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The 14th and 15th Amendments: As relevant today as yesteryear

January 4, 2022 by Stephen Altschuler Leave a Comment

The 14th Amendment authorizes the federal government to punish states that violated or abridged their citizens’ right to vote by proportionally reducing the states’ representation in Congress, and mandates that anyone who “engaged in insurrection” against the United States could not hold civil, military or elected office (without the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate).

The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, also part of the Bill of Rights, reads as follows:

Section 1
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2
The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Excuse my lack of legal expertise, but it seems these amendments, passed in 1868 and 1870 respectively, accomplished several things to protect our democracy which are still in place. First, they would seem to make the voter suppression laws enacted by 19 GOP-dominated state legislatures illegal and unconstitutional. If that is true, then why is the Department of Justice (DOJ), formed in 1870 to fight voter suppression and the newly formed Ku Klux Klan, not actively pursuing injunctions against these states to stop enactment of these scurrilous laws until their legality can be more thoroughly questioned in court? Why indeed! This would perhaps delay the implementation of these laws until after the 2022 election thus making that election more fair and free to all instead of it now seriously more favoring a GOP strategy resulting in a return to GOP majorities in both houses of Congress.

But Attorney General Merrick Garland, to date, has taken action only against Texas, and no other state. President Joe Biden has also been lax in more actively pushing for the passage of two federal voting rights bills that will help the DOJ to make its case against these GOP state legislatures that are trying to bring back a time that existed before the Civil War when Black folks were denied the same rights as White folks. Mr. Biden, who I think has done a great job otherwise, needs to borrow a page from Lyndon Johnson’s play book when a President could get what he wanted by making quid pro quo deals and twisting arms when appropriate. Even Sen. Mitch McConnell changed the filibuster to get his ultra-conservative Trump Supreme Court in place. Certainly President Biden can do the same to save our democracy from a Republican avalanche of illegal Trump Big Lie-inspired voter suppression laws.

If both he and Garland don’t do what needs to be done, then they are helping the GOP take several giant steps backwards (and certainly not bothering to say, “May I?”) in the fight to make equal all citizens of this country, regardless of race, creed, religion, or political persuasion. It takes us back to when Reconstruction, which did bring equality to all, was abandoned by another President who, after Lincoln’s murder by a Southern white supremacist, paved the way for racists and their allies to rise again, and continue rising again for another 150 years.

That lands us right here in 2022, believe it or not, still fighting for a basic right of democracy: one citizen–regardless of race or creed–one vote, allowing that this nation “shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” as our beloved President Lincoln so eloquently put it.

The Republican Party, which once was the party of Lincoln, is now steeped in the lies of Donald Trump and his cronies. They are saturated with the idea that an endorsement from Trump will gain them election. But that endorsement may well be a figurative deal with the devil, and we all know where those deals often lead. So the answer to all this is that a coalition of voters needs to see the danger and rise up as Lincoln arose during a time of great risk to himself and country. That coalition needs to lean on their current legislators and push to end the filibuster and get those voting rights bills passed so Garland and Biden can do their work to save this democracy. That coalition needs to vote for Democrats at every level in 2022 and show the Trump GOP they cannot bully this country into submission and authoritarianism.

It would also seem to me that the 14th Amendment would effectively block Donald Trump from ever again running for any public office in America. He instigated an insurrection against our government, as the House Commission will soon show with undeniable evidence (and which I saw, along with many of us on TV, as vividly as some of us saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald in a Texas police basement in 1963 on national TV!). This probably won’t lock Teflon Don up, but, according to this Amendment to our Constitution, should conclusively prevent him from ever seeking public office again. I realize the amendment was aimed at Southern secessionists at the time, but it does not limit it to them, opening it up to any future insurrectionists like Trump.

That, dear readers, is all I have to say on these matters…at least for now. Thanks for your attention.

Filed Under: 2022 election, 2024 election, democracy, Donald Trump, Events, President Joe Biden, Uncategorized Tagged With: 14th Amendment, 15th Amendment, Democrats, GOP, Merrick Garland

Flim Flam Don and His Big Lies

June 6, 2021 by Stephen Altschuler Leave a Comment

What strikes me most about Trump is what he doesn’t say. For example, and perhaps mostly glaringly, he hasn’t said a word encouraging people to take the Covid vaccine. If he cared about the welfare of the people of this country and the world, he would be out on the hustings, shouting from the rooftops, to take the jab. But no, not a word from him on this vital subject. Why? All I can figure is that he doesn’t want President Biden to benefit from the end of the pandemic, a pandemic that he, Trump, perpetuated and accelerated through his ineptitude and narcissism. Another reason is that he doesn’t want to antagonize his followers who are against vaccines–like QAnon wackos, Christian evangelicals, white supremacists, and slavery and Jim Crow apologists.

The sad truth is that Trump doesn’t care. About Americans, about democracy, about the economy (except his own business), about immigrant families, about crime on the streets and hyper-availability of guns, about equal justice for all, about Blacks or Browns or Yellows or Reds, about Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Atheists, about scientists, scholars, educators. Nor does he care about valid, democratically-run elections, like the one he lost so decisively in November 2020.

By hanging on to the Big Lie, like a monkey hangs on to the grub of food in the trap hunters have set for them, Trump reveals an addiction that is bringing him further down a rabbit hole of destruction, and dragging along with him all his Republican minions who are duped by his lies.

The answer for those of us who see through his lies, is not to keep harping on Trump. He, himself, is a lost cause, and unresponsive to any criticism, sanctions, censures, even lawsuits at this point. His cult followers will merely brush aside any of those attempts at vilification and label him a martyr. No, the answer lies in the election of 2022, perhaps one of the most critical elections in the history of our democratic republic.

2022. It’s just around the corner. And the outcome will test the influence, if any, that Trump has on our electorate. Will Trump-loyal Republicans regain control of the House and/or the Senate? Or will the Democrats further solidify their hold on these Houses of Congress and make Joe Manchin irrelevant? And what of voting? Will Republican efforts to suppress the vote prove successful? Or will voters find a way around these scurrilous laws to vote enmass? Or will Republican laws actually reverse the results of elections they deem not in their interests, namely those that put Democrats in power?

It will all be laid out before us quite graphically, in the results of the 2022 election. And it’s all up to you and I, the voters. For despite the new Republican voter suppression laws, where there’s a will to vote, there’s a way to vote. So no matter what the obstacles, I deeply hope you will vote. And if the GOP tries to reverse the outcome of the election, I hope the courts will respond as they did when Trump tried to reverse the vote of the 2020 election, and prevent Republican-controlled states from doing so.

Otherwise, if either fails, you can kiss our democracy and the country we love goodbye!

Filed Under: democracy, Donald Trump, Events, Human nature Tagged With: 2022 election, Democrats, Joe Manchin, QAnon, Republicans, White supremacists

Trump is Threatening Our Democracy

November 14, 2020 by Stephen Altschuler 2 Comments

Trump is inciting his people to defy a legal vote, firing all who oppose him, ignoring the coronavirus, defaming Blacks Lives Matter, continuing to deny Joe Biden his rightful position as President-elect. I now believe, to add to my previous diagnosis of Bi-Polar disorder, that he may also be a narcissistic sociopath (this essentially combines two personality disorders), doing harm to our democracy and possibly planning a coup. He must be stopped. Joe Biden must do more than label Trump an embarrassment or demand he do something about Covid. He must take aggressive legal action to force Trump and his enablers to acknowledge his election defeat and approve the transition of power.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness… it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

He clarified there had to be justifiable cause to overthrow a corrupt government that was threatening our [Read more…] about Trump is Threatening Our Democracy

Filed Under: democracy, Donald Trump, Events, Human nature Tagged With: China, covid, Democrats, First Amendment, Hitler, Joe Biden, narcissistic sociopath, Thomas Jefferson

As with Trump, Twitter Must Go

May 26, 2020 by Stephen Altschuler 6 Comments

If Twitter persists in allowing citizen Trump to use its giant media forum as his personal venue for lies, misrepresentations, bullying, conspiracy theories, encouragement to break the law, instigation to violence, and fake news, then Twitter’s license to operate should be revoked. The first amendment allows freedom of speech, but not without condition. For the most obvious, you cannot yell “fire” in a crowded place if there is no fire. And Trump figuratively yells fire when there is no fire. He is therefore a menace to society. His morals and scruples are warped. He lies compulsively. He deceives. He distorts. He accuses. He demands. He threatens. He obfuscates. He bloviates. He bullies. He shames. He calls people names as a tween might in a junior high schoolyard at lunchtime.

Donald Trump is an embarrassment to this country. He has not made this country great again as he and his followers profess. Indeed, they fit the definition of a cult–a cult of narcissists–allowing the Narcissist in Chief free rein [Read more…] about As with Trump, Twitter Must Go

Filed Under: Donald Trump Tagged With: Bolsonaro, Brazil, China, City by the Bay, Democrats, Europe, FCC, pandemic, President Obama, SF, Twitter

A Letter to Donald Trump

April 16, 2020 by Stephen Altschuler Leave a Comment

Dear Donald John Trump, 

Please resign now as President and hand over the reins of your office to your veep Mike Pence. It makes sense. Polls indicate you will probably lose the next election by a considerable margin; your approval ratings are beginning to slip badly, the stock market is down; the economy is down and in recession, heading towards a depression; your business empire needs your full attention. And remember Nixon chose to resign to avoid the embarrassment of an impeachment conviction. You should resign, sir, if for no other reason than to avoid the embarrassment of a landslide defeat at the hands of the Democrats. Resignation will preserve your legacy at this point, avoiding any further smears. Think of it: you’ll have time to hone your golf game even more, build your businesses for enduring success, and be remembered as the President who did the right thing for America. With your grandchildren in tow, you can ease into older age, your memories as President and your reputation intact. 

So please Mr. President, resign and put elections and Coronavirus briefings and the media and the tanking economy behind you. It’s the right, and honorable ,thing to do.

Thank you, sir, for your attention.

written by Stephen Charles Altschuler

U.S. citizen

Vancouver WA

Filed Under: Donald Trump Tagged With: approval ratings, businesses, Coronavirus, Democrats, depression, Donald Trump, election, golf, media, Mike Pence, Nixon, polls, President, recession, the economy

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