Posted on by kenferriesblog

Small mercies — all we can hope for …

Happy one-eighth!

As of June 30, 2025, one-eighth of the term of our bombastic narcissist-in-chief is over!!! Yes, this means a mere seven-eighths of this not-so-magical carpet ride is still to come but thank heaven for small mercies.

Small mercies are all we can hope for from a Supreme Court that continues to be complicit in the disassembling of what used to be called the “United” States of America.

In a recent installment, the Supremes took up the issue of birthright citizenship –and then ducked it, by focusing instead on whether a single federal district court, or a combination of lower district courts, could put a nationwide stay on an executive order that most legal scholars – and the district courts where the question has been considered on its merits – have agreed is blatantly unconstitutional on its face.

Without wandering off into the legal weeds, which is where six of nine Supreme Court justices seem to be most comfortable operating, we now have a situation where each state can have a different definition of the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – a subject upon which prior Supreme Courts have ruled in the past – and each state’s definition can be acted upon unless, or until, the issue “percolates” back up the federal judicial system for a nationwide ruling at some indeterminate point in the future, should four justices ever agree to again take up the case they could have ruled upon, but didn’t.

In the meanwhile (and this is where “disassembly” comes into play), thanks to the cover provided by the executive order upheld by the Supreme Court, the issue of birthright citizenship will be treated on a state-by-state basis, rather than governed by a national standard that is the same from sea to shining sea, and all the flyover states in between. Should that happen, a baby born in one state might be considered a citizen by birth, but a baby born in another state might not be considered a citizen at all.

If a baby born in a state that recognizes birthright citizenship is then moved to a state that does not, will that baby still be a citizen of the United States? Can the baby be a citizen of the United States in one state but not in the other?

As near as can be made out, our president’s position is that Fourteenth Amendment Birthright Citizenship, a post-Civil War action ratified in 1868, was intended to apply only to the children of former slaves – and no one else. This includes the offspring of undocumented parents or “birth tourists,” people who come the United States temporarily just to give birth and provide their offspring with U.S. citizenship (something that was once highly prized, but increasingly maybe not so much).

Again, the president’s position, no matter how much support it might currently attract in an increasingly nativist America, has been consistently rejected in prior Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1898. It is not his call to change it by executive fiat, but that of the Congress acting through the constitutional amendment process. His executive meddling introduces an element of uncertainty into what has been a settled point of law for generations. That doubt creates an environment that invites chaos, which is a state this administration seems to believe is most conducive to its plans for the remaining seven-eighths of this term and (shudder) perhaps beyond.

This is not just about babies. The logic of the court’s decision can be applied to the effect of any of this administration’s questionable edicts. The president issues an executive order, however anti-democratic on its face, but no single federal lower court, or combination of lower courts across the nation, can issue a stay of that order. The order, no matter how anti-democratic or unconstitutional, will stand until the matter works its way up through the district and appellate courts and is taken up (maybe) by a Supreme Court predisposed to cater to the executive’s wishes.

This process will take a huge financial investment and years, if ever, until we have a decision on the merits of the issue.

Meanwhile, the executive branch, ruling through executive orders, successfully sidesteps the other two formerly co-equal branches of government. Added to the broad immunity granted to the president by the Supreme Court in 2024, we are well on our way to this administration’s apparent goal, the autocracy so feared by the founders of the Republic and so cherished by our current president.

But again, small mercies.

Happy one-eighth!!!

Posted on by kenferriesblog

As the mind wanders …

Funny the associations the mind can make when it wanders.

As this is written, I am listening to the sound of feet stomping around on my roof. No, this is not the patter of tiny reindeer, but rather, the clomping and hammering of a crew of roofers. Our 135-year-old slate had given up the ghost, and if we want to have insurance, well, the slate had to go over the rainbow bridge, or whatever might be the slate equivalent.

I’m not here to write about slate, but, unbidden, the first association crossed my mind.

Most of this very hard-working crew are of the “brown” people ethnicity we heard so much about in the recent election, many of whom are marked for deportation according to our president-elect. While I don’t generally believe much of what you-know-who says, over the years I have come to accept he often makes good on his threats.

Then I wondered what the effect would be of such a reverse Exodus. Instead of Charlton Heston and the Israelites heading to the Promised Land, millions among us are slated (no pun intended) to be escorted from what has been their promised land and booted unceremoniously back to their place of birth. That’s assuming their place of birth is willing to take them in, a small but not insignificant detail which has not been part of the discussion. If we have the right to control our borders, which we undoubtedly have, so too have those nation states we cavalierly assume will run the risk of having their own economies, fragile as they may be, upended by the influx of this reverse flow.

Then came the second association.

In a recent issue of this award-winning newspaper, there was the headline “Ripple Effect” with the sub-head “Business Interests: Deportations could upend Indiana’s economy.” You might want to burrow into your Google machine, or better yet, buy a subscription to this award-winning newspaper while it’s still here, because the numbers are significant.

Granted, the source of the numbers is the American Immigration Council, which sounds like a cabal of left-wing liberal extremists, not to mention elitists. But for the sake of argument, they estimate there are 104,500 undocumented immigrants in our beloved state, 7,100 of whom are also entrepreneurs providing goods and services to the rest of us. These folks have household incomes totaling $3.1billion with total spending power of $2.4 billion, much of which is going to be spent in local economies around the state. The same group is estimated to contribute $247.3 million in state and local taxes, and a whopping $400.3 million in federal taxes.

For the mathematically inclined, according to numbers felt good enough to be printed on the front page of our local award-winning newspaper, the taxes alone amount to a grand total of $647.6 million dollars – not bad for a bunch of so-called “rapists and murderers” by any measure, and a number the absence of which would be felt, and probably would have to be replaced from somewhere, most likely from the wallets of those of us who remain after the great departure.

Remember, the folks whose panties are currently in a bunch over the possibility of losing these workers are the same business interests who a few weeks ago were trumpeting the need for, well, you-know-who.

Which brought me to my third association.

There is, of course, another side to almost everything. In a recent “Sound Off” column appearing in our award-winning journal, the author rhapsodized about the trouncing you-know-who gave Kamala Harris. You-know-who won with about 50 percent of the total vote and less than a 2 percent margin over his opponent (about 2.5 million votes out of a total of about 155 million cast). Not exactly a trouncing (except in an archaic Electoral College), but nevertheless a clear victory that must be admitted.

It should also be remembered that the number of votes cast for Harris, coupled with the fewer votes cast in 2024 than in 2020, means that a majority of eligible voters did not vote for you-know-who. Talk of a mandate should probably be taken with several grains of salt. A clear win certainly, a mandate? That remains to be seen.

Which brought me to my fourth association.

Since the infamous (to some) 2020 election, America has been force-fed a constant stream of inflammatory rhetoric about what was going to happen in 2024 as the result of a corrupt and quasi-criminal election system. Strangely enough, not a peep has been heard about this crisis since the election. Apparently winning cures all. It also makes you wonder if all the dire predictions were all froth and no beer in the first place. Just saying.

Which brought me to my fifth association.

The author of the Sound Off column piously recites that entering the promised land illegally is a crime, therefore, as the Red Queen said, “off with their heads!” Ironically, this call to action appears next to an editorial cartoon from the Chattanooga Times Free Press depicting a gentleman looking a lot like you-know-who is holding a book titled “Law” (right side up this time) and laughing uproariously. Pot calling the kettle black perhaps?

Rather than incurring the cost of mass deportations, and the hit they will inflict on our local, state, and national economies, might it make more sense to first seal the southern border, which is a policy decision the president-elect has every right to make, subject to congressional and judicial clean bills of health that would be expected from a Congress and Supreme Court controlled by you-know-who. If it takes a wall, build the wall, but don’t expect anyone else to pay for it other than the good old American taxpayer.

And what about the millions of undocumented immigrants who are embedded in our society and contribute significantly to its strength and success? When the border is sealed to the new administration’s satisfaction, why not install a path to citizenship for those already here? Make it tough. Make it so that, after extending a due process procedure, those really found to be murderers and rapists (which is certainly a tiny minority by anyone’s standards, despite being you-know-who’s bete noire), then deport or incarcerate them in at least more manageable numbers.

Admittedly, for those who got in under the wire, it’s like being awarded one of Willie Wonka’s “golden tickets,” but that might be a preferable outcome rather than risking the destruction of the chocolate factory itself.

Posted on by kenferriesblog

Putting the toothpaste back in the tube …

It’s about those Trump yard sign slogans we are seeing around town.

To date, I have noticed three variations. The first, and to be fair, I think the rarest, is simply crass and in poor taste. I mean, what does “No more bull—t” add to the public discourse surrounding this presidential election?  It didn’t do much for us Boomers when we used it 55 years ago, and I don’t think it will do much for today’s imitators either. Come to think of it, assuming that the amount of bovine manure being spread around is relevant, Democrats could appropriate the same theme with greater cause. Thankfully, they have so far resisted the temptation to play the potty mouth card as a part of their campaign.

The two more common calls to action, “Make America Great Again” and “Take America Back,” are more interesting because one is unnecessary, and the other is an impossibility.

As to the first, I must admit that I failed to get the memo advising me America was no longer great. Here I am, drifting through life, fat (but not grotesquely so, thank you very much), dumb, and happy, thinking that the lowest unemployment rate in memory, the strongest stock market in history, more Americans having access to health insurance than ever before, the strongest military on the face of the earth, allies willing to work with us to achieve common goals, an industrial sector on the rebound, the strongest economy among all first-world nations, an inflation rate in decline, much overdue infrastructure projects being undertaken, still being the country pesky undocumented aliens are willing to risk their lives to get into by any means possible – even illegally – are good things. In my innocence, silly me, I believed all were indications of a country already great by nearly any measure.

There is a contrary view, promoted by MAGA-Republicans, a certain presidential candidate, and a vast right-wing echo chamber, that sees America as a country in carnage that can be saved only by them and only if their prescription for 2025 and beyond is followed to the letter.

If they and their fellow travelers are the source of a voter’s information, it is understandable for the faithful to wallow in the doom and gloom.

As to which view is more accurate, it must be pointed out that the flagship network pushing the carnage scenario has already been adjudged liable for millions of dollars for disseminating “news” coverage that it knew, at the time, to be false. On the trustworthy meter, draw your own conclusions.

The last slogan is probably the most interesting. “Take America Back” generates two immediate questions: take it back to “when?” and take it back for “whom?”

On the “when,” my money would be on the Fifties and Sixties. American industry dominated the world. Jobs were not hard to come by, and if they were lost during a recession, more opportunities would be coming down the pike. All sorts of modern conveniences made their debut and were gobbled up by a public who had surplus money to spend as the result of union-driven wage increases in the manufacturing sector. Middle class families were anxious to put the privations of the war years behind them. Televisions ads featuring women typically portrayed them in non-threatening “housewife” roles emoting over the latest gizmo due to go on the market. Despite seething discontent under the surface, minority groups largely kept quiet and gratefully took whatever scraps fell off the prosperity table. Amazingly, some of the minority groups being dealt with today had yet to be labeled as groups back then, so far were they beneath the public’s consciousness.

News flash: The conditions that made these halcyon days possible no longer exist. They’re not coming back.

In the aftermath of World War II, the only intact industrial and manufacturing base was our own. All the others had been bombed, blitzed, or even nuked, into irrelevance.

America is no longer the only player on the board. There are multiple competitors, including economic giants in Asia and the Far East that were economic nonentities not so many years ago.

This republic of ours is still great, but it’s no longer the only giant astride the world. Nor, if a prosperous world economy is a goal to be pursued (not to mention additional markets for our goods), should we want it to be.

Finally, who is the intended beneficiary of taking America back in time?

I suspect the answer is supplied by the title of one of the television shows popular at the time: “Father Knows Best.”

Under this theory, the answer to the future is the past. What apparently is envisioned is a return to a country where power resides in the hands of wise men, mostly Caucasian, married (with children), Christians, preferably Conservative Christians, who are convinced that our Republic has had its day and who are willing to sacrifice said Republic for a return to the halcyon days of yore.

Minimize the role of women and minorities, and, assuming elections will be used at all to put some lipstick on the pig, rig them to produce a desired result.

Can it be done? Will it be done?

No.

Think of a tube of toothpaste.

Think of our world as the product of squeezing toothpaste out of the tube. To “Take America Back” would entail trying to shove some toothpaste back into the tube.

Try it.

To say it can be done is a lie. To promise voters you will deliver on the lie is an even greater deception.

Posted on by kenferriesblog

Of fireworks and presidents

It occurs to me as I sit here listening to the battle between West Taylor Street and West Jackson Street as to which can more loudly celebrate the 248th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, that when the 249th anniversary rolls around, while the explosives may be similar, the realities underlying the pyrotechnics may be much different – perhaps forever.

I refer, of course, to the fact that that there is a presidential election in November.

On the one hand, we have a guy who’s done not badly over the last three and a half years in the Oval Office, especially given an evenly split Senate and an openly adversarial House.

Lest we forget, after a lifetime of public service, he had an unmitigatedly disastrous 90 minutes of a debate a couple of weeks ago.

In fairness, the content of his remarks wasn’t all that bad, but the optics of their delivery were terrible.

And, oh yeah, he’s an old man.

On the other hand, we have a man who did visually better in the debate, even if some of his remarks were non-responsive, bordered on the incomprehensible, or were outright lies.

And, oh yeah, he’s another old man.

I know what follows is going to anger many of my fellow citizens, especially here in Kokomo, but if you wanted to be alliterative, an argument can be made that he is also a fraud, a felon, and a fascist.

The so-called university bearing his name was shut down as a fraudulent con. After going through the American criminal justice system, with all the presumptions of innocence that entails, he was unanimously found guilty as a felon. If you listen to his pronouncements on how he will proceed should he be re-elected, fascist is an apt description.

Harsh, but it is what it is.

I don’t expect to change any minds with this recitation of flaws in the candidates. But there is another recent development that means we should be making decisions with our eyes wide open.

Our Supreme Court has fallen into the trap its most honored jurist, John Marshall, feared the most, it has become political, bending over backwards to advance one political agenda at the expense of another.

In its most recent decision involving presidential immunity, a majority of the court has wandered far down the trail towards what is called, in the political science business, a “unitary presidency.”

Essentially, this means the idea of three co-equal branches of government, as set out in the Constitution, is consigned to the scrapheap of history. In its stead is established an imperial presidency wherein the actions of that branch are beyond challenge assuming the president is acting within their “official” duties – of which they are the “decider-in-chief” as to what is official, or unofficial.

The most contentious of the debates during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 involved the office of the chief executive officer, i.e. the president.

The question: How to give that officer enough power to effectively lead the new-born nation – but not so much power as to become, in all but name, a king.

And in the back of their minds, especially in that of James Madison, how to provide enough restraint on the office, for example, through the creation of a system of checks and balances, for the nation to survive a less than virtuous occupant at the head of the executive branch.

Such restraint is antithetical to the idea of a unitary president.

There “we the people” have it – a contest between a candidate who, while old, has done nothing to indicate a desire to upend the Constitution and 248 years of a government with three co-equal branches, and another, also old, who appears to desire to reimagine the office to his own personal benefit and has a Supreme Court apparently willing to run interference to allow such re-imaginings to become reality.

Think well about the choices. If current trends are carried to their likely conclusion, the people’s ability to make free choices in the future may be seriously circumscribed.