Tag Archives: US Constitution

education news

Trump at war with First Amendment

Let there be zero misunderstanding about this truth, which is that Donald J. Trump has declared all-out war on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Yes, the ignoramus in chief has taken every provision in that amendment and subjected it to the whims of his desire to create an autocracy in the land founded on the principle that it never should become what Trump desires.

Let’s look at it, one clause at a time …

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” Trump has ordered the placement of the Ten Commandments in federal buildings and argued for the placement of them in public schools. Clearly a violation of the church-state separation clause.

“or abridging the freedom of speech …” Trump is jailing people who are speaking out against government policies initiated by the Trump administration. He signed an executive order declaring that anyone who burns Old Glory is subject to a year in jail, despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declares that flag-burning is protected political speech.

“or the press …” Trump has banned certain newsgathering organizations from the White House press briefing room. Why? Because they decline to use certain terminology favored by Trump — such as the continuing to call the Gulf of Mexico by its long-standing name, rather than referring to the Gulf of America.

“or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances … “ Trump has deployed Homeland Security personnel to arrest people for assembling to complain about government policy. He has declared that they are traitors to the government if they disagree with the lame-brained policies put forth by the administration. Any third-grade student in the United States has been taught that this country was founded on the principle of dissent, that our founders were a collection of dissenters intent on creating a government that cherished political dissent as part of the our national fabric.

The first 10 Amendments to our nation’s Constitution were intended to protect our civil liberties. They are the basis for this nation’s very existence. Donald J. Trump is out of what passes for his mind!

crime news

Gun debate renews

The rumbling under our feet is the sound of those who want to raise awareness of gun violence in the wake of the Minneapolis school shooting that killed two children and injured several other kids and adults.

Good … luck!

It is so sad to say that this event won’t produce any tangible legislative remedy than all the scores of earlier shootings that have resulted in hundreds of deaths of innocent Americans including scores of children. I mean, if Sandy Hook in Newtown or Rowe Elementary in Uvalde — where dozens of children died at the hands of madmen — can’t move the debate forward, then I doubt this one will make a damn bit of difference.

I wish I had an answer to this tragic circumstance. I have sought to say categorically that legislation can be crafted that does nothing to impede the Second Amendment to our Constitution, which protects the rights of Americans to own firearms. Yet, we hear from anti-gun-reform advocates that any measure taken does restrict our constitutional right to gun ownership. That, of course, is pure horsehit.

Critics of this blog keep reminding me that nothing could have prevented the massacres we have witnessed in schools, churches, shopping malls, theaters or music events. I cannot respond to those claims because they are made without any sense of empathy or compassion.

I have always presumed that the nation’s founders intended for firearm ownership to pertain to responsible American citizens who could pass a background check to ensure they have nothing in their past that trigger any alarms. I am not an originalist, because I don’t know what went through the brilliant minds of the men who created this government. I’m just making an assumption … which I know is dangerous.

The debate will swirl once again as we assess the tragedy of Minneapolis. Maybe the solution lies in the ballot box, where voters can replace politicians who they know resist legislative efforts to bring sanity to our lives. A congressional election is just a little more than a year away. It is time to get busy.

Donald Trump

How does he do this?

I am headed for the great beyond eventually, although I am not wishing for any sort of exit sooner … as I would rather it occur much later.

Before I check out of this world, I am going to seek to understand how people I consider to be reasonable, intelligent, well-read and blessed with the ability to discern right from wrong can continue to stand behind the charlatan who is masquerading as president of the United States of America.

They support this Republican In Name Only even as he:

  • Embraces dictators, tyrants and killers around the world.
  • Grants full pardons to individuals who attacked our government on 1/6 and inflicted harm to police officers.
  • Cuts off international aid aimed at preventing terminal illnesses.
  • Stands behind the lying Russian goon and then denigrates our own intelligence network that determines that Russia sought to influence the 2016 presidential election.
  • Selects unqualified and unfit members of a Cabinet he runs.
  • Violates at every turn the oath of office he took to protect and defend the Constitution.

There’s probably more to list. You get the idea.

What perhaps is equally baffling is how Donald Trump has managed to buffalo these aforementioned folks into believing a single thing that flies out of his overfed pie hole.

That brings me to what might be the million-dollar question. Which is more frustrating, that millions of Americans continue to slather up this guy’s lies or that Donald Trump, the man with no commitment to anyone other than himself, is able to persuade his followers that he is “one of them”?

He isn’t. Donald Trump is unique. There can be no one else on Earth who can manage this kind of political stunt work.

national news

Birthright citizenship must stay

Donald J. Trump oozes hypocrisy from every single pore of his overfed, orange-tinged body, which allows me today to take aim at this idea he is pushing to do away with birthright citizenship.

Two of Trump’s wives were immigrants. Ivana and Melania. For the sake of this blog post, I will look briefly at these facts about the children Donald and Ivana brought into this world.

Don Jr. was born in 1977; Ivanka was born in 1981; Eric came along in 1984.

Ivana Trump became a naturalized U.S. citizen until 1988. You know what that means? Hey, I’ll tell you. It means that Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric were citizens simply because they were born here. Their mother was a citizen of a European nation.

As a social media meme suggests, why don’t we revoke their citizenship first in the event this nutty, outrageous and patently stupid idea becomes law?

I have some good news for those, such as me, who want to keep that citizenship clause on the books. Removing it would require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The 14th Amendment contains the clause that declares that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States … are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Does that mean anyone? Those born within the legal boundaries of this country become U.S. citizens immediately upon birth?

It doesn’t get any clearer than that. As for Trump, he is without shame or sense of the hypocrisy that drips from his idiotic self.

crime news

What’s next from Trump?

A dear friend from Germany, an astute follower of American politics, sent me a message overnight that wondered: Now they are handcuffing U.S. senators. What is next, my friend?

To my friend, Martin, I have no answer. I don’t know who’s next or what’s next as we watch Donald Trump’s administration lay waste to the rule of law.

Allow me to put this into a bit of perspective.

Trump pardoned hundreds of traitorous mobsters for the crimes for which they were convicted relating to the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on our Capitol. Many of those pardons were convicted of assaulting police officers, of injuring others and of desecrating the halls of Congress while seeking to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

Just this week, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., attended a town hall hosted by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and was placed in handcuffs and thrown onto the ground to silence him from pursuing his constitutionally guaranteed right to protest government policy.

What in the name of justice is wrong with this picture? Damn near everything I can consider!

We are witnessing the piecemeal dismantling of our rule of law by a presidential administration bent on the idea that Trump’s views are the only views that matter. Anyone who protests them can become subject to the kind of mistreatment that befell Alex Padilla.

To think that Trump would have us believe that people around the world admire this individual’s conduct is to believe that the sun will rise over the western horizon tomorrow morning.

I will have to remind my German friend that our Constitution remains strong and that millions of Americans join me in hoping it is strong enough to withstand this frontal assault.

national news

Peaceful transition is part of democracy

When I hear former presidents of the United States discuss the value of turning over the keys to the White House to successors in a “peaceful transition of power,” It is absolutely impossible to avoid bringing to mind what happened on Jan. 6, 2021.

Barack Obama famously spoke of the temporary nature of his family’s residency in the White House. As did George W. Bush before him and Bill Clinton before Bush’s election in 2000. I listen to these men’s comments occasionally on social media platforms that continue to carry those remarks.

When I do, I am drawn immediately to Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge defeat in 2020 and the assault he allowed to occur on Jan. 6 on the Capitol as Congress met to ratify the result of the free, fair and legal election of Joe Biden as president.

Presidents must acknowledge as these recent occupants of the White House have done that they are there for a short time. Obama said that “we are renters here.”

All that happened on Jan. 6 only serves to remind me of what could occur post-2028 election if a candidate from the Democratic Party manages to defeat whoever the Republicans present as a candidate for the presidency.

It’s also why I am going to stake my country’s future on the ability of our Constitution to do the job our founders intended when they created this government. The Constitution is strong and it will endure.

local news, religious news

Sharia law? It won’t happen!

I am hearing a rumbling or two from a community over yonder here in Collin County about what some folks assert is a growing Muslim influence.

It’s in Sachse, a city that staddles the Collin-Dallas County line. Sitting in a city council meeting the other evening, a woman rose to sound an alarm bell about Muslims, and about Islam. She said she is concerned that the community’s Muslim community is going to foist the teaching of “Sharia law” in our public school system.

Oops. Can’t happen. Sharia law is a strict Islamic interpretation of the Quran, the Islamic holy book.

As I read the U.S. Constitution, the First Amendment prohibits any law that imposes religious teachings. This is a secular nation, according to the founders’ view. It is not lost on me that they would list the imposition of state religion first as the rights protected under the First Amendment.

So, when someone complains about “Muslim influence” in our community, they should disabuse themselves of any notion that Sharia law is going to be part of any public school curriculum.

It is not going to happen! Period! Moreover, if such a matter were imposed and it ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court, hell would freeze over before this court in particular would approve of such a stunning reversal of the First Amendment.

national news

Our evolution continues

Americans live in an evolving nation, which compels them to strive toward achieving the “more perfect Union” our founders envisioned in the late 18th century.

Our evolution produced the greatest military and economic power in world history. It was our military power that is the subject of this post today, as it speaks directly to the wrong turn Americans took during its evolutionary journey.

You see, there became a time when Americans had become pampered by news of victory in warfare against enemies abroad. We became so pampered, in fact, that we simply couldn’t — or wouldn’t — tolerate the notion that we could suffer defeat.

The Vietnam War disabused us of our invincibility. We became intolerant not just of the men who set the war policy in Washington, D.C., but of the young men and women they ordered to carry out those policies in the name of the nation they were serving. Americans stopped respecting the men and women who bore that responsibility. Even to the point of disrespecting those who had fallen in battle.

I know that because I was a member of the generation of Americans who went to war during that time. No one spat on me. No one disrespected me. All I had to do was look around and see what was happening to others with whom I served. They were disrespected merely for following lawful orders.

Memorial Day has descended on us this year and we are going to honor the fallen in ways we always should honor them. We will pray for their souls and for the loved ones who still grieve their loss. We will thank surviving veterans for their service in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan. We will listen to the high praise offered by those on what constitutes today’s political left — those who 50 years ago wouldn’t dare speak so kindly of our military personnel as they do today.

Our national evolution is continuing. We are back to honoring the men and women who serve. And on this holiday, we are expressing our eternal gratitude for the sacrifice that more than a million Americans have paid to keep us free and to make us the great nation we always have been.

We’re heading toward becoming a “more perfect Union.” Our nation’s founders would be proud.

 

media news

Obama: What if I did this?

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Barack Hussein Obama, speaking to a crowd of college students the other day, raised a fascinating subject out loud.

The 44th president of the United States wondered, “What if I did any of this?” He explained himself. “What if I had banned Fox News” from the White House briefing room? The outcry from the right, he said, would be vociferous.

He is correct. What’s more, the right would have been justified in expressing anger at a president banning a media organization from access it was giving to other such media outlets.

Then he went on. He noted how Donald Trump has banned some news outlets that have been critical of his policies from access to White House sources. “It’s not a partisan issue,” President Obama said. “It’s about who we are as a culture,” he added.

Indeed, the very people who would be angry as hell at a Democratic president doing such an outrageous thing have grown silent as their guy, Trump, seeks to silence The Associated Press, CNN and MSNBC as they seek to cover the events dictated by the current president.

Obama also noted that “a good many of my predecessors” would be aghast at what is transpiring these days within the White House now run by Trump, the MAGA morons who back him and Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth.

Trump has declared his desire to see MSNBC taken apart. By whom or what, he doesn’t say. The implication, though, is clear. He wants to sic the government on the left-leaning network. Trump, who is astonishingly ignorant of the Constitution, seemingly doesn’t know that the First Amendment declares that a “free press” must be kept free of any government interference.

President Obama was spot on in delivering his rhetorical question. He is right to question aloud where we are as a culture that allows people to accept as normal the machinations of a wildly out-of-control chief executive who exhibits every sign imaginable of wanting to run this country as a dictator.

political news

Trump needs serious reality check

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Earth to Donald Trump: The nation’s founders, the men who crafted the government you were elected to lead, gave you limited power for a reason.

They didn’t want an imperial presidency in the United States of America.

Thus, Trump needs to comprehend that he cannot declare something to be and then expect it to occur.

He says he wants to take back the Panama Canal from Panama. He wants to purchase Greenland from Denmark. He wants Canada to become the 51st state of the United States.

The simple and undeniable fact is that Trump cannot possibly make any of that happen simply because he is the POTUS. Yet, he keeps blathering on with statements that defy all logic. They are utter nonsense. He has no authority anywhere to make any of it happen.

He declares media criticism of his antics to be “illegal.” He calls for the closing down of media outlets that present opinions with which he disagrees. He calls for the impeachment of federal judges … only to be scolded by the chief justice of the Supreme Court that impeachment is not an option for removal of judges who issue opinions at variance with Trump’s.

The dude is out of control. He is a maniac. He acts, talks and behaves with sheer stupdity.

However, Americans managed to elect this nimrod to the highest office in the land. Go … figure.