BIll of Rights Continued: Celebrating the Semiquincentennial, Part 8

This is a monthly series throughout 2026, the Semiquincentennial year. You can see the other parts here:

·       January: The Declaration 

·       February: Preamble to the Constitution 

·       March: Article I: Lawmaking 

·       April: Article II: Executive Branch 

·       May: Article III: Judicial Branch 

·       June: Bill of Rights 

·       July: Happy Birthday, America! 

In our discussion of rights, back in June, we talked about what is a right, so we can recognize what we’re dealing with. Because a lot of Americans have been confused about that for a century or so.

And we covered a bit of history related to the Bill of Rights, and how we got those first 10 Amendments to the Constitution.

Then we talked about the first of the five rights in the First Amendment: the right to freedom of religion.

So that leaves the other four in that amendment, and a number of others in the remaining Bill of Rights. We’ll see what we get through today.

The other four rights in the First Amendment are:

·       Freedom of speech.

·       Freedom of the press.

·       Freedom to peaceably assemble.

·       Freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances.

Last week we talked about the pandemic a bit—and a little bit of the 5^th Amendment (which was invoked 111 times by Fauci in that Senate hearing). And it’s interesting to note that all of these First Amendment rights were abridged during the pandemic.

The Constitution guarantees us that government will not abridge these rights—and yet government did anyway.

Our discussions here are intended to inform us, so that we don’t blissfully go along with whatever government officials say. Because government is fire, and it needs to be carefully contained, or it gets out of control and burns. In real terms, rather than metaphorical, government is full of humans, many of whom are motivated by power and greed, and they work for those motivators, rather than for the good of society. Some—maybe even the worst—work for the power and money with the full conviction that they are doing it for our own good, even when they’re doing it against our will.

So, about those guaranteed rights.

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Faucian Deal with the Devil

If you’ve tuned in to independent conservative news, you know that Wednesday, July 29, was Fauci’s day to come before the Senate hearing—not to testify, but to invoke the 5^th Amendment, 111 times (probably a record), when he’d already been given a blanket pardon by the Biden autopen for anything he might be accused of going back to 2014.

He pleaded the 5^th when asked the color of his tie and whether there was a notebook on the table in front of him. Other than his opening statement, which amounted to, “Rand Paul has it in for me, a sincere and devoted public servant who never did anything wrong,” he said nothing but the same script about invoking the 5^th.

The hearing nevertheless went on. I watched the livestream Robert Gouveia had done, which included the full hearing, plus his commentary afterward (and occasionally brief commentary during). He was using the C-SPAN livestream.

There was a lot we already knew. There was a little bit new.

The diaries were new. These were not leaked. Fauci wrote these personal files on his government computer, which means they are government property, not his personal diaries, regardless of how he thought of them. He’d worked in government for something like five decades; he knew about FOIA requests for anything written on government computers.

They reveal that he absolutely knew the virus had leaked from the Wuhan lab—as early as December 2019, before it ever reached the US. Then he lied about that to the American public.

The reason for the lie seems clear: he had funded the gain-of-function research in Wuhan (and elsewhere), despite President Obama’s order curtailing any such research—because, being “the science,” he knew better than the president and acted on his own, going through some back channels to hide what he was doing.

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Still Paying Attention

When big news happens over and over, it starts to seem less big, just by comparison. One of these days maybe I’ll cover the whole list of things we weren’t allowed to talk about during the previous administration that we were right about all along. But just one of those “we told you so” things today.

Last week we had a report come out about election integrity issues. The President gave a speech. He did not say the 2020 election was stolen; he said China and other nations had the ability to do it, and there was quite a lot else, but nothing that could tag him as an election denier and therefore dismissible.

Let’s be clear on one thing, though: laws have been broken, and vulnerabilities are extraordinary—so that we have more reason to doubt election integrity than to trust in it.

The main piece is that China had stolen the personal data of some 220 million voter registrations. Note: As of April 2026 there are 204.6 million registered voters. I don’t know if that means China has all records, or all or almost all plus a whole lot of invalid ones. But they shouldn’t have the data required to, say, request a ballot by mail for every voter in America, if they happen to feel like it.

Another piece is that, while our IC (Intelligence Community) knew this in 2020, they purposely withheld the info from the President’s daily intelligence briefings.

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Socialism is Treason Against Our Constitutional Republic

Socialism is treason. But not everyone considering socialism knows that. And I’m not sure the defenders of our country are willing to say so.

If we’re not going to treat socialists as treasonous, then what?

We have to re-educate people out of socialism and back into freedom.

To those who espouse socialist ideas because of the indoctrination of the institutions, I hold out hope for them.

In sincere conversation with them, when they tell you socialism is better than capitalism, you can ask them to explain: “Do you really mean that you want to overthrow our government—a government designed to protect our life, liberty, and property—and replace it with coercion, property confiscation, and some central authority deciding whether you get to use your own money?”

If you’re reading here, chances are you already know socialism is bad. But let’s go through the thought process anyway. Maybe it will help you undo the indoctrination for someone you care about.

 

Ruler’s Law vs. Rule of Law

We have rule of law. The basic law of the US is the Constitution, which protects our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The agreement of the indivisible states, under the Constitution, is that we will abide by this law.

While people are free to disagree about political issues—and our God-given free speech right allows them to say things that are not true, that are even antithetical to the Constitution—they should not advocate for the overthrow of the Constitution without risking a charge of treason.

Above all else we could say (and some of which we will), socialism, communism, fascism, or any other Marx-based -ism is anti-Constitutional and therefore anti-American. It is subversive.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

What Is a Citizen?

 

This year’s Supreme Court session ended at the end of June, which is usual. The fact that the final days of June are watched like a sporting tournament tells us the judiciary has more power than it ought to have.

We were assured, by Hamilton in Federalist 78: 

[T]he judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.

In other words, it has only the words of its opinions—and what power the society as a whole grants to those opinions.

When the opinions are good, we are pleased that they have clarified and verified the law. When the opinions are not good, we are frustrated that their opinions have the power of law, as if they had power to legislate. We were promised by our founders that we would not be put into this position. And yet here we are.

Here is what Thomas Jefferson said about such a situation:

"[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not ... would make the judiciary a despotic branch. ... [T]he germ of dissolution of our federal government is ... the federal Judiciary ... working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped. … They are construing our Constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone.”

 Several of the cases this session deserve a good discussion. But for today we’ll just cover the final one. The Supreme Court rendered its decision about birthright citizenship on June 30^th, the last day of the 2025 session. It deserves a post of its own. The question—still unanswered—in Trump v. Barbara is, What is a citizen?

It shouldn’t be that difficult to answer, on par with “what is a woman?” which is another question at least one of our justices cannot answer. It takes a certain obtuseness, maybe only possible by well-educated individuals lacking wisdom and moral fiber, to fail to understand such basics.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

Happy Birthday, America! Celebrating the Semiquincentennial Part VII

The 250^th Birthday of our country is a big deal. Most countries don’t even have a birthday they can identify. And while our US Constitution still has another eleven years before it hits 250, the average constitution in world history lasts only 17 years. We’re more than 30 times the average age. So we’re celebrating!

This series of monthly posts began in January. Here’s the series so far:

·       Part I: The Declaration 

·       Part II: The Preamble to the Constitution 

·       Part III: Article I, Lawmaking 

·       Part IV: Article II, The Executive Branch 

·       Part V: Article III, The Judicial Branch 

·       Part VI: The Bill of Rights, mainly 1^st Amendment Religious Freedom 

So, we’ve been doing some learning in our monthly celebration posts. But this month, with the actual birthday this very Saturday, I’m taking one post to focus more on the celebrating than the historical record—although there are some good places to go for your American history learning with your families this summer. I recommend PragerU videos (no cost), and Glenn Beck’s Torch has a “Summer of 250 Study Guide,” free for subscribers, with original songs for each of the Bill of Rights, and plenty more to make our nation’s founding interesting. 

For adults, I continue to recommend Hillsdale College courses, probably starting with Constitution 101. And, again, I recommend this 1989 video of the making of the Constitution, A More Perfect Union.   Anything from Wallbuilders, with David and Tim Barton, is also good; they have books, videos, museums, and more. Here’s a video from a couple of months ago that just popped up for me, about the signers of the Declaration.  Also, I think this weekend the Young Washington movie comes out; I haven’t seen it, but I’m hopeful that it will be good. Washington was an extraordinary person.

And, while we covered the Declaration of Independence back in January, do yourself a favor and take the five minutes to read it sometime this weekend—preferably within hearing of young people.

Celebration

Back in 1976, at our bicentennial, we had a lot of local things going on. I was in a choral group of young adults; I was still 17, but had just graduated from high school, so I qualified for the young adult group at church. We had a director who was studying to become a director, which he accomplished shortly afterward. The only song I remember singing was “Fifty Nifty United States” originally by Ray Charles. We had choreography and everything. I’ve since had my daughter and a homeschool group perform that song. I haven’t found a good video/audio version that wouldn’t be improved by your singing it yourself in your family, so I won’t link to any. But here’s the sheet music. It’s worth learning. It’s pretty fun. And the states in alphabetical order will forever stick in your mind.

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Conservative Partying, Part III: Platform & Resolutions

This is the third of three posts reporting on the Texas State Republican Convention, held in Houston June 8-13. Part I covers festivities, election of officers, and Rule Committee. Part II covers Legislative Priorities.

This post we’ll cover Platform & Resolutions Committee, from the perspective of an editor, which you’re probably not going to get anywhere else (not that the world is clamoring for such a perspective). Anyway, I’m afraid it’s still long, but it’s all in this post anyway. No more splitting into parts.

As I was reporting some arcane detail to my husband, with great enthusiasm, he commented that I sure am passionate about this. And that’s true. I love the words and the ideas—a whole lot more than the politicking. Anyway, here we go.

The Platform Is Conservative

Let me start with something positive. I had a conversation with one of the Committee members, someone for whom this is not her first rodeo either. And she asked me my impression of how the platform is doing. I don’t remember the exact wording of her question, but I was happy to report that, from my viewpoint, our platform is getting more conservative over time, and the grassroots are getting more unified.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.