Category Archives: legal news

legal news

Would he dare seek a third term?

A member of my family, a fellow I consider to be a smart fellow, says he is concerned that Donald J. Trump will be able to finagle his way into a third term as POTUS.

He knows the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment limits the president to two elected terms. He knows that Trump has been elected twice.

I reminded my relative that Trump cannot do anything single-handedly. He needs Congress to amend the 22nd Amendment. Then he would need three-quarters of the 50 states to ratify it.

“It won’t happen,” I beseeched him. “Ohhhh, I don’t know,” came his reply.

The nation’s founders didn’t write a perfect governing document. It has been amended 27 times since its ratificationn in 1789. The founders, though, did set the bar quite high for those who want to change the framework of our democratic republic. They set strict legislative requirements and set a high standard for the number of state legislators needed to ratify an amendment.

Donald Trump, it seems to many of us, would like to be able to seek a third term as POTUS. But, he’ll be 83 years of age when his current term ends. The founders made it clear that to change the Constitutiion, pro-amendment fanatics need to jump through a lot of hoops to make it happen.

Trump and his moronic MAGA minions might think they hold all the cards to change the Constitution. They don’t. The founders made damn sure of the document’s strength by building in “checks and balances” to keep presidents in check.

It has worked so far. It will continue to do its job.

legal news

SCOTUS chief pushes back … a bit

Media reports saiy that U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts is pushing back on Donald Trump’s call to impeach federal judges who rule against him.

I consider the chief’s response to be a tepid rejoinder. Then again, the chief justice of the nation’s highest court need not scream and bellow in a manner resembling what Trump demonstrates.

Roberts said that impeaching a judge is an “inappropriate” form of protesting a court ruling. He said the appeals process has worked for two centuries and that should be the way to respond to a ruling one dislikes.

Fine. I get the message. I fear it will be lost on the Maniac in Chief.

What fascinates me, though, as I watch Trump bloviate about all the revenge he intends to seek is that the courts do remain reasonably solid in the checks and balances realm of our federal government. Trump’s moronic staffers suggest that certain judges lack jurisdictiion or standing to rule as they do.

That’s pure crap. The only body that makes that call is the nine-member Supreme Court, whose chief has laid out what the Constitution allows.

Judicial impeachment is off the table!

crime news, legal news

Patel to take FBI reins … God help us!

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, once revered and venerated for its professionalism, is now being run by a guy who thinks the agency has become a clown show staffed by crooks, charlatans and crackpots.

Kash Patel won Senate confirmation today by a 51-49 vote, hardly the type of mandate that previous FBI directors have traditionally received. The past three FBI directors were confirmed with at least 92 Senate votes.

Patel is about as unqualified and unfit as anyone I’ve ever seen for the job as head of the nation’s premier crime-fighting outfit. It is staffed with thousands of public servants who are dedicated to doing their job and fulfilling their mission to keep us safe from those who wish to do us harm.

Patel once said he intended to close the Hoover FBI Building and turn it into a museum of the “deep state.” He vows to hunt down and prosecute anyone who opposes Donald Trump. What the hell? He has declared war on the media, the only privately held institution in this country granted protection from government influence and interference in the U.S. Constitution.

And this is the dipsh** Trump selected to lead the FBI?

Of the handful of troublesome Trump picks to lead the executive branch, I declared Kash Patel to be the worst of the bunch. I stand by my earlier assessment of this moron’s world view.

Now I will merely pray he chickens out on his threats to weaponize his department.

legal news

Another public task snatched away

Another opportunity to serve my community has been taken away from me … not by a government denying me the right to serve, but the lack of need for the service I intended to provide.

I waited all day to learn whether I needed to report for jury duty Wednesday morning at the Collin County Courthouse jury room over yonder in McKInney.

Then came the message. My services aren’t needed. There will be no need for a jury.

I’ll be frank. The news disappoints me. I want to serve on a trial jury. I realize it’s the luck of the draw that determines whether I get the chance. Every time I have received a jury summons in Texas — whether in Jefferson or Randall counties, and now in Collin County — district clerk staff has waved me off.

I know none of this really is huge news to those who are reading this post. I want to share with you, however, that I keep reading reports from district and county clerks that they often cannot seat enough people for juries when the need arises.

Texas offers a variety of reasons for people to excuse themselves from jury duty. One of them provides a permanent recusal for old folks like me. I reckon the state figures that some of us might not live long enough to report for duty once we get the summons.

I am 75 years of age. My hope that a permanent recusal would not be because I wouldn’t live long enough to serve. One of my life’s goals has been to serve on a trial jury. We all think we know what goes on when 12 people deliberate over a verdict in a case … but we don’t know until we’ve been in the room. I want to learn what happens when they shut the door.

It won’t happen this time. Maybe it will the next time I get the call to serve the cause of delivering justice.

legal news

Judiciary under attack

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Our nation’s founders had this notion that today seems rather quaint that lifetime appointments to the federal judiciary would shield judges from the kind of political pressure that dogs members of the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

The concept worked quite well. Then came the MAGA movement, Donald Trump and now the actual threat of impeachment of federal judges who rule against the Trumpian view of the world.

Holy crap!

A federal judge in Rhode Island has ruled that Trump must unfreeze federal money appropriated by Congress. His actions to stop payments violate the U.S. Constitution, said the judge. The MAGA response? Well, we’ll just see about that, they say. MAGA morons are reportedly lobbying their allies in Congress to impeach the judge because he had the stones to speak truth to the morons who think they can ignore the Constitution at will.

The first three articles in the Constitution dealt, in order, with legislative power, executive power and judicial power. The founders seemingly believed that Congress deserved top billing, thus delineating its authority in Article I. Therefore, when Congress authorizes the expenditure of public money, that authority cannot be challenged by tinhorn politicians.

Trump is seeking to rewrite the Constitution by flouting the authority it grants to Congress … and to the courts. The Rhode Island judge noted specifically that Trump has ignored earlier court rulings and said point-blank that he must be found in contempt of the court. Indeed, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts noted in his year-end review of the court said that any effort to defy the courts must be stopped.

You want a constitutional crisis? I believe we might have them on several fronts, each of which would make Watergate and the Trump-incited insurrection look like a game of horseshoes.

crime news, legal news

No moral equivalence here

Right-wing MAGA fanatics need to take great care when attaching moral equivalence to two vastly different actions taken by two equally vastly different men.

In one of his final acts as president, Joe Biden issued pre-emptive pardons to members of his family, believing they would spare them from the hassles of being harassed by federal officials loyal to the incoming POTUS.

Those pardons were, shall we say, weird and kind of bizarre. As it has been said many times, innocent people do not need to be pardoned. The family members pardoned by President Biden hadn’t even been charged with any crimes.

Then came the horrendous blanket pardons issued by Donald Trump, freeing about 1,500 traitorous mobsters from punishment for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection against the government. They sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and attacked with all-due violence the Capitol cops seeking to protect members of Congress from the hysterical mob.

Some right-wingers have sought to attach the Biden pardons with the Trump pardons. Not a chance! There isn’t a scintilla of moral equivalence to be found!

One of the pardoned traitors, by the way, got into an altercation with Indiana police over the weekend and was shot to death by the cops. History seeking to repeat itself? Well … go figure.

What Trump did in pardoning all the convicted mobsters was send a clear signal that the president had their back in the event they might try to do something similar in the future. The president also gave the middle finger to cops who had suffered grievous injury in defense of our government.

Trump has taken the same oath twice to “protect and defend the Constitution.” He tossed that oath into the crapper the first time and there’s not a thing that I can detect that will prevent him from doing it again.

Therefore, let us end the idiotic attempt to equate the pardons issued by the departing president with those given by the individual who succeeded him.

legal news

Patel: worst of the bunch

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Of the remaining appointees to the Donald Trump Cabinet who remain quite problematic, I am going to single out of them as being the worst of the bunch.

FBI director-designate Kash Patel is utterly, completely and unquestionably unfit for the job he says he wants. Trump picked him, I guess, because Patel has all but declared war on the very agency he wants to lead.

How in the name of law enforcement can anyone justify this moron’s ascent into the FBI directorship? Patel and Trump have accused the Biden administration of “weaponizing” the agency against Trump’s political adversaries. What the new guy has suggested doing makes any accusation of Biden’s weaponization laughable on its face.

He said he wants to close the agency and turn it into a museum to commemorate the “deep state,” whatever the f*** that is. He vows to launch probes into special counsel Jack Smith’s work on behalf of the attorney general to prosecute Trump for crimes against the government. He wouldn’s shirk at any notion to prosecute the Jan. 6 House select committee that probed the insurrection that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Patel refuses to answer direct questions about whether he would say “no” to an order from Trump that is illegal. Nor does he acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

The clown is part of the Big Lie cabal that has no business serving as a top law enforcement official in our cherished federal government.

Kash Patel gets my nod as the worst of the sorry bunch still awaiting Senate confirmation. The sad truth, apparently, is that he’ll get confirmed. God help us.

legal news

Legal scholars got this one right

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A federal judge in Washington state has become the latest Man in the Moment by issuing a temporary halt to Donald Trump’s order ending birthright citizenship for anyone born in the United States of America.

I agree with U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan. He called Trump’s order “blatantly unconstititutional.”

But hold on! He’s getting plenty of push back from conservative legal experts who are backing Trump’s decision.

One of them is Hans Von Spakovsky, who works for the Heritage Foundation. He said: “The 14th Amendment has two key clauses in it. One, you have to be born in the United States, but you also have to be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. All those who push birthright citizenship just point to that first phrase and ignore the second,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of research on this. I’ve looked at the original passage of the 14th Amendment and what that phrase meant subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. According to the original sponsors of the 14th Amendment in Congress was that you owed your political allegiance to the United States and not a foreign government.” 

I just want to take note, however, of one key ommission in the amendment. It makes no mention of allegiance to a foreign power. It just lays it out there in plain English: If you’re born or are naturalized in this country, you are a U.S. citizen.

Conservatives ought to stand on historical precedent. This proposal to end birthright citizenship is a notion intended to attack the intentions of illegal residents, which has nsothing to do with the children they bring into this world.

legal news

Birthright citizenship: solidly inscribed in Constitution

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Let’s just agree with this crystal clear notion … which is that the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution makes no distinction among those who are born in this country.

It is silent on whether parents are legal or illegal immigrants. You’re born here, you earn the right of citizenship. Period.

Donald Trump doesn’t see it that way. He wants to ban. He issued an executive order making that declaration. A federal judge, though, has declared Trump’s action in direct violation of the Constitution. Trump will appeal that sensible ruling. How far it goes is anyone’s guess. He’s got that right-wing-stacked Supreme Court on his side.

You must amend the Constitution to use the end of birthright citizenship to stem illegal immigration. There are serious hurdles to clear to amend the document.

The 14th Amendment also stipulates in crystal clear language that “no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges … of citizens of the United States.”

Our forebears took care to ensure clarity of this amendment.

We must not trifle with birthright citizenship.

legal news

Finally … a jury summons!

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Nearly six years into my Collin County, Texas, residency and I finally — finally! I am telling you — received a jury summons.

Call me a glutton for punishment, but I want to be selected to serve on a trial jury.

I came close once to getting selected for a trial jury. It occurred in Amarillo back in the late 1990s. I got the summons, reported for duty, then got herded into a jury pool waiting room where we cooled our jets for most of the day.

Then the judge who managed the jury selection, 47th District Judge David Gleason, excused us. I must have been the only juror wannabe who expressed disappointment at that moment.

You see, I long have been fascinated by the criminal justice system. I have wanted to serve on a jury since the time I first became eligible, which I guess was when I turned 21 years of age.

I never received a jury summons when I lived in Oregon. I have received several of them since moving to Texas in the spring of 1984. Except for the near-selection in Randall County, my other summonses ended with a “don’t report” order, meaning the court system didn’t need me that day.

I suppose I could seek an exemption based on my age; I am 75 years old now and I do not have to report. I won’t do that. I want to serve on a jury.

My reporting time is about a month away. I am going to hope for the best and hope they need me to do my duty as a citizen. Hey, it’s the least I can do.