Globalism Is Economic Slavery

posted by J.B. Shurk at American Thinker 

Imagine life in the near future.  A man resides alone in a tiny apartment.  He would prefer to be married, but the State considers that antiquated institution “patriarchal” and “white supremacist.”  He would prefer to have children, but he can’t afford them.  Besides, his yearly carbon allowance is insufficient to cover another resource-wasting human being.  

He has never owned anything.  He rents his bedroom, his furnishings, and his meager entertainments.  Each month, a digital account associated with his digital ID receives a number of central bank digital currency units.  How much he receives depends upon the number of hours he works at his government job, how much the government values his work, how much the government taxes him for the privilege of using public infrastructure, and how much of his income the government decides should be redistributed to other citizens in need.  After taxes, rents, utilities, and other assorted municipal, state, federal, and international fees are deducted from his earnings, he has little — if any — discretionary income.  

If he chooses to save that income to invest in his future, the government informs him that his central bank digital currency units disappear within ninety days.  If he tries to purchase something that the government has banned, he forfeits what he currently has.  If he does something that the government deems contrary to his well-being, his social credit score decreases, and a fraction of his discretionary income disappears.  Every few weeks, a digital doctor (running on artificial intelligence) appears on the video screen in his apartment with a detailed list of all the “unhealthy” things he has done since their last interaction.  He is informed that a portion of his temporary savings will be redistributed to citizens with healthier habits.  His A.I. health monitor tells him that he must immediately report to the closest pharmaceutical distribution center so that he can be injected with the latest “vaccines.”  Failure to do so will result in the deactivation of all electronic entertainment devices and a permanent mark on his social credit record.

He is unhappy, and because the State’s A.I. supervisor has detected his unhappiness, the display monitor in his apartment encourages him to find personal meaning by “joining the fight against global warming.”  For a while, he does just that.  He attends community meetings in his apartment building where government officials talk about the importance of “saving the planet” by “owning nothing.”  He chats with anonymous strangers (bots?) on the State’s social media platform, and they all agree that the sacrifices they’re making to save the world are definitely worth it.  He wakes up one morning to discover that his social credit score has risen and that he has been rewarded with a few extra central bank digital currency units.  Still, our future man remains unhappy.

Then one day sirens blare, and his apartment monitor flashes with breaking news: the country is at war.  He listens intently but can’t figure out which foreign nations are attacking.  The trusted news anchors tell him that peace, prosperity, and freedom are all at risk.  He steps outside his tiny apartment to find other solitary renters fired up and talking excitedly about the battles to come.  He walks back inside to find his A.I. supervisor informing him that he has been personally selected to protect the homeland from its enemies.  For the first time in many years, our future man feels alive.  

He soon finds himself in boot camp, where he enjoys regular exercise, discipline, and camaraderie.  Six months later, he and his new friends are shipped overseas.  Strangely, in all this time, nobody has explained whom they will actually be fighting.  All he knows is that they’re at war with “the authoritarians” who wish to “take our democracy.”  There is anticipation in his camp and endless talk of adventure.  Then, when everyone least expects it, a thunderous swarm of drones attacks from overhead.  Nobody has time to react.  Explosions seem to come from out of nowhere.  He sees the bodies of his friends torn to pieces.  Then everything goes dark.

He awakes in a hospital severely injured, is called a hero, and is later sent home.  When he arrives, he notices breadlines outside the government’s genetically engineered food distribution centers.  He hears a beggar on the street joke that they should call them “insect-lines,” since that’s all there is to eat.  He learns that someone else has moved into his old apartment, but he is offered a new one because of his military service.  It is smaller and has even fewer furnishings than the one he lost.  He realizes that most of his former neighbors never returned from war and that many of the newcomers now living in their apartments look and sound like those people he was told to fight overseas.  Nothing makes sense.  His injuries torment him.  He feels even more lost and lonely than before he went to war.  His A.I. supervisor informs him that he has been added to a list of people considered “potential domestic terrorists.”  Remaining on this list will make it hard for him to work and live.

Then, one day, his digital doctor asks if he would like some assistance in ending his life peacefully.  “You can save others,” he is told, “by permanently reducing your carbon footprint.”  In agony, he wonders, “How did we get here?”

The shortest answer to our future friend is this: governments abandoned sound money.  They replaced gold coins with paper currencies.  They made it illegal for ordinary citizens to conduct business freely and demanded that government-issued bills be used in economic transactions.  Then they gave private central banks the authority to print these paper bills whenever they determined that doing so would be good for the economy.  

X22, And we Know, and more- September 1st

 

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz Hate You

posted by Derek Hunter at Townhall 

Imagine running for President of the United States and not speaking with anyone. Not “to,” you have to do lots of “speaking to” people, but “with,” as in having a conversation, an exchange. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have been trying that for the past month and a half but finally caved to the reality that they would have to speak with someone and choose the softest target they could find that the public would accept. And the whole thing went about as well as you’d expect when the candidates hold the public in complete contempt.

Yes, that’s right: Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and the entire left-wing establishment hold you, the American people, in contempt. They treat you with a twist on the old saying about children – you are to be preached to, not heard. You don’t treat people you respect like they are unworthy of addressing you, having their questions answered, or talking at them like a condescending kindergarten teacher. 

Yet, that’s what these people do.

When they finally sat down for an interview, it was with CNN because going to MSNBC would have been dismissed as the partisan hackery it clearly would have been. Since NBC News has literally no one who could pass for a journalist, the campaign chose Dana Bash because she’s on the team but can still ask a semi-serious question. However, questions to politicians are only as good as the willingness of the person asking them to follow up and insist on an actual answer. The person asking them has to know or have a rough approximation of the answer to hold them to account. 

But for any of that to happen, you must be interested in getting an answer, not simply getting through it. Bash was not.

Her time was limited—just 20 minutes was allotted. Imagine a campaign holding the American public in such contempt that they would only allow 2 minutes shy of a sit-com, which is 22 minutes long, for anyone to question their candidates. Bash ended up getting 27 because no campaign in their right mind would stop the tongue bath Harris and Walz were receiving, but if it had been serious, staff would have stepped in.

They went as far as they felt comfortable – dumb people and frauds can only hold it together for so long, even during a massage session where the interviewer asks leading softball questions without threat of follow-up.

What did we get? Not much. Kamala still couldn’t articulate a single priority for “day one,” even though that question was so obvious Stevie Wonder could’ve seen it coming. There is no pressing on any of her egregious flip-flops on fracking, the border wall, socialized medicine, etc. Bach simply lumped them all together into a question that any strip mall lawyer would have objected to as “leading the witness.” 

Bash asked, “Generally speaking, how should voters look at some of the changes you've made that you explain in your policy? Is it because you have more experience and have learned more about the information? Is it because you were running for president in a Democratic primary? And should they feel comfortable and confident that what you're saying now will be your policy moving forward?”

Pathetic, but not surprising.

The whole thing went like that with Kamala. She still offers up meaningless word salads like, “I am so proud to have served as vice president to Joe Biden and to I'm so proud to be running with Tim Walz for president of the United States and to bring America what I believe the American people deserve, which is a new way forward, and turn the page on the last decade of what I believe has been, contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies.”

Considering Democrats controlled the White House for 6 of the last 10 years, that’s quite a slam on what Barack Obama clearly started, isn’t it? 

Tim Walz, the coked-out college mascot, wasn’t any better. He was, in fact, worse. Fraudie Murphy got one question tangentially related to his decades of stolen valor, but it was couched in the friendliest terms possible, of course. 

He asked about his “weapons of war I carried on war” lie, and he brushed it off as bad grammar. Is it bad grammar that only one of the people he served with in the National Guard for over 24 years came forward to speak favorably about his character? ONE! Dozens have gone the other way, and the silence of the rest speaks volumes. 

But Bash didn’t bring it up. She just let him adopt the cowardly Hamas tactic of hiding behind children. Fraudie said, “I said we were talking about, in this case, this was after school shooting, the idea of carrying these weapons of war. My wife, the English teacher who taught me grammar, is not always correct. But again, if it's not this, it's an attack on my children for showing love for me, or it's an attack on my dog. I'm not going to do that. And the one thing I'll never do is I'll never demean another member's service in any way. I never have, and I never will.”

He can’t demean another person’s service because, unless they abandoned their men right before a deployment, lied about their rank for 20 years, and pretended to be a combat veteran, there’s no way they are even as bad as, let alone worse than Tim Walz is. 

What do his kids have to do with anything? Like all sewer water, he seeks the path of least resistance and kids offer that. No one attacked his kids, they simply pointed out how his son appeared to have lost control of his entire body at the convention, screaming, “That’s my dad!” I’ve heard his son is autistic and non-verbal, which seems odd since he was screaming that, but whatever – he’s not the awful candidate; his father is, so I don’t care either way. But that’s hardly an “attack on his children.” 

They’re both frauds; they’re both awful. The idea that Kamala is simply rushed in her candidacy is undercut by the fact that she’s plotted for this moment most of her adult life, and definitely the last 5 years. And she’s been Vice-President – “ready on day one” to be president, just not ready on day 39 to answer questions about, apparently.

Walz is just a liar about everything. He tries to “awe-shucks” his way through his public appearances, bouncing around the stage like a coked-out college mascot for a team that sucks – prancing and dancing, pointing and clapping, desperate to get the wave started in a stadium out 20 percent full. You almost feel badly for him until you realize he’s a bad person. 

The final question – and imagine having what may well be the only chance to ask someone running for president questions, and you waste time on something like this (have you ever heard a softball question remotely close to this asked of Trump or Vance? No.) – was, “And last question, Madam Vice President, the photograph that has gone viral, you were speaking one of your grand nieces that you were just talking about was watching you accept the nomination. You didn't explicitly talk about gender or race in your speech, but it obviously means a lot to a lot of people. And that viral picture really says it. What does it mean to you?”

First, there’s no such thing as “grand nieces.” There are nieces and great-nieces. Kamala is not a grandmother, nor is she a mother. She is childless by choice (you can decide if you think she’s had abortions or how many, but you can’t deny she sure loves them) and only became a stepmother when her husband’s kids were in their late teens. How much time do you think California's Attorney General spent “mothering” teenagers who mostly lived with their real mothers? None? Less than none?

Second, what a stupid question. What should the audience get from any answer that could be offered in response to it? Is some pointless rambling about “historic” or whatever doing to serve as a 25 percent off coupon at the grocery store or gas station? Do you get a discount on your rent, mortgage, or electric bill if you sit through it? No. Are you even remotely more informed about what Kamala Harris would do as president? You are not. 

It was just a final example of how to waste an opportunity. The whole “interview” seemed to be conducted to get more future access by being nice to them. Journalists should conduct every interview with a politician like it’s the last time they will ever be allowed to speak with them, so they’d better ask tough questions.

I know the mentality; I’ve dealt with many people who do it on both sides. They suck up to the people they like hoping to get them back later. They all insist they’re tough, that they’re not friends with these people, but love telling their audience how close they are to them. And you come away with nothing as an audience except the inflated sense of self-importance from the questioner.

Dana Bash didn’t give her audience anything of use Thursday night, but she also didn’t allow Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to hurt themselves, which was more important to the left. The public knows nothing more about either of them or what they’d do in office other than they want to make things better. If the truth were on the side of Democrats, they’d be eager to tell it to anyone willing to listen. That they hide tells you all you need to know. 

Democrats view the public as a feckless mass of humanity in desperate need of leadership in every aspect of your life. They hold you in contempt. Return the favor.

Sunday ? VIDEO: Adorable Lab Won’t Eat His Food Unless Owner Says Prayer—But Watch When She Says ‘Amen’

 

Buddy might not know much about the man upstairs—Buddy’s a dog, so he wouldn’t—but his owner, Haley Buckland, managed to teach Buddy something about having grace.

Or, simply saying it.

It’s something she was taught when she was very young. Growing up attending a Christian school in New York, the 25-year-old, now living in Georgia and training to work in real estate, learned to always pray before touching her plate.

“That was something I was taught, so I wanted him to do it as well,” Ms. Buckland told The Epoch Times, speaking of Buddy, her black Labrador retriever.

Just after moving to the southerly peach state a few years ago, she got Buddy as a 4-week-old puppy in autumn 2018. She never expected him to go viral.

“When he was around 3 months, I started training him to pray before he eats,” Ms. Buckland said. “Of course, in the beginning it wasn’t easy. He didn’t understand, he was getting very frustrated, and he would just go after the food.”

But soon the ritual was established. She would put out her hand. Buddy placed a paw on top.

Every day, the words were recited: “God is good, God is great, let us thank Him for our food. By His hands, we are fed. We thank You for our daily bread. Amen.”

At first, Buddy’s food was kept out of reach on the counter. Over time, though, as his patience was tempered through her constant training of saying grace, the food remained untouched in his bowl by his own choice as they prayed.

After about two months of this, Buddy came to know that the words must always be said. Each time, every time. Followed by “amen.”

“I used to put my hand out, but I started doing my foot because I got a little lazy,” she told the newspaper. “I put my foot out, and then he would kind of catch on, and he would put his paws on my foot.”

Black Labs, she said, are a “very smart” breed.

Good manners. Ms. Buckland learned them early on. Now, she says she is “so happy” to have passed on to Buddy what had fostered her own upbringing. “I don’t know if he necessarily understands the words that I’m saying,“ she said. ”But he knows that there’s something before the amen.”

In fact, Buddy came to know it so well that now he simply won’t eat until that final word—amen—is uttered.

Video at link below

“Like, I finished the prayer, he still knows, ‘Okay, she didn’t say amen,’” she said.

So, Ms. Buckland, who aquired the habit of videoing Buddy and posting his constant stream of adorable antics on social media for her friends, started recording his seemingly pious devotion to pre-mealtime prayer. To her shock, the videos seized a large audience online.

“I was trying to show people he really won’t eat unless I say a prayer and say amen,” she said. “I didn’t think it would blow up as much as it did. I’m happy it did.”

Some viewers commented how many people living in the world today don’t even say grace at all. Others said he made them smile. That made Ms. Buckland feel good.

She added, “If Buddy is able to make people feel that way, then I want to continue to share it with the world, you know?”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/bright/video-adorable-lab-wont-eat-his-food-unless-owner-says-prayer-but-watch-when-she-says-amen-5658105?&utm_source=MB_article_paid&utm_campaign=MB_article_2024-09-01-ca&utm_medium=email&est=JxCwsmbV5IgVuzcY9cZ0DFkFMjOMeFkGD2AArvkKacZN9Fue6wcmtSBX%2B%2B3Nq0zrgXZ9&utm_content=highlight-news-1

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How Donald Trump Can Regain The Support Of Pro-Lifers

Trump can hit far harder on Florida’s 

abortion-until-birth ballot proposition.

posted by Michael J. New at The Federalist

On Thursday, former President Donald Trump generated a firestorm of controversy in pro-life political circles.

During an NBC News interview, he was asked about Florida’s Amendment 4. This ballot proposition would place a right to abortion in Florida’s Constitution and overturn Florida’s current law that protects preborn children after six weeks gestation. In response, Trump stated, “I think the six-week is too short. There has to be more time.” Many interpreted his comments to mean he would vote in favor of Amendment 4.

Unsurprisingly, the Trump campaign went into spin mode. The campaign quickly sent out a press release that stated, “President Trump has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida, he simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short.” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America also sent out a press release stating that Trump had a conversation with its president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, in which he indicated that he has not committed to how he will vote on Amendment 4.

Lately, many pro-lifers have been frustrated with Trump because he has offered them precious little in terms of commitments on abortion policy. However, this exchange gives Trump the unique opportunity to regain the trust of pro-lifers and provide some valuable assistance in our efforts to defeat Amendment 4.

Even if Trump does not want to publicly oppose Amendment 4, he could still raise concerns about the ballot question. Specifically, he could say he is concerned that Amendment 4 would 1) legalize abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy, 2) repeal Florida’s pro-life parental consent law, and 3) possibly require taxpayer funding of elective abortion.

A statement by Trump publicly raising concerns about the radical implications of Amendment 4 would be very beneficial. In other direct democracy campaigns, corporate media outlets have worked overtime to downplay concerns that abortion amendments would strike down common-sense pro-life laws. However, a public statement by Trump would broadcast our strongest and most popular arguments to a wide audience. It would put our opponents on the defensive. During follow-up coverage, pro-lifers could reference other states and discuss how Ohio’s abortion amendment has blocked the enforcement of a 24-hour waiting period.

Overall, the campaign over Amendment 4 is the most important statewide election for pro-lifers in 2024. Since constitutional amendments need 60 percent of the vote to pass in Florida, a pro-life victory is within reach. Furthermore, considering Florida’s large population and relatively high abortion rate, literally thousands of lives are at stake.

By simply raising concerns about the full implications of Amendment 4, Trump could win back the support of some skeptical pro-life voters. More importantly, he would be performing a valuable service for pro-lifers in Florida and across the country.

SHOWDOWN: President Trump’s Lawyers Dismantle Jack Smith’s Superseding Indictment in Joint Status Report

 President Trump's lawyers and Special Counsel Jack Smith presented opposing arguments for how the January 6 case will proceed in a joint status report filed late Friday night ahead of a status conference scheduled for September 5.

On Tuesday Jack Smith indicted President Trump AGAIN in DC following the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity.

As TGP reported last week, Special Counsel Jack Smith opted out of holding a ‘mini trial’ before the November election and is ‘carefully revising’ the January 6 case against Trump following the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling according to a leak to Bloomberg.

Jack Smith’s prosecutors presented evidence to a new grand jury in order to recalibrate the case after the Supreme Court ruled Trump is immune from prosecution for ‘official acts’ as president.

The grand jury indicted Trump on the same four charges that were unveiled last August: Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

Trump’s lawyers argued that Trump is immune from federal prosecution for alleged ‘crimes’ committed while he served as US President.

In Jack Smith’s indictment last August, prosecutors asserted that President Trump sought to use the DOJ to help him overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In the new 36-page indictment, Jack Smith’s prosecutors claim Trump’s actions were not ‘official acts’ because his rally was privately funded and “privately organized.”

Jack Smith dropped Trump’s top DOJ official Jeffrey Clark from the superseding indictment based on the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.

In the new indictment, Federal prosecutors argued that Trump used his X/Twitter account for “personal purposes.”

In the joint status report filed Friday night, Jack Smith argued that presidential immunity set forth in Trump does not apply to the categories in the superseding indictment that federal prosecutors will introduce at trial.

“The Government proposes that it file an opening brief in which it will explain why the immunity set forth in Trump does not apply to the categories of allegations in the superseding indictment or additional unpled categories of evidence that the Government intends to introduce at trial and will proffer in its brief,” Jack Smith’s prosecutors wrote in the joint status report reviewed by The Gateway Pundit.

Trump’s lawyers came out swinging in the status report, dismantled Jack Smith’s superseding indictment and asserted that President Trump will move to dismiss the Special Counsel’s improper appointment and use of non-appropriated funds.

President Trump’s proposed pre-trial schedule:

“President Trump holds the right to challenge the new indictment, and the underlying grand jury process, as a matter of law,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.

“Here, President Trump is considering several challenges to the Superseding Indictment, each of which should be resolved in his favor as a matter of law and would obviate the need for further proceedings,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

“We believe, and expect to demonstrate, that this case must end as a matter of law,” they said.

Trump’s lawyers argued that the former president is immune from prosecution following the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity.

Additionally, Trump’s attorneys pointed out that the Supreme Court already determined that his communications with then-Vice President Mike Pence were “presumptively immune.”

“Namely, in Trump, the Supreme Court held that President Trump is “at least presumptively immune from prosecution for” all alleged efforts “to pressure the Vice President to take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification proceeding.”” Trump’s lawyers said.

However, Jack Smith kept Trump’s communications with Mike Pence in his superseding indictment.

“In addition, while continuing to strongly maintain that many classes of conduct alleged in the Superseding Indictment are immune—including, but not limited to, Tweets and public statements about the federal 2020 Presidential election, communications with state officials about the federal election, and allegations relating to alternate slates of electors—President Trump may file a motion to dismiss focused specifically on the Special Counsel’s improper use of allegations related to Vice President Pence, along with other potential key threshold motions,” Trump’s lawyers said.

Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee, will decide how the case proceeds after the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling.

A status conference is scheduled for September 5.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/08/showdown-president-trumps-lawyers-dismantle-jack-smiths-superseding/?utm_source=%3Futm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Dmorning_send

States Open The Door To Foreign-Born Presidential Candidate On Their Ballots

Shiva Ayyadurai is fighting to get on ballots, but the naturalized U.S. citizen from India fails to meet a key constitutional requirement.

Matt Kittle reporting for The Federalist

Shiva Ayyadurai has a very interesting political story to tell. He was born in 1963 in Bombay (now Mumbai) “a low-caste untouchable in India’s caste system” and moved with his family to the United States and a better life when he was seven years old. He graduated with an undergraduate diploma in computer science and electrical engineering from MIT, where he holds advanced degrees, according to his bio, including a PhD in biological engineering. 

He claims to have invented email and was reportedly briefly married to television star Fran Drescher. 

Now Ayyadurai wants to be president of the United States. But he can’t. While he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1983, he’s not a natural-born U.S. citizen — one of three requirements to be president. It’s clearly spelled out in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Ayyadurai has spent much of his campaign fighting that restriction with what one constitutional law expert describes as “bizarre” legal arguments. And, strikingly, some state election officials seemingly don’t know or care about the citizenship qualification that Americans have abided by for the better part of 240 years. 

Perhaps such lack of care on constitutional detail speaks to a bigger citizenship issue: The Democrat Party’s quest to involve foreign nationals in U.S. elections. 

‘Erroneous Placement’

Minnesota resident and conservative activist Jesse Smith last week filed with the Minnesota Supreme Court a petition “to correct the erroneous placement” of Ayyadurai on the November ballot. The petition, which names Democrat Secretary of State Steve Simon as the defendant, asks the court to force Simon to remove Ayyadurai from the general election lineup. 

Why? Because the Constitution disqualifies him. While the independent candidate may have compelling policy ideas and an understandable contempt for Dr. Anthony Fauci and lockdowns, Ayyadurai is not a natural-born citizen. 

“Because Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai is a naturalized, but not natural born citizen, under Article II, he is ineligible to hold the office of President under the ‘natural born Citizen’ requirement,” states the petition, filed on behalf of Smith by election integrity attorneys Erick Kaardal and Elizabeth Nielsen. The filing also argues that Simon has errors under state statute, which prohibits “placement of a candidate on the official ballot who is not eligible to hold the office for which the candidate is filed.”

Time is of the essence, the plaintiff argues. 

“Because the early voting in Minnesota begins on September 20, 2024, meaning ballots are to be printed soon or are being printed, this Court must take immediate action to direct Secretary of State Steve Simon and his office to remove Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai …,” the petition filed last week states. 

To be sure, Ayyadurai is a very minor candidate in a presidential election dominated by former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. The independent will garner relatively few votes in Minnesota or elsewhere. But in another close, hotly contested election where every vote could prove critical, minor contestants could peel away just enough support to make a difference. 

The anti-vax activist and basher of the elite class who has unsuccessfully run for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts might be more likely to take a sliver of votes from Trump in Minnesota and elsewhere. But his position on ballots presents a core constitutional question. 

‘No Position’

On Thursday, Simon certified the presidential candidates appearing on Minnesota’s Nov. 5 ballot. Other than Trump and Harris, the list includes Ayyadurai and his running mate, the leftist Green Party ticket, a couple of socialist party tickets, the Libertarians, independent far-left candidate Cornel West and his running mate, and independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — despite the fact that he dropped out last week and has endorsed Trump. 

In his response to the petition before the Minnesota Supreme Court, Simon disputes “particular contentions … regarding errors or omissions that the Secretary has allegedly committed,” but “takes no position on” Smith’s “contentions” about Ayyadurai’s ineligibility to appear on the ballot. The secretary also insisted that he “lacked sufficient knowledge to admit or deny the factual allegations in the petition related to whether Ayyadurai is a natural born citizen,” the left-dominated Supreme Court noted on Friday.

No position? Doesn’t the secretary of state agree that the first constitutional requirement to be president of the United States of America is to be a natural-born citizen? 

“Our office doesn’t comment on pending litigation,” Peter Bartz-Gallagher, communications director for the Minnesota Secretary of States’ office told me in an email response to my questions. 

It appears the office doesn’t consider the constitutional requirements when processing ballot access requests. 

In his court filing, Simon’s attorney said staff “determined that the petition met all applicable form and signature requirements provided by Minnesota law.” Further, the response argues that the secretary has “no legal authority to determine whether a candidate for President is eligible to appear on the ballot.” So, Simon’s staff didn’t investigate whether a candidate “meets the federal constitutional requirements to serve as President, including whether the candidate is a natural-born citizen.” 

How difficult would it be to investigate Ayyadurai’s citizenship status? Not very. He’s made his humble origins as an Indian-American a central part of his story and his campaigns.

On Friday morning, the state Supreme Court dismissed the petition because Smith’s attorneys failed to “file the proof of service required by our prior orders.” That’s true. The court demanded the law firm “personally serve” Ayyadurai and all of his fellow presidential candidates with the petition, the court’s briefing order, and other documents within four days of the petition being submitted — an insane request in a short window of time. Kaardal previously told me the court’s order was logistically impossible and cost-prohibitive.

“By failing to comply with the service requirements in our orders, petitioner has deprived Ayyadurai and the other presidential candidates with any meaningful opportunity to respond to the petition by the timeframes in our briefing order,” the court’s decision states.

So a candidate that can’t meet the first requirement to be president in the U.S. Constitution will remain on Minnesota’s November ballot.

‘Bizarre Claims’

Ayyadurai, born Vellayappa Ayyadurai Shiva, filed a preemptive federal lawsuit earlier this year against Attorney General Merrick Garland asking for “declaratory judgment that he is eligible to serve as President notwithstanding the natural born citizens clause … .” He claimed his “campaign will be hampered by a variety of state and federal officials who will refuse to permit ballot access to [him] on the basis of his place of birth.” 

The lawsuit was dismissed.

In the complaint, Ayyadurai argued that the First Amendment guarantees his right to run for president regardless of the Constitution’s pesky qualifications. And he asserted that such a qualification has been “abrogated and implicitly repealed” by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative and former member of the Federal Election Commission, had some pointed descriptors for Ayyadurai’s legal arguments. 

“They are nutty claims, bizarre claims,” he told me in a phone interview Thursday afternoon. “No one would take them seriously.” He added that there’s no reason why the Minnesota Supreme Court couldn’t take judicial notice of the federal court ruling, among others already raised. The petition before the Minnesota court, in fact, references the federal court case. 

Von Spakovsky said there have been instances of presidential candidates who were born overseas, like the late Sen. John McCain, who was born on the Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone where his U.S. Navy officer father served. Ayyadurai’s situation is not the same. 

“There are sometimes provisions in the Constitution that are ambiguous; this is not one of them,” the constitutional law expert said. “The only reason to leave this individual on the ballot is for partisan political reasons because the Constitution is so clear.” 

‘At Face Value’

Minnesota is among at least three states that have granted Ayyadurai full ballot access as an independent presidential candidate, according to Ballotpedia. The others are deep blue Washington and, interestingly, deep red Iowa. 

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs’ office did not respond to a request for comment. In a press release earlier this month, the office laid out the stipulations for candidates to qualify for the general election ballot. None explicitly mentions the constitutional requirement of being a natural-born citizen.

For Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, it’s a matter of trust. 

“The role of the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office is to accept filing paperwork from candidates in good faith and at face value,” Ashley Hunt, a media contact for the office, told me in an email response. “We do not investigate or verify a person’s place of birth, where they live, etc.” 

Objections may be filed with a state panel. Earlier this week, the panel voted to boot three Libertarian Party of Iowa congressional candidates off the November ballot after the party did not follow state law involving caucuses and conventions. 

‘I Do Solemnly Swear’

Ayyadurai has been disqualified on general election ballots in several states, including Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Utah, and, most recently Wisconsin, according to Ballotpedia. The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Tuesday voted 5-1 to keep the candidate off the Badger State’s November ballot because he failed to meet the Constitution’s citizenship requirement. He has lost multiple times in attempting to get on New Jersey’s presidential ballot, the Garden States Supreme Court handing Ayyadurai his latest rejection. 

“The case against Ayyadurai is a simple one: he was born in India to non-American parents, and was naturalized as an American citizen when he was 19. That entitles him to nearly every right afforded to any other citizen, but the U.S. Constitution explicitly requires that the office of president be held by a ‘natural-born citizen,’ which Ayyadurai isn’t,” the New Jersey Globe reported. 

In his presumptive filing in May in federal court, the independent argued  he suffered “an injury in fact because Utah and Wyoming have asked him to confirm that he is a natural born citizen as part of their ballot-access process.”  In Utah, Ayyadurai affirmed, “I do solemnly swear that I can qualify to hold that office both legally and constitutionally if selected.” 

In New York, it wasn’t the constitutional question but an “insufficient” number of signatures on his petition of candidacy, according to the New York State Board of Elections. The story was the same in Michigan, where the independent submitted just 889 of the 12,000 signatures needed, according to the state’s Bureau of Elections. 

Liberals have been pushing hard for noncitizens to participate in U.S. elections, a position underscored by Democrats in the House voting en masse against a bill this summer that would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. 

In the Minnesota petition before the Supreme Court, Smith argues that including Ayyadurai on the general election ballot could harm the Minnesota voter.

“If Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai were to win Minnesota’s popular vote, thus gaining the Electoral votes, Minnesota would lose our Electoral votes and be subject to the rest of the nation,” the petition asserts. It acknowledges that such a possibility “may be small, but any candidate with their name on the ballot for any office has a potential to win.”

At the same time, constitutional law experts like von Spakovsky say allowing a foreign-born, naturalized citizen access to the presidential ballot changes the Constitution without the benefit of amendment.