Article VI: The Supremacy Clause

  Article VI of the US Constitution is used often by government officials and pundits, when they are trying to justify significant federal power grabs. Since 9/11, we have seen many runs on constitutional rights through legislation that chooses to arbitrarily decide which rights need to go, so that they (Uncle Sam) can keep us […]

Federalism, Separation of Powers, and Judicial Independence

       Federalist #78 highlights the importance of judicial independence, and the role that it plays in our nation’s system of checks and balances. Alexander Hamilton believed that the court needed to be independent in order to have the authority and ability to shut down legislation that gives the federal government extraconstitutional authority through the usurpation […]

Kavanaugh, Chaos and the 17th Amendment

 I have always attempted to draw attention to the 17th amendment, and the deleterious effect that it has had on the country since its ratification.   How many people that you encounter on the street, would know what the 17th amendment is?   I would have to say that the number would be low, especially since most Americans cannot name […]

IT IS THE SOLDIER

Consideration of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is often focused on abstract ideals, principles and philosophy.  Certainly these are part of the mix that guide our daily decisions and interactions with our fellow citizens. The freedoms and liberties we enjoy in the United States will forever be under attack […]

The Tyrannical Rule of the U.S. Supreme Court by Donald C. Brockett

What is meant by “tyranny”?  It was the tyranny of King George that provoked America’s Declaration of Independence in 1776.   It was “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.” that would […]

ADDA ELDRIDGE: FOUNDING MOTHER OF ILLINOIS PROFESSIONAL NURSING

The story of Adda Eldredge, Founding Mother of Illinois Professional Nursing does not include battlefields or the hospitals near them, like the stories of Florence Nightingale, Dorothea Dix or Mary Ann Bickerdyke.  Her work to professionalize nursing was in the political arena. Her success is astonishing when one considers for a moment that when she […]

Mother Bickerdyke: A Nurse Among Generals

During the early 1860’s Florence Nightingale was getting the world’s first professional nursing school started in London. In the United States, in 1861, Dorothea Dix was appointed Superintendent of the Union Nurses serving in the Civil War. Ms. Dix set strict standards for her nurses to overcome social stigmas surrounding the presence of women in […]

Dorothea Dix: Superintendent of Civil War Nurses

While the Founding Mother of professional nursing, Florence Nightingale, whose birthday is the midpoint of National Nurses Week, was laboring in the Crimean War and establishing her nursing school in London, trouble was brewing the United States. As in Britain, it would be war to move forward nursing as a profession. The recognition of nursing […]

Constitución de los EEUU Explicada en Español

David J. Shestokas, abogado especialista en derecho constitucional, y la Dra. Berta Isabel Arias, autora, han publicado Cápsulas Informativas Constitucionales. Esta publicación le ofrece a la población hispanohablante una oportunidad sin precedentes para mejor comprender sus libertades, combinando traducciones de los documentos fundadores americanos con un análisis estimulante del contexto histórico e implicaciones contemporáneas.  Cápsulas Informativas […]

Why There’s a Specific Presidential Oath of Office

The unspoken expectation of the Constitution’s writers in creating the office of the president was that a person they could trust, George Washington, would be the first president. The people who had fought a war to rid themselves of a king created a president with great authority. The power of the president is a result […]