Tag Archives: US Constitution

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posting of the Ten Commandments on public property and are mandating that public school children study the Bible as a historical document.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.

political news

Most important election in history?

Many of us have heard this refrain before, that the “next election is the most important in our nation’s history.”

Indeed, I recently watched a video that revealed a lengthy string of important politicians — dating back to President Truman — make that declaration of an upcoming election. Politicians from both major parties sang off the same sheet. Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan, both Bushes, Obama, Clinton, Biden, Eisenhower all warned Americans of the consequences if they don’t vote.

Well … I got news for you. The election coming up in fewer than 80 days might just be the most important ever in U.S. political history. How can this be more vital than all the previous “most important” elections? Because we have a maniac in the White House who is hellbent on dismantling our democratic form of government and replacing it with a form of autocracy.

I am in no position to tell you that despite the stakes of this election, that the 2028 presidential. election or the 2030 midterm election won’t be heralded as the most vital election in history. Although there exists in many people’s minds that if the Republican Party holds onto control of Congress that there might not be a next election — if you get my drift.

I remain resolute in my faith in the U.S. Constitution being able to withstand the immense challenges that confront it … and us.

A word of caution is in order. The Constitution’s strength rests in the hands of citizens committed to exercising their rights as Americans. If we do not take part in this midterm election, then we well might write the final chapter in the system of government we all say we cherish. It will fall on our shoulders to demonstrate our devotion to the government we want to keep.

Yep, this election could well be the most critical of ’em all!

legal news

This isn’t compromise … it’s betrayal

In all the years I have been watching and covering politics — as a daily print journalist — I have seen my share of men and women make compromises to seek a greater good.

The decision by key Republican U.S. senators to back Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation in the Senate, however, falls into a darker category. It is a betrayal of common decency, not to mention of the oath they all took to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution.

Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina both had been critical of recent decisions by Donald J. Trump. They made noise about opposing Blanche’s confirmation. It turned out that’s what it was: just a lot of noise.

The same could be said of Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a longtime foe of Trump. He, too, cast his vote to confirm Blanche, even though the new AG demonstrated repeatedly during his confirmation hearing that he had no intention of bucking the POTUS were he to issue an order that would violate the Constitution. Blanche, of course, served as Trump’s defense lawyer during his trials for various felonies of which he was convicted.

Accordingly, I am going to say a good word about Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska,, who were the only GOP senators to stand on principle, rather than on blind fealty to a lame-duck president who has shown zero inclination to do anything for the good of the entire nation he was elected to lead.

Cornyn and Tillis’s plunge into the cavern is particularly odious. They had demanded a written commitment from Blanche that he would disallow the spending of $1.8 billion in taxpayer money to the traitorous felons convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection against the government after the 2020 election that Trump lost to President Biden. They got a written promise from Blanche, but there remains a distinct possibility that he and/or Trump could renege on that promise. There is zero legal binding to it.

Cornyn and Tillis both went with the idiot in chief rather than sending a clear message that they stood on a matter of principle.

Blanche’s confirmation by a 50-49 partisan vote, indeed, was a dark day for the rule of law. The GOP will have to defend the indefensible before a voting public that has lost its patience with a once-great political party.

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?

national news

GOP: out of ideas and running out of luck

A political party that keeps harping on the past only can mean one thing about the present and the future, and it doesn’t bode well for the party I’m about to mention.

The Republican Party, led by Donald Trump, is flat out of ideas. It is running out of steam. Its luck is damn near spent.

What does this mean for its future? The immediate future is looking grim every passing day. The GOP small margin in the House of Representatives looks quite vulnerable these days, as Democrats appear poised to seize the majority from its “friends” on the other side of the aisle. The hill toward majority control in the Senate still looks more formidable than in the House, but there appear to be more avenues for Democratic success than for Republicans.

As for the Republicans’ leader, Donald Trump, well … all I can offer there is a word of caution that he is facing a near-certain impeachment in the House. It might come even during the first year of the pending Democratic victory at the ballot box. This individual has all but acted like he is committing impeachable acts on purpose, that he’s secretly hoping to be impeached. He violates the Constitution with impunity.

We can set aside the ridiculous nonsense he prattles on with regard to Presidents Biden and Obama; it’s the unconstitutional actions he takes regularly that ought to become the targets of those intending to file impeachment articles. The Iran war, the tariffs he imposes on all Americans are two actions that come to mind immediately.

Trump’s legacy is hardening each day. It is built on chaos, malfeasance and corruption. Thus, it is becoming virtually impossible for the POTUS’s political heirs to advance any sort of political agenda … even if they had one.

national news

Happy birthday, America!

Today we wish our country a happy birthday. 250 of them have come and gone since the wise men who founded the nation gathered to sign the Declaration of Independence from the English Crown.

The declaration in fact was a long list of grievances the Colonies had against the Crown. Thus, the nation was formed by an act of dissent from the edicts of another nation that governed us. And yet … we now hear from the current American government that dissent is an act of treason, that it’s not right to disagree with the pronouncements from the nation’s capital. Such a belief is totally counter to what the founders believed. Indeed, they produced a government with a tenet that declares that dissent is the most democratic and patriotic thing we can do as Americans.

The folks in DC have it wrong. The founders 250 years ago had it right when they declared that we were “endowed by our Creator” with rights that could not be abridged and trifled with. They included the rights to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Well, I am one American patriot has lived a good life, I am liberated to the max and I am still pursuing happiness.

But I continue that pursuit against the current of rhetoric that comes from D.C. It comes from our current president, a man I happen to detest even though I accept with no sense of pleasure that he was elected duly in the latest presidential election.

I don’t want to make this brief salute to our nation about our current troubles. They’re going to work themselves out in fairly short order when vote for the next Congress in two years after that when we vote for president and yet another Congress.

The founders got it right when they built a governmental framework around a Constitution that was built to withstand the challenges if faces. They didn’t get it right. Indeed, the founders knew that perfection was impossible, as they wrote they were seeking a “more perfect Union.” We’ll continue that struggle through all the troubles we encounter.

They ended up with a pretty damn good piece of work. Happy birthday, America.

national news

Emoluments clause? Pfffttt!

I thought I understood much of what the Constitution allows and prohibits. One of the things the nation’s governing document disallows is the president accepting gifts from foreign governments while in office.

It’s called the “emoluments clause” and is as unambiguous as anything in the nation’s governing document.

So, I am forced to wonder aloud: How does Donald Trump get away with accepting a $400 million jetliner that he will keep grounded until he finishes work on his presidential library?

Trumpkins say he won’t actually use the aircraft while he’s in office. Therefore, the aircraft doesn’t fall under the emoluments clause prohibition … they say. Well, such “logic” is pure crap. Trump accepted the gift while serving as POTUS. Thus, in my view he has violated the clause without question.

Trump denies any wrongdoing. Qatar officials who gave him the aircraft were thanking him for standing strong in the Middle East against terrorists and terrorism. But dammit! — they still gave him the gift. The Constitution says he cannot accept it.

How in the name of constitutional clarity does this clown get away with this?

national news

Let us honor Watergate

Fifty-four years ago today, Washington, D.C. police caught some burglars breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters building. They were rifling through DNC files looking for dirt on the party that opposed President Nixon’s re-election effort that was shaping up that year.

It was 1972. Nixon would win re-election to the presidency in historic fashion, winning 49 of 50 states and rolling up a 23-point popular vote majority over Democratic nominee Sen. George McGovern.

It begged the question: Why would a politician who was guaranteed such a stunning victory squander it on a break-in that produced far less benefit than the consequence that eventually would topple the president? They’ll debate that one forever.

It gave rise to a suffix that has attached itself to scandals big and small ever since. It happened at the Watergate Hotel. Thus the term “gate” lives on in the names of various misdeeds. This one was different. It showed how much damage can occur when politicians seek to cover up their misdeeds.

President Nixon sought to fend off the media, and law enforcement. The fundamental difference between then and now is that the Republican Party comprised people of principle. When it became clear that Nixon’s coverup would lead to his certain impeachment, several GOP senators went to the White House to tell Nixon the truth. He would lose a Senate trial and would be removed from office. Nixon heard that and on Aug. 9, 1974, he turned his office over to Vice President Gerald Ford, who then told us our “long national nightmare is over” and that “our Constitution works.”

I am relying on President Ford’s statement about the Constitution as my hope that we’ll get through what we’re enduring today. The Constitution is as strong today as it was during that earlier time.

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.

Donald Trump, national news

Judicial system stands tall

Before you declare the death of our system of representative democracy, allow me — please — to offer these words in the form of a pre-rebuttal.

The federal judiciary.

The court system has stepped up and performed its constitutionally mandated duty in reigning in the overreach of the executive branch of government … precisely as the nation’s founders said it should.

Federal judges have ruled this week that (1) Donald Trump has no constitutional authority to create a $1.8 billion slush fund to spend at his discretion, and (2) there is no way the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts can have Donald Trump’s name installed without a constitutional approval.

On top of all that, the D.C. rumor mill has kicked into hyper-high gear with reports that Trump might have to vacate his office with worsening health conditions and the stress of an agenda that is getting the better of him.

I don’t know about you but my head is spinning. I cannot begin to keep pace with what I see and hear coming from the nation’s capital.

Trump also is reportedly going to offer pardons to several convicts who were tried and found guilty of crimes involving the Jan. 6 assault on the government, the attack that injured several DC police officers. Such a pardon, according to the courts, would be an arrogant flouting of constitutional law.

I am not a constitutional scholar. I have no law degree. I know, though, what the document declares about government finances. It puts that authority solely in the hands of Congress. Trump doesn’t seem to get that fact. Article I, Section 7, says this: “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives … “ Throughout Article I, there isn’t a single word that reveals any wiggle room on the issue of congressional authority on budget matters. Congress owns it exclusively … full stop!

Keep standing tall, federal judges. Keep doing your job. Our founders gave you the power that never ends.