Tag Archives: First Amendment

Donald Trump, education news

First Amendment … in full

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That is what the nation’s founders wrote when they established has become known as the Bill of Rights.

Every head of our government understood that language, dating back to our nation’s first president, a national hero, George Washington, who took office in 1789; President Washington served two terms, left in 1797 … and died two year later.

The First Amendment makes it as clear as the deep blue sky that government should have no role in any of those things mentioned. Along came Donald J. Trump. He has sought to maneuver himself into an ability to govern all of the items mentioned in the First Amendment. He has endorsed Bible study in public schools, sought to ban Muslims from entering this country … and sought infamously to ban three news organizations from obtaining access to news sources within the White House or any other government building.

Now he is demanding that ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night TV comic for making jokes about Trump. Let me be clear: Jimmy Kimmel hasn’t broken a single law, he hasn’t violated a single proposition noted in the First Amendment, hasn’t said a word that would put Trump in any form of danger.

He’s made jokes about the POTUS. He gets a lot of laughs. He’s funny, man.

Trump, who possesses the thinnest skin of any politician in human history, wants none of any of it. Humor not allowed. You wanna laugh … go to a circus and giggle at the clowns.

Trump’s ongoing battle over the First Amendment only illustrates in living color why I and many millions of other patriotic Americans want him far away from the center of political power.

legal news, media news

Trump lacks knowledge of the truth

These videos keep cropping up showing Donald Trump trying to justify his order banning certain news organizations from the White House, as if that’s going to stop them from reporting “fake news.”

It won’t. Indeed, what CNN, MSNow and Politico have been reporting has been the truth. It’s just that the truth hurts the individual who’s being pilloried — justifiably — for the impact that the truth is having on Americans.

The news outlets being targeted are not peddling lies. They are reporting the news. Its favorability in Trump’s eyes depends solely on the content they contain.

Is it “fake news” to report the Iran war’s impact on goods we buy and the inflation all Americans are feeling? Or what about the collapsing morale aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln? Or the confusion in the Pentagon under the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth? How about the existence of a presidential aide with no high-level security clearance?

Trump wants to keep these items from being reported to the public that has a right to know how its government is functioning. He wants to shield the administration from the scrutiny that a free press can provide.

Every man who has preceded Trump in office has recognized the value of free press to the representative form of government it is covering.

Donald Trump is simply unwilling to accept the media’s role it performs in building a “more perfect” government. He lacks the intellect required to let the media do its job … which is protected specifically by the First Amendment.

 

legal news, media news

Wow! Trump tells the truth!

While ranting about the dangers of a free press, Donald Trump actually told the truth … he uttered a statement that holds up to scrutiny.

“We live in a country that allows people to report things that are negative,” Trump said while invoking a ban on certain news agencies from the White House.

So help me, I didn’t think I could report on this blog an actual truthful statement from the POTUS. But there it is. Holy smokes! Stop the presses!

Trump, of course, issued what is looking like a patently unconstitutional order by banning CNN, MSNow and Politico from the White House. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares that the government cannot “abridge the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The president, therefore, cannot prohibit the media from doing its constitutionally protected job.

Trump will get his comeuppance once the courts get hold of this case and his banning of news organizations will be send to the scrap heap, where it belongs.

As for the ability to “report things that are negative,” what in the world is the alternative? The way I see it, the alternative lies in a totalitarian state where the media are banned by law from reporting negatively on government decisions. Violations of such a law would result in imprisonment or worse.

Thank goodness we live in a country that allows the press to function independently without fear of punishment.

national news, religious news

This preacher has it exactly right

Rafael Warnock wears two hats and both of them fit him perfectly. He is at once a Democratic U.S. senator from Atlanta, Ga., and also a Southern Baptist preacher who preaches from the same pulpit that once featured the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

He knows a thing or two about the U.S. Constitution and the Bible. If you listen to Warnock long enough you understand the wisdom contained in this gentleman’s facile mind.

He recently called himself a “Matthew 25 Christian,” meaning that he follows the Gospel taught in the New Testament how God fed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty and provided comfort and aid to the ill. Today’s Republican Party, he said, cut $1 trillion from Medicare, slashed insurance coverage for 15 million Americans’ health insurance … all in the immediate aftermath of passing the “Big Ugly Bill” promoted by Donald J. Trump.

And yet these politicians all stand foursquare behind the Bible as their guidepost for the legislative agenda they want to become the law of the land.

Warnock also said that the thing that unites Americans isn’t religion, but it is the liberty granted by the U.S. Constitution. which includes the freedom to worship as we please, or not worship a deity. “We have freedom of religion,” Warnock said, “and freedom from religion.”

Well … and yet states such as Texas are requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments on public property and are mandating that public school children study the Bible as a historical document. What utter garbage! The Bible I read is an article of faith. Either you believe what it says, or you don’t. The Constitution grants us as citizens the right to accept or reject the Bible … period, full stop!

We should teach historical events for what they were, matters that occurred in a secular world. And we should keep matters of faith where they belong … in houses of worship.

religious news

Sharia Law targeted by Congress

Did you know — and this tidbit caught me by surprise when I heard it today — that there’s a committee in Congress dedicated to ensuring that Sharia Law has no place in American society?

What is Sharia Law? It’s a religious tenet practiced by Muslims around the world.

As I understand it, Sharia Law carries a good bit of weight among devout Muslims. If you violate any of its rules, you can be punished … severely! I understand that Sharia Law allows “honor killings,” which would enable someone to kill a member of his or her family if that person dishonors the family name.

Allow me now to back up just a bit. Let’s visit for a moment the religious freedom clause of the Constitution’s First Amendment. It says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … “

I now shall sigh just a bit and ask out loud whether any effort to ban Sharia Law runs counter to the Constitution’s guarantee of the freedom to worship how one pleases. It seems like it does.

Moreover, the Constitution also prohibits clearly the practicing of religion in our public schools. Correct? Again, I believe that’s the case.

I have to wonder, then, what in the world is so vital that we have a House committee working on ways to prevent Muslims in this country from believing in Sharia Law. We have criminal laws that punish people for killing other people. If one commits an “honor killing,” then one can be arrested, tried and if convicted can be put to death. It would appear clear to me that losing one’s life at the hands of the state could deter them from committing such a crime as an “honor killing” of a loved one.

I’ve been quick to defend the Constitution. I believe it is strong enough to withstand damn near any assault on its authority. A president cannot suspend constitutional restrictions on his power just because he desires it. Nor can individuals take another human being’s life without facing the wrath of the state.

Which makes me wonder: What the hell is a congressional committee going to do to circumvent the Constitution?

media news

Democracy needs dissent

While it is true that journalism and democracy are mutually inclusive, democracy also need another vital tenet if it is to thrive … that tenet is dissent.

The fired “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley spoke eloquently the other day about the need for journalism to function without interference in a democratic society. I want to chip in with the notion that the 18th century founders of this great democratic republic all acted out of a need to dissent from the mandates of the King George III. The Declaration of Independence, let us remember, contains a long list of grievances that the founders laid at His Majesty’s feet, telling him that he could not operate in a world in which he denied his subjects the right to dissent.

Dissent is essential, therefore, for a democracy to thrive. Our nation owes its very foundation to the principle that dissent must happen. It is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Among the rights that grant us freedom to worship — or not worship, to speak our minds freely, a free press, it also allows us to petition the government for a “redress of grievances.”

And yet we continue to hear reckless, feckless and dangerous talk from the center of power in our government, that a free press and the right to dissent make those who believe in them “the enemy of the people.”

There can be little more unpatriotic or sinister than to label dissenters the “enemy” of our nation.

The founders knew what they were doing. Today’s MAGA morons are the traitors to what our founders created.

local news, media news

Trump’s mind is officially a goner

You might want to write this down if you’re inclined,  but just keep it in mind as you ponder the future of Donald J. Trump’s political career.

It’s now as clear as it gets that the 45th and 47th POTUS has lost what used to pass as what was left of his mind. Why? Because the dimwit in chief wants to unilaterally pull the broadcast license of ABC News because it has the temerity to broadcast “negative news” about his administration.

Holy … moly, man!

Scott Pelley, a West Texan known as the voice of “60 Minutes,” a CBS News program, spoke recently in quoting one of our nation’s founders, James Madison. The fourth president said in 1800, Pelley recalled, that a “free press guarantees the rights of all the civil liberties we enjoy.” That is why the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the existence of a “free press.”

No matter their political party — be they Democratic-Federalist, Whig, Republican, Democrat — every U.S. president has accepted the role of a free press in holding our government accountable to the people they serve.

That’s every president until this one.

No president likes all the coverage they get from the free press. No matter their party affiliation, they hve griped aloud that the media are unfair. One could argue, indeed, that the media went too far in covering President Clinton’s impeachment, or that it labeled President George W. Bush a dim bulb during his time in the White House. Did any of our presidents seek openly to revoke the license of a media outlet just becausse they don’t shade the news coverage to suit their shallow-skinned egos? Nope!

Trump is an idiot disguised as a martyr for the MAGA movement he created and is now leading toward history’s trash heap.

Uncategorized

Asians: a new major minority

I picked up my copy of the Dallas Morning News the other morning and was stunned by the top story on the front page: It dealt with tensions rising in Frisco over the emergence of South Asians who now call the community home.

I am not going to pass judgment on the rightness or wrongness of the concerns. I know that it’s real, that some North Texans are concerned that their culture is being changed by an emergence of immigrants from a region far from this hemisphere.

Frisco has grown tremendously since 2000, with a population these days of something just a bit south of 300,000 residents. Indian Americans once accounted for about 2% of the population; today they number about 33%, according to the Morning News.

It’s a changing world out there, ladies and gents. We had better get used to it.

I found a similar tension arising in another North Texas city not long after I began reporting on the city council there. Sachse, which straddles the Collin-Dallas County line, remains a smallish city of about 30,000. But my first exposure to the city brought forth complaints from a couple of residents who are afraid that Sharia law — the ultraconservatve tenet is Islam — will be taught in schools in Sachse.

Uhh, no. That won’t happen. The First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits religion from being taught in public schools. It doesn’t prohibit citizens from forming private schools to teach religion. We are free to practice our faith or not practice it. It’s our call.

I am going to hope that my new friends in Sachse keep their wits about them. I want them to settle down and allow their new neighbors to establish themselves as devoted Texans. I am going to wish the same for the folks in Frisco, a city that is undergoing an enormous evolution from a sleepy burg into a city bursting with commerce.

military news

Punished for … speaking the truth!

I know I heard this correctly, but I still cannot believe it’s for real, that it’s not some sort of sick joke being played on Americans who believe in the rule of law.

Yes, what I understand is that the moron pretending to be secretary of defense wants to downgrade U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly’s naval retirement rank and dock his Navy pension for — get ready for this — telling service personnel to follow the law and not carry out orders they know to be illegal.

Kelly is an Arizona Democrat who has been singled out by the Pentagon pervert Pete Hegseth for committing what he calls an “act of sedition.” I am trying to wrap my noodle around this but I cannot even begin to grasp what Hegseth is suggesting.

It is seditious for Kelly, a decorated retired Navy pilot and former space shuttle astronaut, to remind military personnel of the oath they took when they joined the armed forces? Hegseth is saying such a patently ridiculous thing about a man who flew combat missions in Iraq and who wore a Navy uniform for 40 years before being elected to the Senate.

Kelly is a patriot. He served heroically while flying jet fighters for the Navy. Sen. Kelly is serving with honor and distinction representing Arizonans on Capitol Hill. He merely has spoken the truth to military personnel and reminded them of the oath they took to defend and protect the Constitution.

And now we have an idiot defense secretary threatening to punish him for exercising a right of liberty that the Constitution guarantees!

Pete Hegseth belongs in the loony bin.

national news

How in the world did we elect this guy?

Never, not ever, in the history of the U.S. of A. have Americans had to witness an elected president who is so ignorant, so damn filled with hatred of his political enemies, who is such a pathological liar continue to function as the ostensible leader of what we used to call the free world.

Donald Trump has declared what amounts to war on Democrats in the Congress, threatening with death for speaking the truth about why service personnel should resist following illegal orders. One of them, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, has been singled out as a particularly egregious target of Trump’s retribution campaign.

Kelly is a retired Navy captain, a former combat aviator, husband of a congresswoman who was nearly killed by a gunman in an assassination attempt, a former astronaut who has flowin space on four missions. He is a patriot. Kelly serves with honor and humility. He has spoken the truth. He dissents from Trump’s public policy … which the Constitution guarantees in its First Amendment.

Trump is ignorant of all of that. He doesn’t give a crap about the Constitution. He blindly accuses Sen. Kelly of commiting sedition, which carries a death penalty if convicted.

And yet … this nation somehow managed to elect this idiot to a second term as POTUS.

Kelly is not the only Democrat in power who has drawn Trump’s petulant anger.

Kids, we are living in a dangerous era in this nation’s long history.

The only recourse we seem to have at this moment happens to the federal court system, which appears to be stiffening its spine at just the right moment. Congress is rolling over for Trump’s idiocy. Trump has populated the executive branch with yes men and men. That leaves the court system to stand tall against this individual’s moronic overreach.

I have heartened by the actions of a Trump-nominated federal judge who tossed aside the indictments of former FBI director James Comey and New York AG Letitia James, calling those indictments pure political revenge brought by a U.S. attorney who is unqualified to hold her job.

Right there you have an example of the Constitution doing its job. I am clinging to the hope that it remains strong and that the courts stand firm against the Trump’s frontal assault on the rule of law.