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{ spectator.org } ~ Wow.

As more and more Republican House and Senate members understand the direct threat posed to the United States Constitution, not to mention the integrity of the American electoral system that is critical to our democratic republic, Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican, stands up… to oppose the Constitution.

Well, aside from the obvious — that Senator Toomey is representing Pennsylvania, the state where the Constitution was written — it is a startling sight to see someone who was elected as the conservative Republican over then-longtime liberal Republican Arlen Specter (who left the GOP for the Democrats rather than face a Toomey primary challenge) turn on a dime and join in an open assault on the Constitution by the Democrats and their media allies.

Over at the Blaze, Mark Levin, with no direct reference to Toomey, has laid out in detail exactly what Toomey is now suddenly supporting.

Let me start first with this headline from Penn Live, the online-version of the Harrisburg Patriot News, the newspaper of the Pennsylvania state capital region. (And full disclosure, I have been doing a weekly podcast — BattlegroundPA — for Penn Live.) Here’s the headline:

Attempts to overturn certified Presidential election results ‘undermines’ voters rights: U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey

His statement was in response to the announcement by Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Texas Senator Ted Cruz that sought to stop the certification of electoral college results that were the result of alleged voter fraud and other possible vote manipulations. Here is Toomey’s statement in full, with bold print for emphasis supplied:

A fundamental, defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of the people to elect their own leaders. The effort by Senators Hawley, Cruz, and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in swing states like Pennsylvania directly undermines this right.

The senators justify their intent by observing that there have been many allegations of fraud. But allegations of fraud by a losing campaign cannot justify overturning an election. They fail to acknowledge that these allegations have been adjudicated in courtrooms across America and were found to be unsupported by evidence. President Trump’s own Attorney General, Bill Barr, stated “we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.”

I acknowledge that this past election, like all elections, had irregularities. But the evidence is overwhelming that scumbag/liar-Joe Biden won this election. His narrow victory in Pennsylvania is easily explained by the decline in suburban support for President Trump and the president’s slightly smaller victory margins in most rural counties.

I voted for President Trump and endorsed him for re-election. But, on Wednesday, I intend to vigorously defend our form of government by opposing this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others.’

Now let’s move over to Mark Levin’s detailed piece in the Blade. And let’s juxtapose his points with Senator Toomey’s. (And for the record, Mark is not only a Pennsylvanian, but a lawyer and former Reagan administration colleague of mine where he served as chief of staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese. Needless to say, he is also the author of numerous bestselling books on the U.S. Constitution and is as well the host of his popular talk radio show plus his Fox TV show, Life, Liberty and Levin.)

Toomey: A fundamental, defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of the people to elect their own leaders. The effort by Senators Hawley, Cruz, and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in swing states like Pennsylvania directly undermines this right.

Levin: The 2020 presidential election was, in several targeted battleground states, an unconstitutional electoral exercise. Even putting aside evidence of significant fraud, virtually none of which received a hearing by our courts, events leading up to and including the November national election constituted a radical and grave departure from the federal electoral system adopted by the framers of the Constitution and the state ratification conventions.…

But it should be of great moment and concern to the people of this country and especially to congressional Republicans in both Houses, for if the latter do not at least confront and challenge this lawlessness on January 6, when Congress meets to count the electors, it will be the GOP’s undoing and, simultaneously, the undoing of our presidential electoral system. Ultimately, it will be the people of the United States who love our republic who will be the losers.

Toomey: The senators justify their intent by observing that there have been many allegations of fraud. But allegations of fraud by a losing campaign cannot justify overturning an election.

Levin: Win, lose, or draw, on January 6, the Republicans must not act as if “the people have spoken” and be cowered into passivity or worse, such as joining the Democrat Party and media hecklers, by insisting that they are part of a lawless party seeking to “reverse the results of the election.”

… let us not be judged by those who have intentionally and strategically manipulated our politics and the law to undermine our constitutional order. It is they who must be condemned.”

Toomey: I acknowledge that this past election, like all elections, had irregularities. But the evidence is overwhelming that scumbag/liar-Joe Biden won this election. His narrow victory in Pennsylvania is easily explained by the decline in suburban support for President Trump and the president’s slightly smaller victory margins in most rural counties.

Levin: After the 2016 election, the Democrat Party, its various surrogate groups, and eventually the  scumbag/liar- Biden campaign unleashed hundreds of lawsuits and an unrelenting lobbying campaign in key states that had previously been won by President Trump, taking unconstitutional measures intended to stop President Trump from winning these states in the 2020 election, thereby literally undoing this critical constitutional provision. What had been carefully crafted at the Constitutional Convention and clearly spelled out in the Constitution was the main obstacle to defeating President Trump and winning virtually all future presidential elections. The problem for the Democrats was that in several of these battleground states, the Republicans controlled the legislatures, while the Democrats controlled state executive offices. The Constitution was not on their side. Therefore, they used the two branches of government that were to have no role in directing the appointment of electors to eviscerate the role of the Republican legislatures.

In Pennsylvania, considered the battleground of the battleground states, the Democrat governor, attorney general, and secretary of state made and enforced multiple changes to the state’s voting procedures, all of which were intended to assist the Democrats and  scumbag/liar- Biden. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, whose seven justices are elected, has a 5-2 Democrat majority. (In 2018, there was a big push by the Democrat Party to fill three of the seats with Democrats, and it succeeded.) Just months before the general election, that court rewrote the state election laws to eliminate signature requirements or signature matching, eliminate postal markings that were intended to ensure votes were timely, and extended the counting of mail-in ballots to Friday at 5:00 p.m. (state law had a hard date and time — election day on Tuesday, which ended at 8:00 p.m. ET), thereby fundamentally altering Pennsylvania’s election laws and nullifying the federal constitutional role of the Republican legislature.

Toomey concludes by saying this:

I voted for President Trump and endorsed him for re-election. But, on Wednesday, I intend to vigorously defend our form of government by opposing this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others.

So. Where to begin?

Let’s start with this Toomey statement:

But allegations of fraud by a losing campaign cannot justify overturning an election.

Not so. And as a Pennsylvania U.S. Senator, Toomey should know better. Here is the headline from the New York Times in 1994 about a Pennsylvania State Senate election:

Vote-Fraud Ruling Shifts Pennsylvania Senate

The Times story reports this, with bold print supplied for emphasis:

Saying Philadelphia’s election system had collapsed under “a massive scheme” by Democrats to steal a State Senate election in November, a Federal judge today took the rare step of invalidating the vote and ordered the seat filled by the Republican candidate.

In making such a sweeping move, the judge, Clarence C. Newcomer of Federal District Court here, did for the Republicans what the election had not: enable them to regain control of the State Senate, which they lost two years ago.

Judge Newcomer ruled that the Democratic campaign of William G. Stinson had stolen the election from Bruce S. Marks in North Philadelphia’s Second Senatorial District through an elaborate fraud in which hundreds of residents were encouraged to vote by absentee ballot even though they had no legal reason — like a physical disability or a scheduled trip outside the city — to do so.

In many instances, according to Republicans who testified during a four-day civil trial last week, Democratic campaign workers forged absentee ballots. On many of the ballots, they used the names of people who were living in Puerto Rico or serving time in prison, and in one case, the voter had been dead for some time.

In other words, Senator Toomey is wrong. In point of fact, a Pennsylvania election has been overturned because Democrats “had stolen the election.” This is called “precedent.”

Toomey says that Trump’s “narrow victory in Pennsylvania is easily explained by the decline in suburban support for President Trump and the president’s slightly smaller victory margins in most rural counties.”

In fact, the scumbag/liar-Biden victory in Pennsylvania can be explained Mark Levin explains it exactly:

*“..the Democrat governor, attorney general, and secretary of state made and enforced multiple changes to the state’s voting procedures, all of which were intended to assist the Democrats and scumbag/liar-Biden.”
*“Just months before the general election, that (Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme) court rewrote the state election laws to eliminate signature requirements or signature matching, eliminate postal markings that were intended to ensure votes were timely, and extended the counting of mail-in ballots to Friday at 5:00 p.m. (state law had a hard date and time — election day on Tuesday, which ended at 8:00 p.m. ET), thereby fundamentally altering Pennsylvania’s election laws and nullifying the federal constitutional role of the Republican legislature.”

Here is one of many descriptions of election law violation in this election, this one from Newsmax:

In Pennsylvania, state law states that the deadline for a county board of elections to receive a mail-in ballot is 8 p.m. on Election Day. Instead of following state law, judges, without any authorization by the Pennsylvania General Assembly, usurped legislative power by extending that deadline to three days after Election Day.

In another violation, Pennsylvania’s secretary of state violated Pennsylvania state law, and thus the U.S. Constitution, by removing the state law mandate that requires all applications for absentee or mail-in ballots for non-disabled and non-military voters be signed by the applicant.

Which is to say, to borrow directly from Senator Toomey’s statement, for the Senator to be accepting this lawlessness — as the Senator is doing — is in fact turning a blind eye to “this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others.”

Americans — and Pennsylvanians in particular — will be hearing more this week about what many in Pennsylvania see as blatant theft — a stolen presidential election.

What will doubtless infuriate Pennsylvanians is the belief that Senator Toomey, for whatever reason, is effectively doing the exact opposite of what he claims.

The Senator’s actions, make no mistake, are disenfranchising millions of Pennsylvania voters — not to mention they highlight exactly Mark Levin’s point when he said:

January 6 is the day we learn whether our Constitution will hold and whether congressional Republicans care.

Exactly.