Commentary: A Monsoon of Manure

I refuse to watch the impeachment trial as a matter of principle. To devote any attention to this charade would legitimize the corruption of our Constitution. Tuning in would be a tacit acceptance of the blizzard of BS that has buried the national discourse. At least since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, Democrats and their media allies have demanded that we view their smears and lies as high-minded pursuits of the truth. Consider:

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Growing Chorus of Lawmakers Join Effort to Prevent Packing Supreme Court

An organization dedicated to preserving the independence of the U.S. Supreme Court reports it has won several large victories in the past week.

Keep Nine said in a statement that Republican Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona has endorsed its work, making him the first governor to do so.

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Commentary: How to Restore Faith in the Constitution

In one of the most extraordinary passages of his most extraordinary book, C.S. Lewis, the 20th century’s greatest Christian apologist, wrote of Jesus Christ, that he was either the son of God, as he claimed, or a madman. In the Christmas season, believers take comfort in their faith and joyfully embrace the first alternative. 

The United States has a tradition of separating church and state, but there is a competing tradition, equally venerable, that our government is only fit for a religious people, one that understands there is a divine order to which humankind ought to conform, and that, as Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett once explained, it is our task to contribute to the building of the Kingdom of God.  

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Commentary: Reflections on the Bill of Rights

The deep divisions plaguing our country may find a remedy in the most unlikely of places: the Bill of Rights. Ratified 229 years ago on December 15, 1791, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution are known collectively as the Bill of Rights. There is little public commemoration of December 15, in contrast to the tradition of celebrating two famous dates in the history of the United States—the Fourth of July, the day that the Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776, and September 17, the day that the members of the Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787. Yet, of the three documents, the Bill of Rights is perhaps the one most invoked by citizens and advocates in everyday life.

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106 GOP Members File Amicus Brief in Texas SCOTUS Election Lawsuit

A total of 106 House Republicans on Thursday filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the plaintiffs in Texas v. Pennsylvania, et al, including Tennessee’s U.S. Representatives Mark Green, Tim Burchett, Chuck Fleischmann, David Kustoff, John Rose, with U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA-04) taking the lead.

U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07) tweeted, “100+ House Republicans and I have filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the Texas case. The election for the presidency of the United States is too important to not get right.”

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December 8 Deadline for Selection of Electors Does Not Apply to Disputed States, Amistad Project Says

In a white paper released Friday, The Amistad Project of the non-partisan Thomas More Society is arguing that the current Electoral College deadlines are both arbitrary and a direct impediment to states’ obligations to investigate disputed elections.

The research paper breaks down the history of Electoral College deadlines and makes clear that this election’s Dec. 8 and Dec. 14 deadlines for the selection of Electors, the assembly of the Electoral College, and the tallying of its votes, respectively, are not only elements of a 72-year old federal statute with no Constitutional basis, but are also actively preventing the states from fulfilling their constitutional — and ethical — obligation to hold free and fair elections. Experts believe that the primary basis for these dates was to provide enough time to affect the presidential transition of power, a concern which is obsolete in the age of internet and air travel.

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Minnesota, Virginia Congressmen Propose Constitutional Amendment to Limit Supreme Court Size at Nine Justices

U.S. Reps. Collin C. Peterson (D-MN-07) and Denver Riggleman (R-VA-05) said they want to make sure that neither political party can ever pack the Supreme Court.

In a bipartisan joint press release issued Thursday, the representatives said they introduced an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to permanently set the number of U.S. Supreme Court Justices at nine.

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Commentary: For the Sake of the Constitution, and the Country, Fill Ginsburg’s Seat Quickly

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Friday at the age of 87. Her passing was not unexpected. On the contrary, her steadily worsening condition over the past several years left her increasingly incapacitated. After Donald Trump’s election in 2016, many on the Left expressed dismay that she chose to stay on the court rather than resign and let President Obama nominate her replacement. 

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Harvard Poll Shows Voters Overwhelmingly United on Many Issues, But View Many Rights as Under Threat

Americans largely agree on rights and values that they deem fundamental to the United States, a Harvard University Carr Center poll shows, despite all-time high political polarization.

The survey shows that over 70% of Americans “have more in common with each other than people think” and that they favor an expansive view of rights beyond those in the Constitution. The poll also shows that most Americans believe those rights are under threat.

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Oregon Coronavirus Fund May Violate Constitution by Excluding Non-Black Applicants, Experts Say

A COVID-19 relief fund for African-Americans operated out of Portland, Ore., with federal tax dollars may run afoul of both the Constitution and 1964 Civil Rights Act if it excludes non-black applicants, legal experts warn.

The Oregon Cares Fund for Black Relief + Resiliency said it seeks to offer “economic relief for the Black community, who are among Oregon’s most vulnerable groups due to systemic divestment and disparities widened and exacerbated by COVID-19.” The program is administered by two local nonprofits, the Contingent and the Black United Fund of Oregon.

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Commentary: Where Did ‘Cancel Culture’ Begin?

Bari Weiss was not the first victim of “cancel culture,” and certainly she will not be the last, but her exit from the opinion pages of the New York Times has finally focused national attention on the steadily increasing toll of intellectual intolerance among the soi-disant progressive elite. Ms. Weiss’s public resignation letter, which described “constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views,” with her superiors at the newspaper evidently condoning this harassment, exposed a cult-like climate of ideological conformity at the Times. Because she is rather young — she was born in 1984, the year Ronald Reagan was reelected — Ms. Weiss is not old enough to remember when liberals posed as champions of free speech and open debate. Some of us are old enough to remember, however, and have a duty to teach young people how it was that liberalism slowly succumbed to totalitarianism.

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Lawyers Help Ohio Business Owners Organize Lawsuits Into Class Action to Take on DeWine’s Shutdown Regulations

Ohio business owners who are fed up with Gov. Mike DeWine’s ever-lasting shutdown regulations are joining their lawsuits together into a class action against the state.

Three lawyers are working together to help combine existing lawsuits and are looking for other owners whose livelihoods are being threatened by what they say are unconstitutional orders. The suit against the DeWine administration and other government agencies was filed in the Ohio Court of Common Pleas in Lake County.

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Dr. Simone Gold Commentary: We Do Not Consent

It is clear to me as a physician-lawyer that the disinformation about both Covid-19 and the Constitution has caused us to turn a medical issue into a legal crisis.

The scientific usefulness of a mask has been so aggressively overstated, and the foundational importance of the Constitution has been so aggressively understated, that we have normalized people screaming obscenities at each other while hiking.

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Eight Bars, Restaurants Sue Acton, DeWine Over ‘Constitutionally Vague’ Restrictions

A lawsuit has been filed against Ohio Health Director Dr. Amy Acton and Gov. Mike DeWine in Lake County Common Pleas Court over “constitutionally vague” restrictions on restaurants and bars, The News-Herald reported.

The case has been assigned to Lake County Common Pleas Court Judge John P. O’Donnell. The plaintiffs are eight bars and restaurants, all but one being located in Northeast Ohio.

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Commentary: The Unelected Parts of Government, Including the Military, Are Revolting Against the Electoral Control by the People

During the Iraq War, the insurgency spent a lot of its resources attacking infrastructure, particularly the electrical grid. This made life miserable for ordinary Iraqis.

That outcome seems to go against the logic of insurgency, where the center of gravity is the people’s allegiance. But making life uncertain and unbearable means that even if the insurgents cannot win, they ensure the regime cannot win either. The cultivation of chaos exposes the government as ineffective and ultimately removes its legitimacy.

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Commentary: Rep. Thomas Massie Defends the Constitution Again

As the Democrat-controlled US House of Representatives finally came back into session to appropriate another tranche of $484 billion in coronavirus economic relief, one principled limited government constitutional conservative stood up to ensure their was a quorum of the House present to conduct business and to ask for a roll call vote – Republican Rep. Thomas Massie (KY-4).

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Commentary: Constitution-Respecting Sheriffs Refuse to Enforce Lockdowns

Across the country governors, county commissioners and executives, and city and town officials have announced “lockdowns” or stay-at-home orders of dubious constitutional validity. The result of these orders is the bizarre situation in which jails are being emptied of criminals while individuals engaged in their ordinary business at appropriate social distance have been arrested for the crime of being outside their home.

One of the most high-profile examples of this inverted constitutional order happened in California, where a paddle boarder was arrested near the Malibu Pier for ignoring orders from lifeguards to get out of the water. CBS News Los Angeles reports the unidentified man spent 30 to 40 minutes paddling in the ocean waters off Malibu Beach after refusing to heed orders from L.A. County lifeguards to go ashore. LASD Harbor Patrol brought in a boat, at which point the paddleboarder voluntarily swam in and was taken into custody.

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Flashback: 152 Years Ago an Ohio Senator Stood One Vote Away From Becoming President During the Impeachment Trial of Andrew Johnson

U.S. Sen. Benjamin Wade of Ohio, the chamber’s president pro tempore, for a time stood one vote away from becoming president in the Senate’s impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson in the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.

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Commentary: Attorney General Barr is Right, the Left is Deconstructing the Constitution and the Presidency

Apparently now saying that Article II of the Federal Constitution’s vesting of executive power to the President was an unambiguous, broad grant of unitary executive authority to the President of the United States by the Framers of the Constitution, and arguing for preserving such separation of powers from encroachment, is an impeachable offense.

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Battleground State Report: Nancy Pelosi Continues to Divide the Country with Her Unconstitutional Impeachment Inquiry

On Friday’s Battleground State Report with Michael Patrick Leahy and Doug Kellett – a one-hour radio show from Star News Digital Media in the early stages of national weekend syndication roll out – with Kellett out of the studio, Leahy broke down the constitutional mechanics of a ‘legal’ impeachment process as they have played out historically.

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Religious Liberty Law Firm Advocates for Opening Cleveland City Council Meetings with Prayer

First Liberty Institute, a leading religious liberty law firm, recently sent a letter to members of the Cleveland City Council informing them that opening meetings with prayer doesn’t violate the U.S. Constitution.

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Husted, Yost and Others Honor Life of Second Amendment Warrior Ken Hanson

DELAWARE, Ohio — Second Amendment supporters from around Ohio and beyond gathered Saturday at Blackwing Shooting Center to celebrate and memorialize one of gun owners’ greatest allies and advocates – L. Kenneth (Ken) Hanson. Hanson, co-founder of Buckeye Firearms Association (BFA), passed away Sunday, August 4, 2019. He was 49 years old.

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Commentary: The One-Two Punch to Knock Out Electoral Democracy

by Michael S. Kochin   If you thought, or hoped, that the brave (or nobly self-interested) Democratic Governor of Nevada, Steve Sisolak had thwarted the push for a National Popular Vote by vetoing the bill, think again. On June 12, 2019, Oregon Democratic Governor Kate Brown signed it into law for her state.…

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Commentary: The American Founding’s High-Minded Purposes

by Edward J. Erler   James Madison is justly celebrated for his frequently stated opinion that “all power in just and free Government is derived from compact.” But Madison’s view is not endorsed by all purported champions of the founders. A recent article, “Our Unwritten Constitution: Orestes Brownson and the Foundation…

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Ohio’s Bob Latta Cosponsoring Constitutional Amendment to Ban ‘Desecration’ of American Flag

  Ohio Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH-05) is co-sponsoring a proposed Constitutional amendment in the U.S. House that would give Congress the “power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.” The resolution was reintroduced Friday (Flag Day) by Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR-03), with a companion bill…

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Commentary: The Rise of Administrative Law Over Legislative Law

by William Haupt III   “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” – Abraham Lincoln Administrative law is the procedure of creating laws by bureaucratic bodies in our municipal, state and…

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Commentary: Does the Constitution Mandate Universal Birthright Citizenship?

by Amy Swearer   Who is a United States citizen by birth? This question has increasingly received national attention, in large part because of President Donald Trump’s promise to “end birthright citizenship.” As I explain, however, in my recent Heritage Foundation legal memo titled “The Citizenship Clause’s Original Meaning and…

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Toledo Ballot Proposition Would Extend Legal Rights of Constitution to Inanimate Body of Water

Voters in Toledo, Ohio went to the polls Tuesday to decide the fate of a “Lake Erie Bill of Rights” ballot proposition, which would extend the legal rights of the Ohio Constitution to an inanimate object. The referendum is the result of a years-long effort to clean up Lake Erie…

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President Trump’s Ingenious Plan to Get the Supreme Court to Rule on the Constitutionality of Birthright Citizenship

by Dr. Carol M. Swain   On October 30, President Donald Trump announced plans to issue an executive order ending the practice of giving U.S. citizenship to children of illegal aliens. By taking this bold action, the President is poised to make history by forcing the U.S. Supreme Court to…

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Commentary: The Democratic Party’s Reckless Disregard for the Nation’s Institutions

by Jarrett Stepman   Sometimes progressives do a great job of becoming caricatures of themselves. The progressive worldview is marked by a tendency to embrace utopian dreams, and a general disregard for tried and true traditions and institutions. Ted Kennedy captured this instinct in 1968 when he said, quoting George…

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Despite the Media-Driven Rhetoric, the Constitution’s 14th Amendment Does Not Grant ‘Birthright Citizenship’

young children

by James D. Agresti   Michael Anton, a former national security official in the Trump administration, recently argued in a Washington Post op-ed that the current federal practice of granting citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants “is an absurdity—historically, constitutionally, philosophically and practically.” A number of media outlets have published fiery rebuttals declaring that…

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Commentary: Decisive Political Victory is the Only Way to End This Cold Civil War

Tennessee Star

by Ryan Williams   As even NeverTrump Republicans are coming around – grudgingly, and with caveats, of course – to recognizing the stakes in our ongoing domestic political fights, it is perhaps impolite to note: Some of us drew these conclusions quite a long time ago. The last two weeks of psychodrama in the…

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Commentary: Democrat Lynch Mob Shows We Have a Government of Fools, Not Laws

by Jeffery Rendall   After you’ve finished snickering at the notion consider the reason Trump’s so-called loyal opposition (a.k.a. Democrats and #NeverTrumpers) hate the outsider president so much – isn’t it because he’s so different from most other Republicans? From the beginning you could tell Trump not only didn’t want to…

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Walter Williams Commentary: Brett Kavanaugh’s Opponents Aren’t Really Against Him, They’re Against the Constitution

Brett Kavanaugh

by Walter E. Williams   One of the best statements of how the Framers saw the role of the federal government is found in Federalist Paper 45, written by James Madison, who is known as the “Father of the Constitution”: The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal…

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1851 Center for Constitutional Law Aims to Stop ‘Scam’ Tax Against Homeowners ‘Protecting Themselves’

alarm system

Cities throughout the U.S. have started charging fees for home-alarm systems, but one watchdog organization in Ohio is pushing back, saying the fees amount to an unconstitutional “double taxation,” and has filed a lawsuit seeking to have them stopped. The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law is suing the city of…

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Registration is Open for the 2019 Ohio Star Constitution Bee, Which Will Be Held on April 13

Constitution Bee April, 2018

  The 2019 Ohio Star Constitution Bee is open for registration!     If you have a secondary school-level student enrolled in a public or private school, or an accredited homeschool program, they are eligible to participate in this original, one-day event to be held Saturday, April 13, 2019. This…

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The Double Standard of Justice in the U.S. Is Risking the Collapse of the Entire System

Lady Justice

by Printus LeBlanc   The political world is waiting with bated breath for the outcome of Paul Manafort’s trial. The former one-time Trump campaign chairman is being prosecuted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for various tax and bank fraud crimes, most of which occurred over a decade ago. Manafort is also…

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Commentary: When Did It Become Okay to Disrespect the Culture, Traditions, and Values of America?

homes

by Jeffery Rendall   Wake up any particular morning and glance out the window. Do you notice anything different from the day before? Changes in weather or the seasons don’t count. Chances are you’ll see things appear pretty much the same – and if you’ve lived in one place long…

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