Thread by @danbishopnc

I read all 213 pages of opinions in the Colorado Supreme Court ruling excluding President Trump from the ballot. SCOTUS will reverse, but this parody of judicial decisionmaking is a frightening sign how far gone our judiciary is. Court is all Democrat appointees; split 4-3. /1

Some credit due to dissenting Justice Samour for calling out the "procedural Frankenstein" of the lower court process ... a "summary proceeding" for simple challenges to residency, age, etc. qualifications, which statute mandates to be resolved within a week of filing. /2

That obviously couldn't happen, so trial court made up procedural rules on the fly to force "trial" of the history-altering issue at hand within eight weeks of the filing of the 105-page petition. "[W]hat took place here doesn't resemble anything I've seen in a courtroom." (Samour ¶ 342) /3

Samour observes "no basic discovery, no ability to subpoena documents and compel witnesses, no workable timeframes to adequately investigate and develop defenses, ... no fair trial either," no jury, expert witnesses allowed to opine on issues of law. (Samour ¶¶ 340-41) Kangaroo court. /4

But most fascinating was majority's analysis of how the evidence established that Trump "engaged" in "insurrection" by his Jan 6 speech and that the speech has no 1A protection. Spoiler alert: "peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard" earns no mention til page 127 /5

The trial court admitted in evidence the report of the Thompson/Cheney January 6 Committee. The majority was "unpersuaded" that it is "an untrustworthy, partisan political document" and therefore inadmissible hearsay ... even though 9 of 9 members voted to impeach. /6

After all, the majority wrote, the Committee's top lawyer testified that although the Committee members "certainly had hypotheses, [they] did not impair the members' ability to be fair and impartial." Hahahahahaha. Recall that no designee of the Republican conference served. /7

How did the majority decide that Trump "literally exhorted his supporters to fight at the Capitol" when he in fact said "peacefully and patriotically make your voices" and "we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women"? Most amazing of all ... /8

Peter Simi, sociology professor, was allowed to testify as an "expert" on "political extremism, including how extremists communicate." He testified that "Trump's calls to 'fight,' which most politicians would mean only symbolically, were, when spoken by Trump, literal calls to violence ..., while Trump's statements negating that sentiment were insincere and existed to obfuscate and create plausible deniability." /9

See how that works? If Trump said one thing, it is evidence he said the opposite. And if Trump said the same things Maxine Waters said, they're incitement to insurrection from him but regular ol' politics from Maxine. Because Prof. Simi opines that Trump is an "extremist." /10

The majority also builds a dubious house of cards in reasoning that the mob at the Capitol was an "insurrection, which I predict SCOTUS will demolish. Example: the mob "action was so formidable that the law enforcement officers onsite could not control it." But no crowd-control preparations were made, by decision of Pelosi, which was never investigated. /11

This is frightening stuff and could unleash very bad consequences if it stands. But it would appear that SCOTUS will get a crack at this very quickly, and that has the potential to put a lot of craziness to bed. Hang on tight: the efforts to rig elections just keep coming.