Constitution Archives - Page 6 of 8

Church and state: Francis I

If a Catholic priest were to echo Francis’ complaint about the rich-poor divide, that might be safe territory.

I found this graphic really interesting. The Socialist US Senator is embracing the Pope’s condemnation of “doctrinaire capitalism, ‘deified markets,” trickle-down economics, and the finance industry. He decried the growing gap between the rich and the poor, tax evasion by the wealthy, and characterized ruthless free-market economics as a killer that was inherently sinful.” I assume this will mean that the Pope will be painted as a socialist.

Francis, moreover, launched a broadside against former President Ronald Reagan’s signature economic theory, which continues to serve as conservative Republican dogma.

Of course, he’s in the Vatican, so he’s insulated from the US political issue. But I’m always re-examining what “separation of church and state” means. (And so is Dustbury.) I will make the case that being a good Christian – in my definition, obviously – could be, may be perceived as a political statement. If a Catholic priest were to echo Francis’ complaint about the rich-poor divide, perhaps by calling for raising the minimum wage, that might be safe territory. But if he were to name names, such as calling out the late 40th US President, that might well be crossing the line to partisan political talk that could theoretically get one’s tax-exempt status yanked.

Certainly promoting, or denouncing a political party or candidate can be a treacherous path, whereas, say, praying for the President and Congress and the federal courts to do good and just actions is OK. Calling for the closing of the wage-productivity gap is OK, but calling out the politicians who created the system, not so much.

It was weird watching Peggy Noonan on ABC News’ This Week with George Stephanopoulos this past Sunday. She was SO pleased by the new pope, who was bringing back some of the disaffected Catholics, even though he was directly dissing her former employer and mentor, Ronald Reagan, who she clearly adores (present tense). It’s enough to give other denominations a case of pope envy.

Francis still stubbornly traditional positions on women’s ordination and other issues notwithstanding, I’m liking this Pope; the fact that his position is considered radical by some tells how far from Christ’s teaching some of the church has become.
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Bill O’Reilly speaks on behalf of Jesus about the scourge of Food Stamps

No, the US is NOT closing the Vatican embassy.

Constitutional allies

2013 marks the 100th anniversaries of 16th and 17th Amendments.

It’s Constitution Day!

Earlier in the year, I was inclined to agree with Jon Stewart of The Daily Show that most of the Constitution seems to be under attack, except that the Second Amendment right to bear arms seemed to be sacrosanct. For instance, the Supreme Court has chipped away at the Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

Worse, it felt that only a relative handful of people were concerned. That has visibly changed, and the opposition to governmental overreach is bipartisan.

Item from Newsmax:

“The American Civil Liberties Union is joining tea party activists in opposing the use of armed drones and other counterterrorism operations to kill suspected terrorists, even American citizens.

“A recently surfaced Justice Department memo revealed that drones can strike against a wider range of threats, with less evidence, than previously believed.

“Both the ACLU and tea party groups cite the Fifth Amendment, which says that Americans are guaranteed due process of law under the Constitution and that the classified program circumvents that right.

Item from Newsmax:

“Stopwatching.us has gathered more than a quarter of a million signatures, including the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute and the conservative FreedomWorks and Restore America’s Voice.
Most of the selected signatories on the page are from more liberal groups, such as the Daily Kos, MoveOn.org, Green Peace, and Occupy Wall Street NYC.”

Now President Obama has decided to get Congress’s input in our Syria policy, consistent with the legislative body’s Constitutional war making authority. The Tonight Show’s Jay Leno recently quipped: “And if that works there’s talk of bringing back the REST of the Constitution!”

The Constitution is not “left” or “right”, people have started to have figured out.

In a book review, Jaquandor pondered: “Do I believe in the Constitution? I suppose so, in that I believe that we have a government that is structured according to the provisions contained within the Constitution’s pages. And that’s about all that I believe about it. I don’t believe that there is anything especially sacred about the Constitution, and I don’t believe that the Constitution represents some kind of moment when we rose to greatness. In truth, the Constitution is a muddled mess of a document, and the government it creates isn’t so much a brilliantly constructed Machine of Democracy as a hodge-podge, ramshackle mess of compromises with difficulties exacerbated by some really poor writing.”

2013 marks the 100th anniversaries of the 16th and 17th Amendments. The 16th, which allowed for a federal income tax, is almost universally despised, not just because it levies taxes, but because the tax code has become so cumbersome that one needs accountants and lawyers to fully exploit the loopholes that other accountants and lawyers have inserted into it.

The 17th Amendment calls for the direct election of US Senators, which previously had been selected by state legislatures. Seems like a no-brainer, but there is a cadre that continues to call for its repeal. Here’s why.

Yassin Aref: a matter of (in)justice

The evidence shows that as early as December 2002, the FBI thought Yassin Aref was really an Al Queda agent named Mohammed Yasin, using a pseudonym. The real Yassin, who was missing two finger, was killed in Gaza in 2010.

Yassin_Aref_and_daughter — picture from the projectsalam.org webpage

It was local front-page news, of course, back in 2006: two Muslims convicted of material support for TERRORISM, in Albany, New York! But even a casual reading of the news reports running up to the conviction of Yassin Aref, an Albany iman, and Mohammed Hossain, a pizzeria owner, didn’t add up. The clips of them with the FBI “informant” did NOT indicate the hate-filled speech I was told to expect.

Read about Yassin Aref’s arrest, conviction, and incarceration in this 2011 article for New York magazine. It discusses the government’s “controversial policy of preemptive prosecution—taking down those thought to possibly become terrorists in the future.”

Now Aref’s lawyers will file papers this month (July 2013) asking that the conviction be overturned or for a new trial, in something called a 2255 motion.

From the press release from Project Salam: “Aref discovered significant new evidence about his case as a result of an FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request he made in 2011.” The prosecution had it, the trial judge and appeals judge saw it, but the defense team did not. Incidentally, the defense tried and failed, to get this information earlier.

“The evidence shows that as early as December 2002, the FBI thought Aref was really an Al Queda agent named Mohammed Yasin,” using a pseudonym. The real Yassin, who was missing two-finger, was killed in Gaza in 2010. Aref writes, “I am still alive and have all my fingers so I cannot be Mohammed Yassin.”

The FOIA documents were heavily redacted, but it’s reasonable to believe that the trial judge was given classified information that misidentified Aref as Al Queda member Yasin.

So my friend Lynne Jackson is on a walk from Albany to Binghamton, a distance of 133 miles (214 km), to bring attention to this case, as she brings petitions to Judge Thomas McAvoy, as I noted here; I attended the kickoff event on July 12. She can still get more names on the online petition until July 23. If, after reading the materials, you are so moved, please sign it.

Ultimately, though, the case is about more than Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain, who likely just got caught up in the FBI’s zeal. It’s about: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.” In other words, it’s about the 6th Amendment to the Constitution. The withholding of these documents that hold secret, and evidently false, information, is unconstitutional. THAT is the crime here.

ARA: The way my mind works

The hardest Presidents to remember were Taylor, Fillmore and Pierce, which sounds like a law firm

CHRIS: Ooo, what does the infinity symbol symbolize?

Gee, I thought it was a sidewards eight.

Good on you with the presidents’ thing. The three presidents in one year has happened twice and three in two years but more than one year happened once (by my count using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States), none of which I knew before the discussion came up.

Three in one year was 1841 and 1881, that’s correct. Hadn’t thought about three in two years, but that would be 1849-1850, with Polk, Taylor and Fillmore.

Which brings me to my next question: how do you learn so many random things? Did you, for example, set out to memorize all the presidents and the years? Or does your brain do that “naturally”?

After minutes of self-psychoanalysis, this is what I’ve concluded

1) As a child, I had the foolish notion that should know all the knowable things in the universe.

2) To that end, I used to read encyclopedias – the Americana as a child – dictionaries, and especially the World Almanac, which I have received for Christmas almost every year since I was nine or ten.

3) Realizing at some point that “all the knowable things in the universe” a) was impossible to know and b) was not interesting to me, I tended to concentrate on things like sports (Willie Mays hit .211 in his last season, with the New York Mets), and American history and politics.

4) My specific interest in Presidents, and the Constitution, now that I think about it, probably came from the trauma of the assassination of JFK. “Oh, no, what happens now?” Oh, they have a contingency plan for that! (I’m not sure I could have told you we HAD a Vice-President on November 21, 1963, when I was 10 and a half, let alone that Lyndon Johnson was that guy.)

5) Even more specifically, when JFK was killed, there were all these coincidences with Lincoln that showed up in the newspaper – oh, I used to read the newspaper even then:
a) Lincoln was elected in 1860, JFK in 1960
b) both had Vice-Presidents named Johnson
c) Lincoln reportedly had a secretary named Kennedy, and Kennedy a secretary named Lincoln (I never confirmed that, BTW)

6) This got me thinking about all those previous “accidental Presidents,” starting with Tyler, then Fillmore, A. Johnson, Arthur, T. Roosevelt, Coolidge, and Truman. So it was a small step to get all their dates in order. The hardest ones to remember were Taylor, Fillmore and Pierce, which sounds like a law firm. My daughter tests me regularly with weird stuff like “Who’s the 27th President?” I don’t know, but I remember Cleveland was the 22nd AND the 24th, so I get to Taft soon enough.

7) It seemed a natural progression to start reading the Constitution. (Sidebar: I got to talk to another Chinese delegation at work on the 5th of July. I just happened to come across a box of booklets with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, that I found while sorting things in the attic, so I gave them copies. I also gave a copy to a guy on the bus I know in the context of what the Supreme Court’s June decision on the Defense of Marriage Act did, and did not do.)

8) Of course, the interpretation of the Constitution came from the Supreme Court, and in the 1960s, the Court was dealing with a lot of significant issues involving freedom of the press, the rights of defendants in criminal trials, and civil rights. I could not have cited, e.g. New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) or Gideon v. Wainwright (1962) or Loving v. Virginia (1967), but I believe I was more aware of their implication than most of my classmates at the time. (Hey, speaking of Taft, which I did a couple of paragraphs back, did you know he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? Or that he’s the guy pictured?)

9) Conversely, there are plenty of things I DON’T know, starting with the makes and models of automobiles. I recognized a ’66 Ford Mustang recently, but in general, cars have two doors or four and are cars or those larger things (SUVs, minivans). All midsize silver-gray cars look the same to me.

R is for Roger, redux

I’d been a fan of Roger Moore since I watched him as Beau Maverick on the television show Maverick.

As I’ve undoubtedly noted, the name Roger comes from the Germanic roots meaning spear bearer, specifically “famous with the spear.”

When you think of the first name Roger, who are the first people you think of? (I mean besides me, of course.) That was the question in this segment of the TV show Family Feud; I’m sorry it is incomplete.

Here’s a list of celebrities whose first names are Roger. The ones that immediately came to mind are some I mentioned three-and-a-half years ago when I last did R is for Roger, plus these that I inexplicably left off:

Roger Clemens – in 24 seasons with the Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, New York Yankees, and Houston Astros, he won the Cy Young as the best pitcher in his baseball league a record seven times and pitched a perfect game in 1994. He would have been a lock for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013 except for allegations of him using performance-enhancing drugs.

Roger Federer – the tennis player from Switzerland had spent 237 consecutive, and at this writing, 302 total weeks at number 1 in the ranking and has won 17 Grand Slam singles titles. He’s considered by many to be the greatest player of all time.

Roger Staubach – in an 11-season career, all with the Dallas Cowboys, the quarterback out of the Naval Academy had a Hall of Fame career. I wasn’t much a Cowboys fan, since they were/are rivals with my New York Giants; nevertheless, I always liked him personally.

Sir Roger Moore – I’d been a fan since I watched him as Beau Maverick on the television show Maverick, then as Simon Templar in the TV series The Saint. But, of course, he’s best known as Bond, James Bond, in seven movies. See his other credits.

Roger Waters – he was a founder member of the rock band Pink Floyd, serving as bassist, vocalist, and principal songwriter. In the 1970s and 1980s, the album Dark Side of the Moon spent years on the charts; Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall were other hit albums. He has been performing The Wall all over the world without his former bandmates.

Roger B. Taney – he was the fifth Chief Justice of the United States (1836-1864), and the first Roman Catholic to sit on the Supreme Court. While he dealt with many other cases, I know him for just one: writing the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), that ruled that black people, who were considered inferior at the time the US Constitution was written, could not be considered citizens of the United States, whether slave or free.

Roger Williams – the theologian who left England, only to knock heads (figuratively) with the Puritans, and eventually founded the state of Rhode Island as a place of religious tolerance.

Roger Rabbit – he is the frantic, neurotic title cartoon character of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The film also starred the live human Bob Hoskins, and Roger’s animated human wife Jessica, who is not bad; she’s just drawn that way.
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My review of the late Roger Ebert’s autobiography.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12