragraph 11, above, summarizes the beliefs of so many Catholics who permit themselves to be drawn into the agitation of the conflicts between the false opposites of the naturalist “left” and “right” that are simply manifestations of the anti-Incarnational Judeo-Masonic spirit of Modernity and can never be in the service of promoting a genuine social order.

Pope Pius XII went on to explain the attitude of those who consider devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus to be suited only for women and not for “educated men” even though it is a strong antidote to the sophistries of Modernity:

12. Again, there are those who so far from considering this devotion a strong support for the right ordering and renewal of Christian morals both in the individual’s private life and in the home circle, see it rather a type of piety nourished not by the soul and mind but by the senses and consequently more suited to the use of women, since it seems to them something not quite suitable for educated men.

13. Moreover there are those who consider a devotion of this kind as primarily demanding penance, expiation and the other virtues which they call “passive,” meaning thereby that they produce no external results. Hence they do not think it suitable to re-enkindle the spirit of piety in modern times. Rather, this should aim at open and vigorous action, at the triumph of the Catholic faith, at a strong defense of Christian morals. Christian morality today, as everyone knows, is easily contaminated by the sophistries of those who are indifferent to any form of religion, and who, discarding all distinctions between truth and falsehood, whether in thought or in practice, accept even the most ignoble corruptions of materialistic atheism, or as they call it, secularism.

14. Who does not see, venerable brethren, that opinions of this kind are in entire disagreement with the teachings which Our predecessors officially proclaimed from this seat of truth when approving the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.? Who would be so bold as to call that devotion useless and inappropriate to our age which Our predecessor of immortal memory, Leo XIII, declared to be “the most acceptable form of piety?” He had no doubt that in it there was a powerful remedy for the healing of those very evils which today also, and beyond question in a wider and more serious way, bring distress and disquiet to individuals and to the whole human race. “This devotion,” he said, “which We recommend to all, will be profitable to all.” And he added this counsel and encouragement with reference to the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: “. . .hence those forces of evil which have now for so long a time been taking root and which so fiercely compel us to seek help from Him by Whose strength alone they can be driven away. Who can He be but Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God? ‘For there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved.’[8] We must have recourse to Him Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”[9]

15. No less to be approved, no less suitable for the fostering of Christian piety was this devotion declared to be by Our predecessor of happy memory, Pius XI. In an encyclical letter he wrote: “Is not a summary of all our religion and, moreover, a guide to a more perfect life contained in this one devotion? Indeed, it more easily leads our minds to know Christ the Lord intimately and more effectively turns our hearts to love Him more ardently and to imitate Him more perfectly.”[10]

16. To Us, no less than to Our predecessors, these capital truths are clear and certain. When We took up Our office of Supreme Pontiff and saw, in full accord with Our prayers and desires, that the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus had increased and was actually, so to speak, making triumphal progress among Christian peoples, We rejoiced that from it were flowing through the whole Church innumerable and salutary results. This We were pleased to point out in Our first encyclical letter.[11]

17. Through the years of Our pontificate — years filled not only with bitter hardships but also with ineffable consolations these effects have not diminished in number or power or beauty, but on the contrary have increased. Indeed, happily there has begun a variety of projects which are conducive to a rekindling of this devotion. We refer to the formation of cultural associations for the advancement of religion and of charitable works; publications setting forth the true historical, ascetical and mystical doctrine concerning this entire subject; pious works of atonement; and in particular those manifestations of most ardent piety which the Apostleship of Prayer has brought about, under whose auspices and direction local gatherings — families, colleges, institutions — and sometimes nations have been consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. To all these We have offered paternal congratulations on many occasions, whether in letters written on the subject, in personal addresses, or even in messages delivered over the radio.[12]

18. Therefore when We perceive so fruitful an abundance of healing waters, that is, heavenly gifts of divine love, issuing from the Sacred Heart of our Redeemer, spreading among countless children of the Catholic Church by the inspiration and action of the divine Spirit; We can only exhort you, venerable brethren, with fatherly affection to join Us in giving tribute of praise and heartfelt thanks to God, the Giver of all good gifts. We make Our own these words of the Apostle of the Gentiles: “Now to Him Who is able to do all things more abundantly than we desire or understand, according to the power that worketh in us, to Him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations world without end. Amen.”[13]

19. But after We have paid Our debt of thanks to the Eternal God, We wish to urge on you and on all Our beloved children of the Church a more earnest consideration of those principles which take their origin from Scripture and the teaching of the Fathers and theologians and on which, as on solid foundations, the worship of the Sacred Heart of Jesus rests. We are absolutely convinced that not until we have made a profound study of the primary and loftier nature of this devotion with the aid of the light of the divinely revealed truth, can we rightly and fully appreciate its incomparable excellence and the inexhaustible abundance of its heavenly favors. Likewise by devout meditation and contemplation of the innumerable benefits produced from it, we will be able to celebrate worthily the completion of the first hundred years since the observance of the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was extended to the Universal Church. (Pope Pius  XII, Haurietis Aquas, May 15, 1956.)

Our last true Holy Father thus far explained the spirit of the hatred of God that was at work in the world sixty-seven years ago and can be said to be at the foundation of modern politics as nihilists of the “left” and the “right” eschew the life-giving waters of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the truths of the Holy Faith that can and do lift the minds and hearts of men to the things that eternal, in the light of which all things earthy must be judged:

117. And there is more. For if We experience bitter sorrow at the feeble loyalty of the good in whose souls, tricked by a deceptive desire for earthly possessions, the fire of divine charity grows cool and gradually dies out, much more is Our heart deeply grieved by the machinations of evil men who, as if instigated by Satan himself, are now more than ever zealous in their open and implacable hatred against God, against the Church and above all against him who on earth represents the Person of the divine Redeemer and exhibits His love towards men, in accordance with that well-known saying of the Doctor of Milan: “For (Peter) is being questioned about that which is uncertain, though the Lord is not uncertain; He is questioning not that He may learn, but that He may teach the one whom, at His ascent into Heaven, He was leaving to us as ‘the representative of His love.'”[116]

118. But, in truth, hatred of God and of those who lawfully act in His place is the greatest kind of sin that can be committed by man created in the image and likeness of God and destined to enjoy His perfect and enduring friendship for ever in heaven. Man, by hatred of God more than by anything else, is cut off from the Highest Good and is driven to cast aside from himself and from those near to him whatever has its origin in God, whatever is united with God, whatever leads to the enjoyment of God, that is, truth, virtue, peace and justice.[117]

119. Since then, alas, one can see that the number of those whose boast is that they are God’s enemies is in some places increasing, that the false slogans of materialism are being spread by act and argument, and unbridled license for unlawful desires is everywhere being praised, is it remarkable that love, which is the supreme law of the Christian religion, the surest foundation of true and perfect justice and the chief source of peace and innocent pleasures, loses its warmth in the souls of many? For as our Savior warned us: “Because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold.”[118]

120. When so many evils meet Our gaze — such as cause sharp conflict among individuals, families, nations and the whole world, particularly today more than at any other time — where are We to seek a remedy, venerable brethren? Can a form of devotion surpassing that to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus be found, which corresponds better to the essential character of the Catholic faith, which is more capable of assisting the present-day needs of the Church and the human race? What religious practice is more excellent, more attractive, more salutary than this, since the devotion in question is entirely directed towards the love of God itself?[119] (Pope Pius XII, Haurietis Aquas, May 15, 1956.)

Pope Pius XII was referring to the false slogans of materialism being spread by Communists sixty-seven years ago, but we know only too well that Communist apologists, if not actual Communists, hold the levers of global power today, including here in the United States of America, where many “respected” opinion-makers believe that the time has come for a formal censorship of any speech that is opposed to “democracy,” meaning opposed to the statist/globalist program for the New World Order. The charity of men hath indeed grown cold because of men’s hatred of God, and it is an easy thing to hate His rational creatures if one hates the very Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.

Linking devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus with devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pope Pius XII explained that a rekindling of a love for God in the hearts of men would lead to the reconstruction of a just social order on the right principles of the true Faith:

123. Finally, moved by an earnest desire to set strong bulwarks against the wicked designs of those who hate God and the Church and, at the same time, to lead men back again, in their private and public life, to a love of God and their neighbor, We do not hesitate to declare that devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the most effective school of the love of God; the love of God, We say, which must be the foundation on which to build the kingdom of God in the hearts of individuals, families, and nations, as that same predecessor of pious memory wisely reminds us: “The reign of Jesus Christ takes its strength and form from divine love: to love with holiness and order is its foundation and its perfection. From it these must flow: to perform duties without blame; to take away nothing of another’s right; to guide the lower human affairs by heavenly principles; to give the love of God precedence over all other creatures.”[124]

124. In order that favors in greater abundance may flow on all Christians, nay, on the whole human race, from the devotion to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus, let the faithful see to it that to this devotion the Immaculate Heart of the Mother of God is closely joined. For, by God’s Will, in carrying out the work of human Redemption the Blessed Virgin Mary was inseparably linked with Christ in such a manner that our salvation sprang from the love and the sufferings of Jesus Christ to which the love and sorrows of His Mother were intimately united. It is, then, entirely fitting that the Christian people — who received the divine life from Christ through Mary — after they have paid their debt of honor to the Sacred Heart of Jesus should also offer to the most loving Heart of their heavenly Mother the corresponding acts of piety affection, gratitude and expiation. Entirely in keeping with this most sweet and wise disposition of divine Providence is the memorable act of consecration by which We Ourselves solemnly dedicated Holy Church and the whole world to the spotless Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.[125] (Pope Pius XII, Haurietis Aquas, May 15, 1956.)

Turn away from the conflicts between the false opposites of the naturalist “left” and “right” that are nothing other than sideshows concocted in the laboratories of hell and designed to convince men that it is through violent confrontations that injustices can be remedied and a sense of “liberty” that has always been licentiousness and not true liberty can be “enjoyed” again. The standard of the Holy Cross of Our Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, is the one and only standard of true liberty for men and their nations.

No, it is only by adherence to our Catholic Faith as we prostrate ourselves before Our Eucharistic King and pledge ourselves to Him through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary to His own Most Sacred Heart that we can find a remedy in the souls of individual men to help them overcome the conflicts and agitations of the moment and thus rise to the heights of personal sanctity.

This world in which we live is passing away. The triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will be made manifest ‘ere long. We must be focused on the sanctification and salvation of our own immortal souls as we keep our First Friday devotions with fervor and pray Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary every day, including on each First Saturday for the intentions specified by the Mother of God in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, and to Sister Lucia dos Santos in Tuy, Spain.

As I noted four years ago, put not your trust in princes, in the children of men in whom there is no salvation.

Put your trust in the Most Sacred Heart of Christ the King and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, praying as many Rosaries each day as one’s state-in-life permits.

Vivat Christus Rex!

Vivat Regina Mariae Immaculate!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us. 

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria, pray for us.

Appendix

Electoral College Disputes in the Past

As had happened in 1824 and would happen again in 1888, 2000 and 2016, the candidate who won the popular national vote total in 1876, New York Governor Samuel J. Tilden, was not elected as president because representatives from South Carolina and Florida agreed to throw their support to Ohio Governor Rutherford Birchwood Hayes in exchange for the withdrawal of the northern occupation of the eleven states of the Confederacy and an end to the oppressive policies of the Reconstruction. Tilden needed one electoral vote to win, Hayes needed twenty. An Electoral Commission was created on January 29, 1877, to decide the matter, and its composition of eight Republican members and seven Democrats put Hayes in the presidency, to which office he began on March 4, 1877 (March 4 was the date of presidential inauguration until the Twentieth Amendment, ratified in 1933, changed the date to January 20):

The 1876 presidential campaign between Samuel Tilden, the Democratic Party nominee, and Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate, was hard-fought. After Election Day on November 7, 1876, Tilden was one electoral vote short of winning the election and well ahead in the popular vote.

However, four states—Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon—had problems with their slates of electoral votes, which were yet to be included in the results. In the three southern states, there were legal actions taken after Republican-controlled canvassing boards disqualified Democratic voters.

In Florida, the state canvassing board threw out about 2,000 votes, leaving Hayes with a lead of 924 votes. The Democrats convened their own electoral college vote, sent a second Florida election certificate to Congress signed by the state attorney general, and sued the Republicans in state court. Similar conflicts arose in South Carolina and Louisiana.

In Oregon, its governor, La Fayette Grover, wanted to disqualify a Republican electoral college member, John W. Watts. Grover believed Watts’ appointment as an assistant postmaster conflicted with Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution that required that no “Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States shall be appointed an Elector.” Grover wanted a Democrat to replace Watts, which would give the presidential election to Tilden. The three southern states represented 19 electoral votes. If they were counted for Hayes, along with Oregon’s contested vote, then Hayes won the election.

Congress faced a clear conflict considering the electoral votes from those four states since it had received multiple slates of electors from each state signed by state officials. Under the Constitution, Congress had an obligation to count all the electoral votes, but no mechanism to decide between competing votes sent from states. As tempers flared, there was also a clear danger of public violence, with calls from Tilden supporters to mobilize the National Guard and the Republicans to use federal troops to keep the peace.

On January 29, 1877, Congress passed and President Grant signed the Electoral Commission Act to break the impasse. The House and Senate named five members each to serve on the commission, and the Supreme Court named five associate justices to serve. The commission would decide “the true and lawful electoral vote of such State” if a state sent multiple electoral slates to Congress. The key vote would fall to one of the named justices, Justice David Davis, an independent. However, Davis decided to accept a Senate seat in Illinois. His replacement, Justice Joseph Bradley, was a Republican.

The commission met on February 1, 1877, to settle the dispute in Florida, which had sent three certificates to Congress. After extensive arguments, the commission ruled on February 9, 1877, in an 8-7 vote in favor of Hayes, with Justice Bradley joining the Republicans. On February 12, 1887, the commission took up the question of Louisiana, which also sent three certificates to Congress. Five days later, the commission decided for Hayes in Louisiana.

The crucial question of Oregon was next for the commission on February 21, 1877, with objections raised about Watts’ position as a postmaster on the day electoral votes were counted in Oregon. In a 1969 academic paper, Philip W. Kennedy described the critical question at stake. “The central issue was whether the commission had the authority to investigate electoral returns,” Kennedy said, or in other words, “go behind” the Democrats’ electoral certificate to investigate wrongdoing (including an alleged bribe paid by the Tilden campaign).

On February 23, 1877, the commission heard that one of its members, Democratic senator Alan G. Thurman, was too ill to vote on the Oregon matter. Instead, the commission moved the vote to Thurman’s house. A unanimous commission rejected a rival Oregon slate with three Democrats submitted to Congress, and it then approved Watts as Oregon’s third elector in an 8-7 vote. The majority said Watts’ position of postmaster was immaterial, since he resigned after the election, resigned as an elector, and then was reappointed as elector before he cast his electoral vote.

The South Carolina dispute also went in favor of the Republicans on February 27, 1877, leaving about a week for Congress to handle the final matter of the presidential election. The Democrats threatened to filibuster and delay proceedings as a protest about the election results. Violence was again possible among the Tilden supporters. That week, members of both parties’ leadership reportedly met at Washington’s Wormley Hotel to finalize an agreement. The Southern Democrats would accept Hayes as president and Republicans would agree to effectively end Reconstruction by removing federal troops from the South, along with other concessions.

On March 2, 1877, at 4:11 a.m., a joint session of Congress declared Rutherford B. Hayes as the next president of the United States. During deliberations that started the previous day, House Speaker Samuel Randall, a Tilden supporter, defeated filibuster efforts from his fellow Democrats. At one point during vocal protests on the House floor, Randall admonished the protesting Democrats. “If gentlemen forget themselves, it is the duty of the Chair to remind them that they are members of the American Congress,” Randall said.

Chief Justice Morrison Waite swore in Hayes the next day in private at the White House, since inauguration day fell on a Sunday that year. The public inauguration was on March 5, 1877. Tilden’s supporters called Hayes “Rutherfraud” after the election, but Tilden had accepted the election results.

A decade later, Congress passed the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to deal with some of the open questions faced by the Electoral Commission. There were still concerns about the Electoral Commission’s inclusion of the Supreme Court justices as election arbiters. The Electoral Count Act of 1887 left the decision solely in the hands of Congress.

The 1887 act’s wordy language provides for methods of handling competing slate electors without needing to convene another Electoral Commission. The act also defines a process about objections to electoral votes in the joint meeting of Congress to tally electoral votes and confirm a presidential election.

While some modern scholars question the clarity of the Electoral Count Act of 1887, it has remained in place as a detailed response to the 1876 presidential election, one of the greatest constitutional challenges faced by Congress in its history.

Senator John J. Ingalls voiced the frustration of many during the debates over the Electoral Count Act of 1887. “The Electoral Commission of 1877 was a contrivance that will never be repeated in our politics. It was a device that was favored by each party in the belief that it would cheat the other, and it resulted, as I once before said, in defrauding both.” (The Electoral Commission of 1877.)

It is not for nothing that President Rutherford Birchwood Hayes was referred to by Democrats and by Democratic Party-affiliated newspapers as “His Fraudulency,” and there is a very important lesson to be applied to our own circumstances today by the grace with which Governor Samuel J. Tilden dealt with his unjust defeat while The New York Tribune later accused him of trying to buy votes in South Carolina and Florida:

Upon his defeat by Hayes, Tilden said, "I can retire to public life with the consciousness that I shall receive from posterity the credit of having been elected to the highest position in the gift of the people, without any of the cares and responsibilities of the office."

After losing the presidency to Hayes, Tilden counseled his followers to abide quietly by the result, but he declined renomination in 1880 and 1884. The remainder of his life was spent in retirement at his country home, Greystone, near Yonkers, New York. He died a bachelor in 1886. He confided to a friend that he had never slept with a woman in his life.

Of his fortune (estimated at $5,000,000) approximately $4,000,000 was bequeathed for the establishment and maintenance of a free public library and reading-room in the City of New York; but, as the will was successfully contested by relatives, only about $2,000,000 of the bequest was applied to its original purpose; in 1895, the Tilden Trust was combined with the Astor and Lenox libraries to found the New York Public Library, whose building bears his name on its front.

In 1878, the Republican New York Tribune published a series of telegraphic dispatches in cipher, accompanied by translations, by which it attempted to prove that during the crisis following the 1876 election, Tilden had been negotiating for the purchase of the electoral votes of South Carolina and Florida. Tilden denied emphatically all knowledge of such dispatches, and appeared voluntarily before a Congressional sub-committee in New York City to clear himself of the charge. The attempts to implicate him in corrupt transactions were not successful; but his political opponents endeavoured to make capital in subsequent campaigns, out of the so-called 'Cipher Dispatches'. (The Election of 1876.)

“Twitter” and email now, the “cipher dispatches” one hundred forty-four years (and forty-one presidential elections) ago. Things have changed far less than one is led to believe in the middle of the current agitation, which has been at the heart of American politics and governance since July 4, 1776.

What happened in 1877 was so patently unconstitutional that I consistently told my college students that the so-called Electoral Commission had no basis in the Constitution of the United States of America whatsoever. The 1877 Electoral Commission had no foundation in the Constitution of the United States of America and was an ad hoc creation to solve a difficult national crisis that flew in the face of the intentions of the Constitution’s framers, who used the Twelfth Amendment to modify the election a president the unexpected electoral vote tie between Thomas Jefferson and his vice presidential running mate, Aaron Burr, that occurred when Article II provided that the electors from the various states vote for two persons for president and that the one with the second highest vote total to the one who garnered a majority of electoral vote would serve as vice president. As Jefferson and Burr were tied with eighty-three electoral votes apiece, the United States House of Representatives elected Jefferson as president and the United States Senate elected Burr as vice president.

The framers did not anticipate the rise of political parties, but they arose out of disputes within the administration of President George Washington between Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who believed in strong, centralized government, and the Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, who believed in states’ rights and limited government. Washington, who had warned against factions such as political parties, was helpless to see their formation. The unforeseen, extra-constitutional (not unconstitutional) rise of political parties complicated the presidential election process, which the Constitution’s framers believed would always be deadlocked and that the president would be elected by the House of Representatives every four years as they could not believe that anyone after Washington would be able to win a majority of electoral votes. The framers envisioned that each state legislature would nominate a favorite son of their state, thus resulting in a further check on the excesses of popular sovereignty and majority rule.

The rise of the political parties, however, and the electoral deadlock in 1800 resulted in the proposal and subsequent ratification in 1804 of the Twelfth Amendment, whose provisions read as follows:

The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; -- The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted; -- The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.-- The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

The Congress of the United States of America has no constitutional authority to add provisions to the method of electing a president and vice president as spelled out in the Twelfth Amendment as the only way to change anything contained in the Twelfth Amendment is to amend the Constitution.

To illustrate this fact, it is perhaps useful to explain to readers that the Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison, 1803, revolved around the demand of William Marbury, who had been appointed by outgoing President John Adams to a Federal judgeship in the waning hours of his presidency on March 3, 1801, for  the Court to issue a writ of mandamus instructing Secretary of State James Madison in the administration of President Thomas Jefferson to deliver his certificate of appointment to him so that he could take his seat on the Federal judiciary that Jefferson had denied him upon taking office on March 4, 1801. Jefferson scoffed at the “Midnight Appointments” of his fellow anti-Catholic and then-former friend turned political adversary, John Adams and had instructed Madison not to deliver any of the certificates of appointment to Adams’s appointees.

Crucial to the case of Marbury v. Madison, February 24, 1803, was a provision in the United States Judiciary Act of 1790 that gave the Supreme Court of the United States original jurisdiction to issue writs of mandamus, which Chief Justice John Marshall, who had been Adams’s Secretary of State prior to being nominated and confirmed to serve as chief justice, concluded was unconstitutional as Congress had no power to add to the Court’s original jurisdiction that was specifically given to it in Article III of the Constitution of the United States of America. Marshall explained that, yes, William Marbury was entitled to his writ of mandamus, but that Congress had erred in its effort to give original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court to do so. Marshall thus struck down the provision in the United States Judiciary Act of 1790, making the case the first use of judicial review to strike down a provision of Federal law as unconstitutional. (The first discussion of the power of judicial review by the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States of America came in the case of Hayburn’s Case, August 11, 1792, but the first actual application of judicial review, which had been explained by Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist, Number 78, to uphold a Congressional enactment occurred in the case of Hylton v. United States, March 8, 1796, as the Supreme Court of the United States of America upheld a Congressional tax on carriages as constitutional. The use of judicial review in the Hylton case was made as a matter course. Chief Justice John Marshall, who would have found himself in political difficulty with the Jeffersonians had he decided in Marbury’s favor and might have been impeached if he had done so, went to great lengths in Marbury v. Madison to defend the theory of judicial review as part of the Court’s constitutional powers according to the intentions of the Constitution’s framers even though the phrase appears nowhere in Article III. Marshall, who served as Chief Justice from February 4, 1801, to July 6, 1835, thus concluded that while Marbury was entitled to the commission, which he himself had signed while serving as United States Secretary of State and as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America during a twenty-eight day period in the final month of the John Adams administration, but that the Supreme Court had been given the power to issue a writ of mandamus to command his successor as Secretary of State, James Madison, to do so because  Congress had erred in giving to the Court a power that did not exist in Article III  and could only be added by constitutional amendment.)

This is a very, very long way of saying that one has to really, really stretch to think that the Vice President of the United States of America has the power in his capacity as President of the United States Senate to reject the electoral votes certified by a state governor. The Twelfth Amendment gives the President of the Senate only the power to open the envelopes containing the state-certified electoral votes, and, as explained by professor just below, the Electoral Vote Count Act of 1887 is unconstitutional not because of the Twelfth Amendment but because it intrudes on a Federal function. The article quoted below explains that President Trump’s legal team was inept and thus was, much like Trump himself, it should be noted, its own worst enemy at finding the proper constitutional and legal foundation for their litigation:

As I point out in a recent interview, the failure of the Trump legal team and its allies to understand the Constitution’s rules on presidential elections has cost them dearly. They have evidence of fraud and other election irregularities. But they have not used that evidence well.

The Constitution says that the Vice-President, as President of the Senate, is the presiding officer when a joint session of Congress oversees the counting of president electors. Some of the president’s advocates claim that gives Vice President Mike Pence unlimited discretion over the counting. They say that when the joint session meets on January 6, Pence may unilaterally decide between rival slates of electors.

In pursuance of this theory, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R.-Tex) has sued the vice president. Gohmert asserts that the federal laws on elector-counting are unconstitutional because they are inconsistent with the 12th amendment. He claims the vice president “may exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State.” He argues that Pence should appoint a Republican slate for Arizona.

The trial and appeals courts have dismissed the case for lack of standing. But if the plaintiffs had standing, their case still would be very weak. Here’s why:

* As the vice president observes, he is not a proper defendant. He has done nothing that makes him the bad guy here.

* The  Gohmert complaint points out that state legislatures can choose electors, but it fails to mention that the constitutionally-authorized deadline for doing so (December 14) passed without the Arizona legislature reversing the result certified under procedures fixed by the legislature.

* Instead, the complaint says that “members of the Arizona Legislature” selected the GOP slate. But it also failed to mention that these members were only a minority of the legislature, acting on their own.

* It is highly unlikely the 12th Amendment gives one person uncontrolled discretion over the presidential and vice presidential electoral counting. This is particularly so when that person is the vice president—someone who may be (as in this election) one of the candidates himself.

* A legal principle says that when a result seems unlikely, you don’t assume it is correct unless the governing law clearly compels it.  But the 12th amendment does not clearly determine that the vice president has exclusive authority to count the ballots. Quite the contrary. It says only that “the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.” It gives the Veep authority to open the ballots, but does not specify who counts them.

* When the Constitution or law is silent, normal parliamentary procedure is to proceed according to the rules specified by the parliamentary body. That means rules adopted by the joint session of Congress, not by the presiding officer.

* Congress has set forth those rules in federal statutes. The plaintiffs claim the statutes (which they wrongly attribute to a single enactment) are unconstitutional.  However, once again their lack of constitutional understanding caused them to lose an opportunity: The statute is not unconstitutional, because it contradicts the 12th amendment—which it doesn’t. The statute may be unconstitutional because it intrudes on a federal function.

To explain: When Congress comes into joint counting session, it is not acting as the federal legislature. It is acting as an assembly exercising a function directly mandated by the Constitution. Federal functions usually are exempt from statutory regulation.

On the other hand, the joint session may—expressly or impliedly—agree voluntarily to follow the statutory procedures. If the joint session does not object to using established legal procedures, then it is deemed to accept them. Dyer v. Blair, 390 F. Supp. 1291 (N.D. Ill. 1975) (Justice John Paul Stevens).

But that is surely the joint session’s decision, not the decision of the presiding officer. (Vice President Pence Cannot Replace Electors On His Own.)

In other words, President Donald John Trump gave his millions of millions of his voters false hope that it was possible, if not probable, that Vice President Michael Richard Pence could have arbitrarily rejected state-certified slates of electors and sent the matters back to the states for consideration. The “Save America Rally” that was held on the Ellipse near the south lawn of the White House on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord, was a needless exercise in mass self-delusion, to say nothing of a massive and, pardon me, diabolically inspired distraction from the feast of manifestation of Our Lord to the Gentiles.

Although the matter is one of constitutional debate and interpretation, it was unreasonable to be point of being reprehensible for the president to publicly lambaste a man, Michael Richard Pence, who just wanted to do his duty in accord with the dictates of the Constitution. The rally, which was organized by the conspiracy advocate Alex Jones, who has gone so far as to assert that no one was killed in the attack by Adam at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the Town of Newtown, Connecticut on Friday, December 14, 2011, even though the town, where we lived between January 14, 2010, and February 6, 2011, was devastated by the attack and the documented loss of life. That anyone would follow a thing that anti-Catholic bigot named Alex Jones says or who would march to his orders is very mistaken.

No Vice President has ever decided to reject state-certified electors, noting that President Pro Tempore James Mason decided to accept the Wisconsin slate of electors even though a snowstorm had delayed those electors from making their way to Madison, Wisconsin, by one day in December of 1856. Mason, who served the constitutional role of Vice President William King, who had died in office, decided to accept Wisconsin’s votes when the electoral votes were counted before a joint session of Congress on February 11, 1857. To this date, however, no Vice President or President Pro Tempore has ever rejected a slate of state-certified electors. Ever.

One can be assured, however, that even though, as I had told you weeks in advance, that there was no chance the Supreme Court of the United States of America would have agreed to hear the fully justified challenges to the way in which the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court amended the commonwealth’s constituted by judicial fit to make it possible for absentee ballots to be received after election day, the Court probably would have accepted a challenge raised by the legal team of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., after the challenge became ripe for review following expedited adjudication at the district court level to strike down the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to be unconstitutional. Even if Pence had done which no other vice president had ever done—namely, throw out slates of electors in one or more states, he would have been overturned by Federal courts in short order.

In other words, everyone should have been home and meditating upon the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, instead of being led to believe that it was at all even remotely possible for the election results in the states where fraud and irregularities occurred to be overturned so that Donald John Trump could win a second term in office. The hope was misplaced, and the agitation was needless. Donald John Trump now has the rest of his life (he will turn seventy-five years of age later this year) to consider his role in encouraging his supporters to travel to Washington, District of Columbia, in the belief that a great show of support from peaceful Americans would put any kind of pressure on Vice President Pence and the members of the two Houses of Congress that would result in the defeat of the Red Chinese stooge and renegade Catholic named Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. People were gathered together needlessly, and five people are now dead because a relatively small number of well-organized and well-armed followers of the QAnon idiocy and other such websites left the rally early to carry out their pre-planned attacks in the delusion belief that the use of force could somehow rout the legislators and “save the day” for their secular savior, Trump.

Scores of just regular, unarmed saps who had no knowledge of the pre-planned violence and did not participate in it got caught up in the agitation of the moment and entered the Capitol building, thus undermining the credibility of the effort that had commenced to present evidence of election fraud and irregularities in the States of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.