HypoCruzy

GOP presidential hopeful, Ted Cruz, posted a charming Cruz family Christmas video commercial last week featuring his lovely wife and two young daughters, aged five and seven, gathered together on the living room sofa next to the Christmas tree to hear Daddy read his partisan politicalized versions of classic Christmas stories.

“T'was the night before the shutdown and all through the house, not a bill was stirring, not even to fund a mouse,” he read. Next it was: “How Obamacare Stole Christmas,” followed by “Rudolph the Underemployed Reindeer,” and “Frosty, the Speaker of the House.” “Look! The Speaker is melting before Congress,” read Daddy.

Then it was the Lois Lerner masterpiece: “Auditing St. Nick.” “I will audit him here and there. I will audit him anywhere,” he read, followed by “The Grinch Who Lost Her Emails,” “I know just what I will do, she said with a snicker; I’ll use my own server, and no one will be the wiser,” the little 7-year-old Cruz daughter read dramatically about the Grinch.

Finally, they held up a book entitled: “The Senator Who Saved Christmas,” featuring Ted Cruz himself declaring that he approved of this message.  The video was obviously scripted, the message entirely political, and Cruz’s little daughters were plainly being used as political props, totally oblivious as to what was really going on.

It was nauseating.

So why should anyone be surprised that The Washington Post published this cartoon depicting Senator Cruz dressed in a Santa suit turning the crank of an organ grinder attached to two little trained monkeys on leashes. 

The very next day, poor Senator Cruz was pitifully whining about how his family should be totally off limits in such matters. Washington Post editor, Fred Hiatt agreed, and yanked the cartoon from the website, saying: “It’s generally been the policy of our editorial section to leave children out of it. I failed to look at this cartoon before it was published. I understand why Ann thought an exception to the policy was warranted in this case, but I do not agree.”

Meanwhile, Senator Cruz cynically decided to capitalize on the controversy by sending a campaign fundraising email to supporters. It included the offending cartoon along with the subject line: "They attacked my children… I'm sickened...I knew I'd be facing attacks from day one of my campaign, but I never expected anything like this… "This shows you EXACTLY how desperate the liberal media is to attack and destroy me (and my family) by any means necessary… This is an emergency -- all hands on deck. Click here to make an instant, emergency contribution and help me fight back."

 

Later, he posted on his Twitter site his own version of the offending cartoon depicting Hillary Clinton walking two dogs marked with the logos for The New York Times and The Washington Post.

In short, Cruz made the most out of the political Christmas gift he received and proved in the process that he doesn’t give a damn about his little daughters being injected into his political campaign. After all, it was Cruz himself who deliberately injected them unwittingly into the fray.

I call that a perfect example of political HypoCruzy. 

Courtroom Conscription

A Washington County Ohio judge wants to punish 55 people for the “crime” of failure to report for compulsory jury service as ordered by the court. He plans to slap them all with court fees and/or possibly arrest and incarceration for violating his order.

This scenario happens every day in jurisdictions all over America. A Court clerk randomly selects a list of people from the community for potential jury service. The judge signs an order to summon those on the list to appear before the court at a designated time and place and subject themselves to compulsory service on a jury panel.

The judge claims the power to compel or excuse jury service at his whim. If compelled to serve on a case, the juror may be forced to cooperate for days, weeks, or even months at a time as the case may require. That juror is obliged to leave his or her normal life behind and show up every day for service. In some instances the judge may even sequester them in a hotel and order them not to carry on their usual activities and contacts until their service is concluded.

There’s a big problem with this in my opinion: It’s unconstitutional.

The Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution specifically provides that: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

What could possibly be more plain and unambiguous as that? If a person has not been duly convicted of a crime for which punishment is prescribed by law, no judge has the power to impose involuntary servitude upon that person in the form of compulsory jury service – period.

Leaving that aside however; as a lawyer, the last thing I want for my client in a jury trial is a juror sitting in judgment on the case who doesn’t want to be there. The first question I always ask a jury panel is whether anyone present would rather not serve. If anyone raises their hand I always ask the judge to excuse that person for cause. That’s because a juror serving involuntarily is likely to be an unfair juror – a juror who doesn’t care.

That’s why jury service must me voluntary. Compulsory jury service is involuntary servitude – unconstitutional courtroom conscription.

Patriotic propaganda

When it comes to cultural propaganda the U.S. government puts the former German Nazi regime to shame. Your government is interested in telling you what to think and it is willing to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to accomplish that goal.

In spite of the First Amendment Establishment Clause, for example, your government has long been on a mission to culturally promote the concept of a government God. That’s why, since 1954, public school children are subjected to the daily ritual of reciting in unison the Pledge of Allegiance to our so-called “nation under God.” It’s why our national motto was changed from “E Pluribus Unum” to “In God We Trust,” and why that government God propaganda appears today on every coin and bank note of U.S. currency.   

Now the U.S. government Department of Defense is spending $millions of our taxpayer dollars to professional sports teams for the purpose of honoring American soldiers. Your government is actually paying private organizations to propagandize the military. It amounts to “paid patriotism.” 

"When events take place on the field that anyone assumes ... is done out of the goodness of their heart, and find out that it is being paid for by the taxpayer, it kind of cheapens everything," explains Arizona Republican senator Jeff Flake. "It's just not right." 

According to a congressional report, since 2012, government contracts with the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and National Hockey League worth $6.8 million have included “displays of paid patriotism,” including paying for ceremonial first pitches, puck drops and color guard performances, among other events. 

The New York Jets franchise received $20,000 to honor “Hometown Heroes.” the Milwaukee Brewers got $49,000 to honor the Wisconsin National Guard and to sponsor Sunday performances of “God Bless America.” The Arizona Diamondbacks raked in $40,000 for on-field oath ceremonies and color-guard demonstrations.

Altogether, the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, and MLS, took in $53 million in taxpayer dollars for “paid patriotism” marketing and advertising contracts. These professional sports teams weren’t sponsoring and promoting the U.S. military out of a sense of personal patriotism. No, the government had to pay them to promote its pathetic program of patriotic propaganda.

Rubio would trash Equal Protection Clause

Just as I begin to like a Republican presidential candidate, in this case, Marco Rubio, he finds a way to let me down. I simply do not respect any politician who thinks that constitutional equal protection of the law is not a fundamental right enjoyed by all. That is exactly what Rubio thinks and he has promised if elected president to appoint Supreme Court Justices who think so too.

In this day and age, who seriously believes that the constitution allows white people to pass laws mandating segregation of the races in public schools? What politician in his right mind today would promise to bring racial segregation and Jim Crow laws back? Yet that is precisely what social conservatives like Marco Rubio once believed. That was during the dark ages of U.S. history before the civil rights movement.

It appears that Mr. Rubio, and many, if not most, of the other GOP social conservatives, have failed to learn the American history lesson that constitutional equal protection of the law is supposed to protect us all. They’ve not given up in their bigoted crusade to deny equal marriage rights to gays. Marco Rubio in particular doesn’t think that battle is quite over just yet despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of Americans would disagree.

"It is the current law. I don't believe any case law is settled law," says Rubio "Any future Supreme Court can change it…  And ultimately, I will appoint Supreme Court justices that will interpret the Constitution as originally constructed,"

In short, Marco Rubio promises to appoint SCTOUS justices who will deny equal protection of the law to gays. It’s the same as promising to appoint justices who would validate racial segregation and Jim Crow laws under the Constitution. After all, that’s how the Constitution was once interpreted.

"I don't think the current Constitution gives the federal government the power to regulate marriage," Rubio declared. "What is wrong is that the Supreme Court has found this hidden constitutional right that 200 years of jurisprudence had not discovered and basically overturned the will of the voters in Florida, where over 60 percent passed a constitutional amendment that defined marriage in the state constitution as the union of one man and one woman."

That “hidden constitutional right” is the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause, the same constitutional provision which SCOTUS applied in Brown v Board of Education to put an end to racial discrimination in the public schools. The federal government isn’t regulating marriage. It is simply applying the Fourteenth Amendment constitutional rights to gays. When did Florida voters acquire the power to deny that constitutional right to a minority by vote?

Marco Rubio, like so many other GOP social conservative candidates, has his head in the sand. In his foolish effort to pander to the ultra-right wing evangelical wing of his party before the Iowa caucuses, by trashing the Equal Protection Clause, he’s willing to damage the chances of the ultimate GOP nominee to prevail in the general election.

I’ve said it many times before and it needs saying again: This is the kind of religiously oriented political nonsense that scares the daylights out of the average American voter. This is why the GOP will have a hard time beating Hilary Clinton – a proven criminal and incompetent -- in the general election.

One doesn’t easily get elected President of the United States of America by trashing the Equal Protection clause. 

How to defeat ISIS: Girl Power?

Did you know that those nasty ISIS jihadist fighters who are causing so much terrorist trouble in the world today are deathly afraid of girls? That’s right. They think that if they die in battle at the hands of a girl, they’ll go directly to hell, and consequently won’t get the promised celestial reward of 72 virgins in paradise.

Now I don’t know for sure if this is true or not but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were considering what I know about religious superstitions. Supposing it is true, wouldn’t that open the door to a perfect solution to the problem of defeating ISIS?

Girl power!

Apparently, there are a number of Koranic verses promising 72 virgins in paradise to jihadists who die in battle. This fact has been used successfully by radical Islamic imams and terrorist groups as an ISIS recruiting tool. That belief is responsible for their willingness to so readily sacrifice themselves, to blow themselves up with suicide bombs, or participate in terrorist attacks in which they know for certain they’ll die.

They think they’ll be rewarded. If they didn’t think they’d be rewarded in paradise then perhaps they wouldn’t throw their miserable lives away. There would be no jihad; no ISIS; the Islamic terrorism threat would disappear.  Faced with the prospect of being killed by a girl, they’ll run for the hills.

So why not use this irrational religious nonsense as a powerful weapon against them? They’re afraid of girls. They think they’ll go to paradise if killed by a man, but to hell if killed by a girl.  All we have to do is convince them that they’re likely to die by the hands of a girl.  

We can capitalize on this. We can put out a message to the enemy jihadist’s that we’re arming the girls and the girls are coming for them. The U.S., for example, should use female pilots on bombing missions against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. When they hit the targets and kill ISIS leaders we should broadcast the fact that they were killed by girls. Even if the pilot who scored a hit wasn’t a woman we should assert that it was.

Let’s put willing women on the front lines in combat missions and let the enemy know that the girls are gunning for them. That’s what the Kurdish fighters are doing successfully right now. “We are being trained to use snipers, Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades,” explains one Kurdish female fighter. There are many female battalions in the fight and it scares the hell out of the ISIS fighters.  

So... how to defeat ISIS: Girl Power!

Nickels and dimes

Last month it was $43 million dollars flushed down the government Department of Defense (DOD) “spendthrifting” toilet like worn out play money for a single ordinary gas station in Afghanistan. The same gas station could have been built for no more than $500,000. The U.S. government spends taxpayer money like you and I spend nickels and dimes.

This month the news is that the same DOD stiffed hapless U.S. taxpayers with another $150 million for the construction and maintenance in Afghanistan of a few posh villas staffed with private security and all the amenities for just a “handful” of government employees working in Afghanistan. 

That same “handful” of just 5 to 10 individuals could easily have been housed at the U.S. embassy or on several other secure U.S. military bases for next to nothing.

"We are concerned that this may be another example of U.S. government officials not looking out for American taxpayers' dollars,” a special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR), admitted in what must be the greatest understatement of the millennia.

"If [they] had instead lived at DOD facilities in Afghanistan, where housing, security, and food service are routinely provided at little or no extra charge to DOD organizations, it appears the taxpayers would have saved tens of millions of dollars."

The special inspector says he has received "numerous allegations" of criminal activity in this matter from former employees as well as "current and former uniformed officers who worked over there, other agencies and contractors."  

One former employee described the villas as hangouts for senior DOD officials who traveled to Afghanistan, "simply to accumulate flying miles… They just came in and didn’t do anything but hang out in the villa.”

Of course, as I explained last month, this kind of outrage doesn’t happen without corruption and criminal activity at the highest to the lowest levels of government. All of the money is tucked neatly away in the pockets and bank accounts of individual criminals. The money was stolen. 

The criminals have become filthy rich overnight. Yet none of them will be identifies. No one will be fired. No one will go to jail, and the loot will never be returned. All will soon be forgotten until the next outrage; and the next; it never ends.

That’s because, in the corrupted minds of government spender’s it’s only nickels and dimes.

First Amendment Offensive

There are lots of people these days who call themselves Americans that would not hesitate to punish their fellow Americans for the “crime” of exercising “offensive speech.” Sadly, the numbers of such free speech haters are growing.  To them the First Amendment is offensive.

A recent the Pew Research Center poll reveals, for example, that 40 percent of younger Americans aged 18-34 believe that government ought to censor any speech deemed "offensive to minorities."  The younger they are the more likely they think that the First Amendment should be trashed. As many as 24 percent of Americans of my own generation -- aged 51-69 -- think that government censorship of speech is a great idea.  

These individuals simply do not realize how fortunate they are to live in a nation where fundamental freedoms are guaranteed by a constitution. Either they have never learned or have forgotten the history of the United States of America; the Declaration of Independence; the Revolutionary War; the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. If nothing else, those essential lessons should be taught in public schools from kindergarten through high school.

The lessons are no longer taught. Too many young people in America today have never even heard of the First Amendment, much less knowing why it is important to their lives. They don’t understand that, if their government may censor speech it deems offensive, then that same government might censor their own right to speak.

A First Amendment offensive is sweeping college campuses today. Students are demanding the implementation of speech codes which would punish any and all expression from others with which they don’t agree. Any speech with which they don’t agree is deemed “offensive speech” that should be banned and subject to punishment.

They seek to destroy the careers of campus administrators and professors who are deemed “insensitive” to their sensibilities. They protest and demand that controversial speakers they don’t agree with be muzzled or banned altogether from addressing the student body.  They think they have the right to regulate opinions on campus.

This is not the United States of America I grew up in. This is not the land of the free that I learned about in public school. This is not the university atmosphere I’m familiar with. No, this is the ugly face of statism, tyranny and First Amendment offensive by the mindless mob.  

Scapegoating Snowden

James Woolsey, a former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), blames the recent terror attacks in Paris that killed 129 people on Edward Snowden, the hero who blew the whistle on systematic government constitutional violations involving unlawful spying on all Americans.

“I think the blood of a lot of these French young people is on his hands,” says Woolsey. Snowden should be convicted of treason for leaking confidential government information in 2013, he argues. “It’s still a capital crime, and I would give him the death sentence, and I would prefer to see him hanged by the neck until he’s dead, rather than merely electrocuted,”

In short, according to Woolsey, there would have been no terror attacks in Paris or elsewhere if only Edward Snowden had kept his mouth shut about unconstitutional and criminal activities in the U.S. government intelligence agencies.

Snowden is the scapegoat who ought to be sacrificed to atone for the sins of the U.S. government. “Unauthorized disclosures such as the Snowden leaks have made it much more difficult to track down terrorists, “explains current CIA Director John Brennan.

“It remains our view that Mr. Snowden is accused of leaking classified information and that he faces felony charges here in the United States,” White House spokesman Carney said last week.

Meanwhile, U.S. federal District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, observed in a preliminary ruling that: "I cannot imagine a more 'indiscriminate' and 'arbitrary invasion' than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval.”

The reality of this matter is that agents, bureaucrats and employees of the U.S. government are the culprits who have and are committing treason against the American people. They are the traitors who have violated their solemn oaths to uphold the Constitution. They are the felons who should be convicted for their crimes and hanged by their necks until dead.

If President George W. Bush authorized the constitutional violations, he should be convicted of treason and hanged by his neck until dead. If Woolsey, Brennan, James Clapper, or any other government operative carried out those constitutional violations, they should all likewise be convicted of treason and hanged.

Edward Snowden deserves a first class ticket to New York City paid for by the U.S. government. He should enjoy the honor of a ticker tape parade down Broadway and a memorial for his selfless service to Americans on the Mall in Washington D.C., next to the Jefferson memorial. 

The time has come for the U.S. government to stop scapegoating our hero, Edward Snowden

Extortion EPA

When it comes to the efficacy and efficiency of organized crime in America, particularly the extortion racket, the United States government has the Mafia beat hands down. No U.S. government agency is better at extortion than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Wyoming rancher, Andy Johnson, found this out the hard way after he excavated a small stock pond on his property to provide better access to water for his livestock. First he went to the trouble of obtaining all the proper permits from his state government before starting the project. “We went through all the hoops that the state of Wyoming required, and I'm proud of what we built," Johnson explains.

So he built his pond. But then the EPA found out about it. They told Johnson that he was violating the federal Clean Water. Act. And they didn’t give a damn about all his State of Wyoming permits. He was ordered to restore his property within 30 days to the condition it was in before he excavated the pond.

Johnson balked. There was no way he could return his land to the original condition within 30 days. It was “physically impossible,” he claims. The EPA imposed $37,000 per day in fines. Now the government extortionists insist that he owes $16 million and that sum is growing ever higher by the day.

Mind you, there was no due process of law afforded here. The EPA is simply engaged in taking a man’s private property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Johnson has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court claiming that the agency extortionists are overstepping their authority.

Good luck, Mr. Johnson.

Let’s hope you can put stop to this outrageous example of extortion EPA.

The GOP has cancer

“Fear of God is absolutely vital…any president who doesn't begin every day on his knees isn't fit to be commander-in-chief of this nation," declared GOP presidential candidate, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, at the National Religious Liberties Conference in Iowa last week.

The irony of this abysmally ignorant nonsense is that, according to Mr. Cruz, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, as well as the remaining six of the first nine presidents of the United States of America, were unfit as commanders-in-chief of this nation. Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the most revered of all Republican presidents, was unfit to hold that office, Mr. Cruz is arguing.

That’s because none of these great Americans were Christians, much less believers in any kind of a personal God who intervenes into the lives of humans. At least 20 of our U.S presidents, and probably many more than that if the truth be told, were not inclined to begin each day in office groveling on their knees in prayer as Mr. Cruz and his ilk would have them do.

The National Religious Liberties Conference is an ultra-right-wing religious extremist organization, reminiscent of the KKK. They actually believe and proclaim openly that their religious liberties should include the right to murder homosexuals and others for the crime of violating God’s commandments in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Ted Cruz was the third Republican presidential candidate to appear at the event. Bobby Jindal and Mike Huckabee were the other two. All were introduced to the rabid crowd by Pastor Kevin Swanson, who fired them up by declaring that "the sin of homosexuality ... is worthy of death." They should be ashamed of themselves.

“Jesus Christ is king of the President of the United States whether he will admit it or not and that president should submit to His rule and to His law," Swanson screamed. Cruz, Huckabee and Jindal all heartily agreed. No doubt Dr. Ben Carson, and several other GOP candidates who weren’t there, would also readily agree.

Dr. Phillip Kayser, another foaming at the mouth Christian extremist, distributed his ubiquitous pamphlet at the conference calling for the death penalty for all gay people. That pamphlet also states that other offenses deserving of capital punishment include breaking the Sabbath, blasphemy, cursing God, publicly sacrificing to other gods and apostasy.

As long as a belief is a religious one, no one in the government should be able to place any sort of limit on what that religious person chooses to do, maintained Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.  “No Earthly court can change the definition of marriage, no federal government; no ACLU should be able to take away our religious liberty rights; we were given those by God almighty.”

In “secular” America, the radical culture according to Jezebel, is leading to total chaos…witchcraft… drunkenness… homosexuality… cannibalism… vampirism… all are increasingly acceptable, Pastor Swanson raged.

Vampirism??? These are the ravings of a mad man.

Ted Cruz’s father, Christian Pastor Rafael Cruz, frequently featured on the campaign trail with his son, spoke recently to a crowd in Oklahoma against “atheism and secular humanism” claiming that such views are two of the main ills facing society. People who subscribe to such beliefs, said the senior Cruz, should be rounded up and placed in special ‘camps’ to keep them separated from the rest of America.

Cruz warned that atheists are in danger of corrupting the youth of America and called for action before America is overrun. The solution for the “problem of the Godless is creation of a series of Heathen Zones -- fenced-in camps located mostly in Northern California and Vermont.. Any children spawned in these camps would be removed at birth so they would not be drawn into secular humanism via their birth-mother’s tainted breast milk.”

“It’s a free country,” Pastor papa Cruz admits. “If these people need to practice their holy rites of atheism, they can do so, as long as they are in clearly-marked encampments far away from the rest of us… While they’re in their Heathen Zones, they’re free to dance naked around the fire, brand the mark of the Devil on their flesh or whatever else they want to do… Of course, if they step one foot outside the electrified fence we shoot them between the eyes. Two or three times, just to be sure.”

In Cruz’s insanely twisted consciousness: “America is the only country on the face of the earth that was founded on the word of God. Don’t believe this garbage from Obama that this is not a Christian nation, this country was founded by Christians; was founded as a Christian nation… The separation of Church and State is a myth.”

This is the ugly underbelly, if not the true face, of the Republican Party today. This is the primary reason why the average American voter is scared to death of Republicans. Fully 20% of Americans today identify with no religion. They are part of the fastest growing minority in the nation. There are more secular non-believers now than there are Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, or any other minority.

The Democrat Party welcomes and claims all of these minorities as their own – especially the non-religious -- while the Republican Party insults them and casts them out of the tent. Religious extremists are killing the Republican Party. The Republican Party – the Party of Lincoln, free markets, capitalism, fiscal and personal responsibility and smaller government -- is dying.

The GOP has cancer.

Government gay bashing in Michigan

Religious extremist gay bashing is alive and well today in Michigan where Republican governor, Rick Snyder, signed three bills into law allowing private adoption agencies the right to refuse adoptions to same-sex couples solely because of religion.

You see, some religious bigots, and the government statists who support them, think that they enjoy the right, not only to freely practice their religion, but also to deny others their constitutional rights to equal protection of the law. These people would much rather see a needy child warehoused in an orphanage than be adopted by loving parents who don’t meet their religious specifications.

Michigan has the fifth largest population of kids in the U.S. waiting to be adopted. The First Amendment doesn’t give religious people the right to deny gays or any other minority, including innocent children who happen to be orphans, their civil rights. If it did then there would be no need to seek laws attempting to circumvent others rights upon ostensible religious grounds.

Religious adoption agencies might be private but they must be licensed by the state which has the responsibility to protect the rights and welfare of children. Allowing a faith based agency to deny civil rights based on religion amounts to state sanctioned religious discrimination which is unconstitutional.

Gays enjoy the same constitutional rights as everyone else, including the right to adopt children so long as they demonstrate the same qualifications to be adoptive parents as straights. I therefore predict that these bigoted laws will be struck down. There should be no more government gay bashing in Michigan.

Public school cultural values police

Public school government agents in America, i.e. school boards, teachers and administrators, think that they have a perfect right to compel parents and their children by law to participate in forced educational programs, and in the process, dictate their private personal cultural values.

These American public school cultural values police, in blatant violation of the First Amendment, claim the right to indoctrinate kids in all manner of appearance, thought and behavior, even so much as to how to dress and style their hair.

Kobe Sanden, age 7, a second grade pupil at Arrowhead Elementary School in Santa Clara, Utah, was punished by the culture police for showing up in class with what they perceived as the “wrong haircut.” Mohawk haircuts violate the dress code, his mother was advised. A teacher deemed the haircut “disruptive.”

“We had the students that weren’t used to it,” school principal, Susan Harrah, explained. “They had called that out. So the teacher brought the student to my attention.” For that reason she told the child’s mother to come pick him up; he wasn’t welcome at school because of his haircut. 

But that’s not the end of it. It gets worse. As it happens, Kobe Sanden is a so-called “Native American.” His mother is a member of the Kaibab Band of Paiutes Indians. His father belongs to the Seneca Tribe. They complanied to the principal that Mohawk haircuts are part of their Native American culture.

The principal responded by demanding she be provided with written documentation supporting their claim. Seneca tribal leaders submitted a letter stating that it is common for Seneca boys to wear a Mohawk because as a way to share who they are after years of discrimination and oppression.  

On this basis, the boy was allowed to return to class with his Mohawk haircut. If he were Irish-American, African-American, or any other typical American boy, he’d still be barred from the classroom today for his chosen hairstyle.

Despite that fact, principal Harrah called the resolution a “positive experience.” “We believe in everyone’s cultural diversity, their beliefs. So we want to honor [that] and so that’s why we let the Mohawk stay and sent him back to class,” she declared. Well then, I guess that Mohawk haircut isn’t so disruptive after all.

A positive experience; is that why she demanded proof of his cultural beliefs? Americans these days have to prove in writing that they’re entitled to their cultural values? This cultural police woman might say she believes in cultural diversity, but there is one thing of which I’m certain she does not believe in – the First Amendment.

Government Spendthrifting

In private sector America today there are gas stations with convenience stores on just about every commercial district street corner. We have tens of thousands of gas stations. Mom and pop proprietors own gas stations. Oil companies have gas stations. Wal-Mart has gas stations. Costco has gas stations.  

Do you think in your wildest imagination that any of these thousands of proprietors ever paid $43 million dollars for a single gas station? Would Costco pay that much for a gas station? Of course not; that’s ridiculous. Surely there is no single gas station anywhere in America, much less on the entire planet Earth, worth $43 million dollars, right?

Well, not exactly. Sure, there is no one in the private sector who would ever pay that much for one gas station. No private citizen or corporation would ever be that reckless, that irresponsible or that downright stupid with their hard earned cash. But when it comes to the United States government, it’s a vastly different story.

The U.S. government spends taxpayer cash like it is play money. I call it government spendthrifting. No one in charge of any U.S government department is thrifty.  They’re all spendthrifts. Money is simply no object to government politicians, agents, bureaucrats and employees. They’ve been known to spend $800 for a hammer; $10,000 for a toilet seat. It happens all the time.  After all, it’s not their money. It doesn’t come out of their pockets. So why should they care?

They don’t care. The U.S. Department of Defense, for example, has paid $43 million taxpayer dollars for one small gas station in Afghanistan. It doesn’t even come with a convenience store. And now they don’t want to talk about it. Just why it cost so much and where all the money went is still a big mystery. The government is blocking access to the documents and witnesses that could reveal the truth.

Of course, all that money didn’t just disappear down an Afghan rat hole. All of it is tucked neatly away in individual pockets, cookie jars and bank accounts. This kind of thing doesn’t just happen without the presence of criminal activity and corruption. It’s not a simple matter of negligence or even gross negligence.  

It’s a crime. There are criminals involved. There is corruption and graft.  The money was stolen. It’s an outrage. There are unknown Afghan officials who were given much of this money. There are without a doubt U.S. officials and other dodgy individuals with pockets full of stolen money involved.

People connected with this tiny gas station in Afghanistan have become filthy rich overnight. We’ll probably never know who they are. No one will be fired. No one will go to jail. The money won’t ever be returned. All will soon be forgotten until the next outrage; and the next; and the next. It never ends.

This is clearly not an isolated incident by any means. It happens over and over again when the government spends our money. The President, the Congress and the rest of the politicians complain but never do anything about it. It just goes on and on. It will continue to happen until the United States of America is finally bankrupt.

That is the only logical end result with government spendthrifting. 

Martyrdom at Bremerton High

Here we go again.

Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for  “exercising her religion” on the job, has a new soul mate in the person of Joe Kennedy, the Bremerton High School football coach recently suspended for “exercising his religion” out on the 50 yard line after games.

These poor pitiful self styled martyrs just can’t understand why the First Amendment Establishment Clause should prohibit them from promoting their own private religious beliefs in their capacity as government agents.

Kim Davis thought she had a perfect right to deny marriage licenses to gays because it’s against her religion. She was willing to go to jail for it. Joe Kennedy thinks he has a perfect right as a high school football coach to lead his students and players in Christian prayers out on the middle of the 50 yard line after games because it’s his religion. He’s apparently willing to lose his job over it.

Well, he should lose his job over it. He’s no martyr. He’s a scofflaw. Just like with Kim Davis, he’s deliberately violating the law while trying to justify it by claiming he has the right to exercise his religious beliefs as part of his job duties.

Kennedy is not satisfied to simply exercise his religious beliefs as is his constitutional right. Clearly, he can pray to his God any time he likes, even on the job, as long as he discretely keeps it to himself. But this guy wants to make a public spectacle of his religious beliefs while he’s on the job. He wants to draw attention to himself.

That’s why he goes out to the middle of the 50 yard line to kneel down in prayer for all to see. He wants everyone at the game to know exactly what he’s doing. He wants others to join him in his religious exercise. He wants the players and the students to be part of it right out there in the middle of the field.

Suppose an atheist coach wanted to wear a t-shirt at every game proclaiming that: “God is imaginary.” How far do you think he would get with that? 

When the school district superintendent told him he’s not allowed to conduct himself in that manner in his capacity as coach at football games: “You violated those directives by engaging in overt, public and demonstrative religious conduct while still on duty as an assistant coach,”  he simply ignored his boss and went right on doing it. So the district suspended Kennedy. 

His response is to hire lawyers to sue for alleged hostility towards his Christianity. The public school is hostile toward his religion because it won’t let him proselytize it while on the job, he reasons. You see, he fancies himself a martyr, and feels a compelling need to draw attention to himself, just like Kim Davis did. 

That’s why he showed up as a spectator at the very next football game so that he could make a spectacle of himself once again by praying with the crowd in the stands. Of course, that’s exactly what he should have been doing all along as a private citizen, instead of exposing his school to legal liability for endorsing religion in violation of the First Amendment Establishment Clause.

"While the district appreciates Kennedy’s many positive contributions to the [Bremerton] football program, Kennedy’s conduct poses a genuine risk that the district will be liable for violating the federal and state constitutional rights of students or others," reads a statement on the district’s web site.

"I’m willing to take this as far as it goes to defend the rights of the Constitution to the end," a defiant coach Kennedy says. "If you believe in something, you stand up."

So there you have it: Martyrdom at Bremerton High