Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson

When I see these three in a story or decision it crosses my mind that the 19th amendment (guarantees American women the right to vote) might have been a mistake. Women achieved so much through the struggle and protests and then let it all go to waste after 1920.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/justice-sotomayor-says-supreme-court-just-countered-decades-of-precedent/ar-AA1GYqeA?

Every Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sits Out Decision in Rare Move - Newsweek

A day for the Democratic appointees on SCOTUS — but what does it mean?

Justices Sotomayor and Jackson slam idea that U.S. is ‘colorblind’ in affirmative action dissents

Biden and the Constitution

I have a copy of the Constitution of the United States (and with Index, and The Declaration of Independence) c. 2009, 2012--in my hand. Every American should own one and read it occasionally. Especially the part about 3 branches of government. It's hard to imagine how powerful and historic such a small booklet can be--although it's not the print or the pages, but what it represents. And yet, Biden (and Harris/Walz) are willing to destroy it, with the most recent attack against SCOTUS. Biden should be on his knees smoothing their robes for their decision to clarify immunity for the president. There is so much crime, evil and malfeasance in his administration that sooner or later some clever lawyer/prosecutor just might string a few laws together that show it all started at the top. The Biden years are an insult to that precious document.

Biden Announces Plan to Radically Alter the Supreme Court Because He Didn't Like Trump Ruling (westernjournal.com)

Supreme Court Justice issues stern words on Biden's plans for huge overhaul | Daily Mail Online

https://nypost.com/2024/07/29/us-news/biden-formally-unveils-plan-to-overhaul-scotus-with-focus-on-limiting-trumps-powers/

Article 2 Section 2

I've been reading the Constitution. The President doesn't even get the honor of being Article I--that goes to the Congress. The President is Article 2. And Section 1 of Article 2 explains how he is elected. Not until we get to Section 2 of Article 2 do we get to the job description: he is the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy; then the power to make treaties and appoint ambassadors and fill some vacancies in Congress. Section 3 says the President shall from time to time give a State of the Union. Section 4 says he can be impeached. That's about it.
So in the State of the Union I think he should mention how he and his advisors blew it because that balloon could have been anything, even chemicals or another virus, but most likely gathering information on how cowardly the poorly prepared government is, and it was covered by Section 2 of Article 2. If the people of Montana hadn't noticed and alerted the media it could still be "calling home."

Afghanistan
Ukraine-Russia
China

One job and he's done nothing but put our country in danger since he took office.

The nightmare is not over

"The nightmare is over. In his masterful opinion for the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Samuel Alito consigned the constitutional right of abortion to the ash heap of history. Alito’s criticisms of Justice Harry Blackmun’s opinion in Roe v. Wade are deep and cutting — and entirely justified. Roe was, Alito wrote, “egregiously wrong from the start.” It was “on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided.” " National Catholic Register, June 24.

Most of this is true, and I agree, except the nightmare IS NOT OVER; it's just begun no matter where you are on the pro-life continuum. From conception to dementia and physical collapse in old age, people will need to be thinking through what they believe about God, natural rights, the Constitution, state laws, the minority opinions, investments in corporations supporting abortion for employees, medical and obstetric training for doctors and nurses in states that criminalize abortions, financial and emotional support for women who struggle with a decision, talking to neighbors, relatives and friends about touchy topics, what our children are taught about sex and biology in school and what will be preached and taught in our churches. Jesus' command to love our neighbors is being challenged by society at so many levels. Are we prepared?

In New York, there's nothing to stop an abortion/killing up to the moment of birth, and ground work is in place to allow infanticide for some years after birth. That's very different than Ohio's heartbeat law, or Mississippi's law which bans abortions based on the sex, race, or genetic abnormality of the fetus. And then there's all the issues about language with people being unable to identify a woman, or which words to use about "life" and your employer vested with the power to destroy your career if you can't subscribe to the thought control of management or the university administration.

The nightmare is not over.

Words matter, less is more

 The Lord's Prayer has 56 words.

Gettysburg Address has 268 words.

The Declaration of Independence has 1458

The U.S. Constitution has 4,543 words, including the signatures, unamended

Right to Try Act (2018) 5 pages

Report from the National School Board Association's investigation about its letter to Biden suggesting parents could be terrorists is 55 pages.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA ) of 2009 is 407 pages.

Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was 2,700 pages at time of pages, not including 20,000 pages of regulations (this number is debated) which followed.

I can't find the number of pages in the "American Families Plan," which is a subset of pages/words of Build Back Better, but it's $1.8 trillion for starters.  

Code words—Constitution and Democracy

The reason we're hearing so often those words rarely ever uttered by a Democrat--Constitution and Democracy--is because they are smart enough to see the hypocrisy of saying Trump asked Ukraine for help for political reasons not policy, when they are trying to impeach Trump for political reasons not policy.

But in fact, the President was following up on corruption--Joe Biden had admitted in public on camera involvement in a quid pro quo and got someone in another government fired in exchange for money. It's part of the president's job to look into that. On the other hand, the House Democrats are trying to impeach Trump for the sin/crime of winning the election in 2016 and defeating their candidate in the electoral college. From the pink hat marchers to Maxine shouting at rallies to investigating endlessly a porn star, they have been political. They have no crimes. Theirs is political, Trump's was not. The IG report shows that all the collusion was on the part of the DNC, the Obama administration and the media.

That said, Trump is allowed to be political, and so is the partisan Congress. The Democrats can impeach him because they hate him, and for no other reason--they can twist that to high crimes and misdemeanors--it just makes a mockery of the system.

Who is endangering the Constitution?

This latest lie dumped on the country that Trump is destroying the Constitution is just crazy. Really?

• He's the one denigrating religion--trying to throw nuns and cake bakers out of work because they are Christians?
• He's the one booing God at the national convention?
• He's the one tearing down statues,
• demanding famous buildings be renamed, and
• organizing mobs to attack speakers on college campuses?
• He's the one pushing for men in women's locker rooms or competing in their track meets?

President Trump is the one protecting the borders, funding the military, and appointing judges who don't desire to make law usurping the Congress. President Trump is the one who wants to renegotiate trade deals which were giving away the country. President Trump is the one who has said stop hobbling our soldiers and if you have to go to war, at least bring home a victory more often than 75 years. President Trump is the one asking for fewer regulations that put the states at the mercy of the federal government and its unelected bureaucracy.

I ask any Democrat to suggest an unconstitutional act by this president that even comes close to the stage at any of the 2020 game show of Bernie, Kamala, Cory, Pete, Tulsi, et al where they all promise to raise our taxes, jail people who use the wrong pronoun, dismantle ICE, open the borders, kill babies and take away our rights. But they won't be able to because they are so busy hurling insults and bigotry and knitting pink hats that they've forgotten to look for facts and policies to criticize.

The tale of Lucky Jack

There's a German folk tale that Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) used to illustrate the failures of the church. The tale of "Lucky Jack." Perhaps you've heard of Jack; if not you'll recognize him because we're close to the ending of the tale. Our country is living out his story.

Jack finds a lump of gold. After his initial joy and satisfaction at his good fortune, he decides it's too heavy to carry, so he spends it on a horse. But really, what can a horse do? So he trades the horse for a cow so at least he has food, but she is too difficult to care for. So he trades the cow for a flock of chickens, and finally sells the chickens for a stone to sharpen his knife. But the stone is worthless so he tosses it into a lake having decided it wasn't worth anything.

Through the made up charges and offering no legal protections any American would have in a court of law, the angry Democrats are attacking the election of 2016, and plan to put their own leader, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in the White House. It's come to this. Our freedoms and protections, our Constitution and history are just a worthless stone tossed away when we could have had gold.

Dave doesn’t vote

He’s concerned after watching MSNBC or some other anti-Trump source, that a woman of Ukrainian heritage lost her job in the administration and that Rudy was investigating corruption. But he doesn’t vote!  My response:

But you're OK with destroying the job of the Ukrainian prosecutor which Joe Biden bragged about (as a representative of Obama)? Biden demanded he be fired, or Ukraine would get no money to fight the Russians. He knew what would happen if the news got out about who was really manipulating the U.S. election.

Rudy was doing his job--investigating the corruption of the Democrats of the previous administration who tried to undo the election results of 2016.

You have a strange set of standards--don't vote, but support crooks widening the muck in the swamp. Voting is always a challenge--often the lesser of 2 evils. So is donating money to campaigns and candidates, but it's better than a monarchy or communism where there's no voting at all, or just straw man candidates. We see now Mitt Romney's true colors, but he still would have been better than a second term for Obama.

Thousands of years of human history under every imaginable form of government from human sacrifice to peasants rounded up from the fields to march to foreign wars, and the little guy finally has a say based on one of the finest constitution ever produced, and you thumb your nose at all the blood and treasure over centuries it took to get here because it isn't perfect. I'm shocked.

The little Constitution, guest blogger Maryann Leboffe Pinelli

“I carry the Constitution with me, in my car and it’s on my IPAD ... 
I’m a Real Estate Agent. A few years ago I had a younger client looking for a home. In conversation he brought up the 2nd Amendment, there were “No hunting” signs in the area. Now I try and avoid political conversations in business as there’s no way I can deny my beliefs, although am short and polite, so I never start the conversation. Turned out he was a legal gun owner. I go in my car and get out my little booklet, 4”x 6” 36 pages, and this kid was like, wow, that’s it? He had never read it, thought it had to be thousands of pages, with language he’d never be able to get thru. I told him he could have it, but he said no thank you and that was it.

A few months later, at his closing, when we’re walking out, he thanks me, for helping him find his new home, but even more for introducing him the simple but beautiful Written words of the Constitution...said he bought his own and now carry’s it with him, in his car.

It never ceases to amaze me, the simplicity of our Constitution. That Our founding fathers, a group of what today would be “millennials”, from various economic, educational and cultural backgrounds, conceived and wrote such a perfect document for Freedom and human God given rights.

And it never ceases to infuriate me how we have allowed corrupt politicians, justices, judges and liberal academia, chip away at it.
No longer will we survive with sell out career politicians who are weak, easily bought and paid for by the highest bidder, and who do not believe in the Constitution as written.

This was and is President Donald J. Trump’s time to be President. To bring our country back to the core beliefs of our Founding Fathers. I didn’t vote for a “Presidential” puppet, a chameleon who becomes whatever the media and fake polls demand he/she be. I voted For someone who would be fearless, tireless and not intimidated. For someone whose intelligence, instinct and shear determination would be used do what’s right to fight for America and her people. Period.

I was at his inauguration, listening to his speech brought tears to my eyes, as I thought, Finally. Two and a half years in, I can’t believe all he has accomplished, while under 24/7 attack and 90% on his own, with no help from Congress.

Bringing our country back from decades of corruption will not be easy. It will take more than his re-election. It will take “Trumpian” like candidates for us to send to Washington to help him, and will take a 2024 candidate that can be as determined, and strong as him, as possible.”

Other than that, they are loyal Americans

"The Left is crystal clear.

They have a new rainbow flag, they want to remove Washington, Jefferson, Betsy Ross and the rest of the founding.

They want to replace the citizenry with new people.

They want to ignore federal law, dissolve the borders of the United States and transfer many elements of sovereignty to global structures.

They want to end constitutional protections such as free speech, religious liberty, due process and any and all constitution limits or common law traditions which don't fit their plan of the day.

They do not respect elections, or democracy, or any splits of power, such as the electoral college, apportionment of districts or separation of powers, unless they win. All other exercises of power are illegitimate.

They want to swap all definitions, holidays, street names, statues, history text books, flags, rules, traditions, religions, borders, people, structures, institutions, moral codes, sexual mores, family structures, civic organizations, decision structures, leaders and primary language, plus they want to libel, destroy and remove the rights of anyone wanting to retain any of those things.

Other than that, they are loyal Americans.”

Jeffrey Varasano

USAFacts—a new way to gather government statistics

This non-profit has been launched by Steve Ballmer and wife Connie.  Although most non-profits established by wealthy capitalists claim to be non-partisan and unbiased, we’ll have to see about that.  When Ballmer gives interviews we’ll see the clues. But since I frequently use government statistics myself in making my points about medical costs, education, immigration, sex/gender, religion, animals, housing, etc., I welcome any source which can make sense of it all, particularly the blending of federal, state and local.  Federal dollars, for instance, are only 3% of total spending on education.

https://www.geekwire.com/2017/full-interview-steve-ballmer-discusses-usafacts-new-10-k-government/

“USAFacts is a new data-driven portrait of the American population, our government’s finances, and government’s impact on society. We are a non-partisan, not-for-profit civic initiative and have no political agenda or commercial motive. We provide this information as a free public service and are committed to maintaining and expanding it in the future.

We rely exclusively on publicly available government data sources. We don’t make judgments or prescribe specific policies. Whether government money is spent wisely or not, whether our quality of life is improving or getting worse – that’s for you to decide. We hope to spur serious, reasoned, and informed debate on the purpose and functions of government. Such debate is vital to our democracy. We hope that USAFacts will make a modest contribution toward building consensus and finding solutions.”

https://usafacts.org/

  

The plan is to divide all government statistics by the four items in the Preamble’s mission statement.

“Revenue And Spending

Government revenue and expenditures are based on data from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Each is published annually, although due to collection times, state and local government data are not as current as federal data. Thus, when combining federal, state, and local revenues and expenditures, the most recent year shown is 2014, the most recent year for which all three sets of data are available. We show government spending through two different lenses:

Spending by segment: We recategorized several programs and functions to align them with four constitutional missions based on the preamble to the constitution:

• Establish Justice and Ensure Domestic Tranquility
• Provide for the Common Defense
• Promote the General Welfare
• Secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and Our Posterity

This approach is modeled after what businesses do for their own management accountability and shareholder reporting. Public companies present their businesses in segments – a logical framework for discussing the areas in which the they operate. We do the same for government. In using this constitutional framework, we have made judgements in how we group programs. . .

Spending by function: We also show spending by functional categories such as compensation for current and past employees, capital expenditures, transfer payments to individuals, interest on the debt, and payments for goods and services. “

The left hates the Constitution of the United States, guest blogger Michael Smith

Deviations from the Constitution will always end in disaster. It reminds me of Thomas Jefferson quote from his letter to Samuel Kercheval in 1816:

"A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, and to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia [the war of all against all], which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man."

The left hates the Constitution of the United States. They have since the days of Woodrow Wilson. They believe it is a dusty old parchment dreamed up by old slave owning cis-gendered white men to preserve white supremacist patriarchy.

You don't have to believe me - just listen to them when they say the Second Amendment is invalid because there is no way the founders could have foreseen the invention of the AR-15 or when it comes to the radical social engineering they favor, engineering that cannot stand without the coercive force of government being applied.

So, just imagine my chagrin when these same people -people who hate the Constitution - hold up signs saying they want to "defend the constitution" from an "un-American president".
They believe when some leftist justice finds a convoluted way to create some "right" from whole cloth - that is what the Constitution is. It isn't.

Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist #78 that "...the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them."

Hamilton also argued that the "Necessary and Proper" clause of the Constitution did not mean the federal government powers were unlimited, that Congress could only enact laws necessary to support the powers enumerated in the Constitution itself.

Boy, I can't imagine the look on old Alex's face if he could see what has happened to his "least dangerous" branch. He had an inkling how despotism could come about - reading a bit further down in Federalist #78, we find this:

"It equally proves that though individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty can never be endangered from that quarter: I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and executive; for I agree that “there is no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and the executive powers.” And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but it would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments."

If we take an honest look at the Supreme Court, over the past century, in addition to its power to interpret the laws, it has assumed the power of the Executive to enforce and the power of the Legislative to regulate. Rather than creating a "union with either of the other departments" the SCOTUS usurped those powers and is shielded from retribution by the idea of "judicial supremacy", a concept twisted from John Marshall's opinion in Marbury v. Madison (1803), elevating the Supreme Court to the single and sloe arbiter of that which is constitutional.

But Marshall's opinion said none of that. Marshall never expressed that SCOTUS should be the ultimate arbiter - he simply held that Congress could not extend the jurisdiction of the Court beyond that which the Constitution had provided. President's all the way through Lincoln saw the three branches as equal in interpretation of the Constitution - essentially saying that the judiciary could be overridden by the other two branches.

The first moves to politicize the courts gained momentum under Woodrow Wilson and continued with FDR trying to pack the Supreme Court when the Republican majority ruled many of his New Deal actions unconstitutional. Conservatives wanted to strengthen the court against FDR's machinations and in doing so, set the stage for things to come.

The first real expression of "judicial supremacy" came about in the Warren court in 1958 when the justices claimed that Marbury v. Madison had “declared the basic principle that the federal judiciary is supreme in its exposition of the law of the Constitution, and that principle has ever since been respected by this court and the country as a permanent and indispensable feature of our constitutional system.”

The Warren Court went a long way toward politicizing and weaponizing the court system and setting SCOTUS up as a super-legislative body that is not co-equal to the other branches but one that sits above them. . . and that is why the progressive left sees control over the Supreme Court as a matter of life or death. For their ideology, it is.

Feelings, nothing more than feelings, whoa, whoa, whoa

What Mrs. Clinton will gives us as Supreme Court justices.  Outlaws.

JONAH GOLDBERG: "In her first answer of the night, Hillary Clinton was asked about the Supreme Court. She said justices should stand up to the rich and side with the people or some such treacle. It should support the usual favored groups, etc. It should fight big money and the powerful. And so on. Only problem: That’s not what justices are supposed to do. The Judicial Oath goes like this: “I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.” The relevant point is the same. Standing up to the rich is not the Supreme Court’s job. Standing up for the law is. And, sometimes, the law is on the side of the rich and powerful. You could look it up."
Remember the "wise Latina" Sotomayor fantasized about hitting one of her fellow judges with a bat. That's how judging with emotions and favoritism works.

The President should read the Constitution

Have you ever read what the Constitution says about the duties of the President? Article 2. Section 2. It would almost make you laugh when you see what a monarch/caesar/king position we have today if it weren't so pathetic. I think there may be more words spent on the electoral system (Section 1). The gist is, his primary job is to be Commander in Chief of the army and navy, but he can also grant pardons, appoint ambassadors, judges, etc. (with consent of the Senate) and he...'s supposed to give a state of the union message from time to time. And although everyone says we have three equal branches, it's pretty clear on reading it, (Article 1, the longest part of the Constitution) that Congress was to be the power house, especially the House of Representatives, because that's how we the people were to have a voice, a voice no one in Europe had at that time.

By deduction, I'm guessing the Founders meant the President's primary job was to keep the nation safe. Given his awful, blame-game, finger pointing speech yesterday, calling for more gun control and chastising those who won't give it to him, I'd say he knows what his real job is, but he has to pretend it's not his fault that ISIS has taken center stage in the world and grown in power and become a threat here under his management. He refuses to say, the buck stops here, like Harry Truman. He hasn't kept us safe and he won't or can't.

Paul Ryan our new Speaker of the House

I listened to Paul Ryan's speech today. It was nice to be reminded by him how important the House is to the people. We tend to forget this, but the founders made the House the most important of the branches in Section 2 of Article 1, by listing it first. It has the power of the purse, the power to make law, the power to impeach, override vetoes, vote on members of Supreme Court and impeach them. Then the Senate, section 3, which originally were not elected but appointed by the states. Then comes the executive branch, in Article 2, section 1 where the President's duty is explained as Commander in Chief of the military who can make treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate and gives occasional speeches to Congress. Then coming in 3rd in power is Article 3, the judicial power, with no mention that they should make law or invent rights as they did in Obergefell decision. The founders did not want the government to control the churches, as it does now, when it tells churches they can’t offer the Gospel if they have food pantries receiving government food, nor did they want the courts to have the power they had in Europe. Instead it was to be power for the people, the House of Representatives.

It was a revolutionary idea in the 18th century—and maybe still is since we haven't been able to hang on to it.

Drawing on a promise. . . that isn't there

In last week's State of the Union address, President Obama said,

"Abroad, America's greatest source of strength has always been our ideals. The same is true at home. We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution, the notion that we're all created equal, that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law, you should be protected by it, if you adhere to our common values, you should be treated no different than anyone else.

We must continually renew this promise. My administration has a Civil Rights Division that is once again prosecuting civil rights violations and employment discrimination. We finally strengthened..."

First of all, it's not in the Constitution. The Constitution had 7 articles and was dated September 17, 1787 at a Constitutional Convention. Then it was amended with 10 amendments known as the "Bill of Rights" on December 15, 1791, and then an additional 17, the last being ratified in 1992. The Declaration of Independence was much earlier, July 4, 1776, and it has the words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. . . " Most of the Declaration is about reasons for independence from King George of Britain, listing all the bad things he'd done to the American people. It's the Constitution that tells us about the separation of powers, another thing Obama seems to have co-mingled.

Second, it's very clear, that the reason the signers of the Declaration of Independence were willing to put their lives on the line was that they believed their Rights came from their Creator and not by abiding by the law, another mistake Obama made, even if he'd found his way into the right document.

For me, "finding unity in our diversity" is a very awkward phrase, especially since "diversity" has come to mean in recent years separating a national people into little fractured groups and interest blocks to get social and educational programs passed. It certainly doesn't seem to have the same ring as the motto on the seal and our money, "E Pluribus Unum," Latin for "One from many" or "One from many parts" with the emphasis on the ONE and not the MANY. It meant creating a federal state from a group of individual states--formerly colonies.

What year was he born? Forty years ago Fifth Dimension even had a fairly popular song about the Declaration of Independence. So did his speech writers just make a mistake? Surely a constitutional lawyer has read the Constitution. It's not very long.



And we won't even go into the never ending straw men slams against the Bush administration with the nonsense, ". . . once again prosecuting civil rights violations and employment discrimination. We finally strengthened . . .blah blah"

Who killed the Constitution?

I wrote that I read the Constitution while I was on my blogging vacation. So I checked the public library for some recent material. There wasn't much. I recommended a book I'd seen at a conservative think tank, and my request was denied--I was told not many public libraries had that book so I should try Ohio State's Law School library. Too bad we're such a low level, low achieving community here in Upper Arlington reading only fiction, cook books and travel books. Anyway, I did find two interesting books at UAPL (most are actually on the amendments). "Who killed the constitution?" by Thomas E. Woods Jr. & Keven R.C. Gutzman, and "America's Constitution, a biography" by Akhil Reed Amar. Notice at the Amazon site the review by Scott Turow of the second title. This paragraph in his review is quite telling--at least it explains what most lawyers in Congress, the courts and the White House have been taught:

"In college, I was taught that the Constitution was essentially a reactionary document, a view that had become standard in the wake of the historian Charles A. Beard's epochal 1913 study, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. Beard had contended that the Declaration of Independence contained a broadly idealistic vision of American democracy premised on John Locke's notion that "all men are created equal." The Constitution, on the other hand, was meant to serve the interests of the wealthy; it subverted democratic ideals, especially with its odious compromise providing that each slave be counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of determining the population upon which congressional districts would be based."

Who killed the Constitution? tells us on the first page that both the right and the left killed the Constitution, and then provides 12 interesting cases from the last century, some well known, others overlooked, that show having the federal government take over health care is nothing new (in actions). I'm only in the first chapter--Woodrow Wilson and Freedom of Speech, and given all the czars and plots afoot now feared by the right, and how unhappy the left was about the Patriot Act, it's really a wonderful way to begin.

Some of the hysteria against Germans in WWI is very instructive, especially in light of the very mild prejudice against Muslims today. There was terrible stereotyping--even though probably a third of Americans were of German ancestry at that time. My family lived in a community after WWII where many people still spoke German, and I remember the suspicion and prejudice that still existed well after the war. During WWI (remember, at first Wilson pledged to keep the U.S. out of war) sauerkraut became "liberty cabbage"--sort of makes you think of "freedom fries" a few years back when sentiment against the French was running high. Germans lost their jobs, changed their names, and some were beaten and killed. In Iowa and South Dakota using German in public was forbidden except at funerals. There were volunteer enforcement organizations and neighbors were encouraged to snitch (remember Obama's request in the summer?) A movie called "The Spirit of '76" got its makers a 10 year prison sentence for portraying the British in an unflattering light (they were our allies in WWI). The authors said they could write a book just on the outrageous suppression of free speech during that period.

So it was that climate that gave us the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act in 1917 and 1918. The first involved promoting the success of our enemies (if Bush had had that most Democrats in Congress would have gone to jail) and the second gave the postmaster enormous powers to remove things from the mails that he decided would hamper the war effort. Of course, "intent" as in hate speech, was one deciding factor. These acts didn't come under court scrutiny until 1919, after the war was over when the Supreme Court heard 3 cases.

One of those cases was Debs v. United States. Eugene V. Debs delivered a provocative speech in which he claimed, among other things, that the capitalists were responsible for the war fever, and that as usual the common man had never had a chance to express his own preference for peace or war. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and Justice Holmes upheld his sentence. Warren G. Harding who followed Wilson, finally freed him in 1921, saying "I want him to eat Christmas dinner with his wife." It's useful to remember Holmes was a liberal, Wilson a progressive and Debs a Socialist.

Obviously, the first amendment (Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech,) can be trampled today just like 1917 and 1918. Politicians haven't changed in 100 years.

We the People--it's poetry

We the People of the United States,
in Order to
form a more perfect Union
establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare, and
secure the Blessings of Liberty
to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish
this Constitution for
the United States of America.

This book was on the bargain shelf at Barnes and Noble. There's almost no commentary or hoopla. Just the words of the writers. It includes the U.S. Constitution, the Amendments to the Constitution, The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation, and Common Sense by Thomas Paine. Most of us haven't looked at this since high school when some knowledge was probably required.

By the way, are you smarter than a 1954 eighth grader?

Where our nation has gone wrong

I've only skimmed it, but I'd say, along with this reviewer at Amazon that it's right on target. It's easy to spot the liberal book reviewers. They rarely speak to the overwhelming content and intent of the authors--just to the typos or incorrect citations, even if they are minor. Then that's the grounds for the rant.

". . . those who find fault with the citations cannot really overcome the overwhelming evidence in this book that the current courts have far overstepped anything that the founders intended in not recognizing and establishing a single church vs. their views that religion is a fundamental foundation for the Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution. If you read this book, you should also read the Federalist Papers, the words and works of the founders, including Washington's first inaugural address to understand that the current courts have radically departed from the intentions of the founders when it came to the role of religion, vs. established churches in the USA. For many generations, the original intent of the founders was well understood, but it was only until the 20th century that judges decided to re-write the Constitution and take on the role of "a national theology board" that makes earlier debates about how many angels fit on the head of a pin look enlightened.

p. 241: "As a result of the two distinctly differing philosophies of constitutional interpretation, there have now been two distinct eras of judicial decisions. . . the second era, which began with the slow accumulation of positivistic Justices on the Court throughout the 1930s and 1940s, was not fully actuated until the Court's 1962-63 decisions. Those decisions openly repudiated the transcendent, Biblical, natural-law standards which had prevailed--or had at least not been set aside--since the time of the Founders. and institued legal positivism as the replacement."

Now, you might love and support the changes of the 30s and 60s, you might say "The Founders are dead and gone and I'm here and I want an entirely different constitution." That's your right as an American the last time I checked. But then you might not like the results, and there are a number of disturbing charts to chronicle the unintended consequences. This is just one scan, and like it or not, agree or disagree, we pay for both results either in health care for long term and life time consequences of STDs, or in poorly educated citizens.


This book, Original intent; the courts, the constitution, and religion by David Barton, WallBuilder Press, 2000, is available both at the Upper Arlington Public Library [342.73 Ba, 2000] and the Upper Arlington Lutheran Church Library, Lytham Road, [973 Bart]. Whether you're liberal, progressive, conservative or libertarian, and even if you hate the theme of the book, you'll find the 200 pages of citations useful.

I'd never heard of this publisher, WallBuilders, so I took at look at their webpage. It gives a pretty good idea what to expect, which is more clear in intent than the real meaning of say a Norman Lear patriotic song, "Born again American" that's been whipping around the globe or an ACORN mortgage assistance website.

"In the Old Testament book of Nehemiah, the nation of Israel rallied together in a grassroots movement to help rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and thus restore stability, safety, and a promising future to that great city. We have chosen this historical concept of "rebuilding the walls" to represent allegorically the call for citizen involvement in rebuilding our nation's foundations. As Psalm 11:3 reminds us, 'If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do?' "