Tag Archives: Constitution

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Founders were right about secularism

Our nation’s founders were by and large brilliant men who gathered to craft a government from scratch at the end of our revolution.

They didn’t craft a perfect document, as it made white men the only inhabitants of a new republic with full rights of citizenship. We would amend our nation’s Constitution later to fix many of those shortcomings.

However, the founders got it exactly right on this point: They wanted to create a secular government that would not be governed by a particular religious belief. I wrote a blog item recently about concerns expressed in one North Texas community that Muslims in that city might want to legalize teaching of Sharia law in public school classrooms. That cannot happen. Why? Because the founders ensured the secular nature of our government.

You won’t see the word “Christian” anywhere in the Constitution. You won’t see “Muslim” there, either. Or “Judaism” or “Hindu” or “Buddhist.” The First Amendment to our Bill of Rights states clearly that “Congress shall make no law” that establishes a state religion or prohibits “the free excercise” of it.

The founders were direct descendants of those who fled European religious tyranny. They came across the ocean to start a new country that would be allow people to worship God as they chose, but did not mandate which god they would worship. They also left the door open for those who chose not to worship any deity.

So, when I caution against getting too worked up over the imposition of Sharia law in our public school classrooms, I also want to wave the ol’ red flag against placing Bibles in classrooms, which is what governors in many states want to do.

The founders weren’t perfect. No human being is. However, they got it spot-on correct when they said the government of the nation they created would be free of religious dictates.

Let’s just leave religion where it belongs … in houses of worship.

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You serve to protect rights you surrender

Dakota Meyer is a Medal of Honor recipient who earned the medal in 2009 for saving his fellow warriors from Taliban fire in Afghanistan.

President Obama presented the medal to the U.S. Marine Corps sergeant in a White House ceremony. Meyer then left the Marine Corps for 15 years.

Now, though, he is returning to the Corps as a reservist. He had become highly critical of President Biden’s decision to withdraw our forces from Afghanistan. He was married for a time to the daughter of former Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin. He says now he will return to service, but plans to “stay out of politics.”

Good call. It’s also a prudent decision on his part. Why? Because even though he is serving to protect the rights of all Americans to speak their minds, men and women in uniform actually surrender that very right the moment they don the uniform.

The First Amendment guarantees the right of Americans to seek “redress of grievances.” Except that those on duty in the military cannot criticize the commander in chief, who is their commanding officer, so to speak. If the president issues a lawful order, then those under his command are obligated to follow those orders without bitching out loud about it.

There can be “redress of grievances” for those in the military, be they active duty, or reservists.

A member of my family retired from the Army not long ago after serving for 20 years on active duty. He served tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also was highly critical of President Biden. He sought a promotion in rank, but was routinely passed over. My belief? His commanding officer knew of his social media rants aganst the commander in chief and nixed his promotion.

I am delighted Sgt. Meyer has decided to return to the Marine Corps. I am equally delighted he understands the folly of bellowing out loud his discontent over political matters made by those who serve far above his pay grade.

 

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.

national news

Stop the Musk train wreck!

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Elon Musk must be stopped cold, ending the charade he is leading as some sort of federal budgetary guru advising Donald J. Trump on what to cut from the government.

The man is out of fu**ing control! Period!

Musk is a zillionaire who is spawning movements across the country to remind our gutless wonders in Congress that Americans did not elect this foreign-born high-tech mogul to the nation’s highest office. Americans elected Trump to a second term. Trump has willfully handed the reins of budgetary power to Musk, who once shared that duty with Vivek Ramaswamy, who has mysteriously disappeared.

Musk now is on his own, pitching budget slashes that would leave millions of Americans helpless against forces they cannot fight without the federal government.

I never thought I would say this, but here goes: I am beginning to wish Trump would jerk this clown into place, reminding him that he hasn’t been elected to anything. Trump needs to remind Elon Musk that he — Trump! — is the elected politician who’s in charge and that Musk needs to play second fiddle to the man who holds the title of president of the United States of America.

Pundits already have projected a tenuous relationship between Trump and Musk. Some of them have predicted that Musk won’t last a year as head of that thing called the Department of Government Efficiency. Now it’s called DOGE.

DOGE doesn’t have any constitutional authority to act as its daddy, Elon Musk, is trying to do. Budgetary responsibility rests with Congress, which disposes of ideas that the president proposes.

Elon Musk is a pretender who needs to be stopped!

national news

Will senators grow some courage?

Matt Gaetz is gone from Donald Trump’s newborn Cabinet, as he was toast from the moment the new POTUS announced him as attorney general.

Trump, though, still is far from finding his way into the clear.

He’s got Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, Robert Kennedy Jr. as head of health and human services, Pete Hegseth as defense secretary and maybe a half-dozen others with skeletons in their closets.

Senators have the right to confirm these picks. Trump, though, also has the right to grant recess appointments if the Senate is adjourned. It’s fair to ask: Will the Senate allow Trump to launch a political flea-flicker by denying them the right under the Constitution to debate and then vote on these nominees?

Something is whispering in my ear that senators won’t take kindly to being denied that right by a president who just might try some razzle-dazzle, particularly with the remaining troublesome appointees whose names are still under discussion.

That’s my hope, anyway. The other option would be for them to roll over and allow Trump to flatten them on his way to the Oval Office.

We’ll see what our senators are up to doing … and whether they have stiffened their spines.

national news

POTUS 45 wants a ‘third term’?

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POTUS No. 45 says he would like to hold the presidency for three terms. He said that? Oh, wait. He must’ve been “sarcastic.”

That cannot happen without amending the U.S. Constitution.

The 22nd Amendment limits presidents to two elected terms. The former Liar in Chief won election in 2016. He got defeated in 2020. He could — God forbid! — win it again this year.

That’s two terms, dude. You’re out after that.

I suppose he wants a third term. Maybe even a fourth.

C’mon.

The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt won election to four terms; FDR died about a month after taking office for his fourth term in April 1945. Congressional Republicans had become alarmed at what they feared might become an “imperial presidency.” So, the GOP pushed the 22nd Amendment through.

Most of us know these days about the grandeur that No. 45 seeks, what with declarations about becoming a “dictator” for one day. He expresses admiration for dictators around the world. He wants to be one of them, I reckon.

However, our Constitution prohibits such nonsense from actually occurring. No., 45 needs to read the document. Oh, wait! He doesn’t read anything!

political news, religious news

Tim Dunn: scary dude

Tim Dunn has taken front-and-center stage as the most frightening political operative at work in Texas.

Why say such a thing? Well, the Texas Tribune reports that a former Texas House speaker, Joe Straus, has confirmed that Dunn — who runs Empower Texans, told him that “only Christians” should hold leadership positions in the Legislature.

Straus is Jewish. So I am presuming that Dunn either (a) didn’t know that when he said it to the speaker or (b) knew it and didn’t give a sh**. I’m guessing it was the latter.

Empower Texans is the far right-wing political action committee that works tirelessly against Republicans who aren’t conservative enough to suit the group’s taste. Dunn is a Midland oil executive who believes that Christianity is the only religion on Earth that is worth a damn.

According to the Tribune: But Dunn reportedly demanded that Straus replace “a significant number” of his committee chairs with tea party-aligned lawmakers backed by Dunn’s political advocacy group, Empower Texans. After Straus rebuffed the demand, the two began to talk about social policy, at which point Dunn allegedly said he believed only Christians should hold leadership posts. “It was a pretty unsatisfactory meeting,” Straus said Thursday. “We never met again.”

Ya think?

Joe Straus: Tim Dunn said only Christians should be in leadership | The Texas Tribune

Let me remind Dunn and others of his ilk of something the founders wrote into the Constitution. Article VI states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

What about that statement does that dimwit not get?

national news, political news

Optimism being tested

My eternal optimism is being put to the strongest test in my life’s history … as I watch this political drama play itself out.

Our nation’s constitutional framework is being tested mightily by forces loyal to an individual who declares his intention to be his followers’ “retribution.” How might he do that? By suspending — and these are his own thoughts — constitutional authority if only for a day were he elected to the presidency of the U.S.A.

I long have held firm to the notion that President Ford was right when he took office in August 1974 after President Nixon resigned. “Our Constitution works,” the new president reminded us … and it does.

It’s facing an entirely new set of challenges these days. What I find most remarkable is that the idiot who is challenging the Constitution is doing so with the blessing of the blind cultists who follow him. I will never subscribe to the notion that these followers comprise a majority of Americans. They are a minority, but dammit, they are vocal. Their vocal cheering of the trash that pours forth from their hero only empowers him.

My sense of optimism, therefore, is being tested like never before.

But you know what? I am not going to give in the idiotic belief that enough Americans are stupid and simple-minded enough to elect this fraud to high office.

We are a great country and most of those of us who are willing to cast our ballots for POTUS know the difference between who we are and who we could become … if we make the wrong choice.

national news, political news, religious news

We are a ‘secular government,’ dammit!

I keep hearing about how U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson cloaks himself in the New Testament, about how he is pushing the doctrine of “Christian nationalism.”

Sigh … I want to remind the speaker and those who adhere to his reported view of how government should function of this irrefutable fact: You won’t find the word “God” anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. Why is that? Because the men who wrote it consciously avoided using such language because they had fled religious oppression in Europe. They wrote a secular document that establishes that human beings should determine our laws and that they should not be influenced by a specific religion. Yes, I am talking about Christianity. The founders established in Article VI that there must be “no religious test” to determine who should run for public office. The First Amendment to the Constitution lays out a number of civil liberties that deserve protection from government interference; the first one of them is religion, as the amendment declares that “Congress shall make no law” that establishes a state religion. Speaker Johnson needs to put a sock in his proclamation of faith. It is admirable that he is a man of strong faith. That is as far he should go, and he must end this rhetoric that attaches references to God to legislation enacted by fallible men and women.
legal news

Clock ticks on Trump

The clock continues to tick on Donald J. Trump, giving me some reason to hope that justice is finally — finally! — going to catch up with this twice-impeached, twice-indicted politician.

Special counsel Jack Smith reportedly has advised Trump’s legal eagles that yet another set of indictments is coming. These will deal with the insurrection that I believe the ex-POTUS incited on 1/6.

Then a trial will commence. My hope is that the D.C. federal judge who will preside over this trial won’t waste time, will set a relatively prompt trial date and that a jury will convict Trump of doing what I believe we all witnessed on that horrible day.

Just as a reminder: The Constitution stipulates in clear and precise language that anyone who commits an insurrection shall not be eligible to seek public office.

My plea, therefore, to the special counsel? Time’s a wastin’, Jack Smith. Let’s get busy.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com