Cline on the Constitution

April 12, 2020 by philcline in Bill of Rights / Blog / Cline on the Constitution / Congress / Religion

Cline on the Constitution, Interfering with Religious Practices Over a hundred years ago, Justice Louis Brandeis said, “experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to […]

Cline on the Constitution

April 5, 2020 by philcline in Bill of Rights / Blog / Cline on the Constitution

Self-Defense against the government? The nature of the Coronavirus has led every level of government; City, County, State and Federal; to take emergency action to mitigate the impact on society. And that includes intruding upon civil liberties. There is no longer enough room to list all the ways our freedom is being restrained. There are many. They […]

Quarantine.

March 20, 2020 by philcline in Bill of Rights / Blog / Cline on the Constitution

Cline on the Constitution Coronavirus Quarantines With stunning speed our society, the most free in history, has had its meeting places shut down, its stores and products rationed, its children’s schools closed, its churches shuttered, its freedom of movement restricted and its population instructed (indeed ordered) to stay at home and off the public byways. Even […]

Cline on the Constitution

February 4, 2020 by philcline in Blog / Cline on the Constitution / Congress / Presidency

Cline on the Constitution, Impeachment Chronicles, Part Four As of this writing, Senators are availing themselves of the opportunity to take to the floor of the Senate to explain how they will vote regarding the impeachment of the President. And why. Their speeches at this point it is all about home district consumption. While District Attorney, […]

Impeachment Part Three

January 26, 2020 by philcline in Blog / Cline on the Constitution / Congress / Presidency

Cline on the Constitution – Impeachment Chronicles, Part Three – On to the Senate! Last week, members of the House of Representatives finally showed up in the Senate to pursue the Impeachment of President Trump. I followed the proceedings in the Senate, with an idea of picking out various constitutional issues to discuss. What the week […]

Lord Byron and Perfection

January 7, 2020 by philcline in Bill of Rights / Blog / Cline on the Constitution

Cline on the Constitution Lord Byron and Perfection So, what does Lord Gordon Byron have to do with the interpretation of the Constitution? Well, it’s a stretch. Let’s see if I can get there. Justice Antonin Scalia said, “The notion has somehow gained currency, . . . that if something is intensely bad, it must be […]

Cline on the Constitution

December 23, 2019 by philcline in Blog / Cline on the Constitution / Congress / Presidency

Impeachment Chronicles – Part III I admit to being somewhat mystified. My goal in writing these posts is to make the Constitution understandable to the citizens to whom it belongs. However, even for someone steeped in the more intricate elegance of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the events of the last couple of weeks […]

Impeachment continued

December 8, 2019 by philcline in Blog / Cline on the Constitution / Congress / Presidency

Cline on the Constitution Impeachment Chronicles – Part Two The Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives held a hearing last week. It was a yeoman’s attempt to underpin all the speculations and opinions being passed off as facts with legal speculations and opinions on whether all the speculations and opinions would be enough to […]

Impeachment

November 24, 2019 by philcline in Blog / Cline on the Constitution / Presidency

The Impeachment Chronicles-Part One Demands for the impeachment of President Trump have come from various quarters since before he was sworn into office. Any pretext has sufficed. If one turned out to be groundless, another has been quickly adopted. There are two major characteristics in the demands. The first is that there is an intense desire to remove […]

Right to Confront Witnesses

October 20, 2019 by philcline in Bill of Rights / Blog / Cline on the Constitution / Congress / Presidency

In 1603, Sir Walter Raleigh, one of the most celebrated men of his era, was brought to trial for treason based upon accusations generated by the Spanish Ambassador. The evidence used against him was testimony taken in secret and a letter by an alleged accomplice, a man named Cobham. Raleigh demanded the witness against him be […]

Category: Cline on the Constitution