Category: U.S. Constitution

Categories
First Amendment rights U.S. Constitution

Chalk One Up for Equal Treatment

chalk art, street art, censorship, BLM

“The government may not enforce the laws in a manner that picks winners and losers in public debates,” ruled Judge Neomi Rao. 

This, in response to a case where anti-abortion protesters were arrested for chalking the words “Black Pre-born Lives Matter” on a Washington, D.C., street back in 2020.

Emma Camp makes clear, in her Reason coverage of the ruling, that the case is not as simple as it may sound in the headlines. “While writing chalk messages on public streets and sidewalks is considered vandalism in D.C., protest leaders had an earlier conversation with a police officer in which he ‘explained that he believed Mayor Bowser had effectively opened up the District’s streets for political markings.’”

Nevertheless, during the protest, “police told demonstrators that they would be arrested if they painted or chalked any messages.” Two individuals in the pro-life protest defied police order and scribbled their message in chalk.

It’s actually a bigger issue than just an altercation during a protest. The police in D.C. had not merely looked the other way, allowing helter-skelter displays of “Black Lives Matter” graffiti, but the city government had actually gotten in on the act and messaged “Black Lives Matter” on the streets itself — in bold paint.

This obviously sends a message to disagreeing citizens: we are on this side, not that.

As Judge Rao insists, “The government may not play favorites in a public forum — permitting some messages and prohibiting others.”

She interprets this injunction as pertaining to the First Amendment, but it goes much deeper than that, reaching to the core idea of a rule of law, and equality of treatment under it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder.ai and DALL-E2

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
Accountability national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Facing the Debt with Deceit

trillion dollar coin, platinum, folly

The “trillion dollar coin” solution to the federal debt reared its absurd head, again, during the recent “debt ceiling” brouhaha.

I wrote about it over ten years ago, when Big Talkin’ Republicans were challenging Big Spendin’ Democrats over raising the debt ceiling at that time. 

The idea is bold trickery, allowing the President to inflate the currency by leveraging Treasury’s Congress-given ability to coin platinum coins at any face dollar value. 

Typically, such collector coins sport on the reverse a value far below the metal’s value.* The trillion dollar coin would invert that, fixing the face value far, far above the metal value. The freshly minted coin would be sent to the Federal Reserve, covering the books that way.

It’s inherently deceptive and obviously ridiculous.

Thus it symbolizes contemporary politics quite aptly.

After the recent budget compromise that forestalled any real work of marshaling the federal government’s scarce (if astoundingly awesome) financial resources, however, the trillion dollar coin has been shelved.

For now.

Indeed, Democrats are tiring of the debt ceiling brinksmanship game. And it is mostly posturing. “Democrats have introduced a bicameral proposal to overhaul the debt ceiling process, leaning heavily into the recent default scare to push a bill that would essentially let Treasury ignore the debt cap and continue writing cheques with no limit,” explains The Epoch Times.

Would this any be better than the fake coin?

Perhaps more honest.

But, once again, it would be Congress giving away its authority. 

And until Congress can restrain its spending habits, we, the people, will always come up tails.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* On the day I checked, the spot price for an ounce of platinum was just over $1000, and the face value on the American Platinum Eagle remained $100, the ratio being a tenth of metal value.

trillion dollar coin, debt, Congress, folly

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Midjourney and DALL-E2

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
national politics & policies term limits U.S. Constitution

The Demand for Term Limits

Rep. Matt Gaetz, US Capitol, Term Limits

Lots of talk about term limits last week — in Washington. 

Of all places. 

What bizarre chain of events caused career congressmen to start jawboning and horse-trading about the popular reform that most of them viscerally oppose?

It was the work-product of a small number of hardcore conservative Republican legislators, a mere 20, flexing their strength and commitment at a critical political point — the election of the House Speaker — and armed with concrete demands.

“We offered Kevin McCarthy terms last evening that he rejected,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told reporters last Tuesday. One of those? “We’ve sought a vote in [the] first quarter of the 118th Congress on term limits.”

By week’s end, however, McCarthy had been elected Speaker of the House . . . but only after having pledged to bring to the floor that congressional term limits amendment, authored by Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), one of the 20 holdouts, along with making other concessions. 

Meet the Press host Chuck Todd yesterday cast shade on the effort, calling these “show votes.” 

While it’s true that incumbents are unlikely to vote for the term limits amendment in the 2/3 supermajority the Constitution requires, or for the balanced budget amendment for which the holdouts, mostly Freedom Caucus members, also secured a commitment from McCarthy. 

“We’ve got to start taking steps to make fundamental change in America,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) told Todd. And putting every U.S. representative on record on term limits sounds like a great first step for early 2023.

Worth the battle.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Midjourney

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
general freedom media and media people U.S. Constitution

We’ll Keep It

Constitution, news media, Trump

An answer is warranted. 

When a former president of these United States asks a question of such magnitude, as Donald J. Trump did last week on Truth Social, how can we not respond?

“So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party,” Mr. Trump inquired, “do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?”

Trump is, presumably, referring to Elon Musk’s recent release of information about FBI communications with Twitter during the 2020 campaign, with the Feds suggesting that stories about the Hunter Biden laptop were likely Russian disinformation — even though the FBI knew at the time that that it was Hunter’s laptop. For the FBI to work to discourage media platforms from providing such information to the public is deceptive and wrong. It should be investigated and, depending on the evidence, prosecuted to the full extent of the law. 

Such collusion is even more destructive of our democratic system when done with partisan political motives. Which may now be SOP at the Bureau.  

So, let’s answer Mr. Trump’s questions. “No,” per declaring him the winner and sending President Biden packing. And a no-go on a new election. Of course, there is one in 2024, and Trump is a declared candidate.

Yes, the news media is largely dishonest, drunk with their power and deluded into thinking they should keep information from us if it might make us vote contrary to their desires. Moreover, the Deep State is actively colluding with them (and vice-versa) to warp public opinion. 

Trump argues that this new information “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” He’s dangerously mistaken.

Who would “terminate” these laws and constitutional provisions? His dear friends in Congress, The White House, the FBI and DOJ? Unelected judges — who’ve already ruled against his campaign? A mob, pray tell?  

No, thanks. That Constitution? We’ll keep it. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E2

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
crime and punishment national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

The Act That Can’t Cut It

Trump, raid

During Donald John Trump’s time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he expressed his displeasure with some documents by tearing them up.

Which is illegal, as CNN takes pains to make clear. His underlings would then scoop up the shreds of paper and tape them together. 

Keyword: farcical.

This comedy might be funny to watch in a sequel to, say, In the Loop, the 2009 political satire. But it’s not so funny in the current iteration, with the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion.

The search for documents “illegally removed from the White House” has seems an obviously political ploy. Since Trump was legally allowed to de-classify documents, his taking of allegedly still-classified docs seem, well, a rather trivial matter.

Keyword: petty.

Right-leaning media and the left-ensconced media talk about all this very differently, of course, and I confess to finding the former a little more convincing than the latter. Focusing on documentation seems like an excuse to find some petty thing to disqualify Trump from running again in 2024.

While Trump not running again might be the best thing for the GOP, and America, that’s not really relevant: Republicans are stuck with the one champion, with few decent alternatives, and Democrats are in worse shape. Which is why they fret about Trump.

Using the Presidential Records Act of 1978 as a disqualifier for a Grover Clevelandesque re-run of a defeated president is on everybody’s lips. But there’s a problem: how could it possibly pass constitutional muster? The Constitution specifies the qualifications for the job. Congress cannot add or subtract to those qualifications by law.

That was the argument used to disqualify term limits in U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton: qualifications for candidates were specified in the Constitution. Neither states nor Congress could change it.

If Democrats seek to breach this principle . . . then let’s look at term limits again.

Keywords: do it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
Accountability U.S. Constitution

You Could Look It Up

IJ, Institute for Justice, GPA

Your constitutional rights have been violated. Now what?

One thing you can do is find out exactly where you stand with respect to what the Institute for Justice calls “clearly established law.” IJ has created a new research tool, the Constitutional GPA, to help lawyers and others identify relevant legal decisions.

The tool is designed to help users make government accountable despite the many confusing barriers to accountability. The “GPA” in the name refers both to “grade point average” and the question that is part of the tool’s graphic design: “Is your Government Preventing Accountability?”

Doctrines of qualified immunity and other special rules often prevent government officials who violate your rights from being held responsible unless courts have ruled otherwise with respect to specific rights-violating actions. Exactly what the law permits or proscribes can vary widely in different jurisdictions.

The interactive tool grades state governments and federal courts of appeal based on how they treat claims of immunity and helps users “identify the clearly established law necessary to defeat qualified immunity.”

IJ gives the example of a government employee’s unjustified search of your car supposing this takes place in Nevada. Answering a few simple questions enables one to search the Constitutional GPA database of hundreds of cases to find about a dozen pertinent legal decisions.

So if you find yourself on the wrongest of wrong ends of the State, watch the Institute’s YouTube video on how to use the new tool and try it out at the ij.org/gpa web page.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts