May 29, 2010
Religious terrorists kidnapped the First Amendment while it was visiting Meadville, Mississippi, last week.
Local resident’s expressed support for the kidnappers.
The teacher whose job was on the block for leading prayers in violation of federal law protecting students from school-imposed religion, was hired back on a technicality: There was no formal, written warning to her that leading prayers is against the law (though it’s in every teacher training program).
The teacher, Alice Hawley, promised to continue to lead prayers in class, in violation of the law.
The newspaper did not ask whether she will follow any laws in her classroom.
On the other hand, one might take some hope that a teacher who flagrantly flouts the law in this case makes the path clear for Texas teachers to flout the standards voted in by the Texas State Soviet of Education, who would nominally be colleagues-in-crucifying to Ms. Hawley. If you can’t fire a teacher for violating the Constitution and rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, certainly you can’t fire a teacher for teaching history instead of Don McLeroy’s claim that the U.S. Constitution says the federal government can dictate religion to us.
Mississippi: Fighting for its ranking among U.S. states, in educational achievement. (Last place)
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Classroom management, First Amendment, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Religious Freedom, Separation of church and state, Teachers, Teaching, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: Classroom Prayer, Education, First Amendment, Mississippi, Politics, Separation of church and state, U.S. Constitution | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
May 26, 2010
What devilry gets into a tiny few teachers to make them think they alone are immune from the First Amendment?
In a public classroom, teachers are the government. They may not lead prayers, not even if all the students consent.
Down in Meadville, Mississippi, a Franklin County High School teacher, Alice Hawley, lost her teaching contract because she led daily prayers in her classes.
She agreed to stop the illegal practice, and has been invited back.
I understand fans on Facebook have come unglued. I haven’t found that link.
Probably still under copyright - Herblock in the Washington Post, June 18, 1963 (school prayer)
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Posted by Ed Darrell
May 2, 2010
What about that impeachment trial, eh? Planning to watch it?
Your best bet might be C-SPAN, but I wouldn’t wager the mortgage were I you.
Impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson in the U.S. Senate, 1868; from Harper's Weekly, April 11, 1868 - public domain
Federal Judge Thomas Porteous of New Orleans got four articles of impeachment approved against him by the U.S. House of Representatives on March 10. The first article got a nearly unanimous vote — who says the House is divided? — 412 to 0. Three other articles got similar margins, 410-0, 416-0, and 423-0.
Unless you live in New Orleans or have a strange fascination for that great newspaper, The New Orleans Times-Picayune, you probably heard nothing about this great Constitutional drama. If you get the Times-Picayune, you’ve had good coverage of the issue so far.
Under its own special rules of impeachment, the Senate appointed a committee led by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, which will hold the actual trial and report results to the full Senate for action. Sen. McCaskill said she expects the trial to begin in early August, and that the report to the full Senate could come as soon as September.
While news media and bloggers chase ghosts and hoaxes, real work continues in Washington, D.C. You just don’t hear much about it.
You likely have not heard of Judge Proteous’s troubles, though they are long-standing, because the issue was a local, Louisiana and New Orleans affair. Heaven knows New Orleans has had its share of other stories to knock off the front pages the ethical lapses of a sitting federal judge who was once a promising attorney.
Should you have heard? How can we judge? Should we not be concerned when a relatively important story is not only bumped to the back pages of newspapers, but bumped completely out of them, and off the radar of people who need to be informed about how well our government works?
My alert to this story came through a back-door route. On the list-serv for AP Government, someone asked who presides at the impeachment trial of the Chief Justice — remember, the Constitution spells out that the Chief Justice is the presiding officer in the impeachment of the President or Vice President. My memory is that the Senate rules on impeachments, and there is a committee that effectively presides, and that the impeachment of a Vice President or President merits special attention because the Vice President is the official, Constitutionally-mentioned presiding officer. We can’t have the vice president presiding at the trial of himself or herself, nor of the president. Looking up impeachment procedures, I stumbled across the pending impeachment of Judge Porteous. I don’t think it has appeared in our local newspaper, The Dallas Morning News.
Other judges have been impeached. Here in Texas, within the past three years, we had a federal judge impeached, Samuel Kent. You’d think Texas media would be sensitive to such stories. (Kent resigned before the trial could begin.)
I perceive that media are ignoring several important areas of federal governing, not necessarily intentionally, but instead by being distracted by nonentity stories or stories that just don’t deserve the inflated coverage they get. Among undercovered areas are the environment, energy research, higher education, foreign aid, management of public lands and justice, including indictments, trials and convictions. A vast gray hole where should be the news of Judge Porteous’s pending impeachment is just one symptom.
Several news outlets carried stories:
More:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
March 18, 2010
From a post many weeks ago, “Speaking of Texas education policy,” made more salient by events of the past month:
from Funnyjunk
This is a troubling piece of humor. From Funnyjunk.
- “America. A country where people believe the moon landing is fake, but wrestling is real.”
And now we can add even more captions:
- A country where state curriculum officials go to churches that warn against belief in ghosts, but who believe Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin came back from the grave to wrestle the quill from Jefferson and write the Declaration of Independence.
[Heh. Wouldn’t you love to see Aquinas and Calvin in the same room, trying to come to agreement on anything?]
- A country with Barack Obama as president and where women’s basketball is a joy to watch during March Madness thanks to the the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title IX, but Cynthia Dunbar believes the Civil Rights Act itself was a mistake.
- A country where Barbara McClintock did the research that showed how evolution works and won her a Nobel, but where Texans deny that a woman should do such work, and deny evolution.
- A capitalist nation where Jack Kilby invented the printed circuit and had a good life, but where the Texas SSOE thinks “capitalism” is a dirty word.
(No, ma’am, I couldn’t make that up. They did it. They took out the word “capitalism” because they say those “liberal economists” like Milton Friedman can’t be trusted. Seriously. No, really. Go look it up.)
- Home of Thomas Jefferson, whose words in the Declaration of Independence so sting tyrants and dictators that today, in the most repressive nations, even oppressive systems must pretend to follow Jefferson — hence, the “Peoples Republic of Korea,” “the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” “Peoples Republic of China,” and the provisions of the old Soviet Union’s Constitution that “guaranteed” freedom of speech and freedom of religion; but where Thomas Jefferson is held in contempt, and John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas claimed as the authors of American freedom. [I wonder what the Society of the Cincinnati have to say about that?]
- Where Mark Twain’s profound, greatest American novel Huckleberry Finn made clear the case against racism and oppression of former slaves, but where school kids don’t read it because their misguided parents think it’s racist.
- A nation where Cynthia Dunbar thinks Thomas Jefferson gets too much credit, but Barack Obama is a foreign terrorist
- A nation where conservatives complain that the Supreme Court should never look at foreign laws for advice, wisdom, or precedent, but believe that Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican friar from Italy, and John Calvin, a French dissident who fled to Switzerland, pulled a religious coup d’etat and is infamous for executing people who disagreed with his religious views, wrote the Declaration of Independence.
I’ll wager there are more, more annoying, more inaccurate statements from the Texas SSOE members in the Texas Education Follies, which will make much briefer complaints and better bumper stickers.
Other posts at the Bathtub you should read, mostly featuring Ms. Dunbar:
Also:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
March 14, 2010
James Madison joined the world on March 16, 1751. Tuesday is the 259th anniversary of his birth.
James Madison University, appropriately, made hoopla during the whole week in 2009. What about this year?
Exhibit: Creating the United States”
David Edwin (1776–1841). James Madison, President of the United States. Engraving after painting by Thomas Sully. Philadelphia: W.H. Morgan, ca.1809–1817. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (107.01.00)
The Culpepper, Virginia, Star-Exponent, said there will be celebrations at Montpelier, Madison’s mountaintop home a short distance from Charlottesville.
James Madison’s Orange County home offers free admission all day Tuesday in honor of the fourth president’s 259th birthday.
Born 1751 at Port Conway in King George while on a visit to his grandmother, Madison was raised at Montpelier, the oldest of 12 children. He is buried on the grounds of his lifelong home in the family cemetery, site of a special ceremony in honor of his birthday March 16 at 1:30 p.m.
Former Deputy Secretary of Education Eugene Hickock will deliver remarks at the cemetery along with Quantico Marine Corps Base Chief of Staff Col. Thompson Gerke, who will lay a wreath on the fourth president’s grave on behalf of President Barack Obama. Numerous other groups will also honor Madison by placing wreaths on his grave Tuesday.
The U.S. Marine Corps has a long-standing tradition of attending the annual birthday ceremony because of Madison’s connection to the naval force’s founding. As Secretary of State under Thomas Jefferson, Madison recommended sending a squadron of naval ships to fight pirates off the coast of Africa, ultimately leading to their demise by 1805.
As president, Madison again called on the Marines to lead the nation during the War of 1812.
Nice of the Marines to show. Nice of President Obama to send a wreath. Maybe we can understand why Republicans wish to avoid any celebration of Madison.
Resources:
- Calendar of events from Montpelier
- Information about the celebration from the State of Virginia travel office; “Montpelier is the lifelong home of James Madison, Father of the Constitution, architect of the Bill of Rights, and president of the United States. Now that the home’s recent $25 million architectural restoration is complete, visitors can see the progress of “A Presidential Detective Story: Rediscovering the Furnishings and Décor of James and Dolley Madison” through daily guided tours. They can also participate in hands-on activities, and archaeology; stroll the grounds; and take in the many galleries and other attractions on the 2,650-acre estate. To learn more, visit http://www.montpelier.org. Date/Hours: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 (9:00 AM-4:00 PM”
- Steven Waldman’s lament in the Wall Street Journal last year about the lack of respect Madison gets; Waldman overstates Madison’s role in religious freedom barely. Waldman’s right. We should pay more attention to Madison.
- Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub post from last year, featuring the National Guard’s poster honoring National Guardsman Col. James Madison of the Virginia Militia
- My essay on the importance of Madison in America’s founding, “James Madison: Go-to Guy”
- More from the Bathtub: “Meet James Madison”
- MFB post with links to Founders Online
- The Newseum and the First Amendment Center celebrate the 12th annual Freedom of Information Day on March 15, at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.; seminar from 8:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.; “What has become of Freedom of Information?”
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Posted by Ed Darrell
August 17, 2009
August 17, 1790, found U.S. President George Washington traveling the country, in Newport, Rhode Island.
Washington met with “the Hebrew Congregation” (Jewish group), and congregation leader (Rabbi?) Moses Seixas presented Washington with an address extolling Washington’s virtues, and the virtues of the new nation. Seixas noted past persecutions of Jews, and signalled a hopeful note:
Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free citizens, we now (with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events) behold a government erected by the Majesty of the People–a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance, but generously affording to All liberty of conscience and immunities of Citizenship, deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language, equal parts of the great governmental machine.
George Washington's reply to the Newport, RI, "Hebrew congregation," August 17, 1790 - Library of Congress image
President Washington responded with what may be regarded as his most powerful statement in support of religious freedom in the U.S. — and this was prior to the ratification of the First Amendment:
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it was the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily, the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
Below the fold, more history of the events and religious freedom, from the Library of Congress.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
July 23, 2009
Embedding the video from NBC escapes me — but go here to see NBC’s four-minute report on the Obama birth certificate crazies.
Here’s the full video of the BCOs going crazy at a Congressman’s town meeting.
It’s really a form of mass hysteria, isn’t it?
For months the birthers, or Birth Certificate Obsessed (BCOs), have pleaded for mainstream media to take a look at this issue. NBC did just that.
Is it any surprise that this morning the crazies say “NBC lied?”
BCOs fell hard to the hoax about Obama not being eligible, and now they deny all evidence that they fell for a hoax.
BCOs/birthers? Can we have our country back, now that you’re done?
Other notes:
Be sure to see earlier material here at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
Here’s a large dose of facts, including David Maraniss’s article in the Washington Post about Obama’s early life. Note that it describes details that would be impossible to fake, were the story not accurate:
- “Though Obama had to leave to find himself, it is Hawaii that made his rise possible.”
- Occidental College online FAQ about Obama and his records
- Occidental Magazine profile of Illinois’s U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama, Fall 2004, “Center Stage”
“Obama comes into his second race for national office with some impressive credentials, ones he uses sparingly on the stump. He was a good student at Occidental (where President Richard Gilman nominated him for a Truman Scholarship during his sophomore year) and he bloomed as a community leader while at Columbia, where he worked for an outreach program in Harlem, an extension of CCNY, City College of New York. That led to a paying job when he graduated, and he spent several years there working for community colleges, until he decided that civil rights law was his future and enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1988.
There, with a fiery background in organizing, he really hit his stride. He became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review in 1990. It was also the first time he was publicly called “too white,” a charge he would face later in Chicago, as he named mainly whites to positions with the Review. The charge would recur a decade later when he took on Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther and popular Chicago congressman, where he went down to a humiliating defeat. “I got spanked good,” he told the press at the time, and he learned.
- “Fired Up, Ready to Go,” story in Occidental Magazine, Winter 2008, on Occidental students working in the Obama campaign for the Iowa caucuses
- Boston Globe video on Obama at Occidental College
- Occidental College list of significant stories on the young Obama:
Boston Globe, Aug. 25, 2008
U.S. News, Aug. 22, 2008
Times of India, Aug. 19, 2008
Chicago Sun-Times, Aug. 18, 2008
Daily Times, Aug. 16, 2008
Bloomberg, June 7, 2008
USA Today, June 3, 2008
Please share good information:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
March 19, 2009
Any Texas student who had hoped to get out of the one-minute silence exercise suffered a defeat on St. Patrick’s Day. A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sustained a Texas federal court’s ruling that the state-mandated moment of silence is legal.
Edith Brown Clement wrote the decision for the panel, in Croft vs. Texas (the link is to a .pdf of the decision).
David and Shannon Croft, as parents and next friends of their three minor children (collectively, the “Crofts”), bring suit against the governor of the state of Texas, Rick Perry (“Perry”), arguing that Texas Education Code § 25.082(d) is an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Perry, holding that § 25.082(d) had a secular legislative purpose and was not an establishment of religion. For the following reasons, we affirm.
* * * * * *
Conclusion
The Crofts have standing to challenge the 2003 Amendments. But the Amendments are constitutional and satisfy all three prongs of the Lemon analysis. There is no excessive entanglement, and the primary effect of the Amendments is not to advance religion. The most difficult prong—for this and for moment of silence statutes generally—is legislative purpose. But our review of legislative history is deferential, and such deference leads to an adequate secular purpose in this case. While we cannot allow a “sham” legislative purpose, we should generally defer to the stated legislative intent. Here, that intent was to promote patriotism and allow for a moment of quiet contemplation. These are valid secular purposes, and are not outweighed by limited legislative history showing that some legislators may have been motivated by religion. Because the 2003 Amendments survive the Lemon test, they are not an unconstitutional establishment of religion, and the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED
We covered the original trial court decision here at the Bathtub.
Not much news coverage of the story, not so much as I would have thought (many Texas schools are on break this week). No firm word on whether the Crofts will appeal further. An Illinois case went the other way in January — enough conflict to get the Supreme Court involved? Difficult to say. The Illinois Legislature is working to undo the federal court decision, in Illinois.
Would it be a good case to cover in government? What do you think?
What should the students meditate on? A suggestion from the comments at the Dallas Morning News blogsite:
“May we please have a moment of science, for those poor souls that cannot understand evolution as God’s scientific method.”
Joseph Cassles
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Posted by Ed Darrell
March 16, 2009
Col. James Madison of the Virginia Militia, Citizen Soldier – National Guard image
James Madison was born on March 16, 1751 — date depending on which calendar you use.
Madison was one of our nation’s top two legislating presidents, on a par with Lyndon Johnson. The essential ally for the creation of America, he is known as the Father of the Constitution for his work to shepherd that compact into existence. A great ally of George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe, and sometimes nemesis of some of these men, Madison campaigned for freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of the press his entire life.
Madison was delegate to the Virginia assembly, and wrote freedom of religion into the Virginia Bill of Rights. He wrote the Memorial and Remonstrance defending religious freedom and opposing re-establishment of religion in Virgina, led the assembly to pass instead Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, helped settle the dispute over fishing and navigation in the Chesapeake, between Virginia and Maryland. In league with George Washington, he convinced the Continental Congress to try to fix the Articles of Confederation with a convention in Philadelphia in 1787, then he hijacked the convention to write a new charter instead. He wrote most of the Federalist Papers, with Alexander Hamilton, after John Jay was attacked and beaten by a mob. He campaigned and won a seat in the First Congress, defeating the popular James Monroe who then became his fast friend. Madison proposed and was chief sponsor of the 12 amendments to the Constitution that we now know as the Bill of Rights — two of the amendments did not win approval in 1791, but one of those did win approval in 1992 — so Madison wrote the first ten and the twenty-seventh amendments to the Constitution.
Electratig has a fine commentary on Madison and his birthday here, explaining the calendar shenanigans.
Go read the First Amendment, read a newspaper, and watch some news; say a prayer, and thank the stars and God for James Madison.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
March 15, 2009
The photos don’t show the beauty, nor do they capture the wonderful quiet that accompanied it.
It snowed briefly and lightly at George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon Friday morning.
Snow at the Quarters, Mount Vernon, Virginia, March 13, 2009 - copyright Ed Darrell
Al fresco dining would have been cool, and wet.
Snow on tables, The Quarters, Mount Vernon, Virginia - copyright 2009 by Ed Darrell
Inside, a few minutes later, the conversation was hot. We opened with a session the night before, and post-dinner meeting with William B. Allen, the editor of a recent collection of George Washington’s papers. Allen is suave, with a perfectly-modulated baritone voice. He doesn’t just speak in properly punctuated, grammatically correct paragraphs. He speaks in chapters that summarize volumes.
Among other telling gems, Allen noted that Washington, who is often regarded as an intellectual inferior to Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Hamilton and others, because he “wrote so little,” has had his collected published papers now pass the 100 volume mark. Reading the letters in full, as we did much of at this meeting, reveals Gen. Washington as little else can.
You should read yourself some Washington.
Tip of the old scrub brush, again, to the Bill of Rights Institute and Liberty Fund, sponsors and organizers of this event.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 14, 2009
One more time, I gotta say that the lesson plans from the Bill of Rights Institute on inauguration is top notch. I’ve shared it around our department, and several people are downloading it, planning to put the stuff to use. It’s a good, solid lesson plan, it looks like something that will engage students nicely, and it’s on a topic that could not possibly be more timely.
But the free download goes away tonight! Go get the thing NOW!
The Bill of Rights Institute includes these lesson plans as a no-cost download with Being an American: Exploring the Ideals that Unite Us, Second Edition. That book is cheap, too — just $19.95 — so you can pay a bit, and still get this great lesson plan, plus a whole bunch of other good stuff.
But I’m an even bigger cheapskate, and I want this stuff to be ready to use on January 21, when our kids start the next semester. The hours are ticking away.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
October 10, 2008
This is where we are: Marylanders who exercised their rights guaranteed under the First Amendment, peacefully gathering to call for changes in law, were labeled “terrorists” by the Maryland State Police, and reported to federal databases that way.
Do you wonder why you get searched every time you fly? Remember that letter you wrote to your Congressman complaining about high taxes? Remember that phone conversation with your brother-in-law over whether either of you would serve in the military today, without the threat of a draft?
Remember that time you taught the Cub Scouts how to fold the flag?
All of these things used to thought of as patriotic participation in government by citizens. But not any more.
All of these things are protected under the First Amendment. But if you use those First Amendment rights, and you’re in Maryland, watch out.
The abuses of the system were discovered and exposed by the Maryland attorney general.
And if you don’t live in Maryland? That doesn’t make you safe. It only means your state’s attorney general has not investigated what the cops are doing.
Your vote on November 4 is important.
You can also vote in a poll at the Baltimore Sun, asking whether such surveillance is okay. (No, it’s not.)
Below the fold: The New York Times editorial on the issue. Also, the editorial from the Baltimore Sun.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
September 17, 2008
Are you ready for it, teachers?
2008: I wasn’t ready to blog about it today. Texas requires one day of instruction on the Constitution in every social studies class. In government today, it happened to fit. We discussed the Constitution earlier in world history, and we will return to it at various points through the year.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
August 18, 2008
Ouch! Almost missed it: Today is the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, on August 18, 1920. Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify, pushing the total to three-fourths of the 48 states. (12 more states ratified later, including North Carolina in 1971, and Mississippi in 1984.)
The Amendment reads:
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 sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
One of the better moves our nation ever made, in my opinion. Abigail Adams was right; John should have listened to her.
Abigail Adams who urged the vote for women in the late 18th century; portrait by Benjamin Blythe, 1766 (Wikimedia and Millsaps College)
And “Vox Day” and Ann Coulter are both idiots.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Reed Cartwright at De Rerum Natura.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
July 31, 2008
August 1, 2006
*
In his Autobiography Jefferson recounted the 1786 passage of the law he proposed in 1779 to secure religious freedom in Virginia, the Statute for Religious Freedom:
The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read, “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo, and the Infidel of every denomination.
Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Modern Library 1993 edition, pp. 45 and 46.
* Image is a photo of detail from a painting of Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, courtesy of the New York Historical Society by way of the Library of Congress.
[Encore post from August 1, 2006]
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 