Tag: First Amendment

September rambling: Tohubohu

a dangerous assault on democratic oversight

Word of the Day: Tohubohu – A state of chaos; utter confusion.

Threatening Vulnerable People Is No Way to Mourn Someone Who Was Murdered. Those who had nothing to do with the violence against Charlie Kirk are being menaced—just like always.

Big Tech Data Centers Compound Decades of Environmental Racism in the South

Scholars’ group cites mass civilian killings, starvation, and official incitement as evidence, while Israel and the United States reject the genocide label.

Pentagon press clampdown sparks First Amendment alarm. Journalists and free press advocates warn that new restrictions requiring pre-approval of even unclassified information represent a dangerous assault on democratic oversight.

Robert Reich on FOTUS’ Calamitous Crypto Corruption

Cartoon: The road to fascism

FOTUS to U.N.: ‘Your Countries Are Going to Hell.’ Read his full address at the U.N. General Assembly. 

Elizabeth Daniel Vasquez lays out what she found about the degree to which every New Yorker is being tracked, the harms that tracking is already inflicting, and the reasons to fear that things might get much worse, here and across the nation.

Modern dogs now occupy roles historically reserved for close human relationships and often receive greater moral concern than people.

RFK Jr., HHS secretary, “is correct that reported autism rates have exploded in the last 30 years — they’ve increased roughly 60-fold — but he is dead wrong about the causes,” the psychiatrist Allen Frances writes in The Times Opinion. “I should know, because I am partly responsible for the explosion in rates.”

FOTUS Has ‘Strong Feelings’ About Autism; the Issue Is Personal

Rural Health Clinics Begin to Fall Under Crushing Weight of Big, Ugly Bill

Nanoplastics are not just in seafood; a new study finds small plastic particles penetrate crops

Potential Trouble for Retirees: A Wealth Adviser’s Guide to the OBBB’s Impact on Retirement

History

In October, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine will reach an extraordinary milestone: 1 trillion webpages preserved. Record a video answering the question: “Why is the Wayback Machine important to you?”

The last look at American poverty? New data shows 41% of Americans are poor or low-income, revealing deep racial and regional disparities ahead of sweeping federal cuts.

Netanyahu: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver 

Thieves Steal and Destroy Solid Silver Statue of Abraham Lincoln Created by Mount Rushmore Sculptor Gutzon Borglum

American Hindenburg -“the worst air disaster you’ve never heard of”

Jordan Klepper’s The Daily Show interview of John Fugelsang talking about his book Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds. There is a lovely George Harrison reference as well. 

10 of the Oldest Cities in the U.S.

Why Romania Excels in International Olympiads

Internet Archive Designated as a Federal Depository Library

The Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation Settlement Administrator has sent me $38.36 USD. I’m RICH!

John Masius,  St. Elsewhere, Emmy-winning writer, and Touched By An Angel creator, dies at 75

‘Jeopardy!’ Contestant Ben Scripps Dies at 52 After Losing Battle With Cancer

Baseball’s Davey Johnson (1943-2025)

Now I Know: Why The Dot Got Dashed

Jimmy Kimmel

The Death of Free Speech – Legal Eagle

The FCC: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

He is Back!

HCR

Heather Cox Richardson, about the first of her Letters from an American newsletter six years ago: “In that first letter where I warned of rising authoritarianism, I wrote: ‘So what do those of us who love American democracy do? Make noise. Take up oxygen…

“If you are tired from the last six years, you have earned the right to be.

“And yet you are still here, reading, commenting, protesting, articulating a new future for the nation. And I am proud to be among you.

“I write these letters because I love America. I am staunchly committed to the principle of human self-determination for people of all races, genders, abilities, and ethnicities: the idea that we all have the right to work to become whatever we wish. I believe that American democracy has the potential to be the form of government that comes closest to bringing that principle to reality. And I know that achieving that equality depends on a government shaped by fact-based debate rather than by extremist ideology and false narratives.”

MUSIC

Freedom of Speech – Marsh Family parody of “Under the Sea” from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”

Sonny Curtis, member of the Crickets who wrote the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” theme song, dies at 88; here he was on CBS Sunday Morning in 2022

Love Is All Around – Sonny Curtis; Mary Tyler Moore Show – Seasons 4-7 Intro & Theme

I Fought The Law – Bobby Fuller Four (1966), written by Sonny Curtis; I Fought The Law – the (post-Buddy Holly) Crickets (1959), featuring Curtis

Ouvertüre zum Lustspiel “Ein Morgen, ein Mittag, ein Abend in Wien” by Franz von Suppé

From – Bon Iver

Wuthering Heights score by Alfred Newman, composed for the 1939 film of the same book.

Makin’ Whoopee – Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks, September 9, 2025 – Radio Free Birdland #34

Need A Ride – Kathleen Edwards

Wuthering Heights suite from the 1939 film by Alfred Newman

Elegy by Mark Camphouse

Helter Skelter – The Beatles (Second Version, Take 17) [Anthology 2025]

K-Chuck Radio: Celebrating Earth, Wind & Fire Day

Ivonny Bonita – Karol G

Full Moon by Ludovico Einaudi

Sesame Street: Pentatonix Counts (and Sings) to Five 

Flash Gordon – Queen

Coverville 1549: Interview with Jeff Kanan of The Keep Recording and 1550: Cover Stories for Fee Waybill of The Tubes and B.B. King

J. Eric Smith’s Best Albums of 2025 (Third Quarter)

St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion) – John Parr

Protein Synthesis (1971)
Money For Nothing – Dire Straits

The Ten Commandments

make no law respecting an establishment of religion

A random dude on Facebook – I didn’t know him – wrote that he read on Facebook that the state of Louisiana is mandating that The Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms. But he didn’t necessarily believe it because it was on Facebook.

Back in my working librarian days, I would fairly often have conversations about media literacy. I’d ask someone for the source of information. They’d say Facebook or Twitter. My follow-up would be, “But what was the source, the reference?”

In any case, when I read the information on Facebook,  I already knew about it in newsfeeds from the New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, and Newsmax, among others.

The general conversation on that Facebook stream then turned to: “Well, with all of the problems in our schools, this isn’t really that much of a big deal.”  

I developed a low-grade headache.

Then I was reminded about something that a couple of people I know IRL have been bugging me about. They believe that civics is not being taught in our schools.  What IS civics anyway? It is “a social science dealing with the rights and duties of citizens.”

Amendment 1

So, citizens, there’s a thing called the Constitution of the United States!  It replaced something called the Articles of Confederation, the nation’s first framework, effective March 4, 1789.

But the critics of the Constitution wanted more guardrails. Constitutional supporters agreed to create a Bill of Rights “which consists of 10 amendments that were added to the Constitution in 1791.”

The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” 

Ah, but you note that it was a Louisiana STATE law that imposed the Ten Commandments. However, the Supreme Court has “interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as protecting the rights in the First Amendment from interference by state governments.” 

Requiring classrooms to display the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments reeks of the state of Louisiana establishing religion, this old poli sci major and Christian will tell you. Gov. Jeff Landry (R-LA) makes this clear. “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses.” 

Of course

So naturally, the presumptive Republican nominee for President supports it. Per Newsmax: “‘Has anyone read the ‘Thou shalt not steal’? I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It’s just incredible,’ Trump said at the gathering of the Faith & Freedom Coalition [on June 22]. ‘They don’t want it to go up. It’s a crazy world.'”’

Conversely, Austin, TX  pastor Zach Lambert notes: “If your version of Christianity wants to put the Ten Commandments in schools but take free lunch out of them, you are worshipping something other than Jesus.”

Read the fuzzy argument that Oklahoma’s state superintendent of public education, Ryan Walters, makes in requiring all public schools to teach the Bible and the Ten Commandments.

Getting back to civics

I worry about how the “rights and duties of citizens” are being abridged. In recent years, being able to serve on a jury, serving as an election poll watcher, and even the very right to vote, have been threatened. When I wrote that I would have served on a particular jury, it wasn’t because I would have wanted to; it’s because a citizen has an obligation, so the external threats are unAmerican. Poll watcher intimidation is unAmerican. Wholesale purging of voter rolls: unAmerican. 

As we celebrate the 4th of July, let us remember the preamble of the Constitution, a direct result of the Revolutionary War fervor. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Then we need to act as though it were true.

J is for the Johnson amendment

Preachers can preach on feeding the poor and clothing the naked, and that a just society ought to be doing that.

In the midst of the process of creating the massive tax bill at the end of 2017, the US Congress attempted to remove The Johnson Amendment. Fortunately, Congress’ own rules prevented from happening in that particular manner.

From the Wikipedia: It is “a provision in the U.S. tax code, since 1954, that prohibits all 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates. [These] organizations [range] from charitable foundations to universities and churches. The amendment is named for then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, [later the 36th President] who introduced it in a preliminary draft of the law in July 1954.”

Recent claims suggested that the provision was some sort of attack on the First Amendment’s freedom of religion and speech. Defenders of the Johnson amendment, including me, believe that when the churches and other nonprofit organizations that are exempt from taxation, the prohibition against “directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office” is appropriate, for it would otherwise be the state establishing religion.

Now the law is fairly narrow in scope. “Nonpartisan voter education activities and church-organized voter registration drives are legal. Pastors are free to preach on social and political issues of concern. Churches can publish ‘issue guides’ for voters.” In other words, preachers can preach on feeding the poor and clothing the naked, and that a just society ought to be doing that.

As it turns out, the piece to quash the Johnson amendment in the December 2017 budget bill was blocked by the Senate parliamentarian. “Because of a requirement called the Byrd Rule, reconciliation bills — which are passed through a simple Senate majority — cannot contain ‘extraneous’ provisions that don’t primarily deal with fiscal policy.”

Nonreligious people have said for decades that we ought to be taxing the churches, and I disagree. But if a religious entity wants to engage in partisan politics, endorsing candidates, it should give up its tax-exempt status.

For ABC Wednesday

Areopagitica: press attacked well before Nixon

The Milton argument regarding prohibition against prior restraint is fundamental to the US Constitution.

The New York State Writers Institute, a local treasure, offered a two-day, six-panel “symposium of topics crucial to an open democratic society” called Telling the Truth in a Post-truth World. The session I attended the evening of Friday the 13th of October at Page Hall on the UAlbany Downtown Campus, was “Presidents and the Press: Trump, Nixon & More.”

This turned out to be extremely timely because the Washington Post had just published Trump’s threat to NBC’s license is the very definition of Nixonian.

The moderator of the panel was Bob Schieffer, moderator of three presidential debates and former anchor of CBS Evening News and Face the Nation
The panelists included:
*Douglas Brinkley, CNN Presidential historian and biographer of Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford
*Amy Goodman, investigative reporter, host and producer of the award-winning news program, Democracy Now! that airs on over 1,400 public television and radio stations worldwide
*Harry Rosenfeld, Times Union editor-at-large, and former Metro Editor at The Washington Post who oversaw the paper’s coverage of Watergate
*Shane Goldmacher, chief White House correspondent for POLITICO, who previously reported on the 2016 Republican presidential primary campaign

There were some interesting moments, such as when Schieffer, who I’ve watched for decades, suggested that Goodman, who had a LOT of fans in the audience, was positing her opinions as facts, citing Daniel Patrick Moynihan. However, Goodman did note that it was important that the corporate media defend itself from attack from the regime.

Americans tend to think of freedom of the press as a uniquely American ideal that has spread throughout the world. But that value was codified more than a century earlier.

From here: “In 1644 the English poet and man of letters, John Milton, published the Areopagitica as an appeal to Parliament to rescind their Licensing Order of June 16th, 1643. This order was designed to bring publishing under government control by creating a number of official censors to whom authors would submit their work for approval prior to having it published. Milton’s argument, in brief, was that precensorship of authors was little more than an excuse for state control of thought.”

Although the freedom expressed took a half century to come to pass in Great Britain, the Milton argument regarding prohibition against prior restraint, or pre-publication censorship, is fundamental to the US Constitution. Threatening censorship prior to publication, as the current regime is suggesting, would have a chilling effect on expression and speech, and would interfere with the pursuit of truth.

“Endangered Species? The Future of Journalism and the 1st Amendment”

Where does responsibility lie for the provision of authentic and credible news?

A joint program of the League of Women Voters and the Women’s Press Club of New York State

When: Thursday, April 20, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Where: Delmar Reformed Church, 386 Delaware Avenue, (at the Four Corners), Delmar, NY

Who:
Panelists
* Rex Smith, editor of the Times Union and host of WAMC/Northeast Public Radio’s “The Media Project”
* Rosemary Armao, director of the University at Albany journalism program and a panelist on WAMC’s “The Roundtable”
* Robert Heverly, an associate professor at Albany Law School.
Moderator
*Angela Ledford, professor of political science at The College of Saint Rose and professor in residence at the state Assembly.

Why? The forum will consider the challenges to the First Amendment and the practice of journalism in the current political environment. Possible answers to the following questions will be discussed:
*How does social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, affect the news that voters need to receive in a functioning democracy?
*How do we distinguish “fake news” from the real news?
*Where does responsibility lie for the provision of authentic and credible news?

How to Participate: The public is encouraged to attend this compelling program. There is no charge for admission, but donations are encouraged. After costs, all donations will go toward programs sponsored by the two organizations including Women’s Press Club scholarships for young journalists going into the field. Come and be part of an ongoing public discussion of this important issue.

About the Program Sponsors:

The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization, encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.

The Women’s Press Club of New York State, Inc. is a nonprofit organization formed in 1966 by a small group of women journalists committed to supporting women in journalism and communications.

Ramblin' with Roger
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