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We Deserve To Hear The Proof

An impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate is upon us, and constitutional questions arise. One is whether the chief justice must preside when a former president is being tried. Another is whether an impeachment trial may take place after the person being tried has left office. To answer both questions, let’s see what the U.S. Constitution says about impeachment and impeachment trials: ¯ Under Article I, Section 2, Clause 5, “The House of Representatives ... shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.” ¯ Under Article I, Section 3, Clause 6, “The Senate shall have the sole ...

Finding The Right Words

I’ve been trying to find the right words, my friends. To make everything make sense. To try to bring healing and reconciliation to our hearts, our homes, and our sorely divided nation. I’ve been praying for the right words to speak hope and life into a situation in which many of us only see doubt and darkness. But it came to me just now — Jesus has already spoken the right words. We don’t have to go very far to find them. He said “It is finished.” He said “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He said “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and ...

Our Winter Game: The Mouse, The House

Field mice like loose houses. Every autumn, they squeeze through the gaps in the plank walls of our farmhouse, which was probably built before the Civil War. Inside, the mice find shelter in the ancient crawl space attic and also between the lath-and-plaster ceilings and the (relatively) newer dropped, tiled ceilings. It’s a pretty good life for the mice, good enough to entice them to breed more mice. I do my best to see that each mouse’s good life ends with one bad day. So far this season, 14 of them have had those bad days. It might be perverse to keep track of the number ...

Numbers Add Up For ‘Child-Side’ Tax Policies

A weary America is suffering through the worst public health crisis in more than a century. COVID-19 has taken over 300,000 lives. Parts of the economy have effectively shut down, throwing millions out of work and bankrupting businesses large and small. In the richest country in the world, Thanksgiving dinner for tens of thousands came from food banks at the end of traffic jams stretching for miles. Now for the good news. Vaccines have arrived sooner than anybody could have expected. The latest pandemic relief bill should keep a double-dip recession from setting in. Lastly-if a divided ...

The Politics Of The Middle

During this past political campaign there was a lot hysteria going around about “Democratic Socialists” and “Right-wing Extremism,” as if both the extremes of the right and the left were becoming a huge threat to the Nation. In my view, such fears, though real, should not be overblown. The truth of our politics is that those legislators who are in “marginal” or “swing” districts, will continue to be the prime movers in how the country moves politically, and they are in the middle. Take for example, the current House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi and Democrats in ...

Christmas Parking: No Free Lunches

Who can argue against “free” stuff? I will. My current hometown of Brookville has OK’d placing green canvas bags over the parking meters along Main Street, giving users of a few hundred angled-in spaces “free” parking during the Christmas shopping season. That’s nice — if you do not care about finding open parking spaces near where you intend to shop. For as far back as I can remember, the merchants in downtown areas of Brookville, DuBois and Warren, my towns of residence during the past half-century, have asked for free parking during the shopping season. And ...