Tag: virginia

Onward Christian Soldiers: Trump’s War on Iran and Secular America.

In the year 1188 AD, both England and France imposed an income tax to help pay for the third Crusade.  It was called the Saladin Tax.  It was a first.  It was 10 percent.  Saladin was the general, the Sultan, who recaptured Jerusalem the year before, expelling Christan forces who ruled Jerusalem since the first crusade when a Christian army captured the holy city in 1099, butchering most inhabitants. 

Saladin captured the imagination of the West.  They even invented a European origin story for him; he was featured in western literature, to include in Dante’s inferno.  In 1920 when the French General Henri-Joseph-Eugene entered Damascus after the victorious allies divided up the Ottoman Empire amongst themselves – Mandates they called them – he visited Saladin’s tomb and allegedly said, “Mr. Sultan, we’ve returned to the Orient.” 

They drew new maps and new countries.  Syria and Lebanon came under French rule, Palestine and Transjordan went to the British empire.   Europe certainly did return and managed through their imperial hubris, ignorance, and contempt for the peoples of the region, set the stage for over a century of regional and global conflicts and wars over this land. To include Trump’s war with Iran

God, it seems, gets the both the blame and the glory.  Depending on who wins the day.

To listen to Secretary of Defense Hegseth, Trump’s war with Iran is a crusade.  He uses Christian imagery to portray American forces as soldiers of Christ.  His prayers ask that God and Christ guide American bombs, bullets, and missiles to kill evil enemies.  Onward Christian soldiers wearing God as his armor.  He stated that there would be no quarter.  The crusaders in Jerusalem in 1099 offered no quarter.  Man, woman, child, struck down by sword and axes guided by Jesus and God.  

That notion of chivalry and God died on the fields of Flander, the Somme, and Ypres hundreds of years later.

Unfortunately, Hegseth is not an outlier in Trump’s world.  The White House increasingly compares Trump to Jesus, betrayed, and arrested.  At a recent private Easter event, Trump’s spiritual advisor Pastor Paula White-Cain compared the experiences of Christ’s crucifixion to Trump’s legal troubles, you know sexually assaulting a woman in a department store dressing room or paying off a porn star to keep silent about an affair.  Although I think she must have forgotten about these secular trials.  I too see Trump and Jesus in the same thought, every time he opens his mouth or posts on Truth Social, I say, “Jesus Christ, what the fuck did that idiot just say.”

It is not new in our history for American leaders to invoke God, especially after great tragedies or wars or other calamities.  America’s sense of its exceptionalism is deeply rooted in God. That shiny city on a hill.  It is new, however, for an American president to lay claim to divinity.  The Beatles were crucified, pun intended, when they claimed they were more popular than Jesus during a radio interview.

Trump is deliberately, cynically I think, erasing the line between him and Jesus.  Many of his adherents are in lock step with him, nonetheless.  For Trump to claim divine rule requires not only breaking down, but utterly demolishing, the wall between state and church.

Our country has a long history of keeping religion out of state and keeping the state out of religion.  For good reason as we can see by Trump’s insane comparison to Jesus. The Constitution does not mention “God.”  Not even the oath of office for president mentions God.  When asked why God did not appear in the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton famously quipped, “We forgot” or “We don’t need any foreign help.”  Whether these were apocryphal response, I don’t know, but they have a ring of authenticity.

In 1777, while a Delegate to Virginia’s General Assembly, Thomas Jefferson submitted a statute for Religious Freedom.  It was shelved given opposition from the still powerful Anglican Church members. That bill lay dormant of over a decade and was resurrected by James Madison in 1785 after Patrick Henry submitted a bill a year earlier calling for a tax to pay ministers of the Christian religion.  

In response to Henry’s bill, Madison wrote a Memorial and Remonstrance against the assessment.  In it he warned that the state should not support any religion.  That belief in God was between a man and his creator, that the state had no business interfering with such relationship.  He warned that once you support Christian ministers, what will stop a particular sect within Christianity from assuming dominance over the others.  Henry’s bill did not pass.

Virginia’s Baptists supported Madison’s Remonstrance and the Religious Freedom bill.  They had suffered heavily from Anglican Church violence in the 18th Century, especially during the Virginia’s Great Awakening in the 1740s.  Itinerant Baptist ministers were whipped or jailed and driven out of counties. Sadly, many Baptists today who support destroying the barrier between church and state have forgotten that history.

He was right.  In Texas, which provides tax dollars to both secular and religious charter schools, Islamic charter schools requesting public funding are being denied funding, claims leveled about terrorism.  Bashing Muslims has become sport in Texas amongst those Republicans running for office.  A proposed public school reading list contains the bible, but not the Koran.

In addition to the Remonstrance, Madison also resubmitted Jefferson’s decade old bill to Virginia’s General Assembly.  It passed.  Both Madison’s Remonstrance and Jefferson’s bill for Religious Freedom should be required reading.  Both argue that God doesn’t need the State:

“That Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitation, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness….”  Adding, “not to propagating it by coercion …but extend it by its influence on reason alone.” 

What became the first amendment to the constitution, written by Madison, were born in Madison’s Remonstrance and Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom (1786).  It clearly articulates that the government  could not establish a state religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof.  A careful balance.  

In 1802, President Jefferson, in a famous letter to the ‘Danbury Baptists,’ wrote that the 1st Amendment built a “wall of separation between Church and State.”  While Jefferson had no direct hand in the writing of the Constitution — he was the American Ambassador to France during the constitutional convention, and was not in Congress when the propositions were submitted by Madison which became the Bill of Rights — he and Madison regularly corresponded, explaining their thoughts and ideas of government and the constitution.  

This separation of church and state, this wall, has informed the liberal American experiment that in a healthy democracy the role of religion and the role of government are better kept distant and respectful. 

That arrangement worked spectacularly.  Religion thrives in America because of this wall of separation.  It is a paradox then that America aims to finish off a despotic theocratic state in Iran while planting the very seeds of a despotic right wing white nationalist Christian theocratic state in America.  

MAGA voices like Gladden Pappin – who claims the Pope will appoint Melania as queen – and Rod Dreher want American to go back to the Middle Ages, where the church held power, where the Bible was the law of the land. They hate and despise the enlightenment and liberal ideals of democracy, human rights, and the freedom to enjoy a personal relationship with God, without government surveillance and dictate.

The conspicuous and dangerous allusions to Trump, God, and Christ in prosecuting Trump’s war against Iran are anathema to America’s founding ideals and over 250 years of history.  God help us all.

No Kings Rally Louisa, Virginia

Small town America. Louisa residents rallied at the county courthouse April 28, 2026. A good showing in a deeply red rural county on a crisp spring day. A spirited and exuberant assembly of the young, the old, veterans, …. A diversity of voices. There were two Trump counterprotestors, one of whom loudly claimed that Trump was “his King.”

Remember to vote YES before April 21.

The Iran War Tax on Virginia Farmers

Virginias farmers are once again being sacrificed on Trump’s altar of stupidity and foolishness.  His Noble Great Mightiness’s war has already cost the lives of thousands in the Middle East, 13 of which are American service men and women.  In treasure every week, the war costs American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.  Americans are also paying at the gas pumps and in grocery stores.  The defense department just presented a $200 billion reapers bill to Congress.  

Virginia’s farmers will pay additional costs as well. Not only in the rising costs of fuel and fertilizer but in sons and daughters.  Rural Americans are overrepresented in our armed forces.  Close to 45 percent of those in uniform come from counties like Louisa.

Didn’t Trump know it’s planting season.  Virginia farmers must decide what to plant this year.  Corn or soy or both.  Decisions about spending capital on new equipment must be made as well.  The soil must be tilled, the land prepped for seed. Yet, uncertainty abounds because of the war.  The confused and contradictory messages coming from the administration are unhelpful as to the war’s objectives, and most importantly, its end point. The feeds the uncertainty for farmers across Virginia and the nation.  It seems that while Iran is losing the war militarily, it is winning the war politically, strategically.  Hope and hubris are not war plans.

While this administration postures and dithers and twirls about like whirling dervishers, the supply of nitrates for fertilizer remains plugged up in the Persian Gulf, unable to make the passage through the Strait of Hormuz, that strategic strait of water on Iran’s southern shores.  Fertilizer prices have jumped as a result, on average about 20 percent.  It will take months to fix the fertilizer supply chain disruption caused by Trump’s chaotic war.  

Even if the war should end today, perhaps it’s too late for the farmers who need to make purchases now, or bet wrong earlier.  Soy doesn’t need nitrated based fertilizers, corn does.  Farmers may not take the risk of planting corn and go with soy instead.  That, however, will create a surplus of soy, thus lowering the price per bushel.  Can’t win either way.

That’s not all, because of this questionable war of choice, Trump cancelled his state visit with Xi of China.  China is the largest importer of soy in the world and last year not one American grown soybean was bought by China in retaliation for Trump’s punitive, and in some instances illegal, tariffs.  Virginia farmers lost tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in exports because of Trump’s actions.  Virginia exports over a billion dollars’ worth of farm products to China. Not anymore. The announcement of the cancelled meeting caused the price of soy to drop.

It’s pain at the gas pumps.  We’ve all been to the gas station and noted the rise of gas and diesel prices.  Not fun paying $3.99 a gallon for gas and over $5 for diesel. They won’t be going down anytime soon.  Not with the Strait of Hormuz closed for the indefinite future and Trump threatening to put boots on Iranian ground.  

I did some research on what it cost in gas or diesel to plant and grow corn and soy, from seed to market.  Purdue University has some pretty good charts and tables that show the costs at each step of farming those crops.  There are at least 14 phases, I learned, taken in sequence to prepare the ground, plant the seeds, weed the fields, harvest the crops, and get them to market.  Most require tractors or combines or other farm vehicles.  

Basically, according to these Purdue University tables, to plant 300 acres or corn and 300 acres of soy, a farmer would use approximately 3655 gallons of fuel.  Broken down per acre, that would be $5.94 gallons per acre.  Of course there are variables like soil conditions, age of equipment, etc, that determine individual costs.  Diesel now cost about $5.59 per gallon (I didn’t deduct the taxes farmers are exempted from).  That comes out to almost $20,000 in diesel costs.  In prewar prices, it comes out to almost $13,000.  That’s a seven-thousand-dollar war tax on Virginia farmers.  Yes, it is a war tax. 

Did not Trump, his Noble Great Mightiness, this genius of all things, not see this coming?  And his equally impressive “We negotiate with bombs” Secretary of War, did he not see the potential consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz?  Fools, the lot of them.

Because of Trump’s strategic failures, Virginia’s farmers are left with footing the bill for higher fertilizer costs, collapsing soy markets, and staggeringly high fuel costs at a critical time in the planting season.  

How long can Virginia’s farmers survive with this type of love from Trump? Blind obedience he demands.  ‘Suck it up,’ he says; ‘be patriotic,’ he says; ‘it’s only temporary pain,’ he says. Last year Trump authorized the payment of $30 billion in farmer bailouts because of his tariff fiasco.  This year he is already demanding that Congress pass a farm bill, immediately. He’s turning farmers into bailout junkies.

Another bailout is coming, a bribe to his “Farmers for Trump” tribe.  He thinks he can buy their silence and acquiescence.  He’s right it appears, but some are starting to see the light, it seems.  Not only is he bankrupting hard working farmers, he’s also sending many of their sons and daughters into harms way.  His uber patriotic sons and daughters never deigned to serve.  Hell, they wouldn’t be caught dead in uniform.  Barron isn’t running down to the recruiting station.  No, he was just named to the board of directors of a new company.  Another Nepo baby enriching himself and missing the wars, while our kids fight the wars. 

Are We Still a Democracy?

Are we still a democracy? I think that is a good question and not one asked hyperbolically or in the ‘sky is falling’ moment of hysteria or panic. Serious people are asking that question and the answers may not be to your liking. I struggle that I even have to ask that question, but one must in today’s America. A demagogue rules America by fiat and edict. Two reports offer a snap shot of the health of America’s democracy. You be the judge.

This past November the Charles F. Kettering Foundation published a report on Americans attitudes towards democracy.  This report was done in conjunction with Gallup, a respected polling organization.  

Their conclusion was, that overall, Americans were committed to democracy, but with clearly defined differences in how one’s age defines how one perceives democracy as an ideal and how one’s economic circumstances impact perceptions of democracy’s effectiveness in solving problems.  

If you are over 65 democracy is super.  A robust 80 percent are strongly committed to democracy.  If you are under 29 not so much.  Only about 53 percent say that democracy is the best form of government. Economics also played a role in how one perceived democracy is performing.  If you are ‘living comfortably’ about a third gave democracy a thumbs up.  Those who say it is ‘very difficult to get by’ only 12 percent give democracy a thumbs up.  For those that ‘feel disconnected from their communities’ or question their status in society are likely to question democracy’s ‘value and performance.’

In another report recently released, researchers at a Swedish University published a report on the global health of democracy.  Their tenth annual report.  According to the V-DEM Institute website, the report is an analysis of “….the largest global dataset on democracy with over 32 million data points for 202 countries and territories from 1789 to 2025.  The report involves over four thousand scholars and other country experts and measures over 600 different attributes of democracy.” Go to the this link to read the report: https://www.v-dem.net/documents/75/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy_Report_2026_lowres.pdf)

It does not look good for the world, much less the United States.  Devoting an entire section of the annual report, the authors addressed democratic backsliding in the United States. They conclude that the United States is no longer a liberal (small l liberal) democracy, primarily because of the unprecedented and rapid concentration and accumulation of power in the presidency and the dismantling of our constitutional checks and balances.  I think they are right. They also conclude that America’s fall from democracy to autocracy was done in record time.  Faster than both Turkey’s and Hungary’s slip into the autocratic abyss. In a rank ordered list of 179 countries for strength of democratic values and norms, America has slipped to 51st.  Yeah, make America great again.

So, it appears most Americans still believe in the great experiment called democracy, but, paradoxically, a majority do not believe democracy is working in America.  

Given the K-shaped economy, where wealth inequality continues to grow rapidly in America, it is no surprise that Americans tend to be skeptical of democracy, but strangely unskeptical of unrestrained capitalism.  Democracy doesn’t make one unequal, capitalism does. One should not conflate an economic system (capitalism) with a political system (democracy).  That’s not to say, however, that they are mutually exclusive; one should try to understand them as interacting spheres of power.  Our democratic decline is a reflection of America’s broken political economy.

The Kettering Foundation report does to some extent explain why many Americans, it seems, are indifferent to the collapse of American democracy. The V-DEM institute report shows the result of that indifference in hard numbers, at least at the federal level.

Where are we then as a country?  And where do we go from here?

At a federal level, yes, I think we are no longer a democracy.  Our system has collapsed.  Trump’s war in Iran is an example of our spectacular fall from a constitutional system of checks and balances to complete and utter deference to Trump by Congress.  Only an absolute monarch takes their country to war without consulting the people.  That is exactly what Trump did, and Congress cowered like the spineless shits they are.

The courts are still functioning as defined but has no ability to enforce its decisions.  These court decisions are theoretically enforced by the executive department, a department that in many instances has given the Court’s the middle finger. As such, Trump’s threat to take over the mid-term elections and challenge the results should be taken at full face value.  

At the state level, at least in Virginia, we still are a democracy.  Some states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Florida are authoritarian regimes, by my estimates.  Wrecking the barriers that separate church and state, restricting women’s rights, demanding schools teach white heritage and not real history, imposing voting barriers such as a de facto poll taxes (getting a passport for instance, which costs a couple hundred dollars), restricting and banning books, to list a few.

The question then becomes not only about democracy, but whether our social contract as a united country can survive, or is it in terminal decline?  Is it possible for America to remain a federation of united states, some liberal democracies while others theocratic autocracies? A king like president punishing states and rewarding others?

Fundamentally, and I acknowledge this, our perceived health of our democracy seems to be defined by where one is standing in the political spectrum. Some think Trump hasn’t gone far enough while others think he is gone way to far; many others just want to pay for gas and feed their family. It’s complex, it’s fluid, it’s uncertain. Our crisis of democracy, I think is a crisis of identity. It’s about whose America this is and whether democracy is the solution, or as some argue, the problem?

Break Glass in Emergency: Vote Yes by April 21 in Virginia’s Redistricting Referendum

If things were normal, which they are not, I would oppose returning the drawing of Virginia’s congressional district maps back to the state’s legislature, even temporarily.  America is in deep trouble, however. Democracy is in retreat; the country is ruled by decree out of the White House. Congress sits mute.  A President ruling from his gold encrusted throne threatens to “nationalize” the elections and seems indifferent to his paramilitary police brutalizing communities and shooting and killing citizens.

The Constitution – our written social contract as to how the government is organized and how power is shared – is shredded day-by-day by Trump.  Our representative in the 5th District, John McGuire just voted for the Save Act to make it harder for Americans to vote and agrees with Trump’s call for Republicans to nationalize the vote, or at the least, has not repudiated Trump’s demand.  He thinks he works for Trump and not we the people of his district.  It is time to fight back, it is time to b break the glass because there is a constitutional emergency.

The fastest and best way to check Trump’s unchecked power is by electing Democrats to the House of Representatives – the people’s house – and the senate.  Sensing a coming defeat this November and a loss of a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, Trump demanded that red states redraw their congressional districts, immediately.  If you can’t win fair and square, cheat, lie, and steal is this administration’s mantra.

Texas obliged instantly, without consulting their people.  Another example of rule by dictate far too common in red states.  At least the people of California had a choice whether to redistrict (they voted ‘yes’ this past November).  We the people of Virginia will have our chance to give voice to whether we redistrict.  That vote is April 21.  Early voting starts March 3.   

Democrats did not ask for this redistricting fight, but Trump threw down the gauntlet.  We the people of Virginia must take drastic steps to reclaim sovereignty or lose our democracy to one-party rule and dictatorship. 

Vote YES to temporarily redistrict Virginia’s congressional seats.  

For those constitutional law geeks like me, below are some Frequently Asked Question:

How many other states are redistricting (or counter redistricting) based on Trump’s outrageous demand?

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, five states have already redistricted (Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, California); A number of states have introduced legislation to redistrict (Maryland, South Carolina, Washington, and Virginia):  Florida is in the process of adopting legislation with additional states contemplating redistricting, but awaiting state court decisions (Alabama, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Wisconsin).  Other states have already moved forward and many plan to do so.  Indiana rejected Trump’s redistricting demand.

Why does Virginia need a vote on whether to redistrict its congressional districts?

In November 2020, Virginians voted overwhelming (66 percent) to amend the state’s constitution to appoint a 16-member bipartisan commission to draw Virginia’s congressional districts.  Virginia is one of about a dozen states that have independent commissions to draw congressional maps.  A majority (29) still permit their state legislatures to draw congressional districts.  The referendum vote in April is the only constitutionally sanctioned method to temporarily amend our state constitution so that the Generally Assembly can redraw Virginia’s congressional districts.  

Why hasn’t the Supreme Court ruled that partisan redistricting is unconstitutional?

They did rule, by not ruling.  They took the easy way out and said it was out of their hands, that there were no ‘judicially discoverable’ or ‘manageable standards’ to adjudicate claims of unconstitutionally drawn districts, with one exception, drawing districts to favor white voters (e.g., diluting concentrations of black or brown voices into majority white districts).

A brief recent history:  In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal courts could hear challenges to how congressional districts were drawn, however, the court offered no standards.  Some years later in 2004, the Supreme Court ruled there were no “judicially discoverable or manageable standards.”  The conservative court inches it way toward legalizing partisan gerrymandering.

In 2019, in Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme court ruled that federal courts could not hear claims of partisan gerrymandering because they – the court — could not articulate any standard by which to judge partisan gerrymandering.  Out of very thin air, they could invent the legal fiction that President Trump is immune from crimes committed for official acts, but these Harvard and Yale legal brains are damned clueless as to how to fix the scourge of gerrymandering.  This legal punt basically legalizes partisan gerrymandering no matter how egregious, at least at the federal court level.  State courts can still hear cases, nonetheless.

To make matters worse, the Rucho decision gave states a “partisan” get-out-of- constitutional jail card for race-based gerrymandering.  In 2024, South Carolina drew racially gerrymandered congressional districts.  The South Carolina NAACP sued.  South Carolian argued it was not racial gerrymandering, but ‘partisan’ gerrymandering.  In a 6 to 3 decision, the Supreme Court agreed with South Carolina and let the racially drawn maps stand.

After Texas redrew its congressional districts after Trump requested it do so, The League of United Latin American Citizens sued.  A federal district court, after 9 days of testimony and review of thousands of documents, concluded that Texas illegally redrew the congressional districts based on race.  In a shadow docket ruling, however, the Supreme Court, overturned the district court and said Texas could use the newly drawn maps.  

The reasons given by the Supreme Court’s were: 1) The District Court failed to “honor the presumption of legislative good faith;” 2) The District Court did not produce a viable alternative map; 3) It was too close to the election to redraw the redrawn congressional maps.   My only response:  What the fuck!  I did not know there was a ‘legislative good faith’ exemption to unconstitutional laws.

So, there you have it.  Go out and vote. And vote Yes.  

“Guards of this Kind:” A Brief History of the Original Intent of Madison’s Second Amendment.

New York Times Reporter: “Do you see any checks on your power….”

Donald Trump:  “Yeah, there is one thing.  My own morality.  My own mind.  It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

No Mr. President, we the people can stop you.

What is happening in America is not normal.   When a president sitting in the White House, stewing in his own grievances and thirst for vengeance and proclivity to spectacle, says he is only bound by his “morality,” we as a nation are in deep trouble.  As is the world.

I know this essay’s title may make some folks uncomfortable, but please bear with me (yes, a pun). I am self-aware enough to understand that invoking the Second Amendment can be provocative. I struggled while writing this essay on a number of levels. First, is that it even had to be written. Given the words and actions of Trump, I feel it is necessary. On another level, I don’t want to be interpreted as calling for armed revolt. I do not want that. That would be insane.

My whole adult life was living, working, or traveling to conflict and war zones, failed and failing states, police states. I know that option to be unacceptable. On a third level, I feel too many Americans are indifferent or distracted or worn. down and just don’t give a shit, that only some people are impacted and they will never by touched. Inevitably, in a dictatorship, even it you agree with the dictator now, you will be touched and your soul will be crushed eventually as you tire of being told what to watch, what to read, and what to think. Because you are reading this, you know I hit the publish button.

I want to lay out my thoughts on the limits of power of the central government and what States can do once Trump and federal government blows past those limits.  The origin and intent of the Second Amendment figures prominently in any discourse about how to create “guards” to a tyrannical central government.

Blue states continue to get pounded by the Trump administration.  It routinely withholds funds from blue states as punishment for resisting his policies.  Incongruously, it is the blue states that provide most tax raised monies to the federal government, with red states getting more federal tax dollars in terms of spending than they actually put in. In essence, Trump is super charging the transfer of wealth from blue to red states.  Oh, the irony.

Trump targets blue states and cities with mass deployments of militarized immigration agents as punishment for deigning to treat migrants as human beings.  As the result of protests against these deployments, Trump federalized and deployed national guard units without traditional requests from state governors, and in all instances in blue states, against the wishes of the governor and the majority of the state’s peoples, to quell, he alleges, widespread violence, but we know it is to smother the people’s voices.  

Now he is deploying hundreds of additional Homeland Security agents to investigate alleged fraud in Minnesota’s social safety net programs, according to DHS’s secretary.  A calculated and chilling response to the protests over the killing of a woman by an ICE agent and the states demand to be included in the investigation of the homicide of Renee Good.  Incongruously, Trump condemns the death of protestors in Iran, but claims an American protestor shot and killed by an ICE agent was a domestic terrorist, and, intoned, deserved to die.  

Hey, Ayatollah in Iran.  News Flash:  Just rebrand Iranian protestors as deranged left wing domestic terrorists.  Then you are good to go.

This is what despots do.  They flood the streets with thugs and faceless paramilitaries and then sanction investigations to cover up murders. Nazis Germany’s Brown Shirts of the past are being reborn as combat fatigue wearing ICE agents.

This is what he will do to Virginia now that we will have a democratic governor and a state legislature controlled by democrats.  Expect payback with canceled programs, stopped federal grants, and deployments of Homeland Security agents to intimidate citizens.

The ability of a state to resist a tyrannical central government is how the Second Amendment was born.

What became the Second Amendment was not intended as an individual right to bear arms but a collective right of a state to bear arms to maintain its’ citizens inalienable rights.  Lord Dunmore, the English Governor of Virginia’s, attempt to seize the militias’ arms in Williamsburg, Virginia, at the outset of America’s first civil war was still fresh in the mind of the founding generation.  

It never crossed the minds of folks back then that the constitution needed to enumerate the right to own firearms for defense or hunting at the federal level.  Gun ownership – mostly muskets — was so ubiquitous and a traditional right in the colonies that enumerating the right would be ridiculous.  States had the right to regulate firearms and did so, most notably restricting possession primarily to whites.  

The Second Amendment was intended as a state’s right to maintain armed militias for their defense against a tyrannical central government.  It was a meant as bulwark of self defense against a large standing Army used by the central government to impose its will on a state or states. If you follow how the language of the amendment changed and unfolded, I think one can get a sense of what the intent was and how the amendment was seen and understood within a broader conception of constitutionalism, tradition, common law, and gun possession in the early republic.

On June 8, 1789, James Madison introduced nine propositions or resolutions for amending the Constitution. From these propositions the House of Representatives would derive 17 amendments, of which, ten would eventually become the Bill of Rights. Way down the list, buried in proposition four, after statements about religious freedom, freedom of speech and press, the right to peaceable assembly and petitioning for redressing of grievances, Madison, proposed what would become the second amendment.

The Annals of Congress contains the record of the running debates surrounding the amendments to the Constitution and reflect contemporaneous conceptions of the meanings of these amendments, and how they changed over the debates. Madison, borrowing from the other state constitutions and even the 1689 English Bill of Rights, proposed the following language regarding the right to bear arms (House Records, pp. 451-452):

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.”

Madison’s propositions did not gain much traction in Congress. Members of Congress were more concerned with the mechanics of setting up a functioning government. The debates preceding and surrounding the discussions on the proposed amendments centered on funding mechanisms and structure of the various executive departments being contemplated. Madison nonetheless persisted, and on July 21 requested further consideration of the amendments. After “desultory” conversation on the amendments, they were referred to a committee of eleven, which included Madison.

Just short of a month later, the committee of eleven finished their work on the proposed amendments and presented them to the House of Representatives on August 17. Madison’s language on bearing arms was revised and read:

“A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms (House Records, p.778)

Eldridge Gerry of Massachusetts, a veteran of the constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787, and who was one of three delegates who refused to sign the Constitution at the end of the convention, led the debate regarding the amendment to bear arms. His remarks are crucial, I think to understanding, the intent of this amendment. He states:

“This declaration of rights, I take it, is intended to secure the people against the mal-administration of the Government; if we could suppose that, in all cases, the rights of the people would be attended to, the occasion for guards of this kind would be removed (p. 778).”

Not one person during the debate contradicted or challenged Gerry’s assertion, which seems to state that the ability to keep and bear arms referred to the people’s ability to form militias as a collective defense against a tyrannical central government. The remainder of the debate that day on this amendment surrounded primarily the question of religious scruples and service in the militia.

After more “desultory” (I love that word) conversation, 17 proposed amendments to the Constitution were sent to the Senate on August 24. The bearing arms amendment was number 5 and read after some minor tweaking (Senate record, pp. 63-64):

“A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.”

On September 4, the senate, whose records of debate are not as detailed as the House’s records of debate, showed that senators objected to a number of the amendments, but without comment as to why. “On the motion to adopt the fifth article of the amendments proposed by the House of Representatives, amended to read as followeth: ‘a well regulated militia, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed:’ It passed in the affirmative” (Senate Record, p. 71).

So, there you have it, a brief but spectacular history of the origin of the Second Amendment.

Trump’s advisor Stephen Miller’s call to abandon America’s social contract and resort to a ‘state of nature’ where brute force is the first and only response should scare the shit out Americans.  This new dogma of ‘power, strength, and violence’ will fundamentally rewrite the world order but also crush America’s social contract between the people and the government:  the annihilation of the separation of powers, the demise of a democratic central government, and the eradication of shared sovereignty between the states and the central government.  That, good reader, is why we have “guards of this kind,” the Second Amendment. 

Let me be clear, I am not calling for armed revolt or violence against our central government or secession, I still believe in the vote and the power of the American people to reign in Trump.  But as Congress and the Supreme Court not only fail to curtail Trump’s excesses, and in fact enable him, what are the people to do?  

States are the peoples last bulwark against Trump and a despotic central government.  A new pposition is rising, however.   Not from spineless democratic leaders like Schumer, but from Republicans.  Republican Senators that voted to restrain Trump’s war powers received threatening profanity laced phone calls by Trump.  A sign he is losing control and trying to bully folks back into line.

What I ask is that our new, incoming governor, think long and hard about how to deal with an increasingly authoritarian and despotic central government that continues to ratchet up the level of violence against the people in targeted states and cities – maladministration as Eldridge Gerry put it.  The governor needs to develop contingency plans on when and how to resist, to include using the National Guard to defend our natural and inalienable rights as a free people of Virginia.  

It seems to me America cannot long remain a nation if Trump puts his boot on the neck of blue states while red states happily bend the knee to the tyrant in the White House. Time to mobilize once again, stay engaged, and get family and friends to vote this November.

AP News Release: Christmas Close to Cancellation

Yes, Virginia, Christmas could be cancelled this year.  

The AP, that is the Arctic Press News Service, is reporting that Santa Claus may have to cancel Christmas in America this year. According to elf sources within Santa’s North Pole secretive Headquarters, the office responsible for obtaining all of Santa’s travel visas to enter countries around the world has yet to obtain a U.S. entry Visa. 

Delays mount as Mr. Claus, according to one elfian source, must submit decades worth of social media posts. Santa’s repeated travels to such shit hole countries such as Somalia, Nigeria, and South Africa have also raised suspicions by terrorism experts Moe, Larry, and Curly at Homeland Security’s Office of North Pole Counter Terrorism (ONPCT) along with his use of multiple aliases, according to the same source.  

Although, the Department of State’s press office said if Santa was travelling to see Afrikaners in South Africa, that was acceptable.  They also denied Trump demanded Santa buy $10 million in Trump family bitcoin memes before being issued a visa.  

Those familiar with negotiations between Santa and the Department of State, report that the Secretary is demanding that only American children receive gifts, and children born to non-U.S. parents must not receive presents; that Santa must provide a list of the immigration status of all children that receive presents as proof. Santa continues to refuse these demands, it is said.

Moreover, The Secretary apparently ordered his staff to check Santa’s social media posts twice, and said, it is reported, that he won’t let a ‘woke’ Santa Claus travel to the United States or its territories.

Further mudding Santa’s travel plans to America; the Secretary of Homeland Security is reported to have formed an anti-Santa ICE task force group in what has been dubbed ‘Operation Clear and Present Danger,’ according to transcripts of a leaked cabinet meeting video.   The Secretary adding, that ‘if that red suited red baiting groomer of young children lands’ in America he’s going to end up being deported to an El Salvadoran prison.  “No Habeas Corpus for that woke Mother F*#@r.’

Additionally, the Secretary of War, per a leaked Signal Chat, declared during a situation room meeting after ordering new death squad strikes on more Venezuelans, that ‘if that Tre de Aragua terrorist Santa crossed into Venezuelan airspace he will be ‘swimming with the fishes’ and any surviving reindeer ‘would be hit with a second strike.’  A short video attached to the leaked Signal chat appeared to show a ‘Franklin the Turtle’ coloring book next to the Secretary, who doodled with crayons while an admiral briefed in the background.

Furthermore, in a deleted segment of a recent 60-minutes interview obtained by the AP, Trump is reported to have said that he isn’t on Santa’s List, and that he never knew Santa or travelled to the North Pole on his sleigh or engaged in inappropriate relationships with underage elf.  

Trump even indicated his desire to annex the North Pole, saying, ‘they love me there, they really do.’  ‘I am really popular among the Elves,’ adding, ‘I would have been elected Santa Clause but the election was stolen by dirty, sleepy, fatso Kris Kringle.’  ‘His wife’s nice,’ he continued, ‘but not my type.’ ‘Once she said I was a sore loser, it told her quiet, quiet piggy.’  He even teased renaming the North Pole, Trumplandia and changing Christmas to Trumpmas.

To complicate things even more, Trump secretly imposed a 2000 percent tariff on all presents brought into America manufactured in North Pole workshops, per a leaked confidential White House decision paper last spring.  Santa’s Office of Legal Counsel — the Office of Legal Clause — filed suit – in a rare writ of dies natalis Christi — challenging what it termed punitive and ‘illegal tariffs’ in June, but the Supreme Court, in a shadow docket ruling issued at three this morning sided with Trump, overturning an appeals court ruling to stay the tariffs until December 26.

Merry Christmas America.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Trump Clause

I am damned angry.  The democrats once again appear prepared to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory on promises of talks later. Coming off great results in Virginia and New Jersey and California in last week’s elections with national consequences, it did not take long for the Democrats to deflate like a pricked ballon once again at the national level.

My first thoughts on hearing a number of Democrats defecting on the shutdown showdown:  Mother Fuckers!  (not really, it was longer and more expressive) Why, after 40 days of standing up to, and resisting Trump and his autocratic agenda, did Democrats cave on their supposed principles?  Why?  Senator Kaine, what were you thinking?

You claimed to stand fast with American workers who were going to get slammed with extreme health insurance premium increases because subsidies were cut by Trump’s big, beautiful bill.  You lobbed the health insurance ball firmly into the Republicans court — who control the House, the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court — in order to extend the subsidies, hoping to provoke a compromise.  They held fast.  

In this standoff, the only power left to the Democrats was solidarity and the senate filibuster to force negotiations.  But no, you give up that last bastion of protecting minority rights in Congress to force negotiations and compromise.  So, after 40 days you have nothing to show if you cave in.

You gave up the two hallmarks of democracy with a half assed fight. Can you be trusted to fight Trump’s trespasses when he invokes the insurrection act or martial law or challenges the results of the 2026 mid-terms; to fight for the working and middle classes?  I think you will be halfway to the hills with your tail between your legs, that’s what I think, leaving state and local democrats holding the proverbial bag of shit.

No wonder Democrats in national polls  aren’t trusted to do the right thing at the national level.  The public, given the asymmetric power relationship in Congress, blamed the Republicans for the shutdown and associated pain. I think virtually overnight that blame will shift to you. 

I supported the principled stand on health care subsidies, but I also thought it was about resisting Trump’s autocratic gains, protecting the rule of law, and our constitutional system of checks and balances.  Apparently not.   You now own the shutdown. For taking a stand, you were essentially unwilling and incapable of following through on.  

Come on man, get some balls, some chutzpa, some spine.  Why all the pain and suffering and angst endured by millions when you collapse like a mud hut in a rainstorm?  All for promises of future talks in December, exchanging your principles for a bag of magical beans.  The Republicans have chutzpa at least. They lie to the Supreme Court that they don’t have the cash to pay out full SNAP benefits yet a day or two later, after the Court agrees with Trump, Trump announces taxpayers will get $2000 each from a so called tariff divided. What don’t you get about them? Did you not read the fine print under the Trump Clause?

Trump Clause:  Any and all agreements made with Donald Trump are conditional, subject to change, lies, misrepresentations, and omissions.  You take his word at your own peril and risk.

I don’t know whether this round of spending bills will pass the hurdles before it, but I do predict that should the spending bills pass to reopen the government, that promise to have December talks to extend the ACA subsidies will vanish like a cheese burger on Trump’s lips.  The House and Senate will adjourn without passing the subsidy bill, and you know it.  The Republicans have stolen Christmas from millions of Americans and you are his accessory after the fact if you give in. 

In Congress, July 4, 1776

It is good now and then to read some of our founding documents. The Declaration of Independence is a good place to start as any. It basically is two documents. The first part is a declarative statement that both King and Parliament have, and continued to, violate the the fundamental and inalienable rights bequeathed to Englishmen since time immemorial. Such trespasses forced the colonists, so they wrote, to form a new government to secure their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The second part is a jeremiad of those violations. Of the 27 listed grievances, our president has also committed many of these same trespasses. These include, (1) obstructing the administration of justice; (2) he has attempted to make judges dependent upon him; (3) deployed members of our “standing army” among us in times of peace; (4) he is attempting to render the military independent of and superior to Congress; (5) he has threatened to send Americans overseas to serve time in foreign jails for pretended offenses; (6) for cutting off our trade with the world with illegal tariffs; (7) of imposing taxes on us without our consent (illegal tariffs); (8) depriving many inhabitants of due process virtually suspending habeas corpus; (9) and threatens weekly, if not daily, to declare certain cities out of his protection and insinuate waging war against them.

About 30 percent of the fundamental rights listed by our revolutionary founders they claimed the King and Parliament violated are the same inalienable rights Trump is violating, attempting to violate, or wants to violate. To this list of violations, we can add end birthright citizenship; shutdown the government; hijacking the enumerated rights of Congress; the president not subject to criminal jurisdiction (a King).

What is at stake is not just our Constitution — our written framework of our government and how it should function to protect our inalienable rights — but to the unwritten fundamental rights and laws that make up our social compact with our government. These rights go back to not only the Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights, but to the traditions, customs, and common law of England. They predate our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other constitutional amendments. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights don’t grant us these rights, they are an acknowledgment of the collective rights we inalienable have had since time immemorial. Trump has no right to deny or suppress them and he must be resisted.

The Declaration of Independence

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

The Strange Death of Liberal Congress (Small l)

 Elected assemblies were no stranger to colonial Americans before the Revolution.  Virginia’s General Assembly first meet in 1619.  The American colonies’ long experiences with representative assemblies informed the debate on the creation of our national government as expressed in our Constitution.

The Constitution created three separate and equal branches:  Executive, Judicial, and Legislative.  The legislative branch was divided into two.  A House of Representatives, directly elected by the people every two years, and a Senate.  The Senators were not elected by the folks of their states but picked by state legislators.  This changed in 1913 — in an age of reform after Gilded Age excesses when ‘robber barons’ (proto-tech bros) bought and sold senators – when the 17th Amendment was adopted.  This amendment made senators directly elected and accountable to the people of their various states. 

As the drafters of the Constitution debated structure of the national legislature, it is clear many mistrusted rule by the masses.  The solution was another level of checks and balances:  A divided Congress.   The House was meant to represent the hot and passionate voice of the people, hence the two-year election cycle.  The Senate was meant to temper and cool the passions of the people, hence the six-year terms.  A ying-yang type of thing. 

In its time, it was a liberal creation (small l).  A directly elected national assembly rare.  Although one must add a huge asterisk to that claim as suffrage was primarily reserved for men who owned property, and in many instances in the early republic to white men only.  Eventually the franchise did expand, with women being the last added. As a side note, I should comment that white immigrant men could and did vote in national elections as voting rights were not tied to citizenship until well into to the 19th century.   Many states permitted immigrants the right to vote into the early 20th century.  The nationalism of the post-world war I era ended that practice.

The enumerated duties of Congress were listed in the Constitution, but, it’s primary duty was a check on the power of President (king) — in the liberal tradition of Great Britian since the Glorious Revolution of 1689.  As such, the list of congressional powers was long and gave congress the power to declare war, the power of the purse, the regulation of the militia and Army, the power to regulate domestic and foreign trade, to list a few.  For the Senate, the power to ratify treaties and confirm presidential nominees to high office was added.  

This system basically worked for close to 236 years, until it didn’t.  It’s not the structure.  Our political party system is fatally broken.  You need two parties, not one party and one cult lead by a messianic Daddy Trump.

Congress is dead.  Long live Trump.  

A postmortem would reveal the cause of death as neglect followed by blunt force trauma.  The manner of death?  Democracide.

 Et Tu, Johnson and Thune?  Speaker Mike Johnson and senate majority leader John Thune have murdered Congress, finishing the job started by Mitch McConnell.   Johnson won’t even call the House back into session and Thune has attached himself to Trump’s scrotum like a sucker fish attaches itself to a shark. This week Sec Def Hegseth severely constrained congressional oversight by severing most routine formal and informal discourse between congress and the Defense Department and one trillion dollars in spending.  

Trump literally shits on the people in his AI generated fantasies and Congress defends him. He frequently moves money without congressional official approval and routinely uses rescission to ignore legislative funding bills.  In short, Congress ceded most of its enumerated powers to Trump.  Even the act of declaring war has been ceded, permitting Trump to order extra judicial killings on the high seas.  In the old days we called that piracy.  Congress is dead in name. 

The Supreme Court is the undertaker.

I have no concluding paragraph.  What is there left to say any more?  The phrases “that’s illegal” or “that’s unconstitutional” are deader than a door nail in a post law and order America. Might as well stop using them as they are as useless as Congress and a spittoon full of spit.