 We're on the air again with another edition of Patience on the News. This one harkens back to the very beginning of the time when we started this program, I think it was 17 years ago or almost 17 years ago, and it was just Patience on the News and I would read an article in a newspaper, some newspaper or several newspapers and comment on them. And then we took calls and so forth. And then we went to another format which was interviewing what I hope had been interesting people. And I had intended to do that tonight. I had been reading about all of the discussion, letters to the editor, complaints about Shana Bellows and how she just decided on her own to bar Trump from the ballot in Maine and how terrible it was and so forth. And that the Republicans, pretty much all of them in the Maine legislature, had decided to impeach Shana Bellows for her crimes or misdemeanors, which are crimes. And I called or had somebody call Representative Andrews from South Paris, who I was told is a very articulate, intelligent guy and would be a good guest to talk about this movement to impeach Shana Bellows, which apparently he's the leader of, and he's the fellow who submitted the legislative request to create a committee to investigate her. But Representative Andrews was not interested in coming in and answering questions. So I thought what I would do is, because I don't have a guest, guest wouldn't come, and I suspect a lot of Republicans would have refused to come. That reminds me there are some Republicans that like this format, they're not signed sound bites. We have no sound bites. It's 60 minutes of Q&A. So you get to the bottom of things, the follow-up questions. I've had many, many more conservatives on this show in the 17 years than I've had liberals or Democrats. I've had mostly conservatives or mostly Republicans. And they've all been very good. I'll tell you an interesting story. I wanted to interview Paula Page when he was governor. And I called and they said, well, we'll think about it and they didn't get back. In the meantime, there was a woman, a very nice lady, who had been appointed to the Board of Education in Maine, the Maine Education Department Oversight Group. And the Democrats in the Senate were against her. And they voted against her and she didn't get confirmed. And I thought it was a travesty. And so I called her up. I didn't know her. And she came on and she's very conservative. And I agreed with much of what she had to say. And I thought the Democrats were terrible in turning her down, just because they didn't like what she had to say. I actually like some of what she had to say. So she came on and she appreciated the fact that as she put it, I was even handed. So when I called the page, I get no answer back. I called her and she called the page and she said, go on. And he did. And when we finished, we did it up in the Capitol at his office. And when we finished and my producer who's here in the room, she'll remember this. He looked at me and he said, anytime you want to interview me, you call me up. And I did actually when he was running against the governor last year. I did call him. I said, why don't you come on again? And he did. And I like him. I disagree with him on most everything. But he's an honest man. Unlike Trump, Trump doesn't believe in anything. He's just conning people, trying to say things to get the base riled up and everything. Paul LaPage was not into that. Paul LaPage believed in everything he said. Paul LaPage had principles. I didn't agree with many of his principles for sure. But he believed them. And he was in it because he believed what he was doing and he wanted to change things in accordance with what he believed. Biden only wants to be elected. He wants power. And is that big? I mean, Biden, Trump, he wants power. And there's a big difference between Paul LaPage and Joe Biden. But that's down a side street now. These people wanted to impeach her and so I decided I wanted to talk about it. And I got really onto this when I read three letters to the editor that were written in the last week or two that express the views, I'll call them, of the Trumpers on this whole thing. And here was the first one. It kind of stirred me up. It said, this was written by a woman named Catherine Ferrell. It appeared in the Portland Press Herald. And it starts, who does the main secretary-state bellows think she is? By whose authority is she removing John L.J. Trump from the ballot? That is unconstitutional at best and not to mention election interference. We, the people of Maine, will vote for whomever we want. She calls Bellows decision 31 pages of blather. And so that made me think, well, this woman does have no idea what she's talking about. None. People share her opinion. I've heard them. They share her opinion and they don't know what they're talking about. So I said, well, look, Paceous, why not go on the program and talk a little bit about Bellows decision and show that these people have no idea what they're talking about. By whose authority is she removing John L.J. Trump? I thought, well, let's talk about the authority for removing John L.J. Trump. Another one, probably the next day, Bellows action should not be tolerated. I just read that Maine secretary-state is taking Trump's name off our presidential ballot. This is not democracy or the actions that should be tolerated by a free people, says William Tappan of Elliott. And then he goes on to say that she had no right to do this. Are we being, this writer, Mr. Tappan says, are we being ruled under law or just ruled without law by officials who choose not to abide by the law? So that reinforced what I was going to do. Maybe we ought to talk about the law, that apparently these letter writers are totally unfamiliar with and haven't bothered to check. So that did it. Finally I said there was one letter writer that wrote a letter after this and I thought it was thoughtful because this letter writer, he's upset about it too. And he says that the decisions in Colorado, by the Colorado Supreme Court and by the Maine secretary-state are begging for challenges because they said the problem is that the 14th amendment does not explicitly establish a process to enforce those provisions and there is no precedent in which to base a process. And so he goes on to say there's got to be due process and for a jury to find him guilty of insurrection and declare that he is thereby prohibited from holding office. Well, he's getting closer to it but I still, I know that people need to understand what the law is. Why did Shana Bellows even get into this? And I think it's a question that the first writer raises. What business is it of hers to borrow him from the ballot? Well here's what Maine Law says and unlike the writer of the letter, Maine Law is what guides Shana Bellows. Whether you agree with her or not, the question is whether she followed the law, what she required by the law to do. So I'm going to read from section 336 of title 21A of the Maine Statutes. This is the law of Maine. First it says every candidate must file a so-called written consent. The written consent of each candidate must be filed either with that candidate's primary petition or at any earlier time during which they collect signatures to get on the ballot. And section 336 goes on to say the consent, talking about the written consent, must contain a declaration of the candidate's place of residence, party designation, what political party if any they belong to, and a statement that the candidate meets the quote, qualifications of the office the candidate seeks, which the candidate must verify by oath or affirmation before a notary public or other person authorized by law to administer oaths or affirmations that the declaration is true, that they meet the qualifications of the office they seek. The next sentence says if pursuant to the challenge procedures in section 337, we're going to get to that in a minute, people can challenge the statement submitted under oath, if any part of the declaration is found to be false by the Secretary of State, the consent and the primary petition are void, can't get on the ballot. That's what the law says, if you're the Secretary of State you can't say, I don't feel like doing this, so here's what happens, people can challenge it, and if the people challenge it the Secretary of State cannot ignore it, here are the rules, here's the law, section 337 of title 21A of the main revised statutes, only a registered voter residing in the electoral division of the candidate concerned may file a challenge, an act in this case where the presidential challenge has to live in Maine, the challenge must be in writing and must set forth the reason for the challenge, okay, within seven days says the law of Maine, after the final date for filing challenges and after due notice of a hearing, the Secretary of State shall, not if she feels like it, she must under the law hold a public hearing on any challenge properly filed, she has to do it. The challenger has the burden of proving sufficient evidence to invalidate the petitions or the ballot request. The next section of Maine law says the Secretary of State shall rule, shall, shall, shall rule on the validity of any challenge within five days after the completion of the hearing. So that of course is the answer to the lady that says by what right? By whose authority? Well this will come as a surprise to that lady, the Secretary of State has a duty to follow the law and I'm now reading verbatim word for word from the laws of the State of Maine. So Secretary of State had to have a hearing, she had the hearing. The law says that she has no more than five days after the hearing until she, before she issues her decision and it further says, people talking about what about due process, where do we, you know, how come no courts are involved, how does she get all this power, she doesn't have this power alone. The statute says a candidate may appeal the decision of the Secretary of State by commencing an action in superior court, this action must be conducted in accordance with the Maine rules of civil procedure, the rules that apply to trials. This is without a jury but it's a trial. This action must be commenced, that is the action challenging, a court challenge to the Secretary of State, within five days of the day she issues an order. So she knew that this would go to a court and it says that the court shall issue a written decision containing its findings of fact, people give testimony, evidence is presented to the court required by the statute and conclusions of law. And if a candidate for instance Donald Trump after presenting the evidence to the superior court doesn't agree with what the main superior court says, then the statute goes on to say an aggrieved party, this case may be Trump, may appeal the decision of the superior court but just on questions of law, the law court, the main supreme court that would get the ultimate appeal here deals with the law, is there a lawful basis for the decision of the superior court and it's the superior court that takes the evidence, the facts, and makes findings of facts and they have to do it in writing, they have to say here's what we found the evidence substantiates, they have to do that, law requires it, Secretary of State abided by this, knows what this process is, the people writing letters and I must say that 60 Republicans who voted to impeach her for this, they should read this too, they should read it before they file for a resolution, adoption of a resolution to impeach her. So this is important, there will be an opportunity to present evidence to a court to support what those the challengers are saying and there will be a decision made and even that decision can be appealed and will be, if it's the wrong one for Trump, appealed to the main supreme court and incidentally this time is all compressed, within five days of the date she made her decision, well within five days of the challenge she had to have a hearing, within seven days after filing the challenge she had to hold a public hearing, within five days after the completion of the hearing she had to come out with a written decision and within five days of that written decision Trump had the right to appeal and essentially this tells him to appeal and then within 20 days of the decision of the secretary of state the superior court must rule on those facts and then three days later an appeal must be filed with the main supreme court, all compressed, all designed to provide due process, carefully designed to provide due process by who, by the legislature, the people who enacted this law, the same body now represented by the 60 Republicans who want to impeach the secretary of state for following the rules adopted by their legislature, figure that one out, figure that one out, very hard, politics is confusing these days, so that's what that says, so she had a hearing and she issued a decision, written decision, available online 34 pages long if any are interested in reading it, I can't believe that any of those 60 Republicans read it because they raise issues that are answered in here, so let's talk a bit about her decision, first of all she gives a little procedural history going back to this statute that requires a certain procedure so she explains how she followed this statutory procedure and she talks about the challengers and she says there are three different challenges but the third challenge is from a group, three people, the third challenge is from Kimberly Rosen, a registered voter of Bucksport and former Republican state senator, the second person is Thomas Saviello, a registered voter of Wilton and a former Republican state senator and the third is Ethan Strimling who we all know around here is no Republican but two out of the three are former Republican state senators, these 60 Republicans claim that the secretary of state was biased, the only way that she could find as she did to make the determination she did was to be biased against two, biased against the two Republican state senators I guess, they say she's biased because she's a Democrat yet she found for two prominent former state Republican senators, see none of what they're saying makes sense, these are facts and important facts that they won't tell you about, so she says she goes on to say that she issued a notice of hearing on December 11th that the parties exchange exhibit and witness lists, this was an administrative procedure under the main administrative procedure act which talks about witnesses, evidence and so forth and among the witnesses incidentally was a professor, Gerald Maglioccia, a law professor at Indiana University School of Law and she goes on to say Mr. Trump called no witnesses but these three, these two Republican and one Democratic senator, they had a witness came from the University of Indiana School of Law, pretty conservative guy, he's the guy that the Republicans liked when he said that Obamacare was unconstitutional then they thought he was a smart guy, so Maglioccia testified so then she said she set a deadline for briefing, they had briefings, they had they could present witnesses, evidence exhibits, so she goes through this and she says and I followed all of the legal requirements which she did, nobody can deny that and she talks about the evidence that came in and a lot of the evidence was evidence sworn evidence taken by the January 6th committee in Washington, that's evidence taken under penalty of perjury and it's evidence that no one yet has quarreled about, nobody said anything and they were all of them were former witnesses were basically Republicans who worked in the White House with Trump or cabinet members that worked in the Trump administration, that's who testified in the January 6th proceeding, those are the people, they testified under oath on a penalty of perjury, so that evidence was used in this administrative proceeding with the main secretary of state, is that proper? The main rules of evidence, section 9057 of Title 21A talks about administrative proceedings and what is proper and how they're to be conducted, it sets the rules, the legislature did this by adopting, this is main law and it directs quote, evidence shall be admitted if it is the kind of evidence upon which reasonable persons are accustomed to rely in the conduct of serious affairs, that's right out of the statute, so then the question becomes was this evidence that the three former state senators put forth, evidence of which reasonable persons are accustomed to rely, sworn evidence before congressional committee, I think it qualifies, I'd be interested in the argument and I'm open to it that it doesn't meet that standard, so all of this was challenged by Trump's lawyers and Mr. Trump through his lawyers did challenge the evidence that came in the form of the final report of the congressional committee and its citations to specific witnesses. He says that, Trump objects because he says the report includes hearsay irrelevant facts or lacks foundation to automatically render it admissible, that's not true because we already have the standard domain, a main law that sets the standard for the evidence, so then she says that she did exclude certain evidence that she thought was irrelevant, certain of the so-called Rosen exhibits which are the exhibits that the three senators put in and then she starts to quote some authorities, she talks a little, she talks about the the 14th amendment section three and before she gets there she says well the question is do I have this authority, well yes the statute says I do but isn't it interesting that a state secretary of state she says would have this when this is a presidential election and when I'm talking about a state secretary of state keeping a presidential candidate off the ballot, so she quotes a case, the United States Court of Appeals case about how how how how secretaries of state can, how states can establish a process to affect presidential candidates and she says as Justice Gorsuch, a Supreme Court justice now today we know appointed by Trump, observed in Hassem v Colorado back in 2012 quote and this is Justice Gorsuch's language, a state's legitimate interest in protecting the integrity and practical functioning of the political process permits it to exclude from the ballot candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming office, so letter writers, main republican legislators, you got a complaint with Justice Gorsuch, he's a guy that you would disagree with vehemently on this issue, one other thing about about due process you remember I told you that the statute the main statute says that the superior court shall take evidence and make findings of fact that's a state remedy in other words this this goes that this wouldn't go to the supreme court without these other processes being fulfilled because the supreme court would say hey don't come to Hassem because we only decide matters of law you've got to exhaust your state remedies first and the state remedies are in section 337 that I just discussed with you so another point that the Secretary of State makes in her decision is about due process is that Mr. Trump has had the opportunity to present evidence to call witnesses to cross-examine all within the purview of the main administrative procedure act to argue at length both the legal and factual issues germane to my decision and while the timeline of these proceedings has by necessity been compressed because the statute requires it to be compressed this is hardly the first time that Mr. Trump or his attorney from Colorado Attorney Gressler who who made his appearance here in Maine on this case this is hardly the first time they have confronted the applicability of section three of the 14th amendment they've been dealing with it it is not likewise it is not the first time that mr. Trump has had to grapple with whether the evidence presented here which it almost directly mirrors that which was offered in the Colorado case demonstrates that he engaged in insurrection it's the same case he litigated in Colorado and as she points out and what I pointed out about the statute and he has the opportunity to appeal my decision and providing him with additional process in the superior court and the law court what do you think of that 60 republican legislators is that due process that's what the courts say due process is so what you can disagree with is whether the evidence she reviewed adds up to insurrection or as the 14th amendment section three says aiding or giving comfort to those who conduct an insurrection it's one of the two you don't have to be out front with a sword leading the insurrection what's enough said the people who adopted the people of the United States who adopted the 14th amendment back in I think it was 1867 what what you need if you don't show them out front with the sword or with a pistol on the scene did they give aid or comfort to the insurrection so here's what Shana bellows says in her written findings that the parties Trump and the three former state senators do not meaningfully dispute the events of January 6 multiple government reports that the rosin challenges that's the three state senators entered into evidence confirm a large group of people violently attack the capital with the attempt of preventing the certification of a presidential election very few people in our country dispute that there are a few not so do but otherwise that's undisputed that happens and that's why they were there to stop the steal so there was a lockdown of the capital complex an evacuation of the capital and the united states she says and she this was part of her evidence a united states government accountability report said the following over the course of about seven hours more than 2000 protesters entered the united states capital on january 6 disrupting the peaceful transfer of power and threatening the safety of the vice president and members of congress the attack resulted in salts and at least 174 police officers these events led to seven deaths and caused almost three billion three billion in estimated cost so that's what she relied on and whether you would have made the same decision relying on that evidence as she did that's debatable you might not have and that's you know if the 60 republicans in the state legislature had said uh yeah well she did what she was required to do by law but we don't agree that the evidence before her sustains a finding that there was an insurrection or aid or comfort to an insurrection so um that's you know the basis of this uh Liz cheney was there she was the third ranking republican in the us house of representatives when all this happened she was on the floor she was in every republican leadership meeting prior to during and for months until they threw her out afterwards she was there she observed it she bravely agreed to be a member of the commission that investigated it she was there for all the evidence this book i find fascinating only the it's fascinating only if you are interested in facts if you say i don't want anything to do with Liz cheney she turned on trump she turned on republicans i i wouldn't read a word that she said fine but it's chock full of facts in case you ever get around to being interested in facts it's a resource and you know um she wrote about her her father being vice president and she says at the beginning of this uh at the beginning uh early on in her book she talks about um the oath of office and peaceful transfer of power and she points out that her father and mother along with her and her sister were invited by al gore to the vice president's house after the supreme court of the united states had said ruled that george w bush had won and she said he had just conceded and she quotes his concession speech she there isn't a single public policy thing that al gore stood for that Liz cheney would agree with not a one but she says she quotes him and here's what gore said in his concession speech almost a century and a half ago senator steven douglas lincoln's opponent told abraham lincoln who had just defeated him for the presidency quote this is lincoln's words partisan feeling must yield to patriotism i'm with you mr president and god bless you he said to lincoln who had defeated him and al gore goes on to say in his concession speech well in that same spirit i say to president like bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside and may god bless his stewardship of this country resolved says george it says uh uh the then sitting vice president resolved it must be resolved through the honored institutions of our democracy that's how we decide these elections the honored institutions of our democracy and that's what he said meant it had to go to the supreme court an honored institution of our democracy in order to resolve it and he finally went on said i know many of my supporters are disappointed i am too but our disappointments must be overcome by love of country that's the way it's supposed to be done folks you can love donald trump all you want and many do for a variety of reasons i would say editorial most of them psychological but they do love him and uh but this is the way it was done so she says in her book this chain by any measure the presidential election in 2000 had been far closer than the 2020 contest president george bush's victory in 2000 had ultimate this is the vice president your father won the vice presidency had ultimately come down to just over 500 votes in florida with a razor thin electoral college margin of 271 to 266 five electoral votes by contrast donald trump lost in 2020 by more than 70 electoral votes his nationwide popular vote deficit of seven million big difference from 500 of seven million represented a five percent gap not even close trump would have needed tens of thousands more votes across at least three different states to reverse his electoral college loss so that's what she tells us early on in this book and then she because she witnessed everything she was there she saw it she listened to all of the evidence at the hearing she was in all of the meetings with the republicans she talks about right after the insurrection about she quotes uh minority leader mccarthy she quotes him she quotes other leaders who were appalled by what happened who were appalled with trump she quotes them directly criticizing trump some who said he's responsible for this he he called them to washington and he incited them and he sent them to the capital not one of them has ever said this chinese book is wrong she doesn't tell the truth she misquotes me no accusations of misquote zero and it's throughout this book throughout it uh you would take a look at just go on the internet and look up at what republicans honest straightforward republicans of which most republicans are except when it comes to donald trump of what republicans said his john bainer i just pull us off the internet i once said says john bainer the party of lincoln and reagan is off taking a nap the nap has become a nightmare for our nation the gop must awaken the invasion of our capital by a mob incited by lies from people entrusted with power is a disgrace to all who sacrifice to build our republic i i i save that because i thought it really captured everything so was shenna bellows you disagree with he saved now she didn't have a basis for finding an insurrection you can debate it and one thing i would say is that it's all recorded everything's on video these days back in 1865 when the civil war ended nothing was in video nothing was even recorded there were no recording devices today everything is so the case can be decided by anyone any one of you any person in this country any one of those 60 republican legislators anybody just look at the at the videos look at the tapes read trump's tweets read the testimony read the testimony given under oath and then decide but we'll all have the evidence every there isn't there are no secrets there are some secrets uh every associate of donald trump who spoke to him during the time before prior to just prior to january 6 and during january 6 was subpoenaed by the congressional committee to testify they wouldn't come five of them absolutely refused they were close to trump they talked to trump many times there was evidence they talked to trump on the 5th and 6th of january 2021 and they just ignored the subpoena one of them was bannon bannon got convicted of something unrelated to trump of a fraud and trump pardon him as he will he will he pardons every crony of his anybody who's for pump trump gets a pardon and they know it and they all got pardons so but in bannon's case and some of the others it was cited by the committee for contempt it was he was prosecuted for contempt bannon was convicted of contempt of congress he's awaiting sentencing he's going to go to prison for it and maybe a couple other people too others like general flinn and others who talked to trump around january 5th and 6 they they actually showed up and they testified and they all said the same thing i refuse to answer the question because the uh uh uh pursuant to the 5th amendment be because the answer may tend to incriminate me a whole bunch of them they showed up and that's what they said i will not answer about your question about what i talked with donald trump about during january 5th and 6 because it may it may incriminate me and i have a 5th amendment right not to answer now if this was donald trump sitting here he would say what he said many times anybody who takes the 5th is guilty and what they what they didn't want to disclose what they didn't want to disclose is what they discussed with donald trump protecting him protecting him so make up your own mind but it's all there in video use common sense common sense is the answer with this issue me i hope somehow the supreme court finds a way to say he can be on the ballot let me ask let me say who started this who started this business about the 14th amendment section 3 prohibiting donald trump from being on the ballot democrats no it all started with two law professors both of them members of the conservative federalist society one at the university of pennsylvania the other at the university of chicago and they're constitutional scholars and they know the constitution that's all they deal with their lives are dedicated to understanding the constitution and writing about it and they came up with this and they said this is perfectly obvious we've been thinking about this for a long time what about this provision in the 14th amendment what's it mean and along came this case with trump and they said this is what me so they wrote a law review article they're what's called originalists they are debit devotees of antonin scalia the late supreme court justice conservative who said you just got to read the simple text of the constitution in order to decide what it says it's clear if it's clear it's clear and a look at history to give you context so these two professors said it's clear what it says it's clear and we read the text and we actually searched the history to determine what the context was we have no doubt that he is not qualified pursuant to the 14th amendment section 3 to be on a ballot for president that's no democrats fault that's not my fault that's not anybody they decided to do it well it caught on particularly with originalists and so it caught on with another devotee in fact a guy who was mentored by antonin scalia and was his law clerk j michael ledig retired united states court of appeals from the fourth circuit judge very conservative was the law clerk to scalia worked in the george hw bush white house after clerking for scalia and then got moved ahead by the republicans because he's a very bright guy and they liked what he believed in and he put him on the united states court of appeals george w bush put him on the united states excuse me george hw put him on the united states court of appeals he's retired now he's an originalist he's right with these guys and he goes around on talk shows and what do you say about the colorado decision unassailable look it up go online look up judge michael ledig unassailable he's a serious guy and a serious republican he's not biased against republicans he's not biased just the opposite finally i'm going to read you something written just last week in the new york times i'm going to read it we got just enough time for me to read i hope i finish in time david french he's an op ed page guy he's a republican conservative look him up so you know who it is you don't have to say listen to what i say about david french but i like him he's conservative he's very rational he says it's been two and a half weeks since the colorado supreme court ruled that section three of the 14th amendment disqualifies donald trump from holding the office of president united states and i spent way too much of my holiday vacation reading the legal and political commentary around the decision as i did so i find myself experiencing deja vu deja vu since the rise of trump he and his movement and it is a movement have transgressed the constitutional legal and moral boundaries at will i think that's what really affects french french who's very religious transgressing the moral boundaries when americans tempt to impose then when americans attempt to impose consequences for those transgressions trump's defenders and critics alike caution the consequences will be dangerous or destabilizing don't do it because they'll be in the streets his followers will be in the streets there is already a surge in violent threats against the justices of the colorado supreme court ian bassin a project democracy co-founder has suggested and i agree that even legal analysis of the 14th amendment is being colored by the analyst's fear of how trump and his supporters would react to an adverse ruling this is where we are and have now been for years the trump movement commits threats violence and lies and then it tries to escape accountability for those acts through more threats more violence more lies at the heart of the quote but the consequences end quote argument against disqualification is a confession that if we hold trump accountable for his fomenting violence on january 6 he might foment additional violence enough says french it's time to apply the plain language he's an originalist too the plain language of the constitution to trump's actions and remove him from the ballot without fear of the consequences republics are not maintained by cowardice to understand the necessity of removing trump let's go first to the relevant language from the 14th amendment quote no person shall be a senator or representative in congress or a lector of president or vice president or hold any office or hold any office civil military under the united states if you've taken an oath as a member of congress or as an officer of the united states or as a member of any state legislature to support the constitution of the united states and shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion or or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof you don't says french have to be a lawyer to comprehend those words you simply need some basic familiarity with american civics the english language and a couple of common sense rules of thumb so read the language he says it's simple and he says now what's the supreme court going to do the supreme court is you know they're good lawyers they're good lawyers and there are many of them the conservatives are originalists they're people that say go to the language that the two law professors are saying that let it is saying you have to you have to base your decision on and he says are they afraid to make the right decision well he said they the supreme court made very unpopular decisions in brown versus board of education integrating education in the united states this last decision they made on abortion that wasn't popular fear of negative response cannot and must not cause the supreme court to turn its back on the plain text of the constitution especially when we're now facing the very crisis the amendment was intended to combat republicans are rightly proud of their civil war history the party of lincoln as it was known helped save the union and it was the party of lincoln that passed the 14th amendment and ratified it in state houses across the land the wisdom of the old republican party should now save us from the fecklessness fecklessness and sedition of the new thank you very very much