Calling it ‘one on a huge list of priorities,’ Rep. Jamie Raskin, D., Md., announced that he will be reintroducing a prior bill with Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., and Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., to disqualify not just former President Donald Trump but a large number of Republicans from taking office.

The alternative, it appears, is unthinkable: allowing the public to choose their next president and representatives in Congress. It appears that the last thing Democrats want is for the unanimous decision to actually lead to an outbreak of democracy. Where the Court expressly warned of ‘chaos’ in elections, Raskin and others appear eager to be agents of chaos in Congress.

Soon after the decision, Raskin went on CNN to assure people that he and his colleagues would not stand by and allow the right to vote to be restored to citizens in the upcoming election. He pledged to reintroduce a prior bill that would declare Jan. 6 an ‘insurrection’ and that those involved ‘engaged in insurrection.’

I previously wrote about these ‘ballot cleansing’ efforts because it would not just disqualify Trump but potentially dozens of sitting Republican members of Congress. Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., sought to bar 126 members of Congress under the same theory. Similar legislation offered by Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., to disqualify members got 63 co-sponsors, all Democrats.

Raskin’s participation in this effort is crushingly ironic. In 2016, he sought to block certification of the 2016 election under the very same law as violent protests were occurring before the inauguration.

The prior bills were sweeping and included members who did not engage in any violent acts (no member has been charged with such violence or even incitement) but merely opposed certification).

Raskin recently offered a particularly Orwellian argument for the disqualification of Trump and his colleagues in Congress: ‘If you think about it, of all of the forms of disqualification that we have, the one that disqualifies people for engaging in insurrection is the most democratic because it’s the one where people choose themselves to be disqualified.’

In other words, preventing voters from voting is ‘the most democratic’ because these people choose to oppose certification… as he did in 2016.

After the ruling, Raskin added the curious claim that the justices ‘didn’t exactly disagree with [the disqualification theory]. They just said that they’re not the ones to figure it out. It’s not going to be a matter for judicial resolution under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, but it’s up to Congress to enforce it.’

That was sharply different from the pre-decision Raskin who insisted that there was no real question legally and that the case before the justices was ‘their opportunity to behave like real Supreme Court justices.’

Well, they did act as ‘real Supreme Court justices’ by unanimously opposing what the court described as the ‘chaos’ that would unfold with such state disqualification efforts. Raskin, however, is seeking a new avenue for chaos through Congress.

Raskin’s statement is also bizarre in claiming that somehow the justices agreed with him and the others pushing disqualification. No one, not even the Trump team, questioned that Congress could act to bar people from office. It is expressly stated in the Constitution. It is not an ‘argument’ but a fact.

Of course, the Democrats would need to craft the legislation correctly to satisfy the standard and secure the support of both houses. Neither appears likely at this point.

However, Raskin is succeeding in one respect. He and his colleagues have bulldozed any moral high ground after Jan. 6. Most of us condemned the riot on that day as a desecration of our constitutional process. Yet, the Democrats have responded with the most anti-democratic efforts to prevent voters from exercising their rights in the upcoming election.

For these members, citizens cannot be trusted with this power as Trump tops national polls as the leading choice for the presidency.  It is the constitutional version of the Big Gulp law, voters, like consumers, have to be protected against their own unhealthy choices.

Raskin has continued to accuse the nine justices of being cowards in not supporting ballot cleansing. He told CNN that the court ‘doesn’t like the ultimate and inescapable implications of just enforcing the Constitution, as written.’ In other words, all nine justices, including the three liberals justices, are disregarding clear constitutional mandates to protect Trump.

It is the same delusional view echoed by other liberals who were enraged by the decision. Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann declared that ‘the Supreme Court has betrayed democracy. Its members including Jackson, Kagan and Sotomayor have proved themselves inept at reading comprehension. And collectively the ‘court’ has shown itself to be corrupt and illegitimate. It must be dissolved.’

After all, nothing says democracy like ballot cleansing and dissolving courts before a national election.

With the resumption of efforts to disqualify Republicans from running on ballots, Raskin and his colleagues seem to be channeling the spirit of former Mayor Richard Daley in the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.

With allegations of abuse by the police in cracking down on protests, Daley declared ‘the policeman isn’t there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.’ With Democrats preparing to return to Chicago for their convention this year, Raskin and others appear to be responding to the court that ‘the party isn’t there to create chaos, the party is there to preserve chaos.’

This column was first published on the author’s blog, Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks

President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday, March 8 will be a make-or-break moment. It could very well be the president’s last opportunity to turn around his dismal standing with the American people which, according to a recent New York Times/Siena poll, is mired at the lowest point yet of his presidency. After all, it’s not often that Biden’s handlers allow him to appear before a national audience. 

Biden has three critical missions. One is to look like a robust, energetic man who can capably govern our country for the next four years, and not a doddering and confused 81-year-old. The vast majority of Americans – 86% in one survey– thinks he is not up to the task. His job is to prove them wrong. 

Second, Biden must convince the 82% of voters (in the Times poll) who say his policies haven’t helped them that they are confused and that, in fact Bidenomics has been a smashing success. Ditto the 73% in a new Fox News poll who rated economic conditions today ‘only fair’ or ‘poor.’ 

Third, and possibly most important, Biden has to convincingly blame someone else for the unholy mess at the southern border. He will tell the public that his hands have been tied by Republicans, and that he is powerless to fix it. He’ll hope voters forget that Trump managed to close the border all on his own.

These are nearly impossible challenges. The Times survey shows the incumbent Democrat losing to Donald Trump by 5 points, and trailing with Hispanic voters. His advantage with Black voters has narrowed significantly and he has lost ground also with young people, many of whom are unhappy about the president’s support for Israel and have been checking ‘uncommitted’ in Democratic primaries.

For all these reasons, this SOTU looms large.  

Can Biden turn around his sinking ship? Bragging about cracking down on ‘junk fees’ or going full nuclear against ‘shrinkflation’ will not suffice. Touting his climate agenda or his student loan forgiveness plans is risky – working class Americans, whom the president is desperately courting, don’t like either. He can promise to save democracy, but since he and his party are feverishly trying to bankrupt, imprison and remove from the ballot his foremost opponent Donald Trump, such claims ring hollow. 

Those hoping for a reset, the kind of pivot to the middle that arguably saved Barack Obama’s presidency, will likely be disappointed. Obama, too, was unpopular at this point in his first term, but after receiving what he described as a ‘shellacking’ in the midterms, he edged towards the middle and managed to boost his standing. By all accounts, the Biden team thinks the campaign is going hunky-dory, no reboot necessary.

The number one issue for voters is immigration and the border, and rightly so. Biden and Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas continue to argue that they are blameless, even as the death toll from our open border continues to mount. 

The gruesome murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley allegedly by a Venezuelan migrant in the country illegally brings home the danger of our immigration fiasco. But so do the 112,000 deaths from fentanyl poisoning that took place in 2023 alone. And let’s not forget the hundreds of migrants who have died in their desperate effort to cross into our country between points of entry.  

The open border is also weakening our nation’s security; tens of thousands of military-age Chinese men have poured into the U.S. for the first time ever and hundreds of individuals on the terror watch list have tried to enter the country as well.  

The White House has responded to voter fury about the collapsed border by blaming Republicans. If only the GOP would have passed the immigration plan Biden proposed early in his presidency, they claim, we would not have this problem. That is bunk; Biden’s ‘U.S. Citizenship Act’ did little to protect our border and instead prioritized legalizing people in the country illegally. (The name gives it away.) The bill was such a dud that even Democrats ignored it during Biden’s first two years, during which they controlled both houses of Congress.  

The White House now blasts the GOP for ongoing inaction, even as voters know that Biden through executive action could restore the safeguards put in place by Donald Trump and then jettisoned by Biden during his mindless effort to obliterate his predecessor’s policies.  

Don’t expect Biden to apologize for allowing at least 7 million people to enter the U.S. illegally since he became president. Democrats are happy to welcome these ‘newcomers,’ as they now call them, whom they hope will become lifetime supporters of their party.  

Biden will also try to convince Americans voters that the economy is working for them, even though only a quarter of voters in a new Fox News poll say that is so, while 48% say his policies have hurt them.  His claims about the economy are so dishonest that even the friendly New York Times felt compelled recently to offer a fact-check. 

While unemployment is low and the economy continues to grow, inflation remains a huge problem for Americans living paycheck to paycheck. In particular, people are incensed that the cost of food is up more than 20% since Biden took office, while wages have only increased 15%. People are falling behind and they know it. 

Biden will again accuse ‘greedy’ food companies like Pepsi or Kraft Heinz of profiteering after the pandemic; he will try to blame them for rising prices. Don’t believe it. These companies’ profit margins plummeted after the COVID shut-downs; they have been scrambling ever since to cover increased labor and materials costs and, for the most part, are still underwater. This is another Biden lie.

Biden’s biggest challenge will be to look like a man in charge – a man that can be trusted to lead our nation for the next four years. 

That will take magic, not an hour reading from a Teleprompter.

Let’s cut through the legal jargon: the Supreme Court yesterday did the only thing it could do, and did it unanimously.

The justices rejected the notion that a Colorado court – all-Democratic appointees – could simply kick Donald Trump off the ballot. Just on the face of it, the idea was ludicrous, absurd and anti-democratic, and the court explicitly banned any other state from trying such a stunt.

On Sunday’s ‘Media Buzz,’ I was griping about the fact that the justices were taking so long, and said they must be honing their opinions and concurring opinions. That turned out to be the case.

In the unsigned opinion, all nine justices declared that ‘nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos – arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the inauguration.’

While legal observers say the court moved at rocket speed, the ruling came on the last day before voters in Colorado head to the polls, along with those in the other Super Tuesday states.

Much of the back and forth had to do with the 14th Amendment, but put that aside for a moment.

When Colorado’s court first made its ruling, a veritable army of anchors, correspondents and legal analysts, especially on MSNBC, cheered the move, saying Trump was finally being held accountable for fomenting the Capitol riot. 

Many of the anti-Trumpers wanted more states to remove the former president from their ballots – as Maine’s Democratic secretary of state did, followed by an Illinois judge late in the game.

That means they were all taking a hard-line stance that has now been rejected Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. That should tell us something: Who’s more out of step with the country?

Trump, stepping before the cameras at Mar-a-Lago, calling the ruling a step toward national unity:

‘They worked long. They worked hard. And frankly, they worked very quickly on something that will be spoken about a hundred years from now and 200 years from now. Extremely important.’

Trump then pivoted to the other case the Supreme Court just took, his claims of total unity for actions taken while president. The legal pundits say SCOTUS may well rule against him on that one, though no one knows for sure, which would amount to a split decision on the two high-stakes cases.

Trump was soon doing the greatest hits, attacking such prosecutors as Jack Smith, Letitia James and Fani Willis, and slamming the judges hearing several of his cases. 

A New York Times reporter said that Mario Nicolais, attorney for the Colorado side, said the Supremes had ‘abrogated their responsibility to our democracy….I hope that the cowardice of the court today doesn’t lead to bloodshed tomorrow.’ Pretty gracious, huh?

Remember, Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson found common ground with Sam Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, but the critics are still carping. 

Jim Acosta, the anti-Trump CNN anchor, said his antagonist ‘has sort of played the legal system like a fiddle over the last couple of years. He’s thrown the kitchen sink into the gears of America’s judicial system.’

Maine GOP director Jason Savage told the Times that his goal is replacing Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, the Democrat who ruled in December that Trump was ineligible for the Maine ballot: ‘One bureaucrat was trying to alter the presidential election based on her opinion.’

What triggered the entire battle was Colorado dusting off an obscure, little-used legal provision passed after the Civil War: Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. It was aimed at former Confederate officials and soldiers who had rebelled against the country.

Where some of the justices parted company was over the scope of the unsigned opinion, with the court’s three liberal members saying in concurring opinions that the conservative majority went too far in attempting ‘to insulate the court’ and Trump from ‘future controversy….

‘In a sensitive case crying out for judicial restraint, it abandons that course.’

Some of the conflicting views involve whether only Congress has the power to utilize Section 3 and whether the president is considered an officer of the United States.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed with the liberals, saying the majority should not have raised ‘the complicated question whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced…

‘This is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency … Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the court should turn the national temperature down, not up.’

However you slice and dice it, it was a big win for Donald Trump, and for those who believe the voters, not partisan state officials, should get to pick the president.

A group of pro-Palestinian protesters on Monday accosted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and her fiancé outside a movie theater in Brooklyn and demanded that she call Israel’s offensive in Gaza a ‘genocide.’

Video obtained by Fox News Digital shows the protesters, phones in hand, approaching the congresswoman outside the Alamo Drafthouse. 

‘You refuse to call it a genocide,’ one of the protesters can be heard saying, to which Ocasio-Cortez fires back: ‘I need you to understand that this is not okay.’ 

‘It’s not okay that there’s a genocide happening and you’re not actively against it,’ the protester says. 

‘You’re lying!’ Ocasio-Cortez shouts back. 

The video shows the protesters following her down the escalator, continually berating her for not labeling the war a ‘genocide.’ 

‘If you can’t say it, just say it. Literally. We’re just talking to you like normal people. Just say it’s a genocide. Just say it. Over 30,000 people are dead AOC, you can’t just say it for once?’ another protester shouts, citing figures from the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. ‘Just say the word, that’s it. That’s all we want you to say.’ 

The protesters chase her and her fiancé, Riley Roberts, outside the building. At one point, Roberts pleads with the protesters to stop as they continue following the couple down the sidewalk. 

One of the protesters asks whether Ocasio-Cortez is concerned her comments would ‘go viral.’ 

A visibly angry Ocasio-Cortez tells the protesters that they’re going to clip the video so that her comments are ‘completely out of context.’ 

She then appears to concede that Israel’s actions constitute a genocide. 

‘I already said that it was. And y’all are just gonna pretend that it wasn’t. Over and over again. It’s f—ed up man. And you’re not helping these people. You’re not helping them,’ Ocasio-Cortez says. 

The protesters, clearly unassuaged and dissatisfied with her answer, continue chasing the couple down the sidewalk. One of them mentions her past comments, condemning the Armenian genocide. 

‘Why won’t you say it in front of everybody, why us?’ 

Fox News Digital has reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s office for comment. 

Ocasio-Cortez has repeatedly condemned Israel’s retaliation after the Oct. 7 massacre, in which Hamas militants killed 1,200 civilians, injured hundreds more, and took around 250 hostages. 

She has called for a ceasefire and suggested the U.S. ‘conditioning aid, if not cutting aid to the Netanyahu government.’  

Just weeks after the Oct. 7 attack, Ocasio-Cortez accused Israel of committing war crimes, while qualifying that she was not defending Hamas. 

The White House on Monday lifted regulations on those working in close contact with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, no longer requiring a negative COVID-19 test.

The decision marks the end of one of the last remaining federal restrictions from the pandemic era.

The White House has pointed to changing guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a key factor in its policies surrounding COVID-19.

On March 1, the CDC officially dropped its recommendation for people to isolate themselves for five days after a positive COVID test.

The agency’s new guidance tells people to stay home if they are sick, but when they are feeling better and have been fever-free for 24 hours, they can return to school or work.

Prior to this most recent update, the CDC called for people who test positive for the virus to ‘stay home for at least five days and isolate from others in your home,’ a recommendation that was implemented in late 2021.

The contrast between the CDC’s rhetoric about COVID-19 during the pandemic and afterward has caused controversy among some.

In response to last week’s change in guidance, a community called LC/DC, which describes itself as non-partisan, is planning a protest at the Lincoln Memorial on March 15.

‘LC/DC is fighting to raise awareness about long COVID, and we recognize that reducing the isolation policy will result in more infections, long-term illnesses and disability,’ said Paul Hennessy, one of the three main organizers of the planned event.

The demonstration at Lincoln Memorial will take place on March 15 from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Houthi militants in Yemen have claimed responsibility for a missile attack that set a ship ablaze in the Gulf of Aden on Monday. 

The private security firm Ambrey described the vessel targeted as a Liberia-flagged, Israel-affiliated container ship that sustained damage and issued a distress call.

‘The container ship reportedly encountered two explosions of which the first occurred at a ‘distance’ off its port quarter, while the second damaged the vessel’s accommodation block and a container leading,’ Ambrey said. ‘The explosion further led to a fire onboard and the crew’s firefighting efforts were underway.’

No crew member on the ship was injured, Ambrey said. 

Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed the attack in a prerecorded statement. He identified the ship as the MSC Sky II, sailing for the Switzerland-based firm Mediterranean Shipping Co, but sought to link the vessel to Israel. The ship’s details and last-known location corresponded to details about the attack.

The Houthis ‘will continue to prevent Israeli navigation or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine until the aggression is stopped and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted,’ Saree said.

The Houthis have been targeting ships in the Red Sea and surrounding waters since November. The rebels have said their assaults are to protest Palestinians killed in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, though the group has targeted at least one vessel with cargo bound for Iran, the group’s main benefactor, and an aid ship later bound for Houthi-controlled territory.

Despite more than a month and a half of U.S.-led airstrikes, Houthi attacks have been unrelenting. They include the attack last month on a cargo ship carrying fertilizer, the Rubymar, which sank on Saturday after drifting for several days, and the downing of an American drone worth tens of millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, three Red Sea underwater cables providing internet and telecommunications around the world have been cut, though the Houthis have denied any involvement.  

The cut lines include Asia-Africa-Europe 1, the Europe India Gateway, Seacom and TGN-Gulf, Hong Kong-based HGC Global Communications said. It described the cuts as affecting 25% of the traffic flowing through the Red Sea. It described the Red Sea route as crucial for data moving from Asia to Europe and said it had begun rerouting traffic.

In early February, Yemen’s internationally recognized government in exile alleged that the Houthis planned to attack the cables. The lines appeared to have been cut on Feb. 24, with the organization NetBlocks noticing internet access in the East African nation of Djibouti suffering from interruptions two days later. 

The rebels, for their part, have blamed the disruptions on British and U.S. military operations, but didn’t offer evidence to support the allegation..

‘The hostilities on Yemen by the British and U.S. naval military units caused a disruption in the submarine cables in the Red Sea, which jeopardized the security and safety of international communications and the normal flow of information,’ the Houthi-controlled Transportation Ministry in Yemen’s rebel-held capital, Sanaa, alleged.

It remains unclear how the Houthis could attack subsea cables themselves. The rebels aren’t known to have the diving or salvage capability to target the lines, which sit hundreds of meters below the surface of the waterway.

Voters in a new poll who favored President Biden by 10 points in 2020 have shifted their support to former President Donald Trump, who now leads among the same voters by five points.

The poll, which was conducted by the New York Times and Siena College from Feb. 25 to 28, shows Trump with a 48-43 edge over Biden, a slightly larger lead than two-point edge the former president held in the same poll when it was conducted in December.

The lead comes despite many of the registered voters sampled indicating they voted for Biden in 2020, with 44% of respondents saying they voted for the president in the last election, compared to 33% who indicated they voted for Trump.

The poll shows that Trump has done better work shoring up his base, with 97% of respondents who indicated they voted for him in 2020 saying they plan to do the same this year. Meanwhile, Biden is only garnering the support of 83% of those who say they voted for him in 2020, while 10% indicated they plan to vote for Trump this time around.

Those numbers weren’t the only bad news for the president in the poll, which also showed Trump as having a six-point lead (46%-40%) among Hispanic voters, a demographic that until recent years had been a dependable bloc for Democrats. 

Biden is also struggling with working-class voters of color, who according to exit polls, voted in large numbers (72%) for the president in 2020, with only 22% of the group supporting Trump. But that gap has shrunk significantly, the poll found, with Biden only holding a 47%-41% advantage among the same group today.

The president also faces an enthusiasm gap compared to Trump, with only 23% saying they would be enthusiastic if Biden were to become the Democratic nominee. Meanwhile, 48% of respondents indicated they would feel enthusiastic about Trump securing the Republican nomination.

But the news wasn’t all bad for the president, who polled better with critical independent voters, who currently are split 42%-42% on who they would support between Biden and Trump. Voters also showed concerns about the criminal cases playing out around Trump, with 53% indicating they believe the former president committed serious federal crimes.

The New York Times/Siena College poll sampled 980 registered voters nationwide, with a margin of sampling error at plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

France has amended its constitution to enshrine a woman’s right to an abortion, calls for which gained momentum after the United States reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022. 

French lawmakers on Monday convened at the Palace of Versailles where they approved the bill in a 780-72 vote. 

Monday’s vote makes France the first country to have a constitutional right to an abortion since the former Yugoslavia inscribed it in its 1974 constitution. 

Abortion, which has been legal in France since 1975, enjoys wide support among the French public. A recent poll showed support at more than 80%. The same poll also showed that a solid majority of people are in favor of enshrining it in the Constitution.

None of France’s major political parties represented in parliament have questioned the right to abortion, including Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party and the conservative Republicans. 

There were jubilant scenes of celebrations all over France Monday as women’s rights activists hailed the measure promised by President Emmanuel Macron immediately following the Dobbs ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022.

Sarah Durocher, a leader in the Family Planning movement, hailed Monday’s vote as ‘a victory for feminists and a defeat for the anti-choice activists.’

The government argued in its introduction to the bill that the right to abortion is threatened in the United States, where the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned a 50-year-old ruling that legalized abortion at the federal level. 

The French legislation argues that the U.S. is not isolated in this as there are ‘currents of opinion’ in other countries – including Europe – ‘that seek to hinder at any cost the freedom of women to terminate their pregnancy if they wish.’ 

Former President Trump told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling Monday is ‘both unifying and inspirational,’ while stressing the importance of the high court’s pending decision in the issue of presidential immunity. 

The Supreme Court sided unanimously with the 2024 GOP frontrunner in his challenge to Colorado’s attempt to kick him off the 2024 primary ballot. 

The high court ruled in favor of Trump’s arguments in the case, which will impact the status of efforts in several other states to remove the likely GOP nominee from their respective ballots. 

The court considered for the first time the meaning and reach of Article 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars former officeholders who ‘engaged in insurrection’ from holding public office again. Challenges have been filed to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot in over 30 states.

‘A great win for America. Very, very important!’ Trump told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview Monday morning. 

‘Equally important for our country will be the decision that they will soon make on immunity for a president — without which, the presidency would be relegated to nothing more than a ceremonial position, which is far from what the founders intended,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. ‘No president would be able to properly and effectively function without complete and total immunity.’ 

He added, ‘Our country would be put at great risk.’ 

The Supreme Court last week agreed to review whether Trump has immunity from prosecution in special counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case. 

The justices moved to fast-track the appeal, and will hear oral arguments beginning April 22, with a ruling on the merits expected by late June. 

Trump’s trial stemming from Smith’s investigation has been put on hold pending resolution of the matter. 

The decision will also impact Smith’s classified records case against the president. That trial has not yet been scheduled. 

As for Monday’s decision, Trump described it as a ‘big win for America.’ 

‘Today’s decision, especially the fact that it was unanimous, 9-0, is both unifying and inspirational for the people of the United States of America,’ he told Fox News Digital. 

In its unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court concluded that ‘states may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office.’ 

‘But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,’ the Supreme Court wrote.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in a concurring opinion wrote, ‘The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a Presidential election.’

‘Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up. For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home,’ she said.