Tag Archives: US Constitution

legal news

14th Amendment stands out

It appears that of all the 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the 14th Amendment has emerged as the most discussed, most cited, most argued and arguably the most important of them all.

I’ve been following a host of legal and political battles for a long time. Just lately, though, it seems that the 14th Amendment keeps surfacing from the legal mumbo-jumbo that at times accompanies these discussions.

Let’s ponder a few notions, shall we?

Section 1 makes two important distinctions. One is that anyone born in the United States is granted citizenship upon birth. A Republican presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis, wants to remove that stipulation from the law. Section 1 also says all citizens are entitled to “equal protection under the law.” This clause has come into play in decisions — to cite one example — regarding gay marriage.

Section 3 declares that anyone who participates in sedition or an insurrection shall be denied the opportunity to seek public office at any level in this country. Hmm. Does that one sound familiar? It should. If Donald J. Trump is indicted for allegedly fomenting the insurrection of 1/6 and then is convicted in a trial, he cannot serve in any public office … ever!

Section 4 declares that the nation’s good faith and credit shouldn’t be messed with, giving the lie to the notion by the MAGA morons who sought to deny efforts to increase the nation’s debt ceiling. Failure to honor our debts would have plunged us into economic catastrophe.

All of this is my way of wondering: Do the MAGA cultists know a damn thing about the Constitution, the oaths of office they take to honor and protect it or the penalties they face if they fail to honor their oath?

I must remind them that they take that oath while placing their hand on a holy book. Thus, the oath is sacred, given the religious tenets to which the politicians claim to follow.

The framers didn’t craft the perfect government framework. It’s pretty damn inclusive and those wise men managed to cram many key provisions into a single amendment to the Constitution.

Moreover, if the MAGA nitwits had half a brain, they would understand that “constitutional absolutism” means they follow the document to the letter … or else.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

‘Fourth’ was prelim to great main event

Americans today are marking the 247th birthday of this nation’s Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.

Yes, it is a date worth commemorating, worth celebrating and worth honoring. The reality, though, is that this day was a preliminary event to the real thing, which occurred after the American Revolution ended in 1781.

Our Declaration of Independence launched a war that took thousands of American lives. It is a masterful document penned by a man who would become our third U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson. It speaks to the many issues that forced the United States of America to declare its existence … and to go to war with the English Crown.

After the last shots were fired at Yorktown, Va., the hard began. It would take several years. Finally, there emerged a Constitution. The nation’s governing framework was given life.

It is under assault today, which brings me to the point I want to make with utmost pride and vigor.

Which is that the Constitution, i believe fully, is strong enough to withstand these challenges from within our borders. A presidential candidate lost an election three years ago but refused to concede the obvious. He sought to overthrow the government as it sought to certify the results of the 2020 election. He failed only because members of his own political party refused to do his bidding.

They were faithful to the Constitution and the oath they took to honor, defend and protect it.

Our Constitution has withstood many challenges over its more than two centuries of life. I will stand foursquare on my belief it will stand firm against this challenge and — I will hope — against any that arise in the future.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Judicial icon speaks out; pay attention, GOP

Leave it to one of the nation’s great legal minds to offer the bold, brash and unvarnished truth to those who have tossed aside their loyalty to the Constitution in favor of loyalty to a cheap politician.

Michael Luttig is a retired federal judge, a keen conservative legal thinker. He has zeroed in directly on the cult following that Donald J. Trump has developed and is cultivating in his quest for the presidency in 2024.

Listen up, you MAGA morons. He’s telling you the truth.

“If the indictment of Mr. Trump on Espionage Act charges – not to mention his now almost certain indictment for conspiring to obstruct Congress from certifying Mr. Biden as the president on Jan. 6 – fails to shake the Republican Party from its moribund political senses, then it is beyond saving itself. Nor ought it be saved,” Luttig said in a scathing New York Times op-ed published Sunday.

Wow! He’s got plenty more to say.

“No assemblage of politicians except the Republicans would ever conceive of running for the American presidency by running against the Constitution and the rule of law. But that’s exactly what they’re planning,” Luttig wrote.

To be brutally honest, this fealty to Trump — the twice-impeached, twice-indicted for POTUS — boggles my noggin beyond all recognition.

Trump has pledged to select a special counsel whose task will be to root out “the most corrupt president” in history. Trump isn’t talking about himself, although he damn sure should be. Oh, no. He vows to find a prosecutor to go after President Biden. That is the hallmark of a tinhorn dictator.

Judge Luttig isn’t some squishy liberal, some progressive bomb thrower. He is a highly regarded conservative legal expert who is siding with the rule of law and the notion that public officials — starting with the president of the United States — take sacred oaths to protect the Constitution.

He wonders what has become of the party of which he has been a member. “The stewards of the Republican Party have become so inured to their putative leader, they have managed to convince themselves that an indicted and perhaps even convicted Donald Trump is their party’s best hope for the future,” Luttig wrote in his op-ed.

Is anyone out there in MAGA Land going to pay attention?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Happy Flag Day!

I want to wish Old Glory, our Stars and Stripes and the symbol of our democratic society a happy Flag Day.

Betsy Ross crafted a marvelous piece of cloth back in the day and, oh brother, it has withstood plenty of tests, crises and even some assaults on its very self.

Which brings me to my brief point.

We should celebrate Flag Day not just because we honor the cloth that we fly in front of our homes (as I do in my Princeton, Texas, home). We should honor what it symbolizes.

It is the symbol of liberty, and it embodies the very founding of our great republic. Remember that our nation came into being when our founders protested the rule of the English monarch. Therefore, we are a nation born out of dissent.

Therefore, the flag we fly — and we honor! — is the very symbol of that principle.

Should those who burn the flag to protest government policies be punished because they demonstrate their opposition in that manner? Not by government edict! The Constitution protects us against any government reprisal.

I’ll “punish” anyone who chooses to burn the flag in an effort to lure me to their point of view. I am likely to reject whatever point the flag burner intends to make.

It’s their right to do so. The flag they burn is the very symbol of that right. It is why I honor the flag by flying it proudly.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Flags are symbols, nothing more

So faux patriots like to “wrap themselves in the flag,” as if that is a demonstration of their love of country.

It is a demonstration only of their ignorance of what Old Glory means.

I see the flag as a symbol of the principles on which the founders created the nation when they convened a constitutional convention after we won the revolution. The liberties contained in the nation’s governing document imply a belief that we are free to protest when our government messes up.

Thus, when I see someone burning Old Glory in a public square, I shrug it off. Hey, that’s their right. Now, does flag-burning mean I will embrace whatever cause is being protested? Hardly. If anything, such an act will turn me off.  Then again, the flag symbolizes that, too.

I recall the time Donald Trump attended a political event, walked out onto the stage and just gave the Stars and Stripes hanging nearby a good, old-fashioned hug. He meant to demonstrate that he, too, is a patriot, that he just loves the flag so much he wanted to embrace the stitched cloth … as if such an act really matters. It doesn’t.

This is the same man who urged rally crowds to “knock the crap” out of protesters. Hmm. Is that in keeping with what the founders intended? I think not.

The faux patriots also should be mindful of the ignorance they demonstrate when they fly the Stars and Bars next to Old Glory. Remember that the Confederate States of America went to war with the United States of America because some states wanted to keep slaves in bondage.

Just remember that the flag is nothing more than a symbol. It conveys many complicated messages, some of which involve granting citizens the right to protest our government and to, yes, burn that very flag.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Constitution lays it out there

Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, speaks with crystal clarity about how our government must treat the debt it owes.

Here is what it says: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

Wow, man. “Shall not be questioned,” the amendment states.

You know what this means? It means that the Republican dodge in demanding spending cuts before approving an increase in the debt ceiling is, um, an unconstitutional tactic.

President Biden is in the middle of talks with congressional leaders of both parties. He met with them in the Oval Office the other day. They’re planning another meeting on Friday. He said he is “considering” invoking the 14th Amendment if he and the GOP cannot reach an agreement on the debt ceiling.

I am not a constitutional scholar, but I certainly know a declarative statement when I see one.

Section 4 of the 14the Amendment is as declarative statement as anything I can find in the Constitution.

Joe Biden is as fluent in constitutional language as any man who’s ever held the office of president. Mr. President, you need to remind your congressional colleagues of what the nation’s governing document tells them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

It’s time for politics

The massacre at the Allen Premium Outlet Mall has produced the usual mantra from politicians and others who want to ignore the issue of “gun regulation.”

They are telling us that “this is no time for politics.” Excuse me? It is past time for politics.

They purport to be speaking for grieving families in shock over the assault on their lives by a lunatic who opened fire with an AR-15 rifle. It was the 199th mass shooting in the country this year … on the 128th day of the year!

At issue is how to control the purchase of firearms and keeping them out of the hands of loons such as the moron who opened fire in Allen. That is purely a political solution.

It starts with enacting legislation that is faithful to the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. Is there a solution out there? I believe there is. Does a ban on weapons designed to kill people on the battlefield violate the amendment’s guarantee that we can “keep and bear arms”? No, it does nothing of the sort!

What about universal background checks that could flag individuals with histories of mental instability? The Allen mall shooter was discharged from the Army in 2008 because of “mental issues.” Yet he still owned an AR-15. Is it OK to wonder if a background check could have kept the gun out of his hands were he to seek to purchase it? What’s more, how does that violate the rights of anyone with zero such issues? It doesn’t!

I am weary of the refrain in the wake of these tragedies that “this is no time for politics.” These solutions reside in the halls of government, where politicians roam and where they — if they ever grow a spine — could enact laws that make us safer.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

It’s a secular document!

Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t know the Constitution she took an oath to defend and protect, as she exhibited tonight in a “60 Minutes” interview.

The fire-breathing Republican congresswoman from northwest Georgia said the United States needs to become a “Christian nation,” which prompted the interviewer, Lesley Stahl, to remind her that the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the establishment of a state religion.

Greene answered that the founders sought “spiritual guidance” when the drafted the nation’s governing document.

OK. Yes. They did. However …

The document they produced doesn’t make a single reference to Christianity, or to Jesus Christ or the New Testament. What’s more, Article VI in the Constitution says specifically that there shall be “no religious test” required of anyone seeking public office in the United States of America.

What part of “secular government” does this idiot not get?

I just had to weigh in against this moronic testimony from a second-term member of Congress who is earning her spurs by spouting dangerous demagoguery.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Now he takes the Fifth?

Hey, let’s flash back to around the time of the 2016 presidential campaign, the one that Donald J. Trump won in the strangest political fluke in U.S. history.

Someone asked him about a political foe who was “taking the Fifth Amendment” to avoid self-incrimination. Trump’s response was that “anyone who takes the Fifth must be guilty of a crime.”

Well … maybe so, maybe not. Donald Trump’s point, though, wasn’t that far off.

Fast-forward to a year ago. We now have seen video evidence of Donald Trump testifying before a New York state grand jury on a financial case that was under investigation. What did the former president do? He took the Fifth! Not once, or twice or even dozens of times. He hid behind the Fifth Amendment’s protection more than 400 times while being questioned about his company’s financial dealings.

Why bring this up? Because the pathological liar wants to be POTUS again. At least that’s what he says. He is facing a potential indictment for crimes he might have committed against the government of the United States.

Donald Trump is entitled to invoke the protection afforded all citizens under the U.S. Constitution. I don’t question the legitimacy of his Fifth Amendment assertion. I just wonder — out loud — whether he is as “guilty of a crime” as he accused others who have invoked the same privilege.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Free speech not always totally free

Many years in journalism taught me many valuable lessons about the law, the Constitution and people’s ability — or their occasional  inability — to abide by various rules.

Let’s examine one of the clauses contained in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the one that says “freedom of speech, or of the press” shall not be “abridged.”

Many people assume — incorrectly, in my view — that the free-speech clause means one can say anything they want anyone they choose without any consequence or punishment.

Wrong!

I’ll cite this blog as an example of what I mean. The Constitution protects bloggers such as me, but only to a point. It says the government should “make no law” that limits what people can say, but it does nothing to keep me from blocking people from popping off irresponsibly. It is, therefore, my call to determine who is being irresponsible.

When I see someone commenting on a public official, I seek to weigh the value of the individual’s comment. If it lends any value to the public debate, then bring it on … by all means!

I lost count long ago of the arguments I would have with readers of opinion pages I edited in Oregon and in Texas who would challenge my decision to nix commentaries submitted for publication. They would say “but the Constitution gives me the right to say what I want.” No … it doesn’t. It gives me the right, I would respond, to determine what is suitable for print.

I would tell the reader that they need to buy a printing press, load it with ink and paper and say whatever the hell they want to say.

Most recently, I have nixed commentaries on this blog that suggest that President Biden is suffering from “dementia.” I will not allow that defamatory comment to stand on my blog. If the individual whose comments I have blocked continue with that trash, then I will block that individual from using this venue for any purpose.

It is my right — under the Constitution — to do such a thing.

There. Are we clear? Good.

Have a great day.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com